[SW: Force and Destiny] Surrealistik's Fix For Making the Dark Side Not Suck

[Lanuria 50]

My "fix" for this, such as it is, is to eliminate the need to spend a Destiny Point or take strain in order to use Dark Side pips when your Morality is between 70 and 30. If you're not a Paragon or a Darksider, both sides of the Force are equally easy to use, and have no immediate drawbacks. And because of the noted purveyors of DS pips, someone who isn't trained in the Force and therefore doesn't know the difference is likely to spend any points that come up, which will slowly send them on a spiral towards the Dark Side.

There! For unaligned Force users, the Dark Side has become much easier to use and much more tempting - easy, consequence-free Force points whenever you need them! No having to keep trying to get LS pips, especially in an emergency, they're right there! It's almost like it WANTS you to have them...

 

While the idea of having the Dark Side be easier and more available is a good one, there should be consequences to it. Taking strain is a great flavor way to do that; The Dark Side is full of negative energies and emotions and you get stressed out You're also using those bad emotions and negative thoughts to fuel the Dark Side.

[ardoyle 47]

You can't paper over blatant mechanical flaws and verisimilitude disconnects by blaming the players and GM for acting like anyone could be reasonably expected to.

 

 

 

Thank you.  I've been trying to figure out how to say this for weeks.

[Donovan Morningfire 10,200]

You can't paper over blatant mechanical flaws and verisimilitude disconnects by blaming the players and GM for acting like anyone could be reasonably expected to.

Except it's not a mechanical flaw.  From Day One, Destiny Points were meant to be spent freely by the GM and Players alike.  It's just sadly that some players fall into a hoarder mindset and delude themselves that by not spending Destiny Points, they are denying the GM a tactical resource.

 

So the flaw isn't with the mechanics, but with the players.  And if you're too lazy of a GM to address that issue with your players, then the fault lies with you being unable or unwilling to address the real issue at hand.

[ardoyle 47]

So the flaw isn't with the mechanics, but with the players.  And if you're too lazy of a GM to address that issue with your players, then the fault lies with you being unable or unwilling to address the real issue at hand.

 

The 'flaw,' in very loose quotation marks, is that morality in the real world can be interpreted differently by every person and group.  It's not that the way written out in the core rulebook is wrong; it's that there is no Right way that will work for everyone.

 

The part of his post that resonated with me and my frustrations wasn't the mechanical argument, it was his frustration with this forum for belittling his adaptations to a rule that (from my point of view) cannot work for every player, game master and group.

Edited March 10, 2016 by ardoyle

[Donovan Morningfire 10,200]

The rules are pretty clear that the Morality in this setting does not adhere to real world concepts of such.

 

Star Wars has always been a fairly black and white setting in terms of "morality" with conceits such as "the ends justify the means" being held as ultimately false where the Force is concerned.  Any shades of grey fall within in light grey (Han and Lando in their initial appearances) or very dark grey (the Fetts).

 

So there's no excusing inexcusable actions if you're playing a Force user.  By deciding to play a Force user in this system, you are tacitly agreeing to play by a very specific set of moral guidelines that have been pretty clearly established.  While cultural morales may vary on what is and isn't acceptable, the Force doesn't give a flying womp rat's arse about what your cultural upbringing thinks is good or bad.

 

It may be possible to mitigate "lesser" offenses such as theft and lying if you're doing them to directly benefit someone in dire need (such as stealing food and supplies from the decadent rich to give to the starving poor), but the more severe offenses (murder, torture, calling upon the dark side of the Force) don't get mitigated or weaseled out of, because those are things that are inherently wrong.

[Tear44 372]

 

So the flaw isn't with the mechanics, but with the players.  And if you're too lazy of a GM to address that issue with your players, then the fault lies with you being unable or unwilling to address the real issue at hand.

 

 

The part of his post that resonated with me and my frustrations wasn't the mechanical argument, it was his frustration with this forum for belittling his adaptations to a rule that (from my point of view) cannot work for every player, game master and group.

 

There is also the chance that this game, as good a game as it is, isn't for your table. If you expect a game to cater to every player's taste and every table's picadillos; without customization or adjustment, you will be disappointed.

 

This game, like all game, plays a certain way. You can take it at face value or change to fit your needs. But expecting it to meet everyone's needs speaks more to your problems than the game's problems.

