9 hours ago, Benjan Meruna said:

16 hours ago, Stan Fresh said:

He doesn't need the Force to tell him that a guy who owns a child-slave with a bomb surgically implanted in his body is untrustworthy.

Really makes you wonder why Qui-gonn didn't make some effort to rescue Shmi...

Because...George Lucas logic...

GL: (to his producer) I need a way for Qui-Gon to get Anakin.

Prod: Maybe he makes a bet with a shady slave owner?

GL: Yea that could work. It's not very Jedi-like though, but I'll use it until something better comes along.

Prod: Oh, and by the way, what happens to the boy's mother? Isn't she a slave too?

GL: True, buuuut, he can't save them both.

Prod: Why not?

GL: Well, because I have no place for her in the story right now.

Prod: So he just leaves her there? That's a little cold hearted.

GL: Yeah, sure. Maybe I can bring her back into the story like 10 years later and he can rescue her...you know, like poetry and repeating.

Prod: (Under their breath) You mean like being unoriginal and cliche?

GL: Huh?

Prod: Oh nothing. Sounds great George, you're a genius. (Producer keeps job)

GL: Sooo, okay, I'm going to go play with my Chewbacca figurines now. Toodles!

Bumping this thread. There's a new discussion on Move on the first page, and I remembered this one.

Hello everyone, sorry for re-opening this can of worms of a 50 page thread lol but I actually have a campaign with some serious balance issues (and abuse) with force move and I totally agree with OP that it should only move objects (which I will houserule as such) and bind should be used to move characters. but we had another situation in which all the players and GM were very unsure about how to handle it. the player who uses move literally all the time in every round, even when the GM gives strong indications that its not the best idea and gives plenty of other options, much to the annoyance of everyone else tbh, bought some combat knives (we only had 4 sessions so far and very few credits) to throw at enemies when no other objects are available.

the combat knives have a stat of +1 and iirc no other stats. as silhouette 0 objects they would deal 5 base damage. the player who uses move and I argued that the +1 should be applied, since I didnt see any problem with it and it's an object made for inflicting wounds. the other players argued that it's still a silhouette 0 object and that the +1 was only meant for use with brawn AND (the arguably better point imo) that improvised weapons such as chairs or whatever also have extra damage depending on their size, so one could argue throwing a chair with move could also be 5+2/3 or whatever the size counts at, which was obviously not the frame the power was created in. we still agreed that qualities like pierce should apply either way.

so how would you handle this? I honestly dont see much of a problem if the base damage of telekinetic throwing daggers is 6 instead of 5, it's still better than the PC throwing multiple silhouette 1+ objects around that deal massive damage.

2 hours ago, Shizuya said:

Hello everyone, sorry for re-opening this can of worms of a 50 page thread lol but I actually have a campaign with some serious balance issues (and abuse) with force move and I totally agree with OP that it should only move objects (which I will houserule as such) and bind should be used to move characters. but we had another situation in which all the players and GM were very unsure about how to handle it. the player who uses move literally all the time in every round, even when the GM gives strong indications that its not the best idea and gives plenty of other options, much to the annoyance of everyone else tbh, bought some combat knives (we only had 4 sessions so far and very few credits) to throw at enemies when no other objects are available.

the combat knives have a stat of +1 and iirc no other stats. as silhouette 0 objects they would deal 5 base damage. the player who uses move and I argued that the +1 should be applied, since I didnt see any problem with it and it's an object made for inflicting wounds. the other players argued that it's still a silhouette 0 object and that the +1 was only meant for use with brawn AND (the arguably better point imo) that improvised weapons such as chairs or whatever also have extra damage depending on their size, so one could argue throwing a chair with move could also be 5+2/3 or whatever the size counts at, which was obviously not the frame the power was created in. we still agreed that qualities like pierce should apply either way.

so how would you handle this? I honestly dont see much of a problem if the base damage of telekinetic throwing daggers is 6 instead of 5, it's still better than the PC throwing multiple silhouette 1+ objects around that deal massive damage.

Silhouette zero objects do 5 damage. The end. If they had meant for the +1 or 2 to apply they would have said so. as it is they do 5+successes which already is in the realm of blaster pistols.

50 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

Silhouette zero objects do 5 damage. The end. If they had meant for the +1 or 2 to apply they would have said so. as it is they do 5+successes which already is in the realm of blaster pistols.

so you would say force-hurling a vibroaxe at someone should cause the same damage as a combat knife or even a simple box of wood?

Hate to break it to you, but at the very least, clothes/armor are objects, so even if you go directly against every statement of RAW and the developers themselves, and houserule that it can only target objects, your Player can still grab NPC's by their clothes and fling 'em.

This is not broken. If it's feeling broken, it's possibly because you're not fully doing your job as GM surrounding the issue...

As to your specific question, you're wrong again.

