1. To use a lightsaber?
2. To use the mindtrick?
3. To move things with the Force?

I'm curious to see how this is handled in your game. Do you have training required for anything? What about practice? I'm not talking about game mechanics, just how it is handled in description and Role-Play.

1 hour ago, Archlyte said:

1. To use a lightsaber?
2. To use the mindtrick?
3. To move things with the Force?

I'm curious to see how this is handled in your game. Do you have training required for anything? What about practice?

1. None. You can just use Brawn without any ranks in the Lightsaber skill. You can get better by spending XP for skill ranks. There are also Talents that represent added tricks, also purchased with XP.

2. You need the Influence Basic Power and the Control Upgrade for the mind trick. Once you have this, there is training and practice in buying further into the tree as represented with spending XP.

3. You need the Move Basic Power.Once you have this, there is training and practice in buying further into the tree as represented with spending XP.

Well as of the force awakens we see you need no training at all to do anything. It seems you need the idea that it CAN be done to have a chance to see if you can do it as far as I can recall.

Also somethings seem to come to some force users as second nature others seem to work hard to master

2 minutes ago, Oldmike1 said:

Well as of the force awakens we see you need no training at all to do anything. It seems you need the idea that it CAN be done to have a chance to see if you can do it as far as I can recall.

Also somethings seem to come to some force users as second nature others seem to work hard to master

I would say that last part of your statement is far more true than the first.

6 minutes ago, Oldmike1 said:

Well as of the force awakens we see you need no training at all to do anything. It seems you need the idea that it CAN be done to have a chance to see if you can do it as far as I can recall.

Also somethings seem to come to some force users as second nature others seem to work hard to master

We see that it works that way for Rey at the time of the new trilogy . There is insufficient evidence to believe that it has always worked that way for all Force-users.

Lightsaber is definitely usable without much training it is just a melee weapon. The other 2 I think requires at least the idea that it is possible with the force and the character needs to be aware they HAVE the force. Usually that requires either a mentor to start or a Holocron. I do not require the trainer nor the holocron to teach either of these skills specifically as long as they have been taught SOMETHING about the force I allow the character to learn these things with Xp expenditures as the character "experiments" with their connection to the force.

Depends on the situation for narrative details, but no, I don't make it some kind of prerequisite to be "trained" to do any of those things.

Personally, while I kinda get it, and might discuss some off screen activity to include training, I feel demanding such is really counter to the game's concepts. Heck, in EotE following RAW to the letter, requiring someone be "trained" to use a lightsaber would categorically invalidate the very idea of PC saber use, as there's no saber skill, and by extension no way to train.

22 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

We see that it works that way for Rey at the time of the new trilogy . There is insufficient evidence to believe that it has always worked that way for all Force-users.

Well there’s also broom boy

50 minutes ago, Oldmike1 said:

Well as of the force awakens we see you need no training at all to do anything. It seems you need the idea that it CAN be done to have a chance to see if you can do it as far as I can recall.

Also somethings seem to come to some force users as second nature others seem to work hard to master

Also worth pointing out that Rey was on a planet full of kyber crystals. Make of that what you will.

43 minutes ago, Oldmike1 said:

Well there’s also broom boy

We know nothing about him. He may have been practicing for years. He's also in the same time period as Rey, so these things may be era-based.

Add Anakin skywalker to that list. Sure, he might have honed his survival instincts, but he was much more talented as an individual then a lot of adults. He even flew a star fighter with some assistance from a droid and accidently blew up a space station. That was before he began a single day of training, word up to his mother. XD

Sure, he doesn't lift objects, but building droids and fully functional Swoops from scraps and his general capabilities as a pilot heavily leans into the force simply favouring some people more then others. I would say the same was true of Luke, who went from an Naive man who dreamed of adventure and sometimes flew a sci-fi speeder, pulled a lightsaber to himself because he wished hard enough. I would probably say the only changes in presentation is largely down to the way movies themselves behave nowadays, which is very blunt turma kind of "this character is immensely skilled, they will have several scenes dedicated to showing those off."

