Space Opera HQ, or HQ Star Wars

[Mike Holmes]

The temptation is the augment of the Lure.

This is, BTW, precisely like Sorcerer. In Sorcerer, a player can simply banish his only demon, and cease to be a Sorcerer, for all intents. The temptation is the power that demons provide. It's also like Sorcerer, in that it's always the player's decision whether or not to use the dark side, and he always knows where his balance stat is at (when you say, "reduce" I'd just suggest that you apply the normal penalties for losing a contest; -1 for a marginal defeat, -10% for a minor, etc.). The player knows just what risk he's taking each time he uses the Dark Side.

In this SW adaptation, yes, the character can just ignore the temptation, too. But that's not to say it's not there.

Two ways to leverage this.

First, the narrator can put the PCs up against people using the Dark Side, or in other hard places. If the Dark Siders have an advantage because of their use of the Lure, then there'll be a strong temptation for the player to use a bit himself to even things out. Basically to prevent himself from losing a lot. Do I spend a HP, or do I just use the Dark Side? Or the GM can just make tasks regarding important things difficult. Has someone taken the love of your life, and now is about to kill them behind hordes of bad guys making your odds slim? Then isn't it tempting to use some of the hate you feel for the bad guy to cut through his mob, and put him down while rescuing your girlfirend?

Secondly, one can go even more Sorcerer with it, and require the player to have a reason for his engagement with the dark side. In Sorcerer, it's axiomatic that nobody summons a demon without a good reason to do so. If you merely require any player who takes the Lure stat to have a really good reason why, something that engages the player, then you can play on this to keep them potentially reaching for the dark side. Revenge motives, for instance, sound likely.

I think that this will work. Just pick on the PCs relationships a lot, and the like, and I think you'll see all sorts of players going for the Dark Side.


Mike

[Kaare Berg]

Dead on Mike.

I'll try this out and let ya'll know how it went.

Just need to find that neboulus thing called time first.


K

[soru]

Here's how I'd run this:

Some NPCs, places and artifacts have a 'seduce to dark side' ability.

Being defeated in a contest by that ability gives you a 'dark side' flaw/ability at 1/10, 1/2, 1x or 2x the rating that defeated you, depending on the level of defeat[1].

If you are defeated multiple times, the ratings add by the lower one augmenting the higher (i.e. you have seduced by dark side 1W, get a new rating of 17, end up with rating 2W).

The most appropriate ability to use to defend against 'seduce to dark side' is 'jedi training', because that training explains all about the perils of the dark side. Other mental discipline skills will take a medium penalty, something like 'force insensitive' will take a big bonus.

If you are in an extended contest, any emotional augments you use on your own actions (e.g. 'love princess' augmenting 'lightsaber combat) are likely to count _in the opposite direction_ when using your 'jedi training' ability.

This is because jedi training is all about the negation of emotions. Other philosophies will, of course, work differently.

soru

[1]This is based on the 'alternate wounding rules' from the HW-rules list.

[Mike Holmes]

I think that the standard wounding works just fine here, but I agree about the tempation ability, especially of some NPCs. The Emperor, no doubt has a couple of masteries at least. :-)

Mike

[NickHollingsworth]

Apologies for awakening an old thread, but there is relevant news.

Anyone interested in this thread will find a post by Soviet here on RPG.net very useful. He has put up a sizable draft for a Star Wars HeroQuest Conversion.

There is also a pdf of it here.

(It might be helpful to mention that they use the 'reverse' notation for masteries, for example 2m10 is the same as 10w2).

The Lokarnos announcement of the article Etyries says

An incredible amount of creative effort has gone into this: homeworlds, alien races, occupations, unique 'trademark' keywords (replacing Magic), droids and weapons. Join in the discussion, or just print it out and prepare to play!

[soviet]

Fame at last! I did post about it here a couple of weeks ago, but there wasn't much response :-P

I used m to denote mastery levels because outside of glorantha the 'w' doesn't mean anything and it seemed a bit less cryptic.

The masteries aren't reversed though - 2m10 would be the same as 2w10. Don't know where that idea came from!

If anyone tries out the SW stuff I'd be grateful to hear about it. We did chargen yesterday and I think my players are getting into the HQ mindset fairly well.

thanks

soviet