1 hour ago, emsquared said:

According to canon, the Force isn't agnostic.

There is the Living Force and there is the Cosmic Force. The Living Force is the energy and the "actual" Force that has flowed through everything that ever was and currently flows thru everything that is.

As I understand it, the Cosmic Force basically receives "feedback" from the Living Force, and reacts to that feedback, and its through the Cosmic Force that the Jedi Council senses disturbances and has visions - and receives guidance from the Will of the Force. Or at least that's how they interpret it.

What you (and many others) are talking about sounds a lot like what, in Legends, was referred to as the Potentium. A single unified Force that is neither Light nor Dark, and is merely a tool to be used.

Hmm, sounds rather complicated and murky.

I am guessing it's my own wishes coloring this topic. I would like Force users to be more Druid than Paladin.

Thanks for the reply.

What I find ironic is that in the OT we don't see any force powers specifically defined as light or dark side powers. We do, however, see darksiders use the force to cause grievous harm / death without just cause. Vader has a penchant for force choke, and palpatine whips out force lightning. But Luke also uses a mild force choke in ROTJ, and one might suggest that the jedi mind trick, which is non-consensual mental compulsion, could also cross the line into dark side use if used without just cause, or in a way that unnecessarily harms the subject. No one assumes Luke or Obo-Wan are suddenly a dark-siders because they use the force to compel.

Classifying powers as "light" and "dark" started in the old WEG Star Wars game and proceeded apace in the early EU books, which frequently referenced such materials. In the PT we see Dooku use force lightning, as well, so one might infer that only darksiders use force lightning, but again, one could also interpret the films more judiciously and conclude that the how and why one is using the force - the motives and emotional state of the force user in relation to the circumstances - matters more than the specific force technique being employed when adjudicating "light" and "dark."

Another unsupported, but popularly reproduced inference, is that any use of the force resulting in harm, irrespective of the how, why, circumstances, or motives of the user, is automatically "dark side." And, yet, slicing and dicing one's foes to bits with a lightsaber is not? Utter nonsense. Nothing in the films supports the notion that one is dark and the other is not. Rather, "gray jedi" is the result of gamers and novelists introducing a solution to a problem that needn't exist. Should violence-compulsion impose conflict? In most cases , yes.

In other words, if you don't focus on what specific power is being used, but the motives and context the power is being used in, the problem ceases to exist.

I'm confused as to what even is being asserted, or concluded at this point RE: Grey Jedi?

Is it that some ppl believe you are either Light or Dark, there is no Grey. And some people believe there is no Light OR Dark, just Force Users and the rest is just labels/semantics?

Or what are the prevailing TLDRs at this point?

9 minutes ago, emsquared said:

I'm confused as to what even is being asserted, or concluded at this point RE: Grey Jedi?

Is it that some ppl believe you are either Light or Dark, there is no Grey. And some people believe there is no Light OR Dark, just Force Users and the rest is just labels/semantics?

Or what are the prevailing TLDRs at this point?

You pretty much nailed it. Some people believe the Force is a duality, Light and Dark. Others believe the Force just is , and that all the "light" and "dark" was wrongly interpreted by the people using the Force. There are also people who believe the Force has a Light and Dark, but they aren't the be-all, end-all of the Force. This third point is actually the one most heavily suggested in canon, since we're seeing more and more Force-based groups that don't use the Force as the Jedi and Sith do. For example, the Nightsisters and their 'magic.' The summon and manipulate spirit ichor to perform 'spells.' That doesn't really fall under "Dark Side" or "Light Side" as we know them. Likewise, we have the Lasat people using the Force to navigate through space, the Dagoyan Masters focused entirely on just knowing the Living Force, ect, ect.

21 hours ago, emsquared said:

I'm confused as to what even is being asserted, or concluded at this point RE: Grey Jedi?

Is it that some ppl believe you are either Light or Dark, there is no Grey. And some people believe there is no Light OR Dark, just Force Users and the rest is just labels/semantics?

Or what are the prevailing TLDRs at this point?

I came up with my own little theory that the light and dark side only exist because the Jedi & Sith believe in them so hard. Don't know if that cleared anything up, but I suspect it did not.

