Timewaster's Guide Archive
Games => Role-Playing Games => Topic started by: 42 on January 08, 2005, 02:28:29 PM
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So I'm wondering how people approach ethical dilemas faced by their characters during a role-playing session.
The general approach I've seen is to just ignore ethics and have the characters do what is most advantagious.
But those of us who actually what to play a ethical, non-hedonistic character, things become more problematic.
I'm thinking about this in current session where I play noble who is involved in a rebelion. Okay, my character was a major instigator of the rebellion. Now many of the other players are arguing that starting a rebellion is an evil act, but I don't see it that way. I see the current regime as being corrupt and evil, at least that's my impression from what the GM has presented. So I see my character as serving the greater good.
Yet, some of the other players repeated tell me that my character is evil because he is involved in the rebellion. Admittably, being in the rebellion has caused my character to commit several evil acts (lying, deception, theft, and assassination to name a few).
Course, war and rebellion are inherently evil, but I don't see the Founding Fathers of the US as being evil because they lied, cheated, stole, and killed to found this country.
So as you can see it is an ethical dilema.
Suggestions? Simular Experiences?
Preferaly answer in the next couple of days, because I plan to run my players through an ethical problem next weekend.
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I'd say that when you play an ethical character, you have to define, at least the general principles of, what he considers ethical.
Nephi killed a guy. He wasn't evil. Joshua led an army in and kicked a ton of people out of their lands and cities. Was he evil?
and so on. Sometimes, it's what you need to do.
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go to Outcasts thread in rants to see differences of morality and ethics in action. I tend to play characters with a specific set of ethics,... which can be anything from just looking out for number to being a philanthropist. I for one think its cool that the party disagrees with you, and that there is some debate about the world in general. it makes the whole experience more real... I hope it hasnt ruined the game though...
Go on persuing your characters code of ethics, as long as it hasnt ruined the experience for everyone else...
Oh and your next move should be getting them involved against their will.
that would be fun
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I'm trying to get the others involved against their will. They kind of already are. But there is a problem in that 2 other character really are evil. They are smugglers and thieves. Then there is one poor player who is trying to be a very upright and good soul. It's causing some tension.
I'm thinking that because I decided that the evil actions justified the goals of my character, the balance between good and evil characters got shifted to the evil side. But I see good coming out of all the chaos and destruction when things get reorganized.
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your a terrorist.
How interesting.
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In one sense, yes. But I prefer to think of my character as a revolutionist.
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The main difference being who wins and gets to write the history book.
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you do get to yell stuff like "Liberty Equality, fraternity! Now off with the rich nob's heads!"
So thats a plus
but on the down side your revolting
badump bump bump
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This is the same campaign that Saint Ehlers was playing with us.
Here's one I've thought about myself quite a bit, tell me what you think it would be. My character started up a smuggling business. I exported grain from my country to a neighboring nation, where it was bartered for exotic woods. I then imported the wood, bartered most of it for another grain shipment and sold off the rest as profit.
Okay, so here is where the "smuggling" part comes in. Any type of commerce with this neighboring country (East Dakkar) is prohibited by our government (West Dakkar). This isn't true in East Dakkar, you are free to cross the boarder if you want (although once in, getting back out could be a problem).
During a previous adventure, our group got permission to cross the border as part of a government investigation into terrorism. We got a legal document that allowed us to cross the border, and I talked to the DM about it. The document itself has no real restrictions on how much it can be used, when it can be used, who it can be used by, etc... just sort of "the bearer of this document has legal permission to cross the border".
This document was entrusted to our party cleric. One night, my character stole it from her, forged a copy, gave the forged copy back to the cleric, and kept the original for himself. This is how I now smuggle trade goods between the countries, technically its legal, although the legality was gained through rather devious means. Keep in mind that we are now also trying to overthrow the West Dakkar government (and I think we have pretty good reason to do this, the King is a madman and tyrrant who has people beheaded, then "talks" to the heads for advice... also, in this campaign setting, defiling the dead is almost as unethical as murder). So would this be considered lawful evil, neutral evil, true neutral... ? Okay, so I smuggle stuff, but so did Han Solo and he's one of the good guys IMO.
