EnderAndrew

He had some bad coffee, and it put him a bad mood.

The individual Force skills such as Life Sense, Telekinesis, etc do not have seperate skill ratings. You just roll Control, Sense and Alter.

I liked Luke's dark look in ROTJ, and Anakin's look in AOTC.

KOTOR's engine allows you to switch party members and act as them. I think leaving the main character behind to heal is fine. However, let's say you're about to come across a major plot script that requires the main character be present. One of the NPC's could speak up and say "Maybe we should wait for Revan before we proceed."

I think Vader's only flaw was to kill when someone made one mistake. People who are terrified of making mistakes are bound to make them. People can not operate at their best when they believe they are not allowed to make a single mistake. Discipline and fear can be used properly to motivate, but not on the scale Vader used. I think he was a good villian, but not the greatest villian in the world.

Hades has said time and time again that he doesn't way to play Galaxies. He wants to play a Star Wars CRPG with Fallout style character creation that doesn't force him to play a Jedi. Too bad that game doesn't exist. He could make that game with Fallout toolsets, he could play something else, or he could sit here and bitch. Which one did you think he chose?

Maybe I'll someday get around to reading the series. I'm not crazy about the idea of the Vong as a villian. I think constantly raising the scale of galactic badness is not the way to go. How do you top each new threat? I think villians like Thrawn were a much better way to go with EU books because it provides a unique and new storyline rather than trying to create a bigger and badder threat. Look at books like the Courtship of Princess Leia. The Nightsisters weren't all-powerful, and Warlord Zsinj didn't threaten to blow up the whole galaxy. The book had a smaller scale of threat, but had a good story. It introduced interesting and new concepts, and good characters. I wished Bantam had kept the license, and continued to pursue stories like that. That's just me.

First off, it seems KOTOR is slightly more popular than Thrawn, but I'll wait and see if any more players trickle in. Darque said she might play and I like having a female player in any given group. In fact, I don't think I've run a game without a female player since junior high. It adds a certain amount of diversity. As far as Force Powers, the lists over at rancorpit.com break down what skills go under Control, Sense and Alter. Here's my take on C-S-A. Control is the ability to affect your own personal energy within the Force, and how the Force flows through you. Sense is your ability to sense and detect presences of the Force, and ripples within it. Alter allows you to redirect and affect the Force on an external level. Thusly, telekinesis falls under the purview of Alter. Alter has very few skills. However, one might argue that Telekinesis in and of itself is huge. There are also Force Skills that use multiple, or all three Force Powers. For instance, I think Affect Mind is a Sense-Alter, or a Control-Sense-Alter power. In that case, you have to make successful Control checks, Sense checks, and Alter checks. As far as scheduling, I can go a few ways. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights I'm home and can run a gaming session. I could also theorhetically run a session online from work Monday nights. 95% of the time I'm at work, I sit around and surf the net with nothing to do. My job is similiar to working for the fire department. I sit around and wait for something to go wrong to fix it. So if people really wanted to play Monday, I could feasibly do it from work, however once in a while, I may get called away for 5 or 10 minutes to go fix something. Tuesday nights are the only night at work that I have work since I do a bunch of tape backups and DB2 server maintenance. I'd like to have one night a week to game, and try to keep the game regular. If you don't make the game, your character will either be conviently left behind if story permits, or NPCed by me if story does not permit your character to be left behind. If we end the session at a nice story end, and everyone is sitting around on the ship, your character doesn't have to partake in the next session. If we end on a cliff-hanger, and everyone is one location, I may have no option but to NPC a character. I hate breaking story to have characters magically appear and disappear. If you so desire, you can choose to have another player proxy your character if you prefer. If we have one non-jedi character in a party of Jedi, I will likely give a few free dice of Force Powers to make the game enjoyable, while giving the sole non-jedi possession of a ship. I've found in group dynamics, that owning a ship gives you certain leeway over other characters. What the captain says, usually goes. Thusly, that is a significant advantage.

