Hi guys, I will run a three session short campaign inspired by the new aera books, so it will be playing at the end of the clone wars.

The group is two jedi and 3 clone troopers. All are injured at the beginning of the campaign and are thrown in a battle as "last resort", because the republic is running low on everything. The end of the campaign will be order 66, and the group will eventually turn against each other. The clones will be allowed to throw a check for resisting the chip, and this check should be modified based on actions on the campaign. If the clones see the jedi as noble part of the republic and their friends who care about the clones it will be easier then if the jedi boss them around all the time, just care for them self and so on. Another important factor will be if they follow certain leads which will allow them to deactivate the chips in their brains.

The final check should be "reasonably doable" if the character play good, and really hard if they screw up the campaign, resulting in a pretty dead group. So I want to ask you guys which talent would you use for this check, and how hard you would make it. And how you would modify it for "friendship" and deactivated chips.

Thx a lot for all suggestions and excuse my writing, my cellphone... Does weird things...

It shouldn't be in any way resistable at all.

If the chips are removed then it simply does not work at all and Order 66 does nothing. If the chips are still active then their normal personalities are overridden. Friendship or any other personal relationships or issues the clones have should not be in any way at all a factor.

It's all or nothing. Either the chip works and the clones become Jedi-killing zombies, or it doesn't because it was removed/damaged/otherwise tampered with.

Order 66 would have been a really crappy plan if it could be "reasonably" resisted by the clones.

If you wanted a skill check for them to use I would call for a Discipline check, I would make it at least a 4 difficulty if not 5. Maybe put some natural upgrades it should be very difficult to resist the programming. If you want to try and help them you can add boost dice for their emotional ties to the Jedi that they have developed while together.

If you want the characters to be able to choose let them make that decision, you can say their chips got damaged some how on a previous mission and they were unaware of it. On the order 66 podcast they had in episode 124 they talk about the chips and suggestions for handling them. (in the episode they talk about a game similar to the one you are mentioning). I would recommend to listen to that episode. Here is link to where I listen to them at - http://feeds2.feedburner.com/order66

But always feel free to use them how they will help your story.

I agree with @micheldebruyn in principle, however, because they are PCs, I think that an exception could be made to allow them to attempt to resist the effects of the chip with a Formidable check with probably 2 upgrades, modified based on their prior experiences with the Jedi. A Despair would be interesting because it could mean that the Jedi don't realize that the clone is still loyal to them, and attack the clone. Or require the clone to retest the following round.

In general, micheldebruyn is right, but given that they are PCs an attempt, at least, to allow them to retain their agency would be good. Something to consider aside from just their friendship with the Jedi is the experiences they've had during the war. If they've been through battles like Mygeeto, they would probably be more likely to turn on their leaders (the Jedi) than if they'd been on relatively easy missions.

If the clones were injured anyways, have their injuries include head injuries that damaged/destroyed the chips.

Been there, done that.

My first character was actually a clone with head trauma who disobeyed order 66.

In SW canon clones can't resist the chip if it wasn't removed. But at a RPG table the GM is free to give the amount of respect to the SW canon he / she wish. Personally if not respecting the SW canon makes a better story I do it. And letting clones PCs trying to resist the Order 66 opens the possibility to tell a better story than having them be bound by the chip.

If I was GMing it I make it a Daunting discipline check with 1 upgraded dice, so 4 purple + 1 red. But I'll allow the possibility for blue dice to be added to the player's pool, based on how the relationship between clones and jedi evolutes before. Each clones PC will have its own dice pool, but a failure means all the jedi'll be targetted and a success means no jedi'll be targetted. The purpose being to open possibility for a more dramatic output if not all clones fails or succeeds.

I recommend reading page 82 and 130. Theose pages give you some info...

Thanks to everybody for your answers.

In general I think you are right, a normal clone would not resist it. First I doubt most of them would even try to resist it, since it is an order and they are even more soldiers than common soldiers.

