Thanks SSand. I expect Force & Destiny will need this kind of distinction between Lightside and Darkside for Jedi and other Force users as well, and a clear understanding of the heroic setting. Plus a judicious use of carrot and stick to keep Jedi from going all Murder Hobo...

Most likely, though I honestly have little interest in them. In the adventure/campaigns envisioned with my player group, we don't even use Force Sensitives. It seemed kind of counter productive to purposely remove the Force Types and then haphazardly insert a few afterthoughts. When F&D comes out they will have had all the time that EotE and AoR was out to tinker and make sure Jedi/Sith don't destroy the game. So maybe then.

One of the big reasons I was disappointed in EotE not having a Law Enforcement career set. There are a whole host of fantastic storylines dead-ended. From the Sector Ranger to the Detective to the Private Investigator. All with skill/talent sets completely unlike any of the existing Specs.

But with the galaxy inhabited by EVIL minions, I can see they didn't want to place too much strain on people.

[Tom] Bob? What did you do? You just killed the fruit seller?

[bob] Huh? What do you mean?

[Tom] I saw you! You picked up a GumGum fruit and then just shot the shopkeeper and his 2 year old dead with no warning!

[bob] Chill Bob! We're the good guys! They were an Imperial Citizens! Imperials do all kinds of atrocities so it's OK for us to kill them all. Sheesh, don't you remember Alderaan? As soon as the Emperor took over all the trillions upon trillions of people in the Galaxy became EVIL, so it's fine to kill them now. Assassins are now considered Heroes, right?

One of the big reasons I was disappointed in EotE not having a Law Enforcement career set. There are a whole host of fantastic storylines dead-ended. From the Sector Ranger to the Detective to the Private Investigator. All with skill/talent sets completely unlike any of the existing Specs.

Out of curiosity, what kind of abilities do you think would be applicable to a law-enforcement career? Say we had a Law-enforcement career, what kind of specs would it have?

Also, if you feel that a whole host of story-lines have been dead-ended because they didn't create a "Sector Ranger" career in Edge of the Empire, I would suggest that perhaps you are placing more responsibilities on the rules of this system than the developers intended.

One of the principles of this game is to use the rules as a tool to tell stories, but that the rules are just guidelines.

Personally, I feel like if I felt compelled to tell a story with a Sector Ranger in it, or indeed create a law-enforcement based campaign, it wouldn't be that difficult to adapt the rules that exist to do it. There seem to be to be plenty of careers and I'm not sure it would be hard to find careers that would work pretty closely as a law enforcement officer.

Maybe it's not the game's fault if you don't feel able to do that.

One of the big reasons I was disappointed in EotE not having a Law Enforcement career set. There are a whole host of fantastic storylines dead-ended. From the Sector Ranger to the Detective to the Private Investigator. All with skill/talent sets completely unlike any of the existing Specs.

I don't understand this viewpoint at all. Why do you need a Law Enforcement career or specialization? Sector Ranger is just a job title. I could easily play a Sector Ranger as a bounty hunter, hired gun, politico, or several other careers/specializations. I think that you're putting too much emphasis on the career/specialization titles. I know the others aren't 100% perfect matches made in heaven with talents galore that fit everyones idea of what law enforcement does, but they all have their strengths and are 90% matches in my opinion.

I'd like to add to this discussion by pointing out that you could say that there are two ideas of what a criminal is. The first is perhaps the more obvious definition: a criminal is someone who commits crimes. The second is the notion that you're only a criminal if you get caught. If your name is clean and nobody suspects you of wrongdoing, then for practical purposes you aren't really a criminal.

On a mission he voted against taking, my bounty hunter, who is more or less neutral towards the empire, killed a stormtrooper guarding a hangar in cold blood, his logic being that assault is assault, and if he's dead there is no chance of him identifying me. Technically a criminal now, perhaps, but in the eyes of the empire, he's an upstanding citizen.

If I had my way, my group would stay on the right side of the law, but we have a party member who actively tries to thumb his nose at the empire any chance he gets.

If I had my way, my group would stay on the right side of the law, but we have a party member who actively tries to thumb his nose at the empire any chance he gets.

"Ted, I think it's time you shuffled on somewhere else. You're bad for business. Business being the difference between life and death at a faster pace than I care to manage. Don't make this difficult. Just go pack and shuffle on. Don't make me have to get nasty. Here, have a few thou to hold you over until you find that suicide squad you thought we were. Oh, and Ted? Don't even think of coming back. Bye, now."

