and I need to flesh out a few ideas and clarify others.

So far, my players have come up with a bounty hunter (Seeker Hunter), a mercenary (Seeker Ataru Striker), a Jedi-to-be (Sentinel Shien Expert), plus two other players who have yet to make characters. Our previous experience is a few games of SW RPG using the EotE setting.

Morality:

I'm a bit unsure how to work with this in the campaign. In EotE's Obligation, it seems a bit easier to work with... a character with a Bounty obligation might be strained with Obligation coming into play, and can work with the GM to lessen or eliminate the obligation. I'm not too clear how this works with Morality.

As not all of my PCs are Jedis (but all can use the Force), maybe the bounty hunter and mercenary can use Obligations instead?

Enemy strength:

In D&D 3.5, each enemy had a Challenge Rating. When designing an encounter, a GM could take the party level and if he could make an enemy group with a total CR roughly the same as the party level, then it was supposed to be a fair fight. Up the CR a bit above the party level and it would be a tougher fight. How can I create a "fair fight" in this system?

Party level:
Since there is no "Level 1" or "Level 20" character in this game system, how do I scale up encounters so that it's not a cakewalk for the party, but not a TPK either?

Sometimes, one of the players can't make a game and we play with 4 PCs instead of 5, how can I scale up/down encounters for this?

Rewards:

Is it only just 10-15XP per session? Is there a more precise guide on how to give out XP?

Again, referencing D&D 3.5, there would be an expected party gold per level. A Level 1 party would probably only have 1,000gp worth of gear whereas a Level 10 party might have 10,000gp worth of gear. I found this useful in testing whether I was giving out rewards appropriately. How do I do this in this system?

Thanks in advance for any help!

Each morality should have a positive and a negative, so when a players morality triggers the aim is to create an encounter that contains elements that are both good and bad. That way the character should find it quite challenging to do exactly the moral choice.

Enemy Strength: It is pretty hard to kill a character. So you can always just knock them out and a day or two latter they are woken up and a beast of some sort is about to attack them as they are tied to stakes. Of they are tied up and taken back to base camp to become dinner. You could also go another directions and just have a minnion group outside the door that will come in if it looks to be too easy.

Looking at your party mix you may find that the players will trivialise combat. So to some extent the players can all shine and be heroes in combat. You'll probably find having combat in a hostil environments where the players may have to make an athletic test to avoid being hit but robot arms building things, or being swept over on a conveyor. Very often combat in Star Wars is not just having two side shoot at each other, but they have to run through the alleys and jump crates and debris in their path. If they are force users having combat in a ware house may provide them boxes, small tools and such to force move, jump over and hide behind.

The rule of thumb is to give out 5xp per hour of game time. So if you get together and play three hours I would suggest if you do a good three in pplay then 15, if you chatter and carried on then 10. If you play for 6-8 hours then you could looks at 20-30 all up, players will still get a talent or two most sessions and perhaps a skill increase or two. This will usually keep the guys happy and having fun without it feeling unrewarding.

As for rewards you have a good number of interestinng ways to go. Be tight and give the players little, a typical shop can earn the players 600-1000 in a month. You can also offer to give the players work in the future and for a 5 point obligation their employer will give them that speed or droid they used during the adventure. Be careful with money though, quite a lot of a characters improvement does come from XP but form them spending money.

Woot! Congrats on starting a new game!

Morality:

If someone does something questionable, they earn a little conflict. If they do something outright crappy, they earn more! haha. It's okay if it's not perfect the first few sessions, I feel like as you start the game you slowly learn more and more, and the rules get stronger. Think of your game as a TV show in season 1! It's kind of crappy, as all the writers are learning what's working and what isn't

I would recommend that whatever you pick, be it Duty or Obligation or Morality, that it stays the same across all games.

Honestly, in the house rules of my current campaign, we actually don't really use any of the systems. That's an option, too.

Enemy Strength & Party Level

FFGSW is unique in that! I was talking to a friend about this the other day- the mechanics are way more about RP, and less about "going up in statistics", so it's kind of harder to figure that out. I feel like it's cool though, because characters of varying XP can be effective in games regardless.

