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jivjov posted:Do we have a master list of all products in FFG's Star Wars RPG line (preferably with release dates) somewhere that's not on their website? I don't know why, but I've always had really long load times and timeouts on FFG's website, and I wanted to quickly check up on what all is out/is coming soon in EotE-land. I made a thing. (it sucks) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqeoVuHDB3-OdDhaRFR4enQ5ekF5Ylh4R0oxdU5FUXc&usp=sharing
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# ? Sep 11, 2013 23:10 |
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# ? May 24, 2024 19:38 |
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Carteret posted:I made a thing. (it sucks) That's perfect. It feels like there's more stuff out; I guess I'm just confusing FFG's other two Star Wars lines with this one.
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# ? Sep 11, 2013 23:25 |
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You are, sadly. I play the Card Game, and have the starter box of X-Wing, but can't justify spending every loving dollar I have on FFG products. I need gas and food, you see.
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# ? Sep 11, 2013 23:31 |
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Some official word on development of AoR:quote:Thank you for picking up a copy of the Star Wars®: Age of Rebellion™ beta at Gen Con and getting the conversation started on the forums! We have already collected a lot of great feedback from your discussions. As the beta process moves forward, we will be posting a series of update articles. These articles will each provide a PDF document that outlines all of the important revisions made to the beta since its release and that allows you to make sure you are testing the most up-to-date version of the rules. These articles will also give guidance on what kind of feedback we are looking for at that specific stage in the beta to better help guide your discussions.
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# ? Sep 11, 2013 23:56 |
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This is truly good news.
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# ? Sep 12, 2013 00:05 |
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Carteret posted:You are, sadly. I play the Card Game, and have the starter box of X-Wing, but can't justify spending every loving dollar I have on FFG products. I need gas and food, you see. Sell your car, buy a cow, some chickens, and plant a garden. If you need to go somewhere, ride the cow. Also, how is AoR slated for Sept 2013 if the beta is still ongoing?
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# ? Sep 12, 2013 00:48 |
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That's the beta book hitting retailers. The beta got extended since there aren't many books out in the wild.
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# ? Sep 12, 2013 00:52 |
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Carteret posted:You are, sadly. I play the Card Game, and have the starter box of X-Wing, but can't justify spending every loving dollar I have on FFG products. I need gas and food, you see. Man, I remember I was really worried when FFG picked up the SW license...and now I own Edge of the Empire (beginner and core book + more dice), at least one of every X-Wing ship, and a complete playset of all the LCG stuff.
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# ? Sep 12, 2013 02:47 |
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Got a question about Force: Sense. Is the player is interpeting this right? Bought Exile, Sense, the sense power, the power upgrade. Basically he just takes his force die and says "this power is on" and can upgrade the difficulty of any ranged attack that targts him once every combat round, TWICE a round if he gets the upgrade? This seems over powered...
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# ? Sep 12, 2013 16:11 |
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Springfield Fatts posted:Got a question about Force: Sense. Is the player is interpeting this right? Pretty sure it's any attack. It gets worse, too - with all the upgrades, it's upgraded twice for any 2 attacks against him.
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# ? Sep 12, 2013 20:34 |
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Springfield Fatts posted:Got a question about Force: Sense. Is the player is interpeting this right? Yup. Remember the Force Die is committed and I believe it takes some kind of action to commit the Force Die, though in theory it remains committed until he uses the Force Die for some other purpose or otherwise deactivates the power. Upgrading difficulty is a big deal, but a close range attack is only difficulty 1 to begin with. It's powerful, but it certainly isn't crazy.
