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GimpInBlack posted:Oh God, this a thousand times. If you're trying to make Jedi morality more stringent or complex than "Marshall Matt Dillon with a laser sword," you've gone terribly wrong. nope
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Oct 8, 2014 23:13
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Breaking open Traveller 5th Ed. is the print version of Lemarchand's box.
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Oct 8, 2014 23:15
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ProfessorCirno posted:"TTG writers are incapable of leaving the shadow of D&D" is not an inherent issue with Star Wars. Luke traveled with Han just fine without either overshadowing the other.
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Oct 8, 2014 23:25
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ProfessorCirno posted:I guess I don't get the guy who watches Star Wars and groans and mutters every time Luke shows up. Like, guys, he's kind of a major character.
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Oct 8, 2014 23:34
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I too believe that telekinesis and a setting where space explosions make sounds are possible.
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Oct 8, 2014 23:35
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dwarf74 posted:I dunno, I'd love to run a Star Wars meets Dirty Dozen sort of mini campaign. Then again, failed jedi would work fine there. "Oh, the gentleman from the Sith had a question about the dining arrangements. He and his comrades are discussing place settings now." Run this.
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Oct 8, 2014 23:41
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NorgLyle posted:Seriously this. There's a part of the Red Letter Media Episode II review where Mike is narrating the fight between Obi Wan, Anakin and Count Dooku in the style of a 16 bit video game and the baffling thing to me is that there are apparently a ton of people who really really want their Star Wars games to work that way. The Jedi we actually see in the good movies aren't some kind of game wrecking space gods any more than any other protagonist in an action adventure movie; I can believe Mark Hammill pulling his flashlight out of a snowbank without using his hands a little more easily than I can believe 58 year old Liam Neeson jumping off of overpasses onto moving boats, actually. I didn't mind it in I. The fight with Maul has some emotional content, and when the awful script worked it established Jedi and Sith as sort of intelligent heavy weather badasses when the Trade Federation is like "Well, let's send all our spaceships home some bearded pajama guys showed up," or "gently caress there are two?" Sidious comes off like a kind of space Nyarlathotep who's just "Well, I'm going to send this shoggoth to fix your problems!" Obi-Wan should have just obviously, momentarily given into his hatred when he cut down Maul to establish that the Dark Side is actually tempting.
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Oct 8, 2014 23:45
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ProfessorCirno posted:Luke traveled with Han just fine without either overshadowing the other. Mixed groups of non-scrub Jedi and non-Jedi doing things in the original trilogy are real hard to come by, and for a very good reason.
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Oct 8, 2014 23:47
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FMguru posted:Only when Luke had like one level in Jedi Noob prestige class. Once he learned more than a single Jedi trick, Luke was off on his own solo adventure away from Han and Chewie and Leia. Kenobi also disappeared from the story early on. Vader dominated every scene he was in, except for when he was bending the knee to a more powerful Jedi. Troupe play is the answer. Ars Magica shows the way, as it so often does. Everybody makes a strong Jedi. Everybody makes an expert or niche character of some kind, and then you grab a bunch of clone-grogs and play Tartovsky cartoons.
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Oct 8, 2014 23:50
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FMguru posted:Of course, Star Wars without Jedi misses the point of most of the movies, and you end up with Traveller-but-with-Hutts-and-Wookies. Yeah, but it's also Traveller where I don't have to explain the context or races or anything to people - everyone is familiar with the source material to a certain extent and (especially with EotE) it's a really solid foundation for pulpy, rogueish adventures. The Jedi may or may not still exist and they may or may not be incredibly powerful, but you've got a cargo hold full of contraband and a date with an bounty hunter if you don't get it where it's supposed to be on time - assuming you can avoid any entanglements. Basically, EotE is for people who are like "gently caress that Jedi bullshit, I wanna play Han & Chewie."
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Oct 8, 2014 23:50
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MalcolmSheppard posted:Troupe play is the answer. Ars Magica shows the way, as it so often does. Everybody makes a strong Jedi. Everybody makes an expert or niche character of some kind, and then you grab a bunch of clone-grogs and play Tartovsky cartoons. Yep, that works. So does some kind of storytelling system where players can take the spotlight and determine the scene by playing drama beads or something. It's just a standard RPG presentation of a mixed party of Jedi and non-Jedi ends up like a worse version of 3.X casters vs. non-casters. Even George Lucas understood that he had the separate the Jedi and non-Jedi stuff in his movies.