[StarkJunior 1,240]

 

 

So the flaw isn't with the mechanics, but with the players.  And if you're too lazy of a GM to address that issue with your players, then the fault lies with you being unable or unwilling to address the real issue at hand.

 

 

The part of his post that resonated with me and my frustrations wasn't the mechanical argument, it was his frustration with this forum for belittling his adaptations to a rule that (from my point of view) cannot work for every player, game master and group.

 

There is also the chance that this game, as good a game as it is, isn't for your table. If you expect a game to cater to every player's taste and every table's picadillos; without customization or adjustment, you will be disappointed.

 

This game, like all game, plays a certain way. You can take it at face value or change to fit your needs. But expecting it to meet everyone's needs speaks more to your problems than the game's problems.

 

 

Yeah, I've noticed the trend at times seems to be "if it doesn't 100% fit my group's needs, it's a flaw of the system that must be changed", which is not how games are designed at all.

[Maelora 5,807]

It's an interesting conversation.  I totally agree with Donovan about spending Destiny Points -  these are meant to be a resource that is spent freely.

 

With regard to Morality, I know my group very well and knew that trying to micromanage an alignment system would lead to grief.  Our goal from the outset was to play a more morally-grey take on the Force and ignore canon.  To that end, I just ignored Morality and Conflict, and used a simple mechanism that let the characters explore both sides of their light and dark sides with only minor mechanical benefits and penalties.   I still use the EoE system of using strain and Destiny to tap the 'other' side and I find it works extremely well at my table. DP fly back and forth all the time.

 

To be honest, if morality arguments are bogging down your game, just discard these rules.  We've been playing F&D this way since the Beta came out and it's working fine for us.  The players are still playing their chosen personalities accurately even if we're not assigning numbers to them.  I've never felt an alignment system prevents players being 'murderhobos'; players who are like that will be so anyway, and imposing mechanical penalties on them doesn't address the underlying issues.  

 

To be honest, one of the things I loved about F&D is that Dark Side has very few penalties - a PC isn't ever forced to act a certain way, doesn't get disfigured or anything or become an NPC as in the WEG version. The penalties for tapping the Dark Side are minor - a few strain and a destiny point.

 

To be honest, the only thing about the system that really didn't work for us was the way it only encourages a rush to the extremes.  The duality of exploring the twin sets of Morality was a great concept, and as we didn't feel it was properly supported by the mechanics, we discarded that bit.  Game still plays fine and is extremely enjoyable.  Morality is still front and centre in every game we play without any need to put a number on it.

Edited March 10, 2016 by Maelora

[Gallandro 227]

Light side is stronger anyway, yes?

To quote from canon:

Luke:  Is the dark side stronger?

 

Yoda:  No...  Quicker, easier, more seductive.

[Kael 1,865]

 

So the flaw isn't with the mechanics, but with the players.  And if you're too lazy of a GM to address that issue with your players, then the fault lies with you being unable or unwilling to address the real issue at hand.

 

The 'flaw,' in very loose quotation marks, is that morality in the real world can be interpreted differently by every person and group.  It's not that the way written out in the core rulebook is wrong; it's that there is no Right way that will work for everyone.

 

The part of his post that resonated with me and my frustrations wasn't the mechanical argument, it was his frustration with this forum for belittling his adaptations to a rule that (from my point of view) cannot work for every player, game master and group.

 

 

It may be true that real world morality is interpreted, but this is not true of fiction. Fictional universes do not always align with real world morality. Some fictional worlds are morally lose. Others are morally strict. Star Wars is such a universe where morality is pretty black and white. So how it might play out in the real world is immaterial. The rules clearly reflect the way in which morality is depicted in the Star Wars universe and you can't fault the system for replicating the source material and not living up to real world morality when the game doesn't even set out to represent moral greys or real world interpretations. 

[Donovan Morningfire 10,200]

Maelora,

See, I can respect that for your group and your games, the Morality/Conflict system as written doesn't work out, and as such you made the choice as the GM to remove those elements from the games you run.  In this particular case, how you wanted the Star Wars setting to operate for your take on the setting (which had started back during EotE if I recall correctly) simply didn't mesh with the FFG design team's take on how the light/dark side dichotomy should operate once FaD was released.

 

But at the same time, you also acknowledge that while it's not for you and your group, and that doesn't automatically equate to some sort of "inherent flaw" in the system that some try to insist is present simply because it doesn't jive with their worldview.

