Product: Star Wars RPG Second Edition, Revised and Expanded Manufacturer:West End Games Retail Price: $30.00 Type: Role-playing, dice-based Reviewer: Jester Deren - cyrabyte@hotmail.com
This game is an improvement and somewhat of a tear-down of the second edition Star Wars RPG. It makes game play faster by streamlining what can be done in combat, how to handle multiple actions, and character creation. Force powers are harder to learn, but with the right amount of Character Points you can learn anything in just a few days game-time.
I played this game with a group of advanced role-players, and was very impressed with what the new system has allowed them to do. It's not just fighting, saving the Republic, or being the 'typical rebel' of the movies. It actually takes into account that your character, although a small part within the larger scheme, does make a difference. It allows more politics within the game (as seen with Senator and starting ambassador characters) as well as allowing for the combat machines (pilots, mercs, smugglers) and the mysterious type (Jedi, or students of Force-like powers).
The game, as it always has been, is D6-based, and nothing more. Simple, easy to follow rules make this game fun, but it can be challanging to those who are not into the Star Wars genre.
Overall, the improvements made to the game are great, and I would recommend it to anyone who even remotely likes role-playing.
While I downloaded Campagin Cartographer 2 I did some thinking. In the past
I had drawn maps for various roleplaying games, wargames, etc. It had all
been done by hand. Long tedious work, hours spent doing detailed maps that
may never be used more then once.
I believe I've found the solution to that problem. No more sore hands from
gripping pencils and pens, now we have CC2.
The learning curve is steep; if you don't have time to sit down and
learn how to use this, I don't advise it. But if you don't mind repeated attempts
and frustration until you perfect your work, then this may be just what
you've been looking for.
When you first boot up you're confronted by many intimidating pictures. You
try clicking on the map and nothing happens, and the only thing that seems to
make sense is that exit command. But before I could click it I changed my mind -
after all this could be a great time saver. It took me only twenty minutes
to get the right idea.
Now, I'm not going to be heading off and designing maps as
detailed as my pen and paper ones, not for a while at least. After you get
the hang of it you can jump right in and design what you want, they leave
nothing to the imagination; everything is possible to place, from castles
to trees, to swampland. An interesting feature is the layer system, which makes
it possible to have information on maps that you don't want your players to
see, all in the same file. I was able to place roads from city to city,
implant rivers, secret valleys, almost anything I thought of was possible.
And this was only the Shareware version, imagine what the full version would
contain!
I wondered how much this amazing program could cost. Thirty, forty,
fifty dollars? My shock was that it was closer to eighty. Is it worth this
much? If you're a die-hard role-player who can't live without maps, yes. If
you split the price with a friend or two and use it on one computer, yes. If you
plan to make a couple maps and then uninstall it, don't bother; stick with
your pen and paper.
