Fantasy Flight Star Wars

[Herabec]

Hello, Playground!

Was thinking about running a new Star Wars game for my group of players, and one of them suggested we use the Fantasy Flight Games (Edge of the Empire, Age of Rebellion and Force and Destiny) for our game instead of Saga. Does any of the Playground have experience with this particular system? And tips, tricks or general advice you'd be willing to share for those playing or running it? Is it particularly clunky in any department?

Also, we play online through the Roll20 website; will the lack of the special dice in the game be a particular hindrance?

[JustIgnoreMe]

I love the game and would recommend it... But. The special dice aren't optional. They're intrinsic to the game. Playing through Roll 20 without support for the special dice isn't going to work.

In theory you could roll regular dice and convert (the game itself tells you how to convert a regular D12 roll of, say, 7, into the equivalent), but it'll be clunky and slow.

[Herabec]

Okay, I actually figured out a way to get Roll20 to roll the custom dice, so that's no longer an issue.

[JustIgnoreMe]

Cool.

You only need one of the rulebooks: choose the one that best fits with your vision for the campaign (an All-Jedi/Force-heavy campaign needs F&D: a smuggler/bounty hunter campaign needs EotE).

Keep generic NPC stats handy: FFG have put out sets of cards with generic stats on them. They're really handy.

Create your own GM holocron (mine is a bunch of index cards in a plastic box). Planets, systems, ships, NPCs, bars, they're all in there, ready to be re-used.

Encourage Destiny Point use by the players: the game works best if they aren't afraid to use them. They should flow from Dark to Light and back a lot.

Watch out for weapons that can Crit too easily: I nearly made the mistake of giving an NPC a Superior Mono-molecular something-or-other which was essentially an auto-crit machine. One lucky roll and PCs start dropping.

If you're planning to do a lot of dogfighting with X-wings and TIEs, find one of the sets of houserules people use to stop fighter combat being so deadly (as written, by design, it's supposed to be deadly, which makes Rogue Squadron style games impossible).

Learn to improvise. Also, get your players to learn to make suggestions. Interpreting the results of the dice-roll is something that the entire table can assist with. Don't be afraid to say something like "Hmm, overall success, but with Despair. Well, what do you think happened?" Your players can come up with twists you never thought of.

[Rakaydos]

Reposting from the last thread:

Pretty easy once you understand the dice system.

There are 7 custom, color coded dice used in this system, plus a d100 used for certian charts like critical hits.
: 1eA+1eB+1eP+1eD+1eC+1eS+1eF 1 failure, 4 advantage, 2 Light Side

The green, blue and yellow dice give successes and advantages, while the purple, red and black dice give failures and complications. The white die is the balance of the force- totaling all it's faces together, there are 8 white pips and 8 dark pips, but they are broken down such that you are more likely to roll darkness (1 double darkside face, and 6 single darks) but when you DO roll the light, it is usually stronger. (3 double light faces, 2 single lights)

An unskilled check is a characteristic (Brawn, Agility, Intelect, Cunning, Willpower, Presence) in green dice vs a difficulty in purple dice.
: 3eA+2eD 1 failure, 1 advantage


As you gain skill, you replace green dice with the more powerful yellow dice, one per skill rank: for instance, 3 agility and 2 ranks in Ranged: Light
: 2eP+1eA+2eD 1 success, 1 advantage


Ofcource, there's smaller, situational modifiers that may affect your roll- it may be dark (black), the other guy might be in cover (black), but you could be aiming (blue) and have a more accurae weapon (blue). All these get added to the roll.
: 2eP+1eA+2eD+2eS+2eB 2 successes, 1 threat, 1 Triumph


Yellow dice have a triumph symbol, that functons as a sort of critical success. The more yellows you roll, the more likely you are to get one. (Note that you can get a triumph and still fail the check- Jarjar gives us plenty of exampes of this.)

If what you're trying is particularly dangerous, however, the GM may decide to upgrade your purple dice to red dice. Red dice are the negative equivilant to yellows, and have a Despair symbol on them, a sort of critical failure. If your plan calls for rolling against 3 red dice, you may want to rethink your plan before someone gets hurt.

