Dulahan said:

I think a lot of this ultimately boils down to whether you agree or disagree with the proposed scope and direction of Edge of the Empire.

Another poster here complained that the d20 core books, Saga Edition especially, tried to do "too much at once," and ended up being too broad. Plenty of other folks I know loved the fact that the Saga Edition didn't have such a narrow focus, allowing the material within to be useful no matter what era of play you wanted, from KOTOR to Legacy Era and everything in between.

Edge of the Empire, in contrast, has a much more narrow scope, and it's honest about it. Now I'm not saying your wrong, but I think you also have to consider the possibility that players aren't intended to be galactic movers and shakers at this point; think less Battlestar Galactica and more Firefly. In fact, you can easily see the crew of Serenity as PCs in an Edge of the Empire campaign, with River being a Force-Sensitive Exile and not really having a lot of "power" (she's mostly limited to the Sense power tree). Yes, we see River kicking all sorts of butt by the end of Serenity (the GM was treating all those Reavers as minions and River had just increased her Force Rating and bought the Control Upgrade that lets you boost an ability die to a proficiency die), but she wouldn't stand much of a chance against a veteran Jedi Knight or your average Sith Lord.

Admittedly, I'd have liked to see a "Basic Jedi Training" specialization right out the gate, perhaps allowing access to the Lightsaber skill and with talents centered on making your lightsaber a powerful means of attack and defense, mostly by increasing it's inherent traits as well as bolstering some skills (the Uncanny Senses and Uncanny Reaction talents and their kin). But even then, I wouldn't expect such a talent tree to take one much past the Young Jedi Knight level in terms of Force Rating.

So far, it seems like a lot of folks are on-board with the "limited scope" of EotE and that such scope doesn't really include "super-powerful" Force users at the moment. As said, I'd be happy with a "Jedi Basic Training" specialization, and be willing to leave the higher-end stuff for later books that might be able to give such things the full treatment they deserve, rather than being shoe-horned into the "initial book."

Like I said, it pretty much boils down to a choice between "general and all-encompassing" versus "narrow and specific focus." WotC went with the former, FFG looks like they're currently planning on going with the later. I agree that it'd be nice if the option existed, either via Dedication or some other means, of going beyond a Force Rating of 2, but neither do I think the game will shrivel up and die if it's not there.

It's giving us the potential to be, not even really the rules. Yes the Force Rating will have an effect, but when even some of the NPCs have a higher rating than you can get? That's silly.

Just give the ability (Or clarify if Dedication can be used for Force Raising). It's still perfectly in scale. I am hardly saying you should be able to get Force Rating 3+ right away. I'm saying that late game, in a longer lasting campaign, it should be possible. Because it's still going to be 1.5 years of play for some of us before even Rebellion comes out, and we don't know if that will even allow better force users at all. And in late game, it would be nice to have something for Force Users, something to help support it until the Real McCoy comes out.

Dulahan said:

To be fair, Vader should always have a higher rating than players can get unless you go back to Revan and the Old Republic.

Inksplat said:

I don't entirely disagree with that. Though if I had my druthers, the ideal Star Wars game would have potential with the Force be a main stat. Not just treat it as Force Sensitive or Not and if you can spend enough XP you'll be as powerful as Vader. Since that's sorta… wrong. The Force's max potential is a natural inborn trait. So if it's not too late FFG, include this! Then that Force Rating of 2 max in EotE might not mean so much if I know that my PC is also potentially a JEdi Master if he got the training!

That being said, there's also the "PC Exceptionalism" side of the coin. That The PCs (Caps intended) are special, they are the heroes. And they should be able to do anything anyone in the movie can, including being THE Hero or whatever. This side is ultimately a GM thing I suppose. Though if there were a "Force Potential" stat, handled… however. It would make the GM having to be such irrelevant, which I think would be the best bet.

