The dice mechanic is fantastic. Its taking time for even my experienced players to do stuff on the fly more than normal as they are not used to the chance of succeeding with problems or failing with positives. They love it but its just that initial culture shock when moving from the old hit a TN and you succeed
+Crit Fail That culture shock + enjoyment is a good sign, I think. It does take a little time to get in the swing of all the extra information that the dice results can return, but it's worth it. Thanks for commenting. Which of the games are you playing?
We have played through the beginner game and several sessions of both Edge of the Empire and Age of Rebellion. Ordered Force and destiny yesterday. Waiting for our group to get fully sorted (as some are in different time zones) Then I will run Beyond the Rim. I have Jewal of yavin and Arda. Working on Force and Destiny campaign at the moment and will start that in January once we have the others out of the way. We mainly play the Star Wars ones now. though I still like Pathfinder and Shadowrun a lot.
Star Wars has become our main game. I liked WEG D6 which came out when I was a kid. D20 was ok. A good group can work around any rule hassles. But the new ones are just awesome. Beautfiul art and rules that help the story. We use Shadowrun as our filler game. As its mission based its easier to have people swapping in for one run and out for the next if they have exams etc
I have to admit. ..I bought force of destiny, read the mechanics and tried to take it back because I thought it was too complicated for no reason. after you're breakdown, I'm glad I was unable too. been gming for 30 years and now I can finally be challenged too. Thanks rune!
My pleasure; I hope you and your group enjoys the game as much as we do. Our campaign is over a year old now, we have several associated campaigns run by the other players, and we are still going strong~
I briefly ran a short campaign that didn't last long when Edge of the Empire first came out. I've since done maybe one or two one shots with friends but have been way more invested in X-Wing Miniatures and D&D 5th Edition. I am starting a new Age of Rebellion Campaign this thursday. I am really excited for it and have been blowing through so many of your videos about the system. You organize your thoughts and opinions really well and have a knack for making the more complicated areas of the system easy to understand. From one Game Master to another thank you.
It's going to open at the very tail end of Rogue One and the escape from Scarif. The first leg of the campaign is going to be about trying to rescue Admiral Raddus and the other rebels who were taken prisoner from the Profundity and Tantive IV.
A great summary of how the dice are used. Very nice and helpful, as the new stuff is daunting. I've played SW RPG since WEG d6, and it's a welcome change to even more narrative style, which is what D6 system introduced me to.
this is the best explanation of this dice system I've seen, I'd like to see you do one on combat, covering things like crits and minions I'm still trying to get my head round these aspects. thanks for the video
+tomfurstyfield That is a good suggestion. We are in the process of filming some scenes from play, such as combat, using the force, and vehicle maneuvering, but a direct explanation of the damage and critical process could be helpful. I am glad you found the video to be useful. Thanks for watching and commenting~
Awesome that sounds like a handy video. I actually ran my first game tonight and I think I've got a much better understanding of crits and minions now but using the force and vehicles would be very helpful
There are several example videos on this channel of Actual Play with combat scenes as well as several in this Playlist of specific elements pertaining to combat and description~
This was a really nice breakdown of how to use these dice more narratively for me. I'm new to GMing EotE, and I feel this video will help me add a bit more flavor to exactly what the result of the dice pool means for the characters.
Thank you. I have a group running a game of this soon and they tried to explain it during character creation but there was just too much to absorb at once. I understand the concern of others about specialty dice. Still, if you think about it rather amusing since those outside of gaming circles would consider a d20 a specialty die.
Not for many years, but I appreciate the game's dedication to the source material. One of my big gaming regrets is missing out on playing it with Peter Corless way back at RQCon 2. I went to a Nephilim game instead. Whoops.
Great video! I'm just getting into FFG's Star Wars and I wanted to understand the dice and the system a bit better before I buy the ruleset. Thanks for the information!
Best video I've found about this dice system so far. I'm from old D&D 2e and moving to a narrative system is a big struggle for me. My creativity has lessened so coming up with narrative responses to the dice rolls is quite a challenge for me.
+Cobalt Blues I am glad that you found the video to be useful. One of the guys in our group hesitated about running the game for us because he had similar feelings about his creativity. He discovered that he really enjoyed it. I think perhaps the best advice is to imagine and describe the scene as the pool is built. That way, what comes next just flows from it. Have fun, and thanks a lot for commenting~
+Cobalt Blues I have no plans to discuss it as it isn't different enough from its implementation in Star Wars and I have other projects in mind. I do hope that it helps to spread the use of the system and dice even further, however. It's a great way to play for old and new gamers alike~
I have looked everywhere, about how to go from non narrative role-playing game mastering to this narrative game mastering. I am reading Age of Rebellion core book, and trying to put one and one together. I ‘watched all your videos on the subject, and you’re videos has really helped, thank you Runeslinger. I have looked everywhere but not found a close in description of how a battle is played out. This is something I really would like to see in a video. Any chance there is someone that can link me to a close in narrative battle? I would love to see how NPCs and Players are doing when a fight breaks out. How do you as game master do when leading a fight and how do you do this best, is there any preparations that can be done to facilitate this part of the game when you leading a game? I got all the decks of cards with critical damages for both humanoids and ships/vehicles and all the cards for different NPCs. But I still get confused how to use it by only reading the Core book, I also got the game master kit that got extra rules for formations and squads and this would also be awesome to see live, as kind of game master instruction video.
Fantastic video. I would like to however see how something like this could work in combat. Since obviously it works a lot differently than mechanics/ship/speaking.
I am not sure what you are requesting, could you clarify? In case you are just curious about how combat is managed in the game, I have videos in this Star Wars playlist which go over combat, combat in space, range, and working with the dice to provide, there are also some Actual Play videos to see it all happening in play. The method of forming and interpreting dice pools does not change for combat, but combat does have specific details and orders of operations which matter.
