Review of the Revised Star Wars Core RPG Book

[King_Stannis]

Have you picked up Tempest Feud yet?

Have you picked up an issue of the bi-monthly Star Wars Gamer magazine?

Have you visited Wizards' Star Wars RPG web site for free adventures to download?

Have you visited Moridin's SWRPGNetwork and SWRPGNetwork-Conversion web sites for fan-submitted adventures?

WEG has many years ahead of WotC to established its fan support. Just because we live in the electronic age, doesn't mean it happens overnight.

you've listed exactly *one* published, polished, professional adventure (TF)....which we will be going through soon.

we've played a few of the SW gamer adventures, okay, and our DM made the most of them. though now, i understand, SW gamer go by-by. so that's a moot point.

have not seen the fan material, but i would guess it's anywhere from mediocre to mediocre. no offense, but being a rabid fan and good dm does not mean you can pump out a good adventure for joe average dm to run "out of the can".

as for "it not happening overnight", i understand. but still, i would have thought that in over a year they could have produced more than one real adventure. again, that's *one* adventure in a little over a year. it just makes me appreciate what we have now with d&d and what it would be like if it were not for the OGL.

 

[sfgiants]

Star Wars is not WotC's cash cow

It has been said on the WotC board and site many times that WotC makes more money on d+d products than it ever can on Star Wars, and Wheel of Time etc. From the sounds of it, the gaining of the SW license was a political move that came from above. WEG only really had SW. If they didn't print SW stuff, they didn't make money. WotC doesn't have this problem. There will only be as many books for SW as they think they can sell. This probably means 4-6 max a year. I know your complaint was about adventures, but really, not everyone uses modules etc. Why print a product that already isn't going to get as big a market as d+d, and then print a module which even fewer people will buy. Sourcebooks for SW will always sell more than adventures. Painful, but true.

 

[Ranger REG]

have not seen the fan material, but i would guess it's anywhere from mediocre to mediocre. no offense, but being a rabid fan and good dm does not mean you can pump out a good adventure for joe average dm to run "out of the can".

major rolleyes

Let me guess. You're too busy to take a fan-submitted adventure and tweak it for your campaign, right?

Why is it there are so many pen-and-paper gamers that are too busy? I got a 9-to-5 job five days a week, I go nightclubbing and church service over the weekend, including the obligatory Sunday family dinner ... I MAKE TIME!

Or is that just a convenient excuse?

 

[King_Stannis]

major rolleyes

Let me guess. You're too busy to take a fan-submitted adventure and tweak it for your campaign, right?

Why is it there are so many pen-and-paper gamers that are too busy? I got a 9-to-5 job five days a week, I go nightclubbing and church service over the weekend, including the obligatory Sunday family dinner ... I MAKE TIME!

Or is that just a convenient excuse?

well, my friend, i also have a 9-5 job 5 days a week. i also happen to have two kids, a 3 year old who wants my attention 100% of the time, a 9 month old and a wife. usually, when i come home from work i gladly take the kids for a few hours while my wife goes and excercises. she's a stay at home mom right now. by the time she comes back it's 7:30, then bath-time, play-time and bed-time for the kids. by the time all of that is over, it's around 9:30 and i'm pretty tired. only an hour and a half till bed. now, i know what you would say i should do in this time period, but i end up spending some time with my wife - alone.

repeat till saturday and sunday where, instead of work, you have housework and more Q-time with the wife and kids. it's the life i've chosen, and i wouldn't trade it for anything. yes, there is some time in there to do some rpg stuff i grant you. preferably, reading a quality module i've bought and tweaking it a little bit. not totally revamping a mediocre fanboy project.

as an aside, what a silly little argument you give. "i can make time, i go to church, WHY can't you!". it may surprise you to learn that there are many people who play this game and have families and can't afford to do their own stuff or HEAVILY modify fan material.

still, glad YOU can fit in d&d between your clubhopping.

 

[Jack Haggerty]

major rolleyes

Let me guess. You're too busy to take a fan-submitted adventure and tweak it for your campaign, right?

