04-11-2015, 02:53 PM | #11 |
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Lynn, MA
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Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
On the Force...
I've never been a fan of the notion that some powers were inherently bad to use... It really should be what it is used for! |
04-11-2015, 05:20 PM | #12 |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Detroit, Michigan
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Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
I like to put in my hat for a Mercenary or Bounty hunter type. Not a big fan of playing jedi's or force users.
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You can get more with a 2X4 and a kind word then with just a kind word! Randal Kane - Trent Bauer |
04-11-2015, 05:29 PM | #13 | |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
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Not to mention that SW is not a universe amenable to shades of moral gray.
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Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check. |
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04-11-2015, 08:00 PM | #14 | ||||||||
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: California
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Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
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Scanning Sense (Extra-Sensory Perception) (Extended Arc (360°), +125%; Penetrating, +50%; Increased Range 1, +10%; Force, -10%) [55] *Again, holograms might work, but if not, hurrah for aural interfaces. I have a lingering feeling that however logical it seems, the 360° arc was probably not the original intention. It may make more sense to assume a default arc for most Miraluka, and allow some to buy extended arcs of vision (Luka Sene primarily focus on developing these abilities, so this would be a logical extension). Quote:
*Almost everyone can speak/understand at least two languages. Off the top of my head, Han Solo at least understands Rodian, Shyriiwook (Wookiee), Huttese, and Basic. Luke (and many other people) understands Binary (droid), and virtually every alien will at least understand basic (and probably speak it) in addition to their own language (most Star Wars rpgs assume this by default). Quote:
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(I was totally thinking of having a Potentium-inclined character, as this is how I've always understood the force.) Quote:
- Well, this team is looking a bit short on Jedi... I have about four character concepts (Luka Sene academic, Sene Seeker, Gray Jedi, and a now off-the-table gunslinger), so if Totem would allow it, I'd be happy to run a Jedi character alongside a Luka Sene one. They probably wouldn't get along. Even if not, I might do that anyway. I've divided my emotional loyalties between multiple characters, and it's killing me >.< EDIT: About the Potentium view point, it's actually incorrect to say that they believe that there is no light or dark side. Their beliefs are more akin to what Matrix and I were saying, actually. "It should be noted that some followers of the Potentium still attempted to avoid the dark side. They, however, saw the dark side as something within themselves to be avoided, not something in the Force. They reasoned that if the Force was the energy that flows through all life, the dark side simply came from the corruption of humanity. They felt that if they could be perfectly moral, they could be immune to the dark side and therefore use any technique they wanted." EDIT 2: Regarding the alignment system, how does that work for the (many) non-Jedi/Force users? Depending on what qualifies for earning DSP, questionably moral characters (Han Solo, etc.) could easily end up in a hole really fast.
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"Talosian and Lamech are undead: they keep coming back for a month or two every few years." - ericthered Last edited by Talosian; 04-11-2015 at 10:46 PM. |
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04-12-2015, 02:27 AM | #15 | |||||||
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: The Western Harbour
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Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
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I'm fairly sure that Yoda's species doesn't have a name (I've never seen one anyway). Racial template is probably reduced height (and ST accordingly), maybe a missing finger or two, possibly improved hearing for the ears, and an extended lifespan. Quote:
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Okay, I've read up to Talosian's latest post (#15), and I'm going to handle all of the Light Side/ Dark Side discussion here rather than answering everything independently. [The following features some generalisations, but please take it in the spirit that I'm meaning it.] What we have here is a clash of philosophies. According to Eastern philosophy you can summon demons, call up hellfire and rain unholy carnage down on your enemies, and as long as you're doing it for the right reasons that's fine. This explains a lot about some anime and manga. Western philosophy, and that which I'm using here, is based on several different thoughts. On a purely pragmatic level, every time you call on the Dark Side you are having to justify it to yourself, and every time, however small the increments are, you can justify something slightly more easily than you did previously. Or you can justify something slightly less justifiable. Justification becomes habit over time. It's a thing of Human nature. On an emotional level, the Dark Side can be within you. You are using anger, fear, etc, to power your actions and dictate what you do. That in itself can become a habit as well, and should be avoided. On a spiritual level, Western philosophy has it that when you call on dark powers, they start to call on you, or at least their attention is drawn to you. To some people this might be a loud voice shouting "Come On! USE ME!" at every opportunity. To others it might be a quiet voice that begs and pleads and cajoles with them to give in "just this once more." On a different spiritual level, calling up Lightning or anything like that is effectively channelling the life energy of the universe for destructive purposes. I'm going with Harry Dresden on this one, and just saying that this is a very wrong thing to do. The combination of these three is the basis that I am working from with DSP and the Dark Side. Whether you personally take it to be logical justification, emotional habit, or spiritual guidance, please accept that there is a Dark Side in this game and you can fall to it. Remember Darth Vader: he wanted his son to join him, he wanted to help him against the Emperor, he wanted all sorts of things, and until that last second all he could do was say, "you don't know the power of the Dark Side: I must