Both

Obviously.

You should be punished for taking him as your GM

No but seriously sit down with him together as a group and tell him your concern. It worked with our second GM.

Not so much with the first one, who quit like a whiny little kid. He was always inventing new ships instead of using canon as we all wanted. Glad to be rid of that guy.

well after seeing Ray in the star wars force awakens, it will be hard to argue that having a force career without a teacher is not possible.

With that said one of the first things said on page one was to talk to your GM and see if he would be willing to compromise. I recall mentioning that you could suggest that he allow the careers to be taken and not the Force powers until you find a mentor.

At the end of the day the issue is between you and your GM. Nothing in the movies or the rules is going to help you win. So you might as well just talk to him and see if he's amendable to a compromise. It's his game after all and if he wants to rule that you have to have a mentor to even take a Force based career then .... well ..... he is free to rule that way.

At the end of the day the issue is between you and your GM. Nothing in the movies or the rules is going to help you win. So you might as well just talk to him and see if he's amendable to a compromise. It's his game after all and if he wants to rule that you have to have a mentor to even take a Force based career then .... well ..... he is free to rule that way.

Not entirely true. Yes the GM has the last word, but it isn't totalitarian rule we have in Roleplaying groups. A good GM listens to the wishes of his players and considers them. And when he shoots them down he has thought about it and good arguments or reasons at hand.

The aforementioned GM was not allowing droid characters, just because "They can't fight"

Yes that was his entire reasoning behind that.

I'll give you the following picture to think about that:

At the end of the day the issue is between you and your GM. Nothing in the movies or the rules is going to help you win. So you might as well just talk to him and see if he's amendable to a compromise. It's his game after all and if he wants to rule that you have to have a mentor to even take a Force based career then .... well ..... he is free to rule that way.

Not entirely true. Yes the GM has the last word, but it isn't totalitarian rule we have in Roleplaying groups. A good GM listens to the wishes of his players and considers them. And when he shoots them down he has thought about it and good arguments or reasons at hand.

The aforementioned GM was not allowing droid characters, just because "They can't fight"

Yes that was his entire reasoning behind that.

I'll give you the following picture to think about that:

I will not pass judgment on other peoples GM's with out personally being involved in their games. At best all we have is one side of a dispute and a biased side at that. We know nothing of the GM or his reasoning. But the rule books, of almost every game, supports the GM having final say. How a GM uses that final say is up to them, but as the GM and the one running the game he has a right to rule that you can't start with a Force career without a mentor. All things considered, it's not that bad of a rule considering this system. The only thing it stops you from doing is getting signature abilities from Force careers. But being as how we only have one set of abilities I don't consider that too big of a deal right now.

I'm not going to imply a GM is a bad GM just because he rules in a different way than I would rule. And I'm not going to say the GM is being bad for not listening to the players wants. The GM has a particular vision and so the players either follow it or find a new GM. It's totally up to them. No one is forcing them to play in his game.

If a GM wants to shoot a player down and not give an explanation that's his business. If he doesn't want to allow droids that's his business. I'm not going to call him bad unless I've sat across from him and had personal experience with what the GM does.

well just to be clear I still don't and will never agree with FFG on how this is handled and will change it in any game I run so I do have a problem with the RAW.

well just to be clear I still don't and will never agree with FFG on how this is handled and will change it in any game I run so I do have a problem with the RAW.

And that's cool. Your game, your rules. You're not going to get very many people who are going to tell you not to change what doesn't work when you're the GM.

well just to be clear I still don't and will never agree with FFG on how this is handled and will change it in any game I run so I do have a problem with the RAW.

And that's cool. Your game, your rules. You're not going to get very many people who are going to tell you not to change what doesn't work when you're the GM.

Completely agree. I think you'd be very hard-pressed to find a single GM that's ran a few games, who hasn't made a few changes to a game. I have a list between 10-15 for FFG Star Wars so far!

Just to wrap up the bad GM thing we had (my whole group still agrees on that)

• He made up new imperial divisions all the time to get elite stormtroopers to be a challenge for us. Raising the stats of individual STs instead of...
• using the actual minion rules given from the rulebook in cooperation with rival sergeants. Nooooooo, we got Stormtroopers with blue capes!
• He made up new imperial ships, like TIEs (normal ones!!!) with extra armor or extra shields instead of using better pilots or - again - minion groups.
• He called EVERY character, that couldn't fight well in some sort of way worthless and mocked the player for it.
• And disallowed droids because they couldn't fight and were NPC-only, because all Star Wars RPGs in the past got that wrong.
• Confronted us with technology not existant in Star Wars. We later found the source... in Shadowrun 4.

Basically he did this in any game he ran. We confronted him about it in a friendly way as a group and told him we didn't get the Star Wars feeling from his game, since he was always dreaming up new ships instead of having us fight the iconic ones and all that. He reacted very poorly and broke off contact with us. I have only heard that he basically doesn't roleplay anymore since the same thing happened with his Shadowrun group. It is sad, when you are not able to take criticism.

I wanted to get that tale out. It was really irritating me in my head this evening after I thought of it again.

Tenchi2a I respect you for your decision, but I think you'll find it utterly unnecessary in most cases. Changing the career, doesn't really change much in the grand scheme of the game, except the signature abilities. I think you'll find, that most of the times the character concept will take care of the problem of career choice itself. You want to be a force sensitive who doesn't know it yet, but uses the force subconsciously? Take one of the careers from FaD and a non-lightsaber spec. Is he a mechanic? Sentinel Artisan. A crack fighter pilot? Warrior Starfighter Ace. A doctor with an amazing streak? Consular Healer.

If your current GM doesn't allow FaD, that's too bad, but I guess you could talk him up on it. You have all the arguments.

