Yeah, I love playing Eya, but I really wish I'd gone ahead and started her at Morality 29. I'd thought about it, but didn't take that option, and I really think that was the wrong choice. :/

Eh. We'll see how things go once the Wayward Stars characters start making Morality rolls.

Starting as a dark sider and playing good wasn't my idea. Just putting that out there for clarification.

1. I wouldn't necessarily call it "sitting in the middle", more that a character is seeking enlightenment or balance between their good and evil nature, between their selfishness and selflessness. If someone was dogmatically selfless, they would run themself ragged trying to do everything for others all the time. On the other hand, someone who is dogmatically selfish often has poor relationships & does not often experience an enjoyable life. A similar thing happens with in real life and there are a lot of things one might have to constantly strive for balance with. Things such as a work/life balance where too much of one thing doesn't work out for the better. It takes activity to balance things out and is a constant struggle to balance things, so it's not very likely that a force user can become balanced by doing nothing.

The balance argument is bogus. Look in a real spiritual sense balance isn't about balancing out your dark impulses with your good ones. People in real life who preach a spiritual belief or philosophy of balance do not encourage you to go other there and commit evil deeds and then balance the scales by doing good. They don't recommend you go on a murder spree and then build an orphanage afterward. Spiritually speaking balance would require you to resist the urges of the darkside.

People who attempt to play Grey Jedi and promote the whole Grey force thing normally do not have a real understanding of what spiritual balance means.

2. Good V Evil will always matter in the stories of Star Wars. A force using character finding a balance within themself is not negating the struggle of good vs evil because it isn't affecting the overarching narrative; it affects that character on a personal level. Luke Skywalker would definitely be considered imbalanced in the OT up to the point that he casts his lightsaber aside and declares that he is a Jedi. From that point on, he isn't permanently balanced in himself, he would still have to work at it. Is he still a good aligned character? Yes. Does he still use his emotions as a Jedi, contradictory to the Jedi way? Yes. Does he reject all emotion or on the flip side, let his emotion consume him? No, as that would be imbalance.

When you remove the consequences for evil you gut the Good versus Evil story. In a good versus evil story there is a price to pay for doing evil. If you no longer pay that price you no longer have the same level of story tension. Therefore getting to a point where a character can do both good and evil things with no real consequences (which is what most people try to do when they go all Grey) you've removed the tension necessary for a compelling Good v Evil story.

Luke is a poor example in this case because the Jedi philosophy didn't disagree about having emotions but letting emotions rule you. Throughout the Star Wars medium we've seen that Jedi feel. What they don't allow is for those emotions to control what they do.

1. I wouldn't necessarily call it "sitting in the middle", more that a character is seeking enlightenment or balance between their good and evil nature, between their selfishness and selflessness. If someone was dogmatically selfless, they would run themself ragged trying to do everything for others all the time. On the other hand, someone who is dogmatically selfish often has poor relationships & does not often experience an enjoyable life. A similar thing happens with in real life and there are a lot of things one might have to constantly strive for balance with. Things such as a work/life balance where too much of one thing doesn't work out for the better. It takes activity to balance things out and is a constant struggle to balance things, so it's not very likely that a force user can become balanced by doing nothing.

The balance argument is bogus. Look in a real spiritual sense balance isn't about balancing out your dark impulses with your good ones. People in real life who preach a spiritual belief or philosophy of balance do not encourage you to go other there and commit evil deeds and then balance the scales by doing good. They don't recommend you go on a murder spree and then build an orphanage afterward. Spiritually speaking balance would require you to resist the urges of the darkside.

People who attempt to play Grey Jedi and promote the whole Grey force thing normally do not have a real understanding of what spiritual balance means.

2. Good V Evil will always matter in the stories of Star Wars. A force using character finding a balance within themself is not negating the struggle of good vs evil because it isn't affecting the overarching narrative; it affects that character on a personal level. Luke Skywalker would definitely be considered imbalanced in the OT up to the point that he casts his lightsaber aside and declares that he is a Jedi. From that point on, he isn't permanently balanced in himself, he would still have to work at it. Is he still a good aligned character? Yes. Does he still use his emotions as a Jedi, contradictory to the Jedi way? Yes. Does he reject all emotion or on the flip side, let his emotion consume him? No, as that would be imbalance.

