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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.
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Oct 9, 2014 11:58
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:Even then, all the J.J. Trek movies have been successes critically and financially. I think, in the case of Star Trek, the reason those were so successful is that people didn't have high expectations of ST anymore. There hadn't been a movie in years, and the last TV series sunk under the radar and died a quiet death. So no one had really thought of or heard anything ST-related in a while, and suddenly you have STAR TREK: THE ORIGINAL BUT WITH YOUNGER HOTTER PEOPLE on the scene and people loved it.
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Oct 9, 2014 12:57
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ascendance posted:My big complaint about the Trek movie is that the second one was too star wars. Anyway, the prequel movies prove that the movies could be total poo poo and still make a ton of money. Consider that the first movie deliberately apes the plot of A New Hope, down to Vulcan taking the place of Alderaan and Iowa being Tattooine. They are different movies, but Kirk comes from the same Luke monomyth cloth
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Oct 9, 2014 15:02
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I'm supremely surprised that not one has, as of yet, mentioned Star Wars Galaxies. That was a game that, despite its flaws, managed to find a niche as a sandbox game and made being a Jedi very, very special (albeit ridiculously, ridiculously tedious) as befitting the status of, oh I don't know, being one of the only Jedi left in the entire universe? The reality is, more often than not, you are not going to have a lot of Jedi going about the universe until after the original trilogy. Either they're hermits who refuse to teach people their ways out of fear (and as such would not want to make themselves obvious) or Vader had some fun turning them into chopped Jedi bits. Being a Jedi is a pretty *special* thing, and it definitely should be an advancement option for higher-level play, but once you introduce Jedi it's really hard to balance a system around the assumption that they will have a presence in a party of ordinary people since they have powers that could let them side-step social encounters until GM fiat stops them from doing so, combat prowess that enables them to nearly one-shot everything they get within melee distance of (unless it's something like a Rancor), and space-wizard powers that allow them to circumvent a lot of obstacles. Not to mention that even when they used ranged weapons, they can use their space wizard powers to make it easier to hit with them (Luke's Death Star run, for reference). Let me put it in another way. You know FFG's Only War, where you play as Putting even highly-skilled Smugglers and Jedi together do not mix well for similar reasons. And this is aside from the fact that having a Jedi around is just asking for tons of trouble from Imperial authorities, who once aware of the presence of a Jedi will basically start sending lots of people to get them, up to (and possibly including) Vader himself. Some people, gosh darn it, like playing as more ordinary characters in Star Wars. Also I like playing droids and droids can't be Jedi. It is a great tragedy.
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Oct 9, 2014 15:44
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Doesn't the success of Order 66 in the first place lend credence to the idea that Jedi aren't necessarily head and shoulders above a non-Jedi PCs?
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Oct 9, 2014 16:07
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LuiCypher posted:Also I like playing droids and droids can't be Jedi. It is a great tragedy. Skippy.
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Oct 9, 2014 16:16
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gradenko_2000 posted:Doesn't the success of Order 66 in the first place lend credence to the idea that Jedi aren't necessarily head and shoulders above a non-Jedi PCs? The success of Order 66 was more or less reliant upon the Jedi being embedded within large detachments of clone troopers where they would be taken by surprise and eliminated via superior numbers or taken down with extreme prejudice.
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Oct 9, 2014 16:16
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Forums Terrorist posted:Skippy. Could also be a sentient crystal shard piloting a droid body.
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Oct 9, 2014 16:19
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gradenko_2000 posted:Doesn't the success of Order 66 in the first place lend credence to the idea that Jedi aren't necessarily head and shoulders above a non-Jedi PCs?
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Oct 9, 2014 16:23
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LuiCypher posted:Being a Jedi is a pretty *special* thing, and it definitely should be an advancement option for higher-level play, but once you introduce Jedi it's really hard to balance a system around the assumption that they will have a presence in a party of ordinary people since they have powers that could let them side-step social encounters until GM fiat stops them from doing so, combat prowess that enables them to nearly one-shot everything they get within melee distance of (unless it's something like a Rancor), and space-wizard powers that allow them to circumvent a lot of obstacles. "Use Willpower instead of Charisma when convincing someone, costs a talent." Like there's literally no reason any of those powers have to be explicitly better then anything other classes get. Lando ain't a jedi and he handles himself quite nicely in the third movie's space fight (and in fact is General Calrissian and is calling the shots). I mean come on, the solution to "I want jedi to not overshadow non-jedi" is simple: don't stat them out that way.
