I'm working on a F&D campaign and wanted a setting where force users could be free to use the force with out going in the past or fearing inquisitors (at least for a while). So I made up a colony of force users out in wild space. I'm not much on the EU, so if I hit upon someone else's work please let me know. I'm hoping to start this soon.

Idona Watchers - Rejected by the Jedi, Hunted by the Sith, Watching the balance of the Force

Kam'tel Idona was a Jedi master who survived the Sith wars and saw the formation of the new Republic. She was obsessed with bring balance to the force and meditated daily on the prophecy of the chosen one. During these meditations she had 12 visions of detail about one possible future about the chosen one. She took her visions and recommendations about changing this future to the Jedi order. While interested in her visions they rejected her reforms for the order and forbid her from speaking of the visions to anyone else. She however could not be silenced. She convinced 5 other Jedi of her ideas and they formed council she called the Watchers. When the council found out about her actions they removed her and her "watchers" from the order.

After removal from the order her and the watchers moved to a new colony in the far reaches of the outer rim. They began teaching others in the ways of the force. They focused on using to the force in what they thought was a balanced way. As their powers grew, a Sith lord came to the colony to learn their ways. The watchers however found him out and exposed him as Sith. Threatened by their power he killed Kam'tel. He allowed the others to leave as long as they left the galaxy to never return. With this they left their colony and ventured out to wild space.

Now they have a new colony established where they have survived some 1000 years. The society while cut off from the rest of the known galaxy has grown and thrived. Force users abound in a time when only the Emperor can freely use his force powers. Even some of the original prophecies have come true. The watchers are now a group of peace keepers in the colony. Their main objective is to find those who have fallen out of balance with the force. They take these people to the temple where balance can be restored for them.

Rules for Watchers : To use the force in "balance" watchers role 2 force dice for each force rating. They combine the results of 1 light side and 1 dark side to equal 1 pip. If both dice are all one side, then use the smallest result.

Benefits : Reduce the cost of Foresee, Sense and Seek and their upgrades by 5 to a minimum of 5.

Drawbacks (30XP): Using only light side force points results in 1 conflict point. Using only dark side force points results in 2 conflict points.

This should be interesting.

It seems to me as if you have crafted a mechanic out of the debate/misunderstanding of what "balance in the Force" means.

Are you sharing this for the community's benefit or are you looking for feedback?

2 hours ago, GroggyGolem said:

Are you sharing this for the community's benefit or are you looking for feedback?

Both.

Alrighty then. While the concept itself is neat (tho a Sith would never actually let their prey go if they had them cornered), it goes against both the canon idea that the Force is inherently good or Light and it goes against the game mechanics of Morality. It's a personal preference of mine to keep with canon on the concepts and themes of the franchise (also the timeline events) but every table is different, so not really a critique, just a personal preference of mine.

I also find house-rules for the Morality & Conflict system tend to increase complexity, time spent figuring out dice rolls or Conflict awards & offer little in terms of benefit. This certainly seems to complicate rolling checks for Force Powers by making you roll double the dice, meaning you need to compare twice as many results as you normally would need to. In addition, the dice are designed to be used the way the game mechanics already have spelled out, which means your idea of combining a Light and Dark Force Point to equal one point is not going to happen all that often, considering that less than half of a Force die's faces are Light.

The drawback awards you conflict (which lowers your Morality towards the Dark Side) even when using only Light Side Force Points, this does not fit with the game mechanics or theme. You'll end up using the Dark Side pips more often or choose to intentionally fail checks so you don't gain conflict more often than normal. This houserule seems unintentionally designed to make a character fall to the Dark Side.

Maybe change the drawback to taking strain to use only the Light or only the Dark Side Force Points instead and leave the Conflict for Dark Side Points as normal.

The other game mechanic this houserule messes with are the Destiny Points. There is a very specific way they are used for Force Users, when you use the Dark Side Force Points you have to flip a Light Destiny to Dark (or you need to spend a Destiny to use Light Side Points, if you're a Dark Sider). Your houserule doesn't seem to account for the Destiny Points at all, meaning the players have a larger pool of Destiny Points to spend.

