Characters falling into corruption, and player choice

[Jake Norwood]

Well, getting to Forge-style discussion and the whole d6 starwars thing, I think what really set the game apart was the Dark-side mechanics. I OFTEN had players who wanted to do a "fall from grace" sometimes with, sometimes without, a redeption. Being bad, instead of an outlet of rebellion (as with most RPGs of my youth) was instead a way to re-tell the story of Anakin (or whatever) before we knew much about it. The good-guy who falls to the dark side is a great story, all the moreso because the darkside is "lawful evil" to use DnD (ugh) alignments, not the Chaotic evil (ugh again) of most film baddies. There was something...noble about Vader, and so many of us wanted to walk with a lightsaber and seek our redemption. A parable for how we feel about our own lives, perhaps? If I ever played WEG SW d6 again (and I hope I do, though I might "Riddle" it up a bit), I would definitely be a Jedi that struggle with the pull of the dark side (powerfully represented in all those free dice the mechanics gave you) and finally fell, only to maybe (or maybe not) come out of it and become good again, if not burnt out. That's part of why the "burned out Jedi" was such a cool template--it was someone that had to truly become a hero on their own, not just be the next uber-fighter or whatever.

Jake

[Henry Fitch]

Just a brief side-note, not on topic, sorry. Jake -- if you ever do play d6 Star Wars again, tell us what you do to the mechanics. Actually, almost straight Riddle would be interesting... but now I'm so off-topic that it isn't even funny. Bye.

[Eric J.]

I anly played second edition, which I wouldn't uderstand as being either worse or better at this point.  I always wondered why Jedi get lowered attributes.  It seem to make absolutelley no sense.  It's almost comical to see the long history of people who tried to incorperate force powers into the game and try to keep game balance.  It's actually funny.

[Jake Norwood]

I anly played second edition, which I wouldn't uderstand as being either worse or better at this point.  I always wondered why Jedi get lowered attributes.  It seem to make absolutelley no sense.  It's almost comical to see the long history of people who tried to incorperate force powers into the game and try to keep game balance.  It's actually funny.

Amen to that. You can't balance stuff like that, and you shouldn't try...well, IMO, anyway. Yup, I'm gonna just have to write an unnofficial TROS/SW...

Jake

[Henry Fitch]

Couple questions about Star Wars in OTE, particularly character generation. I'll use examples.

1. Let's say I want a Wookie bartender. Is his Primary trait Wookie or Bartender? They're both quite versatile; the first covers hand-to-hand, bowcaster, intimidation, and probably surviving in the cold, while the second offers knowledge and contacts, empathy/half-baked psychology, and drink mixing. I can forsee this problem for a lot of aliens.

2. How many traits does a droid really have? Seems like Threepio and Artoo really just have high ratings in Protocol Droid and Astromech Droid, respectively.

I don't think these are really problems with the system, just things that are difficult to reproduce.

Also, while I like the current solution for Dark Side points and it's probably what I'd use, I'm going to share how I was originally going to do it. I was thinking that when a Jedi is doing something evil and wants to "let the dark side flow into him" or whatever, he can permanently add one level to his Jedi trait. However, that level and one of the ones he already had are "tainted." The tainted ones only count when doing evil.

Hmm. Going ahead with that, redemption would work pretty well. I'd say that if you perform a "redemptive act" (i.e., throwing the Emperor in a hole) you can use some or all of your Tainted levels for that, or even double them, but they go away after that action. That way you do great for that one action, and lose a lot of taint, but your overall Force power is less than it was originally. Seems logical to me, and it's an extra reason why Darth bit it so soon afterwards, eh?

EDIT: Going back to the first part of my Dark Side idea, you should probably gain two extra levels just for that one action, but it goes down to one afterwards. Oh, and you can't do this after all your levels are tainted. Or maybe you have to keep one level un-tainted, thus keeping the chance for redemption without sacrificing all power.

[Eric J.]

Please, don't go any further.  I HATE it when people try to transelate using the dark side into mechanics... It's impossible to corrupt a smart player using mechanics.  Becoming dark should NOT be the player's choice, and the reflexion in mechanics should NOT be known to players, if at all possible.

[Walt Freitag]

It's impossible to corrupt a smart player using mechanics.

"Okay, smart player, you have one chance to save your peaceful home planet, your family, and all the other ten billion happy people living on it. You get two dice to try to strike your enemy dead before he can trigger the annihilation bomb. Of course, if you release your hatred, you'll get eight dice instead. It's your decision."

Becoming dark should NOT be the player's choice...