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# ? Sep 12, 2013 21:18 |
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I'm in the process of trying to write an article about the system as it exist now: Edge of the Empire and Age of Rebellion Beta. While I haven't gotten to the actual "writing" portion yet, because I'm prepping a play test, I want to vent a little bit about the game and FF in general. Mostly I want to complain about the dice. I absolutely hate, hate, hate custom dice. I intially forgave Fantasy Flight for this after I started reading the book. It does seem, on paper, that their dice pool system is pretty cool and conducive to a cinematic, narrative driven gameplay; however, I'm still a dice snob. I try not to use anything other than gamescience dice--I like rolls to be really random. Again, I recognize--most players don't give a poo poo--so I try not to hold it against Fantasy Flight, until I actually buy the dice. $13 for a completely separate set of D6s, D8s, and D12s. First thing I notice is I am paying a gamescience price for the amount of dice you get in each package without the actual benefit of having high quality percision dice. Okay, fine... a little pricey, but most people don't give a poo poo... The thing is though you don't get enough dice to really handle anything according to their rules. So if you want to use their "special" dice, you'll be ordering at least 3 sets of them. Your other option is the Star Wars dice app for android or for iOS. This is a pretty limited dice app, that looks okay, for $4.99. Really? Great, I get a dice rolling app (which means its not really random) only capable of handling the rolls for Fantasy Flight's Star Wars games at a higher cost than most full featured dice rolling/game toolkit apps. The of course, there is the fact they charge you money for their BETA releases... (hint: if you are charging $20 for a product, it isn't in BETA. It's a released game that you intend on rebinding in a more expensive book. A more expensive book that you know most of the players who plopped down $20 or more for your And yes, I realize that I can just use my old dice and their handy chart; but this is time consuming and it breaks emersion when you have to say, "hold on, lets compare your roll to a chart, then add it up." What make it worse, for me anyway, is that I have the feeling that they've made using your own dice difficult intentionally. This kind of poo poo really reinforces my love/hate relationship with Fantasy Flight. They make some great games, but they're one of the only companies that I've interacted with in this industry where I really feel like the primary goal in product design and management is to maximize the amount of money they can milk from gamers. Seriously, they're a small company and they have a creepier, "we don't give a gently caress about you, we just want your money" vibe than Wizard's does. ZombieLenin fucked around with this message at 02:36 on Sep 16, 2013 |
# ? Sep 16, 2013 02:28 |
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ZombieLenin posted:I'm in the process of trying to write an article about the system as it exist now: Edge of the Empire and Age of Rebellion Beta. While I haven't gotten to the actual "writing" portion yet, because I'm prepping a play test, I want to vent a little bit about the game and FF in general. Mostly I want to complain about the dice. On the other hand, you can buy every Netrunner or Star Wars LCG card you need to play competitively for just the cost of playing one expansion's worth of competitive Magic. Fantasy Flight makes the highest quality products in the biz right now. They certainly take their time and I think the dice are really fun but I can see how they might turn some people off. I was with you until you got to the Gamescience poo poo. Talk about milking gamers. Edit: not to mention GW. alg fucked around with this message at 02:51 on Sep 16, 2013 |
# ? Sep 16, 2013 02:43 |
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Just to add: if you paid 13 bucks for those dice, you got robbed. I've never had a dice pool use more dice than you can get in 2 packs of dice, and I got a set from the beginners game. The packs of dice are designed to be purchased by each player anyway (considering they have the Destiny Tokens in the same package) so if no one else can be bothered to pick up a set, I don't know what to tell you. That is, of course, unless you are going in to this with the intent to review, and not actually play a campaign. I can't believe anyone would wade knee deep into a play session more than once without a Core Book of their own.
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# ? Sep 16, 2013 03:26 |
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quote:random http://game2.com/eote/ is not only free, but it uses atmospheric noise to simulate randomness instead of your entirely predictable result of trajectories, mass and friction known as dice. That way when Neo decides that his Twi'lek dancer is going to slap a hutt, you know he couldn't use his picosecond level of timing to manipulate the outcome. You're welcome, I guess. You might want to reconsider the role of chaos in the games you play, however.
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# ? Sep 16, 2013 03:29 |
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The dice system is great. The way the dice are designed leans towards success with negative ancillary effects OR failure with positive ancillary effects (though other combinations are certainly possible). This creates far more interesting gameplay than something like D&D where the outcome is binary. If you don't like the dice system because you have to buy custom dice, then it's probably best to pick some other game to write about because you won't be doing this one justice. nelson fucked around with this message at 04:02 on Sep 16, 2013 |
# ? Sep 16, 2013 03:58 |
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ZombieLenin posted:Really? Great, I get a dice rolling app (which means its not really random) No comment of the rest of your rant (other than I look forward to seeing it C&Pd into grognards.txt), but I just have to point out that, unless you have some evidence for how the app's PNRG is either biased or predictable, then this a wrongheaded thing to say. A dicerolling app is going to be more "random" than rolling even gamescience dice, by any useful of the definition of random.
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# ? Sep 16, 2013 04:08 |
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Tendales posted:No comment of the rest of your rant (other than I look forward to seeing it C&Pd into grognards.txt), but I just have to point out that, unless you have some evidence for how the app's PNRG is either biased or predictable, then this a wrongheaded thing to say. A dicerolling app is going to be more "random" than rolling even gamescience dice, by any useful of the definition of random. Yeah this. All the statistical analysis I've seen show that while Gamescience has a substantially more favorable standard deviation and distribution than say, Chessex, it's not 100% random. And also the number of rolls you need to make in order for that kind of thing to even make a difference is... immense. Like 5 or 10 out of 1000 will be influenced by the dice themselves. But I mean, the broader point - that FF is basically forcing you to buy their own peripherals to support their line - is valid. The reasoning puts my brain in a knot but the complaint is valid. Though there is that free roller that got posted, along with several others on the internet. EDIT: In my experience the benefits of the EotE system are just so great that I can't imagine my dice preferences getting in the way of that. I mean if you're testing the system, you're testing the system, not reviewing FF's business practices. Though that would probably also be a neat article.