The idea of the campaign is that they find out that something is fishy in the republic in general, so they shall grew doubts on the first place. With the chip I see it in star wars more Hollywood style: "no Jim don't shoot me, this is not you, something is forcing you to do it, fight it!" - blabla mind control thing.

BTW does someone else find it a bit lazy that they put in the clones two times as species in these two era books?

BTW2: how did they manage that every clone knew during order 66 that anakin wasn't a jedi anymore? And would they have turned against ashoka who wasn't a jedi at this moment?

48 minutes ago, Seguleh said:

BTW does someone else find it a bit lazy that they put in the clones two times as species in these two era books?

Not really, because not everybody gets or can even afford to buy both books. I do find it lazy Jedi only get four specs though.

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BTW2: how did they manage that every clone knew during order 66 that anakin wasn't a jedi anymore? And would they have turned against ashoka who wasn't a jedi at this moment?

It's a genuine plothole that so far doesn't have a continuity patch yet.

6 hours ago, micheldebruyn said:

Not really, because not everybody gets or can even afford to buy both books. I do find it lazy Jedi only get four specs though.

It's a genuine plothole that so far doesn't have a continuity patch yet.

Regarding the Anakin thing, it's sort of been addressed in Charles Soule's Darth Vader (2017) comic. Very early on, he's mistaken for a Jedi while trying to get a new lightsaber, and several clones attempt to kill him. Then later on, there's a scene where Vader is chasing Jocasta Nu, and several clones mistake Vader for a Jedi and try to shoot him down. In this second instant in particular, it's shown that the clone in charge had forgotten to inform his underlings about Vader.

So, that's two separate instances of clones attempting to kill Vader. Odds are, the ones who marched with Anakin during Operation Knightfall had all been informed ahead of time that Anakin was no longer a Jedi, and was still loyal to Palpatine, hence why none attempted to kill him. But later on, not every clone was immediately made aware of who he was, so they still thought of him as a Jedi and tried to kill him. Then Palpatine introduced Vader to the entire empire in a very, very public fashion to make it abundantly clear what his position was, and this stopped being an issue.

Order 66 wasn't mind control. It was an order that was programmed into them. It was a logical order that honestly made sense. The control chip just forced them to follow the order without question.

The Jedi could seize power in the Republic. They have the power and numbers to do so, and now they are in military leadership positions. Having them perform a coup and take control wouldn't be difficult. Order 66 was there in case the Jedi tried something like that. It's not even an inconceivable idea as we see defecting Jedi, and former Jedi as enemies of the Republic...so they are clearly not some hive mind operation...they are all potentially flawed individuals that can be swayed.

Order 66 was just an order. Even with a damaged or absent control chip, many clones would have followed the order, especially if they were with other clones that were following the order.

If the control chip was damaged or absent, then the clone would have the ability to ignore the order just like any other person, but would they have reason to?

If the clones are all injured, you could just narratively explain that something happened to their chips. Now they need to make a choice.

I suspect a large portion of dechipped clones would, at the very least, work to confirm the order was legitimate before acting on such a sudden and irreversible plan. Faking it would merely require 1: The faker figure out what the order means 2: Be able to broadcast over Republic communications systems 3: Have a Holo Faker fake a few seconds of footage. 1 isn't hard in the slight as all clones, or at least the officers, seem to know what it means, 2 isn't implausible, and three is utterly trivial given it's a public figure the holo faker would have ample voice and face recordings of (With 21st century tech we already have the technology to impersonate at least one public figure this way ) and we're talking about the resources of the whole Confederacy.

It's worth noting that the PC write-up for Clones as a playable species do not have the behavioral chip effects that NPC Clone Troopers have, and I believe was confirmed by one of the writers as being an intentional design choice on their part.

