Read First: Character Creation Discussion

After you discuss the kind of game you’re interested in and a general direction with your fellow players, characters will be created from Edge of the Empire (EotE), or Force and Destiny (F&D). You might find Oggdude's Character Generator to be extremely helpful should you choose to use it; it does the math for you and I highly recommend it. Upon completion of initial character generation using rules as written (RAW), spend another 150 XP as you see fit, representative of a naturally gifted or more experienced character. Keep in mind that you cannot spend XP to increase characteristics such as Brawn, Cunning, etc. after initial character generation, except by purchasing the Dedication talent, typically found at the bottom of specialization talent trees.

For initial character generation, first choose a species from EotE or F&D, then a Career and Specialization along with the corresponding free skill ranks available. Regardless of Career choice, you may choose a species from either core rule book (CRB). Determine your Obligation (EotE careers) or Morality (F&D careers), before spending experience. During initial character generation, characteristics (e.g., Brawn, Intellect) can be increased at a cost of (10 multiplied by the characteristic’s new value).

Some species can choose non-career skills; these cannot be chosen from skills that are available in your Career or Specialization. After allocating free Skill Ranks for initial Career and Specialization, the cost to increase Career/Specialization skills is: (5 multiplied by the New Rank Level). The cost to increase all other Non-Career skills is: (5 multiplied by the New Rank Level) plus 5. You may also spend XP on Talents in your specialization’s tree. Using XP during initial character generation to purchase an additional Specialization is not recommended due to the relatively high cost (20-30 XP).

Force users: the Mentor discount for force powers is applied only if you had a Mentor, reducing the cost of learning basic powers (top of the tree) by 5 XP. Also, some powers may be different than the CRB.

You can create a new thread for your character using the template "Example Character Instructions". Simply make the title of your thread the character's name.

Lastly, this is my first time GMing on GP, so I'll be figuring out technical things about forum use as we go. I will, however, be checking frequently to help facilitate your use of the forum. Please PM if you have any difficulties.

Some things to consider as your group determines their origins and background...

What kind of character do you want to play?

What do you think the goal(s) of the group might be?

How did the group come together?

Don't know if any other players have read this yet, but I'm strongly inclined to playing a F&D combative character. If stuff beyond the core books are allowed then I'm leaning towards a Gank Guardian Armorer/Cyber Tech. Basically he's a combat oriented, force-sensitive, technician that specializes in cybernetics.

Nice; always good to have someone do tech. With the extra XP, you could also throw Soresu in there to actually have some combat ability. As far as species go, we're only using EotE or F&D.

I like the idea of F&D as well. If players are force users, they'll start with a lightsaber. Also, even if the group wants to be the Sith spearhead as in one of my examples (I really like this idea, but won't force it), other players could still be non-force users.

Lastly, given my tendency to be unforgiving, I recommend if you're going to be good at something, be good at it. Groups made of jacks of all trades tend to fail.

I've read through it, but I need to do some research when I get a chance to sit down and hit the books. I'm new to the system, so I have no strong desires or anti-desires. I'm fine not being a force-sensitive character. I'll be reading up tonight. :)

The reason I had mentioned core books is because Gank is in an EotE supplement called Lords of Nal Hutta. If you are wanting just the Core-Books then that's fine too.

EDIT:
Also, regarding force-sensitives starting with a lightsaber, is that any lightsaber or just the bog-standard lightsaber? I'm asking because if we are sticking with Core-Books only then my planned character will be designed with a double-bladed saber in mind.

After putting a little more thought into it, I'll consider other species, unless it's just too over the top (I'll take a look at what you mentioned). I'm open to the Gank concept, we may start from a place where your character, for whatever reason, has yet to get any cybernetic implants. If however, you're interested in them, your character can always pursue that. I'm curious, what does Lords of Nal Hutta say regarding and Gank rules (special species rules, etc)? I found them on the species master list, but I'm curious if there's more.

As far as lightsabers go, we'll use creation methods from the GM kit. However, nothing exotic to begin with, simply standard Ilum or Rubat crystals (I believe mechanically they're the same). However, as a benefit to building your own saber, you'll be able to mod it once per the rules (e.g., easier crits, +1 damage). No need to build your saber now, I'll post details on how to do so in the References section of the forum.

The Ganks are fairly simple. They have Pr 1, all other Charicteristics start at 2. They get a free point in either Coercion or Vigilance, their cybernetic implant cap is boosted (to 3 + Br), and they start out with 2 pieces of cybernetics worth up to 5000 credits total.

My go to pieces of cybernetics include a gank comm implant (mostly for fluff) and a cybernetic respirator. The comm implant allows the implantee to silently communicate with anyone in a given area that also has one. Tech-based telepathic communication basically. The second is basically a built-in breath mask and respirator as well as granting a free rank in the Blooded talent.

Sounds good. You should strive to be the kind of character you want to be. Even if the rest of the group are a freshly assembled crew of Sith (by culture, not necessarily species) spearheading an invasion, moving into the galaxy 100 years after the death of the Emperor, they might still have a non force user with them.

I don't know about everyone else so far, but I keep coming back to that. I like the idea of it being around 100 years after the end of Return of the Jedi, and your group is that spearhead for a new Sith conquest/invasion of the galaxy. Basically, the idea is that the when the original Sith empire fell, a large splinter group foresaw the fall and made it's way into wild space, away from the eyes of the galaxy, and rebuilt on some planet or the like. We can do as we need to make a variety of species fit the story as well, within canon.

Like I said before though, it has appeal to me, and I won't force it. There are many ways we can get a good campaign going that I like; that one just seems more unique. We'll kick some ideas around.

That's fine, but going that route I'm not sure about 5k credits worth of cybernetics. Let me know the cost of the cybernetics you want and we'll see. 5k just seems somewhat high.

The comm implant costs 250 credits, while the respirator costs 2,000 credits. Five thousand is simply the hard limit, and most of the cybernetics in the core rulebooks cost more than that. Looking at OggDude's character generator, in the EotE and F&D core rulebooks 2 out of the 5 implants they could get at char creation explicitly don't offer benefits (the basic prosthetics).

A side note on PbP and Combat, to be fair:

There are some schools of thought that in PbP combat is a side show. To each their own, and if you enjoy that, that's fine. What I'll say about that is this: combat can and will happen in my game. I won't go out of my way to make it so, and your choices will play a large role in how you overcome obstacles and the like (e.g., going through the front door vs. some recon and finding the underground entrance). That said, being Star Wars, sooner or later combat rears its violent head.

I'm not suggesting that all of you make combat focused characters, at all. Just try to make characters that are ready for it, in some way shape or form. When it does go down, you don't want to be dead weight. There's a joke in the somewhere, but I'll leave it be :)

I'm fine with all of that. Have at it. Also, since your force user will be dark side, I'll have to make some adjustments to Morality rules for you (and the other dark side types). I won't be dong that tonight, but I'll get to it.

***Notes on Character Creation for Ease of Reference***
These have been condensed and edited from other posts. As we go along, I may come up with additional ideas that belong here. If so, rather than having you refer back to this post repeatedly, I'll add them and re-post it, making the additions and/or changes obvious.

Before fully developing your character's background, we need to determine the origins and initial direction of the group together.
One of the reason for this is that the origins and the group's direction will have some impact on the character's background. For example, if the character's are the spearhead of a new Sith uprising/conquest/galactic invasion, they will be coming from a planet beyond the Outer Rim and in Wild Space, shrouded from detection by dangerous nebulae and the Dark Side that pervades the planet (let's say a powerful Sith Lord foresaw the coming fall of the Sith and had the planet made ready decades before the fall). The character's backgrounds will be shaped by the fact that they have been almost completely isolated from the galaxy and politics for 1,000 years, part of a rebuilt Sith Order that seeks to dominate the galaxy once again. This won't limit your species or career choices, as the Sith took slaves and recognized strength in other species while a rebuilt society allows for all of the career paths.

Also, I know I keep going back to that example. If you're wondering, part of the appeal is the fact that this origins story puts three major factions into play across the galaxy: The Empire (with or without the Emperor remains to be seen), The Rebel Alliance (in a strengthened position, perhaps even on the verge of establishing a New Republic) and the New Sith Order (back from the ashes for revenge, conquest, and absolute domination of the galaxy).

Whatever the group's origins and initial direction, we should figure that out before you write your backgrounds, so they'll be more cohesive and make sense.

You should strive to be the kind of character you want to be.
Even if the rest of the group are a freshly assembled crew of Sith (by culture, not necessarily species) spearheading an invasion, moving into the galaxy 100 years after the death of the Emperor, they might still have a non force user with them. Also, keep in mind what you bring to the team outside of combat. For example, Meribson has already covered Intellect type skills such as Mechanics and Computers by building a tech oriented character. Nobody is saying you can't build a brainy character as well. At the same time, diverse group of specialists typically has greater potential for success.

A Fair Warning from your GM Regarding PbP and Combat
There are some schools of thought that in PbP combat is a side show. To each their own, and if you enjoy that, that's fine. What I'll say about that is this: combat can and will happen in my game. I won't go out of my way to make it so, and your choices will play a large role in how you overcome obstacles and the like (e.g., going through the front door vs. some recon and finding the underground entrance). That said, being Star Wars, sooner or later combat rears its violent head.

I'm not suggesting that all of you make combat focused characters, at all. Just try to make characters that are ready for it, in some way shape or form. When it does go down, you don't want to be dead weight. There's a joke in the somewhere, but I'll leave it be :)

Force users will start with lightsabers.
I think enough of us have been on the crystal quest or never wanted to do it in the first place. As such, lightsabers weill be created using creation methods borrowed loosely from the GM kit. However, nothing exotic to begin with, simply standard Ilum or Rubat crystals (I believe mechanically they're the same). However, as a benefit to building your own saber, you'll be able to mod it once per the rules (e.g., easier crits, +1 damage). Whether you have the GM kit or not, I've created a post in the Library detailing how to make your lightsaber.

If force users want to reliably use the force, increase your force rating.
Having only one die to roll gives you exactly a 50% chance to roll dark 1 side point and 8% chance to roll 2 points on the force dice. Two force dice gives you a 42% chance for 1 point, a 32% chance for 2 points, an 8% chance for 3 points, and a 1% chance for 4 points. You can take a look at probabilities and plan ahead using this AnyDice Tool. You can change the number of force dice in the equation 'X: 1 \ number of force die \' line; simply change the number after the 'X:'.

For final character approval, refer to "Example Character and Instructions."
It will detail the template to follow for showing how you spent your XP, etc. I'd like the character sheets and related documents to be cohesive across all characters, so please follow it exactly. A simple way to do so is to copy and paste my examples into your character thread's posts as instructed, changing information as needed. Your 'character sheet thread' will also serve as your primary character sheet for gaming purposes.

I definitely like the idea of a post-RotJ Sith invasion squad. Given that, I think I'm looking at a force-sensitive person. Leaning towards a Human Warrior/Starfighter Ace. Brash, young, and arrogant. If the thought is that we'd be planet hopping to scout things out, probably specializing more in space ability rather than planetary pilotage.

______________________________
EDIT
Starfighter Ace better fit what was in my head. Though if we have a guaranteed ride around the universe and aren't worrying ourselves with the intricacies of getting from A to B, the Seeker/Ataru Striker seems like it would be my other possible area of focus.

I've been in that situation, where I felt compelled to choose a pilot type to help the group. Nobody wants to be in a flying coffin, which every starship is without a good pilot. I chose pilot. Later, I just wasn't feeling it. The GM, kindly enough, allowed me to change my character to one that just suited me more, a different career entirely. It was very early in the campaign, so there was no harm in it.

That being said, play what appeals most to you. If you prefer the Striker, go with that. Besides, since they use Agility for their lightsaber form, you'll still make a decent pilot if you grab a higher agility.

EDIT: There are no guaranteed rides. Your group could always pick up a skilled NPC pilot, but I'll still have him make rolls. Worse case scenario, assuming some smart choices from the group, you get to the escape pods before the ship becomes space debris.

I prefer pilot types, definitely. And with a high enough Agility, he'd still be reasonably good at combat I'd think.I think that's what I'll roll with.

The Striker also has Piloting skills as an option.

I think I will do a Striker that picks up some piloting skills. Do a bit of double duty between cutting people down and then helping to get the group out of dodge quickly.

As we progress, the more frequently all of us can be involved and post during character creation, the better. If we can collectively get a few posts or more in during the next few days, that will help us get to the story sooner. Also, the sooner we decide on the group's origins and such, the sooner I can start working on prepping the opening scene for the game.

For those joining us, so far it looks like the group has covered the following core skills (none of this is written in stone, of course):

Meribson is going with an Intellect oriented character. With a high Intellect of 4 he's got Mechanics, Computers, and can even pull off some Medicine and Astrogation with his natural Intellect.

Dramasailor seems to be going toward an Agility based build. A higher agility will make him naturally good at Piloting, Ranged (Heavy and Light), and Stealth.

I mention the above as a means of helping the group understand what roles have been filled. This is not to limit your choice in character however, just to help facilitate an understanding of the group's needs if you're so inclined.

Regarding character creation, it is likely I will grant force users a Mentor bonus, depending on origins, that they can use to reduce the cost of Basic force abilities by 5; after your characters are finished it will no longer be available.

Also, so far it seems players are inclined to play force users. I highly recommend, if doing so, picking up a lightsaber style to match your character (e.g., Meribson's Soresu technique allows him to use Intellect for his lightsaber attack rolls instead of Brawn, the default for all melee, Ataru Striker pairs well with what seems to be an Agility based build for Dramasailor). A rank in Parry and Reflect can't hurt, and makes sense from a training stand point.

Regarding Characteristics:

2 is considered average, 3 above average, with a 4 being someone who is gifted. Beyond that, well, we're simply looking at more gifted and legendary status potential, with characteristics going up to a max of 6.

A high agility will be part of your build, so you'll have a natural Stealth and Coordination as well.

Indeed. The more I think on the idea of a Sith invasion force, the more I like it.

I'm thinking of playing a Chiss Sentinel Shadow/Shien Expert, kind of a Force sensitive spy/infiltrator/assassin type character, which as far as I can tell doesn't overlap too much with anyone else's character concepts.

High Cunning (which with Shien form can be used to hit people with glowsticks), decent Intellect and Agility (Chiss start with 3 Int, and most of the iconic Star Wars skills are based of Ag), low to average everything else (a 1 in Presence isn't going to hurt, right?).

And the post-RotJ secret Dark Side strike force campaign sounds good to me. It does sound like we'll need a ship, if we're going to be some kind of advance team.

Also, as a sidenote, are we expected to purchase and track smaller, mundane equipment (datapads, rations, etc), or is most of that stuff being handwaved? I don't want my character to show up missing useful gear, but I also don't want to waste my starting credits on gear it's assumed we have easy access to.

It will if you want to Charm someone. For those considering the dark side application of Charm, it doesn't imply begin nice necessarily. Any persuasion or flattery, etc that doesn't contain a lie is a Charm roll for social interactions. For example: "I like your shop, it's got a good selection. Really put together well." could be used to get a merchant to take a shine to you, lowering prices a touch.

Throw a Negotiation (Presence) on top of that and you can reduce the price further. Add on some Deception (Cunning; any statement by the character that contains a lie of any kind): "You know, there's a shop on the other side of town where I can get this cheaper." And maybe the price drops again, depending on your roll. Maybe Coercion (Willpower) comes into play: "Look, shave 100 credits off or I'll smash up your shop." Finally, maybe Leadership could even be employed, exerting authoirty, assuming it was true: "The blasters are for a local militia defense force. Perhaps a better price"

Those are just examples. Do not overlook social skills, they will com in to play. There will be plenty of chances for social interaction. That said, if you consider your character less than charming, a poor liar, etc, go with it.
You'll track all your gear, except food (which we'll assume in survival type scenarios you take a weeks worth with you when you leave the ship (specify if you want to do otherwise in those situations).

Or a Lightsaber (Cunning): "I chop the insolent merchant's head off!" can reduce the price to zero! For every single item in the whole shop! Including the shop itself! At those prices, it's basically highway robbery!

I'm (mostly) kidding about randomly murdering shopkeepers. I'll probably buy a level or two in Deception fairly early on in the campaign.
I'll make sure to buy a comlink, then. Not having a space cell phone could be pretty inconvenient.

So for creating new characters, in terms of Obligation, Duty, and Morality, what are the starting values we'll be using?

So many new mechanics, this is interesting.

Question: In the F&D corebook it says that at the end of character creation to roll 1d100 to determine pocket money. Are you wanting us to do that here?

