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Review of Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game 30th Anniversary Edition
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Blurb from the publisher: '"My ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we." - Yoda
Few books or games have had as enduring an impact upon the Star Wars galaxy and its fans as Star Wars™: The Roleplaying Game. Originally published by West End Games in 1987, it arrived at a time when the future of the Star Wars galaxy was uncertain, and it captivated a whole generation of gamers with rules and guidelines that made it possible to design and enjoy adventures truly worthy of the Star Wars universe and its ongoing space opera.
Now Fantasy Flight Games is proud to offer faithful recreations of this influential rulebook and The Star Wars™ Sourcebook. Our Star Wars™: The Roleplaying Game 30th Anniversary Edition is a limited edition set of both books, printed with higher quality than the originals and packaged in a stylized slipcase.
These books were sent to Timothy Zahn as references when he started to develop Grand Admiral Thrawn and his Thrawn trilogy. They introduced materials that were later adopted into Star Wars canon, such as the names of alien races like the Twi'lek, Rodians, and Quarren. They even inspired members of the Lucasfilm Story Group as they worked on their writers' bible.
Now, Fantasy Flight Games is proud to return Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game to print as a collectible set of two high-quality, hardbound books presented in a stylized slipcase. You'll find all the original game materials—just as playable as ever—and they're presented with the same graphic design and fake, in-universe Star Wars advertisements for the Imperial Navy, the R2 astromech Droid, and more.
Even the books' use of black-and-white, blue ink, and full color sections have been recreated, along with its use of still photos and concept art, some of which have been updated for this new 30th Anniversary Edition. Finally, the books come with a foreword by Pablo Hidalgo, one of the creative executives on the Lucasfilm Story Group.
Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook
In just 144 pages, the Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game core rulebook opened the way to boundless adventures among the stars, and its rules systems are as fast and effective as ever. All you and your friends need to enjoy this seminal roleplaying experience are the core rulebook, pencils, paper, and a bunch of six-sided dice.
The rulebook, meanwhile, is broken into three sections, each of which is divided into a number of smaller, focused chapters.
- In the Player Section, you'll find everything you need to understand how the game allows characters to interact with each other and their environment. The rules for character creation are clearly presented and make it easy to design every type of Star Wars character you could imagine, from an aspiring Jedi to a rogue freighter pilot, from a grizzled soldier to a secretive politician.
- The Gamemaster Section further fleshes out the game with insight into all the things a gamemaster needs to run his or her players through fully realized Star Wars adventures. You'll find a useful introduction to gamemastering alongside detailed rules for starships, combat, wounds and healing, and using the Force.
- Finally, the Adventure Section steps back to look at the art of designing and running adventures in such a way as to make them truly entertaining and memorable Star Wars experiences. Then it jumps head first into the fully realized adventure "Rebel Breakout" before it presents a range of other adventure ideas you and your friends might pursue on your own.
Of course, it's the Star Wars universe that draws us to this game, and the rulebook acknowledges this fact with a plethora of photo stills and concept art, plus some fantastic and comical, retro-styled advertisements that get you into the mindset of one of the galaxy's countless citizens.
The Star Wars Sourcebook
Also weighing in at 144 pages, The Star Wars Sourcebook offers a wealth of information about the starships, vehicles, creatures, alien races, Rebel bases, and Imperial garrisons that can help ground your games fully within the Star Wars galaxy.
The book is divided into fifteen chapters: General Spacecraft Systems, Starfighters, Combat Starships, Space Transports, Droids, Repulsorlift Vehicles, Imperial Ground Assault Vehicles, Aliens, Creatures, General Equipment, Lightsabers, Stormtroopers, Rebel Bases, Imperial Garrisons, and Heroes and Villains.
These are accompanied by dozens upon dozens of charts, photos, pieces of concept art, schematic diagrams, and short fiction. This means that The Star Wars Sourcebook does more than simply help you populate your games; it provides a deeper insight into the Star Wars universe, itself, along with many of its various legends.
