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Is this DSP worthy...
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 1:32 am    Post subject: Is this DSP worthy... Reply with quote

Would the below comment (and its extension comment) warrent a DSP??

Quote:
My players doesnt interact with lower beings that well. Usually ends up just leaving them there or exterminating the whole race and then go home.

Theyre bounty hunters/mercs/assassins/guns fore hire themselves.

Besides, who other in the xenophobic Empire cares about them? Besides the Rebellion of course then, and saying at royal parties what youre doing is not the best to do. Sure they could be saved as slaves, but my players usually dont leave traces enough (other than turbolaser scorchmarks or thermal detonator blasts) to who it was.


And the gm in question, when i asked about dsps. responded with

Quote:
Were not using DPSs unless theyre Jedi based characters, you have to agree that the rules arent saying about anything about standard non-force sensitive chars.


Sounds to me like he needs to read up on the rules more...
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Robert
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 6:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, there are NPCs, who are non-sensitive, who have DSPs!
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Gry Sarth
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 9:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

And I'd say the kind of low-life scum characters your players are playing certainly deserve some DSPs. A life of slaving, murder, bigotry, is a villain's life. Villains have DSPs...
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Last edited by Gry Sarth on Sat Apr 22, 2006 11:21 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Boomer
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 6:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oh man, what a great GM to play under if you just want to make random mayhem and a trail of carnage without any consequences.

Yes, geez man, those players are accurately portraying characters that have fallen to the dark side, not just DSfrikkingP earning.
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darthomer09
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 10:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I played a GTA based game once and told the players they didn't have to bother with DSPs. It got really bad to the point that they were going out of their way to eliminate random NPCs.
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Gry Sarth
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 11:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Goes to show that if the consequences are removed, we all become vicious heartless monsters....

Thus the need of the DSP system in most games.
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Akari
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 24, 2006 8:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Of course it is a lot less likely for non jedi or even non force sensitive characters to get darkside points, but it most certainly is possible. Just the other day I heard of a campaign where the playerbase aparently consisted of a ruthless assassin, a sith lord (sic!), and an arsonist... Well, I wouldn't want to look down on this type of game (though thats not easy) but its most certainly not a game I want to play...

In my opinion, Star Wars more then any other game I know is about being the goodie...
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Gry Sarth
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 24, 2006 9:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Maybe only the Lord of the Rings RPG is more goody-goody.
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Chabit Rane
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PostPosted: Fri May 12, 2006 10:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Akari wrote:
Of course it is a lot less likely for non jedi or even non force sensitive characters to get darkside points, but it most certainly is possible. Just the other day I heard of a campaign where the playerbase aparently consisted of a ruthless assassin, a sith lord (sic!), and an arsonist... Well, I wouldn't want to look down on this type of game (though thats not easy) but its most certainly not a game I want to play...

In my opinion, Star Wars more then any other game I know is about being the goodie...


I agree with you Akari. That kind of game is not what Star Wars is about. Its about fighting the right fight and fighting evil itself. Not about murder and doing evil. Besides, thats the GM's job...

I usually don't have to hand out DSPs and I'm glad I don't. It would ruin the setting and the game.
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Artemas Ward the XXIII
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PostPosted: Sun May 14, 2006 4:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

But, sometimes, you just have to use this thermal detonator, see? And, well, if there are people about......
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renault
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 28, 2006 10:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

whoa whoa whoa.... play the goody? ruin the setting? I know I'm not the only one who immediately fell in love with the galactic underworld. how many imps can you kill, how many deeds can you do, before you just break down and say you know what? somebody in this 'verse is in it for themself, and I'm sick of him sitting behind a screen. I understand the movies were about good and evil, white and black, all that jazz. but where would the galaxy be without boba talking smack to vader? without (dare I say it?) han shooting first? the dynamic that can even be created by throwing these kind of characters in with your typical boy scout/jedi/wookie first mate party is what gives that feeling of circumstance and realism.