So by RAW, it's entirely up to the players of the Clone characters if they'd follow through on Order 66 or not. As kmanweiss suggested, most Clone Troopers are trained to the point that they follow orders, especially General Orders, almost on instinct. In Legends, there was no chip to enforce the execution of Order 66, so for the vast majority of Clone Troopers, they simply followed orders and turned on their Jedi commanders, Anakin presumably having been given an exception by the Supreme Chancellor and the 501st legion informed of this before they went marching on the Jedi Temple. But (again in Legends), there were a small number of Clone Troopers who didn't immediately comply with Order 66 for various reasons, such as not being in the immediate presence of their Jedi General, or as was the case with one group of Clone Commandos (written in a book not by Karen Traviss) deliberately ignored the order as it seemed way too suspicious (Clone Commandos were trained to have a greater sense of autonomy than the rank-and-file troops) and tried to get confirmation, by which point the Jedi on the planet had gone into hiding (Vader wound up making a rather brutal example of them for not immediately obeying a direct order).

While it's a bit cliche/trite, it may entirely be possible that the behavioral chip in the Clone PCs' heads all suffered some sort of flaw due to a shared mission experience that involved some truly odd/bizarre/unusual circumstances that weakens the effects of the chip to the point that it becomes entirely each player's choice if they comply with Order 66 or not. Granted, there may also be some penalties for disobeying the order as the chip (if still present) is trying to enforce a pattern of behavior, such as suffering strain or even setback dice until a certain amount of time has passed.

1 hour ago, kmanweiss said:

Order 66 wasn't mind control. It was an order that was programmed into them. It was a logical order that honestly made sense. The control chip just forced them to follow the order without question.

The Jedi could seize power in the Republic. They have the power and numbers to do so, and now they are in military leadership positions. Having them perform a coup and take control wouldn't be difficult. Order 66 was there in case the Jedi tried something like that. It's not even an inconceivable idea as we see defecting Jedi, and former Jedi as enemies of the Republic...so they are clearly not some hive mind operation...they are all potentially flawed individuals that can be swayed.

Order 66 was just an order. Even with a damaged or absent control chip, many clones would have followed the order, especially if they were with other clones that were following the order.

If the control chip was damaged or absent, then the clone would have the ability to ignore the order just like any other person, but would they have reason to?

If the clones are all injured, you could just narratively explain that something happened to their chips. Now they need to make a choice.

When Order 66 was triggered accidentally on the Clone Wars show, no order was given at all, the clone in question just became completely murderously psychotic towards Jedi. It's mind control. If Order 66 relied just on clones following orders, it simply wouldn't have worked because clones are people, not droids.

The arc went into some detail how it is programmed behaviour that completely overrides whatever choises the clones would have made given an actual order.

Regarding the triggering of the chip, something I just thought of that might be an issue, is how long does the chip override their personality? Is it like, just for a short period of time, say a few hours, and while it's active, they are cool with killing Jedi? Or once it's triggered, is it on 24/7, and from that day until the end of time, they will try and kill Jedi?

Because option 1, would allow for the chance to simply subdue the clone, and let them "sleep it off", like a bad hangover. Option 2 would require direct surgery, or slicing to shut down the chip.

I mean you can just use the Inhibitor chip as written so it upgrades the check of the Clone trying to resist it if you wanted to give them the chance. Palpatine has a Leadership of 5 and a Presence of 5, so upgrade that one and treating that as the difficulty it would be 5 red/challenge dice and 1 purple/difficulty dice vs the clone's Discipline.

1 hour ago, KungFuFerret said:

Regarding the triggering of the chip, something I just thought of that might be an issue, is how long does the chip override their personality? Is it like, just for a short period of time, say a few hours, and while it's active, they are cool with killing Jedi? Or once it's triggered, is it on 24/7, and from that day until the end of time, they will try and kill Jedi?

Why does it have to override their personality at all? I mean, the clones in the films aren't acting all Zombie-mode. Cody gets the order, and just executes like it was any other order.

I think a good point to make is the only clone we've seen in zombie-mode had a defective chip. Zombie-mode may have been an artifact of the defective chip, and not an actual intended effect that a working chip has. Technically O66 was probably considered by the clones to be a lawful contingency order. So when it was given, the chip need not go all Zombie, all it had to do was compel the clone to execute the given order. In 99% of clones, the chip was probably largely redundant. Only clones that were close to their Jedi would need them, and even then most would probably rationalize the order as just a regrettable necessity, with the chip being a final nudge in the "right" direction. Only the Clone that was really super close, AND had an insubordinate streak would need the extra push...

