I just don't see much use for them, but this seems to be the new shiny, and everyone and his brother has an idea for a Gray Jedi character. Ahsoka is a big example on the screen and the hype is that Luke or someone else will be gray on the screen this winter. As a nearly life-long Star Wars fan I just don't see why this should be a thing. The Force has shown itself to have an objective duality, Light and Dark. Now whether this is complimentary like in the Yin and Yang or oppositional I don't know, but it does seem like to access the Force you have two choices: Slow and calm, or fast and emotional. The Gray Jedi is somehow able to take these elements and have them both. They can square the circle somehow, and if they are a thing what they really achieve is to diminish the two poles as being less important. Are we going to learn in the Last Jedi that all these tens of thousands of years the various force users were essentially idiots? One group rode their bikes with a flat front tire, and the other rode their bikes with a flat rear tire?

Star Wars is Space Fantasy. It is essentially a far future version of what literature once referred to as a romance. There are good guys, and there are bad guys. They are objectively so as well, not some vague notion, but if you go bad you will get orange eyes! If you don't do the right thing you will get the devil eyes, and if you do the good thing too much you lose your attachment to people and be angelic rather than human.

Are we so unwilling to have good and evil that there had to be a third way that was correct at the expense of the others?

But, there is another side to this. I would like to have my cake and eat it too. There are some people for whom Dungeons and Dragons has only one alignment: Chaotic Neutral. The chaotic neutral player wants nothing to do with restriction s of any kind, and wants to be able to act with radical liberty and without consequences of the internal sort. Gray Jedi may be the Chaotic Neutrals of Star Wars. They use passion as it suits them but also use calm. They somehow avoid the temptations of the dark side but still act as the please, never overcompensating into light side territory either somehow.

So is the Gray Jedi an excuse to be a Sith in Jedi robes, or is it the way in which the canon will crap on the duality in favor of moral relativism, and nuanced characters that belong more in 21st century earth than in a galaxy far far away?

Star Wars is always on about the Balance of the Force, he is the one to bring Balance, there must be Balance, who will bring Balance? Grey Jedi embrace the concept of balance, that to swing too far in either direction is an untenable existence, either one full of selfishness and attachment or one full of emptiness and distance. The Jedi Code is written in a way to create drama and tension, that it is virtually impossible for a mortal being to live up to its expectations where as the Sith Code is egotistical and selfish. Grey is the concept that there is a middle ground.

In canon, this is represented in Clone Wars by the Father of Mortis, keeping his children in check and in Rebels by the Bendu. " Jedi and Sith wield the Ashla and Bogan. The light and the dark. I'm the one in the middle. The Bendu. " So yeah, the Grey is part of canon, just not really explored in the films so far.

6 minutes ago, DarkHorse said:

Star Wars is always on about the Balance of the Force, he is the one to bring Balance, there must be Balance, who will bring Balance? Grey Jedi embrace the concept of balance, that to swing too far in either direction is an untenable existence, either one full of selfishness and attachment or one full of emptiness and distance. The Jedi Code is written in a way to create drama and tension, that it is virtually impossible for a mortal being to live up to its expectations where as the Sith Code is egotistical and selfish. Grey is the concept that there is a middle ground.

In canon, this is represented in Clone Wars by the Father of Mortis, keeping his children in check and in Rebels by the Bendu. " Jedi and Sith wield the Ashla and Bogan. The light and the dark. I'm the one in the middle. The Bendu. " So yeah, the Grey is part of canon, just not really explored in the films so far.

Does this not represent a gross rebuke of the other two philosophies though? Is the whole setting being written so that Gray is essentially the superior way. Why would you be either of the other two if you can just get the best of both from the middle road? There was this one creature called the Bendu, how old is he? Why does he sit there like a rock when he has the better way? Stupid Jedi and Sith had it wrong for eons, and this in a universe with a near plateau in technical ability. I imagine that Disney is banking on people being able to relate to the Gray approach as more "realistic." Both philosophies are unrealistic ideals, that's what makes them interesting.

It turns out to be the most amazing force user you really just had to be chill, while also allowing yourself to get pissed but only a little. Somehow over what, 20,000 years no one figured this out?

I feel like grey Jedi emerged when we got a new generation of prequel fans who, thanks to having plentiful supply, wanted to eat their cake and have it too.

You saw it a lot with KOTOR and Jedi Outcast; kids wanting to be a "goodie" but use force lightning too. So rather than be a fully fledged Viscount or Duke of Edge, Edgelords were catered to with this concept of a grey Jedi. Good at heart, but unafraid to buy a six-pack of unrestrained bottom kicking and be a bit naughty.

