Star Wars RPG from Fantasy Flight Games

[Cynical Cat]

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_ ... ?eidn=3496

Fantasy Flight Games is pleased to invite you to the Star Wars™: Edge of the Empire beta test! For over three decades, the Star Wars universe has inspired the imaginations and captured the hearts of generations of fans. Now, we invite you to indulge your creativity and lose yourselves in the fantastic world of the Star Wars Roleplaying experience.
Where can I find a copy?

Star Wars: Edge of the Empire is available on our webstore, at Gen Con 2012, and through participating North American retailers (international customers should check back here in the coming weeks).
I'm a retailer interested in offering the Beta in my store.


To encapsulate the operatic grandeur of the Star Wars universe, the Star Wars Roleplaying Game will be presented in three epic installments. These take place during the height of the Rebel Alliance’s struggle against the Galactic Empire. Star Wars: Edge of the Empire is the first of these installments, focusing on the fringes of society, on the scum and villainy of the galaxy and the explorers and colonists of the Outer Rim. In this game, players take on the roles of hard-hearted bounty hunters, roguish scoundrels, charming smugglers, or fearless explorers trying to survive and thrive on the edges of civilization. Visit our description page to learn more.

In the second installment, Star Wars: Age of Rebellion, the players take the fight to the oppressive Galactic Empire as cunning spies, cocky pilots, and dedicated soldiers in the Rebel Alliance. Finally, in Star Wars: Force and Destiny, the players become figures of legend; the last surviving Force users in the galaxy. Hunted by the Empire, they must stay alive, and more importantly, stay true to the ideals of their forebearers—the fabled Jedi. Each of these independent game lines stands alone as a unique gaming experience while fully integrating with the others to form a single unified system.

We here at FFG invite you to join us in the process of creating the best Star Wars Roleplaying experience possible. The Star Wars: Edge of the Empire Beta is a limited edition, 224-page softcover rulebook, and it's a complete game that provides players and Game Masters with all the tools they need to play countless games of Edge of the Empire.


Available through our webstore, at Gen Con Indy 2012, and through certain participating retailers, the Star Wars: Edge of the Empire Beta provides you a chance to lead your team of galactic explorers into uncharted regions of the galaxy. Visit our description page to learn more about Edge of the Empire, then pick up your copy!

[Hotfoot]

Victory is mine, and Roll20's. I have made the dice not only work in an online format, but I have done so in a way that is graphically pleasing for the most part. Could use better initial scans, but the overall work took maybe an hour, and they work quite well. Throw in the fact that you can just put dice pools down on the virtual tabletop and roll them directly, and you don't even really need to suss out the results from the chat bar.

It also gives a way to handle d100's until they get that whole mess sorted out, and the dragon die from the Dragon Age RPG.

[Hotfoot]

Still no Jedi, but obligation is replaced by duty which you want to go up, new force powers enhance and forsee, plus you can now get force rating of 2.

[Hotfoot]

Obligation was a monkey around your neck, but could be useful if you used it right. Duty is generally positive, but the more you have, the more the Empire knows your name.

[Hotfoot]

Dark Troopers in the book are the DROID version, and quite nasty. My phone capitalized DROID because of autocomplete.

[Hotfoot]

So a few things from additional reading and perusing. First off, the classes are new, but some of the specializations are copy/pasted from Edge of Empire (meaning that some of the nice specializations from the expansion books are modifiable into the new setting). There are also some serious changes to starting equipment for the group. Notably, instead of being given the option of Light Freighters or a lousy Firespray, the options are now a Lambda-Class Shuttle, a squadron of Y-Wings equal to half the party's size (rounded up), or a base of operations on a planet and more starting cash. It should be noted that the Lambda-Class Shuttle is a meaner ride than the collection of YT-class freighters and their contemporaries, and has the benefit of having up to 20 passengers (a small strike force). The only drawback? Arguments on how to fly when in Imperial Space.

Now, as far as character creation goes, the rules are more or less the same as Edge of Empire. You pick a species, that species has special abilities and starting XP and you go from there. Starting Species are Bothans, Droids, Duros, Gran, Human, Ithorian, Mon Calamari, and Sullustans. You can, of course, use any of the races from Edge of Empire easily enough without any real modification. Hell, if you want, you can use Careers from Edge of Empire without any trouble at all. The only question is Obligation and Duty, which I'll get to later.

