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The Jedi Master
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Joined: 19 May 2014
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 Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2014 3:55 pm Post subject: Force Sensitivity After Character Creation--Or, ONLY 20 CP?! |
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The following is taken directly from the Second Edition, Revised and Expanded (Page 36). The exclamation point is mine, of course:
A character who is not Force-sensitive may choose to become Force-sensitive for 20 (!) Character Points. (There is no training time requirement.)
When I first read this, I had no clue what to think. If you play well, you can get 20 CP after the first adventure. Supposedly, it's easier to start Force-sensitive (which I'll grant--you don't start with any skills this way, after all), but game-balance isn't the only problem. As far as I know, there is no Canon precedent, EU or film, for a non-Force user to become a Force user later in life. It just breaks the rules of the universe.
If I were to allow this, I would make it way more expensive--probably 100 points and up. I would also require a series of adventures to find some artifact or something that would do the trick (it would probably become the focus of the campaign for a while, actually). For the most part, though, I ignore this and say 'if you're not Force-sensitive when you start out, then you're not Force-sensitive.'
What do you think? Is it too cheap to turn into a Jedi? Is there any Canon precedent for acquiring Force-sensitivity that I'm not aware of? How do you handle this in your campaigns?
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Zarm R'keeg
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| Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2014 4:05 pm Post subject: |
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Typically, I see it not as someone becoming Force-sensitive (though I could see doing that at the end of DOE when the tree explodes), but discovering, like Luke and Leia, that you were all along and didn't know it.
20 CP for a first adventure may be a little too generous (or conversely, the Force buy-in a little too cheap), but to me its not problematic because it only unlocks the *potential* for being Force-sensitive. They start at essentially no skill-level in Force Powers (but increased susceptibility to DSPs) and need to go find a master of some sort before they can start training up at all.
Heck, one of my players bought this, got a go-to-Trinta dream (DOE is my go-to tie-in for Force coming and going, with Ventor's ghost as a handy messenger to pull an ESB Obi-wan 'you must go find so-and-so to train you')... and 3 adventures later, he hadn't even started that quest. He had zero force powers, some narration-only intuition, and increased accountability for DSP-worthy actions. Depending on how many CP your character has to sink into leveling up Control, Sense, and Alter (1 pip per adventure from a starting rank of essentially zero) and how hard you choose to make it to actually find a Force-user to train him, it can take a VERY long time for that 20 point investment to actually do anything. So to me, it's not a shortcut, just buying the potential to explore a new character option- from scratch and at great time and expense- that you neglected to incorporate at character creation.
Could just be me, though. 
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garhkal
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Joined: 17 Jul 2005
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Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2014 5:02 pm Post subject: |
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Plus if they are stockpiling those 20cp to spend for buying force sensitivity, they are not using it in game to boost rolls OR to improve any stats.
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HandsomeHutt
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| Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2014 6:46 pm Post subject: |
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| Medic! Midichlorian transfusion in bed four, stat! |
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Zarm R'keeg
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| Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2014 7:16 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah, that has been the 'shouldn't you be able to?' question that Lucasfilm has been avoiding a direct answer to since 1999, isn't it? "Can't I just become a Jedi from a blood transfusion?"
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The Jedi Master
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| Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2014 8:47 pm Post subject: |
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Well, I guess blood transfusions are harder than they look.
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DougRed4
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| Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2014 4:06 pm Post subject: |
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Zarm's first post pretty much sums up the correct response, I think. Even Han (supposedly) was more attuned to the Force than he thought (though he wasn't Force Sensitive). I think the reason they have this in the game is to allow for the Luke and Leia type characters that discover that they were FS all along.
As far as the midi-chlorians (and let me state up front that I'd have rather that part never be included), there seems to be quite a misunderstanding about them. They simply show how much potential one has. Some facts about them (from Wookieepedia).
Midi-chlorians
- They are present in all life
- They are necessary for life to exist
- though Force ability often meant a high midi-chlorian count, it was not always the case
- some Jedi believed that, contrarily, the midi-chlorians were created by the Force to serve as the link between it and other life
- Midi-chlorian counts did not indicate an upper limit to Force ability
Now, the above said (don't shoot the messenger; I'm just the one telling you what the "in-universe" definition of them is!), midi-chlorians - if they even exist - aren't even mentioned in my game. I personally prefer to keep the Force more mysterious and esoteric, so I don't really consider or think about them.
But even though I don't like the concept (so I'm probably with all of you in that regard), I believe most SW fans misunderstand how they are said to work in the SWU.