You are 100% correct that the Force is binary, between its light and dark side, and anything that tries to sit betwixt is insipid pandering. I blame Those Damned Kids.

A major tenet of Buddhism is the Middle Path, "middle way of moderation, between the extremes of sensual indulgence and self-mortification" yet we still have people that would rather take the extremes. Grey sees itself as the superior path but so does Light and Dark. Grey *should* be the hardest path to tread, to not be swayed one way or the other. It is a tightrope walk in the middle of a chasm not a skip up the yellow brick road.

The difference between the philosophy and the practical in an RPG though do tend to be worlds apart, this is very true.

3 minutes ago, DarkHorse said:

A major tenet of Buddhism is the Middle Path, "middle way of moderation, between the extremes of sensual indulgence and self-mortification" yet we still have people that would rather take the extremes. Grey sees itself as the superior path but so does Light and Dark. Grey *should* be the hardest path to tread, to not be swayed one way or the other. It is a tightrope walk in the middle of a chasm not a skip up the yellow brick road.

The difference between the philosophy and the practical in an RPG though do tend to be worlds apart, this is very true.

I think that's a good point, and I agree that moderation is better, but I feel that if this becomes the norm in Star Wars we have then lost a major component of the fantasy of the setting in canon. Assuming that you like the idea of the Gray Jedi, imagine that to be the norm, and the others fall off into disuse. That's the logical step because once you have a more rational version the other two look lame by comparison.

Some people seek power (Dark), others seek inner peace (Light), the Grey seeks the ability to live with one's self I guess. I would hazard a guess why it isn't the ascendant philosophy is because it doesn't really have an end point or an obtainable goal beyond "be chill, go easy, whatever man" whereas "be the best that you can be, be one with the Force and live forever without any pain or suffering" or "crush your enemies. See them driven before you. And hear the lamentations of their women" seem pretty convincing draws to Light and Dark.

Well I guess I'm just going to have to hope that the next movie doesn't tear up the mythological DNA of the setting for the purpose of making it more relatable to modern audiences. As for gaming, I will just have to crush the Gray Jedi the same way I do the Chaotic Neutrals. FaD has Conflict and Morality, and Gray Jedi shouldn't be in any way immune to it imo.

The Jedi are just as bad as the Sith in their own way, of course there should be a middle way.

There are other force traditions in the universe that follow more of a centre path but they don't set themselves up as an alternative to light and dark.

You might be interested in http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Je'daii_Order

3 minutes ago, mulletcheese said:

The Jedi are just as bad as the Sith in their own way, of course there should be a middle way.

There are other force traditions in the universe that follow more of a centre path but they don't set themselves up as an alternative to light and dark.

Yeah but the game is built around the duality. Not really interested in tales of moderation or epic stories of kinda good and not so bad. lol

15 minutes ago, DarkHorse said:

You might be interested in http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Je'daii_Order

I knew a little about them but the read was very good. Ty DarkHorse. Cool stuff. It's still weird to me that this was the original philosophy and it did not hold. Seems like Gray is gonna get setup as an Alpha class of Jedi unless some kind of advantage is to be had by going to either pole.

23 minutes ago, Archlyte said:

Yeah but the game is built around the duality. Not really interested in tales of moderation or epic stories of kinda good and not so bad. lol

The Morality system tends have a lot of play in the in-between areas, despite any given character being either light or dark. It's not impossible to have a dark side character with a higher Morality than a light side character.

On the topic of balance in the context of the Force: for my games, I tend to think of the Force's natural state as being "the light side". And to bring balance to the Force is to return it to its natural state. By the looks of things, this does not appear to be the direction LF is going with regards to the Force and the Jedi, but this view allows me to honor the OT and its presentation of the Force.

I hope I am not wrong but I do not think Gray Jedi exist nor do I think that is where they are going with Luke. Most of what I have heard from George Lucas was that the dark side is like cancer and the light side symbiosis. I agree with Endersai this whole gray Jedi seemed idea to come from video game mechanics more than anything else. The most common "gray jedi" referred to are Qui-Gon and Ahsoka. Both of whom are never shown using the dark side or promoting its use as balance. Qui-Gon was called gray because he didn't listen to the Jedi Council all the time and that term has never been used in canon as far as I can tell. Ahsoka on the other hand does not call herself a Jedi anymore but I haven't seen her do anything any other upstanding Jedi would do. I honestly think Disney ended the Last Jedi trailer like they did so this buzz and debate would go on.

