A way cleaner system than Dungeons and Dragons (even 4th edition)

Even if you're not big on Star Wars, the various role-playing possibilities of that universe are effectively exploited. There is far less emphasis on number-crunching, and yet the rules derived from the fairly-simple numeric structure seem far more intuitive than the grand D20 framework it borrowed from. ( )

I'm currently getting ready to GM a system I've never played before, so I'm doing a lot of reading from a number of books at once. It's an odd sensation to be doing this again, but quite fun. A decent rpg, so far. I suppose I was guessing it would be a great deal different from the 3.5 ruleset, but it turns out to be only significantly different. We shall see very soon how well everyone enjoys it. ( )

I'm having mixed reactions to this version of the game. On the one hand, they've added some useful mechanics to make character development more flexible and gotten rid of the plethora of Force skills (replacing them with a single Use the Force skill). The combat section is clear, marred only by the transparency with which it's shilling for the Star Wars miniatures products. (The fault for this may lie with Lucasfilm rather than WotC, though; the Lucasfilm lawyers are formidable.)

On the other hand, there are now Force powers, Force talents, Force techniques, and Force secrets that can interact with each other. There are some very artificial and bizarre mechanics, such as having to rotate among different Force powers as if they're a deck of cards rather than abilities a character possesses, and linking Force points (a mechanism for heroic effort) to level progression (so the frequency with which one can perform heroic feats is related to the frequency of XP rewards). There's also a new notion of Destiny, which gives yet another mechanism for fudging events in the service of a long-term goal; I'm rather dubious of a system that gives advantages to characters who have picked a Destiny, while those who aren't as heavily immersed in the setting have nothing to match it. And the gamemastering section isn't as richly detailed as that in the previous edition.

This is still worth keeping around to raid for ideas while I build a Star Wars game using the FATE rules. ( )

This latest rendition of the Star Wars d20 ruleset is a bit jarring a first due to many changes to the core rules. After some patience in relearning the rules, however, I found them to be a good upward movement for the system as far as simplicity and playability are concerned. ( )