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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Lit [Fantasy Flight Games] Because it just keeps getting better

Discussion in 'Literature' started by The Loyal Imperial, Sep 7, 2012.

  1. cookeycat

    cookeycat Jedi Knight star 2

    Registered:
    Nov 17, 2016
    hi! I'm a cat!
    {I'm sorry, I'm a total noob and English is not my first language, so it's sometimes difficult for me to find info about this type of games};
    my noob q: Are there any playble Pykes in this game? I'd buy <3
     
  2. blackmyron

    blackmyron Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Oct 29, 2005
    Considering that you can't raise stats using XP after character creation, it certainly does tempt you. Like any RPG, though, striking a balance is the best bet in character creation. I'll make sure to let the players know to not neglect improving their stats - the droid player especially, since he has straight ones as his base. I admit I splurged and upped my Intelligence to 4; but, to quote Layla Miller, "I know stuff".

    I'm going to have to disagree about the build phase - a good foundation is always important for characters, whatever the system, for long-term play. But, seeing as how we're coming from the much more free-form Atomic Robo RPG, FFG's system is much more rules-bound than what we've been playing for the last six months or so, so I want to make sure that their characters aren't handicapped at the very start. No one in our group has played d20 in over a decade; at least one, never.

    Edit: Sorry I ended up crossposting! Currently there aren't any playable Pykes, IIRC, but FFG has a habit pulling in races from all over Star Wars.
     
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  3. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001
    blackmyron - sorry I remember you did say that. You can raise an attribute, but it's through talents and they will require a lot of earned XP sunk in to unlock them; or via cybernetics. If someone wants down that path, so they can get a 5 or 6 in AGI or BRA, I'd find ways to make it work against them.

    One thing you should encourage is limited specialisation hopping. Hugely inefficient.
     
  4. cookeycat

    cookeycat Jedi Knight star 2

    Registered:
    Nov 17, 2016
    blackmyron That's sad. Hope they'll add Pyke characters in future :3
    Thanks for reply!
     
  5. blackmyron

    blackmyron Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Oct 29, 2005
    Well, that's one of the joys of being a GM, isn't it?
     
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  6. JediBatman

    JediBatman Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 3, 2015
    I GMed for my first Edge of the Empire game about 2 weeks ago. Neither myself or the two friends who joined me had any prior table top experience, so we played the beginner game. It was a lot of fun, I'd say the parts we enjoyed most were the improvised and unexpected moments, such as the droid player character immediately shooting the shop keeper they were supposed to negotiate with because said shop keeper abused his astromech. They also gave tons of suggestions for Advantage and Triumph results (some more outlandish than others). On the downside though, the combat kind of dragged on a bit too long. Despite having researched the rules before hand, I still had to waste some time paging through weapon statistics to match them to the npcs owning said weapons. I could tell the group wanted to wrap things up, so to speed the game along I let them get away with some stuff I might have otherwise made more difficult, like bribing the Stormtroopers instead of fighting them.

    I held of posting about it because I wasn't sure if the friends were interested enough for me to commit to running a full campaign (plus we're all pretty busy and those books are expensive), but I've gotten good responses and am considering getting one of the Core Rule Books. Thoughts?
     
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  7. Taalcon

    Taalcon Chosen One star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 12, 1998

    I'd say the GM screen for whatever core book you pick up is also a good buy. It has TONS of great at-a-glance reference that help keep away from many of the paging-through-the-book problems on some regular or common problems. Plus it comes with an extra adventure, and some additional rules for implementation. Glad you had fun, and fun players!
     
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  8. blackmyron

    blackmyron Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Oct 29, 2005
    The game I ran last night ended up being mostly fleshing out characters, with a little diceless prologue to the adventure at the end of the night (the old "characters meet for the first time in a tavern" bit). A bounty hunter lured into a 'simple mission' in exchange for making the consequences of stealing a spaceship 'go away', an Alliance spy droid that is pretending to be that ship's navigator, a down-on-her-luck doctor desperate for a ship to anywhere else, a Trandoshan working as a bouncer trying to scrape up money, and a mysterious man in a robe that feels a certain group of strangers will lead him to where he needs to go to balance the Force...

