EnderAndrew

Black is a very slimming color. That's it.

I would have to agree. In my opinion, Thrawn was a better villian. He didn't need the Force.

Well, the teacher will likely be a Holocron to start, if there is a teacher. It depends on the character types of the Jedi, and the time period. I don't have a specific plot in mind yet. When we have all the PCs, I usually try to craft a plot that caters heavily to the party make-up.

Are you suggesting that he's a pillow biter?

And for the record, I do believe the Keanu Reeves was actually the one standing there before he flew up to the sky. I don't that is a digital recreation. When he's standing on his side kicking at insane speeds, that's a digital recreation.

Mission was very vulnerable, and showed that she could buy into lies. She believed her brother was a good man for a long time. Only you really showed her otherwise. You could mislead her easily if the writers allowed such manipulation in the game.

Lucas does mention his commercial success a lot. And before Episode 2, he did an interview with Time, I believe. He mentioned that he secludes himself on his Ranch, and just ignores the media. He had no clue that the fan community hated Jar Jar until the media junket for Episode 2 when interviewers asked him about. He then responded that fans didn't like Ewoks, but that Return of the Jedi did fine at the Box Office.

I didn't hear about that. Bastards.

Well, normally you do not have seperate ratings for these Force skills. You merely roll the Force attribute. However, there is an exception. When West End came up with rules for the Dathomir Witches and Nightsisters, they presented alternate rules. The Dathomir Witches see the Force quite differently from Jedi. For them, it's more like ritual magic. Individual rituals are needed for each skill, and they increase in their ability to do each skill. With Dathomir Witches, they do not have Control, Sense, and Alter ratings. They have individual Force Skills.

The FX companies responsible for those effects sequences were lauded by their community, and have gone on to loftier contracts. 9 times out of 10, I'll take the opinions of the professional community over some random bum. Your outright dismissal of the effects while most film students and film experts applaud is how you say, "retarded?" The Matrix 101 This site may explain some of the basic theories that escaped your simple grasp. Several books have been published breaking down the philosophical ramifications of the trilogy, and there are college courses on the movies now. People have written thesisis on the subject, and you haven't shown one bit of evidence or proof to your claims that the characters and subject matter in the trilogy are more than pop-culture fluff as you claim. You see, the person who is ignorant of film is you. Quentit Tarentino regurgitates pop-culture fluff, and the masses love him for it. If the Matrix featured a similiar regurgitation, they would have been better received. You say the Architect says nothing. That merely means you heard nothing. The Architect lays down the guantlet, and fills in backstory. He also shows his hand unwittingly, that he alone is not in power as he would like Neo to believe. The sequels were too wordy. They did tell more than show. The only reason is that the masses failed to recognize the symbolism in the first movie, which should have been blatantly obvious. The character names of Neo and Trinity weren't obvious enough clues to the Gnostic Christian messages the film was loaded with. The films are flawed. But that doesn't mean they lacked substance. Again, you merely missed it. Too sad for you. If I thought you had an open-mind about anything in the world, I might grant you more of my time and try to explain it. However, given your history of messages on this forum, such a debate would fall on empty ears. You are the proof to Volourn's pudding (his signature), of "My opinion is factual, there is no reason to debate it." Everyone of your opinions is thrown around like gospel, and you result to childish names when someone else sees the world differently. The seeds of inteliigence and knowledge are planted in the ability to question one's beliefs and open one's self to seeing new and different things. You try to come across as knowledgeable and haughty. The truth is, you're merely stubborn and antagonistic. I see right through you and have only pity.

