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Hubis
May 18, 2003

Boy, I wish we had one of those doomsday machines...
I don't really understand the need for the Force Die. The rest of the dice pool system works so well for providing a spectrum from "Great Triumph" to "Qualified Success" to "Advantageous Failure" to "Total cock-up", wheras force powers are basically "you succeed or you fail (or you make yourself a little more evil for some reason)". To what end?

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homullus
Mar 27, 2009

Hubis posted:

I don't really understand the need for the Force Die. The rest of the dice pool system works so well for providing a spectrum from "Great Triumph" to "Qualified Success" to "Advantageous Failure" to "Total cock-up", wheras force powers are basically "you succeed or you fail (or you make yourself a little more evil for some reason)". To what end?

I think this is a really good question. My guesses:

1) Force dice have no blank sides. All the other dice do. If "nothing happens", it's because the player chose not to spend dark points.
2) It's easier to Commit dice, even setting them on the Talent cards (if you've purchased them), if they're different from the ones for the central mechanism
3) The nature of the check is different -- the light and dark are additive for Jedi making power checks, rather than subtractive like the regular check. The kind of check is related to the kind of dice.

Hubis
May 18, 2003

Boy, I wish we had one of those doomsday machines...

homullus posted:

I think this is a really good question. My guesses:

1) Force dice have no blank sides. All the other dice do. If "nothing happens", it's because the player chose not to spend dark points.
2) It's easier to Commit dice, even setting them on the Talent cards (if you've purchased them), if they're different from the ones for the central mechanism
3) The nature of the check is different -- the light and dark are additive for Jedi making power checks, rather than subtractive like the regular check. The kind of check is related to the kind of dice.

So it was kind of a leading question because I have my own theories, but I'm very eager to hear other people's thoughts.

I kind of feel like it reflects a bit of a narrative problem with The Force. Basically, The Force is Magic, and EotE is exactly the opposite of a "Magic" setting. If this were Fantasy, Star Wars would be Tolkein-esque High Fantasy while EotE feels a lot more like your sword-and-sandal low-magic Low Fantasy setting. Once you start adding space wizards, the focus drifts away from the mundane struggle of the everyday folk and towards the more existential issues surrounding Destiny and Supernatural Powers and Things Mortals Could Not Possibly Understand. In order to make that work in EotE and AoR, they really toned it down by forcing the characters to not be able to rely on their "Space Magic" consistently. Essentially, it was something they could only really leverage if Fate (die luck) was in their favor. Now if you want to add full-blown Jedi, that dynamic suddenly has to change a lot.

Unlike shooting, or negotiating, or slicing, "The Force" has no real direct analog for our mere human players and GMs to extrapolate successes and failures from. Moreover, since the force is "Magic", there is a tendency to not want to throw mundane setbacks into the mix. A Force User who rolls a despair can't have his gun break, or alert the guards to his presence by triggering the alarm he was trying to disarm, or accidentally start a brawl with the bouncer he tried to bribe (ok maybe that last one). Maybe you could tie it into the Strain mechanic better, but in general The Force kind of ironically feels very alien to the rest of the Star Wars world. It's a thing that only works because the rules say it does.

There's also really very little example of "average" Jedi, because the Jedi are all portrayed as supernatural bad-rear end samurai-sorcerers who are essentially untouchable by the non-attuned, even when they are defeated (usually by some form of betrayal or "unfair" tactic). Luke is maybe one of the few examples of someone who's a real novice with The Force, and even then he never really "fails" so much as just has greater or lesser degrees of success.


e: All if this is by way of saying that The Force has it's own dice because they feel a need for it to be set apart from the rest of the system because Jedi are set apart from the rest of the universe in the narrative; however, I'd argue this is neither necessary nor desirable.

Hubis fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Aug 14, 2014

homullus
Mar 27, 2009

There's also the "how many Destiny points do we start with, and what color are they?" that those same dice answer all along. Also harder to do with regular dice, which also have blank sides.

Mustache Ride
Sep 11, 2001



Force and Destiny Playtest PBP game of the adventure in the back of the Rulebook, "Lost Knowledge". App your Jedis here, please.

alg
Mar 14, 2007

A wolf was no less a wolf because a whim of chance caused him to run with the watch-dogs.

adversary decks: https://twitter.com/teamcovenant/status/500316145740939264



Force & Destiny Spring 2015

jivjov
Sep 13, 2007

But how does it taste? Yummy!
Dinosaur Gum
I sure hope they make some for Edge and Age too. I'd really like a handful haha.

Speaking of Age and F&D; do you think we should start a new thread with a more comprehensive OP and thread title?

