*sigh* A clear demonstration of the most basic design flaw in every single Star Wars RPG: "Everyone wants to be a Jedi, or no one can be a Jedi".

Well, at least FFG is trying to make an attempt to solve that issue...

To be fair, in the mythos Jedi are pretty much supremely overpowered.

The beauty of the Feng Shui System, though, is that the Character Archetypes are all pretty equal in the end. No Jedi completely outshining the others. Like I said, the Soldier was Brutal. Hell, they were all brutal. And yet, their opposition was equally as brutal and quite fun to put together. It was an amazing campaign.

I've been toying with a rules template to put SR into a campaign world that I've been working on for a decade. It started in D&D, but the restrictive nature of the rigid class system chafed against what I was trying to convey. The SR rules set works much better with what I was envisioning.

Also, it was intended to be a rules set to use as a framework of what was and was not possible for a book series I plan on writing. I'm currently working on the first book. By "currently working on" I mean "I recently had to revise everything except the basic premise of the book."

Which is the fundamental problem; they're TOO cool. So much to the point that everyone wants to be one.

Well, when Age of Rebellion hits stores and then Force and Destinies, we'll see how those character classes stack up against FFG's version of the Jedi...

So, light sabres can deflect blaster bolts right?
why is nobody ever shooting them with shotguns?

Why isn't anyone coming after them with a P9?

Or heck, any assault rifle that fires slugs.

I realize that the bullets would melt upon hitting the laser, but if you throw enough lead downrange they can't block them ALL.

Funny that you should mention that...

Flamethrowers, shotguns, net guns, properly placed and hidden explosives, gas grenades (lethal and non-lethal)...take your pick!

Or if you want them alive, use sonic weapons.

In the expanded SW universe there are critters that can negate the Force and just like that your super whamo-dyne jedi becomes a schmuck.

Same thing happens to Shadowrun Mages in a high background count areas. THAT is the reason I made my combat medic mage have 2 points worth of cyber/bioware. A synaptic accelerator doesn't care if you are in a high background count area. It. Just. Works! Also guns don't care about the background count either... hence the reason to carry a smartlinked, airburst link modded MGL-6.

Not so much Shadowrun, but you can fairly easily plug in the Fallout setting to the Dark Heresy rules. Take out the spes muhreens, change gene stealers to deathclaws, cultists become ghouls, chaos warped stuff is maybe just super mutants and radiation mutated whatevers...

Oh man that was awesome.

Thanks for linking.

Randall revealed that they are working on a Shadowrun Vikings crossover on his FB page.



https://www.facebook.com/randall.n.bills/po...8?stream_ref=10

I remember an episode of The Old Show where the team is trapped in a Western film and someone gets shot with a blackpowder six shooter.

I think most people underestimate archaic weapons unless they're enthusiasts or historians. But if you think about it, for example, blackpowder weapons are pretty badass in their own context. If someone surprised you while wearing a brace of blackpowder pistols they could still be extremely deadly at close range (like the range that phaser battles are always depicted at on the TV shows). I mean, not as good as something more modern, but you can't say it isn't deadly.

I can't believe that this is over an hour long. But I am entertained and laughing. Good story.


WRT to playing Star Wars, I don't really see an in-universe problem with All Jedi or No Jedi. I've never ran a SW game but I'd err on the side of having my campaign be No Jedi, though, as they're supposed to be rare and scary.

Good point from Noah about the various funny ways around the lightsaber with various weapons.

In my mind, I make an analogy with Jedi and Shaolin Monks. Shaolin monks are famous for kung fu, but they're also about their religion and promoting certain codes of ethics which is supposed to be a bigger deal for them.

The kung fu is sort of cool and good for demos but common sense dictates that it's not the end all be all. You wouldn't expect it to counteract anything other than a poorly planned physical attack. It also wouldn't be directly related to lots of things you might want to do in order to promote a certain religion and codes of ethics other than helping you do an impressive demo that might influence people.

So I kind of see Jedi in the same way. If you think about it the lightsaber stuff should be a feather in their cap and a distinctive thing they're famous for but not even really the end all be all of their mission. The lightsaber and lightsaber skills would make a decisive difference to defend the jedi against a poorly planned impulsive attack, but it wouldn't be nearly as useful against someone attacking in a way to counteract that skill set (i.e. with gas or whatever), and as a close range personal combat weapon you'd think the lightsaber would play less of a role in big picture stuff, i.e. mass military combat, sieges, and whatever.

