AluminiumWolf said:

Really good points. I think there's probably a compromise somewhere. A little bit more force stuff so that 1) when this system actually launches the force rules are solid going forward and 2) There are a few more tools in there so that if someone did wanna make a campaign with Jedi they could extrapolate based on those tools.

RonRamron said:

Some friendly counter points…

1.) I think if you want Force rules to eventually be "solid" in the 3rd Force book, then you want as little Force rules in the EotE as possible. It is always easier to build from a fresh slate (if there were NO force rules in EotE) than to try to jerry-rig things in book 3 to fit rules that were in book 1, or worse, retcon book 1 rules to fix issues that arise in the beta testing of book 3.

2.) Honestly, I do not think that this is the book for those people. This is a beta test to work on rules for the "vision" the book is trying to convey. Hope that made sense. If you are trying to say, "I would like to change the vision of the book to include X, and thus include rules for X" then I think you may be out of luck.

But that's not a problem as there are 3 other well-established RPGs for you to run Force users in. It's not as if anyone is lacking in options. I don't think irritation with the "there's not enough Force!" forumites is because they aren't providing good input, it's because after stating the same thing a couple times, they begin to come across as whiny. That can be resolved by restructuring their arguments to fit the parameters of the Beta Test.

RonRamron said:

FFG seems to have done something rather divergent. It's as if they're treating this first book (and the lineup of 3) like a movie, with baked in setting, era, and all.

Not sure that I agree with it… but it seems clear that's their intent. Hmmm. Time will tell if that works, or alienates the existing fanbase.

RonRamron said:

+1 for truth.

countrugen said:

Just a question - do you think though the book would fly off the shelves in the same way with no rules for the Force in, in any capacity? I think it could really hit potential sales and even if the system is universally praised you can the one almost guaranteed comment in any review will be 'but you've got to wait for two years before you can play any sort of Jedi'. I don't think from a $$ perspective the book can afford to not have any Force rules in, but what do I know?

Chobbly said:

My work background involves a lot of "customer expectation" vs. product. Vision or no vision, if a piece of software goes out missing a feature that the customer base wants or expects, the reviews and/or sales reflect that. The software is "dinged" for that missing feature, regardless of vision. Film and TV? Same thing. For example, a television show does a season. Then, sometimes, a research firm is hired to collate critic response as well as on-the-street level audience response to that season. You'd better believe that the document that results in this research is used directly to inform the showrunner/writer's room what works and what doesn't but moreover it informs on "audience expectation". It's a fancy way of saying, "What do the people want?"

Well, in this case, a lot of the people want more force rules, and they're not wrong. This beta test? It's here to give FFG a clear picture of how their "vision" is fairing in the wild.

Ron Moore (BSG, Star Trek) once said something interesting when asked about the method he employed in killing the Captain Kirk character.

I'm paraphrasing, but he said something along the lines of - "Everyone expected Kirk to die heroically on the Bridge of a starship with fire everywhere and guns blazing. We thought we'd be clever and do something totally against expectation so we decided he would be shot in the back (the original ending before reshoots)… We thought it'd be shocking and innovative. What we didn't realize at the time is that sometimes the audience expects something for very good reasons. Kirk should have died on the bridge of a starship."

Sorry to get Star Trek mixed up with Star Wars. It's not a chocolate and peanutbutter combo for some.

countrugen said:

Well, fundamentally I don't think the way to go about making an Avengers roleplaying game is to make a gritty cowboy game and hope you can bolt superpowers on top.

Stuff like - at what size do the dice pools become unweildy or break entirely and will Jedi fit in to that range? How do attacks and defences scale with ability, and at what point do they stop working, and will Jedi fit in to that range? Can a system where the first strike with a lightsaber is likely to end a fight produce the kind of duels we see in the prequel trilogy and other? are, I think, important questions that need to be answered as soon as possible if the system is ever going to do Jedi with any success.

I agree. I'm no game designer, but my sense is the same. Force rules need a strong foundation in the first core book - this one - if they're to have a hope of working later on.

RonRamron said:

Honestly, I don't get this concept at all. We are here to provide beta testing for Book 1. Your feedback is not in regards to anything in the book, but of things NOT in the book and you are, in effect, saying "I can't beta test the third book (yet to be seen) because rules for it are not in the first book." Let's leave the third book with the third book. It's day will come. The best you can do (and have done) is say "wish we had more force in book1." And then provide mechanical feedback IRT what force rules there are in book 1.

I think it just frustrates some other people to hear the same thing, time and again, from the same people. Everyone gets it. We all understand.

…and I should probably take my own advice and stop feeding the dead horse. lol

I think you're missing the fact that while it may seem redundant to you, the "feeding of the dead horse" (i dig the term) is an indication of how important this issue is to many gamers. …Again, important info for FFG to have.

Like I say though, making a system suited for playing low level characters and hoping it would scale up to superheroes failed hard when it was done with 40k, so I don't think asking questions about how they are going to do it differently this time are out of order.

