With recent shake-ups at Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) the fate of their Star Wars RPG line is uncertain at best. Does this signal an end of any new products by FFG for Star Wars? Will the license change to a new company to produce an RPG? Or is Disney just going to let a tabletop RPG fade away like a dead Jedi Master? I feel that I have finally gotten comfortable with the FFG rules and I am not ready to embrace a new version of the RPG anytime soon.
As I’ve reflected on what these changes at FFG might mean for the future of my beloved Star Wars, I realized that there have been four iterations of Star Wars RPG rules in the past 30 years. Each change has sent ripples out through the Force causing more than a few disturbances among gaming nerds everywhere. Arguably, FFG has the best version of the RPG that has been produced with its narrative dice system and the flexibility inherent in its character creation and advancement rules. Players are not restricted to a level-based system and can dip into other talent trees to build a character to suit their desires.
I have enjoyed playing each version of the Star Wars RPG, but I always find myself comparing each system to the original one created by West End Games (WEG). Spiritually, I would say that the FFG system is a direct successor to the d6 version of the game created by WEG. There are many similarities between the two that allowed a grognard like me to eagerly embrace Edge of the Empire and the narrative dice system.
For those reading this that have no experience with WEG and its d6 Star Wars RPG, I am going to give you an overview of that rule set and discuss those aspects that are similar to FFG’s version of the game. I am not looking to convert people from FFG to WEG; I merely want to educate people on the legacy that WEG has provided today’s fans of Star Wars RPGs. Conversely, if you are an old WEG player like me and have no experience with FFG then I hope I inspire you to give it a try.
The First Star Wars Roleplaying Game
West End Games acquired the license to publish a Star Wars RPG and released its first core rulebook in late 1987. That and the Star Wars Sourcebook were the first two products released and they were a treasure trove of information for first generation Star Wars fans. These were the first books to discuss the size of an Imperial-class Star Destroyer, provide stats on a Victory-class Star Destroyer, or discuss the crew complement on either. WEG and the dozens of sourcebooks and supplements they released through their 11-year run for Star Wars helped to define what was then known as the Expanded Universe (EU) and what we know today as Legends. Their books were required source materials for authors writing the stories of the time.
The game itself was simple and required only a large quantity of readily-available six-sided dice or d6’s to play. This d6 system was the same for several other products released by WEG including their Ghostbusters RPG and Men in Black RPG. WEG had a good, streamlined rules set and it lent itself easily to the concept of a universal RPG system which WEG eventually published as well as The D6 System. Similarly, FFG’s narrative dice system has been utilized now in its Genesys Roleplaying Game which says a lot about the adaptability of the game mechanics.
To create a player character, the d6 Star Wars RPG required you to select a species, allocate dice to six attributes, and select skills to add skill dice to. A base human had 2D in each of its six attributes of Strength (STR), Dexterity (DEX), Perception (PER), Knowledge (KNO), Mechanical (MEC), and Technical (TEC) though PCs had a total of 18 dice to split among attributes so it was possible to have 3D in all attributes for a starting human or push a few of them up to the human maximum of 4D. A starting PC also got to allocate seven dice to skills with each skill governed by an attribute. For example, Blaster and Dodge were both Dexterity skills while Brawling was a Strength skill. If no skill dice were given to Blaster or Dodge then they would be equal to the base DEX score. Otherwise, if you allocated dice to a skill then the skill was written to represent the total of the attribute plus skill dice. At character creation you could add up to 2D to any skill. So it was possible for a starting PC with a DEX of 4D to begin with a Blaster skill of 6D and a Dodge skill of 6D as well if that was how the player chose to assign their dice. To me, if you can wrap your head around this part of the rules then it isn’t too difficult to figure out how to create a dice pool in FFG’s Star Wars game as you are again considering skills and their governing characteristics as you determine what to roll.
Difficulty levels were provided as general ranges of target numbers under categories of Very Easy (1-5), Easy (6-10), Moderate (11-15), Difficult (16-20), Very Difficult (21-30), and Heroic (31+). GM’s were able to vary the difficulty numbers of a task based upon situational factors. For example, bypassing the lock on a standard door in an Imperial installation would be a Moderate difficulty task requiring a Security skill check. It the PC had a security tool kit the GM might choose to make it a Moderate (11) difficulty while if the PC had no tools and was trying to “hot wire” the door he might bump it up to Moderate (15). Similarly, GMs have flexibility with FFG’s system in that they can take an Average difficulty check and grant boost dice to represent having the right tools for the job or give setback dice to represent the increased challenges of not having the right tools.
Each player was granted a Force Point that could be spent at a “dramatically appropriate moment” to represent a feat of heroism and drastically alter the course of an encounter. Mechanically, the PC that spent a Force Point could double all dice that they rolled for that round. So that starting character with a Blaster skill of 6D could spend a Force Point and roll 12 dice to attempt to make a Heroic-level shot and shoot the enemy sniper at long range with his blaster pistol. Destiny points serve a similar purpose in the FFG version of the RPG.
Second Edition and Second Edition, Revised and Expanded
In 1992, WEG published the Second Edition rulebook which was followed in 1996 by the Second Edition Revised and Expanded rulebook. Both of them introduced new concepts to the basic d6 RPG including skill specializations, scaling rules, and combined actions. The most important change, though, was the addition of the game mechanic known as the Wild Die. To me, this is the single aspect of WEG’s d6 system that most closely mirrors the effect of FFG’s narrative dice on game play.
The advent of the Wild Die required that each roll include one die in the pool that was a different color from the rest or otherwise easily identifiable. This was the Wild Die. So if you were making one shot with a Blaster skill of 6D you would roll five dice of one color with one Wild Die for your skill check. If the Wild Die came up as anything from 2-5, then you just counted it as normal to determine success or failure. If the Wild Die came up as a 6, then you added the dice as normal and then you rolled the Wild Die again and added it to your total. If another 6 came up on the re-roll, then you added it to the total and rolled again. You could continue doing this as long as you kept rolling a 6 on the Wild Die. This allowed players with only average skill levels to be capable of having miraculous results with a little luck on their side. FFG’s triumph mechanic could be considered the successor to this aspect of the Wild Die.
On the other hand, a 1 on the Wild Die could best be compared to the despair mechanic in FFG. When a 1 was rolled on a Wild Die the GM had three ways they could handle it. First, they could add up the dice as normal. Second, they could remove the Wild Die from the pool along with the highest other die rolled. Finally, they could total up the dice as normal to determine success and say that a complication occurs. This last method most approximates succeeding on a task in FFG’s system but having a despair add a level complication.
In Summary
I really enjoy playing the Star Wars RPG published by Fantasy Flight Games and I attribute most of my love for the system to fondness for West End Game’s version of the RPG. So much of FFG’s system seems familiar to me from allocation of characteristics and skills, assignment of difficulties, the use of destiny points, and the flexibility of the narrative dice system. With the Wild Die mechanic I was pretty much telling narrative stories under the WEG rules almost two decades before FFG published its system. Overall though, I feel that FFG has refined some of the weaknesses of the d6 systems and taken it beyond a simple pass or fail resolution system. I hope that FFG will continue to publish great content for the current version of the Star Wars RPG. It should be noted that last year, FFG published a 30th Anniversary Edition of the d6 Star Wars RPG and Star Wars Sourcebook as a two-book set. May the Force be with them…and us all!
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