Here's my experience with this:

• Start by repurposing weak, crappy minions like "starship mechanics" or whatever, and just narratively adjust (if your PCs are getting massacred, offer a narrative twist that saves them, or have introduce more if they're merking everyone). It will help you get the hang of it! And if your story is good, players aren't going to necessarily worry about how easy was the first time or two.
• Once you start to get the hang of the statistics, you'll be naturally figuring out damage versus soak and wound threshold, and it will feel comfortable designing encounters.
• Keep playing! We've been playing weekly for almost a year now, and the first few sessions seem like we got a lot of it wrong. And that's totally cool! As long as everyone is having a great time.

Rewards

Amanal's post about rewards is perfect! 5XP an hour rocks.

Sometimes I'll give rewards throughout the game, but won't say them till the end. So, let's say someone is doing a perception check on a dead body, and does something crazy like 3 successes and 3 advantage. I'd tell them, "You've found something great, I'm just not sure what it is yet. You carefully pack it and stow it for later."

Then, at the end of the game, I'll take my time and build a really unique item for them, or something cool, so that it's special!

Favorite item I've built: A backpack that unfolds into a speeder bike (two maneuvers to take off and unfold, one to mount!)

Conclusion!

In my games, I've had skill checks sometimes be too weak, players breeze through everything in a game or two, and battles be pitiful.

The reality? Nobody cared. I've spent so, so much time crafting a compelling narrative that my PCs are more interested in what happens next than on how "hard" it was. And that's really the magic of this game. Use it to tell a good story. The mechanics won't always be right, and that's okay. Within a few weeks, you'll be on the road to greatness!

Hope my feedback helps!

and I need to flesh out a few ideas and clarify others.

So far, my players have come up with a bounty hunter (Seeker Hunter), a mercenary (Seeker Ataru Striker), a Jedi-to-be (Sentinel Shien Expert), plus two other players who have yet to make characters. Our previous experience is a few games of SW RPG using the EotE setting.

Morality:

I'm a bit unsure how to work with this in the campaign. In EotE's Obligation, it seems a bit easier to work with... a character with a Bounty obligation might be strained with Obligation coming into play, and can work with the GM to lessen or eliminate the obligation. I'm not too clear how this works with Morality.

As not all of my PCs are Jedis (but all can use the Force), maybe the bounty hunter and mercenary can use Obligations instead?

What, exactly, are you unsure about? The Morality system can take some getting used to, so let's start small. Give us specifics, and we can better help!

Enemy strength:

In D&D 3.5, each enemy had a Challenge Rating. When designing an encounter, a GM could take the party level and if he could make an enemy group with a total CR roughly the same as the party level, then it was supposed to be a fair fight. Up the CR a bit above the party level and it would be a tougher fight. How can I create a "fair fight" in this system?

You must unlearn what you have learned! In D&D, every class is geared towards fighting, so combat can be "balanced". But in this game, not everyone can shoot a blaster with ease, or swing a lightsaber with proficiency. The best way to design an encounter is to look at your player's characters. If there are a lot of combat oriented characters, throw more baddies at them.

When first starting out, start small. One or two groups of Stormtroopers, 4 each—that would give you 3 dice upgrades. See how well they handle that threat, and adjust from there.

Party level:

Since there is no "Level 1" or "Level 20" character in this game system, how do I scale up encounters so that it's not a cakewalk for the party, but not a TPK either?

Sometimes, one of the players can't make a game and we play with 4 PCs instead of 5, how can I scale up/down encounters for this?

In D&D, you get exceedingly better at killing—and not being killed—as you go up in level. More HP, better spells, multiple attacks, etc. There's none of that in this game! You can't expect more than a token increase in strain or wound threshold, nor much of a change in soak. A squad of Stormtroopers will be just as much of a threat for 4 starting characters as for 5 characters with 800 XP. You may want to up the enemies characteristics a bit, and give them better weapons, but all in all minions in large groups are scary .

Rewards:

Is it only just 10-15XP per session? Is there a more precise guide on how to give out XP?

Again, referencing D&D 3.5, there would be an expected party gold per level. A Level 1 party would probably only have 1,000gp worth of gear whereas a Level 10 party might have 10,000gp worth of gear. I found this useful in testing whether I was giving out rewards appropriately. How do I do this in this system?

