16 minutes ago, Kael said:

The inherent idea that some Conflict should be gained from the use of the Force to harm others is sound. A lot of previous Star Wars lore seems to support the idea that light siders don't use the Force to harm other people. So I don't see a thematic problem with awarding 1 or 2 points of Conflict when PC's do it. It would actually kinda force them to make hard choices during combat.

The idea has merit. I think it could work.

My group is taking a break from Star Wars and playing some D&D at the moment...I would love to hear how this plays out, though! Planning on starting up another FaD game this summer.

Just now, awayputurwpn said:

My group is taking a break from Star Wars and playing some D&D at the moment...I would love to hear how this plays out, though! Planning on starting up another FaD game this summer.

Personally I think it would work just fine. It would take a bit of player adjustment of course, but I imagine such a system would help underscore how being a lightsider is supposed to be more challenging and harder.

If there's no indication that he did or did not, then it defaults to he did not. Otherwise you're just adding something that's not there.

Just now, Stan Fresh said:

If there's no indication that he did or did not, then it defaults to he did not. Otherwise you're just adding something that's not there.

Not really. Conflict isn't a movie concept. So the movie itself will never present concret proof of whether anyone gains Conflict at any point. Instead the Conflict system attempts to handle the morality we see on screen. It would be fair to see whether or not Yoda gained any Conflict since the system is supposed to represent those moments. We can not automatically assume Yoda didn't because there is no indicatation (after all how would a movie written well before the game came out give us a clear indication).

Instead one must ask, can the Conflict rules be applied to that scene, and if so did Yoda gain any? The answer to that question is yes, and likely yes.

But this doesn't default to "did not" because then no one in the movies gains Conflict ..... like .....ever. Remember movies aren't writen to adhere to game concepts.

Conflict is meant to emulate a specific aspect of the movies. If there's no indication of this aspect in a scene, there's no reason to assume Conflict.

I actually agree that Yoda's action is not portrayed as"dark" in that scene. The view I wanted to explore in the OP goes naturally with the view (which I flirt with at times) that the prequel movies often violated the spirit of Star Wars.

1 minute ago, DaverWattra said:

I actually agree that Yoda's action is not portrayed as"dark" in that scene. The view I wanted to explore in the OP goes naturally with the view (which I flirt with at times) that the prequel movies often violated the spirit of Star Wars.

They certainly violated the spirit of what the Jedi are "supposed" to be. There was a lot of stuff that went on during that time that Jedi would normally have not allowed but because it was during wartime, they were lenient, as they needed as many generals as they could muster.

Just now, Stan Fresh said:

Conflict is meant to emulate a specific aspect of the movies. If there's no indication of this aspect in a scene, there's no reason to assume Conflict.

There will never be an aspect of it in the scene. Those scenes weren't written to accomdate Conflict. Instead Conflict was written as a way to explain those scenes, and in that regard it actually works.

And no one is assuming he gained Conflict. Just that we can't assume that he didn't. Conflict is, ulimtately, a matter between the GM and his players. What I'd hand out Conflict for may not be what another GM hands out Conflict for. The rules are flexible enough to allow two GM's to look at a situation and walk away with two different conclusions and they both be correct.

Thus the argument isn't Yoda gained Conflict, but that based on the Conflict rules it would be reasonable to conclude that his GM could have awarded him Conflict. The argument isn't that Yoda gained Conflict, it's that you can't default to him not gaining any. Based on how the Conflict rules are written, in consideration with basic Star Wars lore, it would be reasonable to award him Conflict in that scene.

Just now, DaverWattra said:

I actually agree that Yoda's action is not portrayed as"dark" in that scene.

Actions don't have to be dark to gain Conflcit though. Seflishness isn't exactly dark and one can still gain Conflict from that. After all you gain Conflict for theft and I'm not sure I would count theft as "dark".

36 minutes ago, Kael said:

There will never be an aspect of it in the scene.

Of course there is. Conflict is a storytelling tool to emulate the moral struggles of a Force user and the temptation of the dark side. And if that aspect of the movies isn't present, there isn't Conflict, either.

