I think that a "Grey Jedi" under the Morality mechanic, i.e. one that uses the dark side without succumbing to it, would require the players to ultimately "game the system" to some extent, and simply try to limit how much conflict they gain when using powers like Unleash, Harm, or even Bind (the "deal damage if you used DS" to activate aspect) so that when the session ends, they don't take a major plummet on their Morality score due to a low roll on the d10.

As for Luke, that was in the wake of Jacen's "Unified Force" theory from the NJO series, and said theory was utlimately broven to be a load of bull, with Vergere revealed to have actually been a student of the Sith and using false teachings to push Jacen down the path of the dark side to become the Sith Lord that she and Lumiya felt the galaxy needed. YMMV on the quality of that particuarly story arc (lots of folks didn't care for it how ruined Jacen in contrast to his pre-NJO portrayals), but it does put a pretty big nail in the idea of a "Gray Jedi" being able to use light and dark side Force powers without penalty.

I actually like the idea of a Discipline check for the conflict points. Set the Difficulty based on the situation, then modify the dice (either black or upgrades) based on the number of conflict that the character would earn, perhaps.

I actually like the idea of a Discipline check for the conflict points. Set the Difficulty based on the situation, then modify the dice (either black or upgrades) based on the number of conflict that the character would earn, perhaps.

I actually think this could be a better solution to the entire conflict / morality problem and get rid of the "d10 at the end" mechanic.

Rather than earn conflict, make a check with the number of difficulty dice equal to the amount of conflict one would have earned. Gain or lose morality based on the success / failure of the check. Advantage / Threat add boost or setback to the next discipline check to use a force power in a conflicting way.

It's not perfect but I like that it adjusts morality in the instant, rather than waiting to the end of the session, and it still retains some randomness.

I actually like the idea of a Discipline check for the conflict points. Set the Difficulty based on the situation, then modify the dice (either black or upgrades) based on the number of conflict that the character would earn, perhaps.

I actually think this could be a better solution to the entire conflict / morality problem and get rid of the "d10 at the end" mechanic.

Rather than earn conflict, make a check with the number of difficulty dice equal to the amount of conflict one would have earned. Gain or lose morality based on the success / failure of the check. Advantage / Threat add boost or setback to the next discipline check to use a force power in a conflicting way.

It's not perfect but I like that it adjusts morality in the instant, rather than waiting to the end of the session, and it still retains some randomness.

I like this idea, I could see this slowing down the game a lot if more than one PC has a morality score.

YMMV on the quality of that particuarly story arc (lots of folks didn't care for it how ruined Jacen in contrast to his pre-NJO portrayals)

Bad enough in my book to ignore its take on the Force... although I do like how Maelora's interpretation seems to actually go further with the idea of a " solid " good and evil (and a good vs. evil based on action, not intent ) to the point of detaching the Jedi and Sith labels. This isn't to say " bad Jedi, good Sith " though, because in her setting it seems that both sects' dominant factions are already at minimum leaning dark side anyway ...

If my players want to game the system and sit at 50 morality i will let them. Its how they want to play and i am fine with them doing so. Using the system as its written allows players to do just that and play an up and down game between 30 and 70 morality. But that's all they get, no bonuses or advantages as they are in too much inner conflict to garner any such boon.

Just because you want to be a special snowflake dose not mean I have to play along

The next mechanic I would add for this is, The player maintains his/her Morality between 48-52. They could deviate outside this once and come back. Deviate again and they lose the Neutrality mechanic. Would the players have to "game the system", yes, but they would also have a MUCH tighter tolerance to hold to gain this benefit. It's a hard road holding to complete neutrality. Dooku is said to have at one time been Neutral (Grey) and in time fell to the darkside. Whether that was because of Sidious's influence or just the ideals he attempted to maintain, just shows how difficult it should be to maintain this kind of neutrality. In Into the Void, the main character is constantly worried about remaining in balance, and struggles with it throughout the book.

Grey jedi aren't really a thing, even in the EU. They talk about them, there are adventures, but if you read through the full spread of the dark nest trilogy, the second civil war, and fate of the jedi, what you see is the myth of the grey is often purported by those that are corrupted and seek to corrupt. Vergere, Jacen, and others espouse this philosophy, and look where that gets them. Jacen became a sith lord, Vergere was a sith, and even in the Dark Nest trilogy, Luke notes that the jedi are slipping from walking a moral path, simply through the continued use of things classically considered dark.

The only EU tradition that really straddles the "grey" force use IMO are the aing-tii. and even that is questionable. But that could be as simple as just averaging at 50, because even they recognized that it was not good to obsess about certain "shades".