8 hours ago, Archlyte said:

snip

Because with 30+ years of nothing to do but theorize and analyze, and deconstruct everything about Star Wars, plus an ever changing cultural view on right/wrong, the very clear line between Light and Dark as portrayed in Star Wars has been considered by many, to be lacking and flawed. This was compounded by the fact that in the prequel movies, due to bad writing and some unfortunate acting, the examples of the Jedi we see at the height of their power/influence, were a bunch of putzes really.

The issue is how much real world conceptual concepts you want to include into the Force, and how it works. In my experience, or at least from the way I see the posts about Grey Jedi, most of those in favor of it, just see the Force as some energy source they can just tap and use as they see fit. They don't seem to attribute any anima to the Force, on either side. This detached view on what the Force is, seems to lead people to the "well I think I can just channel my emotions as I see fit without any consequences" kind of mindset, that is common in the Grey philosophy, that I've seen anyway.

But I think it's missing a key point about how the Force is, or at least how I've always seen it. The Force is Alive, I mean heck they even call it The Living Force. They even attribute it a sense of purpose and Will in Rogue One "All is as the Force Wills It" for example. This implies it's not just some field of energy like radiation or solar power, and Jedi are simply people who can harness it. This implies it's got, at least on some level, thoughts, goals, a purpose, etc. This goes for the Dark Side too.

The depictions of the Force have always conveyed a sense of malevolence on the part of the Dark Side, for me at least. It's not just the "negative energy", and the Light is the "positive energy" . No, it's Evil, an actual manifestation of the darker natures of all living things. As Yoda said "Life creates it, makes it grow" So if it's an offshoot of living beings, and the Light side is all the good stuff, the Dark is all the bad stuff. The manifestation of all our negative thoughts and emotions, and urges and drives. And it has a will of it's own as well. So I always saw it as basically an energy version of characters like Wyrmtongue, and Sauruman of Many Colors, and Sauron, Voldemort, etc. It's not just an energy field, it's the energy manifestation of people like that, who are willing to be destructive, and cause harm to others, to further their own goals.

And that kind of energy field, you don't just "tap into it" from time to time without consequences. It effects you, leaving a stain, a mark. Like radioactive material, there's not really any good way to handle it without it changing you.

Which is why, I feel, Grey Jedi, in universe, don't work. Because the Dark Side isn't just like solar energy or something. Some mindless power source that we can harness to our own ends. It has it's own thoughts and ambitions, and they are to turn the living to a more destructive angle.

Sure, in the Real World, trying to deny all emotions is 1. Impossible, and 2. Very unhealthy from a psychological standpoint. We know this, a lot better than we did back in the 70's. So the Grey Jedi sounds like a good idea, when in reality, it screws with the very foundation of the Star Wars universe. With it's mythic themes and tones, and defined lines between Good and Evil.

Bear in mind that George Lucas has pretty consistently knocked the idea of the "middle ground" on the head (yes, I'm aware he's no longer at the helm, but I would think his opinion on the nature of the Force should carry some weight!) . He has stated that his idea of the light and the dark are the concepts of compassion/empathy, and selfishness/hedonism. That the light is represented by compassion in the sense that it is a longer, harder, but ultimately more rewarding road. Whereas the dark side is equivalent to selfishness and hedonism: it is the shorter road, with little "bumps" of pleasure along the way ("quicker, easier, more seductive") but one which ultimately leaves one hollow.

He has also explicitly stated that the "balance of the Force" is nothing to do with equilibrium between light and dark. According to Lucas, the Force is thrown out of balance by the Sith. Anakin's final destruction of the Sith is what brought the Force back into balance...it was nothing to do with cutting the numbers of Jedi down to next-to-nothing.

To me, the idea of wanting to play "grey Jedi"; ie: light-siders who can still use Sith lightning, is like the D&D players who want to play Paladins but not bother with all that pesky Lawful Good / Code of Honour stuff.

Jedi have awesome powers. The trade-off is some pretty hefty drawbacks when it comes to behaviour. Anakin Skywalker is the absolute lesson that should endeth the argument - "once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny." You want to be a Jedi? You don't do it lightly. It requires "the most serious mind. The deepest commitment."

I remember on one of the old forums someone once said that if a player wasn't willing to play a Jedi for an entire campaign without a lightsabre, they shouldn't be playing a Jedi. Advice I've taken to heart, because so many players just want to swing a lightsabre, deflect blaster bolts, and Force-push enemies into walls. That's not what it should be about.

