Just now, Galakk Fyyar said:

You not approving of it doesn't mean no one else does, or that no one else is free to run their games exactly as they choose.

I think you misread me.

21 hours ago, micheldebruyn said:

I can buy wanting to play as evil every now and then. I have played evil PCs in non-Star Wars RPGs.

What I can't wrap my head around is wanting to play as a dupe who buys into the Empire's propaganda and believes the Empire is a force of good unles it's set-up for a heel/face turn at some point, where the PCs realise they have been lied to and switch sides.

I really depends on where and how they serve the Empire how hard it is for them not to realize how evil the Empire is IMO.

I played the same basic Imperial character on two campaigns on a SAGA Mush (Sort of a hybrid text adventure, MMO, and Tabletop campaign).

The first was set in an AU starting shortly before the Vong War and going ever more AU from there ending in the 50s or 60s ABY and he spent the pre-Endor period in training (He joined the military in 16 BBY and trained for several years as TIE pilot, engineer and capital ship officer. He served as a fighter pilot, part of an Imperial fighter R&D team, Guardian Light cruiser commander, Pursuit light cruiser tac officer, and Nebulon-B flight ops officer and chief engineer pre-Aliance. When the Alliance formed he was XO on a Nebulon-B and became CO of a Class II frigate shortly before Yavin. He spent his career pre-Endor fighting Sep holdouts, smugglers, pirates, privateers and Alliance naval forces. He knew the empire had flaws but thought those flaws could be fixed within the system.

After Endor he became captain of a Victory class Star Destroyer and eventually a line admiral before becoming a Moff shortly after Pallaeon, who he had served under in the past, became the effective Imperial head of state. (Initially all of the MUSH's Imperial characters were Moffs. It was supposed to be something like a 4x style side campaign where Pallaeon was assassinated and the Moffs were competing to become the new Emperor or Empress though that swiftly fell through and the Imperial Remanent became a regular faction.) He then became head of Remanent ship R&D, and trusted advisor to the new Empress and later her daughter and heir with his death basically serving as the first note of the Remnant's death knell.

The second version met Palpatine shortly before Endor and promptly defected after realizing that rather then being too distracted to halt the Empire's excesses Palpatine relished in them. Though to be more specific he was ordered to participate in the execution of the Death Star II's designers and their families at one point using the Imperial military training feat to block Palpatine's attempt to compel him to obey, which I still find amusing. (Though I don't know if I actually needed it. I just told the GM to use it if I failed to resist the compulsion)

On 7/18/2019 at 10:59 PM, Ahrimon said:

A lot of this depends on your point of view (see what I did there) of how you want to paint star wars. Is it a simple black and white good vs evil, is it a more nuanced grey with good and evil on both sides, or is it somewhere in between.

I mean, you can aim for nuanced grey, but you do eventually run up against the fact that one faction built a moon to blow up entire civilisations.

I mean, as a person who loves playing the morally grey middle of Star Wars, it certainly doesn't do much to help make that case.

4 hours ago, Spartancfos said:

I mean, you can aim for nuanced grey, but you do eventually run up against the fact that one faction built a moon to blow up entire civilisations.

I mean, as a person who loves playing the morally grey middle of Star Wars, it certainly doesn't do much to help make that case.

Makes me think of the "Are we the baddies" Skit

How about playing as stormtroopers who have bought the Imperial propaganda and do their best to support the regime (there were plenty of "Good Imperials" who rationalized or were duped), but once they realize what the empire is, they reconsider: AoR, they defect and join the rebellion, or split, with some of them defecting and some of them trying to stop the others, and/or continuing on under their delusion of the Empire. EotE, they desert and have to make it on their own, avoiding the Imperials at every turn. And lastly FaD (I'm stretching it a little bit here) one of the stormtroopers is force-sensitive, and is discovered, or the Empire tries to eliminate him, or something, so he and his buddies desert, but justify the Empire's actions, saying that they were trying to prevent the resurgence of the Jedi or somesuch, and continue to fight against the Rebellion for the cause of the Empire before realizing what the Empire is doing and how evil the Empire really is, once they see it from the outside and hear what many people actually think about the Empire.

