Maybe starting with a lightsaber will be tied into FnD's version of Duty/Obligation. +10 Duty/Obligation gains a lightsaber.

I like this general idea. It would be great way of accomplishing several things:

(1) If the Jedi starts with a lightsaber the FnD Duty/Obligation mechanic would also offer something of value to non-Jedi characters to balance this out. e.g., everyone gets something if the FnD mechanic is used.

(2) If a GM does not want Jedi to start with a lightsaber then they can choose not to use the FnD mechanic that grants access to it at character creation but still use the FnD core rule book otherwise. As with Edge and AoR being used in the same game you can use Obligation and Duty or either one alone. I imagine it will be the same with FnD.

i like the idea, but maybe a +10 increase isn't enough to justify the lightsaber (even if i know that it's the max you can get in one spot) i wouldn't consider extreme to have to take a +20 for a lightsaber considering the rarity and the iconic impact it has even for npc (and the possible consequences it can have icly).

Wouldn't it screw all our predictions if they're actually doing a secret enclave of Jedi Order holdouts on some vanished planet, operating as if nothing had happened other than to generally stay hidden?

This is actually the case if you follow the last of the Dark Horse Star Wars Comics. In the comic Dark Times 'Fire Carrier', there is a group of survivors who established a hidden temple in the wilds of Arkinnea by Jedi Master's K'Kruhk & Zao. They had a bunch of rescued Younglings and a Padawan with them. With the help of the local fuzzy indigenous Yeti-ish things, they rebuilt an abandoned Jedi outpost. It is established that they successfully hid, and kept the Jedi order alive in a small way during Imperial rule and K'Kruhk survived through to the Legacy period. It will be interesting if any of this is used.

I really don't think there would be a vast number of people who would be enormously excited to play a stand alone 'Jedi' game where the 'Jedi' don't have lightsabers and only minimal force powers.

One thing I notice is in Rebels everyone has somethinf special and if you are a GM and you give the Jedi a lightsaber to start. You better give everyone something equally valuable and special for each character.

Is anyone else starting to worry that FFG might not be selling F&D Beta books at Gen Con?

I'm not worried about it in the least.

Is anyone else starting to worry that FFG might not be selling F&D Beta books at Gen Con?

Not me. Though even if they don't I will still get to play it.

Unless the boat sank crossing the ocean it would be insane for them to not have it for sale. Thousands of customers in one place for several days is a massive sales bonanza.

This is actually the case if you follow the last of the Dark Horse Star Wars Comics. In the comic Dark Times 'Fire Carrier', there is a group of survivors who established a hidden temple in the wilds of Arkinnea by Jedi Master's K'Kruhk & Zao. They had a bunch of rescued Younglings and a Padawan with them. With the help of the local fuzzy indigenous Yeti-ish things, they rebuilt an abandoned Jedi outpost. It is established that they successfully hid, and kept the Jedi order alive in a small way during Imperial rule and K'Kruhk survived through to the Legacy period. It will be interesting if any of this is used.

I sincerely doubt it'll come up in any official material, as it likely got tossed with the rest of the EU. But it might make for a good backstory for a Jedi-type character in a game, provided the GM is okay using it.

FFG's game canon includes bits that the official SW canon has moved away from (like Force Unleashed), so FFG may keep that regardless of Legends status.

One thing I notice is in Rebels everyone has somethinf special and if you are a GM and you give the Jedi a lightsaber to start. You better give everyone something equally valuable and special for each character.

Seems reasonable. If a Jedi starts with a lightsaber I'd expect it to be a less powerful version and for the Jedi to start with fewer credits. Or for the "destiny" (Duty/Obligation) mechanic to offer cool stuff to everyone, including a lightsaber. The latter seems more interesting.

Prediction time!

In EotE, you have Obligation .

• Roll a d100; if a PC’s Obligation is triggered, temporarily reduce the Strain Tresholds for the whole party.
• You can take on additional Obligation at character creation for extra XP or credits.
• Obligation can be taken on by a player during gameplay for various boons.
• If the party’s Obligation is increased to 100+, the entire party can no longer spend XP until the group’s Obligation is reduced to below 100.
• The higher a group’s Obligation, the more “street cred” they have with underworld elements and the less any reputable person wants to deal with them.

In AoR, you have Duty .

• Roll a d100; if a PC’s Duty is trigged, temporarily increase Wound Thresholds for the entire party.
• You can reduce starting Duty at character creation for extra XP or credits.
• Duty score is gained by accomplishing tasks linked to that individual PC’s duty.
• If the group’s collective Duty is increased to 100, it resets down to 0 and the group’s Contribution Rank increases by +1.
• The higher a group’s Contribution Rank, the more cool stuff they can get from the Rebel Alliance, the more the Alliance likes them, and the less the Empire likes them.

In FaD….

What do you guys think?