I would gladly pplay a failed imperial draft dodger, sole mercenary in cracken's squad.

dare to be different man, that's why you play a game
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Cool McCool
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 28, 2006 9:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Star Wars doesn't always have to be about doing the right thing. That's one way to play, and it's cool, but it's not the only way to do it.

You could set up situations for characters who have to choose between two things that they want. Luke wanted to become a Jedi, but he had to go and save his friends. Stuff like that. Mix the Dark Side mechanics in, and it gets really interesting.

A good, Star Wars-y one is something like this:

"You want to save your friends? Well, it's going to be really, really hard. You might die, they might die, all for nothing.

But - if you take a Dark Side Point, it'll be so easy..."

And maybe the hero falls to the Dark Side, and maybe it's a tragic Star Wars story where good doesn't win, where the moral of the story is "Idealism gets you and your friends killed"; but it's your Star Wars story.

Okay, that's just one way to play it, but there's nothing wrong with that way either, even if it ruins the setting or whatever.
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 29, 2006 3:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Cool McCool wrote:
Star Wars doesn't always have to be about doing the right thing. That's one way to play, and it's cool, but it's not the only way to do it.

You could set up situations for characters who have to choose between two things that they want. Luke wanted to become a Jedi, but he had to go and save his friends. Stuff like that. Mix the Dark Side mechanics in, and it gets really interesting.

A good, Star Wars-y one is something like this:

"You want to save your friends? Well, it's going to be really, really hard. You might die, they might die, all for nothing.

But - if you take a Dark Side Point, it'll be so easy..."

And maybe the hero falls to the Dark Side, and maybe it's a tragic Star Wars story where good doesn't win, where the moral of the story is "Idealism gets you and your friends killed"; but it's your Star Wars story.

Okay, that's just one way to play it, but there's nothing wrong with that way either, even if it ruins the setting or whatever.


That would be too easy to avoid ..

Try it like

"well looking at the computer screen for the imperial facility, you realise it is way beyond your skill, even if you trusted in the force to help. But as you ponder your helplessness, a brief glimps of what could be comes to you, if you just gave into that helplessness, something would remove it..
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Cool McCool
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 29, 2006 4:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

garhkal wrote:
That would be too easy to avoid ..


Ah, see, I never would hand out DSPs - I'd leave that choice up to the player. Well, not never, but almost all the time. The cool thing is that using the Dark Side makes you able to get what you want - but at what cost?

If your group likes playing that way, then players won't want to avoid those situations - they'll crave them and try to set them up.

I dig the computer example. But to give it more "oomph", you need other characters. Imagine if the guy needed to use the Dark Side in order to save his buddies - say they're getting squished in the trash compactor. Wow, now whatever he does... it's powerful.

A) He doesn't use the Dark Side, because his own morals/maintaining that "purity of self" means more to him than the lives of his friends. This would have been Luke's choice if he had followed Yoda's advice and stayed on Dagobah, and didn't go to Cloud City.

B) He does use the Dark Side, and he's saying the opposite: my friends mean more to me than my own soul. See Luke near the end of RotJ: "Your sister... Obi-Wan was right to hide her. If you won't be turned, then she will." "Never!" (Forgive me if that's wrong, it's from memory. Wink )

C) The Heroic path would be to use a Force Point, and get it back at the end of the adventure. This is trickier... what the GM needs to do is make it clear that he's going to need that Force Point later on, for something else. Maybe to fight the Dark Jedi, or to use in blowing up the Torpedo Sphere that's orbiting the planet, or to decimate a legion of Stormtroopers. Whatever. Knowing that, the player's saying that he's willing to risk losing the upcoming conflict in order to save his friends.

This choice is similar to Luke's choice, leaving Dagobah and his training to go to Cloud City. (At least that's my impression.) Luke would have got the training necessary to defeat Vader, but instead he chose to save his friends and face Vader when he wasn't ready for him. (In game mechanics, higher dice ratings in his Force skills, and maybe a Force Point.)


Sorry about the zeal. I'm not saying this is the way to play and that other ways = teh suck. Not at all! I just dig this style personally, and to each his own, eh? Wink
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masque
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 25, 2007 3:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

bump.
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