I mean, canonically, some people are so weak in the force they don't get further than the Jedi Service Corps (Though sometimes that's a weakness of character too). Others will never grow beyond basic Master (Which is attained by training a Padawan). Others are STUPID powerful i nthe Force, they're the Yodas, the Mace Windus and other Councilmembers, the Obi Wans and Qui Gons, the Emperor, and then there's the Lukes and Vaders. The CHOSEN ONES. The ones who are unprecedented, unheralded, most powerful potential Force Users ever.

That's why it could be cool to have the option of building our character's potential instead of just FS or not, and use XP.

Dulahan said:

I DO think that whatever embers of the force we get in Edge of the Empire need to be able to extrapolate and grow into the later systems organicly. Otherwise the systems won't be completely compatible which would bum me out ( the 40k rules modification creep is a good recent example from FFG ).

That's not quite what I meant, I said the eventual potential, which is just one number that doesn't even need to come into effect until the later ones. And optimism, yes. I realize not everything. But keep in mind there were some HUGE changes in Only War too. and that was likely closer to release than this. So if you don't try, you don't ever succeed.

And I wasn't asking for being able to start those as PCs. I was saying we need to eventually be able to become them within the rules. Because as of now we do not know how the later books will look. We know Rebellion and Jedi, but nothing more. And further, it's end game stuff in a campaign of this setting. Not something that you can get in 2-3 sessions, more like 20-30 sessions in a long running campaign you can get to the level where if the powers were made, you could be a rough equivalent to a Jedi on the Run in understanding of the force.

Just a thought but what if you treat the Force Rating as another characteristic?

A way to restrict this so you don't have them going all Force Unleashed is make it a requirement that they need a teacher to improve their Force Rating perhaps even a Holocron of either Jedi or Sith but ideally the best any such instructor/instruction device can do is one level less than they possess so you could have an npc Jedi survivor of Order 66 whose Force Rating is 4 and can only train a padawan up to 3 without the help of other Jedi.

Same goes for the Sith side but this would go a long way to explain the hijinx of the Force Unleashed series because Vader trained Starkiller himself and then sent him after some of the strongest surviving Jedi Masters which is when he became a threat to Vader and even his master …

Sorry to go off on a tangent but other than your characters hunting for Force artefacts that grant them a bonus to their force abilities that isn't necessarily a good thing especially if its Sith related…

Until something official comes out in two or three years time it wouldn't hurt to experiment on this and let the rest of us know what you think about this?

Oh and I understand the need to keep this low key after all the higher their force rating the more chance they'll be detected I thought I ought to emphasize that since unless your characters are loyal to the Empire (which should hopefully be unlikely until the second book comes out…) this is a very bad thing and if any player in my game starts thinking of that kind of thing I plan on recommending certain fan movies and point to the 4th and 5th season of the animated star wars clone wars series as examples of why you don't want to go that route …

Anyway looking forward to reading your responses to this!

copperbell said:

Well, it's been proposed earlier in the thread, before the back-and-forth arguments, about letting characters use the Dedication talent to increase their Force Rating, in effect treating it as just another characteristic.

The thing is, anytime the GM has to force a limit on something that otherwise could be raised at will, you're gonna run the risk of having players pitch a fit over it.

D6 Star Wars had a version of that, with Force Skills being a lot more expensive to raise if you didn't have some means of instruction, and there were players that complained about how their Force-using heroes had to either pay thru the nose or simply accept not being able to do much while the smuggler and the bounty hunter could keep being awesome since they didn't have to pay extra to raise their key skills. Granted that kinda fell apart once the Jedi characters hit the "sweet spot" with their Force skills (about 5D or so), but that didn't stop the complaints.

Given the low level of focus on Force-users that Edge of the Empire has, and that you really don't need to go beyond 3 Force Dice on average unless you really want to try some super-crazy stuff (like activating a Range Upgrade several times on Move while also using the Strength and Magnitude Upgrades) or want to read the minds of dozens of people with several meters all at once, you're really not going to need more than 3 Force Points. And that's something that's easily achievable, especially if you're willing to spend a destiny point and suffer some Strain to do it. Granted, this does go back to the argument of whether PCs should be allowed to reach Force Rating 4 or higher at this point in the game's development life, but from my playtesting experiences, anything more than 4 at this point is a blend of overkill and ego-stroking.