One big problem with roleplaying an Imperial (who does not have to be evil, even if the organization is) is Character Knowledge vs. Player Knowledge. Playing as a "Good Guy" does not institute the same issues, as you likely agree with the character, but playing a "Bad Guy" often results in an issue wherein you know that the Empire is evil, but the character doesn't and then it can become hard to really put yourself in the character's shoes. Sort of like trying to make a decision about whether to go right or to go left after you rolled a Despair on your perception check and the GM told you that the left looks entirely safe and DEFINITELY doesn't have any Rakghouls being mind-controlled by Darth Sidious, backed up by a full legion of Phase II and III darktroopers.

13 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

How about playing as stormtroopers who have bought the Imperial propaganda and do their best to support the regime (there were plenty of "Good Imperials" who rationalized or were duped), but once they realize what the empire is, they reconsider: AoR, they defect and join the rebellion, or split, with some of them defecting and some of them trying to stop the others, and/or continuing on under their delusion of the Empire. EotE, they desert and have to make it on their own, avoiding the Imperials at every turn. And lastly FaD (I'm stretching it a little bit here) one of the stormtroopers is force-sensitive, and is discovered, or the Empire tries to eliminate him, or something, so he and his buddies desert, but justify the Empire's actions, saying that they were trying to prevent the resurgence of the Jedi or somesuch, and continue to fight against the Rebellion for the cause of the Empire before realizing what the Empire is doing and how evil the Empire really is, once they see it from the outside and hear what many people actually think about the Empire.

I think you have hit the nail on the head. The books is problematic to publish, and the only properly justified way to play this campaign is as a precursor to switching sides. Which you can do with the books we have, and the Specialisations we have.

I think an Era Sourcebook focusing on the Empire and how it changed - and making it focused on them as opponents, could make a viable book. It would have the information to improve Imperial AoR Campaign hacks that already exist.

4 hours ago, Spartancfos said:

I think you have hit the nail on the head. The books is problematic to publish, and the only properly justified way to play this campaign is as a precursor to switching sides. Which you can do with the books we have, and the Specialisations we have.

I think an Era Sourcebook focusing on the Empire and how it changed - and making it focused on them as opponents, could make a viable book. It would have the information to improve Imperial AoR Campaign hacks that already exist.

That would be nice. It would also be interesting if it was written from the perspective of an Imperial loyalist who has been duped, but the style subtly shifts as he realizes as he researches his book just what the Empire is! The front cover could be a "Join the Empire Today!" poster, and the back could be a Rebel Alliance poster as he shifts his allegiance. Maybe that wouldn't be a sourcebook and just a Star Wars book, but it would be interesting.

Why for you a imperial soldier must be duped, I mean being a supoter of Empire discovering how evil is the Empire ? Why not just being someone who doesn't give a **** about politics, doesn't care about the Empire's evilness, and is here for personal reasons ?

I've ran an AR campaign with all characters were near-human or human stormtroopers. Not a single one was a supporter of the Empire because they believed the Empire was the good guys. In fact no players <were interested about this good guy versuss bad guy stupid **** or to play the over-abused tropein RPG of good versus evil.

I know the Star Wars canon says it's a Good / Light versus Evil / Darkness fight and the Good / Light must prevail at the end. That's fine for telling a story in movies. That isn't as fine for telling a story through an RPG. Mudding the waters, adding shades of grey, having players and non-players characters with a flexible morality alongside purely good and purely evil characters. All of that make a lot more interesting story and, imo the most important things in an RPG, make for more roleplaying by the players.

22 minutes ago, WolfRider said:

Why for you a imperial soldier must be duped, I mean being a supoter of Empire discovering how evil is the Empire ? Why not just being someone who doesn't give a **** about politics, doesn't care about the Empire's evilness, and is here for personal reasons ?

I've ran an AR campaign with all characters were near-human or human stormtroopers. Not a single one was a supporter of the Empire because they believed the Empire was the good guys. In fact no players <were interested about this good guy versuss bad guy stupid **** or to play the over-abused tropein RPG of good versus evil.

I know the Star Wars canon says it's a Good / Light versus Evil / Darkness fight and the Good / Light must prevail at the end. That's fine for telling a story in movies. That isn't as fine for telling a story through an RPG. Mudding the waters, adding shades of grey, having players and non-players characters with a flexible morality alongside purely good and purely evil characters. All of that make a lot more interesting story and, imo the most important things in an RPG, make for more roleplaying by the players.