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Oct 9, 2014 16:25
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ProfessorCirno posted:"Use Willpower instead of Charisma when convincing someone, costs a talent." The only problem is that you'll get people who *want* Jedi to be powerful because MY VERISIMILITUDE based on their interpretation of the movies over actual mechanical balance. Obi-Wan waving his hand and convincing a Stormtrooper that these aren't the droids you're looking for isn't a mere talent to substitute one ability for another - it's an actual power for Jedi using the Force to trammel over "the weak-minded". You'll get the same people who want wizards to be super-powerful because nerds > jocks arguing that Jedi need to be more powerful because nerds > jocks. And while D&D really is just a fantasy world, Star Wars is a sci-fi world rife with instances of Jedi being super-powered Marty Stus/Mary Sues and people are going to want them to mechanically play that way. I'm OK with FFG releasing a separate supplement for people like that while they let the rest of us peasants be Droid Missionaries arguing for both the recognition of synthetics as people and a god in the form of the technological singularity  Also to let us be wookiees who measure their worth not in terms of ears hanging from their dogtags, but arms hanging from their belts.
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Oct 9, 2014 16:43
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LuiCypher posted:The only problem is that you'll get people who *want* Jedi to be powerful because MY VERISIMILITUDE based on their interpretation of the movies over actual mechanical balance. Obi-Wan waving his hand and convincing a Stormtrooper that these aren't the droids you're looking for isn't a mere talent to substitute one ability for another - it's an actual power for Jedi using the Force to trammel over "the weak-minded". ProfessorCirno posted:Again, TTG writers being unable to leave the shadow of D&D is not an inherent problem with Star Wars. The shackles of D&D are far reaching and powerful indeed.
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Oct 9, 2014 16:52
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LuiCypher posted:but once you introduce Jedi it's really hard to balance a system around the assumption that they will have a presence in a party of ordinary people since they have powers that could let them side-step social encounters until GM fiat stops them from doing so, This is where your logic breaks down, though. You're just making a tacit assumption that Jedi are better than everybody else, when there's absolutely no reason for that to be the case. Look at the movies and how often Jedi use their powers to "side-step social encounters:"
What Jedi have is their own particular flavor of "get what I want out of social encounters." Insisting that the Jedi's version is inherently superior and instantly trumps "I'm really charming" or "I can talk anyone around" or "I can lie like nobody's business" just because the Jedi's version is magical is D&D wizard-think. LuiCypher posted:combat prowess that enables them to nearly one-shot everything they get within melee distance of (unless it's something like a Rancor), and space-wizard powers that allow them to circumvent a lot of obstacles. Pretty much everybody in Star Wars one-shots the bad guys. Bad guys in Star Wars are either one-shot mooks or Darth Vader, Boba Fett, the Rancor, etc. Sure, Jedi have telekinesis and they can run around and jump real good, and those are neat, flavorful abilities, but you almost have to be intentionally designing adventures to gently caress over the non-Jedi for those to be unbalanced. LuiCypher posted:Not to mention that even when they used ranged weapons, they can use their space wizard powers to make it easier to hit with them (Luke's Death Star run, for reference). Again, easily solved in plenty of ways that don't translate to "Force Aim: Jedi get +5 to hit with ranged attacks." Luke made that shot because he's the hero of the story and all the other pilots around were Rebel mooks, not because the Force turns him into a champion marksman. Moreover, like Han said, "that was one in a million;" the Death Star run is something you model with Force Points or Fate Points or some other kind of "heroic extraordinary effort" mechanic, not by giving Jedi arbitrary pluses. quote:Let me put it in another way. You know FFG's Only War, where you play as Star Wars is heroic adventure fiction though, not a grimdark satire of Thatcher-era Britain. The whole point of Star Wars isn't that Jedi are unstoppable badasses far beyond the ken of mortal men, it's that heroes are badasses. Even in some of the stuff where Jedi are crazy over-the-top, like the Clone Wars cartoons, non-Jedi heroes like the ARC Troopers and villains like Durge and Cad Bane and that one dude with the round hat and the dog monster routinely hold their own against Jedi. LuiCypher posted:And this is aside from the fact that having a Jedi around is just asking for tons of trouble from Imperial authorities, who once aware of the presence of a Jedi will basically start sending lots of people to get them, up to (and possibly including) Vader himself. Sure, and being in debt to Jabba the Hutt means tons of trouble from the criminal underworld, up to and including sending terrifying bounty hunters after you. Beinga famous Rebel starfighter ace means the entire Imperial Starfighter Corps wants a piece of you, up to and including Baron Whoever The Big Imperial Ace Guy is. Being an Interplanetary Being of Mystery means you'll have elite Imperial Intelligence agents after you. Heroes should have nemeses. Jedi aren't unique in that regard. LuiCypher posted:Some people, gosh darn it, like playing as more ordinary characters in Star Wars. And that's totally cool! One of my favorite characters I ever played was a rapidly-aging clone trooper deserter trying to build a surrogate family to replace the brothers he left behind. But to say it's impossible to balance Jedi and non-Jedi because Jedi have to be inherently better is just silly.
