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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pawsplay" data-source="post: 4909183" data-attributes="member: 15538">The Force Unleashed was my favorite of all the sourcebooks except Starships. It did have a lot of that kind of information in it, and I appreciated it. For the Rebellion Era, my response could be pretty much summed up, "Yes, more, please." I think there is a lot that could be done without much duplication. Twenty something years separate the eras, and indeed, during the course of the first movie we see the dismantling of the Senate and the consolidation of Imperial rule and the Alliance's first major military victory. Clearly this relates to the picture we get in Return of the Jedi of a more organized, better equipped Rebellion prepared for open warfare. There is a lot of history to cover there.Ok, as I said I was working from memory. While I can understand the possible value of being conservative, I think this reluctance really showed through in the final product. There was little memorable about it. Anyway, the Saga writers already decided to seriously alter the presented image of the Ithorians, I think a few dates here and there is not such a big deal. Plus, it's possible to be vague while still being useful. "X system joined the Alliance later in the war, after Y."I'm not sure there are "iconic races." The Empire encompasses hundreds if not thousands of species and sub-species. Many characters we meet are the sole representatives of their race on-screen. Partially as a result, many species have been reduced to one-note stereotypes, when the on-screen evidence suggests that most Galactic races have a flourishing culture with many different facets. I have never conceptualized "I want to play a Duros" as an important part of the Star Wars experience. "I want to be a Wookiee/Ewok/Greedo guy," sure. Honestly, any Star Wars rpg could probably benefit more from a "build your own alien" sourcebook than trying to exhaustively cover in details aliens that are seen a few times and appear with varying regularity in games. So I'm looking at a book called The Rebellion Era sourcebook, but I know it does not contain Saga versions of Klatoonians, Nikto, Weequay, Talz, and so forth. How useful is a book called the Rebellion Era guide that does not have the stats for the main characters of the trilogy the whole game and EU was based on? If not in this book, then where?Yes, we do disagree. To me, this is one of the most important functions of an era sourcebook. It's not that they see a lot of play, it's just that when when you need them, there they are. I own monster manuals with well over a thousand monsters in them; I don't expect to use a fraction of them in years of playing D&D. But they are useful because I have them in front of me should I care to use them.Statting out iconic characters serves a number of important functions. First, it provides usable versions of on-screen characters in case the GM does decide to include them in adventures. This is particularly important if you are running a divergent history campaign, but can be nearly as useful for campaigns focused on events outside the main action of the movies. Second, they are enjoyable to read. A good conversion is a work of art. Noting precisely when such-and-such characters take a level of Soldier causes one to reflect, "Ah, yes, that is what happened, isn't it?" Third, iconic characters are a good demonstration of how to use the system. A really workable Han Solo showes us what kinds of feats and skills and so forth are intended. Since the movies inspired the game, I really hope the game allows us to build characters with similar capabilities to those characters. Fourth, iconic characters function as benchmarks. Stats for NPC Stormtroopers or rancors tells me how strong a particular encounter is. Iconic NPCs serve the same function; if Jabba is an N level Crime Lord, then I can guess what level other crime lords should be relative to his stature. If I decide to run a 12th level campaign, it will help me to understand what kind of game to run. Most of the major characters range from level 8 to about 14, so I can observe that as the game was written, level 12 characters are going to mop the floor with ordinary opponents and are more appropriate to a "the other heroes of the Rebellion" game than a low-key Rebel cell operation game.In short, statting iconic characters serves as an important reference functions as well as serving important game design functions as well as providing pure chewing satisfaction. And if you are are going to do it, you might as well do it right. Every major character, times three movies. We're not talking about a lot of extra pages.I bought the KOTOR campaign book mostly for that extra material. I'm not a big KOTOR fan. I guess my question to you would be, "If I owned just the core book and the Rebellion Era book, would I be satisfied?"I definitely was not satisfied. Being referred to other sourcebooks gives me bad memories of AD&D and Rifts. I don't want redundant, reprinted material, but I want complete material. In some cases, that might mean a minimal amount of reprinting or reworking, but that's not what I'm talking about. There is very little in the other sourcebooks I would insist on being reprinted in the Rebellion Era sourcebook, so I don't find this a satisfying answer, either.What I meant about the writer hat was this: It is easy to become attached to a formula of success. New prestige classes, new feats, new talents, one new central mechanic has been successful in the line so far. But that's a beginning for a new book, not a complete concept. This really should have been the book that said, "Hey, dude, I'm not your average sourcebook. I'm the one you should write as though no other sourcebooks exist, removing redundant material only carefully and with reluctance."Well, I'm at a disadvantage, since I sold off my books. So without going into a line by line account, my suggestion is that every time you wondered whether something belonged in the game, you should have considered saying "Yes." When you were thinking about a good size for this book, my suggestion would have been "bigger." The Force Unleashed is a cool game, and it's a cool era, but it's not something that is going to define Star Wars for the coming decade. The Force Unleashed has relevance because it bridges Revenge of the Sith (awesome) with the original trilogy (awesome). It increases in value in direct proportion to how much that era gets us closer to the original trilogy. The Rebellion Era Sourcebook is not awesome. It is an average book of average size, full of averate stat blocks and good, but ultimately average campaign design advice. And really, when it comes down to it, that's not good enough. I can see a line drawn between the core rulebook and The Force Unleashed that continues in a certain direction and leads to awesome, but that's not what happened. There is no way to please evey fan, and I'll allow I'm probably a harder fan to please than most. So I can sympathize with your reply, which amounts to, "What's wrong with it?" When you write the Rebellion Era Sourdebook, the goal is not to write a sourcebook with nothing wrong with it. The original movies were not a bunch of movies that basically had nothing wrong with them. In fact, they had some real problems. But they are awesome films.</blockquote>

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