Having said that... IF I were to house rule a grey jedi, I would say that to use force points generated on a force die (Light or dark) would cost 1 strain each. No destiny point, but the act itself is exhausting, as you access the force in a way alien to the norm. This would IMO prevent abuse, but captures the feeling of the color of force not mattering.

But that's off the top of my head, and I personally wouldn't do this in my games.

Imperial Knights are considered gray in that they use the Force as a tool.

Yes, but they specifically abstain from the dark side.

Imperial Knights are considered gray in that they use the Force as a tool.

Largely the Jedi are the ones that consider them gray.

^ And as we've learned from even the canon that carried over, Jedi understanding of what's actually gray could be... questionable .*

The next mechanic I would add for this is, The player maintains his/her Morality between 48-52. They could deviate outside this once and come back. Deviate again and they lose the Neutrality mechanic. Would the players have to "game the system", yes, but they would also have a MUCH tighter tolerance to hold to gain this benefit. It's a hard road holding to complete neutrality. Dooku is said to have at one time been Neutral (Grey) and in time fell to the darkside. Whether that was because of Sidious's influence or just the ideals he attempted to maintain, just shows how difficult it should be to maintain this kind of neutrality. In Into the Void, the main character is constantly worried about remaining in balance, and struggles with it throughout the book.

Personally I'd thought that Dooku had a case of " arrogant enough to believe that he was the Chosen One "... so without wanting to invoke the " no true Scotsman " excuse, whether Dooku was ever actually Gray is also questionable.

A hopefully topical joke: " There are indeed Grey Jedi in the galaxy... who, sadly, are far outnumbered by those who believe themselves to be Grey Jedi. "

Also, while the Sith'ari concept is presumably in the discarded-until-reused Legends lore, Sidious was one of those who the real-world Book of Sith had believing himself to be the Sith " Chosen One ". A former Jedi who may have thought himself the real Chosen One allying with the Sith who thought that he was the prophesied Sith'ari ... the irony writes itself.

The idea of Gray Jedi as mechanically not darksiders but in turn unable to tap into lightsider bonuses also intrigues!

* That is to say, even in a setting that claims a specific " light " and " dark " division in the Force, the " actual " dividing line is not always 1:1 with where Force practitioners thought it was. I distinctly remember a Wookiepedia bit about Qui-Gon being sometimes considered " Grey " just for him not treating said dividing line as necessarily being where the Council said it was...

Or you could just consider anyone who has not reached paragon status a gray jedi. As long as their conflict does not increase or decrease in to darkside or paragon status. Done. Problem solved.

Food for thought, the following is the excerpt on Gray Jedi from "The Jedi Path" (seriously, this book is gold for Force and Destiny campaigns).

The so-called gray jedi have been with us since the beginning. Although they do not break with the Jedi orthodoxy concerning the dark side, they bristle when asked to take orders from the Council. Gray Jedi make compromises, cut corners, and hide their actions from scrutiny, all under the assumption that their experience makes them authorities on policy. They are mavericks who are difficult to control, but can be valued members of the Order after they have been persuaded to follow the established hierarchy.

Take that for what you will, but that's how one member of the Jedi Order understood what a "Gray Jedi" was.

I think the "Dawn of the Force" comics given an excellent vision of what a Grey Jedi is supposed to be. That said, in Clone Wars "the Ones" (particularly the son and daughter) were meant to embody the force. I think their behavior shows pretty definitively that going too far toward either the Jedi or Sith ideals is a Bad Idea. Now, whether or not the Jedi or Sith ideals actually embody any sort of universal morality at all is another, likely unanswerable, question; unless you want to ask the one source that (ironically) nobody who likes Star Wars actually trusts.

It really depends on which version of gray jedi you want to use.

The Jedi path and Book of Sith paint it as simply not going down either path especially far.

Anyone seems to be able to use powers from either side of the force though, with a light side version existing for almost every dark side power.

KotOR and the story in which Luke becomes Palpatine's apprentice and turns Gray on the other hand, made it look like a hard earned status. One that allows you to access both sides which in this version isn't something just anyone can do.

In this version both the light and dark side are presented as being tempting in their own way.

In both cases you had to have experienced one or both extremes.

One first has to decide and define the version you want to use and make sure everyone in the group is on board for that interpretation. Then you need to decide for yourself whether you want to tweak the rules to better represent your choice. I doubt the basic ruleset will have anything for something as obscure as the second variation of gray jedi and the first really isn't anything but a philosophical stance.

Food for thought, the following is the excerpt on Gray Jedi from "The Jedi Path" (seriously, this book is gold for Force and Destiny campaigns).

