After what seemed like an eternity upon the slowest boat ever conceived of*, I was absolutely beyond myself with excitement to pick up Force and Destiny’s Beginner Box. With a rollicking good time in Edge of the Empire and the Age of Rebellion beginner boxes, I had high expectations for Force and Destiny. I can alleviate any worry you might have immediately and say it definitely met them, but it did have a few issues that I ran into I would solve with the benefit of hindsight. In any event, just like Force and Destiny’s predecessors it comes with more dice, a well thought out adventure, a mini-rule book, more tokens and another gorgeous fold out map. As I’ve mentioned before, this is an excellent start for anyone wanting to get into the Star Wars RPG or even roleplaying in general.
I’ve repeatedly praised Fantasy Flight Games terrific support of their products and they again come through with Force and Destiny. Like the other boxed sets, there are two additional characters and an adventure, which expands on the scenario from the book online. Just like before these are all entirely free to download and that is simply terrific to see, with Force and Destiny also showing Age of Rebellions foresight with suitable tokens for the extra characters already in the box (should you choose to use them). Honestly, we don’t need me to go and say “This is truly terrific and if you want to get a start in RPGs buy this” again, do we?
So in terms of the play report for this, I actually did something a little different this time compared to the others. I actually didn’t use either of the extra online characters and I also didn’t choose to use Edge of the Empire/Age of Rebellion elements. This box was pretty much run straight as it comes off the shelf, which I think is actually a really good idea even if you do have the other boxed sets. This adventure does seem to lean very heavily on the party being force sensitive, or at least having access to the force. Naturally enough given the title, but there is a specific moment where they game clearly railroads the players into the “This is how the Force works tutorial of the adventure!”. Non-force sensitive characters are going to find this a bit confusing and difficult to deal with as a result.
Because I ended up just using what was in the box, I ran the adventure with just the four players and so here is my account of the game. Did I mention this was really good and if you want to try getting into the Star Wars RPG you should buy it? I can’t remember if I said that yet.