I am wondering if you can have positive or negative destinies

One thing I notice is in Rebels everyone has somethinf special and if you are a GM and you give the Jedi a lightsaber to start. You better give everyone something equally valuable and special for each character.

Seems reasonable. If a Jedi starts with a lightsaber I'd expect it to be a less powerful version and for the Jedi to start with fewer credits. Or for the "destiny" (Duty/Obligation) mechanic to offer cool stuff to everyone, including a lightsaber. The latter seems more interesting.

I don't think so, when you look at what PC's start with in EotE or AoR the lightsaber isn't that expensive, half a Y-wing is 40K a 4th of a light transport is a lot of credits as well, most likely the Jedi will start with a lightsaber and a ship that basically barely qualifies for transporting them/him to another location. Remember that Jedi don't own anything really, the order does and later on during the empire being a Jedi comes with the massive flaw of having well.... All of the empire on your arse wanting to make mince of you.

As for prediction time, I don't think you will start as a rookie padawan powers wise, but more in line with Obi-Wan in "The Phantom Slightly Disconcerting". Force Rating 2 or 3 with 3 force power trees activated, it seems from the movies that Jedi have 2-4 things they are good at (in ObiW's case it's move, enhance and affect mind). The campaign component is probably going to be called "Destiny" and yer I do think you can have negative destinies or rather what I'd like to see is a destiny that is binary, so if you follow the light side one thing is your destiny and if you slide into darkness you get a mirrored "dark twin" of it that now becomes your fate.

So, the lightsaber thing... I get it, it's a nice tool, the universal cutting tool is nice, it's awesome, it's flashy ... perhaps starting characters will get one or not. Does it really matter? If the default rules doesn't give it, what's stopping the GM and his group to decide otherwise? Nothing, nada, zip, but that has been already been established a while ago.

What I find interesting is that, barring a few people, the fact that this is a roleplaying game is kind of overlooked it seems... Of course, this might just be my opinion, but roleplaying games are social by nature, usually involving 3 or more people... so there's a group of players, paying a game where the action happens in a shared imaginary space... there's going to be a group of force sensitives in FaD. Sure, there might be non-force using careers, but as many posters have stated, most - at least a lot of - people would like to play Jedi (or some other force tradition).

All things considered I see no reason for starting characters to get extra XP or be more powerful than starting characters in the other two game, simply because the adversaries in these games rarely pose that much of a challenge to a group of characters with earned ~300XP or thereabouts. I mean, sure, it's possible to make more challenging adversaries, but I don't see the point. Why would starting characters have FR 3? With access to three force powers? or two? Sure, for some games that's fine, but why would (or should) this be the default? There's no good reason stated so far in this thread that I've seen, lots of reasons sure, but not one good one. Of course, I'm as likely wrong as anyone, so they might make this the game which improves the starting power of the characters, but that would be disappointing and I'd see that as a rather poor design decision.

Imagine: you're part of a group of force sensitives, in some capacity or other, your goal: to stay away from the Empire's Inquisition, find clues about the past, learn new secrets of the force, learn to control what little power you have, to explore it further, learn new stuff, evolve, enter a larger world, to find about yourselves, and so on. The goal isn't necessarily to fight the Empire - but to learn, to keep the teachings alive, to stay alive, to stay hidden, to find others to learn from, find safe places to stay, hidden and forgotten worlds of forbidden knowledge, possibly leading you down the path to the dark side... to me it seems the FaD would be about mysteries, escaping, hiding, only striking when absolutely necessary and stuff like that. It's really about the journey, just like EotE and AoR, the journey of helping defeat the empire, discovering new planets, gaining riches, catching bounty, in FaD I'd like a game that's about the journey to discover Ossus, Tython, lost temples from lost civilisations, lost knowledge about the Jedi, the Sith, and whatever other traditions I'd include in my game.

Of course, I've gathered there are some who take their inspiration from crap youtube videos of some exhibitionists playing at being duelling Jedi/Sith - which I guess is fair enough, but I find some of those vids laughable at best, it makes me cry tears of shame at worst... although, all in all, good for them, their creative juices are flowing and they make videos and post them online. The more the merrier. I couldn't do it any better Using them as basis for a game though, or what a game should be able to "simulate" makes me wonder ...

although, all in all, good for them, their creative juices are flowing and they make videos and post them online. The more the merrier.

Yep. Rather than be paralysed by fear of someone knowing what they thought was cool they went out and made something and had fun doing it.

Many could learn from their example.

Many could learn from their example.

Exactly, so why don't you?

Of course, I've gathered there are some who take their inspiration from crap youtube videos of some exhibitionists playing at being duelling Jedi/Sith - which I guess is fair enough, but I find some of those vids laughable at best, it makes me cry tears of shame at worst

Actually Jegergryte, the only person who does this is our resident troll, who by his own admission doesn't even play the games and is not interested in concepts like 'rules' or 'balance'.