@@shadowofchaos41 Understood. So, as you will see in the videos in this playlist, the game provides a chart of examples for learning purposes. New players keep an eye on the chart to learn the relative values of the results and in a session or two can be describing their own. It's fun~
I know you won't like this, but it sounds a lot like how Fate operates. When performing a skill in Fate, you can have failure, success with extreme cost, success with cost, success, and success with style, so it's not the hard line. It leaves the story open for all sorts of interesting things to happen. Using that same scenario, in Fate that might be called "success with cost" meaning that you succeed, but there can be an immediate effect or an aspect placed that may crop up later. For example, you succeed in your astrogation check, but your ship now has the aspect "Astrogation System Strained." or something like that. Anyway, that is a very cool dice mechanic. :)
Haha~ My disinterest in pursuing Fate further has nothing to do with things like Aspects or its approach to framing rolls and their results. I like these things about the system. I lost interest in Fate because the actual distribution of success vs failure is skewed too far toward success for my tastes. As characters progress, it ends up being weighted toward bland success. This can be altered by expanding the die pool, but that can create problems with expectations of play in the group, and the general narrative focus of the game. EotE manages to go this route but balance threat (and the heroic nature of its source material) without sacrificing as much possibility for risk and challenge.
You wouldn't say it leaned toward success if you saw MY games. :) I think the dice system is set up as it is because a great deal depends on the use of invokes and compels. So, instead of the die placing a complication on a person, thing or setting, the characters do that. As a player, you want the interesting compels (failures) because that's how you gain Fate points to spend on a cool action later. Anyway, I don't want to derail your comments. Maybe we can chat in a hangout some time about it. :)
Nice explanation. Haven't played yet, but I think players should also be given a chance to interpret their roles. Maybe everyone in the group should be allowed to chime in and the GM makes the final decision. This could make every role interesting for everyone in the group.I'm not sure how to interpret complex results like 3 successes, a despair and 2 threats, for example. As you suggest, though, maybe it is all about feeling the flow of the game and interpreting the dice in a way that is fun and consistent with the Star Wars atmosphere.
Thanks for commenting. In this game, everyone does contribute to the narrative, all the time. The GM's specific focus is on types of rolls and assessing failure, threat and despair. Everyone agrees on pool building together in the open. Players define success when stating their intention. Players spend advantage and triumphs (and NPC rolls' threats, despair). The GM synthesizes this into a coherent whole as a summary. The GM is needed to keep up the focus, pace, and clarity. If you are still curious how this all works in practice, the Star Wars playlist on ny channel has more videos on dice interpretation, and some Actual Plays.
Hi again :) Can I have a question regarding dice? Or actually two... First: I have a really hard time figuring out narratives when a check fails but there's a triumph. I can't really imagine how can a check fail but bring awesome result at the same time... :/ Also I had trouble last game session bringing in triumph in this situation: The player rolled for perception for looking through a room for valuable stuff, but it was really a room with only a couple of furnitures.... What should I do in this situation next time? My other question is: how do you decide when the players helping each other by giving a boost dice vs. making an aided check, using the 2 characters stats combined (assisted checks)?
Sorry for the late reply. Your first question has two parts, and I will look at the second part first. In the example you give, a perception roll was made and a Triumph was rolled. There are two basic and different approaches to this. The one I have a personal preference for is to avoid rolls that can go nowhere. Rather than rolling and opening the group up to a discussion about what results might mean when "there is nothing to find" I find it is useful to remember that characters who are skilled do not need to roll to do basic actions in normal situations. So, the narrative comes from their competence at being able to quickly and confidently perceive that the room is just full of furniture (no roll needed, so no complicated dice results to deal with). The second method is to allow the dice to determine the reality of a situation. Rather than the GM knowing what is there and then allowing a roll to see if it is found, the GM does not have an attachment to what might be in the room and allows the dice to scale things up or down. A Triumph might indicate that something the player might find useful in some way (a clue, a tool, a map, a hint, an ID, a... whatever) is present. The first part of your first question is what to do when a Triumph appears with a failure. Part of this is recognizing that 1 Triumph is not necessarily "Awesome" as it is possible to roll a lot of them at once and you have to save room for the difference between getting 1 or 2 and getting 3 or 4. It is helpful in a serious way, often in reducing the impact on player resources. If you look over the chart on the screen or in the book you can see the progression of things that players can buy with 1 triumph, 2 triumphs, and so on. Let that be your guide to the scale of effect a Triumph can bring. Another part is to remember that players narrate the positive outcomes of dice rolls, the GM just assists and ensures that things are in line with the proper scale (Like: you cannot use 1 Advantage to mean a Squad of Allies just appeared to save you.). Another thing to try is to let some of these results float for a while, and attach them to the scene in which they were rolled by a convenient Star Wars coincidence. The time they spent searching the room (fail) led to them being delayed long enough to be at the right place at the right time to spot... something important and useful. In narrative time, you have a lot of freedom with Triumph and Despair. Your second question is resolved by how it is being done by the characters. Are they doing the act solo and benefitting from a broad and useful set of skills, are they being helped out by others, or both? I hope this late response was helpful~
I never played this RPG. You did a very good job explaining it and I never played the game. It looks confusingly fun just rolling the different dice. It seems like you have to have a really good GM to interpret that many results(?) Is there anything in the game that suggests or tells a GM what to roll or is entirely up to them? I'm used to D&D RPG, minis games, or minis board games. Can the groups of dice be rolled separately instead of a 'Fist full of dice' at once? What is the design of the triumph symbols based on? not exactly a rebel starbird. reminds me more of a simplified Jedi order symbol. the threat icons definitely look Imperial. You would be amused by my Kenner "STAR WARS DESTROY DEATH STAR D&D Dice House Rules Advantage Disadvantage | Collection THX1138" video I did last May ; MTFBWY
Fantasy Flight Games has taken time to make the game as beginner-friendly as possible, including having heavily annotated adventures available in beginner boxes and for free download on their site. As a result, it might be easier for a true beginner to get into this game than for a gamer with set habits and assumptions. Any game is better with a talented GM, and this one is no different, but it does not ask more of you than other games while at the same time giving you much more support. As a roll and cancel dice pool game, the dice do not mean anything in isolation, it is the sum of the results which matters. You can roll them one at a time, if you like, but interpretation of those results comes once all are rolled and sorted. The triumph symbol is the flaring lightsaber from the Episode IV movie poster. I am glad you enjoyed the video, and I hope you get a chance to play the game in the future~
You know, all of this can be simplified by using 3d6. The first die is the Skill Die, the second die is the Advantage Die, and third is the Complication Die. These three dice answer three distinct questions. Did I succeed at the skill? Did I gain any extra advantage? Did I avoid any extra complications? The result of the die roll determines the answer as follows: 1-No And, 2-No, 3-No But, 4-Yes But, 5-Yes, 6-Yes And. Useful for people who don't like to roll a lot of dice, or who want to use a more narrative system in other games outside of the Star Wars setting.
