The definitive Star Wars Roleplaying Game. Showcases d20's Strengths and resolves many of d20's faults. Fun, atmospheric and ultimately faithful to the licence.
Post originally by Dan Davenport at 2004-06-14 06:35:16
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I'm glad you like my review structure, Conan. Thanks for the complement in that regard.
And thank you as well for a nicely thorough review. I've played SW d20 but haven't read it; however, my experience as a player pretty much mirrors the points you bring up. I really do like the Vitality mechanic, although I'm dubious about Vitality powering Force abilities.
The only thing I would add is that I found creating a Jedi to be somewhat confusing. The combination of governing attributes, skills, and abilities made getting to the powers I wanted a chore.
Post originally by Rob McConnell at 2004-06-14 09:15:45
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I love the look of the game, but the lack of published adventures puts off (I don't have to create my own). Anyone know of any adventures to start PCs from 1st level (that don't involve Episode I) :-)
Post originally by SJE at 2004-06-14 09:22:56
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As a long time LF fan, I was interested to see see the perceptions of a newcomer to the system.
One thing you mentioned was experience. Now in regular SW d20, then the GM can advance the players as frequently as he wants (leveling every 3-5 sessions is a good idea).
However, the Living Force campaign took a different approach. What the wanted was a lot of mid level characters. They do this by artifically capping xp at 1000xp per module. Now at low levels this is great- you can potentially get to 2nd Ed after an 4 hour module (as I did in my first game). So at low levels (1-3) advancement is very fast.
But at the higher levels, it becomes positively static, since 9th level PC's need to complete over 3 whole trilogies of adventures to level- easily looking at 40+ hours of playing to level up.
The reason for this policy, is so the level difference between PC's doesnt get too extreme when you play with others at conventions. Even so, after 3 years, the long time players are getting to 10th level, so there is talk of starting new characters at 3rd level and bumping up anyone below 3.
This might explain why you found d20 xp to be so static- its not in the core rules, but the result of the LF campaign policies.
Overall I find the d20 SW system to be workmanlike but not inspired. There are still too many limitations, Force powers were needlessly changed in Revised (Force Grip, Force Push etc) and in retrospect was a harbinger of the non-change that was 3.5 for D&D. I love LF, but wish it used a more flexible and open-ended system like WEGS.
Post originally by Cigarman at 2004-06-14 10:09:34
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This is where Wizards lost me as a customer, when they released a REVISED edition less than 2 years after the original D20 SWRPG system was released.
I spent a lot of $ on the SWRPG system when it initally came out. I bought every supplement and accessory. All that investment in product was a TOTAL WASTE when WOTC revised the entire system, making everythng I previously bought obsolete and incompatible with the revised version.
WOTC could have printed or posted an update pack for us 1st edition buyers who showed our faith and support for a new line, but no. WOTC decided to spit on us instead, trying to force us to spend another $35 for the up-to-date rules and to re-buy updated vesions of all the books we already had. This is when my whole collection of D20 SWRPG hit the far back sheves of my collection, never to see the light of day again. Haven't bought another WOTC product since.
Post originally by Doctor Jest at 2004-06-14 10:46:22
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Well, that's not being exactly fair. The revised rulebook was a necessary evil. The revisions were needed badly.
However, you're completely incorrect on two counts. The first being your statement that there isn't an update pack. There is. Get it here: http://www.swrpgnetwork.com/files/faq/
Second, that your old sourcebooks are now not useful and you're required to repurchase new editions of the same sourcebooks. This is false on two counts:
1.) There are no revised sourcebooks available. Any sourcebooks for the revised rulebook are entirely new. No updated versions have been released. Thus there is no expectation that you should repurchase new editions, since none exist.
2.) That the sourcebooks are now useless and incompatable with the new edition. They aren't. I regularly use my original edition rulebooks with the revised edition rules without much trouble at all. Once in a while an NPC or item's stat will need a tweak, but most of that has already been done for you, in available update documents posted online. This is probably the reason the sourcebooks haven't been reissued: they're still perfectly functional enough that a revised edition isn't as high a priority as new material.
Lets be fair about this: sure, maybe Wizards should have waited to release the SW RPG when they had it RIGHT... but then again, hindsight always is 20/20 you know. Plus many of the fixes are going to be discovered when thousands of gamers, instead of dozens of playtesters, really start bangingg on the system to see where it will break. Yeah it sucks to (maybe) have to buy a new rulebook to use (some parts) of the newer sourcebooks, but it's not like they're raking you over the coals to repurchase an entire line.
Post originally by Doctor Jest at 2004-06-14 10:48:54
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There are ALOT of fairly decent adventures (somewhere in the neighborhood of 15-20 I think) in the archives on the official website (http://www.wizards.com/starwars). While I haven't used any of them as written, I have found that most of them offered some good jumping off points for creating my own. Definitely worth the price (free) :-)
Post originally by PoA at 2004-06-14 10:53:26
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Though it does smell like D&D 3.0/3.5 shenanigans, I think this was more on LucasBooks than anything, from what I've heard.
Lucas didn't give them enough time. There were other concerns in the Lucas camp outside of generating a good game (Episode I). Wizards had an unrealistic time frame with which to generate the product... so they generated a buggy, poorly tested set of rules.
The revised rules were almost a no-brainer, released with Ep.II. Almost everything is better in the RCR.
Of course, one must wonder whether or not Wizards will release a re-revised version with Ep.III, or if Ep.III will just generate a new setting book.
Post originally by Doctor Jest at 2004-06-14 11:00:02
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Yes, my experiences with SW d20 revised is much the same as this review as well.
The reason for vitality powering force skills is, I believe, as a balancing factor so that force users treat using the force as something to be done when the need calls for it, not to be used casually or excessively. It's there to enforce the idea that jedi are to treat the force with reverence, not like it's an endless font of whoopass. :-)
Now, using a game mechanic to enforce a roleplaying concept is never a good idea in my book, but the other rationale I can see for using vitality to power force is in the nature of vitality itself. Vitality is, we're told, the ability of a PC to avoid damage by moving out of the way at the last moment. I imagine the reason this depletes vitality points is because of fatigue. I choose to see vitality as, essentially, fatigue. Force users, when calling on the force, must make efforts of will to do so, efforts which may indeed tax them physically (Luke was positively out of breath when he was trying to levitate the X-Wing at Dagobah). So, using the Force excessively is tiring. Of course, what "excessively" means is subjective to the vitality points (and thus level of power) of the Force User in question.
Post originally by OusterX at 2004-06-14 11:25:33
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Yes. My only issue with vitality, esp. re. Jedi, is a result of the new Clone Wars cartoon. How do I get use vitality to power the Force to recreate the eps where Mace destroys and entire droid army with pretty much his fists?
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