It would require the "Fine Manipulation" Control Upgrade to have the ability to move the knife in a fashion that keeps the pointy end for sure oriented toward the target. And even then you'd no longer be using the Hurl rules, they would instead be using the Melee skill at a distance (or Ranged Light as if you're throwing the knife with your hands, as opposed to the Force Hurl).

44 minutes ago, Shizuya said:

so you would say force-hurling a vibroaxe at someone should cause the same damage as a combat knife or even a simple box of wood?

Yes. As Emsquared said and noted why.

14 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

Yes. As Emsquared said and noted why.

I'll take that as a "Like".

1 hour ago, emsquared said:

This is not broken. If it's feeling broken, it's possibly because you're not fully doing your job as GM surrounding the issue...

thx for your concern about my GM abilities but you dont know anything about me or my group. all of the players are longterm friends of mine and it is in this PCs blood to cheese so yes, I actually do have to do something about it and all of the other players strongly agreed. the title of GM is rotating in our group btw, so I'm not always the one making the quests. the others even argued for houserules such as cool down on force: move or strain cost just to use it, which I strongly disagreed with. I agree the power wouldnt need houseruling with the rest of the group but with this player I honestly see no other way to reduce further friction with the group, since by RAW nothing stops him from just moving multiple opponents onto another one , all of them getting damage etc., all the time and I dont want to grief this player by constantly focusing all enemies on him or the like.
I'm happy for you if you dont have any cheesers in your group.

1 hour ago, emsquared said:

As to your specific question, you're wrong again.

It would require the "Fine Manipulation" Control Upgrade to have the ability to move the knife in a fashion that keeps the pointy end for sure oriented toward the target. And even then you'd no longer be using the Hurl rules, they would instead be using the Melee skill at a distance (or Ranged Light as if you're throwing the knife with your hands, as opposed to the Force Hurl).

this is actually a very good point, thank you. if I would allow the PC to do that, what would you suggest to use as a primary stat? willpower?

I'm actually not too fond of the idea in general, simply because lightsabers exist and darth kreia was the only force user I know of who did something alike and that is certainly not the power level our characters are on by a long shot.

20 minutes ago, Shizuya said:

thx for your concern about my GM abilities but you dont know anything about me or my group. all of the players are longterm friends of mine and it is in this PCs blood to cheese so yes, I actually do have to do something about it and all of the other players strongly agreed. the title of GM is rotating in our group btw, so I'm not always the one making the quests. the others even argued for houserules such as cool down on force: move or strain cost just to use it, which I strongly disagreed with. I agree the power wouldnt need houseruling with the rest of the group but with this player I honestly see no other way to reduce further friction with the group, since by RAW nothing stops him from just moving multiple opponents onto another one , all of them getting damage etc., all the time and I dont want to grief this player by constantly focusing all enemies on him or the like.
I'm happy for you if you dont have any cheesers in your group.

this is actually a very good point, thank you. if I would allow the PC to do that, what would you suggest to use as a primary stat? willpower?

I'm actually not too fond of the idea in general, simply because lightsabers exist and darth kreia was the only force user I know of who did something alike and that is certainly not the power level our characters are on by a long shot.

Treat is like 2 weapon fighting. use the worse skill and the worse stat. IE is they have a strong willpower use dex. If they have a strong discipline use their range light. But usually it would be willpower +melee. But the idea is to limit their ability to one trick pony it. so try and put it on their dump stat.

Give a listen to episode 83 of the Order66 Podcast. IT will help you a lot.

22 minutes ago, Shizuya said:

thx for your concern about my GM abilities but you dont know anything about me or my group. all of the players are longterm friends of mine and it is in this PCs blood to cheese so yes, I actually do have to do something about it and all of the other players strongly agreed. the title of GM is rotating in our group btw, so I'm not always the one making the quests. the others even argued for houserules such as cool down on force: move or strain cost just to use it, which I strongly disagreed with. I agree the power wouldnt need houseruling with the rest of the group but with this player I honestly see no other way to reduce further friction with the group, since by RAW nothing stops him from just moving multiple opponents onto another one , all of them getting damage etc., all the time and I dont want to grief this player by constantly focusing all enemies on him or the like.
I'm happy for you if you dont have any cheesers in your group.

That's why I said "possibly".

Why don't you enlighten me as to the situation? I might be able to give you the RAW advice you need to manage this.

Because I do have cheezers, and I don't houserule this, and I notlr my other Players have any problems with it.

I'm a huge fan of RAW, because it's quite powerful and adaptable in this system.

Let's start with:

1. What era are you playing in?

2. How much earned XP is everyone at?

3. What exactly is the Cheezer capable of that's so problematic (what Upgrades do they have/use, what's their Force Rating, Willpower/Discipline, what's their Mortality, etc.)

22 minutes ago, Shizuya said:

if I would allow the PC to do that, what would you suggest to use as a primary stat? willpower?

Just follow RAW.

They're able to use their hands (and thereby the Characteristics and Skills associated with their hands) at a distance. Period.