To be fair, 42's character has got a bad rap about being evil. My character has done way more evil deeds. In fact, one thing in particular my character did was probably more evil then all of 42's evil deeds combined. However, I have recently been trying to convert my character to the good side.
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Good and evil are such relative terms. Fellfrosch is right about who wins and writes the history books. If this kingdom you are rebelling against wins you will be considered a traitor and possibly a terrorist, if you win, you liberated a country and set people free you could be called a saint or a hero. The actions you took to some might be considered evil, but to others they were considered good.
The US vs. USSR is a prime example. I remember growing up being totally afraid of the evil communists. They would kill me in an instant for my belief in democracy, and put my head on a pike to show off as their trophy. (I had a very active imagination as a child). Having met quite a few Russians in the recent years about my age, they thought the same thing about us. Although for them it was Capitalist equals evil and communism is good. (I do realize that Communism is a market system and not a political system, so Capitalism and communism compare, but not to a monarchy. I didn't get that as a kid that Russia was a communist dictatorship, it could have just as easily been a communist democracy which to me would have made a lot more sense.) The main point is, depending on which point of view you are looking at right or wrong, good or evil is relative to your own personal ethics and morals.
Nicadymus and I are always talking about character alignment. What is the difference between an evil character that does evil things for the greater good and a good character that does good things for the greater good? Or vice versa, a good character doing good things for the greater evil, or any number of the above...
For example: Your character could be considered evil if he kills a lot of innocent people for the greater good. Lets say you are a commander in the military and an infection broke out that could infect everyone in the nation in a matter of days. You have the ground zero quarantined, but you know these people are trying to escape, because they are afraid of becoming sick. The town has two thirds of the population with this sickness, and the early stages of the sickness make it hard to distinguish between a healthy person and a sick one. If one infected person gets out the whole nation is at risk. There is no cure for this disease, and there will not be one for years. Do you destroy the town or not to sanitize the disease. Doing so ensures the safety of everyone else on the planet, but you will be killing thousands of non-infected people. Not destroying the town you risk everyone's life on the entire planet including your own family. Is either choice good or evil? As I said earlier it is relative. Killing innocents is considered evil, but saving the rest of the planet would be considered good. In my opinion the only way either scenario would be considered evil is if you enjoyed killing those people, or enjoyed watching them suffer.
Let's look at your character. Were the actions you committed for the rebellion right or wrong? That of course depends on what you did and how you did them. Are you killing a mass of innocent people to save the country or are you assassinating just a few corrupt officials to save a country? Did you enjoy the killings? Was there another way to accomplish your goals without killing or stealing or lying? I would say that in your heart (that being the heart of your character) do you feel what you are doing is evil or good? If you say evil, is it the lesser of two evils, because in some cases that is the only option for an otherwise good character. If you say good, then ignore what the other players are saying about your character being evil, because you have established your own ethical and moral code, just as our founding father did. Although if your end result is to become a dictator and rule with absolute terror, then you going to be considered evil, versus liberating a country from corrupt officials.
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I always felt that alignments corresponded to your motives rather than acts. Once I played a game on the web where the GM warned me that my true neutral character was acting out of alignment by beating a prisioner to try and get information about enemies ahead. My defence was that he felt it was acceptable, he didn't regard the (bugbear i think it was) demihuman as a true sentient, and he only did it the once. So I felt that it was not out of alignment for a True Neutral (which is, the character will act according to their own code of ethics heavily modified by the situation, since they have no overriding allegance to good or law or what have you).