 

If the Morality/Conflict system isn't for a particular GM and how they want to run their Star Wars games, that's all well and good.  But it's a mighty huge act of hubris to presume that just because a given piece of the rules it doesn't work for one GM means that it's automatically a flawed/broken mechanic.  I've added plenty of house rules to every RPG that I've run, ranging from minor tweaks to serious overhauls, but not once did I presume that just because I didn't like how a certain part of the rules shook out automatically meant it was "flawed" or "broken"... with perhaps the notable exception of the Palladium system, which not even the system's creator runs 100% "rules as written."

 

To paraphrase a quote from Mike Pondsmith of R.Talsorian, "there's only a few of us (game designers) and thousands of you (players and GMs), so there's no way we can cover ever eventuality or please everyone.  We just do the best job we can and hope folks like the results."

[Maelora 5,807]

Yeah, I agree with Mr Pondsmith there.  Every GM knows his or her table best.  Me, I try not to change things for the hell of it, and not without playtesting them first.  But after nearly 40 years of gaming, I've realised that most game designers know their stuff   

 

And when I start a game, I write out quite extensive 'design briefs' for what I want to achieve and how the players fit in to that. And that only happens after a lot of pre-game discussion and everyone pitches in on that.  So yes, I'm comfortable with something like ditching Morality because I've already worked out what I'm aiming at and the players know what to expect (and personally, I find this way the players actually explore both sides of their Morality rather than totally ignoring one side and rushing to the other).

 

Totally agree that too many people say there's something 'broken' about a game rule, when it may just not be to their tastes.  Most games do their thing pretty well, and the older I get the more I 'tweak' systems rather than make major changes. I grew up on systems like AD&D and Rolemaster, which were kind of modular, and nobody really used 100% of the material.  

 

It can get frustrating when people decide to change - say - the character generation system in this game, and we all have to tell them that having characters with all attributes at 4 and 5 will completely obliterate the game balance. Heck, most of the 'why is my game broken?' posts around here involve people who have given away too much high-end stuff or tampered with the character generation in some way.      

[Kyla 1,411]

I have to agree with Maelora on her point about the system encouraging a rush to extremes. It was an issue early on at my table, and I, like Maelora had to tweak the conflict rules a little (though my tweak was far less than hers). I only allow a roll for Morality gain or loss when significant conflict is generated (over 5), and I don't let it flush at the end of the session, it just builds (technically the conflict building is the guilt of their actions piling up). Once they hit the point of saturation (5 or more) then their subconscious kicks in to see how they deal with it (the Morality roll). Do they grow to more deeply understand the nature of their beliefs (net Morality gain) or does the guilt eat away at them and force them to cut off the now uncomfortable feelings they face (Morality loss) leading them further down the path of the Dark Side. I usually then role-play with them the nightmares and loss of their humanity (as I've found most players will happily come up with their own justification why their actions were valid in the case of gaining morality).

 

That said, I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with the way the Dark Side is portrayed, and I certainly wouldn't say anything is broken. While the total number of Dark Side to Light Side points will average out over time, the occurrence of Dark Side pips to Light side pips heavily favors the Dark Side, and thus reflects Yoda's statement of "But beware of the dark side. Anger, fear, aggression; the dark side of the Force are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight."

 

The penalties for being consumed I think reflect this as well. A Dark Sider is always suffused in the darker emotions, anger, fear, jealousy, envy, aggression, rage. All these build huge amounts of stress, and stress has a terrible effect on ones emotional and mental well-being - reflected by the terrible cost to their strain threshold. Dark Siders burn hot and bright, but never as long as a Light Sider.

Edited March 10, 2016 by Kyla

[blackyce 29]

Yeah, the paragon benefits are clearly better for the Light side.

Apart from what others have said about Dark pips being more consistent. There is a  couple of benefits more of Dark siders.

 

The first is that all dark side version of powers (battle meditation, bind, harm and unleash) don't care if you use light side pips to fuel them too. If you use at least one dark side pip, you are good to go to use those upgrades. The light side on the other side most upgrades only work IF you only use light side pips. This allows you to do very powerful effects flipping those Destiny points with no significant drawbacks to the effects of the power. Light side powers lose a  lot of power if you use dark side pips to fuel them too.

 

The second is that Dark side users don't care about conflict anymore. For example they can freely use light side pips with no long term effects (they don't get conflict for that nor for using dark side points). If a light sider uses dark side pips too often, he will lose all those paragon benefits. So you can take advantage freely of the first benefit I pointed out.

