Donovan, merc…great bits, thank you. It's nice to get a fresh perspective on things. I've done the Jedi survivor before and it stands to reason if some nobody from a seedy background will rise above and face the challenge of being a hero, some Force-sensitive could do the same. I can see some Jedi Knight rescuing/finding a good person they feel will carry on the Jedi tradition, but their tutelage is sadly cut short before they can do muchmore than set them on the path with the basics. Perhaps the Empire catches up with them which would give the young Jedi a neat Obligation involving the Empire (I wouldn't like to assume all Force Exiles MUST be hunted by the Empire). There are so many ways, as you both pointed out.

From what I've read in the beta all you'd really need is the basics of the Lightsaber skill and (storywise) a solid, almost metaphysical push to know where to go in expanding your knowledge of the Force (I can't see a Jedi-in-training magically knowing, "I'll be good and stay on the Light path and be a space monk!"). Much of the peril of learning to be a Jedi in this era is the danger you could pose to yourself and others by not having a firm, supported framework of what it means to wield the Force and be a Jedi.

Did that make any sense? LOL

Also, can you think of anything the Lightsaber skill might do that isn't covered? I can't and the Defense and Deflect tags are pretty solid as they are. I was thinking you might be able to add Advantage to the Defense, if you're good enough. Of course, that might get a little crazy and unless you're a bad-ass you're not wading through hails of blaster fire without a singe, which seems a out of theme for the kind of Jedi that's appropriate in EotE.

TalkingMuffin said:

Yup makes sense.

And if you haven't checked the last update, you should know that both the Defense and Deflect qualities were removed from lightsaber. I think the feeling is that these should be reflected in talents and not the weapon itself. You can spend advantages on setback dice to or upgrade the difficulty of your opponent's checks, so you can "improve' your defense in that sense already. You can always allow some of the talents that apply to melee to be applied to a lightsaber skill if you so choose. Considering the huge benefit that a lightsaber already is, you want to be careful allowing too much beyond the norm right off the bat.

I meant to print out the errata this weekend…grrr…

I'm sure that some Jedi Talents are going to improve Defense when using a lightsaber, but your idea about applying existing Talents make sense. I'll need to play and fiddle over time. But, it's not like there are Jedi in the game now anyway, so it's really not that big a deal.

Back during the beta, it was determined that someone could simulate Jedi using current Talent trees such as the assassin (sentinal), politico (consular), or marauder or bodyguard (guardian). But like everything, they can be done by dipping into various talent trees.

There is a bit in The Force Unleashed book for D20 about Jedi in the Dark Times having to keep a low profile, which given that the game the book is for features the hero pulling a Star Destroyer out of orbit with his mind kinda, I dunno, wasn't exactly going to be very helpful advice for emulating the source material.

It's like a Dukes of Hazzard RPG suggesting that moonrunners should always obey traffic laws and speed limits to avoid attracting the attention of the cops.

ErikB said:

Why did you remind us of that? Bad touch! LOL

TalkingMuffin said:

That book really did have remarkably little to do with The Force Unleashed.

.

..

.

What?

Just that part of the game.

TalkingMuffin said:

Yeah, but if you have picked up a book for the game, presumably you are okay with playing Darth Vader's secret apprentice who hunts Jedi, founds the Rebel Alliance and fights Vader and Palpatine to a standstill and, yknow, does Unleashed things.

If you hate that stuff, why did you get the book?

I loved the game, overall and the book was good. Yanking SDs out of the sky while taking hits from TIE fighter cannons? Not so much…

The second game was .

ErikB said:

No, that's not what it means.

Can we PLEASE end this absurd line of "logic"? This is bad, even for this already useless thread.

Picking up this book doesn't mean you're okay playing Starkiller. No more than than picking up an Age of the Jedi book means you're okay playing Exar Kun, or picking up a Forgotten Realms book means you're okay playing Elminster, or picking up a Tolkein source book means you're okay playing Aragorn, or a picking up a DC sourcebook means your okay playing Superman.

One has nothing to do with the other.

The point of a TFU sourcebook is nothing other than providing some flavor and pre-built stat blocks for set-pieces encountered in the setting. It does not mean you have to recreate the story of source material. Quite the opposite, its an aide for GMs to facilitate the players' own adventure in that setting.

