A year after announcing they secured the license, Fantasy Flight Games released details on their upcoming Star Wars Role-Playing Game and launched a beta test.
There’s not much in the way of details about how the game is played. Based on the beta FAQ, it apparently uses custom dice like Warhammer Fantasy; the beta book apparently includes stickers you can put on your own polyhedral dice to emulate the final dice.
The first book is called Star Wars: Edge of the Empire and focuses on fringers, scoundrels, bounty hunters and others who live on the outskirts of galactic society. The second book is Star Wars: Age of Rebellion is set during the classic Rebellion era depicted in the original Star Wars movies, while the third book — Star Wars: Force and Destiny seems to take place during the Rise of the Empire era (between Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and Episode IV: A New Hope). There’s no word of support for other eras; I’m guessing that’ll be dependent on how well the initial line goes.
The beta for the Star Wars: Edge of the Empire is different from the Pathfinder beta or Wizards of the Coast’s open playtest for D&D Next in that it’s not free; you need buy the beta book for $29.95. The beta book is a 224 page, softcover book; there’s no word of whether a PDF of the beta will be available as well. Visit the Star Wars: Edge of the Empire beta web site for more information.
I’m curious about the game, but not enough to spend $29.95 on the beta, particularly without any prospects for actually getting to play the game. My group’s pretty focused on our Pathfinder campaign right now and while we might want to take a break at some point I doubt that will sync up with the Fall 2012 timeline for Fantasy Flight’s beta.