Could be that Suljo has a backup lightsaber. I think that’s what I’d do.

That's a cheap move. If you're going to disallow the talent, be upfront about it. Don't play the "You came up with something cool and epic. . . but hey, I'm taking it away and it doesn't change the outcome one bit." card.

Actually, after thinking about it, if the GM pulled that on me, I'd be really pissed. We would have words.

That's a cheap move. If you're going to disallow the talent, be upfront about it. Don't play the "You came up with something cool and epic. . . but hey, I'm taking it away and it doesn't change the outcome one bit." card.

Actually, after thinking about it, if the GM pulled that on me, I'd be really pissed. We would have words.

It would still take him time to switch and he would be at a very serious disadvantage during that time.

But if he’s the BBEG, then he’s going to have backup plans on top of backup plans. Anything else would be just plain silly.

Retroactive "gotcha" would seem to be "fair" both ways...

Edit: Double post.

Even aside from negating a player's big thing, how boring is it for the GM to say, "The guy's lightsaber breaks, but he just pulls out another one?"

They're on Korriban, right? That guy should be Force Jumping from sarcophagi to sarcophagi, busting open the stone lids and looking for some kind of replacement weapon: an old Sith war sword, an ancient lightsaber, anything. Meanwhile, the party is trying to take him down before he finds some kind of weird Dark Side artifact or wakes up an angry Sith ghost or worse. You can (god forbid) let the players actually get an advantage from their expensive talent with the hard difficulty check attached while still upping the ante on the encounter.

Sorry, I'm failing to see how being so incredibly married to your narrative that overturning cool things that the players do as good story telling. It seems to me that forcing an encounter to go your way is the antithesis of the game. "Good job on using Last One Standing, killing my five minion groups. By the way, the blast door opens and five more minion groups come in" or "Yeah, with your Known Schematic, you know the entire layout of this secret base. The hidden room you need to find is in another castle."

That's just terrible GMing.

Besides - in this instance - the ability saved the team. We're at about 80 or 90 experience points facing down a Jedi Master? If the saber had been working, it would have been an easy curbstomp victory for the bad guy. Not having the saber opened the door for us to be able to talk Warde down and come up with a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

But hey, no - go ahead and force a combat because that's what the script says. It doesn't matter what the players do, right?

It's not what character A is doing, it's what they're saying out of the blue and retroactively that character B did or did not do in the past.

Its not about characters - its about the GM being so insistent on following The Story that he might as well just put a DVD, on point at the screen and go "That's you guys". What cool things I come up with to change and affect that narrative are subservient to The Story.

Maybe I missed it, but I think the only one talking about the GM want to follow "The Story" so far has been you.

This conversation is very much about story. The GM going "No backies" and unwilling to adapt to new and unexpected narrative directions is bad collaborative story telling.

This conversation is very much about story. The GM going "No backies" and unwilling to adapt to new and unexpected narrative directions is bad collaborative story telling.

There's a difference between being open to a collaborative story and embracing player input into the "narrative" on one hand, and what amounts to retcons of convenience on the other hand.

BTT: I don't like the Talent in General, because it's too vague and very abusable in my opinion, opening situations like: "Grandmoff Tarkin, it seems the Superlaser is currently inoperable." - Which I would detest to happen in a crucial moment of my campaign.

But on the other hand, if the player gets a good feeling for it, it also enables very awesome moments:

Imagine the party sitting in a cell on a star destroyer, waiting to be interrogated, everybody freaking out: The Groups engineer begins to explain in detail why it is a bad idea to have an even number of jail cells in a multilevel prison where the number of levels is a prime number and the power generator is coupled with a triplex backup system instead of the old duplex backup, which of course is more reliable then the triplex, especially since TaggeCo "upgraded" their beam converters on the newer and supposedly faster couplings since the rebellion stole Tagge's prototype a few months ago...because the moment the night cycle enganges in 2 minutes, there is a brief window of about 10 seconds where the integrity of the holding field is compromised and one can jump through with minor burns...

Hell yeah, that player gets a free beer from me on our next night out.

How do you abuse something that is subject to GM's approval?

Whining?

I like how you always pick exactly one thing from a post to comment.

Abuse is probably the wrong word (non-native here):

Arguments about the possible or not possible use of the talent.

I dislike "once per session" talents a bit in general, because sometimes it feels like you need to "bait" today's sessions use of the talent, because face it, sometimes, narratively sith simply needs to happen.

