Do you allow players the opportunity to alter history?

[Vanion]

[Jedi Skyler]

[garhkal]

Yup. One of the few times i have had a gm put us in a possible continuity breaking situation, he stringently reminded us that any action based on what we knew, not what our characters knew would be severly punished. Then he had us meet Moff Tarkin on Corsuscant, the day he was getting advanced to sector Moff....
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Jedi Skyler]

You should ALWAYS make the players go on character knowledge, not player knowledge. The GM was right.

The only way I'd let characters alter history just any old where would be if they're going strictly on character knowledge, but if it were announced up front that such actions were allowed, encouraged, etc. I'd hate to get halfway through a campaign I'd worked real hard on just to have the players do like Volar's player did- "Hey, we wanna kill Vader!" He had to break to do more planning because he wasn't expecting it. Had it been announced up front he'd have been much more ready to roll right on through, because with the amount of planning he reportedly does for his campaigns, he'd have already thought of that and been ready to orchestrate it.

[Darius]

Palpatine could always promote another to replace Vader. Such as High Inquisitor Tremayne or a Dark Side Adept from Byss such as Sedriss.
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oops - i didnt mean to make it go off

[Demona]

Speaking strictly as a player and not a GM whatso ever I love seeing actual parts of the movie in game play.

I mean common...If the Death Star appears infront of your players if they are really star wars fans I can guarentee all of them will get the chills.

As a player there is just something about seeing Han or Luke...or even minor characters of the movies while in character. I don't know about anyone else but yea...I wanted to be Princess Leia when I grew up, or even just in the movies as me. So when I see them ingame its as close to actually being in the movies I will ever be and there is something thrilling about that. In all the sessions I have ever played in, the ones where my characters met people from the movies are the sessions I had the most fun in.

You can't meet your hero's everyday and when you do ingame there is just something magical about it.
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So uh...I rolled a 1 on the wild die...is that good?

[Gry Sarth]

I agree with you Demona, meeting movie NPC or witnessing movie-related scenes is always a rush. However these things should be used sparingly, otherwise they lose their effectiveness. If you're always running into Han every corner you turn, it makes him less special and the encounters less memorable.

Sometimes just the use of a prop is enough to send chills. A while ago I had my players go to an auction, and one of the items was that relief mural Palpatine has in his office in Ep3. The young jedi in the group was baffled by the dark side aurea the object exuded.....
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"He's Gry Sarth, of course he has the stats for them."

[Demona]

As an example.

In one of our games we are playing a merchant campaign and we were just leaving Alderaan after dropping off some cargo and picking up passengers. Right after we left the spaceport getting ready to engage the hyperdrive our sensors went off saying that the space directly infront of us was occupied. Then The Death Star appeared and our pilot make a roll to avoid crashing into it...

Yes...we knew Alderaan was about to become an asteroid field, yes we knew Han Luke and Ben would be arriving within the next few days, yes we could have made a stupid attempt to ram it or something else silly like that. But we didn't. We all got this nervous excitement and started talking really fast. And all we did was rubberneck it while we took off to a different planet.

*takes a deep breath*
BUT WE SAW THE DEATH STAR!!!! HOW COOL IS THAT!! *wiggles in her chair* That was by far one of the best things that had ever happened to us as players, I think. It reminded us we were playing "Star Wars" and not "Space Opera".

But then again I am easily amused...
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So uh...I rolled a 1 on the wild die...is that good?

[Jedi Skyler]

*wiggles in chair right next to her* Yeah, that would have been great.

In one campaign I was in, we ran across a lower level Dark Jedi. Boy,was my character (a Jedi in training) ever nervous! It was all he could do to keep his Force presence completely closed down so he didn't get detected. We were all jittery, wondering how that one was going to come off; at that point my Jedi wasn't nearly strong enough to take him on, and we managed to get away from him without actually engaging him.

Now imagine if that had been Darth Vader... My Jedi probably wouldn't have left the scene!

[garhkal]

Exactly how did you 'shut down your force presence'???
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Jedi Skyler]

Most everyone has a presence in the Force; the rest have a distinct absence in the Force. Jedi are taught how to reign in their sense and bring up shields to keep their Force presence in. (There are many examples of this being done in the novels.) While this leaves the Jedi Force-blind, unable to sense anything, it also holds in his presence in the Force, keeping him from being detected.

Remember how in ROTJ Luke was hiding out in the Emperor's throne room, and Vader was walking around looking for him? Although Vader was able to pick out some of his surface thoughts, prompted by the taunting Vader was doing, he didn't know exactly where Luke was. Luke was concentrating, pulling in his Force sense so he could better hide. It didn't (and doesn't necessarily or always) completely hide the fact that a person is present, just the fact that a Force-user is present. Luke basically made a good enough roll that his general presence in the room was known, but couldn't be pinpointed.

[garhkal]

I know what it is, as far as in 'story' effect, but how IN GAME did you do that...
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Jedi Skyler]

At that time we didn't have any powers that would achieve that effect. These days I suppose I'd have to have learned Emptiness, although that power gives you benefits when you come out of the trance. What I was doing was simply closing myself off to avoid being sensed. In game, I told my GM that I was putting up mental shields and "closing down" my Force presence to make myself harder to detect. He asked me what I meant exactly, and when I explained it to him he told me it would keep me from using any Force powers until I opened back up. I told him I knew that and was more concerned with avoiding detection at that point. He allowed it without any dice rolls, which may or may not have been appropriate. Even though I'd seem a bit biased since it was my character, if I were presented with this as a GM now, I'd allow it mostly without a dice check because all the character would be doing is closing himself up. If there were a lot of distractions around (i.e. in the middle of a battle, etc.) then I'd probably call for a Control roll at least.

[garhkal]

Well, unless he has been trained to do something like that, how can he be certain he is indeed shutting down?>?>?
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Jedi Skyler]

By the fact that he can't Sense anything. Even a Force-sensitive with the barest modicum of Sense in the Force would KNOW that they could no longer Sense anything outside themselves. That would be the indicator of success.

In some of the books I've read (as well as my own humble opinion) putting up shields is one of the first things a Force user is taught. This helps them from broadcasting to others, as well as battering other Force-sensitives with the constant 'static' of their unshielded thoughts. Many of the books I've read have Jedi using this concept when their emotions are running a bit out of control, so they aren't bothering their companions (or being CAUGHT by their companions due to darker thought racing through their heads.) I've always understood this to be something akin to running through a Jedi calming technique- something that could be done anywhere, anytime, without a die roll.

As to the "unless they've had training in this," I suppose there are going to be basically two schools of thought. The first would maintain that the individual in question must be taught to do something of this nature, for whatever reason. The second would figure that the individual already knows what it's like to be without that extra Sense, because the first time they actually TOUCHED the Force pursposely, it feels like they've been blind up to that point, and so theoretically could work their way backward instinctively. They'd already know the effect they want, would know what it felt like already, and since it's shutting OFF their connection to the Force, rather than trying to utilize or deepen it, it would be nothing to make happen.

Of course, in the end, it's going to be the GM's call whether or not to allow this (or to even mention it as a possibility. In your own case, garkhal, I strongly suspect that IF you even allowed it, you'd make the player come up with it on his own... which is completely fine. Make that player use his brain! 8) )