For dark side force users, I'm currently working on a home brew version of Morality that I think will work quite nicely. I may also include Obligation and Morality for all players, depending on the origins of the group (even for non-force users, Morality can be used as a gauge of 'alignment' and internal conflict (a source of strain similar to Obligation). I believe putting the two together will only bring the game to life.

Regarding origins, let's put our heads together on this. Some of you have discussed and/or mentioned it briefly, but let's try to work toward a concrete decision so I can get started on prepping. Also, settling on the group's origins will allow me to finalize all aspects of character creation (Mentor bonuses for force users, Morality/Obligation decisions, etc.). For example, it will be hard to establish Obligation for characters without the origins.

In sum, I'm glad you're working on your characters, but at this point in time, the group's origin and direction is just as imortant, so please discuss.

We'll see. It depends to an extent on the group's origins (e.g., as part of the Sith Conquest spearhead, you might be granted some extra credits to facilitate success).

The group will also start with a ship, which will also be influenced by origins.

As for group origin, I like the idea you floated about being part of a new Sith invasion, especially one that is from a previously hidden group of Sith that have been out of touch for a fairly long amount of time (are we talking as far back as Darth Bane as a split? Before the purge/Rule of 2? Or are we a cabal that came into our dark and twisty force powers sometime between the settling of the Rule of 2 and the rise of Palpatine and the events of the films?

We could go all old school, and be from a long-lost remnant of one of the several Old Republic era Sith Empires (the Sith had a lot of short-lived empires). Or we could be from some non-Sith Dark Side order from the Unknown Regions or Wild Space.

If we are to be the spearhead of a larger invasion force, it would also stand to reason that we would have some form of superior to answer to.

Ship-wise, I've always liked the look of Darth Maul's Sith Infiltrator from TPM, which looks like it could just fit about a half-dozen passengers and crew. If we end up having more PCs, or NPC minions, then a bigger ship with more living space might be necessary.

As part of the Sith Conquest idea, to me it seems that your group has long been hidden from the galaxy, having avoided tha fall of the Sith as described in canon. Perhaps a resourceful, and powerful, Sith Lord with some serious Foresee powers saw it coming decades before it happened. As such, he seized the opportunity not only for self-preservation, but to establish a new power base under his supreme rule.

Given the above, he would certainly have certainly sent a small 'colonization' group of sorts to another highly isolated/secluded planet he had discovered via some explorers he sent out (with 20, 30, or 40 years a lot could be done). Naturally, to keep it a secret, he would have tied up loose ends, ensuring that only he knew the location of this new order (you know what that means). In fact, on a darker note, if not too exotic (I'm shooting from the hip here), trusting no one, his new colony is run entirely by droids in his absence. Prepared for the fall of the Sith Order, when it begins he essentially grabs a large number of force sensitives, taking them with him to the new colony, which still isn't charted on any galactic map due to reasons mentioned in previous posts.

Given the Star Wars timeline, this would have happened about 1023ish BBY (Befiore the Battle of Yavin), eso about a year before the Jedi drove the Sith into hiding.

Also, as part of the Sith Conquest, your actions will have meaning and weight. Depending on your successes as a group, I'll allow you to be part of taking planets and systems, helping the Sith reshape the galactic map as you battle against the Empire and the Rebellion (perhaps New Republic as I'm okay completely restructuring the timeline and events to suit our story. So, the Empire falls into disarray, Armies fall into disrepair, planets no longer intimidated join the New Republic. In a relatively short period of time, the Empire and the Republic become balanced in a sense, more equals than Empire vs. Rebellion.

The Fall of the Empire after RotJ would likely have given our nascent Sith Empire a chance to gobble up some outlying worlds that were abandoned as the Empire withdrew the remnants of its military to the Core Worlds. So there's also a logical reason for our Sith Reconquest to have been launched at this exact moment in space history, as well.

That's awesome. I like that idea quite a bit. Would we be the force sensitives he brings in during the purge? Or would we be the outcome of that society, some centuries later?

The players would be some of the finest the new Sith culture would have to offer, likely one of many smaller groups sent out into the galaxy to help gain footholds in key locations, etc. As such, you would be members of a society birthed approximately 1,025 years ago.

As a side note, for characters interested in playing non-force users:

It's not right that the only careers and specializations with access to the Parry talent are Force users (as if a bounty hunter or hired gun couldn't learn to parry). As such, if you are interested in playing a non-force user, I have a home brew rule for allowing EotE characters to access Parry.

Essentially, if you choose to play an EotE character, I'll allow Bounty Hunters and Hired Guns to do the following, for each specialization in those careers:

Parry can be substituted for any talent on a specialization tree at the 5 XP level, 15 XP level, and 25 XP level.

For example, as Boba Fett goes to spend his XP on the Gadgeteer specialization tree, he decides that instead of Toughened, he'd rather pick up a rank in Parry at the 15 XP level, to help deal with those pesky Jedi (losing access to Toughened in that spot permanently, having substituted Parry for that spot on the tree instead). Later, after a close call with Obi Wan on Kamino, he decides he needs to up his game against Jedi. Further down the Gadgeteer tree, he decides to spend 25 XP on another rank in Parry, substituting it for the Crippling Blow at the 25 XP level on the talent tree.

Throw in a cortosis weapon (to counter the lightsaber's Sunder quality), and now a non-force user can go toe to toe in dramatic fashion with a force user.

So, over the course of six specializations in the Bounty Hunter and Hired Gun careers, an EotE character could get up to 18 parry. This is in line with what force users can do. It is completely possible for a force user to get a Parry of 18 over over six specializations, or less.

The reason I've come up with this home brew is that lacking Parry, going against other Force users, can be quite a lopsided affair. Also, it just makes sense. When EotE was designed, Parry simply wasn't a concept yet. As far as Reflect, well, I can't do anything about that :)

Furthermore, for non-force users I'll be willing to grant an additional 10,000 credits worth of gear, equivalent to the value of a lightsaber, to compensate for the force user lightsaber allowance. This could allow you to grab those cortosis weapons, cybernetics, Rare items that are hard to find, talk to me about having an expert tech mod your gear for a price, etc. Of course, I may deny some purchases if they just seem to over the top.

The idea here is that I don't want players to feel forced to play force users to 'compete' or feel capable. And granting the force users lightsabers, I feel inclined to level the field and give the non-force users a fair shake.

While I have no objections to what has been put forth, I'd like to put out an idea that has been percolating in my head for a very long time now.

We PCs aren't the invaders of an empire from Wild Space that are descendants of an ancient Sith Empire, we are the ancient Sith Empire. A dreadnought/colony ship was sent out into Wild Space, suffered difficulties, and arrives/wakes up centuries if not millennia late.

On Force Powers:

Let's just use the core rule book; I'm not a big fan of some of the other additions to the force via supplements as I'd like to stay a little closer to canon from the movies. Sorry Tefmon, but I'm assuming Manipulation is one of those?

Besides that, having looked at your character, it's good to go.

It's worth mentioning that before we get started in the story, if you want to tweak your character, or make something from scratch, that's okay. Until the story actually begins, your characters aren't set in stone. If you decide to tweak your character or start anew, please let me know.

Meribson:

Your character checks out okay. As far as the 10 XP Grit from the Soresu tree, is that the one above Defensive Circle, or to the right below Defensive Stance? I'm recreating all of your characters on Oggdude's to check/track them, and just want to get it right.

Final character approvals for GP characters will happen when we're ready to begin the narrative. However, consider your 'character thread sheet' to be the primary reference for the game.

It's the one above Defensive Circle

Hmmm. Interesting. So the entire colony was put into some kind of stasis of sorts somehow?

While I'm open to the idea, at the same time, I like the idea of allowing for generations of seething Sith hate as they toil in secret, committed to amassing the power needed to go forth into the galaxy on a level that puts them on similar footing as a declining Empire and an ascendant New Republic, thrusting the three factions into a galactic free for all. Perhaps they make the decision to enter the galactic fray as the result of a powerful Sith mystics Foreseeing of current events, the perfect time to strike.

This also allows me the freedom to design a culture that is simply a continuation of the ancient Sith, creating a new lineage dating back to 1023 BBY in addition to historical details I can create if needed or desired (civil wars, betrayals, etc). I like this for a couple of reasons: it allows a lot more creativity and flexibility, which I love, and gives the Sith Conquest the resources it needs to compete. I don't think a colony group that wakes from a stasis of sorts will be able to make a comeback; if it had that kind of power, I don't think it would have gone into hiding. This means it isn't really plausible for the weightier concepts mentioned previously where we the group becomes involved in a 3-way battle for control of the galaxy.

To sum it up, you would be descendants of the ancient Sith, true, but not some strange off shoot. We can assume Sith leadership over the centuries stayed the course of cultural tradition, primarily meaning that they remained a militaristic caste culture (nobles, lords, slaves, etc) that was never exposed to the Rule of Two.

Still, it's open for decision by the group. i won't be iron handed about it.

More ideas for the Sith Conquest origin:

The planet is shrouded by the dark side, a rogue planet that will be released from its orbit. The Sith Oracle foresaw this as well. So, not only are the Sith ripe to lay siege to the galaxy as a whole for past grievances and their desire for domination, their home for the last thousand years is being cast out into the galaxy to roam out of orbit, with all the risks that accompany such an event (environmental changes, etc). Plans are being made to protect the planet (high tech artificial atmospheres and such), but Sith leadership also seeks to expand, it's highest Lord faithful in the Oracle and hungry for conquest, seizing such an opportune time to take his rightful place in Sith history.

The planet itself is rich in mineral resources, allowing for industrialization.

There is a graveyard of explorer's ship around the planet, due to it's Bermuda Triangle like effect via the dark side and stellar phenomena working in tandem. The dark side is powerfully strong on the planet, almost as if the planet was a galactic fragment of the dark side itself. Through some trial and error, and via their affinity for the dark side, the Sith have finally discerned a way to exit the dark planet's enveloping shroud, almost as if the dark side was finally allowing them to leave.

The starship graveyard allows for the Sith to scavenge and learn other technologies, and occasionally expand upon their knowledge of the galaxy via explorer journals, holos, and explorer's logs and maps.

Your group will be one of multiple small teams sent out into the galaxy. Also, a massive fleet, ready for warm would leave the planet's 'dark zone' as well, stopping just on its fringes as it awaits reports from groups like yours.

...I take back my suggestion of lost ancient sith, what you just described sounds awesome!

Ditto. This sounds fabulous.

For those wondering if social skills have value, or are curious about making a character with social finesse, I got our group off planet in a game I'm in, using the below post:

Venzo projected supreme confidence, as he imagined the leader of a top secret Imperial mission would. Staring down the clerk, he spoke with a commanding tone, sprinkling in some impatience and classified Imperial knowledge he hoped would add an increased degree of authenticity to his fake identity.

"Look. I’m well aware of your shutdown. In fact, I'll let you in on a secret you may not know: it's a planet-wide lockdown and a star ship quarantine. A platoon of troopers will be here soon enough, making a mess out of your precious impound. However, the fact of the matter is that my team and I have top level clearance superceding said lockdown." He applied an authoritative, powerful demeanor to the ruse, combining it with a subtle, relaxed calm that added escalating undercurrents of aggression as he continued. "Now, I really do wish nothing but the best for High Inquisitor Tremayne, who is also en route aboard the Interrogator, but we simply don’t need to be here for the incoming circus. Time is of the essence, we simply cannot afford any delay, especially of this kind. So, if I have to speak with your supervisor, or anyone else, you’ll be brought up on charges, prosecuted to the fullest. Now that I think about it, I’d already be leaving if it wasn’t for you and your unauthorized break. I’m certain your supervisor wouldn’t approve."

Venzo’s eyes evolved into a baleful glare, increasing the threat level directed at the clerk immensely. He was well aware of the fact that their peaceful options for escape were dwindling rapidly, and, as they did, the potential for violence became more of a reality. In fact, it could potentially begin with the man he was looking at now. The intimidation and the threat suddenly became very real, because it had to, not because he wanted it to. Consequently, the potential for violence toward the clerk was oh so subtly implied, rather than being spoken outright, allowing the clerk to consider possible outcomes of the immediate life threatening kind, beyond those of the Imperial legal system. He was happy to let the clerk assume he had a freer hand than most in accomplishing his objectives. Venzo trusted Davro's work, and Captain Ven Zoza was, after all, a high level operative. Venzo sneered with disdain. "Check your records, clerk. And be quick about it. Make the call to the control room. Any sloth on your part threatens the success of my mission. And your future."

Another Example of Social Skills in action (a group member in the same game):

Keirso is genuinely confused for a moment as he processes what Lannera has said. He's never connected the word "terrorist" to himself. If he was honest with himself, he generally preferred the appellation of "hero," - something all good Jedi were, in his opinion. Rebel though... that fit.

He holds out his hands, palms up. "Do I look like a terrorist, Lannera?"

He smiles, but the expression is less coy and more imploring. She saw Kellin. Lying to her would probably only upset her more.

"Honestly though... yeah. They are looking for us. Although, as far as I can tell, our only crime is being awake and alive. We're not trying to hurt anyone. We're just trying to survive. Please, Lannera. I don't want you to get in trouble, but we need help. Please."

Keirso stretched out with his feelings again trying to get a sense of whether or not he was getting through to her. He didn't want to do anything drastic, but he also wasn't going to let Lannera stand in their way.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I know that some players experiences via role playing are the kind where social skills are useless. However, that is not the case FFG Star Wars. Charm (Presence), Deception (Cunning), and Coercion (Willpower) are highly useful. Leadership (Presence) and Negotiation (Presence) are not without use either. Leadership can be used to exert authority and, well, leadership, with excellent rolls turning crowds to your side or swaying individuals to become followers. And, anytime your making a deal, whether for prices or the political treaties, Negotiation comes into play.

In sum, all of the social skills can be use to great effect, sometimes combining them with one another (as seen above) to achieve goals that might otherwise require more difficult tasks be accomplished. Sometimes, but not always.

Lastly, as always, I'm not trying to walk anyone in a certain direction. However, I want to make sure that you're aware of the fact that social skills do have value. I mean, let's face it. Palpatine rose to power by the shrewd use of social skills that facilitated political maneuvering, not by slicing his way through the galaxy with a lightsaber.

Ok, I THINK I did the whole creation thing properly (with the exception of Obligation/Duty/Morality, we're still waiting on that, right?). It has been....interesting....whipping someone together.

Thanks. I really do enjoy RP and bringing a universe to life. Rather than invest watered down time in multiple games (this goes for me, personally), I want to be involved in one or two really good ones.

Is your natural Agility a 3 or 4? I haven't had time to Oggdude it yet, but you show spending (30)+(40) XP on it, suggesting you're making it a 4 (yet it shows as 3 on the sheet). Now that I look, your Agility looks like it's 5 with the Dedication? Smart.

Also, excellent choice on tapping into the Enhance tree. I mean, if your natural Agility is a 5, that means committing that one force die makes it a 6. That's six dice for Piloting, Sabering, Stealth, etc. Nicely done.

Should actually be a 5 all told. Two purchased for XP, 1 from the spec tree. Natural is a 2. I updated it.

Okay. I posted a reply that appeared just above your last one. Nice build.

Note on Force Powers:

I am allowing the Suppress power, which is from outside F&D, but I think fits well (e.g., holding off force lighting with your lightsaber, the Wills of two force users colliding trying to push at one another, resisting.).

Force Suppress can be found in the Library under the F&D talent tree link.

Thanks!

*****UPDATE for ease of reference to creation topics*****

Regarding Characteristics:
2 is considered average, 3 above average, with a 4 being someone who is gifted. Beyond that, well, we're simply looking at more gifted and legendary status potential, with characteristics going up to a max of 6.

For dark side force users, I'm currently working on a home brew version of Morality that I think will work quite nicely. I may also include Obligation and Morality for all players, depending on the origins of the group (even for non-force users, Morality can be used as a gauge of 'alignment' and internal conflict (a source of strain similar to Obligation). I believe putting the two together will only bring the game to life.

If you choose to play an EotE character, I'll allow Bounty Hunters and Hired Guns to do the following, for each specialization in those careers:

Parry can be substituted for any talent on a specialization tree at the 5 XP level, 15 XP level, and 25 XP level.

Furthermore, for non-force users I'll be willing to grant an additional 10,000 credits worth of gear, equivalent to the value of a lightsaber, to compensate for the force user lightsaber allowance. This could allow you to grab those cortosis weapons, cybernetics, Rare items that are hard to find, talk to me about having an expert tech mod your gear for a price, etc. Of course, I may deny some purchases if they just seem to over the top.

