Star Wars Saga. 91$ new on amazon 55 used.

- Everything needed to play any possibly conceivable setting.

- Cheaper.

- Simpler system that can be modified much easier if needed.

Fantasy Flight's system 180$ for all three core books. 60$ for one.

- With only one rule book you have nowhere near the content of saga.

- With 3 you still can't make and play all of the characters and archetypes as you can with saga.

- Complicated system that will only get bogged down and miss the point of Star Wars.

Now can someone tell me why the hell I would ever want to use FFG's system? It's not competitive from a market stand point. All of the stuff in the books? I know. I can go to wookieepedia and look up what I need to know for settings. Read novels to get me in the mood for hosting games of x genre. This is stuff the GM can do if he and the group want it. So why is it so necessary to split the rules up into 3 games? By the time the third book comes out errata/rules creep will be in full effect and converting from system to system will be fairly tedious affair. I need someone to shed some light on this. I love their Warhemmer 40k line, warts and all. But it offers things no one else does. Unfortunately this time they have a competitor of sorts, the previous edition. So far from what has initially been announced it's offering more for cheaper price. So I do have to ask again, why? I had so much faith in you FFG, and you take this route. The cheapest and laziest route possible to making a Star Wars rpg. *facepalm*

I think the answer to your question will essentially boil down to:

If you don't like it, then don't buy it. Keep playing SW:Saga Edition. Nobody is forcing you to spend your money to buy new games.

Ultimately, that is true. Though companies have to convince tons of skeptical people all day long. So I'm no so sure they see it with quite as much indifference as you.  They do need to make money after all.

So your argument is that older books are cheaper?

When those things released, they were about what, $30 a pop, and there have been… what, 9-10 books in that line?

-Saga core book
-Villains
-Scum and Villany
-Old Republic
-Clone Wars era
-Force Unleashed
-New Jedi Order
-Legacy Era
-GCW
-Intrigue
-Droids
-Starships

Thats at least 12, and I know I missed a few.

Obviously, the new line will probably have its own books, but you're going off of very limited information.

Until I have the book in hand (and everyone has at least a week to have looked at the system), I think its a bit early to make judgements on how "complicated" a system it is.

We can infer from their previous work what kind of design it will be, unless they choose to do something radical. My bets are on complexity, detail, and poor organization. Very specific games for specific role playing games. Ie there will no be base "scoundrel" class that you can customize to your hearts content. There will be specific classes that have specific roles and do specific things. Complicated. At least from their Warhammer 40k line, but it makes sense there. Here it doesn't.

Edit

Saga may have all of those books, but all you really need is the core rule. It's the one my group uses 95% of the time. It just offers so much and so much good stuff it's insane. The supplements are good, but nothing compared to the holy grail of the core rules. Hell I could have with time just homebrewed a lot of the supplemental stuff, or do my own takes on it.

If your argument is that you can homebrew anything you need with just the core rules in Saga edition, then I fail to see how it can't apply to this system as well. It might be because I don't have the book in hand, but it seems far more likely that you're exaggerating.

In that case, all you can fairly compare is a single rulebook on this line to the core rulebook of saga edition. Not all 3 of the proposed SW lines that FFG is making.

You don't appear to be giving this system a fair shake, while obviously promoting Saga edition in the best possible light without considering any of its drawbacks. Maybe its just me, maybe I'm reading between the lines a tad bit too much. But it just doesn't seem too far a stretch to come to that conclusion.

Also, another reason Saga edition will become a less useful alternative in the long run: Its out of print. There's a reason the core rulebook is $91 on Amazon. WotC doesn't have the license anymore. If you want something where players can actually go into a store and buy the book (in the long run, I know its still on shelves at some places), this is your only real option. And PDF isn't an option as Lucas doesn't allow that. And if you're simply going to say PDFs can be found, well piracy simply isn't a valid option anyone can take.

Gamgee said:

This game is not modelled on the Warhammer 40k rules system. It owes much more to WFRP 3rd edition. If it follows that model there isn't actually a lot of detail. Most things are abstracted. Complexity… that's debatable. Different people consider different things complicated. As far as characters go, if it is like WFRP, most characters will be able to do a variety of things (just specialists are able to do certain thing better, and there will be a small number of very specialist classes who have a fancy thing).

Poor Organisation? Well, of course, this is FFG we are talking about here. Wouldn't be the same if it didn't need random page flipping and 8 pages of errata. However, I would say that WFRP 3rd has probably got a bit better record on that than some of their other games, and with a BIG licence like Star Wars they are really going to want to take care with it.

I have to say I was a bit surprised they were going the "3 book" method, as it was a model forced upon them for 40k (but then they seem to have taken it and run with into 5 books there), but hey, I don't see a problem, with it. Jedi are not the be all and end all of the universe (none of the Star Wars RPGs I have played have featured one), and though this may technically be the "Fringe" book, there is nothing stopping you playing characters working for the rebels regardless. While as I can see a separate book for Jedi working fine, I am not sure if the second book would be different enough to justify a separate book. Why could it not just have been a supplement?

