Lit Fantasy Flight Games and the Star Wars TCG

NJO was a very underplayed campaign setting and I don't believe the sourcebook sold as well. Also, it wasn't the most popular setting for games, so no - I don't believe they'll do it. Don't give me any rubbish about how non-RPG fans buy the book, too. They aren't going to produce a sourcebook nobody wants to play with so you can statwank.

 

Bah, I have been part of 6 separate RPG campaigns set in it, so no.

 

And?

 

That's because the book was garbage. It obviously had little or no input from the actual authors, and made bizarre choices such as not listing any new NR/Imperial ships (of which there were plenty in the books), but wasting stat blocks on ships that were already provided. Typical splatbook for the pre-SAGA WOTC RPG; marginally better than the Secrets of Naboo. Also, it only covered about half the series.

WEG's influence overall aside, I will give you rubbish about a non-Star Wars RPG fan buying the books, because I haven't played or run a single Star Wars campaign in my entire life. FFG's material is the first I would actually want to run, but our group has a wonderful 40K campaign to finish up, and a Dark Matter campaign immediately following that.

And as Gorefiend mentioned, NJO is a great campaign setting. Why there was never a video game is beyond me.

 

*pacefalm* Being the exception to the rule doesn't mean anything. This is the lit forum; of course there's a higher density of NJO fans... the NJO is a massive portion of Star Wars lit. But Star Wars' popularity isn't from lit... it's from those really popular movies they made.

Anyway, it's irrelevant; FFG's books default to the Imperial period, but are otherwise era-agnostic. It's not some argument about era popularity... It's not gonna happen because that's not their theming format. If that changes, it'll be strictly to accommodate new films and television. If their choices are to release a book related to an alternate history known only by readers which won't be further supplemented or to release a book related to a thriving, ongoing, canonical new series seen by millions, it's gonna be the latter. That's a no-brainer. And the chances of them releasing two incompatible books with competing alternate settings? Even less.

 

What Praenomen said. Any comments about "I'd buy THAT book" have to be made from the context of a gaming company supplying a gaming product which they intend to live for some time, so they can release supplements and peripherals for it. Such as dice that can also support their ship games. And yes you might buy an X-Wing or a Millenium Falcon but, gamers? They buy 5-6 X-Wings, 5-6 TIEs, etc etc.

The first and only question you should ask is, "but is there a gaming market for it". And simply that you like the book isn't enough; what is the current demand on FFG forms? What are people doing in campaigns? What kind of ask-the-dev questions do they ask?

NJO is at best a pipe-dream, and whilst the NJO SB was indeed odd (mine smelled strange) I played in 3 different groups over the years, nobody took Vong stats from the Saga SB or RCRB etc and ran a Vong game. Nor were the WotC forums sharing many NJO games.

 

But you have to remember that not everybody want to play a hutt trying to use the disorder to increas their powerbass

 

I was using Gorefiend's statement as a summary, not as a bellwether of what Litizens wanted for campaigns. The NJO is a good campaign setting for roleplayers. I'm saying this as someone who has roleplayed for decades. Separately, I'd like to see a decent splatbook for the setting as WOTC dropped the ball.
But I'll stand by my statement that roleplayers - which, I'll remind you are just as 'insignificant' as EU fans - have more in common with EU fans than generic Star Wars fans. Especially since the original RPG formed the core of the EU.

No, it's quite firmly in the RE. And? So was WEG for the initial years. Because that makes sense, as again, that's what RPG fans want. Only WOTC apparently thought going by whatever Lucasfilm was doing at the time was a good idea, at least initially. But they're eventually going to expand outwards - much like WEG did. Unless StoryGroup comes down on them, they're going to use the resources that they have.

That must be why they've extensively mired the setting in the LEU.
They've obviously been more interested in following the history of the Star Wars RPGs (which, again, is the LEU) than worrying about coordinating with the NEU.

 

But everyone should!

So it was certainly not underplayed by my group.

 

Agreed. FFG have [so far] been showing they've learned from WOTC's mistake of rushing out quickly put together tie-ins that ended up sucking, and have instead, like WEG, stuck to drawing from finish stories that can provide more concrete detail.

Case in point, the NJO Sourcebook sucked because WOTC didn't wait for the novel series to finish, but rushed out a crappy incomplete tie-in, which inevitably ended up a far, far inferior product, hence the lack of interest in using it for RPGs when the sourcebook contained so little information. It's why I'm glad FFG didn't rush into releasing a TCW tie-in, which they very, very easily could have, but they've so far avoided rushing out products to cash-in on ongoing series.

I hope they continue like that, because if they rush out a Rebels tie-in-- which they didn't do for TCW-- it'll be unable to be as strong as the FFG range so far, since they'll be restricted with what they can and cannot put into it due to the wall of spoilers, ongoing narrative development, etc, etc, etc. I'd much rather they wait until Rebels is finished, or has had two or three seasons, rather than following in WOTC's failed footsteps. The same goes for an Episode 7 tie-in (which, I concede, I expect is inevitable), because they'll barely be able to include any information due to how the Post-ROTJ-to-Episode-7 period will still be basically empty, and the most they could do was a NJO-quality sourcebook of "Here are some stats for Daisy Solo and her new X-Wing" and little else.

 

Sorry man, but this is WAY off-base. You're saying they're not coordinating with the NEU... when there is almost zero NEU content out yet.