I like how you always pick exactly one thing from a post to comment.

Abuse is probably the wrong word (non-native here):

Arguments about the possible or not possible use of the talent.

I dislike "once per session" talents a bit in general, because sometimes it feels like you need to "bait" today's sessions use of the talent, because face it, sometimes, narratively sith simply needs to happen.

Because there is no such thing as a Talent being subject to abuse that requires GM approval. I think when you start to hem in a once per session Talent you lay the groundwork for having to "bait" as opposed to just letting the Talent be used.

In regards to wanting things to happen a certain way, again, it's subject to GM approval so I don't see an issue there either.

I think a lot of people are transposing the word "fail" in the Talent, with broken beyond repair or destroyed. Depending on the item, fail could mean simply hitting the reset button. That's entirely up to the GM as well.

Whining?

That comes before abuse. A GM giving into it isn't a game issue.

Actually it is a game issue, if the players choice is defined only by the allowance of the gm, in contrast to most talents. You don't need permission for "The Force is my ally". Spending XP on something you need permission to use feels bad. Bad feelings lead to conflict. Conflict leads to bad atmosphere. Bad atmosphere leads to players leaving. All because of a talent.

It's also worth noting that the majority of the talents in the Mechanic tree boil down to either getting hurt less, or making vehicle damage hurt less. In order to actively participate in encounters that don't involve keeping machinery operational, the Mechanic either needs to leverage their once per session talents, or try to find something in the environment they can fiddle with, both of which require some give and take from the GM. If the GM isn't willing to cede a little narrative control to the Mechanic, they're going to be left wishing they'd picked a different tree.

It's also worth noting that the majority of the talents in the Mechanic tree boil down to either getting hurt less, or making vehicle damage hurt less. In order to actively participate in encounters that don't involve keeping machinery operational, the Mechanic either needs to leverage their once per session talents, or try to find something in the environment they can fiddle with, both of which require some give and take from the GM. If the GM isn't willing to cede a little narrative control to the Mechanic, they're going to be left wishing they'd picked a different tree.

Sounds like it might be a bit too much of a "one trick pony" then - but that can happen when your character system is built around talents and you keep pumping out new "classes" that "need unique and focused talents".

Spending XP on something you need permission to use feels bad. Bad feelings lead to conflict. Conflict leads to bad atmosphere. Bad atmosphere leads to players leaving. All because of a talent.

To the Dark Side will these things lead you.

The obvious solution to Bad Motivator and Contraption is: show some forethought (which, apparently, is in the same conservation status as common sense and Mexican grey wolves).

Not "PC has talent, what do?" but "oh, he's buying Mechanic, let's sit down and talk about what these talents can do and how we expect them to be used." I'm sure its left open ended so every individual group can work out the details on how their very own MacGyver moment will play out.

Actually it is a game issue, if the players choice is defined only by the allowance of the gm, in contrast to most talents. You don't need permission for "The Force is my ally". Spending XP on something you need permission to use feels bad. Bad feelings lead to conflict. Conflict leads to bad atmosphere. Bad atmosphere leads to players leaving. All because of a talent.

A. The players are immature jackasses.

B. The GM is an immature jackass.

C. The players and the GM are immature jackasses.

Actually it is a game issue, if the players choice is defined only by the allowance of the gm, in contrast to most talents. You don't need permission for "The Force is my ally". Spending XP on something you need permission to use feels bad. Bad feelings lead to conflict. Conflict leads to bad atmosphere. Bad atmosphere leads to players leaving. All because of a talent.

If one adopts an adversarial approach to GMing, I could see this talent being a bad thing. And I've played with adversarial GMs before; it's not fun. If a GM sees his primary role as "the guy that makes sure the players don't get away with any rules-breaking," then yeah you're not going to have a very good experience trying to collaborate on something.

But this talent can lead to lots of fun and other awesome things if the GM and players adopt a cooperative approach to the story. If the GM is willing to accept and run with player ideas, and the players trust the GM to run a good game—as the game's rules assume—I just don't see the issue.

Actually it is a game issue, if the players choice is defined only by the allowance of the gm, in contrast to most talents. You don't need permission for "The Force is my ally". Spending XP on something you need permission to use feels bad. Bad feelings lead to conflict. Conflict leads to bad atmosphere. Bad atmosphere leads to players leaving. All because of a talent.

That would not be a game issue you are describing. I agree it's an issue, but no fault of a rule in a game.