Just because you run a game or purchase an TFU source book does not mean that you expect all your PC's to be "Starkillers", you stupid f***ing git.

-WJL

PS and no, it's not nice to say that, but neither is spewing this obnoxious crap all over these forums. So if you expect to make any ignorant, short-sighted, or plain moronic statements about the game carte blanche and disregard the designers' explictly stated intent for the game system, then you should expect the rest of the community to treat you with the same lack of respect you've shown them by posting that crap in the first place.

The Force Unleashed Campaign Guide was a great resource for the Dark Times, a time peroid that really hadn't been touched on for Star Wars RPGs, covering the Empire's consolidation of power during the time span between RotS and ANH.

It also addressed what life as a Jedi-on-the-run would be like, namely the troubles to watch out for.

It was probably only Lucasfilm angling for the massive multi-media event that forced Wizards of the Coast to use "Force Unleashed" as the book's title rather than something more fitting like "Dark Times Campaign Guide" and they could have jettisoned all the Unleashed effects. Hell, the Unleashed stuff is probably the least used crunch elements out of any of the Saga Edition lines, to the point that quite a few GMs probably had to allow PCs to access those abilities without having to spend a character feat slot, and give those players willing to take the Unleashed feat an added perk for doing so, especially if the PC took the feat without fully knowing what it was going to do.

ErikB said:

Even the argument that you use to introduce this TFU argument doesn't hold much water.

First, it's stupid to draw some parallel between Starkiller, a force sensitive captured by Vader, and trained in secret to be an assassin and future sith lord who was so abnormally strong in the Force, Vader could feel him from systems away, and all the other Jedi/force users in the galaxy during the dark times, who probably never had much, if any, official training.

Second, whenI played through the first few hours of the game when I borrowed it from a friend, it was made abundantly clear from the start that, not only did Vader need to keep the apprentice hidden from everyone, but ALL the surviving Jedi (Shaak Ti, Rahm Kota, Kazdan, Marris Brood) are in hiding and trying to keep a low profile.

Reading through Wookiepedia, it sounds like Palpatine knew about Starkiller the whole time, probably because he was doing all this crazy force $h!t and Palpatine could sense him as easily as Vader did, and it ultimately leads to Star Killer's death.

I can't even see how this is surprising, if you look at Vader as a later version of Anakin. Anakin might have a been a good pilot and duelist, but he had crap for foresight, and even less talent at subtlety. Hell, the only way we see him motivate his FLAG OFFICERS was through physical intimidation and violence. So yeah, I bet it never even occured to him that Palpatine would notice all the force power being tossed around and figure out what/who Starkiller was. And with that a crappy instructor like Vader, Starkiller probably never learned methods to keep it quiet.

ANd actually, this REALLY pisses me off because, in retrospect, it makes Vader look like little more a rabid dog Palpatine managed to chain and roughly aim at his opponents, instead of AFI's #3 greatest villan of all time !!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

-WJL

LethalDose said:

Meh, I can't blame you. lol I was scratching my head as well, but whatever, right? You're right, this thread's gotten a wee silly, even for my taste. What I'd love to see is more excitement and ideas than negativity. This game's beautiful so far and I'm really excited for it.

Except that they're no Jedi… (I had to! LOL)

So, I'm gonna' run through the adventure in the beta and then see where it goes from there. At first glance it looks cool and I'm excited. Word.

LethalDose said:

I dunno. I don't think it is entirely unfair to expect a Force Unleashed book to help you make stories that feel like The Force Unleashed.

So, like, advice on how to have your characters interact with the principals from the movies and do stuff like found the Rebel Alliance.

And the reason for invoking The Force Unleashed is partially because I was very disappointed by the TFU book, which I bought because I played TFU the video game, thought it was cool, and then discovered that said book had remarkably little to do with the game. And I've had that rant building for a while.

But also because it shows one way to solve a problem. They wanted to do high octane Jedi action in the original trilogy milleu, so they had the player play a Jedi assassin working for Darth Vader hunting Jedi.

And also because it shows that rules are there to be broken. If in a Harry Potter book someone makes mention of a haunted house where the students are forbidden to go, you can guarantee that five minutes later Harry and co will be wondering through said house.

And it is more fun to spray graffiti on a sign saying 'No Graffiti' while skateboarding past a no skateboarding sign.