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Oct 9, 2014 16:54
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GimpInBlack posted:And that's totally cool! One of my favorite characters I ever played was a rapidly-aging clone trooper deserter trying to build a surrogate family to replace the brothers he left behind. But to say it's impossible to balance Jedi and non-Jedi because Jedi have to be inherently better is just silly. For the record, I totally agree that Jedi should be balanced and can probably live amiably in a party of normal dudes. I just think that there is a sizable enough group of people who want them to be all-powerful space wizards who don't suck at melee that they are going to deliver a system like that, where Jedi are rare and powerful beings and change the course of the galaxy on a grand scale right out of the gate. But what I think is not reality, and I am more than happy to be wrong in this regard!
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Oct 9, 2014 17:02
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ProfessorCirno posted:I mean come on, the solution to "I want jedi to not overshadow non-jedi" is simple: don't stat them out that way. Exactly. People thinking D&D instead of Feng Shui is the problem, not the source (until the prequels anyway, where Force users ARE the only ones doing anything meaningful). poo poo, probably the number one thing that sold me on FS back in the day was Jose Garcia calling rankest bullshit on WEG statting up Yoda with like eighteen dice worth of Force skill.
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Oct 9, 2014 17:04
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ProfessorCirno posted:Like there's literally no reason any of those powers have to be explicitly better then anything other classes get. Lando ain't a jedi and he handles himself quite nicely in the third movie's space fight (and in fact is General Calrissian and is calling the shots). Hell, the EU had ridiculous non-Jedi characters like Kir Kanos, who mows down elite stormtroopers with the barest of effort, shoots down a starfighter with a blaster, and kills a Sith Lord in melee combat. Granted, Crimson Empire is so-awful-it's-good, but Star Wars isn't exactly high lit either. Ultimately, whether or not Jedi are more powerful in-setting should be irrelevant, since it's a game and you can balance the different types of characters by choice. Even if they were stronger in-setting, the needs of the game override the needs of the setting. For years I got to see WEG tell people who wanted to play a Jedi that they basically had to be a novice or a drunk, and that wasn't very fun for would-be Jedi! Jedi players who whine about not having greater power levels obviously lack the proper mindset of humility to be a Jedi, anyway; seems like a path to the Dark Side if I ever heard one. 
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Oct 9, 2014 17:10
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Zurui posted:What is the name of this book? The Essential Atlas. http://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-The-Essential-Atlas/dp/0345477642 Anyway I see you guys are all confused because you're not using troupe play, which is tops, so just use troupe play. If you only have one Jedi make him/her a shared PC. Then again I had no problem with TFU or high powered Force use. The only trouble is when Jedi show up in large groups. Lucas made them subject to the inverse ninja law and it just looks stupid for 200 guys to all have wuxia jumping and poo poo.
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Oct 9, 2014 17:29
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Parkreiner posted:Exactly. People thinking D&D instead of Feng Shui is the problem, not the source (until the prequels anyway, where Force users ARE the only ones doing anything meaningful). If I'm remembering correctly, the reason why the Imperials did so well at the Battle of Endor according to WEG was because the Emperor was using battle meditation to boost the whole imperial fleet. This is just like in KOTOR except he was not actually meditating by any definition in the movie. Even as far back as the Thrawn trilogy, Jorus C'Baoth used his powers to influence a whole star destroyer and he's always been just a clone of a schmuck jedi. The ante was being upped in comic book fashion even in arguably the best EU series. RocknRollaAyatollah fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Oct 9, 2014 |
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Oct 9, 2014 17:31
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So, speaking of d6 WEG Star Wars, there's this... http://d6holocron.com Think of it like Classic Marvel Forever, but for d6 Star Wars instead of Marvel FASERIP. e: Sorry if this link is verboten, but it seems to fall under the same "abandonware" umbrella as FASERIP, insofar as that's any kind of thing. dwarf74 fucked around with this message at 17:37 on Oct 9, 2014 |
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Oct 9, 2014 17:34
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Misandu posted:The shackles of D&D are far reaching and powerful indeed. D&D is the path to the dark side. D&D leads to OGL. OGL leads to Edition Warring. Edition Warring leads to suffering.