The benefits seem fine, those powers are more passive which fit with a passive Force Tradition that keeps to itself.

Overall I'd say it needs some work to simplify the dice rolls, allow for use of Destiny Points as intended and remove the Conflict taken for using only the Light Side.

Seems interesting. It sounds a little like where my fs characters family comes from.

I haven't done a whole complete backstory of the planet but it is a civilization of force users in the unknown regions that believe in balance. They are also very strict on separatism. When their children come of age they are carried by a select few pilots out of system and dropped off on different remote systems in wild space or the outer rim for a ... "walkabout". They are told they will know when they can return - which is only after they have learned the ways of the force. Those who are not fs never return and learn to live in the galaxy at large while those who are fs return to share what they have learned and to learn from their elders and eventually take up the mantle of leadership, defense and what not.

The mechanic you have set up could be just what I was looking for to maintain balance in their society.

As for the points of GroggyGolem... he does make some good ones. But you definitely have a good starting point to work from I'd say.

I like the roll 2x force die and match to earn a FP mechanic. That's an interesting use of the dice there!

The only potential issue I see with that is a lot of people don't have 4 and 6 force dice when you start getting into force rating 2 and 3, but having the app sort of negates that (or just having a lot of dice at your own table where this is going to see use).

Also, always fun to see what people do with that framework for mentors of alternate force traditions!

Thank you all for the kind words and advice.

GroggyGolem - I agree that using only dark side pips would still require using a destiny point, in "balance" I wouldn't require it. I can see how conflict could easily get out of hand if dark side was doubled. Since you gain 1 strain for using dark side as a light side user I could see 2 strain instead of 2 conflict for using "unbalanced" dark side pips.

Jayc007 - I like that back story.

KRKappel - Yeah I was going to use the dice roller app for this myself since I only have a beginner box set of dice.

On 10/12/2017 at 0:10 PM, emsquared said:

This should be interesting.

It seems to me as if you have crafted a mechanic out of the debate/misunderstanding of what "balance in the Force" means.

Misunderstanding is just a point of view.

Also, I was wondering: since you need to roll both a Dark and a Light pip to make a full Force Point under this tradition, even with two dice per Force Rating, wouldn't this make getting more than 1 Force Point per roll incredibly difficult at a Force Rating of 1? The odds of rolling both a double-Dark and double-Light in the same roll are extremely low, aren't they?

On 12.10.2017 at 7:45 AM, Flobio said:

If both dice are all one side, then use the smallest result.

This seems odd. Do you mean if I roll 2 light and 1 light I am getting still 1 pips? Or does this mean I am getting zero?

And do I need to spend a destiny point if I want to use just light side force pips, etc?

How about you only roll the normal amount of dice, and then one white and one black count as 2 gray, gray force points don't cost any strain, black and white do. You don'the need to flip a destiny point to use black or white, and you get half the normal conflict round up for using unpaired black. Also you subtract 1 from the total number of grey force points you roll.

For example if you had force rating 3 (with nothing comitted) you would roll 3 force dice, supposing that you rolled 1 white pips and 3 black pips, one white and one black would become 2 grey meaning you had 2 grey pips minus 1 equals 1 grey pip and 2 black pips. You can use the Grey pips without any problems but it would cost you 2 strain and 1 conflict to use the 2 black pips.

On another roll, presume that you rolled 2 black and 1 white it would give you 2-1=1 gray and 1 black to spend the black pip it would cost you 1 conflict and 1 strain to use the black pip.

Suppose that you rolled 2 white and 2 black you would have 4-1=3 grey pips to use.

When you only have 1 force die you always have to spend strain to use the force and you will take 1 conflict if you roll 1 or 2 black. Considering that you don't have to spend a destiny point that's a really good deal, you need to earn conflict so that you don't become a light side paragon. Because if you become a light or darks idea paragon you can only use the white/black pips respectively.

