Alpha Chaos 13 said:

That assumes that such a "party" is classic, original, or even part of the "basic formula." If you're referring to Luke, Han, Leia, and Chewie as the template for that core group, well, Luke wasn't even a Jedi (on the level that would be beyond the scope of this release) until Episode VI and they weren't even what I would consider a "party" (i.e. they weren't even in the same room) for but maybe 20 minutes out of the entire original trilogy. They were telling largely individual stories. Heck, almost as much time was spent with Lando in the group. Even if you go beyond the movies and into the EU, you're still looking at the majority of their adventures together taking place between E IV and E V when Luke's abilities as a Force user were far more in line with what we could build using this release.

Again, this boils down to different perspectives of what is "essentially Star Wars." No perspective is wrong, which is kind of the point. They can't please everyone with one release. The scope is just too large. I see the classic party as being Han, Luke, Leia, and Chewie as we see them between Episode IV and V which can easily be built using Edge of the Empire.

Unless they have started giving actual figures for distances it makes it hard to use miniatures and maps. FFG seems very anti-mapped out combat. They stopped explicitly mentioning using miniatures in the 40k RPG line, even though the combat system was originally designed so that it easiest using maps and the like, and starting introducing concepts that were very difficult to map out. Warhammer 3rd edition almost criticises the use of miniatures in RPGs ("Look! This way is just so much better!"). If, like Warhammer, distances are very abstract, and no guidance is given what the various distances represent, it becomes very hard to map things out.

This is not like WEG d6, which gave real life distances and the like, that meant you could very easily convert to a map if you wanted, but didn't require it (unless d&d 4th, which while technically possible without a grid, doing so kind of defeats the sort of problem solving nature of the combat in that system). I am a fan of rules allowing either. Warhammer 3rd doesn't, and unless they have really changed things up, neither will Star Wars.

borithan said:

You are correct that without numerical figures, it is not entirely like D6 (though some of the original D6 did work in range bands and not in numerical ranges; particularly in space combat, but I digress). But this does not prevent the use of miniatures. The range bands are generalize in "a few meters," "a few dozen meters," and "more than a few dozen meters." While this doesn't give you anything exact to go on, it can still be used along with miniatures.  "Well, he's about eight inches away so that would still be short range, while this guy is about twenty inches away… that's medium range." In previous editions, most combat that occurred indoors happend at short range anyway. Beyond that, miniatures help in remember where enemies are and who's next to what.  Still very possible and useful.

 @Borithan, I remember WHF3e's range being handled with tokens between 2 characters. Adjacent stand-ins was melee, one token was close, two was medium, and three was long range. I think it also took as many maneuvers to close a distance equal to the current tokens. So going from long range (3 tokens) to medium costed 3 "move actions," then there would be two tokens so medium range, and you could keep track like that.

Does it not work this way in EotE? 'Cuz I think this would be easy to track, and allow you to use minis, but do it fairly abstractly. I't probably what I'll do.

Oh, I know about the tokens in WFRP. It was the matter of remembering how many manoeuvres were left to get from one thing range band to another. I often just took the fatigue to move one full range band so that I didn't have to bother with remembering "Oh, that's two manoeuvres left before I am at medium range."

my worry, is not that this is a teaser beta, nor the fact that i am paying for it, nor the fact that there is no full blown jedis, species, or planetary system.  my worry is not that i or my players have to learn to play with custom dice, or to pay for them.  my worry is that is seems to use the core dice mechanic of whfrp 3, which in my region, cannot find players because they feel it isnt roleplay, that it is just descent/doom/gears of war repackaged into a book as star wars or whfrp 3.  the players want to describe their actions fully then roll dice, not roll dice which then must be interpreted into a result --- its hard to come up with a reason why their stealth is successful but delayed when they have tried to take all precautions ahead of time

as opposed to mats and minis, most of the players like positioning and using com stations for cover

GoblynByte said:

Split parties do happen, but I will concede the point. That being said, it was an example & I think the option should still be present to the players. As for Luke, I'm thinking in an RPG context, rather than the use of the title "Jedi". I would say that he was a Jedi (character class) in Episode 4, when he left his old life behind & began learning from Kenobi. Luke is a good representation of an RPG character. We meet him at a low level and watch him grow & improve, becoming much more powerful as time goes on. I'd say no other Star Wars character is a better example of an RPGish progression than Luke.

I just love the title of this thread.

I mean, it is so darn slippery. I would love to know exactly who "we" is. Does the OP mean himself and me? Or himself and other people? Does he mean the entire Star Wars RPG community? Or does he mean players of only the most recent game?

I don't know! It's madness!

It would probably be more clear and sensible if he'd titled it "Is this the Star Wars Roleplaying game I'm looking for?" Now at first you might think, that's a rhetorical question, and really only the OP could decide that for himself. But, I can see it working if you frame the thing in the context of an effort to solicit opinions from those of us who actually have the book and have spent some time reading over it.

Or perhaps he could have gone the other way and titled the thread "Is this the Star Wars Roleplaying game you're looking for?", in which case it would have been more like a poll, in which each forum user could explain why he or she is or is not looking forward to the game.

But instead, we get this undefined "we," which has a potentially massive scope. And of course, this invites everyone to enter into a sort of gladitorial contest where the weapons are words and the prize is the right to speak for "we". No wonder the result is 6 pages (and counting!) of heated exchanges.

See, this is a marvelous example-in-microcosm of everything that is wrong with modern internet forum communication, and how text on a page can rarely presnet context, imiplication and tone in any adequate way. I just think it's equal parts fascinating and amusing.

So let me close by answering this very open-ended question my way.

QUESTION: "Is this the Star Wars Roleplaying game we're looking for?"

ANSWER: "I guess everyone will have to decide that for themselves."

 *waves hand understatedly*

"This isn't the Star Wars roleplaying game you're looking for."

Venthrac said:

I must stress this:

In creating this thread, I was hard pressed to come up with a catchy phrase that tied into the movies, some iconic line, that still dealt with the RPG. This was actually a crappy attempt at getting the "first post" in a new message board, while still keeping on topic. A friend of mine actually came up with it, but it was more of a joke reference to the movies. Nothing to do with the actual question it seems to now be posing.

That it has spawned this discussion is entirely a fluke. I was about to make the thread titled "Look at the size of that thing…" or "I have a… good feeling about this?" I mean, I'm actually reasonably excited about a new RPG line. Saga was/is great, if only as existing as D&D 3.75 Sci-Fi edition (fixing what I disliked in 3.5 while not being too MMOish like 4e turned out to be). That one of my favorite, complete RPG campaigns was handled in Saga edition is just gravy (an Old Republic game where the party was tasked by the Republic to sway a border planet to leave the Sith Empire, the party consisting of a bothan pilot, a quarren mercenary/bounty hunter, and an arkanian noble/slicer. Ended with the party dropping a thermite bomb on the sith base, and capturing a sith cruiser while disguised as a Gizka pest control team).

No, don't apologize, it is awesome.

OP: --- now it looks like you are no longer asking whether or not "we" think that the first taste of the beta is making a disturbance in the force :)

Its as if a thousand voices cried out in terror…

well this thread is currently the longest, maybe even longer than a kessel run :)

Meesa acceptin' dis chance to playtest Edge of the Empire with moi moi humility…