Within Star Wars source canon there are many instances of Force Users speaking to others with their thoughts and picking up the thoughts of others. Luke calls out to Leia to save him over Bespin, as does Darth Vader to Luke many times. Darth Vader telepathically reads Luke's thoughts about Leia being his sitter during there confrontation on the second Death Star. During a deleted scene (yes, I know that does;t really count, but it does speak to the writers' intentions) Darth Vader and Luke have a conversation over light years of distance.

However, there does not seem to be any clear and usable mechanic in any of the FFG games that would allow for this phenomenon. I wish to have this in my games without re-writing any of the RAW, can someone help me out here?

Sense is a good one. I've also seen good arguments for Seek, especially for your example of Leia finding Luke at Bespin.

It's more a plot point than a Force power, so I'd call it "flipping a Destiny Point for a cool thing to happen."

-EF

Currently, EldtrichFire's suggestion of it just being a plot element is how the system would handle such a thing.

Bear in mind that we really don't see a lot of what would be deemed as actual telepathy in sci-fi terms, with Luke reaching out to Leia (almost a reverse Seek) is the closest we've got in the films. Everything else falls into the realm of "feelings" such as Vader and Luke being aware of each other in RotJ or Yoda sensing the sudden death of hundreds of Jedi in the matter of a few minutes or even Kenobi being shaken by Alderaan's destruction.

Personally, I'd say that any Force user with the Sense power would be able to pick up on those sorts of things, but probably only in vague terms.

A while back, I did write up a Message power for my Ways of the Force fan supplement (link can be found on my blog, which itself is linked in my signature if you're interested). It was fairly limited in what it could do, being based upon the limited telepathy allowed from Saga Edition's Use the Force power (only able to convey a brief sentence or emotional state). You won't be communicating across galaxies with it, which is more in keeping with what we see of the Force in the films and the various novels and comic books that were published prior to the rebooted canon.

A more specific aspect of "plot" might be the emotional binding between the participants. This kind of communication seems to be limited to people who are important to each other while they're in a state of emotional turmoil, not something they can draw upon on a regular basis. The only exception I can think of is Yoda in Rebels Season 1...but then, it's Yoda...

A more specific aspect of "plot" might be the emotional binding between the participants. This kind of communication seems to be limited to people who are important to each other while they're in a state of emotional turmoil, not something they can draw upon on a regular basis. The only exception I can think of is Yoda in Rebels Season 1...but then, it's Yoda...

Even more, it's Yoda, on a force-filled/nexis planet, with nothing better to do then meditate on the remaining force sensitives in the galaxy, communicating to a person in a particularly receptive state in a temple-nexis area.

Although we never see Yoda, I personally interpreted that area as more akin to an astrally traveling Yoda than a telepathic one, but that's just me, I don't have any support for it.

Anyone thinks they may add cross-power Control upgrades? Similar to the WEG Ed powers, in this case, maybe Telepathy being a Sense+Seek.

Telepathy could easily be its own power. The base power allows you to send one quick thought to another creatures mind within short range, or listen to one thought at short range.

Upgrades include the standard range and magnitude (number of targets), and the duration upgrade would allow you to spend one pip to allow for a full conversation, and mastery to commit 2 Force dice to allow it to be ongoing. Perhaps a range upgrade to change it to planetary scale?

-EF

It would seem logical that some of the F&D expansions will introduce new ways to use the force. this particular instance sounds a lot like a Signature ability for the bottom of a talent tree to me.

I realise that this is a deleted scene, however it was only deleted for time constraint reasons and it speaks to the intent of the filmmaker. Here we see Darth Vader calling out to Luke on Tatooine while he is on the Executor. They are light years apart and he has no idea where Luke is.

Well, you know... these Skywalkers and their midichlorians... they do good orgies

You could also technically use 'Misdirect' to do this, with enough range bumps and the Control bump that allows:
"May use this power to force the target to perceive a single illusory person or object" you could make your target 'perceive' an illusion of your voice as perception isn't limited to just sight..

I do like the RP aproach of 'spend a destiny' point as well.

Thank you, I had never seen that clip

I have a strong suspicion that we're going to see a Telepathy-type power in one of the future F&D career books. But until then I'd just go with a Destiny Point flip, possibly accompanied by a Discipline check just to see how clearly the message was sent or received.

I've thought about this. And I put this under Influence; in my game Luke was using Influence at maximum range to 'touch minds' with Leia. Just ignore any Stress inducing effects, as part of the narrative.

EDIT: Strain, even.

I dunno, I never got a feeling that they were actually "talking" via the Force in Empire, either between Luke/Vader or Luke/Leia. It always felt more like a "Sixth Sense" kind of thing. Luke didn't actually hear Vader say "Luke, join me." he just felt a paternal connection, almost like the touch of a father's hand on your head as a child, or feeling strong arms pick you up. His immediate, and physical reaction to the link seemed more like a lost child, leaning up to a comforting embrace to me. I mean you see sit up and lean outward, reflexively. Hearing his name in his head wouldn't suddenly convince him that "Oh crap, Vader's my dad!" it was a more intimate, and personal thing. Something beyond words that was passed between them.

