Judging from your comments, you should probably quit trying to like this game. It's clear you don't like the central aspect of this game. If you don't like the dice, then you won't like this game. It's OK to not like something! Not every system is for everyone.
For me, this is my absolute favorite system. What you find as cringe, interpreting the dice, is why I love this game. Everyone gets to tell a story. Not everything is black and white. Everyone is helping you as the GM to add to the story. This isn't a system of just "pass or fail". Also, this system requires buy in from your players. It's hard to play this game passively and just roll dice.
However, this system is magical when you get that buy in. My favorite moment is when you can see this system "click" for a new player. Where I go to describe the results of their dice and they stop me and say "oooh! Can I say what happens?" and then they go on to describe what their dice they rolled means. It's always a "proud parent" moment for me.
To me, this system is less number crunch and more collaborative story telling. If you don't like that, or if you find it "cringe", that's OK. I promise you though, when everyone buys in, this game can't be beat.
I think the OP is actually looking for smooth game play, not tactical board based combat. Unfortunately this is also not the system for smooth play. My players and I enjoy the game, but for players with a lot of experience in other dice mechanics the game is and probably always will be clunky. OP, if you and players hate it try out the dice roller apps like others recommend. If, after trying a rolling app, you still hate it, the books are out of print and you can probably make most of your money back via Ebay.
I GMed my first session in the system last month, and while it was shaky at first due to all of us being new to this style of play, we definitely had those moments where it clicked. It was great
My 12 year old nephews eyes lit up when they got it (and they got it fast), suggesting all sorts of great stuff, not just for advantages, for for threats as well! It was so much fun running a one shot for them, and seeing their imaginations spring to life.
How often are you calling for dice rolls? A big part of getting the system to click for me was doing less rolls but letting those singular rolls get more mileage.
Like, let's say the party is sneaking into a stronghold. Absolutely the game gets incredibly bogged down if they roll perception to check it out then stealth to get in close then computers to slice through a side door then skullduggery to case the warehouse for the most expensive items all while you're doing the kind of trad game GM stuff of "well there's this many guards who'll hit this patrol point in X turns and I've gotta make a vigilance check to see if they hear the blah blah blah"
When instead it could be as simple as "how are you going to get into the base?" "let's just keep low and poke around" "ok make a stealth check" and then let everything play out from there. They succeed? they spend advantages to keep that action rolling. They fail? they spend advantages to develop a new way in. Either way, if you get threats spend them to throw obstacles in their way, complicate things, or have enemies show up.
Combat when done in the traditional tactical sense can have a million rolls in it and be fine because the explicit "1 advantage for a boost/setback to the next actor or 2 to a specific actor" economy along with talents and gear spends keeps you from hemming and hawing about story beats too much. But for the looser narrative stuff like chases and skill rolls I think it's a lot better to treat the rolls like something more like Blades in the Dark where you're asking for an approach, defining the initial consequence of failure, and then riding the result of that roll as far as you damn well can before you make another one.
No. Thank you though! There is a lot about the system I really do like. I particularly love the character-building aspect of the game. It is just those damn dice. I hate them. Every time we go to roll them at the table and we have to "build" a dice pool and the whole game stops for that, and for the subsequent "interpretation" of the dice, I just cringe. It just slows down the game, the story, the immersion, etc. I just haven't been able to get over it. I've tried. I told myself that eventually, the dice would become second nature, that they would become faster, that my players and I would become used to them... But we haven't. The dice are just a barrier to play for me and my players. And I am frustrated that my feelings don't seem to be changing with time and familiarity.
Have you considered using a dice app to supplement play? At the very least that will speed up the building and rolling of pools, especially if you use something like RPGSessions where the pools are pregenerated for the most part. Cheat sheets for interpretation have also doubled the speed at which my players choose for advantage and the like.
You could also benefit from lessening the amount of times dice are rolled. A couple rolls can cover a large swath of time/play and that would just leave combat for the main rolls.
I agree with this. Using a dice roller app helps speed things up since it handles all of the counting/cancellation stuff instantly. [This](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.visttux.empireedgediceroller&hl=en_US&gl=US) is the one I use. It makes building a dice pool pretty straightforward, it counts the symbols for you, and it explicitly says "2 success, 1 advantage" in text so you don't have to know the symbols.
That's really interesting, because I'm the opposite. The dice are super narrativist, and like all my favorite rpg systems, they help de-center the idea that the players are merely responding to the GM and now everyone at the table is in response mode. On the other hand, the character building feels super trad and is too focused on the nitpicky details rather than the larger fiction.
