At least I know my character can do all the badass buttkicking and destroying battalions of stormtroopers while being a good Jedi.

No longer a Dark Side Hero

He shall be a Light Side Badass

At least I know my character can do all the badass buttkicking and destroying battalions of stormtroopers while being a good Jedi.

No longer a Dark Side Hero

He shall be a Light Side Badass

Well so long as you use mostly good methods. Remember Luke could have easily beaten Vader by giving into anger and hate and there's a good chance he might have been able to put up a good fight against Palpatine too using anger, hate, and the darkside. But Luke is the hero and a good Jedi because he doesn't do those things. When the choice between winning using darkside methods or losing using lightside methods comes up he chooses the light. It ultimately works out in his favor because this narrative structure rewards people for doing the right things the right way.

So you can be a Paragon of Light doing the wrong thing?

People seem to be conflating things. You can leave the Jedi for good reasons, and not all Jedi, even those who had their heart in the right place and resisted the dark side, made the right decisions all the time. Yoda and the Council certainly made mistakes...in some ways, that's the point: it's harder to adhere to the light side, because the answers aren't always clear. "Only the Sith deal in absolutes"...etc. A failure of judgement isn't automatically a dark side thing.

If you ask me, I wouldn't be shocked if a few jedi left the order because they did fall in love wanted to get married.

I doubt anybody would call that "dark side". Anakin wasn't in danger of falling to the dark side because of love...it's because he wanted to be a Jedi, and to do that he had to keep his love a secret and lie about it. No doubt he could have easily left the Jedi Order if he would have been content with a different life.

But you cannot be a good guy doing the right thing but using the Dark Side?

Right, because it's a textbook case of "the ends justify the means". Central to the mythology is that if you give in to those temptations, the dark side will attempt to influence you in ways you can't control.

Of course, how you want to play it at your table is up to you, but at least in canon the distinction is pretty clear.

Thenger, on 14 Sept 2015 - 2:32 PM, said:

If you ask me, I wouldn't be shocked if a few jedi left the order because they did fall in love wanted to get married.

I doubt anybody would call that "dark side". Anakin wasn't in danger of falling to the dark side because of love...it's because he wanted to be a Jedi, and to do that he had to keep his love a secret and lie about it. No doubt he could have easily left the Jedi Order if he would have been content with a different life.

Yeah I didn't mean falling in "love" is dark side, but I think more then just Dooku left.

Still not a darkside act. Ahsoka was a Jedi padawan and they are often sent on missions that could get them killed. That is the life of the Jedi and the realities of war. Yoda sent a lot of people on missions where they were more than likely going to be killed. None of which makes him a darksider.

But it wasn't a mission, it was a judgment made by Tarkin. The Jedi were going to rule on Ahsoka, but when Tarkin came in and told the counsel to give her over Yoda did. The Jedi Counsel knew it was a death order that's why Obi-Wan was shocked at Yoda and the rest of the counsel for giving her up, knowing they were sending her to her death.

If it wasn't for Anakin she would of been killed, while the counsel sat back and watched.

TRUE LIES quote:

"Have you ever killed anyone?"

"Yes but they were all bad."

Jedi good

Sith bad

Jedi good

CIS bad

Jedi good

Republic good until it turned on the Jedi then they were bad

Jedi good

Empire bad

Perhaps JJ Abrams will be good for Star Wars. Less one sided. In fact, if this were real life Lucas would be accused of racial stereotyping. Only the Jedi are good and anyone who is on the side of the Jedi, everyone else is evil. Selfish, hate filled, violent, baby eating evil.

But you cannot be a good guy doing the right thing but using the Dark Side?

No you cannot. Star Wars is not about shades of grey. It's about good and evil. It's a fairy tale, a morality play, it is not Game of Thrones where people are complex and sometimes it is hard to tell who is good and who is evil from chapter to chapter. (or episode to episode.)

The closest analogy I can think of for your question is the concept of blood magic or black magic in fantasy stories. (Which is fitting because at heart Star Wars is fantasy with sci-fi trappings.) This magic inherently corrupts your soul and in many fantasy stories you see a magician fall to evil because he thought he could use this darker magic to do good things. That is exactly what would happen to your character if the GM was at all steeped in Star Wars lore. In my game, for example, if you approached me with this character concept I'd remind you of the following quote:

Harvey Dent: Okay, fine. you either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

This character would be a great way to eventually introduce a villain into a campaign. But in the long run he'd be an awful PC.

