Post by Gilvan Blight on Jul 18, 2006 9:33:30 GMT -5
This is a review of the original core rulebook.
Disclaimer: I only ran one session using these rules but did read through the book a couple times (both before and after the game)
Quickly: a fun game, fairly modified version of D20, some issues.
Summary: Wizards of the Coast's D20 version of the Star Wars roleplaying game. This is a core rulebook that contains everything you need to play or run a campaign in the Star Wars Universe (see below where I dispute this). It's a bit hard to sum up a RPG, it's an RPG, it's Star Wars, what else is there to say.
The Good: this book is very nice looking and well written. It includes everything you need to play in one book, which is very nice compaired to other RPGs by Wizards. The variety of races is pretty good, including most of your mainstays. The variety of classes is equally good. The rules are simple enough to learn and very familiary to anyone with any D20 knowledge. Character creation takes less than half an hour once you get used to it. The combat rules are very simple and easy to explain while still holding enought strategical merit. Support: Okay this game is technically still in print, but most of the books ans supliments aren't. What you will find though is a ton of fans that have written a ton of material really easily on the web. There is a near infinate amount of star wars material out there if you look for it.
The bad: Support: this game is still in print but many support books are not. This means they are hard to find an very expensive when found. Jedi suck at 1st level, and early levels. Okay I understand the plot and story reasons for it, but by making a 1st level Jedi unproficient with lightsaber it makes every other character shine and the Jedi seem like a pathetic looser. For this to work and not ruin the game balance you would need to make all characters unproficent with thier weapons at first level. There are some really odd gaps in the combat rules, that make things awkward to say the least. For example if you move within two meters of an oponent he can no longer use a ranged attack. Why? This basically meant in the combats I ran that players rushed the droids and then the droids couldn't shoot. I then thought of a strategy using the 2meter step rule, that turned combats into a silly looking dance, where players charged the droids, then the droids stepped back one step and shot, then the players moved up one and attacked, and the droids stepped back and shot. It was just dumb. The dumb pre-gens. What other rpg that isn't an intro game gives you like 6 pages of pre-gens and says that players can pick a template and just being play? Who was this section written for? It was just silly, and unnecessary. Starting Money: you don't get much at all. Using the random character generation (who wouldn't) you get barely enough money for a blaster pistol and maybe one medkit, that's it, nothing else. Now I admit the equip section sucked so there wasn't much to buy, but there were a few 'staples' that a 1st level couldn't buy. Dumbly those pre-gens I mentioned started with a whack of gear and credits left over, that made no sense. No way to get Vitality back. Besides Jedi healing and rest there is no way for a character to get vitality (basicaly HP) back, this meant that once the characters were hurt they stayed that way, and usually meant death by the end of the next encounter, this just seemed wrong. Lastly is the odd starship rules. I never did run a combat using them but man were they wonky. It used an abstract system that just didn't make much sense. I had to read it twice just to get a jist of what was going on.
The Ugly: everything you need to play in one book. Okay sure if you only ever want to meet a handful of alien races, or if you want to pick from an equipment list that has maybe 30 items, or if you want all capital ship battles to inlude a Star Destroyer. This is one of those core books that just screams out "We will be putting out expansions" and "you don't need to buy them, but you will almost have to since we didn't give you everything in the core book". I exepcted better by Wizards. The problem with taking a system that usually spans 3 books and condensing it down to 1 is that you loose a lot of the 'extras' Sure all the meat is there but you get no sauce, side or veggie.
Overall: if I didn't know there was a revised rulebook (see next review) I would say this is worth picking up. There are some problems with it but it's still a fun system, and there is nothing a few house rules won't fix. Definately give this book a skip now that the revised rules are out though.
Disclaimer: I only ran one session using these rules but did read through the book a couple times (both before and after the game)
Quickly: a fun game, fairly modified version of D20, some issues.
Summary: Wizards of the Coast's D20 version of the Star Wars roleplaying game. This is a core rulebook that contains everything you need to play or run a campaign in the Star Wars Universe (see below where I dispute this). It's a bit hard to sum up a RPG, it's an RPG, it's Star Wars, what else is there to say.
The Good: this book is very nice looking and well written. It includes everything you need to play in one book, which is very nice compaired to other RPGs by Wizards. The variety of races is pretty good, including most of your mainstays. The variety of classes is equally good. The rules are simple enough to learn and very familiary to anyone with any D20 knowledge. Character creation takes less than half an hour once you get used to it. The combat rules are very simple and easy to explain while still holding enought strategical merit. Support: Okay this game is technically still in print, but most of the books ans supliments aren't. What you will find though is a ton of fans that have written a ton of material really easily on the web. There is a near infinate amount of star wars material out there if you look for it.
The bad: Support: this game is still in print but many support books are not. This means they are hard to find an very expensive when found. Jedi suck at 1st level, and early levels. Okay I understand the plot and story reasons for it, but by making a 1st level Jedi unproficient with lightsaber it makes every other character shine and the Jedi seem like a pathetic looser. For this to work and not ruin the game balance you would need to make all characters unproficent with thier weapons at first level. There are some really odd gaps in the combat rules, that make things awkward to say the least. For example if you move within two meters of an oponent he can no longer use a ranged attack. Why? This basically meant in the combats I ran that players rushed the droids and then the droids couldn't shoot. I then thought of a strategy using the 2meter step rule, that turned combats into a silly looking dance, where players charged the droids, then the droids stepped back one step and shot, then the players moved up one and attacked, and the droids stepped back and shot. It was just dumb. The dumb pre-gens. What other rpg that isn't an intro game gives you like 6 pages of pre-gens and says that players can pick a template and just being play? Who was this section written for? It was just silly, and unnecessary. Starting Money: you don't get much at all. Using the random character generation (who wouldn't) you get barely enough money for a blaster pistol and maybe one medkit, that's it, nothing else. Now I admit the equip section sucked so there wasn't much to buy, but there were a few 'staples' that a 1st level couldn't buy. Dumbly those pre-gens I mentioned started with a whack of gear and credits left over, that made no sense. No way to get Vitality back. Besides Jedi healing and rest there is no way for a character to get vitality (basicaly HP) back, this meant that once the characters were hurt they stayed that way, and usually meant death by the end of the next encounter, this just seemed wrong. Lastly is the odd starship rules. I never did run a combat using them but man were they wonky. It used an abstract system that just didn't make much sense. I had to read it twice just to get a jist of what was going on.
The Ugly: everything you need to play in one book. Okay sure if you only ever want to meet a handful of alien races, or if you want to pick from an equipment list that has maybe 30 items, or if you want all capital ship battles to inlude a Star Destroyer. This is one of those core books that just screams out "We will be putting out expansions" and "you don't need to buy them, but you will almost have to since we didn't give you everything in the core book". I exepcted better by Wizards. The problem with taking a system that usually spans 3 books and condensing it down to 1 is that you loose a lot of the 'extras' Sure all the meat is there but you get no sauce, side or veggie.
Overall: if I didn't know there was a revised rulebook (see next review) I would say this is worth picking up. There are some problems with it but it's still a fun system, and there is nothing a few house rules won't fix. Definately give this book a skip now that the revised rules are out though.