On Force Powers:
Let's just use the core rule book with the addition of Force Suppress. I'm not a big fan of some of the other additions to the force via supplements as I'd like to stay a little closer to canon from the movies.

It's worth mentioning that before we get started in the story, if you want to tweak your character, or make something from scratch, that's okay. Until the story actually begins, your characters aren't set in stone. If you decide to tweak your character or start anew, please let me know.

Social Skills will be useful. In FFG Star Wars. Charm (Presence), Deception (Cunning), and Coercion (Willpower) are highly useful. Leadership (Presence) and Negotiation (Presence) are useful, they simply don't present quite as many opportunities to use them. Leadership can be used to exert authority and, well, leadership, with excellent rolls turning crowds to your side or swaying individuals to become followers. And, anytime your making a deal, whether for prices or the political treaties, Negotiation comes into play.

In sum, all of the social skills can be use to great effect, sometimes combining them with one another (as seen above) to achieve goals that might otherwise require more difficult tasks be accomplished. Sometimes, but not always. Palpatine rose to power by the shrewd use of social skills that facilitated political maneuvering, not by slicing his way through the galaxy with a lightsaber.

Hey all, I know I'm coming into this a little late in the discussion but I thought I would give my thoughts.

The idea of being a sort of Sith scout group sounds interesting and as I understand we're dealing with centuries of ingrained upbringing that makes us believe that our actions are not inherently evil.

I generally have a difficult time relating to outright evil characters, even ones that don't think they are doing wrong. If I create a character with the idea that he may at least one day 'go straight', will this create a problem with the rest of the group?

I also have a plan for a character that I think might work with the lot of you since we don't seem to have any straight combat oriented characters. I want to create a lightsaber combat master, someone who eventually might be able to make use of each of the 6 (maybe 7 depending on what new supplements contain) lightsaber forms. Would anyone have an issue with this?

Hey guys
I am new to everything ;-) I have only played a couple of sessions with the system (one of which was a beginner's session). I am a fan of Star Wars but as with most things these days, I am only a casual fan. I don't know anything past the movies. AND, the thing that will probably lead to most of my mistakes is that I have limited experience on Gamersplane, I will try not to post in the wrong place too many times ;-) Feel free to point out if there is a better way I should be doing things.

With all that out of the way. I am at work at the moment so I am gonna have to get online tonight when I get home and read through the rest of this thread. However, I am inclined towards something combat oriented and involving the force sounds great. I also like the sound of the "Sith spearhead" game, how cool does that sound.

This might change but I am thinking big and brutish, not overly intelligent, but cunning. Action oriented but necessarily great at long term planning.

I only have access to the Edge of the Empire rule book at the moment. I like the Hired gun/Marauder combo, probably focusing on building something that can soak up a bunch of punishment and maybe using the bonus XP to spice it up with access to some force specialization/talents. Would this fit in? I currently don't have access to FaD, but I am looking to get a copy. I am happy to take advice from those with more experience with the system and I would also be happy to play a Force using career, but I am afraid I don't know much about the other rule books (I have only just started reading EotE)

EDIT - I should probably also mention on the weak long term planning, the character would be aware of this weakness. I am not thinking Leroy Jenkins

Hey mrvain. Welcome to the game. It's okay if you're not a veteran of Gamersplane or Star Wars FFG. A desire to play regularly is pretty much all that's needed right now, we can work on everything else as we move along. Having at least one non-force sensitive character (at least at the start) would be an interesting idea. I'd suggest taking a look at my character thread as you get started because the description of your character could closely overlap what my character is set up to do. Not that this is a problem, just that if you want to have some abilities that differ from what I bring to the party so that you have things that you can be relied on to do that I wouldn't be able to do.

EDIT - Forgot to mention, there is a Force Exile specialization in EotE that you can take during character generation or later on if you want to do some force stuff while maintaining an EotE career. It'll give you access to force ratings and therefore Force Powers.

Question regarding starting lightsabers. Are we going to do checks with this to determine how our starting lightsabers are built like in the GM's guide, or will our starting sabers be basic?

doing wrong. If I create a character with the idea that he may at least one day 'go straight', will this create a problem with the rest of the group?[/quote]

The idea here is to play some fairly committed villains. At the same time, I don't want to limit your choices as a player. That being said, 'going straight' in this setting would be like a light side player going dark in a normal game. It will cause problems for the group regarding trust, team goals, etc. Based on those concepts, and the nature of the group, of which I'm sure some of them will be playing some dark characters (the appeal of this game), the chances of your character going straight and living through it our slim.

For example, in when Anakin went dark side in Episode III, Obi Wan desperately wanted to bring him back to the light. If the same situation happened with dark side force users, vicious and violent resolution to the problem would be more likely, with increased potential to skip the 'you should come back to the dark side' bit. And if it comes to something like that, and another player wants to attack you in that situation, I won't stop it. We're going for an edgy game with a more realistic feel where the player can role play as they like.

Regarding playing a villain. Bot all dark side characters scour the galaxy looking to commit torture and murder, in fact, that's far from a remotely accurate portrayal of canon. The dark side character simply is inclined to use violence as a tool without remorse, and commit atrocities as required to further their own agenda, while being entirely comfortable with it, perhaps even enjoying the process.

To be clear, I'm not promoting the players to be what is commonly referred to as 'murder hobos' that run around bathing in blood. Palpatine didn't. Vader didn't. Dooku didn't. Most Sith lords were methodical figures who were simply very comfortable doing whatever it took to further their agenda, and some of them enjoyed killing, torturing, etc, but not without purpose.

I don't think any of us will enjoy a game of senseless violence.

I thought it was mentioned we'd be using a GM kit influenced way to build out (there's a thread in the Reference Library on Lightsaber Construction). Not sure where we should be posting up all the rolls and such to create/details however.

I know that's not my bag. Also, I've always read the dark side canon as less "hey I want to go murder hobo" and more of a path of indulgence and emotional investment. Where the proper Jedi is aloof and distanced from feeling, the Dark Side practitioner revels in the ebb and flow of emotion. They use surges in it to fuel their actions. They let a more hedonistic value set rule. Well, hedonistic mixed with a flare of selfishness (not just what feels right, but what you need/want to get by takes precedence over what's necessarily best for the entire society).

So it might be best to refer to it simply as Dark Side characters rather than 'evil' characters since in many ways the Dark Side is not inherently evil, at least from an outside perspective.

Make a character you want to play. As always, considering what you could bring to the team that might be different is worth considering. As far as combat characters, the whole group is capable, some of you just seem intent on specializing more in it. One of the great things about FFG Star Wars is that you can be good at combat and still contribute in other ways. Even with F&D characters, you can choose a lightsaber style that goes with your highest characteristic; being good at combat doesn't requite Brawn in F&D. Meribson uses a 4 Intellect for lightsbaer. Dreamsailor uses a 5 Agility for his. Tefmon a 4 Cunning.

In sum, if you want to use a lightsaber well, you can choose a specialization that allows you to do so according to your highest characteristic.

Also, there's nothing wrong with being a brute either. I just want to make sure players know that you don't need to be a physical specimen, especially with lightsabers, to make hay in combat. My Niman Disciple Consular, with a 4 Willpower, is the best combatant in our group in a game I play.

Lastly, if you download Oggdude's Character Generator (see the first post of this thread) and use the F&D talent trees, you don't need to own the F&D core rule book.

It was mentioned in an earlier post on this thread. Also, for those of you who haven't been to the Library, it has a lot of information in there you can use. i set it up to make things easier for everyone. If you have questions, it's a good place to look first.

The dark side isn't the kind of evil that necessarily brings forth random psychosis and violence. It is, however, evil in a way, as intended by canon. It is part of the living force, and the dark part of it. It does the opposite of the light side, and pervades the individual, in a way corrupting them, taking them further along a path of... well, darkness. It's what allows the character to kill the younglings, force choke his true love, destroy a planet, etc. Anakin, the reference here, didn't intend to do any of those things. But a fork in the road started him down a dark path, and became so much a part of him, that it became who he was.

Another example is Count Dooku. In his case, he was less 'consumed' (I want to find another word, but am failing to do so) by the dark side, but was set on the path. He had strayed from the Jedi, and helped facilitate the political machinations that began the clone war. If his character lived longer, I am of the opinion he would evolved into a clearly darker character. At the same time, he considered himself to have seen the light by leaving the Jedi.

I think the simplest thing I could say about Vanguard of Darkness is that this game is about the villains, and how they come out on top. Assuming things go well for them.

Looking at the characters, I have to admit that I'm a bit surprised at the lack of force powers. Obviously they're not required. As your friendly GM, I will remind you that given the origin we seem to be going with, the Basic force powers (meaning the first one you can take, at the top of each tree) cost 5 XP less than usual.

What this means, for example, is that each Basic force power you take is like awarding yourself 5 XP. Am I suggesting you get them all? Of course not. However, you all have chosen to play force using characters thus far, and may be missing an opportunity. Remember, that Mentor bonus is only available during character creation. Once the game starts, all Basic force powers will revert to original cost.

This is a fairly accurate portrayal. Dark side characters may even enjoy violence, torture, etc, but rarely is it solely for the purpose of entertainment.

The Library forum:

For those who don't know, it has Lightsaber construction rules (follow these as they are loosely, but almost exactly borrowed from the GM kit), rules on Dice Pools and Skill Check mechanics for those who lack the CRB's, the home brew rules I will use, and a great page with a bunch of really useful links to various resources.

It isn't finished and will expand over time.

Hmmm. Good point. I think I may shift Lexi's two purchased points in Athletics out for 15 XP. Then pick up a bit of Influence and a bit of Move. Eventually I can see her getting to the point that she's adept enough with Move that she uses it as part of her piloting actions (once she has that level of fine control).

Thus I have dropped Hawke's Armor Master talent for the basic power in Move and Supress. I'm not getting much of a "force-wizard" vibe from him, more of a techie warrior vibe.

I've replaced Tajanna's Manipulate with Sense, for the same experience cost. I don't think I'm going to make any significant changes to my character sheet before we start play, but I still might tweak a thing or two there.

Also, are we all getting two free ranks in Parry and Reflect? I see that indicated on my character sheet, but I can't find where it was stated we're receiving those.

Also, I'm liking all of the lore we're building up here. Those Republic dogs and Imperial amateurs will never see it coming.

Going to attempt a roll for my lightsaber. We'll see if I do it properly.

I am going to rework my character a bit in the morning so you may have to review it again if you have already done so.

Nobody is getting two free ranks of Parry and Reflect. I just want to make sure there is no confusion on that one as people design their characters.

Instead, I just went through your sheets and adjusted them to Parry and Reflect ratings . The plus two refers to the damage parried or reflected, the rule being that the damage reflected/parried is "the number of ranks +2."

Glad to hear that you're liking the direction of the lore. I'm intrigued by it also, as a 3-way conflict between three major factions vying for control of the galaxy has a lot of interesting possibilities.

Ah, okay. That makes sense, it's the damage bring parried/reflected, not our ranks in Parry/Reflect.

OK, I have read through this thread and it has me really keen to take a look at the FaD rules. I will take a look in the library.

The droid planet idea was awesome and I didn't think there would be another idea that would trump until I read the stuff about the Bermuda triangle Rogue planet. So cool, really fired up the imagination picturing it. I want to see that one the big screen.

I have the character creator you mention. I only downloaded it a couple of weeks ago. Once I have checked out the library, I will use that to make up my character

OK, it's after midnight here so I am going to go to bed, not sure I will go to sleep for a while though, all the info is probably going to keep me awake imagining possibilities. I will spend some more time looking at options tomorrow

Like mrvain, I ended up losing a little sleep over character ideas. After thinking about it long I have decided I will not tweak my character but instead use an entirely different character. I will have it posted in a little while, once I have a chance to put together the character. Not sure if it matters but this character is not going the force sensitive route.

I, for one, am excited to see what we end up coming out with as a party. I just want to jump in a ship and start running amok about the universe. Corrupting strange new worlds, setting up empires and claiming dominion. TALLY HO!

SITH CONQUEST ORIGIN

This seems to be the general direction we're headed. So, I think I'm going to run with it and get started. Unless you guys change your minds, I see this as a very intriguing way to go. Part of it is the three way battle for the galaxy, which will make for interesting possibilities, not the least of which is that you can oppose both the Empire and the Rebellion (which will be a newly formed Republic by the time the Sith Conquest begins).
It's Star Wars, so we won't get too involved in crunching numbers, but I did do some math on the potential for a Sith colonization effort to flourish into a mighty power, and one thousand years is plenty of time, given their access to imported technology allowing them to take advantage of the massive, resource rich jungle/mountain planet, extraordinarily hidden from the eyes of the galaxy.

Regarding the Galactic Timeline:
The Battle of Yavin took place at the end of Episode IV, A New Hope, wherein the Rebels destroy the Death Star; it considered a zero point on the Galactic Standard Calendar.
BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin)
ABY (After the Battle of Yavin)

---A BRIEF SYNOPSIS OF MODERN SITH HISTORY---



BIRTH OF AN EMPIRE: THE EXODUS OF VHRALL AKRULTA

It was a powerful Sith Lord named Vhrall Akrulta, extraordinarily gifted in his ability to see the future, who made preparations to avoid the downfall of the ancient Sith order, having foreseen over one thousand years ago in 1041 BBY. With almost twenty years to do so, he used his influence, power, and wealth to gather the resources necessary to colonize a new planet. As the fall of the Sith became more imminent, Lord Akrulta rallied other Sith to join him, despite the mockery he suffered from the vast majority of Sith Lords believing him to be a coward or insane. Approximately one year before the fall, Akrulta led a mass exodus of starships into a far flung corner of Wild Space, the dark side fueling his vision as he searched for a new home.

For a year they traveled Wild Space, the dark side pulling at Lord Akrulta. Slowly and surely this pull intensified, gaining a hold over him that manifested physically, sapping his strength as he gave direction from bedrest in his private chambers. Despite the growing threat of mutiny and the warnings of his highest ranking officers including the ship’s senior pilot, Lord Akrulta stayed the course, giving orders to set a hyperspace course he had seen in a dream.

When they arrived they had reached the heart of the maelstrom. It was here, embedded within a deep quagmire of dark nebulae, at the eye of the storm, that space suddenly cleared, and they came upon their new home world: massive, visibly lush and green, with towering mountain ranges that could be seen from orbit. Strangely, it was at this time that all astrogation and navigational systems failed. Even if Lord Akrulta wanted to continue his search, it would have been impossible to do so. However, he had no such intention, as he had foreseen this moment years ago. The dark side had drawn them to their new home, christened Akrultos at the behest of the Sith Lord’s increasingly loyal followers.



A NEW HOME: COLONIZATION AND THE DARK VEIL

Colonization began in 1023 BBY. As part of their expansion and rebirth, the Sith rapidly became highly industrialized, and as a further measure of security and secrecy, built downwards and inwards, toward the center of a planet strangely stable regarding geological phenomena. It was, in this way, that they further hid their existence from any who might happen to come upon Akrultos.

The occasional explorer who did stumble upon the planet wouldn't have been able to detect this flourishing Sith society, as entering the space around the planet rendered the navigational and sensor systems of star ships useless, limiting the pilot's exploration of the planet to only what they could see, trapping them within the shroud of dark nebulae. Over the centuries the Sith suffered from this strange phenomenon as well, as attempts to leave the planet for purposes of exploration failed, time and again, until the Sith simply gave up, accepting their fate. With time, the effect itself and the surrounding nebulae became known as the Dark Veil. Despite what the planet offered as a secure, well hidden, resource rich home, they were now prisoners. It was almost as if the planet wouldn't allow them to leave, somehow sentient, knowing the time was not yet right to strike.



BECOMING A GOD: ERASING HISTORY AND DIVINE ASCENSION

Time, and the galaxy, moved on and forgot about the Sith. Year after year, decade after decade, century after century, one thousand years went by. The names and the history of the ancient Sith were forgotten as well, as Vhrall Akrulta destroyed any records of Sith history prior to his unopposed rise to the title of Emperor Akrulta. To further ensure his prominence and legacy in this new world, he had those who tried to preserve ancient Sith history outright eliminated, having them assassinated or sentenced to death under false pretenses of treason.

His prominence as the leader of the exodus and status as a Sith Lord led to his rise to the title of Emperor Vhrall Akrulta, also known as First Emperor, First Sith, Progenitor, Deliverer, and the Creator. This only served to build upon his already legendary status, and in time he became worshipped as a divine being, a result of his own political machinations preying on the adulation of the public as a whole.



