Jediphile

So you reduce the protogonist to the role of messenger boy. If the new PC isnt as strong, then they really don't have a chance of getting to Sith Space anyway. It's very anticlimactic when someone else saves the day. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Revan got to Sith space alone. Someone else can do it with friends. And being the one who facilitates victory does mean that you're a messenger boy. Would you call Gandalf a messenger boy? He was scarcely the one who decided things with his choices. But he was important for where he helped at the right moment. Besides, you need look no further than Frodo or Bilbo to see that you don't have to be particularly powerful to be the deciding factor in a great war - Aragorn and Gandalf and Faramir and hosts of others were far more powerful than Frodo ever was, yet it was still Frodo who decided between victory or defeat... or maybe Sam, you could argue, but then the same goes for him.

But even if that is the case you still need a protagonist that is their equal or better.If they are not going to be in the game in that sense. Well you havnt really lost anything by killing them and you cleared up a mess of problems. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I just don't see why that is necessary. To me the case is more that Revan and Exile *have* to be more powerful than your main pc. If not, then why does the main pc need to find them? My presumption would be that the new pc needs to find what became of Revan and Exile because only they have the power to save the republic. If the new pc is just as strong, then why would he need to?

Exactly what I have in mind.

Even KotOR2 allows for Revan to be both DS and female despite LA declaring Revan male LS in canon... What does that have to do with the Mandalorian Wars? I think you mistake the Mandalorian Wars with the Great Sith War, which took place some 30+ years before - Exar Kun was long since "dead" by the Mandalorian Wars, and Nomi would be pretty old. Besides, LA probably wouldn't allow their use - they didn't in KotOR1 after all, which is why Bastila replaced Vima as the female jedi with a bond to Revan...

Because you then get to start over without anyone elses baggage. If Revan or the Exile are a part of the story , then it's very difficult to stop them overshadowing the current protagonist, especially if said protagonist is a just a regular guy. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Why is an existing story a problem to overcome? I know the Trek-people thought so too, but I don't see why. On the contrary, there are lots of shows and stories where the writers realise that rich background is a wonderful tapestry. Established history is only a problem if you insist on seeing it as such. Sure, you have abide by the established story, but you can get as much inspiration from that (if not more) as you writing from a completely blank slate. I would say that any claim to the contrary is just lazy or misunderstood writing - not often do we see writers complaining over this then doing completely original works... Why must the power levels rise for each game? There is nothing wrong with dropping the standard a little, as far as I'm concerned - every pc we play in these games does not have to a jedi-killing-machine or a force god. As long as the narrative is compelling and deep, I really couldn't care less about all the powergaming.

Any game based on the Mandlorian Wars has the rather severe problem that the evolving plot is fixed, since we already know how it all turns out, and even how many of the battels will go. Therefore I think an RPG becomes pointless, because you cannot make any genuine choices in the game, unless options are included that deviates from what is established, and which will therefore immediately be marked as "outside canon". Therefore a Battlefront-type game or RTS seems best, since the purpose will then mostly be how you reach your goals, rather than what you want them to be. Heck, if you do it Starcraft style, you can even have "heroes" like Revan and Malak on the playing field - powerful character that must survive every scenario. As for Battlefront, I personally think that the reason it was such a big seller was not that it was a strategic, but more because we were finally allowed to killed Ewoks...

What's the point of building to a great climax over the course of an entire game (KotOR2) if you're just going to abandon the story?!?

The problem with that is how you'll establish that when even becoming a jedi padawan is the result of hard training and arduous study over years and years. In K1 they circumvented it by having the player be Revan, who knew it by heart and so seemed to grasp it in weeks. They did a similar thing in K2, because the Exile obviously already had all the training and study, but had merely "lost" his connection to the force. How can you do the same for a new character without suggesting that he is more powerful than Revan, who is after all considered the greatest jedi of his time. Even Luke had to spend a lot of time in training under Yoda before he had even the pitiful abilities he used in his fight against Vader on Bespin. And he wasn't even a newcomer to the Force, having been taught the basics by Obi-Wan three years before. Besides, he too was one - if not the - strongest jedi of his age.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record (though some might say that we have long since passed that point...), I'll just say again that I'll be opposed to and rather annoyed by playing yet another amnesic jedi or any other form of jedi who somehow lost his power... There we agree. The way KotOR2 ended there is no doubt. We need closure to Revan's story. We need closure to Exile's story. Whatever else happens in KotOR3, the fates of those characters *must* be dealt with (and not "dealt with" in the sense of killing them off during the opening text crawl). EDIT: Edited a typo in the parentheses that gave the opposite of what I meant, which led to confusion in the next post. My apologies.

Fair enough. In that case I vote for Luke Skywalker. You hate Luke Skywalker, why? He's better than Revan IMO. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Well, Luke did start out as a bit of an annoying brat. However, I really like the character he has turned into by the end of RotJ, and I positively love how he is portrayed in the Dark Empire comic books - very dark and complex... And incredibly powerful - one wave with the hand and the AT-AT drops like a bucket of bolts

I wonder if this is part of Team Gizka's efforts given that it seems to be cut content...