Just now, Stan Fresh said:

Of course there is. Conflict is a storytelling tool to emulate the moral struggles of a Force user and the temptation of the dark side. And if that aspect of the movies isn't present, there isn't Conflict, either.

Conflict is a subjective measure of morality, not an objective one. It is meant to be interpereted by the players and GM. Thus what constitutes a Conflict worthy event in a scene is a subjective matter. And as I already outlined, there is enough in that scene to make a reasonable call that Yoda gained Conflict.

For instance, when Yoda walks into that scene his first action is to Force slam Palaptines guards. One can argue that they were merely doing their job, protecting the Chancellor, and thus Yoda acted hastly. Furthermore, he resorted to violence as a first solution, which is a Conflict violation that nets you 1 Conflict. If we were to take apart that scene bit by bit one could make the case that Yoda walks away with a handful of Conflict points as there are more than one instance that could be called into question.

The argument you seem to be forming is that it's only Conflict worthy if the scene is as blunt about it as the scene when Anakin kills younglings. You seem to be suggesting a way of handling Conflict that lacks any real form of subtly. It lacks nuance and only hands out Conflict when the action is over the top. Which is fine, but I find that outlook to be an underdeveloped way of handling Conflict.

Yoda could have earned Conflict. A GM doesn't have to award it but there is enough in that scene that a GM wouldn't be making a bad call to hand out 1 to 2 points.

32 minutes ago, Stan Fresh said:

Of course there is. Conflict is a storytelling tool to emulate the moral struggles of a Force user and the temptation of the dark side. And if that aspect of the movies isn't present, there isn't Conflict, either.

I'd argue that not all cases where you gain Conflict are giant, emotional moments where you have to pause and gape in horror at the damage to your soul. Sometimes it's just one or two conflict for a harsher threat than was strictly necessary, or being a little too quick to reach for the lightsaber when it looks like violence is brewing. The scene may not highlight this, and it's certainly not the time for the Force User to start angsting, but it's there and it happens. Remember that it took Anakin slaughtering an entire Tusken Village before we really got to see the results of his inner Conflict peeking out.

None of these arguments strike me as remotely reasonable. They ignore the entire context of the situation and try to pick apart individual moments. THAT is a lack of subtlety.

At no point have I said that there must be a big, obvious moment of darkness. But there has to be SOME indication, any at all. And there isn't.

15 hours ago, Jhekata said:

Most star wars works I've seen do emphasize intent over methods.

Nearly every memorable fall to the dark side is a road plastered with good intentions. From Exar Kun and Ulic Qel-Droma , over Revan, Ventress and Anakin to Jacen Solo. They all had good intention and usually to much selfish attachment and fear of loss to their loved ones.

6 hours ago, Stan Fresh said:

If there's no indication that he did or did not, then it defaults to he did not. Otherwise you're just adding something that's not there.

There are some indications. Yoda himself had a hard time during the clone wars, he was afraid, very afraid for his friends, the republic and the jedi order in general. His visions, as clouded as they were at the beginning, showed him a negative outcome and once he finally was able to let loose of his fear, he had to accept that the fall of the republic, the fall of the jedi order and the death of his friends and pupils was nearly inevitable. He still had to try to stop Darth Sidious and he most definitely was willing to kill the same just like Windu was.

One of the things about the light side is imo, that you need to get your hands dirty from time to time to get **** done. Obi-Wan lied, Yoda did not warn the other council members, the jedi were willing to fight a political war of secession. The jedi were not afraid of conflict, they were weary about keeping it balanced to prevent falling to the dark side and losing themselves in their emotions. That is why their code was so overly rigid, because they put themselves into situations which put their morality already in danger on daily business. And Palpatine managed to push a lot of them over the edge with the war, driven by good intentions and their passion for the republic and jedi order.

