Jedi Knights

The release of the Jedi Knight information is exciting. It does however raise a few questions I have and since you can't post into staff threads:

1) How will a player become a Jedi? Application or through the previous process of IC Actions leading to recruitment?

I'll probably have other questions but we'll just kick off that one.

IC actions leading to recruitment.

The potential selection pool will be pretty much all "good" characters who would ICly be willing to be trained. There isn't a "sensitive" subset of the population who are guaranteed force powers; that comes through training.

Han Solo's personality and disposition mean he could never be a Jedi. He would never sit still for it, and wouldn't really listen to some green hermit with delusions of grandeur.

There will be an IC quota, so expect Jedi status to be something achieved by people who have already done something heroic. Luke Skywalker sort of lucks out by happening on Obi-Wan, but his real training only begins after he's destroyed the Death Star and committed his life to a desperate but noble cause.

So from the opening players should expect what regarding the potentiality of recruitment? Because at that point it would simply be background writing and saying 'I did this this and this heroicly'. Now granted you wouldn't really need people out of the gate perse, but I see some potential pitfalls.

This really promotes a 'Everyone look at me and how awesome I am' mentality. It's a tough spot, you want people who are humble and do the right thing, but if you do the right thing it goes unnoticed. Staff from DH1 probably have a much better insight to the number of incidents that occured where people were doing the right things and because they did it right, they went unnoticed. So unless you're a complete stage ham, you won't get noticed... and if you're trying to get noticed, you're probably not going about things the right way. See the pitfall?

As the game progresses this becomes less and less of an issue but some of the biggest issues I always saw on DH1 was the selectivity system for recruiting Jedi seemed to focus largely around the player than the character. How many people were recruited because they were player A and the Character didn't fit? Or a character could have fit but they were passed over because the only available Jedi Master didn't like that player? I think adopting the straight DH1 system without modifications isn't the best solution.

You touch on some good points, points which have come up in almost every discussion we've had of the Jedi/Sith recruitment system.

I'm very open to suggestions.

Some points to consider as you prepare suggestions:

We will always have more people wanting to play Jedi/Sith than we have availability for good Jedi/Sith roles. I don't want people designing their entire character so that it will be marking time unless it gets trained. I also don't want characters who aren't really ready for training being trained just because they have a stat that says "Force-sensitive."

A functional Jedi/Sith recruitment system should pick real heroes (or real villains) from among the PCs, whose RPed deeds actually match up with the Jedi (or Sith).

Any suggested system must support these priorities:

• Trainees must have trainers; "teacher NPCs" can be cool, but can only go so far.
  
• Trained Jedi/Sith must reflect the ideals of their organization.
  
• Numbers must be limited (if we have 100 players, 20 force users is something close to maximum), but selection cannot be random.
  
• Any character must be theoretically capable of becoming force-trained if and only if it's reasonable for them to do so. ("every PC is basically force-sensitive; if untrained, they will never go anywhere with it")

We wont' have 100 players out of the gate. If we were to assume current DH numbers (40 players) and take a 20% ratio you had. We'd have 8 'Jedi/Sith' characters. Assuming the system you desire of more teachers then students, or an even ratio for that matter.

2 Jedi Masters/Sith Masters
2 Jedi Students/Sith Students


Wow, talk about elite selectivity. Not everyone wants to be a Jedi/Sith. But I do know a lot of people I have talked to have shown that interest. I'll guarantee there's going to be more than 2. In fact just to put a hard number on it, of the circle of people I've talked to, I have found that at least 7 people are interested in Jedi characters.

So your point about placeholders comes up. If you'd like a Jedi character but can't find anyone to train you, you literally do have a place holder character. One that'll be sitting for a very very very long time.

Here's where we start looking at things more indepth I feel. Jedi have to uphold those ideals laid out. Bingo. This is as much an OOC issue as an IC issue. IC things come up, characters react. How many times have people used hiding behind not knowing the expectations. One thing I would suggest is a requirement of time for OOC vetting as well of players. Nothing to indepth but make sure they understand the rules and requirements. It used to be in the very early DH that players would spend months looking at a potential recruit, getting to know them, then finally choosing them. Then it became an issue of churning people out far more quickly before they go evil and cause issues.