To me it seems silly to try to say that everyone acts in one alignment all the time. Thats just not true - you can have devout, kindly clerics (lawful good) who have an intense bigotry towards, say, Elves. Their bigotry does not remove the fact that to everyone else they are 'saintly' (the GM refused to accept that example... guess we just didn't see eye to eye on alignments). I tried to point out that medieval Catholic priests could be regarded as an example of this very example, but he said they would not be Lawful Good if they did the whole burning at the stake thing. In retrospect I should just have pointed out that paladins are usually felt to carry a pyre at all times just to be ready...
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actually, EP, i have to disagree. The party cleric is using an illegal copy now, even though he was trusted with a legal copy. It's illegal because it is not a document issued by a legal authority.
The document you actually USE is a bit mroe hairy. It says the bearer, so technically, if you were in a society as bound to the letter of the law as our own, you'd be in good, though an authority could yank it at any time. But you're in a quasi-medieval society, and it would probably be interpreted as illegal use, since you are not the person to whom the document was issued and not using it for that reason. The characters would be aware that this is how the law was interpretted, generally speaking (that is, if they were in a situation, as they are, where this sort of thing is necessary and/or common), thus I think the character must be aware that he is flaunting the law. I don't think I'd call it legal.
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Actually, I think the cleric lost the forgery and ended up asking for a new one. I also took some precautions by making friends with some of the border guards and only bring shipments through while they are on shift. Of course, we did hire on all those pirates to smuggle us in goods from the ocean. You might remember that, since your character help set it up. Btw, last session we found out the king has an army set up down there and has been stealing some of our shipments.
All I know is going from a thief to a good guy is hard work. Especially if you want it to be from seeing the error of your ways instead of something more contrived like, 'Oh last night I had a holy vision, so I'm going to act good now.'
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I will do anything to win - cheats, hacks, trainers, exploiting bugs, taking advantage of people, etc. I used to do that a lot in counterstrike, but now I switched to RPGs after CS got boring. I will pwn j00 all!
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uhm... this is about paper-and-dice RPGs, cheesey. There are no cheats or hacks other than lying about what you roll.
And it's about IN GAME ethics.
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There really isn't any winning in pen-and-paper rpgs, other than having fun.
Mostly, I'm trying to figure out where to take my character.
So here's an scifi ethical question.
Mind-control: is it acceptable to attack/kill someone under the influence of mind-control? What if the controlled person is completely innocent?
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depends on what the mind-controlled guy is doing. I'm assuming, of course, that the character KNOWS the guy is mind-controlled. First option is of course, to subdue with non-lethal methods: breaking the control, rendering unconscious, incarcerating, etc. IF that doesn't work and other people are threatened, you may need to use lethal force.
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The main difference being who wins and gets to write the history book.
The main difference between revolutionists and terrorists is not who wins and gets to write the history books. That implies that our founding fathers are the same as Hamas/Al Quaeda/Sendero Luminoso etc... except that they won.
It also implies that a palestinian wandering into a crowded supermarket and blasting himself to bits along with all the innocents in the market is the same as, say, Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga.
I agree that history is written by the victors and that recorded history is thus highly subjective. However, it has absolutely no bearing on the right vs. wrongness of anyone's actions whether they're recorded accurately or not.
Now, if the Boston Tea Party had consisted of an American colonist walking into the governor's mansion while a tea party was going on (and the boy and girl scouts were having a convention in the same room) with a keg o' powder strapped to his back and blowing himself up,(and the American street rejoiced) then we'd have a comparable act.
It is perfectly possible to revolt and not commit atrocities or be terrorists. (Terrorism is, in fact, totally ineffective. Witness Ireland and Palestine for example.) In fact, often, it is morally wrong not to revolt.
It's a fact of life that some things which are bad in some situations in life are good in others. It's also a fact that some things are never good no matter the situation. Terrorists, in my book, are those who cross the 'never good' line.
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I will do anything to win - cheats, hacks, trainers, exploiting bugs, taking advantage of people, etc. I used to do that a lot in counterstrike, but now I switched to RPGs after CS got boring. I will pwn j00 all!
Wow, so you have absolutly no respect for other players who share these games with you?
can I have your steam ID?