    (The Beyond The Rim adventure starts at the Wheel, FWIW).

    And going to buy another set of the custom dice really got me in the mood, because the local game store of Friday night - when the Magic: The Gathering tournaments are held - is certainly one interpretation of a 'hive of scum and villainy'.

    I'd probably go with the main Edge of the Empire rulebook. Beyond that, I'd probably recommend the Hutt or Corellian sourcebooks, as they have a good spread of additional material that is centered around a campaign setting rather than a class.
     
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  9. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001

    As has been said, the GM screen/s are very useful for this. As are the adversary decks, although good luck finding those.

    Combat is lethal and like int he films, not the first resort. So encouraging them to think that "there are alternatives to fighting" is really good.

    How did they go on Despairs? I have one player in my party whose value of triump/despair/threat/advantage is more unstable than Zimbabwean currency. He'll have a net failure of -3, (so, in binary terms, he failed) with 2 advantage and he'll ask if even though he misses, he hits the ceiling and it falls on the minion, killing them. And we tell him that's a firm no, etc, and he just keeps trying. His despairs are the equivalent of "I hit, but i feel real existential dread".

    I've used this example before, but it is worth repeating for new players. Despairs are FANTASTIC roleplaying opportunities.

    Example:

    Players land their ship on an Imperial held world. They are subject to a customs inspection, and know they've got some contraband in a 1 hard point smuggling compartment.

    They decide to bribe the customs officer, or at least try to. The Smuggler makes his roll, and he gets 3 success, 2 advantage, and a despair.

    I decide to control the despair. The customs officer not only accepts the bribe, but tells the players a code phrase for expedited take off.

    How do I manage the despair, though? I decide the officer's supervisor is suspicious that the officer was on the take, and she sees the log entry for the PC's ship. Deciding the effusive praise in the log is a red flag, she locks the ship down (but doesn't find the contraband - yet). The players return to find the ship effectively impounded.

    Unfair? Only if you don't play it out.

    * Players can blast out of the system
    * Players can use the code phrase to trick the ship into being released
    * Players can do the above but impersonating an Imperial
    * Players can work with the corrupt inspector to take his supervisor down, or
    * Players can work with the supervisor to take her corrupt inspector down.

    Experienced FFG players will understand these options and follow them. Newer players, especially if used to a binary d20 access of dice resolution, may need hints. If this is the case, don't hesitate to give them guidance. They'll need it.

    I remember an early game with the group I am not GM'ing. I rolled a despair when we were ambushed by slavers. The guy with the volatile dice currency above, playing a ridiculously one dimensional smuggler, wasn't with us but on a swoop he'd been pestering us to get for weeks. I said the despair meant the slavers were onto him too, meaning any air cover he could provide was dependent on him getting rid of the slavers on his tail first.

    his response? "why am I getting punished?"

    You have to explain it's not a punishment; it's a cinematic spanner in the works which allows the party to resolve the disruption to their plans. Nobody gets punished, and there's no harsh failure punishment in FFG like in d20. A despair is you being told your path is roadblocked, find a way around it. Not backtrack.

    Despairs do things like trigger two additional scout troopers on Endor that you didn't see after you failed a Skulduggery check. They don't cause you to lose hands in lightsaber duels - that would be the opponent rolling high on the crit table.
     
  10. JediBatman

    JediBatman Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 3, 2015
    I've gotten a GM screen and it will definitely help. Still waiting for more input before I decide which Core Rulebook to get, AoR or EOTE.

    @EnderSai

    I think the players definitely learned the value of diplomacy, and how to "play out" negative rolls via outside-the-box thinking. The droid PC threw a stun grenade at the space port security lady, it was a dud and hit her on the head, but the charming smuggler PC was able to convince her his droid was just malfunctioning.