The so-called gray jedi have been with us since the beginning. Although they do not break with the Jedi orthodoxy concerning the dark side, they bristle when asked to take orders from the Council. Gray Jedi make compromises, cut corners, and hide their actions from scrutiny, all under the assumption that their experience makes them authorities on policy. They are mavericks who are difficult to control, but can be valued members of the Order after they have been persuaded to follow the established hierarchy.

Take that for what you will, but that's how one member of the Jedi Order understood what a "Gray Jedi" was.

... so, Qui-Gon Jinn?

Food for thought, the following is the excerpt on Gray Jedi from "The Jedi Path" (seriously, this book is gold for Force and Destiny campaigns).

The so-called gray jedi have been with us since the beginning. Although they do not break with the Jedi orthodoxy concerning the dark side, they bristle when asked to take orders from the Council. Gray Jedi make compromises, cut corners, and hide their actions from scrutiny, all under the assumption that their experience makes them authorities on policy. They are mavericks who are difficult to control, but can be valued members of the Order after they have been persuaded to follow the established hierarchy.

Take that for what you will, but that's how one member of the Jedi Order understood what a "Gray Jedi" was.

... so, Qui-Gon Jinn?

Obi Wan's annotations in the book said as much. Under that definition, many fans point to him as being the quintessential Gray Jedi.

I'm also reminded of the various Jedi 'sects' (Altisian, Corellian, Teepo Paladins and their Grey Paladins offshoot) that in turn similarly broke with the Council on select practices (multiple apprentices per Master, spouses/children/families, use of weapons besides lightsabers as regular practice and not circumstantial-under-duress, and even " non-dependence on the Force ") but not on " the Jedi orthodoxy concerning the dark side "... although apparently said Council did think that some of said sects did, and there was the case of the Iron Knights where the Council didn't think them even capable...

I'm going to try explain my feelings on the force in the form of some (extremely) mixed metaphors so bear with me.

Picture the universe as an organism. Trillions of pieces moving and working together, some parts being culled and some parts growing new.

The Force is a bit like the immune system. If some piece of the body starts taking more than it should and throwing things into disarray the immune system (Force) works to put the environment back into harmony, sometimes going so far as to remove the agitator from it.

The Jedi are hard programmed defenders, good cops, they follow very strict rules which keep them working for the universe as a whole, often to an extreme where they go far above and beyond what is necessary, sacrificing more than the immune system asked for, a hard-wired tool of the body.

Gray Jedi are ones who dislike the rulebook, but feel they are still working for the good of the organism itself, however they are at far greater risk since they don't have the rules to protect them from becoming counterproductive agents, a tool of the body mostly, but very capable of being misguided and misaimed.

Sith are flat-out bad cops, who become an auto-immune disease or cancer to the body, they take the resources and use them as they see fit, they aren't tools at all, they make the universe/body their tool for self-benefit.

I will try to unpack it into a less complicated idea when I've had more sleep.

I think there's a good lesson in dawn of the jedi.

Balance is great as long as everything goes your way. But the second an outside influence arrives, the end result is a shift in ideology.

Yes balance was great, but for all their grand understanding the masters of tython were rather ignorant of the force as a whole. This what caused the force war.

So you have to ask yourself, why not return to balance? The answer is simple, they found something more powerful than they previously realized. So as mighty as balance was focus of light or dark offered more in the long run.

I doubt we will ever see a balance focus like that again. It was just a perfect storm of conditions arranged by the Gree to generate a powerful force order. It makes you wonder if force users ever would have developed without Tython.

I doubt we will ever see a balance focus like that again. It was just a perfect storm of conditions arranged by the Gree to generate a powerful force order. It makes you wonder if force users ever would have developed without Tython.

Perhaps not as we know it, but as war as I knowthe smaller force traditions like Findsmen and the like never developed from Tython.

The way I see it, some things are easier to do when channeling emotions such as anger (like hurting someone) but this is true even without the Force; but it doesn't mean those things *can't* be done in serenity. There is no Light Side or Dark Side; there's just people. Much like the Old Republic Jedi Order were in some ways as bad as the Sith ever were, especially the ones who followed their "rules". (Obviously that doesn't fit with the mechanics of this version, but its still the way I see it.)

The way I see it, some things are easier to do when channeling emotions such as anger (like hurting someone) but this is true even without the Force; but it doesn't mean those things *can't* be done in serenity. There is no Light Side or Dark Side; there's just people. Much like the Old Republic Jedi Order were in some ways as bad as the Sith ever were, especially the ones who followed their "rules". (Obviously that doesn't fit with the mechanics of this version, but its still the way I see it.)

*coughConvenantcough*

*coughConvenantcough*

But, yes, the Jedi Covenant was one of the examples I had in mind. In fact, the Jedi are (clearly) largely based in Buddhists traditions but in real life there were many; even fanatical warmongers and hedonists.