ProfessorCirno
Feb 17, 2011

The strongest! The smartest!
The rightest!
Force characters get one less "free" skill then other careers. This is to pay for Force Rating, presumably.

They also get two less class skills, which leads to a lot of dumb. My Shien Expert is all about cunning, and gets bonuses to streetwise and Knowledge: Underworld. Neither of which are class skills.

alg
Mar 14, 2007

A wolf was no less a wolf because a whim of chance caused him to run with the watch-dogs.

jivjov posted:

I sure hope they make some for Edge and Age too. I'd really like a handful haha.

Speaking of Age and F&D; do you think we should start a new thread with a more comprehensive OP and thread title?

I'd be happy to work one up, especially since this one's OP hasn't posted in over a year here.

ProfessorCirno
Feb 17, 2011

The strongest! The smartest!
The rightest!
Ok I don't get the Seeker. Like at all. Like...ok, here's the cool acrobatic lightsaber tree, here's one that's all about being basically a druid, and here's one about being a caveman. Your class skills are flying spaceships, survival, knowledge of animals, and heavy weapons.

What on earth is this meant to be?

PantsOptional
Dec 27, 2012

All I wanna do is make you bounce
Seeker is all about surviving in hostile areas, so it makes sense that they would have the ability to fire rifles especially given the Hunter specialization.

jivjov
Sep 13, 2007

But how does it taste? Yummy!
Dinosaur Gum

alg posted:

I'd be happy to work one up, especially since this one's OP hasn't posted in over a year here.

If you want to, go for it. I'd be totally cool with it to; I made the new X-Wing one last night so I'm in a Star Wars-y mood.

ProfessorCirno
Feb 17, 2011

The strongest! The smartest!
The rightest!

PantsOptional posted:

Seeker is all about surviving in hostile areas, so it makes sense that they would have the ability to fire rifles especially given the Hunter specialization.

The problem is that the trees are all both a) laser focused, and b) not all fitting.

"This career is all about cunning and willpower, surviving in the wild and hunting and befriending animals. So, you know, bazookas and the acrobatics lightsaber."

PantsOptional
Dec 27, 2012

All I wanna do is make you bounce
Yeah, the Ataru spec is kind of weird to be in that career. You could say the same for some of the others, too - how the hell does being a mystic in tune with the ebb and flow of the Force make you an expert in lightsaber fencing?

As far as the Ranged (heavy) thing goes I think it's a case of the design being short-sighted and thinking only of this book, which has the blaster rifle as the heaviest weapon not governed by Gunnery.

Excelsiortothemax
Sep 9, 2006
Are there currently any write ups for imperial ships? I don't have Age of Rebellion yet but my EotE group ran afoul of a local patrol ship and I wanted to bring him back as a nemesis.

Lurks With Wolves
Jan 14, 2013

At least I don't dance with them, right?

ProfessorCirno posted:

Ok I don't get the Seeker. Like at all. Like...ok, here's the cool acrobatic lightsaber tree, here's one that's all about being basically a druid, and here's one about being a caveman. Your class skills are flying spaceships, survival, knowledge of animals, and heavy weapons.

What on earth is this meant to be?

Yoda, if I had to guess. Yoda if he was a hunter before he became a weird swamp hippie.

PantsOptional
Dec 27, 2012

All I wanna do is make you bounce
I really want to make some crazy survivalist Force user now. Jedi Ted Nugent, always ranting on about how Palpatine wasn't elected legally and lamenting how much the HoloNet lies to people.

ProfessorCirno
Feb 17, 2011

The strongest! The smartest!
The rightest!
The more I look at the lightsaber trees the weirder they are.

Guardians have almost no Intellect skills and are about leading people and protecting them. Why do they use intellect for their lightsaber style?
Niman for Consulars uses Willpower. THEY HAVE ALL INTELLECT SKILLS! It's also WAY more powerful then any other lightsaber tree, as it has both +characteristic AND +Force Rating in it.
Seekers are all cavemen druids, yet their lightsaber style is about bouncing around acrobatically.
Sentinal Artisan is just really kinda bizarre. Shien gives boosts to Streetwise and Underworld, yet those aren't even class skills.

I feel like they got trapped into making them fit in a symmetrical pattern of each one using a different attribute, but then almost immediately ran out of attributes that actually made sense for each one, and started crowbaring random poo poo in. They also I think got stuck trying to make a "JEDI" version of each of the original classes, so Sentinals get their weird wizard mechanic tree, and Seekers just sorta exist in their weird hyper-focused state in general.

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alg
Mar 14, 2007

A wolf was no less a wolf because a whim of chance caused him to run with the watch-dogs.

new thread -> http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3658009&pagenumber=1#post433568349

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