If I offended anyone named Ted I offer my sincere apologies.

I'd like to add to this discussion by pointing out that you could say that there are two ideas of what a criminal is. The first is perhaps the more obvious definition: a criminal is someone who commits crimes. The second is the notion that you're only a criminal if you get caught. If your name is clean and nobody suspects you of wrongdoing, then for practical purposes you aren't really a criminal.

You're looking at the trees, I'm wanting to look at the forest. IOW, why is the group together? If the group has a criminal common purpose (smuggling being a common one, but pirating falls in here too), then they are a criminal group. If the group has a non-criminal common purpose (scouting, bounty hunting, salvaging) then they are a non-criminal group (but that doesn't mean that they don't commit crimes). If the group doesn't have a common purpose at all, then it's likely a special snowflake situation that only PCs would find themselves in and the group is likely on a murder hobo path (whether a slow or fast path depends on the players).

I want to think that there's a difference between criminal and villain. Obviously, everyone is Star Wars is a criminal (at least in the original three). At best, Han was merely a jerk, not a hardened killer and drug-pimp.

I'm currently developing (and hopefully playing) the Force sensitive daughter of a smuggler. While she's technically a smuggler, she ran jobs for the Rebellion and is a mild mannered mechanic. So while she is a criminal (super criminal when you factor in the Force), she's far from a villainous character, even though there may be a revenge killing in her future.

Another character I played was a greasy smuggler and pilot. Although I was hoping for him to be a little seedy, I became disenfranchised when our group hooked up with a pirate fleet and started killing people for money (murder-hoboing, not bounty hunting).

Pretty much any party in a Star Wars RPG in this era is going to commit at least a few crimes unless they are working for the Empire. Rebel Alliance members are committing treason, justified treason IMO but treason nonetheless, Smugglers, Hired Guns, and Pirates are obviously criminals. Independent freighter crews might be able to avoid it but odds are that sooner or later they will have to turn to smuggling to make ends meet or get hired for what they believe is a legal job but is really a smuggling run. Explorers or colonists are most likely to get away without breaking any laws but there's still a good chance that eventually they will, either by not knowing they are breaking a law or doing so because working within the system to achieve their goals costs too much, is too complex,or is just impossible

Pretty much any party in a Star Wars RPG in this era is going to commit at least a few crimes unless they are working for the Empire. Rebel Alliance members are committing treason, justified treason IMO but treason nonetheless, Smugglers, Hired Guns, and Pirates are obviously criminals. Independent freighter crews might be able to avoid it but odds are that sooner or later they will have to turn to smuggling to make ends meet or get hired for what they believe is a legal job but is really a smuggling run. Explorers or colonists are most likely to get away without breaking any laws but there's still a good chance that eventually they will, either by not knowing they are breaking a law or doing so because working within the system to achieve their goals costs too much, is too complex,or is just impossible

The category of Hired Guns includes bodyguards, mercenaries, and private security specialists (which are slightly different from mercenaries in the types of jobs they take and the opposition they are expected to face), and thus are not limited to criminal groups by default. Even slavers (one possible explanation for a Marauder specialization) can operate legally if they have the right permits and limit their predations to worlds and species that are not recognized as members of the Empire.

The last case would count as working for the Empire though. Somewhere I read that the only actual legal slavery in the Empire was if the slave was owned by the Empire though Imperial personnel often ignored that fact. (In the case of Ackbar the Empire would have owned him but assigned him to serve Tarkin rather than Tarkin owning him outright for example.) I think that was somewhere in the WEG material but I may be wrong.

Hired Guns might be able to get away without breaking any laws but that's a big might IMO.

The last case would count as working for the Empire though. Somewhere I read that the only actual legal slavery in the Empire was if the slave was owned by the Empire though Imperial personnel often ignored that fact. (In the case of Ackbar the Empire would have owned him but assigned him to serve Tarkin rather than Tarkin owning him outright for example.) I think that was somewhere in the WEG material but I may be wrong.

Hired Guns might be able to get away without breaking any laws but that's a big might IMO.

According to the Edge core rulebook, almost 98% of the habitable systems of the galaxy are outside of the Empire. Even if half of those have some Imperial presence, there's still a lot of galaxy left for mercenaries to legally find work in.

