Product Description: New options for scoundrel characters from the Star Wars Roleplaying Game.
Learn what it takes to be a smuggler, or how to build up a criminal empire that can rival the Hutt clans. Take your ship on the dangerous Kessel run, or chase down a bounty and claim your reward. Watch out for the long arm of Imperial law, though, or you may find yourself on a one-way trip to the spice mines.
This book provides extensive information on life on the fringe in the Star Wars universe. More than just information for players, this book gives Gamemasters a wide variety of information on bounty hunters, crime syndicates, smugglers, pirates, and criminals of all stripes throughout the Star Wars setting. Covering everything from vile Hutt gangsters to smooth-talking con artists, Scum and Villainy gives both players and Gamemasters everything they need to fit right in at Mos Eisley spaceport.
Scum and Villainy brings the Saga Edition rules to the fringes of society, introducing new rules and information on smugglers, bounty hunters, crime lords, and anyone else that walks outside the law.
You'll never find another more wretched hive of scum and villainy. I felt that this book really encompassed the fringe elements of Star Wars, with quite a bit of priceless information for 'outlaw' style characters.
Chapter I-Character Options There are quite a bit of long-missing species here, like Clawdite and Falleen. I like the rules for shapeshifting-not to hard to penetrate, but not a pushover deception either. There's also Blood Carver, Gand, Jawa, Ryn, Toyadrian, and Ubese. I felt that the Ubese would be kinda hard to hit at first level, as they start off with expensive armor and bonuses to Dexterity, but it's balanced out by low constitution.
As would be expected in a Fringe sourcebook, the Scoundrel class gets a lot of new talents, with the Jedi class getting only one. Noble gains the Disgrace talent tree, and Soldier gets Brawler. Scout gets a bunch of new expansions upon existing trees.
Quite a bit of new feats are introduced, most of them with an fugitive-like twist. Examples include Burst of Speed and Wicked strike,and several feats focus on Clawdites, like Metamorph, Impersonate, and Hideous Visage. These all make the Clawdite more appealing-I expect to see some in my upcoming campaigns.
Prestige Classes also get attention, especially Bounty Hunter and Crime Lord. Ace Pilot gets the Blockade Runner tree, and Gunslinger gets Pistoleer (wielding two pistols at once, like Jango Fett). Master Privateer from TFU appears again here, with a new talent tree. New Prestige Classes also make their debut here - Assassin, Charlatan (swindler), and Outlaw.
Chapter II-Outlaw Tech This chapter has everything tech-based you could want, like armor, weapon, and ship upgrades, new equipment and crafts, and even rules for over modified ships like The Millennium Falcon. Basic Stuff.
Chapter III-Fringe Campaign This section has tons of ideas and rules for GMs, like job generators, bounty generators, and cargo generators, all very useful. There's also good ways to build up parties of heroes, rules for the Justice System, and smuggling runs.
Chapter IV-Fringe Elements This chapter is the stats section, with people like Boushh, Jodo Kast, Jorj Car'das, and tons of generic enemy stats. extremely useful for GMs.
Chapter V-Point Nadir Point Nadir is an enormous shadowport designed for the SWRPG, and has everything from weapon dealers to Hutts, bars to ports. I can't say that much about it, but I can say that there is a bunch of info for GMs looking for a unique place to set their campaigns.
Chapter VI-Mini-campaigns This part has ten small missions for heroes to participate in, with themes ranging from salvaging Junk to assassinating Grand Moffs to escaping Kessel. Fun, fun, fun.
Chapter VII-The Fell Star One fully made campaign, ready to played through and modified to your heart's desire. This is easily one of the best chapters in the book. I wish every book had one of these-it would make GMing so much easier.
All in all, I congratulate WotC for making one of the best source books I've ever seen. I eagerly await more!
Awesome Book! Although not greatly emphasized or developed in the Star Wars movies, the underbelly of George Lucas' galaxy has received a great deal of attention in the novels and other works related to the films. I'm serious. In episode 1, Qui-Gon Jinn spends a little time dealing with Watto and betting on pod races. In ep 2, Anakin goes to see Watto to track down his mother and Obi-Wan goes to see Dex in the diner to find the location of Kamino. Plus, we have Jango Fett, the not-so-deadly bounty hunter who didn't really do much in the film but is nonetheless greatly over-hyped. Little mention of any underworld dealings in ep 3. No, ep 4 is really where the criminal element in Star Wars got all of its attention, specifically, the cantina and docking bay 94 scenes. Of course, in ep 5, we get bounty hunters besides Greedo, so that's cool. Even if Boba Fett, like his father, didn't do much of anything except show up on Cloud City. Naturally, ep 6 is sort of the pinnacle of information about crime in the Star Wars galaxy: Jabba's palace. Once again, I have to point out that Boba Fett wound up in the Sarlac by accident! According to the movies, the Fetts are lame. Fortunately for them, they have a vocal fan-base and they've been redeemed in novels.