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Oct 9, 2014 00:01
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FMguru posted:Ding ding ding. Or you just run it in a system where "Force stuff" isn't modeled as "normal stuff++". Like, in Fate, it doesn't really matter that Luke defends by deflecting blasters and Han defends by diving for cover; they're both just rolling Quickly (or Athletics, or whatever). It's pretty easy to build a system where heroes are badass, and Jedi are just one flavor of hero.
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Oct 9, 2014 00:07
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Zurui posted:Yeah, but it's also Traveller where I don't have to explain the context or races or anything to people - everyone is familiar with the source material to a certain extent and (especially with EotE) it's a really solid foundation for pulpy, rogueish adventures. The Jedi may or may not still exist and they may or may not be incredibly powerful, but you've got a cargo hold full of contraband and a date with an bounty hunter if you don't get it where it's supposed to be on time - assuming you can avoid any entanglements. Which reminds of the old Middle Earth Role Playing Game from ICE, which concentrated on letting people play standard D&D fantasy adventures in dungeons/wilderness/cities, but in a world-setting that everyone is familiar with. Lots of people knock MERP for not promoting a particularly Tolkien-esque style of play, but that was never its intention - it was meant for doing the same kind of stuff you'd do in Greyhawk or the Forgotten Realms, but with actual Balrogs and Warg Riders and the Misty Mountains and Mirkwood and Lake-Town and Nazgul and Ents and Uruk-Hai instead of their serial-numbers-filed-off stand-ins.
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Oct 9, 2014 00:08
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GimpInBlack posted:Or you just run it in a system where "Force stuff" isn't modeled as "normal stuff++". Like, in Fate, it doesn't really matter that Luke defends by deflecting blasters and Han defends by diving for cover; they're both just rolling Quickly (or Athletics, or whatever). It's pretty easy to build a system where heroes are badass, and Jedi are just one flavor of hero. But if the force isn't just better, then why do people learn it? It breaks verisimilitude unless it lets me be better than everyone forever.
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Oct 9, 2014 00:15
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RPZip posted:But if the force isn't just better, then why do people learn it? It breaks verisimilitude unless it lets me be better than everyone forever. Jedi only take in the weak, the sickly, and the stupid. They need that intensive Force training just to reach"average."
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Oct 9, 2014 00:19
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If you go by the pseudo-EU stuff that Lucas wrote back in the 80s, Luke is the Son of the Suns and one of the greatest Jedi ever, with implications for more ordinary ones. If you go by the original trilogy, nothing stops all the characters from having Force powers. If we go by standard fan interpretation, Jedi are ascetics and don't carry much cash. There are a few ways to incorporate Jedi in.
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Oct 9, 2014 00:38
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FMguru posted:Only when Luke had like one level in Jedi Noob prestige class. Once he learned more than a single Jedi trick, Luke was off on his own solo adventure away from Han and Chewie and Leia. Kenobi also disappeared from the story early on. Vader dominated every scene he was in, except for when he was bending the knee to a more powerful Jedi. That was due to Han and Luke having different stories and narrative arcs, not due to power levels. Luke was good at killing dudes with a lightsaber and doing unnecessary flips every time he dodged an attack. A few times he flipped a lightsaber to his hand. Once he floated C-3PO to impress a bunch of teddie bears. He can search his feelings. That's about it. The idea that jedi PCs are just "normal PCs+" is BS. That's not really expressed in the protagonists at any point in the original trilogy. And yeah, Vader dominates every scene he's in - he's the bad guy! The villains are supposed to be super powerful and impossible to defeat, that's what makes it great when they're defeated! What Star Wars needs isn't some kind of weird "Jedi Group / Non Jedi Group" divide, it needs to just go either fantasy pulp space opera or full action movie. On one end Han shoots his blasters, flies his ship, and is a smug rogue, while Luke does front flips and sabers dudes. On the other end the jedi are carving their way through hundreds of droids and hurling baddies off cliffs while the republic commando has some kinda of heavy machine gun space laser and a rocket launcher and just ignores the puny blaster fire that gets absorbed by his armor. The belief that jedi must intrinsically belong to the latter group and only jedi can every belong to that is D&D garbage.
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Oct 9, 2014 00:52
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Spincut posted:Wow, that image is from the AD&D Beginner Set, right? That was my entry into D&D and I *still* remember that picture (that was the pre-gen dwarf fighter).