1 hour ago, Ghostofman said:

Why does it have to override their personality at all? I mean, the clones in the films aren't acting all Zombie-mode. Cody gets the order, and just executes like it was any other order.

I think a good point to make is the only clone we've seen in zombie-mode had a defective chip. Zombie-mode may have been an artifact of the defective chip, and not an actual intended effect that a working chip has. Technically O66 was probably considered by the clones to be a lawful contingency order. So when it was given, the chip need not go all Zombie, all it had to do was compel the clone to execute the given order. In 99% of clones, the chip was probably largely redundant. Only clones that were close to their Jedi would need them, and even then most would probably rationalize the order as just a regrettable necessity, with the chip being a final nudge in the "right" direction. Only the Clone that was really super close, AND had an insubordinate streak would need the extra push...

I also think it left Gregor all screwed up. At least in Rebels he didnt take following the order well.

49 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

I also think it left Gregor all screwed up. At least in Rebels he didnt take following the order well.

Did he follow the order though? I don't remember ever getting an "I regret murdering my Jedi" speech...

14 hours ago, Ghostofman said:

Why does it have to override their personality at all?

...because that's the whole point of the chip? To override any misgivings they would have about attacking their allies, so they will just treat it like "any other order". If the clones didn't need the chip to make sure they followed it, why have the chip at all?

14 hours ago, Ghostofman said:

I mean, the clones in the films aren't acting all Zombie-mode. Cody gets the order, and just executes like it was any other order.

I didn't say anything about them acting zombie-mode. But the chip is clearly designed to inhibit the possibility of them refusing the order, due to the nature of their close relationship with the Jedi. That's why those clones in Rebels took their chips out, because they refused to hurt their allies in such a way. But all the other clones, that still had the chip installed, clearly did kill Jedi. So it was clearly altering, or overriding their personality (or at the very least their action/judgement centers of their brain), to make sure they betrayed the Jedi.

And thus my question. Did the chip just stay on 24/7 or not? Meaning that the inhibition it removed when the order was given, did that just last a few hours? Or was it now a permanent alteration as long as the chip was active?

I am genuinely confused by your comments here. I mean, your statements imply you don't think they needed the chip for anything at all, to be willing to kill Jedi. But...then why would they have the chip? Seriously, what purpose would it serve, other than to prevent the clones from having personal agency, and refusing an order they might find morally questionable?

Because everything in the franchise establishes that's what the chip is for. So I don't know where you are coming from with this "Why does it have to override their personality at all?" angle. What else would the chip be doing?

2 hours ago, KungFuFerret said:

...because that's the whole point of the chip? To override any misgivings they would have about attacking their allies, so they will just treat it like "any other order".

I was working on something long, but I think this is really the important part.

Some clones just plain wouldn't have misgivings about attacking the Jedi, and it would be just an order. Now... it might be a kinda big order, akin to a nuclear launch order, but that doesn't require a special inhibitor chip to follow.

So the only clones that NEED-need the chip would be ones like Rex. Clones that are used to operating on their own, improvising, throwing the regs into the wind, and have a good relationship with the Jedi. Someone like Fox on the other hand would probably just execute, chip or no. A clone that had little personal interaction with Jedi would probably not need a chip, as the Order is just a lawful order, a big one, but an order. And some might be totally good with it. Some might look at what the Jedi can do, and think "well dang, if they become a threat, we're gonna have to do something," with order 66 being that trigger.

Even then, the exact definition of "overriding their personality" is dependent on your view.

Continuing the examples above, Fox would operate as normal. Rex would need a push, but how that push manifests is the thing, and for that, lets look at a more middle ground clone like Cody.

Cody wasn't as free-wheeling as Rex, but he had the rest of the boxes checked for requiring a chip. So on screen we see that. Cody doesn't stop being Cody, he just accepts the order and executes, in much the way he would any serious order. The chip wasn't pulling some kind of total Manchurian Candidate hypno-order. It was just saying "This is an order, it's important, it must be followed." but the clone was still operating as normal.

