1. Star Wars Edge Of The Empire Races
2. Edge Of The Empire Review
3. Star Wars Edge Of The Empire Destiny Points Online

Uh, we had a slight weapons malfunction, but uh. Everything's perfectly all right now. We're all fine here now, thank you. How are you?- Han Solo, Star Wars IV: A New HopeIn my somehow close to 35 years of gaming there's certain types of games I've played a lot of. There's D&D of course, as well as related games such as Dungeon Crawl Classics and ACKS. Over the past several years I've played a ton of Call of Cthulhu. Though it's been a long time since I played it, in the 80's, 90's and early 00's I played a ton of Star Trek, mainly by FASA and Last Unicorn Games, though with some Decipher as well (my group was among the playtesters for the Decipher Star Trek).

And a ton of Star Wars.I've played pretty much every incarnation of Star Wars. I played the West End Games version of Star Wars since it came out until well after it went out of print and even did a one-shot of it last year. It's one of my all-time favorite games. I played all of the Wizards of the Coast versions - it took them a while to get it right, but I think they did a great job in their final version, the Saga Edition.

I avoided the Fantasy Flight Games version for a while. I was a bit intimidated with the funky dice, especially given that the bulk of my gaming is done via Virtual Table Top and I wasn't certain how well that would work. But with a (knock on wood) reasonably stable gaming group we took it for a spin last spring and summer and then again in November. It's been nice having something go on for a while. I've been noodling with the idea of a changeover when my current semester of grad school ends in the early spring but even were I to do so, it would be with the intent of picking it up again - probably when the advertising and media frenzy for Star Wars: Rogue One takes off next fall.So what's the deal with Edge of the Empire?

I'll note that my review is about this - though I own the sister games Age of Rebellion and Force and Destiny, we've been playing Edge of the Empire. EotE is one of three Star Wars games published by Fantasy Flight Games.

They are all compatible with each other but are all also complete games - it is a setup reminiscent of the manner in which Last Unicorn Games handled their Star Trek license back in the 90's. Edge of the Empire is about Han Solo-type characters - people operating on the fringes of the galaxy. Smugglers, scoundrels, bounty hunters, mercenaries, scouts, etc.It's a thick book, over 450 pages long. It is nicely illustrated with artwork appropriate to this corner of the Star Wars galaxy. I don't recall and can't find photographs in the book - everything is drawn in full color - very nicely done as well. A major annoyance for me is that Fantasy Flight Games' license only allows for physical books, there is no pdf-version of the game or its supplements. That said Fantasy Flight Games does have an official dice-rolling app for Android and iOS.

Also there is an amazing, though unofficial, Star Wars sheet for Roll20, handling all the funky dice.We'll get to the funky dice shortly, first we'll go over characters. Characters are built primarily around three types of abilities:. Characteristics - Your usual types of ability scores, things like agility, willpower, etc. Your rating in your characteristic determines the number of green ability dice you roll when attempting a task. Skills - A boost above your characteristic in certain tasks. For example, if you are untrained in computers you would simply roll your intellect rating, a bit like the old D6 Star Wars.

Star Wars Edge Of The Empire Races

A rating in a skill transforms the green ability dice into yellow proficiency dice and/or adds extra green or yellow dice. Talents - A bit like feats in D&D, lets you do things like gain bonuses under certain circumstances, reduce penalties, bend the rules a little. Your character starts with a profession and has a single specialization in that profession. This dictates what talents you can buy with experience and what skills cost the least to improve. As an example, bounty hunter is a career with specializations like assassin (bounty hunters who try to kill their targets) or gadgeteers (bounty hunters with lots of toys). You can buy new specializations, though the number of specializations you have increases the cost for new ones, as does picking a specialization outside your career. Beyond standard stats you have things like motivation (why you adventure) and obligation (at the start of an adventure the GM rolls dice to see if anyone's obligation comes up - like Han Solo running into Greedo looking to collect a debt.