It's kind of like how medieval Japan had militant monks who participated in historical battles but to my knowledge they weren't really a major decisive military force. I'm sure they were all ferocious in person but that in and of itself alone doesn't necessarily translate to making a difference in the world.

You would think that when it comes to galactic politics or whatever it would actually make more sense for them to invest their skills into diplomacy, mind reading, investigation, foreign languages, and stuff like that. More like foreign service guys with balls who are allowed to use violence from time to time.

If anything, Jedi running around with lightsabers only, as opposed to training in a variety of weapons and creating infantry units capable of using a variety of weapons, sort of suggests a certain lack of focus on mastering or implementing combat on all levels.

I can't remember when i got this, but it was years ago on some webcomic i think:
https://flic.kr/p/7aUd16

I think I want that whole folder in a convenient downloadable format. Can I ask for that? Or is that rude?

On topic, I think I'm going to add a conversion of the Aberrant rules for SR5 to my project list. And maybe Changeling the Dreaming (because oWoD is something that would work well with Shadowrun, especially if we use SR for the combat rules.).

which whole folder?


ok, having watched the counter monkey videos on shadowrun . . . that sounds kind of familiar to me i am afraid <.<

That, uh... That actually is what I said.

Yeah.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzWoFIRxINA...nFP&index=5

The original All Jedi or No Jedi video.

I always wanted to play a jedi wookie.

How in the world would you kill a Jedi Wookie?!? It'd be like trying to take down a troll adept who can parry bullets! Maybe starship-scale weapons?

OTOH hitting a Jedi Wookie with a flamethrower would be cool. That fur lights up real nice, doesn't it?

I guess that's when the wookie hugs you.

Bubba the love Wookie?

Good God it takes him so long to say anything substantial. I'm about to stop listening because he's talking so much and saying NOTHING. Get to it, you heinous civvie!

Patience, good citizen, patience!

Every good story and joke needs the proper set-up before a guy can knock the audience down with the punch-line/payoff.

(especially in this case, where not everyone who's watching the video is familiar enough with Star Wars EU or the West End game)

It would have been nicer if he didn't say the same thing more than twice more than a few times. It's on Youtube, if you missed it you can rewind and replay it

Yeah, but editing is a long and painful process. And I suspect that most of his viewers don't care that he rambles a bit.

It's an important part of the story telling process when it comes to gaming stories.

No, it's really not. He's not purposefully telling the story that way - he's just forgiven his lack of coherence because the story manages to be funny enough in the end. As far as storytelling goes, he's not that great - it's just the story itself is inherently comedic, and equally candid and true.

~Umi

Agreed. If it sounds like you are talking out of your ass, you probably are. That is what rambling is, it is not a storytelling technique it is lack of preparation. You might have something to say, but it is essentially an impromptu thing you are pulling out of your ass, and it shows. I have tried to watch this guy in the past, but when rambling is raised to an art form, and you can't take the effort to get the stank off you why should I bother. Would it hurt this guy to take a shower, or wear something other than an old t-shirt. The other thing I always wonder is, who is he talking to, certainly not the viewer, you know the audience, I mean his eyes and head are all over the place. Sorry not going to suck up twenty minutes of poor production quality, which is poor due to simple laziness, so I can get to the punchline. Clearly he does not really care about it, so why should I. Maybe I am just a critical ass, but if you are going to go to the trouble of doing something is it really that difficult to do it right.

I stuck though it as...
1) I needed the exposition
2) I was bored
3) I was waiting for something else to happen, so it kept me company at 1am.

It was worth it.

He spent 12 minutes saying "So, in Star Wars, you have jedi. I was invited to play in a game of advanced-level jedi and I decided to play a non-force user. This is an issue because I wanted to still be competitive, so I started thinking about different ways to still be viable, such as by using grenades and flamethrowers."

Literally that's what it took him 12 minutes to say. Screw that noise, I have things to do.


Fixed that for you. He mentioned grenades like four times. In a row. Then he talked about what he repeated four times right before talking about grenades. So he took one step forward, walked in place for a few minutes, then stepped backwards. I'm not waiting for him to walk me to a cool store if he's going to do the same effect of a line dance mixed with the hokey pokey.