There are a lot of ways to approach this method of task resolution. Getting the the distribution of results in tune with the genre is where the work lies, I feel. In this particular case, 3D6 would not offer enough results to use the rest of the system, requiring a significant rewrite before play. As an additive to a different game built on binary results, though, it would be grand.
+hagintora I dont know where that system you mentioned came from but it sounds like a really elegant system! And you are correct, it fulfills the same mechanics as FFGs current system does. However, the FFG offers more detailed mathematics behind its system which opens up for lots of various modifications and additions to increase/decrease chances of a roll and its effects. What I find so amazing about the narrative dice is that there is no intuitive way of quickly counting up your average chance of success. This might sound as a bad thing for some people, but I find it a good thing! I dont want my players to calculate hard odds before doing certain tasks, a general idea should be enough. "Im am trained in climbing so I should have a decent chance of making this wall, even with this twisted ankle". As opposed to "I have 65% climbing skill but im wounded so its reduced to 45%. You have 55% so you do it!"
I appreciate your break down, and think you did a great job. However, I still don't see how these specialty dice ADD something that couldn't just be accomplished with regular dice. I understand the desire to add in a narrative to the die roll, but this just seems WAY overly complex.
+captcorajus Thanks for watching. I am surprised that you find it complex and to be 'overly complex' at that. The dice are sorted by both color and type, making each easy to differentiate. Positive and Negative symbols are likewise separated. Degrees of success are determined by cancelling opposites, a form of pattern recognition we learn to do from a very young age. How to use the dice is one of those things which takes the first 5 minutes of the first game, and then never gets talked about again. If you are concerned about using the dice, and unsure if the game is for you, there are dice apps for browsers, hangouts, and mobile devices which do all the cancellations for you. Honestly, though... it's a very basic thing to do. If you are referring to interpretation of results, that, can seem daunting at first, but usually by the end of the first session, that perception of difficulty fades. Experienced GMs tend to take to it like coming home, and newcomers find it to be very supportive as they venture out into the challenging world of improvisation and interpretation. As noted, it's a process of identifying if a roll is a success or failure, and then collaborating on how that result manifests. The basic benefits of the dice are the increased engagement of all players at the table, the decrease in the use of purely meta or mechanical language, the ease of separating influences on outcomes, and the impressive support all this has on helping newcomers build and practice improvisational skill. As a fringe benefit of the system, there tend to be fewer rolls overall, so although it is not the fastest rules set on the block, scenes tend to resolve very quickly. The dice make it much easier for the GM to do what the GM needs to do to run a fun Star Wars game, *and* they get the players involved too. That is what they add, and that is not something that your typical dice system brings to the table. Anyway, thanks for watching and commenting. I hope this comment will be of some use~
I've been gaming for 35 years. In that time I've accumulated a few 'game design don'ts' for RPGs... my number 1 don't is a 'diceless' rpg, and my number 2 don't is 'specialty dice'. My experience is that in the long term, such games just don't last, and this is a licensed product to boot, further challenging its life. But I ask you, WHY do I need to learn new symbols, and have to interpret 18 different possible out comes with each roll just to role play??? Why couldn't this be accomplished with just regular dice? WEG's excellent Star Wars RPG did this 20 years ago with its 'Wild Die" mechanic where you rolled a different color die with each skill check. A 6 on the wild die granted you another roll and a boon, while a 1 didn't necessarily indicate failure, but possibly a complication. I understand the desire to try and interject a narrative into the dice, and try to be innovative by moving away from a binary interpretation of a roll, but FFG's solution seems to be more of a marketing ploy rather than a genuine game mechanic innovation. Its still a dice pool.... but now its a dice pool that I have to learn. Also, while this might seem okay from a player's perspective... neat little things like this always do, how does this work from the game master's side of things?
And I spoke on this in another thread, but I'll respond to it here. I'm totally not thrilled with FFG's marketing here. You said that Edge of Empire, Age of Rebellion and Force and Destiny are complete games unto themselves, but from the videos I've seen, and read, the character set ups, equipment and backgrounds for each are particular to each setting. A look at the careers and specializations listed in each book seems to bare this out. My interpretation here is that essentially rather than release a core rules booklet with all the character types in one book, and a series of sourcebooks for each setting, they've combined a specific set of character types with each setting and basically reiterated the rules each time.
