Which system should I use?

[Afool]

Alright so I've heard about several different systems to play a game of Star Wars and I'm trusting the playground about which system would work best for a game in RL or over Skype (should RL fail).

I'm aware of a d6 system, a d20 system, and Saga. And by aware I mean I have heard of these and have no idea of their differences. For all I know, the d6 system IS Saga.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

[Rakaydos]

The newest (and best) Star wars system is made by Fanatasy Flight Games, the same people who did the Warammer 40k RPGs.

It has specialty dice, but dont let that dissuade you- it is sorely underplayed here on this site and in general.

Edge of Empire is the setting for your Han Solos, Boba Fetts, and Malcom Renolds.
Age of Rebelion is the setting for your Wedge Antillies, Kye Katarns, and Commander Shepards
And the beta for Force and Destiny is expected after gencon: for all your advanced space sorcerer needs. (Though the other books include basic jedi stuff)

[Afool]

Are the books compatible with each other (as the website suggests that they're separate games)? And how exactly does the game function? In a general sense of mechanics I mean.

What makes them better than the other rule sets?

[Actana]

My experiences with Star Wars RPGs is limited only to the d20 and Saga editions, so that colors my perceptions somewhat. But as far as I'm aware, what system you want to use really depends on what you're looking for (as it tends to always be the case). Each system has their own pros and cons, and though someone else more knowledgeable will have to fill in the exact details, I can give a quick rundown on them.

If you're looking for more a more old-school take, the WEG d6 version is the way to go. I don't really know much about the system otherwise.

If your experience is with the d20 system and want to continue on with that, then Saga Edition is the best choice. The d20 Revised edition is rubbish, and Saga is (IMO) the best version of the d20 system there is, beating 3.5 and Pathfinder with barely a contest. Still, it's combat focused and carries most if not all of the negative aspects of the d20 system with it, except perhaps spellcasting (Force users start out really strong, but quickly lose their overwhelming potency). But don't use the Revised d20. Saga is, however, hard to acquire having been out of print for quite some while.

The newest version, the Fantasy Flight Games EotE, AoR and such are the most modern, both chronologically and in design, but each individual book is also highly focused on a specific concept. I haven't played this game either, but from what I've read it allows for a far more balanced approach for combat/noncombat. Having separate books for separate concepts is a bit of a bummer, though it won't be any cheaper to buy many of the supplements for, say, Saga (the difference being you can play many concepts in Saga with just the single core book, but not so much in the FFG version). From what I've heard, the FFG version plays a lot more cinematically than Saga, so if you're looking to emulate the movies, that'd be a good place to start.

[Afool]

I've taken a brief look at the d6 system and it looks like it operates on a point system for character advancement, which is definitely something that I've been wanting to spend more time with. Especially after that Ironclaw playtest I was in a month+ ago.

I've gotten somewhat tired of d20 if I'm being honest with myself, but considering my available RL pool of players, I'm probably going to need to use Saga if I want to play in RL.

I'm not quite sure if I'm willing to invest in so many books without having any idea how the mechanics of the system works with the FFG books, but I'll see if I can swing by my game shop and see if they're got copies that I could take a look at.

[Yora]

I quite dislike d20 systems, but Saga is indeed a big step up from all the others. It's a much more compact game that gets rid of a lot of the fiddly parts. And you really need just the one core rulebook to have everything covered. There's a bunch of additional books, but those are not needed in any way, unless you specificaly want more prestige classes.

[Rakaydos]

Are the books compatible with each other (as the website suggests that they're separate games)? And how exactly does the game function? In a general sense of mechanics I mean.

What makes them better than the other rule sets?

