I'm about to begin creating my Force and Destiny character. Literally, my note book is empty. All I have is a feeling about what I want him to be.

I shall speak frankly.

He fights for peace, justice and freedom. But he fights ugly. There is no denying, no discussion and no debating the fact that he is a Dark Side Force Sensitive. If you point a blaster at a child, you're going to be cut in half. If an entire company of stormtroopers marches on a defenceless settlement, they'll be hit by Force Lightning.

HE IS A DARK SIDER

But is it possible to use the Dark Side and remain good?

Is the Hulk evil?

Is Wolverine evil?

Is Batman, the "Dark Knight" evil?

My knowledge of Star Wars is limited to the movies, and even I started questioning how "good" the Jedi were, so I may have missed a vital point.

I want my character to be a weapon. But a weapon on the side of peace, freedom and justice.

Hope I've explained that well.

Good is a point of view.

I totally think so. I also have had an idea for a character that fights for the Rebellion, but is Force sensitive (Agressor/Shii-Cho Knight). He is the one that will do all the nasty things the lightsiders will not knowing he dooms his soul because he wants others to be able to live with themselves. I will probably never get to play him as i always GM for the most part, but it would be fun.

mouthymerc, your George Orwell quote is very fitting.

Good is a point of view.

True

And sometimes a flawed hero is more appealing than a paragon of proprietary. Usually the latter is a pompous, sanctimonious, holier than thou bore.

I like complicated characters who are sometimes contradictions.

Probably because I'm complicated.

I would say in the Star Wars movie, the two are one and the same. Even if the person falls for noble reasons, he will be an evil overload when his story plays out. That's just how Lucas rolls. But in an RPG. I think you could totally make that character. He sounds like a lot of fun. When you make this character, make sure the rest of the group (including the GM) are okay with it. They may want to play classic Jedi when you want to play the practical jerk, So that conversation needs to take place so no one is blindsided.

I would say in the Star Wars movie, the two are one and the same. Even if the person falls for noble reasons, he will be an evil overload when his story plays out. That's just how Lucas rolls. But in an RPG. I think you could totally make that character. He sounds like a lot of fun. When you make this character, make sure the rest of the group (including the GM) are okay with it. They may want to play classic Jedi when you want to play the practical jerk, So that conversation needs to take place so no one is blindsided.

They want a "Wolverine" whose a good guy who goes all Rambo when bad guys (aka Empire) threaten them. Downside is, I'm to stay out of "diplomatic situations unless intimidation is needed".

Sounds a lot like Ullic Quel'droma(sp?). He was a Jedi in the Old Republic era that needed to get close to some Sith. Figured he'd just "pretend" to be bad. Problem is, the Force doesn't care if you're pretending or not. The nastier he pretended to be, the more taint his soul aquired. Pretty soon he's leading a Sith armada against the Republic, well, you know, "pretending" to lead that armada. Nevermind all the dying pub soldiers lying about....

The Force doesn't dominate you, but it does guide you. If you're full of darkside rot and revel in it, its pretty easy to guess where its gonna guide you.

If you fall, even for the right reasons, you still fall. That said, and this is purely about how your character views his place in the cosmos, if you're merely efficient at what you do you might get away with a lot of darkishness. "He challenged me. Of course I killed him, alive he would still be a threat." Simple, logical, efficient. Not dark at all, although you could play it that way quite easily. In fact, cold calculating and near emtionless(gods that sounds so Jedi-like), can make a truly terrifying evil. Khan,"Now, shall we begin?"

He's evil. Star Wars is built on mythic storytelling, which tend to feature epic battles between good and evil. The dark side is meant to be evil.

Now that doesn't mean that you can't do good while being evil, or that you can't have a more noble purpose even if your methods are dark. But it does mean that that the narrative structure of the setting places the dark side as evil.

Also you really can't bring up characters like the Batman, Hulk, and Wolverine. They all exist in different worlds built on different narrative structures. You're comparing apples to oranges. When judging characters to be truly good or truly evil the narrative structure of the world they inhabit is very important.

With that said, whatever the GM wants to do works. So ask him if darksiders are only evil. From a pure Star Wars story sense though, they're always evil because that's how Lucas wants them.

The Jedi care at least as much about methods as they do about results, so from a Jedi perspective, using the dark side to good ends is not justifiable. However, there are other Force using philosophies that approach things differently. The Potentium believers, for example, think motive and result determine alignment, not method. To them, a Jedi could use Force lightning to defend innocents and be perfectly justified, and not dark.

So basically, good and evil are points of view, and different philosophies judge them differently. As a Jedi? No, he's a darksider. From another point of view? Sure, he may be justified.

