Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
 

Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron

Game Notes
Genre: Star Wars
Activities Planned: Jedi Stuff (diplomacy, investigation, maybe some fighting)
Supplement materials: GURPS Basic Set will be the only requirement. Previous experience with Star Wars RPG materials will assist with providing equipment. GURPS Space, and Spaceships may be of some use. GURPS Powers will be of use for modifiers for equipment and abilities.
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 200+50 points available. Additional points will be awarded at the end of missions based on degree of success and role playing.
House Rules: See notes below.
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.
Status: Closed due to lack of interest

Characters
Players have 200 points, plus 50 points in disadvantages (including quirks). This limits includes a professional template. Racial templates do not count against this limit and can be player-produced or GM-provided for a number of major species from Star Wars; the GM reserves the right to modify player created racial templates within reason.

Basic is the common language of Star Wars (any time you hear them speaking English in the films, they're speaking Basic). After the Republic has been around for thirty thousand years, Basic has become widespread. On top of this there are multiple trade languages. Players can take Basic and a Trade Language (Hutt, Core, Mid-Rim, Outer-Rim) for free.

Players take on the role of Jedi Knights, or other individuals associated with the Order such as Antaran Rangers, bounty hunters, pilots, etc, during a period roughly three hundred years before the Battle of Yavin and the rise of the Empire. The Jedi Knight template is below. Jedi Knights are deemed to be competent, but not of sufficient level to officially train a padawan.

Dark Siders are not permitted as player characters. Any player falling to the Dark Side (Dark Side Points >= WILL-4) will be declared an NPC. Redemption of such characters may form a secondary plot arc should it occur.

Grey Jedi (Force users trained as Jedi but only peripherally associated with the Order) are permitted but take the Grey Jedi template below rather than the Jedi Knight Template. Read the section below regarding the Light Side and Dark Side before choosing this.

Players may take up to 3 LSP or DSP as part of their starting character sheet (see below).

Some useful notes about skills, character ideas, and abilities:
• Pilot/ Starfighter pilot: an NPC pilot and ship will be provided. If you wreck it, you have to replace it. If players wish to own their own ship then this is fine and it can replace the GM provided one if you can afford it. There is not currently any starfighter action planned; bringing one along opens up options, but players will need to co-ordinate such things as ensuring that there is somewhere suitable to store the starfighter if the pilot wants to travel with everyone else between systems (the GM provided ship has space for one such fighter).
• The Pilot skill has the following specialisations (replacing the default GURPS ones): Light/ Medium/ Heavy Aircraft, Starfighter, Light/ Medium/ Heavy Transport, Medium/ Heavy Warship.
• History, Geography, Hidden Lore, Area Knowledge, Current Affairs, etc, all include most of the following specialisations: Jedi Order, Sith, Republic, Aurelan Sub-Sector (this is the two hundred star area that the campaign will initially be based in).
• Players should consider the Player Paranoia post for any character and the Jedi Code if playing a Jedi of any kind.

Equipment is purchased at TL8 prices; tech levels in Star Wars are all over the place, and so TL8 is used as the campaign standard. For most equipment this won't make a difference and TL9 or TL10 sensor packages or medpacs (for instance) can be purchased at their base price rather than a TL modified price.

Blaster weapons are created as follows:
• Take a normal TL6-8 weapon from GURPS Basic or High Tech
• Reduce RoF by 50% (round up, minimum 1)
• Increase damage by 1d and change damage type to burning
• Double magazine size
• Increase cost by 25%
• Come up with a suitable name

For armour:
• Take normal TL6-8 armour
• Reduce weight by 10% (round down)
• Increase DR by 25%
• Increase cost by 10%


Lightsabres use the following template: Damage 8d(100); Reach 1, 2; Parry 0; Cost illegal, variable; Weight 2; ST 3. A Jedi automatically gets a +1 to their skill when using a Lightsabre that they produced themselves. A lightsabre can be used to parry attacks, including blaster fire using normal rules for parrying; a lightsabre-parry technique is available which defaults to 0 and is Hard. Melee Weapon (Lightsabre) is a DX/A skill which defaults to other sword skills at -5.


House Rules
Knowing what you are doing
There are several areas where GURPS rules assume that an ability confers full understanding of what is going on and how it works. Two major areas that I have noted this are healing and mind-affecting/ reading.

Healing is not something simple, and even the most powerful Jedi healer can only heal what they understand. Anyone wanting to use such abilities will require some kind of First Aid, Surgery, or Biology related skill in order to diagnose what has happened and determine how to repair the damage. Success will otherwise be based on a default roll.

Mind-affecting/ reading is not something simple, even through the Force. People rarely, if ever, think coherent thoughts, and have their own symbology and iconography attached to such thoughts. Any use of Sense/ Mind, Communicate/ Mind, or Control/ Mind should not be expected to work miracles; think about the films: when Darth Vader says "so, you have a twin sister," he doesn't actually indicate that he knows who it is or anything like that. That level of sense-impression/ intuition is the limit that reading will work at without some kind of mindlink.

Damage
How damage is handled in GURPS is somewhat ambiguous sometimes. As with healing, it is largely assumed that unless specifically targeted such damage is generic in nature and can be fixed generically.

For the purposes of this game minor damage (1-2 HP) will be treated as such. More serious damage will be treated based on the type, position, and severity of the damage, potentially leading to additional issues in the forms of temporary disadvantages. For instance 2d of damage from a high-speed projectile might penetrate and go straight out the back of a character, leaving only a small hole but tearing up internal organs in the process; improper treatment could lead to the character having the Increased Life Support disadvantage (for a dialysis machine or similar), or a pacemaker (presenting an Electrical disadvantage) depending on where the damage occurred.

Healing/ Regeneration
More for regeneration than normal healing; regeneration lets you heal quickly not correctly. Barring some kind of invulnerable skeleton which forces your flesh to conform to the correct shape, your body will heal in the fastest possible time, to the shape that it currently has. If that means that a bone doesn't reset itself correctly, then you'll be stuck with Lame (for a leg) or low DX (limited to a hand/ arm) or Difficulty Breathing (for a lung that heals with a rib puncturing it) or similar. A First Aid/ Surgery roll will ensure that things are back in the correct place as best your TL is able. Similarly nerves will reconnect themselves, but not necessarily in the correct place (I know of someone who had surgery on his cheek and the nerves leading to his saliva glands reconnected themselves to his sweat glands instead). Likewise, internal damage will heal as best it is able; depending on the position and type of damage, internal organs may heal partially or incompletely.

Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
 

Aurelan Sub-Sector
General Notes
The Aurelan Sub-Sector is a cluster of 200+ stars, the Diamondback Nebula, and the Cauldron, all situated an unhelpful distance beyond the end of the Corellian Trade Spine. With twenty known worlds capable of supporting Human life it should be a major part of the Outer Rim. There are some problems however.

Navigation Issues
Navigating around the Aurelan Sub-Sector is tricky due to anomalous mass shadows spread throughout the sub-sector. Efforts have been made to map these, but generally the charts that are available for showing the fastest routes are old enough to be unreliable. Anyone attempting to navigate around the sub-sector as if it is a conventional trade line does so at a -5 to their Hyperdrive skill. Relying on outdated maps can add up to a further -3. On the other hand regular navigation checks can keep penalties to a minimum.

The edge of the Republic
Aurelan isn't actually part of the Republic. The Jedi Order maintains an enclave on Kobiwal, but otherwise their presence, and authority, is limited to whatever the local government feels is appropriate. This also means that the effort expended on a variety of public services (such as navigation beacons) has to be funded locally rather than from Coruscant.

Habitation
With 200+ stars to choose from, there should be plenty of planets around. Unfortunately the number of known habitable worlds is relatively low. Over the millenia there have been a large number of orbital stations, drift colonies and the like put together, giving 175+ habitable places.

The Cauldron
The Cauldron is a denser cluster of stars on the spinward side of the sub-sector. With even greater gravitational anomalies presenting navigational hazards, this area is barely surveyed at all, and the exact number of worlds within it hasn't yet been uncovered. The Cauldron's light is a defining astronomical event across the sub-sector, being visible and easily distinguished.



Jedi and the Force
Jedi Knight Template [64]
Duty (The Force, The Order, The Republic, includes the Jedi Code) [-20]
Force Sensitivity 0 [5]
Legal Powers (Jedi; International, covert investigations, relative impunity) [15]
Legal Immunity (strict code of conduct) [5]
Patron (Jedi Order; Extremely Powerful Organisation 25, Sometimes x1) [25]
Rank (Jedi Knight) [10]
Moral Guidance (+3 on meditation rolls to remove DSP) [3]
One point in each of the following skills: Lightsabre DX/A, Expert Skill (Lightsabre) IQ/A*, Law (Republic), Philosophy (Jedi), Meditation [5]
Eight points to be spent on Verb Force skills [8]
Eight points to be spent on Noun Force skills [8]

Grey Jedi [25]
Duty (The Force, reduced version of the Code for those not following it entirely) [-10]
Force Sensitivity 0 [5]
Patron (Jedi Order; Extremely Powerful Organisation 25, Quite Rarely x1/2) [13]
One point in each of the following skills: Lightsabre DX/A, Expert Skill (Lightsabre) IQ/A*, Law (Republic), Philosophy (Jedi), Meditation [5]
Six points to be spent on Verb Force skills [6]
Six points to be spent on Noun Force skills [6]

* Expert Skill (Lightsabre) includes relevant aspects of Armoury, Engineer, and Electronic Repairs relating to designing and building only a lightsabre of modern design (though does include variants such as dual-phase and lightstaffs).

The Force
The Force works using modified rules for Syntactic Magic. Any skill roll is therefore: IQ + Force Sensitivity + Alignment modifier + skill modifier; two rolls are required to produce an effect: the verb and noun.
The verb skills (all IQ/VH and defaulting to -6) are as follows:
• Communicate
• Control
• Create
• Heal
• Move
• Protect
• Sense
• Strengthen
• Weaken
The noun skills (likewise) are as follows:
• Animal
• Energy
• Force
• Inanimate
• Mind
• Plant
• Self

Force Sensitivity
This behaves much as Magery does, costing 5 points for the first level and 10 points per level after that.

Sample Force Powers:
This list uses names based on assorted Star Wars games, and may not reflect precisely what is shown in the films or what is eventually used in a specific situation in the game.
• Move Object {Move/ (Animal/ Inanimate/ Plant)}
• Jump {Move/ Self}
• Jedi Mind Trick {Control/ Mind}
• Enhance Ability {Strengthen/ Self}
• Stealth {Weaken/ Force}
• Farseeing {Sense/ Force}

Specific powers (Jump, Throw, Heal Self, etc) can be bought up as Hard techniques; these techniques apply to both skill rolls made to use that specific power. More general abilities cannot be bought as techniques; Enhance Strength (boosting ST by 1 per 2 points of success) would be acceptable technique, but Enhance Ability (a general technique for enhancing any Primary Stat) is not.

Light Side, Dark Side
The Force has a Light Side and a Dark Side. Drawing on either side causes that side to draw on you to some degree, making further uses easier on some level. Representing this in-game we have Light Side Points (LSP) and Dark Side Points (DSP). Both are worth 0 points as they have advantages and disadvantages.

Light Side Points are awarded for heroic acts or significant moral choices made towards the Light Side. Dark Side Points are given when the player commits an unsuitable act; any use of a Dark Side power (such as lightning {Create/ Energy} or Grip {Weaken/ Animal}) or significant moral choice made towards the Dark Side triggers a roll against (WILL + LSP - DSP). Failure earns one DSP or removes one LSP. The total target being rolled against cannot exceed 14.

A player cannot have LSP and DSP at the same time: a heroic act will cancel one DSP unless there are none. Likewise using a Dark Side power will reduce the number of LSP before it grants DSP.

LSP and DSP are both used in skill rolls for Force Powers: any Dark Side power automatically counts the number of DSP as a bonus or LSP as a penalty to both rolls, while attempting to heal someone is aided by LSP and hindered by DSP (unless the situation warrants otherwise). Not all uses of Force Powers count as Light Side and Dark Side.

LSP and DSP are also used when checking Reactions to or from other Force Users based on sensing through the Force, counting as a bonus to their alignment and a penalty against their alignment.