That's fine too. I was simply suggesting a way to play as Stormtroopers without being "the bad guys." Playing as people who just straight-up don't care works, but what about when they get put in an evil situation: i.e. "Blast that rebel transport" "But sir! It surrendered!" "I don't care, blast it anyway. the scum doesn't deserve to live!" then what does the character do? To blow up the surrendering transport would be evil. That is why I didn't suggest such a playstyle. And while not inevitable that you will be called to do something evil, it is certainly not unlikely, particularly as it is a useful device for GMs to further the story and character development.

20 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

"Blast that rebel transport" "But sir! It surrendered!" "I don't care, blast it anyway. the scum doesn't deserve to live!" then what does the character do?

That's exactly the point where the clear moral line between Good and Evil start to be blurred by shades of grey. And the PCs reaction will impact the story and change it. The players will need to answers some question about their character. Of course it'll work better with involved players. I think we could even say that playing imperials only really works with really involved players. Players who are ok to explore their own character.

Of course if that isn't the players's cup of tea, they can still play vanilla as rebels fighting the Evil Empire. I'm not saying it won't be as fun and or interesting.

16 minutes ago, WolfRider said:

That's exactly the point where the clear moral line between Good and Evil start to be blurred by shades of grey. And the PCs reaction will impact the story and change it. The players will need to answers some question about their character. Of course it'll work better with involved players. I think we could even say that playing imperials only really works with really involved players. Players who are ok to explore their own character.

Of course if that isn't the players's cup of tea, they can still play vanilla as rebels fighting the Evil Empire. I'm not saying it won't be as fun and or interesting.

I agree with you on this, my point was also that it is very hard to stay as a neutral, uninterested Imperial, you often would have to choose to be a "Bad Guy" staying in the Empire and following orders even when you know they're wrong (because it is hard to avoid getting court-martialed when you repeatedly disobey direct orders), a "Good Guy" where you leave the Empire in some way because you object to their behavior, or a "Good Guy Imperial" (which is only an option sometimes [like with relatively high ranking officers]) where you stay and try to improve the system from the inside, while following orders you know are wrong in order to pursue a more constructive end (Roy Mustang from fullmetal alchemist, or possibly Pellaeon from Legends, but I am by no means an expert on the character so that might not be best example, I don't know).

I would say that (with some possible exceptions) the fun or interest of the campaign is largely based on the GM and the players, not so much the outline of the campaign itself (though the more potential, the better the campaign can be).

On 8/16/2019 at 1:20 PM, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

That's fine too. I was simply suggesting a way to play as Stormtroopers without being "the bad guys." Playing as people who just straight-up don't care works, but what about when they get put in an evil situation: i.e. "Blast that rebel transport" "But sir! It surrendered!" "I don't care, blast it anyway. the scum doesn't deserve to live!" then what does the character do? To blow up the surrendering transport would be evil. That is why I didn't suggest such a playstyle. And while not inevitable that you will be called to do something evil, it is certainly not unlikely, particularly as it is a useful device for GMs to further the story and character development.

I do get what you're saying but there's a misunderstanding here that the Empire and the people in it are either evil as a default or will inevitably be evil, which I don't think is true. PCs in AoR campaigns as Rebels can do some very nasty things if they choose to. Putting on a Rebel uniform doesn't mean you're automatically a good person, nor does putting on the armor of an Imperial Stormtrooper. There's arguments to be made about the overarching morality, but I think it's not really debatable that the soldiers serving either side are automatically morally good or morally bad.

On 8/15/2019 at 7:16 AM, Spartancfos said:

The books is problematic to publish, and the only properly justified way to play this campaign is as a precursor to switching sides.

I really don't like the idea of limiting what options can be explored for an RPG on account of the modern political atmosphere and the worry someone will get offended.

3 hours ago, Galakk Fyyar said:

I do get what you're saying but there's a misunderstanding here that the Empire and the people in it are either evil as a default or will inevitably be evil, which I don't think is true. PCs in AoR campaigns as Rebels can do some very nasty things if they choose to. Putting on a Rebel uniform doesn't mean you're automatically a good person, nor does putting on the armor of an Imperial Stormtrooper. There's arguments to be made about the overarching morality, but I think it's not really debatable that the soldiers serving either side are automatically morally good or morally bad.

