A new 'to dsp or not to dsp...'

[garhkal]

[garhkal]

[Gry Sarth]

Well, one thing to consider is that there might be a big difference between what's illegal and what's actually wrong or evil. Just because a government declares something illegal, it doesn't mean it's something considered wrong in the eyes of the Force. Possession of a lightsaber is illegal, yet any lawful Jedi should have one by his side.

Concerning spice, it's important to note that it's not a widely outlawed drug. Unauthorized running of spice is illegal, but there are legal channels to obtain it. The Empire and probably other governments just want to hold a monopoly on it, so they prosecute any freetraders dealing in it. It is well known that most nobles regularly use spice obtained through legal channels. Thus I would think twice about giving a dsp to a force-user for smuggling such a dubiously illegal drug.
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"He's Gry Sarth, of course he has the stats for them."

[masque]

[Chandra Mindarass]

I'd say what masque said about drug and responsibility can be applied to any kind of drug. Making a drug illegal makes it more desirable and more expensive.

I must admit, that I didn't know that there were different types of spice and only knew about the heroin-like variant. I compared it to the opium problems in the dying Chinese Empire, although now that I'm typing I remember reading about medical applications of spice.

I need to clarify one thing: I would not give anyone a DSP for smuggling an illegal drug, not even to a force-user. The Jedi Order wouldn't allow it of course, but it is not evil. Killing is, causing fear and terror is, causing unnecessary pain is. It's in everybody's responsibilty to know, whether he should have another shot (or anything at all) or not, but the kind of people in the drug "business" are often pretty mean-spirited and not the kind of environment, where a "good and decent person" would stay good and decent for long...and live to tell the tale. Maybe it was the brief company of Obiwan, Luke and Leia, that remembered Han who he was.

If he deserved a DSP for causing Greedos death depends on whether Greedo actually had a blaster in his suction cups. You can set blasters to stun or just punch him in the face and return from Alderaan with Jabba's money, back under his protective cloak.
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RPGGamer (featuring a big portion of DLOS-stats!)

>-q=p---

[Pel]

Based on Han's reaction and their conversation, I'm pretty sure it was a blaster or maybe even a disintegrator. Granted Greedo was a horrible shot (if that reworked cantina scene can be believed) but Han was definitely within his rights to blast him. Greedo was out to make a name for himself and wasn't smart enough to back off when outmatched or listen to reason.

Besides, Greedo served his purpose. He illustrated that Han was involved with some shady characters and also that Han could protect himself if needed. No Dark Side there.
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Aha!

[Chandra Mindarass]

Well, the scene was reworked, because of Han originally acting like a criminal. I have never seen a blaster in Greedo's hand and Greedo has no reason to shoot really - he still wanted the money and Han didn't have it in his pocket. In my opinion he just gave Han a reason to get rid of him. What would have happened if Han hadn't shot?

The situation would have escalated anyway. Greedo would have pulled out a blaster, demanding the money while threatening Han with a blaster. Greedo wasn't very smart and as such very dangerous, when holding a blaster, but he still had no reason to do more than just terrify Han enough to give him the 10k credits. As far as I remember, there was no bounty on Han's head yet. He still had a nice chat with Jabba after all. (Yeah, Gold ed. I know, but the original scene was shot back for the original.)

THIS is exactly the point, where the dark side comes into play. Han was pretty sure this would have happened and acted from a position of strength while he still could, but it was not taking life in self-defense. It was the easy way out. It's not like Luke couldn't also have used "Affect Mind" to convince the two Gamorreans at the gates, that he's Jabba's mother. This is the moment the dark side lures you with an easier, less messy, less risky option.

Han could also have waited for Greedo to touch his blaster. If Han was really as fast with the blaster as descibed in the HLL, HSE and HSR books, it shouldn't have been a problem for him to best a third-class thug even in a direct duel.
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RPGGamer (featuring a big portion of DLOS-stats!)

>-q=p---

[Grimace]

What??? No blaster in Greedo's hand? What show were you watching?

Greedo has always held a blaster in his hand, and in the cheesy reworking of the scene, he even fires it first before Han Solo blows him away. Plus, if you read the text, you can see that Greedo has every intention of shooting Han.

Plus, there WAS a bounty on Han put there by Jabba the Hutt. The quote "Jabba put a bounty on your head so large every bounty hunter in the galaxy will be after you." is a sure sign of that. Granted, Han didn't have the even heftier Imperial bounty on him until later, but he did have a bounty on him from Jabba the Hutt for dropping the spice shipment.