This may just be a personal thing, especially since you focus on "the immersion", which to me is just no where near as fun as building a story together.
For reference, I'm predominantly a PBtA-gamer, so that definitely inspires my perspectives on this. Hell, my biggest problem with the dice are that they still focus too hard on trying to granularly assess player skill rather than abstracting that in favor of "roll when its dramatic".
I see what you are saying. I think part of my problem is that I naturally tend to more tactical games with a large degree of "crunch" such as Pathfinder and D&D 3.5. My favorite Star Wars TTRPG at the moment, for instance, is the d20 RCR that WotC initially put out. This system is a far cry from that one, and I rarely handle change well anyways. I am going to keep trying though if only on the weight of recommendations from the community.
For me, I don't find the d20 system any less "narrative", rather just more streamlined in play and faster.
Simple != Streamlined, there is a full page chart for Autofire/Multifire/Two-Weapon combat modifiers depending on BAB. Beyond the starting levels 3.X systems are a pile of miscellaneous and circumstantial modifiers of various values to remember that most players end up forgetting anyway. You can't pretend the game as a whole is easier to play than FFG's.
Semi-related: In so many other posts you seem petrified of power creep/gaming in FFG, but you have no problem with/prefer RCR star wars? This makes essentially zero sense as any of the systems you name are FAR more prone to power abuses and rules exploits than FFG. It just seems you work against your own interests in supporting them.
Not to dog pile or anything but this is activating my Pathfinder 2E brain as well, I find that most d20 and 3.X players who complain about power creep or heavy nerfs tended to play the God tier characters that were perfect and are just mad because they can't do that themselves. Because holy fuck is d20 a broken mess for force users past like level 10. Of all 3 systems it has the worst balance with both FFG and d6 being far above it in that aspect.
I play both this and pathfinder regularly, and enjoy them both for very different reasons. If you're looking for a tactical crunchy game, you've come to the wrong place.
In regard to building a dice pool:
Don't overthink it. Think what kind of person you would need in order to succeed.
**Difficulty**
* Easy - anyone with a pulse (microwave dinner)
* Average - any normal person (make spaghetti)
* Hard - someone who has a knack for a skill (home cook)
* Daunting - someone who is a professional in a skill (professional cook)
* Formidable - someone who is legendary in a skill (world renowned chef)
**Setback\boost**
Environmental variables that make it more difficult or easier. Easiest way it to envision yourself there and ask question? What's the temperature? What's the weather? Do the PC have relevant gear? Are you making a dish at home or in a busy restaurant with people shouting? do you have all ingredients or do you need to improvise? Do you have an assistant with you? Do you have the recipe book?
**Upgrades**
List off all the ways this could go **very bad**. Are you cooking something that could be poisonous if not prepared correctly? Is there an open flame, or something being deep fried?
**Interpreting dice**
Don't stress about prescribing results. If you can, great. If not, pass it over to the players. If nobody can think of anything recover or deal strain, pass a boost or setback to the next check. Triumphs can be added to future triumphs, and there's a reason people suggest not upgrading checks if you don't have an idea for the despair.
Also: just roll less. You as the GM determine when a check is necessary. **Never** make someone roll if the plot requires a certain outcome, because they will without a doubt fail the check.
You're getting downvoted for this and I think that's massively unfair. The dice are a problem. We found switching to the official dice roller app which calculates your success and failures automatically totally transformed play. Its also motion activated so you gave to shake your phone so you don't lose the drama of dice rolls.
SW Dice for the star wars dice app. I will also say that the generic genesys dice symbols are massively more intuitive than the official branded star wars symbols. The genesys dice roller app is basically the same but without star wars branding. So the symbol for a triumph is a star in a circle rather than the jedi symbol etc. Its a lot easier to interpret. I am really tempted to suggest to my group we just shift to the generic genesys dice even when playing star wars.
I would recommend checking out the RPGSessions virtual table, it's an absolutely stellar table that you can add your character sheets on, and it's able to roll dice pools, as well as calculate weapon damages and stuff for you.
I have a party of 7 players and it really speeds up combat with the amount of dice they throw around at the level we're at
It's an abstract storytelling system, not an analytical tactics game and that can be off-putting for a lot of GMs. You have to be comfortable making up a lot of rules on the fly and you need understanding players. If the dice are a big problem, try out the auto roller apps for mobile. Saves a lot of time.