So on that respect, if a GM really does want to give their players the option to go beyond Force Rating 2 using just the Beta/core material, I'm thinking a one-time application of Dedication would be sufficient, even without an instructor. In effect, the player is swapping the Dedication talent from their non-F/S specialization for the Force Rating talent. Just make sure the player in question is well aware that it's a one-time deal, and any further Force Rating boosts would have to come in the form of Force Rating talents purchased as part of other Force-Sensitive specializations (of which I'm sure there will be others, even before SW: Force & Destiny is released).

You could use the hunting for Force-artifacts such as ancient scrolls or holocrons as the justification for this one-time exception (as Force Rating's not a characteristic and thus is normally ineligible for being raised via Dedication).

Had a thought this morning ( Yes I had a bad feeling about that too!) and I was wondering if it occurred to anyone to replace the Influence, Move and Sense Talent Trees with Alter, Control and Sense Force Skills ?

Been rereading earlier edition of Star Wars specifically from West End Games and got wondering if you used the Force Rating as your Force Characteristic and the Force Skills as well your skills.

The cost for both would be the same as for Characteristics with the limitation that you would need some kind of Holocron or other Force Artefact to increase either Characteristic or Skill albeit it would be easier if you had a teacher (or even better yet more than 1!) but in any cae the maximum they or the artefact can do is raise your Force Characteristic to 1 less than their Rating or Skill and of course whatever powers they know within limits as there will always be at least 1 power they couldn't learn because of the limit on what their teacher can teach them.

Any force power that is covered by more than one force skill requires you increase each of the force skills involved by 1 to gain that power, another way to improve your force abilities is to confront or be confronted by another force user testing your abilities against each other but that should be harder than normal teaching given in the New Hope Era you should be avoiding detection like the plague!

Using this method you use normal rules to use these abilities the lower of either the Force Rating or the force skill used upgrades the larger's ability dice to proficiency dice a critical failed roll would reduce the character's Force Rating by 1 until they able to rest (and no you can't use Accelerate Healing to speed up the recover of lost Force Rating! )

Every success rolled is treated as a 5 under the weg system and if you earn a darkside point you can add that to your Force Rating when committing violence or an evil act BUT it reduces your Force Rating when you're trying to recover or regain your cool since using the lightside when you have darkside points means you become rather violent and very bad tempered! (Well thats one way to strip your dm of his destiny points isn't it? )

You gain enough Darkside points to equal your Force Rating at any point (including when your Force Rating is reduced through exhausting use of force powers) your character falls under the dm's control and becomes permanently an npc if you actually had more Darkside than Force Rating although your fellow players or Jedi could run through a few sessions to return you to the Light but its better you avoid earning Darkside points in the first place (and thats a lesson I've yet seen implemented!)

What do you think?

I have to admit I'm only been thinking about this because I don't get the existing system well how Influence, Move and Sense abilities work, I get the force die and the existing rule about Darkside as so far mentioned, well lets see what you think, thanks for reading by the way!

copperbell said:

Well, this approach has the inherent drawback that the WEG system did, in that once you achieve a certain number of skill ranks, it becomes quite easy to activate Force powers, and if you're porting the entire WEG method (skills & powers) over, then you're going to eventually wind up with Force-users who can do a whole heck of a lot more with their few ranks in Control/Sense/Alter than most characters can with their own skills.