So, Brawn (Melee) for stabbing with knives, Agility (Ranged L) for throwing them, Appropriate-Lightsaber-stat (Lightsaber) for that. Use dual wielding rules as appropriate if that's what their doing (+1 Difficulty for each new weapon). And make sure to adjust the dice pool for narrative factors, it would unarguably be much more difficult to use melee weapons at a distance (your perspective is detached, sounds and timing is harder to judge), maybe other combatants are blocking their view, so assess Setbacks, Upgrade Difficulty, so on, as appropriate.

43 minutes ago, emsquared said:

That's why I said "possibly".

Why don't you enlighten me as to the situation? I might be able to give you the RAW advice you need to manage this.

Because I do have cheezers, and I don't houserule this, and I notlr my other Players have any problems with it.

I'm a huge fan of RAW, because it's quite powerful and adaptable in this system.

Let's start with:

1. What era are you playing in?

2. How much earned XP is everyone at?

3. What exactly is the Cheezer capable of that's so problematic (what Upgrades do they have/use, what's their Force Rating, Willpower/Discipline, what's their Mortality, etc.)

so we did play edge last year and started force and destiny recently (to try it out and also learn the rules for force using, which we didnt do before), we had four sessions so far (I personally only lead 1 until next sunday) and we started at the event of order 66. all of the PCs were in the jedi temple, only one of us is a padawan though. we started at knight level but noticed we were very very far from being competent in pretty much anything.

one character is a padawan, one is a zabrak refugee from darthomir, I am a force sensitive streetkid of sorts and the other PC is a force monk from another order than the jedi. we were pretty generous with XP, since it's a campaign partly for learning and because we are impatient guys. that being said, we play weekly and we play long sessions 5hours+.

by now, most characters have a second spec and one or two force powers which are, for the most part, still pretty basic. I am the only player that is still on force rating 1, my PC has the best skill checks in general though, the other PCs are force 2 and, the force monk (sage) is now at force rating 3.

all of us are leveling a set of skills etc. but the force monk, who first was a seer with the foresee power with no upgrades and he constantly wanted to get valuable information from the GM due to his visions (which he said, he can have just by closing his eyes for a moment). because he put ALL of his xp into force rating and had 6 skill ranks in total (so only those you have at creation), whereas I probably had almost three times as much, his character kind of fell flat on his face and we talked with him because he was honestly useless to the group and his vision for the character didnt really go that well. so after 2 sessions he changed to sage (which has talking talents and he is a person that always likes to lead conversations) and he picked up move (which our padawan also has since day 1´).

so the problem now is we walked into a trap and were ambushed by clones and had a pretty long (and well made) chase in which the sage constantly used move to block the way, push away enemies etc. (which at first I thought was pretty cool until I realized he was a complete onetrick-pony) which obviously draws even more attention on him, especially around the time of order 66. both of the other players who have since made quests and therefore been GM have given the group things like blasters to stay low and NOT draw more official attention on us, yet the sage refuses to use them, arguing he is not trained in it (he has 3 agility though), but neither are any of us, instead continuing to use move as his bread and butter attack, every single round. when we remade his character, I convinced him (I'm the person with the books at home) to please invest into some skills as well and he now has a lore of 3, discipline of 2 and negotiation of 2 (which he surprisingly didnt try to use even though we had social encounters), but he has NOT spent a single XP on any of his skills since, instead min-maxing down to the next force rating and spending XP in move (he still has only base foresee, even though this was his character concept to begin with). while move isnt broken strong with his upgrades yet, if played by RAW it will be and he will 100% abuse it to no end, not considering in the slightest what the logical consequences for the narrative will be. I think so far he has magnitude, range, strength and control upgrades, additionally now the one that lets you pull opponents weapons out of their hands.

so as for RAW, if he spends another 2-3 quests worth of XP on move, he will be able to move a handful of NPCs in potentially long+ range, smash them against one another and deal huge damage, while all our other characters have a (intentionally) much slower character development. I honestly dont see any opponent resist him either if he just spends some XP into discipline and move can go to absurd levels, especially since the PC is planning on getting another 2 force rating talent tree. he also wants to buy protect/unleash now that he has force rating 3, which made the other 2 players pretty much revolt and not allow it lol. I mean we havent even made it away from coruscant yet, yet he wants to have learned the strongest of all force abilities by a couple of days.

I'm not sure about his morality but honestly he doesnt rly roleplay but rather plays himself, imho.

we are at 350 XP or so.

so the real problem really is the way this player plays and spends XP, rather than move, but move unfortunately has almost no ceiling and it just got old really really fast. the padawan, who first bought move hasnt used move in quite some time, he said he didnt because it bored him and we generally tend to do cool moves instead of pure combat efficiency. this is a game that only plays in our heads, after all.