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# ? Sep 16, 2013 04:37 |
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alg posted:Gamescience poo poo. Talk about milking gamers. I told you I was a dice snob. I think Gamescience is way worth their price for 3 reasons: 1. They are as advertised, and they've got hundreds of thousands of test rolls to prove it. The variance is pretty significant as far as accuracy. Chessex d20s have 15 sides that come up over 90% of rolls. Gamescience dice it's 19 sides if the dice are unmodified and almost perfect if you sand the casting imperfection off. 2. Gamescience uses a higher grade polymer which increases die's life. 3. I have met Lou Zocchi twice. He's an awesome old man, who is a font of bad jokes and reminds me of my grandfather. The most important to me is the randomness. I have come to really appreciate not having to have separate "special" dice to roll either high or low. But fair enough, most people don't care. I wouldn't care that much in this case if it wasn't for the fact I had to pay the same price for FF's dice AND I needed 3 sets of them to actually use them to play their game. quote:Edit: not to mention GW. GW is the worst in the industry, flat out. No argument there. I didn't bring them up because they largely stick to their minis business and license out their IPs for RPGs and the like. And I also agree with you about FF regarding the quality of their games. They make great games. I imagine their CCGs are awesome too, but I haven't had a chance to play any of them yet, so can't comment about competitiveness/cost versus Magic.
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# ? Sep 16, 2013 04:55 |
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ZombieLenin posted:The thing is though you don't get enough dice to really handle anything according to their rules. So if you want to use their "special" dice, you'll be ordering at least 3 sets of them. Your other option is the Star Wars dice app for android or for iOS. This is a pretty limited dice app, that looks okay, for $4.99. Really? Great, I get a dice rolling app (which means its not really random) only capable of handling the rolls for Fantasy Flight's Star Wars games at a higher cost than most full featured dice rolling/game toolkit apps. I agree with most of your points, but you're wrong about the app. There's a general dice section that lets you roll d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, and d20, so it's useful for most RPGs. No Fudge dice, though.
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# ? Sep 16, 2013 05:46 |
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Just going to chime in about the dice: having to buy them separately from the core rulebook is a giant pain in the butt. Not only was it sold out when I was looking for it, but I had assumed it would come with the rulebook like it does with the beginner game. Because that would be the cool thing to do. Also FFG could you please get extra stock of your stuff to the uk so I don't have to buy it from overseas? That would be great.
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# ? Sep 16, 2013 08:34 |
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There are crap dice in the world I am sure but I am not on the "science dice" camp and think obsessing about it is silly. Depending on which die faces show up less than normal, it may not affect the amount you hit in a game AT ALL. If a d20 loses its 3 and its 18, how does that affect your accuracy in (say) D&D? I can see why their dice would bother you if you were that into it, though, since you don't have the option of having ones made to your specifications. Bitching about the beta is kinda dumb though. The final product will be better than the existing beta in literally every way; if the cost bothers you, you can totally just NOT BUY IT. This is not milking the player, because you don't need the beta at all for the "full" game experience.
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# ? Sep 16, 2013 14:28 |
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I don't agree with the "If you pay for it it's not a real beta!!" complaint either. Video games have been doing this for years; buying early access at a premium cost over just buying the game when it comes out. It's an extra incentive for those who want in early, and the cost of entry keeps John Q. Public from picking through the beta and whining about it being unfinished.
