I recently bought "The Jedi Path" and was reading the section on the Jedi Trials. I want to find a way to use them in the game.

There are five trials; The Trial of Skill, The Trial of Courage, The Trial of Spirit, The Trial of the Flesh, and The Trial of Insight. This is what I have so far:

The Trial of Skill: The player would have to fight multiple opponents, their master (if they have one) and two other Jedi NPCs. They would have to be able to manage their strain for multiple rounds (how many is yet to be determined). The goal is not necessarily to defeat your opponents, its just to survive.

The Trial of Courage: This one is easier to adopt. As some point the player would have to pass a fear check. The difficulty is ultimately up to the GM by setting the scene.

The Trial of Spirit: Another easy one to adopt. The player's morality must be above 70.

Trial of the Flesh: This one was harder. The idea I have is that they have to have multiple crits against them without healing them for a few sessions. The other idea was after each session he heals all but the worst crit. And that goes on till he has 5-7 crits or the crit is 100 or higher. Once the GM feels the player has passed this trial, he may heal the crits.

The Trial of Insight: This one I haven't figured out yet.

What do you guys think of what I have so far? Any ideas of how to get the last one to work?

Back in their SAGA days, the Order 66 Podcast had an episodes devoted to this. It was quite informative and I am certain a lot of it could easily translate to FFG.

2 hours ago, HistoryGuy said:

The Trial of Skill: The player would have to fight multiple opponents, their master (if they have one) and two other Jedi NPCs. They would have to be able to manage their strain for multiple rounds (how many is yet to be determined). The goal is not necessarily to defeat your opponents, its just to survive.

You could also go the non-combat route, and have them be obstacle courses. Depending on the setting, it could be something like "Climb the top of that mountain before sunrise, and you must carry this torch while you go. If the light goes out, you fail. Light the pyre at the top of the mountain when you reach it." Or something similar. For an urban world setting. "I need you to take this package across the rooftops to the infochant on Starburst Street. Don't get stopped, by anyone, and don't lose the package." Combat options are perfectly fine, but test of skill can also be non-combat skill related too.

2 hours ago, HistoryGuy said:

The Trial of Courage: This one is easier to adopt. As some point the player would have to pass a fear check. The difficulty is ultimately up to the GM by setting the scene.

That's a nice summary, and very flexible. The nature of the check can vary greatly.

2 hours ago, HistoryGuy said:

The Trial of Spirit: Another easy one to adopt. The player's morality must be above 70.

Eh, that's not really a trial, that's more just having a PC that doesn't get a lot of conflict. I would try and perhaps focus on challenges that involve the Force directly. They have to meditate and receive a vision, and follow that vision to it's conclusion. Similar to Star Wars Rebels, when the 3 Jedi characters went to that temple on Lothal. They each had a separate vision, but it taught them all something.

2 hours ago, HistoryGuy said:

The Trial of Insight: This one I haven't figured out yet.

I would stick to mysteries, particularly situations where the most obvious reason for what's going on, isn't the right one. For example, a person is caught stealing something, and they assume it's because he is just a petty criminal. But it turns out, he's stealing the item because it's a family heirloom, or because the item is actually a data cache for a rebel cell, and he needs the data for the Rebellion. The PC has to be curious and inquisitive enough to look past the most obvious reason and solution, and get to the heart of the matter, to pass the test of insight.

If you are familiar with Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, there is a GREAT episode that would illustrate this to me. I would warn of spoilers, but the show is 25 years old,

A Cardassian war criminal is caught on the station, and is detained for transport to Bajor for his trail for war crimes. Kyra interrogates him while she has him in custody, because of her personal hatred for what the Cardassians did to her planet during the war. He was basically in charge of a concentration camp, and was especially cruel to the Bajorans who were his captives. Think of any of the Holocaust stories and the Nazis in charge of them, and you've got an idea of what he did. So she's just barely containing her anger and hatred at this man....but...some things just don't add up with his story. She doesn't let her personal feelings cloud her mind too much, and she follows the mystery, uncovering that the man in the cell, isn't actually the war criminal, but a Cardassian who felt so guilty for what he allowed to happen at that camp, that he had surgery done to look like the guy, in the hopes that he would be killed. Basically, he was a clerk at the concentration camp, and never once harmed anyone there, but he went mad with grief at the tortures he saw done every day to the captives, and felt guilty for it. He wanted to die, because he couldn't live with his own shame at what he allowed to happen. So he made himself out to look like one of the most hated Cardassians in history, hoping that the Bajorans would just lynch him in revenge. He did it, so that he would die, since he felt he deserved it, and in the hopes that his public execution, would give the Bajorans some comfort and closure.

Kyra, hearing his story, told by a broken man, realizes she almost let her blind hatred, lead her to execute an innocent man, and she lets him go. Saying honestly, that he wasn't responsible for the crimes that happened there, that he was just a file clerk, and he couldn't have done anything to stop it, he would've just been punished too.

That is the kind of thing I would use for an Insight case. Maybe not so dark and dramatic, nor as life-threatening perhaps, but you get the idea. There is a deeper story going on, and the PC has to look beyond the obvious, to find the truth of the situation.

Something I forgot to put at the beginning:

Before the Trials the Jedi was supposed to meditate. To do this I was thinking of having the player create his own destiny pool for the trials. He picks one other player to meditate with him and they both roll Force Die up to their Force Rating and that becomes the Destiny Pool for the trials.

2 hours ago, kaosoe said:

Back in their SAGA days, the Order 66 Podcast had an episodes devoted to this. It was quite informative and I am certain a lot of it could easily translate to FFG.

