Prequel Jedi being Dark according to RAW?

[Mamatried]

yes As the tile states.

Now if we look to the prequals and we jusdge behviour we see that the jedi are in fact more prone to fighting than they "claim" well some are.

When we come to ep2 and anakin we see a constant growth in violence, the times where it is not needed, some being part of the "dirty business" of war.

Now lets look at Anakin as a prime example, according to the rules of the game, he should have accumulated at least the required 6 points long before order 66 and his turning then.

I can argue the same going for Obi Wan, though maybe not acumulating as much, but still, if we see the duel where Maul kills Qui Gon, then we actually see Obi Wan gain a DS there and therne, acting out of anger, I would say fury in fact.

Also the "turning the bling eye" and allowing thing to happen becuse of politics is counter jedi, as they calim to strive to fight for good.

so my conclusion is that maybe the lines between dark and light should be a little more blurry than maybe the game intended with all the material that has come out after the rules were written, and maybe the Outright evil should be closer to threashold than the "rules"

IMO the jedi order as EP1-3 was at best Grey, with good people in the counsil now serving a republic that has grown so dark it was actually ripe fr the empire to take over, and I belive this was becuse the jedi had lost their way and why palpy could manipulate as he did.

[KageRyu]

Much of this, especially pertaining to the prequels and the depiction of the force in them, has been discussed many a time before. Long, long ago, when I was a far more regular and active member of these forums. It was "discussed" at length, vigorously, fervently, and from al angles. It led to many a hurt feelings and a widening rift in the community.

There is a disparity between the description of the Jedi and the light side of the force by Yoda in Empire Strikes Back (which is the core of the rules and mandates of D6 Light Side/Dark Side lore) and what is portrayed in the prequels, the Clone wars, and all content since (which all build upon what has been shown before). This I am sure everyone will at least concede. How to approach this disparity and apply it is best determined by each game master and gaming group individually.

I will not go into my thoughts or opinions (having already said them time and again before in years past, and such topics now skirt possible rules infractions here). Though I would welcome an opportunity in a dedicated thread to discuss such matters in RPG and game play terms, I fear such discussions may turn down a dark path, or may upset some.

I will offer a possible idea for a game rule though, to explain and rectify the seemingly apparent flagrant use of violent actions by Light Side Jedi in the prequels. Perhaps acquiring a Dark Side Points can be resisted with the strength of the force? After all, the Dark Side is supposed to be a temptation, so perhaps those stronger with the Light Side are better able to resist falling completely to that path but still able to cross the line from time to time? This would add even more significance to Yoda's warnings to luke. I would not make the resistance roll with a force power, but I would base it on how many force points the character has (Characters already fallen to the Darkside have no Force Points and only gain and use them by embracing the darkside, creating a dependence). The Difficulty could be based on the Game Master's arbitration, or based on how severe and/or frequent the acts of the Jedi were - say starting at Moderate? Just some quick thoughts, though this would change a fundamental part of D6 game play, it might help reconcile the apparent disparity with Force use and DSP gain when comparing to Prequel and more recent material?
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"There's a set way to gain new Force Points and it represents a very nice system, where you're rewarded for heroism, not for being a poor conductor to electricity." ~Jachra

[cheshire]

It's funny, I haven't previously felt the need to really justify the disparities, I'd just kind of noticed them. There were a lot of rules the WEG crew developed to have mechanics for a game based on the three films they had. New films written from a perspective a number of years down the line were bound to be different animals.

But, what if... what if you're right. If the Jedi had lost their way in the midst of the pragmatism of trying to win a war, then Yoda's statements to Luke could make even more sense if in his years of isolation he'd considered himself a contemplative reformer. He could well have discerned where they went wrong, and decided to teach Luke differently.

I'd buy that.
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Before we take any of this too seriously, just remember that in the middle episode a little rubber puppet moves a spaceship with his mind.

[Mamatried]

maybe being dark is going way overboard, but there is a discrepency, but we can also maybe view what yoda says and what the Jedi code speak of is more the Ideal to achive than the realism of actual life, and as long as the jedi follow the way they will not become dark as accoring to the RPG rules, though mayb do things that in other contexts could be a little bit Ambigous.

becuse if we also look to sith and their code and how they act, we do see the sith not being "good" or "light" ( yes I heard of light sith) but not the classical whirlwinds of destruction and people capable of "good" in as ruling for years without not too much terrorising the individual and more, things we susally think the sith do becuse of maybe the named ones are the closes to the ideals and the rest are the more realistic ones.

