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Nerf jedi. But also buff them. Nerf and buff select parts of jedi.
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Aug 15, 2014 20:20
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Drone posted:I've not been following any of the Force & Destiny test games in TGR, what's the general consensus on the Jedi stuff? I'm working on writing a campaign and thought about doing a party with a 2 EotE/2 AoR/1 F&D character split, wondering how that'd work out. My two main gripes are that I dislike how the lightsaber trees are set up (each career has their own one lightsaber tree and some are dramatically better then others while some don't fit the career at all), and force powers scale really, really weird and lead to a lot of narrative and mechanical dissonance (the dark side isn't just easier or faster, it's literally better and stronger in every way; some force powers are obscenely powerful; the force in general is hard to impossible to use regularly, but when you can use it, you gain Starkiller-esque power)
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Sep 8, 2014 21:04
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To be frank the lightsaber rework with all the individual trees for each class that don't match up half the time (with some being very distinctly better then others) is, shall we say, not exactly the most well done part of the book.
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Sep 29, 2014 22:14
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I do find it vaguely amusing that the dark side isn't just faster then the light side, it is flat out legitimately better and stronger in every way.
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Sep 30, 2014 00:14
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Ramba Ral posted:Except Vader was testing him in Empire, and Luke snapped at Vader in Return. He got better with a lightsaber in Returns, but he wasn't a Sonny Chiba sword master. I have no idea how you could criticize using a lightsaber as being a silly crutch true masters don't use, and then bring up a fuckin' metal-rear end sword as the viable option  The problem with making lightsabers very brawn based is that it bumps against the archtypical jedi, Luke. Luke wasn't exactly a super muscular guy. Lightsabers using Agi fit with Luke's character being basically all Will and Agility. He's not slamming it down two handed against Vader because that's just how you use a lightsaber, he's doing that because he's starting to turn to the dark side and he's unleashing his anger. In Bespin, Luke clearly isn't swinging it around like a bat, and he also does a few small acrobatics throughout the fight - certainly not Episode 1 levels, but he isn't just standing there trading blows. Now, Vader, he starts by one handing that poo poo, but turns to overwhelming Luke with sheer physical force. So hey, Brawn certainly works as an option. But making it everything or even mandatory just doesn't fit. Like, that's the thing about mechanics - you have to look at how characters interact with them. If lightsabers use brawn, then that means jedi are all going to be big buff burly dudes. Which is a kinda hilarious mental image, but also doesn't fit in the slightest. Lightsabers are "an elegant weapon, for a more civilized age." Not just some big ol' beatstick. In fact, if you DO want to follow the original trilogy, it seems pretty clear that using Brawn is the dark sided method of Lightsaberin'.
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Sep 30, 2014 08:53
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Fuzz posted:Jedi aren't D&D Mages. Then why are you stating their weapon has to be connected to their magic power?  Jedi aren't D&D Mages but that doesn't mean Luke didn't carve poo poo up with his saber. In fact Luke was basically all about saberin' poo poo and doing front flips (acrobatics, not athletics). If you want to limit Jedi power then you need to look at their powers. Not their weapon that requires they run into melee range. EDIT: And I mean, "I don't think Jedi should be good at using a lightsaber AND using a blaster AND piloting a spaceship" literally describes Luke, and it's also really weird because you can make any given character who's great at blasterin' and flyin' but somehow you add a melee weapon that the blaster dudes would never use and suddenly it's out of the question. ProfessorCirno fucked around with this message at 20:27 on Sep 30, 2014 |
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Sep 30, 2014 20:24
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Valatar posted:Handing a lightsaber to Luke was an act of insanity or extreme recklessness on Obi-Wan's part. Then sticking a helmet over his eyes while he's in a confined room inside a spaceship and telling him to block blaster shots was just begging for him to kill Han when he walked in or put a hole in the Falcon's hull with an errant swing. Unless that lightsaber had a beginner setting on it and the blade wasn't at full power or something similar, putting it in the hands of a total novice and having him swing it around blindly lends credence to the theory that Obi-Wan was an insane drunk by that point. Or maybe nerds have some sorta inherent inability to understand "narrative." Fuzz posted:And this is the key point. Luke was supposedly CRAZY STRONG with the Force, like one of the most powerful Force users to ever live... Vader and the Emperor even mention this when they talk about how quickly his skills progress, because he's a natural. It just flows naturally through him and requires minimal effort, unlike most Jedi. This is unfortunately not how F&D supports things, as the way force powers work dramatically support super jedi throwing around AT-ATs. The problem I tend to see though is that people are so paranoid of prequel or "Unleashed" style "super jedi" that they overreact and nerf jedi to the point where you can't actually be Luke anymore. And if your Star Wars game doesn't let you become a Luke-alike, it is, for me, fundamentally useless.