Agreed.

You have more stamina than I, sir. I gave up after eight minutes. I couldn't take any more.

I listened the whole time, but only because I'd opened it in a separate tab and didn't care whether I left it running or not in the background.

The short form is "I found the cheesiest, rules-breakingest, pieces of gear in the game, and I used them to disrupt a campaign." I mean, if the GM and the other players were having fun (it's hard to tell from his story), then whatever, cool, I guess. But it sounds, instead, like this guy just kind of enjoys turning campaigns into big "us vs. the GM" contests, upping the ante and metagaming to find rules loopholes to abuse...all while taking over an hour to tell his cool story.

Does sound like a good example for players not specialize their characters into such a narrow field, and for GM's to be more knowledgeable about the whole game in general and what they allow and/or disallow.

Not to mention "actually reading the character sheet submitted."

Doesn't help that there are basically no cool Force powers for good-aligned Jedi, which is why most of them are hyperspecialized in lightsaber combat and defense.

Because he wanted to explain his thought process on how he got to that point, and how he was going to execute it? In that regard I see no problem with trying to be thorough.

Also, if you have things to do, why did you bother watching the video in the first place? The runtime should have at least been a hint.



...I'm going to assume you're not familiar with vlogs, because how his CM videos are made are pretty typical of how vlogs are made. At their basic they're just a guy turning on a camera and talking to it.

(unless of course this is just your roundabout way of saying "I don't like Vlogs")

And come now, I hope you're not exactly expecting the guy to get in a suit and tie.






Yeah, that was the GM's fault for not looking too closely to his sheet. Otherwise, if you don't, and the player does something you weren't expecting, the player will probably argue that the GM pretty much approved their sheet and that they have full approval to use it in their campaign.

...and that this GM didn't exactly try to stop the campaign if it was out of hand. And it sounds like the other players didn't raise much of any objections that it was an issue.

Otherwise, yeah when I'm GM I make it a point to tell my players that if they're going to try to do something unorthodox, they have to tell me to see if they could do that or not. And if they do bring some obscure bit of gear or special rule, to be ready to reference it and point out exactly where in the book they could do that.

---------------------------

And no, I don't think his methodology on how to make these videos are perfect. If he's going to reference his books, the least he could do is bookmark them in advance so that he can flip through them.

And he does have episodes where he either never references books (since it's usually that that holds up the videos) or videos where he keeps it under a half hour (one that sticks out in my mind is the one where he explains his thoughts on the Decking problem)

As I understand it the powers disallowed for light side Jedi are all pretty much direct damage abilities, which to my mind are the least cool and least effective powers in any system. I say this because with most systems a spell or power that deals damage is going to cost you stun or a spell slot or some other opportunity cost for use to do something that mundanes can do just as well.

There are exceptions of course, like in D&D where magic is the most powerful crowd control method by a long way, but even then using magic to deal damage is widely considered inferior to 'Save or Suck' spells like Glitterdust or Stinking Cloud. My point is that if you're using the force because you want to deal damage at range... a blaster does that, minus the stigma. It's not really an issue for the same reason that Mages are rarely feared for combat spells in Shadowrun. Sure they may be good at them, but in the end they're the least powerful part of the Mage's arsenal.

I was not expecting him to wear a suit and tie, but you know not having a case of greasy hair and a ratty assed t-shirt would not hurt. I don't know a polo maybe, framing the shot a bit. Sorry I have a pretty intense film background and a bunch of friends who do commercials, and other paid video projects, so maybe my standards are a little higher, but I can say they are definitely achievable for an at home Vlogger. Presentation is half the product. I actually like Vlogs if they have something to say and get to it. If you want me to understand where you are coming from or the thought process, write it down, and do a little self editing. Have a passing thought at presentation and some video basics and you might get me to watch past the first 30 seconds.

"Reduce another's pain."
"Sense life."
"Accelerate another's healing."
"Telekinesis"
"Remote telekinesis"

Wowee. It's a skill set that's equivalent to a Shadowrun hacker:
Things people need (or at the very least, should have) but a role no one wants (except TJ)

Also, a Forces mage in World of Darkness has a better skillset. Like being able to sense any kind of Force, including Gravity. Also manipulate and create them.