The core classes for Age of Rebellion are as follows:

Ace (Pilot/Gunner/Driver)
Aces are the vehicle specialists, bar none. If you're playing a game with a heavy Starfighter element, players will be taking cross-specializations from here quite heavily. The specializations are pretty straightforward, there's nothing to surprise you there really. Example Characters: Luke Skywalker, members of Rogue Squadron or the Imperial 181st. Han Solo arguably counts as well.

Commander (Capital Command/Squadron Leader/Tactician)
Commanders are the leader type class, focusing less on being awesome themselves, and more on coordinating everyone in their unit to maximum effectiveness. They mix knowledge and leadership oriented skills. Commodore focuses on Capital Ships, both in a tactical and strategic sense. While players aren't likely to get their hands on a capital ship early on, it also contains abilities useful for sabotaging such vessels. Squadron leader is a way to get a fighter squadron party without EVERYONE playing Aces, and Tactician is all about leading ground forces from the front line. Example Characters: Wedge Antilles, Captain Antilles, Admiral Ackbar, etc.

Diplomat (Ambassador/Agitator/Quartermaster)
What it says on the tin. This is a pretty straightforward class and frankly probably one of the most dangerous in the book. Silver-tongued devils are monstrous in the right hands, and this is Star Wars. Arranging to have people beaten is a thing. Ambassadors focus on trying to resolve conflicts and convincing people to help through diplomacy and grace. Agitators are agents provocateur and are more tied to elements of the underworld (what are our illegal and anarchist options?). Quartermasters tie into obtaining supplies for the Rebellion as a whole, but also have the ability to procure equipment for the players as a result. Because nobody wants an E-Web that fell off the back of a truck. Example Characters: Leia Organa, Mon Mothma, Erik Zaar...

Engineer (Mechanic/Saboteur/Scientist)
Sci-tech to the extreme, Engineers keep shit running and know how to take it apart. In a galaxy filled with exotic technology, this would never really be useful of course, so why bother playing this class? Mechanic is straightforward. You have your hydrospanner and your know-how and you MAKE. SHIT. WORK. You can also fly starships, making this another class useful to starfighter squadron parties. Saboteur is also fairly obvious, you know the best way to disable things and make them blow up. You like big booms and you cannot lie, you other rebels can't deny. Scientist, however, is something of an oddball, because it's about being, well, a scientist and making new shit up. Nobody in the group would ever want to do something like that though, that's crazy talk. Example Characters: R2-D2, Chewbacca

Soldier (Commando/Medic/Sharpshooter)
If you don't know what this class entails, I don't know where to start. You shoot things. You're good at shooting things. This is your blaster, there are many like it, but this one is yours. The Commando specialization is all about special operations with difficult conditions, surviving hardship and making it back alive. You get extra training in close combat and survival techniques. The Medic specialization means you're the one carrying the bacta and knows best how to use it, and when people are screaming about blaster burns, you're the one they run to. Sharpshooter is the sniper, the man who lays down precision blaster fire in the right place at the right time. Example Characters: Numerous named clone troopers from the Clone Wars 3D animated show who are too many and badass to list individually, Canderous Ordo, HK-47, etc.

Spy (Infiltrator/Scout/Slicer)
Well hello there. So, do you come here often? Why don't I buy you a drink and we'll chat, head back to my place, and I'll pick up every specialization you have to offer.

Seriously, look at this. These are words that sing to me, and they sing such a sweet, lovely song. They even know my name....

Okay, so seriously, if I were to ever play this game, we ALL know this would be my starting class without a goddamn question, even if I picked up specializations from elsewhere. You know what it's about, so let's talk specializations. Infiltrator is all about lying, sneaking, and using their wits to get their objectives finished. Scout is about doing recon and planning work to prepare a mission, and Slicer is the hacker par excellence for the Rebellion. Example Characters: Many Bothans, Jan Ors.

There is also a universal Recruit "Specialization" that everyone gets access to, but you don't start with. However, it costs roughly as much as a Career specialization, rather than a cross-career specialization. It gives you access to basic military training, so you can play a Diplomat who has at the very least been to basic training.

