With TFO premiere getting closer and closer, I feel a bit of my interest in Star Wars returning. Not much. A bit. But still :)

So, I'd like to ask: what Star Wars RPGs are there? Which of them are popular? Which of them are good? Any advice?

You mean systems? There are three big ones:

-West-End Games D6 ssytem (WEG). It's now defunct, but the D6 system itself still exists in more generic form and most of the books are findable in various places. It's an older system, but it still checks out. The main issue I've always had with it is that, past a certain skill level, players can do astoundingly amazing things as a matter of routine (especially Jedi) so it can be hard to maintain balance over the long-term.

-D20 Star Wars. Just what it says on the tin. This is the Star Wars Universe rammed into D&D 3.5. And then there was also Saga Edition, which was kinda-sorta-maybe-halfway between 3.5 and 4th? I find the two (star Wars and d20) to be an awkward, ill-fitting, kludge-filled combination, but it has many fervent supporters. And in all honesty, it probably does a better job of handling and containing the Force than WEG does.

-Edge of the Empire. It's pretty new. It's main claim to fame is the funny dice with all the funny symbols that all mean different things when they come up in game. Like, you can succeed but have something had happen, or vice versa. I don't have a lot of experience with it.

Not a big fan of the Edge of the Empire setup - it's a bit difficult to work with and very cinematic-based (as compared to results-based).  While I much prefer the RP side of gaming over combat slogging, I still found this clunky, difficult to understand, and not a system I particularly enjoyed.

SAGA Star Wars d20 is pretty solid, but has all the usual problems with d20 systems.  Still, well-designed, well-executed, and provides a really good variety of classes within the game and is adaptable to any point in the SW timeline.

WEG's D6 is, by far, my favorite.  It's very customizable, completely skill-based, and generally free-form in terms of what you can put together for a character and how you want to get there.  It's very similar to White Wolf in mechanics of game play and not a difficult adjustment to understand their character generation.

@truemane:

Could you expand on why you don't think that D20 and Star Wars fit well together?

@Prowler.Jeff:

Could you tell me more about EOTE and what you mean by cinematic-based?
Also, what do you think are the usual problems with D20 systems?

BTW. Which of the D20 games is better: the original D20 Star Wars or SAGA?

In reply to Varsovian (msg # 4):

SAGA is way better, without a doubt.  Less uber-crazy-let's-all-be-Jedi-and-rule-the-Galaxy and more balance and it smoothed out a lot of the kinks that the original had.

My issues with d20 stem as much from DnD 3 and 3.5 (and 4, *shudder*) as from anything else, but they are all set up pretty much the same way.  Classes can become restrictive or require odd builds to get exactly the type of character you're looking for.  Balanced characters across the board require balanced classes, and many d20 systems don't balance their classes very well.

Also, it comes down to the mechanics.  Check out Warhammer (Fantasy or Dark Heresy), any White Wolf game, or Shadowrun 3+ and compare the mechanics.  A miss is a lot harder in a d20 game at higher levels than it is in those games.  If you like uber-epic-smash-everything-nothing-can-kill-me type games (which I'm not the biggest fan of) d20 is fine.  If you want something that relies more on smart players and employing tactics other than "smash it in the face," not so much.

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As for Edge of the Empire (and it's related books), by cinematic I mean it works backwards from how you normally expect RPG mechanics.  Most RPG's, you state what you are trying to do in a general sense ("what was that sound?") and the GM tells you what you do/don't hear based on how much you beat a DC by (d20), how many Degrees of Success you have (WH), or how many net successes you roll (SR, White Wolf).  EOTE works backwards.  You do the first two steps, but instead of the "here's what you hear" portion, you get "ok, so you have a boost and a success.  How do you want to use them?"  Then you "spend" said boost and success to say "I want to know if he's walking with a limp" or "I want to listen for whether or not there are armor pieces clacking together under his clothing."

In reply to Varsovian (msg # 1):

I have ran a lot of Fantasy flight game's star wars rpg (edge of the empire, age of rebellion, Force and destiny) and strongly believe that it makes your rpg experience feel like it belongs in the star wars universe. The dice system does take a bit of getting used to but once you do get used to it it creates a very story based game that belongs in the star wars universe. It is hard to understand how the dice add to the feel of the game without actually playing, but I know you can understand. This podcast http://bothanbanter.com/episodes-2/page/3/ is an example of what a well run game in this system feels like. If you have other questions on the system feel free to r-mail me or just respond in this forum.

Well, I'm not into classes (and levels) in general. My favourite games are WoDs, GURPS and MnM... all point-buy games with no classes or levels. So, I wonder if D20 SW would be something for me...



Wait. What if that particular NPC is not walking with a limp according to the GM's plan? What then? Does the player's question influence the story?

Drat. I don't really like these new-style mechanics in games... For instance, I love Numemera's setting, but the system doesn't really make sense to me and seriously harms my interested in GMing that game...

Exactly.  It's just very different and, if you're not used to it or not interested in it, I'd stay away from it, especially if you're looking for one to run.

In reply to Varsovian (msg # 7):

Personally I feel like that was kind of a bad example. So you roll 1 success 1 advantage on a roll of perception. I say "you hear a man walking. Your advantage tells you that he is walking to the left. 1 success 1 disadvantage means "you can hear a man walking, but you aren't sure what direction he is walking in. If you fail with 1 advantage then "You don't know what that noise is but it seems to be moving to the left. failure and disadvantage "you don't know what the sound is, but you suspect it is going to the right.

Hm. This doesn't sound too different than other RPGs, really...

It's not its just got a little extra flavor.