A. When you remove the consequences for evil you gut the Good versus Evil story.

B. In a good versus evil story there is a price to pay for doing evil. If you no longer pay that price you no longer have the same level of story tension. Therefore getting to a point where a character can do both good and evil things with no real consequences (which is what most people try to do when they go all Grey) you've removed the tension necessary for a compelling Good v Evil story.

C. Luke is a poor example in this case because the Jedi philosophy didn't disagree about having emotions but letting emotions rule you. Throughout the Star Wars medium we've seen that Jedi feel. What they don't allow is for those emotions to control what they do.

A. The "good guy" is always good, you know they are going to do the good things & they typically "win" at the end. Does that gut the story, knowing Luke is the protagonist and he's generally going to do good things? Nope. The fact is there are people that do both good and bad things in stories and real life. Does not mean they are correct in their way of life. Why do you have to dictate that others need to play the way you want them to? Playing a grey force user is just as viable of an option as playing a DUM-series Pit Droid.

B. There's a lot of little evils that get glossed over in Star Wars and treated as if they do not matter in the grand scheme of things. How about Luke choking 2 Gamorreans rather than sneaking by them or simply removing the weapons from their grasp? How about Obi-Wan forcing that drug pusher to leave and rethink his life rather than simply saying no thanks I'm good? Sure you might believe he did that guy a favor but he removed the guy's free will in doing so. How about Obi-Wan killing the 2 thugs in the cantina rather than simply breaking their blasters? Qui-Gon choosing bet the life of a slave on a death race that could easily kill the 9 year old? How about Jedi removing children from their homes, from their families so they can join a cult of people on the pretense that they could be dangerous without said training that includes practice with some of the most lethal weapons in the galaxy? Yeah there's actually a lot of evils in Star Wars that get ignored because the "good guys" are doing it, so it must be okay.

C. Every prominent jedi let their emotions get the better of them in multiple instances across all the movies. Obi-Wan didn't "kill" Maul until his master died and he was about to die himself. Luke didn't beat Vader until Vader taunted him about his sister. The Jedi tend to explode with anger to defeat their opponents, which for that brief moment is definitely letting their emotions control them. You could say every Jedi doesn't always practice what they preach.

A. The "good guy" is always good, you know they are going to do the good things & they typically "win" at the end. Does that gut the story, knowing Luke is the protagonist and he's generally going to do good things? Nope. The fact is there are people that do both good and bad things in stories and real life. Does not mean they are correct in their way of life. Why do you have to dictate that others need to play the way you want them to? Playing a grey force user is just as viable of an option as playing a DUM-series Pit Droid.

I, at no point, have told no one not to play a grey force user. Find a post of mine in this thread wherein I state that you shouldn't play one. I'm just talking about bogus arguments and people's false ideas of what balance actually means. Play what you want to play. But if you come to the forums and ask people's opinions I am as free to talk about the problems inherent in the concept of grey force user as people are to give support for it.

Or was this supposed to be an echo chamber.

B. There's a lot of little evils that get glossed over in Star Wars and treated as if they do not matter in the grand scheme of things. How about Luke choking 2 Gamorreans rather than sneaking by them or simply removing the weapons from their grasp? How about Obi-Wan forcing that drug pusher to leave and rethink his life rather than simply saying no thanks I'm good? Sure you might believe he did that guy a favor but he removed the guy's free will in doing so. How about Obi-Wan killing the 2 thugs in the cantina rather than simply breaking their blasters? Qui-Gon choosing bet the life of a slave on a death race that could easily kill the 9 year old? How about Jedi removing children from their homes, from their families so they can join a cult of people on the pretense that they could be dangerous without said training that includes practice with some of the most lethal weapons in the galaxy? Yeah there's actually a lot of evils in Star Wars that get ignored because the "good guys" are doing it, so it must be okay.

