It’s difficult to review a product that’s in the Beta phase – the final product won’t be out until next year, and what format that will take is anyone’s guess. Boxset? Hardback book? Nobody knows right now.
What Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) have given us is a 224 page softback book containing everything needed to run a Star Wars: Edge of the Empire (EotE) game. To be honest, if it wasn’t for the fact that, being a Beta, the book has had art and filler text left out then this is a fine rulebook in itself. It’s full colour, the art they did use is excellent and the book is sturdy and large, perfect for the constant page-flipping that roleplaying rulebooks have to put up with. In the back you get a character sheet and a sheet of stickers to put over the numbers on six-, eight- and twelve-sided dice – this game uses percentile dice, too, but FFG have designed the game to be used with special dice. Fear not, though – there’s also a page of coloured templates if you need to photocopy more, a PDF download available from the FFG website, and there’s a handy conversion table in the book you can use. Oh, and there’s a mobile phone app, as well, so that you can always have the special dice with you. FFG want you to use special dice and they’ve certainly made sure you have access to them.
The game is set on the fringes of the Galactic Empire as we know it during the Galactic Civil War. This game – the proposed first of a series of three – enables the players to run characters on the edge of society; bounty hunters, smugglers, pretty much the entire game is geared towards running a player character of a shady disposition. I ran huge campaigns for more than twenty years in the Setnin sector, a criminal maelstrom of space run by ganglords, so straight away this is sounding pretty good to me.
First of all, I’ll take you through the different sections of the book and give you a rundown of what goes on in each of them:
- The INTRODUCTION
This gives you the overview and intention of the book. This is a standard intro and gives you a feel of what the designers want to do with the game. As it’s a Beta test they also give details of how to send them feedback with thoughts and opinions.
- PLAYING THE GAME
This section gives you all you need to know about how to actually run a game of EotE. I’m not going to go into masses of detail regarding the mechanics of the game, but the basics are this:
- Characters have Ability and Skill dice to roll as a die pool, and these decide the number of D8 or D12 dice to be rolled. There are also difficulty dice added by the Game Master as D8 and D12. All the dice have symbols on them that represent successes and failures, the character dice the potential successes and the GM dice the potential failures. Taking away successes tells the player if they have succeeded or not. There are other symbols that represent extra special successes or tragic failures, too, and there’s some D6’s thrown in for good measure, which adds depth to the dice rolls and what the outcomes mean. There are also percentile dice used, too. Got it? No? Well, the book explains it a thousand times better than I ever could and it’s a game you need to see properly detailed with colour coded symbols and examples. This book has all that and it explains it well so don’t worry, it’s not that difficult to pick up.
The system takes a bit of getting used to – I’ve been playing tabletop RPGs for thirty years and I like numbers on my dice, but once you get used to the meaning of the symbols and what they represent then it becomes much more fluid. Every new game has a learning curve and this one isn’t any different.
- CREATING A CHARACTER
This takes you through PC building. In this book you can play Bothans, Droids, Gands, Humans, Rodians, Trandoshans, Twi’leks, and Wookies. The careers available are Bounty Hunter, Colonist, Explorer, Hired Gun, Smuggler and Technician. There are specializations you can take under each of the careers so that not all are alike, enabling a couple of similar careers in the same game. It’s neat and a good starter, and I’ve had no problem interpreting the species and careers to create other races and occupations.
There’s a neat ‘Obligations’ section, too, where each character starts with a history, a debt they have to answer for. There could be a bounty on someone’s head, or they could owe someone money, and these events could crop up and interfere with the progress of not only the player character with the obligation but the group as a whole. It’s a neat concept and could make for some excellent roleplaying opportunities.
- SKILLS and TALENTS
These sections take you through the abilities of the characters and what they mean, with skills being the standard set of abilities of all characters and talents being the specializations and skill mastery that heroes have.
- GEAR AND EQUIPMENT
This gives you everything you need to arm and kit your character, and COMBAT gives you a chance to put all that gear to use.
- STARSHIPS AND VEHICLES
This details everything you’ll need to run a speeder or a starship in the game, and as with ‘Gear and Equipment’ it has a section all about modifying your vessel. There’s plenty to choose from, enough to run both land- and space-based chases and combats. No doubt there’ll be more to come in later publications, but there’s enough here to keep you going.
- THE FORCE
This is only a small part of the book – it’s just eleven pages! – but understandably so. It gives you nothing but a taster of what’s to come and, as the game itself is concentrating more on the ‘normal’ beings of the galaxy it’s only touched on here. You can play a very basic Force user with some limited skills, but it’s merely a hint at what’s to come. The game is set at the height of the Galactic Civil War, so maybe it’s a good thing that there isn’t a guy running around with the group in a brown robe waving his hands at people.
- THE GAME MASTER
This section ends the book, with instructions and hints about running a game, an ADVERSARIES section with plenty of enemies to go up against, and then finally the adventure of the book CRATES OF KRAYTS that has a Hutt, Nar Shaddaa and Tatooine involved. That can only result in fun. An index, blank character sheet and a sheet of stickers round everything out.
This is the first book of three planned, the other two are Star Wars: Age of Rebellion, a look at the Rebel Alliance and their struggle against the evil Galactic Empire, followed by Star Wars: Force and Destiny so that Force users can have a bash at the bad guys.
So, what are my thoughts on all this? Well, like I said at the beginning, it’s difficult to review a Beta version of a game. It’s not complete, there’s some flavour left out as far as art and text is concerned, and there might be changes made to the game before the final version hits the shelves next year. As a Star Wars fan I can overlook the art and the fluff; I already know it. There’s no need to school me on that, so that I can let go.
What I can say is that the mechanics of the game are pretty solid as they stand now. The idea of new and strange symbols on the dice were somewhat confusing at first – of course they would be, especially to a long-term gamer like myself – but once you get used to the meaning of them and what dice you need to roll it makes a lot of sense. After a few encounters it becomes easier and no doubt once I’ve got a campaign under my belt it’ll be second nature.
I am looking forward to learning more about the Force and it’s a massive shame I have to wait for the third book to fully experience it, as the Force is part and parcel of the Star Wars experience. Still, what you get is intriguing and you can create a pretty detailed character with it, one that will draw all the wrong kinds of attention. From a roleplaying perspective that can only be a good thing.
If you can get hold of a copy of EotE (as of the writing of this review the book had sold out at FFG) then I’d highly recommend it. I’m keeping mine in as good a condition as possible and I’ve not used the sticker sheet at all – something tells me this will become a neat collector’s item in years to come.
I’m incredibly impressed by this game and I’m looking forward to the proper release next year. I’m excited to see how all this will be presented by FFG and what kind of support the game will get in the form of adventures, new material, new faces to meet and new places to explore – and all this before the next two books come out about the Rebellion and the Force! As a Star Wars fan and a tabletop gamer, I can’t be anything but excited.
Roll on 2013.