Star Wars Outer Rim in Review

Re: the board. It's main effect is to drastically simplify route-finding. If finding routes through complex networks is your deal, then it will be disappointing. That's why this game hasn't really replaced Merchant of Venus for me. That game is much more about pick-up-and-deliver than Outer Rim is. But by simplifying the navigation, it allows the game to focus on the narrative beats of the experience. This is very much in keeping with Star Wars, where getting from here to there is as easy as punching in some hyperspace coordinates. The NPC ships change the alchemy quite a bit though, and I think the board also forces you to reckon with them more than in something like Merchants & Marauders.

M&M is actually the game that I think is hurt most by Outer Rim in my own situation. The adventure elements of that game are much better realized here, and Outer Rim is also a less overwrought experience.

Road Judge wrote: I'll admit seeing the half circle board for OR I was wondering if after a couple games if it will feel same-y but your review gives me hope that I'll enjoy it with multiple plays.

There are rules for setting up a random map if you ever get tired of the default setup, though I imagine some random configurations wouldn't be balanced.

I've played Firefly, Wasteland Express and OR recently and OR is easily my favorite. Firefly takes too long and the action system for WE is positively baroque as compared to OR's streamlined goodness. As the guy who usually brings the game, I wouldn't hesitate to play OR with nongamers.

In our last session I spent too long searching the market decks and ended up third, but on the other hand I got to play as Bossk and was hunting bounties with my jetpack and vibro-axe at the end while destroying patrols with IG-88's ship, which was quite satisfying.

I got this at Christmas as well and just played it over the weekend for the first time. I look forward to playing it again, but I’m not sold that it replaces Firefly or M&M yet.

jpat wrote: (And how did I miss that Corey had left FFG last year? I read [and just now alluded to] what seemed at the time to be an oddly valedictory retrospective, but I feel like I should've registered it more.)

Quietly one of the top 5 designers of the past 15 years (to me) being cut loose of the FFG constraints is definitely important.

Gary Sax wrote:

jpat wrote: (And how did I miss that Corey had left FFG last year? I read [and just now alluded to] what seemed at the time to be an oddly valedictory retrospective, but I feel like I should've registered it more.)

Quietly one of the top 5 designers of the past 15 years (to me) being cut loose of the FFG constraints is definitely important.

It will be interesting to see what he does, but he is still working for Asmodee.

I've played SW:OR the last two weekends and we both enjoy it . I think with lower player counts bounties are a tad harder, as you don't have as many tokens getting revealed; we both did mainly jobs and cargoes.

It does make me want to bust out Merchants of Venus, as I do miss the exploration aspect as well the route development that happens in that game .

If I was more into SW, I would probably pick it up. It does look like a good game and I would certainly play it. Alas, M&M works for me in both theme, player interaction, the expansion options, etc. I think I am one of the few people who does not have a negative opinion of the ship to ship combat. The NPC ships work in my mind in as much as they were not always a physical threat, but lurking about to make you think up other routes to get to your goal. the sea is a big place.


I do hope one of my friends buys it so I can play it eventually.

Resurrecting the thread.

I picked up a copy of SW:OR in trade and got a chance to play it 2p this past weekend. In most respects, it was just like what I thought it would be, and for the most part it did seem like a refinement on past efforts in this genre.

I'm interested in the "switch" (not really a switch, but you know what I mean) from Firefly's variable and group mission-based victory conditions to a common fame threshold and no specified means for getting there. This seems, after one whole play, to lead to greater uncertainty about who's going to win and makes the cards granting fame, with their variable fame rewards (seems like usually 1, but there are at least some 2s), more tricky to write and balance. In Firefly, everyone is pretty aware of your progress and how close you are to winning/losing, but in Outer Rim that seems more opaque because you don't know as much about how any one player is going to try to go about winning. I don't know that that's a problem, but it does kind of seem like it makes the game more individualized and less like a group effort.

I've only played Firefly once, and I don't remember it well, so bear with me, but Outer Rim does have a bit of a feeling of staying in your own lane. I think this is actually pretty common in this genre of game. I've gotten to a point where I can sense who is close to victory pretty well. One thing I enjoy is that Outer Rim places some uncertainty in the resolution of its jobs. If you are delivering illegal goods, hunting a bounty, or doing a job you usually have to roll some stuff. That uncertainty does elevate the game a little. I don't recall if Firefly has the same thing.