We know from TFU that some of the most intense Jedi battles recorded took place in The Dark Times.

ErikB said:

This has nothing to do with why you think Jedi should be inlcuded in Edge of the Empire. I'm sorry you didn't like the TFU book, but if you have complaints about a source book for a different game system made by a different game company, WTF are you doing complaining about it on these forums? Complain about it on WotC's forums and stop wasting our time.

ErikB said:

Fine, They (whoever the hell they are) wanted a high-octane game. The FFG developers don't. EotE isn't high octane, and it isn't Jedi. At least not at this point, because they aren't the point or goal, or focus, or WHATEVER of EotE. They chose a solution other than yours. It's been 6 months. It's time to get over it.

ErikB said:

This is the dumbest argument for Jedi in EotE yet, which is really saying something, because you vomited some seriously f***ing ridiculous ideas onto these forums. You're saying the developers should support Jedi in this system BECAUSE the game was not designed to support it?!

Are you stoned or just stupid?

You might as well complain to Honda because the Accord doesn't make toast, or piss & moan because your dermatologist can't perform an appendectomy.

-WJL

For how much longer can this topic be discussed? I imagine some of you do it as a sort of sport?

Yepesnopes said:

Much like House Greyjoy this post can never die. Seriously the content in here has been debated backwards and forwards ad nauseum. I think the mods should just lock the thread now.

It is probably going to roll on until they set up separate forums for Jedi, and the Jedi loving and Jedi hating communities can separate and only fling poo at each other during occasional cross forum raids.

Yepesnopes said:

The only reason I can imagine this thread is still open is that it keeps the few folks that won't stop whining about FFG's deliberate design choice of a lack of Jedi-specific material in EotE in one place rather than having several thread whining about the same thing.

Once the actual book hits shelves, there will probably be an unfortunate upswing in folks like ErikB who will whine about why there's no Jedi-specific material in EotE when the game that was never meant to cover Jedi, much the same way as that EotE game doesn't go in-depth into squadron-level starship combat or mass ground battles. There's enough basic material that such things can be done using EotE, but it's a bit of a kludge in some aspects, and some folks are simply impatient. Which is odd given Star Wars fans should be used to waiting, as we waited how long for the prequels after the Original Trilogy, and then had to wait three years between eacy movie of each respective trilogy?

That and if this thread did get locked, it'd simply start up again with someone asking what seemed an innocent enough question, and you'd get the same crap all over again.

I do agree that the topic has gone well beyond beating a dead horse, and that said horse is now sub-atomic particles.

Yep. So since we know that people are going to be fighting about this until they can play Jedi, why don't we just save everyone from two years of bickering and let people play Jedi?

Like I say, I promise I won't try to play a Jedi in a game where any of the other players won't be.

If you don't like it, ignore it. For those newbies that wonder why no Jedi, it can give them some idea. And for those that are entertained by watching someone smack their head against a wall over and over, they can be entertained as well. And yes, once the core book releases this question will get asked all over again. So why lock a thread that would just be started up again? Unless FFG receives a huge amount of feedback about the lack of Jedi and the game does not sell well and indications seem to support that it is the lack of Jedi that is the cause, I don't see anything changing. What some fail to realize is that just because FFG didn't make the game that they wanted, doesn't mean that they didn't make a game that many people want to play. Ultimately it is sales that will determine if what they are creating is working.

ErikB said:

No one is stopping you from play Jedi. Play TFU, KOTOR, KOTOR 2, SWTOR, dress up and run around your garden or neighbourhood, play SE, RCR or OCR … even better: D6. Play it, you can be Jedi. Or make your own stuff, no one is going to sue you, no one is stopping you besides yourself. Play Jedi, you have my permission, I'm letting you play Jedi, and I don't think anyone here is going to stop you (unless your GM is on here and s/he hates Jedi of course - but thats beyond my control). Just please shut up already.

And, a side-point you continually ignore: no one has expressed hate against Jedi - dislike perhaps, but the focus has been - to my reading at least - on the love of other things star wars than just glowstick wielding hippies in morning gowns. Like plastic covered pseudo-nazi stormtroopers, guntoting cowboys in tin cans, bounty hunting degenerates and technophiles. These things are also Star Wars and deserves as much love as freakishly hypocritical monks with their minds stuck on an acid trip while they believe they're on a rave party…