ENDING AN ERA: THE PROPHESY AND DEATH OF VHRALL AKRULTA

Before Vhrall Akrulta’s death in 908 BBY, he entered a deep slumber, not unlike a coma, lasting weeks as he had powerful visions of the future, wracked with spams of excruciating pain and suffering. The visions were so powerful they consumed what little may have remained of his years. On his death bed, a rapidly desiccating skeleton of his former self whose final moments were fast approaching, he prophesized that the Sith would one day conquer the galaxy. They would seize the most opportune of moments when the dark side of the force was again waxing in power, aligning itself favorably with the Sith. With his dying breath, he further foretold that this time would be heralded by great discovery, both terrible and wonderful.

The Great Houses of the Sith went into a frenzy and battled for the right to take Akultra's throne. In life, none had opposed his right to rule, his power and political skill maintaining an unprecedented level of order, far outside the the norm for the Sith. His death, however, plunged the nobility into chaos. In the ensuing bloodbath, the vast majority of Akrulta’s prodigious bloodline was exterminated, preyed upon by the Great Houses from all sides. Few escaped, and those that did went into hiding, fearing for their very lives.



LOOKING TO THE FUTURE: ORACLES AND THE EYES OF AKRULTA

However, it was on the day of the Emperor’s death, some even say at the exact moment of his death, that the first Oracle was born. From that moment on, there was always one Oracle, as the death of one led to the gift being passed within days to one of the Eyes of Akrulta. It was The Eyes of Akrulta, a religious sect that fervently worshipped Emperor Akrulta as a divine being, even beyond death, that safeguarded the Oracles against all threats seeking to blaspheme against Akultra's continued, albeit, slowly diminishing status as a divine being.

Viewed as a cult by some, The Eyes of Akrulta revered the Oracles as prophets, waiting for the day Emperor Akrulta’s prophesy would become reality. Despite Akrulta’s status as a divine being weakening somewhat over time, the Sith still had enough faith and belief in his vision, or divinity, to trust in the Oracles, amassing strength, forging and re-forging themselves into an increasingly powerful machine of war.



THE PURSUIT OF POWER: GENERATIONS OF UNREST

Power was passed from generation to generation through the years, sometimes from Emperor to heir, other times changing hands and Houses via political machinations or violent internal conflict. Lacking a common enemy to unite against, infighting was not uncommon, yet never escalated to the level of full scale civil war. Far more frequent was the struggle for position and rank among the most powerful Houses of the new Sith Lords, secretly moving against one another, always looking for an opening, always vying for supremacy.

However, despite a state of constant unrest, it was a deeply rooted faith in the First Emperor, Vhrall Akrulta, that kept them from destroying themselves completely. To this day, he is still revered as divine by many, and places of worship, some almost a thousand years old, still exist in his name. Even after death, his lasting influence still provides a foundation of strength for the Sith, born of an eternal hatred of the Jedi steeped in a seething desire for revenge and galactic conquest.



REVELATION AND CONQUEST: A PROPHESY FULFILLED

It was in 7 ABY that the revelations of Vhrall Akrulta came to pass. First came the discoveries. A brilliant engineer achieved the seemingly impossible, integrating force crystals into starship astrogation and navigation systems, allowing the Sith, for the first time in over a thousand years, to successfully navigate beyond the Dark Veil. Their exultation in this discovery was short-lived however, as one of their most esteemed scientists almost simultaneously revealed a recently learned and dreadful truth: Akrultos, their sanctuary and home that had shielded them from the galaxy for so long, was disengaging from its orbit at an alarming speed. Predictions had the planet hurtling through space in less than a decade, quite possibly within a few years, exposing their lives and very existence to the inherent dangers associated with living on a rogue planet.

It was during this time of great discoveries, both wonderful and terrible, that the Oracle came forward, reminding them all of the First Emperor’s great prophesy, and that it had clearly come to pass. Some still doubt any claims to Vhrall Akrulta’s status as divine, but for many faith was restored, and a there was a profound resurgence in his worship as a god.

As the dark side came into alignment with the Sith’s great purpose, what was initially a time of sorrow and mourning for the impending doom of their home world evolved into something else entirely. Whether considered coincidence, a foretelling aided by the power of the dark side, or a mystical prophesy divine, the Sith rejoiced as one, turning their eyes toward the galaxy, united by a common cause. Some hungered for conquest, others for vengeance prophesied by a god long ago. Martialing the vast might of their military power, the Sith made plans for war. Early in the year 8 ABY, they left their home and prison for the first time in over 1000 years as multiple fleets of Sith naval vessels pierced the Veil and began their Conquest of the Galaxy...

ON CHARACTER BACKGROUND DESIGN

Now that we’ve fully established an origin story for the group, feel free to devlop you character’s back stories within the culture. I’ll assume all of you are at least about 20 years of age or older (human scale; more specifically, you’ve been around for a while and are at least adults). Consider the fact that given your role in the conquest of the galaxy (that just sounds good!) in which you are one of multiple covert groups sent out to establish beach heads and scout ahead, you have likely been a part of the Sith conquest plans since an early age (force users, the Sith would pick you out in childhood, before you hit your teens) or at least a few years otherwise (non-force users) as military troops are recruited into the system before adulthood. As it is a caste society, this a great honor, even for the lowliest warrior, as being a civilian does not allow the possibility of joining the conquest.

For all players, as you consider background development, keep in mind what your character is good at. The Sith military would place your characters in roles they could excel at. For example, if you have a high Willpower or Coercion, you would likely be assigned the role of an Interrogator/Torturer. Characters with a high Presence and Cunning would likely have been trained as political infiltrators and spies, as they would excel at the necessary social graces of Charm and Deception. A high Agility would lend itself to Piloting and Stealth operations. A high Cunning would lend itself to Perception, and perhaps a role as a military investigator. Intellect and Computers/Mechanics would lend itself to a role of some kind in the tech department. Brawn type character would likely be considered as shock troops, capable of enduring more punishment and handling the adverse conditions of more dangerous alien planets.

Those are only ideas, and if you’re having trouble thinking of something, I’ll be glad to help. I can take a look at your character and make some recommendations.


Religious Affiliation:

If you so desire, worshipping at one of the cathedrals stewarded by the Eyes of Akrulta is a choice; the Great Cathedral is stewarded by force using members of The Eyes of Akultra. If your character does believe Vhrall Akrulta was a divine being, you can also choose to worship personally as Sith culture does not mandate religious attendance of any kind. You are also welcome to be more pragmatic and believe he was simply a great leader, powerful in the force, and a visionary.


Species in the Modern Sith Empire

Over time, many species have become as prevalent as the original Sith species as descended from the Exodus (of which, all were slaves except the Sith species); as such, many species exist in the Sith Empire, of which humans have become the most dominant. However, there is a degree of racism that attached itself to the culture and never let go. In general, many of the Sith purebloods view the rest of the species with varying degrees of disdain, followed closely behind by some human groups, who consider themselves the ascendant power. All of that being said, when it comes to uniting against a common foe, these racial tensions tend to take a back seat except for the true hatemongers.


Force Users

Given the above, your background as a force user has a lot to do with being part of the Akultra Arcology, an underground complex (they all are on this planet) of a grand and massive scale, with an architectural style similar to what you would call gothic (seen throughout modern Sith architecture). It is the center for disciples of the dark side of the force, a place to live and train (regardless of religious beliefs). It also houses the Grand Cathedral, the oldest and greatest place of worship on the planet.
For simplicity, all of you will have trained under the same master, each having survived the trials of an apprentice. In these trials, you were part of a small class that competed to graduate (at most five students at a time). Graduating meant being the last Sith standing in your class, whether the rest were killed or simply defeated in some way during the trials. This is the Sith way, ensuring that only the strongest pupils become full-fledged force users, ferreting out weakness.

Where the Modern Sith will differ is in the fact that one Master may have an entire group of Sith as his loyal subjects, typically a group similar in size to the number of force users in your group, or less than ten. Your group have all been trained by the same master, and have simply graduated from different classes.


Non-Force Users

You have more flexibility in designing your background. However, you are part of the Sith military, and would have been enlisted after childhood but prior to adulthood, depending on species. You may have been part of a gang, an apprenticed mechanic working in the starship yards, attending university, etc.

SOME LOGISTICAL CONCEPTS FOR THE SITH CONQUEST


So far, I'm imagining the power ratings of the factions as something distributed across a 10 point scale, wherein 10 is the total amount of power available and distributed across the galaxy for major political factions. Power would be represented by military strength in addition to political resources primarily based on controlled systems.

So far, I see the power distributed in this way:

The Empire, despite being on the decline as armies fall into disarray and entire governments rally behind the Republic (recently formed from the ascendance of the Rebel Alliance), is still barely the dominant power in the galaxy, with a power rating of 5.

The Republic (formerly the Rebel Alliance), which has grown in power at an staggering rate as it continues to inspire loyalty and draw entire systems away the Empire, would have a power rating of 4.

The Sith Empire, having 1,020 years to rebuild and prepare for this conquest, come out with a power rating of 1.

They don't control any systems as of yet, let alone key systems, but their massive military might is prepared to establish a beach head. Force users are extremely rare among the modern Sith, and only the most capable and gifted are trained in a now 1,000 year old academy, dating back to the teachings of Vhrall Akrulta and those that came after him.

The vast majority (over 99.99%) of their military might comes from standard troops and navy, but they have tremendous reserves of strength ready to form garrisons and strongholds across the galaxy.

A major component of the Sith plan is to rapidly subjugate and indoctrinate system governments whenever possible, the alternative being extermination. A major part of achieving this rapid expansion is to create 'subjugated garrisons' wherein the troops are comprised of slave soldiers, referred to as subjugates, forced to fight for the Sith under pain of death (or worse, making examples as necessary). These subjugated garrisons have attached officers and Sith troops needed to maintain control, with the primary means of doing so being the explosive collars worn on each subjugate’s neck. The flick of a switch can kill one, or all of them, depending on the user’s whim.

The Sith Navy is also quite formidable, and while not as large as the Empire’s or the Republic’s, quite capable.

Over time the starship graveyard surrounding Akrultos provided a wealth of models and ideas for Sith engineers to copy or replicate, not to mention providing a salvage yard of sorts, from which they could even restore ships, and, at times, improve upon them. One of the more fortunate finds occurred when a starship carrying a vast array of ship blueprints and schematics strayed into the Dark Veil, from which the fleet has largely been created. Why such a vessel would travel through Wild Space is unknown, but the Sith were more than happy to reap the rewards.

No need for further rolls. you get one mod for free of your choice, per the rules in the Library.

That's kind of what I thought. The confusion came in from the following portion:
Because it calls out that the second mod would have two purple dice, I wasn't sure if the difficulty dice that make up the "average" roll included the 1 for the mod or if it would have been another one above and beyond.

Either way, given that, I think I'm going to take one of the vicious mods (+10 on crit table rolls)

I'm getting a lot of ideas for Hawke's backstory, some of which I need to run by the GM.

1.) Were survivors of any ships that were trapped post Sith colonization and landed killed or enslaved or what?
2.) Are Force Sensitive slaves trained to be sith ala the Sith Inquisitor in SWTOR?

If it's allowed, then I'm thinking that Hawke's family were not born on the planet, and Hawke was either an infant or still in the womb when the gank family were marooned.

Rolling for Hawke's lightsaber:

Meribson:
Taken alive, they likely would have been tortured and put to slavery. Also, over time the Sith pilots learned to navigate via 'landmarks' so to speak, distinct mountain ranges, large bodies of water, etc. So, at times they would go to salvage the starship graveyard, and may have occasionally come across drifting ships, survivors on board.
Absolutely. The Sith would most certainly assimilate a force sensitive child into their culture. The ideas you're coming up with hear sound good to me so far.

The general idea I have for Lexi at the moment is that her mother was one of the engineers that worked to design the Sith capital ships. Her father was a naval officer that at the time of her being taken to the Arcology was an instructor for space pilotage. She was taken young, between 6 and 7. Grew up knowing that she was force sensitive and being actively groomed to be part of the invasion force.

Sounds good.

PLAYING A DARK SIDE CHARACTER

Force user or not, your character is part of the Sith culture, so the information below applies.

One of the issues found in a Dark Side campaign is some players confusing the Dark Side with Chaos, and Pragmatism with Psychotic murder. The Dark side is a point of view free of restraints, yet has purpose, almost always self-serving, or serving the Dark Side. A villain may kill, torture, etc., even to the point of enjoying a little, or a lot, but they rarely do it for pleasure alone. More often than not, it's a means to an end (Pragmatic).

Drawing on Anger and Passion to obtain Power isn't Chaos, it's just freeing oneself from the denial of desire via removing the shackles often associated with a 'Good morality' (Light Side oriented) perspective. Player's may not get this, and may instead equate the Darkside with the kind of senseless violence that leaves a river of blood in their wake.

A far more accurate portrayal of what the extended indulgence in the Dark Side does: it creates a loss of humanity, morality, empathy, and the ability to love, leaving the Sith or new Dark Sider amoral, cruel, selfish, sadistic and violent. Also, as your characters live on a planet that oozes the Dark Side of the force, the above effect would likely be more pronounced.

This change in values, ideology and personality is exemplified in canon, wherein the transition to the Dark Side is part of a transformation into a different person altogether, often leading those who turn to the Dark Side to take on a different name, as they regard their former persona as dead and destroyed.

Squeeks:

Regarding the Security Droid:

You may want to consider that there might be times when it could be a hindrance, For example stealth situations, navigating difficult terrain (rocky, swamp, vertical), etc. It's a security droid, so it is meant to wander halls and move along smooth surfaces. I just want tot give you fair warning.

Of course, you could always leave it on the ship, depending on the situation. Either way, I'll allow the droid.

First draft/throw at Lexi's backstory is up.

Indeed. It wouldn't be appropriate to have it in every situation, certainly not a base model anyways. To be fair, I honestly see this mission is going to be a bit of a wake up call for Lissewa. That if she really wants to get where she wants, she may have to be willing to pull her own weight.

Noted. Going to check it out :)

Also, I want to make sure you know I'm open to letting you make upgrades, which I'm guessing Hawke could help with. However, as part of upgrading droids, I call for a combination skill check using both Mechanics and Computers. Droids are more than just parts.

Also, from a pro-droid perspective, there may be times where it's nice to have it watching the ship, as at the least it could contact you to warn of impending threats.

Another benefit, as you all encroach upon new realms: Security droids are typically fitted with software that allows them, given a connection, to access local law databases for the purpose of updating their database, making sure they comply with planetary, system, and sector law. That could be useful.

Squeek:

Make sure you have a way to make repairs, even though I think Hawke has Mental Tools now that I'm thinking about it.

Good stuff. Good depth. plenty of content and details to work with. I especially like her parents' burning pride, and the clear desire for revenge, greatness, and a pitch black darkness she took comfort in like a 'blanket' as she stared out toward the Dark Veil.

I'll add a tool kit to my list of equipment, something to bring along onto the ship. Also, while this won't change the stats of the droid, I assume I could kind of make my own version of security droid since we've been separated from other droid developers for the last thousand years?

As an extra treat, if any of you can find ways to include Obligation in your character that makes sense with the setting and origin story, feel free to do so and grant yourself another 10 XP.

Squeek, even though you're not a force user, your character will use Morality like the rest of the group; Obligation for you is optional as well.

I have modified Morality mechanic system I'm cooking up just for this campaign that works with the Dark Side, and, whether you're a force user or not, it will work for your character. Also, Morality is nice to have just for its capacity to serve as a gauge for each character's leanings regarding the concepts of Dark vs Light.

You could most certainly buy one at the price you already paid.

Obligation-wise, I'm somewhat torn. Both Dutybound and Oath would fit her character and the setting.

Duty - She's definitely entrenched in ritual. A "prized" (at least in her eyes) student of the Arcology. The majority of her living memory is in service to that body and her training has been singular in aim: dominate space as a new Sith Empire.

Oath - The Sith were always less interested in the whole Oath to a group thing, at least when compared to the Jedi. This may not fit as well.

I think she'd take the Dutybound obligation. Bound to the task of spreading the glory of the Sith Empire through subjugation and intrigue.

First draft of the background is up. It's a little rough because it lacks detail but I think it will do for now, since it really only serves to set her up for the future.

Additionally, I went with the dutybound obligation ('explained' in the background) and the Ambition/Greed morality.

About character creation and the obligation/morality bonuses. Are those working as normal or is it only working based on your previous post regarding our backgrounds.

Haven't finished Hawke's backstory (typing it in Word before moving it over), but I've determined that he was in his teens before being stranded on Akrulta. He's been a part of the Sith for about 14-15 years now and in his late 20s, but he still remembers the wider galaxy.