But it wasn't a mission, it was a judgment made by Tarkin. The Jedi were going to rule on Ahsoka, but when Tarkin came in and told the counsel to give her over Yoda did. The Jedi Counsel knew it was a death order that's why Obi-Wan was shocked at Yoda and the rest of the counsel for giving her up, knowing they were sending her to her death.

If it wasn't for Anakin she would of been killed, while the counsel sat back and watched.

Still not a darksider thing. I'm not saying it was a good move on the part of the council, just not enough to make them all of a sudden darksiders or evil. Maybe less noble than we'd like them to be but the event doesn't support your point.

Perhaps JJ Abrams will be good for Star Wars. Less one sided. In fact, if this were real life Lucas would be accused of racial stereotyping. Only the Jedi are good and anyone who is on the side of the Jedi, everyone else is evil. Selfish, hate filled, violent, baby eating evil.

Not racial stereotyping, as that implies race played a factor and it doesn't. Simply put Star Wars is a different kind of narrative story. Not one that we commonly tell these days. It harkens back to a much simpler idea on good and evil that we don't use a lot in our current storytelling. It's not that only the Jedi are good, because the movies show there are other good beings out there. But the setting does hold up a higher standard for good and a lower tolerance for letting good people get away with questionable things.

I doubt JJ will change that, as the feedback on the movie thus far is that it brings back all the old magic. Based on how heavily Nazi like they made the First Order I'm pretty sure they aren't backing off the morality play aspects any.

I really must start watching Game of Thrones. Everyone says I'd enjoy it.

There is a very easy way to make a character who does morally questionable things to achieve good ends. Don't make him force sensitive. You're, in D&D terms, wanting to make a Paladin who does evil things for good reasons and it won't work for the same reasons basically.

There is a very easy way to make a character who does morally questionable things to achieve good ends. Don't make him force sensitive. You're, in D&D terms, wanting to make a Paladin who does evil things for good reasons and it won't work for the same reasons basically.

Yep

I think you're right

Question is which RPG is best?

Edge of the Empire has an Assassin. Could still be a sword wielding warrior for justice who can kill a stormtrooper whose kicking children without his eyes turning red and becoming a selfish, greedy megalomaniac.

Or perhaps there's something in Age of Rebellion, as I want to fight for the Rebels.

Question is, since they're still "Star Wars", can I be a vigilante/GI Joe without being labelled an immoral spawn of Satan.

Question is, since they're still "Star Wars", can I be a vigilante/GI Joe without being labelled an immoral spawn of Satan.

Not really. Look at the non Force using characters. They are all still held to this higher standard even though they lack the physical manifestation of the results. Han and Chewie still ultimately do the right thing for the right reasons. Han shows he's not some selfish rogue by coming back to save Luke. Leia could have easily avoided being turned into a slave if she had just walked into Jabba's palace tossing thermal detonators around. Because she was a hero she opted to rescue Han the right way, which lead to some bad things for her, but like anything else in a narrative of this nature she is eventually rewarded for doing things the good and right way.

The only real difference between Force users and non Force users tends to be that the Force users have to deal with the metaphysical and sometimes physical manifestations of their bad deeds. For non Force users the universe just tends to work it out other ways. Tarkin is an evil evil man so he dies on the Death Star. It's narrative retribution for his evil non Force ways. Jabba enslaves people and is a crime boss and he gets choked ...... garroted ..... The story works out the same for both Force users and non Force users in the end.

In the Star Wars universe, people who do evil things (and don't seek redemption) always get what they deserve in the end.

There is a very easy way to make a character who does morally questionable things to achieve good ends. Don't make him force sensitive. You're, in D&D terms, wanting to make a Paladin who does evil things for good reasons and it won't work for the same reasons basically.

This isn't entirely true. This depends largely on the GM and how they are running the game. A number of different methods for combining the games are offered and it is entirely possible that the GM could choose a method in which all characters get Morality even if they are not playing a F&D career. It's also possible the GM could be running a game in which no one uses it even if they are using an F&D career.