I saw vibro-axes in the D6 RPG, but I never saw Saber-Axes. Lucas hand-picked the first authors in the EU. Eventually everything went to crap. I don't recognize the NJO series.

Girlfriends > Hentai

What we're talking about here has become semantics. Let's say that I hate jelly doughnuts. I sincerely just loathe the damn things. I say that jelly doughnuts are the worst thing in the whole world. My statement is opinion, and thus not objective. Furthermore, one might argue that my opinion is not true. But since I sincerely feel that way, is it not truth to me? In many senses, reality, and thusly truth, is defined by our own perceptions of it. Facts are like postulates. It's what we supposedly accept as non-debatable common truths for sake of argument.

Of course he's staying. You think anyone else would pay him that money with so many other free agents on the market? Payton was exposed, and has no option but to stay in LA. Perhaps if he stayed in Seattle, fans might be patient with him because of all the good years he put in. Payton better be prepared to be ripped apart by the LA fans and critics next year.

Skills raise at 1x, and attributes raise at 10x. To raise your Dexterity from 3D to 3D+1 = 30 character points. As far as the Cinematic feel, I really think the system captures it well. The rules are quick, and fluid. The story moves quickly, and every chase sequence I've run has been pretty tense. The player is also "hero" level when it comes to attributes, so that helps.

That may be the case. I played a Soldier.

Thank you for injected common-sense back into this thread.

Im generally fairly generous with them. It depends how well the players role-played, what they accomplished, how well they stayed in-character, etc. If a group is having a really good session, I give away about two character points per hour we roleplay. Raising a skill one-pip costs the current rating in character points. Thusly, it costs 4 character points to raise your Droid Repair skill from 4D to 4D+1. Attributes cost ten times as much. You also can't raise attributes above your racial limit. At the lower levels, stuff raises pretty quick. When your skills are at 10D, it takes 30 character points to raise to 11D. (10 points for each of the three pips)

Hades should pay attention. You can always choose not to use your Jedi powers if you so desire.

Err... that depends. The stock rules say that you spend Attribute points on buying Control, Sense, and Alter. These three Force Powers are what you roll for everything Force related. For every "pip" you have in each of these powers, you have access to Force Skills. Let's say you have 1D in Sense. So you have three Sense Force Skills, and could take Detect Life, Life Sense, and Force Sense. If you wanted to activate Life Sense, you roll your Sense rating. This tones down Jedi severely, and makes the game a whole lot more fair. Non-Jedi have the advatage of more points in attributes. However, if you only have a few dice in Force Powers (such as 1D in each of the three powers like the rule books suggest for a starting Jedi) then it's REALLY hard to do anything with the Force. You can't really successfully activate most powers, ever. If it was an all Jedi party, I might be more generous and just give the players each 5 or 6 dice to split amongst the 3 Force Powers. At 2D a pop, you're still a weak fledgling Jedi, but you have a shot of activating powers. And if you put 3D or 4D in one of the powers, you'll be half-way decent in that power to start. It's not fair to Non-Jedi to give away free dice to Jedi players, so it somewhat depends on the party make-up.

To answer the original question on Caesar skipping his appointed date with death on March 15th, he still would have been assassinated on another day. The "ides of March" thing is merely a dramatic ploy of Shakespeare's. If you want to ask what would have happened if Caesar was never assassinated in the first place, that's another thing.