23 hours ago, emsquared said:

I'm confused as to what even is being asserted, or concluded at this point RE: Grey Jedi?

Is it that some ppl believe you are either Light or Dark, there is no Grey. And some people believe there is no Light OR Dark, just Force Users and the rest is just labels/semantics?

Or what are the prevailing TLDRs at this point?

Ok so I started with the OP in which I confessed my annoyance at the popularity of what I viewed as people wanting to have their cake and eat it too, by skirting the duality of the force and making special snowflake Force users who had all the powers of the Force but none of the moral responsibility. I also assert that a new middle way that skips the Duality invalidates the Force as we know it if the middle way becomes the new Force for Episode VIII The Last jedi.

• Posters have made good points though about how the Duality is somewhat hard to define in certain ways, and that the causality isn't well established for certain situations.
• There is also a distinction between what could maybe be called a Druid Jedi Force user who seeks balance, and the Gray Jedi who is just essentially a normal person who has Force powers because he makes realistic moral decisions like every day people.
• There is also mention of Balance in the Force, and how the Force seems to maybe want to have a middle, and what does that look like?

On ‎07‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 7:04 PM, Archlyte said:

Ok so I started with the OP in which I confessed my annoyance at the popularity of what I viewed as people wanting to have their cake and eat it too, by skirting the duality of the force and making special snowflake Force users who had all the powers of the Force but none of the moral responsibility. I also assert that a new middle way that skips the Duality invalidates the Force as we know it if the middle way becomes the new Force for Episode VIII The Last jedi.

• Posters have made good points though about how the Duality is somewhat hard to define in certain ways, and that the causality isn't well established for certain situations.
• There is also a distinction between what could maybe be called a Druid Jedi Force user who seeks balance, and the Gray Jedi who is just essentially a normal person who has Force powers because he makes realistic moral decisions like every day people.
• There is also mention of Balance in the Force, and how the Force seems to maybe want to have a middle, and what does that look like?

Pretty much this.

'Grey' in the sense of 'not a light side paragon' is 90% of all F&D RPG characters, having to deal with a muddy, morally dubious universe. They're going to have to deal with conflict and the threat of the dark side.

To me, Grey isn't a third pole. It certainly isn't a case of 'all the powers but none of the responsibility'. It's just a case of 'not really managing to stay in the light' or 'fighting against completely giving yourself over to the dark' and is an active, continuous sink-or-swim struggle, because the Dark Side actively wants to pull you down . It's the same conflict you see in every game session. The Dark Side is there, waiting, ready to be used. And you'll need to, occasionally, to have the strength to do meaningful good in the universe. One more point of conflict won't hurt....right?

It's a bit like Radical Inquisitors in 40k; the dark side of the force is a pathway to abilities some consider to be freaking awesome unnatural, and some people will accept using them with good intent, knowing that it will destroy them in the long run, stave off the negative consequences as long as they can, and trying to plan/prepare to minimise the damage when they eventually, inevitably go off the rails because there are some things they could not achieve by purely being good guys.

Basically, see The Operatives speech from Serenity:

Quote

I'm not going to live [in the 'better world']... There's no place for me there, any more than there is for you. Malcolm, I'm a monster. What I do is evil. I have no illusions about it, but it must be done.

Ever since Yoda told Luke never to use the force for attack fans have wanted to use it for butchery of bad guys

13 hours ago, Orjo Creld said:

Ever since Yoda told Luke never to use the force for attack fans have wanted to use it for butchery of bad guys

Yeah lol, the thrill of the forbidden. I think that is really what makes the whole Morality system great. You can have great intentions and still fall to the dark side. If you don't have any movement in your orientation then you are just static I your relationship to the Force, which is kind of boring to me. I like the way the Force reacts to you and all that.

On ‎10‎/‎6‎/‎2017 at 10:27 AM, TrainedMunkey said:

Hmm, sounds rather complicated and murky.

I am guessing it's my own wishes coloring this topic. I would like Force users to be more Druid than Paladin.

Thanks for the reply.