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Oct 9, 2014 01:11
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Who cares about Jedi and smugglers, which version best supports wookie game play?
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Oct 9, 2014 01:39
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Cirno, just curious, where does KOTOR2 fall on that continuum? Dark Space Opera or something else?
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Oct 9, 2014 01:41
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Bucnasti posted:Who cares about Jedi and smugglers, which version best supports wookie game play? From what I've heard, the old d6 one made strength hilariously awesome. Davin Valkri posted:Cirno, just curious, where does KOTOR2 fall on that continuum? Dark Space Opera or something else? A Game With Mechanics That Don't Support It's Intended Message KotOR 2 suffers the same flaw many Chris Avellone games suffer - I can't shake the feeling that what he really wants to make is a visual novel.
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Oct 9, 2014 01:43
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Bucnasti posted:Who cares about Jedi and smugglers, which version best supports wookie game play? Without a doubt, FFG's Edge of the Empire. Every crit is a limb. Every triumph is killing a dozen other mooks with that limb.
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Oct 9, 2014 01:48
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MalcolmSheppard posted:One of the best supplements I ever had for my Star Wars game was the EU maps book, where players could point at a star system and I could find out everything about it and accurately plot how long it would take to get there. This sounds oddly familiar to the one game of EotE I ever played. I never really kept in touch with anyone after it ended nor do I remember much about who ran it. Was this game on roll20 and was one of your players a Trandoshan? Did it involve corrupt religious cults, discovering an abandon rebellion base, and almost being killed by the empire because of a failed impersonation attempt to get a better landing pad?
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Oct 9, 2014 03:37
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MalcolmSheppard posted:Pulp SF, familiarity, kickass visuals and an EU to pluck stuff. One of the best supplements I ever had for my Star Wars game was the EU maps book, where players could point at a star system and I could find out everything about it and accurately plot how long it would take to get there. What is the name of this book?
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Oct 9, 2014 04:55
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The problem with jedi in Star Wars RPGs is that they're mostly based on Luke Skywalker. Luke Skywalker is heavily based on the "monomyth" concept of Joseph Campbell and Luke's supposed to be better than his contemporaries by virtue of being the hero. RPG and expanded universe writers took it to mean that all jedi are super powerful space wizards. These writers also tend to follow comic book rules of upping the ante in terms of power because what story is there to tell after the supposedly universal story? Even Lucas forgets everything he learned and makes jedi ridiculously more powerful than anything seen in the original trilogy because he had to sell some toys to make back all the money he lost in his divorce.
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Oct 9, 2014 05:19
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fosborb posted:Without a doubt, FFG's Edge of the Empire. Every crit is a limb. Every triumph is killing a dozen other mooks with that limb. Badass. After I read a few chapters from the Bible I'm gonna hop on this game some more.
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Oct 9, 2014 05:33
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ProfessorCirno posted:I'll never understand people who desperately ache for a Star Wars with no jedi in it. It's like wanting to play Shadowrun but hating the orks and mages. Dudes, there's settings and systems right there for you, just take the obligatory big animal race and call it a wookie. You misunderstand me. I desperately ache for a Star Wars where Jedi are actually playable alongside other characters without causing friction due to serious balance issues. But I doubt that will happen, so if FFG is gonna split up the game into games, splitting overpowered Jedi off into their own game is a sensible implementation of that policy (moreso than splitting up scoundrels and rebels in my opinion).
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Oct 9, 2014 05:58
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All of Star Wars was based on Hidden Fortress and the Jedi are the samurai. The only reason they are any kind of badass is because they have spent their lives being weapons opposed to being someone with a job. They're really just asses who are just out to do their own poo poo and make it sound noble. Qui Gon doesn't give a poo poo about the mechanic slave boy until he is useful to him and he even tells the council that he isn't around to help slaves. Normal Jedi need to be played more like Kurosawa samurai by being normal rear end people who are slightly better at fighting because they don't have real jobs  Also shotguns could gently caress up Jedi real bad.
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Oct 9, 2014 05:59
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:These writers also tend to follow comic book rules of upping the ante in terms of power because what story is there to tell after the supposedly universal story? Even Lucas forgets everything he learned and makes jedi ridiculously more powerful than anything seen in the original trilogy because he had to sell some toys to make back all the money he lost in his divorce.  The worst thing about the Age of Rebellion book was that it dedicated valuable page space to retelling the story of The Force Unleashed
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Oct 9, 2014 06:12
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Gravy Train Robber posted:
Wait, really?