The story doesn't gloss over Luke choking the 2 Gamorreans as that moment was meant to illustrate his own internal battle and the possibility that he could be swayed to the darkside later in the film. The scene is narratively used in order to build the kind of tension you need in order for the third act to seem plausible. If we are not shown Luke walking that tightrope then when it comes time to see the Emperor make his offer there is no emotional payoff. There is no tension. Obi Wan and the death stick dlear is a poor example. He didn't remove his free will. He just made him go home and think. That was neither good nor evil. Free will in that scene was not removed. As for killing the two thugs, not an good vs evil thing. Death happens. People kill. He killed them in self defense. This is another poor example. Qui Gon's pod race bet was neither good or evil either. It just is. Poor example. The Jedi left the choice of the removal of a kid up to the parents. Not a good or evil choice either. Yet another poor example for your point.

You're not listing anything here that is an evil that is being ignored.

C. Every prominent jedi let their emotions get the better of them in multiple instances across all the movies. Obi-Wan didn't "kill" Maul until his master died and he was about to die himself. Luke didn't beat Vader until Vader taunted him about his sister. The Jedi tend to explode with anger to defeat their opponents, which for that brief moment is definitely letting their emotions control them. You could say every Jedi doesn't always practice what they preach.

You act like Obi Wan wasn't trying to kill Maul before his master died. He was clearly attempting to. Obi Wan had a burst of anger to be sure but he was already in a life or death situation that was going to result in one of them being dead. It's a poor example of emotion getting the better of them or of Jedi ignoring what their taught. As for Luke, not really a Jedi. Plus again Luke's burst of emotion was necessary from a story in order to build the proper tension needed to make his eventual choice not to go dark believable. If we never see the character battling with his emotions there is no pay off for the audience when he makes the choice to not kill his father.

Also, the Jedi are only .... human (so to speak). So occasionally giving into a burst of emotion is to be expected. It would be an unrealistic portrayal of they never faltered. This is how good stories are made. Boring stories are the ones in which characters always live up to the ideals of their beliefs. Even the most devoutly religious person will tell you that people fail all the time to live up to the ideals of what they preach. That's why forgiveness is often times a core element of many religious belief structures.

Grey is entirely possible when you get punished for bad dice rolls by gaining conflict for heroic actions.

A. Fair enough, statement redacted.

B. "The story doesn't gloss over Luke choking the 2 Gamorreans as that moment was meant to illustrate his own internal battle and the possibility that he could be swayed to the darkside later in the film."

The point I was trying to make with all that was that these characters are not devoid of evils and remember with star wars, everything is based on a skewed sense of morality, as lying is justifiable for the right reasons. Nobody sticks to their own moral code except for the Sith but they really don't have a moral code at all. Everyone is fallible, nobody is perfect & a struggle for balance would represent that. Balance doesn't have to necessarily mean neither light nor dark either, it can just mean stability in whichever pathway you take. Kylo Ren, for instance, is supposed to be a darksider but is constantly imbalanced & is even more so by the end of The Force Awakens. There is still good vs evil within those stories & in those characters themselves, even if they are balanced, like, say, Ahsoka Tano in Star Wars Rebels. She's neither of the 2 big force traditions and does some light side things and some dark side things but isn't necessarily imbalanced in any way. Made for some good stories in my opinion.

A player in the game can't sit idly and maintain balanced. Action is what drives their story and whether they gain conflict; rarely does inaction come into play unless it was inaction to prevent an evil from happening. While I agree being grey in the game shouldn't necessarily be represented by a player every now and then vandalizing property or stealing for no reason at all but to stay below the paragon threshold, I also feel that the player can come up with ways in which they could do bad things with good intentions. Stuff like stealing from the Empire to feed the poor. Stealing will still net you conflict but if you were inactive, you'd be letting these people die that you could have saved, so it would be the morally right thing to do, yet the force still views it as theft.

C. Oh well yeah he was trying to kill Maul, because the Jedi have this dogmatic belief that they need to eradicate all Sith from existence and it is only Luke that breaks the cycle & redeems Vader. The point remains that they don't ever win battles without an emotional surge. Note that Yoda never "won" any of his duels & he also never had an emotional surge in them. You could say he won by surviving them, from a certain point of view.

The point I was trying to make with all that was that these characters are not devoid of evils and remember with star wars, everything is based on a skewed sense of morality, as lying is justifiable for the right reasons.

Except you don't really list anything that's evil or really morally questionable. And I would hardly consider their view of morality skewed. We are never lead to believe that their morality says lying for the right reasons is ok. We just see characters do it and justify it to themselves and others. Which ..... is fairly common for people to do.