But the Morality system isn't based on point of view. Nor is Star Wars really. The source material is clear that while some cultures and groups may feel that what they do isn't evil or of the darkside the reality of the situation is far different than their point of view. The basis for a Morality system requires there be a clear distinction between the concepts of good and evil, thus mechanically speaking actions are good or evil. There is wiggle room but this setting doesn't operate on point of view as much as other games might.

There is good. There is evil. And those two concepts are beyond Obi Wan's lies of omission and point of view babble.

The superhero comparison was just to give a clue as to where I was coming from:

Dark Knight could do things the police couldn't legally get away with. He was outside the law.

Some in the Rebellion/Resistance know that they should hit the Empire/New Order hard or risk being defeated. However, their superiors are too busy sweating over popular opinion and hearts and minds to do what needs to be done.

Wolverine/Hulk are good men with good hearts but when angry do a lot of damage.

Having had a tough life, and seeing a lot of the evils the Empire are guilty of, he does suffer from anger issues. But he's not a mindless berserker. He focuses that pain and anger against those who earn the consequences of it. Really, he'd be happy to just live a quiet isolated life away from everyone and everything. But he can't stand idly by while innocent people suffer oppression and tyranny.

So he isn't selfish. Which according to Lucas all Dark Siders are. If he were, he'd not be worth creating since he'd tell the rest of the group where to stick their cause.

But I do accept that he's Dark Sided because, allegedly, the good and noble Light Side don't go to war or kill anyone. They don't take sides in conflicts. In fact they're just too good to resort to anything other than a peaceful passivity.

Well, the Dark Siders are, in fact, always evil.

Even Luke Skywalker himself falls down that hole briefly in Dark Empire (Legends). Fortunately, he had a sister to slap him out of it before he could really damage his soul, but still...even Luke couldn't just shrug it off unaided.

And if he can't, there's probably no hope for your PC either.

In fact...if Wolverine were force sensitive and put in the Star Wars universe, he'd end up like Sabertooth by the end of the month. Or worse.

The reason why the super heroes don't work though is that they inhabit different worlds with different metaphysical rules on morality. In those comics there isn't a sure fire 100% answer to if something is good or evil. Instead those stories exist in moral grey spaces. There are no tangible effects for doing evil or questionable stuff for good and noble reasons.

This doesn't translate well to a setting like Star Wars in which there is a metaphysical good and evil that can manifest in the setting. By Star Wars standards ...... Batman is a darksider. He has noble intentions but he uses fear to instill and maintain order. He wouldn't start out as a darksider of course, but the long term end game for Batman in Star Wars is going darksider and then maybe Superman redeeming him later.

In Star Wars the means matter just as much as the goal. Anakin goes darksider over very noble reasons. He just wanted to protect those he loved and not see people get hurt. His methods though made him a darksider. He's not as full on evil as Palaptine was but ......

Your character goes dark for noble reasons it seems ...... but he still seems to go dark. Even if you Force Lightening people to save innocents you still tapped into the darkside to do it. It will eventually take a toll on you.

Dark Disciple shows us that Ventriss (spelling?) was a dark side Force-user, but she wasn't evil once she abandons the Sith teachings. Quinlan does the same with the dark side and only becomes evil when seduced by the Sith.

Oh yeah it's possible to come back from the darkside but that typically means giving up on things that lead you there in the first place. Being a darksider isn't final, Vader shows us that. However the setting does have a tendency to declare darksiders as evil and lightsiders as good.

Two of my favorite quotes on the subject:

"Ware ye he who fights monsters, lest he become a monster him self, and know when you gaze long into the abyss that the abyss is also gazing into you." - Nietzsche

"I believe in something greater than myself. A better world. A world without sin."

"So me and mine gotta lay down and die... so you can live in your better world?"

"I'm not going to live there. There's no place for me there... any more than there is for you, Malcom. I'm a monster. What I do is evil. I have no illusions about it, but it must be done." - Malcom Reynolds and the Operative

As a general rule, Star Wars (at least to me) is a morality play. There are clear cut moral lines, and what seems to be about two shades of grey and a big scary Moral Event Horizon ( http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MoralEventHorizon )