obey my master." Going by the films, the Dark Side is something outside yourself and directs your actions. The Moral Guidance was intended to take into account the long-term effects of having someone around to keep an eye on you (thus why the Grey Jedi don't get it because they distance themselves from the Order). This is a similar principle to the witches on the Discworld going round to visit each other, to keep chatting, and generally checking that no one has started 'cackling', which is an early sign of going to the bad. Applying a long-term effect to an immediate roll may be contrary, and I'm open to ideas on how to rejig that if appropriate. The old Star Wars RPGs did list that non-Force-using characters could take DSP and LSP if appropriate to their deeds, but that their lack of more complete connection to the Force meant that they weren't influenced by them in the same way. A Jedi using Sense/ Force will still pick up on them as an indicator of their moral background, but otherwise they have no immediate effect. Unless of course the Dark Side is merely something inside you, in which case I have to count them in the same way as for Jedi and declare characters to be Dark Siders. The moral grey in Star Wars is there, but sometimes it isn't obvious in the films because they are in a very morally definite setting: people are obviously good or bad/ rebel or imperial. Or are they? There's an anecdote (from after the Emperor's death) about an Imperial world where there was an anti-Imperial demonstration, and the Stormtroopers were only called out to deal with it when the counter-demonstration that sprung up got violent. The galaxy was actually a lot more peaceful under the Empire, because they kept a lot of diplomatic and political bushfires supressed. The Sith were a bad thing, and the Empire under them was a long way off perfect, but the Empire itself had a lot of potential. Anyway... Moral grey areas. As mentioned, using the Force to inconvenience someone is technically wrong. But if it's a small inconvenience, or you genuinely need it in order to get something done and there isn't any other way, then is it a Dark Side act? Do you get a modifier, or do you avoid the roll? Likewise, killing an enemy who hasn't surrendered, but whom you could take alive; right or wrong? We're getting quite deep here, and a lot of these shades of grey would need to be addressed as and when they actually happen.
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"John Adams was a farmer. Abraham Lincoln was a small-town lawyer. Plato, Socrates were teachers. Jesus was a carpenter. To equate judgment and wisdom with occupation is at best... insulting." |
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04-12-2015, 02:46 AM | #16 |
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: The Western Harbour
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Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
I didn't want to run this game to be some kind of moral minefield; it is meant to have a serious edge of there being consequences for using the Dark Side (I'm actually being quite lenient here, because in the Star Wars RPGs that I've seen you make a roll with a penalty for your DSP every time you level up and take permanent physical damage of some kind if you fail). If having a moral system to abide by is going to be some kind of major issue for people in the game, then I have to consider that this might be more trouble than it is worth, and since the Light Side/ Dark Side has always been an intrinsic part of Star Wars for me, I can't run the game without it.
As an alternative, I'll offer up my second choice of game: Genre: Modern, Psionic, Military/ Intelligence Activities Planned: Military/ Intelligence stuff Supplement materials: GURPS Basic Set will be the only requirement. GURPS High Tech will be of use for equipment. Plot: There will be an ongoing plot (or several lines of plot in fact). Given the role that players will be taking on, they will not be expected to keep track of the major plotlines, but situational plot-awareness will be important (decisions will be made based on player/ character understanding of the situation). Power Level: Players have 100+50 points available. Players will then get the Psionic racial template [430 points], and an additional 30 points in basic training (10 points of which must go into each of Military/ Intelligence and Psionic skills). Style: This game will be held to a reasonably serious level. While there will be dark and gritty moments for the most part it will be aiming for a realistic level of seriousness; there will be moments of humour as well as dark ones. While players will be endangered this is intended to be ultimately survivable. Mind Force is based around a project creating psionics, originally for purely military purposes, then later for intelligence/ counter-terrorism. Psionics have to be engineered before they are born, and the government was unwilling to suffer the expenditure and political backlash from raising such children in a restricted training environment, so everyone has lived a normal life until being 'activated' (this includes taking blockers every day until recruitment in order to hide the abilities). The template is fixed; abilities that list a price per level can be improved (these actually start at level 1, but can immediately be bought up under the 430 point template limit), otherwise improvement is intended to be through skills and talents rather than modifying abilities. The only moral complication here is, basically, that everyone is based on a regular point limit (75-150 for most 'normal' people that you will meet), but people with powers have massive powers on top of that. How you react to it is up to you, and may form a significant part of the plot if you drive it that way. Psionic racial template: TK (Telekinesis [5]; Psionic -10%; Fulcrum -30% = [3/ level]) 20 [60] TK Shield (DR [5]; Force Field +20%; Limited, Physical -20%; Psionic -10%; Requires IQ roll -10%; Environmental -30% = [2.5/ level]) 20 [50] TK Sense [30] Bio-Control [60] Temperature Control ([2]; Fulcrum -30%; Psionic -10%; Requires IQ roll -10% = [1/ level]) [20] Infravision (Refined +100%) [20] Electrical Control ([2]; Fulcrum -30%; Psionic -10%; Requires IQ roll -10% = [1/ level]) [20] Electrical Vision (Detect, Electrical Fields 10; Psionic -10%; Vision Based -10%; Reflexive +40%) [12] Mind Control (Psionic -10%; Conditioning +50%; Extended Duration x100 +80%; Symbolic +0%) [110] Empathy (Psionic -10%) [14] TK Talent 1 [5] BC Talent 1 [5] TH Talent 1 [5] EK Talent 1 [5] TP Talent 1 [5] * Fulcrum is an environmental modifier that means that you need to (for instance) steal kinetic energy from a moving object in order to get something else moving, or dump kinetic energy from a moving object into something else to stop it (TK Shield 'borrows' DR from something like a wall to form its shield), or cooling something down in order to increase the temperature elsewhere.