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Sep 30, 2014 23:33
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Fuzz posted:Thing is, the VAST MAJORITY of Jedi would only have a Force Rating of 2 or 3... that's why when everyone was initially complaining about how "Knight Level Play" was way too underpowered, I was sitting there wondering "Wait... what's the problem here?" Except you're missing the problem. The problem is "can't use the force at all -> can use the force regularly" a'la Luke's growth costs like two full trees, whereas "can bring your lightsaber to you -> just loving chuck around a few X-Wings why not" costs like half a tree. My problem is and continues to be that the actual pacing is completely hosed. Learning to use the force to the point where you can use the force in minor ways consistently Luke Style should be far easier then going all Unleashed and poo poo. Currently it is the opposite. Or, if you want me to put it another way, the issue is that Force Rating rarely actually measures your strength and instead measures your consistency, mostly due to how the force die are built; light side dots are more rare big bigger, dark side dots are more common but smaller. Ironically, if you look at that, it's the opposite for dark side characters, so you get this extremely absurd set up where sith are good at small Force type stuff like sensing feelings and moving boxes and doing cool front flips when needed, while the jedi are really great at murdering the gently caress out of people every so often.
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Oct 1, 2014 03:30
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Coercion has always been kinda stuck. On one hand, you want the big meathead who glares sullenly at you to be able to actually make that threat. On the other hand, in most cases, it's the small wiseguy next to the big meathead that actually makes the threat; the meathead is just there to provide an example for what'll happen. Chewie didn't coerce the droids into losing - Han did. My go-to example is Joe Pesci in Goodfellas. Joe Pesci is not a very frightening looking guy. He's not very scary. He's certainly not a high brawn character. But it's pretty clear the dude can intimidate and coerce the poo poo out of others.
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Oct 16, 2014 21:23
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Or ask him in real life to tone it down instead of being a passive aggressive shitbag, I mean christ, "Make him roll a bunch then just take away his character! That'll show him!"
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Nov 21, 2014 12:10
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Or go "hey your character is actually a bit too strong for me to handle, could we remake the character and maybe tone down the deathbotness of it?"
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Nov 21, 2014 21:18
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Someone earlier in the thread mentioned Scoundrel as being a bad specialization; are there any other specializations (or flat out careers) that just don't work as advertised, either because they end up improving something else or because they're just plain no good?
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Mar 25, 2015 11:40
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Question: for a sorta "decent at all things roguish" smuggler, would it be best to get multiple trees, go straight down Scoundrel (which seems to have a lot of meh talents), or to go down Gambler? I've been looking at the Gambler tree and it seems to have a fair amount of stuff good for just about ANY character rather then being as specialized as, say, the Pilot. Double or Nothing in particular seems great for making things slightly more difficult, but dramatically improving your successes if you do succeed, with the tree then giving you stuff like Second Chances (reroll x positive dice 1/encounter), Natural Rogue/Charmer (1/session reroll Skullduggery or Stealth / Cool or Negotiation), Fortune Favors the Bold (1/session flip a destiny point from dark to light) and even Clever Solution (1/session use Cunning instead of an other stat for an action) to let you "cheat" at it. Like I said, being able to rig the odds even as you overly reward yourself for winning feels like something ANY smuggler can use, while Scoundrel seemed oddly focused on a few specific talents.