You also have Destiny - the ability to control events. There's a pool of light side and dark side points. If you spend a light side point it gives you some bonus (sometimes mechanical, other times narrative) and then becomes a dark side point. The opposite happens when the GM spends a dark side point.

The number of dark and light side points is set at random at the start of each session. I've found it plays well - combats don't drag forever (a problem I had with D&D 4th edition) but they also don't end immediately. The game definitely captures, at least for me, the Star Wars feel. It requires a GM able to think on his or her feet when it comes to translating dice but there is a lot of guidance provided. I've got the bulk of the supplements, and while they are handy, the game is absolutely complete by itself.

Edge Of The Empire Review

It doesn't support Jedi characters though it does have the Force Sensitive Exile specialization, a specialization that is universal (i.e. Belongs to effectively every career). This is not a character who is going to be leaping out of pits or deflecting blaster bolts, but it is one who can pull blasters out of hands or use Jedi mind tricks - at least eventually. You can also pull in Force-users from Force and Destiny, a game dedicated to that very purpose. A few caveats should be noted. First, there is a bit of a learning curve.

There is a Beginner Game for all of the Fantasy Flight Games' Star Wars RPGs and, though they lack character creation, do a great job of introducing concepts gradually. Even were you to forego those games, that is a good way to go - I waited a while, for example, before introducing Destiny. It is also worth noting that the game was written prior to the canon reshuffling, meaning some elements of it are now in the 'Legends' continuity. Shortly after I graduated from college R. Talsorian published their fantasy steampunk RPG, Castle Falkenstein.

Star Wars Edge Of The Empire Destiny Points Online

After maintaining this blog for nearly seven years (an eternity in internet time), I've decided to step away from it.When I first began I wasn't 100% certain what it would be about. For a while I thought it would be a blog related to OSR type RPGs but I found my own tastes not firmly rooted there. Looking at the history of the blog, I see a lot of Call of Cthulhu which is hardly surprising.However, some lack of consistency definitely made it tough for me find a defined niche and over the past few months I've been giving some thought to starting a new, more narrowly focused blog. The imminent end of Google+ played a part in these thoughts, with much of my traffic coming from that site. I write because I enjoy writing, but I do enjoy growing an audience.My plan to start a narrowly-focused blog took a turn when I had the opportunity to join the blog. Talking with the contributors (one of whom I game with on Discord already) and going through their archives. April 17th is scheduled to be 'Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day'.

I've signed up this blog to participate in that. While I believe my blog has made mention of Swords & Wizardry on numerous occasions I've never actually done a review. It seemed a good idea to remedy that prior to doing an 'appreciation post'.Swords & Wizardry is one of the earlier Dungeons & Dragons retroclones, designed to emulate the flavor of the 'pre-AD&D' incarnation of Dungeons & Dragons. My memory may be a bit fuzzy, but I'm pretty certain it came out early in the days of D&D 3.5 as people realized the d20 System Reference Document and the Open Game Content of that could be used to reverse engineer older versions of D&D. I believe at that time the original edition of D&D was available as a PDF download from RPGNow, though it may have been made available at a later point. The original D&D books and supplements were pulled from RP.

I'm not certain if Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Role Playing Grindhouse Edition is the longest title for an RPG but if it isn't, it's got to be awfully close. (Henceforth I'm going to abbreviate it as LotFP - originally I was going with WFRP but that lends to confusion with Warhammer Fantasy Role Play.)When I started my blog there were three RPGs that I knew I wanted to have for my first review - this,. When I've discussed the possibilities of doing an old-school game with my group one of the more common concerns is attempts to repeat what's been done before. That's clearly more of an issue for some than for others - for example, I know some people who'd gladly get their White Box edition of D&D out and start playing that. That said, there is something to be said for those games which put their own stamp on things. I believe this trio of games does just that. With DCC we get.