Successes and failure are fairly self explanetory, except that if they cancel out completely its a basic failure- you need net successes to succede, not just to avoid failure.
Advantages and Complications are the real meat of the system. If someone rolls a failure with 1 complication, the rules say you take a point of strain damage. What it doesnt say is HOW you took that strain, and you are encouraged, bith as a player and GM, to come up with cool and cinematic things for even the most mundane advantages and complications. Perhaps the untrained civilian didnt know the blaster would kick, and bonked himself in the head, or perhaps he spent the round panicking as he fumbles with the saftey, squacking loudly as blaster bolts wiz by his ear. Or perhaps your more badass than that, and a glancing hit scorches your gun arm throwing off your shot, and you swat out the flames with your hat before returning to the fight. Mechanically, all of them rolled the same thing, but they reflected their character in how they resolved it.

[Herabec]

Cool.

You only need one of the rulebooks: choose the one that best fits with your vision for the campaign (an All-Jedi/Force-heavy campaign needs F&D: a smuggler/bounty hunter campaign needs EotE).

Keep generic NPC stats handy: FFG have put out sets of cards with generic stats on them. They're really handy.

Create your own GM holocron (mine is a bunch of index cards in a plastic box). Planets, systems, ships, NPCs, bars, they're all in there, ready to be re-used.

Encourage Destiny Point use by the players: the game works best if they aren't afraid to use them. They should flow from Dark to Light and back a lot.

Watch out for weapons that can Crit too easily: I nearly made the mistake of giving an NPC a Superior Mono-molecular something-or-other which was essentially an auto-crit machine. One lucky roll and PCs start dropping.

If you're planning to do a lot of dogfighting with X-wings and TIEs, find one of the sets of houserules people use to stop fighter combat being so deadly (as written, by design, it's supposed to be deadly, which makes Rogue Squadron style games impossible).

Learn to improvise. Also, get your players to learn to make suggestions. Interpreting the results of the dice-roll is something that the entire table can assist with. Don't be afraid to say something like "Hmm, overall success, but with Despair. Well, what do you think happened?" Your players can come up with twists you never thought of.

Thanks a lot! I'll definitely be keeping these tips in mind. We're going to be using all three of the books, since my group likes a large variety of things. It's looking like we'll be playing during the Dark Times, and I'll betcha that one of them will want to play a jedi outcast, so Force and Destiny will definitely be a must-have.

Reposting from the last thread:

Thanks. The biggest problem we've run into so far has just been interpreting these new-fangled dice and the way dice pools are generated in this game. Speaking of dice; I'm a fan of hiding my dice rolls as GM - so if things aren't going well, I can 'fudge' a dice roll so a party member doesn't get offed by a random stormtrooper, or make things more interesting if the group is doing a little *too* well. With how dice pools are generated and the despair/triumph system in place, is it still practical or possible for GMs to hide their rolls?

[Rakaydos]

Thanks. The biggest problem we've run into so far has just been interpreting these new-fangled dice and the way dice pools are generated in this game. Speaking of dice; I'm a fan of hiding my dice rolls as GM - so if things aren't going well, I can 'fudge' a dice roll so a party member doesn't get offed by a random stormtrooper, or make things more interesting if the group is doing a little *too* well. With how dice pools are generated and the despair/triumph system in place, is it still practical or possible for GMs to hide their rolls?

You can, but it's more trouble than it's worth. a PC (or nemisis) with more wounds than their threshold isnt dead, just too injured to keep fighting. the only way to actually die in this system is to get a critical roll of 150+ on a d100. That means stacked criticals (each crit you already have adds 10 to thenext crit roll), Vicius weapons with the Lethal Blows talent (vibroweapons and Disrupters get bonuses to the critical roll, and the talent adds to it) and/or a really, REALLY lucky chain of rolls. (activating crit 6 times in a single attack to get +50, then rolling a natural 00)

Instead, flip a destiny. "Really? 3 despairs? hmm. Flip a destiny, and we'll say that you fell through the roof of a church in the slums below. NPC Flowergirl introduces themselves. Hold on, let me grab my notes, you're skipping half the adventure."
Or "Well, the the ATST goes down to the AP grenade. Nice roll. However... Flip a destiny for me, as you hear the cranking of two more approaching the hanger. You dont have long before they arrive, what do you want to do?"