This is coming from someone who didn't really have any problem with Rey in Force Awakens she did exactly what I would've expected Luke to do if ANH was remade, or even a force and destiny character that is constantly developing new skills based on the demands being made of their character, adapting to the situations as they are exposed with more and more stimuli and using the XP banked. If anything, I found Anakin's treatment much more irritating. "Look here is Anakin skywalker, not only is he talented like Luke at a much younger age, but he builds droids as a hobby, built a swoop for funnies and blew up a space station by accident. While we are at it, lets make him the chosen one in a prophecy we won't ever discuss, because it is very directly a reference to what he would do in Episode 6 because everyone knows how great this character has and always has been." That to me that kind of self entitled gibberish is what yanks me out of a setting. Turns out Disney was just one of the people who enjoyed getting that ball rolling.


My own answers?

1) Not very much at all. But if you want to get any good at it you are going to have to train due to you not getting any ranks of parry/reflect at all unless you invest in a Lightsaber tree or have Asian Magic in your blood. By that I mean martial artist. Sorry for the bad joke, it still kills me to see tried tropes pulled off in Rogue 1 over actual characterisation and I hated it as a movie. though it made a interesting documentary In all seriousness though, I had one member of the party who was only invested in becoming the most powerful force wizard imaginable. One day an inquisitor got toe to toe with him and demolished his character in a single turn, to the extent where we were seriously weighing up leaving him behind because many of us were already exhausted. You do not enter a serious battle with an inquisitor/Jedi/whatever without some proper self defence "training", whether that comes from self practice or experience. It might do for simple things, like cutting down the odd minion, but the moment you run into that nemesis/rival who actually knows how to fight in CQC in lightsaber combat, some more experience is required.

In practice though, swinging a lightsaber isn't difficult, just in most peoples hands a blaster is much more effective.

2) Depends. My GM doesn't arbiter on restricting force power uses except in a few limited situations. With mind trick you simply have to feel it is possible, and pick up the influence force power. I personally picked up influence after using touch of fate on a social check and after using the force to push on the mind of this person decided that "well, this feeling might be worth exploring." Being exposed to it also helps.

3) Now that is a interesting one. I personally have never picked up move object, though I have occasionally had my character assist with a check with "once a student". I guess it simply is whether the character believes they can; me personally I would like some explanation as to how the character knows move object to work, but again as is shown time and time again, some people are just good at it. I've just never picked it up because I've had better character angles to develop. Far-seeing, manipulation, influence, ebb/flow and enhance have been much stronger themes in my characters life in being a very small character in the grand scheme of things who will never be remembered as a hero, but would be there when needed the most.

Basically, is move object a core part of your theme? Go for it. If not, don't feel pressured to pick it up. Plenty more force powers in the sea and I imagine people in the setting don't think of the force as "powers", just talents they manifest with self exploration.

If we're telling a story about training to be a Jedi, about mentor and student relationships, about unearthing hidden lore that was thought to be lost, then the Force requires training.

If we're telling a story about learning by doing, about independence, about picking up the pieces of the past and creating something new from it, about finding your own way, then it doesn't.

21 hours ago, Archlyte said:

1. To use a lightsaber?
2. To use the mindtrick?
3. To move things with the Force?

I'm curious to see how this is handled in your game. Do you have training required for anything? What about practice? I'm not talking about game mechanics, just how it is handled in description and Role-Play.

Answers based solely upon mechanics?

1) None whatsoever, as anyone can pick up a lightsaber and attack using Brawn (or Agility if you're sticking with the rules for lightsabers in the EotE/Aor core rulebooks). Film-wise, we see Finn wield a lightsaber a couple of times in TFA, and while he's not awesome he's not a total doofus with it, so there's canon proof that anybody can use a lightsaber without any sort of training or skill ranks.