And as a relic of a bygone age, The Star Wars Sourcebook serves as a beautiful reminder of these legends, allowing you to enjoy them and recall an earlier time in the history of all things Star Wars, even as the newer films, television shows, comics, and novels blast us forward into the galaxy's future.
Own a Piece of Star Wars History
The Jedi were nearly extinct and all but forgotten, but they returned to change the galaxy. Now, thirty years after West End Games first published Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, its books make their return in this highly collectible 30th Anniversary Edition.
The Force binds them. It flows through them. And they can bring the Star Wars galaxy to life on your tabletop, in your minds, and in your heart, now as much as ever before. There's no better way for you or your favorite Star Wars fan to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of Star Wars than with this enduring piece of Star Wars history!
The rules and reference materials presented in the Star Wars™: The Roleplaying Game 30th Anniversary Edition are not compatible with Star Wars: Age of Rebellion, Star Wars: Force and Destiny, and Star Wars: Edge of Empire.
The Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game 30th Anniversary Edition is being made available as a collectible piece of Star Wars history, intended to stand alone.'
What you get: Your USD 59,95 or equivalent will buy you the Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game 30th Anniversary Edition, an edition comprised by two mostly black and white, 144-page hardcovers in a luxurious slip case: the Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook, and The Star Wars Sourcebook. As the blurb already states, this re-issuing is a marginally updated replica of the initial publication which created one of Star Wars most famous role-playing iterations, the d6 one. It is reminded that the initial publication had won the Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Rules back in 1987. The present edition will not be supported by additional material, seeing how not one, not two, but three different Star Wars roleplaying games exist under Fantasy Flight Games' aegis: Age of Rebellion, Edge of the Empire, and Force and Destiny.
The product's physical edition is not supported by a pdf one. Either you buy it on paper, or you don't buy it at all.
In the interest of full disclosure, I had never played the d6 iteration of Star Wars RPG before. Quaint, hey? Taking away the minor updates here and there in relation to the original publication which I cannot spot, it isn't totally unfair to see this review as a modern review of two products which first came out thirty years ago.
Contents: The Star Wars system only uses six-sided dice, and works with character templates like the Failed Jedi, Bounty Hunter and the Kid. Each character has six attributes (Dexterity, Knowledge, Mechanical, Perception, Strength, and Technical), each of which relates to a number of skills (from five to eight). Each template has its attributes fixed; where a Failed Jedi has a Dexterity of 2d6+2, a Pirate has one of 4d6. Thus character customization happens on the skill level, with each player having 7d6 to distribute in their different skills. Those skills will henceforth roll the relevant attribute dice plus the extra allocated dice, while any skill without additional allocated dice will use only the dice of its relevant attribute. As expected, the system is roll over, with tasks ranging from very easy (difficulty 5) to very difficult (difficulty 30).
Four character templates (Alien Student, Failed Jedi, Minor Jedi, Quixotic Jedi) allow access to the three Force skills, the only ones not linked to attributes: Control, Sense, and Alter. Each of them breaks down to a number of effects. As an example, Control can be about remaining conscious, hibernating, accelerated healing, etc. Even more importantly, the skills can be combined, with results like Inflict Pain (Control + Alter) or Affect Mind (Control + Sense + Alter). Each of these powers has its own target number, usually depending on the check's particular circumstances.
Irrespective of whether a character has Force Skills or not, he starts with one Force point. Force points can be used to double a player's skill and attribute dice; the player can take double the amount of actions and has a much higher chance of success. The Force however must be used prudently, since it can produce four different results: to do something evil, to do something unheroic, to do something heroic, and to do something heroic at the dramatically appropriate moment. Depending on how the Gamemaster judges the context, the character might lose a Force point and gain a permanent Dark Side point, lose a permanent Force point only, spend a point temporarily until the end of the adventure, or spend the point temporarily with the chance of acquiring an additional Force point.