MORALITY AND THE DARK SIDE


Morality is a generally soft mechanic, so I've modified it to highlight it a bit more in the game. New game mechanics are detailed below that allow for the use of Morality when playing a Dark Side character.



Persistent Internal Conflict and It's Effect on the Character

The Morality scale has been upgraded to reflect persistent internal conflict for the character. A Dark Side character trending too far toward the Light side will suffer the following effects:

A Morality score ranging from 50-59 will result in 1 setback die applied on all skill checks.

A Morality score ranging from 60-69 will result in 2 setback dice applied to all skill checks.

A Morality score of 70+ and the player has turned to the Light Side, coming under the auspices of all the rules inherently attached.

As seen above, the Dark Side is consuming, corrupting, and possessive, lashing out at you as you move toward the light. The closer you get to becoming light side (70+ Morality) the more constant and overwhelming your internal strife becomes, interfering with focus, decisiveness, self-identity, etc.

As we're entering new territory, seemingly unaddressed by any forum or discussion of any kind on the internet, a lot of how we handle conflict regarding your characters will be highly interpretative by your GM. However, the below table is intended to give you an approximate idea of what to expect, showing some of the ways Dark Side characters can accrue conflict.

The list of actions on the table below have attached conflict penalties, along with aspects of Morality that exemplify what emotions/ideals cause the conflict for a dark side user. It is not intended to be a complete list, and you may gain conflict via other means, at the discretion of your GM.



COMMON CONFLICT PENALTIES FOR DARK SIDE CHARACTERS
(1) Knowing Inaction: The PC knows that an NPC or PC will do something to oppose them and allows them to do so. 1-2 conflict. Fear, Weakness.
(2) Telling the truth to the detriment of the PC or their agenda. 1-2 conflict. Fear, Weakness.
(3) Seeking peaceful resolution to or fleeing from a direct threat of violence. 1-4 conflict. Fear, Weakness, Compassion.
(4) Unnecessary Kindness: Helping others, unselfishly aiding them in some way. 3-6 conflict. Compassion, Justice.
(5) Granting mercy, especially to an enemy. 4-9 conflict. Mercy, Compassion, Justice.
(6) Endangering yourself to help others. 6-10 conflict. Mercy, Compassion, Justice.
(8) Self-sacrifice. Offering to take the place of another, etc. at great peril to yourself. 15+ conflict. Mercy, Compassion, Altruism.



The Effect of Conflict on Your Dark Side Character's Morality

Every two months (?-- tentative), each player totals conflict received for their character and rolls 1d10, subtracting the result of the roll from their conflict. The character then adjusts his or her Morality by the result. Positive results move the character toward the Light Side, negative results move the character toward the Dark Side.

For example, Darth Vader accrued a lot of conflict at the end of the last session when he showed mercy to Padme, picking up 6 conflict. He rolls a 2 for his Morality check, and increases his Morality by the difference, which is 4 (6-2= positive 4), slipping to the Light Side of the force.

Later on, he accrues conflict in the next session, as Darth Vader confronts Obi Wan, giving him the chance to walk away. This earns him 2 conflict. He rolls an 8 for his Morality check, and decreases his Morality by the difference, which is 6 (2-8= negative 6), becoming more and more in tune with the Dark Side of the force.

Sorry, that won't work. I don't want any characters to have memories of the galaxy.

Well it's a good thing that I haven't uploaded it yet, time to make some adjustments!

Everyone will have functioning Morality as described in a post I recently put up.

I've made a change as we go forward. Everyone must take 10 Obligation, represented by one Obligation at a value of 10 or two Obligations at a value of 5 each. The reasoning for this is that the kind of endeavor the group is undertaking is a major one, and important aspects of their life, beliefs, etc would be amplified. I did some reading and agree with the point of view that when players ahve both Obligation and Morality, it helps bring the game to life, adding detail, RP potential, etc.

Also, since I'm forcing it on you, I'll give every one another 15 XP (bring the bonus after character generation to 165).

An Oath to Vhrall Akrulta, perhaps, if your character is religious? Characters who take this Oath are highly religious and the strain would come from lack of contact with the Cathedral, in addition to truly believing that Vhrall Akrulta was divine, and judging them every step of the way. I can figure out more details about the religion if needed.

She is one sinister woman. Gritty stuff, an ex-slave and a woman not to be underestimated.

Kind of using Game of Thrones as a reference for how to make her act.

Just something I'd want to point out about the morality thing. I think a few of those may be a bit questionable depending on the person and the circumstances. Will that be something that comes into play when determining how conflict is handed out?

For instance, an individual with little combat ability being threatened by an overwhelming force couldn't be considered slipping to the light side of the force if they seek a peaceful way out of the situation in order to save their own skin, would they?

I'm still working out the details, but the conflict penalty ranges are there to provide various penalties depending on the situation. In the situation you mention, I would likely give zero conflict as common sense is a factor; if there's some reason that, despite the overwhelming force I think it would still chafe at your character, I might give you 1 conflict.

I think that makes sense. Ultimately, it'll probably be up to us as much as it is up to you since we'll be the ones posting our character's actions, reactions and thoughts. Those thoughts will often betray us.

I like it. I think 10 Obligation in Oath would be fitting. I could even see it changing a bit of her attitude from just a brash/arrogant pilot to more of a warrior priestess type person.

And she'll dump her 15 extra xp into her Move power.

What is our starting Morality?

Everyone's Morality will start at 40, giving you all a nice lean to show your alignment to the Dark Side.

Excellent. I also updated Lexi's background to include a small passage about being taken in to a sanctum where she swore her oath to Vhrall Akrulta.

Awesome. I was really hoping someone would jump on the religious aspect of Vhrall Akrulta. As a force sensitive, this makes you one of the Eyes of Akrulta. Essentially, with your character's skill set she would be a cathedral guardian of sorts, not necessarily standing around at doorways, but extremely vested in the security of the Grand Cathedral. However, it's safe to say your character hasn't been to the inner sanctum, and had never seen the Oracle until she appeared as described in the SITH HISTORY (she is kept hidden for security purposes, as the Great Houses have taken a crack at Oracles in the past for reasons of their own).

Oh absolutely. I wasn't thinking she'd have been at THE sanctum, just A sanctum within the Cathedral. Being one of the Eyes sounds intriguing.

A NOTE ON THE GAME

I'm glad to have everyone here so far. We're up to six players, and that is my limit. I'm adding the comments below because PbP is notorious for players disappearing or posting infrequently, bringing the game to a crawl. I'm doing my damndest to avoid that. Furthermore, I want players who want to be here, highly involved in a quality game, and not just checking in, making the rounds on one of their ten games. Also, regarding the comments below, they are simply another layer of preventative care in my mission make a great game for all of us.

If you already find that you're not feeling the setting or theme of the game, or that you bit off more than you can chew commitment wise, it's alright to just let me know and leave. I don't want anyone feeling like they need to stay just because they signed up. There are other players interested in playing, and if you're feeling like this game might become a chore somehow, I'd rather part ways and bring someone in who wants to play.

There will be no hard feelings if you decide to go. Like I said, just give me a heads up so we don't wonder where you went. Parting on good terms leaves the door open for you to come back id there's a spot in the future as well.

You should add your status as such to your backstory and your player notes.

Done.

I'm going to try to get Tajanna's backstory (or at least a rough draft of it) written out and posted by tonight. Just to run some ideas by the GM, I was thinking of Tajanna's military role being somewhat akin to an assassin/recon-type, sneaking around ahead, finding potential opportunities for the group to exploit, acquiring targets, and, of course, killing targets, and for Tajanna to be the scion of a minor Sith noble house, descended from the intermingling of the handful of Chiss, both Sith and muggle, who followed Vhrall Akrulta on his exodus to Akrultos.

Edit: Also, can I have my Obligation be A Score to Settle with a rival Sith, who trained under the same Master I did?

Also, for my lightsaber construction, I have no training in either Mechanics or Discipline, so here goes nothing.

Not a promising first roll, there.

OK guys, thought I would put this out to the group of experience minds rather than hold everyone up while I try to work it out. At the moment I am considering a couple of possibilities, I just don't know the mechanics well enough yet to know if my preferred option is viable.

Are there viable alternative weapons in the game for force users or should I just go with the light saber? I am considering playing a Trandoshan Hired Gun Marauder who has been trained to use Force powers, probably through Shii-Cho Knight as a cross career specialization (not even sure about the cost and if it works). I have this picture of this huge lizard looking monster, soaking up damage and creating havoc with huge melee weapon(s), but I don't know enough to know if I am just headed towards a sub par melee character. Given the fact that the Lightsaber bypasses a bunch of soak and it looks like it can break other weapons, I suspect I may be headed toward the latter. Thoughts?

Also, are there any gaps skill/role wise in the group atm? I am happy to put some points toward skills to shore up gaps. At the moment I am looking at Brawn and Willpower as a 4 and a 3 at character creation. I was thinking possibly of buying a level of medicine as part of a back story idea I had

Technically speaking, everything is viable, at least mechanically. Whether it would work well for the setting is something to be discussed.

Part of the way Force and Destiny has been put together compared to the other two (EotE and AoR) is that the force using characters will not be inherently more powerful or more useful than a non-force user. They simply have access to different abilities.

If you wish to create a powerful melee character who doesn't use a lightsaber, this is easily doable. Highly modified vibroweapons can get through most enemies soak, plus you can end up doing so much damage that soak won't help all that much.

As for the force wielder portion, it sounds interesting but I think it will be somewhat difficult mechanically to pull it off well at this stage of the game. Non-force users can take force user specializations like shii-cho knight, but they can't take talents that require a force rating (indicated by the sort of explosion in the corner of the talent box). In order for you to use those powers you'd also have to take a specialization that grants a Force rating, like Force-Sensitive Exile, which means to get both of those specializations, you'd have to spend 60 exp just to have access to both, which is a significant investment early on.

Everything else you said is good, but this may be a bad choice of career and specializations. Non-lightsaber melee weapons can be pretty strong, non-Force and Force characters are well balanced, mainly because buying Force powers costs a ton of XP, and most of them aren't really better than using that XP to buy Talents or Skills instead, and cross-career Specializations simply cost extra XP to buy.

The issue with starting with a non-Force career, then multi-speccing into a Force Specialization, is that your character will not start with a Force rating (which all Force careers get in place of a starting skill), which will mean that your character can't actually use the Force, until you buy a Force Rating Increase talent, which are invariably located at the bottom of any Specialization tree that contains one, with the exception of the Force Sensitive Exile and Force Sensitive Emergent universal specializations (i.e. counts as a career specialization for all careers).

Personally, I think either starting as a Warrior/Shii-Cho Knight and then multi-speccing into Marauder, or starting as a Hired Gun/Marauder and ignoring the Force entirely, are both mechanically-superior options to what you proposed.

Also, I believe we don't have a Brawn-focused character at the moment, so I wouldn't worry overmuch about overlapping skillsets. With your high Willpower, some ranks in Coercion would give you some oopf in social, non-combat encounters, as well.

IMPORTANT MESSAGE REGARDING THE GAME


I’m mentioning this here simply because it’s where all the talk is as of now.

I’ve added some very important information to the ‘Game Structure and Abences’ thread. Please take a look when you get the chance. After reading both of the posts (‘Game Structure and Expecations’ and ‘Absences’) please create your own post on the same thread showing you’ve read them and understand. You don’t have to write anything special, it’s more like a simple yay or nay concept.

Not so. Having grown up on Akrultos, given the crossover he is considering, he could have been a late bloomer force wise. As such players who have access to Sith training (primarily meaning you haven't gone out into the galaxy yet) can crossover without taking Force Sensitive Exile.

Also, as far as melee, goes, when it comes to soak not much compares to a lightsaber as it cuts through 10 soak with breach. you would essentially have to get a highly modified weapon with a pierce rating of 10 to be an equivalent.

Not to mention that one of the greatest strengths of a lightsaber, and what makes you Sith so dangerous with them, lies in the Reflect Talent (as I am allowing non-force users to take Parry).

With the Reflect Talent, a character can automatically stop some, or all (given enough ranks in Reflect) of the damage from happening. From all attacks, assuming you have enough strain to do so (cost of 3 strain per Reflect, or Parry for that matter).

Mechanically speaking, those are both better options. However, as detailed in another post of mine, due to the uniqueness of the characters origin, prior to leaving home, your character can start in an EotE career and pick a specialization from F&D. Force Sensitive Exile, etc, is not required to do so.

Also, considering XP costs for any future specializations as well, keep in mind where you imagine most of your XP will be spent. Meaning, it is cheaper to take a new specialization from within your career (10 multiplied by the number of specs you will have including the new one) than it is to purchase a specialization from outside of your career (10 multiplied by the number of specs you will have including the new one, [u]plus 10[/u]).

So, if you're planning ahead and know that you're going to take every specialization from the Hired Gun career, that would be a better place to establish your career from, while adding a F&D specialization to it.

With this in mind, the only way I'd allow a non-force character to access a F&D specialization after beginning the Conquest is exactly what Squeek described above: you would have to take Force Sensitive Exile first. Further, I would only allow the character to learn lightsaber techniques that a fellow PC knew, reflecting training taking place on board the ship during downtime such as hyperspace travel, etc. Of course, another way to access a variety of teaching would be if the group had the right holocron on the ship, containing lessons from the past...

Given the recent barrage of posts I just put up, I will also say this. I appreciate trying to see if your character meshes with the group, considering roles and helping the team. I'm inclined to do the same thing. At the same time, your character should be one that appeals to you, and you want to play.

That said, make a smart one. During the game, don't be a clown and expect me to pull you out of the fire.

For those that missed it (somehow?), I will kill your characters.

I don't mean to say he can't take the specialization. That's stated in the rules that you can take force specializations even if you don't have a force rating. I simply mean mechanically, without a Force rating, you can't make use of the force talents in a talent tree like Shii-Cho Knight. All the training in the world doesn't just make you force sensitive, you have to have a Force rating to be considered force sensitive. Many of the force specialization trees do have increase force rating talents that he could make use of to gain a force rating and become force sensitive but (using his example of which lightsaber form specialization he was interested in) Shii-Cho Knight isn't one of those, so even if he mastered the tree he still wouldn't be able to use the force talents.

Ah, okay. I misinterpreted you.

Also, I don't want to be to rigid on the character development.

Players can, regardless of career, pick a specialization from either F&D or EotE. However, putting some of those talents on trees to work does require a force rating, which is not granted for choosing a F&D specialization alone. Purchasing Force Sensitive Exile, from EotE does, however, grant a Force rating to a character who doesn't have on yet.

Beyond that, we'll leave add this: to learn a lightsaber form will require a teacher of some kind. As far as players being teachers, those who have 3 skill ranks or more can teach a lightsaber style they know.

Having natural talent won't qualify for this, even if you're dropping 6 green dice for attacks; your natural talent is just that, talent. Skill Ranks are more representative of a degree of knowledge or experience. In this case, technique and form regarding lightsaber form.

Mrvain (in fact, everyone should take heed)

A NOTE ON COMBAT AND CHARACTER CREATION

Having warned you of possibility of death for your character, there are multiple ways that can happen, the most likely of which is during combat. Having said that, I don't want any of you to feel like you need to make a one dimensional combat machine to survive. As stated before, I highly recommend creating a character that you want to play who is prepared for combat. It;s Star Wars.

That said, the point is this: if you make a one dimensional character (say the combat monster) you may potentially find yourself bored between battles, feeling like you don't have anything else to contribute. At the same time, that largely depends on you and what you enjoy. Also, Brawn via the Athletics skill can be very useful for running someone down, climbing, swimming, generally anything physcial outside of the purview of Coordination. Resilience, also part of Brawn, would be useful to resist toxins, gong without sleep, prolonged physical activity, and handling harsh environments and lack of sustenance/h2O. Also, if you need to just bash someone without showing off the lightsaber, then Melee and Brawling would be useful as well.

ON DICE POOLS, SKILL CHECK, AND DIFFICULTY OF CHECKS

For those that aren't aware, adding another green dice to your pool is almost always better than converting a green to yellow. What this means is that more dice is almost always better. The only time this isn't true is when it comes to comparing 3 yellow vs 4 green for example (in this case, 3 yellow is just a few percent better). In other situations, 1 yellow and 2 green is not as good as 4 green dice.

What this means is that probability wise, for example, is that a character with 4 green dice in a check actually has a few % better chance to succeed at a task than a character with 3 yellow and 1 green. Skill ranks are not the end all and be all of success. They allow for Triumphs, and Triumphs do not mean you succeeded, just that something good accompanied your roll.