Assuming all PCs are essentially Force Sensitive heavily eliminates a lot of aspects of challenge to be honest, but it does present the challenges still of players who have the aim of being a Jedi in mind and well may be SoL. Especially with the 20% cap.

Now, what is the current relationship with the Jedi/Republic? From my reading it seems like they are very integrated. To me that might open up some more avenues regarding the types of Jedi involved. Rather than just straight up Jedi who do the diplomacy etc, there may be Jedi military advisors etc that might be able to provide an alternative. I'm just putting things out there. The largest concern I really have are for those players who have said they want to RP Jedi but will read this and be discouraged they'll never get a chance too. Any system needs to be selective, but not hindering.

Herein lies the dilemma.

Is Jedi status something to start with, or something to aspire to?

I think it should be something to aspire to. Luke is a farmboy, then an ace, and only then begins to become a Jedi. I also think that Jedi and Sith should be a minority rather than the lion's share of the playerbase. Furthermore, if someone's sole purpose is to play a Jedi, rather than to play a hero who eventually becomes a Jedi, I suspect it might lead to a certain Jedi clannishness and elitism which would be at odds with the highly integrated role I'm hoping to see for them.

How can we encourage Jedi/Sith status as an "advanced path to take your character in," as an integrated role, fairly? Some games use a random approach (literally; if you get the right chargen roll, you're Jedi-capable); some use applications; we've used mostly IC means of selection in the past. What are the pros and cons to the approaches we might attempt?

There's one thing I'm still wondering, and that's about the status of PC Jedi/Sith at the start of the game? Will there be only NPC Force users to begin with?

Not sure yet.

One thing I do know: Training is an essential part of the agonist's quest (protagonist/antagonist, literally "contestant"; if NPCs are quest-givers, PCs are questers). I don't want to cheat any Jedi/Sith force-user PCs out of the full training experience.

How we handle early Jedi/Sith roles will be interesting and tricky. Any thoughts?

At the moment I think having some starting PCs in those roles may be necessary. I don't know how many. To counter the effect of having to start out higher level, they could begin with negative XP. They'll be higher level characters to begin with, but they need to pay off that XP debt before gaining any more levels.

So a new character starts at 5 and works their way up to 20 as normal.
A starting Force PC starts at 10-15 and takes the same length of time to get to 20 due to the XP debt.

I don't necessarily disagree (in fact, I tend to agree with you), but I would be interested in your reasoning. Why will we need some starting PCs in those roles, and what are the benefits/costs of having them open from the start?

If we don't, who are PCs in the Force factions? NPCs only? Will those factions remain idle for several months while PCs work their way up to earning Force levels?

'Hey X got a char that starts at level Stadard+10' <insert 50 hour complain fest>

Yeah. I thought of that, too. Is there any way we can have PCs in the Force factions and avoid that?

And even letting those few have five levels of Force for their starting characters without having to take mundane classes first might induce whining and complaining.

Well, there's no hard, coded "mundane levels vs force levels" dichotomy in the new system. Force classes advance force powers and mundane abilities in various admixtures, and you can mix ordinary "class ingredients" with force "class ingredients" (Jedi Apprentice/Sneak, say) so it's pretty much a question of when your training starts.

If you don't include PCs in the early training periods, then it wil be NPCs. I mean if there's no PC teachers there has to be NPC teachers. This heavily diminishes the exact thing you wanted Gulp, those relations that develop and the training parts. That really are the heart of the early Jedi experience. I actually am heavily opposed to anyone starting off better than others, adamantly against it. I dont' see personally very many good alternatives. The fact taht you could start a character at a higher level with negative XP really would be the best 'option' for PC Jedi leaders

If you really believe NPCs are the best route, who plays them, who controls them ? Staff? Amongst their other duties the RP might well suffer and dillude the experience. A player? well it's an NPC and as altruistic as I want to believe most humans to be, eventually they'll look at the fact that their NPC will go away and spend their time focused on a PC. That leads to the same scenario of a watered down experience.

