What is your favorite Star Wars rpg? and why?

[Spideydave]

Hey gang,

I have been for years now searching for a system that can handle the heroic action and fast pace of the Star Wars setting.

I have played the West End Star Wars RPG, And the WotC Saga Edition.
I have read system hacks for Star Wars using Fate, Hero System, Mouse Guard and Wushu. I am sure there are many more out there.

In my exp.:
West End is fast and fun but the system has holes and Jedi are too powerful. Compared to non force users.
Saga Edition is a level system so it has problems at higher levels and again Jedi are too powerful. Compared to non force users.

So what is your preferred RPG system to play Star Wars and why?

Dave

[Lord Mhoram]

d6 or hero - d6 for the reason you mentioned (I'm a huge Jedi fan, and in setting they are more powerful than other people)
Hero - just because I like hero.

[matthewcelis]

WEG 1st edition.

System works beautifully, there are no "holes" as alleged. Any game can be abused by players and GMs if they want to.

Jedi are no more powerful than anyone else unless you have a GM who lets you constantly find teachers from whom you can learn to improve your Force skills. It shouldn't be easy to find Jedi for this, as they have almost all been eliminated by Darth Vader, and anyone who hasn't been killed is likely in hiding like Ben Kenobi or too weak to be bothered with.

The WEG 1st edition is perfect for 1st time roleplayers due to the simplicity of the system, the templates a new player can use if uncertain of how to design a character, and no need for "nerd dice," as my wife calls them.

[Heimdallsgothi]

WEG Star Wars Ftw. We played the heck out of that game.......

[John T]

Definitely WEG, for all the previously stated reasons. Also, as a GM, one of the easiest games to learn to GM.

Re: Jedi being "over-powered", I'd also contribute that, even if a player does find a teacher, they can only get the benefit of such teaching up to the level of the teacher themselves. After that, they're both learning the hard way. If you decide from the outset that the teacher the PC finds has X level of ability in the different Force skills, and there ARE no other teachers available after that, you've created a built-in throttle to how potent your PC Jedi can become before it gets expensive, thereby forcing them to concentrate on more mundane abilities.

I've been running WEG:SW off and on since 1990, has always worked out quite well this way.

[Sundog]

WOtC Saga for me. WEG/D6 just got too convoluted when the Force was involved - and there seemed to be a tipping point where Jedi characters just went from "wimp" to "God" without ever being a playable character.
Saga gets the Jedi balanced, by making ALL of the characters epic. For over the top SW roleplaying, it works.

[ercarlson1974]

For me, d6 WEG Star Wars wins hands down. I'm sure WotC Star Wars is a good game with the right people, but the more I read it, the less I liked it. The d6 WEG game, on the other hand, just gets better and better for me each time I read it. It is conducive to a fast-paced game, and for me more closely approximates the feel of the movies than WotC Star Wars does.

Per comments by John T and matthewcelis, any system can be milked to make certain characters more powerful than others; d6 WEG is hardly unique that way. None of our Jedi characters ever got vastly more powerful than the rest of the party. Game mechanics aside, there was that pesky Empire looking to kill or corrupt any Force user/lightsaber wielder it encountered, so most of the time there was subtle power use and the Jedi almost always carried blasters (sometimes they didn't even have sabers). The Force rules as written bogged down game play, so we always applied a liberal dose of Houserulium to come up with a system that worked and didn't slow things down. Come to think of it, we streamlined several things that way, including starship combat. And even at their peak, there was no Jedi in any of our campaigns who couldn't be taken down by a big enough group of stormtroopers.

[CrosshairCollie]

WOtC Saga for me. WEG/D6 just got too convoluted when the Force was involved - and there seemed to be a tipping point where Jedi characters just went from "wimp" to "God" without ever being a playable character.
Saga gets the Jedi balanced, by making ALL of the characters epic. For over the top SW roleplaying, it works.

Seconded.

The Condition Track was a terrible idea, however.

[Starcloud]

I like Saga edition very much. I also like WEG's take. However, the two are at surprisingly different power levels. With WEG's system, you're basically just regular shmoes until you've got a hundred character points or so of advancement. And at the suggested rates, advancement is very slow.

Saga edition starts your character noticeably above the average, and improves steadily from there. Some people are under the impression that high-level Jedi are considerably more powerful than non-Force Sensitives, but that's not been my experience. Unlike 3.5e, the Jedi powers aren't nearly so overwhelming as a Wizard's spells would be.

One thing I noticed, though, was that a lot of players would come to the official forums and complain about "missing" rules. The thing is, the writers of Saga edition had also played and enjoyed WEG's d6 version, and took certain attitudes from it. Mostly, winging things to make them cinematic. But new players coming from the other d20 games expected a rigid rules structure that covered everything possible. They just didn't "get" that it was possible to make things up as they went along.

[Shadow Hawk]

West End d6, first edition by preference. Jedi overpowered? Heh. They should live so long. Never had a problem, but often had a problem with how wimpy Jedi were.

[danbuter1]

Jedi are supposed to be more powerful than other people, so I don't see why that's a problem.

[Escafarc]

Jedi are supposed to be more powerful than other people, so I don't see why that's a problem.

In books,movies, etc. it's fine but for a RPG it can be a balance issue if the Jedi in the game are more powerful then the other players. Not everyone wants to be one. I've never really enjoyed any of the version.

[RexMundi]

I go with Hero or the WEGS d6. I thought the 1st d20 Starwars was a clunky power gamer dinosaur, but the SAGA Edition fixed all that quite well but still had that d20 core that irkes me. Had a soft spot for the d6 game though as it was one of the systems I went to when I was so fed up with Dungeons and Dragons in general so my dislike of d20 is probably clouds my judgement. If West End Games were to suddenly show up with the Liscense and say Hey we're going to do OUR run with all the new StarWars and expanded Universe stuff, I'd be first in line to start buying it.

~Rex

[ErikModi]

Hands down, Saga. I've played everything WEG d6 on, and Saga is the first system that really captures the speed and energy of Star Wars action. It also finally managed to balance Jedi with non-Jedi, meaning that not EVERY PC in the party wants to wield the Glowbat. There are things I would have liked to see done differently, but within the limits of the d20 system, Saga is the one that finally got it right.

I'm cautiously optimistic for Fantasy Flight's attempt at a Star Wars RPG.

[RexMundi]

Well one thing with Fantasy Flight is that you know the Production Value will be off the scale. They're still the one of the only companies that produces a glossy page book that doesn't want to make me throw said book in the trash.

Apparently they are going to go with a Miniature game for X-wing/Tie fighter combat and then a multi person card game before the RPG stuff, but the RPG stuff DOES have me curious as to what system they will build for it or what existing system they already have, they will use.

~Rex