FFGs SW RPGs

For some reason, my son has really gotten back into SW. If I were to do any gaming here it would be with an rpg. Can anyone shed light on:

1) Which of these four starter boxes has the best adventure (for 9 year old kids)
2) Which of these four settings have the best adventure support (not making my own from scratch)

Thanks!

As far as beginner boxes go, it really comes down which facet of SW appeals to you and your son the most.

Edge of the Empire if Han Solo, Chewbacca, Lando, or Boba Fett are your thing. These adventures often don't involve the Rebellion, though there might be Imperial entanglements. More about crime lords and whatnot.

Age of Rebellion if you want more of that Rebellion vs Empire thing. This feels more space opera to me. The classes appeal less to me with this one, but it has more of that sweeping epic feel to it.

Force and Destiny if you want Jedi. The other core books do include one Force user class, but they discourage it a bit. I have to agree, too many Jedi gets you into prequel territory.

As far as support goes, Edge of the Empire might have the most because it's been around the longest. Age of Rebellion is close because it came after.

Each beginner box has a follow up adventure available for free on the FFG site.

Let me know if you get into the game. I have adventure books for EotE and AoR, each one designed for players just starting and I'm willing to part with them for a song.

Josh, what are the classes available in EotE and Age of Rebellion? Aliens?

EDIT: Also, I see a lot of decks for sale for this game. Are they necessary or are there suitable charts in the books for critical hits, monsters, class abilities, etc. Not sure I want to buy all these cards... Also, also, did I answer my question on the classes available...just look at the class decks for sale?

The class decks are entirely not necessary. I love the NPC decks, but they may not be of much use if you're going to run published adventures since they do tend to add new adversaries in there.

I don't recall what classes are in each game, but I will elaborate on what I meant about the AoR classes being less interesting. Basically, they seem more generic. It's stuff like soldier, pilot, mechanic, diplomat, etc. the EotE game has smugglers, bounty hunters, hackers...stuff I gravitate towards in the SW universe to begin with. A cool thing about the game in general is that while you pick w class, you also pick one of three specialties availible to that class. So you could have two smugglers playing but they're actually quite different if the have different specializations. I should note that this is if you're making characters, the beginner boxes will just have pregens.

All three games are compatible, so if you were to get a collection of stuff going, it all works together. The only difference is a unique mechanic in each game, ie Obligation in EotE, Duty for AoR, Destiny in F&D. They're just these cool little touches that make for interesting roleplaying and storytelling. My favorite is Obligation. Each character has an Obligation, those being the types of things that tend to bite characters like Han in the ass down the road....you owe a crime lord a ton of money, you have a life debt, you have bounty on your head, etc. At the beginning of each session a roll is made to determine who's Obligation is activated (if any). The more dire your situation, the more likely it is. The character is put under some stress that session, knowing their past is bound to catch up with them, and the GM is free to have it play a part in the story (or maybe they don't!). I've had games where it worked *beautifully*. I had a player who's old gang had it out for them. They thought he was the one who sold them out to the Empire after a job went south, so he's been on the run from them for some time. His Obligation got rolled one session and the group found themselves needing to steal a ship. He was knocked unconscious at one point, the group stole the ship, but when he came to he found that he recognized the ship as the one belonging to his old gang leader.

It's a really solid system as far as the modern approach to RPG design goes. A lot of these games seem to be baking roleplaying into their design, which can actually be a bit restrictive (ie, Dungeon World), but this is a nice balance between it being there and being optional. Reading the dice pool takes some getting use to, but you'll have it down by your second game.

Leaning heavy into this.

Any chance you recall what the pregens are for EotE and AoR. I'm leaning AoR as he's really into Storm/Clonetroopers but a 'good guy' one. I'm thinking a storm trooper/TIE pilot going rogue and joining the rebellion would be up his ally. So, curious if any of the pregens are anything close.

EDIT: Any experience with the newer Force Awakens? I'm wondering if the adventures are a sort of mix of the type you'd see in EotE and AoR? The PCs aren't necessarily part of an organized force but work with one?

It looks like the Force Awakens RPG is going to just have a beginners box; that is, without further product support. At least that's how I read FFG's note at the Beginner Game's site .

I don't have any experience with the pre-generated characters in the beginners games, although each of the game sites has short descriptions of them (wookie merc, human smuggler, duros spy, etc.) along with downloadable samples of some of the pre-gen characters to give you an idea of what they're like. They also have downloadable copies of the full beginners games adventures, so definitely check those out.

I am a player in an Edge of the Empire game. I really like the system, and the setting is very well realized. I can't speak for the out-of-the-box adventures though--so far our GM has been running homemade adventures. It is a modern RPG design, so it's a bit less about the crunchy rules and moving figures on a map, and much more about description and creatively interpreting dice results on the fly. Great for imagination.

Yeah, I don't have the beginner's boxes anymore, so without sifting through reviews elsewhere, I'm not sure what they are. But it does sound like Age of Rebellion is the one you want.

I will make one huge recommendation, and that's to get another dice set right away, like before you even start. They give you some in the box and its playable with quite a bit of rerolling, but you'll get tired of that quickly. You really will want twice as many as they give you. Plus you'll get more Force tokens which are nice to have.