+captcorajus I wholly support knowing what you like about gaming, being able to articulate it so you can find others to share it with, and being open to the possibility that what I like may not be what you like. I suppose that is a cornerstone of this channel. We have both been gaming for ages, so we probably have a lot of games in common. It doesn't sound like we learned the same things from them, or perhaps enjoyed them in the same way, and that is cool. That's a feature, not a bug. FFG's dice system is not a gimmick, it has distinct effects and uses, and it goes beyond what the wild die contributes. The wild die was regarded the same way when it was new. Dice pools were seen as ridiculous when Ghostbusters came out, but here we are 30 years later and they are still with us, and still returning solid results for interpretation. The thing I see people wrestle with time and again is that the FFG narrative dice look complicated and they look hard to remember. The truth is, that the effort required to learn them is really no different than the effort required to learn any other game. The same effort goes in, and a greater benefit results. I suspect this is part of the reason why proponents of the dice have a hard time talking about them with people who are unwilling to even try them. It's like recommending a chocolate bar to a friend who decides they won't try it because they don't like the package. You both miss out. As a GM of this game I love it. It frees me to enjoy more of the things I enjoy about running games, it gets the players much more involved in working with scene elements narratively, and it makes it much easier to help new players see themselves as being able to be GMs and then try it for themselves. I find this mechanic is the best I have yet used for capturing the grit and thrill of Star Wars, matching the swings of coincidence and destiny, and producing the visceral fear of real conflict where death is easy and maiming is a constant threat. Players have interesting and clearly defined control over narration which gives them the information and options they need for good decision-making, and risk-taking, without ever resorting to probability or out of character talk. If you still play, and still enjoy WEG Star Wars with the same group, then I don't think you have any need to change. Having played both a lot, I have found my preference is in FFG's approach. Our group is having a great time with our ongoing campaign, and try to find every opportunity to play more often - even as we close in on two years of consistent play. I would not have gotten the same result with WEG, but I would still have had a great campaign. I can say, though, that a lot of the issues which crop up in D6 are simply absent in this game, and I don't just mean the problems of character advancement and the troubles with the progression of force users. The designers clearly loved D6 and took a lot of lessons from it to deliver a very solid game which reconsiders how games are presented, supported, and how they are played. I am not sure how or where this mechanic will appear again, but I will be very surprised if it does not.
Runeslinger I was a big fan of Ghostbusters when it came out. Loved the Ghost die. Loved the wild die mechanic in Star Wars, and really don't have an issue with dice pools. Rolling lots of dice is fun! Hell, I loved Shadowrun. The only game I've played from FFG was descent, and spent quite a bit of money on it, and found it to be a lot of fun, and was very appreciative of the production values. If you care to, please check out my youtube channel. I review old school modules and games... It's rather D&D centric, as that's the game I play most often.. but I'm focused on looking at old school stuff, and modifying it for more modern play. I've been running a 5e campaign for a year and a half now, and with the new movie coming out my girls were totally up for a change to Star Wars. My gaming group consists of 5 players. My two teen age daughters, two old friends of mine, and another recent gaming friend. We meet pretty solidly. My daughters are not system gamers. They aren't really into delving into the ins and outs of the game system itself, just playing their characters... so from the perspective of, can I teach them these specialty dice, or would I be better off sticking with the super easy to learn d6 system, I'm very much leaning towards the latter. thanks!!
I like them. They have been a part of my gaming from very early on from Mechwarrior and Star Wars mainly, but in other games as well, most recently RuneQuest 6th Edition and CthulhuTech. I rarely use them as the point of a game, but often use them as a shifting and interactive backdrop of one~ How about you?
Yeah...I watched this and another of your dice videos, and they definitely appear white in these videos, while it seems you call them blue. Doing this only makes that bit confusing for the viewer, which seems counter to everything else you are doing.
So almost every roll gets bogged down with people have to figure out hidden catches and silver linings to every success/failure they encounter. Plus now as the GM I have to lose control of the narrative at the whim of random chance. And for this privilege I have fork over an extra $15 on top of overpriced books. Yay.
every dice based system leaves the narrative at the whim of the dice gods, if you don't like that then you should probably just read/write a book, other than that i do agree with your points though it's not that hard to figure out the "hidden catches and silver linings"
The dice mechanic is fantastic. Its taking time for even my experienced players to do stuff on the fly more than normal as they are not used to the chance of succeeding with problems or failing with positives. They love it but its just that initial culture shock when moving from the old hit a TN and you succeed
+Crit Fail That culture shock + enjoyment is a good sign, I think. It does take a little time to get in the swing of all the extra information that the dice results can return, but it's worth it. Thanks for commenting. Which of the games are you playing?
We have played through the beginner game and several sessions of both Edge of the Empire and Age of Rebellion. Ordered Force and destiny yesterday. Waiting for our group to get fully sorted (as some are in different time zones) Then I will run Beyond the Rim. I have Jewal of yavin and Arda. Working on Force and Destiny campaign at the moment and will start that in January once we have the others out of the way. We mainly play the Star Wars ones now. though I still like Pathfinder and Shadowrun a lot.
+Crit Fail I am hoping to get back to Shadowrun at some point. I guess it will not be this year. Our Star Wars campaign will continue, of course.
Star Wars has become our main game. I liked WEG D6 which came out when I was a kid. D20 was ok. A good group can work around any rule hassles. But the new ones are just awesome. Beautfiul art and rules that help the story. We use Shadowrun as our filler game. As its mission based its easier to have people swapping in for one run and out for the next if they have exams etc
I have to admit. ..I bought force of destiny, read the mechanics and tried to take it back because I thought it was too complicated for no reason. after you're breakdown, I'm glad I was unable too. been gming for 30 years and now I can finally be challenged too. Thanks rune!
