SWSE -Making the Dark Side more tempting

[Arrgh! Mark!]

Hi everyone -

there's little that bothers me about the latest star wars, but theres just one thing.

How do we make the Dark Side more tempting? I know it's tempting to use force thrust and so on against people, but I'd really like a mechanic where calling on fear/anger/whatever is at first easy, and then becomes difficult to stop. The idea of putting permanent talents in the Dark Side is cool for dark-siders, but doesn't give people the option of getting a major boost by gaining a darkside point. (Luke cutting off Vaders hand in RoJ)

Another poster put an ingenious method of allowing a normal (light) force point adjustment before you roll, but you have to call on the Dark Side to adjust it after the modifier is rolled.


Anything else?

 

[Nifft]

When something happens that would make you angry, you can spend a Force point to gain some benefit for the whole encounter... but you also gain a Dark Side point. This is the "anger" slippery slope.

When you are fighting someone you really don't like, you can spend a Force point to gain a bonus against that person for the whole encounter... but you also gain a Dark Side point. This is the "hate" slippery slope.

When you are running away, you can spend a Force point to gain a bonus to speed, Reflex defense and damage threshold for the whole encounter. This is the "fear" slippery slope.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Kaffis]

But Nifft, what about the suffering slippery slope?

I suggest anything to do with a Gungan's presence in the encounter.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Something we did in RCR that I'll probably bring into SWSE is that someone who expends a force point to gain a bonus on their d20 roll, who can see that their force point is too low, can call on the dark side (roleplaying hate, fear, whatever) to roll an additional dice in the hope of doing better (and get a dark side point in the process).

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

I've always been baffled by the movies, where the fall to the Dark Side is quick and difficult to stop. It's hard to put that into a game system because players can look at the numbers, if they're so inclined, and play to the edge of the Dark Side to get as much juice as they can from it, and then stop.

In the movies it looks like, if you're a Force Sensitive, if you kick a puppy then the next day you're probably going to be drowning babies. Boom, boom. You get ANGRY at somebody, in the Force, and you're likely to fall to evil. It looks like it takes a great mastery of will (gained by carrying a green muppet on his back through a montage shot) for Luke to resist falling to the Dark Side just having a screaming match with his dad.

That's hard to mirror in a finite system, really.

I've been thinking of hiding or randomizing the Dark Side element. I.E an evil act may do 1d3 or 1d4 Dark Side points, instead of 1. But that still gives the player a finite margin of safety after which point they say: "I'm not going to do any more Dark Side stuff, because there's a 25% chance this time I might fall to the Dark Side."

The best luck I had was in RCR, where I PLAYED The Dark Side. Every time a player expressed frustration with an NPC, I offered to off it. When they were considering tactics I'd point out they could Force Push somebody off a cliff or call up Force Lightning to fry a whole bunch of enemies. If they had initiative I'd call for them to strike down the enemy before it had a chance to act, etc etc. I'd offer extra XP, free Force Points, etc etc.

At first, because I kept offering things, the players said: "We're going to fall to the Dark Side rapidly and easily, you keep giving us outs and extra stuff to be evil!"

But then ... nobody would take it. Because it was being offered and pushed they got into playing their resistance to it. It became an RP thing. The Dark Side would call, they would resist. Instead of: "Well, I can take another Dark Side point, lets just off this guy." they'd say: "Dude, you're evil ... we're taking him prisoner!"

Disarm actions went up, sunders and nonlethal methods. I thought it went really well, myself.

--fje

 

[Bagpuss]

D6 Star Wars each time you got a dark side point you rolled a d6, and if you rolled under your current number of dark side points you became fallen. It was pretty easy to go dark side in that system because if you really needed help the dark side could give a significant bonus, but the chance of falling was pretty high. Plus the GM was there to play the dark side like you suggested above.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I've been thinking of hiding or randomizing the Dark Side element. I.E an evil act may do 1d3 or 1d4 Dark Side points, instead of 1. But that still gives the player a finite margin of safety after which point they say: "I'm not going to do any more Dark Side stuff, because there's a 25% chance this time I might fall to the Dark Side."

