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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

RPR Archive How much damage is TFU going to do around here?

Discussion in 'Role Playing Resource Archive' started by Sinrebirth , Sep 30, 2008.

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  1. Akisa

    Akisa Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    Oct 21, 2008
    Are you using freeform or rules system like Saga, it makes a huge difference. If it's the former then that's the inheritance flaw of freeform.
     
  2. Lukes_Apprentice

    Lukes_Apprentice Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Oct 15, 2008
    I'm also in the process of learning and have never seen true god-moding an example would help avoid this newbie folly. It really is up to the GM in other player to call those that don't follow the rules on it. That is just newbie's opinion though.
     
  3. CmdrMitthrawnuruodo

    CmdrMitthrawnuruodo Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jul 1, 2000
    If you solely focus your character on one power and neglect all the others or not be capable of doing the others (i.e. Corran Horn cant do telekinesis but is bloody powerful with illusions and absorb) you can probably pull a Star Destroyer out of the air. But it would be INCREDIBLY TAXING on your power reserve and physical body that it could potentially kill you in the end. Something like that would be a one time thing, imo.

    Isn't there a canon Force User that can supernova stars with his power?

    I've always hated with the way Lucasbooks, Lucasarts, Lucasfilm have done to the Force User. They've made them into Gods basically just so they can sell their products to the fanboy. Its also why I hate DragonballZ.

    Even in our own mythology we don't have mortals that are Gods. Children of Gods maybe, but as mortals they're just as fallible and mortal as every other mortal. They just happen to have a special ability that makes them unique (i.e. Hercules and his incredible strength) but were still limited to how far they could go with that ability. Those figures only became Gods after they died or were accepted into Godhood and in doing so they weren't mortals anymore and couldn't (or shouldn't) interfere in mortal affairs.
     
  4. SlevinKelevra

    SlevinKelevra Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    Dec 5, 2008
    I am curious to know...has TFU noticeably changed anything in any of the games you are in?
     
  5. NickLitYouAFlame

    NickLitYouAFlame Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Feb 27, 2007
    Mitthy, Galen is dead, is he not? And, I beleive the Force User was Naga Sadow, but someone should check me on that. Anyway, I think it was his ship that caused it.
     
  6. CmdrMitthrawnuruodo

    CmdrMitthrawnuruodo Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jul 1, 2000
    How did he die though?

    I dont have the game so i dont know.

    Not in the ones Im in, mostly because we're all vets playing and Saint and LW DM one. :D
     
  7. NickLitYouAFlame

    NickLitYouAFlame Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Feb 27, 2007
    He blew himself up to save Juno Eclipse and the rest of the Rebellion.
     
  8. Ramza

    Ramza Administrator Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jul 13, 2008
    What? I could have sworn he became the Emperor's personal assassin... did we play the same game?:p

    It hasn't effected my games (To any extend I've noticed), but I don't play a lot of Force User-heavy games.
     
  9. NickLitYouAFlame

    NickLitYouAFlame Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Feb 27, 2007
    I'm essentially a good guy, only.
     
  10. LightWarden

    LightWarden Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Oct 11, 2001
    There are two endings. Also, the entire plot line of the game makes less sense the more you think of it. I must remember to do "The Force Unleashed Puppet Theater" some day.
     
  11. Ramza

    Ramza Administrator Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jul 13, 2008
    I'm just sad that they made the Dark Side ending so obviously non-canon. I much preferred the way KotoR was originally handled, where it was made sufficiently ambiguous that either option was plausible.
     
  12. TheManinBlack

    TheManinBlack Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 1, 2007
    The plot wasn't bad, I.E, as much as other EU material with the expection of KOTOR, and I'm one of the few who defends the amount of surviors of Order 66 (just not that everyone had a buddy who decided to become a Sith).

     
  13. Saintheart

    Saintheart Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Dec 16, 2000
    (Spoiler Alert)

    At the risk of turning this into TFU-bagging (much as I enjoy it), for me the main drama I had with the plot was the attempt to basically shoehorn Galen as the figurehead/titular leader of the very Rebel Alliance itself. It cheapens Mon Mothma, Bail Organa, and even Bel Iblis from the intelligent, canny characters they were into Banquo clones as Galen's Macbeth just about takes them all down the gurgler. (I have similar difficulties with the (thankfully) Ep 3 deleted scenes showing the formation of the Alliance, but that's another story.) Any semi-competent Star Wars fan could see this coming the moment some fool at LucasArts came up with the idea: "Hey, you're trained by Darth Vader! You're more powerful than Vader! You'll get to fight Darth Vader and win!"

    It's also a stupid decision because, if you run with it as canon, you have to pretty much retcon half the EU -- including Timothy Zahn yet again -- to avoid the fact the Alliance had a Jedi running it for a brief period of time.

    Zahn and West End Games' Rebel Alliance Sourcebook handled it a hell of a lot better, and with nothing to go on: the Alliance had a much more realistic beginning as a grassroots movement evolving into an alliance of freedom fighters bonded during the immeasurably important Cantham House Meetings and the signing of the Corellian Treaty. It wasn't yet another distaff chapter of the Skywalker story. Anakin might have been the Chosen One, but that never meant that the entire galaxy revolved around him.