While I think it is possible (possible, not probable) to follow the Sith code and not fall to the Dark side, I try to keep in mind that Sith/Jedi are one axis, and Light side/Dark Side is a second axis on a graph. I mean, the Jedi can do some pretty shady stuff in the name of their code, while the Sith start from passion, which (at least to my mind) has the potential to lead to compassion. I know a lot of examples of this is old EU/Legends stuff, but it was the rigid and absolute interpretation of the code of the Jedi order that lined the dominoes up for Anakin's fall, while Luke and Mara Jade (in the absence of a council to enforce it's strict dogmatic edicts) seem to get along just fine in a relationship. In some strange alternate universe, had Anakin and Padme not had to hide their relationship, had Anakin been able to tell Obi-Wan, "Hey man, I keep having these visions of my wife dying and it's starting to creep me out" and that statement not been met with (IMHO) puritanical "Well, this is why we don't have relationships, because now your are afraid and fear leads to anger, hate, and the whole Dark Side combo meal" but instead support, validation of the feeling of concern but not fear, and reassurance, we might have been able to avoid a room full of dead younglings.

The correlation of this, and what would happen if I was running this game, you would get the warning about roads paved with good intentions. Even outside of Star Wars, other fantasy settings with a Good/Evil dichotomy have similar strictures and prohibitions in place about the good guys using the tools of the bad guys. While fighting fire with fire sounds like a great idea on paper, the nature of fire made up of evil is ... well, evil. While you may be able to accomplish good with the tools of evil, that doesn't make you good. Take, for example, in the real world there are some people who choose not to commit crimes only because they are afraid of being punished, while other people choose not to commit crimes because they have a functioning moral compass. They are both doing the right thing, but for the wrong reason. If situations were to change, one of them would continue to do the right thing because it is in their nature to do so, but remove the fear of punishment, and the first example goes off the rails. Maybe not all at once. Maybe not instantly. But eventually they will descend into amorality until the fear of punishment is restored.

I think a better example from comics of this isn't Batman or Hulk or Wolverine, but Thaal Sinestro. One of the best and brightest of the Green lantern Corps. His sector of space was the most peaceful with the least crime. And he did it by putting the fear of him and his power limited only by his will and imagination into the people of his sector. The pave stones of good intentions lead him to exile, imprisonment on Qward, and the formation of his own Lantern Corps fueled by fear.

Even in Star Wars, where I mentioned we have two distinct shades of grey filled with the likes of Han Solo, every bounty hunter ever, Hondo, the Hutts, and basically everyone who doesn't fit into the boxes of "Sith," "Jedi," "Empire," or "Republic/Rebellion," you can still point at people and tell exactly which shade of grey and which side of the line they are on. Even Han shooting first puts him juuuuuuust on the happy side of that line between the two shades of grey because he knew Greedo by reputation and if Han didn't start that fight with lethal intent, the fight was going to get there fast. Han may have been a quick-drawing, drug running killer, but he was in that position due to a lack of viable options. No matter how desperate for money Han got to pay off his debts, he'd never run slaves. He wouldn't hurt kids. Boba Fett, the Hutts, and some of the other folks though clearly don't have those compunctions.

While the Force doesn't affect those who aren't Force sensitive as strongly, intent follows the bullet (or blaster bolt, in Han's case). Han wasn't angry or afraid. Han knew the only way out of this situation was through lethal violence and rather than enjoying it, he recognized it was his only recourse and took it before poor dumb Greedo knew what hit him. Bad, but not evil.

What is being discussed in the OP, though... giving into the fear, the anger, the hate, at that point you risk losing control. That lack of control is where the evil will twist your good intentions. That's what leads to Anakin force choking Padme. It's not a question of "will it happen" but "when will it happen." In my current game, one of the players is a light side paragon with a hatred of the Empire. He walks a very thin line, but when confronted with the inquisitor that killed his master, he stepped WAY over the line, and he knew what the consequences would be. While this may not be the kind of game everyone wants all the time, being true to the essence of Star Wars, this is how Evil Force wielding Overlords are born, out of a desire to do "good."

My two cents, hope that helps.

Well, more accurately, Bruce Wayne would never make it to Batman in the Star Wars Universe. Instead, his anger over his parents would basically turn him into the Punisher.

If you take an experienced Batman and put him in the Star Wars Universe...I think his moral code is too well developed to fall into the trap of the Dark Side. He's too well researched. Put Batman in a new universe, and he's going to research the hell out of it before taking any actions. He'll have the complete history of the Jedi and the Sith (even during the dark times or the rebellion era, the Empire's computer systems and suppressed records office simply aren't good enough to keep Batman out.) He'd get the whole story. And he'd probably end up a Jedi Sentinel. (Sentinel/Shadow, obviously, if you had to give him an FFG Class).

Aggressor looks to be made for a dark side character. That's not to say it's made for an evil character.