Really Telekinesis and Telepathy powers (including mind influence) are the two areas where the Force really comes into its own. Tech scanners can work at sensing life in a pinch and medical technology in star wars is pretty advanced, but T&T are not something that can be done without the force and are both very useful.

The fact is that for a force power to be worth having for anything other than the cool factor it has to do something that technology cannot do as well or almost as well, since otherwise it's more efficient to use money to get the ability via tech and use skill progression to get stuff that can't be done otherwise.

Now saying that I understand that Force Choke is something of a borderline case as in several systems it ignores most defenses and it can target foes that are on a vid screen or otherwise out of reach of conventional weapons. Force lightning on the other hand has only its coolness factor going for it as a blaster, deck-clearing blaster or flamethrower can all do pretty much the same thing as it minus the dark side, IE Damage outside of arms reach.

I find myself really missing the WEG Star Wars again... although the Saga system actually looked pretty solid.

The problem I always have with Healing and Pain management spells and powers is that they tend to not be worth it.

Your buddy gets shot in the face. Do you: A) stop what you are doing to try and patch him up a bit so he can kind of get back into the fight but weakened? Or B) pull out all the stops and frag the drekhead who shot him, then use a medkit once the fight is actually, ya know, done?

I suppose you could plan to use your healing power after combat ends, but then you've got the question of "If I had taken that Combat Ability instead of this Healing Ability, wouldn't I have been able to end the fight sooner and prevent my buddy getting shot in the first place?". Especially in a system like Shadowrun, it's typically more effective to Dodge a hit than to Soak it, and if you're planning your strategy around getting shot, you're doing something wrong.

~Umi

Agreed. In D&D wands of cure light wounds are popular for this very reason: not great in combat, fantastic cost effectiveness out of combat. In that game healing never keeps up with damage output until the Heal and Mass Heal spells become available and ending a fight quickly is always preferable to tanking it and healing. Pathfinder clerics with their healing nova shtick are somewhat more viable but healing spells are even more of a waste of their talents for that reason.

Ditto most games. Healing is important, but not in combat outside of certain specific circumstances (eg reviving a fallen ally, stopping a friend bleeding out) and mundane or item-based solutions are often just as good outside of a fight.

WEG Star Wars is a classic (though some of the splatbooks introduce weird gear, most of which this guy used on his Jedi hunts). Saga had some cool stuff, but it still felt too D&D-ish, level based, etc, to really click with me. I've heard good things about Edge of Empire, but haven't tried it myself.

It worked well in D&D 4E only because it was so massive and you could easily get other benefits on top of it.

That said, 4E had other pitfalls. It's a great game, but it's not D&D.

Well, it's not D&D. Trust me, I recently dusted off my books and ran a game for a friend's kids and my take away was simply: Never again. It was painful to play.
Before you say that I'm not giving it a fair try, when it came out I kept giving it chances for months. I bought maybe a dozen books for the system before I gave up in despair.

If you get joy out of it then that's fantastic, but I didn't like it at all.

Really? While I can understand why people don't like D&D 4th, I don't see how it could be so bad to be unplayable.

I mean yeah, it's mechanics steer mostly towards combat to the point of almost being a minis game and the whole "plays too much like an MMO", but not so broken that nothing works.

I think if it had been branded, marketed, and sold as a tactics combat game, it would have been fantastic and enjoyable.
Not all of my problems with it are just in theme, there are mechanical issues too.

In any case, I don't enjoy it as much as I want to and I've moved on to greener pastures.

There are a couple of things, but the main one is that there's no risk. It's set up to favor the PCs to such a ridiculous extreme that there's no real challenge to it. If you can't lose then winning has no real meaning, which takes away the entire point of the game.

There are also willing suspension of disbelief issues, which are kind of like realism issues but taken to the point that they can't be ignored. It's far too formulaic, since you're told outright which stats to max out for your character and the GM is told what gear the PCs have to have at what level. The powers are bland and interchangeable, with no real feel of distinction between the classes. Balance is nice, but if you have to sacrifice all identity between the classes to achieve it then it's not worth it.

I should add that in the city of Bunbury, my hometown, I hate 4th edition the LEAST of any of my local crew with a single exception. Yeah, it went down that well over here.