The Grand Opening

It's taken me a little while to write this post, but with good reason. I acquired my Edge of the Empire core rulebook back on Tuesday the 2nd, as part of a release party hosted at the Fantasy Flight Games Event Center. Since then I've had a chance to give it a good long look, especially since I've been using it to update character stats for previous blog articles. With that in mind, here are some of my thoughts.

1. First of all, this thing is pretty. It weighs in at almost 450 full-color pages and has a good heft to it. The art is consistently solid, with very little that stands out as weird or inconsistent.

2. It's nice to be back to a non-level-based system. Although I enjoyed playing the D20-based incarnations of the Star Wars RPG from Wizards of the Coast, I never felt that having a class and level really matched with the setting.

3. This book is quite expanded from what was in the beta version. The big additions seem to be chapters about the setting, including chapters regarding "The Galaxy" and "Law and Society," but other areas have additions, too.

4. I like the emphasis on the Rebellion era. This reminds me of old D6-based games using the West End Games system years ago, and I'm looking forward to some gritty adventures on the fringes of galactic society.

5. In the same way, I like that there isn't a whole lot of information about the Force. There's enough to create some NPC's, but not too much beyond that. Here again, it's back to basics; the Jedi are rare, and people can play for a while without them.

6. Character generation seems to go pretty smoothly. As I've been updating the NPCs that I created with the beginner game rules, it's becoming pretty intuitive for me.

7. I like the little sidebars that help create a feel for the setting. These are the kinds of things that make an RPG book feel like Star Wars, instead of like a technical manual.

8. The adventure in the back, "Trouble Brewing," is a fun one. It's not too mercenary in style or plot, and provides a chance to set up some exciting situations and interesting characters.

On a similar note, I like the GM screen, too. It is well crafted from thick material, and is packed with usual charts and tables. The adventure that comes with it, "Debts to Pay," is another good one.

-Nate