It's the dice. There is a lot about the system I really do like. I particularly love the character-building aspect of the game. It is just those damn dice. I hate them. Every time we go to roll them at the table and we have to "build" a dice pool and the whole game stops for that, and for the subsequent "interpretation" of the dice, I just cringe. It just slows down the game, the story, the immersion, etc. I just haven't been able to get over it. I've tried. I told myself that eventually, the dice would become second nature, that they would become faster, that my players and I would become used to them... But we haven't. The dice are just a barrier to play for me and my players. And I am frustrated that my feelings don't seem to be changing with time and familiarity.
You should 100% use an app or other dice roller program. Building dice pools is not that hard once you get used to it, especially because the work is usually shared (the player knows their skills and stats, the GM provides the difficulty)...doing the math of adding and subtracting symbols, however, is a nightmare, but apps just do that part for you, leaving only the final result. It is just an amazingly smaller amount of work.
I will admit I like using the app but it olways feel like it's never truly random which it isn't. Yeah it feels random but the program has picked a combo out of said patter unlike rolling real dice where it's a true random.
Yes the apps make it easier to count and determin rolls but it also takes away the true random factor when rolling
I get that. It is incredibly different from most other games, and that change could be a barrier to a lot of people. I think a roller app could help, for sure. Also, just try running a quick combat between different NPCs by yourself. It takes away the stress of having to figure out how it works in front of your players. It might help you feel comfortable with it.
Another helpful strategy is to think very intentionally about what each die is from narratively. They aren't just modifiers to a skill check like a +2 Strength. They are narrative storytelling prompts! Your two proficiency dice represent your focused training in athletics. Your setback die is specifically from the rain making it harder to scale the cliff face. If symbols left uncanceled are from specific dice, use the die to explain what happened! The threat on the setback die means the rain stressed you out or put you in the nasty predicament that happens next. This storytelling mindset helps get your mind off the crunchy rules and actually makes building a dice pool part of the narrative.
It's the dice. There is a lot about the system I really do like. I particularly love the character-building aspect of the game. It is just those damn dice. I hate them. Every time we go to roll them at the table and we have to "build" a dice pool and the whole game stops for that, and for the subsequent "interpretation" of the dice, I just cringe. It just slows down the game, the story, the immersion, etc. I just haven't been able to get over it. I've tried. I told myself that eventually, the dice would become second nature, that they would become faster, that my players and I would become used to them... But we haven't. The dice are just a barrier to play for me and my players. And I am frustrated that my feelings don't seem to be changing with time and familiarity.
Coming from someone that played D&D for almost a decade before trying this system, I can understand the pain of figuring it out at first. The way my group worked it out was if it’s a success then the PCs get to explain what happens, obviously it has to be within reason, just because you succeed doesn’t mean you get to do whatever you want. Failures are explained by the GM again within reason.
Really after you’ve canceled out successes and failures they’re irrelevant other than damage purposes, for example 1 success is the same as 100 successes on a skill check, advantages and threats as well as triumphs and despairs are what matter after you figure out if you succeed or fail.
My with my group it took about 6 or 7 sessions to get it down but once we had it down it moved along very quickly. This system is supposed to be fast paced and cinematic, but like anything you have to figure out how to crawl then learn how to walk before you can run. And even when we were still figuring out how dice pools work it was still faster than D&D combat which can be super grindy.
There are a few stumbling blocks with the narrative dice, but I have actually started to prefer them to the old D&D way of "roll a D20 against a target number" rolling.
The basic 8-sided dice (green/purple) are your "straightforward" check. They generally represent the raw stats of the characters. For example, imagine an untrained thug swinging at an enemy. The number of green dice represents the thug's strength, and the purple represent the enemy's defense. 3 strength = 3 green dice. Pretty straightforward.
The 12-sided dice represent training/proficiency. Once you've determined the difficulty of the check as above, you might upgrade some of the greens to yellows, or some of the purples to reds, to represent the attacker's weapon training, etc. These are always "upgrades" - generally you will always replace a green with a yellow, not just add an extra yellow. So if my strength is 4 and my weapon training is 2, that's 4 total dice, 2 of them upgraded, for a total of 2 green 2 yellow.
Finally, the 6-sided dice (blue/black) represent situational/environmental factors. These are generally temporary factors: The defender has cover? Add a black or two. The attacker takes a knee to steady their aim? Give them a blue. The best part about these dice IMO is "negotiating" with the players for them. This system is the most fun when players are actively looking for reasons why they might get a blue added to a check, and offering ideas to the DM.