Each pip you have in a Force Power (Control, Sense, Alter) allows you have to have a Force Skill. If you have 1D in Sense, you know three Sense skills. You don't automatically know them all, but eventually you pretty much will. 3D in Sense gives you 9 Sense skills. You have to take prerequisite skills before you take later skills. The second edition rules states that Force Powers raise like attributes, at ten times cost. It's very slow developing. I think second edition revised changed it to where they raise like normal skills, which is far too quick. What I generally play is that if you have a teacher, they raise at double cost. If you lack a teacher, they raise a 5 times cost. So, to raise your Sense from 2D to 2D+1, you need four character points if you have a teacher, or 10 if you do not. You can raise any skill, attribute, or power one pip per gaming session (assuming you can afford it). Weapons have a damage rating. A standard blaster does 4D if I recall. A lightsaber does 5D (but Jedi can add their Control rating to damage if they successfully active the Lightsaber Combat skill). You roll damage, and the target rolls their strength to resist. If the damage roll is higher, you are wounded. The difference in the two rolls determines the severity of the wound. Armor can grant addition dice to resist damage. There are also Force Powers such as Reduce Injury, and Control Pain that can come into play. Certain Force Powers do your Alter rating in damage like Force Lightening. As far as blocking, parrying, dodging, that is all handled by skills. You have skills such as Dodge, Brawl Parry, and Melee Parry. When you declare actions, you can declare multiple actions in a round, and take dice penalties for doing such like I covered earlier. Let's say you that declare a lightsaber attack, and a lightsaber parry in the same round. For taking two actions, you drop 1D from each action. When you roll your parry, it becomes the target number your enemy has to beat to hit you. This is called a partial defense, because you defended while taking other actions. If your roll is lower than the standard difficulty of 15 to hit, you can still take the 15. If you declare nothing but defense in a round, you roll your appropriate defense skill (dodge, melee parry, lightsaber parry, brawl parry) and ADD IT to the base difficulty to hit you.

I've been told a lot about the books. I tried reading Vector Prime, which is supposed to be one of the best NJO books. I just felt like all the characters were "wrong". When Bantam had the license, the authors were forced to colloberate alot to keep characters consistent. Chewie dies. Han's family is kidnapped. And Han, man of action sits around with a drink and sulks? It just seemed wrong.

Perhaps Mark Hamill said it best when he recently said that George Lucas is a sad old man who doesn't get it.

Where's the "pose" button on my controller? B)

That remains a very valid observation. However, there are good mods out there as well. I've seen some mods that look better than professional games. I think it's worth attempting.

I don't think it's necessarily confusing content with engine. It would require HEAVY modding to make the Unreal engine do what you're talking about. It's not created to make dungeons and act as an RPG. It would be far easier to remake Daggerfall in Morrowind.

There are no confirmed new colors yet. I expect Heart of the Guardian and Mantle of the Force may return.

Ignore Drakon. He's prone to oral bowel movements.

I agree with Wheelman. Her saber is blocked. The "sparks" show that the blades have already clashed. He can make one swift, strong move down and she's dead. She has to draw her blade back, and then up. The problem with this is that her weight and body and extended so far forward. She has over-extended herself.

Look, I believe in giving a person the benefit of the doubt. And I am all about free speech. Let Hades express his opinion. He's done it plenty of times. And personally, I have nothing against him. I even agree with him from time to time. However, several people have expressed to him repeatedly that we understand his view points and have asked him to keep posting the same damn statement over and over again. It's annoying.

The problem is that even though it's a group of journalists, they have a similiar vision. Editorializing is human nature. And if all these journalists want to prove a certain point, they can all contribute to a site that sees the world the way they want to see it. During the brunt of the military invasion of Iraq, the US military had a CENCOM media briefing every morning. And I watched it every morning on CNN. Journalists from around the globe got to ask our Generals questions. They asked questions such as "why are you dropping yellow bombs and yellow relief packages at the same time?" Well, if they had done their research, they would have found that SNAFU was corrected 6 years ago or something like that. It never happened it Iraq. But journalists were quick to propogate the lie. Then as tanks got to Baghdad in a matter of three weeks, reporters were asking questions like "This war is going far slower, and far more unsuccesfully as you planned and said it would. Will the administration admit to making a mistake?" Well, if the journalist had any credibility or payed attention, they would have seen that Bush, Powell, and the generals all said the war would be lengthy, and difficult. They never gave a time frame. Yet Iraq's infrastructure fell in no time at all. We dismantled Iraq's military in record time. Yet, here journalists kept asking what took so long, and why things were going so poorly. I'm not sure I saw one objective or intelligent question come out of the briefings during the month they were held. Journalists will say what they want to say. I think Frank had it right. The best way to get "objectivity" in journalism is to read multiple sources and compare them, not just a source that happens to cater to your view. If I do discredit a source, it's because I've seen it reguarly be irresponsible in fact-checking, or overtly biased.