My pleasure; I hope you and your group enjoys the game as much as we do. Our campaign is over a year old now, we have several associated campaigns run by the other players, and we are still going strong~
I briefly ran a short campaign that didn't last long when Edge of the Empire first came out. I've since done maybe one or two one shots with friends but have been way more invested in X-Wing Miniatures and D&D 5th Edition. I am starting a new Age of Rebellion Campaign this thursday. I am really excited for it and have been blowing through so many of your videos about the system. You organize your thoughts and opinions really well and have a knack for making the more complicated areas of the system easy to understand. From one Game Master to another thank you.
My pleasure! Thanks for letting me know. Enjoy the new campaign. How will you start it?
It's going to open at the very tail end of Rogue One and the escape from Scarif. The first leg of the campaign is going to be about trying to rescue Admiral Raddus and the other rebels who were taken prisoner from the Profundity and Tantive IV.
Funnecessary Nice!
A great summary of how the dice are used. Very nice and helpful, as the new stuff is daunting. I've played SW RPG since WEG d6, and it's a welcome change to even more narrative style, which is what D6 system introduced me to.
D6 was an eye-opener way back when. As you say, this is the next step~
this is the best explanation of this dice system I've seen, I'd like to see you do one on combat, covering things like crits and minions I'm still trying to get my head round these aspects. thanks for the video
+tomfurstyfield That is a good suggestion. We are in the process of filming some scenes from play, such as combat, using the force, and vehicle maneuvering, but a direct explanation of the damage and critical process could be helpful.
I am glad you found the video to be useful. Thanks for watching and commenting~
Awesome that sounds like a handy video. I actually ran my first game tonight and I think I've got a much better understanding of crits and minions now but using the force and vehicles would be very helpful
+tomfurstyfield This playlist has videos on the mechanics of vehicle combat and on using the force, if you are interested~
Can anyone send me a video of how combat works with these kind of explanations.
There are several example videos on this channel of Actual Play with combat scenes as well as several in this Playlist of specific elements pertaining to combat and description~
This was a really nice breakdown of how to use these dice more narratively for me. I'm new to GMing EotE, and I feel this video will help me add a bit more flavor to exactly what the result of the dice pool means for the characters.
I am glad you found this to be useful~
Thank you. I have a group running a game of this soon and they tried to explain it during character creation but there was just too much to absorb at once. I understand the concern of others about specialty dice. Still, if you think about it rather amusing since those outside of gaming circles would consider a d20 a specialty die.
Absolutely. Have fun with the game!
A very nice description of the dice mechanic, thanks for posting it. Bonus points for Pendragon on the shelf behind you.
Thanks for the kind words. Do you play Pendragon currently?
Not for many years, but I appreciate the game's dedication to the source material. One of my big gaming regrets is missing out on playing it with Peter Corless way back at RQCon 2. I went to a Nephilim game instead. Whoops.
I would have done the same~
Great video! I'm just getting into FFG's Star Wars and I wanted to understand the dice and the system a bit better before I buy the ruleset. Thanks for the information!
My pleasure. I am glad you found it to be helpful~
Best video I've found about this dice system so far. I'm from old D&D 2e and moving to a narrative system is a big struggle for me. My creativity has lessened so coming up with narrative responses to the dice rolls is quite a challenge for me.
+Cobalt Blues I am glad that you found the video to be useful. One of the guys in our group hesitated about running the game for us because he had similar feelings about his creativity. He discovered that he really enjoyed it.
I think perhaps the best advice is to imagine and describe the scene as the pool is built. That way, what comes next just flows from it.
Have fun, and thanks a lot for commenting~
Runeslinger I would love to see your explanation of the new Genesys system.
+Cobalt Blues I have no plans to discuss it as it isn't different enough from its implementation in Star Wars and I have other projects in mind. I do hope that it helps to spread the use of the system and dice even further, however. It's a great way to play for old and new gamers alike~
Thank you for this. I just barely got this MASSIVE tome in the mail today. Dreading and anticipating going through it...
My pleasure ~ Join in the exploration of this end of space, and pick up some power converters on the way
I have looked everywhere, about how to go from non narrative role-playing game mastering to this narrative game mastering. I am reading Age of Rebellion core book, and trying to put one and one together. I ‘watched all your videos on the subject, and you’re videos has really helped, thank you Runeslinger. I have looked everywhere but not found a close in description of how a battle is played out. This is something I really would like to see in a video. Any chance there is someone that can link me to a close in narrative battle? I would love to see how NPCs and Players are doing when a fight breaks out. How do you as game master do when leading a fight and how do you do this best, is there any preparations that can be done to facilitate this part of the game when you leading a game? I got all the decks of cards with critical damages for both humanoids and ships/vehicles and all the cards for different NPCs. But I still get confused how to use it by only reading the Core book, I also got the game master kit that got extra rules for formations and squads and this would also be awesome to see live, as kind of game master instruction video.
Fantastic video. I would like to however see how something like this could work in combat. Since obviously it works a lot differently than mechanics/ship/speaking.
I am not sure what you are requesting, could you clarify? In case you are just curious about how combat is managed in the game, I have videos in this Star Wars playlist which go over combat, combat in space, range, and working with the dice to provide, there are also some Actual Play videos to see it all happening in play. The method of forming and interpreting dice pools does not change for combat, but combat does have specific details and orders of operations which matter.