Nobody sticks to their own moral code except for the Sith but they really don't have a moral code at all.

I would say most characters stick to their moral code. What they fail to do is be paragons of that code or abide by it 100% of the time. Which is ok since they would be dull characters if they were perfect.

Everyone is fallible, nobody is perfect & a struggle for balance would represent that. Balance doesn't have to necessarily mean neither light nor dark either, it can just mean stability in whichever pathway you take.

Except that canon material presents the darkside as an imbalance. Thus you can't be balanced if you are a darksider. Hence why the darkside ultimately corrupts those who use it.

Kylo Ren, for instance, is supposed to be a darksider but is constantly imbalanced & is even more so by the end of The Force Awakens. There is still good vs evil within those stories & in those characters themselves, even if they are balanced, like, say, Ahsoka Tano in Star Wars Rebels. She's neither of the 2 big force traditions and does some light side things and some dark side things but isn't necessarily imbalanced in any way. Made for some good stories in my opinion.

I might have missed an episode or two but I do not recall Tano going all darkside on people. For her part she adheres to being a lightsider. She also adheres pretty well to the Jedi traditions. Not perfectly so but she tries to live according to how they taught her to use the Force. Also don't confuse the Jedi and Sith philopshies as being examples of balance.

Also at no point are we truly presented with characters who do dark things and then suffer no consquences. Kylo does dark things and it leads him to killing his father.

I also feel that the player can come up with ways in which they could do bad things with good intentions. Stuff like stealing from the Empire to feed the poor. Stealing will still net you conflict but if you were inactive, you'd be letting these people die that you could have saved, so it would be the morally right thing to do, yet the force still views it as theft.

In stories that focus on morality and good v evil doing bad things for good reasons is still ulimtately bad. A PC can do bad things for really good reasons but it should ulimtately have a price. A PC is good for doing that, but if you're really attempting to focus on the conflict over good and evil then those bad things done for good reasons need to come with a price for the character. In morality stories it's supposed to be harder, but more rewarding, to do good things by good means. The villians in such stories are often drawn from people who attempted to do good things via bad means but paid the price. Vader serves as a prime example of what happens when you try to do good things via bad means.

In a morality story, in a story about good v evil your methods do matter and they should be impacting the final outcome.

C. Oh well yeah he was trying to kill Maul, because the Jedi have this dogmatic belief that they need to eradicate all Sith from existence and it is only Luke that breaks the cycle & redeems Vader. The point remains that they don't ever win battles without an emotional surge. Note that Yoda never "won" any of his duels & he also never had an emotional surge in them. You could say he won by surviving them, from a certain point of view.

They tried to kill Maul because Maul was trying to kill them and well ..... he was attempting to stop them from freeing Naboo. There is nothing in the scenes involving Maul and the Jedi that indicates that they were dead set on killing him because he was Sith and they had to eradicate all Sith. I have a suscpion that Qui Gon would have prefered to take Maul alive so they could learn more about his master.

As for the point that they don't win battles without an emotional surge, that's not even remotely true. The Clone Wars series is filled wall to wall with them wining without giving into emotional surges. Sticking with just movie examples though, Obi Wan beats Maul from a place of calm. His emotional surge nearly got him killed. Anakin's emotions got him beat by Dooku. It also lead to him being beaten by Obi Wan who won his duel with Anakin without an emotional surge. Mace lost his duel after he gave into his emotions. Yoda beat Dooku handily without giving into emotions. Luke beat Vadar with emotions but taking his life would have clearly lead to him going to the darkside. His true victory was only made possible when he became calm.

Most battles were won from places of calm. And most of the characters became their most vunderable after an emotional surge.

They are adding some stuff about different force traditions into the consular book as far as I understand it.

Honestly, as far as I'm concerned the morality system is a huge weak spot in F&D. It just doesn't really capture a spectrum of morality, every single character heads toward 100 or 0 inevitably, and hanging out in the middle really has no point to it. I also think it's idiotic that if you play a character that insults people 3 times per session you inevitably fall to the dark side, but a character who tortures a child to death for fun once per year and plays the good Jedi the rest of the time would be light side.How does that make any sense?

