FFG Announce Star Wars: The Force Awakens RPG Kit
May 5, 2016 by brennon
Fantasy Flight Games have got another surprise for you this week following Star Wars Day. The new The Force Awakens Beginner Game is looking to be a great stepping stone into the world of tabletop role-playing set during the new movies...
The game works in a 'learn as you go' style where you will be exposed to new mechanics as you follow the story. It will indeed also begin on the planet of Jakku before you're sent off into the galaxy to uncover a greater mystery.
Inside the kit you'll get a story to play through, the bits and pieces you need to play, and also these pre-generated characters above. I like that they haven't taken any key characters from the movies and instead original heroes who you can shape your own stories around.
I could see this being a big hit for people who want to try our Star Wars on the tabletop.
What do you think?
"It will indeed also begin on the planet of Jakku before you're sent off into the galaxy to uncover a greater mystery..."
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It’s a bit sad that my excitement for this new RPG line has more to do with finally learning the background of the new films timeline than with actually adventuring in it. I liked the movie but feel like there’s so many fundamental questions they didn’t just skim over but completely ignored.
A Beginners game for the Star Wars RPG for The Force Awakens is a great idea, to cement the link between the movie and the RPG. That said, the tone of this seems almost exactly like Edge of the Empire, just set years later, so lets hope FFG’s next move is a sourcebook to cover the Chapter VII period (and hopefully some of the precursor events) rather than a 4th Core RPG rulebook that the line really doesn’t need.
I think it’s safe to say there will be a full rulebook. I expect this new “game” will follow the same product cycle as the previous ones.
The problem I see this time round is that there’ll be too much class and specialisation overlap with the previous games. They managed to avoid this between EotE and AoR with a few exceptions that were too similar, but for this game any class/specialisation will effectively be in one of the first two games.
I can see the marketing benefit of having a new full game with the movie’s name on it, but in terms of finding differences in content, I think they’ll struggle.
It’s been confirmed as a stand alone product.
https://twitter.com/Sam_B_Stewart/status/727899257659924480
That’s cool, thanks for sharing. It’s good to see reason and common sense win out. Of course FFG could have sold a 4th Star Wars RPG line and some (many) of us would have bought it no matter how close it was to the previous ones, but this makes a lot more sense.
I think we can safely say that if there isn’t a The Force Awakens sourcebook coming soon after, it’s because no one knows enough ‘facts’ to write one.
only four core rulebooks ? That’s nothing. Doctor Who RPG has one for each Doctor … From a completionist perspective it does suck to have N setting books that contain both rules and background. However for beginners and people who only want the one setting it is nice and easy. They get one book to rule them all. A better question would be : do these rulebooks contain setting specific rules ? Updating this setting to a new version is going to be tough no matter what format, because it is unlikely that any campaign setting is fluff only. As… Read more »
So would a ‘second edition’ benefit from beng a core rulebook , a source material book , and then EoE , AoR , FaD supplements , and themed books after?
I don’t know about that – I suppose that’s the way things used to be ‘in the old days’, but I do feel that having separate core rulebooks focuses your game in the right direction/theme. Previously, you might say I’m going to do a Rebellion themed game and your players just think “Star Wars, woohoo! I want to play a Bounty Hunter!”. With separate games, you can still mix and match elements from each, but the focus when you say “We’re playing Age of Rebellion” keeps nine out of ten players going in the direction you want them to. While… Read more »
I think it depends on if the elements in the various settings can even work together. It wouldn’t be weird to start a SW game in ‘the good old days’ and then have the players meet the rebellion and then run them through the aftermath of those events (that’s basically Han Solo’s story from smuggler to hero of the rebellion …). The SW:Clone Wars and SW:Rebels show this by having characters from movies and clone wars interact with the crew from the Rebels cartoon. And even if they don’t interact directly with the big historic events they’ll still have an… Read more »