2) Base Influence power plus Control Upgrade to affect beliefs/emotions gets you the mind trick for 20XP (or less if you have a suitable Mentor). Simply roll your Force die against an engaged target and win the opposed Discipline check, and the other guy will believe those aren't the droids he's looking for, or that they should loosen your restraints and drop their blaster as they're leaving the room.

3) Just the basic Move power. You're not moving anything big, but then Luke and Rey didn't start out big either, both starting with Force lifting the same lightsaber.

Now, answers based on the narrative?

That's going to depend on the individual campaign. It's entirely possibly to have a PC that is a "natural" and learns new Force-related abilities with minimal effort, and in the same campaign to have a PC that literally struggles to learn new Force abilities (this where the "Learn As You Go" optional rules in Keeping the Peace come in real handy) even under the guidance of an experienced teacher. Example of the second would be one Zayne Carrick, the protagonist of the generally excellent KOTOR comic books series, who literally struggled in his Jedi studies and only got powerful when circumstances were stacked against him; in a sparring match against a fellow Padawan he'd get his butt handed to him, but in a pitched battle for his life against someone like Darth Vader the Force would find a way let Zayne win (or at least survive).

For a character that's "naturally gifted" and seems to just learn new Force abilities as needed, such as Anakin and Rey? Those characters can just spend the XP as they get it, and it's just assumed they learned with a minimum of practice and/or effort on their part.

For a character who "struggles to learn" and needs either a lot of practice or the direct instruction of a master? Have them role-play out the extensive training and practice they need in order to fully master the new ability, and by all means make use of those "Learn As You Go" rules (I seriously cannot sing the praises of those rules enough, as they can be a great narrative tool).

For someone like Luke of the original films, who is somewhere in between that he struggles to learn when on his own, but put him under the tutelage of a master such as Obi-Wan or Yoda, and the boy picks things up pretty quick once you get it through his skull that whatever is you're teaching isn't impossible. There's also Ezra, who initially struggles with his lessons using the Force, but you light a fire under that boy's hindquarters and he's got that power down pat in a heartbeat.

I've played both types of Force users, the "naturally gifted" and the "struggles to learn" and they've both been fun experiences. While the "Learn As You Go" rules cite a PC can only have one ability (Force power, skill, or talent) benefiting from this at a time, there's nothing stopping a GM from letting a player whose character concept includes the "struggles to learn" aspect to have several abilities they can only use at a penalty due to their lack of full control/understanding/mastery of that ability.

Its pretty obvious in the movies that Luke and Rey are able to do anything they think they can do.

Aside from the narrative questions relating to the tone and story of the campaign, there are also practical considerations. If it's a face-to-face or real-time game you're playing, how much time do you want to devote to individual scenes roleplaying character training? Do you have a group of players who will stay interested and engaged while the Jedi roleplays trying really hard to move rocks and do flips, or will that lead to people getting bored and checking out?

My experience has been that training (of any type) gets glossed over in face-to-face games because people want to keep the plot moving and would rather participate in group scenes. If there's a narrative need for someone to be training, it's more likely to be handwaved as a downtime activity than explored in detail. In the PbP games I've been in, on the other hand, it's easier to roleplay that sort of thing out without worrying about hogging the spotlight, and so players will spend more time on it in introductory or transitional posts.

How much training does anything require?

Interesting thing to see is how easily it is mentioned you have to spend XP to get into talent trees and pick up Parry and Reflect, or a lightsaber talent such as Ataru Technique. Does that still count when I start the campaign, the group clearly spends all the gaming time flying their freighter starship around, making some social checks to barter and profit, gaining XP through that and maybe a space combat or two, and then spending those XP on stuff never mentioned (like the talents I provided as examples)?