As for not getting the existing system, what parts of it are confusing to you? I'm honestly curious, as I've found it pretty straightforward, in that unless there's an opposed Discipline roll as per the Week 2 Update (seriously, if you haven't downloaded the weekly updates, you really need to do so, as there have been some sweeping changes to how Force powers work in this game). Otherwise, the only "success threshold" you need to beat is the required number of Force Points to activate the basic power (typically 1 Light Side) plus 1 additional Force Point per Upgrade you want to trigger (note that if you've purchased the same upgrade, such as Range or Strength, multiple times, you only need 1 FP to activate all of them).

These aren't meant for anyone specifically, but I thought I'd post a couple examples of Force powers in use. Please do note that these examples take into account the changes made in Week 2 (how various Upgrades work) and Week 7 (the default of Move's basic power).

So for our first example, I'll start fairly simple with an Emperor's Hand (pg 202, has the Influence power with the first Control Upgrade, the Strength Upgrade, and one Range Upgrade) decides to "stress out" one of the PCs, who is currently at short range. The Hand spends their action that round to activate the Influence power, and needs to score at least 2 Force Points (1 for the Basic Power, 1 for the Range Upgrade). Strength Upgrade would be nice, but with a Force Rating of only 2 and using the Dark Side pips on his Force Dice, the Hand isn't likely to get that third Force Point he'd need to activate both the Range and Strength Upgrades. Since the basic power of Influence doesn't cite an opposed check, the Hand goes straight to rolling his Force Dice, and unfortunately for the PC targeted rolls like a pro, generating 3 Force Points (all Dark Side). So the Hand has gotten the minimum of 2 he needed, and has an extra Force Point which he uses to activate the Strength Upgrade, causing the PC to suffer 2 points of Strain Damage.

For a more complex example, we have a Forsaken Jedi (pg206, has the Move power and appears to also have 1 Range Upgrade, 1 Strength Upgrade, and 1 Magnitude Upgrade as well as the first Control Upgrade) wants to blast a pair of street toughs (pg199, not in a group) that are currently at short range, he'd roll 3 dice for his Force Rating, and needs to come up with 3 Light Side Force Points (1 for the basic power, 1 to activate the Strength Upgrade as the thugs are both Silhouette 1 objects, 1 to activate the Magnitude Upgrade to affect both troopers, and 0 for the Control Upgrade). Since the Control Upgrade to attack requires an opposed Discipline check, the Forsaken Jedi also rolls his Discipline (2 Ability dice for his Willpower, no ranks in Discipline) vs. the tough's Discipline (which adds 1 Difficulty die for their Willpower of 1 and no ranks in Discipline), for a total roll of 2 Ability dice and 1 Difficulty die. If the Forsaken Jedi succeeds on the Discipline check (pretty likely) and gets the 3 required Force Points, then his telekinetic goes off and both thugs take 10 damage plus any extra damage from any extra successes the Forsaken Jedi might achieve. Now, let's say that he succeeds on the Discipline check, but only rolls 2 Light Side Force Points. He can activate the basic power of Move, but he can't activate both the Strength and the Magnitude Upgrades (and decides not to take the Strain to use his "on the edge" special ability). Since the thugs are both Silhouette 1 objects, the Forsaken Jedi decides to just activate the Strength upgrade and hurls one of the two thugs aside, dealing 10 damage to the one mook while the other thug suffers no ill effects.

Now, had the Forsaken Jedi tried that same tactic on a pair of Stormtroopers (Willpower 3, Discipline listed as a Minion Group skill), he'd be a lot less likely to succeed, especially if the stormtroopers were acting as a minion group, as he'd be rolling his 2 Ability dice against 2 Difficulty Dice and 1 Challenge die.