I think you could do the druid thing though, and I think it's actually more fitting than the paladin because the paladin is passionate. Just have to be a druid who is not doing a lot of selfish torture or unnecessary killing.

11 hours ago, Archlyte said:

I think you could do the druid thing though, and I think it's actually more fitting than the paladin because the paladin is passionate. Just have to be a druid who is not doing a lot of selfish torture or unnecessary killing.

Peace is a lie. There is only Passion .
Through Passion I gain Strength.
Through Strength I gain Power.
Through Power I gain Victory.
Through Victory my chains are Broken.
The Force shall free me.

Sith, Paladin? Jedi, Druid?

On 10/9/2017 at 0:48 PM, Orjo Creld said:

Ever since Yoda told Luke never to use the force for attack fans have wanted to use it for butchery of bad guys

You're certainly not wrong.

I think gamers as a whole look for ways to "break the mold" and so let their characters stand out from the norm.

WEG took what they had available in terms of source material regarding the Jedi and their mindset about usage of the Force, and built that into a code of conduct that Force user PCs pretty much had to abide by, and that anything that did direct damage was considered "bad" because we never saw the good guys doing it, with Luke (who was at a tipping point between good and evil) being the one exception (Force choke on the guards in Jabba's palace), but even then he didn't do so with anywhere near the same intensity or malice that Vader used Force choke.

The whole "Grey Jedi" routine came out of players wanting to have the cool direct-damage powers but not have to pay the piper (i.e. suffer Dark Side Points, which in WEG's d6 system was incredibly harsh). With FFG's Morality system, a player now has the option to use those dark side powers without immediate risk of falling to the dark side and a) have their character taken away (WEG and Saga Edition) or suffer ever-increasing penalties to your attributes (OCR/RCR).

17 minutes ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

The whole "Grey Jedi" routine came out of players wanting to have the cool direct-damage powers but not have to pay the piper (i.e. suffer Dark Side Points, which in WEG's d6 system was incredibly harsh). With FFG's Morality system, a player now has the option to use those dark side powers without immediate risk of falling to the dark side and a) have their character taken away (WEG and Saga Edition) or suffer ever-increasing penalties to your attributes (OCR/RCR).

Yeah, RPGs have been getting closer and closer to fully realizing the dream, so I guess I can be thankful that at least Force and Destiny isn't trying to be my moral guardian most of the time.

2 minutes ago, Nivrap said:

Yeah, RPGs have been getting closer and closer to fully realizing the dream, so I guess I can be thankful that at least Force and Destiny isn't trying to be my moral guardian most of the time.

Well, FFG also has the benefit of an expanded set of lore to draw upon with regards to the Force and how it's used, such as the prequels were we see Jedi use the Force to telekinetically toss bad guys (generally battle droids, especially in TPM) around like rag dolls.

WEG only had the original films, where the only folks that did direct damage with the Force were the bad guys, or the hero when it was very much possible he was teetering on the edge of going bad.

Spoiler/Not A Spoiler totally rumor, but if you don't want to take any chances ....

Well rumor has it that Anakin's ghost is present at the Force Tree dressed in grey in the Ep 8. Total conjecture and supposed leaks. Take it for what it is.

1 hour ago, TrainedMunkey said:

Spoiler/Not A Spoiler totally rumor, but if you don't want to take any chances ....

Well rumor has it that Anakin's ghost is present at the Force Tree dressed in grey in the Ep 8. Total conjecture and supposed leaks. Take it for what it is.

Yes, but old Anakin force ghost or young Anakin force ghost?

Enquiring minds want to know!

13 hours ago, Vondy said:

Yes, but old Anakin force ghost or young Anakin force ghost?

Enquiring minds want to know!

Assuming ghosts don't physically age, young Anakin, the canon ghost.

14 hours ago, Vondy said:

Yes, but old Anakin force ghost or young Anakin force ghost?

Enquiring minds want to know!

The supposed captures are of Christensen and he was on set, along with Frank Oz. Probably a flashback, but they are supposedly building the Force Tree at Disney World.

17 hours ago, TrainedMunkey said:

Spoiler/Not A Spoiler totally rumor, but if you don't want to take any chances ....