This is the way the Star Wars universe is set up. It is a universe of stark good versus evil contrasts. You may not be evil when you first put on an Imperial uniform, but if you wear it long enough you'll find out you are part of an intrinsically evil organisation, and then you have to make the choice between being evil or switching sides.

Quote

I really don't like the idea of limiting what options can be explored for an RPG on account of the modern political atmosphere and the worry someone will get offended.

This has nothing to do with modern politics or people getting offended. This is about what Star Wars is and has always been.

3 hours ago, Galakk Fyyar said:

I do get what you're saying but there's a misunderstanding here that the Empire and the people in it are either evil as a default or will inevitably be evil, which I don't think is true. PCs in AoR campaigns as Rebels can do some very nasty things if they choose to. Putting on a Rebel uniform doesn't mean you're automatically a good person, nor does putting on the armor of an Imperial Stormtrooper. There's arguments to be made about the overarching morality, but I think it's not really debatable that the soldiers serving either side are automatically morally good or morally bad.

I mean sure, the Rebels can be bad. But when it comes down to it, one side blows up civilisations. Like in the real world both sides of WWII did bad things on the battlefield. But one side did try to genocide a race, and we are pretty firmly (as a society), of the view that the side doing the Genocide were pretty objectively evil.

3 hours ago, Galakk Fyyar said:

I really don't like the idea of limiting what options can be explored for an RPG on account of the modern political atmosphere and the worry someone will get offended.

It's not about stopping people play. It's about not publishing a book and encouraging players to fantasise as being Bad Guys in an Evil organisation. RPG's already encourage some of the worst behaviours in some players, its not good business sense to write a book advocating playing as a Genocidal Slaving Empire. You can play the game as the Empire, the materials are available. If your players are mature enough to play this in a good way, then you as the GM can run the game with a little extra research.

None of the D&D Games include like a KKK for Elves to join or anything related to Racial Politics, but lot's of players and GM's have racial tensions as themes in their games. There is no reason to write books that will offend and exclude some people, it just doesn't make sense to flirt that controversy.

I see a lot of posts about how the empire is this mustache twirling evil villain, and I think that is a big part of why people think that an Empire game can't work. I think this video shows how I look at things more accurately and helps show how an Empire game can be fun without that grey morality.

1 hour ago, Ahrimon said:

I see a lot of posts about how the empire is this mustache twirling evil villain, and I think that is a big part of why people think that an Empire game can't work. I think this video shows how I look at things more accurately and helps show how an Empire game can be fun without that grey morality.

I have seen the Video, and I am a fan of the "Good Empire" meme / side of the Star Wars story - but they are moustache twirling evil villains. Their plan is TWICE to build a weapon to explode entire civilisations. Despite the clear evidence that such a weapon will only ever unite people against them - there wasn't a united Rebellion willing to attack the Empire pre-Death Star, and yet after losing the first they build a 2nd, bigger, MORE EVIL Death Star.

There is a way to portray them as the "Stability at a cost/ Good has a price" kind of guys, usually on local scales, but when it comes down to it, the story Lucas wrote was not about suggesting the Empire might be right. In any way. Ever.

The only reason anyone started discussing why the Empire must publicly appear good is that it is frankly ridiculous to anyone interested in the setting and worldbuilding that anyone have allowed this dreadful entity to rise in the first place.

1 hour ago, Ahrimon said:

I see a lot of posts about how the empire is this mustache twirling evil villain, and I think that is a big part of why people think that an Empire game can't work. I think this video shows how I look at things more accurately and helps show how an Empire game can be fun without that grey morality.

Thing is, unles you're playing in an alternate universe that doesn't have Death Stars and has Palpatine as not a Sith, the Empire is and always will be a mustache-twirling evil villain. The point is that there is no grey morality when you play as the Empire, just black.

Unles the GM goes out of his way to mischaracterise the Empire, the PCs will at some point get the order to wipe out some civilian village that can't even fight back for reasons that are flatout evil or obviously false.

