Discovering the Force - Star Wars Saga

This is an excerpt from when my Bothan Explorer Bieter Ke'frey discovers that he has an affinity for the force. In game terms he reached a new lvl and got himself the Force Sensitive-feat for that level.
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Bieter sat down on a wicker chair in the outskirts of the village square. The celebration had died of a little, it was late.. well, actually it was almost early again. His head throbbed a little, probably from the strange local wine they had been drinking all night.

A few people were still up dancing around the big bonfire in the middle of the square, others were sitting in the shadows talking or just enjoying the night.

Bieter looked at the cup in his hand as if waiting for it to speak, to give him answers. It didn't. In a way he wanted to fill it up again so that the wine could at least give him some rest for the remainder of the night. That wasn't the right way though, he knew he had to discover this on his own.

He stood up and walked over to the small shrine in the village. He couldn't understand the writing or the pictures there, although he guessed they where part of their local mythology and traditions. Normally, he would take pictures of them or at least try to sketch down what he saw. He would take notes and cross-reference with databases on his small datapad. Not this time. He sat down in front of the altar and just tried to experience.

He was a bothan, and therefore, he valued information, knowledge and hard facts. What he was looking for now was something different, something that may actually be weakened by hard facts. He just had to feel.. to sense and be a part of.

There it was... he wasn't sure exactly what it was.. but some kind of sensation. He felt sad, people been mourned for at this place. He felt happy, people had celebrated joyful occasions here.

He felt!

Within the silence of the shrine, that nagging feeling he had been carrying the last day or two grew stronger. He had felt it for the first time many years ago, the first time he entered the ruins of an old jedi temple. A feeling of connection. After that, he hadn't felt it again for many years.. not until he was chasing that stormtrooper. When focusing on the hunt, on the task, his senses had become sharper, his movements more intuitive and fluid.

Only thing was, this time the feeling didn't go away. It stayed with him, vague, weak and easily overwhelmed by the other things around him. Now, with all distractions gone, he felt it grow stronger. He couldn't explain it better than it beeing a feeling of connection. He was connected to all things.

A few minutes later he stood at the edge of the forrest. He had to know if this was for real. After some hesitation he started to run into the woods. Extending his senses, he started to feel the trees and the bushes around him. Finally he closed his eyes as he continued running. He didn't need to see anymore, he knew where to put his feet, he knew where to turn to not run into any trees. He smiled as he realised that this was true, that the mysterious thing he had been studying this whole time was there, was in him, guiding and helping him.

Some time later he woke up again, with a black eye proving that while the Force may be in him, it was still a fickle helper. Somehow he had missed that big old rock potrouding from the ground and it had sent him flying a few meters through the air before hitting the ground again. Well, well, it was better than nothing.

One final test left. He went back into the village and sought out Dreyne. He had something important to ask... and he had to do it in a special way.

20 meters away he saw Drayne. In his mind he spoke
- Dreyne, I need to ask you... are we gods?

Although no sound was heard, no voice was used, Dreyne looked up in his direction.

So many games, so little time

I admit it: I suffer from gamers ADD! In my case that means that I am so easily distracted when I find a new shiny (or not so shiny. Just today I was reading about Don't rest your head) game. It's not just limited to new games. Sometimes it's enough with a new neat idea for an old game.

Problem is that there are so many nice games out there. If I were to write a list of games I've considered just this year it wuold propably at least ten games long. On it you would find games like changeling, DC universe, hunter, mutants &masterminds, true20/ Freeport,castle fallenstein and nobilis, just to mention I few.

I try to focus. There are definite plusses with playing a game a little longe. That way you get a stronger connection to your character, the world and the game itself. This is especially true if the game has a slightly unusual premise like nobilis, dogs in the vineyard or castle fallenstein.

So, how do you solve that dilemma? How do you stick with one game long enough to get to know it at the same time as you are curious to try out new games or ideas?

So far, my solution (and that of my gaming group) has been to combine slightly longer campaigns (6-9 months) with shorter mini-campaigns (3-5 sessions) and the occasional one-off.