Same with Leia, she just sort of had a thought in the back of her head that "Luke needs me, and I know where to find him."

I'm not sure how you would replicate that with the rules, though I would probably just house rule it as some general use of the Force that boils down to "You sense a disturbance in the Force." You send out a non-specific "ping", with a basic target "My son" or "My sister", and they can sense it passively. Sort of like sonar. The one sending the message is actively pinging, the receiver is passively listening. Then have them both roll Discipline, to see if :

1. The sender can effectively improve the Signal to Noise ratio from the background "sounds" of the Force in the galaxy. And a 2nd Discipline check by the receiver to make sense of what they "heard".

I guess it depends on how complicated you want to make this. If you are just sending out "feelings" then you could just stick with the above mentioned "You flip a Destiny Point and give your party ally a sense of unease, that you are in danger and need help" That would be the easiest (and thus best in my mind) way of doing it. But, if you want it to be a bit more detailed, and something that allows the players to roll something, I'd use my above rules on it. It's still pretty darn simple, but does allow for failure. Though as a personal caveat, as someone who isn't a big fan of the Destiny Point mechanic, I tend to go for rules that don't include flipping them. But that's just me, your mileage may vary.

You could allow for things like Triumph/Advantage to convey more detailed information. "Hurt, need help" along with a clear understanding of where. "Turn back I know where Luke is!" Still not actual word to word communication, but more of an info dump into their brain. Precise thoughts, not just hazy images and impressions.

*shrugs* that's my 2 cents anyway. Of course, that relies on my personal interpretation of those scenes from the movies, being not really-telepathy, but something more vague and numinous.

I dunno, I never got a feeling that they were actually "talking" via the Force in Empire, either between Luke/Vader or Luke/Leia. It always felt more like a "Sixth Sense" kind of thing. Luke didn't actually hear Vader say "Luke, join me." he just felt a paternal connection, almost like the touch of a father's hand on your head as a child, or feeling strong arms pick you up. His immediate, and physical reaction to the link seemed more like a lost child, leaning up to a comforting embrace to me. I mean you see sit up and lean outward, reflexively. Hearing his name in his head wouldn't suddenly convince him that "Oh crap, Vader's my dad!" it was a more intimate, and personal thing. Something beyond words that was passed between them.

Same with Leia, she just sort of had a thought in the back of her head that "Luke needs me, and I know where to find him."

I'm not sure how you would replicate that with the rules, though I would probably just house rule it as some general use of the Force that boils down to "You sense a disturbance in the Force." You send out a non-specific "ping", with a basic target "My son" or "My sister", and they can sense it passively. Sort of like sonar. The one sending the message is actively pinging, the receiver is passively listening. Then have them both roll Discipline, to see if :

1. The sender can effectively improve the Signal to Noise ratio from the background "sounds" of the Force in the galaxy. And a 2nd Discipline check by the receiver to make sense of what they "heard".

I guess it depends on how complicated you want to make this. If you are just sending out "feelings" then you could just stick with the above mentioned "You flip a Destiny Point and give your party ally a sense of unease, that you are in danger and need help" That would be the easiest (and thus best in my mind) way of doing it. But, if you want it to be a bit more detailed, and something that allows the players to roll something, I'd use my above rules on it. It's still pretty darn simple, but does allow for failure. Though as a personal caveat, as someone who isn't a big fan of the Destiny Point mechanic, I tend to go for rules that don't include flipping them. But that's just me, your mileage may vary.

You could allow for things like Triumph/Advantage to convey more detailed information. "Hurt, need help" along with a clear understanding of where. "Turn back I know where Luke is!" Still not actual word to word communication, but more of an info dump into their brain. Precise thoughts, not just hazy images and impressions.

*shrugs* that's my 2 cents anyway. Of course, that relies on my personal interpretation of those scenes from the movies, being not really-telepathy, but something more vague and numinous.

The reason I eventually settled on Influence is that the acting character in the situation is Luke: '"Hear me, Leia".

I absolutely agree there was no actual talking, and Leia didn't actually 'hear' Luke's words, but there was a strong relationship between the two (stronger than either realized at that point) for her to 'feel' his call + Leia and Luke = Skywalkers (which again helped). It could be argued that Luke's use of Influence triggered Leia unconsciously using Sense (without actually having the power, again, Skywalkers).

As the CRB states that the Force Powers have been written intentionally in a broad sense to allow for different interpretations/situations, I figured a 'call for help through The Force' would come under Influence (just ignore some of the usual effects; Luke isn't actually trying to manipulate Leia into believing something that's untrue or cause her Strain).

Just my tuppence to go with your 2 cents