I mean, if we were dealing with a system like Humanity in White Wolf's Vampire, that would be one thing. In that system losing humanity progressively has more and more detrimental effects on your character, like making it harder and harder to keep control over your violent, murderous urges, which makes losing humanity a slippery slope, and if you lose all humanity it results in you losing control of your character permanently. It makes sense that in that system even a murderer has to struggle against such a fate, and being an evil character doesn't mean simply ignoring the humanity score.

In SWRP on the other hand there is no real danger in bottoming out your morality. It changes a few mechanical details about how your character plays, but struggling to stay in the light is really only important if you decide it is. It doesn't really do a good job of representing a spectrum of morality either though, because like I said, if you commit utterly unforgivable acts on rare occasions the game mechanics will keep you light side, whereas if you play a character with a bad attitude you will fall to the dark, even if that character would never murder someone.

From my perspectives degrees of immorality simply aren't measured in the number of immoral acts you commit, but in the thresholds you cross with them. Being mean 20 times isn't as bad a murder. Being mean to people is one degree of immorality, and murdering people is a much worse degree of immorality. How often you do each of those things doesn't matter, whether you do them at all does.

If I was writing a morality system it would be a score that's assigned to you based on the specific wrongs you have comitted.

Like, you would start with a Morality score of 100, denoting total innocence, then every time you do an immoral thing you would check it off on a list of wrongs, and subtract a number associated with that wrong from your overall morality score. Comitting a wrong that's already on the list doesn't decrease your morality further. The wrongs would come in various severities. Something like insulting people or stealing when it's necessary might be -5, so you can retain a high morality score even if your character does those kinds of things. Going to war might be -10, because obviously if you fight in a war you're moving away from total innocence, even if your war is justified. Your archetypal Jedi would have a score of maybe 80-90. Then you'd get the big wrongs, like murder, which might be -50 morality, so if you kill someone your morality is going to be pretty **** low, even if you don't do anything else wrong.

So you would build the list of wrongs your character commits and that would give you your morality score. The morality score would then mechanically tie into the game, like determining what force pips you use and so on. The way you would gain morality back is by looking at the atonement conditions of the wrongs on your list. A wrong like "Go to war" might be atoned for by laying down arms, so you'd leave the rebellion or whatever, then that wrong is struck from your list, and you get the morality it cost you back. There might be big wrongs that have very difficult to fulfill atonement conditions however. For example, the system might say that atonement for murder is "Sacrifice your life to save another", so it's theoretically possible for a character to regain their morality after murdering someone, but it would cost them their life.

Guess that would be a lot more complicated, but I think it would be a lot more representative of how morality really works.

Ok we've covered grey morality, how about alternative force traditions?

Ok we've covered grey morality, how about alternative force traditions?

What did you have in mind?

Ok we've covered grey morality, how about alternative force traditions?

All for it as long as it's in the scope of good and evil. Nightsisters? Evil. Bardottans? Good. Same for whatever a PC dreams up.

Starting as a dark sider and playing good wasn't my idea. Just putting that out there for clarification.

Ah, my bad, it was Richardbuxton.

You can understand my confusion, since your names and avatars are so similar...

Anyone have suggestions, builds that match alternative force traditions or grey Jedi?

Wardens of the Sky Force users who try to protect and keep free the space lanes. They use unarmed techniques becuase they don't want to risk hull breaches from using energy weapons or projectile weapons.

The Nightsisters were not evil as such as they seemed to have dark techniques available to them but admitted that it was easy to become lost to the dark side , so they believed in tapping into your emotions but with restraint. (Source Dark Disciple when Asaaj trained Quinlan Vos in darker techniques), can't say much more than that without spoiling the story.

Much of the other traditions seem to be on one side or another (or even start on one side but switch)

It really depends on the definition of Grey, llight and dark; the light side of the force is the force itself and the Darkside is it's perverted self, or rather a cancer. Thus while a Jedi should have knowledge of the dark side, it's quite another to actually use it. My personal interpretation of Grey Jedi is simply one that doesn't follow the tenents of the Jedi order and follows the will of the force; the lost 20 for example probably did not fall to the darkside and left for various reasons, whether that would be raise a family, wanting to leave the structured life to become a wanderer. These Jedi I imagine would be hunted down and exterminated the moment they turned to the dark side or attempted to raise their own cult in the same way a festering tumour would be cut out to prevent cancer. It is implifed that using the force for evil has grave consequences if left unchecked.

