One of my players loves the Misdirect power. I don't mind it, but I often am reminded why so many GMs hate illusions in all sorts of games. Man, they can be tough to rule on. Many of his effects are distractions during combat, and I’m not always sure what the effects should be. I should really come up with some guidelines, as I have a Nemesis to throw at him that I think would make heavy use of the same power. A “Dueling Illusions” situation could be fun.

As an example, a trick he likes to pull is “Pants on fire.” His enemies suddenly perceive that their pants are on fire. Hence the name. Now, if he uses black pips, they’ll suffer Strain. That’s a nice easy mechanical effect, which I interpret as the enemies feeling the flames blistering their skin, causing agonizing pain. Sort of like in Dune, when Paul sticks his hand in the box. However, this player generally tries to avoid spending black pips. So his targets still see their pants as being on fire. The illusion is no less convincing, maybe a bit painful, but it would be more of a “Yow! Hot hot hot!” than screaming as they feel their flesh boiling. I’m not quite sure how to represent that mechanically. Throw setback dice at the targets? What about if he goes for a “Mirror Image” effect, so that his enemy sees a bunch of him? Or he could always just have a bunch of reinforcements appear for his side.

I don’t mind him making heavy use of the power, and I want to make sure he gets a nice bonus, but I really don’t want to give him an “I win” button. Anyone else dealt with a lot of illusions in their games? How have you handled it?

If the person thinks that they are on fire, they would probably try to "put it out" as if they were affected by the Burn quality. So have them spend their Action rolling on the ground. If they were actually on fire, it would be an Athletics check, but in this case there is no check since there's nothing to succeed/fail.

I would argue that you can't make someone think they are on fire without some light dark side pips. I view it as dark side pips makes scary/painful illusions, light side is just decoy/facsimile.

I'd be tempted to go for an "X pips/successes = Y setback Dice" kind of arrangement, and make the details of the actual illusion purely fluff.

13 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

If the person thinks that they are on fire, they would probably try to "put it out" as if they were affected by the Burn quality. So have them spend their Action rolling on the ground. If they were actually on fire, it would be an Athletics check, but in this case there is no check since there's nothing to succeed/fail.

I would argue that you can't make someone think they are on fire without some light dark side pips. I view it as dark side pips makes scary/painful illusions, light side is just decoy/facsimile.

Yeah I would second this.

I have not encountered this Force Power as of yet, but to me the long descriptions reads exactly like P-47 stated.
Light-Side powered Illusions are no less convincing but are in no way, shape or form painful or harmful.

If that's already a Thing in your game, maybe talk to your player and see what he thinks.

Thematically you might want to look into more confusing illusions for the same effect, rather than illusionary harmful stuff; Like the person sees weird and random colors or maybe they start seeing object that are in the room move / transform (maybe they think their Blaster Pistol has suddenly changed into something else ?).
That could be fun maybe? (And would result in similar mechanical effects).

To me "painful" Illusions or even threatening Illusions have the "Dark Side" Tag, it's just how I'd interpret things.
If he spends Darkside Pips, go ahead and let them think their pants are on fire, totally reasonable (it is malicous ^^ ).

Mechanically the idea of @Stethemessiah is sound in my opinion, if Setbacks get too high, maybe throw in an Upgrade for more fun 😃

I'm far less concerned with the narrative of the illusion itself. I'm fine with Light pips generating something that's scary, but it's not going to have the same psychological effect as using Dark pips.

I think I'll kinda divide it up, based on mechanical effect. A "soft" effect like Setback dice will be a normal Force roll. A "hard" effect that directly affects the target's actions will need a skill roll as well.

So a "reinforcements" or "mirror image" type of effect could mean two things. Without a skill roll, the targets are a bit distracted and suffer Setback. With a successful skill roll, the targets will probably need to deal with the effect, by attacking the false images, or perhaps fleeing from the reinforcements. Of course it will depend on the nature of the conflict.

For handling Misdirect, would just say have the subject react to the illusion as if the illusion was real.

This includes when it's something really goofy, like "My E-11 just turned into a banana!"

Have you ever had a dream where it's like: "Hmm... I'm trying to make a bomb with these pecans, but it isn't exploding. OH, of course it isn't exploding. An electrical impulse won't trigger the pecans, you need an old-fashioned fuse."
You still have a semblance of logic, but you are accepting completely abnormal situations as perfectly ordinary.

That would be pretty much what it is with Misdirect. The stormtrooper just sort of accepts it as the reality, even if it doesn't really make sense.

They won't necessarily react in a way the PC intended, and some attempts may backfire. "Oh, you just convinced him there's a full platoon of rebels approaching? He just called in reinforcements."