 

I would argue that this benefits compensate for the advantage Light side gets with his paragon boons.

Edited March 11, 2016 by blackyce

[Richardbuxton 7,319]

The second is that Dark side users don't care about conflict anymore. For example they can freely use light side pips with no long term effects (they don't get conflict for that nor for using dark side points). If a light sider uses dark side pips too often, he will lose all those paragon benefits. So you can take advantage freely of the first benefit I pointed out.

Edit: in the side bar in FaD on p52 about redemption it clearly states "Dark Side pips generates conflict as well" when talking about Dark Side force users. Edited March 11, 2016 by Richardbuxton

[blackyce 29]

 

 

The second is that Dark side users don't care about conflict anymore. For example they can freely use light side pips with no long term effects (they don't get conflict for that nor for using dark side points). If a light sider uses dark side pips too often, he will lose all those paragon benefits. So you can take advantage freely of the first benefit I pointed out.

 

Edit: in the side bare on FaD p52 about redemption it clearly states "Dark Side pips generates conflict as well" when talking about Dark Side force users.

 

You are totally right. In the dark side  section pg 281 of the book doesn't mention it and I got the wrong idea. It makes a lot of sense too.  I think my point still stands that a Dark side user wouldn't care, but yeah, forget about redemtion XD

Edited March 11, 2016 by blackyce

[Donovan Morningfire 10,200]

 

 

The second is that Dark side users don't care about conflict anymore. For example they can freely use light side pips with no long term effects (they don't get conflict for that nor for using dark side points). If a light sider uses dark side pips too often, he will lose all those paragon benefits. So you can take advantage freely of the first benefit I pointed out.

 

Edit: in the side bare on FaD p52 about redemption it clearly states "Dark Side pips generates conflict as well" when talking about Dark Side force users.

 

True, but the general sentiment still holds, as the dark siders might actually welcome gaining that additional Conflict for using dark side pips, since they might as well max out the bonus to their wound threshold.

[Rossbert 76]

Another thing to consider is that strain is a much more renewable resource than wounds. Since you get strain back from rolling well and just take a breath after an encounter they, while valuable, take a slightly lesser value than if they replenished more slowly.

Obviously this applies notably less if your group is packing loads of stimpacks and have a bacta tank available between fights, and more in a wilderness exploration game with limited supplies.

[Donovan Morningfire 10,200]

Another thing to consider is that strain is a much more renewable resource than wounds. Since you get strain back from rolling well and just take a breath after an encounter they, while valuable, take a slightly lesser value than if they replenished more slowly.

Obviously this applies notably less if your group is packing loads of stimpacks and have a bacta tank available between fights, and more in a wilderness exploration game with limited supplies.

Good point, and with the right combination of talents (Second Wind and Balance) as well as a high Discipline (something most Force users are going to have anyway), recovering spent strain, while not trivial isn't as great a concern.

 

At its absolute worst, being a full dark sider with a -2 to strain threshold isn't that bad of a hit, and isn't any worse than an EotE PC having their Obligation trigger for that session (which puts them at -2 to strain threshold and the rest of the group at a -1 to strain threshold).

[Surrealistik 10]

Honestly, since the critiques appear to be fomenting into a circle jerk of the same couple of posters upvoting each other, I'll probably make this my last post on the matter.

 

 

I have noted explicitly that Strain is more valuable than Wounds; the 'exchange rate' appears to be more or less 2 : 1. This has been noted, and is one of the leading reasons Light Side is clearly > than the Dark Side.

 

Second, Yoda confirms that the Dark Side isn't stronger than the Light Side, not that it is weaker. There is a difference. Further, even if it was weaker (I have yet to see an actual canon confirmation of this), I again disagree with making the Light Side so blatantly better than the Dark Side.

 

Third, in practice, DPs aren't spent on superfluous things; again, I suspect that this is true only of a clear minority of tables. It is a valuable resource and the incentives are there mechanically to treat it as such. Because this is true, Dark Side pips are not 'easy' to utilize and therefore not seductive outside of cases where one would get a lot of value out of their utilization, which is at odds with canon. Maybe a couple of tables have no problem using these DPs freely, and that's great, but that's not where the mechanical incentives and actual design are at.

 

Fourth, in the case of 'Greater Good' elements, even in the context of Star Wars, these don't always default to the Dark Side, nor would they even necessarily generate Conflict; it really depends on the nature of the element. Yes, one can ultimately fall to the Dark Side by taking actions that in reality fall afoul of the utilitarian calculus and don't yield a net good, but that doesn't mean this is true in the case of every trade off, regardless of one's opinion of the universe's contempts.