Yeah but you would still have to work within whatever laws any local governments have. Not impossible but it might be tricky since I've seen some really interesting laws outside the Empire in pre EOTE campaigns. Once in a Saga campaign our group was hired to join in an intra-system war in the Unknown Regions (We were on the run from the Empire at the time after killing a Moff's son during a pirate raid. We only found out that use of flame based weapons was forbidden by ancient custom of our employers after one of our PCs opened up on an enemy formation with a flamethrower in a major battle. Ended up having to break out of a prison camp belonging to our ex-employers and steal our ship back than having to run while both sides sent fighters after us.

So far me and my group have managed to stay (mostly) on the right side of the law. Any crimes have been framing someone else (for the large things) or have been small enough that it's flown under the radar of The Authorities. The couple of times we've gotten caught up working with the Rebels, my Imperial Loyalist character has dropped a dime on them the first chance she got.

Otherwise, we've been troubleshooters, independent haulers and speculative traders. The worst we've moved has been blasters to a frontier world (which, arguably was legal at both point of departure and arrival - just that the Empire doesn't like unauthorized weapons shipments) and some spice (also legal at the point of departure).

Actually it's kind of fun, seeing how long we can hold out before gunning down TIE fighters and Stormtroopers left and right.

One of the big reasons I was disappointed in EotE not having a Law Enforcement career set. There are a whole host of fantastic storylines dead-ended. From the Sector Ranger to the Detective to the Private Investigator. All with skill/talent sets completely unlike any of the existing Specs.

Out of curiosity, what kind of abilities do you think would be applicable to a law-enforcement career? Say we had a Law-enforcement career, what kind of specs would it have?

Excellent question. One of the biggest issues I have with the existing talents and skills, is a lack of investigative or urban environment skills that can be used to track down a fugitive/target. The Obvious Career/Specs would be the Bounty Hunter set, but amazingly they completely lack any skills or talents oriented toward investigating someone or finding them in an urban setting or making use of resources when they are acting legally. All of the Bounty Hunter talents are relevant after they have already acquired the target. Survivalist has talents that help him in the wilderness, but not in the concrete jungle.

So what we need are Talents/Skills that fill the unique slots but do not duplicate existing ones. A detective uses three main areas of investigation. Records, Forensics and Street Work.

Let’s start with Street Work. While there are many skills and talents already established (Streetwise, Knowledge (Underworld), Stalking, etc. They all play to the thought that the person is hiding from legal access and dealing with the underworld. But what about the use of legal means? The ability to speak with law enforcement agents and question the common citizen openly and without coercion? Even if you are not actually legal, people will tend to willingly answer questions for someone in authority rather than ‘just some guy’ and strong-arming too many law-biding citizens will lead to official notice.

So as a compliment of Streetwise I would add something like Investigator.

Instead of threat’s, bribes or other unsavory ways to get information, You can simply enter the local precinct and ‘talk the talk’ like any other law enforcer and get cooperation from your ‘brothers’ in the law.

You understand the way a city works and can use it to locate individuals via the trail of their interactions with the city.

You can legally gain access to surveillance nets and even access to results of police investigations.

In other words, instead of working around the law, you can turn the laws resources to your advantage.

Knowledge (Legal World) – Understand contracts, understand the bureaucracy, rules and regulations and so on.

Forensics is a big one for any investigator and useful to Bounty Hunters too. Did your skip-trace die in the hotel, or was it faked? The ability to look at the evidence surrounding an event and put the pieces together. The ability to understand the autopsy report.

Records Investigation. The ability to recognize the important details in an official report. The ability to spot irregularities in a firms accounting. Why bribe or threaten to get the arrival departure records, just fill out the 1578B/12 form and get the complete file. Access to customs records, Kneshi Hutt arrived on the Stellar Queen two days ago via the Port Janga terminal.

Yes all these things can be done via the shadows. But if you use ‘official’ channels, the record that you even did it will disappear in the bureaucracy. Unless of course the record was flagged……

Yes, the existing Career/Specs are close. But just a few added skills would round them out. As for Talents, they would improve/compliment the new skills. Bounty Hunter/Detective would fit nicely as a EotE character. As does Explorer/Ranger, though after some thought staying with BH/D would make more sense. Adding the Detective Spec to one of the Explorer Careers or Bounty Hunter/Survivalist would give you a Sector Ranger