| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
Random Numbers
Commander
Joined: 12 Jan 2010
Posts: 454
Location: Gladsheim
|
 Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2011 9:23 am Post subject: |
 |
|
| Bren wrote: | | Random Numbers wrote: | | So... How do you become a Jedi knight without the Jedi council? |
In our house campaign it was a combination of four things:
1) You have force skills in the right ball park (for use around 5D average).
2) You have successfully passed at least one challenge of confronting the Dark that tests your moral fitness to be a Jedi. A previous post described one such challenge.
3) Your master (if you have one) agrees that you qualify as a knight.
4) You feel ready. This is a combination of the player feeling OK with his/her character becoming a knight and the GM signaling to the PC that he/she "feels" ready via a force vision or just a feeling that the character has, perhaps after succeeding at their latest challenge. Something along the lines of "you have finally defeated Shadow and returned him to the light. Now, at last you feel like you are truly a Jedi Knight." |
I see. So it's more of an emotional state where you feel that you are upholding the code of the Jedi? No one really puts a lightsaber against your shoulder and say the magic words.
_________________
Random is who random does... |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Bren
Vice Admiral
Joined: 19 Aug 2010
Posts: 3868
Location: Maryland, USA
|
| Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2011 9:48 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Random Numbers wrote: | | I see. So it's more of an emotional state where you feel that you are upholding the code of the Jedi? No one really puts a lightsaber against your shoulder and say the magic words. |
We haven't done a "I now dub you a jedi knight ceremony," no. IIR, in the prequels they cut off the padawan braid. Which seemed to be the equivalent of Western European style raising to knighthood.
But our campaign started in real time long before the prequels so none of the Jedi students were called padawans nor did they have a braid to slice off. Also, like Luke the respective masters/teachers were not present at the time the students passed their challenges. One was dead and one was busy elsewhere.
I think if your Jedi is a formal padawan with braid and all, slicing it off would be a nice gesture and would allow the padawan's teacher/master to visibly and formally approve of the student becoming a knight. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Bren
Vice Admiral
Joined: 19 Aug 2010
Posts: 3868
Location: Maryland, USA
|
| Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2011 9:53 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Bren wrote: | | I think if your Jedi is a formal padawan with braid and all, slicing it off would be a nice gesture and would allow the padawan's teacher/master to visibly and formally approve of the student becoming a knight. |
Which gives me an idea for a padawan who turns to the Dark Side, fighting and killing his teacher in a duel. At the finale of the duel, one of the teacher's attacks clips off the dark padawan's braid just as the padawan runs his teacher through, killing him/her. As the braid slowly floats down coming to rest in a pool of the master's blood, the dark padawan looks down and says. "Thank you master. Your teaching is ended. Now I am a knight, just as you fore told it."  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
atgxtg
Rear Admiral
Joined: 22 Mar 2009
Posts: 2460
|
| Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2011 4:59 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Bren wrote: |
Which gives me an idea for a padawan who turns to the Dark Side, fighting and killing his teacher in a duel. At the finale of the duel, one of the teacher's attacks clips off the dark padawan's braid just as the padawan runs his teacher through, killing him/her. As the braid slowly floats down coming to rest in a pool of the master's blood, the dark padawan looks down and says. "Thank you master. Your teaching is ended. Now I am a knight, just as you fore told it." |
Kinda hard to pull off though, Usually the teacher still has a significant advantage in skill. It looks good, but is about as likely to happen in the RPG as a long saber fight. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Bren
Vice Admiral
Joined: 19 Aug 2010
Posts: 3868
Location: Maryland, USA
|
| Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2011 9:25 am Post subject: |
|
|
| atgxtg wrote: | | Kinda hard to pull off though, Usually the teacher still has a significant advantage in skill. It looks good, but is about as likely to happen in the RPG as a long saber fight. |
Good point. To counter, just pick any of the following:
1) Assume the student already has DSPs, has not yet but is just turning (thus gets maybe +4D bonus for 4 DSPs).
2) Assume the student is experience, is aggressive minded, and has focused on combat, thus he may have a higher lightsaber combat than his master.
3) Assume the teacher doesn't want to kill his student, can't believe he has really turned (or is about to turn), is trying to persuade him back to the Light, and hence the master is not trying as hard to kill the student.
4) Dramatically, the teacher surpassing, replacing, or even killing the master is at least as old as bronze, so it is dramatically reasonable even if the rules are hard pressed to allow it.
