I am kicking myself for forgetting about Fantasy Flight Games’ Star Wars RPG: Edge of the Empire (also Force and Destiny and Age of Rebellion, but EotE is my current favorite). I’m going to talk about it in the context of the last two posts about initiative and action economies.

SWRPG’s Funky Dice

Going into this game requires a brief explanation about the dice. The dice are proprietary, with symbols instead of numbers. These dice Successes which get matched against Failures (to see if the task succeeds) and Advantages against Threats (to see if any bonuses or twists happen). Higher stat/skill values either give more dice or replace dice with better dice.

Initiative

EotE uses a character-based turns but doesn’t limit that slot to the character. Each character rolls their dice, totally up their successes (with advantages as tie-breakers). The GM orders the initiative slots based on which team they’re on (generally PC vs NPC). The players then get to choose the order they act within those slots (which can change from round to round).

This ends up with the best of both Team and Character based initiative. Rounds generally aren’t a curb stomp of whoever went first (since there’s a mix) but characters generally get flexibility in how they’re able to act within a round (unlike systems like D&D). This is probably the best turn-based initiative system I’ve used.

Actions

Similar to D&D, with a standard Action, but instead of a Move there ends up being Maneuvers. These can be used to do combat-oriented quick tasks in addition to moving, like aiming or opening a door. Interestingly, it’s possible to get either a free Maneuver as either a side effect of an action (usually involving rolling advantage) OR spending strain (which is used for other abilities) to gain a second one.

This action economy, like Ironclaw’s, supports the cinematic flair that this system is trying to effect. It’s relatively easy to teach and explain (Actions make you roll; Maneuvers don’t).

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This system is my favorite Narrative-based system. Other narrative systems are generally too loose with the rules, to the point of being overly vague, but this handles almost every aspect of it in an elegant way. There are a lot of good ideas to look at here for any GM who’s trying to build their own system, or even just looking for inspiration for their campaigns.