Hi,

inspired by the Force User Advancement Thoughts-Thread ( http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/99908-force-user-advancement-thoughts/ ) I wanted to ask you how you try to tempt a Force Sensitive Character and their player with the Dark Side.

What things do you do? Do they work well? Have you found things that never worked really well?

How do you make your PCs try to fall to the Dark Side? Is that even one of your goals?

I never had to offer any temptation to the Smuggler (FSEx, Scoundrel) in my last game. She was a coldhearted gunslinger that used Uncanny Reactions and Uncanny Senses to get the drop on her foes. She never had any training in the Force (I require training for Force Powers, but not for talents from the specialization trees), but she was on a dark path.

I never had to offer any temptation to the Smuggler (FSEx, Scoundrel) in my last game. She was a coldhearted gunslinger that used Uncanny Reactions and Uncanny Senses to get the drop on her foes. She never had any training in the Force (I require training for Force Powers, but not for talents from the specialization trees), but she was on a dark path.

And what happened then? How did you GM her turn to the Dark Side? Was that the player's wish as well? Did you have arguments?

I had a whole thread on here somewhere that described the end of that game. Basically the players kept pushing for a darker game (slave trading, premeditated murder, slaughtering Tuskens for sport, etc.) and I told them I wasn't enjoying it. After a few more sessions and several more talks, I decided I didn't want to run that game anymore and I ended it.

Book kind of describes some basic things you can do when you/they think they've gone too far to the dark side, which is basically to set their default force pip use to black instead of white, and having to flip a force die and taking strain to use the white ones. Other than that, there's probably going to be a mechanic introduced (perhaps as the equivalent to Obligation & Duty) in Force and Destiny.

I'd also suggest making them a bigger draw for force-related troubles. Maybe on the same planet, an Emperor's Hand on a mission, a do-gooder Jedi in-hiding, or just a a force-sensitive that wants to silence the player's dark aura, comes out and hunts the player down. Maybe the Imperials try to recruit them. Or maybe their darker acts just bring trouble to them regardless in the way of a bounty or criminal obligation.

Book kind of describes some basic things you can do when you/they think they've gone too far to the dark side, which is basically to set their default force pip use to black instead of white, and having to flip a force die and taking strain to use the white ones. Other than that, there's probably going to be a mechanic introduced (perhaps as the equivalent to Obligation & Duty) in Force and Destiny.

I'd also suggest making them a bigger draw for force-related troubles. Maybe on the same planet, an Emperor's Hand on a mission, a do-gooder Jedi in-hiding, or just a a force-sensitive that wants to silence the player's dark aura, comes out and hunts the player down. Maybe the Imperials try to recruit them. Or maybe their darker acts just bring trouble to them regardless in the way of a bounty or criminal obligation.

Hi Lathrop,

I'm afraid you're missing my point. I don't need adventure ideas - I wanted to know what you do to tempt Force Users to take more and more steps down the Dark Side.

Okay have you thought about introducing a Sith Holocron?

Basically a Holocron of a Sith Lord often houses their actual spirit so they can be used to train would be darksiders although they tend to have their own viewpoints on whats appropriate ala Darth Bane.

Could even have them find a tutor unaware they're fallen to the darkside and through following their teachings maybe so have they...

That one would only work if the player in question is willing to go down that path, tempting them through training probably works better.

However I wonder how they'd react if after learning from that sith holocron they now don't use lightside but rather darkside instead?

In that case you don't actively send them down the darkside their actions in this case looking for training does that instead and the best part is you don't penalise them just allow them to decide what to do if they want to redeem themselves then all the better its just a thematic tactic to make them better appreciate their character more.

Now if they decide they don't want to redeem themselves then maybe Palpatine becomes interested in them and through that Vader might decide to do something permanent about that interest ... just saying Vader never reacted well to the discovery that his Master has secret force using servants!

Book kind of describes some basic things you can do when you/they think they've gone too far to the dark side, which is basically to set their default force pip use to black instead of white, and having to flip a force die and taking strain to use the white ones. Other than that, there's probably going to be a mechanic introduced (perhaps as the equivalent to Obligation & Duty) in Force and Destiny.

I'd also suggest making them a bigger draw for force-related troubles. Maybe on the same planet, an Emperor's Hand on a mission, a do-gooder Jedi in-hiding, or just a a force-sensitive that wants to silence the player's dark aura, comes out and hunts the player down. Maybe the Imperials try to recruit them. Or maybe their darker acts just bring trouble to them regardless in the way of a bounty or criminal obligation.

Hi Lathrop,

I'm afraid you're missing my point. I don't need adventure ideas - I wanted to know what you do to tempt Force Users to take more and more steps down the Dark Side.

Perhaps the conversation can just flow in a natural way here. Lathrop's suggestions seem perfectly relevant to what you're asking.