Alternatively a Grey Jedi would be someone who acts beyond their own authority in the will of the force, as it was shown that by this point in time the Jedi were more or less the tools of the republic. Being a "Grey Jedi" was a term of slander, that one doesn't take their duties towards the republic seriously rather then anything that dabbles with the dark side.

Personally I think theres plenty of scope for playing a force user that isn't a Jedi, is a self serving son of a gun that doesn't care what he's drawing on. Pirate force senstives, sneaky rogues, all these characters can sponatiously develop a gift, be taught or learn about it in their own ways and exploit it in a morally abogious fastion. Olvier Twist with a twisted uncle raising force senstive kids to bring him back loot? Sounds fun backstory! Just don't dress your lamb as mutton; if your running a force user that doesn't care about the scales of the force, just make that guy with a strong sense of traditions and go with that instead; the Grey Jedi concept is like sticking a square peg into a round hole in that it just doesn't work thematically.

I always wanted to make a warden of the sky now that I think about it.

The idea of "Gray Jedi" is kind of silly to be honest, because it comes out of the idea that balance in the force is a balance between dark and light, but that's not really how dark and light work. Light is about maintaining balance, dark is about serving your own ambitions. A "I'm the good guy so everything I do is right and everyone who is against me is evil!" kind of person is just as much a darksider as a "I just want all the power in the universe" kind of person.

I've been thinking about it all day and I'm coming around to the idea that someone who is in balance would be at the peak of Paragon status & their struggle for balance would be to stay in Paragon status without giving into temptation or being emotionally turbulent due to the times that they can't save everyone.

The Dark Side seems to be a state of being emotionally conflicted & imbalanced for everyone in the films, even Palpatine, who's "overconfidence was his weakness".

My personal interpretation of Grey Jedi is simply one that doesn't follow the tenents of the Jedi order and follows the will of the force; the lost 20 for example probably did not fall to the darkside and left for various reasons, whether that would be raise a family, wanting to leave the structured life to become a wanderer.

This is a version of Grey Jedi that I can work with. Sadly what I typically encounter are people who just want to use the dark side without penalty.

I've been thinking about it all day and I'm coming around to the idea that someone who is in balance would be at the peak of Paragon status & their struggle for balance would be to stay in Paragon status without giving into temptation or being emotionally turbulent due to the times that they can't save everyone.

That's an intriguing way to look at it. I'm a little reluctant to look at paragon status as a place of balance because in terms of spiritual balance I think the Morality trait is a poor way to represent it. I would personally use it as an aspect of role play. But I can see the logic in being a lightside paragon as being a sign of balance.

btw, if you check out the (mostly legends) evolution of the jedi code, you will notice that the jedi basically started grey and became dogmatic far far later.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Tython

The the TCW story arc on Mortis you see something similar. Dark, Light and Balance.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Mortis

The key thing with Mortis is what happened; the moment the son seized the slightest advantage the balance was thrown off completely and everything went to pot, thus ironically shows that it's impossible to balance both light and dark as it just doesn't work like that, it is abruptly clear that most force sensitives never ever completely recover from their first fall..

The moment one relaxes their grip on the easy dark side they fall. The balance isn't 50/50 like some people suggest, one doesn't just commit evil with one hand and hope in another but it's closer to a 90/10 ratio in favour of the light; Jedi should know enough about the evils of the galaxy and their own desires instead of sealing it away entirely, management as apposed to completely abstaining. That was why Anaikin fell, because he wasn't taught how to manage his emotions and was only ever taught on how to repress them, and speaking out about his fears would have had him exiled from the only life he knew up to that point. True balance isn't about light and darkness but it's about a journey of the self; finding that common ground between satisfaction and control.

I also don't care a great deal about the "grey Jedi that used both sides" in the past, they used it and it caused a civil war that resulted in the divide that exists to today. Afterwards, most people who used that tact were really secret sith and was just looking to make people fall.

The way i kind of think of it is that someone falls to the dark side(under 30) then is redeemed (over 70) and knowing both sides of the force gets the bonuses from both sides and doesn't have to spend destiny points for using either. dark side stuff still inflicts conflict though. Just because you're Grey doesn't mean you don't suffer the consequences.