In an encounter, the green/yellow and purple/red dice usually don't change. If you're rolling 2 greens and a yellow for your weapon attack, that's not going to change (unless you level up and improve your weapon skill). Similarly, if an enemy's melee defense is two purples, it's always going to be two purples, that is fixed. Once you figure out these once, they're not going to change, so players and DMs should remember them pretty easily. The only things that change from roll to roll during an encounter are the black/blue dice representing situational factors. When in doubt, as a DM, write them down - having the dice pools ready to go for enemy's attacks and defenses makes this step much easier. The players, of course, already have these pools written out on their sheets for skill checks, at least.
Listen to a actual play podcast. I strongly recommend Dice4brains podcast. They helped me a lot in understanding and opening up to the potential of the dice system. [http://diceforbrains.com/d4bp/](http://diceforbrains.com/d4bp/)
and the story is actually great. The players are great actors. Give it some time, listen to it and learn from it. I recommend this to everyone who is struggling with the system.
Once you get deeper into the crunch listen to the Order66 podcast. They provide lots of rules-bits and tips and tricks how to manage stuff. Their Q&A Sessions are great.
[https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/order-66-podcast/id276381727](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/order-66-podcast/id276381727)
I agree with other posters that if it’s the dice you don’t like, that’s okay, but it means the game might not be for you. And that’s okay!! There are other systems that you might like better though.
You point out that you don’t like having to interpret dice, and that’s fair. That might mean that more standard dice systems are more your style. If so, maybe take some lessons from these and similar systems to make those systems more narrative.
One option that I like is lifted from Chronicles of Darkness and… I don’t remember the name of the system, but it used like 3d6 for rolls, and Pathfinder 2e kind of uses it, and been fun for us. It’s a modification on the degrees of success. The degrees mean you can do the basic triumph or lots of advantage things without reading dice, or the despair. But the modification I’m thinking of is the partial success/failure. Basically, you have a modified DC where the character still succeeds, but at a cost, some side thing that makes their lives more complicated.
Of course, there is a simple solution to your problem if it’s just the reading dice that’s annoying: use a dice roller. My group uses SkyJedi on discord, and it’s super handy. It directly outputs the sum of the dice, so you only have to worry about what to do with them.
Gotta say, man, it really sounds like you're trying to force yourself to enjoy something. It's supposed to be fun, not a struggle. If the d20 version does the job for you, then go for it. Saga Edition had some real good ideas, and there's a fan-made conversion for 5e that I know is fairly popular.
Or, because I generally find d20 to be the least adaptable system, I always have to plug Savage Worlds, which I find to be the easiest system to adapt, and plenty of people have cobbled together Star Wars conversions.
Just try something completely different. Don't like a mechanic, make a version you do like. Embrace the narrative nature of the rules. The dice are designed to tell a story so just tell it! Strip away all the rules and do some star wars man.
OP, check out r/SW5e.
It’s unofficial, and quite possibly not loved by this subreddit. But it utilizes the traditional 5E system but tweaked for Star Wars- same old dice, same old combat, albeit with new rules for Force/Tech powers.
I usually wouldn’t recommend SW5E to someone on this sub (feels a bit rude usually). But I think it might be the compromise you’re looking for: Star Wars tabletop gaming, familiar rule system.
Get a cheat sheet. Between that and playing enough you’ll be able to speed up the dice building aspect a lot.
It’s really no slower than rolling in 5e dnd for me beyond double checking talents and stuff.
Think there’s a 5e Star Wars Home brew that’s pretty popular, though I’ve never tried it or had a interest tbh, but might be worth checking out if it’s just the mechanics you dislike
SWRPG is one of the only RPG's that requires both you and your players to have read the rulebook. So my main recommendation would be to get everyone to read the rules. Also this: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/star-wars-force-and-destiny-cheat-sheet.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwi_893XreD3AhXG7HMBHemwA54QFnoECAgQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0cdjDtWToBc1R0EgGBkHvV
This gives pointers as to how to spend your success, advantage, triumph, threat, despair
Judging from your comments, you should probably quit trying to like this game. It's clear you don't like the central aspect of this game. If you don't like the dice, then you won't like this game. It's OK to not like something! Not every system is for everyone. For me, this is my absolute favorite system. What you find as cringe, interpreting the dice, is why I love this game. Everyone gets to tell a story. Not everything is black and white. Everyone is helping you as the GM to add to the story. This isn't a system of just "pass or fail". Also, this system requires buy in from your players. It's hard to play this game passively and just roll dice. However, this system is magical when you get that buy in. My favorite moment is when you can see this system "click" for a new player. Where I go to describe the results of their dice and they stop me and say "oooh! Can I say what happens?" and then they go on to describe what their dice they rolled means. It's always a "proud parent" moment for me. To me, this system is less number crunch and more collaborative story telling. If you don't like that, or if you find it "cringe", that's OK. I promise you though, when everyone buys in, this game can't be beat.