Thanks in advance for any help!

There are so many different ways people give out XP, that you need to find what works best for your group. The book suggests 10–20, which matches well with the idea of 5 XP per hour. I personally prefer 5 XP per important scene (an "encounter"), bumped to 10 XP for a major scene. This follows along well with the "a session is 2–3 encounters, and a few supporting scenes".

Of course, if you and your table want to award more, go for it! Unlike in D&D, XP in this game is a pacing mechanism that determines how slowly or quickly the PCs gain new talents, skills, etc. You can think of XP like seasoning on your food: season to taste!

Thanks for the help guys! I've re-read the Morality section on the book and I think I know how to trigger it and what happens afterwards.

However, I'm now unclear as to what happens when a PC's Morality goes down and he becomes a Dark side force user. If the Morality goes up, then he could have positive bonuses due to his "good" reputation, but what about if it goes down? Okay, positive bonuses when dealing with criminals due to his "bad" reputation, but what else? I'm envisioning having trouble here if one PC is "bad" while the rest of the party is "good," especially if the "bad" PC does not work towards redemption.

The rules for Dark Side characters and Light Side Paragons are in the character creation chapter, not the Morality chapter (I only have the beta book, so I don't have a page number, sorry).

If your Morality drops below 30 (meaning 29 or lower), you are a dark sider. You generate Force points with dark side pips—meaning to use light side pips you need to flip a Destiny Point and suffer strain—and when rolling for Destiny Points, after rolling you flip one LS to DS. If your Morality drops below 20, your strain threshold is reduced by 1, but your wound threshold is increased by 1. If it drops below 10, double the strain penalty and wound bonus. In order to redeem yourself and become a light sider again, you need to reach a Morality score of 71. Note that while a dark sider, you still accrue conflict for using dark side pips to power your Force abilities! Meaning that you have to flip a DP and suffer strain almost every time if you're trying to redeem yourself!

If your Morality is over 70 (71 or higher) you are a light side paragon . When rolling for DP at the beginning of each session, you add one LS DP. If your morality is 81+, increase your strain threshold by 1. Double that if your Morality is 81 or higher.

An important thing to remember is that, until your Morality drops below 30, you're a light side character. Once you fall to the dark side, you're a dark side character until your Morality exceeds 70. The 30–70 range of Morality is an extension of whichever side you were most recently on—light or dark.

I hope that helps!

Intys,

I figured I would chime in and share some of my early experiences in running F&D to help out, because what I am taking away from your initial post is a lot of your concerns were very similar to mine when i got started with this system. So you know, I have been playing the old WEG D6 star wars basically since their second edition hit shelves. I never switched to the D20 version because, in my opinion, if I wanted to play D20 in space, I'd play Spelljammer. I had always figured you would pry my D6s out of my cold, dead hands, but here I am.

On Morality:

Coming from the D6 background, my first reaction to the ability to use a dark side pip on the force die for the bargain basement cost of 1 conflict that wasn't even guaranteed to threaten to send a player careening into the loving arms of the Dark Side felt a little weak to me. in the back of my head, I sort of had this mental image of my players taking the DSP and laughing all the way to the bank, knowing that if they roll well at the end of the session, they can claim "no harm, no foul." I should also mention, one of my favorite aspects of Star Wars has always been it's strong morality play themes. To be fair, it took all of two sessions for me to get over this. About half way through my second session, I realized that a) my players were mostly reacting to the DSP like it was a snake made out of the plague, and b) what is more important about morality is the general sort of day to day business of being a "good" guy or a 'bad" guy. Now, without getting into "certain points of view" the keys to "what is positive or negative morality?" get summed up pretty well by the Sith and Jedi Codes, or that one line from Yoda in Empire when Luke asks "how am I to know the good from the bad?"

An example from my session last night -

One of my players, an "Underworld Diplomat" type sees that the number two guy in a Ryloth slaver ring is trying to draw a hold-out blaster on the slaves that the group had just liberated. He attempts to use the Force Power Influence to make the guy surrender to the now freed slaves justice. (previously the party realized thanks to a xenology roll that the traditional punishment for Twi'lekks that engage in the slave trade is usually banishment, and they figured this was moraly an OK thing, but were ready to step in if things got a little lynch mob-y) Upon rolling the power, he only gets DSP. My player says, "you know, the greater evil is him taking pot shots at half starved, half beaten to death slaves. I'll use the DSP and make him too afraid to use the gun."

