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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jan van Leyden" data-source="post: 6441972" data-attributes="member: 20307">5 out of 5 rating for Star Wars: Edge of the Empire Beginner GameThe Beginner Set for FFG's Star Wars: Edge of the Empire line provides new gamers attracted by the license as well as old hands without knowledge of the Warhammer 3rd edition game system with an easy introcuction to this game line.The box contains all a group needs to start playing: a sort-of rulebook, a very structured adventure, four pre-rolled characters, a poster map, some odds&ends, and the dice.A gaming group can actually start out with the adventure, which takes place were it all began: Tatooine. It starts out with a string of scenes each gradually explaining more and more of the rules. After several such steps it gets less linear and provides the players with some semi-freedom. The adventure ends with some space action, using the limited rules of this set.The adventure is nothing to write home about, but usefull as an introductory teaching tool. An experienced GM can use the tools given in the set to extend it or react to unexpected actions. FFG offers a free PDF of a second adventure (along with two additional PCs), which happens directly after the one from the set. This second adventure covers much more ground, but thankfully limits itself to the rules elements of the Beginner Set.The rules themselves are dominated by the special dice delivered with the set. These come in different shapes, colors, and names. All the dice sport symbols instead of numbers or pips. The symbols are defined on the character sheets, and you will be glad about it as they aren't very intuitive.To resolve a task, a player builds his dice pool based on his attributes, skills, the difficulty of the task, maybe hindrances and so on. Your goal is to get more successes than failures. The system's selling point is that the dice roll may tell you more than this. Maybe you have hit the stormtrooper (more successes than failures), but you weapon jams (disadvantage). Or, on the other hand, you don't hit the guy, but your attack forces him backwards and he stumble across some debris, falling prone.The rules give you some standard interpretation of such results, but the game shines when you improvise the effect and turn up dramatics and special effects.The force doesn't play a major role in this game. There's a special force die included, which is only used to generate a number of force points for both the characters and the enemies. The force points are cardboard chits showing a light and a dark side. Both sides of a conflict can use the force for minor advantage, which results in bringing the other side of the force point up. This works only so long, of course, as there are force points avaliable to your side.I did have fun running a game for my son and some of his friends, but it didn't entice me to invest in the real game. Apart from slim chances to run a real campaign with SW:EotE the thing is darn expensive, and not only due to the rulebooks price. In the confines of the Beginners' game a single set of dice suffices, but when playing a real game, you would need more sets. And one set of dice easily teleports $20 out of your wallet in my neck of the woods. Furthermore, I don't think that I'd be up to the task to provide my players with interesting readings of the dice every few minutes. And when you only use the drab technical interpretations from the rules, the system doesn't really shine anymore.But why do I award the game 5 stars in this review. I see it as a small scale RPG I will use several times over time, and I'm pretty sure that I can provide players with some successfull, enjoyable sessions. And that's about what a starter set for a RPG can hope to reach.</blockquote>

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