[KageRyu]

[Whill]

[Yora]

All the missmatches between the way Obi-Wan and Yoda describe the Jedi and what the Jedi are doing all the time in the Clone Wars stories have been one of the major factors that made be treat the whole Clone Wars thing as an alternate continutiy from what I see as the "90s Star Wars continuity".
Nothing of that has ever happened in my version of Star Wars.
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"Adventure? Eh... Excitement? Eh... A Jedi does not crave these things."

Iridium Moons Retro-futuristic Space Opera

[pakman]

Warning - potentially unpopular opinion;


TLDR Version:
We feel it is because the game designers primarily used DSP to balance force users, and not some other type of system common in other games
e.g. - power points, slots, use per day, fatigue, feedback, toxicity, etc.

That and combined that they treat jedi like paladins, and hand out DSP like candy to keep them in check.

(the other way we suspect an attempt was made to balance force users was the very slow power progression of force skills and powers - but this is another conversation and independent of this topic).

Longer version
This is the opinion of myself and the players in our campaign.

The game designers only had 3 movies and a handful of books - and needed a way to limit force powers. We surmise that one of the ways they choose to do so, was DSP mechanics and how often they can be gained.


As we have a much wider set of source material to consider we reject the DSP rules from our beloved 30 year old game for many reasons (no I won't list them all.... this is not a debate) and our own perspectives of those rules measuring the examples we have.

We use a modified system - excessive force power use adds to fatigue.

For the balance of dark vs. light we use a modified version of the morality system from FFG (is it pretty good actually).

This allows for force users to do things more closely aligned with a variety of source materials (movies, animated series, comics, video games etc.).

Our morality system works for all the "anger" and negative sides of using force powers - and the fatigue system balances out the mechanics of their use, and also accounts for when we see force users get exhausted in various situations.

(there is a bit more to it than that, but this is not a house rules thread....).
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Again - if anyone disagrees - that is 100% cool.

My group LOVEs the clone wars (and rebels etc.) and all of the other works that George, Dave and Jon gave us. if you don't that is cool too!!!!

Neither of us are right or wrong; this is exceptionally subjective and different folks have different perspectives. To each their own.

If someone thinks their way or raw is better - that is awesome.

As long as folks in your game are having fun - you are doing it right!!!!!
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SW Fan, Gamer, Comic, Corporate nerd.
Working on massive House Rules document - pretty much a new book. Will post soon....

[Whill]

Pakman, as I said in April, I'm very interested in hearing about your Force rules where applicable. I agree, something like fatigue could help balance Force users.

However I strongly disagree that DSPs were designed to balance Force users. By design, the purpose of DSPs is to moderate player behavior, ideally so Jedi characters aren't played out of character. At least without severe consequences, which in 1e was the player potentially losing the character permanently due to them becoming an NPC. I still run in that way and this has always been effective in my games. I've only ever had two PCs cross over to the Dark Side. (Neither player should have been playing a Force character in the first place.) I've only ever given out a small handful of DSPs to all other PCs I have ran over the decades – I don't think any other Force PCs have ever even gotten a single DSP. I make my expectations for character morality and standards for DSPs extremely clear up front before any campaign begins.

I can only even imagine Jedi characters becoming (more) unbalanced through the Dark Side in murder hobo games, which I do not run. Force users are heroic in my game, so the Dark Side doesn't really make them more powerful than other PCs. Just more evil. DSP rules are mostly player behavioral restrictions so Jedi aren't acting uncharacteristically.

I do agree that DSP rules could be improved and I'm really going to have to look at my FaD book for that morality system. It's hard because those books have so much objectionable mechanics in them that my eyes start to glaze over and I get a headache when I look at those FFG books for too long.
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[Mamatried]

It seems to me that at the time of Phantom Menace (Ep1) the republic is of course struggling with things, but as to the Jedi role I feel they are not really operating in the black and white aspects of light and dark, but more in the lines of keeping status quo or stability in the republic.

