For my Day 12 entry in the 2025 #CharacterCreationChallenge I’m going to use the Star Wars: Edge of the Empire core rulebook by Fantasy Flight Games. I had picked this up at the used game swap at SaltCON last year at a bargain price. I’ve been a Star Wars fan since the first movie in 1977 and I’ve had a lot of fun playing the West End Games Star Wars RPG that I made a character for in a previous challenge. There was also the D20 based Star Wars RPG and Saga Edition that I’ve also made challenge characters for.
Now at the SaltCON where I picked up both this book and a starter set, I had the opportunity to play the game at a table. It made some sense, but I didn’t get a chance to fully immerse in the game as the GM was also doing a test-run of gaming tablets which did most of the work for us. There are also other books in this series that cover other Star Wars eras. They are all interchangeable since they were published by the same company.
As you can see in the photo below, this game uses some special dice specifically for Star Wars Edge of the Empire. There are blue boost dice, green ability dice, yellow proficiency dice (all positive) then black setback dice, purple difficulty dice, red challenge dice (all negative) and Force dice (the white one) and apparently there should have been two D10s in the set (luckily I have some of my own). I don’t know the system well enough to explain it here. I feel like I’d be making this blog post way too long. So we’ll just concentrate on character creation.
I don’t know if these special dice are needed in the character creation process, but in chapter 2 (starting on page 33) the book talks about creating a character. This volume of “The Edge of the Empire” focuses on characters that are on the fringes of the known galaxy. The steps listed are 1- Determine Character Concept and Background, 2- Determine Starting Obligation, 3- Select Character Species, 4- Select Character Career, 5- Select Specializations, 6- Invest Experience Points, 7- Determine Derived Attributes, 8- Determine Starting Motivation, 9- Choose Gear and Description, 10- Group chooses starting ship. Just from this list it sounds like the characters would have been made in a session 0, so I’ll make some different assumptions during this solo creation.
Concept and background- Random name generator came up with Corvo Sturig and he will be a Human smuggler trying to make a few credits without getting caught by the authorities. He didn’t want to be a bog-raker on the remote swampy world of Trankit IV where he grew up. When a smuggler needed a hired hand, Corvo took the first opportunity to leave and learned the tricks of the trade from him.
Starting obligation- This is a debt that the player owes. I saw this concept recently when I made a character for See You, Space Cowboy… and I can see how it would add to to the character’s background. This could be an actual debt (to a legitimate or illegitimate org) or a feeling of loyalty to a person or group. There is a random d100 table available, but I’m really liking the concept I’ve come up so far so I would have asked the GM if I could pick one. After Corvo’s mentor retired, he allowed Corvo to make payments on the ship to eventually own it outright. This would have been debt on the list on page 39.
Select character species- I’ve already said Human. Page 48 gave me the Species Abilities (as part of the attributes that I’ll post about below), wound threshold, strain threshold, starting experience and special abilities. I wrote these down on my notes.
Select character career and specialization- I’m instructed to pick a career and specialization. From this the character will gain some different skills. I found the information on the smugglers on page 80. Out of the eight skills listed, Corvo knows four of them at rank 1. I picked them. There were three specializations listed and the Pilot sounded like the one that fit the concept that I’m following. This specialization has four additional career skills of which I’m allowed to pick two (I believe at rank 1). I wrote them down on my notes.
Invest Experience Points- I have 110 XP from being a Human. I can use these points to improve a characteristic, training skills, acquiring talents or learning new specializations. I’m referred to page 92 for more information. Apparently during character creation is the only time that characteristics can be increased by XP. That tells me that I’ll probably be spending a lot of points in those as the other items can be purchased when more XP is earned in the game. I had said above that I’d list the Characteristics later, and I think later is now. These attributes are Agility, Brawn, Cunning, Intellect, Presence (I wonder if Vader can sense my presence?), and Willpower. They all sound pretty standard that you usually see in RPGs. As a Human I started with 2 in each category. To raise one characteristic up to 3 would cost 30 XP and if I want to raise it to 4, it would be another 40 XP. I looked at the Characteristics that would help my smuggler skills and decided to bump those up. With the remaining 20 XP, I went to the Pilot Talent Tree on page 83 and purchased a few talents for Corvo. (I was wondering what the talent tree was when I was reading the smuggler description)
Now that I have my stats nailed down, let’s move onto Determining Derived Attributes: I was directed to page 94. These give me stats for the Wound Threshold, Strain Threshold, Defense and Soak Value (no not the BYU thing, how much incoming damage you can ignore before being seriously wounded). These were determined by characteristics, racial modifiers and armor worn.
Determine Motivation: This is explained as something that makes the character “tick”. I can create one (with GM’s permission) or one can be rolled random. Since I didn’t roll for the earlier Obligation, I’ll roll for them here. A roll of 2 says that Corvo has a Motivation of Ambition (see table 2-6) and a d100 roll of 66 which is Status. So Corvo wants to be known as the best smuggler. Perhaps a smuggler that always eludes the authorities.
And here we are to Gear and Description: This is usually the sign that you are near the end of the character creation process. On page 97 the description starts. The character has 500 credits to purchase items. Wow, a light blaster costs 300 credits. And the last step is to select a ship for the group. Of the three listed I selected the YT-1300 Light Freighter. We could have talked the GM into providing another ship within a certain credit range and if this was for an actual game, I probably would have taken the time to look one up.
I transferred everything over from my notes to the character sheet. There was no spot for the ship so I assume it would have been on a different sheet all together.
Afterthoughts:
So good news, you don’t need the special dice to create a character. And for jumping into the pool for the first time without reading the book, the steps were pretty straight forward. Considering how interesting the play was at the table with the weird dice, I was expecting something more complicated. I remember thinking after I had played the game at SaltCON that the system did encourage a shared narrative from the players.
I liked the use of Star Wars quotes at the beginning of the different chapters. As a love of quotes this made me smile because it added to the Star Wars feel of the books.
I really wish that the book would have given us the stats for the characters we’ve seen in the various Star Wars movies. Even if it was just the big ones like Han Solo or Mace Windu. A game based off of an IP sometimes makes me wonder, how does my character stack up to them? What could my character eventually become to simulate what we’ve seen on screen.
Well I already know that I’d play this game as I had at SaltCON. Would I play this game in a campaign? Well I wouldn’t turn it down if someone was willing to run one. However the GM at SaltCON was from out-of-state. I’ve never seen or heard of anyone locally who plays this game. And it may be a sense of nostalgia, but if I was going to run a Star Wars game, I’d probably stick with the WEG D6 Star Wars RPG.
Additional Notes:
MoonHunter on the TardisCaptain Discord Server gave me some feedback on the Terra Primate challenge entry. They said “Not only do I like the setting, Terra Primate did an incredible job with it. And I like the game system. I admit it.” Considering I hadn’t seen anything about the game before the auction where I picked the book up, I was wondering how well known this game was.
Coming Up Next:
Tales of the Valiant
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