or a Chewbacca cookbook.

"To Serve Man"?

-Jim

I can't decide which thread is my top thread of the year thus far, this one or the Ferrets vs Hamster thread.

Not sure which I should be more surprised by. That there was a Princess Leia light saber... or a Chewbacca cookbook.

But I do wish I knew what Wilfrid Brimly looked like.

Put it this way, Wilfrid Brimly wasn't my very first girl-crush...

And here's that horrible ad, gah, why do I remember this?

http://theswca.com/images-speci/harper/force-beam.html

(Ugh, looks like it wasn't even official...! Or was it? Does anyone remember? Anyway, nice to see Leia is a consular, and poor Luke was apparently a Sith...)

I can't decide which thread is my top thread of the year thus far, this one or the Ferrets vs Hamster thread.

Apologies. I seem to have derailed things with my 'My Life As A Star Wars Geek' reminisces!

I don't think ever ErikB ever derailed a thread this spectacularly. I made some really good points about 'Characteristics' too!

Characteristics shouldn't change much, if at all outside of character creation. Think how little you really change once you make it to 18 years of age. Yes, with a lot of effort you can make yourself stronger (up Brawn), but that isn't something you can do in just a few days to a week. It takes... Dedication... You focus on changing that thing about yourself, to learn more, to improve coordination, to get faster or stronger. And this isn't the Epic Heroic Fantasy of D&D where you are expected to be able to challenge Demi-gods and Dragons.

As to the derail. I've played Shadowrun since 1st Ed. I don't have the physical books anymore for the older editions, just electronic copies due to lack of space for such things. I have enough books that when I load up a 10' truck, half the truck is books (the rest of the truck is everything else that I own including furniture), so I had to draw the line somewhere.

I love Shadowrun, but don't really get a chance to play/run it anymore. My favorite character was my first one, a were-leopard female wage mage.

Now that the thread is derailed I too remember playing Shadowrun 1 ages ago, very much enjoyed the rules and the setting. Looking at 5th ed now, but...just the resolution mechanics are too clunky. Everything pales to EotE's intersection of simplicity and dynamism.

Put it this way, Wilfrid Brimly wasn't my very first girl-crush...

And here's that horrible ad, gah, why do I remember this?

http://theswca.com/images-speci/harper/force-beam.html

(Ugh, looks like it wasn't even official...! Or was it? Does anyone remember? Anyway, nice to see Leia is a consular, and poor Luke was apparently a Sith...)

Days like this make me so hate being unable to see this stuff...

I'll get help with that when I get home, though. I don't usually mind when I don't get the whole story but, between whatever a Wifrid Brimly is and Princess Leia's bootleg light saber, I HAVE TO KNOW!!!! lol

I love Shadowrun, but don't really get a chance to play/run it anymore. My favorite character was my first one, a were-leopard female wage mage.

OMG.... just... OMG

I can't decide which thread is my top thread of the year thus far, this one or the Ferrets vs Hamster thread.

This is absolutely my favorite thread EVER!

And here's that horrible ad, gah, why do I remember this?

http://theswca.com/images-speci/harper/force-beam.html

(Ugh, looks like it wasn't even official...! Or was it? Does anyone remember? Anyway, nice to see Leia is a consular, and poor Luke was apparently a Sith...)

Oh god, I remember having one of those! It was a opaque plastic tube that attached to the end of a straight up standard red flashlight and had a black ring that went around the part where the bulb assembly screwed onto the battery compartment, like a hilt guard (that I lost almost instantly). Mind you, this was 1977 when I had mine (and it may have not been exactly the same version), but it was awesome.

And so not authorized by LFL. Not in the slightest!

Here's mine, from Halloween 1978. Apparently Santa Claus went brown instead of red and wore jeans that year. And carried a Lightsaber.

Oh god, I remember having one of those! It was a opaque plastic tube that attached to the end of a straight up standard red flashlight and had a black ring that went around the part where the bulb assembly screwed onto the battery compartment, like a hilt guard (that I lost almost instantly). Mind you, this was 1977 when I had mine (and it may have not been exactly the same version), but it was awesome.

I actually recall mine being pretty cool. The top quickly came off, but it withstood a lot of battles. It was red too; I was a sith and I didn't know it!

You make a pretty cool jawa jedi, Desslok!

I love Shadowrun, but don't really get a chance to play/run it anymore. My favorite character was my first one, a were-leopard female wage mage.

OMG.... just... OMG

Yeah, she was a "blast" to play. Especially launching a few Stunbolts into the big giant trolls. No Willpower meant they dropped fast. Then just attach the stuncuffs and move on with the run. No deaths, means less of a violent response from the Corp I would raid.

I think we just used wiffle ball bats for lightsabers. As far as characteristics are concerned, I have a problem with power gaming the system...so with actual "experience" to "spend" I probably would allow a point increase here or there but would like to see the rest spent in actual skill/feat gain. Further from that though, is the characteristic doesn't even matter, it's the skill challenge presented by the GM.