You're operating on some weird, personalized non-insight about the way FFG works. I've talked to them, dude... I've interacted with them. I can't tell you who discussed this with me, but trust me on this one. I'm not pulling this out of my ass, and it shouldn't be so hard to believe anyway; it's simply the best business decision.

the most they could do was a NJO-quality sourcebook of "Here are some stats for Daisy Solo and her new X-Wing" and little else.

I swear, you guys have the weirdest, most binary approach to this. Look: A ship from the LEU appearing in an FFG book doesn't suddenly mean that they're LEU. Does a ship from the LEU appearing in Rebels mean that Rebels is now LEU? No. It just means that ship is recanonized. There's a lot for them to pull from. Historical and galactic events are the most minor part of these books, so what is possible is an extended book, including stats for everything seen in Episode VII as well as several items from the LEU from that period. A dual-phase mod for a lightsaber doesn't suddenly mean that Corran Horn exists, guys. Even more likely is the possibility that those Episode VII ships and species will be gradually statted out across their monthly books leading up to and beyond each new film, just as they're currently doing with prequel and EU species; we got Toydarians, Chiss, then suddenly with the Jedi book we got tons of prequel-era species... not because F&D is set in the prequel era, but because it makes more sense for a book about Jedi to include those, as it handles survivors from that era.

 

Check my post again to where I talked about FFG releasing LEU material and them not wanting to release NEU material. Oh, wait, I didn't mention that, because that wasn't the point I was making.

 

I remember expecting Jedi Knight 3 to be set in the NJO. Alas...

 

Dude... check my post again where that's all I referred to. It ain't. The point was that a hollow Episode VII sourcebook isn't all they're limited to, because like all their books, it'll most likely pull from various sources at once.

But much of my reply to Myron also applies to your comment about the time between VI and VII: They don't cover galactic history anyway. They cover species, ships, planets, weapons, all that stuff, but it's from an exceedingly mundane point of view. If there's mention of an event from a film, it's just postured from the obscured, objective, gleaned-from-a-news-broadcast perspective.

 

Given their tendency to wisely avoid stat'ing major characters, what precisely do you think a Rebels sourcebook/tie in would cover?

 

There's not a lot, but obviously the ships/weapons/species could easily show up along the way in various books. There could be a splatbook for Lothal; depends how the story goes... if it's a floating around Firefly-type thing there'll be more for Edge with various planets and such, or if it's about forming a rebel cell in a central location it'll be more suited to AoR. Anything of the sort would most likely be only ambiguously Rebels-centered; for instance, Lasat and Pau'an player species stats, but no named statblocks for Zeb or the Inquisitor.

 

Yeah that's more what I was getting at, PC. Given their approach - and I've never liked characters being statted, because they just don't work (see also - Drizzt?) - you could see web supplements, ship and location stats in other product-aligned releases (EotE, AoR, FaD), and it's all covered. I mean, they're pitching this game at the 30-something gamer, unlike WotC who went younger. So do they expect to get people into the game from Rebels; or that fans of SW and the game will watch Rebels and want some info on concepts there?

I suspect the latter.

 

OK, so I';m partway through the latest Order 66; they're talking about Force & Destiny, Jedi, and the morality system. Worth a listen.

 

As far as I know, there wasn't a scenario/mission in any of the Wave 4 expansions. Can anyone confirm this or at least how many missions there are? Someone labeled the mission from the VT-49 Decimator as Mission 11 which would make the mission from the YT-2400 Mission 10 on Wookieepedia.

 

What did you think about the lightsaber spec trees? I totally love the idea of different lightsaber styles allowing the PC to use different characteristics with the lightsaber skill (Willpower with Niman, Agility with Ataru, etc).

What they're doing with this book is providing the perfect experience for an all-Jedi party instead of giving too much thought to the task of balancing Jedi with other archetypes (which is almost an impossible task anyway). Oddly, though, even without that aim, they've put forth some pretty great ideas: the idea of gimping Jedi right out of the gate by giving them less career skills and only a training lightsaber, or going the knight-level play route so that Jedi can get a lightsaber, and the other PCs can get 10,000 credits worth of gear.

 

Yeah but also ensuring the 150XP must be spent after character generation, to prevent stat munchkining.

I've not read into it too much, the lightsaber trees. I will, but I just... I don't like Jedi much anymore.

 

o rly

 

OK, officially a big fan of the morality system, and figure it might be the best way to manage the light/dark side in a game (forget the "Potentium heresy" nonsense or any of that infantile, BS "I want force lightning but to be a lightsider goodie" rubbish!).

Sam from FFG's on the podcast too; he was saying by design a starting Jedi vs starting EotE or AOR character will be the same, level up more weakly by comparison but after significant investment of XP will be more powerful

As it should be...

 

I've never had Jedi junkies in my group, so oddly I think they'll actually be very well-suited for a nice all-Jedi alt-universe game after we're done with our Edge/AoR game. Gonna tweak GM Chris' alt-U idea, of "What if Mace Windu successfully killed Palpatine?" but follow the immediate aftermath: Mace Windu sentenced to death, rest of the Jedi agree to exile as a peaceful way to forestall judgement, Padme is reluctantly elected Chancellor, Anakin becomes head of the heavily-militarized splinter group, the Republic Knights. I'm thinking the first bit of the campaign will be a few years after, leading up to Mace Windu's public execution and requiring the PCs to swoop in and whisk him away to the rim before it goes down.