For a third and final example, I'll use Valin, my teenage Force-Sensitive Scoundrel (has the Sense basic power and the Control Upgrade that lets him upgrade an opponent's difficulty once per round) finds himself in a smallish, poorly-lit room (suffering 2 Setback dice from Concealment), but wants to see if he's the only living thing in the room, using Sense's basic power to see if there's anything within several meters (Short Range). He only needs a single Light Side Force Point, which is good because he's only got a Force Rating of 1. He rolls, and lucks out with a single Light Side Force Point, so he's able to sense that there are two other people in the room, though he still has no idea who they are. However, thinking things are about to go bad (as they so often do), he spends his action the next round activating his Control Upgrade. As this is an Ongoing Effect, he doesn't have to roll his Force die or generate any Force Points, he simply sets the one required Force Die aside, but this also means that he can't use the basic power of Sense anymore because he doesn't have any Force Dice left (he only had 1 to start with, and that's been assigned to the Ongoing Effect). After several tense moments, the lights flicker on to reveal a pair of Trandoshan goons… good thing Valin is fast on the draw and a capable shot, because things just got ugly. However, the Trandoshan goons don't get the benefit of surprise as Valin's Sense power let him know they were there, so that's something at least. GM asks for a Vigilance check, and a smirk crosses Valin's face at the bounty of successes he's rolled; the Trandoshan's planned ambush is about to blow up in their snouts.

Donovan Morningfire said:

Can you explain to me exactly what the Influence basic power does?

From reading it it sounds like all it would do is make a target feel what the user wants them to feel whether anger, fear, friendlines and so on is there any mechanics to this effect?

For example would successfully using this power grant the user a Boost die to a skill check or could it upgrade an Ability die to a Proficiency die?

It just feels poorly explained, I can understand the increase in range, number of targets but not how to handle this as a gm, the example given about the Emperor's Hand where she uses this to inflict Strain on a target feels underwhelming, wouldn't it make more sense to stipulate they can stress the target using their Force Rating as the base Strain damage with extra successes from the check, hmm the duration could allow for this to become an ongoing effect but the Hand doesn't need to remain in the vicinity to do so, still don't get the basic power though, any advice would be welcome!

copperbell said:

Oh please God, not again? I'm sorry, but I never will like the idea of "external mentoring required" in such things. Whining incoming, but that might be the thing I hated MOST about my WEG character. Not only did the "young prodigy" have more powers than me (his 3 to my 1), regardless of sense, being I had been a Jedi Knight, and he was never, but neither of us could improve that one trait. He couldn't teach me, really, and I couldn't apprentice him, because he was rather better at the Force than me. Kenobi was dead, and Yoda was unknown, leaving us with two characters who had zero potential to improve something that made us what we were. The smuggler could improve his blaster pistol with pure practice, and I my lightsaber, or a Hacker with his computer, but the Force? Nope, that sat there saying "silly drunkard, no amount of training on your own can improve me? Only listening to an old yard gnome with two pointy hats sticking off of his head, who speaks backwardsy, just to ensure you are listening, can make you better at moving rocks." Not to dis Yoda, but he was not always a great teacher, he flushed more candidates than Kakashi Hatake, and he refused to let people make their own mistakes, and if you choose to follow canon at all, he's conveniently out of reach to anyone needing education, except Luke Skywalker. Even Galen Marek didn't learn anything from him, in his 1.7 minutes on the planet.

This isn't to say education/mentoring doesn't have its place; I am who I am because of those who educated me, and I wouldn't know much of what I do, were it not for them, but putting the ceiling in at MUST have a teacher smacks of the last Jedi never being able to improve. Even if they got an apprentice, you can't tech someone to surpass you, that easily. They have to take what you teach, and carry it beyond your limitations themselves. I'd be happier if the mechanic was pay XP to boost FR, and feel free to make it a rather high XP number, that's fine; raising your understanding of the Force to a whole new die is a massive undertaking, and when you stop to think in D20, raising one Ability score requires 4 levels worth of XP, that's no small quantity, but IF you happen to have a teacher, you can get a discount to that cost, as their superior knowledge trains your skill. I could also live with Dedication boosting Force Rating, as the overall mechanic is already there.

venkelos said:

Mentoring in D6 just reduced the cost and time of training up your Force Skills. You could still improve them without a mentor, it just cost twice as much and took twice as long.