To be honest, I think the fact that there are so many of these things rather implies that it shows people like stuff like that, and so it's worth looking at for what one should be doing.

So, the lightsaber thing... I get it, it's a nice tool, the universal cutting tool is nice, it's awesome, it's flashy ... perhaps starting characters will get one or not. Does it really matter? If the default rules doesn't give it, what's stopping the GM and his group to decide otherwise? Nothing, nada, zip, but that has been already been established a while ago.

What I find interesting is that, barring a few people, the fact that this is a roleplaying game is kind of overlooked it seems... Of course, this might just be my opinion, but roleplaying games are social by nature, usually involving 3 or more people... so there's a group of players, paying a game where the action happens in a shared imaginary space... there's going to be a group of force sensitives in FaD. Sure, there might be non-force using careers, but as many posters have stated, most - at least a lot of - people would like to play Jedi (or some other force tradition).

All things considered I see no reason for starting characters to get extra XP or be more powerful than starting characters in the other two game, simply because the adversaries in these games rarely pose that much of a challenge to a group of characters with earned ~300XP or thereabouts. I mean, sure, it's possible to make more challenging adversaries, but I don't see the point. Why would starting characters have FR 3? With access to three force powers? or two? Sure, for some games that's fine, but why would (or should) this be the default? There's no good reason stated so far in this thread that I've seen, lots of reasons sure, but not one good one. Of course, I'm as likely wrong as anyone, so they might make this the game which improves the starting power of the characters, but that would be disappointing and I'd see that as a rather poor design decision.

Imagine: you're part of a group of force sensitives, in some capacity or other, your goal: to stay away from the Empire's Inquisition, find clues about the past, learn new secrets of the force, learn to control what little power you have, to explore it further, learn new stuff, evolve, enter a larger world, to find about yourselves, and so on. The goal isn't necessarily to fight the Empire - but to learn, to keep the teachings alive, to stay alive, to stay hidden, to find others to learn from, find safe places to stay, hidden and forgotten worlds of forbidden knowledge, possibly leading you down the path to the dark side... to me it seems the FaD would be about mysteries, escaping, hiding, only striking when absolutely necessary and stuff like that. It's really about the journey, just like EotE and AoR, the journey of helping defeat the empire, discovering new planets, gaining riches, catching bounty, in FaD I'd like a game that's about the journey to discover Ossus, Tython, lost temples from lost civilisations, lost knowledge about the Jedi, the Sith, and whatever other traditions I'd include in my game.

Of course, I've gathered there are some who take their inspiration from crap youtube videos of some exhibitionists playing at being duelling Jedi/Sith - which I guess is fair enough, but I find some of those vids laughable at best, it makes me cry tears of shame at worst... although, all in all, good for them, their creative juices are flowing and they make videos and post them online. The more the merrier. I couldn't do it any better Using them as basis for a game though, or what a game should be able to "simulate" makes me wonder ...

I mostly agree with you.

And yes, this is an RPG so a GM and players can do whatever they want to do. So a GM can just hand out a lightsaber to any GM in the party to complete their character archetype. But then that might introduce some imbalance at the beginning so the GM hands out other goodies to the other players too. This seems like an extraordinary measure though - just to give Jedi something that's a core part of the character archetype. I hope the F&D provides a balanced way of granting Jedi a lightsaber and the idea of the Duty/Obligation mechanic of F&D providing sounds cool as it would do what you suggest as a fundamental part of the system instead of leaving it up to each table to hash out.

I've also wondered what the central theme of F&D will be. I think exploration of the force and force traditions and Jedi/Sith artifacts etc would be cool. My wild guess is that F&D will be about good and evil, the light side and the dark side. EotE and AoR are built up around some sort of conflict - struggling to live on the edge of society or struggling against the Empire - and my guess is that F&D will be about the struggle in the force between light and dark (and between the Jedi and Sith).

Most of the people who buy the book won't have read the forums, so unless it was to say explicitly that the default character generation system is intended for people whose main concern is compatibility with the other two games and if instead you just want to have a fun time playing Jedi you should do something different most people wouldn't realise.

Of course, I've gathered there are some who take their inspiration from crap youtube videos of some exhibitionists playing at being duelling Jedi/Sith - which I guess is fair enough, but I find some of those vids laughable at best, it makes me cry tears of shame at worst

Actually Jegergryte, the only person who does this is our resident troll, who by his own admission doesn't even play the games and is not interested in concepts like 'rules' or 'balance'.

I'm well aware of that

This just in...the actual title of the Beta is "Force, Destiny, Parkour, and Jedi Ninjas."

Now that that has been established and ErikB is happy...

...any predictions on the Obligation/Duty equivalent?

Many could learn from their example.

Exactly, so why don't you?

Those that can, do. Those that actually play RPGs anyways. Those that can't try to play at armchair game designing.