Adventures at the Edge of the EmpireAnnouncing the STAR WARS (R): Edge of the Empire (TM) Core Rulebook
“Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.”
–Obi-Wan Kenobi
Fantasy Flight Games is delighted to announce the upcoming release of the Star Wars®: Edge of the Empire™ Roleplaying Game! The first of three standalone roleplaying systems, the Edge of the Empire Core Rulebook invites players to experience the thrills and adventures of life on the outskirts and the fringes of the Star Wars galaxy.
Participate in grim and gritty adventures in places where morality is gray and nothing is certain. Ply your trade as a smuggler in the Outer Rim, collect bounties on the scum that live in the shadows of Coruscant, or try to establish a new colony on a planet beneath the Empire’s notice. In Edge of the Empire, every character has a past worth a story, your every step can lead to riches or peril, and you can visit the shadiest and most remote locations in the Star Wars universe…
Grim and Gritty Adventures in the Star Wars Galaxy
Thousands of places across the galaxy exist on the Edge of the Empire where the influence of the Core Worlds’ laws and regulations are dimmed or muted. These places are populated by figures who live on the fringes of both the galaxy and its society. Such shady locations attract shady characters, but they also lure those independent thinkers and insurgents who seek to break free of Imperial law. In an Edge of the Empire campaign, bounty hunters, smugglers, mercenaries, and explorers may find themselves working alongside doctors, politicians, and scholars.
As one might expect, Edge of the Empire allows players to get involved with all the wrong sort of scum and villainy. Characters can incur debts and owe favors to the Hutts. You may have a bounty placed upon your head and seek escape on the desert planet of Tatooine. Then again, your character may get embroiled in the conflicts between rival gangs in the underworld of Corellia, or she may be a doctor that was blackmailed by a powerful merchant on Coruscant. Edge of the Empire isn’t just about adventures on those planets in the Outer Rim, it explores the lives and adventures of all those who live outside the comforts of established civilization.
Life on the outskirts is full of surprises, and your adventures in Edge of the Empire will lead to any number of challenges, from repairing a damaged starship or slicing your way past a security panel, to exchanging blaster fire with hired guns out to collect a bounty. Characters must rely on their innate abilities, trained skills, special talents, and each other to survive.
Living with Old Debts
Everyone has debts to pay. Everyone has secrets, and everyone has the potential to do something great. In Edge of the Empire, your characters will pursue their destinies as they’re thrust into adventure with some of the galaxy’s least likely heroes.
The Core Rulebook contains all the information players and GMs need to create from scratch the memorable characters that will populate their campaigns. At the heart of character creation in Edge of the Empire is the idea that each character enters his or her first adventure with a history, and the baggage of some pre-existing obligations.
What caused your character to enter into the nebulous and dangerous world of Edge of the Empire? Was it a single, traumatic event? Was your character put into an untenable situation from which he had to flee? Is your character racing to pay off old debts before those debtors come calling? Your character’s obligations represent the debts he seeks to avoid or repay. They likely impacted your character’s original decision to seek out adventures and the fame and fortune they always seem to promise. And they can definitely shape the course of your character’s life.
Obligations in Edge of the Empire tie the game’s mechanics to a narrative core and help players to develop characters with rich backgrounds and deep investment in the campaign’s events.
Watch Your Back
Your Edge of the Empire campaign is loaded with potential for rich and exciting stories of heroism, betrayal, redemption, questionable morality, and mercenary greed. Edge of the Empire characters are tough, savvy, and resourceful. They’re likely to know a few tricks, and they’re going to have to know when to use them.
The core mechanic of the game is the skill check, in which characters roll pools of dice to determine whether their actions succeed or fail. If the successes (
) a player rolls outnumber the failures (
), the action succeeds. However, the situations of Edge of the Empire are rarely simple, and the game’s custom dice do more than determine whether an action succeeds or fails. Even as the dice indicate the outcome of an action, they determine if the character gains any Advantages (
) or suffers any Threats (
) as the result of the attempt.
With Advantages and Threats, each skill check is loaded with myriad dramatic possibilities. Your character may succeed at his chosen task but draw the ire of an observer. He may fail to sweet talk a merchant into offering a discount but notice the cred stick someone else happened to drop. Or he might find that he not only makes the nearly impossible shot to fell a distant Gamorrean, but his shot increases his chances of intimidating the thugs who had been thinking of ganging up on him.
The sheer number of possibilities provides opportunities to narrate truly memorable action sequences and scenes. These layered results move the story along and inspire details and special effects that create action-packed sessions.
Your Place in the Star Wars Universe
If you liked the Star Wars®: Edge of the Empire™ Beginner Game, then you’ll love the Edge of the Empire Core Rulebook! Similarly, players who participated in the Edge of the Empire™ Beta will be pleased to find that the Core Rulebook improves upon that experience, incorporating all the key rules updates and introducing a wealth of new materials. With fleshed-out rules for character creation and advancement, as well as expanded charts for equipment and vehicles, the 448-page Core Rulebook is your ticket to fantastic and unlimited adventures in the rich and detailed Star Wars galaxy.
The Core Rulebook is the heart and soul of Edge of the Empire and includes everything players and GMs need to start their Star Wars roleplaying campaign: rules for character creation, gear, skills, combat, vehicles, adversaries, advice for storytelling, and a wealth of background information about the galaxy that will help you design your campaigns. It also launches you into your first Star Wars action with a complete introductory adventure.
Additionally, two accessory products will release simultaneous with the Core Rulebook to enhance your Star Wars roleplaying experience.
Custom Star Wars®: Edge of the Empire™ Roleplay Dice come fourteen to a pack and allow players and GMs to quickly determine the success or failure of actions in the game, while advancing the story’s narrative with advantages and threats.
The Star Wars®: Edge of the Empire™ Game Master’s Kit includes a GM screen that keeps a host of useful pieces of information right at the GM’s fingertips during gaming sessions. The GM Kit also provides useful information about developing your campaign to challenge your players with worthy nemeses, and it includes another complete adventure to carry players beyond the events of the adventure in the Core Rulebook.
Get ready for life as an outlaw, a scoundrel, a colonist, or one of the many other characters living at the fringes of the galaxy. You’ll need your wits, your blaster, and your companions because action and adventure await those who live at the Edge of the Empire.
Look for the Edge of the Empire Core Rulebook, Roleplay Dice, and GM Kit to arrive at retailers everywhere in the second quarter of 2013!
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Adventures at the Edge of the Empire
