An Open Letter to Fantasy Flight and Cubicle 7 -- Cut the "Foreplay" and Give Us the Good Stuff

Crothian said:

No Sandpeople, no Jawas, no X-wings, no jedi, and almost nothing on the Rebels or Empire. There isn't even a listing for the Empire in the index. The second game sounds like it will be about the Rebels which is what Episode 4 is also about so it shouldn't be of any surprise that this books doesn't cover that.

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Hmm, admittedly no Sand People in the adversaries chapter is an oversight, but Jawas probably don't need a stat block.

I would argue that there's a LOT about the Empire in the book; a major theme is avoiding any Imperial entanglements.

Only Luke got to fly in an X-Wing, and that was only at the very end, when the saga was transitioning to the main characters' active participation in the Rebellion (well, aside from R2 and Leia, who'd been doing so the whole time). More appropriate to cover that in Force and Destiny.

While there are no Jedi, there aren't really any in ANH either. Obi-Wan fits the Force Sensitive Exile much better, and Luke is at the stage where he's bought the specialization, but none of the powers or talents.

What the book DOES have is Obligation, dianogas, Corellian digger crawlers, YT-1300s, droids as PCs, etc. Yes the book goes into a lot of detail beyond the ANH, but it's supposed to. Because most groups won't just re-enact the movies...

Scars Unseen said:

I think that it is worth mentioning that Age of Rebellion and Force and Destiny are not going to be expansions of Edge of the Empire, but rather compatible stand alone games. Just as EotE is FFG's "Adventure on the Fringe" game, so will AoR be a dedicated "Rebels vs Empire" game, and F&D a dedicated Jedi game. How much difference will there be between them? We don't know yet. But that does mean that if all you are interested in is Jedi(and the Force Exile in EotE isn't enough for you), then you can skip out on the currently available game and use F&D all by itself.

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So what you're really saying is that if I want a "full Star Wars experience" using FF's rules, I'm FORCED to buy all three sets. Gee, that $30 I spent on Savage Worlds deluxe and any of the dozen excellent fan mods for Star Wars is looking better all the time.

More and more it feels to me like Fantasy Flight is missing out on a substantial opportunity cost. Hearing that they're taking the same content release approach as The One Ring makes me never want to buy the game.

Now granted, Cubicle 7 and Fantasy Flight are more than welcome to manage their business however they wish. All I know is that they've missed a dramatic opportunity to make me a die hard, loyal fan of their work through what I see as a mismanagement to their approach to releasing "core" content.

Morrus said:

Well, there's one Jedi PC in IV-VI: Luke. Vader, the Emperor and Yoda aren't PCs. But the whole point of Luke is that he's the only one.

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Having played lots of d20/WEG Star Wars, MERPs LotR and Cubicle 7's Doctor Who AITAS, I have one thought on them.

Those settings all suck for RPGs.

No, seriously, hear me out. The most special heroes (Jedi, Time Lords, Elves) are supposed to be rare enough you can count them on one hand. You have either play in past (or future) eras and have boatloads of them (Old Republic, Pre-Time War, 2nd Age) or fudge up some reason why YOUR PCs were hiding/lost/whatever. Or option three: play without timelords/jedi/elves, which IMHO ruins the point of these unique settings.

Remathilis said:

Or option three: play without timelords/jedi/elves, which IMHO ruins the point of these unique settings.

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As I said before, I do not accept the premise that jedi are "the point" of Star Wars.

I have a hard time understanding that. If you strip away jedi/force from Star Wars, then you strip away the single most distinctive thing about the setting/series. After all, if you take the first six movies as the center-piece of the entire SW Universe (which seems totally appropriate to me), then what you have is the story of the fall of the Jedi and their ultimate restoration, and the pivotal role played by the Skywalker family in that history.

