This is a BS move.  I'd be a bit more understanding if the Edge Studios website was anything more than the placeholder that it's been for, what, 6 months? "We love roleplaying games!" "We don't know the title of our own game!" (There's no "the" at the beginning of Legend of the Five Rings, guys). 

This is a BS move.  I'd be a bit more understanding if the Edge Studios website was anything more than the placeholder that it's been for, what, 6 months? "We love roleplaying games!" "We don't know the title of our own game!" (There's no "the" at the beginning of Legend of the Five Rings, guys). 

This is a BS move.  I'd be a bit more understanding if the Edge Studios website was anything more than the placeholder that it's been for, what, 6 months? "We love roleplaying games!" "We don't know the title of our own game!" (There's no "the" at the beginning of Legend of the Five Rings, guys). 

Most character concepts can fit pretty well among an awful lot of careers, so I don't see why this is necessary.  One of my players has a would-be Jedi Knight, who was formerly an Imperial Officer.  There's no real reason why he would need to take a career or specialization from Age of Rebellion to reflect that.  He made a Guardian with the Peacekeeper spec (or was it Warleader?).  That doesn't sound much like an Imp, but he took ranks in Leadership and a few other key skills, and it works out just fine.  He also could have easily taken the Warrior career, if he imagined himself a ruthess Aggressor or leading a squadron of TIEs as a Starfighter Ace.
Choose your Career and Specs based on what you want your character to become. Toss in a few skill points to show who he used to be.

I agree.  I'm also not a real fan of healing potions and spells in D&D, and in this setting it seems especially weird.  I liked how in L5R, at the end of each scene, your Fatigue and Strife drop to half your threshold, and I considered implementing something similar.  I'm liking Dono and Whafrog's ideas a bit more, though.  Being kinda dark-minded, I kinda like the idea of Stims making your "second wind" more effective, but running the risk of addiction.  It's not very Star Wars, but there's a lot of sci-fi (also, you know, real life) where soldiers and warriors use powerful drugs to push themselves to the limit.

Most character concepts can fit pretty well among an awful lot of careers, so I don't see why this is necessary.  One of my players has a would-be Jedi Knight, who was formerly an Imperial Officer.  There's no real reason why he would need to take a career or specialization from Age of Rebellion to reflect that.  He made a Guardian with the Peacekeeper spec (or was it Warleader?).  That doesn't sound much like an Imp, but he took ranks in Leadership and a few other key skills, and it works out just fine.  He also could have easily taken the Warrior career, if he imagined himself a ruthess Aggressor or leading a squadron of TIEs as a Starfighter Ace.
Choose your Career and Specs based on what you want your character to become. Toss in a few skill points to show who he used to be.

Heh, your character may be playing the villain I have yet to introduce in my game.
 
Sounds to me like it's time for some clever droid to start dabbling in things that sentient beings were never meant to know.  Perhaps he starts replacing parts of himself with artificially grown organic material. Like cybernetics in reverse.  Perhaps he begins upgrading his memory banks with components made from kyber crystals.  Kidnapping organic sentients and attempting to hybridize them with droids in any way possible.  Also, getting hit with lightning for some reason.  Maybe, just maybe...  you let him succeed.

New CGRPG episode out now!
"Questionable Shelter": Will Daisetsu Join the Perfect Land Sect?
Web: https://courtgamespod.com/podcast/questionable-shelter-will-daisetsu-join-the-perfect-land-sect/
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/questionable-shelter-will-daisetsu-join-perfect-land/id1455750389?i=1000494942388
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/38bDLrjP8M1yTaup5roNom

Also, even when PCs get to choose their own stance, most Kata are better against specific elements.  Water is strong against Fire, which I think is strong against... Air?

Just in case this is still on anyone's radar, I got a response from Sam Stewart this morning which sez: 
 
   So that's pretty clear.  He didn't dig into the weird little sub-questions that this thread has generated, but I would probably agree with Donovan Morningfire, requiring that first point to be spent whether you're closing range or not.  You are using the power to do crazy flips and spins, after all.
   I think that I would also rule that if you don't spend that point, that it automatically misses.  With HBS, you need to do the crazy flips, and with Draw Closer, you need to pull your target off balance.  This means that for a FR 1 Ataru Striker, if you're Engaged, you probably don't want to use HBS, because you will probably have to use a Dark Pip, and at most you might generate one extra Advantage.  You can, of course, Swoop in, strike, and then disengage, hoping the Guardian can hold your enemy's focus while you bounce around like a Kowakian Monkey Lizard.

Gotta be honest, all this rigamarole is why I just say, "Bleeding causes Fatigue, not Damage. There's no Defending against it, and it won't cause a Crit."  It also means the Incapacitated bushi with high endurance won't just suddenly die when he botches that Artisan roll because a shugenja showed him a Token of Memory.  It's simpler, and being tough doesn't turn into a weird liability.