[masque]

As Grimace said, Greedo has always held a gun on Han, go watch ANY version of the scene, original, SE, or DVD SE.

Getting back to the subject at hand, DSPs are largely the concern of Force sensitive characters. I don't see crooks racking them up all over the place. In order to explain why, I will lay out my understanding of the Force and the ethical systems applied to it. I'm going to refer to non-Force sensitives as "mundanes" for ease of typing.

The Force is a something tangible in the Star Wars universe. DSPs are a game mechanical device that is specifically intended to reflect the precarious nature of dealing directly with the Force, and the temptations towards abuse that that power can provide. There is no actual Light or Dark side to the Force, there is just the Force itself.

Those who subscribe to the "Light" side are those who fight against the tendency that "power corrupts", and the ethics they follow are a discipline they learn to make fighting that corruption easier. Jedi and other "light" side Force sensitives have basically adopted the Spider Man dictum of "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility" and have set up the chivalric Jedi order to codify and enforce that notion, as well as to take a place in the larger interstellar community. The disadvantage to this is that the Order can, with the best intentions, end up taking on too much responsibility (and therefore power) and end up resented by the "mundane" community, and the very power wielded by the Order can end up causing the very corruption it was created to avoid. The various Jedi who have fallen to the "Dark" side attest to this.

Subscribers to the "Dark" side are those who decide that they are going to use the power at their disposal to fulfill their own goals regardless of how it affects others. The ruling dictum here is "Might Makes Right" and the Sith and other "Dark" siders act accordingly. The biggest problem with this is that it ultimately leads to a scenario where various "Dark" siders are in constant competition and dominance games with one another, and succession usually results from Apprentices killing their Masters (to use a Sith example), and results in a rather unstable state of affairs.

Because all of this is tied up rather specifically with the use of the Force and what it does to people, the awarding of DSPs to "mundanes" seems rather pointless in most cases.

Force sensitives, by the virtue of their being sensitive, are elite. They have the ability to manipulate the very fabric of the Force, and that ability tends to make their actions disproportionately significant to it, which is why Force sensitives have to be so careful about their actions. Since the Force is connected to every living thing in the universe, the actions of those who can manipulate it have far-reaching effects, and when they manipulate it in "Dark" side ways, even relatively small actions like the murder of individuals can have drastic effects, hence the DSPs. This is also why the only mention I see in the rulebook of mundanes getting DSPs is when they do something evil while spending a Force point. They have temporarily gained that greater connection with the Force that sensitives have, and as such are subject to peril associated with it.

Because "mundanes" do not have this stronger connection, they would have to do something incredibly bad to earn a DSP (without spending Force points), something so heinous that the sheer maliciousness or destructiveness sends ripples through the Force itself through the weaker connection that all life shares. Grand Moff Tarkin, ordering the destruction of Alderaan would be something I could see as qualifying for quite a few. Acts of genocide not involving planetary destruction would probably also qualify. Serial killers who torture, rape and kill victims would probably earn one, if any, by comparison. There simply isn't the same amount of cosmic significance attached to the "mundane's" actions, unless it is in fact something of cosmic significance. Kind of like Stalin's quote about the death of one is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic, except in reverse.

Hope this helps.
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Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.

[Pel]

That sounds good to me, Masque. You're absolutely right that Dark Side Points have no effect on mundanes. I've always used them as a sort of "evilometer" to reference just how heinous an individual is.

You make an excellent point in the Force is present in all living things. It leads me to think that the Dark Side can and probably does tempt mundanes every day. After all, Sith haven't cornered the market on evil. They just do it in more grandiose fashion. I guess what I'm getting at is a person doesn't need to use the Force to champion the Light or the Dark sides. Jedi just make more tempting targets.

This could lead to some great roleplaying opportunities if mundanes were similarly tempted by the Dark Side. Maybe they wouldn't receive the immense power boost that a falling Jedi does, but a few CPs here and there could make a difference to some. Comments?
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Aha!

[masque]

Well, what you suggest is actually the opposite of my intention. Some people do seem to have been giving DSPs to mundane players, in what I regard as a stand-in for an alignment system. My point is that I don't think they should be used in that fashion.
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Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.

[garhkal]

SO what then.... should non force sensitives be alllowed to kill whom they want, when they want, without reprocussions??? To me that is what the DSP is representing. Part of their soul becoming evil incarnate. And in the game it does not matter if you are FS or NFS, you roll less than your DSP total, on that D6, you turn.
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[masque]

Of course there are repercussions. Can you run around indiscriminatedly killing people? No, of course not. There are plenty of consequences for evil actions that don't involve the Force. Bounty hunters, Imperial security forces, local authorities, vengeful relatives, all are things that can show up when someone's acting evil. If someone's running around killing people willy-nilly, they're likely to get shot in the face themselves sooner or later, through strictly mundane means. "Live by the sword, die by the sword." The very existence of those mundane repercussions make metaphysical ones like DSPs unnecessary. I can't see a GM letting a character get away with things like that for very long, in any case. Sounds like a job for the classic "Rocks fall, everybody dies!" to me.

