I want to set my Force sensitive PCs up with a mentor and have them train in specific skills over the course of three or four sessions but I know training alone will not fill up a game session. Anyone have suggestions on how to represent an accurate training time frame without making the PCs feel like they just got a "power up"? I could take them through some physical and mental challenges to test their strain thresholds, but that is the only real idea I have. I want them to feel like they have worked a long time and struggled to gain the new experience level they will receive from the training. Also, they will need the specific skills I want them to train in to accomplish the overall goal of the campaign. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

Well, the realistic issue with training is that it's exceptionally repetitive. It also tends to involve the perfection of extremely specific sub-parts in isolation. None of this makes for very interesting storytelling. There's a reason why we only see a few clips of Luke on Degobah - who knows how many times he had to stack and unstack those rocks - or how many laps around the swamp he took. There's a reason why these are used as tutorial levels in video games - its a good way to teach the player something. The character is inherently invested - they're receiving the benefit of the training. Unless the player doesn't know how to play the game, however, they don't have the same reason to be invested. There's nothing for them to learn or complete.

I think trying to stretch training over three or four sessions (how long is your session?) is a dangerous idea. You may be better designing a "final exam adventure" instead, and narrating at each point (or having the mentor talk about) how they had trained for this last month, or last year. "Remember your training!" as Yoda said. No mater how long you take for training, it's never going to approach what the characters had to go through.

Also, for help with specifics, it'd be useful to know what skills you are training.

Just do it as isolated instances. For example, just last week I had the groups Real Jedi get woken up out of bed in the middle of the night for some "jump on stuff while things shoot at you" training. No rolls required, no stopping of the game to spend two hours of training, just a quick aside - a few minuets at tops - and then throw them a black for the rest of the day (or at least until they get coffee) because they're dog tired.

Do it like that. Say "you're going out on an overland hike in the desert, where you climb that mesa and meditate until you get a vision", get one Survival roll from them and leave it at that. But yeah, just do snippets of training here and there and leave the 3-6 hours a day doing the leg lifts for off-screen.

Montage!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU9Uwhjlog8

Skip Ahead. If You Can Use Downtime.For.Your Training Just Skip It. Find Out What All The Party Is Doing For.The Week Not Every Moment Had To Be Accounted For. They Could Be In Dry Doc While The Ship Is Being Repaired. StOcKing Up Groceries. Don't Be Afraid To Skip And Give XP dump

Yeah. Just do something like....

Master:"Blah blah blah training. Blah blah dedication blah taibo blah blah beware the darkside. Now jump until you can touch the ceiling of my hut."

GM: 80's rock music plays as you jump... over and over slowly getting higher and higher into the air. After week of jumping, you can finally touch the ceiling flat-palmed. Gain 1 rank in athletics.

Thanks you all. These are all helpful suggestions. What about also setting a threshold number (3-5) of the times they have to successfully use a new Force before they are permanently granted the XP to claim the ability as their own. Call it an assist from the mentor until they make the 3-5 successful rolls needed to claim the ability as theirs.

Just to clarify - I assumed this was a "first four session" kind of thing. You're not thinking of doing this every time they spend xp, right?

Just to clarify - I assumed this was a "first four session" kind of thing. You're not thinking of doing this every time they spend xp, right?

No, not every time they spend XP. Our game has been evolving over the last year as new rule sets have been released (AoR and F&D). The PCs are about to make a huge breakthrough plot wise and will need guidance to train in specific Force abilities that I (as the GM) believe will be paramount to their advancement from here on. My group is not very versed in the the Star Wars Universe, and may not know some of the key abilities that may be beneficial in the long run of the campaign. I would have to get my F&D source book out determine what specific Force abilities will be granted.

Ah, ok. So there is an element of player-training as well as character-training. In that case I would construct the 'adventure' to represent a number of ways the power can be used. There are resources on the Internetz for Jedi Training that might prove useful for this. I wouldn't worry too much about having them succeed a particular number of times. Keep it loose and worry more about making sure the players have it than the characters. Also try and give them a couple of situations where the force isn't the best answer - or where the force power to use may not be instantly obvious.

I still think it's more of a 1-adventure thing, rather than a 3-4, but it depends on how you build it. I'd beware of any "succeed 3 times" things - that can quickly turn into roll fatigue, as the players just start throwing dice until the symbols are right instead of paying any attention to what's going on.

Also, unless you have a very particular campaign arc in plan, I'm not sure what you mean by "paramount to their advancement", but that's a different issue.

Thanks you all. These are all helpful suggestions. What about also setting a threshold number (3-5) of the times they have to successfully use a new Force before they are permanently granted the XP to claim the ability as their own. Call it an assist from the mentor until they make the 3-5 successful rolls needed to claim the ability as theirs.

Why bother?

If they are just going to reroll until they get it there's no point. Unless you really get off on the sound of rolling dice or something.

Either let them spend XP as normal, or allow them to do the montage and give it to them instead of XP. Training scenes like you see in Empire Strikes Back are more about interaction with the mentor and story points then mindless rolling. If you need the player to have something to do while he trains come up with an actual encounter (think "the cave" from Empire).

Thanks you all. These are all helpful suggestions. What about also setting a threshold number (3-5) of the times they have to successfully use a new Force before they are permanently granted the XP to claim the ability as their own. Call it an assist from the mentor until they make the 3-5 successful rolls needed to claim the ability as theirs.

Hmmm, I'm having trouble parsing this paragraph.

Okay, lets say that I want to learn Move. My mentor has been making lift rocks and plants and droids and stuff, so I'm good and trained. I've got my 10 XP, ready to spend. So you propose that I have to actually roll a force die 3 or 4 times, successfully turn on the power and only THEN can I spend the points to get the power?

Is that what you're proposing?

Just keep it narrative. Like Ghostofman says, all you really need is the mentor asking for them to be committed and throwing out some philosophical stuff , and then narrate them doing some basic training stuff. You can toss some typical Jedi trial-type stuff at them if you feel the need for actual encounters.

Thanks Desslok, I love the Drunken master movies.

Im my games I don't use to let (always) the "have XP, spend XP".

Players must earn the necessary XP to upgrade/purchase anything, justify that, for example, has adquired a datadisk that lets learn Lore beyond rank 3 and, consider a "reasonable" amount of time that we decide between player and me. Other times just the "on play actions" are enough to justify this.

So, those accorded 3 weeks of time to increase a skill, for example, are off-screen, and unless is something REALLY strange, like learning something really difficult to understand like a Celestial stargate schematic or learn a Force Power to travel in time, no rolls are required, just time, justification, XP and, of course, some good performance are welcome

Ask the PCs how they spend their training time. If they're creative, they might come up with different ways of describing their training that reflect their various character traits.

They might say something like "I spent a lot of time balancing on my head trying to pick up things with my mind, including Jane's astromech character at one point, but then I dropped him."

This could give Jane and the player a hook for some roleplaying interaction later on.

Do it during down times. Between games. Send them a cool down time story with them and their teacher learning their specific upgraded. Can do it via email.