Without Jedi, you've got a lot of elements that have been quite extensively used in other settings, and often better. Any space opera (Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Star Trek, Firefly, Babylon 5) will have most if not all of those other elements represented in some way, shape or form. And while they may play around a bit with psionics, telekenesis, or psychic powers, those things are a) usually one-off experiences, b) not extensively explored, c) rooted in some form or another of science-type handwaving, and d) not rooted in a relatively well formulated set of rituals, institutions, and spiritual practices.

The jedi are distinct precisely because of their central role, and their explicit (until the whole midichlorian debacle) rooting in a more spiritual conception of them as extraordinary abilities. And I'll also note, that in the new movies, often the lightsaber battles were the best part (I usually fast forward past any scene involving Anakin and Amidala).

That's not to say that you can't tell stories in the star wars universe that don't involve those things, but, as I noted above, there's nothing about a story of that nature that says "Star Wars" to me. I'm perfectly happy to say that, if you want to tell those kinds of stories you should, and if you want to run those kinds of games you should. But I would hope that whatever the current system is would allow me to run a different game if I so chose. But then, I still have all my old saga edition books, and I like dthat system, so I'll be saving my money for other things, at least for the time being.

Morrus said:

As I said before, I do not accept the premise that jedi are "the point" of Star Wars.

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Does it have to be the point of an RPG based in the SW universe? No... Is it "the point" of Star Wars? You bet your sweet bippie it is!

If you go back to just the OT, the story follows the scion of a powerful Jedi who is trained by two of the best former Jedis to fight his father and his father's master (who are both evil Jedi). Along the way, he meets some colorful scoundrels (Han and Lando) and works with the rebellion to fight the Empire who is headed up by said evil Jedi. They are the defining trait of SW. Luke is our protagonist BECAUSE he is a Jedi. Jedi is central to the SW universe.

Now, can interesting tales be told without Jedi? Of course. Are they necessary to run a successful game? Not really. Are they an important enough part of the mythos that they should have been there from the get go? Very much so.

Remus Lupin said:

I have a hard time understanding that. If you strip away jedi/force from Star Wars, then you strip away the single most distinctive thing about the setting/series. After all, if you take the first six movies as the center-piece of the entire SW Universe (which seems totally appropriate to me), then what you have is the story of the fall of the Jedi and their ultimate restoration, and the pivotal role played by the Skywalker family in that history.

Without Jedi, you've got a lot of elements that have been quite extensively used in other settings, and often better. Any space opera (Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Star Trek, Firefly, Babylon 5) will have most if not all of those other elements represented in some way, shape or form. And while they may play around a bit with psionics, telekenesis, or psychic powers, those things are a) usually one-off experiences, b) not extensively explored, c) rooted in some form or another of science-type handwaving, and d) not rooted in a relatively well formulated set of rituals, institutions, and spiritual practices.

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What Remus said.

Man. All I can say is: those people who think Star Wars only has Drizzt to offer? I'm
Not on board with that opinion.

Seriously. If you think Star Wars without bouncy Jedi with purple lightsabers is "just a generic space opera setting", you're not paying attention.

Star Wars has a lot to offer. And FFG just proved it with a 450 page book about people without lightsabers. It's refreshing!

And, let's face it. Han was far cooler than Luke.

I'm with Morrus. I find Star Wars to be better without Jedi.

No one needs superpowers to be cool, nor do you need superpowers to be the ultimate evil. Epic adventures to wretched hives of scum and villainy do not require the Force, or light sabers, to be epic.

Morrus said:

Seriously. If you think Star Wars without bouncy Jedi with purple lightsabers is "just a generic space opera setting", you're not paying attention.

Star Wars has a lot to offer.

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What unique qualities does Star Wars have that make it differ from all the other Space Opera games and settings? As I look through the book I see unusual races and droids, odd planets, all kinds of science fiction weapons and equipment, and space ships and vehicles. All of that is standard Space Opera with different names and different configurations. The character options and skills are exactly what I would expect and do see in other Space Opera games.

Crothian said:

What unique qualities does Star Wars have that make it differ from all the other Space Opera games and settings?

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Really, Chris? Jedi is all you got from Star Wars? That's it?