Fantasy Flight Games gets Star Wars games licence

[Vympel]

The Card Game

X-Wing

[RogueIce]

So I've never heard of Fantasy Flight Games, but I get all excited anyway. Fantasy Flight and a Star Wars license? Could this be an X-Wing style game? Maybe so!

So I click your link and see "The Card Game". Not what I was hoping for, but then I see "X-Wing" right below that. Okay, I think to myself. They've got some side card game project, but X-Wing? Could this possibly be another Star Wars flight simulator game after all these years since X-Wing Alliance (fuck Rogue Squadron and their ilk, they never counted to me). Hell yeah!

Imagine my disappointment on clicking that link to find out it has something to do with miniatures and shit.

Thank you for completely ruining 2012 for me, Vympel. I don't think my year could possibly recover after this.

[Broken]

Damn, I saw the title and hoped that FFG was getting the Star Wars Pen and Paper RPG license. I like a lot of FFG's Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader and Deathwatch materials, so a new RPG title like that would have been excellent, especially considering I ran a long-lived WEG D6 Star Wars PNP RPG with my friends way back when I was in school. Oh well, adding another RPG license would likely have reduced the quality of their WH40K products or make weak Star Wars RPG material if they didn't really beef up their staff anyway.

[Stark]

I'd prefer a theme heavy board game to be honest. Although given how totally fucked SW is as a licence they'd probably never be able to choose a 'theme' that didn't either piss off legions of fat people or really, really suck.

B they DID make a solid game out of goddamn Age of Conan, so maybe.

[Connor MacLeod]

FFG did a fair job with the 40K fluff, and I've generally not had much probelm with the game mechanics as far as the 40K stuff goes. If they did well with Age of conan's game mechanics who knows.

I do wonder how much drama will stir up over the fluff, because I can just see that happening. It happened with wOTC and WEG after all (even though I didnt find WEG or WOTC stuff always that offensive, at least no more different than you find in any other SW source.) It would kinda suck if they end up compromising the hell out of stuff because every little bit of SW fluff (from the most obscure toy to the eosteric video game detail) has to be accounted for.

[Stark]

Yeah, that's what I mean - if they make a game that does x with fighters, or y with the force, half the EU fanboys will be outraged. FFGs strength is always the theme, and if they try to avoid setting off the knee-jerk reactionary idiots I think the theme will be weak (or really abstracted).

[Connor MacLeod]

At this point how many different sets of fanboys are there? They run the gamut from the so called 'minimalists' to the so called 'maximalists' (or the Saxtonites, or whateve rpet names come up with for that) and I suspect any of the camps could find something that will piss them off (like with WEG, or WOTC, etc.) And I doubt its really possible to screw up SW 'canon' as it is, so I doubt they could do any more damage to it than has been done.

Hell if they do the same job with SW that they do with 40K I'll probably be happy. and I won't even mind if they ignore the TERATONZ

[Stark]

Their other licences (Conan, Starcraft, Arkham, LOTR, etc) have differnet interactions between the licencees and the fan base. If they don't seek to avoid 'contraversy' and just do what they did with 40k and put their own stamp on it, I doubt there'll be a problem. But these ARE the guys who dedicate their games to the trinity of Lucas, Roddenberry and Herbert, and I'd be surprised if they didn't have strong views of their own.

All this said, I'd like any game to be quite different to what I guess most SW fans would prefer. SW Tribune? A spy game like NBSG? A card-driven game of players vs the faceless empire? That sort of thing wouldn't require them to go any specific way with the 'fans'.

Anything, ANYTHING, but 'move your spaceships around and roll for pew pews'.

[Connor MacLeod]

Well as you say, they should probably take the 40K approach and like.. set it in one region of space. Like some sector they made up. That would give them tons of room to work with to develop their own little niche of the universe while at the same time avoiding any possible pitfalls that might enrage fans I mean if something 'contradicts' they could just say 'well it differs from sector to sector' or some other silly rationalization.

I also won't get outraged if they make it so fighters can threaten/harm capital ships

[Stark]

I was just flicking through the Horus Heresy rules, and they have a boxout that literally says 'some of this stuff is not the way things work in 40k novels or games or whatever, but its how it works here to make the game fun. Please don't freak out'.

If they can say that to 40k nutters, I guess they can say it to SW nutters too.