I'm having a hard time avoiding becoming a light side paragon, my gm let me have a mentor bonus that once per encounter I can use a darkside pip without gaining conflict but it acts like a conflict talent in that every session I get 1 conflict for having the mentor bonus, but if I become a lightside paragon I have to choose a different mentor bonus.

We've had 2 sessions (3 actually but I only made 2) I rolled a 7 and 8 on the 2 morality checks, which would have put me at +13 = 63 morality, but this last session we found a force artifact that if you use it you get a free force die for the session and 10 conflict (it's grey not evil but it's a temptation to use power that you haven't earned), and everyone got 3 conflict just because we found it, which would have put me at 60 morality. So on the cut scene trip back I used the artifact not for the force die but to get the 10 conflict to put me back to 50 morality. Without the force artifact I would likely become a light side paragon I'm the next session or the one after that. I've only got one force die, the sense power (with the full set of defense upgrades) and the seek basic power.

The point is that I think you'll have a hard time avoiding becoming a light side paragon and being disqualified from this force tradition so you want the conflict.

On 11/19/2017 at 5:46 AM, SEApocalypse said:

This seems odd. Do you mean if I roll 2 light and 1 light I am getting still 1 pips? Or does this mean I am getting zero?

And do I need to spend a destiny point if I want to use just light side force pips, etc?

My thought was not to give a way to game for 2 force pips in that case. My thinking was that they won't be great at this tradition to start and give the players a chance to reconcile the community they are part of.

On 11/21/2017 at 7:17 AM, EliasWindrider said:

How about you only roll the normal amount of dice, and then one white and one black count as 2 gray, gray force points don't cost any strain, black and white do. You don'the need to flip a destiny point to use black or white, and you get half the normal conflict round up for using unpaired black. Also you subtract 1 from the total number of grey force points you roll.

For example if you had force rating 3 (with nothing comitted) you would roll 3 force dice, supposing that you rolled 1 white pips and 3 black pips, one white and one black would become 2 grey meaning you had 2 grey pips minus 1 equals 1 grey pip and 2 black pips. You can use the Grey pips without any problems but it would cost you 2 strain and 1 conflict to use the 2 black pips.

On another roll, presume that you rolled 2 black and 1 white it would give you 2-1=1 gray and 1 black to spend the black pip it would cost you 1 conflict and 1 strain to use the black pip.

Suppose that you rolled 2 white and 2 black you would have 4-1=3 grey pips to use.

When you only have 1 force die you always have to spend strain to use the force and you will take 1 conflict if you roll 1 or 2 black. Considering that you don't have to spend a destiny point that's a really good deal, you need to earn conflict so that you don't become a light side paragon. Because if you become a light or darks idea paragon you can only use the white/black pips respectively.

I'm having a hard time avoiding becoming a light side paragon, my gm let me have a mentor bonus that once per encounter I can use a darkside pip without gaining conflict but it acts like a conflict talent in that every session I get 1 conflict for having the mentor bonus, but if I become a lightside paragon I have to choose a different mentor bonus.

We've had 2 sessions (3 actually but I only made 2) I rolled a 7 and 8 on the 2 morality checks, which would have put me at +13 = 63 morality, but this last session we found a force artifact that if you use it you get a free force die for the session and 10 conflict (it's grey not evil but it's a temptation to use power that you haven't earned), and everyone got 3 conflict just because we found it, which would have put me at 60 morality. So on the cut scene trip back I used the artifact not for the force die but to get the 10 conflict to put me back to 50 morality. Without the force artifact I would likely become a light side paragon I'm the next session or the one after that. I've only got one force die, the sense power (with the full set of defense upgrades) and the seek basic power.

The point is that I think you'll have a hard time avoiding becoming a light side paragon and being disqualified from this force tradition so you want the conflict.

I like this modification too. Thanks for posting.

As someone who uses a lot of custom systems and rule sin my FFG SWRPG games I support this on principle. You should follow your instincts with this stuff and not be dogmatic. I think this is an excellent idea.