5) Finally, if this is color and drama only, as long as no PC is involved I can have the combat come out however I want.  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
atgxtg
Rear Admiral
Joined: 22 Mar 2009
Posts: 2460
|
| Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2011 2:41 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Bren wrote: |
5) Finally, if this is color and drama only, as long as no PC is involved I can have the combat come out however I want. |
Ah, that is they key thing. I was worried that you were trying to play this sort of thing out. GM fiat/,back story is another thing entirely. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Bren
Vice Admiral
Joined: 19 Aug 2010
Posts: 3868
Location: Maryland, USA
|
| Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2011 8:51 am Post subject: |
|
|
| atgxtg wrote: | | Bren wrote: |
5) Finally, if this is color and drama only, as long as no PC is involved I can have the combat come out however I want. |
Ah, that is they key thing. I was worried that you were trying to play this sort of thing out. GM fiat/,back story is another thing entirely. |
Mentally I was thinking back story, but even with that, dramatic coincidence aside, I prefer some plausibility to my GM fiat events. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
atgxtg
Rear Admiral
Joined: 22 Mar 2009
Posts: 2460
|
| Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2011 1:40 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Bren wrote: | | atgxtg wrote: | | Bren wrote: |
5) Finally, if this is color and drama only, as long as no PC is involved I can have the combat come out however I want. |
Ah, that is they key thing. I was worried that you were trying to play this sort of thing out. GM fiat/,back story is another thing entirely. |
Mentally I was thinking back story, but even with that, dramatic coincidence aside, I prefer some plausibility to my GM fiat events. |
It certianly helps. Lucas can get away with things liike Anakin taking down all the Jedi at the temple, and Leia being Luke's siister, but I find my players aren't as forgiving as the audience was, when things like that happen to them. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Bren
Vice Admiral
Joined: 19 Aug 2010
Posts: 3868
Location: Maryland, USA
|
| Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2011 3:22 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| atgxtg wrote: | | Lucas can get away with things liike Anakin taking down all the Jedi at the temple, and Leia being Luke's siister, but I find my players aren't as forgiving as the audience was, when things like that happen to them. |
With the temple we know Yoda is out after Palpy. And I assume most of the tough Jedi are out getting ambushed by leading the clones. And I don't figure the kiddies can put up much of a fight. I guess if they gang up the MAPs penalty might cause Annie Vader some difficulty. But then he has the brave 501st Baby Killer Legion to keep the baby Jedi from swarming him. Overall, I'm really glad we don't see more of that scene. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
jmanski
Arbiter-General (Moderator)
Joined: 06 Mar 2005
Posts: 2065
Location: Kansas
|
| Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2011 5:14 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I agree, less was more in that sense.
_________________
Blasted rules. Why can't they just be perfect? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
atgxtg
Rear Admiral
Joined: 22 Mar 2009
Posts: 2460
|
| Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 1:25 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Me, too. Especially since it wouldn'tt play out well in the RPG. It7s hard enough to buy into the idea that a hoard of incompentent battle droids could wipe out so many Jedi in Attack of the Clones. At least according to 2R&E. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Bren
Vice Admiral
Joined: 19 Aug 2010
Posts: 3868
Location: Maryland, USA
|
| Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 1:33 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| atgxtg wrote: | | Me, too. Especially since it wouldn'tt play out well in the RPG. It7s hard enough to buy into the idea that a hoard of incompentent battle droids could wipe out so many Jedi in Attack of the Clones. At least according to 2R&E. |
It's the MAPs combined with the fact that most of the Jedi without any speaking lines foolishly chose reaction parries rather than full parries.  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Fallon Kell
Commodore
Joined: 07 Mar 2011
Posts: 1846
Location: Tacoma, WA
|
| Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 8:09 pm Post subject: |
|
|
When Tolkien was first writing the stories of middle earth, about the battles of the elves against Morgoth, he wrote in battles with thousands of balrogs. Eventually he pared them down to just one in the Lord of the Rings and a hand full in The Silmarillion. Why? because he understood that for mighty beings, the perceived power was inversely proportional to their numbers. If 10,000 balrogs fought in the storm of Gondolin, then the simple fact that anyone escaped proves they aren't so impressive. If however only a few were there and no one ever survived single combat with them, that makes them impressive.
