Lit WEG Roleplaying game will get 30 Anniversary Edition

Current licensee holders Fantasy Flight Games have announced a $60 boxset of the RPG 30th Anniversary Edition of the original West End Games sourcebook and rulebooks.




Books will be printed in high quality paper, with minor updates and will include a foreword by Pablo Hidalgo, long time collaborator in the RPG line.

More info at:
https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2017/8/16/dont-underestimate-the-force/

 

Unexpected.

But not unwelcome. Gotta dig up all those WEG PDFs I have lying around.

 

Where the EU began.

 

Wow! I've loved this game for a long time. If there's is a "home" system that I'll always return to, it's this one. I have a notebook full of alternative settings hacks for D6, including Transformers, GI Joe, Masters of the Universe, and reverse translation notes for D&D, using the first version of WotC SW guide. Ironically, the first iteration of the rules I came in contact with was the 2nd Edition, which I struggled with because it's just not very well organized, in retrospect. I really fell in love with it with the 2nd Edition revised. And recently, for the sake of completion, I started looking around for a copy of the 1st edition and found an old battered copy.

One thing that puzzles me though are the implications that 1st edition has some undefinable quality to it that still outshines it's later editions. Elegant simplicity, sure, but I just assumed that I could just use the basic stuff in the Revised edition, and not get too bogged down in options. I keep reading hints about something more, an aspect of it being more inspirational or open-ended, or painting a particular picture of approaching and adapting the SW universe for a gaming group; but I haven't read or pinned down anything so far from the rulebook...or is it more evident in the sourcebook? Anyway, this looks very exciting, as a fan of the D6 system, although I haven't made up my mind to spring for it.

 

That's just appeal-to-grognardism marketing, I think.

 

Goosnargh!

 

Ah good, the inevitable re-issuing of the best of the True EU continues right on schedule! You can't beat the classics, that's for sure. Now all we need are proper re-releases of the Dark Empire and Imperial Sourcebooks, both unaltered and "Revised and Expanded" editions incorporating newer information. There'll be more of this sort of book to follow, and I hope you've all gotten your pre-orders in, too!

 

A thought strikes me: it wouldn't really be all that difficult to make a sort of deluxe box set that includes these classics along with the newer ship and fighter models (Nebulon-Bs, VicSDs, fighters, etc) and perhaps rules for incorporating the older information into the newer systems. And also D6 stats and rules for the newer stuff. I know some people who still use that system.

 

Truth. Obviously the OT is foundational, but the first edition Star Wars Sourcebook laid out the lore that the EU (and the rebooted canon) was built on. I love these books for many, many reasons, and I can't wait to own this set (again).

 

It's a one off release of the original, 1st ed - so not 2nd or 2nd R&E eds - RPG. Nothing more. It's purely for nostalgia's sake, as at Gencon now there's a panel for the 30 years of SWRPG:



You've got Pablo, who doesn't really deserve to be there (he didn't create any of the major rules, he made some minor contributions to the adventure journals that's it); Bill Slavicsek (who did and does); Sam Stewart (lead dev at FFG); and Sterling Hershey.

 

That was one of the best RPG books ever. The rules were a bit simplistic, but the writing captured the SW atmosphere better than 99% of the EU novels. The sidebars were gold, and the gaming examples were just so much fun to read.

 

You say that as if it was a bad thing

 

The bad thing was "I roll 12d6..."

 

I don't think anyone of us is crediting Pablo Hidalgo with the creation of the system or any major updates, he is just another name whose career was launched by the game. Having said that, he was a full contributor to several other books outside the Adventure Journals.

 

I know, I was just saying next to some of those faces he's no more significant than say, Eric Trautmann. Pablo, or Rodney S "Moridin" Thompson? Hmmmm...

 

In any case it was great to see Sterling there. A mainstay of the SWRPG, and along with Michael Kogge, one of the two people who worked on the three systems so far.

 

Bill Slavicsek is for me THE man at that table. Wish I'd seen it.