Kallabecca said:

Ah, well my GM at the time didn't seem to see it that way; he was rather adamant that sans-mentor, it was pretty much impossible. Not to say he has to be right, as he's misread things before, but it was the biggest downer, for me, in that short-running game of Star Wars.

venkelos said:

Sadly, your GM at that time botched his "Don't Be A ****" roll, as the rulebook made it pretty darn clear that you can raise your Force skills without a teacher, it's just more expensive to do so.

To be honest, I'm kind of glad the "required teacher" mechanical element of increasing your Force abilities has gone by the wayside, though I can understand & appreciate the story element of needing a teacher to introduce a student to the basic mysteries of the Force, as well as an experienced Jedi Knight/Master helping a prospective Knight go through the Trials in order to become a true Jedi Knight, much like Yoda helped prepare Luke to fulfll his destiny (though Yoda and Ben were a bit off the mark as to what that destiny was) and become the first of the new Jedi Knights.

Sorry but had another look and if a character is limited to three career specialties and takes Force Sensitive Exile for Force Rating of 1 and then after gaining Force Upgrade (or whatever its called) to increase this to +2 there's nothing stopping them selecting Dedication in each career talent tree to up that to a maximum of 5 isn't there?

Just wondered thats all…

copperbell said:

Per the update doc, there is no limit on the number of specs you can take. Also, I'm a bit confused as to how dedicated can increase Force rating. It's not a characteristic, so is unaffected by dedicated.

-EF

EldritchFire said:

EldritchFire is right in that per the rules, Dedication can't be used to raise your Force Rating, since as he noted, Force Rating isn't a Characteristic, and has never been called a Characteristic. Rather, Force Rating is an added trait, and is even listed amidst the Talents for the Emperor's Hand and Forsaken Jedi sample NPCs.

You know, I'm really starting to wonder where folks are getting the notion that Force Rating is any sort of Characteristic? Except for possible wishful thinking to get past the "Jedi Padawan" level, that is.

Donovan Morningfire said:

It NEVER was. Someone starting asking about it and claiming since the book didn't explicitly say FR wasn't a characteristic, it was a characteristic and dedication could be used to improve it.

It was stupid, and, as you said, nothing more than wishful thinking.

-WJL

LethalDose said:

Maybe so, but since a lot of people keep asking the same question, it might be something that FFG would want to clarify in the final version, even if it's something as simple as an extra sentence. If for no other reason than not everyone who purchases the final book is going to read these forums.

Donovan Morningfire said:

[facepalm]

I… guess? Perhaps you're right. I just hate wasted words.

I don't think they need to get any more clear, in this case. There's a big 'ole section called "Characteristic Ratings" - and they pretty much tell you what the Characteristics are. Force Rating ain't one of them.

But it doesn't say it's NOT one of them! … Right… We should probably also add a sentance to ensure that it's clear that character Silhouette isn't mistaken for a Characteristic, then. And… we should be sure to tell the readers that Gungans can blink. Because it's NOT in there, right now… so the reader is just going to assume that Gungans cannot blink. Unless we tell them otherwise.

GM Chris said:

I know you're being sarcastic, but sadly there are a generation of gamers that were weaned on D&D 3.X, where everything was spelled out in pretty exhausting detail. Look at all the issues that Saga Edition had in terms of rules, because you had players and GMs whose only experience with RPGs were systems that pretty much had a rule to cover just about every bit of minute aspect of the rules. While it wasn't as bad as Rolemaster (which I swear had a chart for blowing your nose in one of their supplements for the love of Yoda), 3.X was hell-bent on making sure as many i's were dotted and t's crossed as possible in a vain attempt to avoid excessive loophole and rule abuse. Granted, some of those recurring Saga Edition questions were fairly dumb ("Is Force Training supposed to be a Jedi bonus feat?" being the most common offender), but quite a few of the questions you've covered in the Order 66's Docking Bay, particularly in the early episodes, were ones whose answer was "obvious," and yet the questions existed, and you weren't snide or condescending to those question as opposed to certain posters on the WotC forums who could be downright rude.

