What were you thinking, buying this?
I didn't. Buy it, that is. A friend gave me the game pretty much as soon as it came out, along with a copy for himself. Another member of my playing group picked up the book as well, so it looked like we were going to be playing Star Wars for a bit. I had been a bit hesitant to pick the book up myself, since I had a lot of fond memories of West End Games' Star Wars. This version was going to use Wizards of the Coast's D20 system and I wasn't sure how well that would translate into the Star Wars world.
So, what's up with the book?
Oh, man... I don't even want to think about this one. I'm not going to give a breakdown of the entire book, because the entire book isn't worth the paper its printed on. Here's the short version:
The first section is described as the Player's Section, but its really the core rules of the game. It describes character creation using D20 in the Star Wars setting, as well as give a run down on things like combat, starship piloting, and the Force. Now, since I didn't know the D20 system, I started in on making a character, guessing that once I had all my stats figured up, I'd have a good idea on how it all worked together. I went to make what turned out to be mostly a space bum, using the Rogue-- oh, I mean Scoundrel class.
By the time I was 90% finished, I completely despised the game. First of all, the system uses classes. This isn't much of a problem since WEG Star Wars used templates. The problem is that it uses nearly the exact same classes as Dungeons and Dragons. You have your Fighter (Soldier), your Wizard (Jedi Consular), your Battle Mage (Jedi Guardian), your Ranger (Scout), your Rogue (Scoundrel), and your Psionic (Force Adept). The Fringer and the Noble are about the only really original classes in the book, and that's probably because I don't know D&D very well and can't think of a version of it there.
I rolled on through the Feats and Skills sections, not seeing anything there that was interesting or unique in any way. Sure, the skills were linked to Attributes and used a central mechanic, but that's how it was in 7th Sea. My Scoundrel, though, got a feat at 5th level called Back Sta-- oh, I mean Sneak Attack. This becomes important later, so hang on.
After that was Heroic Characteristics. I was first level, so little of this was important to me. I had no reputation, I already knew how tall and heavy I was, and I had no followers. Skip on...
Next was equipment. Non-combat gear took up two and a half pages, while combat gear took up eight pages. If its roleplaying and not rollplaying you're interested in, this is not a good sign. Now, this is a space opera setting, so I accept that most problems will be solved with a low-slung blaster pistol, making guns important to the game. That brings me to my next problem with the system. When I went to buy my blaster pistol, I noticed something unpleasant. There was an ammo rating. My pistol only had 50 shots. Many people say "So what?" Well, in first edition Star Wars from WEG, there was no ammo rating. Your guns were good for "hundreds and hundreds" of shots. You only had to keep track of ammo if your characters were away from their ships for periods of a few weeks. Now, that is Star Wars. Does anyone ever reload in Star Wars? No. Does anyone ever reload in D20 Star Wars? Yes. Bad sign.
Combat stats came next, and here is the point where I pretty much put the book away. My Scoundrel had his sneak attack. Now, why you have to have Scoundrel Class in order to sneak up on someone, I'll never know. The important thing is that both here and in the Class description, it is mentioned that Scoundrels can make a Sneak Attack when they have successfully Flanked their opponent. Flanks. I'll say it again. Flanks. What the !#$@ do Flanks have to do with Star Wars? When a squad of highly trained Imperial soldiers enter a room where armed and wanted killers are known to be hiding, do you here the squad leader give intelligent orders? "Okay, blue fire team, take the right flank, red fire team on the left, green and yellow teams, up the middle. Let's go!" No, you don't. You hear them say, "Stop that ship! Blast 'em!" Intelligent combat tactics and space opera fights are opposing concepts. Space opera is about simplicity, both in characterization and combat tactics. The genre is the sci-fi version of the pre-Clint Eastwood westerns, where a fast gun and a happy attitude is all it takes to save the day. Nobody uses the word "Flank" in space opera. I mentioned this while telling my group why I didn't want to play this game and one of the other players said that the whole Sneak Attack/Flank thing is good for simulating sniping. Sniping... Hurg. The combat section seems crafted to mimic real life fights, or at least provide a wide variety of moves for rules lawyers to rack up bonuses with. This is Space Opera, not Saving Private Ryan, people!
After Combat came the Force and Starships. Word has it that both these rulesets suffered in the change to D20, but I didn't stop on my way to the bookshelf to check them. Also of note is that the free character sheet in the back of the book does not tear out, nor is it easily accessible for copying or scanning without cracking the spine of the book. I had to shear mine out with a razor blade in order to get the thing to fit into my scanner. Turns out a separate book has been released that has character sheets in it. Thanks for not mentioning that, guys.
Yeah, right, but what about the pretty pictures?
Layout. Two-column, headers are in purple with sub-headings in black bold. Black boxes with various kinds of special information are mixed in with the regular text. Interspersed in the columns are pictures, artwork, tables, and quotes. When I say interspersed, I mean just that, or at least where the quotes are concerned. They tend to expand from one column and take up around half the column next to them. There are tons of them, too. I didn't need any of that, and it all gave me a headache for the first couple of days I tried to use the book. Layout is a serious problem in this book, and my disgust at it stretched out the character creation process of my Scoundrel to a few days, instead of a few hours as it should have been for someone just learning the system.
Interior art is okay, especially since most of it is pictures from the movies anyway. The artwork, though, presented me with the answer to the problems I had with Heroes Unlimited, though. The drawn characters have expressions on their faces. Palladium artwork never seems to have that.
Worth the dough?
No. And that really means something, since I got my copy for free. This book fails the space opera genre and the Star Wars setting on all levels and is most certainly not worth the thirty-five dollar price tag. Dig through the bargain bins and grab WEG's version. That game nailed the space opera genre better than any system I have yet seen. But whatever you do, don't buy this pile of dung. You'd be better off making the tables and combat system up as you go.
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