Jedi are the same. WEG wrote their rules before 1999, when Jedi were seen as extremely rare and powerful people. That's why their character templates only had young or failed Jedi. When 1999 rolled around and we saw two Jedi running from two droids in the first few minutes of the movie, we saw that the Jedi were now no better than professional baseball players who could jump very far.
The WEG rules no longer match the movies as a whole, and you have to make a decision about who you want Jedi to be. Personally, I think they belong somewhere in between. I think their danger sense should be somewhat unreliable, and that blocking fire while surrounded by four people with automatic weapons should be impossible for the average Jedi and extremely difficult even for a master. However, I don't even bother with them. There are none in the neck of the stars I GM in.
_________________
Or that excessively long "Noooooooooo" was the Whining Side of the Force leaving him. - Dustflier
Complete Starship Construction System |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16404
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
|
| Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 9:46 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Fallon Kell wrote: | | When Tolkien was first writing the stories of middle earth, about the battles of the elves against Morgoth, he wrote in battles with thousands of balrogs. Eventually he pared them down to just one in the Lord of the Rings and a hand full in The Silmarillion. Why? because he understood that for mighty beings, the perceived power was inversely proportional to their numbers. If 10,000 balrogs fought in the storm of Gondolin, then the simple fact that anyone escaped proves they aren't so impressive. If however only a few were there and no one ever survived single combat with them, that makes them impressive. |
Actually, the presence of many Balrogs in the First Age and only one in the Third Age was because, in the beginning, the Valar (Tolkien's divine pantheon equivalent) was directly involved in the goings-on of Middle Earth, but as time progressed, their direct involvement decreased until they completely cut themselves off, and their subordinates, the Mayar, acted as intermediaries. The Mayar took many forms, including that of dragons and balrogs (the servants of Morgoth) and the Istari (Gandalf, Saruman and the other wizards). Sauron was, in fact, one of the more potent Mayar, so he was of the same "class" as the Balrog, only more powerful. At the end of the first age, Morgoth was defeated in the War of Wrath and cast into the outer darkness, and many of his creatures were destroyed. This includes most of the Balrogs, all save a few who ran and hid themselves in the deep places of Middle Earth (where they stayed until the Dwarves dug to deep and awoke them).
Through the progression of Tolkien's history, from the first chapter of the Silmarillion to the end of Return Of The King, there is a marked progression of the magic and greatness leaving Middle Earth, almost as if it begins in its purest form and slowly corrupted or diluted over thousands of years. In the First Age, the gods walked among men and elves, and there were good heroes to match the balrogs and Morgoth's other creatures. As the magic seemed to "dry up", so too did the magnitude of the threats decrease, as well as the "mightiness" of the heroes who opposed the darkness. In the end, Sauron was nothing more than a pale shadow of a servant of the true evil of Morgoth.
| Quote: | | Jedi are the same. WEG wrote their rules before 1999, when Jedi were seen as extremely rare and powerful people. That's why their character templates only had young or failed Jedi. When 1999 rolled around and we saw two Jedi running from two droids in the first few minutes of the movie, we saw that the Jedi were now no better than professional baseball players who could jump very far. |
I wouldn't go that far. After all, the Jedi in the OT were never really portrayed as being more powerful than they are in the prequels. The only real battle in the OT where a Jedi went head-to-head with multiple non-FS attackers was on Jabba's Sail Barge. As far as the result, Jabba's thugs could've very easily been substituted with battle droids and still gotten the same result. The only place where I got the idea that the prequel Jedi were more powerful was when WEG inferred it in the Force chapter in the rulebook.
| Quote: | | The WEG rules no longer match the movies as a whole, and you have to make a decision about who you want Jedi to be. Personally, I think they belong somewhere in between. I think their danger sense should be somewhat unreliable, and that blocking fire while surrounded by four people with automatic weapons should be impossible for the average Jedi and extremely difficult even for a master. However, I don't even bother with them. There are none in the neck of the stars I GM in. |
Your game, your call. Personally, I always thought WEG made some major screw-ups in their conversion. I could go off, but I won't. Instead I will just say that I have always considered the WEG D6 Star Wars a good base-line system, but if I see something that conflicts with the films, I have no qualms about changing it up a bit.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
garhkal
Sovereign Protector
Joined: 17 Jul 2005
Posts: 14359
Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
|
| Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2011 1:02 am Post subject: |
|
|
Its the Ninja paradox.
1 ninja = Badass mofo..
many ninjas = sucktastic!
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk! |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
