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Star Wars Roleplaying Game — Saga Edition
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a ... company called Wizards of the Coast abandoned Star Wars fans who enjoyed their tabletop roleplaying game to an awful fate: product death. The Star Wars d20 product line, which saw print from 2000 to late 2004, attempted to capture the epic adventure that is the Star Wars setting within a simple quantifiable ruleset. Unfortunately, the d20 rules (circa 2000) were far too clumsy to make the RPG 'feel' like Star Wars. Even a 2002 Revised Core Rules book did little to create an intuitive play experience. Now, in time for the setting's 30th anniversary, Wizards has released a brand new edition of the rules, marking a relaunch of the product line. Dubbed the 'Saga Edition', it has completely revamped the d20 rules to meet with demands for Star Warsyness. Read on for a review of the changes, which may finally bring the fun to the galaxy far, far away.
Star Wars Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook, Saga Edition
author
Christopher Perkins, Owen K.C. Stephens, Rodney Thompson
pages
286
publisher
Wizards of the Coast
rating
9/10
reviewer
Zonk
ISBN
0786943564
summary
The newest edition of the Star Wars tabletop roleplaying game.
The first notable thing about the Saga edition of Star Wars d20? It is small. Instead of the normal 9 x 11 footprint of almost every other gaming book, Saga Edition looks more like a coffee table book, measuring a petite 9 x 9 inches. It's over 100 pages thinner than 2002's Revised Core Rules book, too. A few pages in, and it's obvious that the loss in size and thickness has not come at the price of production quality. The entire tome is full color glossy paper throughout. While there is quite a bit of art reused from previous products, there are also a number of notable original works peppering the pages. What's not there, to my relief, are the needlessly huge quotes from the movies. There are quotes, to be sure, but they're used sparingly. It is laid out to provide the maximum amount of information in the minimum space; a significant improvement over previous main books.The Revised Core Rules seemed to have a half-page-sized quote every three pages, turning most of its 400ish pages into wasted white space. Saga Edition is a tight, well crafted book.
That attention to detail extends to the rules as well, which may be the most refined version of the d20 mechanic yet released in an official Wizards product. Gone are the cumbersome concepts of Armor Class, Defense, Vitality points, and Saving Throws used by other products. The game takes a simple approach: every Star Wars character is a hero. As such, it's possible for every character to take part in every scene, to one degree or another. Character Level, then, becomes the tie that binds every other mechanic. Almost every d20 roll you'll be making is modified by your character's level; neurotically min/maxing every aspect of your character is no longer a requirement.
The difference, of course, is that your choice of class determines your character's specialties. Everyone can participate in the scene where the party flees from the Imperial Star Destroyer in a cargo ship. The star of the show, though, is the Scoundrel at the helm. Classes have been revamped to allow for several 'builds'. Seemingly taking a cue from Blizzard videogame titles, every class has a trio of talent trees. Talents accumulate from these trees as characters gain levels, allowing for my Scoundrel to be completely different from your Scoundrel. Further customization is encouraged by allowing free multi-classing. Prestige classes further this idea of customization by allowing access to novel talent trees, as well as mixing and matching talent trees from multiple base classes. The Officer, for example, allows access to trees from the Soldier and Noble classes.
The best part is, as far as I can tell, none of these classes are completely useless. The Noble, which had a poorly-understood role in previous editions, has become something of a social hacker/bard character. Smooth talking abilities and talents that improve the capabilities of her fellow characters combine into a highly effective support class. The designers have as much as admitted that these changes were prompted by the Jedi. Instead of tuning everything so that the Jedi beat everything else, the Jedi is the baseline all other classes were tuned to. Every character made under Saga Edition rules is going to be some kinda badass.
Badassery in combat is the focus of many class abilities, of course, and it's going to be easier than ever to convey that to players. Combat is dirt simple. There are very few ways to modify in-combat die rolls. The endless hunting for a +1 to hit here or a +2 to hit there will not longer be required. Even better, every character only gets a single attack per combat round, regardless of their level. High level D&D games are marked by endless dice rolling, as characters make a ludicrous number of attacks in a frighteningly short amount of time. And if you really want to attack more than once a round in Saga Edition, you can; you just take penalties for it, penalties more easily compensated for at higher levels.
