Star Wars Saga Edition?

[gribble]

You seem to be employing the jazz defense, basically saying that if I have to ask how Star Wars is different, then you don't feel there's any way to explain it.

I'm not employing any "defense", I'm just sharing the irrefutable truth that to me there is definitely a different "feel" to Star Wars than to generic sci-fi. And from people I've spoken to, online and in person, they generally seem to agree. Based on that, I'd say that the vast majority of people bought and play the Star Wars RPG because they want to enjoy a good Star Wars game - not because they want to enjoy a good generic sci-fi game. I know with 100% certainty that that is true in at least the case of myself and my gaming group - I've tried getting them to play d20 future and none of them were interested.

But, as I said, you're entitled to your own opinion - this started because you were attempting to attribute your opinion to the gaming population at large (and I quote again - "Wrong...people bought it to play a fun, compelling game"), and I don't feel that is an accurate portrayal.

 

[gribble]

You have a knack for misrepresenting other people's points of view. I did not characterize anything as "all-knowing". It tells the player enough to telegraph a gear shift, and that's pretty much the extent of what I've said.

Shall I break out some more quotes?

Any jedi's feeling will always be trustworthy... Knowing for a fact when your character is or isn't about to go from "safe" to "jeopardy" or vice-versa... Knowing infallably whether or not you'll be safe taking an action... predicting the future...

That certainly sounds like a good portrayal of an "infallable all-knowing danger sense". If it wasn't your intention to portray such a thing, then might I suggest it's you who have been misrepresenting your point of view, not me?

There is a world of difference between having a constant vague sense of danger and a reliable gauge whether or not something's going down in 10 minutes.

I totally agree, and it's my contention that this power falls into the former category, not the latter (and I notice it's suddenly become "reliable" rather than "infallable"... interesting).

And the movies do in fact show that Jedi have a "constant vague sense of danger", and even (arguably a quasi-reliable) "gauge whether or not something's going down in 10 minutes". Take the scene in Padme's apartment at the beginning of episode 2, for instance, or any number of scenes where Obi-Wan reacts very quickly to take off someones limb and de-fuse a situation...

 

[gribble]

Under these situations, I'd be more than happy with the GM ruling that the situation was stressful/distracting and hence the Jedi couldn't take 10. Circumstance modifiers could also apply, making the check more difficult ("Difficult to see the future is, clouded by the Dark Side..."). All of this is well within the RAW and doesn't make it "infallable" at all.

Oh yeah, and one more thing - it's a full round action to "search your feelings", so by definition it takes a fair amount of effort and concentration - i.e.: it's not something any reasonable person would be doing all the time unless they already had a reason to be suspicious about something.

 

[Felon]

I'm not employing any "defense", I'm just sharing the irrefutable truth that to me there is definitely a different "feel" to Star Wars than to generic sci-fi. And from people I've spoken to, online and in person, they generally seem to agree. Based on that, I'd say that the vast majority of people bought and play the Star Wars RPG because they want to enjoy a good Star Wars game - not because they want to enjoy a good generic sci-fi game.

The "jazz defense" is a turn-of-phrase referring to feeling passionately about something without being to able to articulate your position to someone who asks you to explain. You insist that the "feel" of Star Wars is utterly unique, and you know when you're not feeling it, and you insist that this feeling is shared by countless others, but you cannot or will not articulate it.

But, as I said, you're entitled to your own opinion - this started because you were attempting to attribute your opinion to the gaming population at large (and I quote again - "Wrong...people bought it to play a fun, compelling game"), and I don't feel that is an accurate portrayal.

There's that word "feel" again.

In my last Star Wars game, we had a guy who complained repeatedly that our game didn't "feel" like Star Wars. We had Star Wars elements all over the place--hutts, rancors, tusken raiders, starship battles, dark side locations--but he kept saying it felt more like Firefly than Star Wars, that my smuggler character seemed more like Malcolm Reynolds than Han Solo. He couldn't articulate it beyond that, yet he felt this way very strongly.

And the real kicker? He was a rich Twi'lek non-jedi force user who used powers that didn't stem from the movies (mostly healing and some kind of energy field). He took feats like Contacts and Well-Connected and Wealth and preferred to solve problems with phone calls and networking rather than blasters and lightsabers. I suspect he would have seemed very "non-star-warsy" to other diehard fans.

