"She's just beginning to test her powers. The longer it takes to find her, the more dangerous she becomes."

–Kylo Ren

Designed as an easy introduction to Star Wars roleplaying for fans of all levels of experience, The Force Awakens™ Beginner Game comes with four character portfolios and one learn-as-you-go adventure.

The Force Awakens Beginner Game also comes with all the dice you'll need, as well as a pair of maps and a number of tokens help you envision your characters' movements in relation to their environment and the other characters around them.

Of all these things, the character portfolios and learn-as-you-go adventure are the most important. They provide you all the information you need in order to imagine yourself as a character and enjoy a riveting Star Wars adventure; they are the elements that make the Beginner Game accessible to players of all skill levels.

In our last preview, we argued that the most important question you'll face as one of the game's heroes is "What will you do?" And we looked at how the information in your character's portfolio may offer you some guidance. Today, we ask a different question: Who will you become?

The Game Master

When you and your friends sit down to play The Force Awakens Beginner Game, you won't all become heroes. One of you will become something greater. One of you will become the Game Master.

Who or what is the Game Master? In short, the Game Master—or "GM"—is the player responsible for weaving together the whole imaginary realm in which the heroes interact. You're not the bad guys. You're not working against the players. If anything, you're more like the Force, binding the galaxy together.

Hero players each control a single character—their heroes. The GM controls all the characters in a story that aren't player characters. The GM also creates the worlds and environments in which the heroes find themselves. And he or she gives life to each beat of the game's ongoing narrative, investing each moment with meaningful stakes, and arbitrating whether or not the heroes' actions may successfully alter the course of events in their favor.

It may sound like a daunting role, but the Game Master's contributions are absolutely central to your roleplaying experience. And The Force Awakens Beginner Game makes it possible for anyone to step into this role and succeed with ease. Here, you'll find that the key is the learn-as-you-go-adventure, Discovery on Jakku.

Discovery on Jakku is contained within an Adventure Book that's part adventure and part rulebook. But you won't have flip back and forth from one to the other. Instead, the adventure is written and organized so that you can find the rules sitting along the first instances to which they become pertinent. More than this, it's written so that you'll start at a relatively simple level of complexity and work your way more deeply into the rules and the different possibilities they introduce.

By the time that the heroes are ready to start looking beyond their immediate safety and toward exploring more far-reaching plans, you'll have come across enough of the rules and story, as GM, to be able to incorporate your friends' designs. And, as with all the best roleplaying games, the possibilities are staggering.

First, after Discovery on Jakku begins with a narrowly focused sequence of action, it turns and widens, becoming a suddenly more expansive and open-ended adventure with real potential for the heroes' decisions to make an impact on the fate of the galaxy.

Second, The Force Awakens Beginner Game allows you to carry your adventures even beyond the scope of Discovery on Jakku. A slim rulebook of forty-eight pages summarizes enough of the core Star Wars roleplaying rules to allow you and your friends to take your characters into new adventures of your own design. You'll also find a beautiful starmap to help you do just that.

The Dark Side and the Light

In Star Wars, there is a balance in the Force. In Star Wars roleplaying, there must be a balance between the contributions of the hero players and the Game Master. When you sit down for your first adventures with The Force Awakens Beginner Game, who will you become?

Look to start your adventures with The Force Awakens Beginner Game tomorrow! We'll have copies of the game at our booth in Gen Con Indy, and even if you're not able to join us at Gen Con, you can pick up your copy at your favorite local retailer. The game will be available at retailers throughout the U.S. Availability in other regions may vary.