This latter would imply they're playing an EotE or AoR game that allows F&D characters mostly. Many would recommend against this but it is completely legitimate within the presented rules, it just means that the use of Darkside Pips is a far less troublesome.. sure you suffer some strain and have to flip a destiny point to do it but you're not having to consider how this might affect your character's light/dark standing. But then your GM may have their own way they're choosing to handle slides to the darkside without resorting to the Morality system, and I see no problem with that.

However, given that this is the Force and Destiny forum the general assumption will be that the game is Force and Destiny primary in which case it would make sense for, at the very least, the Force Sensitive characters to be dealing with the Morality system.

Question is, since they're still "Star Wars", can I be a vigilante/GI Joe without being labelled an immoral spawn of Satan.

Not really. Look at the non Force using characters. They are all still held to this higher standard even though they lack the physical manifestation of the results. Han and Chewie still ultimately do the right thing for the right reasons. Han shows he's not some selfish rogue by coming back to save Luke. Leia could have easily avoided being turned into a slave if she had just walked into Jabba's palace tossing thermal detonators around. Because she was a hero she opted to rescue Han the right way, which lead to some bad things for her, but like anything else in a narrative of this nature she is eventually rewarded for doing things the good and right way.

The only real difference between Force users and non Force users tends to be that the Force users have to deal with the metaphysical and sometimes physical manifestations of their bad deeds. For non Force users the universe just tends to work it out other ways. Tarkin is an evil evil man so he dies on the Death Star. It's narrative retribution for his evil non Force ways. Jabba enslaves people and is a crime boss and he gets choked ...... garroted ..... The story works out the same for both Force users and non Force users in the end.

In the Star Wars universe, people who do evil things (and don't seek redemption) always get what they deserve in the end.

Actually

He isn't being evil or doing evil things

The only reason this thread was even started was because I realized my character would accrue a lot of conflict just doing the right thing. This game system, with rules as written, would have Luke Skywalker a Dark Lord of the Sith by the end of A New Hope.

I'd like the freedom to take out a squad of stormtroopers who are about to kill a bunch of innocents who are behind in paying their taxes, without it damming him to a hellish oblivion of YOU'RE EVIL! Welcome to the Sith.

He isn't being evil or doing evil things

The characters you based your concept on though would all be considered dark and doing evil things.

The only reason this thread was even started was because I realized my character would accrue a lot of conflict just doing the right thing. This game system, with rules as written, would have Luke Skywalker a Dark Lord of the Sith by the end of A New Hope.

Luke doesn't do anything that would make him a darksider in A New Hope. The RAW wouldn't condemn Luke to being a Sith Lord by the end of Ep IV. Luke does a very good job of doing the right thing.

I'd like the freedom to take out a squad of stormtroopers who are about to kill a bunch of innocents who are behind in paying their taxes, without it damming him to a hellish oblivion of YOU'RE EVIL! Welcome to the Sith.

You can do that. You just can't use dark and evil methods. The characters you described as being inspiration for your concept are just the kind of characters that would end up dark in the Star Wars setting. You can totally take out a squad of Stormtroopers who are about to kill a bunch of innocents with out being EVIL. It might be the hard way and more challenging but it's doable.

Part of Star Wars is that doing the right thing isn't easy but it is rewardable.

Star Wars requires that in order for you to be considered good, you have to do good using good methods. If you don't then even if you have a noble intention or goal you're still on the path to falling to the darkside. It's a morality play. It's kinda what they do.

Remember, also, that per Lucas-canon, there is no such thing as "the Light Side" as such. That phrase is never used in the films. There is no "being so Light Side that you are blinded by the Light." Despite the clever theory many of us came up with when we first heard that Li'l Anakin was to "bring balance to the Force," that did not mean creating an equal balance of Light and Dark by reducing the sides to two (known) Jedi and two (titled) Sith. There are no "Grey" Force users that follow a middle path between Light and Dark.

In Lucas' mind, there is "the Force," which is inherently harmonious and in balance, and there is "the Dark Side," which is the perversion of the Force. Balance is restored, at least for a time, by eliminating the active force that is promoting the Dark Side.

Now, that may no longer be Disney-canon, seeing as the Force Awakens trailer mentioned "the Dark Side ... and the Light." And I know the Clone Wars series introduced some weird personifications of the Light and Dark Sides, so there's that. But per the movies on which the FFG game is so far focused, there is no such thing as a "Light Side extremist" or someone who taps into the Dark Side but continues long-term to fight for positive ends. There certainly are Force users who have done stupid or even terrible things while not actually serving the Dark Side, but no one is bad because they are "too Light Side" and no one is good for tapping into the Dark Side and "doing the things those Light Side sissies won't."

