Star Wars RPG--What Happened?

[Bull]

You want to know a problem? Here's a few, leaving the rules out of it since you guys have hashed out the problems with both the current batch o' rules and the fact that a lot of "old timers" aren't upgrading...

1) The price. The book is fraggin' expensive, even for a hardback. WotC is raising the bar on their book prices, and that ain't a good thng. At $35.00, it's kept all but the hard core fans from buying it. Hell, I love Star Wars, I ran a 3 group Star Wars campaign at college, and I like d20 Star Wars a lot better than I like d20 D&D, but I still haven't bought the book because of the price. It's too expensive for a "Casual" purchase, and right now, that's all it would be, since I'm not GMing and we're not playing all that often.

2) The supplements. These things blow. I bought the Rebel Era Sourcebook for my GM, and it was a waste of space and money. It might have been ok if, say, none of us had ever gamed before and were totally inept at coming up with ideas for running a game, but considering at best it was a loose collection of weak plot ideas and character stats, it was useless. I mean, no alien race rules, no starship stats, no new feats or skills or anything. What a waste! And as far as I can tell, most of the sourcebooks so far have been like that.

D&D has it's issues. The "Splatbooks" suffer a bit from "Warhammer syndrome" (Bigger, Btter, faster, stronger than the last book). But one thing it did was brought out books that really supported the game as far as rules and advnacement went. The people whoa re playing Star Wars KNOW the movies. They probably know the movies better than lucas does. They don't need the Rebel Era Sourcebook to tell them what happened. What they want are books that let them play what they saw in those movies.

The Starship book helped. But there is still a lot missing from the game.

Bull

 

[smetzger]

Re: Remember when ...

When the first SW RPG came out, there was nothing really going on in the SW scene. No toys, no books (at least not like now), no comics etc. Plus, its was at the time that all the kids who saw SW when it came out were now in their late-teens/early 20s, the prime RPG years. It was truly a case of excellent timing. The WEG people (unfortunatly) got to write whatever they wanted and soon the game became a major source of SW canon (as crappy as it was) so it appealed to SW fans who weren't gamers.

On the other hand, the new d20 SW RPG came at a time of star wars product glut/overload. Kids in the prime gaming years didn't grow up on the movies so they don't care. Us old timers already have the WEG game and don't really need a new one (nostalgia?). Since most of the source material is written already in multiple places or on the internet, the sourcebooks aren't all that appealing to non-gamers.

The SW d20 may suck and I am sure that has something to do with it. But I think it has to do with demographics and EP1. EP1 was targeted at young kids (maybe about 10 yrs old). RPGs are more popular with older people. The two were targeting different demographics so the SW d20 game couldn't capatilize on the new movie.

 

[Wolfspider]

WotC is raising the bar on their book prices, and that ain't a good thing.

This is certainly open to debate. I wouldn't blink twice when buying a $35 book that I thought was well written and well put together.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Half of what made the WEG special was that they didn't try to hang off the golden branch of balance like their life depended on it. Have you SEEN the movies? A Jedi _WAS_ an uber character who could mow through average characters like no tomarow. Do you honestly think Han Solo, Chewbaca, or Lando Calrisian would have had a chance against luke if he had gotten turned to the dark side spontaneosly? I don't. There is a reason why Darth Vader was so feared in the empire, and it's not just because he was the empire's right hand man.

Yes, if you have a party of 4 jedi and two normals, it kinda sucks. But it was never meant to be played that way. Jedi, even during the hight of the old republic weren't THAT common, much less after the imperial age, and I never understood why multiple jedi would be following around a group of essentialy mecenaries anyhow.

Exactly. Luke was FAR more capable and powerful than anyone else in the Rebellion. A jedi is an uber-juggernaut after reaching a certain level of power. Look at the Jedi in Phantom Menace, do you think a guy with a blaster, no matter how good he was, was a threat to Obi-Wan? I don't think so. The need for balance between Jedi and normals isn't very Star Wars. I played the d6 version, and from looking at the d20 books and reading reviews I'd have to say the d6 version looks like it captures the SW feel a lot more than the d20 version.

 

[Davelozzi]

Originally posted by Bull
The price. The book is fraggin' expensive, even for a hardback. WotC is raising the bar on their book prices, and that ain't a good thng.

Originally posted by Wolfspider
This is certainly open to debate. I wouldn't blink twice when buying a $35 book that I thought was well written and well put together.