As far as species, Noghri and Defels are right out. I'm pretty open with most other species. As far as time period, I really like the Thrawn time period. At the begining of Empire, it's hard to feasibly work Jedi into strories. During the Thrawn period it makes more sense for Jedi to come out of hiding, or to begin to rise again, even if they're half trained, or trained by Holocrons. During a KOTOR time period, Jedi are abundant. There aren't rules for duel-wielding sabers or guns per se. I could make some up. However, the rules do allow you to take multiple actions in a round. For every action pass the first one, you drop a dice from all rolls that round. If you want to shoot three times in a round, and have a Blaster skill of 7D, then you shoot three times at 5D. Having a second gun in your off hand is a stylistic thing, and doesn't necessarily change the rules. The same could be said for a second saber. You only get one attack at your full dice pool. Additional attacks, whether with one saber or two, drop your dice pool. I'm pretty strict with Dark Side points, however it also depends how new the player is. I usually warn a player when the declare an action that will likely kill the player, or lead to a dark side point. Player: I'd like to shove this cube of detonite into the reactor core of this ship I'm on. Me: You do realize the whole ship will blow up, with you on it. Player: Strike that, reverse it. Can I use my demolitions skill to rig an explosion to go off in 5 minutes? Me: Well, you can certainly try.... Player: Warlord Zsinj is a real jerk. I'd like to telekinetically force choke the bastard! Me: Well, he is a jerk. However, he's not actively threatening anyone, and you're using the Force to injure someone, so that would lead to a Dark Side point. Player: I can live with one Dark Side point... The bastard is worth it! Me: And so the path to the Dark Side begins.

If I wrote the script, I would strive to have three different strong perspectives without making clear antagonists and protagonists. Each of the three main characters could be seen as the lead. Radical change often comes from radical events. America became a country through revolution. I think you are correct in that Americans just don't like being told what to do. The movie is intended as a debate piece. The difficult part would be striking a balance, and not editorializing in favor of one side while writing the film. Perhaps if I had the right author to co-write it with me...

Well the game came out before Phatom Menace, but I could see lightsaber specialties in dual wielding. I think a saber-staff would have to be a seperate skill since it's so different. Okay, let's say you roll a 1 on the wild die. Stock rule says that you have a complication, and that I take away both the 1, and the highest die. Do if on four dice you roll a 4, 5, 2, and 1 on the wild die, I take away the 1 and the 5, leaving you with a total of 6 on four dice. There are lots of house rules I've seen regarding complications, but that all depends on what you're trying to do, and how all the other rolls go down. Let's say you're trying to sneak into an Imperial Base, and you're spotted by a Scout Trooper. He's about to sound the alarm, and you want to shoot him first. Let's say you roll your Blaster skill, and due to the complication, you fail your roll miserably. What if you accidentally shoot the alarm turning it on? Or if you make your shot (despite losing the highest die, it is still possible) then you shoot the Trooper, and knock him into the alarm. Complications can even be helpful once in a while. A complication merely is an unexpected result from your action.

I put together a speculation script for a movie a few years back, well before the days of 9/11. The plot was this. In Atlanta, in the CNN headquarters, terrorists move in and take over the station by force. They take over broadcasting, and showcase a large bomb (be it a suitcase nuke, or a emp, I waffled back and forth). They claimed to have similiar bombs in 12 other major cities across the country. Any attempt to move in on the tv station would result in the group setting off each one of the bombs. If anyone of the 12 other cells were disturbed, everyone would set off their bombs. Effectively, terrorists take control of the whole country in the blink of an eye. During the course of the movie, the news anchor (I'm picturing Dustin Hoffman) and the main terrorist (Gary Oldman?) square off with a war of words while a FBI agent (Al Pacino) sets out to save the day. The terrorists, upon removing their masks, are all Americans. Their demands are simple. They drafted up a new Constitution, and a new Bill of Rights. It includes extreme reform, and puts it clauses that make it illegal for pubic officials to take money. They demand that an emergency session of Congress pass the new legislature, or they blow up half the country. They consider themselves patriots. The anchor argues that their tactics are inexcusable. Eventually, the President and Speaker assure the lead terrorist that they will give in to the demands while at the same time ordering the FBI and CIA to strike the terrorists. They think they've found all 13 cells, and order a synchronzied strike around the country. Just as the lead FBI agent storms into the CNN studio, we see the terrorist press down on the detonation device as the FBI agent fires a shot at him. The screen goes blank, and credits roll. I think that film today would be EXTREMELY contraversial and dangerous.

Mensa is nothing more than a self-appreciation society.

I think what we need is major reform, and that's not going to happen with a corrupt Congress. I think we need welfare reform, prison reform, tax reform, etc.