Well rumor has it that Anakin's ghost is present at the Force Tree dressed in grey in the Ep 8. Total conjecture and supposed leaks. Take it for what it is.

Dressed in gray could be a lot of things though. It could be a color that works better for the glowy effect later. It could be simply a tone that the director wanted for that scene. I thin it's going to take a bit more than someone wearing a color for me to be convinced that they have ********** the duality. They are going to have to come out and say it.

28 minutes ago, Archlyte said:

Dressed in gray could be a lot of things though. It could be a color that works better for the glowy effect later. It could be simply a tone that the director wanted for that scene. I thin it's going to take a bit more than someone wearing a color for me to be convinced that they have ********** the duality. They are going to have to come out and say it.

Like from The Book of Whills? Do you trust the Book of Whills? Is that what we saw in the first clip?

18 hours ago, TrainedMunkey said:

Like from The Book of Whills? Do you trust the Book of Whills? Is that what we saw in the first clip?

Yeah if the book has it in it then that counts. Any specific description of that sort from a character or source in the narrative that is believable. AT that point I would have to concede that they have gone with the nuclear option and decided to blow up the Force as we knew it. Movies get primacy in canon, so they can do whatever they want and won't care how it affects RPG folks because we are basically on the level of fanfic. Essentially a non-issue.

Re: the canon issue, I am fairly sure that canon has been leveled, in a sense that all SW media, whatever form they may take, are equally canon from now on.

Re: the Grey Jedi issue, I think I'll consider the matter and collect my thoughts to post later. I feel pretty strongly that the means do not justify the ends, but I'm a LG marshmallow, so what do I know?

2 minutes ago, Mindless Philosopher said:

Re: the canon issue, I am fairly sure that canon has been leveled, in a sense that all SW media, whatever form they may take, are equally canon from now on.

Re: the Grey Jedi issue, I think I'll consider the matter and collect my thoughts to post later. I feel pretty strongly that the means do not justify the ends, but I'm a LG marshmallow, so what do I know?

Ok my definition of canon is admittedly pretty old. I am not sure why they would level something like the clone wars and Rebels to the same level as the movies because even the movies have distinctions. They were saying that Rogue One or Han Solo Movie was not considered the same as the Episodes. It would be less confusing, but it would also elevate the other productions to the same level as the movies which have to have more bang for the buck and only get to make their statements in bursts.

I also feel that the end doesn't justify the means, but I'm not blind to the discomfort than many people have to the idea of moral determinism or certitude where the Force is concerned. As it is in many things though, our discomfort in something is not cause to invalidate a logical value of a statement.

1 hour ago, Archlyte said:

I also feel that the end doesn't justify the means, but I'm not blind to the discomfort than many people have to the idea of moral determinism or certitude where the Force is concerned. As it is in many things though, our discomfort in something is not cause to invalidate a logical value of a statement.

This is certainly true. But for me at least, I'm much more motivated by what makes for potentially more interesting storytelling than what's strictly-speaking canon. Perhaps that is the case for others who are interested in the concepts of Grey Jedi or other force traditions.

Apologies if something along such lines has already been said.

34 minutes ago, kaisergav said:

This is certainly true. But for me at least, I'm much more motivated by what makes for potentially more interesting storytelling than what's strictly-speaking canon. Perhaps that is the case for others who are interested in the concepts of Grey Jedi or other force traditions.

Apologies if something along such lines has already been said.

No apologies needed, as I appreciate each person's take on this and I recognize that these threads can get long. I also don't ascribe to canon for the stuff that I use. I feel like there are things in canon that are not really all that in keeping with the zeitgeist of Star Wars.

But, I also think that if you are going to redefine the Force then you are making a major architectural change, regardless of whether you are running an RPG or are on the Lucas Story Group payroll. If they change the Force to make it more palatable to the casual observer then to me something is lost. I like the characters who are not strictly adhering to the Jedi code, but I don't believe that the light side of the Force needs to be bent, or a third flavor of Force needs to be introduced, to accommodate those characters. The tension between the ideal and their personalities is interesting to me, not a problem.