And you have no idea what an RPG is outside of the digital medium...
wow
edit: Or I just have my humor meter set too low and missed the joke
Back on topic. Look up Thomas Aquanias and his teachings about "Just War" therory. Compare his criteria to the revolution you are part of...
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I would say that the Boston Tea Party was absolutely an act of terrorism--just a non-lethal one. Though the acts of many revolutionists are not "comparable" in their atrocity to those of Al Qaeda, they are still similar in their purpose and goals: to incite political change through destruction.
I did not mean to imply that the brutal murder of innocents is made acceptable by the whims of political fortune, and I apologize to anyone who was offended--terrorism is a tricky subject to discuss. The main difference between the Founding Fathers and the Al Qaeda, in my mind, is the moral code they use during the revolution, and which was/would be applied to the eventual nation they create. The Founding Fathers used terrorism, but minimized innocent casualties and went on to build a "good" nation. The Al Qaeda use terrorism to maximize innocent casualties, and any political system they try to establish will incorporate the same principles of death and destruction. I suppose you could argue that the former method is not really terrorism, but for me it's more a matter of degree than of definition.
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I've usually found Aquinas to be a little flakey, but he's probably more helpful than someone like Satre, Nietzsche, or Kant. I'm kind of leaning towards a Hobbes approach.
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American Heritage Dictionary:
Terrorism: The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.
Merriam Webster:
The unlawful use or threat of violence esp. against the state or the public as a politically motivated means of attack or coercion.
Wordnet, Princeton University:
n : the calculated use of violence (or threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimindation or coercion or instilling fear.
I subscribe to the third definition. However, I'd like to note that all three definitions define either the victims or the coerced party as civilians(people, public, society, civilians).
Discussing terrorism IS very tricky. The way the word is used is constantly changing.
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I would say defining terrorism is right in the name. Its about using fear to get what you want, intimidation. And think about how the word terrorism is used today, to describe incredibly vile deeds. Strangely, I happened to watch Arlington Road last night.
I'm kind of glad this came up, I think its given me a fresh perspective on how my character with approach this war. I'm definatily voting now for conventional, honorable battles; a gentlemen's war.
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It's true that terrorism attacks civilians and non-military targets. The purpose seems to be to effect the military indirectly by holding it hostage: do what we want or the little kid gets it.
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I decided to look up in the thesarus the Synonyms for terrorism. Several entries came up and while I don't agree with all of them, this one seemed most appropriate.
Some other terms for terrorism meaning disorder are:
anarchism, anarchy, chaos, commotion, disorganization, disturbance, fight, insurrection, lawlessness, mayhem, misrule, mob rule, quarrel, rebellion, revolution, strike, terrorism, turbulence, turmoil, unrest, unruliness, uproar
I did edit this list so it was not quite so long. But it is intresting to note that rebellion and revolution both pop up. Your goal is to overthow a goverment that is corrupt, and you don't have an army to battle theirs due to numbers. A resistance using violence to any goverment operation would be cosidered terroristict by the goverment. If you are small group of people trying to fight back against the evil goverment you have no choice but to do the things that terrorists would do. In open battle you would be slaughtered. Your goal is not to insight terror in the masses however so it all come down to symantecs. Is there a better word? I'm not quite sure. Your tactics would be the same, and you would scare people reguardless of your intent.
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In the end the difference is simply the line I talked about.
If you are small group of people trying to fight back against the evil goverment you have no choice but to do the things that terrorists would do.
Hardly. There are far more alternatives to open battle than killing innocent civilians.
Destruction of materiel for example is far more damaging to an oppressive government than the death of its citizens. (an oppressive government does not care about its citizens after all) And if you're using terrorism to rebel against a non-oppressive government, killing innocent civilians gains you nothing but more enemies and a populace who doesn't like you either. Distinctly less-effective.
To use the Palestinians as an example, if they were really serious about achieving their stated goals: self-government and the return of some land grabbed long ago by the Israelis,(to wildly simplify it) they would have adopted the techniques of Ghandi or Martin Luther King Jr.