I'm a big fan of the original D6 Star Wars game system.  I could take someone who'd never even role-played before and talk them through creating a character and have them up and running within an hour.  And it was very straight-forward...I like the whole 'roll this to succeed' mechanic.  And I absolutely LOVE the fact that it completely does away with level-based character advancement and left the selection of skills completely up to the player.  You could make a bounty hunter who specialized in hacking computer info to hunt his quarry, or a pilot who was a better gambler than pilot, for instance.

My Star Wars group tried changing over from D6 to the Saga Edition, because we'd all been playing the same characters for ages and they were getting pretty advanced and the GM liked the way the Saga Edition scaled for more advanced characters...it took us two full evenings to finish figuring out all the minutiae of adapting the characters over (much of which was due to flotsam and jetsam added in via the Expanded Universe, which is no longer canon, so if you're a purist, the Saga Edition needs a lot of cleaning up, anyway *grin*).  But even after we got changed over, the mechanics were so unwieldy by comparison that we had one ground battle, which would have taken us maybe a half-hour to resolve under the D6 system...it took three and a half hours (partly due to unfamiliarity, but a lot of it was also just having to deal with figuring out additional details and make additional rolls under the new rules).  Pretty much killed everyone's enthusiasm for it, and that group hasn't played since (though most of the players started another Star Wars game with a few other people...and went back to the D6 rules.)

Yes, D6 is an imperfect system.  Smooth gameplay relies heavily on having a GM and players who aren't too concerned about having everything determined by the dice and are willing to live with some details being GM fiat, handwaving, or house-ruling.  But it's simple, it's easy, and it lets you concentrate on the story-telling aspect of the game, rather than getting you caught up in the mechanics.  If you're not running a group with high-level Force users, it's great.  If you are running a game with highly advanced FUs, it still runs pretty smoothly as long as they aren't determined to totally dominate events.  It is the one game where I've seen new characters integrated into experienced groups with the least amount of frustration (consider the expected attrition rate if you throw in a first level character with a bunch of fifth or sixth level characters, in typical D&D games, and you'll get a good idea of what I mean.  In most games, that doesn't work...AT ALL.  A half-decent GM and a party that isn't full of glory hogs can make it work easily with the D6 system.)

My two cents on the various systems as my gaming group is HUGE on Star Wars and we've played the crap out of all the systems...

• d6 West End is a great system if you want to exclude the Prequels from your mythos as it came out during the original trilogy and EU but shut down prior to Episode 1. The system has a lot going for it and with the "wild die" (a d6 that if it lands on a 6 you can reroll and add to your score) allows for some really epic gaming moments. The biggest issue I had with this is is that this system ESPECIALLY is either an "all jedi" or "no jedi" experience as while jedi are weak at first, jedi become exponentially better as the game goes on and a mid-level jedi can out fly/ out shoot/ out talk any other non-jedi because they can dump the force into it. At high ends the jedi alone can outperform the rest of the party.
  
  That beings said, I rank it at #2 of all the star wars systems.
  
  
• Star Wars d20 - do not play. It was a bad port of Star Wars with some really clunky rules. I rank it at #4 by a large margin.
  
  
• Star Wars Saga Edition - a much better adaptation of the d20 rules into the star wars universe. If you like d20 systems (Pathfinder / D&D 3.5) it's close enough to be familiar but with some much better tweaks on how health and systems work and has a very robust line of support books that spend a lot of time focusing on how a GM can play a given theme (skullduggery, galactic war etc.) as well as actually adding and enhancing the EU as opposed to just regurgitating old news with new mechanics. I rank it at #3 but it's a pretty close to #3.
  
  
• FFG's Edge of the Empire/Age of Rebellion/Force & Destiny - one of THE best rpg systems I have played and definitely my favorite for Star Wars. As much as people comment on the "weird dice" it's actually brilliant as it is very simple and streamlined for a GM (i.e. instead of having to stop play and calculate bonuses and penalties you can quickly adjust the difficulty on the fly for a particular roll). I also love it more then d20 systems because you can stack the dice in your favor but nothing is guaranteed. You can succeed at the most difficult tasks or fail at something simple if the dice REALLY want to because you're not totaling a score (and don't need optional '1 is always a failure/20 is always a success' rule) each die can contribute for or against your total success. This also means that your probability of success/failure can exceed 95% or be below 5%. Finally the system is FAST because the players are doing most of the rolls. D20 combat grinds to a halt as you have to crunch all these numbers but even during big combats the game moved at a quick pace.
  
  The books themselves are gorgeous and do a great job of both bring back established EU while fleshing out whole new parts of the galaxy. Antagaonists use basic profiles that you then customize, they have "mook" mechanics so you heroes can curbstomp basic bad guys but in sufficient numbers the henchmen can band together kinda like Voltron (stat wise) and become a credible threat without having to simulate 20 individual guys (instead they operate as a single unit with a bunch of bonuses due to their numbers).
  
  I'm not saying it's perfect, far from it but it is not a linear d20 system and the game is fast and fun and very nice to GM because the dice rolls themselves can add to the story of the game. You can technically succeed but it can be a Pyrrhic victory. Another way to think about it is that instead of just being a pass/fail system like D20 or D6 there are degrees: Total Failure / Partial Failure / Partial Success / Total Success.
  
  If you're creative you can really use those partial failures/success to enhance the story. If you're tired or lazy there is quick mechanical abilities like "you inflict/take a stun damage or you get a bonus/penalty to your next roll" that keeps things going.
  
  Fast & Fun is what I look for in a system and FFG does it the best, imo.

This message was last edited by the user at 19:30, Mon 30 Nov 2015.