[Elderand]

There is no need to hide your dice rolls. Everyone can fudge rolls and do it in the open. It's flipping a destiny point.

Player is in trouble? They can flip a light destiny point to save their ass.
Encounter going too easy? The dm can flip a dark destiny point.

Don't cheat, use the built in destiny system.

[Herabec]

Hrm... Interesting.

This is definitely going to be a system myself and my players are going to have to get used to. The majority of us only have experience with Dungeons and Dragons and Star Wars: Saga, where stuff isn't so..... freeform. If nothing else, this going to be an entertaining experiment. XD

[Xaragos]

Okay, I actually figured out a way to get Roll20 to roll the custom dice, so that's no longer an issue.

How do you get R20 to roll the custom dice?

[Herabec]

How do you get R20 to roll the custom dice?

If you have a pro subscription to Roll20, you can add API scripts to your game.

In the Start New Game screen give the game a name.
(Get to this by going to the Menu on the top of Roll20 labeled Games and pulling down to Start New Game, or in the My Games section, clicking the Start New Game button)
In the Optional: Choose a Character Sheet section go to the drop-down list and select "Star Wars: Edge of the Empire (API-Compatible).
Click the "I'm Ready, Create Game!" button.
Click the button in the upper right of the screen that looks like a cog/wheel/whatever you think it looks like, and scroll to the bottom of that side section, and click Exit Game.
Click the Blue name for your new game.
Click the Settings button and pull it down to API Scripts.
From the Roll20 API Script Library, select "Star Wars: Fantasy Flight Games - Dice Roller"
Scroll to the bottom and click the "Add Script" button.

If you do all that, you should be able to roll the custom dice in-game via the character sheets or the Dice Roller provided in the handouts tab.

[Dizlag]

I just finished DMing a Star Wars campaign and had a TON of fun with this narrative dice system. Here are a few pointers if you wish:

1) Get the Adversary cards, put them in little plastic sleeves, get dry erase markers to mark up Wounds / Strain damage, and you are ready for just about anything your players want to do. Pick out that Arms Dealer card and reskin it to fit the situation. So very handy!

2) As said above, don't hide your rolls. The narrative dice system is very much a more engaging system where all can contribute.

3) With that said, don't be afraid to ask your players for suggestions on how you as a DM should spend your Triumphs against them or ideas on the Despairs for when they roll it. It will engage the players more and you'll have some pretty awesome ideas tossed your way. Remember, it's all about telling the story you AND your players want to tell.

4) More of a general DMing advice tidbit I use in other systems is this ... if they approach a cantina and you don't have a name, ask your players what the name of it is and who's in it and what it looks like inside working together to build the scene. You'll get better buy in from them, they'll be more engaged, and have some ownership of the galaxy.

5) Most importantly, have fun!

Enjoy!

Dizlag

[Ceiling_Squid]

Well said. Player buy-in is absolutely essential, and I'm glad you brought it up. Plot-steering and world-ownership is obviously GM-skewed in any RPG system, but FFGSW works best when the players are participating more in that process.

In my (albiet limited) experience, this is not easy for some experienced groups to grasp. If players have spent all their time playing games where the GM interprets all the roll results and generates the world for them, there's an adjustment period. I had to prompt their involvement regularly, and as the sessions went on, I recognized a need for me to loosen my grip on the reigns. We still had fun, but, looking back, I'd probably try to run the game very differently now.

It's wierd to say, but this feels like a game where greener players might have a slight advantage. Someone who's already played a ton of d20 may need to alter their expectations.

[Dizlag]

It's wierd to say, but this feels like a game where greener players might have a slight advantage. Someone who's already played a ton of d20 may need to alter their expectations.