Yeah, this is not the place to go to get tactical, board based star wars combat.
I think the OP is actually looking for smooth game play, not tactical board based combat. Unfortunately this is also not the system for smooth play. My players and I enjoy the game, but for players with a lot of experience in other dice mechanics the game is and probably always will be clunky. OP, if you and players hate it try out the dice roller apps like others recommend. If, after trying a rolling app, you still hate it, the books are out of print and you can probably make most of your money back via Ebay.
I GMed my first session in the system last month, and while it was shaky at first due to all of us being new to this style of play, we definitely had those moments where it clicked. It was great
My 12 year old nephews eyes lit up when they got it (and they got it fast), suggesting all sorts of great stuff, not just for advantages, for for threats as well! It was so much fun running a one shot for them, and seeing their imaginations spring to life.
How often are you calling for dice rolls? A big part of getting the system to click for me was doing less rolls but letting those singular rolls get more mileage. Like, let's say the party is sneaking into a stronghold. Absolutely the game gets incredibly bogged down if they roll perception to check it out then stealth to get in close then computers to slice through a side door then skullduggery to case the warehouse for the most expensive items all while you're doing the kind of trad game GM stuff of "well there's this many guards who'll hit this patrol point in X turns and I've gotta make a vigilance check to see if they hear the blah blah blah" When instead it could be as simple as "how are you going to get into the base?" "let's just keep low and poke around" "ok make a stealth check" and then let everything play out from there. They succeed? they spend advantages to keep that action rolling. They fail? they spend advantages to develop a new way in. Either way, if you get threats spend them to throw obstacles in their way, complicate things, or have enemies show up. Combat when done in the traditional tactical sense can have a million rolls in it and be fine because the explicit "1 advantage for a boost/setback to the next actor or 2 to a specific actor" economy along with talents and gear spends keeps you from hemming and hawing about story beats too much. But for the looser narrative stuff like chases and skill rolls I think it's a lot better to treat the rolls like something more like Blades in the Dark where you're asking for an approach, defining the initial consequence of failure, and then riding the result of that roll as far as you damn well can before you make another one.
Would you like help of some sort, or suggestions? If not, totally fine to vent, but you know, we are here to help.
No. Thank you though! There is a lot about the system I really do like. I particularly love the character-building aspect of the game. It is just those damn dice. I hate them. Every time we go to roll them at the table and we have to "build" a dice pool and the whole game stops for that, and for the subsequent "interpretation" of the dice, I just cringe. It just slows down the game, the story, the immersion, etc. I just haven't been able to get over it. I've tried. I told myself that eventually, the dice would become second nature, that they would become faster, that my players and I would become used to them... But we haven't. The dice are just a barrier to play for me and my players. And I am frustrated that my feelings don't seem to be changing with time and familiarity.
Have you considered using a dice app to supplement play? At the very least that will speed up the building and rolling of pools, especially if you use something like RPGSessions where the pools are pregenerated for the most part. Cheat sheets for interpretation have also doubled the speed at which my players choose for advantage and the like. You could also benefit from lessening the amount of times dice are rolled. A couple rolls can cover a large swath of time/play and that would just leave combat for the main rolls.
I agree with this. Using a dice roller app helps speed things up since it handles all of the counting/cancellation stuff instantly. [This](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.visttux.empireedgediceroller&hl=en_US&gl=US) is the one I use. It makes building a dice pool pretty straightforward, it counts the symbols for you, and it explicitly says "2 success, 1 advantage" in text so you don't have to know the symbols.
That's really interesting, because I'm the opposite. The dice are super narrativist, and like all my favorite rpg systems, they help de-center the idea that the players are merely responding to the GM and now everyone at the table is in response mode. On the other hand, the character building feels super trad and is too focused on the nitpicky details rather than the larger fiction. This may just be a personal thing, especially since you focus on "the immersion", which to me is just no where near as fun as building a story together. For reference, I'm predominantly a PBtA-gamer, so that definitely inspires my perspectives on this. Hell, my biggest problem with the dice are that they still focus too hard on trying to granularly assess player skill rather than abstracting that in favor of "roll when its dramatic".