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Apr 8, 2015 12:53
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nothing to seehere posted:Sounds like you've answered your own question. I suppose I'm asking for others' opinions on if I'm right or if I'm missing something important!
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Apr 8, 2015 13:26
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Droids are considered property but gain sapience if they go too long without a restraining bolt or memory wipe. As such most people keepvtheir droids bolted with regular memory wipes when they start to exhibit quirks or personslity traits.
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Apr 13, 2015 01:22
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PantsOptional posted:From a Doylist perspective, the goal was to show that Jabba's palace is a terrible place for terrible people, and the filmmakers didn't want to go so far as to show actual human beings being tortured in a movie that was ostensibly for kids. Every time torture had come up previously, they'd show a pointy bit being angled toward a character, then cut away. Yeah, while it's fun to talk about the setting, it's also really important to remember that "movie" came before "universe." Star Wars is not an actual place that exists in real life. See also: the endlessly stupid arguments about WELL WHAT HAN REALLY MEANT ABOUT THE 12 PARSECS IS...
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Apr 13, 2015 21:12
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I mean I wasn't even trying to talk about the prequels. Just that the whole "12 PARSECS" thing was written by someone who probably didn't even know what a parsec was and just wanted to make it sound space-y and overly brag-y. That nerds immediately pounced on it to find the TRUE RAMIFICATIONS ON THE SETTING says a lot, it just doesn't say a lot about Star Wars.
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Apr 13, 2015 22:02
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homullus posted:Empire Strikes Back is darker and grittier than A New Hope. The characters have to make some hard decisions with some consequences, and some bad things happen that move the story forward. I don't need the Star Wars version of Reservoir Dogs, but a Star Wars version of The Godfather sounds pretty great to me (and The Godfather is grittier than Star Wars). Man ESB isn't what I'd call gritty. It's still pretty basic heroic space opera.
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Apr 15, 2015 04:03
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Like yes most EU stuff was terrible but it's not as if the canon stuff is amazing either. Isn't that right, Mr Sleazebaggano?
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May 14, 2015 07:44
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I mean by the third movie Luke is just somersaulting and flip-jumping all over the drat place.
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May 20, 2015 22:03
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Gambler is pretty good. Somewhat specialized in lyin' and cheatin' (skullduggery and deception) but they get a lot of overall bonuses to any action. It's not my first recommendation for a dude who talks and punches though.
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Jul 28, 2015 15:53
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Is the dex lightsaber tree still weirdly connected to two outdoorsey bullshit ones? Have either of those two trees been made less, uh, specialist?
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Jul 30, 2015 01:16
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As I understand it sorta comes down to the Decker Problem. If the pilot were making a cool decision that's one thing, but these scenes drag out across multiple rounds. Like, how many times does the Han Solo of the group roll the same dice when trying to convince someone of something? Most of the time, you roll once. When you're leaping across the roofs to escape the hunter-droid on your tail, does your GM make you roll for every single roof? As was already mentioned, setting up the astrogate is likewise a single roll RPGs in general lean towards combat being way more crunchy then everything else; one roll will convince a duder to back down, but you have a full combat scene when that fails. That's all well and good, as everyone in Star Wars can handle a weapon except the goddamn droids, and the "action" is sorta meant to be somewhat the meat of the game, but carrying that granularity to ship combat suddenly turns that full combat scene into a single players' minigame. And that's not even touching if the actual mechanics beyond that are a hot mess.
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Aug 18, 2015 11:06
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Samuel Mother loving L Jackson tells you he invented a lightsaber fighting style, you nod and go sure.
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Dec 27, 2015 22:45
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Corbeau posted:The lack of reflect suggests that Makashi is a bad idea for the type of game we've been playing, sadly. Intellect is a secondary stat though, and Soresu has plenty of anti-gun tech. On the other hand Makashi is connected to the Mystic, which is maybe amongst the best of the F&D classes, with their Seer tree a) having a bunch of good sorta "generic" upgrades anyone can use, and b) allowing you to make almost a straight bee-line for two Force Rating improvements. Then you have their advisor tree which lets you be a pretty drat good party face, and you're more or less set.