Anyway, fans really like that stuff! Scum and Villainy is a fantastic book that goes into detail about all the stuff that was going on that wasn't directly involved the main story arc. Even little things get full explanations. Han Solo's remark about the Millennium Falcon being the ship that made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs made every player want to run it in 11. Well, there's information on what the Kessel run is and how to work it into a game. One of the best things in the book has to be the job generator. The job generator lets GMs quickly roll up work for criminal teams and there's a ton of variety in the types of jobs, from assassinations to smuggling. If you don't already have Starships of the Galaxy (and you should), the rules will allow you to modify your starships without utilizing the more complex rules found in the aforementioned book. There's all kinds of information on shadowports and a fully fleshed out one called Point Nadir. Lot's of ideas for people, places, and trouble to get into there. There's just a ton of good material in here that easily lends itself to entire campaigns built around criminal activity, whether the players are, in fact, criminals, or heroes simply caught up in someone else's problems. The last part of the book is dedicated to the mini-adventures and a full-length adventure. The mini-adventures are great for introducing players and characters to the system and this side of Star Wars. The full-length adventure is a great model for GMs looking to produce campaigns that are consistent with high-quality published works and the adventure itself isn't bad either. In short, if you're running Star Wars games, you probably ought to get this book - it belongs on your shelf next to the Saga Edition core rulebook, Starships of the Galaxy, and Threats of the Galaxy.
Great book, horrible editing This is probably the best supplement for the new rules. Its got a perfect mix of talents, feats, new equipment, characters and a fantastic modification system for equipment, armor and everything else. I won't get into the serious details, but buy this book!
The one bad thing I will say is that there are TONS of spelling errors, which there is really no excuse for. They need to hire some editors that aren't in grade school and they'd probably be okay.
Lastly, there are several references to "autonomous weapons", which they say is on page 40. The problem is, when you go to page 40, its not there at all, and I have yet to find it in the rest of the book. So although the material is fantastic, the polish on the book is not as nice as it should have been.
Chock full of yummy goodness! I stumbled onto the Star Wars roleplaying game, Saga Edition while working at Barnes & Noble. In my youth, I had played West End's Star Wars game and greatly enjoyed it, but was curious to see what Wizards of the Coast (i.e. Hasbro) could do with the licensed Lucas property (I mean, they couldn't screw it up worse than Lucas did Episodes 1-3, right?) At any rate, this is, by far, my favorite supplement in the Saga Edition line (and they have all been good).
This book handles all things "fringe" -- those that live on the edge of inhabited space by chance or design. Rogue, scoundrels, criminal organizations, and hardworking folks that live make their living catering to the rogues, scoundrels, etc. There are new species (including Jawa!) and rules for "modifying" technology that are quite innovative. The notion of "shadowports" or rather, illegal spaceports, is detailed and the sample setting is one such shadowport located in a hollowed out comet(!). Naturally, there are prestige classes, and additional talent trees, etc. The book is very well organized and the illustrations are adequate (although a few could be better).
I highly recommend this book for any gamer, but also for fans of the Star Wars universe.
Best Star Wars Supplement to date My wife got me this book for Christmas and I gotta say it is by far the best supplement they have put out for the Star Wars RPG Saga Edition. Unlike most other books it focuses on NON-force sensitive characters. There are many new talents, which seem to be taking direction from the design philosophy of D&D 4e: abilities usable once per encounter that let you do something tactically interesting in addition to a basic melee or ranged attack. In addition the feats and talents really seem to have been made with a good sense of balance, meaning feats and talents that have several prerequisites are really quite potent.
But my personal favorite part of the book is the Outlaw Tech chapter which includes new rules for upgrading equipment (which stacks with but is completely separate from the Tech Specialist feat). Finally players have something to spend their money on! It works almost like magic items in D&D, in that the upgrades give you little customization options for all your gear. All in all it's very reminiscent of the upgrades from the KOTOR games on the PC/Xbox, which is something I'd felt was sorely missing from the RPG.
Finally I was surprised by a bonus at the end of the book: a full adventure ready to run as a GM, as well as I think a dozen or more mini-adventures!
So in conclusion, if you are a GM or a non-force sensitive player, this is by far the best book to buy for Star Wars right now.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Trevor