A conflict free lightsider would just have watched the war, willing to share wisdom with both sides, but unwilling to take part in the war. Interestingly enough, you don't become a paragon of good without conflict either, I really like that part about the morality system. *g*

But that's not at all about violent Force use. I agree that the war wore the Jedi down morally, but that seems a separate issue from whether violent Force use incurring Conflict is supported by the movies.

And as a side note, I don't see anything morally wrong with being willing to kill Sidious. He's committed treason during wartime on an almost unimaginably scale. Summary execution seems perfectly fitting.

3 hours ago, Stan Fresh said:

At no point have I said that there must be a big, obvious moment of darkness. But there has to be SOME indication, any at all. And there isn't.

Your posts in this thread say exactly the opposite, and you even stated earlier that because there was nothing on the scene to deliberately suggest a Jedi in the prequels gained Conflict, that anyone who made the suggestion that Yoda or Obi-Wan might have gained Conflict for their actions was automatically wrong.

As others have stated, intent in using the Force can have just as much of an impact on gaining Conflict as whether or not a PC uses dark side pips to generate Force points. Morality and Conflict are there as tools for the GM to use in their stories. Intent when using the Force has been a factor in Legends from the fairly early going, and to some extent has been carried over into Disney!canon as well. If my PC uses Move to flatten a spice peddler just because he's selling his poison to some kids as my initial response, then that's an action that's worth Conflict, even if using Move is not itself inherently worth Conflict.

In the case of Yoda and Obi-Wan, if one were to presume the were player-characters, then odds are they never gained at most 2 to 3 points of Conflict during the course of each separate prequel film, which an average result on a d10 would mean their Morality score still goes up at the end of the session.

That, and the thread creator seems to be finding the feedback and suggestions on when using the Force should or shouldn't generate Conflict to be useful, and has moved away from the original notion of "Conflict all the time for using the Force!" that started the thread. So those of us that have posted "hey, here's a scene where the Jedi in question might have gained Conflict" have proven far more useful than then "no, you're WRONG!" posts you've been making.

12 hours ago, Stan Fresh said:

Which, in the context of the question, doesn't matter. The OP proposed an either/or scenario, not one where degree matters.

And if you read his posts, the OP has changed his view on the matter. So the posts on degree do matter, as they've gotten him to rethink the either/or scenario.

1 hour ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Your posts in this thread say exactly the opposite

No they don't. I mean, they're right there, and nowhere do I say anything like what you attribute to me.

Quote

So those of us that have posted "hey, here's a scene where the Jedi in question might have gained Conflict" have proven far more useful than then "no, you're WRONG!" posts you've been making.

It's not a competition, it's a discussion.

Quote

And if you read his posts, the OP has changed his view on the matter. So the posts on degree do matter, as they've gotten him to rethink the either/or scenario.

They matter to him, sure. But they are irrelevant to the question s/he asked, and to the answer I gave. That the OP finds them useful is beside the point. You're conflating two different things.

Well, since DaverWatta was the one who started this thread, that the posts suggesting ways in which a Force user might gain Conflict just for using the Force are indeed highly relevant if he's found them useful in re-evaluating his initial outlook. Just because you disagreed with the OP without doing anything to really justify why it wasn't a good idea doesn't invalidate the value of the other posts here. If anything, it probably does more to invalidate your own posts on the matter, since they are really nothing more than "you're wrong because I said you're wrong!" which does contributes nothing of actual value to the discussion at hand.

You're still conflating two different kinds of relevancy, and also outright making up stuff that I've never wrote.

I've never debated the usefulness of other responses to the OP. Why you keep pretending I did is beyond me.

6 hours ago, Stan Fresh said:

None of these arguments strike me as remotely reasonable. They ignore the entire context of the situation and try to pick apart individual moments. THAT is a lack of subtlety.

At no point have I said that there must be a big, obvious moment of darkness. But there has to be SOME indication, any at all. And there isn't.

No, there's DOESN'T have to be any indication. That's not how Conflict works. It's not always a big moral dilemma. Sometimes, it's just the banality of "I'm sorry I couldn't help you with those robbers, the Empire is chasing me and I have to keep a low profile." The scene doesn't have to draw attention to this moral choice not being the high road for it to...well, not be the high road.