Not weird one bit at all. Greener players are not as set in their ways as this old grognard. They will have an easier time to think outside the box as they are not subconsciously limited by the mechanics of the game as we've been over the years. You're right, Squid, there is a bit of "You must unlearn what you have learned" as Yoda said for this system. But, when you do ... oh man is it great!

Also, another tidbit I just thought of ... When in doubt about a ruling or a narrative, I've been going to the "Rule of Cool". If its cool and it makes the game more fun, then yes! Knowing that this IS a "yes, but ..." system is easier to get than put to practice though. =)

Dizlag

[Rakaydos]

Also, another tidbit I just thought of ... When in doubt about a ruling or a narrative, I've been going to the "Rule of Cool". If its cool and it makes the game more fun, then yes! Knowing that this IS a "yes, but ..." system is easier to get than put to practice though. =)

Dizlag

Last game, our clone wars group got sidetracked when the Shadow and Seeker split off to do an infiltration, posing as "the new guys" on a countess's totally-not-connected-to-drug-cartel pleasure barge. After getting assigned to "latrine duty", they hatch a plan to infiltrate the countess's stateroom through the septic system. After comments on the kind of wildlife found in starwars trash recepticals, the dathomirian Seeker flips a destiny (with DM permission) to find a baby rancor someone flushed down the toilet. Getting it to follow her into the countess's bathroom, they accidently set off all kinds of alarms, play off the "we followed it up here" when guards show up, and the Shadow get a good look around while everyone's chasing the baby rancor the seeker is subdly guiding, tracking sewage everywhere. Finally they all dive back down the toilet, leaving the guards with their mess.
Then things got complicated when the Seeker wanted to take the rancor with her, off the orbiting ship. After getting split up in the chaos, the Shadow tracked down a lead he found in the chambers, and stole the countess's private shuttle. HE launches to discover the Seeker being dumped with the garbage, holding a breath mask over the baby rancor's mouth as they're dumed into space. Some hilarius untrained skill checks later, the rancor is on the barge, but the seeker isnt- and the rancor is starting to sound hungry. Tossing the minibar at the rancor (the countess's personal craft has an Amenities Suite, right?) while flying one handed, some more checks and a fail with triumph end up with the seeker force-pulling a skydiving equipment bag, (after a previus EoE session, the grav belt is known in our group as "parachute pants") and the two fall in tandem toward the planet surface.

There were 3 other PCs who were not involved... but the PLAYERS were very active, throwing in twists and suggestions, for both the other players and the GM. And watching the chaos with popcorn, of course.

[Dizlag]

There were 3 other PCs who were not involved... but the PLAYERS were very active, throwing in twists and suggestions, for both the other players and the GM. And watching the chaos with popcorn, of course.

That just sounds like some epic fun was had by all! Kudos you your gaming group for tell an incredible tale there! Do you think it was this gaming system / narrative dice that allowed those 3 other players be more active in the action even though their characters were "off screen"? It seems there's a relearning going on in some ways that could be carried onto other gaming systems.

Anyways, great post!

Dizlag

[Anonymouswizard]

Random tips:
1) Failure that doesn't change the situation is boring, when possible either have failure cost something or haven them succeed at a cost. But whatever you do, stop failure from being 'I try again'.
2) Don't let the droid rewrite their memory. It is a clever way of taking advantage of droid's unique bodies, even with the massive difficulty, but it's a major advantage, especially in EotE (I managed to avoid being scrapped, despite being guilty of some pretty major crimes, simply by framing my owner [another PC], limiting it to a mind wipe*).
3) On a related note, don't let an intelligent person play a droid with high INT, Mechanics, and Computers. My droid, X8D-T3CH, was built specifically to be able to improve himself, a lot, and my goal was to hit the singularity. Having 5 INT and 2 Computers really helped.

* which wasn't a major problem, I had specifically hidden a backup on the ship. I should not be allowed to play Droids (if only because I was close to inhabiting the ship before the game's timing forced me to leave).