Perhaps the most amazing thing about the Force is how forgiving it actually is.

Even if you've murdered a temple full of children, force choked your wife, chopped your son's hand off, tortured your daughter, and killed dozens of Jedi...you can still be saved by the standards of the Force. I somehow don't think the Rebel court of law would find him not guilty, however.

I think when playing Star Wars you have to decide early on if you want to play Star Wars or a space fantasy game with the trappings of Star Wars. My current game is a space fantasy game with the trappings of Star Wars. So far instead of paying for a ship we sucker punched our contact and stole his data pad that had a listing of ships in the space port, snuck into the space sport and stole two ships for no reason other than we could, tortured a captive for information and then blowing his head off after we had tied him up. We got conflict for that last one and the GM hasn't really been awarding conflict the way he should be doing if we were actually playing Star Wars.

But if we were truly playing Star Wars the GM would be holding us all to a higher moral standard.

Haven't read through all the discussion but here are my thoughts (sorry if it's been said repeatedly):

You can use the dark side extensively and not be evil but you won't just be okay (or if you are you're getting dangerously close to being a Mary Sue). The dark side IS corrupting and you may (depending on the writer) be able to mitigate this but you can't just ignore it. The character in question would probably get somewhat addicted to fighting and killing to the point where it's hard for them to solve things without violence. On bad days they can easily forget what they're fighting for (this is usually the point where the character turns fully evil but you can definitely have them come back).

An example of what I mean:

Character X is fighting an inquisitor to protect a force sensitive child. They get the inquisitor on the back foot and force him (I would use gender neutral pronouns but it gets ridiculous here) to retreat. Rather than staying with the child they pursue and kill the inquisitor during which time the child is captured/killed by stormtroopers.

Edit after reading:

I think when playing Star Wars you have to decide early on if you want to play Star Wars or a space fantasy game with the trappings of Star Wars.

I think this is baloney to be frank. Lucas had a bunch of ideas in the OT, these should be treated as a starting point or inspiration by others who want to play in the universe, not gospel.

I think the problem has been, and has been pointed out, that I had an idea of what sort of "character" I wanted to base mine on. But looking at the F&D rulebook I began to realize that such characters as:

Batman

Hulk

Wolverine

and a few others who are flawed heroes (but can't presently remember) would be Dark Side in the setting of F&D.

The gospel according to Lucas seems to state that Luke can blow up the Death Star killing millions and be a good guy. But if my character sees stormtroopers kicking down doors, dragging innocent people across the ground to be executed because they couldn't afford their taxes, he would be evil if he killed the stormtroopers. Yet in any other setting, be it Marvel, DC, GI Joe or Three Musketeers, my character would be applauded as a hero.

Oddly enough though:

"Only a Sith deals in absolutes"

Yet in any other setting, be it Marvel, DC, GI Joe or Three Musketeers, my character would be applauded as a hero.

You wouldn't exactly (or remotely) be applauded in Marvel (or probably DC, I don't know that as well). The character works fine if you're not force sensitive and it's actually a really interesting character for a force sensitive it just has some problems in a group setting since it'd probably require some discipline rolls to avoid starting fights.

I think the problem has been, and has been pointed out, that I had an idea of what sort of "character" I wanted to base mine on. But looking at the F&D rulebook I began to realize that such characters as:

Batman

Hulk

Wolverine

and a few others who are flawed heroes (but can't presently remember) would be Dark Side in the setting of F&D.

They really wouldn't, you know. They'd be accumulating decent amount of Conflic in every session where their player chose to let them go berserk and kill a bunch of people. And in the sessions where they didn't, they'd be getting less Conflict. The net result would be that their Morality rating would go up and down a bit and probably hover in the 30-70 range most of the time. Which is precisely why the above characters are considered HEROES in their respective comic book universes and not supervillains.

The gospel according to Lucas seems to state that Luke can blow up the Death Star killing millions and be a good guy. But if my character sees stormtroopers kicking down doors, dragging innocent people across the ground to be executed because they couldn't afford their taxes, he would be evil if he killed the stormtroopers. Yet in any other setting, be it Marvel, DC, GI Joe or Three Musketeers, my character would be applauded as a hero.

