Star Wars: Light of the Cauldron

[LemmingLord]

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.

[zoncxs]

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?

[Totem]

Originally Posted by LemmingLord

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

To put a new a 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.

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.

Originally Posted by zoncxs

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?

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.

[Totem]

Originally Posted by Ransom

I find it some what ironic that essentially what this amounts to is that Jedi can be more evil, more often, with fewer repercussions. I suppose the Duty mitigates that.

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.

[the_matrix_walker]

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

[the_matrix_walker]

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!

[Skullcrusher]

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.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by the_matrix_walker

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!

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.

[Talosian]

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."

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.

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]

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.

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.

Okay, I'm building a draft off of the Extra-Sensory Perception variety of Scanning Sense found in Psionic Powers (17). Current stats:

Scanning Sense (Extra-Sensory Perception) (Extended Arc (360°), +125%; Penetrating, +50%; Increased Range 1, +10%; Force, -10%) [55]

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).

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).

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).

I got confused when I was running Worlds of Fire when it came to one character and their starting equipment,

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

I find it some what ironic that essentially what this amounts to is that Jedi can be more evil, more often, with fewer repercussions. I suppose the Duty mitigates that.

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.

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.

<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.)

Not to mention that SW is not a universe amenable to shades of moral gray.

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.