IMHO fear as a tool or a weapon is one of those big, screaming no-nos for the Jedi. "Fear leads to anger...", "fear is my ally," etc. So, that's one point of conflict for using the DSP, a suggested 2 for "inflicting emotional abuse" per table 9-2 in Force and Destiny, and since he was using the force to accomplish that, I figure that is worth another 2. The mitigating factor here was he did the wrong thing for the right reason. Like Yoda said, "A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense.." Since he was trying to do the right thing and knew the only way he could accomplish that was to use that DSP, I figured that was worth a 2 conflict break, so net gain of three. The caveat here is, this is the first time he tried to use the dark side to do something good. Were this to become a habit, the Light Side sees through that, and the "mitigating circumstances" defense fails to hold.

While on the subject of Morality, you were curious about the Darkside "benefits" as well as a mixed morality party. The mechanical benifits are outlined in the same section of chapter two as the light side paragon stuffs. Basically, I would interpret the dark side version of the reputation thing kinda like that line from an old song whose title escapes me. "you don't spit into the wind, you don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger, and you don't mess around with Jim" where Jim is the dark side guy. Word has gotten around that he's got a temper, that he leaves a trail of bodies in his wake, that he kicks puppies and trips old ladies on the stairs! While there are certainly times or places that sort of rep would be a benefit, there are just as many places that would cause some problems, just like the positive Light Side paragon reputation.

Now, on the "one bad guy in a group of good guys" issue: There are a couple of ways this can go, from personal experience. if one of the players traipses merrily into "unrepentant sociopath" that is probably the worst case scenario. The best you can hope for is the "good guys" try to stage interventions and redemption opportunities, but you are probably heading towards issues. The second way this could go is sort of the Nietzsche-esque "beware he who fights monsters, lest he becomes a monster himself" sort of trope. This can still be an issue, but you have certain "good cop/bad cop" options that open up, where the rest of the group certainly tries to mitigate the black sheep's actions but on that rare occasion, the good guys take some conflict and let him off the chain to expedite matters. The final possible outcome is they do want a redemption story, in which case good RP opportunities abound, and you can do like I do and cackle maniacally every time you put your good guy players in kind of a difficult position.

Another example: In the game I have been running, pretty early on the players found out that there was an ISB team with spooky code names from the Four Horsemen looking into the same strange phenomena the party discovered. After last night's big space battle where they blew up the creepy dark side space crab with the help of the underworld diplomat who "knows a guy" (And that guy happened to be Hondo. Hilarity ensues all around!) and some reluctant help from the imperial navy (as the players left a message for War saying they were coming this way, and Hondo double crossed the guy he knew to be a Jedi by calling the imperials on them.) One ISD runs away, one gets vaporized, a couple of VSDs have their crew's life force drained and the PCs manage to sneak into the space crab, learn a few things and get out. After the battle, the race is on to scavenge stuff from the VSDs! It was like "Supermarket Sweep" with lightsabers. While everyone is loading the YT-1300 to the gunnels, the Artisan Slicer uses some stolen code cylinders to break open the computers and starts poking around for the files relating to the Four Horsemen. A massive roll at a redonkulous difficulty, and gets the personelle files to start downloading, while he runs off to play pied piper with a choice selection of Imperial droids. Back to the ship, flying home, and the hacker finally takes a look at his download. Pestilence, a creepy cloned/genetically engineered Zabrak who likes poisons, bio weapons, and hates banthas. Famine, a cloned/geneticallyengineered human female who gathers intel for them, likes to torture people, and is a master of disguise. War, the cloned/genetically engineered human male master tactician and leader of the group, and Death, who has been MIA or in deep cover for about ten years, there are conflicting reports. Genetically engineered or cloned killing machine. Who bears a very striking resemblance to the pilot they found ten years ago... Who shows signs of being a clone, or genetically engineered specimen... and has amnesia because a big part of his brain was damaged by a vehicle scale blaster... or maybe a lightsaber.