Two such obvious and wildly successful examples of peaceful revolution can hardly have escaped their notice. The fact that they have ignored those techniques is pretty convincing evidence that it's not about their stated goals, it's about hating the Israelis.
It IS a question of semantics. Terrorism has come to mean too many things. There is a difference between the kind of rebellion our founding fathers achieved and the kind that uses terrorism. We need a new word that describes the kind of things rebels do to inflict damage on an oppressive government with the aim of toppling it but does not target innocent civilians.
How about it Gemm?
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We did get a noble with the biggest standing army on our side, along with a baron who makes weapons. Not really sure on the exact numbers, but I don't think we are hopelessly outnumbered. If I am honorable, I think that has more chance of winning than gorilla stuff. Actually, this is just convincing me more.
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Ahhhrrrrg!
Guerilla!!!!!!!
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No, I'm talking about actual war-trained gorillas. We got Handle Animal maxed out, so we can do that. ;D
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Rock on! Only on TWG.
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not true KODT has pack apes... trained gorrillas who are not only torchbearers, but trained combatants.
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and Hackmaster, which is based on the above, so not really different.
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Skar
Hardly. There are far more alternatives to open battle than killing innocent civilians.
Destruction of materiel for example is far more damaging to an oppressive government than the death of its citizens. (an oppressive government does not care about its citizens after all) And if you're using terrorism to rebel against a non-oppressive government, killing innocent civilians gains you nothing but more enemies and a populace who doesn't like you either. Distinctly less-effective.
While it is true you can take the peacful route to try to topple a government, it hardly ever is effective. Also terrorism isn't just about attacking "innocent civilians". One of the three dictionary entries you entered included property, and two of the three said people or state and public. Remember the USS Cole is classified as a terrorist act, and it was against our military. Hence if you are going to conduct voilence to toople the corrupt government, it would be considered terrorism. Using guerilla tactics against the military, destorying government or public facilities, assassinations, killing innocent civilians are all considered terrorism and for the most part is called terrorism today. Although I would say to be a terrorist or to insicite terrorism, you would have the objective to cause terror for political cause. While property damage is much more useful in many case in a rebellion, it is still under todays definition considered terrorism. Look at enviromentalist extermist that destroy power lines and oil rigs becuase of what those objects do to nature. Our news and government classifies those acts as terrorism.
We need a new word that describes the kind of things rebels do to inflict damage on an oppressive government with the aim of toppling it but does not target innocent civilians.
Hear, Hear, I think they should just be called rebels and leave it at that. Lets leave terrorism and terrorist to the real world, and let player characters be the heros that free a nation!
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heaven forbid the thought that the author of Dictonary entries MIGHT have a political belief and/or agenda
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That's a ridiculous accusation! Daniel Webster CERTAINLY didn't write the first dictionary of American English with the idea in mind of separating us linguistically from our British colonizers! The very thought! Goodness!
</heavy sarcasm>
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So just be carfull with using Dictionary definitions to define matters of opinion or political belief. Ref. Newspeak
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While it is true you can take the peacful route to try to topple a government, it hardly ever is effective.
I say again in a different way, there are many things that a rebel can do that are not targeting innocent civilians but are still not the "peaceful route" that hardly ever works or open battle.
Also terrorism isn't just about attacking "innocent civilians". One of the three dictionary entries you entered included property, and two of the three said people or state and public. Remember the USS Cole is classified as a terrorist act, and it was against our military. Hence if you are going to conduct voilence to toople the corrupt government, it would be considered terrorism. Using guerilla tactics against the military, destorying government or public facilities, assassinations, killing innocent civilians are all considered terrorism and for the most part is called terrorism today. Although I would say to be a terrorist or to insicite terrorism, you would have the objective to cause terror for political cause. While property damage is much more useful in many case in a rebellion, it is still under todays definition considered terrorism. Look at enviromentalist extermist that destroy power lines and oil rigs becuase of what those objects do to nature. Our news and government classifies those acts as terrorism.
