Join The Infernal Brotherhood of the Scruffy Looking, Nerf Herders as they continue their How to Play West End Games’ Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game 30th Anniversary Edition. Today, we are breaking down the definitive rules for The Dark Side & Force Progression.
You can pick up the original sourcebooks as PDF’s here: https://www.starwarstimeline.net/Westendgames.htm
Transcript
Intro
Welcome back to The Infernal Brotherhood of the Scruffy Looking, Nerf Herders! Today we’re diving into the heavy mechanics of Force Progression and the Dark Side from the Rules Companion.
The Force is a mystical, omnipresent power, but as a Gamemaster, you need concrete rules to govern it. The Rules Companion completely reworks and overrides the original Force and Dark Side mechanics found in the Core Rulebook, so let’s break down exactly how the Force, the Dark Side, Training, and NPC creation function under these definitive first edition rules.
Discussion
First up, let’s talk about Calling Upon the Dark Side. Any character, whether they are a Force-sensitive archetype or a completely non-Force user, can willingly call upon the Dark Side when they are angry, aggressive, desperate, or otherwise out of balance. Doing so is a free action declared at the start of a round. The benefit is immediate, granting the player one Force Point and one Dark Side Point, though that Force Point must be spent in that exact same round. However, the player must immediately make a check by rolling either their Perception or Control attribute. The first time they do this, the difficulty is six. Subsequent attempts within the same adventure increase the difficulty by three each time. Furthermore, if the action is not intended to harm a living being, the difficulty increases by ten because the Dark Side prefers violence. If the roll fails, nothing happens, meaning the character does not get the Force Point, but they also escape getting a Dark Side Point. After an adventure concludes, this difficulty resets back to six. There is also a skeptic exception to keep in mind, as characters who adamantly refuse to believe in the Force, like the vast majority of Imperials, cannot call upon the Dark Side at all.
Moving on, the Dark Side is a dangerous, slippery slope, and the Rules Companion establishes strict mechanics for losing a character to evil, known as Consumption by the Dark Side. Every time a character gains a Dark Side Point, whether by calling on it or performing an immoral act, the Gamemaster must immediately roll one six-sided die. If the die roll is less than or equal to the character’s total accumulated Dark Side Points, they are immediately consumed by the Dark Side. Because all player characters in this system must be members of the Rebel Alliance, a consumed character instantly becomes an NPC villain. The template is handed over to the Gamemaster, and the player must roll a new character. Characters can also earn Dark Side Points through other evils without calling on the Dark Side directly. Using a Force Power or spending a standard Force Point in an immoral way contrary to the Jedi Code awards a Dark Side Point. Gamemasters must always warn a player before they take an action that will net them a Dark Side Point, allowing them to change their mind. Gamemasters can also award Dark Side Points for committing mundane acts of evil, as it champions the Emperor’s philosophy. To rid themselves of the stain of darkness, a character must enter a strict period of Atonement involving ritual, fasting, and deep meditation. The character must clearly do the right thing and avoid any actions that are even slightly tainted. During the session of atonement, the player can spend one Force Point, which cannot be from the Dark Side, to erase one Dark Side Point. Because this sacrifice is heroic, the character actually regains that Force Point at the end of the adventure. Keep in mind that a character can only remove a maximum of one Dark Side Point per adventure.
When designing NPC villains and Force users, the galaxy is a very different place during the Galactic Civil War. First, an NPC villain who has fallen to the Dark Side cannot earn Force Points normally. They can only gain Force Points by calling upon the Dark Side. However, they also possess a trait called Villain Lucidity. If an NPC villain fails a Dark Side check, they experience a brief moment of clarity where the thrall of the Dark Side lifts, which can be used dramatically to let them make a critical choice between good and evil, similar to Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi. True Force users are incredibly rare during this era, with perhaps only a few hundred active practitioners in a galaxy of trillions, and maybe ten times that many latent users. This creates the Emperor’s Shadow effect, meaning any light-side Force users left alive must be of modest power to avoid the notice of Vader and the Emperor, while any dark-side users must either be completely inconsequential or directly under the Emperor’s thumb.
Finally, if a character wants to grow their connection to the Force, they must undergo rigid training and master their powers. If a character starts with Force Skills already on their sheet, such as a Failed Jedi or Quixotic Jedi, they only need a Teacher to advance. A teacher is simply anyone with higher Force skill codes than the pupil. However, if a character starts with no Force Skills, they must find a Master to unlock the Force. A Master is an expert who possesses all three Force skills at 7D or better. Learning a new Force skill from scratch takes ten weeks of intensive training, though this can be reduced by spending skill points, where one skill point equals minus one week, down to a strict minimum of one week. New Force skills always start at 1D. A character can train themselves in skills they already know without a teacher, but it costs double the normal skill points, a penalty that also applies if a pupil increases their skill past their teacher’s current level. When a character unlocks a Force skill at 1D, they automatically master three starter powers. For Control, these are Control Pain, Remain Conscious, and Force of Will. For Sense, they get Life Sense, Magnify Senses, and Receptive Telepathy. For Alter, they unlock Control Another’s Pain, Shift Senses, and Telekinesis. For every pip a character increases a Force skill, their capacity to learn a new power increases by one. The absolute maximum number of powers they can master is equal to three powers per full die, plus one power per pip. Learning a power from a teacher takes one week but costs zero skill points, while learning via self-experimentation takes one week and costs one skill point per power. Multi-skill powers that require multiple skills, like Telekinetic Kill, count against the power total of every component skill. A character can attempt to use an unmastered power, but all difficulty numbers for that power are increased by plus five, or plus five is added to an opponent’s opposed roll. As a quick note on the Skywalkers, Luke and Leia possess a genetic facility with the Force that is fundamentally unavailable to player characters, meaning they learn faster and perform feats far beyond standard player character constraints.
Outro
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Until the Infernal Brotherhood convenes again, my fellow scruffy-looking nerf herders… “May the Force be with you.”