Meditation
When a character has earned DSP, they may take time to consider their actions and determine why they did what they did. This consideration will take the form of a period of meditation and consultation with those who the character deems to be appropriate to offer moral guidance. The process takes 8 hours per DSP, during which the character may undertake light, non-strenuous activity such as basic exercises or cooking a light meal. At the end of the 8 hours, a meditation roll is made. Jedi (or other groups with an established training order and experience of bringing people back from the Dark Side) can gain a +3 on the meditation roll with the Moral Guidance advantage. Success clears a single DSP. Critical success clears two DSP (and may grant one LSP if there was only one DSP to clear). Failure has no effect. Critical failure means that the character got sufficiently confused with their reasoning that they have made things worse and gain another DSP.

Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
 

I am interested in playing, but I do have some questions (especially about the Force).

I admit that I'm a bit surprised to see a magic system used instead of the Psionic Powers system (since that really does cover things quite nicely). Would it be correct to assume that this is tied to your intended treatment of the Force? (Meaning: More like the mystical tone of the originals than the "scientific" treatment of the prequels.)

As for the technical bits of the syntactic magic system, it's a bit strange (in Star Wars) to have telekinetic movement split by target, though this shouldn't matter much (assuming that things like force push could also be accomplished with Create Energy). I assume that inappropriate uses/results (Create Animal, for starters, as well as durations on lifted objects...) are by default prohibited from general use? What is the Cost/Casting Time of Self? (If using Move Self for Force Jump, then casting time would presumably be fairly low...) I assume that Energy Reserve is allowed and encouraged?

Does Engineer (Lightsaber) still have Mathematics (Applied) as a prerequisite? I'm guessing that there's some form of exemption here, as I never had the impression that Jedi were all math majors XD

I wanted to clarify the intent of this quote: "Players have 150 points, plus 50 points in disadvantages. This limits includes racial templates and professional template." I'm pretty sure that the intent was to make it clear that the Jedi templates have to be included within the point cost, but on first reading it seemed like it might be saying that template disadvantages counted against the disadvantage limit (which might be appropriate if restrictive for Jedi templates, but would be extremely problematic for racial templates like the Keldor that have to deal with a major Dependency or some such).

Also, it occurred to me that swapping Patron for Rank might allow for a more specific and detailed accounting of the support provided by the Jedi Order (basically, it looked like an excellent opportunity to use Social Engineering: Pulling Rank).

-

In terms of what I'm thinking, I'm currently looking at running a Miraluka force user (a member of the Luka Sene, and specifically a Sene Seeker). The Luka Sene are generally pretty academic and reserved, and the Sene Seekers are generally only tasked with hunting down Luka Sene members, so some explanation would be required. There are a couple possibilities:

1: Luka Sene members are quite independent, so my character could be accompanying/working with the Jedi team of his/her own volition.*

2: If appropriate, there could also be rumors of Luka Sene related artefacts (or the Luka Sene could have an academic interest in the artefacts regardless).*

*I could also play up the academic angle and make my character an expert in Jedi/Sith artefacts or some such to make either of these more plausible.

So, character related questions:

Foremost, what's your take on a racial template for the Miraluka? I've got some material from the unofficial GURPS Star Wars netbook that I've tweaked to be more accurate:

Second, I'm looking at what would be appropriate for a Luka Sene template. Currently looking at a lower level of Patron (15 points, at a guess), a Duty (Sene Seeker would be Extremely Hazardous, but the exact frequency is questionable), and Moral Guidance ("The Luka Sene disapproved of the dark side and served as guiders and guardians to protect Miralukans from falling to the dark side."). The frequency of the Duty would depend a great deal on the exact nature of the character's involvement with the rest of the team (aka, is it part of the Duty or not).

(I'm also toying with some other character possibilities, to which end I'm curious if Gunslinger is permitted, and wanted to confirm that droids are on the table.)

-

EDIT: Naturally, I forgot a question. How strongly are you committed to Light Side/Dark Side powers setup? This has always bothered me a bit, but I can accept that using force lightning on a living creature would have more effect on LS/DS standing than using a lightning gun. Essentially, the main question I have here is how context sensitive/absolute it is in your mind. Would using force lightning on a droid count? Would using force lightning on a circuit breaker to shut off the power count? And so on.
EDIT 2: Wouldn't it make sense to add a Code of Honor to the Jedi template? It might be clearer and more natural than rolling the Code and such into the Duty.
EDIT 3: Since Blasters are based on TL8 weapons, would armor be based on TL8 armor? (EDIT 3b: What would you base hard armors on?)
EDIT 4: Are quirks counted in the -50 point disadvantage limit?
EDIT 5: It occurs to me that Engineer (Lightsaber) would probably (by RAW at least) have to be complemented by Armoury (Lightsaber).
EDIT 6: How are you handling languages? Virtually every species has its own, so there's relatively little chance that an individual alien/near-human's language will be important.
EDIT 7: In exploring other concepts, and in concert with the previous question about Gunslinger, are Trained by a Master and Weapon Master permitted?
EDIT 8: For guns that use a skill other than Pistol or Rifle, should new and matching Beam Weapons specialties be used?
EDIT 9: Sene Seeker has evolved in a more academic direction (aka, not a Sene Seeker) to try and manage points, and is thus more likely to have had a lot of interaction with the Jedi Order. Would Savoir-Faire (Jedi) be acceptable, or would a pre-existing Savoir-Faire encompass the Jedi Order?

Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
 

Okay big post... Too big. Two replies.

It is definitely intended to be mystical; there never has been much of a scientific treatment of the Force, except by ancient races like the Rakatan or mad scientist characters who can't accept that it might be beyond their control. I tried looking at psionics as a possibility for setting up powers; another game I was debating running had psionic powers, with a set template that players could then improve on by means of skills and talents, and the racial template came out at 420+ points. That was deliberate, because part of the concept for that story/ game (it's half intended to be a novel) was that psionics were just more powerful than anyone around them and you had to deal with that somehow. For a game like this where players can take on other roles...

Basically, I used the Syntactic system because it represents a large degree of flexibility in what it can achieve, balanced off by casting times (mostly 1 second as per the films, but with some things like Farseeing taking anything up to hours or days) and the moral complications of using it.

Some uses aren't possible, simply by their nature, while others take a long time. Palpatine spoke of the Midichlorians being used to create life when he (oh so subtly) hinted to being Anakin's father; this would have been an application of {Create/ Life}, but the effort and personal investment required, though not stated in the film, would be significant.

