Best posts made by Warlander

Honestly, the best advice I can give anyone looking to use SWSE for ANY setting can be summarized in one word:

Don't.

Only DSS is worse as a Star Wars system, IMO, and I've played all three major Star Wars RPG systems enough, on MUSHes and off of them, to say it with some authority. All SWD20 systems, SE included, play like a D20 dungeon crawler with Star Wars stickers slapped over the Dungeons and Dragons labels, to the point that someone I know IRL referred to SWD20 as Dungeons and Death Stars. Balance is known to trigger hysterical laughter, characters are generally cookie-cutter similar, and a gap of a few levels between opponents is known to be insurmountable in most cases. Twinks love this system, because there is so much to abuse; far too much to list, most of which comes from character 'builds'. Which is also the reason why it's not popular with non-twinks who have experienced this.

That said, if you absolutely have no choice in which system you must use, a few tips may make the game at least bearable for players who come to play a game and have fun, and not to 'win'.

First, don't take the names of basic classes too seriously. Some games use these names as a reason to restrict access to them. This is a trap that is easy to fall into. The fact is, there is not a great deal to choose from in terms of classes, and restricting access only makes the cookie cutters that much more obvious.

Second, unless you have a very good reason for doing so (and very few exist), don't restrict access to the Force in chargen, for the obvious reasons. Many players consider Force Slots and other restrictive practices an instant turn-off.

Third, be extremely careful about allowing Dark Siders as PCs. Twinks love Dark Side characters, because they allow all the Force-y goodness without any of the moral obligations inherent to Jedi and other Light Side Force traditions. Especially Sith. Since SWSE is a twink magnet to begin with, if you choose to allow Dark Siders outside of a campaign that is nothing but Dark Siders, expect problems. Trust me, you won't be kept waiting long.

Fourth, consider alternate ways to earn XP, and alternate ways to advance. SWSE advancement is glacial in most cases, and no changes can be made to characters until the next level turns over on the XP-odometer. This is a source of considerable frustration to even the best-dispositioned players.

More as I think of them. This should be a good list to start with.

Well, those are steps in the right direction. I skimmed the four pages to this point, so I may have missed that part.

Doesn't really help the uber-nerfing (A/B/C), though. And given the limited number of feat and talent slots available in SAGA, it makes playing a Force User pretty pointless (and likely very short)... in spite of words to the contrary, SAGA is first and foremost a dungeon-crawl combat engine, and everything else, including the setting, feels haphazardly tacked on... mostly because it is. This is one of the reasons that I've largely given up on SAGA games. Feats and Talents spent on becoming a Force User can (and usually will) be spent on more effective ways to kill one another with much more easily available weapons, which, combined with being unable to get Skill Focus: Use The Force makes Force Powers borderline useless, and Force Users easy meat for anyone with even a cheap blaster. Combat focus or no combat focus, sooner or later some twink will decide to unlimber Ol' Cheapshot-Cannon and collect on a Jedi bounty.

This is especially true when you consider that Jedi is the only starting generic Force Using class (the people who run this game, like on the other games they've run, limit access to classes solely based on their names... most of which have very little to nothing to do with what they represent. The Soldier, for example, may never have served in any army or other fighting force in their life, and the Scout may never have done any formal scouting for anyone, even himself, ever. The Noble may not necessarily hold any title, or even be part of any governing body, and the Scoundrel may not be a smuggler, con man, or even a criminal. You get the idea. The Jedi may never have even heard of the Jedi Order, let alone been part of it, and many other Force traditions were known to have used the lightsaber). This makes it impossible to get all the necessities of being a Force User without dedicating your whole first, and likely second and third levels to getting them. Make sure to take some useable skills and abilities besides the Force in chargen if you don't want your character to feel generally useless (a common problem in SAGA, since it's very easy to miss useful things in the buckets of clutter that are Feats and Talents. This is magnified by the borderline glacial levelling in this system).

So plan carefully and do lots of system research if you want to play a Force User. Or anything else, really, since the system seems to demand great attention to detail. Of course, this may take some or all of the fun out of playing a game...