An additional decrease in the fiddly-factor comes from skills. Instead of requiring you to track skill points, which must be slotted into a dizzying array of strangely over-specific disciplines, skills in Saga Edition are a binary state. Either you're trained or untrained in a skill. Thus, a skill roll looks like this: d20 + half your character's level + relevant ability score (strength for climbing, etc.) + 5 if you are trained. That's it. This mechanic, then, allows even the Princess Leia to fly the Falcon for a short while, or a merciless bounty hunter to sweet talk a taciturn guard; or, at least, it allows for the possibility of such a thing happening. There are far fewer skills as well, with specific uses outlined in the book. The skills Spot, Listen, and Search have all been combined into Perception, for example. This one skill also allows a character to ascertain an object's wealth (Appraise) and see through duplicity from another character (Sense Motive). Thus, with fewer skills to keep track of, players and GMs are encouraged to make heavier use of the few that still remain. Fun without the fuss is the order of the day.
The rules section that benefits most from these rule revamps is the vehicle combat section. Formerly an arcane labyrinth of edge cases and complex maneuvers, simple skill checks and combat tests now allow dogfights and space-based combat to drop neatly into the middle of a Saga Edition campaign. For example, ships are now functionally creatures; characters inside the ships alter die modifiers, and can act independently, but there is no longer a need to keep elaborate track of ship statistics as opposed to crew statistics. The two are now one and the same.
Though I've yet to have the chance to roll dice in a Saga Edition campaign, it's hard not to be impressed by the rule changes this book represents. Essentially the cutting edge of tabletop RPG rules, Saga Edition has the benefit of more than seven years of modern roleplaying design and dozens of gaming books to prove out ideas. The book was helmed by Chris Perkins, a Dungeons and Dragons R&D veteran, and it really shows. It's been a long time since I read through an RPG manual with such enthusiasm; the clarity and precision with which the designers have conveyed their ideas does nothing less than inspire excitement. Based on a tried and true mechanic, eschewing complexity for approachability, and integrating tightly with the miniatures game for even more simplicity, this may be the best product WotC has put out in years. While I'm not eager for a D&D 4th Edition, more products like this make such a concept seem much less repugnant. Highly recommended for tabletop playing Star Wars fans, and anyone interested in the future of d20 game design.
You can purchase Star Wars Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook, Saga Edition from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
That attention to detail extends to the rules as well, which may be the most refined version of the d20 mechanic yet released in an official Wizards product. Gone are the cumbersome concepts of Armor Class, Defense, Vitality points, and Saving Throws used by other products. The game takes a simple approach: every Star Wars character is a hero. As such, it's possible for every character to take part in every scene, to one degree or another. Character Level, then, becomes the tie that binds every other mechanic. Almost every d20 roll you'll be making is modified by your character's level; neurotically min/maxing every aspect of your character is no longer a requirement.
The difference, of course, is that your choice of class determines your character's specialties. Everyone can participate in the scene where the party flees from the Imperial Star Destroyer in a cargo ship. The star of the show, though, is the Scoundrel at the helm. Classes have been revamped to allow for several 'builds'. Seemingly taking a cue from Blizzard videogame titles, every class has a trio of talent trees. Talents accumulate from these trees as characters gain levels, allowing for my Scoundrel to be completely different from your Scoundrel. Further customization is encouraged by allowing free multi-classing. Prestige classes further this idea of customization by allowing access to novel talent trees, as well as mixing and matching talent trees from multiple base classes. The Officer, for example, allows access to trees from the Soldier and Noble classes.
The best part is, as far as I can tell, none of these classes are completely useless. The Noble, which had a poorly-understood role in previous editions, has become something of a social hacker/bard character. Smooth talking abilities and talents that improve the capabilities of her fellow characters combine into a highly effective support class. The designers have as much as admitted that these changes were prompted by the Jedi. Instead of tuning everything so that the Jedi beat everything else, the Jedi is the baseline all other classes were tuned to. Every character made under Saga Edition rules is going to be some kinda badass.
Badassery in combat is the focus of many class abilities, of course, and it's going to be easier than ever to convey that to players. Combat is dirt simple. There are very few ways to modify in-combat die rolls. The endless hunting for a +1 to hit here or a +2 to hit there will not longer be required. Even better, every character only gets a single attack per combat round, regardless of their level. High level D&D games are marked by endless dice rolling, as characters make a ludicrous number of attacks in a frighteningly short amount of time. And if you really want to attack more than once a round in Saga Edition, you can; you just take penalties for it, penalties more easily compensated for at higher levels.
