Referee's Screen: Star Wars Edge of the Empire

Part I, Attack of the Clone

As a companion to George's "Players" section, I will write my impressions of Star Wars: Edge of the Empire Beginner Game (SWEoE:BG) from a referee's perspective. I will call this series "Referee's Screen" since this is mainly my feelings and impressions as a referee for this game. I will limit my thoughts to pre-play observations, as we will get into playtest reports later.

Unboxing
The box is filled with all sorts of goodies, and is really a complete mini-game covering the basics, including combat, starships, skills, advancement, and even a collection of creatures. Character creation does not seem to be included, so you are stuck with the 4 basic characters. Kudos to Fantasy Flight for getting this much of a game done in just 48 pages (!), and their skill at keeping the system to-the-point in this age of 300+ page rulebooks is astounding.

A self-contained 32-page adventure is included, which teaches you the system as you play through it. This works in tandem with the character folios, which give you four pre-gen characters, and everything you need to play them with. This is a key selling point, and mirrors what Paizo did with their Beginner Box. The beginning adventure here is in my opinion better than the one in the Beginner Box, and gives you a structured part to play in, and then an open world mini-sandbox in the city.

You also get a map covering the first adventure, and also a sheet of tokens. Pretty cool stuff, and appreciated. They had better sell add-on tokens in future products, or something like Paizo's cardboard pawns. These are useful things to have, and I hope they keep this up in the future.

I will ding Fantasy Flight on the dice! You get a good selection of these funny dice to start, but some skill checks in the game require more dice than what they give you (ex. 4 green dice and 1 purple). Of course, this is a minor point, but one worth mentioning. I will probably be picking up a couple sets to make a pool for play, so in the long run, the dice won't be an issue.

I like the dice, they are cool and from what I saw work very well. They provide a large variety or results, along with roleplaying situations built into the rolls as results. They are very clever, and worth looking at purely from a game-design perspective. They remind me a little of Fantasy Flight's Warhammer FRP dice, and they are different and cool. +1 to FF for making use of these, and making them work. They are a cool, Star-Warsy addition to the experience, and shape the action in the game.

Full Game Coming Soon
Remember, this is just an intro game, and the full 400+ page behemoth main game rules is scheduled for release early next year. Something will always keep me coming back to this set, since the beauty here is keeping the game focused and simple. It is fully playable, and will keep a group of players busy for a while. All in all, I get a good feeling after unboxing this, and it doesn't feel short or missing anything terribly significant.

I didn't expect rules for star destroyers to be in here or a lot of equipment, but what they do give you covers enough of what you'd want to play with when you are starting out. You get an ad for the full book in the box, and it looks like a fun game. Bonus XP to FF for putting Han and Chewie on the cover, two guys who typically get limited cover space on Star Wars RPGs. Han has this cool WTF look on his face, which rocks. Party on Han & Chewie, you guys are the original gangsters of Star Wars.

Also of note is the X-Wing minis game (see the catalog in the picture), which is a totally different game from this one, but still cool. More on this in a later post.

Part of me wonders if they are going to do an all-in-one book focusing on the criminal element first, and then dedicated sourcebooks for Jedi's, KoTOR, etc. We shall see how this happens, or if the game focuses on 'Edge of the Empire' stuff primarily, and includes those subjects as also-thoughts. The focus of the game is important. The d6 system game was focused on the shooty-movie action, the d20 version had an equal focus on everything (though Force powers tended to be dominant), and we shall see the 'take' of this game. There are a lot of fans to please in the Star Wars universe, and there is a risk pushing the smuggler angle over the Sith/Jedi angle, Imperial/Rebel, and so on. I hope they can achieve that balance, without making the game all about the Force, big battles, or any other area that can 'take over' the game.

"Chewie, WTF are we doing on the cover of a Star Wars RPG?"

Star Wars: Off the Rails
The game has a smuggler, criminal, and fringe system vibe to it - which is cool. You are not meant to be playing mainline rebels in giant CG battles, Sith, or Imperial agents in the center of the galaxy. You are assumed to be playing on the outer rim of the Empire, shortly after the destruction of the first Death Star.

This is a cool direction to take the game in, and makes it different than the d6 and d20 versions of Star Wars RPGs. You know, I am sure there will be support for all that stuff in the main rulebook, but keeping the game 'down to Earth' as a game of smugglers and criminals is kinda a cool direction to take, and reminds me of the Star Wars Scoundrels novel that's coming out (Star Wars meets Ocean's 11).

The Yoda Rule: "Impossible to see the future is."
If I started a new Star Wars campaign with this system, I would probably make a grand pronouncement to the players when we started:

"The Fate of the Universe is up to You"

In short, I would call this the "Yoda Rule" summarized by Master Yoda's own quotes, "Impossible to see the future is," and "Always in motion is the future." I would pull those two out whenever someone brought up cannon, and how the game is straying from it. When it comes to conventional wisdom, Yoda always wins, bitch.

This would mean there would be no script for anything past the first Death Star destruction, the events in Empire and Jedi will not happen, and the side the players are rooting for will probably lose the war. To make a change in the universe, it will be 100% up to the players. Of course, if they play both sides, all the better, and the war will probably never end. Everything will be paid for, and major characters will never have immunity to anything bad that happens.

Anything outside the main rulebook won't exist, just to keep spam from the Expanded Universe from a minimum. Events and books in the EU past the first Death Star will be similarly de-scripted, eliminated, or changed outright. As a thought, since they had the freedom to create all that stuff for the EU in the first place, so it gives me the license to go to town and create my own stuff. A race of giant green rabbit men? Sure! Jedi Don Quixote? Go to town! Anything can happen, and the universe is open and free again. This shall be known as the optional "I am Timothy Zhan" rule, which may come into play. To start, I will feel better keeping the game simple and to the stuff in the book at first, then we shall see if the IaTZ rule needs to be used.

The important point is to make the Star Wars universe the players' - they will own the outcome, if they want an outcome. Nobody can come along and say 'such and such happens at this time' or 'no, this person was a good guy' - everything is on the table. If my girlfriend's Sith assassin wants to seduce Han Solo into working for the Empire and she pulls it off - so be it. It won't be easy and will probably take a long time and lots of RP, but hey; this is not the approved script anymore, nor will it ever be. The players will write the script, as Yoda would have it.

Overall Like it. Will be buying the main game. A winner.