@@Runeslinger I guess I’m saying how threats/triumphs/despairs work in combat. My bad should have clarified
@@shadowofchaos41 Understood. So, as you will see in the videos in this playlist, the game provides a chart of examples for learning purposes. New players keep an eye on the chart to learn the relative values of the results and in a session or two can be describing their own. It's fun~
@@Runeslinger Ok thanks
Thanks for these videos. They are very helpful.
My pleasure, Tim. Will you be playing one of the games?
We played through the Age of Rebellion Beginner Game. Wes was successful on the mission. :D
Have you watched much Star Wars media with him? Does he have any favorite aspects from what he has seen?
He's watched a fair bit of the films. :D
I bought Force & Destiny because I het he likes the Jedi Force powers the most.
@@Samwise7RPG Right on; F&D also mirrors more fantasy tropes, so it can leverage familiarity with other classic favorites for campaign ideas~
I know you won't like this, but it sounds a lot like how Fate operates. When performing a skill in Fate, you can have failure, success with extreme cost, success with cost, success, and success with style, so it's not the hard line. It leaves the story open for all sorts of interesting things to happen.
Using that same scenario, in Fate that might be called "success with cost" meaning that you succeed, but there can be an immediate effect or an aspect placed that may crop up later. For example, you succeed in your astrogation check, but your ship now has the aspect "Astrogation System Strained." or something like that.
Anyway, that is a very cool dice mechanic. :)
Haha~ My disinterest in pursuing Fate further has nothing to do with things like Aspects or its approach to framing rolls and their results. I like these things about the system.
I lost interest in Fate because the actual distribution of success vs failure is skewed too far toward success for my tastes. As characters progress, it ends up being weighted toward bland success. This can be altered by expanding the die pool, but that can create problems with expectations of play in the group, and the general narrative focus of the game. EotE manages to go this route but balance threat (and the heroic nature of its source material) without sacrificing as much possibility for risk and challenge.
You wouldn't say it leaned toward success if you saw MY games. :)
I think the dice system is set up as it is because a great deal depends on the use of invokes and compels. So, instead of the die placing a complication on a person, thing or setting, the characters do that.
As a player, you want the interesting compels (failures) because that's how you gain Fate points to spend on a cool action later.
Anyway, I don't want to derail your comments. Maybe we can chat in a hangout some time about it. :)
***** Anytime~
Great video, thank you for sharing!
+Steve Ranieri Thanks for watching~
Nice explanation. Haven't played yet, but I think players should also be given a chance to interpret their roles. Maybe everyone in the group should be allowed to chime in and the GM makes the final decision. This could make every role interesting for everyone in the group.I'm not sure how to interpret complex results like 3 successes, a despair and 2 threats, for example. As you suggest, though, maybe it is all about feeling the flow of the game and interpreting the dice in a way that is fun and consistent with the Star Wars atmosphere.
Thanks for commenting. In this game, everyone does contribute to the narrative, all the time. The GM's specific focus is on types of rolls and assessing failure, threat and despair. Everyone agrees on pool building together in the open. Players define success when stating their intention. Players spend advantage and triumphs (and NPC rolls' threats, despair). The GM synthesizes this into a coherent whole as a summary.
The GM is needed to keep up the focus, pace, and clarity. If you are still curious how this all works in practice, the Star Wars playlist on ny channel has more videos on dice interpretation, and some Actual Plays.
I like your videos because you sound like Jeff Goldblum
omg, he does! never noticed this!
do you have any videos covering force powers and dice? I'm a little confused on how that works.
I do, it's a part of the Star Wars playlist on my channel.
th-cam.com/video/mL6z0k2VM3M/w-d-xo.html
Hi again :)
Can I have a question regarding dice? Or actually two...
First: I have a really hard time figuring out narratives when a check fails but there's a triumph. I can't really imagine how can a check fail but bring awesome result at the same time... :/ Also I had trouble last game session bringing in triumph in this situation: The player rolled for perception for looking through a room for valuable stuff, but it was really a room with only a couple of furnitures.... What should I do in this situation next time?
My other question is: how do you decide when the players helping each other by giving a boost dice vs. making an aided check, using the 2 characters stats combined (assisted checks)?
Sorry for the late reply.
Your first question has two parts, and I will look at the second part first. In the example you give, a perception roll was made and a Triumph was rolled. There are two basic and different approaches to this. The one I have a personal preference for is to avoid rolls that can go nowhere. Rather than rolling and opening the group up to a discussion about what results might mean when "there is nothing to find" I find it is useful to remember that characters who are skilled do not need to roll to do basic actions in normal situations. So, the narrative comes from their competence at being able to quickly and confidently perceive that the room is just full of furniture (no roll needed, so no complicated dice results to deal with). The second method is to allow the dice to determine the reality of a situation. Rather than the GM knowing what is there and then allowing a roll to see if it is found, the GM does not have an attachment to what might be in the room and allows the dice to scale things up or down. A Triumph might indicate that something the player might find useful in some way (a clue, a tool, a map, a hint, an ID, a... whatever) is present.
The first part of your first question is what to do when a Triumph appears with a failure. Part of this is recognizing that 1 Triumph is not necessarily "Awesome" as it is possible to roll a lot of them at once and you have to save room for the difference between getting 1 or 2 and getting 3 or 4. It is helpful in a serious way, often in reducing the impact on player resources. If you look over the chart on the screen or in the book you can see the progression of things that players can buy with 1 triumph, 2 triumphs, and so on. Let that be your guide to the scale of effect a Triumph can bring. Another part is to remember that players narrate the positive outcomes of dice rolls, the GM just assists and ensures that things are in line with the proper scale (Like: you cannot use 1 Advantage to mean a Squad of Allies just appeared to save you.). Another thing to try is to let some of these results float for a while, and attach them to the scene in which they were rolled by a convenient Star Wars coincidence. The time they spent searching the room (fail) led to them being delayed long enough to be at the right place at the right time to spot... something important and useful. In narrative time, you have a lot of freedom with Triumph and Despair.