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Oct 9, 2014 17:35
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dwarf74 posted:So, speaking of d6 WEG Star Wars, there's this... This is pretty awesome, cheers! All this Star Wars talk makes me wish somebody was opening up a SW PbP. I'd do it, but I am literally the worst at GMing/PbPing.
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Oct 9, 2014 17:38
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:If I'm remembering correctly, the reason why the Imperials did so well at the Battle of Endor according to WEG was because the Emperor was using battle meditation to boost the whole imperial fleet. This is just like in KOTOR except he was not actually meditating by any definition in the movie. Nope, that's due to Bioware. In the original Thrawn Trilogy, Zahn took a line about how the Empire fell apart with the "dark center" of the Emperor from the novelization of ROTJ and made it an explicit thing, but not a conscious Jedi power. Post-KOTOR, they then attributed the "battle meditation" to an admiral on board the Death Star.
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Oct 9, 2014 17:58
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Pretty sure Battle Meditation predates Bioware and KOTOR by a good bit- it showed up in the old "Tales of the Jedi" comics in the early-mid nineties. Bioware borrowed it from them.
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Oct 9, 2014 18:04
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unseenlibrarian posted:Pretty sure Battle Meditation predates Bioware and KOTOR by a good bit- it showed up in the old "Tales of the Jedi" comics in the early-mid nineties. Bioware borrowed it from them. The term shows up in KOTOR first, and all the stuff about it being meditative comes in from there. Those old comics had people doing it while they dodged lasers and cut mooks up.
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Oct 9, 2014 18:07
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EotE kinda lost me with the line about the game taking place in the "dark and gritty" side of the Star Wars universe. I get thinking Han Solo is the coolest but that's just missing what makes Star Wars what it is more so than the presence or absence of Jedi. Star Wars is Flash Gordon with some Kurosawa and Campbell added. It's not Traveller and it's not military sf. (How much of a military focus does AoR have BTW?)
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Oct 9, 2014 18:15
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The idea of powerful character acting as a sort of force multiplier (no pun intended) in space battles is pretty cool though. In a well balanced Star Wars RPG it would give non-Pilot characters an interesting role whether they're Jedi or just diplomats or something.
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Oct 9, 2014 18:16
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Zahn wanted to do military SF in the Star Wars universe but needed some reason why decidedly not military SF types could have done anything important before the Genius Admiral Thrawn got in there. That's also why the books have tons of stuff about how the Empire wouldn't have fallen if they'd let Thrawn run everything. Thus, Force strategic magic ( which is still not as good as Thrawn). Nowadays Star Wars is basically a playground for lots of forms of soft SF and space fantasy. Doing something like the movies is one way to go about it, but there are a ton of other approaches to go for. MalcolmSheppard fucked around with this message at 18:43 on Oct 9, 2014 |
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Oct 9, 2014 18:26
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"Battle Meditation" first showed up in Timothy Zahn's HEIRS TO THE EMPIRE, the first ever EU novel, as the explanation for why the Imperial Fleet fell apart once the Emperor was killed (and why the Empire splintered, and why it took five years before someone was able to put enough of the pieces together to be a threat to The New Republic). e: Durrr, need to refresh before posting
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Oct 9, 2014 18:26
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A CHAT THREAD?!? I was not informed  Alien Rope Burn posted:On a totally different note, I'm reading through Designers & Dragons: the 80s, and it mentions an unnamed freelancer who apparently introduced Kevin Siembieda to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic, and wrote an early draft of the game which was rejected by Siembieda (to be completely rewritten by Erick Wujcik in the final month before release). Really Pants posted:Which one did Gary Gygax drink? Gary Gygax circa 2001 posted:Favorite Beverages: Coffee in the AM, iced tea, a Gibson before dinner, a good Bordeaux with that meal, Armagnac after. A cool glass of ale (Samuel Adams is fine) just about anytime in between. Gygax: He's Got You Covered. (Granted non-Americans basically would not consider iced tea to be tea at all) BrainParasite posted:The Make-A-Wish Foundation (The other Foundation joke was also masterful) dwarf74 posted:True story, their former HQ is an easy walk from my house. Also I am mad that some dude stole the defunct GDW sign, though apparently he at least takes good care of it. Also Dark Conspiracy was a great game despite being run by the system it was. There was truly nothing finer for anyone who wanted to portray a guy in a trenchcoat gunning things down, at least until Columbine ruined that visual for everyone. 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.