All this presumes one is playing a Star Wars game that sticks pretty close to movie canon, of course. If you want Jedi in your games to be Mal Reynolds with a lightsabre, have at it.

"Gray Jedi" are not part of canon, and the notion was recently dismissed by Pablo Hidalgo of the LFL Story Group. The idea of "Gray Jedi" is something that has it's roots in the old West End Games D6 system by folks trying to skirt the Dark Side points issue and were featured heavily in an old "Jedi Handbook" that someone later posted to the old Star Wars D6 USENET group back in the day. Somehow, over the years, that made its way into fandom's head canon, but that has never been a notion even mildly hinted at by LFL.

There's a large difference between the Father in the Mortis trilogy who is the embodiment of the internal struggle for balance between our more compassionate (Sister) and darker (Brother) natures, and the Bendu, a totally neutral figure who takes no sides and views neither side as good or evil. The lesson is pretty clear in the Season 3 episodes of Rebels... not choosing a side is in fact choosing a side. Doing nothing in the face of evil is in fact siding with evil, so in fact the Bendu is truly not in the middle.

Yancy

3 minutes ago, Gallandro said:

"Gray Jedi" are not part of canon, and the notion was recently dismissed by Pablo Hidalgo of the LFL Story Group. The idea of "Gray Jedi" is something that has it's roots in the old West End Games D6 system by folks trying to skirt the Dark Side points issue and were featured heavily in an old "Jedi Handbook" that someone later posted to the old Star Wars D6 USENET group back in the day. Somehow, over the years, that made its way into fandom's head canon, but that has never been a notion even mildly hinted at by LFL.

There's a large difference between the Father in the Mortis trilogy who is the embodiment of the internal struggle for balance between our more compassionate and darker natures, and the Bendu, a totally neutral figure who takes no sides and views neither side as good or evil. The lesson is pretty clear in the Season 3 episodes of Rebels... not choosing a side is in fact choosing a side. Doing nothing in the face of evil is in fact siding with evil, so in fact the Bendu is truly not in the middle.

Yancy

But what about the....is it the Order of Revan? From Old Republic video game? It's been years since I played that, but I seem to recall they were VERY much preaching the "Grey" philosophy with that group.

How canon is SWTOR these days anyway? I mean, it's an official product that is still in production, and they've pulled elements from it and KOTOR into Rebels, which is considered canon. I know it's all well....a grey area (haha! topic puns!) about what is/isn't canon, but have they ever actually confirmed/denied if SWTOR is canon or not?

I didn't get much into the legends EU but in the RPGs a "Grey Jedi" was typically a player trying to do powerful Sith things without paying a price. But I don't think it has much munchkin support in FFGs system where PCs are free to use the dark side but it comes with an appropriate price mechanically and narratively.

I think the setting pretty clearly rules out a lot of what a Grey Jedi supposedly represents - using the dark side "when appropriate" but not suffering any of the consequences for it, trying to walk the "middle path". My interpretation is that all Jedi struggle with the dark side and it influences them in overt and subtle ways so at least narratively you don't need a "grey Jedi" to play with that experience. I also can't really think of any canonical iconic Grey Jedi. Sometimes Qui-gon Jinn or Quinlan Vos are mentioned but I don't think they're really grey Jedi. Qui-gon just didn't feel particularly compelled to strictly follow certain aspects of the Jedi Code when he felt the Force was guiding him somewhere else but he seemed to always be doing what was right and good and just and we don't see him using the dark side (much less as a regular course of action). He might cheat you in a game of chance (when the life of a slave is at stake) or use your greed against you but he doesn't really play to the dark side. And he proved to be a closely aligned with the light side as he developed the technique of surviving in the Force after death and sent Yoda on a journey to put him on the same path.

Quinlan fits more the "Sentinel" mold - a Jedi with connections and dealings with the criminal element of society who is a bit of a rogue. In Dark Disciple he purposefully delves into the dark side (assigned by the Jedi High Council) but pays a terrible price for it.

People are or course free to do whatever they want in their games and the Grey Jedi concept provides interesting theological and practical implications to explore. But I'd say beware of what players who want this - do they really want to explore the nature of the Force or are they looking to cheese out their characters without suffering any consequences?

SWTOR is not canon, it falls under Legends status which is perfectly fine. If that's what you want to run cool. I'm just talking strictly about the position of Gray Jedi as it relates to LFL's official canon of the universe.

50 minutes ago, Gallandro said:

SWTOR is not canon, it falls under Legends status which is perfectly fine. If that's what you want to run cool. I'm just talking strictly about the position of Gray Jedi as it relates to LFL's official canon of the universe.