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# ? Sep 16, 2013 15:17 |
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nelson posted:The dice system is great. The way the dice are designed leans towards success with negative ancillary effects OR failure with positive ancillary effects (though other combinations are certainly possible). This creates far more interesting gameplay than something like D&D where the outcome is binary. If you don't like the dice system because you have to buy custom dice, then it's probably best to pick some other game to write about because you won't be doing this one justice. The dice system in this game is fantastic, and is a huge reason why my players have want to keep playing. In fact, I don't know if I'll ever want to or be able to move to another system after seeing the narrative play options offered by this system - I'd be tempted to try and adapt the system to these dice. Also, I know you're reviewing, but we have 6 players in my game and myself GM'ing, I asked (didn't demand, just ask) that everyone throw $15-20 towards the game if they felt like it, to offset the core rulebook and 2 sets of dice (which btw is easily enough to run larger games). Everyone pitched in without complaint and we've played 12 sessions so far, which is something like 36+ hours of gaming enjoyment for a paltry $15 each. This isn't saying your complaints aren't valid, just giving you the perspective of a group of people who generally don't play RPG's and have really latched onto this one with zero complaints about cost. The narrative system is amazing though: Last night my crew was escaping on a landspeeder while being chased by some security goons on swoop bikes. We're using SW miniature models, and they had been jokingly asking if the gun mounted on the landspeeder model was actually on their speeder. I finally yelled at them that it was a floor display model and the gun was just for show. The speeder had taken a lot of damage throughout the chase, and our technician rolled to fix it - succeeding with 2 triumphs and several advantage. One player suggested he discover the display gun was actually a fully working repeating blaster, and asked if they could power it up and begin using it - absolutely they could! It was great, and ended up turning the tide. Having a technician roll be the deciding factor in a combat vehicle chase is just one example of how well these dice function. Later on when the group leader (a droid) successfully negotiated a massive ongoing drug shipping deal with a local crime boss, he generated a despair on the roll. The crime boss, disgusted that a lowly droid out-negotiated him, now refuses to deal with the droid and directs all conversations to the group's wookie instead. I'm sure this will come back to haunt them later, and the droid is already planning on trying to win him back in a later game. All I'm saying is, you just don't get that sort of flavor from any other dice system in an RPG. The idea of 'grey areas' or positive or negative outcomes that don't affect the intention of the roll makes for a very layered gameplay mechanic. If you really want to be cheap about it you can just put stickers on your fancy dice, I guess.
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# ? Sep 16, 2013 15:20 |
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Amish Retard posted:
I had to do this to play the beta since that's all that existed. It sucked
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# ? Sep 16, 2013 15:56 |
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Personally I don't like the dice system. There is way too much variance in the results of the rolls. There seems to be a short pause after every single roll to try to figure out what the hell it means.
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# ? Sep 16, 2013 17:05 |
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rodbeard posted:Personally I don't like the dice system. There is way too much variance in the results of the rolls. There seems to be a short pause after every single roll to try to figure out what the hell it means. This definitely happens. An application that gives you the net result is very handy, even when playing in person.
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# ? Sep 16, 2013 17:17 |
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It's a bit cumbersome, but not too much more than Shadowrun, so I give it a pass. Our group has taken to rolling the positive and negative dice separate, just to speed up picking dice up for canceling effects out - rather than counting them out, we just remove dice that cancel. No one wants to swap to an app as they're all grognards that need the feel of dice in hand to play games. I honestly love the system, but you have to have players and a GM that groove to the system to make the most of it. It really depends on your group - if you've got a group that plays entirely by the roll of a D20 die, you probably won't like EotE that much. Those people are pretty into the binary roll of a die determining results and controlling the flow of a game. They really like to know that a 25 Jump means a running jump gets them exactly 10 feet + (check / 5) or some such rule. Multi-axis dice results just leave groups like that staring at the results and then saying "I guess I heal two strain" when a few spare advantage come up. Some groups just wing it, using the "Yes, and" approach to gaming and only roll dice when absolutely necessary, and they'll probably get more enjoyment out of EotE - they're more sitting around, telling a story, making crazy poo poo up for their characters to do and using dice to enhance the situation, rather than determine what they can or can't do. They also tend to not get as much done cause they're too busy laughing. Obvious generalities - I'm sure there's plenty of people that love Pathfinder/3.x and EotE equally, but the breakdown seems to work this way in the couple of groups I've worked with.
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# ? Sep 16, 2013 18:12 |
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rodbeard posted:Personally I don't like the dice system. There is way too much variance in the results of the rolls. There seems to be a short pause after every single roll to try to figure out what the hell it means. I would much, much rather this than someone going 'ok I roll d20, and I got 18.' 'you hit him in the face' and no one is paying attention to each other's rolls. I find with EotE, every player is craning to look at every single roll, because each one can change the narrative in a big way. My group has gotten really into it, with making suggestions to each other for how the advantages and successes will end up. Mortanis posted:Some groups just wing it, using the "Yes, and" approach to gaming and only roll dice when absolutely necessary, and they'll probably get more enjoyment out of EotE - they're more sitting around, telling a story, making crazy poo poo up for their characters to do and using dice to enhance the situation, rather than determine what they can or can't do. They also tend to not get as much done cause they're too busy laughing. This is my group, for sure. Bring some beers, blast some people and go nuts in the star wars universe. I barely have to GM now, I basically set up the setpieces and they just roll with it all.
