How confident are you in the Force?

By Quintus Valorum, in Game Mechanics

While the characters in the films seem pretty confident in what they can do with the Force, it's definitely less so in the game. Despite having a good number of Force dice one can always come up with one light side pip, or none. It's so awkward when you can't pull down that piece of machinery that's going to crush those magnadroids, and terribly embarrassing when you fall to your death because you couldn't get any pips on your attempt to leap down to long range. Has anyone else thought about this, and how does your GM/group handle it?

Well, in the Original Trilogy at least, everyone barring Luke had been using the force for 20+ years (obviously a lot more once you learned their backstories). Luke on the other hand, up until he became a self-proclaimed Jedi Knight, was VERY uncertain about his abilities. His doubt and lack of experience in connecting to the Force made it difficult for him to use much of his abilities from the outset, even once Empire Strikes Back starts, which is ~3 years after he learns of his force sensitivity in A New Hope. And in new canon, (Heir to the Jedi spoilers)

he struggles greatly in using Force Move for the first few times on a plant and a noodle

.

And over in the Prequel Trilogy, everyone is confident and capable because most of them started in the Jedi Order by being picked up as babies and being vigorously taught all the basics by literally THE masters of the force during their entire life.

So I personally see it fine as-is if the players are all starting as people with a vague grasp of their force sensitivity (0xp) or have spent some time honing the skill, but still had to spend that time hiding it (Knight Level or generally starting with bonus XP) and practicing in total secret. There's really only a sort of disconnect if a player decides to go for the much older Force Sensitive that was trained by the Jedi Order and had to hide to avoid being killed, since even with hiding and all that, it just seems sort of off if they were at a certain point of training. And I mean like if they were old enough to be a full Knight when they went into hiding (so more like Anakin-aged, less like Kanan-aged).

Absolutelly agree with Lathrop.

Force users aren't highly trained Jedi from childhood. Luke at the beginning even had problems moving his lightsaber. About ratios, score a LS pip with the Force is above a 42%, so, it isn't possible but not assured. http://maxmahem.net/wp/star-wars-edge-of-the-empire-die-probabilities/

By the way, even with F&D rules, I'm still believing that "true Jedi" or highly experienced Force users aren't 100% reflected there but, I would only treat those chars as NPC's with special rules, like the actual ones, where you have reduced pip costs and also "auto-pip" rules (at a small Strain cost) with the NPC talent/ability "On the Edge".

So, from my point of view, Force is pretty good scenified on Edge and Force "younglings". Everyone on Edge/Rebellion/F&D(?) is a closer version to Luke on episodes IV and V than Jedi from Episodes I, II and III.

Edited by Josep Maria

Well, every few years I try again to use the Force to pick up my coffee cup. I've always failed. I'm sure I will still try again someday. So, not very confident. But, I still retain new hope.

Good points about the players in Force and Destiny not being confident in the Force, but isn't it just another example of how players can never be true jedi. Are there any suggestions on the Force mechanic for those characters playing a long time, and want to be able to do the things done in the prequels?

Ok, changes could be pretty easy and without changing so much things from mechanics.

The easy way could be that purchase some kind of talent/improvement that let reduce Strain cost from Parry/Reflect to 2 and to 0 if do you have the improved and don't attack. About Force itself, just players let pick up the On the Edge PC version that you can call it "Trust in the Force" (or something geeky and cooler than that XD) that have the same effect. Also, other option could be some ability that reduce costs of Powers by 1 (or more), up to a minimum of 1. Can be combined with "Trust in the Force".

This way you will have more resistant players and also you almost asure their use of the Force. No more changes are needed to recreate that.

Also you can use the optional rule from F&D Beta that, unless is something important, a named Rival or a Nemesis, you just use the Force, no check or resistance needed/allowed.

Hope this helped mate ;)

It does. Thanks. I was thinking about automatically generating one light side pip per force die in non rival/nemisis situtations.

That's fairly potent, I think, and seems unnecessary. It's more a matter of how much you want to penalize the PC for having to tap into the dark side, flipping DPs, spending Strain, and gaining Conflict (if you use that in your game). Consider that a pip is always available , so rather than granting a free white pip it might be more balanced to just reduce the cost of using the dark pips. Perhaps they don't require a DP flip against minions (while still keeping the Strain and Conflict aspects). That alone would take quite a bit of the sting out of it without granting freebies.

I was going to just going to make automatic successes for non important scenarios. Such as character moving boxes with move object instead of liftinng them or if character is using misdirect on non minion general citizens. Also considering since our game is in dark times where force users are desperate and the tempatio n of the darkside is very real I'm going to give an automatic darkside point when rolling in non nemesis rolls with the force. A character can always given into the darkness much easier to activate powers than the light.

Good points about the players in Force and Destiny not being confident in the Force, but isn't it just another example of how players can never be true jedi.

I think they can. But (and this is just MHO, and there are large differences of opinion on this) they need to complete at least three specs, delve into several Powers, and hit FR3+ before they can be like the "Jedi of old". That's somewhere between 600-1000XP, which, if you play regularly, is achievable. Plus, the fact that it takes so long is a good thing (again MHO), otherwise it feels like the difficulty of being a Jedi isn't really explored properly.

I suppose that's the system in place for emergency force use situations, calling upon the darkside. It didn't seem like the ideal method for preventing Force power fizzle, but I guess that is the systems answer. Although I don't see the one force pip per force die against minions any more powerful than just having your power work, no check or resistance needed.

It does. Thanks. I was thinking about automatically generating one light side pip per force die in non rival/nemisis situtations.

I'd say that if there's no real stress on the part of the character and no real consequence of failure, then that's not a bad idea, and does cut down on "unnecessary rolling."