Ways to tempt the PC to the Dark Side will surely be based on context and whatever adventures your characters are getting into, right?

For example, Lathrop suggested something about a do-gooder Jedi in hiding. What with enormous bounties offered by the Empire for information about surviving Jedi, this seems like it would be a compelling draw for a character who has been living lean on the fringes. If they've got 20 credits in their pocket, their starship needs repairs, and they haven't eaten anything that wasn't ship's rations in weeks, they might be very motivated to turn in a hiding Jedi for the promise of 10,000 credits or the like.

In terms of the mechanics of the game, it seems like rolling Dark Side force pips will often be a challenge for the player, because they can either fail to activate their powers at all (in a situation where it could mean life or death), or they can draw on the Dark Side and make use of the dark pips to accomplish their goals.

I was listening to an early Order 66 and Steve Horvath from FFG described his Force Sensitive character being in a situation where his party felt desperate for a good break because things had been going really badly for them. He used his Influence to convince a shopkeeper to let them part with a droid, and he rolled dark pips ... and agonized over whether to use them, eventually deciding to go ahead and draw on the Dark Side to make this positive thing happen.

Then his relatively naive character was perplexed by how he felt about what he'd done--he wasn't familiar with the effects of the Dark Side, but he felt it through the Force.

Anyway, those are just a couple of ideas. Very often threads on message boards float around their intended subjects rather than sticking directly to whatever the original poster intended, but I feel that with some imagination it's possible to find the answers you're looking for.

For example, Lathrop suggested something about a do-gooder Jedi in hiding. What with enormous bounties offered by the Empire for information about surviving Jedi, this seems like it would be a compelling draw for a character who has been living lean on the fringes. If they've got 20 credits in their pocket, their starship needs repairs, and they haven't eaten anything that wasn't ship's rations in weeks, they might be very motivated to turn in a hiding Jedi for the promise of 10,000 credits or the like.

How would that be the Dark Side tempting a Force Sensitive character? But, yes, I see what you're getting at. Providing "easy ways out". How would you continue from such a point if the FS did this? What would you describe? How would you make him feel the effects of giving into the Dark Side?

That's a situation I really like - but that I have no control over. I am searching for other GM's experience and suggestions for actively tempting a PC/player.

How would "Do I turn in this hidden Jedi to the Empire to be tortured and killed, or do I let them go about their business and stay alive" be tempting a character to the Dark Side?

It seems to me that if you choose to turn in a hidden Jedi to the Empire to be tortured and killed for a profit, that is taking a much darker path than allowing the character to stay alive and go about their business.

If they took such a blatantly Dark Side action, I would probably warn the player that doing so would give them a significant Obligation to the Dark Side, a kind of Addiction, possibly 10 or even 15 points. They might also start to feel the effects physically, they might receive a Setback on certain types of checks--maybe Willpower-based checks, for a time to represent having given in to the seductive lure of the Dark Side.

I have a feeling the player would know how to run with this as well, and would roleplay these effects themselves without as much prompting from me. But I might also give them dreams--they might have precognitive dreams where they can hear and feel the Jedi's pain and suffering.

They might start seeing people resembling the Jedi they turned in on the street. "Wait, in the corner of the bar, is that the Jedi you turned in? You look closer and you see it is just someone who bears a resemblance to him, but for a moment you were CERTAIN it was the spitting image of him. He turns and looks right into your eyes."

Those are just a few ideas off the top of my head.

The paths to the Dark Side are often described as being anger, hatred, greed... if the character has opportunities to get some benefit or make something very satisfying happen by giving in to anger or hatred, this can be a temptation.

Have you ever wanted to punch your boss? It might feel good in the moment, but there would be consequences for sure

I like these ideas a lot!

First off, no Pally hunting (setting the force user up to have to choose between the darkside or the darkside) it's kinda mean and feels railroady. Make their choices choices.

Now, about tempting them... aside from the existing mechanical temptations, think of it from the story perspective and just give the player options. Think about the Bioware series of games, where the player is often presented with at least a clear light and darkside (and sometimes neutral) option at various points of the game and the story is adjusted to match.

what these situations look like is kinda up to you and the story you are telling, but look at the basic info on the darkside and you'll see common trends:

Easy

Faster

Emotionally driven

Possibly Selfish

Driven by the end result

Now think about how to translate that into the game.. so some examples:

Players capture an enemy, and are in need of information. They can use various simple mind games to trick him into revealing the information (Hard negotiation and deception checks), or they can simply beat it out of him (easy brawling/coercion checks).

Players rescue the fiancee of a local politician (who we shall call Steve) of questionable repute. Turns out she hates him and only wants to marry her because her grandfather was a well liked politician (who a she thinks was assassinated by Steve's goons) and Steve wants to use the marriage as a stunt to help him in the next election. The players can turn in the girl and land a nice bounty, or help her escape and earn a powerful enemy, but also a mysterious new ally...