He eventually left, and in our group we have a GM who loves Star Wars and the rest of us who all are fond of it enough to give the game a try. But we don't come or go based on some ineffable "feel", we play as long as the game is compelling and fun.

I am sure that there are plenty of people who think there is a unique Star Wars "feel", but I suspect that there feelings aren't all universally compatable, and in fact quite often are inconsistent with each other.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Wrong...people bought it to play a fun, compelling Star Wars game. Are you really trying to argue that someone who wasn't interested in playing a Star Wars game would pick up the Star Wars RPG (rules tinkerers who buy systems to rip apart rather than play as written excepted - but they are no where near the majority of purchasers)?

Raises hand.

And I've never been happier with a system. It's the best developed game I've ever seen, taking the crown from Spirit of the Century. Is it the *best*? That I'm not sure of, and not even sure it's possible to judge; it's definitely in the tactical, D&D-derived subset of RPGs and difficult to compare on a systemic level to something that either isn't tactical or where tactics are, say, timing based.

I'm actually running a Star Wars game to try the rules out in their pure form, and am enjoying it a lot. But I bought it for Final Fantasy 6 steampunk and Final Fantasy 12 Golden Age of Ivalice, and will mostly use it for those and pulp and six-guns and sorcery campaigns.

So, let's say my action is leaving my lightsaber in the sock drawer. I search my feelings and know that will be unfavorable. If I'm close to the loremaster, I'll check for leaving it in my speeder's glove compartment instead. Either way, I now have a pretty good sense that some stuff is about to go down. That's a bit of an assumption on my part; maybe the loremaster heard I have a really nice lightsaber and will storm off in a huff because I didn't bring it. Or I might get stuck in the elevator on the way up to meet him and need to cut my way out. Or someone might want to raid my sock drawer. But most likely I'm going to need to chop somebody up. When the killer shows up--dramatically jumps through the skylight or what have you--it won't be any kind of surprise. Not for me, not for the Sith.

Provided you're not in the time of the Empire, leaving your lightsaber will almost never have favorable consequences, and can have any number of different unfavorable ones - as you point out. All you really learn is not to be a moron and leave your saber when you might conceivably need it - something the elders at the Jedi temple should have taught you, provided you lacked the common sense to figure it out.

After dealing with the Sith, assuming I'm still alive, I repeat the same formula formula. Sock drawer check is clean. Glove compartment check, clean. Basically, I'll know whether or not it's safe to stand near a skylight.

I gotta say that as a DM, I want people not so sure about skylights.

Do your players actually click their way through adventures like this? Seriously? Do they check for traps every 5' square, AD&D 1e Tournament Module style? Because I've rarely seen a player take even the most rudimentary precautions.

For that matter, the character you describe sounds like, in Star Wars terms, he's almost certainly on the Dark Side. He's a raving paranoiac!

As it stands, you have a mechanic that allows a Jedi who has time to behave in a calm, controlled manner to consistently make the right decision: exactly what the Jedi are supposed to be able to do. It allows Obi-Wan to infiltrate the Death Star without ever being at risk of being caught because he can smoothly and calmly make the right choices to infiltrate. But if, say, Darth Vader had come across Obi-Wan *before* he got the tractor beam down, Obi-Wan would have had to make haste to get to it and shut it off, and he wouldn't have been able to pause and reflect on the best course of action.

I'm going to go with 'absolutely intentional, and certainly would work for any game I'd play in.'

 

[gribble]

The "jazz defense" is a turn-of-phrase referring to feeling passionately about something without being to able to articulate your position to someone who asks you to explain. You insist that the "feel" of Star Wars is utterly unique, and you know when you're not feeling it, and you insist that this feeling is shared by countless others, but you cannot or will not articulate it.

Now who's misrepresenting who? I never said I couldn't articulate what that feel is. Try this on for size:

• It's about rescuing princesses from heavily armed battlestations the size of a small planet.
• It's about fast and furious action, where small bands of heroes win against the faceless masses of irrefutably evil organisations, despite the odds against them.
• It's about backwater planet hicks destroying said battlestation, by turning off their targetting computers and instead trusting to their feelings.
• It's about knights who wield laser swords and mystical powers, but still "charge into battle" in spaceships.

