Starwars Tabletop RPG (FFG)

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Zyke

Silver Knight of the Realm
185
51
Didn't see a dedicated thread for this so figured I'd start one. I've been playing it for the last couple months and really enjoying the system and I'm wondering if anyone else is playing or wants to play (no experience necessary). I'm looking to start another campaign using Roll20 (I'm currently running an Edge of the Empire group) and need a few more people.

A good general information overview can be found here.

Star Wars RPG tabletop is in essence star wars DnD, at least in concept. It's a tabletop roleplaying game where you go on various types of adventures and gain xp to advance your character as you go, acquire new gear/items, etc. Despite the similarities however, the game systems are overall pretty different.

In general, the game is divided up into three core rulebooks that all follow the exact same system and are completely interchangeable, but have different rules and careers that lend themselves to different types of campaigns (though they can all be easily mixed with each other, and often are).

Edge of the Empire - the players are characters on the edge of Imperial space where there is little or no Imperial presence. Bounty hunters, smugglers, explorers, and the like. These games tend to revolve around the criminal underground of the star wars universe and the players finding their place in it.

Age of Rebellion - as the name implies, the players in this game are a group of rebels, with campaigns usually revolving around fighting the Empire, as expected. Depending on the type of campaign, you can end up with a small rebel cell on some backwater world, a squadron of fighter pilots based on a rebel cruiser, massive clashes between rebel and Imperial forces with the players commanding, or anything in between.

Force and Destiny
- this one is about force sensitives, with a lot of force powers and careers involving jedi-like characters, often on the run and being hunted by the Empire and its agents. I've the least amount of experience with this one, but I'd imagine it plays a bit like the mix of the two above, but with more force powers. And like the others, the possibilities are really only limited by the GM and what he wants to do or is willing to allow.


The system itself is a little different than the more common rule sets you'll find in DnD or Pathfinder and the main differences can be summed up as follows:

- Custom dice. SWRPG doesn't use numbered dice, but has its own system. While confusing at first, I've found people are pretty comfortable with it after an hour or two of experience, and they lend a lot of versatility to the game with some custom results like advantages/threats which can be used to modify roles or cause narrative events to fire off rather than simple number crunching. For example, you can miss your shot but still end up with a net number of "advantage" results which can be spent to improve your next shot or fire off a narrative event like a "hit" on a steam pipe behind an enemy, blinding them for the next turn.

- SWRPG uses an xp system where you spend xp as a currency to advance skills, characteristics, and buy talents. There are no levels and the advancement is largely free-form; there are no set paths that you have to follow and you can mix and max specializations (classes basically) as much as you want. This means a huge degree of character customization.

- The game is less combat focused than most other tabletop RPG's. While combat still exists and can be experienced often , the game has a lot of systems for social encounters, crafting, etc. that don't always revolve around or end in combat. A good number of specialization trees don't even involve combat. While combat is still important and fun, it's not the main focus. Similarly, it's a bit less in depth and more streamlined, though can still be extremely punishing at times. That said, the combat system is still complex enough to allow for a lot of interesting things to happen.

- Narrative focus. As mentioned above, the game has less of a focus on lots of technical and number heavy combat and is geared heavily to having a deeper and more interactive story, including features which let the players have more say in the story than they do in some other games. Social encounters, character backgrounds, motivations, and their actions all play heavily into the story line (with a proper GM) than you might normally find. The game is also designed to be very malleable and is more adjustable in my experience to players inevitably going off the rails and doing unexpected things.
 

Jalynfane

Phank 2002
719
563
This is a great system. We did a campaign over a year with the culmination of it at Order 66