OK, how about this variation?

You get 1d4 dark side points for dark side acts and the DM keeps the score secretly. That way you'd never be sure exactly how near or far you were from falling to the dark side.

To make this work from a player perspective you'd want to give them the option at the point where they tip over the edge to sacrifice a force point/destiny point/something to make a last minute grasp for their light-side-sanity.

(My inspiration for this was the TSR game Top Secret. Each PC had two scores called Fame and Luck. You gained 1 Fame each level, you start off with 1d6 luck but it is secretly held by the DM for you. If you got a bad result in the game you could use *either* a Fame point or a Luck point to negate that bad result. You knew how far your fame could take you. You never knew just when your luck would run out...)

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

When something happens that would make you angry, you can spend a Force point to gain some benefit for the whole encounter... but you also gain a Dark Side point. This is the "anger" slippery slope.

When you are fighting someone you really don't like, you can spend a Force point to gain a bonus against that person for the whole encounter... but you also gain a Dark Side point. This is the "hate" slippery slope.

When you are running away, you can spend a Force point to gain a bonus to speed, Reflex defense and damage threshold for the whole encounter. This is the "fear" slippery slope.

Not sure that fear slope is in the spirit of the rules, as it were. It's not really personal fear that seems to present problems. It's fear of loss. Dying, after all, is generally getting off light. Once you're dead, you're one with the Force. Loss is only significant if you have to live with it.

If you NEED a mechanical basis.... maybe something more like "when you see a comrade fall in battle, you can spend a Force point to ..." well, I'm not sure what you'd do with that Force point, but I imagine you get my drift.

Incidentally, as an aside on the difference between the Dark and Light.... I actually read the novelization of Ep3. It spent some amount of time on how Anakin and Obi-wan each fought and interacted with the world in general. Anakin wielded the Force. If he didn't like the outcome he foresaw, he grabbed onto the Force and pushed. Obi-wan surrendered to the Force. He felt impressions of what was oncoming, and subtly shifted himself to intersect possibilities. When he was fighting Grievous' bodyguards, he "felt their destruction" behind and above him, so he backed up and reached out with the Force, dropping that anvil on them (which was clearly an attempt to make anvil dropping cool on the part of the author, and was much appreciated). When he was fighting Anakin in the control room, he "felt death" out on the catwalks above the lava, so he let himself retreat in that direction.

I really have no mechanics that grow out of that, but I think it's an excellent way of thinking about system of "normal force point adjustment BEFORE you roll, but you get a Dark Side point for adjusting AFTER you roll." When you surrender to the Force, it might help you at important moments but it's all the Will of the Force. Forcing the issue puts you on the path to red lightsabers and yellow contact lenses.

 

[Nifft]

OK, how about this variation?

You get 1d4 dark side points for dark side acts and the DM keeps the score secretly. That way you'd never be sure exactly how near or far you were from falling to the dark side.

To make this work from a player perspective you'd want to give them the option at the point where they tip over the edge to sacrifice a force point/destiny point/something to make a last minute grasp for their light-side-sanity.

(My inspiration for this was the TSR game Top Secret. Each PC had two scores called Fame and Luck. You gained 1 Fame each level, you start off with 1d6 luck but it is secretly held by the DM for you. If you got a bad result in the game you could use *either* a Fame point or a Luck point to negate that bad result. You knew how far your fame could take you. You never knew just when your luck would run out...)

Love the Luck idea. Might steal that for my game, because luck running out is cool.

However, the ramifications of Dark Side points are bit worse than the ramifications of luck running out. In the latter case, you're screwed; in the former case, you're an NPC forever.

PCs being screwed has always been part of the game -- it's still fun. PCs suddenly turning into NPCS? Not so fun.

Cheers, -- N

 

[maggot]

When you get a darkside point, roll a d6. If you roll a 6, you get another darkside point and you reroll. Thus, you are never safe getting a darkside point. Playing with the darkside gets more and more dangerous as time goes by.