22 minutes ago, Shizuya said:

so we did play edge last year and started force and destiny recently (to try it out and also learn the rules for force using, which we didnt do before), we had four sessions so far (I personally only lead 1 until next sunday) and we started at the event of order 66. all of the PCs were in the jedi temple, only one of us is a padawan though. we started at knight level but noticed we were very very far from being competent in pretty much anything.

one character is a padawan, one is a zabrak refugee from darthomir, I am a force sensitive streetkid of sorts and the other PC is a force monk from another order than the jedi. we were pretty generous with XP, since it's a campaign partly for learning and because we are impatient guys. that being said, we play weekly and we play long sessions 5hours+.

by now, most characters have a second spec and one or two force powers which are, for the most part, still pretty basic. I am the only player that is still on force rating 1, my PC has the best skill checks in general though, the other PCs are force 2 and, the force monk (sage) is now at force rating 3.

all of us are leveling a set of skills etc. but the force monk, who first was a seer with the foresee power with no upgrades and he constantly wanted to get valuable information from the GM due to his visions (which he said, he can have just by closing his eyes for a moment). because he put ALL of his xp into force rating and had 6 skill ranks in total (so only those you have at creation), whereas I probably had almost three times as much, his character kind of fell flat on his face and we talked with him because he was honestly useless to the group and his vision for the character didnt really go that well. so after 2 sessions he changed to sage (which has talking talents and he is a person that always likes to lead conversations) and he picked up move (which our padawan also has since day 1´).

so the problem now is we walked into a trap and were ambushed by clones and had a pretty long (and well made) chase in which the sage constantly used move to block the way, push away enemies etc. (which at first I thought was pretty cool until I realized he was a complete onetrick-pony) which obviously draws even more attention on him, especially around the time of order 66. both of the other players who have since made quests and therefore been GM have given the group things like blasters to stay low and NOT draw more official attention on us, yet the sage refuses to use them, arguing he is not trained in it (he has 3 agility though), but neither are any of us, instead continuing to use move as his bread and butter attack, every single round. when we remade his character, I convinced him (I'm the person with the books at home) to please invest into some skills as well and he now has a lore of 3, discipline of 2 and negotiation of 2 (which he surprisingly didnt try to use even though we had social encounters), but he has NOT spent a single XP on any of his skills since, instead min-maxing down to the next force rating and spending XP in move (he still has only base foresee, even though this was his character concept to begin with). while move isnt broken strong with his upgrades yet, if played by RAW it will be and he will 100% abuse it to no end, not considering in the slightest what the logical consequences for the narrative will be. I think so far he has magnitude, range, strength and control upgrades, additionally now the one that lets you pull opponents weapons out of their hands.

so as for RAW, if he spends another 2-3 quests worth of XP on move, he will be able to move a handful of NPCs in potentially long+ range, smash them against one another and deal huge damage, while all our other characters have a (intentionally) much slower character development. I honestly dont see any opponent resist him either if he just spends some XP into discipline and move can go to absurd levels, especially since the PC is planning on getting another 2 force rating talent tree. he also wants to buy protect/unleash now that he has force rating 3, which made the other 2 players pretty much revolt and not allow it lol. I mean we havent even made it away from coruscant yet, yet he wants to have learned the strongest of all force abilities by a couple of days.

I'm not sure about his morality but honestly he doesnt rly roleplay but rather plays himself, imho.

we are at 350 XP or so.

so the real problem really is the way this player plays and spends XP, rather than move, but move unfortunately has almost no ceiling and it just got old really really fast. the padawan, who first bought move hasnt used move in quite some time, he said he didnt because it bored him and we generally tend to do cool moves instead of pure combat efficiency. this is a game that only plays in our heads, after all.

Well take a look at the Morallity chart in the GM system. It may help curb excesses if he doesn't want to fall to the darside. Also use the Palpometer. If the action your player takes would cause Palpatine to say Goo Goo or Cackle with Glee. it is likely conflict worthy. Also give him problems that can't be solved with move. like needing to negotiate.

we are giving out conflict but per RAW the use of move doesnt give you any conflict and it's not like he is using it in a very evil, or creative, way. and combat is an important part of this game and our campaigns and he will just outshine everybody as per RAW. we dont want minmax characters but I dont know what to say or do about it so houseruling move seems like the easier thing if everybody agrees, it's not like it would become a weak or even useless ability by any stretch of imagination. but it would make bind=sentients/droids only and move=objects only. not the worst thing imo, I totally respect if you want to play RAW with move. and it's supported by the wording, even if the devs have clarified otherwise (even though the devs tend to have "do whatever you want" answers anyway).

27 minutes ago, Shizuya said:

we are giving out conflict but per RAW the use of move doesnt give you any conflict and it's not like he is using it in a very evil, or creative, way. and combat is an important part of this game and our campaigns and he will just outshine everybody as per RAW. we dont want minmax characters but I dont know what to say or do about it so houseruling move seems like the easier thing if everybody agrees, it's not like it would become a weak or even useless ability by any stretch of imagination. but it would make bind=sentients/droids only and move=objects only. not the worst thing imo, I totally respect if you want to play RAW with move. and it's supported by the wording, even if the devs have clarified otherwise (even though the devs tend to have "do whatever you want" answers anyway).

