So they all bought themselves some force abilities. Now the force abilities in Edge of the Empire are very pedestrian - convincing some strormtroopers that those are not the droids they are looking, tossing someone across the room, and reading someone's surface thought. No 50 meter leaps or force lightning. This is a Han/Boba style game. The Force book won't be out for a long, long while.
But still - the game has a mechanic for dark and light sides, and using them. Basically, you roll and could get some dark or light points to use, or some of both, for whatever power you are activating. You can spend light and dark with little issue. But Edge of the Empire is vague about the whole good/bad thing - except to day that maybe the GM should do something about it if he or she feels like it.
I felt like doing something about it. In my opinion, the dark side is nothing to treat lightly - even if you are a murder hobo. So I drew up a rough draft:
Characters may convert a number of dark side results into force points each session with no harm. This number is equal to their Willpower + Discipline (between 1 and 12 with an average of 2.) Past that, the character runs the risk of loosing control for a period of time, if not permanently. This loss of control is up to the GM, but will involve the dark side emotions of fear, anger and hate.This mechanic is designed to allow the players to flirt with the dark side a bit. They can even train themselves to be able to dip into it more. But if the character goes beyond 'recreational use' and becomes a dark side addict, then some horrible things will happen. Not just to the character, but everyone around them.
When converting force points above their limit, characters must pass a Discipline check to stay in control of themselves. If they fail, they loose control to the Dark Side (and GM) for 1 round plus another round for each Threat in the dice pool. Times outside of combat would be minutes, not rounds.
A despair results hands over control to the DM for the rest of the combat (or encounter.)
Each failure PERMANENTLY increases the difficulty of the roll, from Simple, Easy, Average, etc. - thus adding another difficulty die to the Discipline check. Past Formidable (five dice) there is the Impossible Task level, which also has five dice, but requires spending a Destiny point to attempt. Failure of this Impossible Level Task makes the character an NPC for the GM to control permanently.
Jedi Temple Younglings anyone?
- Ark