Casting times (as per the Syntactic system in general) vary. Something like {Move/ Self} for a jump is going to be a full round action, while {Heal/ Self} is going to take minutes up to hours.

Energy cost for using the Force is low; the moral aspects of it are intended to be more of an impediment than the casting cost.

The skill of building a lightsabre has been honed and ritualised enough over the millennia that any Jedi based in a temple or enclave won't require anything beyond Meditation and the base Engineer skill to produce a lightsabre. A lone Jedi out in the field or working without proper instruction would need to look at other skills. Three Meditation rolls are required in order to 'fuse' the components together using the Force, the entire process taking about 30 days (though it can be done faster in emergencies).

As normal for GURPS, template disadvantage do count against the limit; I'm happy to accept some abilities as a package cost, but racial and professional templates are going to come as separate parts. I think that I'll modify the rules for that one: "50 points in disadvantages, with allowance given for racial/ professional templates where it is deemed appropriate."

Rank amongst Jedi is going to be fairly simple: Youngling [0], Padawan [5], Knight [10], Master [15]. There isn't much else that you can use to complicate it really, aside from adding fractional ranks: "I may only be a Knight, but I'm also a Sentinel, so in these circumstances I get to pull rank." [1]

Miraluka is fine from what I remember of them; racial template will be checked once I dig out the old Star Wars RPG one to compare it to.

1. The basic requirement here is that your character has been called upon by Master Torkuran to assist. If that means that your presence was specifically requested because you are an expect in Jedi/ Sith artefacts, then that's great.

2. There's no evidence of the types of artefacts as yet; if throwing in this possibility is necessary to get your character involved, then I'm happy to include it.

As I mentioned, I'll have a proper look over that shortly. One thing I will comment on:

I have no issue with you taking a specific ability that is (effectively) Always On and turning that into an advantage on their racial template. Again, having not looked at the racial template properly, I'd immediately suggest Force Sight as a Scanning Sense that replaces their normal Sight rolls and thus runs off PER + Force Sensitivity rather than off two skill rolls. Probable points cost... I previously developed TK Sense for 30 points which accomplishes similar things, but worked from psi powers rather than from an outside force, so you would throw in some kind of accessibility of it being effective based on the strength of the Force in the area... Maybe 20 points, because it's also subject to Light/ Dark influence.

Pretty much any professional Force User template is going to be fairly similar, with some kind of Patron, Duty and the like. Moral Guidance is fine... Frequency of Duty, if your Duty includes keeping people from falling to the Dark Side, will be Always if you're hanging around with other Force Users.

Gunslinger isn't an issue, provided that you have a suitable character background; a pilot, officer, scrounger or thief would have no justification for it, but someone like a shipjacker or gladiator would. All cinematic abilities are theoretically available, but need to be justified.

Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
 

Oh, awkward... Okay, this is where the old Star Wars RPG books would be handy, because they had a section on Transgressions and what actually counted as a Dark Side act. Any use of the Force to harm (or ultimately to harm, such as using Healing to extend an interrogation) is Dark Side. Refusing to accept an enemy's surrender is probably Dark Side (yes, you know that they'll betray you, they won't keep their word, they'll stab you in the back, but you have to let them make that choice before taking action). On a lesser scale you have using the Force to inconvenience someone (such as Qui-Gon trying to get Watto to accept Republic credits that he would have a hard time spending) which may be wrong depending on the justification that you have for it.

With regards to Force Lighting, I have considered the idea of non-Dark Side uses of it, but ultimately channelling fast and dangerous energy like that through the Force is going to require anger, aggression, fear, desperation or something similar to fuel it. I will point out that the original Star Wars RPG had you getting a DSP as soon as you used Lightning, and they only introduced the idea of a WILL roll (that I'm borrowing) because people wanted to use things like this.

Overall: the Syntactic system allows you to achieve any result that you have enough skill to produce (where the psionic/ powers system would require you to actually buy a suitable Lightning advantage in order to use it). The WILL roll means that a Jedi can, in a moment of urgency, pull out Lightning to do some damage and have a 90% chance of not getting a DSP as a result. Obviously that chance goes down with DSP.

I did look at that. A Code of Honour is something that only matters to your honour, and your profession can be affected, but can't technically be crippled by it, where the Jedi Code is the rules that you live by, describing the nature of your Duty (complete versions of it include details on diet and exercise, not just moral thoughts). Ultimately, I decided that the Jedi Code was a description of your Duty, not something separate.

I think that I'm going to have to go with:

• Take normal TL6-8 armour
• Reduce weight by 10% (round down)
• Increase DR by 25%
• Increase cost by 10%

I'm open to adapting these rules, and the ones for blasters, if someone objects strenuously to them and can provide a decent alternate system.

Yes.

In this case because they are sufficiently of a type, I am just going for there being a single skill for designing, building and maintaining a lightsabre. Using one is a separate skill.

Basic is the common language (it's what they speak as English in the films); it's been around for long enough that any player character will be able to understand it. Combine that with some of the regular trade languages and translator droids, and we should be fine, if a bit slow sometimes (for a GM-provided translator droid as part of your team, conversation can proceed as if there is no issue).

As above: yes, but you need a character background to justify it.

Given the lack of projectile weapons (outside some primitive cultures), I was basically lumping the Beam Weapon and Guns skills together. The issue will only really arise if you bring in specialist weapons (like a Wookiee bowcaster) which will require their own specialisation.

For something like this, Jedi and Jedi Order would technically be covered by the same specialisation.

Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
 

I'm considering a thief/smuggler and his thief/shipbuilder ally and their stolen "perfect crime" blockade running ship.

To put a new yet believable spin, they could be an older married couple; and this ship is both their retirement fund and the life of smuggling their retirement vacation.

They know the region very well and operate in these hard to navigate space lanes to avoid the eyes and ears of the people they stole them from.

Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
 

I am interested, thinking about using my old squib character with a little rehashing. He was a smuggler and merchant. Smuggling and trading in secrets (a spy). The people I played with didn't know this about him, just that he was a merchant and sometimes bounty hunter.

I mostly like the race, the squibs. Who doesn't want to play as a blue dog?

Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
 

I got confused when I was running Worlds of Fire when it came to one character and their starting equipment, so I'll state this clearly now: you starting possessions must be accountable by your starting Wealth and Debts or other advantages/ disadvantages accounting for the extra equipment such as Criminal Record or Enemy (either the person who you stole it from or someone who knows that you stole it and demands 'hush money'). Ships (decent spec blockade runners certainly) are going to come in at Wealth (Filthy Rich); please remember that a large capital ship like a Star Destroyer could eat up 50% of the economic output of an industrialised planet for a whole year, which comes out at several levels of Multi-Millionaire at least.

At present, that looks like the only issue I would have here; think carefully about fitting that into the points limit. Wizards of the Coast did an article on ship design in Star Wars RPGs, including notes on making them affordable; I can forward that to you if you want ideas. Otherwise it looks good.

No issue here, aside from the same notes about ships (unless you're transporting/ smuggling things by passenger transport) and a thought that this could end up as a team of smugglers and a couple of Jedi if this keeps up.

Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
 

The Moral Guidance advantage basically means that the Jedi have an understanding of the limits that they are pushing when they use the Dark Side. Using it too many times can still cause you to go over to the Dark Side, and failing to role-play the Duty or advantage can get it revoked altogether, but the Jedi have a better understanding of where the boundaries are than non-Jedi. I haven't added it in yet, but I'm debating a Potentium Heresy disadvantage, which amounts to Delusion (There is no Light Side or Dark Side); that gives you an automatic -3 on these rolls.

Also, to restate it: it doesn't matter what IQ, LSP, moral understand or anything else that you have, the number you are rolling against can never exceed 14. You could have WILL 15 and 5 LSP (theoretical total of 20), and it would still be 14.

Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
 

I'm interested in a Jedi, maybe a member of Yoda's species... or something with extra arms...

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!

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.

Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
 

Magic follows laws of magic, not common rules of morality.
Not to mention that SW is not a universe amenable to shades of moral gray.

Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
 

This isn't critical, especially with the exceptions being acknowledged, but to be technical (and oh do I love being technical): "Disadvantages that are part of your racial makeup (your “racial template”; see p. 260) are also exempt" (Basic Set 11). By RAW, racial templates are treated as a single trait, and only the net value is counted as an advantage/disadvantage. The confusion with the Jedi templates was along these lines, "However, if the GM rules that all PCs must have certain disadvantages (e.g., all the PCs are spies, with a Duty to their agency), these “campaign disadvantages” should not count against the disadvantage limit," but as non-Jedi are allowed it makes sense (and you'd except Jedi to have less personality issues anyway). To be clear, I'm completely fine with how it's being handled, I just wanted to clarify the RAW.

Fair enough. I've seen some attempts to break it down within those classifications (a Padawan near the end of his training would pretty clearly outrank a brand new Padawan, a veteran knight should at least have courtesy rank over a new one, masters would be outranked by members of the council, etc.), but it's completely fair to handle it with patron.

Okay, I'm building a draft off of the Extra-Sensory Perception variety of Scanning Sense found in Psionic Powers (17). Current stats:
It'd allow complete awareness of everything within 40 yards, but nothing beyond that. It can penetrate up to 12" of solid material, allowing it to see through most walls (and, awkwardly and disconcertingly, inside of things such as people O_o). No color, potentially problematically, screens would be unusable without a physical presentation* (holograms might work, depending on WTF holograms are in Star Wars), but books would be fine. Darkness wouldn't matter, but it wouldn't function in the absence of the Force. Mundane invisibility or force abilities designed for hiding would be useless against it, but things or force abilities designed to hide one's presence in the force would equate to invisibility. Detect/Empathy would still be necessary to enable the identification of force users and to mimic the morality sensing, so I'm working on adapting them to function through the Scanning Sense (VERY IMPORTANT: Does anyone know whether or not Sense Based, Reversed replaces range concerns? If not, I need to fiddle with that :/)

*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).

The concern here was mostly that in a setting with a zillion languages and easy and common translation, languages are grossly overpriced in GURPS. Personally, I think it'd make sense to let languages be entirely dictated by background, but letting each character be bilingual for free seems accurate to the films*, and fairer to non-humans.

*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).

Not half as confused as I O_O 'Twas on that day that I learned Gizmos are not nifty conveniences, but sanity saving necessities.

Hmm. Interesting thought here. I kind of agree with Ransom, mostly on the basis that having a strict set of ethical rules doesn't really help if you're already violating them. Would it be viable/logical to make it a bonus/ability to "atone" dark side points over time? In that case having a moral code (and an organization of people to turn to) would definitely make a difference. It would have the benefit of making Jedi equally vulnerable to falling due to dark side actions, while also enabling proactive Jedi to more strongly resist falling.

<just got called a heretic> :'(
(I was totally thinking of having a Potentium-inclined character, as this is how I've always understood the force.)

I do not know where our Star Wars experiences have differed, but I've always seen Star Wars as having bucket loads of moral gray. Sure, there's always a good side and a wrong side, but almost every major Star Wars character has had a struggle with the Dark Side, and often flip-flopped a bit before reaching redemption.

-

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.

Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
 

Short or lots of arms... I'm sure we can do both.

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.

I'll confess: this is partly related to how my character sheet works. There isn't a separate slot for putting in racial advantages/ disadvantages, so everything just goes in together. I have now checked properly and confirmed that you are right. So yes, I'll go with RAW and just try to keep track as best I can on the character sheet.

Colourblindness and not being able to use screens were an aspect of that TK Sense as well. I will allow that because the Force links all things you have a sense of the energy in the screen or a hologram, so you can get a very low resolution idea of what is there (so a hologram isn't invisible, it's just not clear enough to identify a face unless it's magnified).

It is one of those things that they do throw in with things like this. The only time I can remember a sci-fi translator that had to hear the whole of what was being said and then repeated it in the appropriate language (which is actually a vital necessity with most languages) is in Ringworld.



I should really have gone for something easy, like crocodile baiting...

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.

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.

Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
 

Yoda's species would indeed be a pain, because it's incredibly vague and secretive : / Extra arms, on the other hand... I'ma look around for a bit on Wookieepedia, and see what I can find.