They have a very recent episode on this too... same podcast... done just a few months ago.

Get your hands on Nexus of Power. It actually has the Jedi Trials as part of the Modular encounters.

Nexus of Power has a discussion of all of the Trials and one of the Modular Encounters is the Trial of Skill.

Trail of Insight.. I copied&pasted direct from tinterweb:

Insight: the capacity to gain an accurate and deep understanding of someone or something.... take ya pick

Yeah, Nexus of Power has a whole section on Trials, not just for Jedi types but for Force users in general. One of the modular encounters is even the Trail of Skill, modeled after the regime that Yoda put Luke through in ESB.

Don't have the book on hand, but you can probably use that chapter on Trials to flesh out the rest of the Jedi Trails for a PC to go through, though I'd suggest that the difficulties involved shouldn't fall below Hard, and if at Hard should likely include an upgrade or two.

Glad to hear people got some use of what I was able to sneak into the Vergence section on the Jedi Trials! Bit busy at the moment (moving) but I'll have to remember to come back to this thread and share some thoughts on including the Jedi Trials in a game

So, Disciples of Harmony is out! So I can now talk about this a bit:

Page 78 has a half page on the Jedi Trials, with some suggestions on how to build each of them within the context of using an NPC mentor for the would-be Jedi. Granted, it's really just a few sentences on each trial, mostly referencing Mentor encounters built over the previous two pages, and which can work as which trials, along with some guidance on trials achieved more organically (rather than tests designed by a mentor).

Obviously, you can combine this information with the section on Trials I wrote in the vergences section of Nexus of Power, and mix them up to create five unique trials for each PC.

1 hour ago, KRKappel said:

So, Disciples of Harmony is out! So I can now talk about this a bit:

Page 78 has a half page on the Jedi Trials, with some suggestions on how to build each of them within the context of using an NPC mentor for the would-be Jedi. Granted, it's really just a few sentences on each trial, mostly referencing Mentor encounters built over the previous two pages, and which can work as which trials, along with some guidance on trials achieved more organically (rather than tests designed by a mentor).

Obviously, you can combine this information with the section on Trials I wrote in the vergences section of Nexus of Power, and mix them up to create five unique trials for each PC.

Are there any sort of Sith or other Force culture trials written in Disciples of Harmony or is the intent that one could make a few changes to fit the trial to match whichever theme is appropriate?

I'd just loosely recommend making some changes. Instead of trials, the Gand Findsmen might just have a series of Hunts, starting with something as simple as locating a new water source, moving up to taking down a dangerous predator. The Baran Do might have a challenge associated with each of their elements that ties to their culture. The Dagoyan might have debates and knowledge related trials. The sith would likely have something that is a perversion of the existing Jedi trials, a sort of funhouse mirror version. Instead of overcoming deception as in the trial of insight for the Jedi, the Sith might have to create such a situation that fools others for their benefit? The trial of flesh might represent killing someone (perhaps this is the trial Kylo Ren was facing when Snoke demanded he kill Solo?). A sith clearly needs to be able to get blood on their hands. So yeah, i'd just take the Jedi trials for the Sith, and find a way to twist them. Instead of a trial of courage, it might be a trial to inspire fear in others, etc etc.

The DoH section on Jedi Trials also notes that the trials don't have to be formal or specifically set up as such: if the conditions of a trial are met while doing something else then it counts as complete.

The new Consular book Disciples of Harmony has a discussion of the Trials on page 78 in a section about Mentors. They are in a subsection about Mentor encounters and it gives suggestions on how to run each trial. Looks interesting (I've only had time to skim it).

5 hours ago, Garran said:

The DoH section on Jedi Trials also notes that the trials don't have to be formal or specifically set up as such: if the conditions of a trial are met while doing something else then it counts as complete.

Yeah my plan with the trials was that some would be setup and others would likely just be met during adventures.

It's not the complete set of trials, but there is an encounter in the back of Nexus for the Trial of Skill. It has some good inspiration....

We're playing a group of Padawans during the Old Republic era in one of our current games (we met Exar Kun in yesterday's game right after helping him repel a Sith Invasion of the Jedi home world). When I jokingly brought up if we're ready for the trials OOC, my GM made a quick list of the things we had accomplished:

1. Fight a Sith Lord and not only win, but take the Warblade of Ludo-Kresh from him

2. Find a remaining Sith cult (not the ones that attacked our planet, but the ones lead by previously mentioned Sith Lord), live to tell the tale and actually impress them

3. Appeal to the Sith Lord's remaining better nature which he still had - causing him to warn us of the planned attack on our world

4. Survive getting attacked with previously mentioned warblade (my character now has a nice scar going down from his shoulder to his lower chest)

5. Immediately leap to the defense of the Academy under attack, spearhead an attack to disable heavy Sith weaponry and save all the Younglings

And then mentioned that if anyone had time right now to think about promotions and ceremony, we'd all be made Knights immediately and given the full acknowledgement of the insane things we accomplished that Jedi Masters could've failed at easily. Well, seeing as **** is just about to really go down with Exar Kun and the Sith Invasion, maybe we'll just skip being Knights and be made honorary Masters once its all over... Woops.

Bottom line, I'd do what our GM did - toss things that would count as the Trials into normal adventures - maybe do so in a subtle way. If you play during an era where the order is around fully, it could lead to a humorous scene after a bunch of adventures of a Padawan bringing up the trials - only for their Master to list their accomplishments and declare them Knights on the spot if they want.