Good heavens, why not? It's certainly the characters' choice throughout Star Wars. Becoming dark occurs if you do things like "give in to your anger" and "release your hatred." Obi-Wan, Yoda, Darth Vader, and the Emperor all agree on this, that the path to the dark side lies in the decision to draw power from the Force using the emotions of fear, anger, or hate. It's been consistently described that way through all the films. (Which is remarkable, considering how many contradictions there are in other elements of the mythos.) No character ever said, "Don't get unlucky, for that can lead to the dark side." Or "too bad about Darth Nasty, the dark side just kinda snuck up on him one day." The changes we see in Anikin in the current film result from a series of decisions he makes, not something that's occurring accidentally or inflicted on him from outside. Why shouldn't player-characters be free to make those same decisions?

- Walt

[Henry Fitch]

Gaah! I'm sorry, my post about Wookies and Droids and Dark Side mechanics was supposed to be in a completely different thread. Actually, god, that was for a thread on RPG.net. Apologies for the non sequitur.

[Eric J.]

I'm sorry.  You have missinterpreted what I meant.  I am becoming a better writer all the time but perfection won't be for a while. Anyway:

That would be an interesting situation, and I oppologise for being so extreme, but I still think that the magority of players (especially thoes who role-play Jedi) would turn down your offer.  If you repeatedly did such to them, they'd get REALLY pissed off.

Anakin was SEDUCED by the dark side... That means that it wan't his own choice.  He didn't roll for it.  However, being the chosen one, kinda screwed things for him...  He was given choices, obviously, but I doubt that the emporer went up to him and asked, "Hey, I'm starting an evil cult dedicated to destruction of all of your friends.  I've been asking around the neiborhood and I've looked at your credentials.  You look pretty good. You might have to be assimilated by some machines, brethe through a mask, and be hated by qua-trillions but the dental plan's good.  How'd you like to be the head man?"

[Andrew Martin]

I anly played second edition, which I wouldn't uderstand as being either worse or better at this point.  I always wondered why Jedi get lowered attributes.  It seem to make absolutelley no sense.  It's almost comical to see the long history of people who tried to incorperate force powers into the game and try to keep game balance.  It's actually funny.

I wondered the same thing as player and GM of D6 Star Wars. My munchkin players soon worked out a way around it, by starting off as bountyhunters, then converting to Jedi, they got around the attribute lowering problem. Because I was following the rules as written, this seemed OK to me at the time, after all at the time, I thought the designers of the game knew more than I.

[Andrew Martin]

It's impossible to corrupt a smart player using mechanics.

"Okay, smart player, you have one chance to save your peaceful home planet, your family, and all the other ten billion happy people living on it. You get two dice to try to strike your enemy dead before he can trigger the annihilation bomb. Of course, if you release your hatred, you'll get eight dice instead. It's your decision."

My smart players would answer, "I spend one (or two, or three!) Force Points and roll four (eight or sixteen) dice."

My smartest player would have telekinetically disabled the bomb mechanism before the enemy could push the button, and use just one force point to do it (heroic situation, so getting the possibility of getting another).

:)

[Henry Fitch]

Wait, it wasn't a choice because they say he was seduced? So, like "sorry bob, your wife seduced me, I didn't have any say about it"? Nah, that just means the choice to follow the wrong path is really tempting.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

A couple of things (which I dislike saying, as I don't enjoy moderating):

- Pyron: I've noticed in several threads that you have a bad habit of saying "I hate X" or "Don't discuss X because I don't like it" when you disagree with something. This is, frankly, non-productive and bothersome behavior. If you don't agree with something, tell us why. Don't expect people to conform to your whims if you don't give them a reason to.

- All: Are we really having a discussion about Star Wars and whether or not using the dark side is a choice? While I'm tempted as hell to make my reply on the matter, as I am a huge Star Wars geek, it's just not an appropriate topic, especially for Actual Play, as I see no actual playing of any Star Wars game being discussed here.

[Jake Norwood]

- All: Are we really having a discussion about Star Wars and whether or not using the dark side is a choice? While I'm tempted as hell to make my reply on the matter, as I am a huge Star Wars geek, it's just not an appropriate topic, especially for Actual Play, as I see no actual playing of any Star Wars game being discussed here.

While I think this thread is wobbling a bit to-and-fro, I am interested in the discussion of the Dark Side and player choice, and would like to see the thread survive--split and/or moved, but more or less intact.

Jake

[Clinton R. Nixon]

I have split this topic from Scratchware's post in Actual Play. I have specifically named it because, as we've discussed on the forums before, we cannot have a discussion on how to create a game (or a mechanic) based off a piece of intellectual property. The Forge can't be liable for any sort of copyright infringement. If you guys want to continue this topic, please make it as generic as possible.