An additional decrease in the fiddly-factor comes from skills. Instead of requiring you to track skill points, which must be slotted into a dizzying array of strangely over-specific disciplines, skills in Saga Edition are a binary state. Either you're trained or untrained in a skill. Thus, a skill roll looks like this: d20 + half your character's level + relevant ability score (strength for climbing, etc.) + 5 if you are trained. That's it. This mechanic, then, allows even the Princess Leia to fly the Falcon for a short while, or a merciless bounty hunter to sweet talk a taciturn guard; or, at least, it allows for the possibility of such a thing happening. There are far fewer skills as well, with specific uses outlined in the book. The skills Spot, Listen, and Search have all been combined into Perception, for example. This one skill also allows a character to ascertain an object's wealth (Appraise) and see through duplicity from another character (Sense Motive). Thus, with fewer skills to keep track of, players and GMs are encouraged to make heavier use of the few that still remain. Fun without the fuss is the order of the day.
The rules section that benefits most from these rule revamps is the vehicle combat section. Formerly an arcane labyrinth of edge cases and complex maneuvers, simple skill checks and combat tests now allow dogfights and space-based combat to drop neatly into the middle of a Saga Edition campaign. For example, ships are now functionally creatures; characters inside the ships alter die modifiers, and can act independently, but there is no longer a need to keep elaborate track of ship statistics as opposed to crew statistics. The two are now one and the same.
Though I've yet to have the chance to roll dice in a Saga Edition campaign, it's hard not to be impressed by the rule changes this book represents. Essentially the cutting edge of tabletop RPG rules, Saga Edition has the benefit of more than seven years of modern roleplaying design and dozens of gaming books to prove out ideas. The book was helmed by Chris Perkins, a Dungeons and Dragons R&D veteran, and it really shows. It's been a long time since I read through an RPG manual with such enthusiasm; the clarity and precision with which the designers have conveyed their ideas does nothing less than inspire excitement. Based on a tried and true mechanic, eschewing complexity for approachability, and integrating tightly with the miniatures game for even more simplicity, this may be the best product WotC has put out in years. While I'm not eager for a D&D 4th Edition, more products like this make such a concept seem much less repugnant. Highly recommended for tabletop playing Star Wars fans, and anyone interested in the future of d20 game design.
You can purchase Star Wars Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook, Saga Edition from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
I should hope not. The massive and unwieldy size of the 9x11 rule books stems from the inexpensive printing of such sizes. By printing on such large paper (usually in mono-color black and white) they can reduce the cost of both printing and binding. Just run the paper through the printer, staple, and fold.
Printing in smaller sizes is bound to be a sign of quality rather than the lack thereof. Especially if grayscale, color, or (*gasp*) glossy paper are used.
Now if someone could just rewrite the Starfire rules in a format that makes sense to those new to the game... *grumble* *grumble* (Yes, I spent some God-aweful amount of time trying to decode rules that were listed completely out of order, spread across two volume for no real reason other than to confuse you.)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Instead of the normal 9 x 11 footprint of almost every other gaming book, Saga Edition looks more like a coffee table book, measuring a petite 9 x 9 inches.
Aren't "coffee table books" the really big ones? How is more petite more like a ctb?
The other day posters were complaining about the Sopranos not being 'news for nerds.'
Today they whine about this - Hey!
*slap*
D&D - Star Wars - this is what this site was built for!
Enjoy!
Capisce?
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
Nothing signals success for a Star Wars RPG like a relaunch!
Proud member of the American Non Sequitur Society. We might not make much sense, but boy do we love pizza!
"Does a +10 charisma for small children give you an extra six trillion credits?"
:-)
Not sure for others, but my +10 charisma for small children got me 10 years AND I have to register as a sex offender where ever I go.
Last I remember, all /. book reviews had links to Barnes & Noble or some other such big-box book store. There's always a top level post in the comments that goes something like this "Why is there always a B&N link to the book? You can find it for $X.XX cheaper at Amazon [link to Amazon page]"
So, it's nice to see the Amazon link right in the article. Though, it's up to the critic to make it good or bad, 'reviews' are always a form of advertisement. It's usually common practice to give away samples as 'media kits' to get reviews in newspapers and magazines.
Cheers,
Fozzy
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
neurotically min/maxing every aspect of your character is no longer a requirement.