My campaign is kinda on hold, but I decided to switch things up by triggering a Morality event when the characters cross certain thresholds (like Light Side Paragon).
You've been here a long time, OP, you know darn well that everyone has a fix for Morality. I've got a complicated one sitting around here somewhere, but it's not great. So I decided to keep it simple, and hew as close to RAW as possible while still addressing the issues a lot of people have.
The issues: Sleepwalking to Paragon, which happens easily if you don't go nuts on Force Powers, and are fairly moral.
Tumbling to the Dark Side: can also happen if you're reckless and use a lot of dark Force Pips. Yes, recklessness should be a path toward the Dark Side, but I don't think it should push you over on its own.
Those are the usual complaints, but honestly, I haven't had much of a problem with them.  My biggest issue is that Morality switches happen outside of the episode, when Morality gets rolled.
So, I've renamed Morality to Serenity, and characters will never become Paragons or Dark Siders just from the roll at the end of the session.  However, if they cross a threshold (the numbers of which may need some adjustment), they will be tested by the Force.  How they manage that test will determine if they become a Light Side Paragon, fall to the Dark Side, or wiggle back towards the center.

One of my players loves the Misdirect power. I don't mind it, but I often am reminded why so many GMs hate illusions in all sorts of games. Man, they can be tough to rule on.  Many of his effects are distractions during combat, and I’m not always sure what the effects should be.  I should really come up with some guidelines, as I have a Nemesis to throw at him that I think would make heavy use of the same power.  A “Dueling Illusions” situation could be fun.
 
As an example, a trick he likes to pull is “Pants on fire.”  His enemies suddenly perceive that their pants are on fire. Hence the name.  Now, if he uses black pips, they’ll suffer Strain. That’s a nice easy mechanical effect, which I interpret as the enemies feeling the flames blistering their skin, causing agonizing pain.  Sort of like in Dune, when Paul sticks his hand in the box.  However, this player generally tries to avoid spending black pips.  So his targets still see their pants as being on fire.  The illusion is no less convincing, maybe a bit painful, but it would be more of a “Yow! Hot hot hot!” than screaming as they feel their flesh boiling.  I’m not quite sure how to represent that mechanically.  Throw setback dice at the targets?  What about if he goes for a “Mirror Image” effect, so that his enemy sees a bunch of him?  Or he could always just have a bunch of reinforcements appear for his side.
 
I don’t mind him making heavy use of the power, and I want to make sure he gets a nice bonus, but I really don’t want to give him an “I win” button. Anyone else dealt with a lot of illusions in their games? How have you handled it?

FFG certainly seem to be introducing such influence already.  Look at this Phoenix card, for example of Korean styling:

Characters should be cautious about unmasking, but it's definitely not something they should never do!  The societal rules of Rokugan are one of the chief obstacles to overcome.  Part of the fun is working around them, but every so often, don't you just want to smash through them?  Unmasking is how you do that.  That obnoxious courtier keeps blocking your every move with a polite word in the right ear, and that smug little grin?  And now he's here in your favorite sake house, telling amusing stories about you to your drinking buddies?  How they all laugh at you, while he smiles at you, and says, "Oh, my old friend! It's all in jest!"  After all, you wouldn't want to make a scene, would you?
To Jigoku with that!  Make a scene! Unmask, shove that twerp to the ground and challenge him to a duel, right here, right now.  If he's afraid of your blade, fists will do fine!  He can try to delay it, or insist on seeking permission from his lord, or ask for a second, but by doing so, he shows himself for a coward.
Unmasking is supposed to be a way to move the story forward.  There are plenty of examples in movies and TV where entire stories come out of such loss of face.  In one episode of Firefly, Captain Reynolds gets angry and punches a rich snob at a fancy party, and as such, is expected to fight him with a sword the next day. Unmasking!
Any secret love affair needs to have an unmasking!  Nobody wants a well-reasoned, stoic declaration of sturdy affection from your Earth Ring.  You roll that in Fire, and you keep every Strife symbol you can get!  Someone on these forums once lamented that you run the risk of unmasking any time you kiss a pretty girl.  I say, if you can kiss a pretty girl without unmasking, you're doing it all wrong!
 

He compared it to Air. It's making Earth stance weaker than other stances, not just weaker than it was before.

Make the increased Deadliness of a finishing blow optional. Problem solved. If you use that increased Deadliness, it's pretty obvious to everyone that you were striking to kill. That also solves the issue with Deceitful Strike, which is that there's no mechanical "trying to kill" vs "not trying to kill".
Unless that increased Deadliness becomes optional or you add some houserules to the Iaijutsu techniques, it's basically impossible to have an Iaijutsu duel to first blood.