Blowing up a hospital makes you evil. Blowing up a warship filled with soldiers in a combat engagement between two sides in a war does not. Especially if that warship is about to vapourize your own base, which is in turn also filled with people. And the only one claiming your character would be evil for killing the stormtroopers is you. Killing the stormtroopers would earn you a little bit of Conflict, along the lines of "using violence as a first resort", which should make it 1 or 2 points. So unless you intend to spend that whole session murdering people and accumulating 10+ points of Conflicts, you're not going anywhere near the Dark side.

I'd like the freedom to take out a squad of stormtroopers who are about to kill a bunch of innocents who are behind in paying their taxes, without it damming him to a hellish oblivion of YOU'RE EVIL! Welcome to the Sith.

Actually just killing Stormtroopers shouldn't give you loads of conflict, so long as they are not helpless (tied or unconscious) or of no threat (just walking around doing nothing particularly bad). The worst you should get is 1 conflict if you resort to violence as your first choice of action.

Obviously it also depends on your GM, but the Morality system is surprisingly forgiving. My group have been quite careful with their actions but have had a few sessions where they gained more conflict than usual and still haven't dropped in Morality appreciably. Part of this is me needing to be more aggressive with conflict, and adding lots of potentially conflict giving events, but also part of this is my group focussing the Jedi way.

Where have you people been?

So far I've been told a character who chooses violence against armed and dangerous enemies is doomed. Don't get me wrong, he starts out at the lower end of morality so is Dark Side, but he isn't after helpless people. He actually lives by his own warrior code which makes harming helpless people dishonourable.

Yes he'd kill an unarmed Palpatine. But that's because old crinkle face is still very dangerous unarmed.

I've played a few Force and Destiny games run by developers from FFG (one of whom was Sam Stewart) and at no point did my character receive conflict for killing an opponent in a fight we didn't start.

Vor Trex,

There are two different questions getting mixed up here, and I think the responses you're getting are partly coming from that mixup.

The first is whether a character who has already embraced the Dark Side can be a long-term force for good. In the Star Wars universe, the answer really should be no. Such a character might start out thinking he's doing extreme things for a good purpose, but (like Darth Vader himself) would eventually find that the good purpose becomes secondary and any self-imposed limits on just how extreme he gets erode away as the Dark Side urges him more and more to give into hate. (Note that Force Lightning in particular, according to some interpretations at least, is weaponized hatred , which is why we only see Dark-Siders using it.)

The second is whether the activities of a Rebel soldier (albeit perhaps an unusually violent one) will automatically plunge a person into the depths of the Dark Side. That is not necessarily the case -- Leia and Luke are both Force-sensitives who serve the Rebellion in combat, and they don't fall from that. That's not to say that they never would have gained Conflict if they were FFG characters, but their Morality seems to have stayed within the safe range for the most part. Injuring or killing active aggressors or soldiers of the Empire is not inherently Dark Side behavior.

That said, a lot depends on attitude and context. There are undoubtedly situations in which Luke could have killed Palpatine without falling, but the scene on the Second Death Star (as set up by Palpatine himself) wasn't one of them. In the Star Wars universe, it seems that doing violence out of fear, anger, or hatred is categorically worse than doing so when not overwhelmed by those emotions. Your character idea seems like a very interesting one, and I would suggest that the conflict driving his personal arc over the course of the campaign would be one of justice vs. vengeance. We sometimes see Batman put through that choice (see especially the "Chill of the Night!" episode of the mostly-lighthearted Brave & the Bold series, which features the Phantom Stranger and the Spectre betting on the fate of Batman's soul after he finds the actual killer of his parents). In your case, wanting to protect the innocent from oppressors as part of an armed resistance is a generally good thing, but the character's draw to the Dark Side will be the temptation to act out of hatred for the oppressors rather than compassion/justice for the oppressed. It may eventually be necessary for the character to choose between softening his "ATTACK!" stance in some circumstances or becoming something as bad as the Empire he fights. The exploration of those choices is probably better served by starting at standard Morality and seeing where things go from there than starting outright Dark Side. You'll want to discuss things with your GM and make sure you are on the same page regarding what sorts of actions and attitudes garner Conflict, so that you're working through this character's moral arc together rather than butting heads constantly over whether he's right or wrong on specific points.