I'm with Bull on this one. I planned on buying the SW RPG when it first came out, and Wheel of Time as well. I still haven't picked up either and the only reason is the price. For $35-40, my dollar stretches a lot further with the other d20 publishers. If I planned on a running a SW or WoT campaign, sure I'd shell it out, but just to read for my interest and to mine ideas from, no thanks. And a large majority of my RPG purchases are indeed purchased more for interest than direct use.

 

[sfgiants]

Jedi are too balanced?

I have been reading a few posts that say Jedi shouldn't be balanced as they are in d20 sw. Guess what, they aren't. I have played a ton of sw d20 and seen a lot of jedi. Our last group had 2 jedi, 2 force adepts, and a scoundrel. Other than the fact that the jedi have few skill points, they dominated the game. In any combat situation with a group above 3rd lvl, the jedi dominate. Remember the other classes get very few actual increases in combat ability/levels. Jedi just get better and better (battlemind, deflect blasters, lighsaber defense etc, and etc). I have never seen a sw d20 game where any jedi do not rule most combats. The rest of the group is auxilary firepower. They are seemingly trying to fix this in the revised rules by at least adding some abilites to the non-jedi classes.

 

[RFisher]

Greetings!

Hello everyone! I was reading some different threads about WOTC recent problems, and in one such it was mentioned about Star Wars RPG not selling anywhere as well as WOTC projected.

I've heard good things about the new Star Wars RPG, but it makes me wonder--

What happened to it? Why isn't it popular? What did they do wrong to screw it up?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

There is how well WotC projected that the SWRPG would sell. (A)

There is how well, in the best case, the SWRPG would have sold. (B)

There is how well the SWRPG has sold. (C)

We might know that C is less than A. (Personally, I don't know either figure.)

We cannot know B or its relationship to A or C. Maybe C comes pretty close to B, but A was higher than B. Just because WotC may have projected that it would sell better than it did doesn't mean that it isn't popular or that they mishandled it. It may only mean that it could never be as popular as they projected.

The simple fact that they're offering a revised version already does indicate that they probably could have spent some more time playtesting before the first release and ended up with a better product, but it's anybody's guess as to how that would have affected sales. We just don't know.

 

[Razuur]

The price isn't the problem with me.

i thought the books were well made and looked real pretty.

I was *VERY* unsatisfied with starship combat, but *VERY* pleased to see that AoO was gone.

We don't even use AoO in D&D and for us it would seem to conflict directly with the "cenematic" feel of star wars. While I like "Attack Speed" and Cruisng speed, I didn't like that it was Static. I thought it should have been dynamic. Each ship should have its own rating for Attack, Cruising, etc.

So now it seems that AoO is getting put back in, and they are improving ship combat. I guess you never get what you want.

In the end, I will NOT be replacing my Star Wars book since it has seen no use since since I bought it other than some feats and ideas that I imported to my Fantasy campaign.

I really wish they would have waited a year and released a good game, then a broken one that they have to release a year later. Oh welsie.

I do look forward to Deciphers Star Trek RPG though!

Razuur

 

[SHARK]

Greetings!

Well, so far, so good. It seems to be a consensus that the Star Wars D20 was poorly designed, and this fact, combined with the poor performance of Episode I, combined thirdly with a too-optomistic marketing plan, has led to the frustration, decline, and dissatisfaction with Star Wars D20.

Obviously, though ther are some good ideas there, and there is some market for the game, it needs to be rediesigned, remarketed, with an eye towards a much smaller, niche market. It seems that there is in fact, no huge ground-swell for Star Wars D20. Whether the marketing people want to accept that fact, or not, doesn't seem to change the reality. Thus, it seems, at best, there is only a modestly successful future for even a well-designed and well-marketed Star Wars D20 game. For even that modest success to be realised however, the prior conditions need to be met.

Good stuff here folks! While not a super-fan of sci-fi games, a good one would be at least interesting and somewhat tempting. It's sad that Star Wars D20 has met such a dismal fate. More, and better, could have been done.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[LostSoul]

When the first SW RPG came out, there was nothing really going on in the SW scene. No toys, no books (at least not like now), no comics etc.

Ah, the golden age of Star Wars fandom. Back before the world was introduced to people dressing up in black capes and red face paint, twirling around fake lightsabres. Back when Star Wars had some dignity.