Of course, there is also the Force. In this case, it is considered, like Recruit, a universal specialization, and it is called the Force-Sensitive Emergent. You can take it at any time, representing only just now realizing your connection to the Force. Like Edge of Empire, taking this class gives you a Force rating of 1, but the clarify that having both the specialization from EoE and this one does not give you a Force rating of 2. However, towards the end of the upgrade tree here, unlike the EoE specialization, you can actually get +1 to your Force rating for a total of 2. In addition, there are two new force powers that bring the total of Force Abilities to 5. The new list is Enhance, Forsee, Move, Sense, and Influence, with the first two being introduced in Age of Rebellion. Enhance is about using the Force to enhance your body, pushing it beyond its normal limits. It includes using it to increase other skills (limited to a specific few), various attributes, to the ever-impressive Force Leap ability, which you can use to pull off shit like that jump Luke did from the Carbonite Chamber in Empire. Baseline, however, it just enhances your Athletics, which isn't bad. Forsee is, well, gazing into the future. Eventually it can be used to do things like improve your initiative, see things far into the future (or past, depending), and generally act as the group's Ouija Board or the GM's Clue by Four. Move is as it is in EoE, the general TK ability, Influence is not the power you are looking for, move along, and Sense is feeling something you have not felt since....

As before, all are upgradable from things of limited utility to power that, while not unlimited, is quite considerable. Also as before, no skills come with the Specialization, so Lightsaber Proficiency is not on the menu. Later that will come. In the next core book, it is.

Now, Duty versus Obligation. Obligation is designed to make the game feel a lot like Firefly, which is good, Edge of Empire is a game about scraping by and making ends meet in the ass end of space. That's a great setting and it works well, and Obligation does that job marvelously. It is, however, a monkey that is always on your back, no matter how well you do. Enter Duty.

Duty, as I describe above, is sort of the opposite of Obligation. You want Obligation to go down, but it never goes down completely, it stays at 5 basically no matter what. Duty can either replace Obligation, vice versa, or they can be run together when you mix the two games. Running them together is probably the best option, so as to create Han Solo-like situations, but that's just me. That said, that only really matters when converting games from EoE to AoR. Starting off in AoR, you should use Duty, no question. That said, Duty does have one slight downside. In EoE, when Obligation hits 100+, the party gets fucked. In AoR, when group Duty hits 100, the counter resets. Everyone's Duty drops to 0 and you start over. This time, however, you've got more swing within the Rebellion. The more you do for them, the more they'll do for you. I call it Prestige because of gaming, but it's actually called Contribution Rank, and it's a group statistic. Your group starts at Contribution 0 with as much Duty as all the PCs combined. You can sacrifice personal Duty for extra starting cash and XP, making the trip up the ranks initially a little harder, but improving your chances for success, but sacrificing Duty will affect your ability to call on the Rebellion for support (essentially you're more skilled/better equipped but less trusted). As you go up in Prestige, I mean Contribution Rank, the Rebellion will trust you more, give you better toys to play with, but at the same time the Empire takes more of a direct interest in you, and that can be a bad thing.

By the end of a campaign, you could be in command of your own Mon Calamari MC-90, leading wings of starfighters against high value targets, and yes, there are rules for commanding squad and squadrons in the GM's guide.

Oh, and there are stats for Dark Troopers, ISDs, and TIE Defenders, just in case players get cocky.

[Hotfoot]

For the record, the way Specializations and such work is as follows:

Mathematically, a new Specialization costs are the following equation, where X is the XP cost, and S is your CURRENT number of Specializations.

X = (S+1)*10

For Universal and Career Specializations (Specializations within your starting Career) and:

X = (S+1)*10+10

For Cross-Career Specializations.

In Short, you start with one specialization, so to get a second one within your starting career, it would cost (1+1)*10 = 20xp. To get one outside your starting career, it would cost (1+1)*10+10 = 30xp. Or, as they state in the book, your current number of specializations PLUS the new specialization, times ten, with an extra ten points if it's cross-class. Once you have a specialization, all upgrades within it (skills and talents) are normally costed.

This matters when you try to cross-class your way to success, because it's going to end up costing you very quickly. The first few are fine, but once you hit, say, four specializations, each one past that hurts a lot, especially if it's cross-class.

[Hotfoot]

It should also be noted for SOME PEOPLE WHO WILL REMAIN NAMELESS that Droids are playable as PC CHARACTERS and are not listed in the equipment catalog alongside such things as mesh tape and proton torpedo warheads.

You Monster.

[rhoenix]

Just remember: there is no shame in this. This is a good death.

Also, I think I'll be picking up the first two books soon. I want to get more familiar with this game system.

[Lys]

No, no, Cameron, what the people who shall remain nameless did is more analogous to this.