So, no, you can't get them from a blood transfusion. They're said to exist inside every cell, so they're on a much smaller scale than just being in someone's blood (though the blood might be an easy method of testing for a count).
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garhkal
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| Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2014 4:49 pm Post subject: |
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On the blood transfusion thing, perhaps though you cna detect midiclorians in blood samples, they resist being transfused into someone else?
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Zarm R'keeg
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| Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2014 8:33 am Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | On the blood transfusion thing, perhaps though you cna detect midiclorians in blood samples, they resist being transfused into someone else? |
My friend and I actually had a 20-minute long discussion on this- satirically, of course. We decided that perhaps you could transfuse them, but the midichlorians that drive Force-use are bonded to the blood cells- so as they die out and your body replaces them with new blood cells, you lose your little Froce-boost. What you'd really need is the organ or gland that produces new midichlorians IN the user- stealing their organs, not their blood (which means 1 new force-user per old force-user, not an infinite number spawning from a simple Coruscant Red Cross drive). But that ought to be totally viable, so a very undertapped black market.
Conversation then segued to the nonsensical Crosscurrent concept of 'Jedi and Sith DNA!' Now, I pretty much adhere to Vergere's philosophy on 'light and dark sides,' but if they do exist in the traditional Star Wars understanding, this seems to suggest two actual separate halves of the force, like dual rivers running in parallel, that one can tap into- the light or dark sides. Therefore, we retconned this to suggest that midichlorians become attuned to either one side or the other, retransmitters of light or dark, and as one becomes dominant in the blood, the others die off. Hence, when Luke said there was still good in Vader, it was just because not all the light-side midichlorians had died off yet. 
We were just being silly (and not accounting for any of the info you present, DougRed4)... but then, that's what happens when you introduce a concept as ridiculous as midichlorians. The fans try to rationalize it in increasingly-absurd ways.
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Luwingo_Spince
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| Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2014 11:38 am Post subject: |
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According to wookiepedia
An organism that had been grievously injured and unable to be kept alive through medical treatment could be infused with blood rich in midi-chlorians, forcing an organism to stay alive when it would normally die, as was the case with General Grievous. However, this would not transfer any of the blood donor's Force-sensitivity.
Going by memory alone (spotty at best) this question I believe was answered in the novel Darth Plagueis. It basically agrees with what you said Zarm that the midichlorians are linked to an individual's DNA and if transferred to another person quickly starts dying in the host. Though offering no force sensitivity could help temporarily to increase the body's function. |
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Zarm R'keeg
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| Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2014 11:59 am Post subject: |
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Wow. See... if the official line on midichlorians has pretty much just derived the same conclusions we did from joking around about how dumb the concept was, that probably says something about the original concept...
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Random_Axe
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| Posted: Sat Oct 04, 2014 10:34 am Post subject: |
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| The Jedi Master wrote: | | Well, I guess blood transfusions are harder than they look. |
ROFL, thank you. Nice one.
In my old campaign, the buy-in happened only once, and it came late in the campaign arc and it had a story tie-in. I knew the player wanted it to happen and he had the 20 CP standing by for a logical break between sessions to have it happen, so I had it suddenly occur to him as he was standing by observing a certain Jedi ritual under way. A glowing wave of Force swirled out from the ritual but unexpectedly flashed out and settled on this PC and he suddenly became more "aware" and attuned to the Force as a result.
IMHO, something as momentous as this shouldn't be reduced to a mere mechanic of spending CPs to get a new permanent buff that at is most basic form, merely allows you to accrue more Force Points in your pool, and possibly, maybe, perhaps, allows for the future option of being trained in Force powers by a guy who can teach them. I say it should become part of the story, part of the storytelling, part of the heroic tale. |
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Whill
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Rollenspiel
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| Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2014 12:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Now, the above said (don't shoot the messenger; I'm just the one telling you what the "in-universe" definition of them is!), midi-chlorians - if they even exist - aren't even mentioned in my game. I personally prefer to keep the Force more mysterious and esoteric, so I don't really consider or think about them. |
All that midi-chlorian nonsense was the biggest problem I have with Nu-SW movies. The ill-defined, nebulous mysticism is what made the Force so marvelous back in '77. IMC, I would make the buy-in far higher, and nowhere near 20 CP. |
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Zarm R'keeg
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| Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2014 9:25 am Post subject: |
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| Rollenspiel wrote: | | The ill-defined, nebulous mysticism is what made the Force so marvelous back in '77. |
And for that matter, the mysterious Jedi order as embodied by Obi-wan Kenobi.
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