 

 

Ultimately a couple of tables may not perceive a problem with the Light/Dark balance, and the costs associated with using Dark Pips due to their groups acclimatizing to the system and making a go of it, but this is true in spite of existent mechanics that don't fully work or reflect canon, not because of them.

[mouthymerc 4,483]

Ultimately a couple of tables may not perceive a problem with the Light/Dark balance, and the costs associated with using Dark Pips due to their groups acclimatizing to the system and making a go of it, but this is true in spite of existent mechanics that don't fully work or reflect canon, not because of them.

So glad you're here to tell us the mechanic doesn't work and is wrong. Otherwise I might have issues or be playing wrong.

 

I'll probably make this my last post on the matter.

 

Yeah probably for the best

[Kael 1,865]

 

 

Fourth, in the case of 'Greater Good' elements, even in the context of Star Wars, these don't always default to the Dark Side, nor would they even necessarily generate Conflict; it really depends on the nature of the element. Yes, one can ultimately fall to the Dark Side by taking actions that in reality fall afoul of the utilitarian calculus and don't yield a net good, but that doesn't mean this is true in the case of every trade off, regardless of one's opinion of the universe's contempts.

 

 

 

 

We never said it defaults to the Dark Side. We said that it starts most characters in the Star Wars universe down the path to the Dark Side. In Star Wars the greater good is the slippery slope that most characters slide down on their way to the darkside. 

[Rossbert 76]

Isn't the dark side supposed to be weaker in the long run? I often saw it portrayed as similar to a drug. While 'under the influence' you can do incredible things, but there is an inherent cost. In the case of the dark side this is usually portrayed as deterioration of mind and/or body often encouraging the user to use the Force more to compensate creating a circle of dependence. In other games this has been reflected as diminishing returns (light side got more d6 added to a roll at high levels but fewer at low) from Force bonuses, or inherent stat penalties, in exchange you are fantastic at destroying your enemies. In this version they chose to reflect it with a boost to your stamina at the cost of a penalty to your mental stability.

[Donovan Morningfire 10,200]

Isn't the dark side supposed to be weaker in the long run? I often saw it portrayed as similar to a drug. While 'under the influence' you can do incredible things, but there is an inherent cost. In the case of the dark side this is usually portrayed as deterioration of mind and/or body often encouraging the user to use the Force more to compensate creating a circle of dependence. In other games this has been reflected as diminishing returns (light side got more d6 added to a roll at high levels but fewer at low) from Force bonuses, or inherent stat penalties, in exchange you are fantastic at destroying your enemies. In this version they chose to reflect it with a boost to your stamina at the cost of a penalty to your mental stability.

Generally yes, and the dice are set up to reflect that.

 

The dark side pips are the quick road to power (occur more frequently), but that power has a cost (strain and Destiny Point if LS, conflict either way).  But when you act in harmony with the Force (i.e. roll light side pips), the results are often more potent and without the "strings" that using the dark side entails.  This is something that's been a part of the Star Wars lore since the very early going.  Yoda may not have flat out said the "light side" (which canonically didn't exist until TFA) was stronger, but he never said the light and dark were equal either.

[blackyce 29]

To be fair the whole dark/light side is stronger/weaker is a bit sketchy. In canon I can only remember Yoda pointing out that the dark side is not stronger. And then pretty much every Sith saying that it is actually stronger. People tend to accept Yoda's version like absolute truth, but we don't see much evidence to support it.

First Yoda himself might believe so, but that doesn't make it true. How could he know really? He doesn't use the dark side. A bunch of important fights in the movies are won because said person uses the dark side (Luke vs Vader or Anakin vs Dooku). Yoda gets his ass handed to him by Sidious, and he has more than 800 years of experience in using the 'superior' light side. Where is this 'light side stronger in the long run' mantra here? How much more long run than this can you possibly have? Yoda when he confronts Dooku says that Dooku has become stronger and that he senses the dark side in him. Seems to imply that the dark side made him stronger. We see plenty evidence of dark side making people stronger fast but where is the evidence of making people weaker in the long run? 

 

Yoda also could be lying to Luke, just like they did with the Vader situation, so he would be more confident and not be afraid of fighting Vader/Emperor.

Edited March 14, 2016 by blackyce