[RPG]: Star Wars Roleplaying Game Saga Edition Core Rulebook, reviewed by James Gillen (4/3)

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/13/13949.phtml

James Gillen's Summary:

<b>NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooo</b>

Go to the full review for more information.

[mxyzplk]

Really? The tag line is just "NOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooo"? For something you gave a 3/4?

Anyway, though I'm on record as thinking the new 4e D&D is craptastic, I don't think it's due to any of the changes found in SW:Saga, which I quite like. (In fact, they kept citing SW:Saga and Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords as the primary 4e inspirations, and I like both of them; I was disappointed to see the mess that they put on top of the final product).

I like the streamlining - they don't really remove many options, they just do it with fewer classes. Admittedly classes will always be somewhat constraining, but I think they added enough options to the remaining classes that you could accomplish the same character concepts as in SW:d20 easily, and in fact more easily because the classes have more latitude. It's weird to me to complain about classes being constraining and then also complain that the classes have been merged into broader, less completely stovepiped classes.

Our group has switched over from SW:d20 to SW:Saga and everyone's enjoying it...

[sinestro]

Yoda lost because he was a little fatigued and knew that the original trilogy had to made in order to line Luca$' pockets. I'm personally glad they made Yoda the anti-christ. He is also the anti-christ in Soul Calibur IV.

[Evan Waters]

Originally Posted by sinestro

Yoda lost because he was a little fatigued and knew that the original trilogy had to made in order to line Luca$' pockets.

I'm personally glad they made Yoda the anti-christ. He is also the anti-christ in Soul Calibur IV.

Well, I can see how WHAT?

[Jack Holcomb]

You lost me here:

Not to be confused with the SAGA rules systems that TSR came up with for Dragonlance and Marvel Superheroes, which generally sucked.


Did you intend to turn off that part of your audience (like me) that has a generally good opinion of the Dragonlance/Marvel SAGA system? Why don't you want that group of gamers to take your review seriously? I mean, you could have just ended the sentence before the relative clause ("which...") and it would have made sense, AND I would have bothered reading the rest of your review. Why does your opinion of THAT game matter in your evaluation of THIS one?

For what it's worth.

Jack

[DDogwood]

Originally Posted by Jack Holcomb

You lost me here:

Not to be confused with the SAGA rules systems that TSR came up with for Dragonlance and Marvel Superheroes, which generally sucked.


Did you intend to turn off that part of your audience (like me) that has a generally good opinion of the Dragonlance/Marvel SAGA system? Why don't you want that group of gamers to take your review seriously? I mean, you could have just ended the sentence before the relative clause ("which...") and it would have made sense, AND I would have bothered reading the rest of your review. Why does your opinion of THAT game matter in your evaluation of THIS one?

QFT. This sentence made me decide that the reviewer was coming from such a totally different perspective on RPGs that the rest of the review wasn't worth reading.

[Sensei]

>> Did you intend to turn off that part of your audience (like me) that has a generally good opinion of the Dragonlance/Marvel SAGA system?
>> "This sentence made me decide that the reviewer was coming from such a totally different perspective on RPGs that the rest of the review wasn't worth reading."

Mebbe he just intended his audience to understand that human beings have absolutely different tastes, and that mentioning his opinion of the SAGA mechanics in no way had the slightest bearing on his review of this Star Wars product? Can we lighten up a bit? What do you care what he thinks of the Marvel Superheroes Saga rules? It affects you not one whit.

[James Gillen]

Apparently it does. All I can say is that when I found out that the SAGA card play allowed Thing to do more damage to the Hulk with a machinegun weapon card, I was un-sold.

jg

[Mozart]

Saga Edition goes back to the D&D basic hit-point standard, reversing one of the few truly good ideas in the D20 SW, where characters had a generally fixed set of wound points and then added "vitality" points based on hit dice, the former reflecting actual capacity for physical punishment and the latter one's ability to endure combat and other threats due to experience, with wound points generally being taken off only when vitality was exhausted or a critical hit was scored.

That comment (and a few other inaccuracies in the review) made me wonder how much time the reviewer had spent actually playing either the old d20 version or SWSE.

The wounds/vitality split is a classic example of something that looks good on paper and plays like shit, since while it seems to clarify the distinction between near misses and actual hits, it essentially renders even high level characters vulnerable to a single critical hit. And in a game where the characters will face multiple enemies over the course of their career the odd critical hit is inevitable.

In contrast, while the reversion to hit points in SWSE looks like a step back, it's actually a move informed by a lot of practical feedback on problems with the wound/vitality split in the older game.

In play the new system is noticably better.

Of course, if the reviewer likes a high risk of random character death in his space opera RPG then he would have a legitimate complaint, but that seems like a strange thing to prefer in a Star Wars RPG and makes me wonder how many preferences the review and I actually have in common.

[Simple Man]

Originally Posted by Jack Holcomb

You lost me here:

Not to be confused with the SAGA rules systems that TSR came up with for Dragonlance and Marvel Superheroes, which generally sucked.

Saved me from typing. Thanks.