Your second question is resolved by how it is being done by the characters. Are they doing the act solo and benefitting from a broad and useful set of skills, are they being helped out by others, or both?
I hope this late response was helpful~
I never played this RPG.
You did a very good job explaining it and I never played the game.
It looks confusingly fun just rolling the different dice.
It seems like you have to have a really good GM to interpret that many results(?)
Is there anything in the game that suggests or tells a GM what to roll or is entirely up to them? I'm used to D&D RPG, minis games, or minis board games.
Can the groups of dice be rolled separately instead of a 'Fist full of dice' at once?
What is the design of the triumph symbols based on? not exactly a rebel starbird. reminds me more of a simplified Jedi order symbol. the threat icons definitely look Imperial.
You would be amused by my Kenner "STAR WARS DESTROY DEATH STAR D&D Dice House Rules Advantage Disadvantage | Collection THX1138" video I did last May ;
MTFBWY
Fantasy Flight Games has taken time to make the game as beginner-friendly as possible, including having heavily annotated adventures available in beginner boxes and for free download on their site. As a result, it might be easier for a true beginner to get into this game than for a gamer with set habits and assumptions. Any game is better with a talented GM, and this one is no different, but it does not ask more of you than other games while at the same time giving you much more support.
As a roll and cancel dice pool game, the dice do not mean anything in isolation, it is the sum of the results which matters. You can roll them one at a time, if you like, but interpretation of those results comes once all are rolled and sorted.
The triumph symbol is the flaring lightsaber from the Episode IV movie poster.
I am glad you enjoyed the video, and I hope you get a chance to play the game in the future~
Tarot Dice essentially.
You know, all of this can be simplified by using 3d6. The first die is the Skill Die, the second die is the Advantage Die, and third is the Complication Die. These three dice answer three distinct questions. Did I succeed at the skill? Did I gain any extra advantage? Did I avoid any extra complications? The result of the die roll determines the answer as follows: 1-No And, 2-No, 3-No But, 4-Yes But, 5-Yes, 6-Yes And. Useful for people who don't like to roll a lot of dice, or who want to use a more narrative system in other games outside of the Star Wars setting.
There are a lot of ways to approach this method of task resolution. Getting the the distribution of results in tune with the genre is where the work lies, I feel.
In this particular case, 3D6 would not offer enough results to use the rest of the system, requiring a significant rewrite before play. As an additive to a different game built on binary results, though, it would be grand.
+hagintora
I dont know where that system you mentioned came from but it sounds like a really elegant system!
And you are correct, it fulfills the same mechanics as FFGs current system does.
However, the FFG offers more detailed mathematics behind its system which opens up for lots of various modifications and additions to increase/decrease chances of a roll and its effects.
What I find so amazing about the narrative dice is that there is no intuitive way of quickly counting up your average chance of success. This might sound as a bad thing for some people, but I find it a good thing! I dont want my players to calculate hard odds before doing certain tasks, a general idea should be enough.
"Im am trained in climbing so I should have a decent chance of making this wall, even with this twisted ankle".
As opposed to
"I have 65% climbing skill but im wounded so its reduced to 45%. You have 55% so you do it!"
I appreciate your break down, and think you did a great job. However, I still don't see how these specialty dice ADD something that couldn't just be accomplished with regular dice. I understand the desire to add in a narrative to the die roll, but this just seems WAY overly complex.
+captcorajus Thanks for watching. I am surprised that you find it complex and to be 'overly complex' at that. The dice are sorted by both color and type, making each easy to differentiate. Positive and Negative symbols are likewise separated. Degrees of success are determined by cancelling opposites, a form of pattern recognition we learn to do from a very young age. How to use the dice is one of those things which takes the first 5 minutes of the first game, and then never gets talked about again.
If you are concerned about using the dice, and unsure if the game is for you, there are dice apps for browsers, hangouts, and mobile devices which do all the cancellations for you. Honestly, though... it's a very basic thing to do.
If you are referring to interpretation of results, that, can seem daunting at first, but usually by the end of the first session, that perception of difficulty fades. Experienced GMs tend to take to it like coming home, and newcomers find it to be very supportive as they venture out into the challenging world of improvisation and interpretation.
As noted, it's a process of identifying if a roll is a success or failure, and then
collaborating on how that result manifests. The basic benefits of the dice are
the increased engagement of all players at the table, the decrease in the use
of purely meta or mechanical language, the ease of separating influences on
outcomes, and the impressive support all this has on helping newcomers build
and practice improvisational skill. As a fringe benefit of the system, there tend to be fewer rolls overall, so although it is not the fastest rules set on the block, scenes tend to resolve very quickly.
The dice make it much easier for the GM to do what the GM needs to do to run a fun Star Wars game, *and* they get the players involved too. That is what they add, and that is not something that your typical dice system brings to the table.
Anyway, thanks for watching and commenting. I hope this comment will be of some use~
I've been gaming for 35 years. In that time I've accumulated a few 'game design don'ts' for RPGs... my number 1 don't is a 'diceless' rpg, and my number 2 don't is 'specialty dice'.
My experience is that in the long term, such games just don't last, and this is a licensed product to boot, further challenging its life.
But I ask you, WHY do I need to learn new symbols, and have to interpret 18 different possible out comes with each roll just to role play??? Why couldn't this be accomplished with just regular dice?
WEG's excellent Star Wars RPG did this 20 years ago with its 'Wild Die" mechanic where you rolled a different color die with each skill check. A 6 on the wild die granted you another roll and a boon, while a 1 didn't necessarily indicate failure, but possibly a complication.
