Black Market: Force and Destiny Review

Chris’ Quick Take: Force and Destiny is all you need for epic, Force-using Star Wars roleplaying, but it will leave you wanting for more starships, stock adversaries, and dark side options.  Great buy for anyone looking to run a Force-using game, but you’ll probably eventually want to pick up Age of Rebellion or Edge of the Empire as well.

Copyright Fantasy Flight Games
Copyright Fantasy Flight Games

Fantasy Flight Games’ Force and Destiny completes the trilogy of Star Wars roleplaying.  It is what many have been waiting for, the core book unlocking play as Jedi and other Force users.  This tome is over 400 pages and runs at a suggested retail of $60.00 USD.  At that price and size, Force and Destiny must not only deliver a top notch product, but also must be able to stand alone as a core rulebook.  Force and Destiny stretches a few sections thin, as I will point out below, but ultimately it met and exceeded my expectations – and that’s not just because I spent seventy of my multi-coloured Canadian dollars on it.  This review will cover topics following the flow of the book’s chapters, offering praise and criticism where it is deserved.

I was immediately struck by the fantastic piece of art inside the cover.  The clear expanse of Tatooine conjured feelings of openness and possibilities. A very effective choice.  While Zoë Robinson’s art direction has almost reached the point where I take it for granted, I am still struck by how evocative the images are in the book.  A few of my favourites are the young Jedi training on pages 22-23, the slain Krayt Dragon on 198-199, and the epic duel in space on 214-215.  On a personal note, it was a pleasant surprise to see art based on Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight characters.

The Introduction was efficient and effective, getting the key points across in an entertaining but brief manner.  If you are familiar with Edge of the Empire or Age of Rebellion, then there will be no surprises to the overall organization of the book.  Nor is there much to note in the Introduction or Combat sections.  The relevant rules are faithfully reproduced, cast with appropriately Force-based examples.  As with the Beta, the rules for Triggering Morality are kept optional.  Page 52 attempts to address concerns that it is too easy to rise in Morality towards Light Side Paragon.  While the suggestions here are valid, I suggest it is necessary to further cement the importance of providing opportunities to gain Conflict as a core game experience, and that should circumstances indicate a session does not provide such opportunities that Morality not be adjusted.

A future article on d20radio.com will outline the changes from Beta to Core, but nothing major was found on my initial passes through the book.  The species listed are those of iconic canon Jedi and Sith.  The Specializations included provide almost a complete coverage of Force using archetypes from both canon and Legends material.  A welcome fluff addition to the Class section comes in the form of boxes explaining six of the classic lightsaber combat forms.  As with the beta, Form VII Juyo remains absent.  One presentation tweak to the Aggressor class is the new designation of Terrify as a “Talent with Conflict Cost” (FaD 98); this is likely a case of future proofing for more talents along these lines.  On my second pass through the book I noted the sheer number of non-Force talents within these Specializations.  I am particularly supportive of this when it comes to Parry, allowing non-Force Sensitives to keep up in melee combat with lightsabers.  Characters like General Grievous and settings like Knights of the Old Republic immediately come to mind.  The developers made good use of this by giving the Magnaguard generous ranks in Parry.

The equipment section provides a good variety of weapons, kit, and mystical artifacts for both players and adversaries.  Much of this is recycled from previous core books as was the trend set in Age of Rebellion, helping Force and Destiny remain viable as a stand-alone core.  Both cortosis melee weapons and a variety of lightsabers are provided for your epic dueling pleasure.  The only weapon I noted as absent was the lightwhip, but given the lightwhip’s less than universal approval this did not surprise me.  The Holocrons and Ancient Talismans section left me wanting more.  No doubt this will be expanded in future supplements, but conspicuously absent were rules for Sith Holocrons noted for their ability to corrupt their users towards the dark side.  With limited space to provide those essential pieces of kit from the other lines in addition to Force and Destiny specific items I have no problem mostly overlooking the omission of darker artifacts at this time.

The Vehicles and Starships chapter is definitely where this book struggles in comparison to the other core books.  A small, but well selected assortment of ships are included to facilitate adventures including the Delta-7 Aethersprite Jedi Starfighter, G9 Rigger, and Hwk-290 alongside a thin offering of staples such as the Y-Wing, X-Wing, TIE Fighter, and Victory Star Destroyer.  Players and GMs looking to combine their Force powered adventures with starship combat, perhaps to follow the footsteps of Anakin and Luke Skywalker, will likely need to look to Age of Rebellion for more starship options.