     
  14. TheManinBlack

    TheManinBlack Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 1, 2007
    You dislike Timothy Zahn?

    Lord knows that when someone sees Star Wars they expect Realism! Listen Its funny as I HATE this game with a passion, but more of gameplay reasons. Once agian the story despite disrupting 'canon' was instesting. People have to remember not everything is as good as KOTOR storywise. So what if it based off the stupid idea of beating Vader down to the dirt, while player goes hell yeah! I wish the had fit in Malek in better story wise, and played with the Senators and what they did more but so what. It was a video game, maybe the Novel or Comic connected to it should have done that.

    I like the idea of Papltine creating the weapon that would one day kill him, and him know it was his own hubris that caused it. Makes for a much better Karma bent punishment.
     
  15. SlevinKelevra

    SlevinKelevra Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    Dec 5, 2008
    Ah, I see.

    I liked the actual gameplay itself because it was a hell of a lot of fun. Having that transcend into the RPF would be horrible, though. I did not, however, like the storyline. I am having problems with it like the rest of you. My major beef with it, though, is that (SPOILER ALERT) this Secret Apprentice defeated both Darth Vader AND Emperor Palpatine within moments...? Get real.
     
  16. Sinrebirth

    Sinrebirth Mod-Emperor of the EUC, Lit, RPF and SWC star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Nov 15, 2004
    Well the latter did kill him, so shrug.

    In the dark side ending, if you go after Sidious rather than seek to save your friends by defeating Vader, Sidious annhilates Starkiller.
     
  17. Saintheart

    Saintheart Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Dec 16, 2000
    Far from it. I think Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy is excellent, and has never been matched by any Star Wars novel following it. And that includes Zahn's later works, which suffer irreparably from eternally playing catch-up to most of the stupidities other authors forced upon the EU (and Zahn's characters in some cases.) It's hard to restrain sniggers when reading the "Vision of the Future" duology for all the retconning, explaining, and flat-out contradicting ol' Timmy has to do to try and make the story work.

    There's a difference between realism -- which I accept is pretty hard to pull off when you're dealing with events in another galaxy controlled by something which (apparently) is generated by bacteria-like organisms -- and suspension of disbelief, which is the biggest victim of the Galen Malek shoehorn. Leaving aside the fact he basically pwns the Chosen One, who is set up to be the OVER 9000 candidate of the Force-using galaxy (yes, I know he's stifled as Vader, but it still counts), it basically suggests that every significant movement, rebellion, or dissenting thought in the galaxy requires a Jedi at its head or intimately involved with it for it to have any credibility at all. Bail, Mon, and Garm are no longer self-starting, thinkin' dudes who carefully, delicately prepare their rebellions in secret for over 20 years or more, moving against the Empire in secret -- they are now a bunch of thickheaded politicians who aren't even capable of coming up with a symbol for the Rebel Alliance without Teh Apprentice present. It essentially sucks, to my mind, because it's a cheap attempt to force even more of the Star Wars universe into the Skywalkers' biography, no matter how tangentially. I much preferred the idea that Bail Organa and the others were capable of organising and setting up a rebellion without putting a token Jedi in there. It's a similar problem to why we see more and more lightsabers in the OT and PT the further you go, and less and less independent Rebel activity.

    Yyyyyeeah, that works if you discount the idea that Palpatine should've known what was about to happen and taken proper moves to avoid it. I always had the impression that Darth Vader's relationship with Luke was the one unknown factor to the Emperor, and ultimately the reason he couldn't foresee Vader's betrayal -- Palpatine is routinely portrayed throughout all six films as having a Leto-Atreides-concrete vision of the future up to that point; it's so concrete it allows him to orchestrate a galaxy-wide war to his own advantage. "It was I who allowed the Alliance to know the location of the shield generator. It is quite safe from your pitiful little band."

    Now instead we have Palpatine who's that dumb he can't even manage to stop the Rebel Alliance being formed with the leaders right in his hands, and with Vader standing right next to him. This is incompetence on Colonel Klink levels, and clashes badly with the Master Manipulator image we've seen him with all this time.
     
  18. TheManinBlack

    TheManinBlack Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 1, 2007



    YEEEEEAHHHHH that might be true but...


    He's always has been that dumb. It was Luke who blew up the shield Generator,
     
  19. CmdrMitthrawnuruodo

    CmdrMitthrawnuruodo Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jul 1, 2000

    Actually if you think about it. The one unforeseeable thing he did not see was the fact that Vader had another child. Palpatine was focused on the son. If he had known that there was a daughter also, he would have made plans to deal with Leia as well. It was Leia that befriended the Ewoks and even if Luke hadn't done his hocus pocus with C-3PO she would have still been a deciding factor in the battle on Endor.

    If Leia had been dealt with would the rebels on Endor still have succeeded in destroying the shield generator which in turn would allow Lando and Wedge to destroy the Death Star?

    If Leia had been taken to the Death Star with Luke would it have been sibling vs sibling before it was child vs father? How would that affected the battle and outcome of the war? Would Vader still betray Palpatine or would the siblings have fallen? Would Leia fall? She had a lot more hatred for Palpatine and Vader than Luke does after all.