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Dec 28, 2015 09:54
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jivjov posted:Plus it's a great starting point to build a Luke-alike, or some other Hero's Journey character. Start out as a merchant or doctor, become a hero. See, this gets thrown around a lot, but when does Luke show off any of those sorta skills or talents? Like the three core trees are Doctor, Politico, and Scholar - I find it real safe stating that none of those things describe Luke in the slightest.
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Dec 29, 2015 03:28
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FuriousAngle posted:From what I've seen the system seems to discourage going to the Dark Side if you're a Force user. I could be wrong (and probably am since I've only read the Edge of the Empire source material) but it seems like running a Force and Destiny campaign with a bunch of antagonistic jerks as players would be a very short game. It is, in fact, the opposite; Dark Side users are explicitly more powerful and better then Light Side users due to how the force die is set up. Funny enough, before F&D's weird and not entirely thought out morality system, it wasn't as bad, as non-dark side Force characters could pony up some strain to change the dice chits. With the weird morality system though, each time you do so, it ALSO pulls you closre to the dark side. The end result is that Sith very literally are better at using the force then Jedi are. Sorry good guys - the Force DOES lean one way.
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Jan 8, 2016 04:08
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FuriousAngle posted:I seem to remember that the Dark Side was more of a short term power, while the Light Side had a longer shelf life. Something from the EU where Palpatine's body kept burning out from constantly drawing on Dark Side energy. And before Lucas screwed with the canon it was suggested that Vader might have needed all the life support apparatus due to him using the Dark Side as well. Yoda lived for over 900 years probably because of his race, but also because he was a friggin' Light Side master. It wasn't until he stopped using the Light Side in exile that he started going downhill. remusclaw posted:I could almost read it as a way of of defining the results of living one way or the other. The violence and power grabbing inherent to dark side philosophy often leads to short term power but also tends to result in the adherents of that philosophy eating their own. While the philosophy of the Jedi is more peaceful and likely to result in longer lives and more stable situations. Sure sure, the fluff is whatever. Mechanically speaking, because of the way the dice are set up, it is in fact the opposite. The Dark Side is more consistent and usually more powerful, the Light Side has occasional sudden bursts of power amidst a lot of loving up. The more force dice you have the more pronounced this gets.
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Jan 8, 2016 04:45
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FuriousAngle posted:Yeah, it makes sense. Like Yoda said, it's "quicker" and "easier." I guess it's the GM's duty to make sure they're suitably challenged for making the decision to go with the more seductive route. Not really? The way using the force works is simple; you roll force die equal to your force rating, count the pips. If you're DARK SIDED, you count those; if you're light sided, etc. The problem is the way the dice is set up; there are substantially more dark side faces on the die then there are light side, with the light side faces more often having two pips instead of one. This means dark side force users will be vastly more consistent - there are far higher odds for them to succeed at using the force then the light side. On the other side, when the light side DOES win it's roll, it tends to have more pips then the dark side. The problem is threefold. For starters, not having pips means you just loving fail, the end. Unlike the other die there's no "fail at bonus" or "succeed at cost." If you look at the other die, they're likewise somewhat weighted in their faces - given entirely even odds, you are most likely going to succeed at cost (which, you know, FITS EotE perfectly, of a bunch of Han Solo-rear end motherfuckers who win by the skin of their teeth but just made all their debts even worse in doing so. You escape the Imperial blockade, and watch your cargo vanish as you hit hyperspace). But when using the force, it's just...nope. Sorry. You're a good guy, so you fail. You don't do it. No, nothing interesting happens, gently caress off, you just failed. Secondly, multiple pips doesn't always actually MATTER. Most force powers are simple: roll the die. Do you get at least one pip? You succeed! The end. Light side jedi are far more likely to have all those awesome extra pips do absolutely nothing. Their sudden blasts of power...don't exist. Now, once you start pumping more and more experience into powers you get more things to spend those pips on, but this just adds to the frustration of lower level play where you find yourself consistently doing jack poo poo. Third...frankly, it DOESN'T match the fluff. The fluff these mechanics create state that the sith are frankly just plain better at using the Force. It's not so much quicker and easier as it is more consistent - the Force literally favors them. It's...well, it's REVERSED. The light side force is sudden, big, and short - flash in the pan. Sith power is everlasting and stable. The whole thing reeks of crowbaring the system into dice it wasn't meant to really support. The force die are really weird compared to the rest of the game, and while they work just fine for setting up destiny points and the like, they're absolutely terrible for class abilities. Everything else in FFG is set around "when you roll the dice, SOMETHING interesting is going to happen." But that's not true for force powers. It's entirely binary in a way nothing else is - you succeed or fail. And it's weighed towards failure. And even when you DO succeed by a giant magnitude, it...doesn't actually mean anything.