Well, more accurately, Bruce Wayne would never make it to Batman in the Star Wars Universe. Instead, his anger over his parents would basically turn him into the Punisher.

If you take an experienced Batman and put him in the Star Wars Universe...I think his moral code is too well developed to fall into the trap of the Dark Side. He's too well researched. Put Batman in a new universe, and he's going to research the hell out of it before taking any actions. He'll have the complete history of the Jedi and the Sith (even during the dark times or the rebellion era, the Empire's computer systems and suppressed records office simply aren't good enough to keep Batman out.) He'd get the whole story. And he'd probably end up a Jedi Sentinel. (Sentinel/Shadow, obviously, if you had to give him an FFG Class).

Batman would be a darksider. He uses fear to fight crime. Fear happens to be the main tool of pretty much used by other evil folks in the setting. Vader, Tarkin, Palpatine all use fear. And of course there's Yoda's "fear is the path to the darkside ..... etc etc etc." What you say about Batman is true but based on the methods he employs he would eventually fall to the darkside. Jedi Sentinel may be sneaky but they don't use fear as their MO.

Which is why you can't take Batman and then put him in the Star Wars universe. The rules used to create Batman are different than the ones used to create characters in Star Wars. He doesn't translate well into the setting because the defining traits that make Batman .... well ..... Batman are traits that also make people evil in Star Wars.

More likely he'd change his methods once his research identifies the problem (And he WILL ID the problem.)

He might be stuck with the Aggressor Talent Tree due to his time in Gotham, but once research reveals that causing fear is a major no no, he'll stop doing it. And so he'll only gain the +1 Conflict for knowing how and that's about it.

I will echo the idea that Star Wars applies a pretty clear black/white distinction, with the 'gray zone' being, very, very narrow and easy to step past, figuratively speaking. A couple of other ideas that crop up is the difference between somebody who has self-control as opposed by an impulsive person, and the difference between selflessness and selfishness. One last idea that crops up outside of the movies (and might be mostly Legends by now) is that the Force (both the light and the dark) is a bit more active than is readily apparent. The more you tap into the dark side the more it applies pressure on you, and you get trapped in a cycle, and it's harder to get out.

The argument that the Prequel era Jedi weren't the paragons of light they should have been isn't without basis, but YMMV. But I don't think comparing Star Wars and superheroes is really 1:1.

More likely he'd change his methods once his research identifies the problem (And he WILL ID the problem.)

He might be stuck with the Aggressor Talent Tree due to his time in Gotham, but once research reveals that causing fear is a major no no, he'll stop doing it. And so he'll only gain the +1 Conflict for knowing how and that's about it.

Then he stops being Batman. There's really no way around this. If we take Batman for what he is ..... he's a darksider. If we assume that Batman would know better he stops being Batman because he wouldn't behave and act like the Batman we are speaking of.

Again the inherent problem here is that Batman is written using different ideas on what constitutes good and evil. Because DC Comic uses a much different scale Batman becomes impossible to translate into Star Wars as a good character and still retain what makes Batman Batman. So he either becomes a darksider or he ceases to be Batman.

That's why it's bad to just insert a comic book character into Star Wars. Different rules on good and evil will always result in a different outcome for that character.

The hard part I have had wrapping my head around is that The Force is an external almost sentient thing. It comes in 2 flavours, Dark and Light. Those flavours are attracted to the ACTIONS people do, not their beliefs. Palpatine thought he was doing good by ridding the Galaxy of Jedi. And arguably the Empire does some good, but at great cost.

Morality is a representation of the Forces opinion of your characters actions, not the internal justification your character has for their actions. The Force sees everything, feels everything and knows everything, so if you kill a village full of mostly innocent men ... And women... And children then the Dark side is greatly attracted to you for the evil thing you did. On the other hand if you blow up an enormous moon sized super weapon, and all its inhabitants, then the Light sides of the force knows you actually did a good thing and it is attracted to you.

Palpatine thought he was doing good by ridding the Galaxy of Jedi.

I don't think "doing good" was his motivation. it's not a case of misguided intentions, he just wanted to control it all, and knew exactly what he was doing. There's no indication he thought his actions were morally right, or even cared about the question of whether or not they were. But he was smart enough to paint his actions in that light for the public and even for Anakin as he was being turned.

HappyDaze beat me to it, but the Ventress arc is a good example. She's clearly evil because she's lost in her hatred and anger. She thinks nothing of ordering Savage Opress to murder his "weak" brother. It's only after she fails to assassinate Dooku that she rethinks her ways.

Being a darksider doesn't mean you can't have strong alliances, friends, or at least people you are loyal to. But you are definitely still evil.