One point on this subject, is that you can play as a Stormtrooper who thinks that the Empire is good, but if you do anything other than fight pirates, you are rather likely to face moral quandaries considering the ruthlessness the Empire showed to even surrendering rebels, and unless you are intentionally shielded by the GM, you will eventually have to either stay deluded or justify the actions in order to remain a loyal imperial as you are unlikely to not encounter at least one of the empire's atrocities. Iden Versio in the Battlefront II campaign justified two Death Stars, but finally broke when the Empire laid waste to loyal worlds. And she was Special Forces, very loyal and rigorously vetted. If your campaign takes place in Canon during the time after Endor you will have to decide whether you will stick with the Empire or leave in some manner. I am not against occasionally playing as "the Bad Guys" in a game like Battlefield, CoD, or CSGO (though I don't play those games), but in an RPG you are not just playing as a stickfigure in a uniform, shooting guns at other stickfigures in other uniforms, you are playing a character who has to make moral decisions and and has his own motivations and emotions. It is the difference between a statblock and a character. While I don't think playing as a Stormtrooper with no qualms about the Empire will make you evil, just as murder-hoboing won't make you evil, I can see why they would not want to publish a CRB or sourcebook urging people to play as the legitimately evil side. This is, of course, not a direct analogy because this is a real world example, but it would be sort of like releasing a RPG where you play as the Nazis. Sure, there were probably deluded Germans, or people who were pressed into service and didn't believe in the cause, or used membership in the party as a cover, but Hitler specifically, the man in charge and in control, was evil. Just like the Emperor is evil. As a result of their leaders being evil, the factions were evil as they carried out evil acts and served their leaders' evil intentions.

12 hours ago, micheldebruyn said:

This is the way the Star Wars universe is set up. It is a universe of stark good versus evil contrasts. You may not be evil when you first put on an Imperial uniform, but if you wear it long enough you'll find out you are part of an intrinsically evil organisation, and then you have to make the choice between being evil or switching sides.

That's opinion. I disagree, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. There isn't anything inherently good or evil about the Empire or the Rebellion, it's the individuals within that hit both ends of that spectrum. I'm sure some disagree with that opinion too, but asking for more options doesn't mean saying I'm right, you're wrong. That's the basis of what players have wanted in this topic, to have the options to do what they want for their own games.

12 hours ago, Spartancfos said:

There is no reason to write books that will offend and exclude some people, it just doesn't make sense to flirt that controversy.

Someone is always going to be offended, and there's really nothing offensive about providing detailed options for playing one side or the other. Who is honestly going to pick up a book that has a TIE Pilot as a career option and suddenly feel personally attacked? This is an argument I've seen used to shoot down suggestions of a German campaign in some WWII games. Even Battlefield 1, a WWI game, didn't get a Central Powers campaign because of worries over offending people, even hitting the point where recently an influential Youtube channel suggested forbidding people from even playing as WWII Germany or CSGO's Terrorists in multiplayer games. I think that's absolutely irrational. Why stifle your options and limit yourself just to avoid offending someone? If an Imperial Navy book got made, no one is forcing anyone else to buy it. If you don't feel comfortable with it as an option, that's fine, avoiding it is as easy as not buying it.

8 hours ago, Spartancfos said:

There is a way to portray them as the "Stability at a cost/ Good has a price" kind of guys, usually on local scales, but when it comes down to it, the story Lucas wrote was not about suggesting the Empire might be right. In any way. Ever.

There's a substantial part of the fanbase that thinks Lucas didn't do a good job with handling Star Wars, at best, and at worst they feel like he ruined it in the end. I'm not sure that everyone wants to emulate Lucas with their ideas of Star Wars. Even with that aside, when you run a game you're aiming to tell your story more often than not, not someone else's. We all know how common and encouraged it is to tinker pre-built modules to a GM's own specifications even. This hobby is about running your games with your worlds and telling your stories. If you want to run and emulate someone else, that's totally fine too, it can be really fun, but it's not a leash you have to be stuck to in some kind of way that if it's not what an original author wanted, you're not allowed to do it, sorta way. I don't see anything valid with telling everybody they can't do something because Lucas wouldn't do it, regardless of how they want to run their own games.

8 hours ago, micheldebruyn said:

The point is that there is no grey morality when you play as the Empire, just black.