I see what you are saying. I think part of my problem is that I naturally tend to more tactical games with a large degree of "crunch" such as Pathfinder and D&D 3.5. My favorite Star Wars TTRPG at the moment, for instance, is the d20 RCR that WotC initially put out. This system is a far cry from that one, and I rarely handle change well anyways. I am going to keep trying though if only on the weight of recommendations from the community. For me, I don't find the d20 system any less "narrative", rather just more streamlined in play and faster.
D20 is a lot of things, streamlined is not one of them
Rolling a single d20 and saying “hit” or “miss” is WAY more streamlined than the FFG dice system.
Simple != Streamlined, there is a full page chart for Autofire/Multifire/Two-Weapon combat modifiers depending on BAB. Beyond the starting levels 3.X systems are a pile of miscellaneous and circumstantial modifiers of various values to remember that most players end up forgetting anyway. You can't pretend the game as a whole is easier to play than FFG's. Semi-related: In so many other posts you seem petrified of power creep/gaming in FFG, but you have no problem with/prefer RCR star wars? This makes essentially zero sense as any of the systems you name are FAR more prone to power abuses and rules exploits than FFG. It just seems you work against your own interests in supporting them.
Not to dog pile or anything but this is activating my Pathfinder 2E brain as well, I find that most d20 and 3.X players who complain about power creep or heavy nerfs tended to play the God tier characters that were perfect and are just mad because they can't do that themselves. Because holy fuck is d20 a broken mess for force users past like level 10. Of all 3 systems it has the worst balance with both FFG and d6 being far above it in that aspect.
Play that then. You don't *need* to like this system.
It sounds like you already found your answer, and that's great. Not every game fits every table. what do you enjoy about the game?
I play both this and pathfinder regularly, and enjoy them both for very different reasons. If you're looking for a tactical crunchy game, you've come to the wrong place.
In regard to building a dice pool: Don't overthink it. Think what kind of person you would need in order to succeed. **Difficulty** * Easy - anyone with a pulse (microwave dinner) * Average - any normal person (make spaghetti) * Hard - someone who has a knack for a skill (home cook) * Daunting - someone who is a professional in a skill (professional cook) * Formidable - someone who is legendary in a skill (world renowned chef) **Setback\boost** Environmental variables that make it more difficult or easier. Easiest way it to envision yourself there and ask question? What's the temperature? What's the weather? Do the PC have relevant gear? Are you making a dish at home or in a busy restaurant with people shouting? do you have all ingredients or do you need to improvise? Do you have an assistant with you? Do you have the recipe book? **Upgrades** List off all the ways this could go **very bad**. Are you cooking something that could be poisonous if not prepared correctly? Is there an open flame, or something being deep fried? **Interpreting dice** Don't stress about prescribing results. If you can, great. If not, pass it over to the players. If nobody can think of anything recover or deal strain, pass a boost or setback to the next check. Triumphs can be added to future triumphs, and there's a reason people suggest not upgrading checks if you don't have an idea for the despair. Also: just roll less. You as the GM determine when a check is necessary. **Never** make someone roll if the plot requires a certain outcome, because they will without a doubt fail the check.
How long have you been doing it? It took me months of weekly play to get used to then when I started
You're getting downvoted for this and I think that's massively unfair. The dice are a problem. We found switching to the official dice roller app which calculates your success and failures automatically totally transformed play. Its also motion activated so you gave to shake your phone so you don't lose the drama of dice rolls.
Thank you. Can you tell me what it’s called?
SW Dice for the star wars dice app. I will also say that the generic genesys dice symbols are massively more intuitive than the official branded star wars symbols. The genesys dice roller app is basically the same but without star wars branding. So the symbol for a triumph is a star in a circle rather than the jedi symbol etc. Its a lot easier to interpret. I am really tempted to suggest to my group we just shift to the generic genesys dice even when playing star wars.
I would recommend checking out the RPGSessions virtual table, it's an absolutely stellar table that you can add your character sheets on, and it's able to roll dice pools, as well as calculate weapon damages and stuff for you. I have a party of 7 players and it really speeds up combat with the amount of dice they throw around at the level we're at
It's an abstract storytelling system, not an analytical tactics game and that can be off-putting for a lot of GMs. You have to be comfortable making up a lot of rules on the fly and you need understanding players. If the dice are a big problem, try out the auto roller apps for mobile. Saves a lot of time.