I agree that there are a wide range of possible meanings of the word, which is why I called for a new word to allow us to separate violent acts with a political goal that target civilians and those that don't. I maintain that there is a line between violently rebellious acts that are acceptable if you believe your cause is just and acts that are NOT acceptable even if you believe your cause is just.
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The Thought Police are going to be after me for my thoughtcrime. I know it! I must hide even though Big Brother is watching me. (This is more true then you could possibly know) Since newspeak is all I pretty much have to work with and anything that might contain oldspeak is long since gone from my household, I don't have much of a choice but use a reference that the author may have been politcal/religiously motivated to write about. Since the dictionary is something we can all find and see what better reference to use to in defence of our statement then a definition I decided to use that no one else will have access to. With that being said...
I sincerely apologize for stealing the thread's main topic of in game ethics, and going deeper into what exactly constitutes terrorism. I can get carried away with a side topic and take it to the exterme. That said if we want to continue and decided what the definition of a terrorist is and a good term for a rebel that is fighting a curropt government, then we should start a new thread. Other than that, let's carry on! Cheers mates.
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http://www.timewastersguide.com/boards/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=other;action=display;num=1105543271;start=0 Started a thread about deffinition
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we get off topic all the time. We're not as worried about that as many other forums are. The only time it becomes a problem is when people want to talk about the new subject AND the old subject still. Which appears to be the case. Just an FYI.
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While it may be more acceptable here to hijack the thread from time to time, it is not something that I like to do when creating a new thread is so easy. (And yet here I am continuing it still. <sigh> That's why I apologized. However, it will not stop me from doing it in the future, and I do like talking to people as laid back as I am. I was just trying to be polite, which for people who know me would get a chuckle from that. where am I going with this? I don't remember anymore.
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In a Star Wars campaign that involved Rican, Moredew, and Cpt. Morgan playing Jedi in the Old Republic around the time of Episode I, and subsequently Episode II, ethical questions were quite common.
One of my favorite situations, yet undiscussed in the outline I am working on, but worth mentioning here, was as follows:
While fleeing some powerful bad guys, Moredew's Nautolin Jedi , Kree-Lorn Gwar, hopped into a taxi and told the guy to floor it. The Cabby refused saying that he would not break the law. Kree-Lorn then used his jedi mind trick and said, (and I quote) "You will break the law." Moredew rolled an incredibly high roll to succeed (something like 2 nat 20's followed by a 17 adding his skill which was around a +12 if I remember right), and the Cabby critically botched (rolling 2 nat 1's in a roll follwed by a 4). The result was that the Cabby went on a vehicular homicide rampage trying to mow down children (averted by the combined telekinetic force of all 3 Jedi (Kree-Lorn, Ryze (played by Morgan) and Eeth (played by Rican), and successfully killing their mother.
The question then became, "Should Kree-Lorn receive a Dark Side point?" Ethically, he himself only manipulated a person, and only intended a minor infraction, speeding. However, the result cost the life of an innocent, and invoked another to disobey cultural guidelines.
Any thoughts how the GM's out there would address that issue?
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I think I'd give him a dark side point for not considering the consequences of his action. He could have said "You will speed" rather than "You will break the law" and avoided that unpleasant consequence.
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I agree with Eric--the guilt alone should be enough to warrant a dark side point. That's pretty cool, though, and would have been fun to roleplay.
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It was a lot of fun, although the role-playing "suffered" a bit when everyone involved started cracking up when the GM began describing the actions of the cabby, and a brief interlude portraying an exhcange between Yoda and Windu regarding the impressions they were feeling regarding the actions of these Jedi.
Needless to say, it has become a classic moment in our gaming group that we have a good chuckle about still.
