Earlier quoted context omitted.
We've got this amazing supply of great and interesting RPG engines out now, which I think the broad internet community (just people getting together to DIY stuff) and crowdfunding (lots of these systems are kickstarted) sort of came together to support. That said, I think that most systems authors need to start with a paragraph or two about "why this RPG engine is necessary, instead of making it work as a plugin to G…
I’m curious to know what you think needs improvement with FFG SWRPG. I have my own views on the subject, but I would like to hear others. Thanks!
The confusing symbol math needed to decode a roll (there are what, six major symbols, some of which count as other symbols, others which cancel in pairs) is annoying enough that I imagine every dev who has played this game has written their own die roller.
While the story and fluff behind character generation is pretty good, the three talent tree thing feels again like a cheap attempt to appeal to video game semantics, but ends up introducing balance issues (it is extremely worthwhile to dip a tree to gain cheap skill updates and the low tree upgrades, given cost scaling).
Character generation also makes it way too easy to make a really cruddy character by accident. In this case, "cruddy" is defined as someone who is significantly less likely to succeed at resolution rolls in a variety of situations. In particular, because attributes play such a huge role in skills and are hard to increase outside of chargen, it is waaay better to invest initial points directly in those.
This is exacerbated by the fact that while it feels nice to add specialization to a skill, it does not actually increase the odds of success by all that much. You are a better pilot with three green dice than with a green and a yellow. This problem combines the funky and hard to understand statistics of the resolution system with permanent mistakes that can be made during character generation, where a novice player can spend a lot of their resources making a character who is 15% better of a pilot than anyone else, but is terrible at everything else, which usually results in unsatisfying gameplay.
There are a lot of other bugs in the system - the weapon / armor add-on system is ripe for exploitation if the game is combat-heavy and the GM is foolish enough to allow people to easily purchase custom stuff. There are so many moving parts and ways to minmax, it is hard not to. I mean, an under-barrel flame thrower is a reasonable option here. FFS, FFG.
Ultimately, I enjoy star wars RPGs, but that is despite the mechanics, rather than because of them.
Ob- my roller. https://stuff.spherical.fish/roll3/