This way you get to do some longer gaming, but with an insert of the odd indie-game-try-out now and then.

Does telepathy cross language barriers?

Does telepathy automatically cross language barriers? This was a question that popped up in a gaming session lately. I didn't consider it much then, but after a while I started to think about it.

Many modern cognitivists claim that it is our language which form our thoughts. This makes sense.. when I think, I tend to think in Swedish (me being a swede and all). So, what happens if I send my thoughts to someone else? I propably would send Swedish thoughts (or English, if I put some effort into it). This line of reasoning makes it at least plausible to me that telepathy may very well be language dependent.

Imagine what would happen if I knew telepathy, and tried to telepathically communicate with an italian? His mind, his thoughts are all italian. All of a sudden he would have swedish thougths in his head. He would here them but he wouldn't know what these thoughts mean.

However, and this is a big however. Telepathy is a made up concept anyway. There is no "right" and "wrong", but rather a telepathic concept as it fits into any given setting. In these short paragraphs I have at least presented a line of reasoning for why telepathy mustn't need to be language independent.

My Star Wars Indiana Jones character

My vision is that of a daring explorer that seeks out the farthest and most secret ruins. His goal is to find the hidden knowledge of the force, the Jedi and the Sith.

Basically, I want to make my character into some kind of Indiana Jones-wannabe. However, I also have a plan for how he will develop. At first his knowledge of the force is purely theoretical. As time goes on, his explorations and his exposure to force-intensive locations will make him force capable.

In game terms the plan is as follows:

Start out with a Bothan Scout. Nothing extraordinary here.

At 3rd level, he gets a feat that is not from his class feats. This is where I choose Force Sensitive (with the permission of the GM). With this feat, he will be able to use the skill Use Force untrained. This won't let him do much, but there are some simple things he can do. It's nothing powerful, but it adds to the feeling that the character is on a journey to something new. He will also get his first Force Talent.

At level 4 he gets a bonus feat from his class. With the Skill Training feat, he picks the Use The Force skill as a trained skill (which is possible for all Force Sensitive characters). This expands his number of force tricks radically. As contradictory as it sounds, this is the reason I'm not sure yet if I want to pick this skill at lvl 4 or at lvl 6. My goal is that he should progress slowly into the secrets of the Force, and picking the Use The Force-skill at lvl 4 might be to fast. Keep in mind that I also want to preserve the explorer/ scout part of the character.

An alternative would be to pick any nice, agility-based feat from the scout feat list.

At levels 5 and 7, he will add two additional force talents. This is because I intend to move him into the Force Adept class at lvl 8, and for that he needs 3 force talents.

So, finally, at lvl 8, he should cover all the prerequisites for moving into his first prestige class, the Force Adept. His long studies and his deeper knowledge of the Force has let him build his own understanding of the Force and he has embarked on an even deeper journey.

Finally, as a homage to the original character, he will also build himself a Light Whip as soon as he can get the Weapon Profficiency (Light Sabre) feat.

Star Wars Saga - Latest purchase

Last weekend I finally cracked and bought Star Wars Saga. My impression so far is that it looks like a nice game.

After the first read-through I decided to do a little experiment. I wrote four one-sentence character descriptions on one page each. I tried not to think about what classes and possibilities there was in the game. Then, after I wrote the descriptions down, I tried to make PCs fittting those descriptions.

The result was good, I thought. After an hour I had four characters that fitted the descriptions close enough for me. This meant no tweaking or shoe-horning the concept into what's in the game. Since it was my first go with the system, and it didn't take that long, I consider that a promising start with the game.

For those interested, the concepts were:

• A brawler that makes his living through fighting for money in illegal tournaments.
  
• A female jedi that was a victim of abuse when she was young. Her menter wants her to find calm through the force, but her background makes her a target for the dark side
• An Indiana Jones-archeologist that looks for old temples dedicated to the Sith and the Jedi to learn more about the force (even though he is not force sensitive himself)
• A trained fighter following ancient fighting philosophies to perfect his body and his soul

As soon as I have entered these into a digital format I will post them here