Gaining XP can represent training. But it can also represent having experienced all manner of stuff that doesn't relate to your wish to become better at lightsaber combat, mind tricks or moving around objects through concentration. Being shot at by stormtroopers and firing back with your blaster pistol suddenly makes you a better (Space) Pilot? Or Astrogator? Dodging a grenade opens up this wellspring of knowledge about the Outer Rim? To mitigate this discrepancy, I have seen GMs requiring their players to make note of what their characters are doing during their down time. If your character is aboard a starship and has a couple of days to spend, they might as well say they train in various activities. We see Luke doing that on his way to Alderaan with Obi-Wan. I still imagine Luke to have been a prodigy, a special some one with far more talents than the average nerf herder. But we also see him getting hit by the training remote, getting instructions, and then not getting hit by the training remote. He grows in his understanding of the Force, the lightsaber, reflection of energy bolts, etc. What we don't see, is how much more training and research, and perhaps a bit learning through experimentation Luke gets in between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. There's a gap of some years, as we all know.

Back down to the table top. It's a narrative game. Handle it as you will. If you think people can pick up the Lightsaber skill easily, as it is "just another melee weapon", have the players assign their characters' XP to it, and see them grow, even if those XP came from asteroid field chases and dogfights. If, on the other hand, you feel like the lightsaber not being "just another melee weapon" (it has no weight from the blade, just the hilt, and therefor it has its own special skill), then by all means restrict the players from taking skill ranks in Lightsaber until the characters found mentors or holocrons or security cam footage from Darth Vader moving through a corridor and wiping out squads of rebel navy troopers.

The same goes for Mind Trick. If you are of the opinion that characters can simply add XP to progress throught a Force Power tree, go ahead. Narratively, the character one day is accosted by beggars, waves his hand at them and tells them to go away. At that moment the character feels this sudden surge of power, the beggars look at him in a mesmerized state, and repeat his words to go away, then turning around and leaving. The character just realized he had this new ability. Allow this, or disallow this and require the character to find a mentor or holocron for instructions at your own leisure.

Move Object is of the same category. Allow 'talented' individuals to discover the power accidentally. Perhaps the character is about to see a child being ran over by an out-of-control speeder, and through some instinctive reaction suddenly a boulder crashes into the speeder, pushing it out of its trajectory and causing it to miss the child by some little distance. Make it personal and have cargo crates flying around protecting the character when he is being shot at but having a free maneuver from opponent's threat to spend to get into cover. Link it to using a Force Point to change the scene (I flip Light to Dark because I need cover to survive!) Yep, the cover just jumped in front of the character. You saw that right! Then the character has accidentally found a new ability which he can explore (train during down time, add XP to buy more nodes, etc.). Or require training through a mentor or holocron.

As you can see, the narrative system can be used to provide your own answers in either way. And you don't have to limit yourself to just Lightsaber, Mind Trick and Move Object. What happened to that Soldier/Commando character that 'suddenly' also became a Smuggler/Pilot overnight (i.e. through spending XP for a new Talent Tree outside his original career). Or something even further from his original capabilities like Colonist/Performer or Colonist/Doctor? When did that Hired Gun/Marauder get the time and opportunity to first step into Universal/Force Sensitive Exile (on purpose not the Emergent here...), and then entering Mystic/Seer?

@Archlyte You ask how I handle this in game? Simply as the game flows. I cooperate with my players in trying to tell that terrific Star Wars story. When I know a player wants to learn Move Object, I ask him or her how they wish to progress with this. One player might say he starts to quest for that mentor or holocron. The other might start about instinct and raw talent. In short; which ever way makes for the coolest story between a GM and a player both there to have fun.

18 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

We see that it works that way for Rey at the time of the new trilogy . There is insufficient evidence to believe that it has always worked that way for all Force-users.

Luke has all of 10 minutes of training in Episode 4, then Obi dies. In Episode 5 Luke uses the force, while hanging upside down, after being knocked unconscious, to pull his lightsaber out of a snowbank. He has had no training, no guidance, and unlike Rey who has some actual knowledge of the Jedi, the force, and has first hand experience with force users, he has no idea what he is doing...yet he does it.

