So, we're all probably familiar with examples of this trope, but to summarize:

A person with maybe a smidgen of magic power, but has never been able to actually tap into it, is put into some intense, stressful situation, and, usually in an emotional burst, are able to draw on a massive amount of power, well beyond what they would normally be able to reach. They usually end up passing out, with possible physical/mental injuries as a result of this...eruption, for lack of a better term.

If you are familiar with White Wolf's gaming lines, this is pretty much standard operating procedure for most of the supernatural types, to come into their power. They usually end up unable to replicate this level of power again, at least not without lots of training montages and running through snow shouting "DRAGOOOO!" But it's still there. And I realized that's not really something you can handle in the FFG system as written.

Now, I have no qualms with house ruling this into existence, and will happily do so, but I'm not really sure how to mechanically flesh it out regarding how the Force works. What makes sense?

Say you have a character who doesn't have Move at all, or perhaps only has the basic Move power, but then they see a Sil 3 sized slab of catwalk break loose due to random weapons fire, and dozens of people are about to plummet to their death. They want to try and save the people, but it's simply too much for their power level. But I don't want to deny the player the awesome moment of stopping a massive chunk of concrete from falling, and then slowly moving it to the side to let the people get off safely. That's the kind of cinematic stuff I game for!

So how could you stat this out and have it be reasonable? Something that would allow them, due to extreme outside stressors, tap into something far outside their wheelhouse, for a single moment, to deal with the immediate issue. Obviously there need to be some consequences for this. A common one in narratives is that it physically injures them to do this stuff that is unlearned, untrained, and over their power limit, so perhaps slapping them with several Wound levels that can't be insta-healed, and can only heal the natural way. Perhaps auto-slap some Conflict, due to the emotional nature of what they are trying to do, being more Dark Side in nature.

So yeah, thoughts? Obviously this isn't meant to be used casually, and for run of the mill situations, but climactic, or especially emotionally charged situations, that would impact the player heavily either way the situation goes.

Suggestions?

Keeping the Peace covers learning on the go. So partially learned skills.

I would agree with syrath for the skills themselves, Keeping the Peace does a good job there. But for the extra "power" I would say unless you're a Jedi master, like Yoda in Episode II who doesn't need more power, that the emotion of the situation would generate X dark side pips automatically, so it would cause a fair amount of conflict but give them the power they need to pull it off. The first thing I thought of was Ezra from that episode of Star Wars Rebels where they fought the Grand Inquisitor on the republic base that was infested with those (looks up creatures) Fyrnocks . Also when Luke actually defeats Vader at the end of Episode VI would appear to me as a situation like you described.

Situational.

First and foremost I don't want my players to know when this is accessible.

Taxing.

Secondly a humongous strain drain coupled with, like you said, a permanent strain cost until the next time the PC has the chance to have a proper rest such as a long sleep.

Extreme emotion

Conflict. It's going to require emotion and a huge surge of power would inquire they gave into and embraced it allowing it to just briefly become a over clocked conduit. This also stops darkside users abusing the same as its important this is a rare occurrence and not abuseable or spamable.

47 minutes ago, syrath said:

Keeping the Peace covers learning on the go. So partially learned skills.

I'm familiar with LAYG, but that doesn't really cover what I'm talking about. LAYG implies premeditation on the part of the player, and it only does a single talent. Like, giving them the base version of Move, when they need a fully upgraded Move to pull off catching a falling Sil 3-4 slab of concrete weighing several tons from a distance, and moving it safely.

17 minutes ago, Luahk said:

Situational.

First and foremost I don't want my players to know when this is accessible.

Taxing.

Secondly a humongous strain drain coupled with, like you said, a permanent strain cost until the next time the PC has the chance to have a proper rest such as a long sleep.

Extreme emotion

Conflict. It's going to require emotion and a huge surge of power would inquire they gave into and embraced it allowing it to just briefly become a over clocked conduit. This also stops darkside users abusing the same as its important this is a rare occurrence and not abuseable or spamable.

I like this, though I think, as a further level of deterrent from abuse, include some Wound damage as well as Strain.

50 minutes ago, Luahk said:

Situational.

First and foremost I don't want my players to know when this is accessible.

Taxing.

Secondly a humongous strain drain coupled with, like you said, a permanent strain cost until the next time the PC has the chance to have a proper rest such as a long sleep.

Extreme emotion

Conflict. It's going to require emotion and a huge surge of power would inquire they gave into and embraced it allowing it to just briefly become a over clocked conduit. This also stops darkside users abusing the same as its important this is a rare occurrence and not abuseable or spamable.

This was pretty much what I would do, except with the addition of the flippage of a Destiny chip.

You could maybe even/or pick out a few Criticals that are thematically appropriate (Stunned, Head Ringer, etc.?) depending on how far the effort is outside of their ability, and automatically (or with a chance to "Resist") inflict one of those those.

I've never been in favor of doing this in a game. A game is not the same as reading a book or watching a movie because a game has rules.

20 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

I've never been in favor of doing this in a game. A game is not the same as reading a book or watching a movie because a game has rules.

And you think narrative storytelling of books and movies don't have rules?

6 minutes ago, KungFuFerret said:

And you think narrative storytelling of books and movies don't have rules?

Not really, no. They're entirely driven by whatever the writer or director thinks is cool at the moment, often with only limited consideration of what effect their decisions might have on the continuity of the setting.