Twilight Imperium has 'optional rules' for 'sabotage runs' which are totally not SW-related AT ALL. :V

[Connor MacLeod]

I'm not sure about the card game, but I wonder if they'd base the fighter combat game off of Rogue Trader in any way, it seems to imply it might be character driven as much as ship driven or even some campaign stuff. It wouldnt surprise me if there were scope for other stuff as well (Rogue Trader can cover more than just ship combat too.)

And yeah they are good at playing on that 'point of view thing' -they play alot into that with 40K too (The whole myth and rumour angle) and you could do that in STar Wars as well (you have at least two different sides with Rebels and Empire, so you can do POV for that at least like was done with X-wing and TIE fighter). although a perverse part of me wouldn't mind seeing them outrage fanboys by doing their own thing just for the sake of outraging fanboys.

[ComradeClaus]

Speaking of rogue squadron, why has it been so long since Lucasarts licenced a combat simulator for home console?

LEGO star wars doesn't count.

As someone who wants a realistic experience of blowing up the Death Star, it's been too long. (plus Rebel Strike was a let down w/ TERRIBLE plot.)

I couldn't care less about a board/ card game. Back when video games were crude sprites & vector graphics, D&D types were competitive, but not now.

[Stark]

The flying sections in LEGO SW are so much better than Rogue Squadron it's hilarious.

[Zinegata]

Re: Fantasy Flight Games. They are a company that specializes in making boardgames, cardgames, and RPGs. They aren't as big as the true giants (i.e. Days of Wonder), but they are very good at what they do - which is to target a niche market that want high-quality components for their boardgames. Their best-selling game is Arkham Horror.

B they DID make a solid game out of goddamn Age of Conan, so maybe.

Age of Conan honestly isn't one of their better games (components were still specatcular though). Their best designs are Battlestar Galactica the Boardgame (so good that it spawned two expansions), Chaos in the Old World (Warhammer Fantasy), and the Game of Thrones LCG.

Horus Heresy was also honestly one of their most poorly designed games, but when you've got pieces that pretty (Imperial tank divisions are represented by a miniature Baneblade!), fans are much less likely to complain.

Overall, SW is in good hands with FFG.

[Stark]

AoC is a hell of a lot better than the licence, and does interesting things with theme. Chaos in the old World is dogshit horrible, despite the strong theme.

If they can do their thing of making key thematic elements interesting mechanics, good. If they can limit themselves to less than 200 components, even better.

Free phone app = game runs 80% faster. :v

[VF5SS]

Ok not to completely derail this thread but

As someone who wants a realistic experience of blowing up the Death Star, it's been too long.

Ah...

You're kidding right?

The Death Star attack is an exciting and cinematic action sequence that flows naturally from the events in the film but it was never terribly realistic. Being as it was admittedly based on a World War 2 operation of Dambuster-ing some poor German schmucks, the best you can get out of it is a samey set of scripted dogfight encounters that will heavily favor the player (the guy with the Force).

The most modern trench run I played last was the training mission in the Win95 version of X-Wing. It felt pretty authentic to me. Fly around the surface, shoot Ties, avoid random gun towers, and then get into the trench in your B-Wing where the game suddenly makes you accelerate faster because the speed in space is too slow. Other than messing with X-Wing's fiddly energy mechanics, you could get the same experience in any number of 3d shooters like Philosoma. In modern game the whole trench run would be like a serious of mini sections with several quicktime events.

[Zinegata]

Chaos in the old World is dogshit horrible, despite the strong theme.

No it isn't. Chaos in the Old World makes the Boardgamegeek Top 50, and it's in the Top 10 for its thematic games list. It sold well enough that it got its own expansion. It's that damn good. We still play it from time to time, whereas AoC is just a collector's curiosity.

Age of Conan doesn't even break BGG's Top 500, because most people agree that it's silly to have a game with a Conan theme and yet it's not actually about him. It's actually a four-player empire-building game rather than a game about a barbarian's adventures.

There is very little chance of FFG limiting the number of components though. This is the company that prefers to replace dice with decks of cards for battle resolution.

[Broken]

Well as you say, they should probably take the 40K approach and like.. set it in one region of space. Like some sector they made up. That would give them tons of room to work with to develop their own little niche of the universe while at the same time avoiding any possible pitfalls that might enrage fans I mean if something 'contradicts' they could just say 'well it differs from sector to sector' or some other silly rationalization.