It was a requirement before? The amount of fun you could have in a game was determined by how high a certain attribute was, as opposed to the interaction you had between the players and the GM? I guess if you measure success by "I can do more damage in less time than you, therefore my character is cooler and I win the game" it's a requirement...
The endless hunting for a +1 to hit here or a +2 to hit there will not longer be required.
See above. It doesn't matter if you can get a +1 for a flank attack or +2 because you're within 10' of the target. The dice really, honestly, seriously don't matter that much. Why undergo "endless hunting" to get a bonus to a roll? Just roll the die, see what happens, and take it from there. The GM's not out to get you, and if he is, he's a bad GM.
Thus, a skill roll looks like this: d20 + half your character's level + relevant ability score (strength for climbing, etc.) + 5 if you are trained. That's it.
"That's it," spoken like it's really simple. Simple in comparison to cross-referencing the results of four die rolls on six tables, sure, but that's still needlessly complex.
This is one thing that has always bemused me- how some people are so focused on the mechanics and gaming the system that they miss the fact that they're playing a game with friends. You're telling a story together, you're solving puzzles together, you're (get this) role-playing together. Yes, of course, there's no one way to play a RPG, who am I to tell people how to have fun in a game, but it seems all too often people misspell the first word in the abbreviation: it's role, not roll. Kudos to WOTC for making this "fun without fuss," at least.
Personally I think the d6 system that West End Games had for the original Star Wars RPG was close to perfect. It was simple, fun, and didn't get in the way of storytelling. Here's an article on the system: Star Wars role-playing game (WEG)
It was easy as a Game Master to assign difficulty numbers to actions and have the characters roll against them. The die rolling was fun (everyone loves lots of dice) and the wild die added an element of excitement to the roll. I once had a player roll the wild die 4 times! Everyone around the table was going crazy, especially since that roll saved their butts.
Advancement was easy and made sense, the skills system worked well, and the source material was amazing. The source material was so good that Lucasfilm considered it an authoritative source for Timothy Zahn when he was writing Thrawn Trilogy.
I have tried playing the Star Wars d20 system and I have come to the conclusion that there is no point in playing anything but the West End Games d6 version. They got it right the first time and there is really no reason to switch to the flavor of the week.
Sapere aude!
No, not Gurps. It was West End Games that had the Star Wars RPG license for a long time. It was a fun game. I'd be interested to know how this stacks up against it.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Could these changes foreshadow the 4th edition of D&D?
No, you can't slay George Lucas, but you CAN roll for initiative to see who really shoots first!
Monstar L
If you can't play Star Wars without a chart to tell you if a heavy blaster kills you more than a light rifle, you've missed the entire point of roleplaying games.
The Story.
Don't get me wrong. I understand some people need structure in their gaming experiences, and sometimes GMs need structure to control the players. But you don't need to spend 30-50 bucks on a main book and a hundred dollars on More Books just to play Star Wars. When you were a kid, you probably did it with sticks and no dice at all.
Imagine watching d20 Star Wars on the big screen. Before Luke and Leia go for that famous swing, there'd be 10 minutes of measuring the distance of the swing, checking the working load on the cable, verifying the sturdiness of the pipes the grapple attached too, checking Luke's strength vs Leia's weight, and rolling constantly for the Stormtroopers trying to open the door.
At that point, I've stopped eating popcorn.
Write your own system. Throw out the charts. Tell stories. It's more fun, more memorable, and a heck of a lot cheaper.
If you like spending money, then take that 150 bucks and buy 10 indie games you've never heard of, and spend some time reading their systems and learning how to take a few rules a long way. Check out octaNe or Dust Devils or Shambles or any of a hundred others.
Money, and time, well spent.
http://downwithpants.org Overthrow the tyranny of your pants
The one thing the WEG version was missing was limits on using Jedi Powers. The ideal Star Wars, to me, combines the west end games version with Shadowrun. Fatigue for using special powers [...]
Since when do Jedi get tired from using the Force? That never happens in the movies, even when it looks like they're straining themselves doing something hard. The limits on Jedi powers seem to be more that of mental stumbling blocks than a reserve of stamina. Frankly, the idea of Jedi having limits on how often they can use their powers is quite contrary to the style and feel of Star Wars where Luke casually tosses mind-control around, and Qui-Gon throws droids around like he's playing a game of kick-the-can.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").