Move by default doesn't give conflict. but raising someone up to long range and dropping them would give conflict as you are being brutal and creating a great amount of fear before they die. So how move is used does matter conflict wise. As I said look at this players past actions using the move power. Would any of those actions make Palpatine cackle with glee? if the answer is yes. they should have gotten conflict. Just like using a blaster doesnt cause conflict. but sneaking up behind some innocent and shooting them in the back of the head does give a fair amount of conflict

First and foremost, if you've talked to this player about how you and the rest of the table have your fun ruined by their cheese, and they still do it... That's openly hostile behavior, not collaborative, that's a toxic person, and I'd ask that person to leave the game.

If you accept this person treating you all like dog-crap - and that is what they're doing in disregarding your interests in the matter, that's on you. Not the system.

As for "combatting" this IC, via RAW, for starters:

You're playing post-Order 66. My favorite and most potent control on this cheese is narrative. If you're going around Hurling people left and right, that's very overt. People are gonna notice that, people are gonna report that to the Empire. And you're gonna have multiple Bounty Hunters and an Inquisitor coming for you, immediately.

And they're better than you. GM can and should stat them to be so (the book NPCs are milk-toast), because as you've noted, you're not very experienced. Bobba Fett is.

If you don't listen to your fellow Force users' desires to be more low profile, maybe they abandon you in the night?

If your Player refuses to care about those consequences, play those consequences out fairly, but fully, and fact is: they're dead. Because even if they beat the Inquisitor, Vader's next.

If they're gonna game the system, and you're not willing to enact appropriate narrative consequences, again, that's on you. Not the system.

Hope yer happy, but you can't beat the GM at the game, you are not the biggest fish in the sea. That's why you don't engage in this. That's why you work together solving this OOC first. It just creates unneeded tension and conflict OOC and IC. You solve it OOC in best circumstances.

But furthermore, RE: RAW:

Are you using the Force rules correctly? It seems like you're anticipating a problem more than experiencing one? Because at Force Rating 3, you're not doing anything that crazy yet - even if you're taking a lot of Conflict (which requires a lot of Destiny flips and Strain, you doing that?).

Particularly pay attention to how they approach combat too. If they're attacking first - Conflict. If they're tearing apart buildings or scenery to Hurl stuff - lotta Conflict. If they're using Hurl and inflicting fear in their targets or observers (even if unintentionally) - A WHOLE LOT of Conflict. Morality is a powerful tool in managing Force use. If the PC doesn't care if they're a Darksider, maybe their teammates do? Maybe a surviving Jedi catches wind, and they care...?

Again, narrative.

And next, step back a moment for some perspective: if the PC is slaughtering Minions with this, who cares? Minions are literally there to make the PCs look awesome.

For Rivals and Nemeses, you simply need to stat them to be able to deal with this. Adversary of course, Dodge/Side Step, Reflect, Defense, Skills and Characteristics to resist their Discipline, so on. This is the game.

This doesn't even get into how that Player is a major glass cannon, and you could/should be throwing commensurate offense back at them ("Geek the mage!", to steal a line from Shadowrun).

If you're unwilling to use the mechanics available to you, that's on you, not the system.

Is it easier to say "Move can't target people." rather than using the extensive tools - OOC, narrative, and mechanical - which you have at your disposal as GM, to play the game?

It's certainly lazier. But , it also introduces more questions that then have to have more made up answers. And none of it translates well to playing with other people/at other tables. Particularly, you say you're doing this to learn the F&D portion of the setting, but you're not doing that. You're ignoring the gameplay it creates.

7 hours ago, Shizuya said:

Hello everyone, sorry for re-opening this can of worms of a 50 page thread lol but I actually have a campaign with some serious balance issues (and abuse) with force move and I totally agree with OP that it should only move objects (which I will houserule as such) and bind should be used to move characters. but we had another situation in which all the players and GM were very unsure about how to handle it. the player who uses move literally all the time in every round, even when the GM gives strong indications that its not the best idea and gives plenty of other options, much to the annoyance of everyone else tbh, bought some combat knives (we only had 4 sessions so far and very few credits) to throw at enemies when no other objects are available.

the combat knives have a stat of +1 and iirc no other stats. as silhouette 0 objects they would deal 5 base damage. the player who uses move and I argued that the +1 should be applied, since I didnt see any problem with it and it's an object made for inflicting wounds. the other players argued that it's still a silhouette 0 object and that the +1 was only meant for use with brawn AND (the arguably better point imo) that improvised weapons such as chairs or whatever also have extra damage depending on their size, so one could argue throwing a chair with move could also be 5+2/3 or whatever the size counts at, which was obviously not the frame the power was created in. we still agreed that qualities like pierce should apply either way.

so how would you handle this? I honestly dont see much of a problem if the base damage of telekinetic throwing daggers is 6 instead of 5, it's still better than the PC throwing multiple silhouette 1+ objects around that deal massive damage.

