SystemMastery 23 – Star Wars RPG
Our second look at West End Games takes us to a galaxy far, far away, where an antagonistic GM is expected to control the party with an iron (if capricious) fist. We’ll discuss whether or not Boba Fett lives up to his hype, what the deal is with all that expanded universe stuff, and maybe even briefly talk about the actual RPG we’re ostensibly here for.
As always, if you’ve got a suggestion for an RPG, let us know! We’ve got a little list together and are reading into some of your great suggestions already!
System Mastery 
YOU ARE THE CRAZIES EDGE OF THE EMPIRE IS THE WORST THING TO HAPPEN TO STAR WARS AND I SHAL NOW WRITE A FIVE PARAGRAPH ESSAY ABOUT WHY!!!
I’m kidding of course.
Great episode guys. I love hearing you guys rip in to old games that encourage bad GMing, although I feel like you haven’t ripped on d20 enough lately. Ever considered taking a shot at Star Wars d20 Revised Edition? It’s everything you hate about d20 and much, much more! Well, whatever you review next, I look forward to it.
(And in all seriousness, Edge of the Empire does suck. I has super wimpy starting characters and the most swingy resolution mechanics I’ve ever seen.)
Hah does it? We try to keep our reviews to old games, and those Fantasy Flight game boxes have quite the barrier to entry (100 bucks to get in the door is a lot for an RPG, am I wrong?) so we haven’t actually tried it, we’ve just heard good things.
We’ll come back to D20 before you know it. May not be back to Star Wars for a while, but that D20 boom produced a ton of fool’s gold and I’m sure there’s some more we want to talk about.
Yeah, Edge of the Empire is one of those games that tries too hard to be a board game (where huge price tags, slow pace, and swingy resolution are okay) and as a result SEEMS alright at first but is ultimately toxic to cinematic play.
And I’m glad to hear that d20 is not yet out of the fire. There are so many disasterpieces like Cthulhu d20 and Wheel of Time d20 that need a burning.
You’re thinking of the Warhammer Fantasy game. The investment for Edge of the Empire is significantly less than that of any edition of D&D that I’ve played.
I love how you opened the Star Wars review with a pile of Star Trek references, it makes me smile. Also oh my god that explanation of the Kessel Run is riotously stupid.
I actually only own d6 star wars, and I make it fun the same way that I do with D&D which is by throwing all but the most basic rules out the window and not pay attention to most of the GM advise. Sadly, the one adventure I ran never got finished because my players lost thier character sheets.
Thank you for ragging on Boba Fett. Guy who seems to be a decent tracker, but in the end gets his ass accidentally beat by a blind guy. Can’t stand the over-importance that has been attributed to him after the fact.
Also, one thing that you may have failed to realize is that by giving backstory to every frame of the film not only it is silly an unimaginative but it also sucks any element of mystery out of the films themselves. It’s similar to how some EU Star Trek novel explained the Doomsday Machine from TOS as a weapon designed to fight the Borg! Tie one ancient, extra-galactic mystery to a known enemy and the universe suddenly becomes a hell of a lot smaller and less interesting.
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WEG seemed to assume everyone buying 2nd edition had already played 1st edition, so it was terrible at explaining the game or even how to make characters but a very efficient reference resource. 2nd edition Revised was reworked to be a very approachable and easy to learn book, but was missing a lot of the reference info that the base 2nd edition does. Like skill focuses. Luckily my group had both editions to get the best of both.
Funny thing about the Expanded Universe, the WEG Star Wars actually set a lot of it. It was more established than the books themselves when the EU got chugging, so many of the characters and settings from the modules ended up getting featured in later books and video games.
WEG was seriously obsessed with the idea that you’re stand-ins for Han Solo and his broken modded ship. SO MANY of the modules start off with “So you’re broke, or your ship is broke, and this outlandish offer is your chance to get through this.”