[Hotfoot]

The only differences being they were his astromech droids, and they posed him no direct threat, and he killed them in a ritualistic fashion with a proton torpedo and mesh tape.

So it's more like throwing the companion cube in the incineration unit when it wasn't necessary to continue the level.

[Lys]

Well, that particular turret seemed completely harmless and was mercilessly slaughtered even as it begged for its life, so it's pretty close.

[Hotfoot]

So certain individuals have been posting....teasers of the Force and Destiny Beta Fantasy Flight handed out at GenCon. I've looked through threads over on the FFG forums and come up with some interesting, but limited information. Once the proper Beta is released to the public, I will no doubt have some things to say on the matter a bit more definitively. That said, here are some highlights.

As Cynical Cat predicted, it will be set in the same era as the other two games, so Rebellion Era shortly after Yavin IV and the destruction of the first Death Star. All of the classes are Force Users, but are tradition-agnostic, sort of. Each class has a lightsaber form associated with it by way of a specialization. Since you can grab specializations from other classes pretty easily, it's not a big deal to be a Sage who grabs a Sentinel's Lightsaber Form. Picking them ALL up, well, that's problematic if you want to also be a Force Power badass, but yeah.

On the subject of Force Powers, they easily double the existing set. At current count, I think there are eleven force powers now when before there were five. Included are Battle Meditation, Heal/Harm, Protect/Unleash, and Misdirect.

Lightsabers come in different flavors, and can now be modified with crystals, hilts, and emitters. They are all still unbelievably deadly.

Blaster deflection is, as current, simply deflections. Both Deflect and Parry work on the same general principle. You take strain (usually 3) and then reduce damage by 2+ranks in parry/deflect. So far nothing about turning blaster bolts back on the shooter. Also, Protect offers energy weapon protection beyond that. Given the way combat works, and that you can pick up multiple saber styles with reflect on it, you can expect Jedi to take no damage from blasters pretty frequently against normal guys. I'll do some basic analysis of a blaster monkey from EoE or AoR to see how they stack up.

It's been said that there's an option to start out at "Jedi Knight" level, by giving players a lump of XP to buy up a few things, and since every player gets it, it's not too limiting for the non-Force types.

There's a morality system in play, sadly, but it actually seems pretty decent. It takes the place of the Obligation/Duty setup from the previous games, BUT seems to not intersect with them, meaning it can be used with, rather than instead of those systems.

The basic way the Morality system works is this: You pick a moral strength and a moral failing, and this works towards "Conflict" points you get each session (as well as things like using dark side points/CLEARLY DARK SIDE POWERS). At the end of the session, you tally up your conflict points, roll 1d10, and then your Morality Score (starts at 50), goes up or down a handful of points. Rarely more than 10 in any direction in a given session (though it can be more if you engage in phenomenal amounts of dickery, potentially), and once you hit certain thresholds, you either fall to the dark or become a paragon of the light. Being a Dark Sider means you use the Dark Side points on Force Dice, rather than Light Side points, you give your group an extra dark side destiny point at the beginning of each session (unless you roll all dark side), and you take strain from not being at peace. Conversely, Light Side paragons get extra strain from being at peace, and flip one dark side destiny point to light side at the beginning of each game. So...yeah, honestly, it's pretty good.

More later, but any questions?

[Hotfoot]

Well, that was fast.

[Hotfoot]

I now have Stay on Target, because SPACESHIP!

It's a wonderful book so far, and it includes some of my personal favorite non-OT fighters from the EU, including the R-41 Starchaser, a new variant of the workhorse of the outer rim the Z-95 Headhunter, and the V-Wing. Also included are several new TIE variants, including the TIE Phantom, which is a beast in the miniatures game. There are also several new ship upgrade options, including the oft-requested Astromech Socket (2 hardpoints), which also means you could potentially strip out the astromech socket from fighters that have them to put in other things, though why you'd want to in some cases is a very serious question.

There's a lot more in there, but my general love of space battles means that if I do end up running a Star Wars game, this book is going to be very close at hand indeed.

[frigidmagi]

Don't think I've heard of the V wing? What kinda ship is it? General purpose fighter?

[Cynical Cat]

They escorted the Emperor's shuttle at the end of Episode III. They're an agile starfighter with shields but no onboard hyperdrive.

[Hotfoot]

It's basically the Prequel's A-Wing, and that's one of my favorite fighters anyway. For reference:

V-Wing.jpg (27.98 KiB) Viewed 5200 times