I'd tell you to go with your instincts and nerf Move. As a GM who used this system for a long time, I found Move to be one of the more easily abused powers, and the way it is written is certainly not in keeping with much of the use of this power we see in the films.

"Narrative" is usually the default go to for people to rein in game mechanics that are easily exploited, but over time I have greatly soured on this view, as all it really means is "push the burden of the game adjudication on to the GM." The net result is to create more situations of PC/GM conflict that is needed.

Out of curiosity, how deep into the Move tree is the offending PC? With just a few force dice it gets silly fast if you have all the strength and magnitude upgrades.

2 minutes ago, Magnus Arcanus said:

I'd tell you to go with your instincts and nerf Move. As a GM who used this system for a long time, I found Move to be one of the more easily abused powers, and the way it is written is certainly not in keeping with much of the use of this power we see in the films.

"Narrative" is usually the default go to for people to rein in game mechanics that are easily exploited, but over time I have greatly soured on this view, as all it really means is "push the burden of the game adjudication on to the GM." The net result is to create more situations of PC/GM conflict that is needed.

Out of curiosity, how deep into the Move tree is the offending PC? With just a few force dice it gets silly fast if you have all the strength and magnitude upgrades.

not too deep to be honest but deep enough to hurl 2 enemies onto a third one, damaging all of them by 10 in the process. for session 4 I think that is a rather hefty damage roll. I dont have a problem with a PC wanting to play a pure force user but so far he didnt want to buy other force powers and insisted on bringing this to a usable level, which is fine. and the problem with move as written is that you can spend forcepips on upgrades multiple times, so if you have a lucky roll or convert black pips, you can easily hurl a silhuoette 2 or even 3 object with one strength upgrade. with all upgrades and 4 forcepips you can -in theory- hurl 5 AT-AT from extreme range onto an opponent for 200 damage. and while I would never allow that, it goes very far beyond what I think should be possible. I'm kind of disappointed tbh that even the hurl upgrade doesnt say max silhouette 2 or something.
it's also nowhere stated what would happen to an opponent that one "force pushes" from short to extreme (which is what like 100+ meters at least?), I'm sure that would be lethal. that alone cries to me that it wasnt intended to throw around opponents with it. another problem is that with a PC only leveling move and discipline you have a very hard time as GM to create any opponent he would fail an opposed check against, even though he hasnt bothered putting XP into discipline since hurling even silhouette 2 is ridicously easy.

it's not even like I had the biggest problem with this PCs playstyle so far but the other two players are growing continually more annoyed as well and I dont want it to get personal. I feel like a restriction to objects and pointing to bind for sentients is a reasonable houserule. the wording perfectly supports this houserule as move always says object whereas bind refers to targets.

anyhow, my original question about using move on melee weapons has been answered so thx everyone!

16 minutes ago, Shizuya said:

not too deep to be honest but deep enough to hurl 2 enemies onto a third one, damaging all of them by 10 in the process. for session 4 I think that is a rather hefty damage roll. I dont have a problem with a PC wanting to play a pure force user but so far he didnt want to buy other force powers and insisted on bringing this to a usable level, which is fine. and the problem with move as written is that you can spend forcepips on upgrades multiple times, so if you have a lucky roll or convert black pips, you can easily hurl a silhuoette 2 or even 3 object with one strength upgrade. with all upgrades and 4 forcepips you can -in theory- hurl 5 AT-AT from extreme range onto an opponent for 200 damage. and while I would never allow that, it goes very far beyond what I think should be possible. I'm kind of disappointed tbh that even the hurl upgrade doesnt say max silhouette 2 or something.
it's also nowhere stated what would happen to an opponent that one "force pushes" from short to extreme (which is what like 100+ meters at least?), I'm sure that would be lethal. that alone cries to me that it wasnt intended to throw around opponents with it. another problem is that with a PC only leveling move and discipline you have a very hard time as GM to create any opponent he would fail an opposed check against, even though he hasnt bothered putting XP into discipline since hurling even silhouette 2 is ridicously easy.

it's not even like I had the biggest problem with this PCs playstyle so far but the other two players are growing continually more annoyed as well and I dont want it to get personal. I feel like a restriction to objects and pointing to bind for sentients is a reasonable houserule. the wording perfectly supports this houserule as move always says object whereas bind refers to targets.

anyhow, my original question about using move on melee weapons has been answered so thx everyone!

Brutally efficient may be conflict worthy and that is brutally efficient. The quick and easy path as it were. also what force rating is he

55 minutes ago, emsquared said:

First and foremost, if you've talked to this player about how you and the rest of the table have your fun ruined by their cheese, and they still do it... That's openly hostile behavior, not collaborative, that's a toxic person, and I'd ask that person to leave the game.

If you accept this person treating you all like dog-crap - and that is what they're doing in disregarding your interests in the matter, that's on you. Not the system.