Qui Gon stated he had no intetions of freeing the slaves on tattooine, yet slaver is disgustingly evil, allowed to happen.

and I suspect that this is in part why the order fell, they had developed into something that was not really jedi.

and it we then look to the game rules and the DSPs, we can argue that this is a great way of returning the jedi to what they were suppsoed to be.

basically the game jedi is the ideal lost through the "movies" and what is meant to be revived through the games, and while we can argue that maybe 6 DSPs is really not enough to deem you evil, it is enough to stray so far from the ideal path that there is no reurn.

with the DPS limiting things in order to "remake" the jedi of old, the purer and the more true to the code Jedi, compared to what thay (maybe) had become by the time of the fall of the republic

[Yora]

"He's too dangerous to be left alive."
"It's not the Jedi way."

Luke was the first to have actually commited to it, which is what got Vader turned around.

Then he only survived because Vader killed the Emperor, which muddles the whole situation, but that was more a matter of an immediate clear threat than a future possibility.
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"Adventure? Eh... Excitement? Eh... A Jedi does not crave these things."

Iridium Moons Retro-futuristic Space Opera

[Whill]

Mamatried, Qui-Gon not freeing all slaves on Tatooine is not because of a character flaw or a flaw in the Jedi Order. Remember, the Jedi were guardians of peace in the Republic. Tatooine was never a part of the Republic. It was explicitly controlled by the Hutts when Qui-Gon was there, which means that Qui-Gon had no jurisdiction. Hutt-controlled space was a political entity outside of the Republic, and freeing slaves where it was legal could risk a Republic war with the Hutts, which would be an utter failure to follow their general mission peace keeping mission.

Qui-Gon was on a specific mission from the Supreme Chancellor to help Naboo with their Trade Federation problem. Qui-Gon says he didn't actually come to free slaves, and when Anakin replies that he thinks he has, Anakin is wrong (but perhaps partially prophetic with respect to himself only). When Anakin tells his mother that he will return someday to free her, he is wrong about that too. (She ended up not needing freed because she was freed shortly after TPM).

The Republic that the Jedi served was corrupt, and the Jedi Order's greatest failure was in not identifying the phantom menace to the Republic they served. This doesn't make the Jedi gray. It is a lack of insight. This failure allows them to unwittingly fight for the dark side in the clone war and be in the position to get wiped out by their own soldiers, allowing the Republic to transform into a Sith-lead Empire. If the Jedi had seen that Palpatine was Sith lord sooner, they would have recognized his grooming of Anakin sooner. But the Republic being corrupt enough to allow Palpatine's rise to power in the first place hampers the Jedi Order.

The Jedi Order being its best possible self was hampered by politics and the corruption of the Republic, but that doesn't mean the Jedi were particularly corrupt themselves. Qui-Gon and then Obi-Wan didn't want to violate Jedi practices and train Anakin out of corruption. The Jedi lack of insight did allow for Dooku and Anakin to be corrupted by the Dark Side, but that isn't because the Order was corrupt. The standard I award DSPs by does not at all contradict the Republic Jedi order seen in the prequels. I don't give DSPs for lack of insight. I give them for evil actions.

[schnarre]

[DougRed4]

FWIW, I don't see the Jedi as acting gray (or dark) in the Prequels, either. I don't really have much familiarity with The Clone Wars (either series or movies), as the bits I've seen are too anime-like for my tastes (and I don't generally care for the animation style). I did watch all of Rebels, too, though. Are there significant moments of the Jedi acting in morally questionable ways during the various Clone Wars shows?

In my games, I don't think I've ever awarded a DSP. My players playing Jedi (or padawans) tend to play them as very good and noble and honorable, so this hasn't been an issue. FWIW, I agree the DSP mechanics are there to curb potential player abuse, rather than a way of balancing the characters, though I do feel that the strict Jedi code (i.e., very different from a typical murder hobo) balances the characters somewhat against many other types (that are more gray or dark, like smugglers and/or bounty hunters).
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Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green

[Mamatried]

Maybe dark or grey are too extreme, but IMO the jedi had lost their true way and purpose, protecting a system and a republic that would fall very far from the "good" on the moral axis.

So by developing into not the protectors but a political entity did they loose their way compared to the old republic days (500-1000yres prior or more)

If we compare the Prequal jedi order to lets say the new jedi order under Luke, we do see some differences that imo are significant.