I also won't get outraged if they make it so fighters can threaten/harm capital ships

Even more then taking the 40K approach of a specific region of space; for a new Star Wars RPG you need a good era. Basically realize the same thing Bioware did, that the EU around the actual movie era is such a festering mess that pollutes everything close to it and plunk your plot down far, far away from it. We have 25000 years of Republic history to play with and Lucasarts showed with Legacy that they are willing to slip into future mode as well. Start from there and mix in familiar themes and elements while creating something new and exciting. That's my 2 cents anyway.

[Connor MacLeod]

Age of Conan doesn't even break BGG's Top 500, because most people agree that it's silly to have a game with a Conan theme and yet it's not actually about him. It's actually a four-player empire-building game rather than a game about a barbarian's adventures.

Why is it silly to have a game in the Conan universe but not involve him directly? THe players are going to be playing in the universe, not playing Conan themselves, so knowing more about the background and spending less time glorifying Conan makes some sense.

Even more then taking the 40K approach of a specific region of space; for a new Star Wars RPG you need a good era. Basically realize the same thing Bioware did, that the EU around the actual movie era is such a festering mess that pollutes everything close to it and plunk your plot down far, far away from it. We have 25000 years of Republic history to play with and Lucasarts showed with Legacy that they are willing to slip into future mode as well. Start from there and mix in familiar themes and elements while creating something new and exciting. That's my 2 cents anyway.

I don't think they even need to do that. WOTC covered multiple 'eras' pretty easily and you can adapt the game to cover any era the players might want without too much effort. and the EU isn't 'polluted' so much because of the era it sticks with but because they keep trying to replicate the prequels or OT with almost every book more or less. EVery threat is a galactic, Empire/REpublic toppling threat, every thrat has to be dealt with by the same group of people - I mean really how many times can Luke Skywalker and company save the fucking galaxy? How many times can the REpublic be at threat, or fall apart, and come back together again, before it starts getting silly? It literally got to the point where the damn galaxy couldn't stay unified for more than a few years before falling apart again - this despite the empire enduring decades, and the REpublic before it being perfectly stable for thousands of years - and you can't blame all that on the Jedi.

They need to stop mucking around on the 'galactic' scales so much, and deal with a more local scale. Alot of the RPGs did with that theme, as did quite a few novels (the Wraith Squadron novels by allston didn't deal with galaxy spanning threats and they still remain some of the strongest SW novels out there - even though it was set in the post-ROTJ EU.)

[Stark]

Chaos in the old World is dogshit horrible, despite the strong theme.

No it isn't.

Well, thanks for sorting that out!

Chaos in the Old World makes the Boardgamegeek Top 50, and it's in the Top 10 for its thematic games list.

Are you capable of thinking on any level other than 'I like it' and 'it's better than yours'?

It sold well enough that it got its own expansion.

Dude, FFG make expansions for games nobody cares about.

t's that damn good. We still play it from time to time, whereas AoC is just a collector's curiosity.

Maybe you just like it, and its not intrinsically good. Did you consider that? Its a fucking giant snooze for anyone who isn't a GW fanboy.

Age of Conan doesn't even break BGG's Top 500,

So what? You seem to be in some bizarrely insecure world where you need to attack someone for even mentioning a game you don't like and touting your favourite game, but I used AoC as an example of a surprisingly good game based on a terrible licence - a fucking MMO for crying out loud. Why is it surprisingly good despite its roots?

because most people agree that it's silly to have a game with a Conan theme and yet it's not actually about him. It's actually a four-player empire-building game rather than a game about a barbarian's adventures.

This is why. Nerds not getting it and whinging on a site about whinging about boardgames is totally irrelevant. This datapoint is used to suggest 'FFG would probably make a good game based on a good licence, since they can make a decent game based on a terrible licence' and even 'non-standard approaches are interesting and FFG like to use non-standard approaches'. You really have to stop cringing when people dare to mention the names of things you don't like and try reading.

I hate to say this, but the game is 'about' Conan even if none of the players takes on the role of Conan. I've only read the rules but it's pretty clear Conan and his movements (and the bidding around it) is fucking key. Why would anyone buy a strategy game just because they want to BE someone?

There is very little chance of FFG limiting the number of components though. This is the company that prefers to replace dice with decks of cards for battle resolution.