As for "combatting" this IC, via RAW, for starters:

You're playing post-Order 66. My favorite and most potent control on this cheese is narrative. If you're going around Hurling people left and right, that's very overt. People are gonna notice that, people are gonna report that to the Empire. And you're gonna have multiple Bounty Hunters and an Inquisitor coming for you, immediately.

And they're better than you. GM can and should stat them to be so (the book NPCs are milk-toast), because as you've noted, you're not very experienced. Bobba Fett is.

If you don't listen to your fellow Force users' desires to be more low profile, maybe they abandon you in the night?

If your Player refuses to care about those consequences, play those consequences out fairly, but fully, and fact is: they're dead. Because even if they beat the Inquisitor, Vader's next.

If they're gonna game the system, and you're not willing to enact appropriate narrative consequences, again, that's on you. Not the system.

Hope yer happy, but you can't beat the GM at the game, you are not the biggest fish in the sea. That's why you don't engage in this. That's why you work together solving this OOC first. It just creates unneeded tension and conflict OOC and IC. You solve it OOC in best circumstances.

But furthermore, RE: RAW:

Are you using the Force rules correctly? It seems like you're anticipating a problem more than experiencing one? Because at Force Rating 3, you're not doing anything that crazy yet - even if you're taking a lot of Conflict (which requires a lot of Destiny flips and Strain, you doing that?).

Particularly pay attention to how they approach combat too. If they're attacking first - Conflict. If they're tearing apart buildings or scenery to Hurl stuff - lotta Conflict. If they're using Hurl and inflicting fear in their targets or observers (even if unintentionally) - A WHOLE LOT of Conflict. Morality is a powerful tool in managing Force use. If the PC doesn't care if they're a Darksider, maybe their teammates do? Maybe a surviving Jedi catches wind, and they care...?

Again, narrative.

And next, step back a moment for some perspective: if the PC is slaughtering Minions with this, who cares? Minions are literally there to make the PCs look awesome.

For Rivals and Nemeses, you simply need to stat them to be able to deal with this. Adversary of course, Dodge/Side Step, Reflect, Defense, Skills and Characteristics to resist their Discipline, so on. This is the game.

This doesn't even get into how that Player is a major glass cannon, and you could/should be throwing commensurate offense back at them ("Geek the mage!", to steal a line from Shadowrun).

If you're unwilling to use the mechanics available to you, that's on you, not the system.

Is it easier to say "Move can't target people." rather than using the extensive tools - OOC, narrative, and mechanical - which you have at your disposal as GM, to play the game?

It's certainly lazier. But , it also introduces more questions that then have to have more made up answers. And none of it translates well to playing with other people/at other tables. Particularly, you say you're doing this to learn the F&D portion of the setting, but you're not doing that. You're ignoring the gameplay it creates.

well you're right in your first point, we need to have a more serious conversation about it. we have thus far tried to tell him in a subtle friendly way, because he tends to get salty rather quickly. but this next quest I will definitely tell him that we dont want to play a minmax campaign and also to play the character he created.

you have a point in many of your advices, although we are not as unfamiliar with the game as you may think. in pretty much every quest the GM has created situations/opponents where this particular PC would fail against. but in all honesty it's not very fun for a questwriter to jump through multiple loops every time because of a single player that likes to cheese the game. and yes, we could let boba fett and darth vader appear to hunt us but the point is, that is a situation this player is forcing us in and not one we WANT to be in. we have very inexperienced (especially in combat) characters thus far and want to have a meaningful character development and that is not possible when darth vader appears in session 5 and slaughters our characters. this is exactly the point that is frustrating the group and we all see the potential that move will have sooner than later.

one of my players wants to learn bind and we are narratively creating stressful situations to introduce him using it unconsciously until he eventually hs a feeling for it and can actually manually use it. the other player on the other hand has learned to juggle mutiple opponents in the air in a matter of days.

all in all I agree with you on most things but I'm quite baffled that you dont want to acknowledge any problem with move whatsoever. lets say you buy all magnitude upgrades, which only cost 30xp total you can increase the targets you affect (and by your rule that includes for example stormtroopers) by 4. so if the PC is in short range anyway, he can spend his, let's say 3 force pips, to hurl 9 stormtroopers at once (1 for silhouette 1, 2 for 2x4 more targets), causing 10 damage to each of them.

this is by far the biggest problem I have with move. the upgrades explicitly say "increase x by a number of upgrades. the user may activate this multiple times, increasing the number of targets by this number EACH TIME". the biggest joke to me is that doing this would be a check difficulty of ONE.

If I am completely misunderstanding move please let me know.

@Daeglan he is force rating 3. he said he wants to take hermit next and eventually have a rancor pet. yeah, it's really that silly. maybe thats the problem. we want to play a serious campaign.