See? This statement right here. Range bands don't work. 

I would modify Linked to some sort of "massed fire," and rule that they can only hit each target once.  Make them dangerous to the whole group, but they can't focus-fire multiple hits to one PC.

I would modify Linked to some sort of "massed fire," and rule that they can only hit each target once.  Make them dangerous to the whole group, but they can't focus-fire multiple hits to one PC.

It would not have been so difficult if they have planned out the trilogy ahead of time with a satisfying ending in mind from the beginning. But JJ does not plan.  Which is I suspect why none of his stuff has a satisfying conclusion. a cool idea is as far as he thinks ahead of time. 

I was skeptical of the new dice at first, then I played around with the system a little, played the starter set a little bit with my usual crew of casual gamers, and thought, "this is pretty good."

Then I played Shadows of a Black Sun with a few dedicated nerds.  You know, the crazy kind of people who will actually read and understand the rules?  And I discovered something unexpected.

This is the fastest system I've ever played.  Seriously.  These guys were jumping right in, taking cover, spending maneuvers properly, passing boost and setback dice around, and we finished the adventure in about an hour.  I've never done that before.  You need players who are excited about the system, and don't need a lot of guidance every session, but it can move really fast.

Regarding the "cash grab" argument:  Each core book is a complete game.  Don't buy them all at once.  Force and Destiny right now is $40 on Amazon, probably $60 at your local game store.  I'll admit the dice are pricey at $15 a set, but see if some of your players can't pitch in a set.  We're working with 2 sets right now and it's been plenty, so that's $90 if you're going the expensive route.  If you hit up Amazon and the dice app instead, you're looking at $45.  For a product you can use for years and years.

Seriously, I mean it about not getting all three Core books at once.  When I run this game, I'm running one game specifically.  I have two parallel campaigns going right now (Edge of the Empire and Force and Destiny), with a little bit of crossover.  So yeah, the Jedi might show up in the Edge of the Empire game once in a while, and the Droid Outlaw Tech helped the Force users out, but in my case it's definitely a crossover, not a combined game.  They're thematically very different.  After we wrap up some storylines, we may combine the two into an Age of Rebellion campaign with elements from all three games, but it will be an Age of Rebellion game.

So in the end it always comes down to the same conclusion. If you are a GM with a certain mindset to a setting you need a bunch of players who think the same as you or do not care.
And that´ is the overalll rule for all the (heated) discussions here, right? If everybody has fun on the table you are doing it right. If not you find a common ground.

Gotta say, I really liked Whafrog's take on the whole thing. I ran it by some of my players, added some stuff and tweaked some others. Here's my current take on it. I'll see how it goes. I should mention that I don't normally require a Destiny flip for using Dark Side pips.
 
Stimpacks: Gone. Replaced by…
Rallying Surge: Once per encounter, as a maneuver, make a Simple (Difficulty 0) Resilience Roll.  Heal a number of wounds equal to 3+ Net Successes, and recover Strain equal to Advantage. You may spend your Rallying Surge on an Engaged ally, instead rolling either Leadership, Medicine, or Coercion.  Each use of Rallying Surge on a given character increases the Difficulty by 1.
Heal/Harm Power: TBD
Stimpack Specialization works basically as written. Your Rallying Surges heal 1 extra wound per rank of Stimpack Specialization. 
Exceeding Wound Threshold: A PC or Nemesis who exceeds his Wound Threshold is no longer immediately Incapacitated.  Instead, he upgrades the Difficulty of all checks by 1, and will become Incapacitated when he exceeds his WTx2. Note that every time he suffers wounds above his Threshold, he still suffers a Critical Injury.  Such a character is advised to retreat or surrender.
Exceeding Strain Threshold: As with wounds, a PC or Nemesis who exceeds his Strain Threshold is not incapacitated, but will become so when he exceeds STx2.  However, while above ST, he may not willingly suffer Strain, and is Disoriented (suffers 1 Setback die to all rolls).
A Character who exceeds both WT and ST becomes Incapacitated.
Force Pips: Using the Force while over Strain Threshold is difficult.  A Light Side Force-user may still use Dark Pips, but instead of suffering Strain, they must flip a Destiny Point and take two Conflict for each Dark Pip used.
A Dark-sider who wishes to use White Pips must flip Destiny, and suffer a Wound for each White Pip he wishes to use.
 

The concern isn't a matter of game balance.  The concern is that it's not very Star Wars to be in a blaster fight and everyone is getting shot up, and they're all jamming needles in themselves like junkies under a bridge. Dropping behind a stack of crates while the medic makes a Medicine roll for a round is a little more palatable, and more like something we see in action movies.