How is this going to scale? is an important question to ask of a system that is intended to scale.

In short, we did what people are suggesting last time and it didn't work. What are we going to do this time?

RonRamron said:

Well, how much more "Force stuff" do you want or really even need in the Beta?

We've got the three basic Force powers that we see in the movies, stats for a lightsaber, and a specialization that offers some pretty nifty and currently unique abilities that have to do with being Force-sensitive? True, you can't reach Jedi Knight levels of badassery, but that's an intentional omission. It'd be like wedging rules for full-conversion cyborgs and Akira-level psychic powers into a Firefly/Serenity-style game.

The simple fact the Week 2 update pretty much totally revamped the way the most of the Force Powers worked proves that this system quite simply isn't ready for the introduction of Jedi. I'd much rather they wait and make sure they get the basic foundation for the Force to work right than dropping Jedi in our laps and having the whole thing go to hell, which would be followed with people complaining about how FFG ruined Jedi. And even when they do start releasing Jedi material, there's going to be people complaining; FFG's damned if the do, damned if the don't, so I can't blame Jay Litttle or his team for taking the second option.

Again, maybe it's because you're new, but even after a couple weeks you do quite sick of seeing the same couple posters cropping up and whining incessantly about how there's no way to play a "Jedi" in this game, when in fact there is. It's just that instead of having Jedi as your starting career, you're taking the Luke Skywalker path to becoming a Jedi, having to buy the Force-Sensitive Exile specialization and build from there.

Thus, my open challenge to those folks. If you think you know how Jedi should be implemented at this early stage of the game, prove it. Put something together, be it a full-fledged Jedi Career with a Consular, Guardian, and Sentinel specializations or just a Jedi-in-Training or Jedi-in-Hiding specialization that operates similar to how the Force-Sensitive Exile works. Personally, I do miss the fact that "official Jedi" aren't an option, but rather than whine and moan about it, I'm in the midst of playtesting a revision to how Force-Sensitivity interacts with the career/specialization system, with two entirely new Force-based specializations, one of which is Jedi-based. It still needs a bit of refinement, and once that's done I may very well submit the concept as a suggestion to FFG as a means of saying "Hey, here's a possible method for expanding on the options for Force-using characters."

Donovan Morningfire said:

I would argue that since they have already said that after the Serenity game they will make Full-Conversion Cyborg: The Game followed by Akira-level psychic battles: The Game using the same system , it behoves us to ensure that the system won't break when it tries to do Full-Conversions Borgs and Akira whatnots.

But hey, it didn't work last time, so I am sure it will this time. People said exactly the same things with the 40k games - this game doesn't need rules for X because X isn't in this game. Then when it came time for Xs game the rules didn't work because the system wasn't designed with X in mind.

countrugen said:

I could be way off the mark here, but honestly, I don't see the content of the book changing all that much in the final version of EotE. I think the beta is out for us to "fine tune" what is there, and to find any twink-ability to it. I would be shocked if we saw more then "Fluff" and minor fixes, and clarity issues. Not that I wouldn't relish more, but, I just don't see it.

Dulahan said:

The problem is that the argument kills itself. The Jedi SHOULD NOT be balanced with other players. They ARE exceptional, even compared to exceptional. It's a self limiting argument. You can't play a pilot/ bounty hunter/ or anything else with a jedi hanging around. They use the Force, an omnipotent power, that allows them to do everything you do, better.

For sake of this, a jedi is supposed to use the force to fly, they do. In SAGA that mechanically came out to a +14 to piloting skill., in the first few levels. Mind you this is farm boy who really never stepped in a ship before. Now compare that with my pilot, career pilot, Wedge, Red Leader, etc…. who are jamming a +6 in piloting if they are lucky. It isn't balanced, but it is exactly how it is supposed to be. Luke blew up the death star in a vehicle he had never so much as looked at, prior to that engagement, while 90% of the career pilots couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, and got blowed up for their efforts.

Jedi can do this with every, single, thing!

The only reason to have a bounty hunter around is to do the things that are morally inappropriate, stuff the the Jedi shouldn't/can't do. What's the use of playing a soldier if the jedi can just reflect every shot bullet back at the attacker and hit with beyond normal accuracy? Whats the point in being a doctor when the jedi can heal themselves better then any medicine ever could? See the problem? You can't balance them because you would have some suck jedi, but to have them at power, well, the other 4 players, at the table, that are not jedi are sitting around with their thumbs up their butts wondering how to contribute to the story. "Should we be her royal wipers?"

Inevitably the padawan argument comes up. That insinuates that there is a "master" to learn from, which places more then one jedi in a given solar system, and BAM- Vader attention. The padawan would be much more balanced however, but what should happen if they ever ascended? That could be the last adventure, kinda thing. Let them go balls out for a session or two, but keep them in check the rest of the campaign.

I guess it really isn't a question of if you could balance them, it more a question of if you should balance them.