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Oct 9, 2014 06:26
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Gravy Train Robber posted:
I actually had to check if it was still canon according to Disney and unsurprisingly it's not. It wasn't even that good of a game and I feel bad for anyone who got it for the Wii. Apparently the only things that are canon now are the six films, Clone Wars TV series and movie, Rebels, and anything published after April 25, 2014 without the "Legends" banner. My theory is that if the new movies bomb, Disney will go fully into pushing original trilogy, prequel, and legends stuff because Disney will have the distribution rights to everything except A New Hope by then. EDIT: For those that didn't know, Lucas said that Force Unleashed was up there with the movies in terms of canon. I think it was one of his last big attempts at a cash grab before he sold off Lucasfilm. RocknRollaAyatollah fucked around with this message at 06:33 on Oct 9, 2014 |
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Oct 9, 2014 06:28
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RPZip posted:Wait, really? Page 386 is almost entirely dedicated to the plot of The Force Unleashed. Until the recent canon shakeup, Lucas had made The Force Unleashed canon and it was basically treated as a top source and laid the groundwork for how/why the resistance started. Actually, that first few pages of Chapter IX including p386 are drawn from that material. I haven't seen it yet but I'm pretty sure theres no way the new show Star Wars Rebels could do a worse job of showing the early Rebellion.
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Oct 9, 2014 06:33
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:if the new movies bomb They won't. The people who complain loudest about the prequels will be first in line, followed by all the kids who absolutely adore the prequels.
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Oct 9, 2014 06:34
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:EDIT: For those that didn't know, Lucas said that Force Unleashed was up there with the movies in terms of canon. I think it was one of his last big attempts at a cash grab before he sold off Lucasfilm. Gravy Train Robber posted:Page 386 is almost entirely dedicated to the plot of The Force Unleashed. Until the recent canon shakeup, Lucas had made The Force Unleashed canon and it was basically treated as a top source and laid the groundwork for how/why the resistance started. Actually, that first few pages of Chapter IX including p386 are drawn from that material.  Well, that's a thing.
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Oct 9, 2014 06:41
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PeterWeller posted:They won't. The people who complain loudest about the prequels will be first in line, followed by all the kids who absolutely adore the prequels. Don't get me wrong, I think J.J. Abrams will do a better job with Star Wars than Star Trek. Even then, all the J.J. Trek movies have been successes critically and financially. I just think it's interesting that their plan of popping out the movies quickly will put the last one out at about the time they get the rights to everything, 2020.
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Oct 9, 2014 06:45
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:Don't get me wrong, I think J.J. Abrams will do a better job with Star Wars than Star Trek. Even then, all the J.J. Trek movies have been successes critically and financially. I just think it's interesting that their plan of popping out the movies quickly will put the last one out at about the time they get the rights to everything, 2020. Oh they definitely have this poo poo all planned out on levels we can't even conceive. I just wanted to make fun of the idea that these new SW flicks could flop. 
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Oct 9, 2014 06:53
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ProfessorCirno posted:From what I've heard, the old d6 one made strength hilariously awesome. You were also pretty much obligated to choose one (and only one) person in the party who would be able to understand you. D6 was silly sometimes.
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Oct 9, 2014 07:00
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Honestly, I would go the Chicken Boo route - you pick one PC who can't understand you and has no dea why everyone else can. He's a giant chicken, why can't any of you see it?
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Oct 9, 2014 07:14
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Ran Monsterheart for my first time. Holy poo poo, this system is amazing. Real cherry was the Witch player turning dark off a lovely roll to convince the gym coach to give her a break due to her black eye and concussion as a result of insane bullying. Queue a botched roll to hex her with visions, an insane coach and then her turning on the rest of the gym class. Chosen player got in a fight, triggering her darkest self. Once the witch was taken down the Chosen fled and bumped into the intro of the season big bad, hospitalizing her. Tons of little high-school drama mysteries coupled with cruel classmates and insane supernatural crap. Lots of fun! Play Monsterhearts today! Play it forever!
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Oct 9, 2014 09:57
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Gravy Train Robber posted:Also I've only ever used tech characters in Shadowrun. Maybe I'm the problem with games?
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