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Oct 9, 2014 19:12
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Quarex posted:The Rock is good? Huh, I was so mad that Zorba's finally had nearby competition that I never even tried their gyros. I've been eating there since it was over off Main, and it's only gotten better. The owner, Said, is a really great guy, too. I didn't care much for Zorba's gyros at all. 
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Oct 9, 2014 19:26
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Parkreiner posted:Exactly. People thinking D&D instead of Feng Shui is the problem, not the source (until the prequels anyway, where Force users ARE the only ones doing anything meaningful). This is the exact right way to put it. One of the best parts of Feng Shui, even though it's a pretty old game with some wonky mechanics, is that Secret Member Of Secret Wizard Police guy is about on par with Beat Cop Who Really Believes In the Community is about on par with Tired Old Special Forces Soldier Back For One Last Mission. There were occasionally balance quirks or issues between the Archetypes, but there wasn't much that made Kickass Cyborg From The Future have significantly more narrative agency than Good Hearted Normal Guy Who Keeps Getting Into poo poo. Guns, Arcanowave, Fu, Magic (though Magic had, as it always seems to, some really wonky balance problems), and Literally Demon Powers were all just sort of the flavor of how you accomplished being an action hero, rather than making the explicitly supernatural guys inherently superior. Not only that, but all of these were technically available to anyone; the guy who starts out as an ordinary beat cop could, with enough EXP and time, learn to be a wizard or use terrifying magitek stuff or learn mighty ancient kung fu. Or the ancient wizard could learn from the hardened special forces guy and pick up a rifle. Actually, didn't 4e do something similar? Where you had various 'power sources' that just explained and flavored why you could pull off the kickass poo poo your class did? Night10194 fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Oct 9, 2014 |
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Oct 9, 2014 19:53
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Night10194 posted:Actually, didn't 4e do something similar? Where you had various 'power sources' that just explained and flavored why you could pull off the kickass poo poo your class did? Yeah, basically. Sometimes there'd be specific mechanics tied to power sources but that varied a lot more than the mechanics tied to various roles the characters had. Since Feng Shui is being talked about now, how likely is it that the kickstarter version will be good? Should I drop some cash on it while it's in its final days?
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Oct 9, 2014 21:05
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Nuns with Guns posted:Yeah, basically. Sometimes there'd be specific mechanics tied to power sources but that varied a lot more than the mechanics tied to various roles the characters had. If you back for  you can get a copy of the beta rules.
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Oct 9, 2014 21:13
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It's...well, FS2 is still very clearly 90s-style design, but they've been trying to patch some of the old weird balance problems. It's pretty good, just don't expect perfection.
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Oct 9, 2014 21:14
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Honestly when I backed I had hoped they were going for more of a complete overhaul of the system than they had.
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Oct 9, 2014 21:37
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It a big step in the right direction and I'm excited to try the playtest soon, but there's some stuff that doesn't quite step far enough. Movement, for example, is kind of a big deal and barely even has rules.
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Oct 9, 2014 21:37
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I was never really able to get into old Feng Shui, but I had a blast running the pre-kickstarter playtest of the new one. Supposedly the Kickstarter version is even better, so I'm definitely going to try to pledge if I can get the money before the deadline.
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Oct 9, 2014 21:53
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Quarex posted:A CHAT THREAD?!? I was not informed I was going to sticky it but the TG stickies were getting cluttered.
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Oct 10, 2014 00:26
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As I said, I think Star Wars sorta needs two "modes." One is more low key pulpy style action a'la original trilogy; Han Solo is a good shot with a blaster and a good pilot, Luke does front flips and sabers dudes, Lando is a good pilot and has some vague leadership abilities (and the ability to be suave as gently caress). The second is EU/prequels/Clone Wars high fantasy action, where jedi are force pushing groups of droids around and performing ridiculous acrobatics and cutting through armies, while republic commandos are mowing down enemies with heavy repeater blasters and taking out armor with rocket launchers and wearing super strong armor. The idea that Jedi have to be the former and non-jedi the latter is pure D&D BS. Incidentally, it always rubbed me the wrong way how EotE really tried to amp up and emphasize it as THE GRITTY STAR WARS, because Star Wars was never gritty. Even in the wretched hive of scum and villainy of Mos Eisley, the atmosphere was far more low key and vaguely noir-ish then it was vicious grim and gritty. Han Solo was a smug roguish scoundrel with a cocky grin, not some horrible amoral criminal from a gritty crime drama.
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Oct 10, 2014 01:36
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What the hell is your new avatar?
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