As the game exclaims, its style should be as close as possible to that of the Star Wars franchise, or at least the Star Wars franchise as it existed back in 1987. It should be pseudoscientific, set in a grandiose scale, with a lot of alien races, a flair of space opera, and a fair amount of banter. Adventures should be fast and furious, with witty comebacks and high adrenaline, not grimdark affairs that get bogged down into details. The Core Rulebook supports droids as NPCs, and with a bit of tweaking also as player characters, even though it admits that this is not the primary scope of the game.
Rebel Breakout is a shortish, 22-page adventure, where the heroes will try to join the rebels for the very first time. Even that however is much harder than it sounds, and especially when mines and caves are involved.
The book ends with 17 pages on character templates (including 24 templates like the Arrogant Noble, the Retired Imperial Captain and the Smuggler), as well as Gamemaster charts relating to astrogation, healing, modifiers etc.
The Star Wars Sourcebook on the other hand could have easily qualified back in the day as a concise Star Wars encyclopedia. It is divided into fifteen chapters, all of them covering a different subject. The first four are dedicated to starships, namely General Spacecraft Systems, Starfighters, Combat Starships, and Space Transports. This isn't pages upon pages of blocks of stats, even though each craft is statted out; it includes write ups with the vessel's uses, pieces of history and technical aspects. Droids is the book's fifth chapter, and covers five different types: astromech, protocol, medical, probe and assassin droids. The two following chapters on the other hand cover vehicles, both of the Repulsorlift type, including well-known pieces like landspeeders and speeder bikes, and Imperial Ground Assault ones. Expect a similar treatment to that of starships.
Aliens discusses ten out of the galaxy's many races. That includes Ewoks, Jawas and many more. Creatures are discussed on the next chapter, with six creatures coming to the forefront. Expect Banthas, space slugs and the Rancor. There is a chapter on General Equipment, mostly covering weapons, tools and machines, as well as a 2-page chapter on lightsabers. Stormtroopers and their different types get their dedicated space, as do Rebel Bases and Imperial Garrisons.
The book's final Heroes And Villains chapter covers eleven well-known characters, both with stats as well as an extensive write-up. Amongst those one can find Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia Organa, Han Solo, and of course Darth Vader.
The strong points: A blast from the past! Isn't it better to buy a brand new d6 iteration of the world's most successful science fantasy universe, instead of hunting down the destroyed remnants of what used to be core rulebooks and sourcebooks in a galaxy far away? This isn't just about Star Wars, which is thriving in three different set ups as we speak. This is about the initial, d6 Star Wars, which had an enormous impact not just on the franchise or the genre, but on role-playing overall. This might be currently irrelevant, but at the time no Star Wars material was forthcoming from other sources, it was the d6 RPG that kept the faith, with new material spinning left and right.
The d6 system does not need any particular introductions. It is simple, almost rules-light, very cinematic, and encourages heroes to act against the odds and put ideals and their comrades before their own hide. This might sound standard today, but back in 1987 it was all relatively new. Even back then combat in d6 would only take a fraction of the time combat in, say, Dungeons & Dragons would take, and even more so today. True, the two systems were created with different goals in mind. Yet the almost impossible slimness of the Core Rulebook and the straight-forward, go-get'em style of writing, can turn the reader into a Gamemaster out of thin air. Templates are almost ready-made characters; one only needs to allocate some dice here and there and he is ready for action.
One of the biggest questions was, and still is, whether the game can achieve the right balance between non-Jedi and Jedi characters. Rules-wise, the latter obliterate the former, and can steal the spotlight if they so wish. The whole concept however is for the players not to wish so. The rules on when the use of the Force should be rewarded are as simple as they are ingenious. If it's heroic but not timed-well, you might think of it again. Every other time is pretty much a no-go. One Jedi player per group is more than adequate; groups can even afford not to have any. The system shouts out left and right that it should not be taken that seriously, and that a game should be played a certain way. It might come out as heavy handed at times, but I do enjoy those suggestions, and especially because I can imagine them in their historical context, when few, if any games, did so. This is no introspective adventuring, or a thespian exercise. There are eyerolling moments, facepalm moments, humour, and heroic action to the extent of being silly at times. Star Wars takes itself seriously as a franchise, yet when it comes to the action scenes it wants the players to insert some aloofness to their characters. Good stuff, even when they mostly promote an OOC way of playing.