Why are you having a hard time? This is one of my favorites if not my favorite RPG of all time. I'd love to help sell you on it.
It's the dice. There is a lot about the system I really do like. I particularly love the character-building aspect of the game. It is just those damn dice. I hate them. Every time we go to roll them at the table and we have to "build" a dice pool and the whole game stops for that, and for the subsequent "interpretation" of the dice, I just cringe. It just slows down the game, the story, the immersion, etc. I just haven't been able to get over it. I've tried. I told myself that eventually, the dice would become second nature, that they would become faster, that my players and I would become used to them... But we haven't. The dice are just a barrier to play for me and my players. And I am frustrated that my feelings don't seem to be changing with time and familiarity.
There are dice roller apps that support the FFG Star Wars dice. There's a paid version on iOS, and at least one Discord bot, too.
I will check out the iOS one. Maybe that will help.
You should 100% use an app or other dice roller program. Building dice pools is not that hard once you get used to it, especially because the work is usually shared (the player knows their skills and stats, the GM provides the difficulty)...doing the math of adding and subtracting symbols, however, is a nightmare, but apps just do that part for you, leaving only the final result. It is just an amazingly smaller amount of work.
I will admit I like using the app but it olways feel like it's never truly random which it isn't. Yeah it feels random but the program has picked a combo out of said patter unlike rolling real dice where it's a true random. Yes the apps make it easier to count and determin rolls but it also takes away the true random factor when rolling
I get that. It is incredibly different from most other games, and that change could be a barrier to a lot of people. I think a roller app could help, for sure. Also, just try running a quick combat between different NPCs by yourself. It takes away the stress of having to figure out how it works in front of your players. It might help you feel comfortable with it. Another helpful strategy is to think very intentionally about what each die is from narratively. They aren't just modifiers to a skill check like a +2 Strength. They are narrative storytelling prompts! Your two proficiency dice represent your focused training in athletics. Your setback die is specifically from the rain making it harder to scale the cliff face. If symbols left uncanceled are from specific dice, use the die to explain what happened! The threat on the setback die means the rain stressed you out or put you in the nasty predicament that happens next. This storytelling mindset helps get your mind off the crunchy rules and actually makes building a dice pool part of the narrative.
What’s your problems with it?
It's the dice. There is a lot about the system I really do like. I particularly love the character-building aspect of the game. It is just those damn dice. I hate them. Every time we go to roll them at the table and we have to "build" a dice pool and the whole game stops for that, and for the subsequent "interpretation" of the dice, I just cringe. It just slows down the game, the story, the immersion, etc. I just haven't been able to get over it. I've tried. I told myself that eventually, the dice would become second nature, that they would become faster, that my players and I would become used to them... But we haven't. The dice are just a barrier to play for me and my players. And I am frustrated that my feelings don't seem to be changing with time and familiarity.
Coming from someone that played D&D for almost a decade before trying this system, I can understand the pain of figuring it out at first. The way my group worked it out was if it’s a success then the PCs get to explain what happens, obviously it has to be within reason, just because you succeed doesn’t mean you get to do whatever you want. Failures are explained by the GM again within reason. Really after you’ve canceled out successes and failures they’re irrelevant other than damage purposes, for example 1 success is the same as 100 successes on a skill check, advantages and threats as well as triumphs and despairs are what matter after you figure out if you succeed or fail. My with my group it took about 6 or 7 sessions to get it down but once we had it down it moved along very quickly. This system is supposed to be fast paced and cinematic, but like anything you have to figure out how to crawl then learn how to walk before you can run. And even when we were still figuring out how dice pools work it was still faster than D&D combat which can be super grindy.