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)

*cough* GCS master race *cough* :D

Hurrah for screens! :D (I'm currently in the process of confronting myself with the reality that no matter how little sense it makes, it's pretty clear that Miraluka/force vision users are assumed to, by default, only see in a "normal" visual arc : / I'll probably be adjusting the template to reflect this, and possibly adding another level or two of Increased Range or otherwise filling in the template to bring it to around [0], though I'll probably want my character ).

-

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.

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.

Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
 

I think I'm going to move it to a bonus on a period of meditation to remove DSP. That seems the best option at this point.

Concept is thus:
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.

Horror being one of the ones that I don't have at present. I'll think on it though.

Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
 

=]

You will have to learn to live with your feelings of inadequacy. :P

Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
 

Egads. The balance issues with that have been tormenting me ever since Kromm clarified that it's legitimate rules-wise (if not mathematically). (Warning: Completely irrelevant-to-this-game rules rambling below. EDIT: I added spoiler tags to reduce clutter.)



-

But as I said, this is just me being buggered about buggy rules, and has no bearing on this game.

Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
 

PM'd my sheet, my guy can go either way. A jedi of hunter. (or anything!)

Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
 

Some updates have been made to the first two posts regarding rules and setup, taking into account some comments that have been made so far.

Notable changes:

Addition of Rank to the Jedi Knight Template (note the cost has increased).

Rules for setting up armour added.

Rules for Meditation to remove DSP have been added.

Moral Guidance is now counted as a bonus on the Meditation roll to remove DSP rather than on the WILL roll to avoid getting them in the first place.

Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
 

What if we don't want to play a character with force powers? Do we get extra points since force users get an extra 430 for force powers?

Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
 

That's a completely different game he's talking about in the quoted post, where all PC's would have that template.

Jedi are not getting any extra points, and they have to buy a 43 point Jedi Template that doesn't include any ability to use the force, while eating up 20 points of the disadvantage limit.

I've been working on a character... I might skip being a Jedi after all, as I'm not happy with what I'm coming up with. The Jedi code includes so much that there is little room for other disadvantages, and with the expense of Force Sensitivity and 16 Force manipulation skills... It's a really tight budget!

It's one of the issues GURPS has to deal with that if you buy cool powrz, you don't have the points left for decent stats and skills. So you can be a capable person OR a Jedi, but not really both.

Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
 

As indicated, the psionic template and associated details are for what I'm offering to run if this game doesn't work out for whatever reason.

Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
 

By the way, on that Psi Template, having five different 5 point talents is paying way too much... You should do a Universal Psi (Like a Cosmic Talent) for 15 points and be done with it.

I'm not familiar with Bio-Control or Electrical Control...

And I would think Vision Based on the Detect would be a bigger discount as it includes limited Arc, and can't detect through solid objects...

What is "Symbolic, +0%" ?

Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
 

That's what I get for only skimming the posts.

Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
 

I agree here; originally there were going to be a lot more abilities available and each of those would have an associated skill... I've managed to come up with more generic abilities instead now.

Electrical Control works in the same manner as Temperature Control, with the Fulcrum modifier meaning that you need to take electricity from one place and dump it into another. Level indicates the quantity of power that can be jumped and the rate at which you can get up to that level.

Bio-Control is more complicated. If you read GURPS Powers, in the section relating to the Control advantage, it notes that you cannot take Control (Person) because that would be Mind Control, for which there is already an advantage. This did seem to be a bit short-sighted, and the Bio-Control advantage covers the gap. This requires skin-to-skin contact and basically gives you control over someone's body, and a greater awareness and control over your own. This control does not let you, for instance, directly control muscles or anything like that, but does instead allow control of things like hormone levels, pulse, respiration, etc. The exact effects can be varied from inducing a hyper-regenerative state (Regeneration (1 HP per minute, costs 1 FP per minute)), through dropping someone into a coma, modifying their immune system, and various other options. Think about it as several dozen Afflictions lumped together as Alternative Attacks and with the Skin Contact requirement; I may have underpriced it drastically, but the fact that you need to work for an extended period rather than just having things happen instantly most of the time, does play a part.

Vision based was only intended to convey the limited arc and the way that it was interpreted; I'll check Powers and see if there is a more appropriate modifier available.

Symbolic means that it uses the system that I developed in Worlds of Fire: you make a psychology roll to 'shape' what you are sending into a suitable set of symbols and icons for your target, or to interpret what you are getting from them. At the same time their ability to detect and resist what you are doing is based entirely on whether they have the mental machinery to notice it happening: non-telepaths can't see telepathic stuff happening, so can't resist. Combination of the two, makes telepaths very dangerous if they are willing to spend points on learning about how other people think. It does mean though that you need a psychology roll for every question and instruction rather than just rolling to stay inside their head. Again, maybe underpriced, but I'm guessing it comes out at +0%.

Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
 

A few notes on the jedi knight template. If you take it only you can not use the force, So I think force sensitivity 0 [5] needs to be added to that template. like wise the force skills needed. thats another 16pts (assuming you are only putting 1 point in each skill first) added to the template making it cost a bare minimum of 64 points to play a jedi. that leaves you with 86 points to create a character with (+50 from disadvantages). I also think that the nouns "force" and "self" could be dropped, force can be put in with energy and self can go to animal. the verb "communicate can be combined with sense.

Also what are the difficulties for the skills lightsaber, expert skill (lightsaber)?


here is a slightly modded version coming in at 60pts

Jedi Knight (60)
Force Sensitivity 0 [5]
Legal Powers (Jedi; International, covert investigations, relative impunity) [15]
Legal Immunity (strict code of conduct) [5]
Patron (Jedi Order; Extremely Powerful Organisation 25, Sometimes x1) [25]
Rank (Jedi Knight) [10]
Duty (The Force, The Order, The Republic, includes the Jedi Code) [-20]
Moral Guidance 2 (+1/lvl to meditation) [2]

One point in each of the following skills: [18]
Lightsabre
Expert Skill (Lightsabre)*
Law (Republic)
Philosophy (Jedi)
Meditation
Control IQ/VH
Create IQ/VH
Heal IQ/VH
Move IQ/VH
Protect IQ/VH
Sense IQ/VH
Strengthen IQ/VH
Weaken IQ/VH
Animal IQ/VH
Energy IQ/VH
Inanimate IQ/VH
Mind IQ/VH
Plant IQ/VH

Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
 

Sorry that some of these have taken a while to happen.