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Jan 8, 2016 05:06
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Dark Side isn't mechanically superior at low levels. It is mechanically superior at any given level of the game!
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Jan 8, 2016 14:41
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jivjov posted:Until you have a bunch of force powers that require multiple pips to make full use of, and you don't want to eat the strain hit from using dark pips. And by the time you hit that, you'll also have a high enough Force Rating to comfortably hit those pips as a dark sider. Don't forget - you don't just eat strain from using dark pips with F&D morality, it actively lowers your morality and turns you more to the dark side - in which case you don't eat strain, because now you're a sith, making you objectively mechanically stronger then any jedi. Again, dark side favors consistent amounts of pips that gradually increase in power, light side favors intermittent bursts that are feast or famine - except the feast is typically more then you can actually eat. Also, each upgrade only costs one pip, so you don't NEED that many pips to begin with? Like one pip to activate, one for strength, I guess one for magnitude? That's three. Remember, pips don't decide actual power when using an offensive power - you use an actual (and far more interesting) skill for that. Like, at the end of the day, my complaint remains "force die are not set up for player power usage." They're boring (no cost/boost), they overwhelmingly favor failure, they don't really fit the fluff, etc. And while pre-F&D you could salvage things by spending strain, you can no longer do that in F&D.
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Jan 8, 2016 15:06
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I mean, my issue with force rolls remain that they are just real boring. The dice are weighted towards failure, and unlike everything else in the game, failure doesn't mean something interesting still happens, it just means you do nothing. Using the Force is pushed towards completely wasted actions - which is something the game is otherwise real good about not having.
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Jan 8, 2016 22:58
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Force Powers work way better and are way more interesting in EotE though. Like, one of the big issues with F&D is the really poorly thought out morality system that replaces the far more interesting systems you got in the previous two lines. When turning to the dark side is a question of narrative and taking stress, that's great. When doing so means you objectively gain +1 Dark Side Points, it becomes way, way less interesting.
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Jan 9, 2016 04:07
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Corbeau posted:I'm fairly new to the system, but some play and tinkering with the character generator definitely reinforces that you should spent all or almost all your points on characteristics since they're far harder to modify. Also it's slightly more efficient to double-up on career/species skills rather than spreading them out, since the second level of a skill is more expensive to level up later. Less of a big deal, but it's something I notice since I didn't do it with my character. Funny enough, while you do absolutely want to put all your points into characteristics - or at least as much as possible - I've found it to be good for humans to spread themselves out a lot. Hitting 4 in an attribute costs way more then hitting 3 in chargen, but it costs the same with Dedication. All my humans go at least 2/2/2/3/3/3, and I had some I went outright 2/2/3/3/3/3 - I found it also helps sorta stress the whole "humans are good at LOTS of stuff, if not as specialized." After all, the more dice you throw down, the better. Iceclaw posted:That can be said of Obligation, too: "I have a huge debt to a Hutt, but considering my obligation is very low, I guess it's not so bad!" The difference between Obligation and F&D's morality kinda helps cement some of my issues with F&D. Obligations are interesting. They're inherent plot hooks. They also draw in the whole party. Han Solo's Obligations make up the entirety of the start of Return of the Jedi! It's all good stuff! Morality on the other hand just tends to feel...I mean, ok, they're probably going for "personal," but it also ends up being a bit "single-player centered." When Han Solo is taken by Jabba, everyone gets involved getting him back. Compare it to Luke's big finale with Vader and the Emperor - it's great stuff, but it's just Luke. When an Obligation is triggered, things are about to get "interesting" for the whole group. There's no setting off Morality for plot reasons. Also, maybe it's just me, but a jedi who owes a massive favor to someone unscrupulous and has to worry about the HUGE Imperial bounty on their head is way more interesting then a jedi who's 65% Light Side and good at Bravery but bad at Anger. The former is several plot hooks and leads into other NPCs and adventures; the latter is...just describing your duder. Which the former can still do!
