“You’ve taken your first step into a larger world.”

–Obi-Wan Kenobi

Embark on a legendary journey with the Star Wars®: Force and Destiny™ Beginner Game. Whether you have never participated in a roleplaying game before, or are a veteran player eager to try out the Force and Destiny system for the first time, the Beginner Game provides the perfect launching point for your adventures in the Star Wars universe. Inside the Force and Destiny Beginner Game box you will find everything that your group needs to experience the Force and Destiny roleplaying game, from four character folios and a set of custom roleplaying dice to a complete, stand-alone adventure that progressively teaches players and Game Masters the system’s mechanics.

Today’s preview is written mainly for those of you who have never participated in a roleplaying game before. We’ll take you from the moment you and your friends open the Beginner Game box to the first skill check your characters will make, illustrating how the box’s contents help guide you on the epic quest you are about to begin.

Heroic Roles

If you’ve never played an RPG before, your first step should be to read the Introduction, which provides an example of game play to show you how the playable characters (PCs) and Game Master (GM) interact at the table. More experienced RPG players can skip ahead to the first pages of the Adventure book and the moment of choosing who will play the heroes and who will take on the powerful role of Game Master. While the chosen Game Master takes custody of the Adventure Book and prepares for the first encounter, the other players select their characters.

The four heroes of Force and Destiny Beginner Game are themselves novices, varying in age and hailing from across the galaxy, but all newly aware of the Force and their ability to use it. On the back of each folio you’ll find that character’s background. You’ll learn, for instance, that Sarenda grew up in a big, close-knit family and would beat up anyone who threatened her sisters. Her love of exploring the outdoors led her to a secluded cave in which she found and activated a lightsaber, the first sign that she was sensitive to the Force. Knowing her protective tendencies and lack of knowledge about the Force or the Jedi Order may inform how your version of Sarenda makes decisions and interacts with other PCs.

Inside the folio you’ll find out about your character’s characteristics, skills, starting equipment, weapons, and abilities related to the Force. Clear charts tell you which dice you roll when using each skill, what the dice symbols indicate, and what actions and maneuvers you might take during your turn. Over the course of your adventure you’ll learn exactly how to use all this information, but at the start of the game it is only necessary to glance through it and see where your character’s strengths are. Sarenda, for example, is equipped with high Intellect, Presence, and Brawn, so she can keep her Cool in a tough situation, easily work with Mechanics, and has a natural talent for wielding her lightsaber.

Arrival on Spintir

Now the Game Master begins leading the game. The Adventure Book guides the Game Master every step of the way, providing narratives and descriptions that can be paraphrased or read aloud verbatim, telling you when to ask for a skill check and what kind of skills each action involves, and suggesting ways to deal with a range of likely actions that the players might take. First of all, the Game Master reads aloud the opening crawl which describes the players’ location and objective.

You and your companions are high up in the snow-clad slopes of a Mount Tellec on the Outer Rim planet Spintir. You all have received a signal from your mentor, Hethan Romund, that she is being held captive on Spintir by a dangerous, dark-side Force user known as Malefax. At the top of this mountain lies an ancient, partially ruined temple where you hope to find Romund – but where you may also have to confront Malefax. Tokens representing the PCs and large, colored maps of Mount Tellec let the Game Master easily situate the players in their environment. This becomes particularly useful in the case of combat, when the group needs to know the exact location of the players and their adversaries (controlled by the Game Master) in order to participate in the fight. For now, however, the map enables everyone to better visualize the landscape and understand the journey ahead.

The Game Master now introduces the players’ first challenge: A freezing wind is howling and the path up the mountain is a series of tight, exposed switchbacks, although the cliff face doesn’t seem too tall. The heroes could press on against the wind, attempt climbing directly up the cliff face, or devise some alternative means of moving up the mountain. Its time for the PCs to make decisions, take actions, roll the dice, and see whether those actions succeed.

The First Test

The core mechanic of the Force and Destiny system is a skill check. Players roll a pool of several dice, determined by their strength in the relevant characteristic and skill. If the results show more successes ( ) than failures ( ), the action works. Perhaps Sarenda, given her Brawn and her experience in the wilderness, chooses to scale the cliff face directly. The Game Master reads in the Adventure book that this involves an Athletics check of Easy difficulty, so he asks Sarenda’s player to roll three green Ability dice as indicated in her character folio and a purple difficulty die, representing the challenge of the climb . The player rolls and , indicating that she easily climbs up the cliff.

You may also roll advantage ( ) and threat ( ) symbols. indicates a positive side effect to an action, a negative side effect, whether or not the action succeeds. The Adventure Book suggests ways for the Game Master to interpret and results within the context of the story. Here, might mean that the climb invigorated Sarenda, or might suggest that she pulled a muscle or scraped her limbs in the process. Some dice also feature despair ( ) and triumph ( ) symbols that indicate, respectively, a mishap with dire consequences, or an extraordinary feat. Finally, when players use their Force powers later on in the adventure, they’ll roll the white Force die, which produces either light side ( ) or dark side ( ) Force results.

The Adventure Continues

Once you and your companions have reached the top of that cliff, what will you find? Who – or what – dwells amid the snowy crags and forested valleys of Mount Tellac? Will you be able to rescue your mentor, or will Malefax prove too strong in the dark side of the Force for you and your companions to overcome? Even when you’ve discovered all the secrets that await you on Mount Tellac, the Force and Destiny Beginner Game doesn’t end there. It contains an abridged rulebook will all the information that players and Game Masters need to continue on with their adventures on Spintir and throughout the Star Wars galaxy.

Discover what your destiny has in store for you. Pre-order the Force and Destiny Beginner Game today!