I understand the desire to try and interject a narrative into the dice, and try to be innovative by moving away from a binary interpretation of a roll, but FFG's solution seems to be more of a marketing ploy rather than a genuine game mechanic innovation. Its still a dice pool.... but now its a dice pool that I have to learn.
Also, while this might seem okay from a player's perspective... neat little things like this always do, how does this work from the game master's side of things?
And I spoke on this in another thread, but I'll respond to it here. I'm totally not thrilled with FFG's marketing here.
You said that Edge of Empire, Age of Rebellion and Force and Destiny are complete games unto themselves, but from the videos I've seen, and read, the character set ups, equipment and backgrounds for each are particular to each setting.
A look at the careers and specializations listed in each book seems to bare this out. My interpretation here is that essentially rather than release a core rules booklet with all the character types in one book, and a series of sourcebooks for each setting, they've combined a specific set of character types with each setting and basically reiterated the rules each time.
+captcorajus I wholly support knowing what you like about gaming, being able to articulate it so you can find others to share it with, and being open to the possibility that what I like may not be what you like. I suppose that is a cornerstone of this channel. We have both been gaming for ages, so we probably have a lot of games in common. It doesn't sound like we learned the same things from them, or perhaps enjoyed them in the same way, and that is cool. That's a feature, not a bug.
FFG's dice system is not a gimmick, it has distinct effects and uses, and it goes beyond what the wild die contributes. The wild die was regarded the same way when it was new. Dice pools were seen as ridiculous when Ghostbusters came out, but here we are 30 years later and they are still with us, and still returning solid results for interpretation. The thing I see people wrestle with time and again is that the FFG narrative dice look complicated and they look hard to remember. The truth is, that the effort required to learn them is really no different than the effort required to learn any other game. The same effort goes in, and a greater benefit results. I suspect this is part of the reason why proponents of the dice have a hard time talking about them with people who are unwilling to even try them. It's like recommending a chocolate bar to a friend who decides they won't try it because they don't like the package. You both miss out.
As a GM of this game I love it. It frees me to enjoy more of the things I enjoy about running games, it gets the players much more involved in working with scene elements narratively, and it makes it much easier to help new players see themselves as being able to be GMs and then try it for themselves. I find this mechanic is the best I have yet used for capturing the grit and thrill of Star Wars, matching the swings of coincidence and destiny, and producing the visceral fear of real conflict where death is easy and maiming is a constant threat. Players have interesting and clearly defined control over narration which gives them the information and options they need for good decision-making, and risk-taking, without ever resorting to probability or out of character talk.
If you still play, and still enjoy WEG Star Wars with the same group, then I don't think you have any need to change. Having played both a lot, I have found my preference is in FFG's approach. Our group is having a great time with our ongoing campaign, and try to find every opportunity to play more often - even as we close in on two years of consistent play. I would not have gotten the same result with WEG, but I would still have had a great campaign. I can say, though, that a lot of the issues which crop up in D6 are simply absent in this game, and I don't just mean the problems of character advancement and the troubles with the progression of force users. The designers clearly loved D6 and took a lot of lessons from it to deliver a very solid game which reconsiders how games are presented, supported, and how they are played. I am not sure how or where this mechanic will appear again, but I will be very surprised if it does not.
Runeslinger I was a big fan of Ghostbusters when it came out. Loved the Ghost die. Loved the wild die mechanic in Star Wars, and really don't have an issue with dice pools. Rolling lots of dice is fun! Hell, I loved Shadowrun.
The only game I've played from FFG was descent, and spent quite a bit of money on it, and found it to be a lot of fun, and was very appreciative of the production values.
If you care to, please check out my youtube channel. I review old school modules and games... It's rather D&D centric, as that's the game I play most often.. but I'm focused on looking at old school stuff, and modifying it for more modern play.
I've been running a 5e campaign for a year and a half now, and with the new movie coming out my girls were totally up for a change to Star Wars.
My gaming group consists of 5 players. My two teen age daughters, two old friends of mine, and another recent gaming friend. We meet pretty solidly.
My daughters are not system gamers. They aren't really into delving into the ins and outs of the game system itself, just playing their characters... so from the perspective of, can I teach them these specialty dice, or would I be better off sticking with the super easy to learn d6 system, I'm very much leaning towards the latter.
thanks!!
lt Data plays Star Wars!
That boost die looks white to me!
Adjust your set, and have faith~
Are you related to Gary Oldman? Thank you for the reviews and insights into FFG Starwars.
I am glad you have found them to be useful~
Ah yes, what are your thoughts on mass combat narratives?
I like them. They have been a part of my gaming from very early on from Mechwarrior and Star Wars mainly, but in other games as well, most recently RuneQuest 6th Edition and CthulhuTech. I rarely use them as the point of a game, but often use them as a shifting and interactive backdrop of one~
How about you?
The boost die is white....
Trust your feelings... you know that cannot be true~
Yeah...I watched this and another of your dice videos, and they definitely appear white in these videos, while it seems you call them blue. Doing this only makes that bit confusing for the viewer, which seems counter to everything else you are doing.
This very well could be the result of poor lighting....but that is something that should be indicated up front, otherwise it's just confusing.
So almost every roll gets bogged down with people have to figure out hidden catches and silver linings to every success/failure they encounter. Plus now as the GM I have to lose control of the narrative at the whim of random chance. And for this privilege I have fork over an extra $15 on top of overpriced books. Yay.
every dice based system leaves the narrative at the whim of the dice gods, if you don't like that then you should probably just read/write a book, other than that i do agree with your points though it's not that hard to figure out the "hidden catches and silver linings"