But in my opinion it is better to carefully plan you character concept ahead, because then you don't need all that career changing.

Also, If your GM says you can NOT start in in his Game wit a Force Career, that is his prerogative. He does not Have to allow ANYTHING at Character creation that he does not want to. It is His game. Just as it is your prerogative to not play in that game.

But if a Player told me, "I won't play unless I can start with a Force Career" and I wasn't letting ANYONE start with a force career at character creation. I would say "I am sorry to hear that, You will be missed".

Also, If your GM says you can NOT start in in his Game wit a Force Career, that is his prerogative. He does not Have to allow ANYTHING at Character creation that he does not want to. It is His game. Just as it is your prerogative to not play in that game.

But if a Player told me, "I won't play unless I can start with a Force Career" and I wasn't letting ANYONE start with a force career at character creation. I would say "I am sorry to hear that, You will be missed".

All 6 of us walked on him I'll be starting my game in two weeks.

Also, If your GM says you can NOT start in in his Game wit a Force Career, that is his prerogative. He does not Have to allow ANYTHING at Character creation that he does not want to. It is His game. Just as it is your prerogative to not play in that game.

But if a Player told me, "I won't play unless I can start with a Force Career" and I wasn't letting ANYONE start with a force career at character creation. I would say "I am sorry to hear that, You will be missed".

All 6 of us walked on him I'll be starting my game in two weeks.

Ouch! I know how that feels. It's not nice but as a human being you must be able of compromise. That means us GMs, too. If we don't at least listen to the wishes of our players before we turn them down, we lose them. Yes a GM plans his campaigna nd is allowed to instate such rules, but he must also look at the market and abide to the basic rules of offer and demand (I hope I used the right words - german here). As a GM you play WITH your players, not against them.

I actually had a huge prejudice towards force users before, too. That was because of how it had played out in the D6 game. Now I find the force to be handled much better and I have noqualls against letting players start as one. I just restrict Lightsaber combat, because to learn the finesse of that, you really need a teacher!

Just for option sake my plan is

A PC that has spend more xp in the Emergent or Exile tree has a one time chose to pick a new Jedi career of there choosing.

This keeps the players from gaming the system but allows for the chose if that is there goal.

so a player with multiple trees would not be able to change but some one with a few ranks could.

what do you think.

again looking to see if this is going to work or needs some modification not that its not RAW.

Well I would just allow those players to start the game as one of the force careers minus the lightsaber ones. You can just apply what they do to one of those careers. Sentinel Shadow being a nice thief and such. That is way easier and saves you the hustle of explaining he rules you made to the players. Makes them think more carefully about their character concept, too.

Just let them look over any force-spec and let them compare. In my opinion that is the easiest option.

But I have to say, if he wants a career change I would do the same as you: not allowing it if he already bought three specs.

Well I would just allow those players to start the game as one of the force careers minus the lightsaber ones. You can just apply what they do to one of those careers. Sentinel Shadow being a nice thief and such. That is way easier and saves you the hustle of explaining he rules you made to the players. Makes them think more carefully about their character concept, too.

Agreed. They should be able to start out with F&D Careers, if that’s the ultimate direction they want to take their character. Just help them pick specializations that are appropriate for their starting point, and then no house rule is needed. Everything else is fluff.

However, if you feel compelled to do a house rule anyway, then it seems to me like you’d want to choose a solution that adds the least amount of imbalance to the existing game.

Towards that end, if you were to make a rule based on where the bulk of XP has been spent, that seems to me like it would be less likely to cause significant imbalance.

I do wish FFG had chosen a term other than “Career”. I don’t think that “Class” would be right, either. I don’t know what a better choice would have been, but this choice of words seems to me like it was a bad one, and it has lead to a lot of confusion.

was going to add that you must have a Holocron or a Master to do this

Also, If your GM says you can NOT start in in his Game wit a Force Career, that is his prerogative. He does not Have to allow ANYTHING at Character creation that he does not want to. It is His game. Just as it is your prerogative to not play in that game.

But if a Player told me, "I won't play unless I can start with a Force Career" and I wasn't letting ANYONE start with a force career at character creation. I would say "I am sorry to hear that, You will be missed".

All 6 of us walked on him I'll be starting my game in two weeks.

And that is also a Perfectly Viable option, I am upfront with people about what type of game I am looking to run when I recruit for a game. If people are aware of what Kind of game I am going to run but then try to change what I am running, that is different than getting a bunch of Players interested in a game first and then After that telling them what they can and can't play.

Though Generally I am not that restrictive as far as Professions go.. as Long as I have access to the material.

Hopefully, (and likely if the area has a lot of player base in it) he will learn and find players that want to play in the game he wants to run.

Just for option sake my plan is

A PC that has spend more xp in the Emergent or Exile tree has a one time chose to pick a new Jedi career of there choosing.

This keeps the players from gaming the system but allows for the chose if that is there goal.

so a player with multiple trees would not be able to change but some one with a few ranks could.

what do you think.

again looking to see if this is going to work or needs some modification not that its not RAW.

Cut out the middle man out and just say you can pick any Career that you want at start and if it turns out later that you picked the wrong career then you get 1 respect to bring your character more in line with the concept.

The current method comes off as you creating stuff just so Force Users can be special. Because frankly you aren't really solving your original problem with the system if they are having to sink XP into Emergent and Exile specs.

Edit: And I'm not sure your method actually saves anyone XP, which seemed to be your gripe with the RAW.

Also this is really important but ....... Jedi is not a career in this game (with the possible exception of the lightsabre forms). A character doesn't take Jedi levels. Your house rule applies only to Jedi and excludes any other possible uses for the material in Force and Destiny.