RPG Soapbox

So, with all the expounding I've been doing about Saga edition lately, I thought it was probably time to write some kind of review, and start some kind of discussion about online conversion.

First off, on the books themselves. They are admittedly, a bit pricey. The $40 tag on most of them is a bit of a turn off for yet another star wars product, however, if you like D20, this will probably be the last one you need, and is very pretty. When I got my copy of the corebook, they had accidentally placed them with the coffee table Staw Wars books in the geeks isle of Barnes and Noble. Forgivable, as the 9x9 size is suprizing at first, and the sepia cover of Darth Vader staring out at you is amazing.

The 9x9 size, in the end, has proven awesome, easier to crate, to tote, and to store with real books for public consumption in the house. (Yes, sadly, my gaming is largely "in the closet".)

The game itself, is a home run. If I understand the conception of it right, WoTC has the publishing contract for Star Wars material, but wasn't currently working on D20, focusing on the Minis(if you like the minis, I suggest going to get the corebook at your local game emporium this weekend, you get a free booster. ) as their current Star Wars cash cow.

So the developers came independantly contracted by them and Lucasarts, and wanted to make the definative Star Wars D20, after all of the movies had come out. Hence the name "Saga Edition" to cover the span of the Saga.

I'm told that a considerable amount of 4.0 was lifted from this system, so for the hardcore 3.5/3.0'ers I apologize, and will say in advance, I don't neccesarily like 4.0 better than 3.0/.5 but I do like this game an awful lot when it comes to systematic stuff.

First and foremost. The guys who decided that one single skill, would cover all of the normal range of the human sensory experience, is a Mother*&**(^% rocket surgeon imo.
No longer do I have to spend hours agonizing over weather being able to see, hear, or actually look for things is the better way to spend my awful ability increases, with the birth of the new skill PERCEPTION. This alone sold me. Everything else was icing on the cake.

Also, on the subject of Abilities, do you like D20, but prefer a skill system that doesn't require a full hour or two in complex mathmatics for half ranks and variable amounts of purchase for skills?
This is the system for you. Skills are Simple. You get a starting skill package, you are considered "Trained" in those skills. Your roll is 1/2 Character level+Ability Mod+5 when rolling skills.
Most basic applications can be used untrained, in which case it's just 1/2 level+Ability mod. Fast, clever, deceptively simple, and effective. 20 minutes during creation. If you want more skills, you take feats that give them to you, or raise your Int score. (all ability based traits are retroactive.) It's just that simple.

And little things, like the afformentioned "Perception" instead of "Search, Spot, Listen", they followed movie reasoning for their rules. Pilot=Drive, Drive=Pilot. If you can drive a speeder, you can drive a spaceship, as proven in both the prequels, and the original 3 movies, little things like this, all over a gaming system are pleasing to me.

Gambling rules that make sense, and are mildly abuseable, if you plan on using 6-10 levels to get to a point of reasonable returns. Ability contests (Str vs str, dex vs dex etc) work out simply.
For you online only types, they even stumbled on a way to answer the most basic of questions "What if I want to own a business". In the form of the "Wealthy" talent available to a 1st level Noble. (you get a large level based chunk of money every time you level.)

It is pretty broad, and there are, like any RPG, errata and some mistakes, and the obligatory room to be filled out in later supplements, but some of the supplements are so superior to other D20 products I've bought, I honestly don't mine collecting the whole edition.

Their newest title "Scum and Villiany" for example, has the single best "random" encounter/adventure generator I have ever seen. A d20 chart of random "criminal jobs" characters can find/stuble onto/get rooked into, with a baseline CL difficulty for any group, along with an added challenge set of mods to bump it from easy to epic in scale with a few challenges. Each job also comes complete with variable payouts, and variable complications to the job. I'm convinced that with The corebook, Threats of the Galaxy, and Scum and Villiany, you could easily run a TT campaign from level 1 to 20.

They balanced out the classes considerably (Starky! ), Jedi are good, and still remarkably good at what they do(mind trick and force push are awesome, and should be.) but they aren't the end all be all of character types. Even with them, it's all about customization in this game. The Talent trees are vast and for the most part, pretty balanced. With every class getting talents every other level and the Jedi required to advance in both abilities, feats, and talents, based on their training and usage of the force.

Keep in mind, though this does make them slightly less "epic" in feel, on the onset, it quickly doesn't when you realize that they statted a great many of the encounter levels with the flavor of the movies in mind. Obi Wan (level 12 jedi) and Qui-Gon(levels of Jedi, Jedi Knight, and possible Jedi Master = 18) could easily do what they did to the trade federation cruiser, because well, b1 combat droids kinda suck, and at that level of mastery, Jedi are badass. But then, so is say Queen Amidala. Or to go back to the first movies, I don't think there's any question that Han is on par with Luke, he just rather than being able to TK and Force Choke guys, knows people all over the galaxy, has his own ship, and quick draws real real well.

It does have one issue that most succesfull genre based RPG's do, which is saturation, 5-6 books already, and more coming, most of offer at least a few extra races/talent trees/etc, but that's simple enough to deal with. Buy/use what you want, obviously, based on the requirements of your campaign.

That said, I encourage anyone to offer additional points of view on the system itself, and any notions they see in issues converting it to massive online play. (or converting any d20 for that matter).

Well, I liked it so much I made a chat for it, so.

I tend to agree with most of the above, with the caveat that gambling and trading are immensely "abusable" even from low level, if you define "abuse" as "can easily result in extremely wealthy PCs."

I tend not to worry about it too much, since if all a player is participating for is to accumulate credits, it gets boring in a hurry.


Some Force-related abilities are flat-out broken, such as Force Grip, as though the designers took a look at the one or two people using it in the movies (extremely powerful signature PCs) and decided that it must always be so. I've house ruled on that, and a lot of the online SAGA edition forums seem to have picked up on said house rule, so I guess it's a good one.


On the other hand, and I know it's a small thing in the large scheme, I love that Jedi can actively roll for their blocks, deflects, etc., not just have them bee a bonus to Reflex or whatever. It just makes it more engaging to have some say in how that works out.