..I'm not saying I want to run a Legend's canon Grey Jedi story, I was asking in relation to your question of Grey Jedi as it relates to LFL's official canon. Since if it is canon, than there actually would be an example of the Grey philosophy. Though I suspect The Last Jedi is going to dive head first into the Grey Jedi koolaid, given the context of the trailers we've seen so far.

Grey Jedi are simply individuals who want the power of the Dark Side without having the responsibility of killing a room full of children.

I'm dealing with a dark sider in my current game who "does bad things for good reasons". She hit a morality of 25 and when her eyes went orange and face looked like a melted candle, she didn't understand why she was getting black dice added to her social checks. I informed her that it was due to radiating evil and she insisted that her character was good.

The next game I run won't have any Force Sensitive characters, I can assure you of that. People don't comprehend the binary nature of the Force, nor do they want to accept the consequences for their actions.

4 minutes ago, P-Dub663 said:

Grey Jedi are simply individuals who want the power of the Dark Side without having the responsibility of killing a room full of children.

I'm dealing with a dark sider in my current game who "does bad things for good reasons". She hit a morality of 25 and when her eyes went orange and face looked like a melted candle, she didn't understand why she was getting black dice added to her social checks. I informed her that it was due to radiating evil and she insisted that her character was good.

The next game I run won't have any Force Sensitive characters, I can assure you of that. People don't comprehend the binary nature of the Force, nor do they want to accept the consequences for their actions.

To be fair to the player, it is a problem for a lot of people. I don't think it's just the "I want force lightning without killing children" angle, though I do think that's some of it. Again, I think it's the conflict of our modern sensibilities about what is/isn't acceptable actions, versus the very binary, clear cut system of the Force. There IS a conflict there, and I do think it's difficult for some to embrace the idea of very objective Right/Wrong.

I mean, just look at the hundreds of threads about the Conflict system, and how people heatedly debate why it's flawed, and how it's "punishing" people, etc. Bottom line, morality is a messy subject, and it's not the same for everyone, even in the real world. So to try and have a single, codified view on it, that's even got rules to it like the FFG system, yeah it's going to generate friction.

I have zero idea on how to fix that problem, and honestly think it isn't fixable, but them's the breaks.

Now, it also does depend on what "bad things" she's doing in my opinion too. Torturing a room full of pregnant, orphan, nuns for example, to get the location of a hidden Imperial Base, yeah that's going to be heavy on the "You Did A Bad Thing" side of stuff. But something like "I stole food to feed a dying child." Yeah that's got more wiggle room.

So yeah, I guess it just depends on how bad she's trying to get away with horrible behavior.

Again, messy situation regardless.

Unless the GM is making it rain Conflict getting to Morality 25 means they've been making consistently evil choices. One of the biggest complaints about the Morality system has been how easy it is to float to Light Side Paragon. You can regularly take on 1-5 Conflict per session (or whatever interval used before rolling for Morality) and on average you'll stay where you are. I think the system already supports the idea of taking the "middle path".

I love this system but there are a number of instances where the fluff of the game does not match the mechanics. Morality/Conflict is one of them. The F&D core book as well as the Force chapters in the other core books clearly describe using DS pips to fuel Force powers as in some way using or being influenced by "the dark side" and gaining Conflict is also described this way in the F&D core (yes, some devs have also said they don't necessarily look at it that way, that Conflict can be when a character is stressed, anxious or feeling conflicted) but the actual system lets you regularly gain Conflict without dropping in Morality. If you buy up and use dark side portions of certain Force Powers and somewhat regularly do really evil things (like murder or torture, etc) then your Morality will be dropping and it could be fairly quick. But you have to work at it. Your average Jedi can be pretty relaxed - mechanically - about spending DS pips in powering their abilities because they won't suffer for it. For some this is a violation of the setting in that using the DS should lead easily to corruption, etc. These are the people who think Yoda would never ever under any circumstances spend a DS pip. Others - including me - think that the rules in this regard get it about right. It's only "human" to gain Conflict here and there as the DS is always present (and option) and tempting and that it influences you even subtly but you don't really fall to the dark side unless you consciously go there (Yoda in Rebels TV show indicated he and other Jedi were influenced by Fear and other aspects of the dark side in regard to the Clone Wars).

But if the player things they're playing a "good" character and they've hit 25 Morality then it's probably time for a GM/Player discussion about that.

Also, the Order 66 podcast had an entire episode with Sam Stewart about Grey Jedi in the game. (Episode 72: Gray Matters)