I have a player who is a mechanic and has taken the Bad Motivator as a talent. From time to time they are engaged with battling droids. When it comes time to face the big boss, he states he is making a bad motivator check to shut the droid down or attach a restraining bolt. This player knows the rulebook forward and backwards and states that there is no restriction that says this can't be done in combat. Is this true? Is this something that can be done in the heat of battle? Would a droid let an enemy whip out their tools and just shut them down? I have yet to come up with a logical yes, but...., as the check states it is a hard check and he has tools and 3 ranks of trained mechanics and also uses a light side boost. It is driving me nuts....

Perhaps he forgot to mention the "(subject to the GM's approval)" portion in the talent description, which in your example it sounds like he didn't have.......

Bad Motivator requires a great deal of GM oversight. As written, there's not many limits on it. As written, the Mechanic does not even need to interact with the object thanks to the "it was about to fail anyway" option. Without GM veto, Bad Motivator could have allowed brining down the shield at the Battle of Endor without ever sending a team down - some know it all mechanic at the briefing just saying "I looked at the report on that thing and it's just going to burn out about the time we get there, so lets get on with the attack." Another Mechanic could have said something similar the moment after the superlaser fired the first shot to break the superlaser.

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of the talent, but mechanically (pun unintended) it's not so hot and requires constant GM oversight. You want the player to use it cleverly, but not cleverly enough that it destroys the drama of the situation. In such a case it's a fine talent to test where the GM has set the railroad tracks for the scene.

Well for one, GM has final say in all decisions. So if you don't like the way he's doing something, even if it technically doesn't go against the RAW, you can still turn him down.

Also, the description specifically states: "If successful, one device (subject to the GM's approval) spontaneously fails..." So besides it being up to you to okay it anyways, I personally wouldn't call a droid as a "device", especially if it's meant to be a boss of some kind.

Maybe if they want to try and mess with the gun, or a part of the droid (that would cause difficulty to be increased/upgraded when doing certain checks), they can still use it more directly on enemy characters.

I would think you could go a couple ways with it.

For starters, a boss droid my response would be it's extremely well maintained so it doesn't have anything about to fail.

You might allow the player to give it some sort of debuff like a reduced soak or movement speed.

Another angle might be to have more of a sliding difficulty scale that takes into account the hardiness of the targeted item, say the difference between a simple maintenance droid or protocol droid, and a custom war droid Nemesis, as well as, the conditions under which the attempt is being made, under fire in combat, from a position of stealth, engaged or close range, etc.

Great example of a talent that could use official FAQ input to narrow or clarify the scope of applicability. I don't like this being so ambiguous that it could bring down the Endor shield generator on the one hand, and a GM could say "no you can't shut down that enemy's blaster" on the other hand. I think talents like this need to be less "narrative" and have more clear-cut limitations. It would save time and irritation on both the player and GM side of things.

Wow. If droids count as a device, your droid PCs better hope they don't come across a mechanic adversary. Not that I would condone such behavior as a GM, but that kind of reasoning could help when you explain why using that talent in that way isn't good form.

Droid Rights activists be all up in your grill.

"Droids Aren't Devices! Down With Organic Bigotry!"

Maybe Bad Motivator brought down the first Death Star. Tarkin just didn't want to know about it!

"Evacuate? In our moment of triumph?"

Remember that all things in this system (including RAW) are subject to the narrative. That is the spiritual core mechanic they have created. Reasonably speaking, if the narrative pacing of the adventure indicates that it's more fun and exciting to ignore Bad Motivator (I like the reasoning presented in earlier posts), then ignore it.

Don't let rules bog down/otherwise suck the life out of a climactic scene. Allowing that will cheapen the overall experience for the table, IMO.

You can certainly provide many other opportunities during a given session for that Talent to be used. However, for the sake of friendship and a positive environment, I would have a brief discussion before/after the game with the player to make sure they understand your POV.

If they cling to RAW to get a leg up and a cheap victory in what is likely an important/pivotal scene though, I'm not sure they will accept your reasoning.

Best of luck!

Remember that all things in this system (including RAW) are subject to the narrative. That is the spiritual core mechanic they have created.

At the same time I think it's important for the baseline rules and Talent applicability to not need "narrative interpretation" regarding when they can be used and on what. "Can I use Bad Motivator to shut down a Star Destroyer chasing us" shouldn't even be a question that can reasonably be asked.

Thanks for the feedback all. Have a feeling the player and I will be having a long conversation.

Remember that all things in this system (including RAW) are subject to the narrative. That is the spiritual core mechanic they have created. Reasonably speaking, if the narrative pacing of the adventure indicates that it's more fun and exciting to ignore Bad Motivator (I like the reasoning presented in earlier posts), then ignore it.

Don't let rules bog down/otherwise suck the life out of a climactic scene. Allowing that will cheapen the overall experience for the table, IMO.

While I do agree that the rules shouldn't get in the way of a good story. Tossing rules aside or changing them willy nilly in order to tell a story is a poor way to go about things in my opinion.

I'll freely admit that I'm a rules lawyer. Never to find loopholes to "win" the game though. For me, as much as I love a good story, if the rules aren't consistent then it doesn't matter how good the story is it really impacts my fun. I've never cared as if the rules are changed though, only as long as they are consistent.