Any frugality in the Vehicles and Starships chapter is quickly forgiven when we get to the Force.  The chapter starts off on the right foot by including a sidebar on page 274 taking a compromise approach towards the powder keg topic of Midi-Chlorians.  In a nutshell, “Hey, sometimes these correlate with strength in the force, but maybe not always, alright?”  The many powers presented have clear, tweaked, and tested rules showing effort was wisely directed towards this vital section.  For those who had the Beta and dreaded keeping track of the changes to powers like Harm and Unleash, this is what all your suffering and submission of feedback was for.  Missing are some iconic dark side powers from previous roleplaying and video game legends materials such as Drain Knowledge and Dark Rage.  It is debatable how welcome those two powers would be in the current edition, with Drain Knowledge being fairly game breaking to investigations and Dark Rage perhaps feeling too video-gamey for the current narrative system.  Ultimately, the Force section delivers on expectations.

The Gamemastery and subsequent fluff chapters provide a predictably solid wealth of advice and lore.  Triggering Morality still feels awkward and overall less integrated with the game than its companions Obligation and Duty.  It was a wise decision to leave Triggering Morality as an optional rule as I suspect many GMs will find the basic Morality system serves ably enough.  The Conflict award chart remains similar to the beta and I praise the decision to not cap the maximum Conflict award possible.  As a GM, I have awarded 25 Conflict for a single decision and subsequent heinous offscreen activities.  I am running a Sith game which is definitely on the fringe of expected play experience, but it is nice to minimize the amount of house rules for dark side play.  The fluff chapters provide an excellent overview of the relevant lore, often with new connections such as the Star Wars: The Old Republic Jedi Consular being the entombed Jedi in the Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy level on Chandrila.

The Adversaries chapter follows the pattern set by the rest of the book: a mix of reprinted content to make the book stand-alone and new content to fit the theme and add value.  I feel, overall, a good balance was struck.  I was surprised by the absence of the Master (bounty) Hunter (EotE 400) and the Emperor’s Hand (EotE 402) as both are likely to cross paths with Force-using PCs. The beasts included are good choices and are well statted, but Tuk’ata and Shyrack stats would have been a good addition for use when PCs explore Sith, rather than Jedi, ancient sites.  The Inquisitor creation section remains a marvelous addition that has already inspired fan works such as Bounty Hunter creation rules.  This feature alone makes me happy to overlook some otherwise absent adversaries, but those with just this core may be wise to fill some holes with Adversary Cards.

I have yet to run or play in the back of the book adventure, “Lessons from the Past,” but from an initial reading it looks to be serviceable as a campaign starting adventure.  A mix of covert investigation, exploration of dangerous “ruins” – with a twist – and some combat make it seem to be an exciting adventure, at least on initial reading.

Overall, Force and Destiny delivers a new core experience with everything needed to play almost any Force-using archetype in the majority of play experiences.  Specific alternative Force traditions and dark side options are likely to follow in subsequent books, but until then minimal house ruling is all that is needed, if it is needed at all.  Ultimately, if you are looking to run or play in a Force-centric campaign this book is all that is needed.  You may wish to branch out and pick up one of the other core books to supplement starships and adversaries if needed.  For those not really looking for a Force-centric play experience, the price tag of this book may keep you away.  If that is true, that’s fine – after all, is that not the point of having three separate core rulebooks?  With the circle complete, a newcomer can tailor their purchases to tell their Star Wars story.

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Christopher Hunt

Staff Writer at d20 Radio
Christopher Hunt is a long-time gamer and has recently broke into the world of RPG freelancing. Chris’ unofficial Star Wars RPG blog ran weekly on d20radio.com for the past three years. He has written for Rusted Iron Games, Raging Swan Press, and most recently Fantasy Flight Games’ Star Wars RPG. Chris is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in Political Science. Always the gamer, his thesis, which explores conflict short of war by uniting current threats to historical events, was inspired by a historical board game.

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1 Comment

  1. Excellent review.

    FFG gets a lot of kudos based on presentation alone. It’s hard not to want these, even if they were just to sit on your shelves, as a Star Wars fan.

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