I've gamed (very briefly) with just those sorts of folks, who either out of deliberate malice or more often blind acceptance of the 3.X mantra of "there's a rule for everything and for everything a rule," simply weren't able to accept that not everything was spelled out and that the GM had the final authority. Hell, just listen to Chris West on the Real Gamers Podcast, and his very metagamey attempts to "game the system." While I certainly his were meant more in the spirit of fun than trying to twist the rules to his advantage in a misguided attempt to "win" Star Wars, sadly there are far too many gamers that employ those same sorts of tactics and try to twist the rules to their best advantage.

The fact that "is Force Rating a Characteristic? Can I increase it using Dedication?" keeps coming up repeatedly indicates that maybe a disclaimer is warranted. Or just change the text to read something along the lines of "Upon taking their first Force-Sensitive specialization, the character receives the Force Rating talent as a bonus talent, which provides them with a Force Rating of 1. However, taking any other Force-Sensitive specializations does not provider any additional ranks of Force Rating."

Hell, I hate wasted words as well, but maybe this is a case where it actually does need to be addresses. After all, it's a rather brazen assumption that everyone that picks up the final version of EotE is going to be gaming veteran with years of experience on both sides of the screen. You and I might be lucky enough to game with seasoned. intelligent players who understand that the rules can't and won't cover ever minute aspect of the game in exhausting detail, but not every GM is going to be so lucky. And as much of a proponent of "Rule Zero" as I am, few things trump being able to show a rules-twisting player in black & white that they are dead wrong, as it cuts the arguing and hurt feelings down considerably.

GM Chris said:

+1 to this.

I understand the concerns, but it's not worth the words. This isn't a WotC game. There's no need to imitate WotC style. FFG should adapt what worked, leave what didn't by the wayside. I think we can all agree that WotC's obsession with rules-lawyering caused as many problems as it solved, or at least that their method was painfully inefficient at solving the problems.

I think we should err on the side of brevity. The rules on this topic are clear enough as they stand.

-WJL

Donovan Morningfire said:

I know… I know. You're right. But dammit… after almost 5 years of Podcasting Order 66 and answering those questions without loweing myself to the snide/condescending answers… maybe I'm just frustrated. ROFL…

[soapbox]

And our internal mantra from Day 1 with Order 66 and the d20radio forums was to NEVER, EVER, EVER be a place like the WotC forums and the downright crappy attitude that's allowed there. Our moderators have strict instructions not to put up with that shizzle… and we certainly won't propagate it on the 'cast, either. WotC forums also had a weird phenomenon (which I'm kinda starting to see crop up here… but it's been put down pretty quickly); you had people who didn't actually play … but just got their fun by buying the books and threshing them for "teh UBERZ BROKENZ comboz!!!11!" or for pointing out how the system was somehow "mechanically" flawed. You'd respond in good sense saying something like, "Okay… but who cares? It plays just fine, and doesn't really impact any session I've ever been in… and you can just play it the way you want…" And the usual responses would be, "Why don't you pay attention, jerk? I'm only concerned with the RAW, here."

Anyway… LOL…

[/soapbox]

Now… as for the "weaned on 3.X" argument… as LethalDose alluded to, this isn't a WotC product. Saga Edition had the rules minutiae becaue that's what WotC d20 is . [shrug] And if you and I are both tired of the attitude propagated by those systems, Dono… then why foster it here? With a completely new game that feels RADICALLY different and is made by a completely different company with a completely different core mechanic?

It's one thing to say that "all gamers expect it" - but I think that's a tad self-defeating. That generation of gamers learned to be that way for a reason. And the same processes that taught them ( us … because I was certainly that way for a loooooong time) how to be that way are the SAME processes that can teach them differently - not to mention teach the next generation of how "it should be".

But maybe I'm just being too hopefully naive. ;-) #hope