Looking over the old SW RPG rules for species, I find that the Miraluka had the following template (be aware this is D&D style stats): -2 DEX, +2 INT, +2 Initiative, Force Sight.

You've got Force Sight sorted as a variant of Scanning Sense or whatever we agreed on. Initiative would be covered by a cut down Combat Reflexes, and the primary stats... DX-1 and IQ+1, unless you want to take it to -2/+2.

I haven't had a chance to look over these, and if you are going for one I don't recognise (which is all of the ones that you've listed) then I'm not going to complain about the racial template being wrong. There are enough species in Star Wars that use the Human racial template without being Human that you can fairly easily provide a not-entirely-accurate racial template and give a plausible argument for it being a sub-species or something like that.

What I will put in right now though (this is following on from the discussion of broken armed attacked) is that I am declaring that you have an additional Triple Wield and Quad Wield technique, each following the same rules as Dual Wield and having the previous technique as a prerequisite and maximum limit (so you can't know Quad Wield at a higher level than Triple Wield, etc). I'm hoping that this provides some kind of balance; certainly, I'm working on the basis that you are at -4 per additional weapon (and that's before off-hand rules come into play...).

This is true. I was leaving it out because... I think I just assumed that people would add it in. Also, the first character idea that got posted features Force Sensitivity as part of the racial template. Consider it added though.

The Force skills aren't in the template because I'm not requiring people to take all of them. There are Jedi who never get the hang of Create, and others who focus very heavily on Move. You've then got bloodlines like the Halcyon lineage who cannot put points into Move at all. What I will do here is add in a requirement for a minimum number of points to be spent in each of Nouns and Verbs.

I've had a couple of comments about the points limit, and I'm starting to agree with it. I'm thus increasing the points limit to 200+50; be aware that the difficulty of some NPCs will be increased accordingly.

I'm going to stick with the skills that I've got here; I agree that some of them do overlap in places, and I have considered several options for this. My logic is thus:

• Force - This is the Force itself; anything like Farseeing, probability affecting, getting a general sense of the moral alignment within the Force of a person, place or artefact, etc wouldn't be covered by Energy, and though they could be divided out into other skills, I'm holding them as a separate item under the general heading of the more spiritual or mystical aspects of the Force.
• Self - My thought here is that there is a significant difference between being able to affect someone or something else, and being able to affect yourself. The ability to internalise something like Sense/Animal into Sense/Self is not a given thing.
• Communicate/ Sense - These are two distinct skills; when Luke is hanging under Cloud City and calls Leia back this is Communicate as opposed to Control or Sense.

I thought that I had added these in. Just checked: Expert Skill (Lightsabre) is going to be IQ/A; it should technically be IQ/H because of the weight of content, but there are so few options for learning it, and it covers a single class of specialist weapon, so I'm reducing it.


See my comments above.

Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
 

One thing to point out about this plan: Dual Wield Skill +0 is [5]; if you price Tripe Wield and Quad Wield the same, this totals to [15] to offset -4 to hit penalty. +4 to skill costs, at most, [16]. I know which one I would choose.

Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
 

He's adding mounting penalties, to triple would be [9] and Quad [13] and they would need to be combined, so that's [27] actually.

Just really obviously not worth doing.

Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
 

Okay, I confess that I messed up here; people posting quotes from other people's posts without using the quoting mechanics properly so that they could be tracked had me confused, and I lost track of who was doing/ saying what. I am grateful that this issue with costs/ attacks got pointed out, because the first time I noticed anything to do with it otherwise would probably have been when several vital NPCs were wiped out in a single round. It's happened to me before where rules like this have turned up. Certainly, regardless of all else, I would have (I hope) raised issue with 2+ attacks and looked up the fact that the rules in Basic Set only specify two weapon attacks; there would have been extra penalties applied for the third and fourth weapons, regardless of what anyone had said or done, simply as a matter of extension.

Fiddly house rules in this case comes from making use of a variant of a standard system (for the Force) and the fact that the standard rules don't cover some situations. I've tried to keep them to a minimum, but I can't see how a load of them could be avoided; even using Powers as a basis and going for purely Advantage based Force powers rather than Magery based, you still need to clarify what is and isn't possible.

The points limit, I will admit, was a mistake; I was aiming for a realistic points limit in a game based around a cinematic world. I have just increased the points limit...

I agree. I want to play this for fun, and it looks like being a good story. I freely admit that I got impatient and launched it off a bit sooner than I should have done; half of the stuff that has come up though, is stuff that I never thought of.

No, each technique would be priced at base cost and would apply to all attacks, so the cumulative total would only come to 15 points. It would work out that you only needed that many points anyway.




Can I please have a role-call of players who are interested in playing, with their concepts/ character sheets as they stand, in this thread. Between digressions on the nature of the moral structure being used, having to modify the templates and house rules, and realising that I'm a bit shorter on time than I hoped, I'm starting to get frustrated with this as well. I would like to know who will be playing and have an idea of their intended role so that I can get it clear in my own mind who is doing what.

Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
 

Im still in. He has a knack of trading and negotiating due to his race being natural barters. He excelled in lightsaber combat due to his hard work. He gets along with a lot of people and is not afraid to walk up to the meanest looking person and say "HI! want to trade?" with a smile. During training he sometimes fails because he refuses to leave anyone behind, once you are in his team you are like family, and he doesn't give up on family. He has a long way to go with force training, though. He learned the basics for most applications and thanks to his innate force sensitivity and knowledge he is capable of most things, but he is still considered a novice.


