Floor It - A Star Wars: Starships and Speeders Review

 

Edge/Lucasfilm

Released two months into 2020, the compilation book Starships and Speeders is currently the last supplement published for Fantasy Flight Games' Star Wars roleplaying game system, which includes Edge of the Empire and Age of Rebellion. It's at least the last one FFG will publish, as Edge Studios now has the license, while fans await further reprints and hold out hope for new books.

In the mean time, we're left with Starships and Speeders. It's more or less what's on the tin: a collection of vehicle profiles for Game Masters to deploy and players to purchase in their games. For the most part, it collects existing stat blocks, though a few new additions have been made, mainly vehicles that showed up in Solo. 

It's an exhaustive selection, including nearly every ship from FFG's X-Wing wargame and a few new ones, like a luxury cruise liner. It's a decent mix of military and civilian vehicles, along with the vessels used by less savory elements. I would have liked some more Legends additions but I understand the further we get into the Disney era, the less likely that is. Starships and Speeders does leave a few nods here and there, like a reference to the Droids cartoon in the A-Wing background.

Edge Studios/Lucasfilm

Starships and Speeders isn't entirely a copy/paste job though, as iconic ships are given unique profiles. For example, there's the YT-1300 entry and then one specifically for the Millennium Falcon.

These additions seem like an attempt to give Starships and Speeders more value for completionists. 

Admittedly, I don't find it that useful. In a setting like Star Wars, bringing in established characters will mostly just overshadow the players. I also find it puts the game master in a bind if they can't convincingly capture the spirit of such recognizable pop culture figures.

By the same merit, having profiles for the bounty hunter's ships is more useful. Depending on how familiar the table is with the Galaxy Far, Far Away, there's a good chance they won't even realize Zuckuss or Bossk are movie characters. IG-88 always had a laughably bad backstory, so a chance to do a less absurd rendition of the character - or at the very least his intelligent ship IG-2000 - is welcome.

Besides the background blurbs, every vehicle profile is accompanied by a short section on how game masters should use them as well as a couple of "adventure seeds." The former tends to be genuinely helpful guidance, especially for some of the more esoteric ships. The latter ranges from being contrived and unoriginal to worth putting in your own games. 

The drunken Ghtroc freighter race, Rebel Alliance false flag attack, and the players unknowingly purchasing the stolen Slave I are my favorites. They're just enough to offer inspiration, leaving plenty of room for interpretation.

While there's still plenty of vehicles from the adventure books and career supplements that didn't make the cut, there's a healthy array of vehicles for each section. The Starfighters and Shuttles chapter ends up with the most but only because of all the TIE Fighter variants. If there's one place it messes up, it's the final chapter, 

The larger scale ships get a strong showing but there's only four space stations: two of them are the Death Stars. I always felt that area of focus could use some attention and it's unfortunate to see Starships and Speeders, which might still be the last book released for this system, neglect it.

Edge Studios/Lucasfilm

Ship modifications are unfortunately not in this book and build-your-own-ship mechanics have never been on the table. There's a deeper issue in how space combat is one of the most flawed aspects of an otherwise strong ruleset. Starships and Speeders is only supposed to be a compilation book but my excitement for using these vehicles is tempered by how lethal it is for a character to get inside one.

Art wise, this is one of the stronger FFG books, though as usual a lot of existing art is recycled. But that's preferable if the alternative is Collapse of the Republic's dreadful spreads. The new art is up to FFG's higher standards, looking crisp and appropriately dynamic. 

Along with the other small additions, it's just enough to stop Starships and Speeders from being nothing more than repackaged existing content.

Overall, this is still a good purchase for most Star Wars game masters. If you own all three of the core books, you already have access to most of these profiles, so Starships and Speeders is best for someone looking to populate the starlanes of their Edge of the Empire or Force and Destiny campaign without buying the other rulebooks.