3 hours ago, Stan Fresh said:

And as a side note, I don't see anything morally wrong with being willing to kill Sidious. He's committed treason during wartime on an almost unimaginably scale. Summary execution seems perfectly fitting.

Yeesh, have a few points of Conflict.

3 hours ago, Stan Fresh said:

But that's not at all about violent Force use. I agree that the war wore the Jedi down morally, but that seems a separate issue from whether violent Force use incurring Conflict is supported by the movies.

And as a side note, I don't see anything morally wrong with being willing to kill Sidious. He's committed treason during wartime on an almost unimaginably scale. Summary execution seems perfectly fitting.

Well, that is fine, I have no objection with vigilantees, as long as the hang themselves afterwards for their own crime, but I doubt that this was the plan in case for the attempted assassination of the chancellor.

edit:

Oh back to topic. No risk was taken with the guards, they were taken out directly and a direct assassination attempt was made afterwards. Now in Yoda's case we can at least claim some form of self-defense and it is not 100% clear what Yoda would have done if he had won the fight, especially in context that Lukas made it later clear that Yoda did knew the results of Sidious rise and the rise of the empire. But a few points conflict for the guards does not sound wrong, nor problematic for the session and Yoda's morality standing.

13 minutes ago, Benjan Meruna said:

No, there's DOESN'T have to be any indication. That's not how Conflict works. It's not always a big moral dilemma. Sometimes, it's just the banality of "I'm sorry I couldn't help you with those robbers, the Empire is chasing me and I have to keep a low profile." The scene doesn't have to draw attention to this moral choice not being the high road for it to...well, not be the high road.

First you say there doesn't have to be any indication, then you go on to describe a line of dialogue indicating that there was a small moral struggle. That's a bit of a contradiction.

The latter is exactly what I'm talking about. It doesn't always have to be a yellow-eyed Anakin shedding a single tear on Planet Hell. Like I said: it doesn't have to be a big moment.

13 minutes ago, Benjan Meruna said:

Yeesh, have a few points of Conflict.

I don't think so, no.

2 minutes ago, Stan Fresh said:

First you say there doesn't have to be any indication, then you go on to describe a line of dialogue indicating that there was a small moral struggle. That's a bit of a contradiction.

I described a line of dialogue that's basically a verbal shrug. You injected what you want to see into it.

Edit: To go into more detail, it could be played for comedy. The character walks through the store grabbing the items he needs as robbers take the till at gunpoint and flee, only to casually apologize to the poor cashier and leave.

Similarly, Yoda's action to bodyslam the Royal Guard against the wall was a pretty comedic moment, the entire theater burst into laughter when it happened. Doesn't mean it wasn't worth Conflict. Conflict-worthy actions can be played for drama, for laughs, for horror...and sometimes they happen with no fanfare at all.

16 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

Well, that is fine, I have no objection with vigilantees, as long as the hang themselves afterwards for their own crime, but I doubt that this was the plan in case for the attempted assassination of the chancellor.

edit:

It's not vigilantism. Yoda isn't a private citizen. He's a wrongly-accused space cop on his last day on the job, and he's on a mission!

16 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

Oh back to topic. No risk was taken with the guards, they were taken out directly and a direct assassination attempt was made afterwards. Now in Yoda's case we can at least claim some form of self-defense and it is not 100% clear what Yoda would have done if he had won the fight, especially in context that Lukas made it later clear that Yoda did knew the results of Sidious rise and the rise of the empire. But a few points conflict for the guards does not sound wrong, nor problematic for the session and Yoda's morality standing.

Really? For knocking out the dudes who raise (well, lower, what with your stature) their weapons at you? It's not like Yoda made the first violent move. He just walks into the room.

5 minutes ago, Benjan Meruna said:

I described a line of dialogue that's basically a verbal shrug. You injected what you want to see into it.

No, I read what was there. You can't reasonably claim that a line in which a character makes an excuse for his lack of moral action isn't in indication that there was a lack of moral action.