Name: zerobadeeveeshimet
Race: Squib
SM: -1

Attributes (100)
ST 9 [0]
DX 12 [20]
IQ 13 [60]
HT 11 [10]

HP 9 [0]
Will 12 [0]
Per 13 [0]
FP 12 [0]

Basic Speed 6 [5]
Basic Move 7 [5]

Basic Lift 16
Damage 1d-2/1d-1


Social Background
TL: 11 [0]

Cultural Familiarities:

Languages:
Galactic basic (Native) [0]
Hurt (Native) [0]
Squibbian (Native) [0]


Advantages (82)
Race: Squib [3]
Jedi Knight [64]
Ambidexterity [5]
Force Sensitivity 1 [10]


Perks (0)


Disadvantages (-30)
Chummy [-5]
Impulsiveness (15 or less) [-5]
Pacifism (Reluctant Killer) [-5]
Sense of Duty (Adventuring companions) [-5]
Xenophilia (12 or less) [-10]

Quirks (-3)
Attentive [-1]
Broad-Minded [-1]
Imaginative [-1]



Skills (51)

** = +1 from talents
* = owned by jedi knight template

Primary:
Administration (A) IQ+0 [1]**
Accounting (H) IQ+0 [2]**
Diplomacy IQ/H - IQ+0 [4]
Fast-Talk IQ/A - IQ-1 [1]
Finance (H) IQ+0 [2]**
Market Analysis (H) IQ-1 [1]**
Merchant (A) IQ+1 [4]**
Lightsabre DX/A DX+4 [16(1*)]
Expert Skill (Lightsabre) IQ/A* IQ+0 [2(1*)]
Law (Republic) IQ/H IQ-2 [1*]
Philosophy (Jedi) IQ/H IQ-2 [1*]
Meditation Will/H Will-2 [1*]

Secondary:
Acrobatics DX/H - DX-2 [1]
Brawling DX/E - DX+0 [1]
Detect Lies Per/H - Per-2 [1]
Knife DX/E - DX+0 [1]
Tracking Per/A - Per-1 [1]
Wrestling DX/A - DX+0 [2]

Background:
Acting IQ/A - IQ-1 [1]
Climbing DX/A - DX-1 [1]
Computer Operation/TL11 IQ/E - IQ+0 [1]
Escape DX/H - DX-2 [1]
First Aid/TL11 (Squib) IQ/E - IQ+0 [1]
Gesture IQ/E - IQ+0 [1]
Holdout IQ/A - IQ-1 [1]
Knot-Tying DX/E - DX+0 [1]
Hiking HT/A - HT-1 [1]
Observation Per/A - Per-1 [1]
Scrounging Per/E - Per+0 [1]
Search Per/A - Per-1 [1]
Throwing DX/A - DX-1 [1]

Force skills:
Verb:
Communicate IQ/VH IQ-2 [1*]**
Control IQ/VH IQ-2 [1*]**
Create IQ/VH IQ-2 [1*]**
Heal IQ/VH IQ-2 [1*]**
Move IQ/VH IQ-2 [1*]**
Protect IQ/VH IQ-2 [1*]**
Sense IQ/VH IQ-2 [1*]**
Strengthen IQ/VH IQ-2 [1*]**
Weaken IQ/VH IQ-2 [1*]**

Noun:
Animal IQ/VH IQ-2 [1*]**
Energy IQ/VH IQ-2 [1*]**
Force IQ/VH IQ-2 [1*]**
Inanimate IQ/VH IQ-2 [1*]**
Mind IQ/VH IQ-2 [1*]**
Plant IQ/VH IQ-2 [1*]**
Self IQ/VH IQ-2 [1*]**



Racial template Squib: (3)
DX +1 [20*]
Acute hearing +4 [8*]
Business Acumen 1 (talent) [10*]
Fearlessness +2 [4*]
Reputation +2 (Honest traders, Merchants, x½, All the time, x1) [5*]
Temperature Tolerance 2 (cold) [2*]
Fur [1*]
Curious (6 or less) [-10*]
Overconfidence (6 or less) [-10*]
Reputation (eager and obnoxious, corporations and governments) (-2) (All the time;
Large class) [-5*]
Vow (Never tell secret data) (minor) [-5*]
Dislikes liars [-1*]
Likes strange gadgets [-1*]
Size Modifier -1 [0*]
ST -1 [-10*]
Will -1 [-5*]

Jedi Knight Template: (64)*
Duty (The Force, The Order, The Republic, includes the Jedi Code) [-20]
Force Sensitivity 0 [5]
Legal Powers (Jedi; International, covert investigations, relative impunity) [15]
Legal Immunity (strict code of conduct) [5]
Patron (Jedi Order; Extremely Powerful Organisation 25, Sometimes x1) [25]
Rank (Jedi Knight) [10]
Moral Guidance (+3 on meditation rolls to remove DSP) [3]
One point in each of the following skills: Lightsabre DX/A, Expert Skill (Lightsabre) IQ/A*, Law (Republic), Philosophy (Jedi), Meditation [5]
Eight points to be spent on Verb Force skills [8]
Eight points to be spent on Noun Force skills [8]


Stats [100] Ads [82] Disads [-30] Quirks [-3] Skills [51] = Total [200]

Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
 

I am still potentially interested, but have become exceedingly busy with schoolwork over the last week, and it isn't likely to clear up in the immediate future. In all likelihood I will not have the time to write up a character, and potentially not enough time to participate reliably.

I'm posting a brief response to some of the accusations for the purpose of clarification, but they're in spoiler tags, so just ignore them if you don't care. If there are further issues, I would request that Matrix PM me directly.

Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
 

is this still on???

Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
 

Sorry, should have posted sooner. Out of various people saying that they were interested or commenting in general on the game, I've had one response with an actual concept, a possible player not having time, and a possible player losing patience with the game. At this point I'm going to shelve this idea. I'm looking at joining a game instead at present, and if that falls through...

The awkward part about starting any new game is going to be that most of them involve assorted house rules. Mind Force involves a specific psi template with rules on how the abilities work that aren't in RAW (because the concept comes from a story that I've been trying to write for about twelve years where that is how the abilities work), while Light of the Storm, which was the one that people showed the most interest in the last time I tried asking, involves a power system similar to the system I'm using here for the Force (but costing more, without the moral issues, but with sanity issues). At present The Slain is looking like the simplest to run, because it has the vampire racial template and a few rules about behaviour.

Anyway... At this time this game is being shut down. I'm happy to share my notes on it if someone wants to have a go at running it themselves, or adapting it to a different setting (I nearly offered it as TL3-4 fantasy).

Re: Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron
 

Hmm. I was going to say I'd be interested in the thief/shipbuilder sidekick, possibly as a droid.

Honestly the reason I didn't speak up sooner was that I don't feel as familiar with the setting, beyond the original trilogy. I'd be totally OK if it wasn't the Star Wars 'verse.

But now I'm just putting this out there in case it ends up getting resurrected.