The session ended with the pilot smiling to the slicer, which was the first time in ten years they've seen his lips move.

So, now he's got a secret, has no idea who to tell as they are all trapped in a tiny little YT-1300 filled with crap and no room to run or fight if this all goes sideways, and while they have a back up pilot, no one else can plot a light speed jump. I'm looking forward to seeing how that pans out.

Enemy Strength

It can be a little difficult to "tune" an encounter at first, but there are a few things to do to make things more or less dangerous

Minions - 4 packs of five are very briefly more threatening than 1 pack of twenty. 4 packs get 4 shots, vs the 1 shot of a 20 man squad, but that 20 man squad keeps all of it's extra dice MUCH longer. And while I recall no rule stating you can have minion packs merge, I also don't recall a rule forbidding it, so occasionally I have packs merge or split to adjust difficulty on the fly, and remember that retreat is usually an option for both sides of an encounter, and the NPCs can call for back up.

Rivals - remember what the ranks in Rival gets them. Like others have said, it's hard to "by the dice" kill someone dead. Don't worry about KO'ing someone, because if a player gets taken out, honestly, a victory at a later date will be much sweeter. Also, I figure about 50% of rivals have an "exit strategy" or some sneaky way to escape an encounter if you have undertuned a rival.

Nemesis - Defensive talents are key for both players or the Nemisis. In F&D, the value of Parry cannot be overstated. One of my players managed to engage ISB Inquisitor War for one round. A crit and a linked double bladed lightsaber hit left War having to pop Parry, but that one hit left him with about half his WT, 2/3rds of his Strain, and a nasty crit that left him needing to get out of the fight after one attack. That one attack with a decent roll instantly KO'd the player who had no ability to parry. Also, a nemesis always has some form of "exit strategy."

Rewards

I like the 5 XP per hour, but that's been mentioned. Also, in terms of monetary rewards, I find it helpful to say to players "What kinds of cool toys would you like to get short term and long term?" At the end of the day, if the party is happy with the shinies, and you are happy with them having the shinies and can tune the baddies to match either through numbers or rivals or Nemesis, at the end of the day, it's all about a cool story and having fun. If the players are having a good time, and you are too, then it's a good game.

Anyway, I've rambled enough, but in closing, I hope you have a great time with your players! Clear Skies!

Thanks for that! I had forgotten about that part... that's what I get for trying to blitz through the book.

I'm a bit worried about how a party would cope with a light side PC and a dark side PC, but I guess it's pointless to worry about it until it actually happens and it's useless to anticipate fixes to non-existent problems. However, has anyone else encountered this in their player group? How did it go?

The biggest "issue" with one LS and one DS Force user is the Destiny Point flipping. They're going to be jealous of each other. The LS user is going to be all, "but I need those LS points, give 'em here!" And vice versa

Also of note is that the dark side Force user cannot use the light side half of the dual powers: protect/unleash and heal/harm.

Actually, they can use protect, but only on themselves I believe, unless that has changed sanficantly since beta.

Actually, they can use protect, but only on themselves I believe, unless that has changed sanficantly since beta.

You're right. I was thinking of heal/harm: dark side characters cannot heal, only harm. Dark side characters cannot protect others.

My bad!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Light side PC uses the white pips with no problem and can use the black pips but would have to suffer 1 strain and flip one white Destiny Point to black, right?

A Dark side PC uses the black pips with no problem and can use the white pips but would have to suffer 1 strain and flip one WHITE Destiny Point to black, correct?

Trying to find page reference for this....

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Light side PC uses the white pips with no problem and can use the black pips but would have to suffer 1 strain and flip one white Destiny Point to black, right?

A Dark side PC uses the black pips with no problem and can use the white pips but would have to suffer 1 strain and flip one WHITE Destiny Point to black, correct?

Trying to find page reference for this....

Almost. You also gain 1 conflict for each black pip you use, regardless of being light side or dark side. And the amount of strain suffered is equal to the number of "other colour" pips you use. So if a light side user flips a Destiny Point to use 2 dark side pips they'd suffer two strain and take two conflict.