I've had GMs in the past that would constantly change the rules to fit whatever story they wanted to tell, but these changes would either be last second or not documented. It drives me nuts when I create a character with specific theme only to have that theme gutted by some undocumented change for the sake of the story.

Remember that all things in this system (including RAW) are subject to the narrative. That is the spiritual core mechanic they have created. Reasonably speaking, if the narrative pacing of the adventure indicates that it's more fun and exciting to ignore Bad Motivator (I like the reasoning presented in earlier posts), then ignore it.

Don't let rules bog down/otherwise suck the life out of a climactic scene. Allowing that will cheapen the overall experience for the table, IMO.

While I do agree that the rules shouldn't get in the way of a good story. Tossing rules aside or changing them willy nilly in order to tell a story is a poor way to go about things in my opinion.

I'll freely admit that I'm a rules lawyer. Never to find loopholes to "win" the game though. For me, as much as I love a good story, if the rules aren't consistent then it doesn't matter how good the story is it really impacts my fun. I've never cared as if the rules are changed though, only as long as they are consistent.

I've had GMs in the past that would constantly change the rules to fit whatever story they wanted to tell, but these changes would either be last second or not documented. It drives me nuts when I create a character with specific theme only to have that theme gutted by some undocumented change for the sake of the story.

I neither disagree with you nor agree with you, but I have get this quote out of my system:

"Story trumps rules"

OK, here's the counter rules lawyer ruling. The talent does not cause a device to specifically break, or shut down. The specific text says, "If successful, one device (subject to the GM's approval) spontaneously fails do to the character's involvement, or because it was about to fail anyway and the character noticed it (this is the character's decision)."

Technically, if your rules lawyer player uses "Bad Motivator" on a droid NPC and succeeds, the droid "fails"... on its next roll. And the combat continues.

The good news for me is that this topic came up as one of my players is getting close to taking this talent. I do plan to have some advance discussion on what will count as a device.

Overall, I'd say things that aren't in another part of the book. Vehicles or starships - you could probably disable a critical system. A droid - well, Droid is first introduced as a species, so probably no.

Having said that, and made it an understood ruling of what has (or doesn't have) prior GM approval, I can let the story open up opportunities where I'm more likely to make an exception.

In the case of a droid, though, I'd have a warning. If you're taking an "action" in a specific attempt (whether the character is directly involved or not) to incapacitate or harm the droid, then "Bad Motivator" is considered a combat check, and if the droid has the Adversary talent, you'll be facing Challenge ® dice.

I neither disagree with you nor agree with you, but I have get this quote out of my system:

"Story trumps rules"

My biggest issue with this is it causes rules to be applied ambiguously with some nebulous "Rule of Cool" being the touchstone of everything - a touchstone that is completely unknowable at any random point in time except the one where the rule is applied. I prefer that rules not be applied on a whim, but equally applied the same way, always. That kind of consistency is important when considering viability or desirability of mechanical build options.

My biggest issue with this is it causes rules to be applied ambiguously with some nebulous "Rule of Cool" being the touchstone of everything - a touchstone that is completely unknowable at any random point in time except the one where the rule is applied. I prefer that rules not be applied on a whim, but equally applied the same way, always. That kind of consistency is important when considering viability or desirability of mechanical build options.

You are absolutely correct. I agree.

My quote was something silly from a movie. I fail at being topical.

He can use it however, a main bad guy droid is classified as a PC and would just have to make a discipline check or suffer setback dice. Read the rule on PC Droid and restraining bolt.

also, it doesn;'t mean it fails permanently. If the result is that the Droid nemesis shuts down, maybe he just loses a turn. And then "reboots" and wakes back up ready to strike again.

That, imo, sounds like maybe a good compromise. it doesn't kill the boss, but still benefits your team by introducing some "crowd control".

It seems to me that when the players take fun talents like this one that you should try to let them use them whenever it seems like it might be fun for the party. Reward them for thinking outside the box and try to roll with the creativity. You, as the Gm determine the magnitude of what happens. Remember the "Yes, but..." thing from the book. I like taking suggestions from my players as to what specifics might be, but I have the power as the Gm to limit them as appropriate.

This particular talent is once per session so it isn't exactly going to be abused. I don't see any issue with the player spending his action to cause something to spontaneously change in the galaxy, even if he doesn't directly interact with it. In this way it is sort of like a limited Destiny point. Rather than causing the entire droid to fail, you limit it to a piece of equipment (seems to be the intended rules anyhow) on the droid. For example, he spends his action and he notices that the droid boss's leg suddenly has a bad motivator, this knocks the droid to half speed for the encounter, or causes the droid to falter temporarily missing his next maneuver/action. Since it is a once per encounter thing I would try to make it significant. In this way, he gets to use the talent and feel like it was worth the XP, but it doesn't completely negate your whole boss encounter. It might not have shut the droid down like he wanted (his suggestion) but you also didn't completely negate the talent from being used.

A lot of it comes down to your personal style as a Gm too. I tend to try to work with my players to tell stories together and follow the "Yes, but..." philosophy whenever possible, but others may prefer more rigid structures where the players react to more than help define the situation.