The closest game I've played to Outer Rim is actually Merchants & Marauders. It has much the same rhythm of delivering goods on a fixed board, interacting with authorities, etc. It's big difference is that it doesn't have that giant unwieldy combat system that Merchants & Marauders has. I also think it's a somewhat better-integrated system than M&M, though at the cost of some variety.

san il defanso wrote: I've only played Firefly once, and I don't remember it well, so bear with me, but Outer Rim does have a bit of a feeling of staying in your own lane. I think this is actually pretty common in this genre of game. I've gotten to a point where I can sense who is close to victory pretty well. One thing I enjoy is that Outer Rim places some uncertainty in the resolution of its jobs. If you are delivering illegal goods, hunting a bounty, or doing a job you usually have to roll some stuff. That uncertainty does elevate the game a little. I don't recall if Firefly has the same thing.

If you tried to complete illegal jobs (Misbehavin') you had to roll for success. It wasn't required - you could do only legit jobs, but they paid less.

I was a Firefly devotee for years, but even at the height of my love for the game, I would tell you that Firefly kind of has alot of problems that built on top of other problems. Some of them get worse depending on which expansions you use (ie, the Pirates & Bounty Hunters expansion makes every problem inherent in the game much worse).

I think the core problem which all others branch out of (and just to clarify, these are problems when looking at the game from a competitive standpoint, which might be the wrong way to look at it but we did bring it up) is related to player count, how that affects access to gear, crew and mods, and how that affects the rate in which the various decks are worked through. All of that together equates to a situation where a well-set up player will continue to do well and a player who couldn't get set up in time, be it due to an unlucky move or not the right cards being available to purchase will never catch up. Its got to be my most played game of the last 10 years, or close to it, and I've never seen a game with at least 3 experienced players where it was anymore than 2 players who were even close to winning. Again, I don't think Firefly is that kind of game, but you know, after 50 or so plays of it, that's kind of a bummer to keep seeing.

Outer Rim certainly has less going on and less for you to play around with, but given that the games I have now are consistently close, I'll take it. Even being a fan of Xia now, I will still gladly play Outer Rim over it (I have nothing good to say about M&M).

However, it should be noted that here we are, still playing the game since launch and I'm not tired of it nor do I think it's lacking in content.

Yeah, this one definitely feels "complete," in the sense that everything in it feels intentional and well-considered. I stand by the complaint that the pacing feels just a little sluggish in the early going, but that really is my only problem with it. FFG has over the years published some of the best thematic games ever made, but they do have a tendency to be a little...I guess lumpy is the word. Sometimes they feel like a collection of systems that are sitting next to each other, more than a unified whole. I admit that I haven't engaged with their games much in the last five years or so, but Outer Rim really beats that narrative. Like BSG, it would be very easy to wreck this game with an expansion.

I actually enjoy their output over the last 5 years, limited it may be, more than anything else in their catalog.

Runewars (the board game, not the minis one) is like a dividing line in design for them. One one side, games that have too many things going on with little to hold them together and elements there only to satisfy perceived needs of the setting without benefiting gameplay, and on the other side games that are still on the medium weight side and focused on narrative, but streamlined and prone to embrace more hybrid designs rather than what we would have called "AT" back in the day. I love many, in fact probably most of FFG's board games on the other side of Runewars. Rebellion, Forbidden Stars, Civ New Dawn, Fury of Dracula 3e, all some of my favorite games. Can't think of anything on that other side that has aged well or that hasn't been done better by something else.

If nothing else, they largely abandoned their over-elaborate card combat systems, a la Runewars. Rebellion's base-game combat wasn't great either, but the expansion seems to have improved it while still retaining some tactical options.

jpat wrote: If nothing else, they largely abandoned their over-elaborate card combat systems, a la Runewars. Rebellion's base-game combat wasn't great either, but the expansion seems to have improved it while still retaining some tactical options.

The expansions combat is better, but still a far cry from fun. The rest of the game is so good, it's a shame they could t have glossed over the combat somehow.