Players Pit: Star Wars Edge of the Empire Beginner Game

Part I: Un-Boxing and First Impressions

Who Am I?

This is my first official post here for the SBRPG blog! I am a dedicated player and have been for over 25 years, also I am a co-designer of our current project and also SBRPG. I decided to call this series the Players Pit, because I want to give a review of this neat new game from my perspective as a player of the game. This is a bit different from a more referee-centric point of view because what interests me more as a player is different from Hak's (the referee's) point of view. I tend to care more about simplicity/cleanliness of the core rules, support for creating and developing interesting characters, and the playing smoothness.

Star War's Golden Era!

Star Wars: Edge of the Empire Beginner Game is very intriguing to me because this is one of the few that has custom dice that incorporate the storytelling interpretations right in the die roll. Plus I am a fan of the Star Wars era the game takes place, about six weeks after the destruction of the first Death Star. I feel this period of the Star Wars universe is greatest time to be a player. It was pre-Jedi-centric time where playing a normal "Uncle Owen" or "Han Solo" character was a viable choice and the Rebellion provided clear good guys and bad guys.

I think this is pre/non-expanded universe as well so you can start playing with a fresh storyline leading into the greater war. The plus of this era is if you like military, mission-based gameplay you could have that or if you prefer more role-playing style spy missions, you could do that too all against the backdrop of a galaxy-wide political power play. Add to this Fantasy Flight Games has been putting out some very well-polished games recently, so in short, this game has me hooked.

I eventually plan, when we graduate onto the full game, to play a bad guy (I have an idea of a Sith or imperial officer type character) and a good guy (I am going to run with Pash and company for this one) campaign. I am hoping the game meshes with the X-Wing Miniatures game as well, but we'll see.

Baby Steps...

Our first gaming session was just an un-boxing of the game and reading through the rules. I managed to absorb the sample characters and read their intro stories. the dice were confusing at first but one you reread the dicing help section you could pick it up in short time. I found it interesting that characters gad "talent tree" style progression as well, which reminded me of the the last Star Wars games d20 based feat stacking. This one however sees much more organized and simpler.

The artwork and presentation is outstanding and the character samples are very nicely organized and pretty. Much in the way the Pazio Pathfinder Beginner Set. The sheets have the sample sheet down the middle with side bar descriptions for everything on them. This I liked immensely and I hope they publish more preset iconic characters and game maps of ships, terrain and such in the future.

Overall the game gets me excited to play. I like the more RP-centric storytelling approach, and simple game play so I cant wait to dive into the included starter adventure. I am playing two characters, the smuggler Pash and the Twi'lek bounty hunter.

Overall Grade So Far: A+ (Great first impressions and exciting universe!)

The game rules are the way I like it, very rules light and fast playing. The basic mechanic is roll a base set of dice plus some difficulty dice added in and interpret the results. They have some symbols on the dice to shift the outcome slightly good or bad depending on the roll.This allows the referee to interpret the results in a more soft-RP way and adds to the fun of the play.

When were were done we were set up to dive into the included sample adventure for next time.

Stay tuned!
~G