That isn't true at all. Look at any number of previous Expanded Universe stories and you'll see a whole heap of good people fought for the Empire until it ended or they died.

2 hours ago, Galakk Fyyar said:

That's opinion. I disagree, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. There isn't anything inherently good or evil about the Empire or the Rebellion, it's the individuals within that hit both ends of that spectrum. I'm sure some disagree with that opinion too, but asking for more options doesn't mean saying I'm right, you're wrong. That's the basis of what players have wanted in this topic, to have the options to do what they want for their own games.

The Empire is extremely authoritarian, ruled top down, that means that those at the top have complete control over those below them all the way down the command structure (more or less) so the morality of the Empire is contingent of the morality of its leaders (namely the Emperor). In America, we are governed from the bottom up, we select our representatives (that includes all voted government positions) on a regular basis, switching them out constantly. That means that our representatives (I can't bring myself to say leaders) and our government tend to reflect the morality of the people, not the president (also a representative). To sum it up, Top-Down governments reflect the morality of their leaders, Bottom-Up governments reflect the morality of the populace.
In the Empire, the government IS the Emperor (hence, "I am the Senate") and so reflects his morality (evil). The Empire was formed to serve the Emperor, and "an Empire that cannot protect its Emperor does not deserve to exist" (or something to that effect) was the reasoning behind Operation Cinder. This goes to reflect how the Empire was the Emperor and was nothing without him. Every order given in the Empire, one way or another, goes all the way back to the Emperor who, as I would think we all understand, is evil. This is not to say that every individual within the Empire is evil, but the Empire itself is rotten to the core and is wholly evil as it is wholly subservient to someone who is wholly evil. The same can be said of Hitler or Stalin, they were the government, and the government was them. Again, not to rob people of their agency, they can be good people in an evil system, but it is an evil system.

As for the Rebellion, it is also a Top-Down government, but not as much. Therefore, the Rebellion (to a lesser extent) reflects the ideals of Mon Mothma, which tend to be better than the Emperor's, and the orders coming down from the top tend to reflect those. The rebellion was founded on ideals, not on a person. There are individuals in the Rebellion who do morally gray things (see General Draven in Rogue One) or even downright evil things, but overall the organization is not evil in and of itself. Orders from the Rebellion, in general, do not tend to be evil, even if they might be morally wrong/gray, even if just because of the cause they were perpetrated on the behalf of (though it then becomes a balancing act of the ends justifying the means which is a whole other issue). An example of rebels who's ends do not justify their means is Saw Gerrera's rebels. They would commit terrorist acts in order to hurt the Empire and those terrorist acts were often evil, not just morally gray (like slaughtering civilians at an Imperial ceremony).

4 hours ago, Galakk Fyyar said:

Someone is always going to be offended, and there's really nothing offensive about providing detailed options for playing one side or the other. Who is honestly going to pick up a book that has a TIE Pilot as a career option and suddenly feel personally attacked? This is an argument I've seen used to shoot down suggestions of a German campaign in some WWII games. Even Battlefield 1, a WWI game, didn't get a Central Powers campaign because of worries over offending people, even hitting the point where recently an influential Youtube channel suggested forbidding people from even playing as WWII Germany or CSGO's Terrorists in multiplayer games. I think that's absolutely irrational. Why stifle your options and limit yourself just to avoid offending someone? If an Imperial Navy book got made, no one is forcing anyone else to buy it. If you don't feel comfortable with it as an option, that's fine, avoiding it is as easy as not buying it.

I agree with you mostly, but there is a decided difference between roleplaying a bad guy and playing a statblock with an affiliation.

The Empire might be evil and the Rebellion might be good because their leaders, but those serving are still only people who are like every other mundane people both evil and good. And I repeat it, playing ordinary guys who are no more evil than good working for such political entity as evil as the Empire is, is what makes very interesting stories in RPG.

Don't forget that the time period of Star Wars FFG is set during the Galactic Civil War. War times are when the distinction between good and evil are completely blurred to the point sometimes it's impossible to make a distinction. Civil wars are the worst war to fight. Mostly because there's even less distinction between civilians and fighters and because each side is very polarized : you are with us or against us, no middle neutral ground is allowed. And if you're against us you and your faction must be annihilated by every means available. Hence why atrocities become common during civil wars.