Why is it there are so many pen-and-paper gamers that are too busy? I got a 9-to-5 job five days a week, I go nightclubbing and church service over the weekend, including the obligatory Sunday family dinner ... I MAKE TIME!

Or is that just a convenient excuse?

Or too busy to convert an old WEG adventure either? You tell him, Ranger.

Also, don't forget that with the Revised Rulebook on the way, I believe they put on hold many Star Wars RPG projects weren't already started. So that source material for the new rules would be out sooner rather than later.

 

[King_Stannis]

Or too busy to convert an old WEG adventure either? You tell him, Ranger.

Also, don't forget that with the Revised Rulebook on the way, I believe they put on hold many Star Wars RPG projects weren't already started. So that source material for the new rules would be out sooner rather than later.

you realize that without SOME sort of adventure support, this game will die in a few years? *sigh* no. you know what, you're absolutely right. this game CAN survive and thrive on the words of hack wannabe rpg writers and fanboys. after all, the adventures are secondary, aren't they? i mean, when me and my friends play star wars we just sit around talking about the rules and the new sourcebooks that have been released? who the hell even needs an adventure, anyway?

as for me not converting fanboy stuff, see the above response to your "nightclubbing" friend. as for me not converting WEG, i think i said that i never played that game. hard to convert what you don't have. haven't found too much of the old stuff in the stores around here, either.

 

[Ranger REG]

as an aside, what a silly little argument you give. "i can make time, i go to church, WHY can't you!". it may surprise you to learn that there are many people who play this game and have families and can't afford to do their own stuff or HEAVILY modify fan material.

still, glad YOU can fit in d&d between your clubhopping.

Why, thank you. You should be even glad that two of my buddies in my gaming group also have families, and yet willing to devote to this hobby just as much to their families. They also GM (we all alternate). They are very resourceful, utilizing what is on the internet, and knowing that the rest of the gaming group have internet, always tweak fan-submitted material before presenting it to our gaming session (that's because I cheated when I look up the material on the internet ... it's my evil nature).

But if you want to be finicky, by all mean go ahead. Only you are killing your own interest in RPG.

Then again, maybe RPG is not suitable hobby for you. Try fishing. At least you can bring something to the family dinner table, as long it's not a tire of a worn-out shoes.

P.S. We get together for gaming two weekends a month. We have our own lives, too.

 

[Steve Conan Trustrum]

Though I never played it, the WEG star wars seemed to have gotten tons of support. Where is the support for this game? I wonder if lucas is disappointed with the mismanaging of this enterprise. Fine, you get the core rulebooks….but where are the adventures? Other than the mega adventure out now, there is nothing else on the horizen. An arms and equipment guide? Are you kidding me? Adventure support is the key for any RPG, and this line has had none. Can anyone publish adventures for the SW game under the D20 license? Apparently not, otherwise I think we’d have seen some 3rd party adventures by now. How is it a relatively small company like WEG can pump out tons of support, and WotC has only a few handbooks to show.

Again I ask, where are the adventures?

The biggest complaint that I've seen about the WotC version of Star Wars is the system; apparrently SW is one of the things that people (myself) generally don't think translates into d20 very well. I personally think that, when it comes to such a huge media phenomenon as SW, that people don't like seeing their favorite heroes and villains broken down into levels. I prefer the WEG version because you could develop characters in any way you wished and weren't restricted to levels, a system that I don't always enjoy but felt, in this instance, perfectly suited the epic scope of the films.

 

[Psychotic Dreamer]

Well when I first heard WOTC was going to be making the new Star Wars game I had been a fan of the WEG version for many years. I will admit at that time I didn't think it would work at all. However since then I have run a few campaigns and they have worked very well all in all. I think either system can work fine. It's a matter of letting go and enjoying the game. Not thinking about the mechanics behind it.

 

[Arani Korden]

Adventure support is the key for any RPG,

I don't actually think this is true. Off hand, I can't think of any current rpg (aside from D&D) that sees a lot of adventure support, and in D&D's case most of that support comes from third party publishers.