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"John Adams was a farmer. Abraham Lincoln was a small-town lawyer. Plato, Socrates were teachers. Jesus was a carpenter. To equate judgment and wisdom with occupation is at best... insulting." |
04-12-2015, 03:23 AM | #17 | |||
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: California
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Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
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EDIT: Multiple arms time! The ones that I found (I chucked a few that were effectively unplayable, but didn't look at any of them very thoroughly): Besalisks, Myneyrshi, Pho Ph'eahians, Codru-Ji, Morseerians, and the Xexto. Just... please, whatever you do, don't go the route of giving one of these four lightsabers, Ambidexterity, and "Dual"-Weapon Attack. The sheer amount of destruction would end the world. (And make my planned mere dual-wielder feel rather inadequate XD) Quote:
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- Honestly, it really doesn't bother me that we don't all have the same view of the Force and what constitutes light side/dark side, and I'm nowhere near invested enough to make a problem of it. As long as we all know what to expect and it isn't punitive (to be clear, your proposed system poses no problem whatsoever in this regard, though the one you mentioned from one of the SW rpgs would have given me life-threateningly severe eye twitches of rage), I can't see how it could really be a big issue. I do think that there's probably a better way to approximate the benefit that Jedi receive from having the Order around to be their moral medic, but this also isn't all that big a deal. I want to fiddle with so that (in my mind, at least) the rules jive properly with the concept, but I don't need to "win" on this, because it really won't matter that much. FYI: Your Discworld comparison has finally convinced me that I need to find and read the Discworld series (it's been on the agenda for a long time). In short, I like the morality system, and I think that the points of contention would be extremely minor in practice (e.g. how often would force lightning honestly be used for an arguably moral purpose? Not often). I'm all in favor of continuing with the Star Wars game. ... but I must admit, the Psi game looks pretty damn cool as well XD I'm curious how player characters would be differentiated, however, with such a major portion of the characters being a standard template (especially since the rest would be 100 points of probably-not-an-adventurer). On the other hand, there're enough different abilities that characters would probably become distinct based on which abilities each player preferred. If it came down to votes, I'd vote Star Wars, but I'd probably join regardless of the game. EDIT: Ahwoops. I forgot one of my major comments. In terms of fiddling with the DSP system, it might be worth looking at Horror's bit on Corruption (146-148). Very similar in concept, and has some solidly applicable ideas that might provide a road map for atonement and such.
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"Talosian and Lamech are undead: they keep coming back for a month or two every few years." - ericthered Last edited by Talosian; 04-12-2015 at 03:43 AM. |
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04-12-2015, 08:09 AM | #18 |
Join Date: Jul 2005
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Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
Good morning! I regret that I am overextended just now and won't be able to join this game.
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04-12-2015, 10:24 AM | #19 | |||
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: The Western Harbour
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Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
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Psychics are naturally occurring and have powers ranging from -30 up to 600 points (averaging the 20-30 points mark). Even with regular tests to spot people with such abilities (following an... incident... in the 1950s it is accepted that such abilities exist, and so kids get tested every could of years in school), most psychics end up lonely and detached from the world around them by default. Psionics are artificially engineered, and only the combination of the five talents would hold steady together (you could have just one, but that was kind of limited). There are several programs around the world producing psionics, most of them antagonistic to each other. They are all the same sort of age as PCs would be, but some of them have been raised in camps, from birth, and have been training the entire time. Your main advantage: your existence is classified and has been secret enough that no one even knows that you exist, where most of the other programs are known about to intelligence services at least. The key difference between player characters was that you get activated at the age of 18-21, so you have a formative life in that first 100+50 points, but nothing in terms of actual combat training (unless you took up Karate or Judo as a hobby for instance). That's a lot of difference right there. From there, the template includes several levelled abilities which can be emphasised or ignored as appropriate. And it doesn't include any skill points, so what you choose to focus your initial training on is your choice; even spending the whole 20 points not assigned to military/ intelligence skills, you've got plenty of variety of how to make things work. And I forgot: by selective breeding or the psionic booster process itself (no one is sure) you get IQ+2 as part of the template. Quote:
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"John Adams was a farmer. Abraham Lincoln was a small-town lawyer. Plato, Socrates were teachers. Jesus was a carpenter. To equate judgment and wisdom with occupation is at best... insulting." |
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04-12-2015, 09:24 PM | #20 | |
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Lynn, MA
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Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
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You will have to learn to live with your feelings of inadequacy. :P |
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pbp, star wars |
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