The adventures has its quirks, seeing how it is an extended glorified adventure scene without something in particular that makes it belong to the Star Wars universe, all in all however it comes out as entertaining. What I find conceptually hilarious is that is takes place in a mine, a dungeon if you prefer. So, the first adventure ever for a Star Wars RPG imitated D&D, at least when it comes to the abstracted locale, an enclosed, contained place, which the Gamemaster can more easily control. Woah! If that isn't a testament of how pervasive D&D has been on everything, I don't know what is.
The production values are very high. The books are full colour only in a handful of pages, this is however a conscious choice to stay as close to the original. The slip case is classy, to say the least. The hardcovers are very solid. I can't put my finger on it, but there's something different in those hardcopies, and I am not talking just about the texture. The imagery inside is taken both from the movies that have come out before the book's initial publication, as well as drawings from the era. The result is delightfully retro; most of these images wouldn't have passed muster if that book was published today for the first time.
The weak points: I do appreciate the effort of keeping the product a copy of the original, with the exception of the new advertisements. Yet, there are things relating to presentation where the originals were not ideal, taking into account when they were published. The most obvious is the lack of headers and footers, or the absence of an index at the books' end. The table of contents is minimal at best, especially in the core book. Nostalgia is one thing, but an improvement of something as non-intrusive as that is a drop in the quality of reading and the ease of playing the game.
Light and cinematic tends to mean heavily abstracted. That is also the case in d6. If you are expecting impossible feats of swordmanship, or involved space battles for the ages, look elsewhere. This is about achieving heroic outcomes while the right soundtrack plays on the background and all the players cheer. I won't even try to deconstruct the space battle concept thirty years after it was first published; it would be meaningless.
The Sourcebook reads unlike any other RPG Sourcebook I know of. I do not know whether a Star Wars encyclopedia existed back in the day or whether this book was called to fill that spot. Whatever the case, most of the writing is as interesting as it is impossible to use in the setting in a meaningful way. Info might relate to history, or how impotent AT-STs are in reality, or how uncommon lightsabers are, irrespective of them appearing in the movies all the time. Yet, all this, while it is thoroughly entertaining to read, and added a lot to the universe back in the day, cannot be roleplayed at all. A Gamemaster will communicate this info to his players through sheer exposition or handouts. If you need to insert them thoughtfully in your campaign, you will need to do the grunt work. There is nothing like suggestions, hooks or whatever have you, that can be lifted as is and used for a fast playing session. There is tons of text, with juicy contents, but it does not help you extract the playable parts. That is part of the legacy of a 30-year-old product.
There is no pdf accompanying the game's print edition. I can understand why Fantasy Flight did not wish to put a pdf on the market independently, not selling however one in tandem with a print sale is in my opinion a mistake. In my understanding, most Gamemastrs nowadays use both formats. A tablet at the table is effectively a second rulebook at hand. This should have been handled differently.
I already wrote numerous times that this is a one-off, collector's edition product. It is not going to be supported any further. This, however, you know already in advance.
Conclusion: I am extremely happy to have the Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game 30th Anniversary Edition in my library, and play it when fancy strikes. For a non-Star Wars geek like me, this is already a huge accomplishment. The game is simple, entertaining and all-round fun. It might be unsupported, and it shows its age. It does so however gracefully, while providing glimpses of how roleplaying used to be. Reading it alongside one of the current Star Wars iterations is extremely educational, even though only Star Wars fans will buy it for that. Irrespective if you buy it for nostalgia, out of curiosity about how Star Wars roleplaying was 30 years ago, or because you are interested in a self-contained game without a continuously evolving line, you will not be disappointed.
For more info on Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game 30th Anniversary Edition visit the Fantasy Flight Games website at https://www.fantasyflightgames.com.
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