How you should perceive your character's abilities:

Consider the below comments while remembering that an Average difficulty check is 2 purple dice, a Hard check is 3, Daunting is 4, and Formidable is 5 purple dice.

4 dice, even if they're all green, is an excellent place to be as far as considering your character good at something. 3 dice, all green means you're above average. Two green dice are simply average; making them both yellow improves the situation, but not by much.

In sum, as you consider the game and its difficulty, especially in regards to your character, you shouldn't consider your character to be really good at something unless they've got a pool of 4 green dice or 3 yellow. If you like to be thought of us really excelling at a skill or ability, then you should be going for 5 dice or 4 yellow, a place where you can reliably count on your skill to be effective.

Consider making that Hard check. Do you really want to go at it with just three green, or 1 yellow and 2 green? Or what if you're dealing with a skill check that is truly difficult, and considered Daunting at 4 purple (examples from the F&D CRB are picking a sophisticated lock or making a shot at extreme range). Throwing 4 green against 4 purple is a coin toss; a 51% chance of success.

Here's a dice roll probability table for those that are interested in Mechanics and increasing their odds of success, and consequently survival.
FFG Star Wars Dice Roll Probability Table


REGARDING THE GROUP, ROLES, ETC

Roles and skills that have been expertly addressed, or have been to some degree:

Keep in mind that an Average difficulty skill check is 2 purple dice.

Lissewa (played by Squeek) is social skill oriented, a manipulator. Full of Charm and a Negotiator of some talent. Anything related to Presence she has fairly well covered with a 4. She's also got a 3 Agility and Intellect, making her above average in those skills. A decent shot with a blaster, she also brings a droid to the party.

As a side note: Squeek, don't think of her as being good at Deception, given the above comments on skill checks. 2 yellow is only slightly above average, and getting caught in a lie is usually bad. Keep in mind that any social interaction where you lie, even a little, will require Deception for a skill check. You can pair it with other social skills as well.

For example: lying and being charming at the same time could produce results where perhaps your lie succeeds "I've got a reservation" but you fail to sway them to like you, so you don't get that table you wanted. Another example, maybe the lie fails, but you're so charming (with a Triumph you put to good use) that, even though you didn't have a reservation, they'll let you in.
Again, lies can be very condemning, so don't expect this to happen a lot. It's far more likely that the failed Deception will hurt the Charm.

Hawke (played by Meribson) is your tech guy. I know he is focused on Mechanics, but really with 4 dice in Intellect, he's got everything Intellect related well-covered. Also, having taken the Soresu lightsaber form, he can carry his own weight in combat as well, with some ranks in Reflect as well as Parry, supported by his laminate armor. A durable type helps make a good medic, a role he capable of (Medicine), given the proper supplies or a first aid kit of some kind.

Tajanna (played by Tefmon) is bringing Cunning to the group, with a 4. Perceptive, Streetwise. A Survivor, capable of tracking others down. Good at lying over covering her tracks with Deception (? - I haven't seen anything that indicates gender, sorry if I'm wrong). Skullduggery lets her handle some locks and security measures (depending, as some electronic/complex security measures require Skullduggery, Computers, or Mechanics, or a combination of the three... some things are really hard to break into, which teamwork can help overcome). Having taken the Shien lightsaber form, (s)he uses 4 dice with Cunning for combat, making him/her no slouch given that the added Reflect and Parry as well.

Lexi (played by Dramasailor) brings a 5 Agility. Top notch pilot, in a starship or a speeder. A crack shot with any ranged weapon or gunnery system. Supremely Coordinated. Extremely Stealthy. Her 3 Willpower also lends itself to being intimidating (Coercion) Vigilant, and Disciplined (used for many force applications like Move, Influenc, etc; when in doubt, Discipline is often the go to Skill for using the force). Having learned the Ataru lightaber form, she uses 5 dice via her Agility for lightsaber attacks (potentially 6 if she increases her Agility via the Enhance force power). Combined with some Reflect she is quite capable in combat.

And we still have two more characters to add to the group. :D

Your guess is correct, Tajanna is female. I guess I haven't actually mentioned that anywhere yet.

We're good at 6, I don't think I'll expand from there.

I left it open at 8 to make room for others who wanted to take a look. Also, not to sounds pessimistic, but the final group may be less than 6. My original intention was 4, but those that wanted to join after that I really didn't want to turn down, ans I considered the possibility of players disappearing.

Starting with 6 adds some durability if some of you bail. At the same time, if you do, there's a short list waiting to get in, and I like 6 for the group size. The list isn't a threat to you, to be clear. But in case we need more players, for any reason, I want to be organized and ready for it.

I'll add a 'gender' line for the character sheets. It will be useful to help keep everything straight, and I would hate to mix things up in the game.

Hello everyone, glad to be joining the group. I was thinking about playing a human consular/ Niman Disciple. Definitly would be very diplomatic oriented, but I’m thinking the way this character would work, would be more like a spy master. Someone who could fit in with the socialites of other societies, all the while, gaining information and building contacts for our future conquest. I’m thinking a hero like little finger from game of thrones. Just throwing it out there for feedback and thoughts.

Not that there would be a problem with having someone else with diplomatic social skills but we do sort of have one who is fairly specialized in it. However, her's come from natural talent and skill rather than any connection to the force so there would be things that the consular could do that she could not. On the other hand, we don't have any kind of dedicated force user. None of the force users in the group have a force rating higher than a 1. Consular specializations often allow the character to get very strong in the force, very quickly.

Very true Squeeks. The part that jumped out at me was
In terms of conquest, we would absolutely need that kind of function running once we're out in the world. From a smoothness of gaming, given that those activities are usually done far in advance of the conquest happening, would we be getting into a game where ccl is off doing their thing and we're in a different part of the story (almost a permanently split party feel). Unless it's more that we hit a planet at the same time, some of us doing the shock and awe game, while ccl is off being devious in social circles?

I kind of feel like we're doing a lot of all of these things at the same time. Ultimately, the only way for the Sith empire to have a chance in the coming war is to begin taking worlds for itself. I see these groups as sort of advance scouts doing things to make the main Sith force having an easier time taking control of the worlds around our homeworld. This could involve diplomacy, setting the stages for alliance or partnerships, or subterfuge, sabotaging elements of a world making it easier to turn over to the Sith. I honestly don't see us just showing up and taking a world over on our own because any planet that we could take ourselves would not likely be worth the Empire's time.

True enough. So we'd be the small group that is starting to plant those seeds and such.

The group doesn't need to split for this at all, and managing two or more separate time lines can be really complicated in PbP. The ideal of RPG's is usually this: the group can work together and has characters who excel at given tasks.

Characters can excel at multiple abilities from the start if you spend your points wisely. For example, I'm surprised how some of you filled your talent trees, rather than going for the bottom more aggressively like Dramasailor did, picking up Dedication and adding an extra dice to multiple skills is quite valuable. Or picking up another force dice for example, allowing you to be FAR more effective in using force powers.

Also, there is nothing wrong with having some overlap. In a group of six it becomes more likely, especially with social sklls (there are 5 of them: Charm, Deception, Negotiation, Coercion, and Leadership) and they all have their applications. As far as splitting up the group, I'd rather not for long periods. In social interaction, many of you could effectively participate. Lissewa with Charm. Tejanna putting in a lie. Etc. Of course you want people who can excel at certain tasks, but the group does have some overlap, which is natural.

Exactly. Squeek nailed it. Your group will be filling multiple roles as needed, depending on the situation. You will be given targets, orders at times. At times you may pick up on targets of opportunity. As part of the Sith military, however, you are not given free reign to just do what you want regarding major objectives, except for extraordinary circumstance (cut off from all communication, etc). As far as targets of opportunity, you will be expected (required really, by high command) to contact them, make your suggestion, and, if given the go ahead, proceed from there.

Regarding less large scale objectives, you'll have more freedom more often than not. If you're given the task of taking a planet, for example, without specifics, your group will be expected to do so in the way you deem best. If the plan becomes something like "let's try to secretly intimidate the planetary governor into becoming a puppet of the Sith, while we arrange for the demise of a few key politicians that would resist" you can try that. If your assessment is that the planet would best be taken by brute force, after sabotaging key defenses, do that; remember, you can coordinate with command and inform them to strike when the time is right. Long range scanners on the Space scale don't go that far, and a Sith armada of the appropriate size could be parked in a random part of the galaxy, less than a day out in hyperspace travel time.

You have a lot of options. Sometimes you will have very specific orders (for example, the beginning of the Conquest will have a specific system or planetary objective; due to the Veil and the Graveyard, the Sith aren't clueless as to the state of the galaxy, having had access to holovids, journals, and especially the data mined from the many explorers who ended up there, updated maps of the galaxy. Sometimes, you'll be more part of making the plan. Sometimes, based upon your assessment, you'll be able to make suggestions to high command. Like any military operation, it will depend. What you are not expected to do, again, is just go on your own and break things, so to speak. High command will want to be prepared for occupation and coordinate their forces.

Something I've been wondering long term. Eventually, the Sith Empire would reach a point where they may be able to stand toe to toe with the other factions. At that point, we can expect that large scale engagements between the factions would occur. Would we at any point be able to play a part in those sorts of engagements. Obviously, small scale skirmishes and covert operations would probably still be our forte but those big fights is sort of a staple of the Star Wars mythos that would be fun to take part in a few times.

With this in mind, if those opportunities open up, would you consider opening up some of the AoR specializations, considering those tend to be more militaristic in nature. (To be honest, I'm still not sure why you would prefer EotE over AoR considering the military nature of the campaign.)

Since you made it sound so amazing, I rearranged my starting XP expenditures to get me some Dedication (RIP Improved Reflect and Force Leap).

I am curious how much XP you're going to be rewarding us, though. I've never played a FFG Star Wars campaign before, so I have no idea how much XP per session/month/story arc/etc is 'normal', nor, say, whether 20 XP is considered to be a signifigant chunk of XP, or just a minor amount of it.

Also, as far as splitting the group I won't forbid it. Just keep in mind that time tables will become problematic the longer the group is separate. What will be happening is that two scenes (or more) will be happening at once. They also have to be able to come back together, which requires time management (and, from a gaming perspective, needs to be believable). This will make things more complicated for me as well, given that the more plot threads I'm juggling at once, the harder it becomes to keep up. Consider the maximum possibility there: everyone in the group goes their own way, and I'm managing six scenes from a movie, so to speak, at once. Also, there's only so much time in the day, and more scenes requires more typing, and I don't want to dump quality to keep up.

Examples below of Timeline Issues and Splitting Up Below:

A Short(est) Term group separation:
You parked your ship in jungle clearing, just past range of hills that you're certain are outside the Republic base's sensor range, but it'll be a 1 or two day trek to get to the base. As you make your way through the jungle, one of your stealthier characters volunteers to be ahead of the group, to make sure you don't bumble into a problem. (This is so slightly separated that I really don't consider it as such really, just the most extreme example I could think of for Short Term; in this case the group would be close enough behind that, in this situation, you really aren't separate, but it could be an issue). Distance between group members, almost identical timeline's depending on distance.

Your group is in a cantina, and some of you are talking to spaceport security, as they're suspicious of you. Tejanna whispers to one you that she is going to slink out the back door (Stealth to not be noticed, depending) and hot wire a speeder (Skullduggery). Basically she's separating briefly to have an escape ready. In separate areas, very close to the same or an identical timeline.

Medium Term Separation:
The group splits up to infiltrate a Imperial base, thinking it's a good idea for whatever reason. This can get messy, and potentially either have other players waiting to post/play at some point, or deviate to something less than a believable timeline.

Long Term Separation:
One of the players decides to accept the invitation of a Hutt Crimelord and attend a meeting about some event. The rest of the group decides to scour the underbelly of NarShaddaa looking for someone sat the same time. Here, things can really get thrown off. One of those timelines will be socially oriented (the meeting) the other one will have the characters beating the pavement, so to speak, traveling over distances that force the two timelines to separate, likely in a drastic way. The meeting might take an hour whereas the search could take hours, perhaps the entire day.

So, if you do decide to split up, as appealing as it might seem, keep in mind the technical ramifications on the game.

---

The back and forth has definitely give me a greater insight as to the style of the game, but also how best to employ him. Even though he will be more of a diplomat as a Nina disciple he will be a capable warrior for any dirty business the group will have to Handel.

I don't have AoR. If this game keeps up, I will. I simply haven't picked it up yet. I would like to integrate Duty into the game, but don't have the rules and haven't been able to find them on the net (if anyone can direct me to a full explanation of the rules, we most certainly would integrate them).

Trust me, AoR appeals to me. I just happened to skip over it and go straight for F&D.

Ah, that makes sense. I've been trying to maintain legitimacy with my FFG roleplaying as well since I actually like the series and am willing to pay for the books. There's just a lot of em and it takes time to save money to make purchases of the books. I unfortunately started with Force and Destiny and then could not find a single group out there anywhere that wanted to play Force and Destiny (didn't want no Jedi in their game..psh)

EDIT: I can get you the full explanation of the rules of Duty if you would like it.

Uh, what's your opinion of unlicenced PDF scans? 'Cause if that's not something you object to, I'm sure I could find a download link floating around online.

If that's not your thing, I could also type out the rules for Duty manually, but it'll probably take me a couple hours of mostly uninterrupted time for me to get that done.

Smart choice. Being capable in more than one thing allows you to:

(1) Bring something valuable to the group, in multiple situations.
(2) Enjoy the game more fully, in multiple situations.

At the same time, I would say that outside of social interactions, overlapping in the group isn't so useful, but can still happen. Consider a military outfit, a squad similar to yours in size. Typically the goal is to have one expert for each skill set needed. Sniper. Demolitions. Computers. Scout. I mean, when you're disarming an alarm or a bomb, do you want the expert or the guy who is above average to do it? At the same time, someone else begin capable of disarming the bomb isn't a bad thing. What if the expert is dead? Actual special forces train this way, with a 'back up' expert per squad. Perhaps not as good as the primary guy, but capable.

In social interactions there are more variables. Failing a Charm roll is less likely to get you blown up. It can still be extremely important, depending, but has more variability.

Anyone who can facilitate a full explanation of the Duty rules, it would me much appreciated. I'm not opposed to unlicensed scans, but I would prefer legit. The easier the access, the better as well.

If we can incorporate Duty, Obligation, and Morality, that would be ideal. I think this could only enhance the depth of the characters.

It really is a good idea though to have multiple people with social skills. For one thing, where a Charm may not work to convince a person to do something for you for free, a Negotiation might work to get them to do it for a fair exchange or Coercion might scare them into doing it. It can be difficult for a single person to cover all the bases so having more than one focus on other social skills can help give the party many options.

Plus, having one person fail a check can kind of push them quickly out of a social encounter (much like death pushes you out of a combat encounter). Another person with a deception skill could help save a poor lie from someone else.

There's no such thing as legit scans, unfortunately (unless you try to argue that it's a "backup copy for personal use only", which is perfectly legit in most copyright systems, but not really conducive to sharing it over the internet). I'll send you some links via PM, which should work until one of us can get a more legitimate explanation of the Duty rules up.

I'll send you a PM later with the full rules so you can choose to post them wherever you wish. Based on what I've seen, it functions almost identically to Obligation (to a point). It's essentially the thing(s) that you are expected to do in service to your cause, in the case of the normal rules, the Rebellion, but for us it could easily work for the Empire. These duties could be as simple as winning victories against the enemy or things like sabotage, intelligence, personnel, tech procurement, etc. The main difference between Duty and Obligation is that Obligation is something you want to reduce while Duty is something you want to increase.

The GM still does the roll at the beginning to see which character's Duty/Obligation will come into effect in the story. By accomplishing Obligation, you are fulfilling the obligation so your rating goes down and it is unlikely to come into effect again quickly. By fulfilling your duty, the rating goes up, showing that you are an individual who is contributing greatly to the cause. If Obligation goes up to 100 for a group, it often means that the obligations take a front seat in the character's minds and the story often can't move forward without them addressing it. If duty goes up to 100 for the group, then this often leads to a reward from their cause and an increase in 'contribution rank.' Higher contribution rank also increases your notoriety with your group and your enemies.

EDIT: And like how they seem opposites, they work opposite in character creation as well. You can take additional obligation for extra XP or starting credits while you can lower your starting Duty for extra XP and credits.

Given what I've said about competence in character ability (3 yellow dice or 4 green meaning your good at something, not a master) you're absolutely right. Nobody is going to come out of the box with a complete politician's skill set, aka Palpatine.
I know what you mean Squeek, but to make sure the rest of you aren't thrown off: it depends.