The players are defending a small mining settlement from angry indigenous types. Negotiating with them is possible, but very tricky due to their rather odd and specific customs (Hard checks). On the other hand the mining camp has lots of barrels of nasty chemicals that could be easily used to contaminate the natives water supply and force them to move hundreds of km away to the next source. One solution might forge a lasting peace, but the other will get the problems solved right now quick and easy.

Okay, undderstood. How would you, as a GM, model the journey to the Dark Side for the player? Let's say it's Benny, the not-so-competent roleplayer having fun with his "wooo force powers!" Jedi.

Say, he jumps the gun in those examples. How would you - as a GM - show Benny that he's driving more and more towards the Dark Side?

To be clear, are you talking about a situation where the player knows their character is making Dark Side choices but the Character does not?

Or is Benny the naive roleplayer having his character make selfish or other Dark Side choices without realizing they have negative consequences?

If it's the former, I trust my players to have an idea of the journey they want their character to take. Also to trust them to understand the effect it could have on the group itself. If everyone in the group wants to play lightly-tarnished scoundrels with hearts of gold and Benny wants to become the next Emperor's Hand, this could get complicated out-of-character and just make it hard to keep the group all having fun together.

If it's the latter, I'd seed in elements that Benny's character might care about. For example, in our play-through of Long Arm of the Hutt, I introduced a teenage Twi'lek girl who was a member of the mining colony the PCs were helping. She had a boyfriend in the enemy gangster's camp but she was basically a good kid.

Later, when the PCs were attacking the gangster's camp, this girl's life was threatened by the circumstances. The PCs chose to save her at risk to themselves.

You can set up these kinds of choices for the character. Have a young kid who comes up to them on the street, maybe begging for change or food. Maybe they see this kid a few times, and the kid gives a flower to Benny's character. So Benny thinks "aw what a sweet kid".

Then after Benny turns in the Jedi in hiding, he learns the kid was the Jedi's nephew. Now he's an orphan and he doesn't know what happened to his uncle. He's sad and hungry and scared.

Then maybe Benny's character has dreams of the little kid, starving on the street, crying "Where is my uncle?!"

That kinda thing

Well, to be precise, I actually envision the latter situation. Benny is a player that is only vaguely familiar with the Star Wars university and sees the Force as a powerful character upgrade to do more damage and mind controller his enemies. He is not giving any thought to the metaphysical aspects of its duality.

I would like to prevent a situation in which The Force is being simply being added to the character "because now he's a mage, too". But I would rather not have a four hour lecture of the nature of the Force until he reaches an understanding you can only have once you've memorized all of the important EU novels and all movies.

So, yes, I want to show him the Dangers of the Dark Side but fear he will try to game the system. I personally think the temptations of the Dark Side is one of the most interesting aspects in Star Wars RPG, so I would really like to have it in my campaign.

But I don't want a munchkin ala "Hey, only costing a destiny points to use dark side pips - no harm done!" in conjunction with a roleplaying ability that could use some improvement.

//edit: Knowing my player, those dreams will not influence his playing style. We were in a Supernatural group where his mom got eaten in front of him by a hell hound, and I had to remind him at the start of every session that - yeah - should maybe be a bit less cheerful at the moment.

I also don't want to flat out tell him "I think your roleplaying is not good enough for a Force Sensitive" - because I think that's not true. I'd rather teach him about the Force through the game, its system and the backlash of his decisions.

It's tricky, you've got to be clever about how you lure them in so that it's not just: "Hey guy, if you kill this baby, I'll give you 10k credits".

Maybe he gets robbed for a small but significant chunk of his credits; he chases the thief (and maybe you can have it so the group gets separated for this little encounter), and the fairly weak thief fights back with a small little vibroknife. After he takes some damage (probably wound because your first instinct likely won't be to stun), he drops some credits (on accident, and not the full amount he took from the player) and starts to run. If the player chases him down, the thief will beg for his life and give the credits back - and then you'll get to see how the player acts. Killing him? Roughing him up? Robbing him? All a good sign that it'll be easier to draw him to the dark side.

If he doesn't fall for it, then you try again - something smaller and then building up. Maybe you give the group a job work for a nice honest company and give them a few opportunities to steal some items or perform espionage for another company; then you work up. Thievery isn't much, but it's still a push to the dark side.

That makes sense. In that situation, I'd have short versions of 'the talk' about Dark or Light Side with the player often before the sessions, maybe just reminding him to keep in mind that Light Side force is basically doing "good things" and Dark Side is basically doing "bad things".

Then I'd try to populate the world with elements which the character would care about, and then affect those elements. This also presumes that Benny is a roleplayer with enough of a sense of empathy to 'care' about fictional NPCs like a child begging in the street who gives his character a flower.