That depends. Can he take a pay cut? I think he'd be willing to take a certain pay cut to get away from LA. Will the union allow it? I think it's funny that players will from time to time take a pay cut while staying with a team, and that's okay. Or they'll sign for less than market value to play for a certain team. But when A-Rod wanted to take a pay cut to move to Boston, the union wouldn't allow it. It's just as well. I'm glad we don't have him.

Look. The Matrix Trilogy features a deeper subtext about the human conscience that most people overlook. The trilogy makes use of metaphor in breaking down many of the typical eastern theories of thought, and mixes them with typical Judeo-Christian savior images. It was clever, and fairly well done. The movies had their flaws. Most people expected an action movie to top the Matrix. Most people hated the Architect sequence, and all the dialogue. Morpheus' subplot in Reloaded is crucial to the story in which we see Neo no longer rely upon Morpheus as a mentor. Neo sees more clearly than Morpheus. The story isn't about Neo being hurt by bullets. It is about belief, choice, and fate. Neo had a destiny. How much can he alter that destiny? He had to strip away conventional thoughts, and strip away all his teachings. Like the Buddhist saying, when you meet the Buddha, you must kill the Buddha. Eventually Neo had to distance himself even from his teacher, lest his teacher's vision blind him. Just because you didn't like the Mr. Smith fight Opus, that doesn't mean the whole movie lacks substance. You just failed to see it. I should also note that on an action standpoint, Reloaded tried to deliver on many different levels. Woo often made films that focused entirely on one style of action, as is the popular way to go. Woo would focus on gun-battles. Other directors might focus on chase sequences. Other directors focus on martial-arts battles. In the first Matrix, we see a mixture of all three predominant action styles. In Reloaded, we see this diversified even more. There are people who loved the Mr. Smith battle. Personally, I prefered the short but better choreagraphed battle between Seraph and Neo. Seraph didn't get enough screen time. And the CGI wasn't bad with the Mr. Smith battle. It just is a matter of willing suspesion of disbelief. There are tons of times I've gone back and watched old movies from my youth. At the time, I loved and accepted the visual affects. I see now how cheesy they appeared, but so long as the story was good, I accepted the effects. You didn't care for the concept of 100 Mr. Smith's battling Neo, and thusly your brain saw the effect as being preposterous. The liquid Terminator effect was equally preposterous, and clearly fake. That doesn't happen in real life. You however, prefer the concept, and thusly judge the execution when you mean to judge the concept. There is a distinction.

Anakin, Alter is not inherently DS oriented. However, there are DS only powers that use Alter like Injure/Kill, Force Choke, etc. Vader was a big fan of Alter based powers, where as Yoda prefered Sense powers like Farseeing. As pure Alter powers, I think Telekinesis, Injure/Kill, and Force Choke may be it. Alter is also useful for Force Healers. With Sense/Alter combinations you can do things like Control Another's Pain, etc.

Good questions. You can invent skills if so desire. Run them by me to make sure we agree what attribute they go under. In my uber-lengthy Star Wars campaign, it was not uncommon for players to have 40 skills including such gems as "Shopping" and "Bold-Face-Lying" I had one player who used a "Yo-Yo" style melee weapon, and made a skill for that. Also, if you don't take the skill, you can roll at the base attribute. However, I also impose a higher difficulty number if you try a skill untrained. Let's say that you've never touched a blaster in your life. Someone hands you a blaster, and tells you to shoot a stormtrooper, or whatever. A normal target at medium range is a Moderate difficulty, so it would be like 15. I'll bump it to a Difficult difficulty of 20. You roll your base Dexterity against that target number. It may seem like being penalized twice, however I think it encourages people to be balanced skill wise if they want to try different things. I have a house rule about initiative, which I touched upon earlier. Low roll declares first, and high roll goes first. I apply that to any system I play. I also have a house rule that I apply to any system called the "s*** skill" Most players really seem to dig it. I was going to get into it later, but what the heck. When you are finishing up character creation, you get to pick one additional skill for free. However, the skill must be something that doesn't affect game balance. It's just something to flesh out your character. Maybe they Yodel rather well, or like to recite Wookie Poetry.