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Jan 10, 2016 00:21
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Like I see WHY they did it. It's a decision that makes sense in a lot of other games. It's just...not smart for THIS one. The general point of the engine and how stats/skills work - EotE especially - is that nobody is "useless." Stats are, broadly speaking, your general aptitudes - and people are supposed to have good general aptitudes. Specialization isn't done via stats, and to be frank it isn't even done as much with skills (which I've come to consider the weakest part of the game) - it's done via talents. Someone with high agility, and the gunslinger job is going to play differently from someone with high agility, and a pilot job. One character might have high agility and cunning and ok presence and plays themselves as the cunning thief; someone else has high cunning and presence and ok agility and is the charming scoundrel and "face man." Even though their stats are neigh identical you end up with very different characters.
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Feb 19, 2016 06:02
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FuriousAngle posted:-Successes seem REALLY easy to get. Does anyone else find this? Is this intentional? Statistically, so long as the dice are completely even on both sides, the average roll will give a success with threat, which fits the game's mood. There are more successes on the player-side dice, more threat on the GM-side dice. quote:-Some players are hilariously indignant whenever they commit a crime and someone wants them to stop. Or, even worse, when someone tries to hold them responsible for their criminal actions. Man, welcome to players in general. I've always stated that games don't need some mechanic that tempts them into doing terrible things - they're more then happy to do it themselves, then go into full evil villain justifications when called on it.
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Feb 29, 2016 22:21
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Yeah, the jedi classes really don't run the risk of being overpowered, at least not early on. Once he has enough XP to pump up his force rating and choice powers it can get a bit extreme, but by then the rest of the party has been pumping their own stuff with their likewise XP to match. The only thing that sorta stands out is lightsabers being strong weapons, but sorta push him that flashing that around publicly is going to call down a LOT of heat, and frankly, unless he pumps Brawn, melee is probably a poor idea early on anyways with how easy it is to get shot up. The morality stuff is a trash fire. Ignore it.
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Mar 17, 2016 22:31
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jivjov posted:If that player insists on having a saber, give him one of the weaker/junkier ones from EotE rather than the 'proper' one from F&D. Even outside of a mixed group, the morality system does do one very damaging thing - pre-morality, you could spend strain to spend force chits. Now it actively taxes your morality. Basically, it widens the gap between "newbie jedi who can't even float their saber" and "goddamn force tyrannosaurus." The latter doesn't NEED to do this - the former absolutely needs to, and in turn gets punished a lot more for it. There's already a balance system for using dark side points willy nilly - there's more dark side points for the GM to gently caress you over with. And it costs plenty of strain to boot! Also, it's just kinda...boring. If you're going to have morality, have it as a side system for the jedi and ensure they still have obligations and the like.