The way i kind of think of it is that someone falls to the dark side(under 30) then is redeemed (over 70) and knowing both sides of the force gets the bonuses from both sides and doesn't have to spend destiny points for using either. dark side stuff still inflicts conflict though. Just because you're Grey doesn't mean you don't suffer the consequences.

I think that's why I think Dark Side Force Users make the best Grey's, there is a cost for using the Force no matter what they roll.

Honestly, there's no special secret or unique abilities, Grey Force Sensitives try to walk a line between the enlightenment and balance of the Light Side and the raw power and emotional turbulence of the Dark Side. They seem to have an unfortunate habit of acting like edgelords, mocking other force traditions, and insisting that their way is "balanced" without ever substantiating how. The Jedi Order as an organisation eventually succumbed, as most organisations sadly and eventually do, to treachery and entropy (the Dark Side vergance hidden beneath the Jedi Temple certainly didn't help either!). Forbidding attachments was definitely a **** fool move on their part, but the notion that spiritual balance was wrested from the Light Side and is now the preview of some wishy-washy neutrality dogma is beyond nonsensical to me, in fact it's absolutely bonkers. Being strong in the Light is entirely about living in balance with the force and with oneself, it is the antithesis of being an extremist or a radical.

But that's just my feelings on the matter, if you can play a Grey Force User with maturity, more power to you, and here's my advice to you.

In the context of Force and Destiny, there are no "grey" specific talents or careers. If you want to keep your Morality from getting too strong, consider taking a conflict talent or two and use plenty of dark side points (warning: this will seriously peeve the rest of the party as it hogs all their destiny points). You can also occasionally do something awful to hoover up conflict, but that will pretty quickly alienate your allies, especially if what you do is bad enough to net them conflict for not stopping you. It's not exactly the most practical approach, I know, but I recommend focusing on picking up some of the sweet as hell conflict talents and trying not to go overboard committing crimes or hogging the destiny pool to generate the conflict you'll need to keep from becoming good.

Honestly, there's no special secret or unique abilities, Grey Force Sensitives try to walk a line between the enlightenment and balance of the Light Side and the raw power and emotional turbulence of the Dark Side. They seem to have an unfortunate habit of acting like edgelords, mocking other force traditions, and insisting that their way is "balanced" without ever substantiating how. The Jedi Order as an organisation eventually succumbed, as most organisations sadly and eventually do, to treachery and entropy (the Dark Side vergance hidden beneath the Jedi Temple certainly didn't help either!). Forbidding attachments was definitely a **** fool move on their part, but the notion that spiritual balance was wrested from the Light Side and is now the preview of some wishy-washy neutrality dogma is beyond nonsensical to me, in fact it's absolutely bonkers. Being strong in the Light is entirely about living in balance with the force and with oneself, it is the antithesis of being an extremist or a radical.

I agree completely with this sentiment. I loathe the concept of "grey Jedi" in an RPG, since in my experience it mostly draws powergamers who want access to all the cool Dark side powers and want to kill with impunity, but don't want to be officially evil and suffer the consequences of their actions.

One of the (very) few things I liked about the EU novels that came out just before it was "cancelled" by Disney was how they dealt with the "grey" philosophy. At the end of the abominable Yuuzhan Vong series the new Jedi order basically went all grey, using Dark side powers left and right under some pretext that "as long as you mean well it's OK". And towards the end of the official EU novels it turned out that you did, in fact, end up as a Darksider; it just took a little longer for you to fall.

I completely support people doing whatever they want in their campaigns, but as far as I'm concerned "grey Jedi" can suck it. Pick a side and stick with it, or give a good showing of roleplaying a character that falls to the Dark side and/or redeems himself. The whole "being grey" thing is like trying to straddle two boats drifting in opposite directions; sooner or later it's going to hurt in a place you don't want it to hurt, and then there'll be a big splash as both boats drift out of reach.

"'Is a man not entitled to the use the Force as he sees fit? "No" says the Jedi on Coruscant, "It must be used for the common good."... "No," says the Sith in the shadows, "it must be used to dominate."... "No" says the Witch on Dathomir, "Pathetic men should not touch the Force." I... rejected those answers, instead, I chose something different. I chose...the Imperial Knights."