Alternatively, if you want to keep your players from abusing this, have them be required to flip a Destiny Point, but again only in situations where the character is under minimal stress (combat definitely counts as a high-stress environment) or the chances are failure range from a very minor inconvenience to negligible; Luke trying to lift the X-Wing on Dagobah or retrieve his lightsaber in the wampa cave on Hoth both carried substantial penalties for failure, and thus wouldn't fall under the "automatic success" scenario, with the wampa cave also being stressful due to a hungry monster looking for a second helping of meat being within earshot. Anakin floating that pear during his dinner scene in AotC would count as both minimal stress and no real penalty for failing (and is in keeping with his personality to show off in front of the girl he's got the hots for).

I'm not sure I'd ever use it in my games, but the point of looking to speed things up a bit once a Force user starts boosting their Force Rating isn't a bad one.

I was looking at the Force rules again, and it's not very specific on the details of Force use. It says: When a Force-sensitive character attempts to activate a power or use certain Force talents, he creates a dice pool.

It doesn't say that the specifics of what you want to do with that power needs to be stated. What if I simply activated the Move power and rolled my Force dice? Then based on the roll I can decided if I want to throw a small stone or a large boulder at someone? I think if you allow for the specifics after the roll, you'll have more players able to do something rather then just fizzle when the dice are bad and waste their attack action.

To activate a basic power you only need to roll the Force dice. It's left open though because sometimes the GM might want to make the Force character roll Discipline or some other skill in conjunction, depending on the circumstances.

Force Move when using to throw things and cause damage requires a Control upgrade (noted in the tree), and for that you do use Discipline as a kind of "Ranged" skill check. So you need to succeed on your skill check, and generate enough pips to throw the thing you want. If the object is Silhouette 0, you only need 1 pip, because that's covered in the basic power.

I was looking at the Force rules again, and it's not very specific on the details of Force use. It says: When a Force-sensitive character attempts to activate a power or use certain Force talents, he creates a dice pool.

It doesn't say that the specifics of what you want to do with that power needs to be stated. What if I simply activated the Move power and rolled my Force dice? Then based on the roll I can decided if I want to throw a small stone or a large boulder at someone? I think if you allow for the specifics after the roll, you'll have more players able to do something rather then just fizzle when the dice are bad and waste their attack action.

That's very much intentional on the designers' part.

Since you're not going to know how many Force Points you've got to work with until after you've rolled the Force dice. So if rolling two Force dice, you could luck out and roll four Light Side points, or you could crap out and roll two Dark Side points. Thus the system allowing the player to decide what effect they want to create after they've determined how many Force Points they have to work with.

Does that mean the player has to choose what power they are using, roll their Force dice, and then decide what they want to actually do with the force dice roll in that power?

Or do they roll their Force dice and then choose with that roll which power to use and what they want to do with that power?

Also if they fail and get no force pip light or dark they still use up their action?

I would ask them to pick which Force power they're going to use first at least.

Also if they fail and get no force pip light or dark they still use up their action?

They will always get at least one pip. Whether they apply it or not, it still uses up an action.

So, could that mean before Yoda fights Dooku, he could have chosen Move. Then whiffs on his 7 force dice and decides to levitate his lightsaber from his belt to his hand? ;)

Hmm. Meant to do that, I did.

Edited by Quintus Valorum

Outside the takes, and the main plot or the plot actions... everything is cool and awesome, no need to roll XD

Does that mean the player has to choose what power they are using, roll their Force dice, and then decide what they want to actually do with the force dice roll in that power?

Or do they roll their Force dice and then choose with that roll which power to use and what they want to do with that power?

Also if they fail and get no force pip light or dark they still use up their action?

Yes in that they have to select what power they're using before they roll their Force dice, but can wait to figure out what the exact effect will be until after they see the results of the roll.

Same holds for powers where an opposed check is involved, such as Influence and its Control Upgrade to affect a person's thoughts/emotions. The Force user would say they're using the Influence power, specifically that Control Upgrade (which doesn't cost any extra Force points but is effectively an alternate effect of the basic Influence power), then roll the opposed Discipline check with the Force dice. The reason this part is important is that a player may well decide to not bother converting any dark side pips into usable Force points if they've already failed the Discipline check, where if they rolled the Force dice first and then rolled the opposed Discipline check, the player could very well have flipped a Destiny Point and suffered strain only for the power to fail anyway because the Discipline check didn't generate any uncancelled successes.

...This really is irritating.

In my first game, my would be jedi just refused to use dark side points. Ever.

Emergency situation? Friend about to die? "Well...there is no Death, there is the Force."

If the Force doesn't want your friend saved, you bow to its will and let him die.

That's why the old order warned about attachment, ya know. Gotta be willing to let your friends and loved ones die if you fail to roll a light side pip.

...This really is irritating.

In my first game, my would be jedi just refused to use dark side points. Ever.

Emergency situation? Friend about to die? "Well...there is no Death, there is the Force."

If the Force doesn't want your friend saved, you bow to its will and let him die.

That's why the old order warned about attachment, ya know. Gotta be willing to let your friends and loved ones die if you fail to roll a light side pip.

So you're saying you had the Apathy weakness and played it up hard core? Way to commit.

So far, my table at least, sorta-kinda treats the original Force roll to determine pips as a "check in" with the Force. Almost like a perception-type roll to see how strong you are feeling with the Force at that moment.
Based on that result, the PC determines what to do with the resources at hand.

With that style at work, our somewhat-experienced Force-sensitives are able to more-or-less role play casually or even confidently... and it creates an in-game explanation for the various canonical and legendary situations where an audience has wondered "why didn't they just use power X".

Well, the player tried and didn't quite make the roll. :)