I could go on, but I think it represents that "feel" well. Like I said above - it's space fantasy, not generic sci-fi.

 

[Felon]

That certainly sounds like a good portrayal of an "infallable all-knowing danger sense". If it wasn't your intention to portray such a thing, then might I suggest it's you who have been misrepresenting your point of view, not me?

You can suggest, but you'd be wrong. You can quote all day long, but if you sit around nitpicking particular words rather than try to actually understand what you're quoting, and I am begin to suspect that's your big obstacle right there. I'll make it simple. "Search your feelings" is infallable in that it always works. It is not all-knowing because it doesn't convey much information. It is just enough for a savvy force-user to use it as reliable gauge for when the gear shifts coming.

I totally agree, and it's my contention that this power falls into the former category, not the latter (and I notice it's suddenly become "reliable" rather than "infallable"... interesting).

OK, then...you're reading a different section of the book or something, or you just understand what I'm saying, because this isn't up for personal interpretation. It does the latter not the former. It can tell you when you're going from safety to danger or danger to safety. It cannot elucidate on the particular nature of the danger, but with unlimited uses you can use a "twenty questions" method. Nothing I'm saying sounds all that complicated to me, so I'm not sure where the disconnect is.

And the movies do in fact show that Jedi have a "constant vague sense of danger", and even (arguably a quasi-reliable) "gauge whether or not something's going down in 10 minutes". Take the scene in Padme's apartment at the beginning of episode 2, for instance, or any number of scenes where Obi-Wan reacts very quickly to take off someones limb and de-fuse a situation...

The scenes you're talking about aren't 10-minute warning systems at work. It's more like good Spot and Initiative checks. Indeed, in the opening scene of episode 2, both Obiwan and Anikin should have plenty of heads on the gear shift that's about to take place.

 

[LostSoul]

True, if pacing and surprises aren't important in your campaign, then it's not a problem having danger or safety telegraphed to the players cosntantly.

Then again, IMO a game without sudden, dramatic changes in pace isn't be very Star-Warsy.

I don't see why there wouldn't be a change in pace. "You feel danger!" Bang, pace change. Especially if you worked out a routine for the PC so that the player wouldn't have to declare that he's leaving his lightsaber in his gym bag all the time.

As for surprises, I guess you would lose the "I had no idea we were in danger" surprise. You could still have all sorts of other surprises, though. Thinking back to the last campaign I ran, most of the big "gotcha" moments were things that would probably have resulted in a favourable result from the skill check.

 

[Felon]

Now who's misrepresenting who? I never said I couldn't articulate what that feel is. Try this on for size:

• It's about rescuing princesses from heavily armed battlestations the size of a small planet.
• It's about fast and furious action, where small bands of heroes win against the faceless masses of irrefutably evil organisations, despite the odds against them.
• It's about backwater planet hicks destroying said battlestation, by turning off their targetting computers and instead trusting to their feelings.
• It's about knights who wield laser swords and mystical powers, but still "charge into battle" in spaceships.

I could go on, but I think it represents that "feel" well. Like I said above - it's space fantasy, not generic sci-fi.

And this is why you'll ultimately get guys like Moogle will raise their hand and salute you, because they'll applaud your wonderful, exciting imagery and passionate assertions rather than any kind of in-depth, substantive analysis of what's under the hood. It's also why used car salesmen will never go out of business.

But just describing a handful of scenes from the movies doesn't articulate this "feel" to anyone who doesn't already feel it. How is "fast and furious action" unique to Star Wars? How is playing small bands of heroes unique to Star Wars? If you're nto rescuing a princess, you're not playing Star Wars? Sorry, this is pretty superficial stuff. Is the Star Wars "feel" just a thin coat of paint?

 

[Felon]

Oh yeah, and one more thing - it's a full round action to "search your feelings", so by definition it takes a fair amount of effort and concentration - i.e.: it's not something any reasonable person would be doing all the time unless they already had a reason to be suspicious about something.

Raises hand.

As it stands, you have a mechanic that allows a Jedi who has time to behave in a calm, controlled manner to consistently make the right decision: exactly what the Jedi are supposed to be able to do.'[/QUOTE]
A full-round action is nothing outside of combat.

Jedis are not supposed to "consistently make the right decision". They make mistakes all the time.