Oh man, you post on BBG don't you? The point has sailed far, far above your head but you have to come out with the typical nerd statements. Forty cards for combat is nothing, absolutely nothing, next to the 200 tokens and the dozen utility decks and 400 monsters etc etc. Arkham Horror uses dice (I bet that's why nerds love it) and its like 700 components. You can replace maybe 150 of them with a paperclip and another 150 with a free iphone app. FFG just know that people feel 'value' in 'huge pile of shit you'll lose and take half an hour to set up'. It makes me laugh that even FFG's later games use less piles of tokens, because its DUMB AS HELL.

[Jim Raynor]

So I click your link and see "The Card Game". Not what I was hoping for, but then I see "X-Wing" right below that. Okay, I think to myself. They've got some side card game project, but X-Wing? Could this possibly be another Star Wars flight simulator game after all these years since X-Wing Alliance (fuck Rogue Squadron and their ilk, they never counted to me). Hell yeah!

Imagine my disappointment on clicking that link to find out it has something to do with miniatures and shit.

Thank you for completely ruining 2012 for me, Vympel. I don't think my year could possibly recover after this.

Heh, not knowing what "Fantasy Flight Games" was, the first post initially gave me the impression that they were bringing back the old flight sim series as well.

I was just flicking through the Horus Heresy rules, and they have a boxout that literally says 'some of this stuff is not the way things work in 40k novels or games or whatever, but its how it works here to make the game fun. Please don't freak out'.

If they can say that to 40k nutters, I guess they can say it to SW nutters too.

That's probably the best way to handle it. In the end, all that matters is that they make a solid game, or more specifically a solid product that will sell. They probably shouldn't even care about the minority who would actually get worked up about bits of fluff.

I mean, how many of us even CARE about the old minimalist vs Saxton arguments? Now, don't get me wrong, I believe that fiction should be internally sensible with numbers that are at least fall within the ballpark of sense. And I still stand by what we all believed in back in the day. But I agree with everyone who says that SW canon has already been screwed up with so much stupid crap already. After the "3 million clones" controversy, after EU sequel novel after sequel novel, I've come to embrace the idea of "personal canon." I continue to enjoy the movies, some books, and some games. I ignore the rest and leave it be. Now, I haven't been on theforce.net for ages. Is the WEG minimalist camp there still as hardcore as it once was?

[Stark]

In the HH boxout the example they use is using a card for 'port landing' on a giant capital ship that can't land (in order to move guys from the ship to the surface). I'm not sure what kind of nerd wouldn't understand that this is an abstraction for using port facilities and not some CANON STATEMENT on superdreadnought landing gear or something, but they felt the need to explain it anyway.

[lstyer]

Damn, I saw the title and hoped that FFG was getting the Star Wars Pen and Paper RPG license.

It's my understanding that FFG has the Star Wars pen and paper rpg license, but haven't specifically announced their Star Wars RPG yet.

Here's the relevant text from their press release last August:

Fantasy Flight Games is pleased to announce that it has entered a comprehensive licensing partnership with Lucasfilm Ltd. for the worldwide rights to publish card, roleplaying, and miniatures games set in the popular Star Wars™ universe!

. . .

These two exciting titles are only the beginning, and we’ll be announcing additional Star Wars card, roleplaying, and miniatures games in the coming months!

[Zinegata]

Why is it silly to have a game in the Conan universe but not involve him directly? THe players are going to be playing in the universe, not playing Conan themselves, so knowing more about the background and spending less time glorifying Conan makes some sense.

Because when someone makes a game called Age of Conan, you expect the game to be about Conan. Not about a four-way war between four almost generic countries, and Conan's only involvement is to walk randomly around the board to score VPs. The game is essentially Risk: Conan.

That's called "tacked on theme" design. And it's how you get stupid games that are named "Vasco de Gama" (and make you think it's about exploration and trading) when it's actually a stock and investment game and Vasco de Gama's only role in the game is to determine turn order for placing investments instead of discovering the tip of fucking Africa.

[Zinegata]

Well, thanks for sorting that out!

You're welcome.

Are you capable of thinking on any level other than 'I like it' and 'it's better than yours'?

Absolutely. This is why I showed how poorly Age of Conan rates and sold. Face it, it is Risk: Conan.

Dude, FFG make expansions for games nobody cares about.

Not an excuse. Age of Conan was supposed to get an expansion too. It was cancelled because of poor sales of the original.

