A question I'd like to ponder to people is this, in order to upgrade their skill, acquire a talent, a specialization, learn a Force ability, or upgrade, do your PC's have to do something mechanically in game to represent them learning these new abilities.

I'd be very interested to hear what people think on the subject and suggestions.

So far I've just been allowing them to spend their XP as per the RAW and not considering the narrative of how they learn these abilities. This is especially true for Force Sensitives.

The only limitation I'll set is that characters generally only have access to one series of books at a time. Not for balance reasons, just to keep the game mechanics focused on whatever story we're telling at the time. Characters who are active in a major military or government organization use Age, dedicated Force-Users have F&D, and everyone else is Edge. They can still take talents from old specs if they have them, of course, but only get new ones if they're relevant to the character's current experience (lower-case).

Some things are just so incremental that I don't think it's fair to ask for it every time. But I encourage players to think ahead on their character, then for the major purchases such as another Specialisation then even a token effort to explain it is worth while.

I have not done it yet but I would like to give 5ish XP bonuses for Narative character growth as well. Especially if it gives life to the galaxy the PC's inhabit.

I haven't required it really. Like RichardBuxtons post, I would usually ask for some token justification for a new spec or career.. but didn't seriously demand it.

In my next game I'm saying everyone has 1 force die, no matter class. If you make a F&D character you get bonus xp first session (10-15 maybe haven't decided) and 3 force powers you can draw from wout a teacher or a holocron. If you make an AoR or EotE character, no bonus xp and only one force power.

I'm setting it during the Imperial era and want to make the acquisition of training in the force a narrative tool. Bonus exp is cause F&D characters get less in class skills.

I would only ask for them to come up with a good reason when taking an out-of-career spec. It could be acquiring training in session, or explaining it away that they took the time skip to get the training somehow, but not just go from being a gun-toting meathead to a practiced engineer in the course of, in game time only, a few minutes or hours. Far too big a break in immersion.

"YODA learned that Force Power in a CAVE! With a box of SCRAPS!"

Or they " already knew it ;" they just haven't used it yet. They were holding back for some reason. Maybe nobody ever asked them .

Don't have time in the narrative to actually justify taking the time to learn something , but somehow magically your character can do it now ? Maybe it's something from their background , written or unwritten.

Maybe your character sheet isn't the sum total of all that your character is and ever was. Thinking rationally, it can't be. It's mechanical abstraction of your character, and cannot be considered holistic as it pertains to the entire person of your character. So...while there should be a decent reason behind the mechanical aspects of your character, I'd argue that not every XP expenditure has to have a connected, in-game, character-development moment. If it serves the narrative, then great—do it! If not, just spend the XP, move along, and maybe have some fun with one of the above tropes when you actually whip out the new ability.

How do you do the thing with the quotes? I've been trying to figure that out forever; it would make my quips and jokes much more fluid.

You mean embedded URLs?

If you're on a mobile device, just use BBCode:

[url=THEWEBSITEURL]your text goes here[/url]

You can press "quote" on a post that contains something you're looking to do, and see what the BBCode looks like for yourself, to get an idea of how to do it.

If you're on a PC and using the standard text editor when posting (with all the font options and colors and stuff), there's a little button that looks like a chain link just above the text window when creating a new post. Just highlight the text you want to turn into a link, press the "link" button, and paste the URL into the box that pops up.

Ah, okay. I'm not exactly an expert or a prodigy, and other forums I've used before have completely different methods.

In my games it depends. If it is a skill that player used in last few sesions then he can spend xp on this. Or some skill that require practice like shooting or sword fighting. I prefer that players don't buy skills without narrative. Like buying skills than need some education. Like medicine, mechanics, astrogation and so on.

As for specialization it's some major change in character life, i tell players to think ahead so i can give them narrative oportunities to buy specialization. Talents don't need to have narrative reasons because it's mostly something you discover you have. Hovewer there are few talents imho that need something to learn them. Force sensitive characters need a master or holocron to learn powers but can upgrade them once they are learned without master.

Anyway that's how i run things. I want some degree of realism since we all play more mature version of star wars universe where you don't learn skills in few days or wake up in the morning knowing how to fix starships. Where people have realistic psyche and game mechanics must fit narrative not the other way.

I’m with felismachina (above).

If the purchase is just going further down the Talent Tree they’ve already bought into, that usually doesn’t need any narrative explanation. Likewise if they’re buying up or into existing Career skills.

If they’re buying a new skill that they haven’t had before and isn’t a Career skill for them, then I would want to see a little narrative behind that.

If they’re buying a whole new specialization, then I’d definitely want to see narrative behind that.

If they’re Force Users and they’re buying a new Force Power, then I’d want to see narrative there. Some Force Powers I wouldn’t allow without finding a mentor who already knows that power and can teach it, either a real live person or a holocron.

Usually my players have picked up extra points they used in the session, but I would like to point out that Han Solo got many of his tricks from using Simulations.

My group never worried about justifying it and the rules never say you have to role play to justify it. Honestly, I'm surprised that there aren't a lot of people claiming you must justify it in this thread. Usually when this topic pops up it seems like it gets into the "how to properly role play" debate.

As awayputurwpn said above, just because a character doesn't say/show they know something or are learning something doesn't mean they aren't working on it in the background. There's a lot of unanswered down time whenever you travel with hyperspace. This is a game where, rules as written, you can flip a destiny point and say "I totes remembered to pack my breath mask this morning." I don't see why you can't narratively do the same with skills/talents/specs.

The only limits I put on are only one rank in a Skill and one row of Talent or Force Power per EXP spend. I'm fine with Players saving up EXP for those more expensive purchases but I want to keep PCs from going from zero to a hundred between sessions.