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# ? Sep 16, 2013 18:50 |
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One thing I would say is that unlike most systems, I find pretty much every roll to be more compelling than combat. Combat is cool and all but I love the way the dice add tension to things like social and knowledge rolls, because they add so much non-binary complication. In fact, as a game climbs up into higher XP I find the combat system tends to break down more and more, but non-combat stuff tends to be much much cooler. I guess 'breaks down' is an unfair assessment. The thing is, offense is king in this game. With stuff like auto-fire you can push your damage pretty high. Unless you're dealing with some kind of super defense Wookie or something it is unlikely that your defensive stuff will ever approach the upper limits of offensive stuff. This means high level play starts to look an awful lot like rocket tag and the tools you need to survive (the ability to upgrade difficulty against you, Defense-based talents) aren't explicitly spelled out. So many talents are combat-oriented it can be easy to lose track of this and assume that more XP == more combat competence, but that's not always the case. All this means to me is that I have a vested interest in avoiding combat most of the time but I play with some people who love it so what do I know.
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# ? Sep 16, 2013 19:55 |
jivjov posted:I don't agree with the "If you pay for it it's not a real beta!!" complaint either. Video games have been doing this for years; buying early access at a premium cost over just buying the game when it comes out. It's an extra incentive for those who want in early, and the cost of entry keeps John Q. Public from picking through the beta and whining about it being unfinished. Yes, but with videogames if you buy your way into the beta you aren't expected to buy the release game as well.
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# ? Sep 16, 2013 21:13 |
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rocode posted:Yes, but with videogames if you buy your way into the beta you aren't expected to buy the release game as well. If there's a premium price tag associated with beta access, it comes out to the same thing. For a recent example, Payday 2 had a special edition for $20 over regular edition's retail that included beta access. If you wanted into the beta, you paid extra over just buying the game on release. If anything, FFG's model is better, since the beta is an entirely separate purchase. You can buy into the beta test and then decide "meh, I'll pass on the full version" whereas with the payday 2 example, if it turned out you hated the beta, you were still stuck with a preorder of the released game.
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# ? Sep 16, 2013 21:24 |
jivjov posted:If there's a premium price tag associated with beta access, it comes out to the same thing. For a recent example, Payday 2 had a special edition for $20 over regular edition's retail that included beta access. If you wanted into the beta, you paid extra over just buying the game on release. Payday 2 is a bad example, as both pre-order versions included beta access, but yes, I see your point.
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# ? Sep 16, 2013 21:29 |
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rocode posted:Payday 2 is a bad example, as both pre-order versions included beta access, but yes, I see your point. Did it? Maybe Career Criminal had the spare key for a friend or something. Anyway, yeah, I can totally see why having Beta and the Release being separate purchases would upset some people, but EotE had a quick enough turnaround (even including the delay) that you don't lose a whole lot waiting for the errata'd, full release hardcover. If my FLGS gets the beta book in, I'm all over it though. I'm in love with the system as a whole. One of these days I'll get some friends together and actually play EotE.
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# ? Sep 16, 2013 21:36 |
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jivjov posted:One of these days I'll get some friends together and actually play EotE. Just do what I did this past weekend and host a session using the dice rolling app in google hangouts.
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# ? Sep 17, 2013 03:50 |
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I got the Beyond the Rim adventure in for use with my real life EotE game, and I was wondering, would anyone be interested if I ran it as a PbP? If enough people say they will I'll try to get a recruitment thread up and start making the game onlineable.
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# ? Sep 22, 2013 15:17 |
Mustache Ride posted:I got the Beyond the Rim adventure in for use with my real life EotE game, and I was wondering, would anyone be interested if I ran it as a PbP? I would be interested. I am also up for any EotE online groups as well.
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# ? Sep 22, 2013 15:25 |
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Yeah, I don't have a set time each week that I can do a roll20 or IRC game, the only real option for me is PbP. Sorry.
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# ? Sep 22, 2013 15:29 |
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Mustache Ride posted:I got the Beyond the Rim adventure in for use with my real life EotE game, and I was wondering, would anyone be interested if I ran it as a PbP? My schedule has normalized enough for me to feel up to play in a PbP. I'd totally submit a character.
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# ? Sep 22, 2013 15:31 |
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# ? May 24, 2024 19:38 |
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Mustache Ride posted:I got the Beyond the Rim adventure in for use with my real life EotE game, and I was wondering, would anyone be interested if I ran it as a PbP? I would be interested as well!
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# ? Sep 22, 2013 15:31 |