This all takes place before he even knows that Yoda exists.

Luke also suffers from self doubt. Yoda has to confront him about this. Luke doesn't believe that stuff like this can happen, and that hinders his ability to make it happen. Rey however fully commits herself to these things. She doesn't doubt her ability to perform these tasks and is therefore more able to complete them.

I thought this would be a good topic because of all the uproar over who had some training and who didn't in movies. I'm not for boring training scenes for their own sake but if someone has something cool to RP out in a scene then seems fine to me. But mainly I wanted to see what is the main view on training for Force powers and Lightsaber use. Seems like everyone is for automatic use, sometimes without any explanation. Wonder why so many people complained about Rey in the new movies. Seems like most people who play this game feel it doesn't need training . Pretty interesting.

Rey is complained about, because she isn't a guy, honestly Luke pretty much does everything she does with just as much training. Luke does have issues with moving large objects.

In the movies the Force is easy to learn and impossible to master.

Luke has belief issues which hurts his ability to use the Force in every movie.

Rey also has belief issues that hurts her in other ways. She believes she can do anything which is bad....

10 minutes ago, Decorus said:

Rey is complained about, because she isn't a guy, honestly Luke pretty much does everything she does with just as much training. Luke does have issues with moving large objects.

In the movies the Force is easy to learn and impossible to master.

Luke has belief issues which hurts his ability to use the Force in every movie.

Rey also has belief issues that hurts her in other ways. She believes she can do anything which is bad....

You kjnow I really hate this mischaracterization. It is wrong and out right provably false. No one trained her at all and she was able to mind trick a stormtrooper. It has nothing to do with her being a girl. It has to do with nonsensical successes at things she has no training for. For example Kylo is trained in lightsaber and she is not. yet not only does she beat Kylo but she beats highly trained praetorian guards...So yeah people have issues with Rey. And it has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with her being a girl and everything to do with her never failing at anything.

Nobody taught Luke how to do it and yet he does it.

I might point out Luke saw Obi Wan do it.

Rey saw Kylo Ren do it.

So yes I think your problem is purely that she is a girl.

Luke beat Darth Vader with a lightsaber and all he had was training with a Remote until they got to Alderaan.

So I'm assuming I missed the scene where Rey convinced Luke to train her and where she turned Kylo Ren back to the light side of the Force?

Which part of the movie were those in again?

16 minutes ago, Decorus said:

Nobody taught Luke how to do it and yet he does it.

I might point out Luke saw Obi Wan do it.

Rey saw Kylo Ren do it.

So yes I think your problem is purely that she is a girl.

Luke beat Darth Vader with a lightsaber and all he had was training with a Remote until they got to Alderaan.

So I'm assuming I missed the scene where Rey convinced Luke to train her and where she turned Kylo Ren back to the light side of the Force?

Which part of the movie were those in again?

Luke trained with Yoda for weeks and we dont know EVERYTHING that was covered. And I doubt lightsaber training was not covered given that afterwords Luke at least holds his own against Vader. Rey never turned on a lightsaber before she fought Kylo and then defeated him. And while we dont see all the training Luke got we know he got training which makes Luke using skills he didnt have before more believable. He got basic lightsaber training from Obi-Wan. Then more training in the force and lightsaber from Yoda. Lightsaber training is discussed in the Novelization of Empire. So yes people taught Luke.

Well in the movies and shows sometimes you need training but it seems like SWRPG does not really follow that according to most of the posts on this thread.

35 minutes ago, Archlyte said:

Well in the movies and shows sometimes you need training but it seems like SWRPG does not really follow that according to most of the posts on this thread.

That would be because people skip to the action as training is boring for the rest of the table. So it is down time activity.

2 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

That would be because people skip to the action as training is boring for the rest of the table. So it is down time activity.

I think down time activity counts though as in my OP I said description and role-play. In between sessions if training is addressed that counts to me as having given it some consideration. Also if it's part of backstory that counts too.