I fully support your, "other force users" point, though I still think it's gonna be a while before we see them, and most of them are rather confined to their respective home worlds.

$hamrock said:

No, it doesn't. My point every time I try to bring up those examples is that it -is- possible to have a mechanically more powerful character in a system not overshadow the rest. It is done in numerous games. So often I keep getting criticized for just whining, yet every single time I keep trying to offer similar games for ideas of how a solution can be handled and that gets ignored EVERY TIME.

Like Dr Who - a Timelord, just like The Slayer in a Buffy game, is so far beyond a companion it's not even funny. But the system allows other, more non-traditional ways to balance it out. It's a means to give narrative parity so they can have as much influence on the story and not feel overshadowed just because one character can feasibly roll more dice.

Like in the OT - Luke is a Jedi. And by RotJ especially he is definitely more powerful than the rest of the characters. Yet at the same time, other characters have at least as much narrative influence. Arguably, some like Han and the Droids have even more narrative influence.

In Buffy this comes off as non-Slayers get twice as many Drama Points, which allows them to do some impressive things. And lets them survive encounters otherwise far beyond their ability. Dr Who takes a similar approach with Story Points. And that's the balance to otherwise better skills. So in a system like that, no, it's not impossible for a normal to do stuff when a Jedi is around, they get other tools to keep up and have fun.

To go to the OT - I'd probably give the Droids the most Story Points (Used, for example, when they walk right through the middle of a firefight untouched), then Han and the non-Jedi organics (Lots flew during the attack on the barge! Right down to Han's use of one to do the blind attack), and Luke the fewest.

While in the PT - Again, the droids (though R2D2 got twinky, so might have less than C3P0 - either that or he got a lot more creative with his storypoints. Oh! I've got a small fire thing to light the oil!… And sadly, Jar Jar probably had a lot too. Blech! But the point stands. Then Padme probably slightly less than them. With the JEdi having the fewest.)

Another pro to a system like this is that it can easily be scaled to allow things like a Master-Padawan game. Which I'd say is a VERY good thing in the theme, what with Clone Wars and most of the PT. Ahsoka has less skills than Anakin, but more Story/Drama points. So when it is time to fight Grievous or Dooku or Big Bad Villain of the Week she has the tools to survive and even feel like she played a part in the success even if Anakin or Obi-Wan is the one with the skills to win. Heck, I'd argue that by the time we get the Jedi Book that this be a design goal - to allow the Master/Padawan game. That's pretty much an archetypical 'party' for Star Wars. Naturally, this would come with some sort of decrease in Drama/Story Points as you rise in overall skill.

Just as a point of discussion, does anyone actually have a burning desire to play a non-Jedi in a game with full on Jedi like Anakin or Obi-Wan or Darth Maul in their prime?

AluminiumWolf said:

With my group? Yep. Odds are someone will want to be a Mandolorian. Then a Smuggler. And a couple Jedi. Actually, one friend will want to be a Droid because he likes being a Protocol Droid. I'm not even kidding!

AluminiumWolf said:

Yes.

Force users 'splode just like everyone else when you pop them in the chest with a grenade launcher.

ItsUncertainWho said:

Force users 'splode just like everyone else when you pop them in the chest with a grenade launcher.

:-)

AluminiumWolf said:

Yes. I have no problem hiding behind my Jedi buddies and using my brain to fight instead of my glowstick. To a large dergree fighting a Jedi is a game of chess. You need to maneuver him into a situation where his abilities are useless, then have that situation kill him.

That is assuming that you need to fight the Jedi yourself. Most of the time, I hide behind the other Jedi and provide support. Do things like shooting the ceiling to get debris to drop on the bad guy. It isnt going to actually hurt him, but when it distracts long enough for your buddy to ram his lightsaber through the bad guys chest, it is really nice. I dont mind getting the assist.

There is also the fact that since I didnt spend a bucket load of points on the Force, I will have a few more talents and skills. Yeah, you guys may be great for getting the Queen off the planet, but when we have to set down in a rather, shall we say dubiuous, location for repairs, not only will I get us the hyperdrive in about 20 minutes, but I will also get us luxury quarters in Jabba's palace, box seats at the Boonta Eve Classic, and all the slave girls you could possibly want. Well, that last one is just for me.

All I need is for you to agree to everything I say, and not say the word 'Amidala' for the next 48 hours. Oh, and the promise for a big pile of cred, but that is just a trifle, we can worry about that later.

You keep the glow sticks, I'll take the babes, the cash and the hot-rodded spaceship.

ItsUncertainWho said:

Or they just use telekinesis to make the grenade stay where you are and blow you up like anytime I played WEG and someone tried to pull that crap.

I was sorta thinking if people had the option of playing

-a non-Jedi in a game with no Jedi

-a non-Jedi in a game with Jedi like Darth Maul

which would they prefer?

Dulahan said:

One of the many flaws with WEG.

Looking at how Move works, however - can't see that happening in this system.