All I'm saying is that I don't think there should be Force related repercussions except in the most severe cases. DSPs are a metaphysical consequence that is tied up with metaphysical powers and abilities. If, as has been presented time and again, the Force is an energy field encompassing all life in the universe, which in said universe people die all the time of accident or natural causes, do you really think a few murders in the vastness of space are going to be noticed? I don't see the Force as a godlike being judging the actions of the living, I see it as what it has been presented as, a field of life energy than can be manipulated to accomplish various ends. A single murder by a mundane not calling on the Force is simply indistinguishable from all the other births and deaths going on elsewhere in the universe. That's why I said what I did about it having to be something of cosmic significance, cosmic being used in a rather literal sense.

I do not view the concept of soul and the Force as being equivalent. I also don't view the condition of the soul as being relevant to the discussion. That's an area for faith and religion, which are notoriously unreliable (scientifically speaking) notions. The abilities of the Force are able to be demonstrated and tested, and even reproduced by other Force users in front of objective observers. The "goodness" or "evilness" of a "soul" cannot be tested or defined as stringently, particularly since what determines that goodness or evilness comes down to arbitrary moral standards, and it therefore doesn't concern me. I try to keep ethical questions on as a utilitarian a basis as possible, both in gaming and real life, and therefore I leave the more abstract questions to religion, seeing no personal relevance to them.
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Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.

[Jedi Skyler]

Look at it from another point of view. In Mos Eisley, murders are quite common. That kind of stuff had to be happening all the time, yet OB1 didn't buckle when someone was getting offed. In fact, when Greedo got blasted to the Great Void, they cut to the scene happening outside, with OB1 and Luke hustling away from the cantina. OB1 was in close enough proximity to have felt it, if that kind of act were to cause such ripples in the Force when a non FS committed them.

But let a whole planet get blown to its constituent atoms, and every Jedi in the galaxy gets hit with a 2x4 across the head.

Masque is right. Just as in our society, if someone goes around killing people, they get chased down and dealt with. Especially if they keep racking up a body count. There are mundane consequences for mundane people and their actions-provided those actions don't occur on the scale of Alderaan's destruction. For all else, there is the Force, and the DSP.

[Chandra Mindarass]

Well, I didn't remember seeing a blaster in Greedo's hand, that's all. The german text is a bit sketchy about Greedo's true intention. If he had a blaster in his hand, no DSP for Han, but that won't change the way I handle DSPs. To me they represent the stains, evil leaves on the soul, which to me cannot be seperated from the force and neither can be explained scientifically. They are a game mechanical tool to measure the degree of curruption of a mind. A force user who has the skills to detect DSPs, will be able to tell the difference between the corrupt power-monger and the smuggler who never had a choice. Alignments work in a different way.

They way DSPs are handled in the R&E rulebook are quite clear on what's evil and what's not. Moral institutions (like the Jedi- or Sith Order) have no authority over giving out DSPs. You can be a Jedi, get drunk, marry a macho pirate cyborg, get tattoed, sell your lightsaber to pay for Sy Snootles stripping at your bachelor's party and still don't get one DSP. Windu will yell, Yoda will be disappointed and the order might kick you out of the temple, but these are moral issues. Using the force while in anger, unnecessary violence, killing not in self defense or stuff like that will give you DSPs. An intolerant GM like me might give you DSPs for actions, that will surely lead to one of the above, like signing the order to execute the rebels or telling the psychopath, that the voices will stop if he killed the Senator.

Mundane characters aren't immune to the effects of the force and the dark side seduces mundanes as well. Mundanes can be consumed as well. This is what makes out villains. They are beyond "What have I done?!" They are in the stage of "What can I do next?"

If an afghan warlord goes around killing people, there is nobody who stops him. Anyone who had the power to do anything, will probably just say: He's probably just fighting Taliban or drug smugglers. The news and history are full of a**holes who just got away. SS-mass murderers fled to south america and became landowners, nazi-judges remained in office and the Al-Saud family still rules Arabia. The same is true for individuals like Jack the Ripper, who still is a mystery today, an army of mafia killers or the faceless bureaucrat who ordered the death of thousands.