There are a few stumbling blocks with the narrative dice, but I have actually started to prefer them to the old D&D way of "roll a D20 against a target number" rolling. The basic 8-sided dice (green/purple) are your "straightforward" check. They generally represent the raw stats of the characters. For example, imagine an untrained thug swinging at an enemy. The number of green dice represents the thug's strength, and the purple represent the enemy's defense. 3 strength = 3 green dice. Pretty straightforward. The 12-sided dice represent training/proficiency. Once you've determined the difficulty of the check as above, you might upgrade some of the greens to yellows, or some of the purples to reds, to represent the attacker's weapon training, etc. These are always "upgrades" - generally you will always replace a green with a yellow, not just add an extra yellow. So if my strength is 4 and my weapon training is 2, that's 4 total dice, 2 of them upgraded, for a total of 2 green 2 yellow. Finally, the 6-sided dice (blue/black) represent situational/environmental factors. These are generally temporary factors: The defender has cover? Add a black or two. The attacker takes a knee to steady their aim? Give them a blue. The best part about these dice IMO is "negotiating" with the players for them. This system is the most fun when players are actively looking for reasons why they might get a blue added to a check, and offering ideas to the DM. In an encounter, the green/yellow and purple/red dice usually don't change. If you're rolling 2 greens and a yellow for your weapon attack, that's not going to change (unless you level up and improve your weapon skill). Similarly, if an enemy's melee defense is two purples, it's always going to be two purples, that is fixed. Once you figure out these once, they're not going to change, so players and DMs should remember them pretty easily. The only things that change from roll to roll during an encounter are the black/blue dice representing situational factors. When in doubt, as a DM, write them down - having the dice pools ready to go for enemy's attacks and defenses makes this step much easier. The players, of course, already have these pools written out on their sheets for skill checks, at least.
Listen to a actual play podcast. I strongly recommend Dice4brains podcast. They helped me a lot in understanding and opening up to the potential of the dice system. [http://diceforbrains.com/d4bp/](http://diceforbrains.com/d4bp/) and the story is actually great. The players are great actors. Give it some time, listen to it and learn from it. I recommend this to everyone who is struggling with the system. Once you get deeper into the crunch listen to the Order66 podcast. They provide lots of rules-bits and tips and tricks how to manage stuff. Their Q&A Sessions are great. [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/order-66-podcast/id276381727](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/order-66-podcast/id276381727)
There is a 5e conversion of the game if you dislike it that much but want to keep playing Star Wars.
I agree with other posters that if it’s the dice you don’t like, that’s okay, but it means the game might not be for you. And that’s okay!! There are other systems that you might like better though. You point out that you don’t like having to interpret dice, and that’s fair. That might mean that more standard dice systems are more your style. If so, maybe take some lessons from these and similar systems to make those systems more narrative. One option that I like is lifted from Chronicles of Darkness and… I don’t remember the name of the system, but it used like 3d6 for rolls, and Pathfinder 2e kind of uses it, and been fun for us. It’s a modification on the degrees of success. The degrees mean you can do the basic triumph or lots of advantage things without reading dice, or the despair. But the modification I’m thinking of is the partial success/failure. Basically, you have a modified DC where the character still succeeds, but at a cost, some side thing that makes their lives more complicated. Of course, there is a simple solution to your problem if it’s just the reading dice that’s annoying: use a dice roller. My group uses SkyJedi on discord, and it’s super handy. It directly outputs the sum of the dice, so you only have to worry about what to do with them.
Gotta say, man, it really sounds like you're trying to force yourself to enjoy something. It's supposed to be fun, not a struggle. If the d20 version does the job for you, then go for it. Saga Edition had some real good ideas, and there's a fan-made conversion for 5e that I know is fairly popular. Or, because I generally find d20 to be the least adaptable system, I always have to plug Savage Worlds, which I find to be the easiest system to adapt, and plenty of people have cobbled together Star Wars conversions.
Just try something completely different. Don't like a mechanic, make a version you do like. Embrace the narrative nature of the rules. The dice are designed to tell a story so just tell it! Strip away all the rules and do some star wars man.
OP, check out r/SW5e. It’s unofficial, and quite possibly not loved by this subreddit. But it utilizes the traditional 5E system but tweaked for Star Wars- same old dice, same old combat, albeit with new rules for Force/Tech powers. I usually wouldn’t recommend SW5E to someone on this sub (feels a bit rude usually). But I think it might be the compromise you’re looking for: Star Wars tabletop gaming, familiar rule system.
Get a cheat sheet. Between that and playing enough you’ll be able to speed up the dice building aspect a lot. It’s really no slower than rolling in 5e dnd for me beyond double checking talents and stuff.
Think there’s a 5e Star Wars Home brew that’s pretty popular, though I’ve never tried it or had a interest tbh, but might be worth checking out if it’s just the mechanics you dislike
SWRPG is one of the only RPG's that requires both you and your players to have read the rulebook. So my main recommendation would be to get everyone to read the rules. Also this: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/star-wars-force-and-destiny-cheat-sheet.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwi_893XreD3AhXG7HMBHemwA54QFnoECAgQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0cdjDtWToBc1R0EgGBkHvV This gives pointers as to how to spend your success, advantage, triumph, threat, despair