EDIT: Actually, they do have rules, but they are entirely different from the rules of a TTRPG. In most books or movies, the main characters are never in any risk of ultimately failing. In RPGs, at least the ones I prefer to play, they are.

10 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

Not really, no. They're entirely driven by whatever the writer or director thinks is cool at the moment, often with only limited consideration of what effect their decisions might have on the continuity of the setting.

EDIT: Actually, they do have rules, but they are entirely different from the rules of a TTRPG. In most books or movies, the main characters are never in any risk of ultimately failing. In RPGs, at least the ones I prefer to play, they are.

Not every GM plays by that rule of total failure. Regardless, I do like to play that way, to allow dramatic, narratively driven actions to take place, and so do a lot of game systems that incorporate this type of mechanic into their system. And since this thread is about how to actually implement that at my table, do you have any suggestions related to the subject?

Yeah the wound to go with it makes sense.

For that "burst of power," one approach might be to have the player spend a Destiny Point, letting them boost their effective Force Rating by 1 until the end of their next turn.

However, the stress of that kind of power means the PC suffers strain equal to the number of Force points they use, on top of any they'd earn for using pips of the wrong alignment; a PC that uses light side pips would effectively suffer double strain for using dark side pips to generate Force points. And you if you really want to hammer home the danger, double any Conflict earned as well, making drawing on the dark side in such an intense emotional state carries a steep price.

Just make clear to your players that this isn't something that they can do on a repeatable basis, or on command either. After all, this isn't a shonen manga where "unlocking your hidden potential" occurs practically every other Thursday, and tapping into that kind of power in Star Wars shouldn't be a PC's default solution to dealing with a threat.

15 minutes ago, KungFuFerret said:

And since this thread is about how to actually implement that at my table, do you have any suggestions related to the subject?

Sure. Have fun, and don't be surprised if the players feel a loss of control when they don't actually know what they are capable of from moment to moment. They may become resentful if they feel it's too much governed by GM fiat.

Related note regarding "bursts of power" in the Star Wars setting, we do have something of an example with Luke suddenly able to overpower Vader in the climax of their duel in RotJ.

Yeah, I know the accepted explanation was Luke tapped into the dark side for that "burst" of strength to be able to overpower Vader, but that does play into the KungFuFerret's idea of a "burst of power" mechanic.

Just make sure the players are aware that it's something that's subject to the rule of drama before you implement it, and that you as the GM have the final say as to whether a situation is dramatic/critical enough to warrant the PC dipping into their "hidden potential" and that attempts to abuse this option will not be looked upon favorably. After all, whose to say that a villain , in such a similar situation, can't unlock their own "burst of power" in such a moment as well, especially if they've seen the PCs do such a thing more than once? (This was actually a plot element in Final Fantasy 9, with the major villain essentially learning how to unlock their own "limit break" that the PCs had been using throughout the game.)

Yeah close to what I see.

Just a spitball here:

Once per campaign, flip all destiny points from light to dark, as an action you may use a Force Power as if you had purchased the base power and every upgrade for that power. For the next session, Instead of rolling destiny points at the beginning as normal, the game begins with a number of darkside destiny points equal to the group size + 2. Because of the nature of this penalty, this rule cannot be implemented during the last session of the campaign. (throw this rule away if you don't mind them banking this exploit for the BBEG).

Possible caveat: Add "This power lasts until the end of your turn, but if the power is successful, the effects end when the duration normally ends"

obviously the verbiage could use some sprucing up, there's a lot of tweaks that can be made, but it's a good start if you need a starting point. Polish and spice to suit the needs of your group. Heck, I may even tweak it and use it for my group if ever run a completely F&D game (or adjust for a more flavor neutral campaign).

3 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Related note regarding "bursts of power" in the Star Wars setting, we do have something of an example with Luke suddenly able to overpower Vader in the climax of their duel in RotJ.

Yeah, I know the accepted explanation was Luke tapped into the dark side for that "burst" of strength to be able to overpower Vader, but that does play into the KungFuFerret's idea of a "burst of power" mechanic.

Just make sure the players are aware that it's something that's subject to the rule of drama before you implement it, and that you as the GM have the final say as to whether a situation is dramatic/critical enough to warrant the PC dipping into their "hidden potential" and that attempts to abuse this option will not be looked upon favorably. After all, whose to say that a villain , in such a similar situation, can't unlock their own "burst of power" in such a moment as well, especially if they've seen the PCs do such a thing more than once? (This was actually a plot element in Final Fantasy 9, with the major villain essentially learning how to unlock their own "limit break" that the PCs had been using throughout the game.)

In fact this is that burst of power were you tap into negative emotions, this is very much how we play it in game when using dark side pips , but again this doesnt cover using powers outside of your scope, in fact if you have darkside characters who use dark side pips it feels wierd that you would be tapping those emotions by default and your positive emotions is you flip that DP and use light side pips

Gives an interesting view of a dark side Nikto Warden tapping into his love for others to get that last pip to trigger ebb on his opponents (something my own character is very close to with 36 morality)

Power of Knowlege, Advisor 10 XP talent.

Survival of the Fittest, Hermit, 15 XP talent.

Once per session, use (skill) rank as your force rating for one check.

If you're going to use game mechanics for this rather than GM fiat, I'd suggest making some form of Universal Signature Ability that can be attached to any talent tree. You already know what you want it to do, just find a way to split it into nodes and assign XP costs.