    And Palpatine has never been dumb. Overconfident and arrogant perhaps, but dumb... no. I've always viewed him as a master manipulator, the Professor Moriarty of Star Wars. He was able to bring down an entire Republic and subtly force them to make him Emperor and create an Empire. He orchestrated the destruction of the entire Jedi Order and their fall from grace in the eyes of the galaxy which no other Sith had been capable of doing before.

    He allowed the Rebel Alliance to form and cause trouble so that the Empire had something to fight and continue to establish its hold over the entire galaxy. It's easier to put in new laws when you got something that frightens the populace and they want security. When it was time to get rid of the Rebel Alliance, Palpatine manipulated them into coming to a battle where he had chosen the field and set up a trap for them. His only mistake in that battle was not letting the fleet to tear into the rebel fleet like it should have. He was too confident in the Death Star and his ability to manipulate Luke to the Darkside. And like I had said if he had foreseen that Vader had another child he would have taken better precautions with the shield generator or would have had her taken to the Death Star with Luke.

    Hell he probably would have killed Luke, who was trained somewhat in the Jedi ways, and manipulated Leia instead who is untrained and had a lot more hatred in her heart than Luke did. She would have been easier.
     
  20. Kev-Mas_Colcha

    Kev-Mas_Colcha Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Dec 15, 2002
    Actually, with KOTOR, there is still one canon ending. The Lightside Male gets precedence over everything else. You must have heard that nonsense from some fangirl who wants Revan to be female.
     
  21. Ramza

    Ramza Administrator Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jul 13, 2008
    I am aware of the canonicity of the Revanchist being male and his eventual return to the light, yes. However when the game first came out it was only established that the Star Forge was somehow destroyed, which is why KOTOR II let you choose whether Revan was good or evil, male or female.

    My point is that this is unlike TFU, where you were shoehorned into knowing the light side ending was the canon one. At least with KOTOR there was a period of ambiguity.

    And I've never met such a fan girl. I would think the Exile being female would be fine...
     
  22. Saintheart

    Saintheart Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Dec 16, 2000
    Ramza's touched on another of my pet peeves with TFU, and it's also a reason I sometimes feel bored playing in RPGs like "You're on the Titanic. People -- including most likely yourself -- are going to die."

    Basically, I've never really enjoyed playing towards established events, and time travel stories which adopted the view that events can't be changed if you go backwards always did depress me a little. With TFU, you know what the outcome has to be more or less from the start of the game: either Starkiller has to die at the hands of the Sith, or he goes rogue from everyone, Sith and Jedi alike (with the option of faking his own death to do so). This is because the canon is already set up and we know that the ultimate course of history isn't going to be materially affected by his actions.

    I dislike that in a RPG because it means you have no real chance of changing events for the better, that you ultimately have no effect on the larger events of the galaxy. And if you can't change things for the better or worse, or if you know as a player your efforts must fail, what's the point of being in the game?

    Disagree? Then why do we have so many AU games? Isn't that a strong sign that people want to be able to affect their universe?

    That's a different scenario to the PT films; there, we knew nothing about the period at all, so one could approach watching those films with some enthusiasm even though we knew where people were eventually going to end up -- because there was a lot of room for other plots and twists to the story. And the foreshadowing was a delight because we knew something the characters didn't.

    TFU can't take that course: all it can do is try and throw yet another intrigue into Vader and the Emperor's deeply-cluttered plans within plans. (Honestly, do these guys even have time to stop and breathe with all the plates they have to keep spinning on sticks across their lives?) There's no foreshadowing except for elements of the Rebellion's history, and that just comes off pretty cheap.
     
  23. SirakRomar

    SirakRomar Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 30, 2007
    I agree with Saints idea of "known outcomes". There is one story you can play with it. The "tragic hero" with a "dark fate". But that can only be played once in a while. And after three movies of it I wasn´t ready to accept this temporal irritation known as Starkiller as anything but a funny story with little substance. Basically they treid to have a badass in the movie-era so they could use their design.

    If you take someone "meant to die" why not a Jedi in the first place?
     
  24. Sinrebirth

    Sinrebirth Mod-Emperor of the EUC, Lit, RPF and SWC star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Nov 15, 2004
    My biggest issue is how Starkiller can beat Vader. Sure, I'd accept Dooku could defeat suited-Vader, but random child of random Jedi family? Not feasible. The shoehorning is an interesting angle; isn't everything set in-universe before 42 ABY shoehorning? The Dark Times are essentially the whole 'Order 66 Survivor Killed By Vader' subplot, which is violently boring. Any stories set before Fate of the Jedi or in the immediate time before the Legacy comics have essentially been told.

    Starkiller as a character apart from the main plot of the Rebel Alliance would have worked moreso.

    I just mentally consider him to be a Plagueis experiment. Makes my life easier.
     
  25. JohnHunter

    JohnHunter Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Jul 27, 2006

    I saw this coming almost a year ago. :rolleyes:

    I was waiting for someone to bring it up.
     
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