Saga…  I like the look of it as a fun game system, but it is still d20 and d20 doesn't do Star Wars well. In fact d20 doesn't do anything but Dungeons and Dragons well. One obvious example is the fact that Darth Vader is level 19, Luke Skywalker is level 14 or 15 (at the end of the films). Anything level 19 walks all over something at level 14. It is just no contest. However, in the films while Darth Vader is more experienced, Luke defeats him in their final fight. Star Wars needs a much more cinematic treatment than d20 allows. WEG d6 was quite good for this, for example, allowing characters to burn resources in order to be able to do things that would normally be outside their reach.

I thought Saga Edition was a fantastic game.  I know a few WEG fans who think it's awful.  Personally, I like both.  I don't see one as a replacement for the other any more than I see Axis & Allies as a replacement for Risk or vice versa.  They're different games that work in different ways.  That is also true of EotE.  It really makes no sense to compare EotE and Saga Edition as if they are interchangeable.

For reference, my gaming experience with Saga edition has been excellent. I love it as a system. It could in part of been due to a great GM, and a few "powerful" houserules (we practically doubled the amount of talents a PC got), but the game I was in was great.

We found that thermal detonators, proton torpedoes, and exploding fusion generators are an excellent way of taking out Sith.

We found that Gizka are the perfect cover for boarding a Sith cruiser (under the guise of local pest exterminators).

So don't take what I'm saying as something against the Saga edition.

Gamgee said:

Saga core rulebook does not contain rules for upgrading weapons and gear. You need Scum and Villainy for that. Saga core rulebook does not have rules for starhsip/vehicle mods. You need Starships of the Galaxy for that. You cannot make a good technician using the Saga core rulebook. You need Starships of the Galaxy and/or Scavenger's Guide for that.

These are things Edge of the Empire touches on.

The Saga core rulebook was also criticized quite a bit for its scant number of species, starships, and vehicles.

KommissarK said:

I've got to ask - do you actually have the SWR:EotE rulebook? If so, have you read it through? If not, then what are your above statements based on?

Why by a new game or test a new system? If you have to ask the question to someone else there is more to worry about than money, autonomy for one. What about curiosity and the desire to test something new. 30 gold coins for a rule set isn't all that bad…

SW Saga was a substandard game, RCR was miles better, even if that also based itself on a system that only in a very limited way lends itself to actual roleplaying. At least in my opinion. Granted both RCR and Saga had good ideas, nice sourcebooks and such, but Saga dumbed down its mechanics to the pointless. Of course this should of course make roleplaying easier, but when 98% of the game is based on combat skills, talents and the like, roleplaying evaporates to mmo-like levels (and I enjoy mmos, but they are not roleplaying games imo). I ran long campaigns with RCR, but Saga ended after a few months, because of the lack of options and the restrictions inherent in the system… odd restrictions like, you can't craft droids.. because.. uhm? perhaps a bad example… and I don't know if EotE will provide any better stuff…

The way they're handling this game, in three modules (so far), is very similar to how WotC handled their approach with Saga. Modular. "Here, have the basic set, it contains all you need". EotE most likely contain all we need to play in any era of the Star Wars universe, certainly, just like Saga. But Saga didn't contain "officially" produced material on the different eras and different stuff, like smugglers, droids, politics, starships and that stuff. While we could cook it up all ourselves of course, we want someone else to do it for us - at least some of us who doesn't have the time to produce all that stuff ourselves because we have a full schedule.

Saga is of course not broken, not more (or less) than WEGs D6 version ever was. I have most of WEGs, all OCR and RCR, and most of Saga. They're tremendous sources of information and will most likely inform any new Star Wars game I will play, for example EotE. In particular if I at some point have to make up my own stuff … then I have tons of information, by companies that to varying degrees did exactly the same as FFG is now doing.

Gamgee said:

You can infer pretty much anything, but it doesn't mean you will be correct. Apparently, one of the 'specialisations' of the smuggler class will be a 'scoundral'. I understand that the system is xp based (people who have the book have posted on RPG.net) and that you can select any skills you want, but the skills outside of your 'profession' are more expensive. 

I believe there were 14 Saga books. I have them all sitting on my shelf at home. I bought them at full price, and that usually meant I paid around 30$ per book, which averages out to something like 400$ and change spent on Saga books. I admit, I might not have needed ALL of them, but I'm a completionist and I also wanted to support a game that I was a fan of and had fun playing. :)

The OP's original statement that you will "need" all of the FFG books while saying that you didn't "need" all of the Saga books is a skewed perspective intended to drive a point home. You don't "need" any book beyond the first in any case. You could, in theory, run full and fleshed out campaigns in any era with either core rulebook but both systems will require additional information (found in many of the supplements) to really touch on the various elements of the various eras and movies.

Each new Saga campaign book featured new and optional rules that are intended to inject the right feel into the game per that era. Campaigns could often get confused with what new feats, talents, and other character options were made available.