They are fully compatable, just have different focuses. For instance, the Edge of Empire character creation gives the group a free ship to have adventures around the galaxy, of one of three types, (Which I call NotSlave1, NotFalcon, and NotFirefly) and the have a mechanic that represents the stress of obligations like debt, having bountys on yo head, trying to find family that were sold into slavery, and so on. The Rebelion book instead gives a choice of a secure savehouse for rebel activities on one world, a stolen shuttle for those who infiltrate multiple worlds, or multiple two-seat ywing fighters, for those who want action in space. Rebelion also replaces the obligation mechanics with a Duty track- the more good you do the rebelion, the more free stuff the rebelion is willing to send you and the more pull you have with it (and the more likely the imperials want to hunt you down personally)

The game is a twist on a dice pool system-There's positive dice (Boost (blue), Ability (green), and Proficency (Yellow)) rolled against Difficulty Dice (Setback (black), Difficulty (purple), and Challange (red)) Each die has two types of symbols on it. The "good dice" have Successes and Advantages, the "Bad dice" have Failures and Complications. Add up the pool, successes cancel failures, advantages counter complications. If you net at least 1 success, you succeded at what you wanted to do... but the Advantage/Complication track puts a twist either on your task, or on something else "coincidental" Succeses with Advantage succedes with flying colors and other bonuses. Success with complications has other things go wrong. Failure with Advantage has other minor benifits, and Fail with Complication means life hates you.

(Yellows also have a Triumph symbol, kind of a critical success... and Reds have a Despair, a critical fail. If the GM is making you roll reds, you have a chance of things going horribly wrong and you might want to rethink your plan... or not- it's only a 1/12 chance per red. Also note that Triumphs do NOT cancel Despairs.)

[LibraryOgre]

I'm not familiar with the new FFG version, though my friend Jason Marker did some work on it, and he does good stuff. Of the three I am familiar with...

d6 tends towards lower-power... it was written before the prequels, so Jedi are less awesome. It's a mixed point-buy game (where you create your character by distributing points, but you have several pools... one set for attributes, a separate set for skills; the only time those two are together is in droid creation). The system, stripped of Star Wars-specific terms, was updated in the free D6 Space, which solves some of the problems that the regular Star Wars system had (like blaster-proof wookies). You can grab d6 Space and put Star Wars names on everything again, though you might want the actual books for various species.

d20 was lackluster. Not BAD, but overcomplicated and with some wonky bits. I am not as familiar with it as I am with it's successor, SAGA, which is pretty good. It's a d20-based system, where classes are pretty customizable and there's a good variety of material (for example, I realized you could completely dispose of classes, with only a little bit of effort)

All of these suffer from being out of print; you can find them in the secondary and tertiary markets, but the only in-print Star Wars is FFG.

[Afool]

*exactly what I wanted*

*exactly what I wanted part 2*

These both help greatly in figuring things out (and thank you for your recommendation Yora) and I quite remember your classless system (as I'd been going through the SAGA forum an amount) and will definitely use it should I end up using Saga.

From the looks of it, I think d6 Space is what I'm looking for but I'll have to take a deeper look at all three (d6, Saga, and FFG) before being certain.

Thank you all for your help!

[Ailowynn]

I am contractually obligated (by myself) to chime in on all threads involving the different Star Wars threads, so here goes:

I have played the Original Core Rules (WotC's first d20 SW system), Revised Core Rules (the second edition), Saga (the last d20 edition), and FFG's system. I haven't played the West End Games d6 system, so I won't say anything about it except that I've heard good things.

So: OCR and RCR pretty much adapt D&D 3.0 and 3.5 rules for Star Wars, which I think, doesn't work very well. Star Wars is about the epic and cinematic, whereas d20 is much more . . . nitty gritty. Saga takes a big leap forward and gives a lot of cool action options, but it's still d20. If you want the option to play a high-optimization game, I'd say it's your best choice. But my personal favorite, by far, is FFG's system. It is the one system where I can actually look at any scene in any of the movies and figure out exactly how it would work in-game, with no fancy GM fiat or anything like that. The dice system is epic and cinematic, and it means that just about any PC's roll can have a huge affect on the adventure. Plus, it's currently supported, the art is fantastic, and the books have a crazy amount of Star Wars fluff in them.

[Rakaydos]

But my personal favorite, by far, is FFG's system. It is the one system where I can actually look at any scene in any of the movies and figure out exactly how it would work in-game, with no fancy GM fiat or anything like that. The dice system is epic and cinematic, and it means that just about any PC's roll can have a huge affect on the adventure. Plus, it's currently supported, the art is fantastic, and the books have a crazy amount of Star Wars fluff in them.

Dammit JarJar, stop rolling triumphs when you fail! Its just ridiclus!