Bouncing back to Rex, lets propose an Infinities where he doesn't remove his chip and is hanging with Ahsoka when the Order comes through. A situation like this is plausible:

*exchanging blaster fire and saber swings*

A: Rex, what are you doing?

R: Sorry commander, I've got my orders.

A: You don't have to follow them!

R: Sometime you do Ahsoka. You don't have to like them, but you do have to follow them.

See, Rex's "personality" is still there, the chip is just causing him to interpret O66 as a massive Nuclear-strike level order. One that he doesn't have to like, but that he feels needs to be done anyway.

Now... all clones would have the chip, because there's no way to know which clones would follow the order on their own, and which would need help.

From an RPG perspective there might be an interesting "out" for Clone Players though:

Palpatine's orders are cut short, so they only get "Execute Order Six...."

What is Order 6? Will it be something the Jedi thinks should be followed too? How do they go about it?

12 minutes ago, Ghostofman said:

I was working on something long, but I think this is really the important part.

Some clones just plain wouldn't have misgivings about attacking the Jedi, and it would be just an order. Now... it might be a kinda big order, akin to a nuclear launch order, but that doesn't require a special inhibitor chip to follow.So the only clones that NEED-need the chip would be ones like Rex. Clones that are used to operating on their own, improvising, throwing the regs into the wind, and have a good relationship with the Jedi. Someone like Fox on the other hand would probably just execute, chip or no. A clone that had little personal interaction with Jedi would probably not need a chip, as the Order is just a lawful order, a big one, but an order. And some might be totally good with it. Some might look at what the Jedi can do, and think "well dang, if they become a threat, we're gonna have to do something," with order 66 being that trigger.

Ah, but it's not exactly a lawful order by any stretch of the imagination. It's "exterminate the entire Jedi Order, without trail or court-martial or anything, yes, even the underage Padawans". That's not a legal or moral order, and no good soldier would follow it.

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Even then, the exact definition of "overriding their personality" is dependent on your view.

Continuing the examples above, Fox would operate as normal. Rex would need a push, but how that push manifests is the thing, and for that, lets look at a more middle ground clone like Cody.

Cody wasn't as free-wheeling as Rex, but he had the rest of the boxes checked for requiring a chip. So on screen we see that. Cody doesn't stop being Cody, he just accepts the order and executes, in much the way he would any serious order. The chip wasn't pulling some kind of total Manchurian Candidate hypno-order. It was just saying "This is an order, it's important, it must be followed." but the clone was still operating as normal.

Bouncing back to Rex, lets propose an Infinities where he doesn't remove his chip and is hanging with Ahsoka when the Order comes through. A situation like this is plausible:

*exchanging blaster fire and saber swings*

A: Rex, what are you doing?

R: Sorry commander, I've got my orders.

A: You don't have to follow them!

R: Sometime you do Ahsoka. You don't have to like them, but you do have to follow them.

See, Rex's "personality" is still there, the chip is just causing him to interpret O66 as a massive Nuclear-strike level order. One that he doesn't have to like, but that he feels needs to be done anyway.

Well, we never saw a clone with an actual personality follow the order. Your Rex/Ahsoka scene is entirely supposition based on nothing much. The new season 7 probably will cover Order 66 and shine some light on how this would work.

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From an RPG perspective there might be an interesting "out" for Clone Players though:

Palpatine's orders are cut short, so they only get "Execute Order Six...."

What is Order 6? Will it be something the Jedi thinks should be followed too? How do they go about it?

When Tup's chip got activated accidentally, he wasn't given any kind of order. He just started hating Jedi, until after a while he snapped and executed a Jedi.

When Palpatine and Dooku discuss the incident they literally refer to it as an activation. And they see nothing wrong with how the clone acted. This was Order 66 working as intended, even with no actual order given, just the chip activating.

How is it not lawful? It is a contingency order and it was given by the commander in chief. What is unlawful about it? It isnt moral. But it is lawful.