When all of this started in a galaxy far far away, my point was as the character progresses skills, talents and specialities could be improved/increased but not characteristics. It was okay to use cybernetics to increase characteristics but not experience. I know "Dedication" can be bought/used but it's still a talent. I wasn't looking to power game. When a system makes sense for the most part, the remaining part that doesn't, I question it. Anyway I met some awesome Gentlebeings, learned some cool stuff and enjoying leaving Imps in the asteroid fields.

Peace Gentlebeings

I am not really sure how it doesn't make "sense"? There are options to increase stats. The designers just chose for spending XP directly to not be one of them. Most games have some regulatory mechanism in place when it comes to increasing attributes. So it makes me wonder why you feel that there needs to be a way of doing it by spending XP beyond the Dedication talent?

If exp is sufficent for skills, talents, specialities and charcteristics at creation, whats the difference? You can purchase cybernetics with credits and gain an immediate improvement. It's a cheap way to improve one's character, when exp is worth more than credits. That's the point, anyway you can call it Rubber, Peking or Mallard it's still a duck. By the way I like your quote, what's your favorite Orwell novel.

Peace Gentlebeings

Look, it's not a perfect simulation of how one would acquire "characteristics" in real life. But no game perfectly does that - for good reason, because the IRL way to acquire skills and characteristics and talents is lots of repetitive, boring work.

Cyber is the quick easy fix in this and many other games. It also makes you look weird, it may be hard to arrange when there's nothing wrong with the limb you want to lop off, and the GM would be perfectly in line always giving you social Setbacks for it.

The RAW of raising Characteristics is clearly a developer decision to make Characteristic increase non-casual when it happens, and also to prevent XP hoarding to solely increase Characteristics at the expense of everything else. Yes, that's a bit of hand-holding and development railroading, but that's a legit dev prerogative.

In the game mechanics, having indirect increase vs direct makes some since because with 6 Characteristics, each one affects a number of skills and is the quickest way to more raw power in a particular area of focus. The developer intent seems to be that to increase more in the broad way that Characteristic increase entails, you need to gain some lateral abilities in the process by advancing down a Talent tree. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean that it "doesn't make sense."

I know this is slightly off topic..kinda but I never liked the introduction of stat increase. When we played D&D in the 70's if your fighter had a 11 Str he dealt with it lol...back when elves well had no class and 3d6 meant your character was going to really suck..but you couldn't wait to play Keep on the Borderlands one more time..because it was the only module you owned and there was no internet and no store carried D&D stuff so we mail ordered it from Wisconsin...it took months but we finally got T1 Village of Hommlet in the mail...

Gentlebeing,

I agree no game is a perfect simulation of real or imaginary life. I agree a direct increase in characteristics is the quickest way to more raw power. I think cyber is the quick fix that bypasses the hand-holding and developmental railroading. As the bard once said "There's the rub."

Peace gentlebeings

What is the difference between spending XP directly and spending XP on the Dedication talent? They didn't want unlimited ability to increase attributes so they built the increase into the Talents.

As I already said, cyber is limited and has its downside. It is not unlimited increase.

Gentlebeing,

The difference between spending exp directly and spending exp on the dedication talent, is buying the other talents in the tree to get access to the dedication talent. No one asked for unlimited ability to increase characteristics. Also having cyber available to bypass the difference anyway,

limited or not,makes little sense. IMHO

Peace Gentlebeings

So what's your problem with having to go down the Talent tree? What about this is disappointing or "wrong" to you?

As as aside, there are many threads discussing how voluntarily cybering up does not feel very Star Wars, because it's never depicted as something people do voluntarily in-setting (as opposed to say Shadowrun where voluntary replacement is a huge part of the culture and transhuman themes).

The design for raising characteristics during character creation or by reaching the dedication talent is more than fair.

This ensures the characters will actually have to work for such an increase,therefore allowing the player's to focus on

the important aspects.....Roleplaying.

Remember that minions seem to have better characteristics, but in reality they only get skill ranks of 1 per minion beyond the first. Rivals are a little tougher,but like minions, they get no strain threshold.Everything goes to wounds.

But if you want to have a nice balance between characteristics and skills,just increase skills to match their characteristic value.

The end result is you will only be using proficiency dice for any skill check.

Example: If you have an AGILITY of 3, then raise your agility based skills to 3 ranks. Then all you will use for dice are the proficiency dice as the base dice pool.( before difficulty,setback or any other dice added.)

So remember, that the sole reason to limiting such increases to characteristics is to ensure a more rounded character in the end, aside from obligations,motivations,background and story arcs.

No cybering up doesn't feel very Star Wars nor using it as a quick and easy way to increase characteristics feel very Star Wars. You don't buy more skills to access talents or talents to access specializations so buying talents to improve characteristics seems wrong/odd. But again this is just my humble opinion. I think Roleplaying is an important aspect but railroading and hand-holding is not. I read somewhere on the forums where the creators of the game said the rules are guidelines. So I think we can stop beating this dead bantha. Thanks to all Gentlebeings for their opinions and ideas.

Peace Gentlebeings

Heh heh. You say that you don't want it unlimited, which it is not, but you don't like how they limited it by building it into spec trees. Seems like semantics ro me. It is not like someone can cyber up giving a +4 to an attribute, so it is not even in competition here nor is it an alternative.