I felt it was a great battle of ethics. While the Jedi's intentions were good, his actions, while in and of themselves were not evil, brought about an evil act. What I found esecially challenging was when the Jedi, after "creating" the rampaging cabby, tried to prevent him from harming others, while simultaneously trying to avoid harming him as he was, by definition, an "innocent" acting under the influence of a "more dangerous and powerful entity;" aka a Jedi.
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Those were some good times.
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Just a little StarWars geekery...
The Jedi Mind Trick, in itself is the domination of another's will.
It should be used sparingly and any use might warrent a Dark Side point or at least some aknowledgement that another way should be sought first..
Obi-Wan said something to that effect in the Star Wars Radio Drama when he used the Mind Trick to help Luke get more money off selling his speeder so they could pay Solo
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See, that's why I prefer Bounty Hunters. We don't use eithics :).
Also, one Darkside point for Wizards unofficialy dropping SW D20. There are no products for it in 2005, and Lucas Arts dosen't list it as an official SW product anymore.
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i dunno. Maybe someone will buy rights to it along with WEG's system and we'll see GOOD products for Star Wars soon.
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Na, one of the people that use to write for Wizards (and got fired last october when they told him they were dropping the line) has no plans to sell it since the contract for the RPG also includes all the CCG and Miniature lincences. They've got the rights for another 8 years or something.
He, the former emploie, said it was one of their worst selling lines and they lost too much money on it. Though WoTC *might* rework the rules to work with D20 Future (which others have said is WoTC replacement for SW).
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eh. It sold poor because they made it d20. You know me, I'm not a d20 hater. I *like* d20, and I think it works for a lot of things. But I've never thought d20 and Star Wars were a decent fit. Maybe if they came up with new mechanics it'd work.
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I think the poor suplements hurt it more then being D20.
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I think of it as an extension of the same thing. It's hard to make a good supplement for system that jsut doesn't work with it's setting. However, the worst crime I witnessed (other than the piss-poor job they did on the Alien Anthology... that WAS organized badly and c'mon, most of those races you'd have never heard of unless you were a mega-fanboy, and it's not like a lot of fantasy monsters which come from SOMEWHERE) was the pod-racing mini-game in the Tatooine planetary guide. It was worse than a mini-game in Final Fantasy. The reason it sucked so bad, however, was a direct result of it needing to be based out of the skillsets and features of teh d20 system. Too bad.
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I don't think it's even possible for a world without a Star Wars RPG to exist, especially with Ep 3 coming out this summer. If WotC has a license that valuable they'll never just sit on it, they'll sell it or, at the very least, outsource it to a third party.
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They're not allowed to outsource it, part of their contract. Maybe they'll renegotiate. As for not doing anything becasue of EP 3, well they never did release and EP 2 sourcebook (its one of the ones that got cancled). I think WoTC would rather just sit on it then loose money publishing it.
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The reason they never did an Epsiode 2 source book is becuase they revised the main rulebook to include epsiode 2 material. Updated the mechanics and made it into a sweet game. I almost perfered the revised edition to the old weg rules. It worked out well for us playing it.
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If their contract doesn't allow them to outsource (what is your source for that?), and they won't publish new stuff for it, then changing the contract won't be hard because Lucasarts will beg them to do it. Someone, somewhere, can make money with a Star Wars RPG, and everyone's going to want a piece of it.
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I'm just going on what the afor mentioned ex-writer said. Now I misinterperted his statment on the outsouceing, they didn't say they couldn't, they said they wouldn't (at least not to any small companies). And the fact is Wizards hasn't put the lincence for sale or lease as far as anyone knows. I'm not sure if the game lincenese are the same or different since I've read different accounts from different people.
But the fact remains that WoTC isn't trying to sell the rights, nor are they developing any books for the line that anyone knows about.
Also there was an Episode 2 source book in the works, though it covered all of the major battles in the Clone wars, so stuff in EP 2 and inbetween EP3. I read this on the WoTC forum, it may not officialy be titled "EP 2 Sourcebook" but that is what people were calling it.
oh, and I thought I'd list the author too, http://www.jdwiker.com/books/index.html.