14 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

To sum it up, Top-Down governments reflect the morality of their leaders, Bottom-Up governments reflect the morality of the populace.

I'm not sure it says something positive about US citizn morality. You elected Trump.

Sorry, couldn't resist that one...

38 minutes ago, WolfRider said:

I'm not sure it says something positive about US citizn morality. You elected Trump.

Nah. The Electoral College elected Trump. Even with the various hands he had on the scale he still lost what in any other Western nation would have been the actual election.

*Sigh* and I was soo determined to not bring politics up on a Star Wars forum. Oh well. That's life. Politics follows me around everywhere.

1 hour ago, WolfRider said:

I'm not sure it says something positive about US citizn morality. You elected Trump.

Sorry, couldn't resist that one...

I was intending to say that the government entity, not so much individuals in the government, reflects the morality of the populace.

1 hour ago, micheldebruyn said:

Nah. The Electoral College elected Trump. Even with the various hands he had on the scale he still lost what in any other Western nation would have been the actual election.

Okay, I don't want to get into an argument/debate/discussion, so I'll just make a couple counter-points:

As far as "hands trump had on the scale" if you're talking about "Russian collusion" that is utter bunk. However, I'll give it to you, but given the mainstream medias' bias against Trump we'll call it even, just to get all of that out of the way.

If you look at a map of the US to see which states voted for Trump and which states voted for Hillary you will see that vast swathes of the US voted for Trump, it wasn't like it was a fringe interest. You could also argue that there were probably many Republicans in places like California or New York that didn't bother showing up because their state's electoral votes were obviously going to Clinton, but that is beside the point.
From a practical standpoint, the Electoral College compartmentalizes the voting system such that it becomes much harder to hack an election. It also makes recounts easier because can you imagine if there was an election where the result was within .25% and you had to do a recount? Now with the electoral college, since it is done state by state you wouldn't have to do a recount at all unless there were states who had a very close margin, and even then you would only be doing a recount in those particular states, not over the whole nation. It also makes voter fraud harder because it is not guaranteed that those votes will mean anything, even if you flip the state.
From a more philosophical standpoint, it pushes candidates to build broad coalitions of support rather than just trying to drive up vote totals in safe states. This does not mean, however, that swing states become all-important because you still need all of the electoral votes you get, not just those couple states.
And finally, given how poorly it does at pretty much everything, would you really want the federal government in charge of voting too?

7 hours ago, micheldebruyn said:

Nah. The Electoral College elected Trump. Even with the various hands he had on the scale he still lost what in any other Western nation would have been the actual election.

7 hours ago, WolfRider said:

I'm not sure it says something positive about US citizn morality. You elected Trump.

Sorry, couldn't resist that one...

Is this really necessary?

22 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

( . . . ) Again, not to rob people of their agency, they can be good people in an evil system, but it is an evil system.

I agree with you mostly, but there is a decided difference between roleplaying a bad guy and playing a statblock with an affiliation.

I think there's more to it than that. Yeah, as far as Operation Cinder and such goes, the Emperor and the Imperial structure are wholly evil, but in the old setting where that never happened, there were things to suggest the Emperor didn't intend it to be that way. He was still evil, but so it goes he intended the Empire to be a good thing to rescue the galaxy in some fashion, and tried to make it an effective, benevolent organization, at least in his mind. For that, I'd argue that the Empire isn't entirely evil, as in rotten to the core, but just very misguided from otherwise good goals. Far to the edge of the ends justify the means. With that there are good things the Empire's done, and good people in it, to the point that I don't think anyone who's in it is inevitably a horrible person.

What do you mean by roleplaying a bad guy and playing a statblock with affiliation? I think the difference there is only what you make it to be.

Just finished Thrawn: Treason . Almost entirely Imperial protagonists. And not a mustache twirling villain in sight (save for a few brief appearances by the Emperor, Tarkin, and Krennick).

They’re military personnel performing standard military duty. While some of those more...extreme...personalities clearly rise to the top, most are just average people. I’d say there’s nothing inherently difficult about an Imperial campaign, and it doesn’t have to inevitably lead to the characters having to acknowledge the evil they’re helping carry out.