    No major arguments, there were a couple times were they thought I made a check to hard, or they wanted an advantage/threat that I thought was too severe, (most notably after struggling to come up with an appropriate Threat in the aftermath of shooting the junk dealer, they decided someone should enter the shop looking for him, which I thought would have been more appropriate for rolling a Despair) But it was a learning experience for everyone involved, including me.
     
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  11. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001
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  12. AdmiralNick22

    AdmiralNick22 Retired Fleet Admiral star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    May 28, 2003
    It's been four weeks since FFG updated the status of Armada Wave 6. The average transit time from Asia to North America is +/- 4 weeks via a steamship line (I work for a company that imports frozen foods from overseas), so I wouldn't be surprised to learn that this wave will be available for purchase very soon. Once it arrives to their main warehouse, they'll go back out for distribution.

    Can't wait to call up a Hammerhead corvette! :D

    --Adm. Nick
     
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  13. ATimson

    ATimson Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 19, 2003
    I thought that FFGs's times were closer to 8 weeks - at least for X-wing.
     
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  14. Barriss_Coffee

    Barriss_Coffee Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 29, 2003

    I've got this mental image of a Mon Cal waiting at the docks, charting transit times.
     
  15. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001
    Guys, Senator Iello was rescued last night and brought off Naboo. I asked Iello would he have a SoroSuub 3000 yacht or a Nubian chromed thing; he said the latter, of course, so that's what we went with.

    But now I need in the next session to reveal the Big Bad and their plot device - I need a rank. I don't want Moff, Grand Moff, Admiral, or Director. But it's a high ranking official working in bioweapons with a degree of autonomy like, one imagines, pre-ANH Krennic.

    HALPS!
     
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  16. GrandAdmiralJello

    GrandAdmiralJello Comms Admin ❉ Moderator Communitatis Litterarumque star 10 Staff Member Administrator

    Registered:
    Nov 28, 2000
    Go outside the box and give him a title like Commissar or something.
     
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  17. Vthuil

    Vthuil Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 3, 2013
    You could just go with "Doctor".
     
  18. AdmiralWesJanson

    AdmiralWesJanson Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    May 23, 2005
    Sciency type? How about "High Proctor"
     
  19. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
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  20. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001
  21. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
  22. GrandAdmiralJello

    GrandAdmiralJello Comms Admin ❉ Moderator Communitatis Litterarumque star 10 Staff Member Administrator

    Registered:
    Nov 28, 2000
    Oh I see her very clearly.

    [​IMG]


    Missa ab iPhona mea est.
     
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  23. Darth_Lilapso

    Darth_Lilapso Jedi Master star 1

    Registered:
    Jun 25, 2007
    You know I love the Quasar Fire Class Light Carrier. I have a theory that of all the captured Imperial spacecraft after the Battle Of Endor the QFCLC would be kept in service to the New Galactic Republic - even after reducing it's starfleet to 10% per the Concordance. Why? Well it does not have quite the psychological / sociological taint of the Star Destroyers. Plus it's main weapons are it's starfighters. And the starfighter is far more symbolic of the Rebel Alliance days and the NR. So I bet the NR kept quite a lot of QFCLCs in service. I hope the X-wing game or that upcoming On The Front Lines book will back my theory up.
     
  24. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001
  25. blackmyron

    blackmyron Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Oct 29, 2005
    On last night's game: we were down one person and we started late, but this was more of an introduction to using the dice and playing (last session was almost completely taken up with character creation). The players spoke with their employer, got the details (hunting down a lost treasure ship from the Clone Wars), and successfully bargained with him for more pay/more upfront. They went information gathering, but they were so nervous about tipping off anyone else that they really didn't do much on that front. However, the Rebel spy in the group was informed by a contact that ISB agents - there on unrelated business - found out about the mission and had gotten a copy of the data to find the lost ship - but were about a day behind decrypting it. That player decided to find a quicker astrogation path, and managed to pull off a major success.
    And, at the end of the night, they learned that their employer was attacked by a group of Rodian salvagers that had been chasing the lost ship for years and had learned of the group's quest...

    Best exchange of the night:
    "Can't wait to kill me some Greedos next time."
    "You'r being racist to Rodians."
     
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