I had an instresting thought on this when I read his discription of D20 Future:
The starship section, for example, which I wrote, was completely rewritten during the development process. That's a pity, since it was meant to enable Star Wars players to recreate their favorite starships using the d20 Modern rules.
Which makes me think:
1) WoTC wants to use a standerdized D20 modern rules for their non-fantasy games.
2) Either WoTC is dumping SW or maybe trying to work a way to pull a gurps. IE have a rule book (in this case D20 Future) and a setting book (ie Starwars). Would be a cool idea, though I doubt LucasArts would go for it.
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I was thinking about the outsourceing topic while I was putting out breakfast (it's a great time for reflection and personal thoughts) and I don't think it would be a viable option. I'm takeing a few liberties in this example since I don't know what the actual linces is and if I misuderstand how this works please let me know.
So lets say the deal is, between LA and WoTC, that all the profits from the sales of the books is split down the middle 50-50 (for simplicities sake). So if a $40 book grants a $10 profit (again for simplicity) that would mean LA gets $5 for each book and WoTC gets $5.
Now say WoTC decides to outsourse the books to another companey, Fell Incorperated (it's like Kids incorperated, though more sining) and they split the propit 66-33. So now on that same book sale LA would get $5, WoTC would get $3 and FI would get $2.
I'm haveing a real hard time seeing how that would be worth FI's investment. I don't think one could build a sucsessful busniess plan around that, especialy when we allready know WoTC wasn't makeing money when they made $5 a sale.
Now, that's assumeing WoTC wasn't publishing the books anymore. If they were, why bother outsourceing when they could just keep on hireing Feelance writers like they tend to do?
One more thing that might lead to my mistake (ie that WoTC couldn't outsource) being true. If you look at the back, and on the inside of any of the SW books from Wizards you don't see anywhere they book being owned or copyrited to WoTC. In fact the books are puplished as a LucasBook, not a WoTC publication. All the Copyrights are listed thusly "© 200x Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM All rights Reserved. Used under authorization". Now that would leave one to think that WoTC dosen't actualy own anything they're publishing, so how could they outsource the RPG to another company?
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I'm just makeing this another post since it's another topic.
Someone, somewhere, can make money with a Star Wars RPG, and everyone's going to want a piece of it.
I think that could be argued. I mean Wizards couldn't do it and they're the largest RPG company out there by a very large margin. They also couldn't do it with the CCG, which I understand dosen't sell well. Currently the only SW product that sells realy well is the miniature game, and that's not going to last long (probaly not past the year, which I bring up in my review of Clone Strike).
Also, and this is just what I read while looking some of this other stuff up so take it for what its worth, WEG didn't have the SW licence bought out from them by Wizards like Decipher. WEG actualy didn't want it anymore becasue they weren't makeing money off the lincence. And WEG's game was way better suported and a higher quality then SW D20 (in my opinion).
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I know that the Star Wars TCG sold very well in Logan, but I haven't talked to any of the local stores about it.
It's true that WEG gave up the Star Wars license, but they gave it up during a time when interest was very low--the first trilogy was old and the new trilogy was, if I remember correctly, still in development. They didn't have a current movie and an active media campaign to help drum up interest, so it's not really fair to say that a lack of interest then equates to a lack of interest overall.
My point about outsourcing is that Wizards could give the license away for a ridiculous deal--using your numbers above, let's say that the small company gest 4.50 and WotC gets 50 cents. Even in that situation, they're still making more money than they would by sitting on the license, and since they don't have to do any work whatsoever to get that money, it's still worth their time.
I think the route to go with the Star Wars RPG might be to follow Lucas's example and aim it at very young kids--that's what WotC did with their TCG, after all. Our generation just can't get as excited about Star Wars as we used to, so trying to sell to us is a losing proposition.
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But, But
I was born on the Opening weekend of StarWars!
StarWars is mine! It is the Film of my Birth
I will keep it!