Lit Fantasy Flight Games and the Star Wars TCG

I suspect The One Ring license business has a lot more to do with Amazon and the upcoming streaming series than anything else (I'm betting Amazon made an "offer you can't refuse" for a master merchandising license, and since a while back Christopher Tolkien stepped down so the grandkids...who are more openly money-hungry as opposed to "protective of the property"...could take over, well....).

And from what I've heard about the new edition of Shadowrun I wouldn't be so sure of that second one keeping on so well. FFG has always seemed leaps and bounds more stable and professional than Catalyst, and certainly has sold a lot more product in the last several years.

All that said, I don't think "the industry is dying." It's pretty much always been a niche market with razor-thin margins and a lot of companies operating on a wing and a prayer, just one or two bad months away from disaster/bankruptcy. Dungeons and Dragons may be the biggest it's ever been, but everything else is a very distant second in terms of sales and mainstream awareness. Though D&D has a huge advantage in marketing, being backed by a multibillion dollar corporation (Hasbro).

But regardless of what happens with FFG's RPGs or anyone else, there'll always be groups of crazy nerds (said with affection) with enough gumption and resources to create RPGs/RPG companies, and they'll continue to come and go for years, if not decades to come. Especially with the rise of crowdfunding platforms and the like, though those might not be so viable for licensed properties.

 

Well, in happier FFG related news, Wave VII of X-wing was announced.

Short version:
Separatist: HMP Droid Gunship
Republic: LAAT/i Gunship
First Order: Xi-class Light Shuttle

 

The One Ring situation is a little more complicated. The license holder did not have its license pulled by Middle-Earth Enterprises, so the Amazon show had nothing to do with it. Cubicle 7, the publisher of the RPG , isn't the license holder, a company called Sophisticated Games is. The two companies had a falling out in November, despite C7 already having preorders for the 2nd edition.
FFG doesn't appear to be losing their license either, they are just getting out of making any RPGs. Star Wars is probably going to be dead as an RPG setting for years to come.

 

I doubt that very much. Lucasfilm on its own might have been content to leave the RPG aspect of Star Wars gaming lying dormant... but Disney is not one to leave money sitting on the table. If they see an opportunity to draw that money off the table and into their coffers, they'll restructure their licensing agreement with FFG as needed to do so. We won't have to wait too long for a brand new Star Wars RPG to emerge from all this - I originally predicted 2021 but if a new film trilogy does emerge in 2022 I could totally see it being coordinated with the marketing push for that.

 

I believe the rumormongering is that FFG is going to continue the RPGS, just on a strictly freelance basis.

 

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2020/1/14/the-saga-concludes/

Star Wars Destiny is the first product that receives the axe.

 

I presume that we're not going to get an Era Sourcebook for the ST, are we? Real shame, as I greatly enjoyed a lot of FF RPG material, both in Star Wars and Genesys

 

"Always in motion the future is."

(For what it's worth, some sequel trilogy elements were in the other splat books and there was a TFA starter set. Between that, re-skinned material from the splat books, fan-made stuff online, and whatever a GM wants to try cooking up, you could run a sequel campaign.)

 

Looks like FFG has confirmed they're discontinuing their RPGs "in the long term" - what that means is still a bit unclear, but I'm guessing there are no more new products coming for the Star Wars. And since they are still the license holders for SW tabletop games, I guess that means that there isn't going to be anything coming from elsewhere either

 

I"LL SAY!!!

 

Crap.

 

I’m seeing some Reddit threads and Tweets that the European company Edge will carry over the RPG license, republishing and creating new books but I can’t find any reliable source.

 

Edge Studio itself has confirmed it. Apparently they share staff with Fantasy Flight.

 

Egde and Fantasyflight both operated under the Asmodee umbrella, so it will be a hopefully smooth transition. Or are they doing an all new rule system? Seems #1s are trendy given IDW and Marvel restart their numbering. New rulebooks sell better than the x-th sourcebook sadly.

btw... Hapes Consortium mentioned in the latest FFG book, I am happy to have it back, even if whacky rpg canon only! Tied to Aphra and her ship no less!

 

"Attended the GAMA Asmodee Keynote an hour ago. The FFG branded role playing games will be transitioning to a new European company over the course of this year. The company is called Edge Entertainment. Old books will still be printed, and new ones will be made. New books will still work with existing ones, so it's not a new edition."

 

Still hoping to get TIE Avenger, Hunter, A-9 Vigilance and maybe R-41 from this line. After that, who knows?

 

Are there still plans for Clone Wars content for Armada? And if so, do we have any kind of release window on it?

 

Allegedly core set Q4 2020 and the next wave Q1 2021. Let’s see how Coronavirus affects that. Artwork has circulated featuring an Acclamator and CR-70 frigates.

 

FFG stops all releases until end of April.

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2020/3/30/covid-19-and-product-releases/

 

I'm glad that they are moving all the RPG licenses into a new studio division....

... but I have to wonder why they had to lay off their RPG staff to do so.

In any case, I wish them the best of luck - I'm not planning to return to the Star Wars RPG, but I know other fans will be excited.

 

So we know the game isn't dead, just on hiatus. Any indications as of yet what will happen when the hiatus is over? Playable ST era would be my first guess, but I've got no evidence of this bar that the PT era was introduced shortly before all this mess began.

 

Darth Bandon needs some love and recanonisation