The most important choices characters make in fiction are the choices that affect themselves and their friends. Luke doesn't think it's important enough to go with Ben to Alderaan, but the Empire murders his family. Han doesn't want to stick around for the Battle of Yavin but he can't help feeling loyalty to Luke and Leia.

You can also use the mechanical consequences:

• Obligation
• Physical effects to their characteristics
• Setback dice on certain checks

If those will help too.

I like the idea of going small and then ramping up. Let's say Benny kills the little kid. How much of a lenience would you give him in another, similar situation afterwards if the player conciously is about to decide to let the next one go because he fears the threat of the Dark Side? Discipline roll? How would you model the Dark Side already having a small (but noticeable?) grasp on him?

Hmm, honestly I'm not sure. In my opinion a lot of the value of this kind of story depends on the sophistication of the roleplayer.

If the player doesn't really understand the distinction between Dark and Light Side (which is, Star Wars mythology aside, one of the most basic ethical concepts imaginable), I'm not sure how far I would go in trying to model the effects of such a story with the mechanics.

There is a good Order 66 episode where just this kind of question is addressed in some detail. I forget the episode number offhand but I'll see if I can find it.

I would appreciate this.

Maybe I really need to talk it over with him and find out if he can recognize what a big roleplaying challenge this is - abstract it from dice and numbers. He is a numbers guy.

Yeah, if the player is really into it, then I'd just recommend they re-watch the movies or maybe play Knights of the Old Republic or something. Even Mass Effect does a great job at doing the "Paragon/Renegade" morality pendulum.

Or you could get together with your group and watch Empire Strikes Back or something.

Yoda and Kenobi are afraid that Luke is going to get so angry at Vader that he gives in to the Dark Side. Vader tries to coax him into it, the Emperor tries to coax him into it in Return of the Jedi.

In my opinion, the Emperor might have been a little more successful if he hadn't kept calling out what his plan was

"AHAHAH Yes, now if you get angry at me you will fall to the Dark Side and fail! Does that make you angry?"

If your player is mainly interested in playing a Good Guy, then you might not even worry too much about throwing loads of temptation at him, but make it more of a subtle thing that comes up with the dice.

When he's just starting to turn evil, probably don't do anything since he hasn't really fallen too far to not be able to redeem himself with a small amount of effort. This'll also ensure he doesn't just realize "oh crap, better watch myself", and he'll just keep doing what he does. Once he starts to get significantly closer to the dark side, I'd recommend basically giving him the On the Edge talent the Forsaken Jedi adversary has (until he either gets back more towards the light, or just completely switches to dark) - basically he can dip into the dark side for strain, but doesn't need to flip a destiny point. If he abuses it too much by dipping into the dark side, then he's just getting to the dark side that much faster. Also, at the point where he'd be teetering on dark and light, then yeah, maybe a setback or two on any force power related rolls to explain the conflicting force within him. So move as a weapon, using force dice to boost his social rolls, initiative rolls, or even Sense's on-goings, all could have a setback tossed on them (or a boost die if an NPC is making an opposed roll that would be affected by his force powers in some way).

BTW it's Order 66 episode 18, called "Youuu might be a dark sider", where they discuss a bunch of good options for handling the Dark/Light balance for Force users.

I like that, Lathrop.

Affect Benny's story and tones to show the darkside chipping away at him as well. Show that he's not attracting "good" attention and people to him.

Word gets around when someone acts like a terror. So the next time Benny goes rolling into Mos Espa, have the locals act the way the would in an old western movie when the bad guy int he black hat rides in. Describe mothers pulling their kids off the street, shops suddenly closing, people suddenly turning around and walking away. When he walks into his favorite cantina, after about ten or so minutes he notices that most of the not totally dead drunk patrons have quietly gotten up and left.

The next time Benny faces off against some cannon fodder mooks... use a basic fear mechanic on them. Just kick it off with them rolling Discipline before the shooting even begins. If they fail (which as minions they probably will) the combat suddenly ends as they flee in terror from Benny the Orphan Slayer.... Benny feels all awesome for having auto-won a combat....but is left wondering what that was all about...

Likewise say you give Benny an adventure and tell him he needs to recruit some Mercs to back him up. The usual suspects like First Sun Mobile, Thunder Force, or Churhiees Riflemen don't even answer his calls. And when he puts out word that he's recruiting, he doesn't get Soldiers, he gets killers. Gamorean thugs, Aqualish gunmen, Weequay pirates, Nikto rebels (the mean murderous kind, not the alliance kind). Run them as minion groups, but have everything they do have an automatic upgraded difficulty (red die) to show that these guys are not smart, and are just as likely to shoot each other, or loot everything, as they are to fight. And don't be afraid to have them cut and run the moment things start to go even a little bit wrong, these guys have no loyalty to Benny or his cause they are there for the credits and nothing else.