[Rakaydos]

That just sounds like some epic fun was had by all! Kudos you your gaming group for tell an incredible tale there! Do you think it was this gaming system / narrative dice that allowed those 3 other players be more active in the action even though their characters were "off screen"? It seems there's a relearning going on in some ways that could be carried onto other gaming systems.

Anyways, great post!

Dizlag

It helps that all 6 of us are GMs, with different games and rotating GM games- the interpretive nature of the game meant there was room for all of us to put our own interpretations on the rolls, particularly on what our group calls "Jarjar results" - Failure with triumphs and success with despair.

[Hopeless]

The Force Awakens Beginner Box Set Announcement

Yes they went there!

[Herabec]

So we played our first session of the game tonight. Overall response has been positive, though interpreting the dice in terms of what we can do with advantages, triumphs, threats and despairs has been rather slow. We also really haven't been able to really figure out any narrative uses for them - at least, in combat. We've been mostly sticking with the listed examples in the book.

Any suggestions for what kind of non-standard things can be done with such rolls? One thing a player wanted to do was have an explosive with a triumph cause the floor to collapse under a group of enemies and have them fall down a couple stories, but that just seems like too powerful effect for a single triumph to pull off. Any thoughts?

[Anonymouswizard]

The Force Awakens Beginner Box Set Announcement

Yes they went there!

I'm not surprised, it's FFG, I love their games (original and translated), but hate all their monetising stuff.

surprised suggestions for what kind of non-standard things can be done with such rolls? One thing a player wanted to do was have an explosive with a triumph cause the floor to collapse under a group of enemies and have them fall down a couple stories, but that just seems like too powerful effect for a single triumph to pull off. Any thoughts?

If it's just a single floor it should have been fine. A boost die for attacking from the higher floor, a disadvantage die for shooting up, and a skill check to get back up.

Creating cover is one I've always wanted to pull out.

Then you can just have fun, burning off a Woolie's fur (disadvantage die for a few rounds), blinding an opponent for a bit (persists after combat), successfully pulling out an item as you attack, or whateve you want.

[Dizlag]

Herebec,

That is one of the harder things to grasp and come up with on the fly in this system. One thing to remember, a Triumph is a dramatic change in the combat that works to the roller's favor. Rule of cool here always matters. For advantage, I've always let me players do the heal strain or pass a boost die, but I have them give me a narrative reason why. Something on the lines of giving the baddies setback dice work too, but again ... tell the story of how and why.

Disadvantage and Despair are always tough too. But you can always ask your players what to do too. Triumphant Despairs are the trickiest too. I had my party negotiator roll a Triumph and a Despair to offload an ATST to an arms dealer in a shady part of town. The Triumph was giving him the best price for it / what they were asking for, but the arms dealer told them never to come back because of the heat its gonna bring on him. So, it was a contact that was gone forever. Plus, I had the negotiation take SO so long that a bounty hunter was able to track them down in the area and was waiting in an alley for them to take a sniper shot at the negotiator character.

Glad you had fun!

Dizlag

[Hopeless]

So we played our first session of the game tonight. Overall response has been positive, though interpreting the dice in terms of what we can do with advantages, triumphs, threats and despairs has been rather slow. We also really haven't been able to really figure out any narrative uses for them - at least, in combat. We've been mostly sticking with the listed examples in the book.

Any suggestions for what kind of non-standard things can be done with such rolls? One thing a player wanted to do was have an explosive with a triumph cause the floor to collapse under a group of enemies and have them fall down a couple stories, but that just seems like too powerful effect for a single triumph to pull off. Any thoughts?

Ooh I like that idea!
Out of curiosity how many extra advantage would they need to pull that off if you'd allow that to happen?

[Fumble Jack]

Ooh I like that idea!
Out of curiosity how many extra advantage would they need to pull that off if you'd allow that to happen?

Were that a situation in one of my games, I'd go with a range of minor to major pending on additional advantages, 1-5+. I also encourage the other players to chime in on what can be suggested, so it has a very collaborative feel.