First of all, what you character is saying in the social interaction should align with the skill check. Secondly, the dice roll will matter, with Advantage, Triumph, Threat, and Despair playing a part in how I interpret your attempt.

As far as getting pushed out of a conversation, it's possible. Failing a Charm roll, means you aren't currying their favor any more (accompanied by enough Threat or a Despair, and perhaps they like you even less than before somehow, or you just rub them the wrong way). Failing a Deception is more likely to get you pushed out, as nobody likes being lied to.

Your Charm roll failed but you rolled 3 Advantage? You could try to Charm again with a boost (as long as you put some more dialogue in there that makes sense... "I Charm him again!" won't suffice. Your Deception succeeded but you rolled Despair? Well, they're inclined to believe your cover story and fake identity but are going to have you followed, to be sure.

Again, it all depends. One of the great things about the FFG SW dice system is it allows for me to interpret the results of the roll and proceed from there.

Thanks a ton! I had a basic idea of how Duty works, and am extremely familiar with Obligation and Morality. Things can only get better with the integration of Duty.

Thanks to you as well.

Whatever comes my way, I'll put to use! Soon you'll all be the military outfit you should be.

For those of you who somehow missed this, it's important, and top priority. It specifically relates to how we'll be playing the game regarding posting frequency.

Hawke's backstory RD is up, finally. I ended up scrapping 5-6 different starts because I wasn't feeling that it fit right. End result though, I'd fairly happy with. It's going to be fun to play a character with a few screws loose upstairs. Not loose enough to interfere with his work, but still loose.

A NOTE ON THE GAME RELATIVE TO CANON:

As a GM, I'm extremely comfortable with altering canon. As such, you should leave some of your expectations at the door.

Luke could have been killed by Vader. Obi Wan may be alive. Han Solo could still be a prisoner of Jabba the Hutt. Anakin may have joined the Republic, redeeming himself in another way. Count Dookui could be Sith Lord.

You get the idea. If some of you don't like this, that's unfortunate. However, I believe the game can only benefit from having big question marks as your long isolated culture ventures forth into the galaxy.

The point here is, don't make assumptions about what you'll be up against. Approach your conquest as your characters would. Besides some very useful and somewhat current galactic maps showing juicy targets, you don't have a lot of intel to go on and shouldn't make many assumptions.

What I will give you is this. The Empire and the Republic (no longer a mere Rebel Alliance) are still going at it (some more recent maps from the Sith acquired from the Graveyard along with some personal messages reveal this) Everything else is up in the air.

As an interesting side note, the primary language of your home world Akrulta is Basic. However, each of you speak Sith as well. Something to keep in mind.

Fabulous! AU Star Wars! In terms of entering into the outside world, do we know anything of what the rest of the standard universe knows/thinks of the Sith at large? Thought to be an extinct ancient group, hated figures from history, hated figures from present, silly backwater hicks from the Wild Space?

With our characters existing primarily as those posts in their own threads, to what extent do you want actual GP character sheets filled out?

What Sith High Command knows, gleaned from the Graveyard and the very rarely interrogated exporer:

The Sith are aware that the Republic and Empire are the major factions in the galaxy via maps and some tidbits of journals, communications record sliced from ships and such. Beyond locations and facts below, they know next to nothing.

There is no mention of the Sith from the Graveyard ship data stores.

Explorers interrogated always had one statement in common: They had no idea of the existence of your culture, nor had they ever heard of the Sith. They were simply exploring.

The Sith in your culture have been anxiously looking forward to the Conquest for centuries, since Emperor Akrulta's prophesy. As such, they have not forgotten how most of the galaxy (especially the Republic, who basically defeated the Sith via the Jedi) views them.

The Sith have not forgotten the Jedi via tales handed down around the campfire, so to speak, although no mention of them comes from the Graveyard. Interrogations of explorers revealed tidbits about the Jedi, suggesting that their order had been vanquished when the Republic fell, and they were no more than legends and stories now.

One explorer was found to be force sensitive, and claimed that the Jedi simply were no more. He had been searching for them after hearing legends as a youth, recognizing he himself was force sensitive, and was pulled to this part of the universe in his search. The explorer was very powerful in the force, and interrogators failed to twist him to the Dark Side, killing him in the attempt to do so after a year of various tortures and solitary deprivation imprisonment.

Regarding history of the Sith prior to the Exodus led by Vhrall Akrulta, all names and events are wiped from Sith record. Recorded history starts with Akrulta saving the Sith from certain destruction, by bringing as many as he could on the Exodus, finding them a new home.

You don't need to fill out the GP sheet. Just do enough that its 'finished'.

Krosus:

Maybe I'm just mind melting, but as far as total XP to spend (assuming you use Morality to get the 10 extra XP) you should have:

110 (human) + 10 (Morality bonus) + 165 (granted) = 285

By my calculations you have 25 left.

Remember all, the only starting XP bonus comes from Morality, as I handed out some extra XP to cover Obligation and Duty.

Yes, we're using Duty now. I've got the rules for it. Everyone pick a starting duty with a value of 5. For those unaware, using Duty in the game will give your group a more military feel, and allow you to progress within the Sith military, depending upon your performance as a unit. Your unit's Duty will essentially work as a prestige rating within the Sith military. Higher Duty, gained by successes, will allow you access to more resources in the Sith Military, and increase your influence within it as well.

By those calculations I should have an extra 10 XP to allocate as well.

I'll grab 5 Duty as well and update her sheet.

Dramasailor, you should have 285 total XP as well.

Simultaneous posting!

Meribson:

Great back story. The stranded child be taken in by the Sith... dead parents speaking to him through his madness... just great. How you won your trials was classic Sith.

Updated. Ended up taking Influence Control: Emotion/Belief for 10 XP. Discipline/Obsession for her morality items. Duty she took Internal Security.

Glad it meets your approval :D

Just making sure that it's clear, I'm stating that I went with 2,500 extra credits instead of 10 extra XP.

Still at work so short post ;-)

Love the idea of being able to move away from Canon. Playing a familiar area and changing it is always good fun.

Ezeriah is helping me work a character concept by PM but I thought I would post some details here for the group

"Story wise I had an idea of being the sole survivor from a settlement/village of Trandoshan (sorry I am not up to speed on the social structure) exterminated by the Sith. Picked by one of the Sith to be trained because he recognised not only a potential force user, but also that this Trandoshan was filled with hate and that could be channeled into creating exactly the monster we are talking about"

I am looking at a Brawny character with good will power. Very likely to be a force user and aiming to be Tankish, soaking up damage rather than avoiding it, hopefully drawing attention away for the rest of the party in combat, so they have more freedom to do there thing. Not a murder hobo, but a blunt instrument, direct solutions being the preferred method of dealing with a problem.

Skills I am aiming for Discipline, Coercion and Vigilance.

I like it. I especially like that we've got a pretty mixed bag of folks, covering quite the gamut. It'll be fun to see how this all shakes out.

Since you appear to be reviewing people's characters, I want to update my character a bit with the correct morality bonus (took extra credits instead of XP so I could afford the droid and the armor but i'll need to add some more credits since i was supposed to get 2500 extra instead of just 1000.

Given the flurry of player activity, posting, developing a new Sith history, hammering out new mechanics for Dark Side Morality, setting up the Library, etc, its been a whirlwind the last few days. I'll admit it's been hard to be my usual meticulous self.

If I do miss things, please let me know. That being said, before the narrative begins I will do a thorough check of everyone's characters to make sure they are up to (Sith) code. :)

This group seems pretty solid so far, and I'm guessing that mistakes will be few, if any.

I am sure I can fix that ;-)

ON ENCUMBRANCE AND THE INVENTORY SHEET

I've updated everyone's inventory sheets to show a space for encumbrance. We're going to be fully tracking it as it adds value to the Brawn characteristic, as it should, and it just makes sense. That said, we're not going to worry about food and water. We'll assume that anyone who has a backpack going into an environment where sustenance isn't available will have 1 week's worth of rations (really small self hydrating meals or what not). I don't want to make encumbrance a technical burden, but we'll be using it for the other stuff. Please start tracking it and make the necessary adjustments on your sheets.

Also, moving forward, all aspects of your gear, from head to toe, will be tracked on the forum character sheet threads. This means equipment stats, mods, etc, everything. I've made adjustments to your character sheets to reflect this, showing the proper format to follow and creating spaces for all your inventory needs (please follow the entire format, bold type, italics, as it makes sheets easier to read via cohesion for me).

A NOTE ON MOVING AHEAD

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving (at least for me) and the weekend is approaching as well. However, if we can continue to be active during this setup phase of character creation, etc that's great. I also understand that it isn't our active period after Thursday, so it isn't expected. For those of you who are interested in being more active outside of our usual Monday-Thursday period, I, for one, am really enjoying the discussions and the process, so will be actively participating throughout the weekend.

In the future, posts like these would be placed in the Absences thread, but I simply want to make sure that, with so much focus on this thread, nobody misses it.

Since tomorrow may be a holiday for some of you as well, I don't expect participation. Please post in the Absences thread if you plan on being active tomorrow, allowing the rest of us to gauge participation levels.

Take a look at your ship. Some deck plans and fluff images to give you an idea of what your new home is like.

Let's see if I can workout how to roll this

Guess I have to go again

AN AESTHETIC NOTE ON LIGHTSABERS:

Everyone has a red saber. Perhaps some of you won't like this, but it fits very well with canon, making the imagery of Light vs Dark clear. And, I don't want to head down the road where everyone has a special color to start. I'm not much of a fan of Mace Windu's purple saber, or the menagerie of colors introduced by video games. Rather, if you want to go for something more to your liking, seek out some crystals given the opportunity. I'll allow some more unique aesthetics via your RP, but not as granting them at game start.

It does make the most sense for this stage of the game. Lightsaber colors are created when a force user at tunes a crystal to them self and the force. Since the sith empire doesn't have access to force crystals they synthesize lightsaber crystals which almost always results in a red color.

I'm perfectly fine with her having a red saber. It just feels so much more....Sith. I didn't mind the purple as much. I don't know that I would be seeking out any other crystals for hers (at least not for a color change purpose), not as a standard use. Perhaps acquiring a green or a blue saber if we have to do some infiltrate-y type action.

You're right to an extent. They have access to crystals, as Akrultos is permeated by the dark side, but not caves of them. They have found the occasional rare crystal, but finding them is like finding a very rare diamond. Some of the Sith Lords have actual crystals.

Different crystals can also upgrade your saber.

REGARDING FORCE POWERS

In my campaigns Bind requires a force rating of 3. It's very powerful, perhaps OP, and if you do choose to acquire it later on down the line than we'll discuss it first. Mrvain, I know you wanted this, but it just is a power closer to greater skill in the force. The game designers aren't perfect, and here I think they went light on the requirements.

Battle-Meditation: won't be used. While I have enjoyed some video games a long time ago where it exists, some games and other venues of recreation get really carried away with force powers, going far beyond what Yoda, Palpatine, etc could do. Which brings us to...

Move: The RAW (rules as written) will allow that some of you could eventually pick up star destroyers and throw them. Even when I played video games where that happened, I laughed, as in my opinion, it's just nonsense. The masters you see in the movies don't come anywhere close to that. However, admittedly, we don't see them try. At the same time, we do have a few moments where we seem them exerting themselves to move larger objects (Yoda vs Dooku in Episode 2, Yoda lifting the Luke's ship out of the swamp).

What I'm willing to allow, however, is that with the force, moving massive objects is possible, but takes a supreme degree of mastery, and maybe we just never saw Yoda and similar masters lift starships. Again, I think the game designers make it far too easy for characters that aren't even at Knight level to throw around starships.

So, a home brew rule. To make it possible, but very challenging, requiring one to be strong in the force.

In FFG it is far too easy to be able to throw around freighters and such with just a few strength upgrades. I've been tinkering with the idea of a homebrew rule to align force move with something more like what is seen in the movies.

The strength upgrades are still purchased as normal, but the number of ranks you have only determines the maximum silhouette size of what can be moved (so, two ranks in strength allows for moving size two objects). When moving objects however, more force points are required depending on the size of object being moved.

Size 1 costs 1 additional point.
Size 2 costs 3 (size 1 + size 2).
Size 3 costs 6 (s1 + s2 + s3).
Size 4 costs 10 (s1 + s2 + s3 + s4).

see Library

Anyway, to me it creates a more believable SW galaxy to enjoy. It would require six force dice to have a chance of lifting a light freighter (1 for base power + 10 for size), whereas it would require a master to reliably throw around size 2 speeders, or senate boxes like Palpatine in Episode III.

Beyond that Move works as described. In sum, lifting a freighter should be hard. The power it allows is monumental. After lifting it, you could simply throw it at your foe, dashing them to pieces, which would be an extraordinary feat.

The only "special" stuff I want for Hawke's saber is fluff for the handle. More specifically, I'm thinking that the outer shell was made from one of his parent's femurs...I like the mental image of bone lightsabers and it fits in with Hawke's madness.

I'm perfectly fine with those adjustments. Lexi's focus in Move is less for the whole ability to through star destroyers at people (as awesome as that could be as a player) and more for minute control and small movement in combat (manipulating ship's controls in flight, throwing small crates and toolboxes around, etc).

As you craft your own sabers, I'm fine with this as it is only aesthetic. And it is a really nice touch for your character!

Sure. But as the force is a concept associated with the mind and your ability to tap into the currents of the force, which do fluctuate, I wanted to make it possible, while being a level of accomplishment you really had to work towards.

Battle Meditation, in my opinion, is just silly. Plain silly.

Regarding Lexi, she can't manipulate ship precise/fine controls yet. That would require that bottom rank in the tree, allowing manipulation as if it was your hands doing the work. I'd allow that you could pull some levers, though.

Yup. It's one of the first things she'll be spending her earned XP on (provided she is still alive). I appreciate the ability to do some lever manipulation.

For those that haven't, roll in this thread for pocket change, 1d100.

Here goes nothing.

Here we go

Ouch, 11 credits. That's not even a single stimpack.

Pocket change roll to go with my mountain of credits. :)

No whammies, no whammies, no whammies.....

Hey, one of us actually rolled above average.

Here we go

I'm rich!!! ;-)

BTW everyone. If there is anything that you feel needs to be on the ship that we don't already have, some essential gear for instance, let me know and I will see if I can bankroll the squad, given that I started with a lot of extra money. (Most of it went to a security droid for myself, but I will certainly lend it to the group for the purpose of guarding my stuf...er the ship.)

Grenades and stimpacks are always useful, and run out fairly quickly. Some survival gear, climbing gear, physicians' kits, disguise kits, fusion lamps, infra/electro/macrobinoculors, and other utility gear could come in handy, as well.

Okay, so here's what I'm thinking. An emergency medpac instead of a physician's kit as no one is trained enough in medicine to justify the knowledge necessary to use one. Plus a collection of 10 extra stimpacks for emergency use on the ship. Some climbing gear, one fusion lantern and a wilderness survival kit ought to handle most of our wilderness situations. A pair of electrobinoculars should help with surveillance. I also have a tool kit I previously purchased for droid maintenance that can be used on the ship as well. In total you will all owe me...1500 credits.

Ok, I have a counteroffer for you. Drop the 10 stimpacks (most of us already have a couple in our personal inventory), use the $250 to upgrade the electobinoculars to infrabinoculars with long-range sensors (costs $500 instead of $250; can see through up to 2 meters of wall in addition to electrobinoculars' normal effects; from Endless Vigil), don't charge us for your tool kit (Hawke has Mental Tools), and maybe add a general scanner (for $500) if you have enough starting money left.

This comes to a total cost of $1400 without the general scanner ($500 for infrabinoculars w/ electrosensors, $300 for six sets of climbing gear, $350 for a wilderness survival gear, $100 for an emergence medpack, $150 for a fusion lantern), or $1900 with the general scanner. Split six ways (assuming everyone thinks that this equipment is a worthwile purchase), it comes to either $233 or $317 per person, depending on whether we go with the scanner nor not.

Just to be clear, I'm not actually expecting to be paid back, just trying to throw some in-characterization to the post. While I agree that the infrabinoculars would be a better purchase, I'm a little hesistant to give up on the stimpacks since we could go through the personal stashes of stimpacks very quickly. While I see why you might think that we'd need 6 sets of climbing gear, most of the stuff included in the gear is something we could expect a lead climber might have and everyone can follow after. We'd only need 6 if we were all planning on climbing separately. Might have to ask the GM if we could get a group climbing kit that has all the stuff in the climbing kit with a few extra attachments. With the adjusted price of the climbing gear, I could spring for those infrabinoculars then.

Lissewa will make a Negotiation Skill Check with her Smooth Talker Ability.