40 minutes ago, Shizuya said:

well you're right in your first point, we need to have a more serious conversation about it. we have thus far tried to tell him in a subtle friendly way, because he tends to get salty rather quickly. but this next quest I will definitely tell him that we dont want to play a minmax campaign and also to play the character he created.

you have a point in many of your advices, although we are not as unfamiliar with the game as you may think. in pretty much every quest the GM has created situations/opponents where this particular PC would fail against. but in all honesty it's not very fun for a questwriter to jump through multiple loops every time because of a single player that likes to cheese the game. and yes, we could let boba fett and darth vader appear to hunt us but the point is, that is a situation this player is forcing us in and not one we WANT to be in. we have very inexperienced (especially in combat) characters thus far and want to have a meaningful character development and that is not possible when darth vader appears in session 5 and slaughters our characters. this is exactly the point that is frustrating the group and we all see the potential that move will have sooner than later.

one of my players wants to learn bind and we are narratively creating stressful situations to introduce him using it unconsciously until he eventually hs a feeling for it and can actually manually use it. the other player on the other hand has learned to juggle mutiple opponents in the air in a matter of days.

all in all I agree with you on most things but I'm quite baffled that you dont want to acknowledge any problem with move whatsoever. lets say you buy all magnitude upgrades, which only cost 30xp total you can increase the targets you affect (and by your rule that includes for example stormtroopers) by 4. so if the PC is in short range anyway, he can spend his, let's say 3 force pips, to hurl 9 stormtroopers at once (1 for silhouette 1, 2 for 2x4 more targets), causing 10 damage to each of them.

this is by far the biggest problem I have with move. the upgrades explicitly say "increase x by a number of upgrades. the user may activate this multiple times, increasing the number of targets by this number EACH TIME". the biggest joke to me is that doing this would be a check difficulty of ONE.

If I am completely misunderstanding move please let me know.

@Daeglan he is force rating 3. he said he wants to take hermit next and eventually have a rancor pet. yeah, it's really that silly. maybe thats the problem. we want to play a serious campaign.

Sounds to me like you need to have a follow up session 0. Where you all discuss what you want out of the game. So you can hopefully get them to be going the same direction as everyone else. It sounds like he is trying to relive force unleashed. Or has different expectations than the rest of the play group. Also a session zero type conversation will allow everyone to voice what they want out of the game. But this might be tricky as it might make them get defensive if they feel like everyone is piling on them. So the trick is for everyone to voice what they want and not to be accusatory. Hopefully you can get them to go in the direction of the rest of the group.

Also at force rating 3 they are likely going to have to use darkside pips and that requires a destiny flip , strain per pip used and conflict per pip used...

1 minute ago, Daeglan said:

Sounds to me like you need to have a follow up session 0. Where you all discuss what you want out of the game. So you can hopefully get them to be going the same direction as everyone else. It sounds like he is trying to relive force unleashed. Or has different expectations than the rest of the play group. Also a session zero type conversation will allow everyone to voice what they want out of the game. But this might be tricky as it might make them get defensive if they feel like everyone is piling on them. So the trick is for everyone to voice what they want and not to be accusatory. Hopefully you can get them to go in the direction of the rest of the group.

Also at force rating 3 they are likely going to have to use darkside pips and that requires a destiny flip , strain per pip used and conflict per pip used...

yes that is probably the best idea for this problem. admittedly this player has lots of stuff to do at the moment and didnt really invest time to look into the specs and powers that much.

last game was pretty strain heavy indeed but strangely enough the move player has only piled 2 conflict in almost 6 hours whereas I had 4, even though the only power I rly used was enhance lol. think he had some very lucky rolls. and dont worry there is a constant flipping on destiny points, to the point where the GM is barely keeping up.

2 minutes ago, Shizuya said:

yes that is probably the best idea for this problem. admittedly this player has lots of stuff to do at the moment and didnt really invest time to look into the specs and powers that much.

last game was pretty strain heavy indeed but strangely enough the move player has only piled 2 conflict in almost 6 hours whereas I had 4, even though the only power I rly used was enhance lol. think he had some very lucky rolls. and dont worry there is a constant flipping on destiny points, to the point where the GM is barely keeping up.

I would be suspicious of that. because if he is using move as much as it sounds like and he is using all those upgrades. that is probably 3 to 4 pips and on 3 force dice odds are they needed to use darkside pips. And you can only flip 1 destiny pip on your characters turn so you can upgrade your die roll and flip a destiny to use darkside pips. So i would watch out for that...

2 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

I would be suspicious of that. because if he is using move as much as it sounds like and he is using all those upgrades. that is probably 3 to 4 pips and on 3 force dice odds are they needed to use darkside pips. And you can only flip 1 destiny pip on your characters turn so you can upgrade your die roll and flip a destiny to use darkside pips. So i would watch out for that...

I know. thing is, the main fight was in a storage hall and most of it at short range, so he actually didnt have to use range upgrades. he sometimes threw one opponent, sometimes two onto a third one. it was all perfectly going after RAW dont worry. and I think the fight only lasted for 3 or 4 rounds. maybe he didnt note his conflict well enough but he said he had two. I didnt feel responsible for noting them tbh.