Again, you can pretend Age of Conan is a good game, but the overwhelming market reaction is simple: Age of Conan sucks. Chaos in the Old World rocks.

You're the one engaging in "I like it so you're wrong" stupidity when I've shown several actual measures of market reaction to the game.

Maybe you just like it, and its not intrinsically good. Did you consider that? Its a fucking giant snooze for anyone who isn't a GW fanboy.

Not really, I've had it played by people who know nothing of Warhammer lore. The fact that you have four different factions makes it a much superior game to the snooze fest that is Age of Conan which has four barely different factions.

So what? You seem to be in some bizarrely insecure world where you need to attack someone for even mentioning a game you don't like and touting your favourite game, but I used AoC as an example of a surprisingly good game based on a terrible licence - a fucking MMO for crying out loud. Why is it surprisingly good despite its roots?

Oh I see. You make stupid claims that CiToW is horseshit... despite it being in the top 50 of a site that is dominated by Euro players (i.e. NOT miniatures Warhammer Fantasy gamers).

You're the one who is trying to justify that Age of Conan is a good game despite being ranked below the top 500 of the web's top boardgaming site.

You're a lying shit. I show you actual data on sales and popularity, and you go WAAAAH! Zine insecure. Fucking grow up.

The truth of Age of Conan is really simple. It was designed by the guys who made War of the Ring, and wanted to make a four-player version of it. Rather than make up their own fluff for it though, they got lazy and tacked the Conan license on top of it. That's why nobody likes Age of Conan except you. It was lazy design.

This is why. Nerds not getting it and whinging on a site about whinging about boardgames is totally irrelevant. This datapoint is used to suggest 'FFG would probably make a good game based on a good licence, since they can make a decent game based on a terrible licence' and even 'non-standard approaches are interesting and FFG like to use non-standard approaches'. You really have to stop cringing when people dare to mention the names of things you don't like and try reading.

No you fucking moron. If you actually knew the game's actual development history, you got it all backwards. They mechanics were designed first. They then tacked the them on top of it. It's not taking a shitty license and making it golden. It's taking a pre-existing game (War of the Ring, but four players) and putting Conan on top of it to sell.

Moreover, if you'd actually known anything about the damn game, you'd realize Age of Conan isn't actually an FFG game. They publish it, but the design is by some Euro guys who did War of the Ring (and that company recently went bankrupt, albeit they seem to be restarting).

I hate to say this, but the game is 'about' Conan even if none of the players takes on the role of Conan. I've only read the rules but it's pretty clear Conan and his movements (and the bidding around it) is fucking key. Why would anyone buy a strategy game just because they want to BE someone?

Oh wow. You say AoC is great and you've never actually fucking played it and just read the rules?

Again, you make sweeping pronouncements about the quality of a game you've never played?

Oh man, you post on BBG don't you? The point has sailed far, far above your head but you have to come out with the typical nerd statements. Forty cards for combat is nothing, absolutely nothing, next to the 200 tokens and the dozen utility decks and 400 monsters etc etc. Arkham Horror uses dice (I bet that's why nerds love it) and its like 700 components. You can replace maybe 150 of them with a paperclip and another 150 with a free iphone app. FFG just know that people feel 'value' in 'huge pile of shit you'll lose and take half an hour to set up'. It makes me laugh that even FFG's later games use less piles of tokens, because its DUMB AS HELL.

Forty cards rather than one dice increases components count fortyfold. That's 4000%. In practice, it's usually a 55 or 110 cards so it increases component count by 5500% to 11000%

Unlike you, who only reads about the rules and thinks they're awesome without actually playing the fucking game, I'm not "someone who posts in BGG". I'm someone who's actually played over 70 of the top 100 BGG games, so I know the pitfalls of a lot of games.

FFG can hugely reduce their component count by stopping this trend of replacing dice with combat card resolution.

By contrast, the tokens you keep wailing about will only decrease component count by around tenfold. You can, for instance, replace Five health markers in Arkham with one health "counter" and a numerical health track. But that's seriously just a fivefold decrease in component count, as opposed to the hundredfold created by dice.

tl;dr: Stark is talking out of his ass. He hasn't even actually fucking played Age of Conan, while I've not only played it; I've played over 70 of the top 100 games on BGG and know the pitfalls of FFG better than he ever hopes to do.