ON POSTING FORMAT

New information has been added covering dice rolls. If you're read through this before, beyond the dice rolls post, I'd like to remind you, do not describe the results of your actions. Don't assume how NCP's or PC's react, what your skill check accomplished, etc. Leave that to me.

Everyone please read the Posting: Content, Format, and Etiquette and post, acknowledging that you've read and understand them. It will help ensure a smooth transition the narrative and game mechanics.

Hold up a moment on those infrabinoculars and gear.

I know there are some nice additions in the source books, but some of it is a little, or a lot, over the top. I'll take a look at them and let you know. But I'm inclined to not have you guys running around looking through walls.

Moving forward, to be clear, don't assume that everything in all the source books is good to go. Some of it I like, some of it I don't. Run it by me first.

Also, on a more generous note, before you go spending credits on gear, Sith Military Logistics is inclined to help out, and, as is in real life, sometimes quartermasters are more favorable to those they like... or fear. And sometimes quartermasters are easily deceived into giving out more supplies as well. Also, salvage skills may prove useful as well. Less than legal means of getting resources is another avenue.

Everyone make a social skill check of their choice, don't add any difficulty dice. Everyone should also add Leadership, Negotiation, Streetwise, and Mechanics checks as well, reflecting your character's additional pull within the Sith Military, and various efforts during Conquest preparations to acquire more resources via multiple means of doing so.

For Example:

Since I did Negotiation, I'll go ahead and do a Charm check for my social skill.

Go ahead and add a Negotiation roll specifically for this resource gathering check. I'm not sure what your prior Negotiation roll was for (fun as part of the process with other players?). Perhaps an actual Negotiation roll? Considering that...

A NOTE ON SOCIAL SKILLS AND PLAYER AGENCY

Do not use social skills against other player's characters. Those skills are for dealing with NPC's. I've turned this over a few times in my mind since starting playing FFG Star Wars, read up about it on the internet, etc. I'm against it. It removes player agency from the game, and has the potential for some players to 'control' others. Similarly, I don't use social skills against the characters via a dice roll mechanic.

How NPC's will socially interact with characters:

Charm: If you find the NPC likeable, that's up to you.

Deception: If they're lying to you, Discipline is used to detect this. I will make a secret roll for you to detect the lie(s). Knowing the result of the roll makes no sense... they are lying. I'm not perfect though, if you're expecting a lie, feel free to make a small OOC note at the bottom of your post to remind me to check your Discipline against it. That will be your best way of looking out for a lie.

Leadership: If you feel someone is a good leader and want to follow their direction, feel free to do so.

Negotiation: If you feel the deal is a good one, accept it. Otherwise, Negotiate. For the sake of expedience, Negotiations will almost always come down to one roll.

Coercion: Slightly different. Most of the time I'll allow you to decide if you're feeling intimidated. However, when being tortured, I'm inclined to have your character make a Resilience check, which in turn will affect your Discipline check to resist the torture. Failure on your part has you coughing up some or all of what they want to know, depending on the roll.

Fear: Not really a social interaction, but worth mentioning. There will be times where you check against Discipline for fear (Vader shows up, a Rancor threatens, etc).

My first Negotiation check was made after I saw your original post about making the various starting checks. I'm not sure why it ended up being posted before your current post but it was made for that purpose, which is why I didn't redo it. I can still go ahead and add a new Negotiation to the other post if you'd prefer just to let you know I already did that roll.

And while I agree for the most part that character's should have agency when it comes to their character's reactions to others, I feel like that kind of makes certain talents a little useless. For instance, Nobody's Fool: Upgrade difficulty of incoming Charm, Coercion, or Deception checks once per rank of Nobody's Fool. While based on your rules, we'll still get to use the Deception portion and occasionally the Coercion part, but makes Charm pointless. It reduces the usefulness of talents like that. Just my observation.

Here's my social/prep checks:

GM Note: Adding Streetwise for you.

Okay, that roll is fine then, we'll keep it.
I hear you, Squeek. At the same time, those who designed this game are only human. And forcing players to role play certain attitudes because of dice has a lot of potential to screw things up. I could have someone roll Leadership on you and, despite the fact that you want to play villains, well, now you're members of the Rebel Alliance. Or some of you are. All it would take is a Triumph against your character. It

Also, yes it reduces the usefulness of talents like that. I've got a character in a game with Nobody's Fool. But all of us are much happier that we're not forced to role play this: "Well, he succeeded at a Charm check against you. Yeah, I know it's Jabba the Hutt, but now you have to RP as if you like this guy. Oh wait, you're actually working for him now because of his Leadership check's Triumph. You're just really buying into the fact that he's the guy to get behind." From a game play perspective for the player, this means forgetting everything you were doing, and your plans. You're now going in a whole new direction now. And you have to role play the part.

The thing is, most players, if not all, really don't want to be forced into RPing their character a certain way.

So, it's alright that my character's Nobody's Fool loses value, because the game is better for it. I've seen posts from GM's, especially less experienced ones, asking on various GMing forums and sites, how to handle a situation where the players feel cornered into playing a character they don't want to, or they no longer feel like they're controlling their character because a character was turned (via Leadership) or Charmed to behave in a way they really didn't want to. And the answer was universally simple, from many GM's chiming in: don't have NPC's use social skills against characters (except for torture situations, for example, where it makes a lot more sense to do so). Simply let the players use social skills as tools against the NPC's to navigate and breathe life into the game world.

Consider this: taking away the social skills would be a major change. And some players don't want to be combat oriented, infiltrators, tech types, pilots, etc. And that's where this game shines. You can make a highly socially skilled character. Which is great. But forcing players to adopt behaviors and personalities out of alignment with their interests? Not good stuff, to say the least. The thing is, the characters have a human being behind them. Taking their control of the character away could really take the fun out of the game for them.

And, Nobody's Fool is still highly useful without the Charm component; you're turning their purple dice into reds, allowing the potential for them to roll Despair. Not to be overlooked. As far as game balance via the depreciation of Nobody's Fool, you still don't have to worry about being Charmed, which was part of the point of Nobody's Fool anyway.

Are you designating Smooth Talker for Negotiation? It's a permanent choice made when acquiring the talent, so please mark your choice next to the talent on the character sheet. Further ranks of Smooth Talker will be used to support this choice.

Let's see how this goes....

GM NOTE: Influence failed; requires two force points. 1 to activate basic power, another to activate Control upgrade.

Here goes nothing.

GM NOTE: Seek failed, not enough force points rolled.

The Library has a new thread on Social Skills, really illustrating the many ways they can be used. I highly recommend everyone take a look.

ON DUTY, OBLIGATION, AND MORALITY

If you haven't yet, make sure you've squared away your starting Duty (5), Obligation (10) and Morality. If you need help with this due to limited resources, please let me know.

Choosing your Duty is essentially framing what your character values and thinks is most important to the Sith Empire's success. As your group accrues Duty, it eventually allows you access to more resources, rewards, etc. Depending on your characters and events, it may also possibly lend itself to increased rank and control over the Sith Empire's Conquest efforts (target selection, resource and military distribution, where to establish garrisons, etc).

To finish character creation you need a starting Duty value of 5, an Obligation of 10 (split as 5+5 if you like) and your Morality. You can only use the Morality component to affect your starting XP or credits. The rest is to help give the characters depth and make game play more interesting.

A quick list of Duty types:
What your character thinks/believes is most important to the Sith Empire's success in the campaign. These are taken from the Rebel Alliance, so some won't fit for the Sith

Combat Victory (Winning Battles on the ground)

Counter Intelligence (preventing others from gathering intelligence on the Sith)

Intelligence (gather intel on the enemy, learning the location of vital and vulnerable targets, resources, anything bit of knowledge that facilitates victory).

Internal Security (not an option due to early time period in Sith Conquest)

Personnel (not an option due to nature of Sith military culture)

Political Support (gaining support for the Sith beyond merely enslaving and subjugating whole governments and populations)

Recruiting (enlisting soldiers, scientists, engineers, doctors, slicers and more to join the Sith; Subjugation does not count, and a good recruiter knows that every additional person in their ranks makes a difference)

Resource Acquisition (acquiring major caches of resources is considered vital; crates of weapons, medicine, raw materials, etc)

Sabotage (disrupting the enemy's weapons manufacturing, troop movements, supply chain, banking systems and other key operations)

Space Superiority (winning space battles is vital to success)

Tech Procurement (stealing the enemy's tech and/or tech designs will give the Sith the edge they need to win the wat)

Support (doesn't fit Sith culture)

Since we are not using some of the core Duty options due to their unsuitability for the campaign, are you allowing any of the possible Duties listed in the AoR supplements? Most of them should be on Oggdude's generator if you want a complete list of them, and some of them sound like they would fit the campaign.

I was going through posts to collect useful info to edit/condense for various reasons, and just noticed this.

EXPERIENCE AWARDS

You will get something in the ball park of about 15-30 XP per month, depending on two primary factors:

(1)Your level of participation. This will be most important. Not only do I have rules for what's expected out of players, but this will add a little extra motivation for you to participate. I got the idea from the concept of awarding extra XP for good role playing. And, for our purposes on PbP, good role playing will essentially come down to you participating. Players who participate as expected will get more experience. This makes sense on another level as well, as they're contributing more to the group's success, and part of becoming a more powerful player in the galaxy is to be a part of the struggle, rather than watching from the sidelines.

To be clear, the experience will be awarded for players who participate as expected; this means at the very least they join the game as expected Monday-Thursday and participate via meaningful posts. I am not awarding XP for participating outside of our active game periods.

(2)What the group accomplishes. Par for the course in role playing games. Get stuff done, power up. The greater the accomplishment, the greater the reward.

I'm busy on multiple things for game prep. I'm very open to suggestions. Simply run them by me and I'll let you know.

I don't suppose anyone is counting everyone's results?

I'm counting. We're waiting on two more votes to be cast.

I figured you would of course. I'm just adopting a bit of a competitiveness to the rolls based on my character. I think she would make it a point of pride if she were able to acquire more for the mission then the sith lords.

Thought you meant ship name ballots. I'm tracking everything, of course. Once all checks for resource gathering are in I'll post the results.

What I will say to help you plan ahead is this:

To represent your unit's collective efforts to accrue resources, all of the resource gathering results will translate to a pool of credits for your group to spend as you wish, except for Streetwise results which will be placed into a separate pool that allows for the acquisition of Restricted items (R on gear lists), if you so choose. The basic main pool of credits can be used for anything outside of restricted items. Anything left over 2,000 credits will be lost. This to reflect the fact that many of your resources came via many different methods, and some of your resources could be financial donations to the unit.

So, in a sense, use it or lose it. Again, the main pool of funds can be used for anything, except (R)estricted items. The Streetwise pool will be separate and can be used for (R)estricted items, or regular items. These funds will be it. They will represent everything your group could gather from Sith Military Logistics, businesses, family, friends, crime, trickery, cons, salvage, tech work, and any other path that is feasible. Feel free to flesh out the game a bit by coming up with the how some of the resources were gathered.

For example, if as a group you choose to use some of the funds to buy an 8-passenger speeder utility vehicle, perhaps it was donated to the conquest by the owner of a dealership that owes Lessiwa a favor. And perhaps you got a blaster cannon upgrade Hawke put on after finding it in a salvage yard.

Use your imagination. This is it for what you're starting with. Think ahead, and keep in mind that I'm not inclined to pull punches. You've got plenty of cargo space with two bays and a storage room.

Again, do not assume that everything in every source book is a given and fair game. All items will be approved at my discretion. While I won't put specific limits on item rarity, I will make judgements on what works and doesn't. While I do try to say yes, some gear is just over the top.

Like the infrabinoculars. That's not happening. Nobody is looking through walls. That's a massive game changer that I won't allow.

If you could also direct me to the source book it comes from that would be great.

Drat, I have to change my duty then. I'm a bit surprised that internal security wouldn't be there, given a) how militant the society is and b) the massive infighting that has occurred in the past. Perhaps not security against the outside forces in the body of the Republic and the Empire, but against internal dissidents (such as non-believers). Barring that, Lexi will certainly go Space Superiority.

You know what, after what you said I've reconsidered. Go ahead and keep Internal Security. In my efforts to get things done I didn't put enough thought into it. I can make it work.

All of the additional Duties (as far as I'm aware) come from the AoR career sourcebooks (Lead by Example, Desperate Allies, and Stay on Target are the currently released ones). A quick list of all of them with their respective sources is below (by "quick list", I'm doing this at work on my phone, so I might forget one or two, or accidentally repeat one of the core ones). I'm also not necessarily saying that I think each and every one of these is a good fit for our campaign (some of them make the most sense with the "plucky rebel underdogs" that are the assumed protagonists, and some of them are probably too niche to be relevant to a secret, small strike force), but I'm listing them all for completions sake.

Camaderie [it's more akin to "keeping allied morale up", despite the cutesy name] (LbE)
Enemy Demoralization (LbE)
Loss Prevention [as in the loss of tangible equipment and materiel] (LbE)
Operation Planning (DA)
Communication Facilitation (DA)
Air Superiority (SoT)
Placard Hunter [targeting enemy aces and heroes] (SoT)

Also, on infrabinoculors, "seeing through walls" sounds a bit ridiculous, but the item description in the sourcebook specifies that it only sees heat signatures through walls (so it would only show the presence of heat-emitting lifeforms and equipment, not anything more than that), not really much better than a general scanner or the Sense power. I understand if you want to keep them out of the game, though, and I probably should have gone by you first before recommending that we purchase some.

MORE DUTY

After additional thought, as a way of reflecting your character's importance in the Sith war effort, and primarily to add more flavor to the game, all of you will start with a Duty value of 10. This allows you to put all 10 into one type of Duty, or split the 10 into two separate Duties valued at 5 each. This will a little more complexity to your characters and help flesh them out even more.

This will not allow you to get more credits or XP.

Thanks for the list. I really like the Enemy Demoralization one for Sith, and perhaps Operation Planning (although that would be tougher to do without more Duty and Contribution Rank.
Only sees heat? That is far superior than a sensor showing that something is in the other room. The Predator would have been less effective with just a sensor, to be sure. With infra you know if they are sitting, lying down (asleep! Yes!), which whey they are facing, what kind of heat emitting being/creature ("that is definitely an Ewok... piece of cake. Let's do this" or "That is definitely a Rancor... let's leave. Now." And showing heat emitting equipment... that can help a lot too ("As soon as we go in, blast the generator until it blows."

As far Sense goes, when you use it (and roll your Force dice) I'll roll a secret Perception check with it to determine how accurate your Sense attempt is (if you knew the roll that would give things away, and you'd know whether or not to trust your powers). Using the Force is well is a combination of having the force rating and skill to do so. Even someone drowning in force power is less than capable if they haven't learned to fully apply it with training and experience. However, given your 5 Cunning.. I'm thinking Sense won't be a problem for you.

SECRET DICE ROLLS

I do secret dice rolls for some checks because it just makes sense. It's late and I'm fading so this list is just to give you an idea; it may be complete, but I'm admittedly too tired for thorough right now. To reflect the fact that more skilled people are more likely to be the ones to successfully do something, in a group setting secret rolls start with the most capable and go down the list to the least capable, until someone succeeds, if someone does at all. So, in other words, the character with the highest Discipline is most likely to spot a lie in the group setting.

Sense: As stated above, it'll be your Force dice and my Perception check for you. You're rolling the force dice as I believe your characters can feel the force and whether or not you're successfully tapping into it.

Discipline (for detecting lies): You shouldn't know if your roll to detect a lie was a success or not. Also, this prevents players from constantly rolling to detect lies (which happens sooner or later). I know who is lying to who, so I know when to roll.

Vigilance: You shouldn't have to walk around and say "I'm being Vigilant." It's a passive skill. I'll roll for your Vigilance as a means of allowing you to notice something with it. Remember, it doesn't give details like Perception (which is actively looking for details), and is typically used for noticing less minute details. For example, Vigilance would be useful for noticing someone on a roof a block away. Perception would allow for zooming in, so to speak, and picking out the details suggesting he is a sniper (that looks like a gun!).

Stealth: This one I've been rolling for players for a long time. You should never, ever know how successful your attempt to be sneaky was. Common sense.

And I won't forget to check for you. When they're lying, or some sniper is skulking about on a roof, you'll have the chance to notice them....

Well, that actually might be all of the secret roll skills. I'm a player too, so I understand if you'll miss making some of those rolls. At the same time, I hope you can appreciate that my approach just makes sense, and adds a little more mystery to the game, as it very well should in the above situations. Altogether, it helps bring a little bit of that edge to the game as well.