Oh please can I play a whiney 8 year old " <{POST_SNAPBACK}> :D

an RPG (trilogy) based on the Great Hyperspace War (which is when ancient Sith and humans first meet) would be lots of fun, IMO. you could also do one based around the life and exploits of Freedon Nadd. but, if they do go back in the timeline, I think I would like to see the Mandalorian Wars fleshed out more (heck, maybe I could even play as a Mandalorian!). Other than the Mandalorian Wars, I would like to see a trilogy based on the Sith War (which is Exar Kun/Nomi Sunrider's time). <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Actually, I think he's talking about the time when the jedi cast out those who followed the dark side - the dark jedi - who eventually found their way to Korriban and the sith species and then founded the sith empire, which would be after the Second Great Schism around 3000 years before the KotOR era and 7000 years before the movie era. EDIT: KotOR1 was supposed to be have stronger connections to some of the characters of the Sith War. Bastila was originally the name of the Cathar (I'm glad they changed it - it's pretty unoriginal to call a cat-person BASTila), and the female jedi with battle meditation was to have been Vima Sunrider, who would presumably have learned battle meditation from her mother, Nomi.

It's not about how an item looks, but what it does. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Kills people, does it not? :D

I do understand why some people are attracted to playing DS. In RL we're constantly lectured to by people who seem to have nothing better to do that moralize, so when we enter escapist territory, it's nice to have the freedom to let go of the restraints and behave like a pig and generally be as evil and malicious as you can get away with. However, I've never been able to enjoy it myself. I've played the DS sides of both K1 and K2, but I really didn't enjoy it all that much - it was mostly the lure of seeing the alternate endings that attracted me to it, and once I'd seem them, I never went back.

Revan is tough, no doubt. But Luke is one of the most powerful jedi ever. If we're talking Master Skywalker, then he'd wipe the floor with Revan any day... but then he probably would with just about anyone.

Well, I've never felt a need to listen to them on a playlist, so I guess that explains why I look at it differently. I mean, the various soundfiles aren't exactly structured into a chronological order or indeed any sort of particular order, so jumping back and forth would seem inevitable to me in any event. I do have and use Winamp - it's playing in the background as I type, actually - but renaming all those files just seems more trouble than it's worth, somehow...

Ah, okay. So the GM is competing with the players, since he playes that opposition, thanks for clearing that up... I don't agree, but hey... Actually it is - you've actually even said so yourself, when you admitted that D&D rules say they are not competitive. [sigh] Time for another round of "I think", I suppose... Exactly whose opinion and experience am I allowed to speak from if not my own? I'd like to know, since my experience as a player of two decades and GM of nearly as much (in D&D) is obviously not good enough to consider... That makes one more than you... Also, I speak from experience and preference, when you seem to speak from preference alone... Show where the rules say anything about D&D being a gamist system. Well, you just said the competition was between the players and the opposition (whici is the GM), and now you say the opposite. Which is it? That's not a very compelling argument, since all RPG systems must be "gamist" by that definition - reality is by its very nature far more complex than it is relevant or playable to represent extensively in a game. Internal consistency inside the game world's own laws is not the same as reality. There are no magical rings in the real world, but there are twenty magical rings in Tolkien's Middle Earth - if we suddenly have more than that, then the world becomes inconsistent and flawed, and so violates its own established reality. If there are to be so many magical swords in D&D, then someone must have made them - they did not grow from holes in the ground because it was convenient, so who made them? The warriors (fighters, paladins, rangers, barbarians, etc.) cannot. The clerics and wizards can, but they have little reason to, since they can't use them.

Yes. I fear the green one beckons...

There was money in K2 <{POST_SNAPBACK}> There was, but did you need it? I hardly noticed it, let alone used it much, myself.

What can I say - I definitely enjoy actual role-playing a lot more than pointless dice-rolling and monster-slashing... You're wrong about me liking LARP, though. I actually did try it once, and I have friends have have consistently tried to persuade me to play with them, but it just never appealed to me, because I find it limiting. In LARP you have to play a character who is somewhat like you are yourself, if the illusion is to work without seeming incredibly forced. It also requires that I have the ability to convince others that I possess the skills that my character does, and that can be difficult. I prefer to keep the option of playing absolutely anything I want to without having to worry about looking the part, be it an ex-slave twi'lek girl in Star Wars, a powerful but shady and mysterious wizard in D&D Mystara, an ethical captain with a dark past in Star Trek, or a fat former frenchman with an interest for the occult in Call of Cthulhu, all of which I have played in the past...

It pays well. It's also a profession that dosnt have a "side". Which gives you a lot of freedom of choice. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> ...There is that, but I still don't like it personally. Traditionally, mercs fight for the highest bidder and generally, lack a lot of morals. And loyalty. Except to their purse. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Besides, what do you need the money for in KotOR? It really wasn't a major priority in KotOR1, and I hardly paid any attention to it at all in KotOR2, since you could just create stuff and sell for cash if it came to that...

Why am I thinking Space: Above and Beyond... :D Ah, that was a good show... so obviously the cancelled it...

Power will not give you friendship. It will not bring you love that you can believe. It will breed only enemies. Power means that you can never trust anyone. Power means that everyone is out to get you, and you can never no security or peace, since you're always looking for the knife in the back. LS ftw.

I'm actually more into Call of Cthulhu and GURPS... But D&D will always be close to my heart, since it was my first RPG, my favorite campaign setting is tied unmistakably to D&D, and I've played it for two decades and still do.