Some of the best RP I have ever experienced on any game was a time I was a Padawan with a dedicated teacher. That RP is phenomenal, just as it was when as a teacher you have a learner. But if it's in an NPC environment I just don't see it carrying that same weight.

I am not sure to be honest. There are aspects of the new system I like a lot (Like enforcing the Jedi Code), I just have some concerns over whether admin will retain any control over who is made a Jedi or if it will go to the players (in which case, considering the small numbers nd universality of FSness, cliques are very easy to develop). Also the inability to turn off FSness could be annoyin for people who just don't want to be involved in the sphere (Yes I know one could say no to the training, but saying no to a Sith master seems like a good way to say no to breathing too).

How one deals with the issue of needing initial trainers....Holocrons perhaps? Maybe the Jedi have suffered some recent catastrophe (Sith bomb in the council chambers?) and the apprentices must now quest for the Holocrons of previous masters to relearn skills lost to the order?

And allow the Jedi to determine their own ethics again? No, we tried that route and it was an utter disaster.

Oh, whoops! I forgot about that. So it would be simple enough for the Force PCs to have access to Jedi Padawan/Sith Apprentice for their first five levels. They will be pretty noobish force users, but at least they can be there to give the factions life.

One large issue as well is forcing things to quickly. There's been good instances of a character advancing too fast within the Jedi or any other group simply due to an vaccuum at the top. That's a problem to consider as well, if we have a PC vacuum at the top there's a huge issue taht will push individuals up to fill it even if they don't want to or they might not be a good option for such.

I liked the idea of having a higher-level Jedi PC start with a negative XP number -- until I realised that, depending on RP activity, his or her Learner might soon get quite a lot better than their supposed 'master'. This doesn't make so much sense

Paradox, you raise good points. At the same time, PCs with advanced levels and negative XP sounds like a recipe for concerns.

How would we pick them? It would be a subjective decision -- "in my opinion, players X, Y, and Z have the best grasp of the Jedi and Sith themes we're going for, the RP chops to bring those themes to life, and the activity/commitment to do a good job at it." By the very nature of that decision, it would be a wizard-level decision; we would need to have confidence in any starting-out PC Jedi Master's ability to play the Jedi as we want them played, integrated into the Republic, genuinely good, etc. etc., and therefore we'd have to have the final sign-off on any candidates. At the same time, there are many possible cons to that approach.

Are there any other alternatives that would work? I'm eager to hear more ideas; there has to be a good solution to the problem.

Well one could always have one or two masters around from the staff to still control the Code. But with so few masters, how would they teach everyone? Or would they even have all the skills?

Allowing players to app to the staff to start off with additional levels to fill a role is just opening a precedent (Shouldn't older character get that? What about senators? People in positions of authority? Some chap who wants to run a small corporation?). The Force area of games always generates enough controversy without piling more in there.

Then what's the alternative? A specific staff member to handle all the Jedi teaching as an NPC? Cause that won't cause burnout at all. Having the wizards have Jedi teaching NPCs? Again, same thing with the burnout.

FoghornLeghorn,

Any functional NPC approach would have to have a small "class" of PC Jedi recruited early on, trained by one master. Such an NPC would probably need an expiration date (say, 3 months in), after which they would take on a 'theme police' role but not an active training role. In whatever case, such an NPC would have to be pure quest-giver.

But good points have been raised that illustrate the possible cons of an NPC teacher/quest-giver. I'm going to keep a pretty open mind and watch the discussion play out, and see where it leads us.

Well I had read someplace I believe that the intent was to have a couple of NPCs for the Jedi to be those questgiver keeper of the Ethics individuals.

Let's say we have three to start with, each to take on learners. If we had dedicated individuals for those three who could dedicate to teaching for the 6-9 months or whatever long it will take to raise up students, then we have a solution. But that level of NPC commitment (and then moving them to the background) will always present those issues. The simple fact I think is there's no easy solution, it's finding the solution with the least demons.