RPG Starting advice...

Im looking to get a SW based table top RPG started with some friends. Were all experienced table top players to a degree. Ive been running my own custom TTRPG for about the last 8 years. Made from a few different game styles. Its very simple, not nearly to the tier of say DnD or some of the more complicated mainstream ones. However we have played and experimented with DnD as a group, so we are familiar to the more complicated games.

So I guess my question is, whats a good SW RPG to start. Looking for something that isnt gonna break my bank (Buying all the starter stuff and campaigns for DnD was WICKED expensive, spent way more then I had wanted to for a very limited amount of play time out of it.) So im trying to avoid that again. Suggestions?

 

This is more of a question for Games, so I'll be redirecting this thread. That said, if you're willing to buy used, the old West End books can be found for pretty cheap online.

 

The West End Games RPG is super simple, you just need plenty of D6's

As Ramza said, the books can be found pretty cheaply on ebay or as PDF's.

What edition of DnD did you play?

The Wizards of the Coast game had various editions which, I think, mimicked the version of DnD available at the time. First edition : DnD 3.0, Revised Rulebook : DnD 3.5, SAGA edition : DnD 4.0

Personally, the Wizards of the Coast SAGA edition game gave me a headache as character building was overly complicated with it's mix of feats and talents.

The good thing with D6 is that anyone can achieve anything, and anyone can blunder at anything. Each check consists of a roll of a number of D6's and utilises a 'wild dice' which can greatly affect your results.

Say, for instance, you have a Strength score of 3D. For each strength check you roll 3 D6's and add the total together. The third of those 3D is your 'wild die', if you roll a 1 on the wild die it's a failure (with potentially dire consequences, depending on the GM), if you roll a 6 you roll another D6 and keep going until you stop getting 6s, then add the total together. Potentially, a child could lift a speeder, or a computer whizz could get his password wrong three times and lock himself out of his user account...

Each rule set benefits from the works that came out at the same time as the sourcebooks. the West End Games system has no 'official' statistics for Clone Wars era or New Jedi Order era content, while the Wizards of the Coast stuff doesn't have much Bantam / New Republic era content. You will, however, find a wealth of statistics on http://www.swrpgnetwork.com

A lot of the stats were put together by Rodney Thompson, who co-wrote a lot of the SAGA edition sourcebooks and have variants for each system.

 

WEG d6 starwars has one of the best, easiest to learn, quickest, Down&dirty, keep-the-action-moving game mechanics I have ever found. WotC's Star Wars was sort of a hybrid of D&D 3.5 merging/testing aspects that ended up in D&D 4.0.
I suggest sticking with WEG.

 

Has anyone played with the Saga edition rules and if so, are they backwards-compatable? I wanted the unknown regions book, but I still use the Revised Core rules (Actually, I use the Mythic RPG rules with the SW RPG stats converted). I don't mind if not everything converts, just that I can look at stats in Saga edition and understand and convert them pretty easily without having the main rulebook.

 

I haven't specifically tried to back-stat from Saga to Revised, but seeing that they're both still set in a d20 system I don't see it being too much of an issue. I used to love Saga when it first came out, but having recently gone back to the table with the system and a new group of players I'm finding that some of the shine has come off since I last put the books down.

As for systems to run, although I haven't played it myself, I've been hearing really good things about Fantasy Flight's new Star Wars RPG. Their first full installment, Edge of the Empire, is coming pretty soon but the starter set with abridged rules, ready made characters and pre-made session, is already out there on shelves. If I remember correctly, they also just release a second installment for GMs to run players through. I've heard some grumbling about having to but special dice for the game, but between apps and online dice rollers you don't even need to have them physically if you really don't want them. Actually, the new dice mechanics are probably some of the most positive things I've been hearing out of the game.

 

Okay thanks. I'm thinking of checking out the Unknown Regions book and using some stuff from that if it's any good.