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Mar 17, 2016 22:38
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Siivola posted:I don't get why Cirno's making such a big deal out of the whole mechanic. It doesn't do anything, unless you go out of your way to cook babies for dinner with lightning. For every dark side point you use you take a point of conflict which might or might not convert into a morality loss, which might or might not eventually push you down to 30 after a month of gaming. Unless your GM is really into making the game about the dark side, you'll have to put in effort to avoid shining blue from all the morality points you gain. Basically: a) It's boring. Compared to the similar mechanics in the previous two books which were basically plot hooks served on a silver platter that your players could choose from to give you all kinds of levers to pull with them, morality just doesn't offer the same. Like, ok, my jedi is Greedy, but Compassionate. Sure. My scoundrel owed a heavy debt to a rebel sympathizer who helped him out earlier in his life, but I likewise needs a whole lot of credits to help pay off debt collectors coming for his family. Oh, and he's also greedy but compassionate. Morality is just a way to describe your character rather then talk about the things that shape them. b) It makes using the force weaker at early levels (where it's already weak), and more powerful at higher levels (where it's already extremely powerful). Pre-F&D, when you made a roll to use the force, you rolled your Force Rating in force dice and counted the light side chits. Now, the dice are structured so that it is more common for you to roll dark side pips then light side. You could spend strain and flip over a Destiny Point from light side to dark side to use the dark side pips as if they were light side ones. And that's great! Turning to the dark side briefly actually and literally increases the adversity you'll face later. You are literally powering the "enemy" when you do that, and making the world just a little bit shittier. But now doing that adds to your ~*~dark side score~*~. It basically puts up a road block there. It stops interesting things from happening, and to be frank, it does punish jedi for doing that, because of the awards you get at having a high light side score. You have to choose between "do a cool thing now" or "be stronger later on in the game," which is a stupid decision to make players make. And of course, once you DO have a high enough light side score, you don't have to worry about this as much. There's wiggle room at the top. So now that you already have a super rad kicking Force Rating, you can make it extra powerful by turning over to the dark side (but only a little) when needed. c) It feels way too "Star Wars Video Game" as opposed to "Star Wars Movie." FFG Star Wars was super, super good at capturing the feel of the movies, but morality actively hampers that. You can't as easily have Luke being taunted by Vader and convinced to turn to the dark side to lash out against him. You absolutely can't have Luke turning Vader away from the dark side in one dramatic scene to redeem him. It's very Bioware-esque. It removes those spaces inbetween "ultimate good guy" and "puppy-kicker villain." it adds a metagame that pushes you away from, well, interesting things happening. Because now you absolutely have a mechanic that tells you whether or not you did a good thing. d) I feel it honestly just adds a level of gamification to something that didn't need it. Again, it Biowares up this poo poo. Having a literal point value for how Not An rear end in a top hat you are plays havoc to a lot of things. It adds in the Paladin Problem. Suddenly jedi are stepping on eggshells at all times to ensure they don't take ~*~dark side points~*~. It adds an argument where there previously wasn't one. Instead of letting actions and consequences play out naturally, you have to consider this ungainly new mechanic to see if you have to personally go after the jedi. Jedi should be conflicted, but in-character, not in-mechanics. They should always want to do what's right, and have THAT be the stepping stone to turning to evil. Anakin wasn't trying to score up sick nasty dark side points to get that sweet bonus. I'm not going to claim FFG Star Wars was "rules light," but it focused on the narrative in it's rules. Morality doesn't do that. In fact, it actively hurts that! Basically, ALL mechanics encourage certain types of play. The kind of play the morality mechanic encourages is stuff I don't want anywhere near my Star Wars game.
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Mar 18, 2016 21:46
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Siivola posted:Edit edit: By which I mean that just like the point of an EotE campaign is not actually to pay off your debts, the point of my ideal F&D game is not to infallibly remain a decent person. The real actual point is to first fail at either of those and see how you then have to scramble to make up for it. You don't get rewarded for paying off the debt. You absolutely get rewarded for maintaining your perfect paragon status. Like, morality does not have an actual conflict. Flat out, mechanically, being a perfect paragon - or the most sinister of villains - is the Best Choice. It is mechanically encouraged. Staying in moral grey areas and trying to actually figure out how to act isn't what the morality system encourages, it does the opposite. Mechanics mean something, and if the response is "then get rid of the mechanic" then well yeah, that's what I'm saying. I WANT F&D to be a game where th goal is not to infallibly remain the most perfect boy scout, to fail at things and try to figure out how to manage that, to make hard decisions and have consequences flow naturally out of that. The morality system does not do that. It tells you after your action that You Are A Bad Guy. There's no room for depth there! Again - it Bioware's the gently caress out of a game that very thankfully didn't have that problem. It removes ambiguity and turns the GM into the Roleplay Police.
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Mar 19, 2016 02:57
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