Don't Feel Your Fear - redux

I'm disappointed with my earlier effort at a Star Wars setting hack for Don't Rest Your Head, and this is my revision.

To start with, I want to use the DRYH system to represent the temptation for a Jedi to turn to the dark side of the force. Vader and Sidious often said that it was more powerful, and Yoda said that it's the easy path. Sounds like a temptation to me, and one which has a balance that creates tension for the story and the characters.

In the DRYH system, the function of Exhaustion and Madness is to tempt the players. More dice gives more power. Too many dice makes the character fall. The function of Discipline is to rein in the effects of Exhaustion and Madness and the function of Pain is to provide opposition to the character's actions. To convert this to a Jedi story, we need to understand what tempts a Jedi. We get our clues from The Jedi Code and from some advice that Yoda gave to Anakin.

The Jedi Code

There is no emotion; there is peace.

There is no ignorance; there is knowledge.

There is no passion; there is serenity.

There is no chaos; there is harmony.

There is no death; there is the force.

Yoda's Advice

"Careful you must be when sensing the future, Anakin. The fear of loss is the path to the Dark Side."

From these, I would nominate that the two temptations for the Jedi are Darkness and Passion. They fit into DRYH like this.

Change Exhaustion to Darkness and change a Crash to a Taint.

Remember that, "Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering." Max out on Fear and you get a taint of the Dark Side (a point of permanent Madness)

Change Madness to Passion and leave a Snap just the way it is.

Anakin's slaughter of the Raiders as vengeance for the torture of his mother is a great example here. An option with which I'm toying is to eliminate the Flight response altogether, and require only Fight responses.

Don't change Pain.

Pain is still pain.

The last thing to do is work backwards to character creation. Standard DRYH questions can be inappropriate to creating the kind of Jedi Temptation stories I have in mind. They develop as follows:

Character Questions

"What's been keeping you awake?" becomes "What did you give up to become a Jedi?"

"What just happened to you?" remains the same.

"What's on the surface?" should be "How do you fit into the Jedi Order?"

"What's beneath the surface?" remains the same.

"What's your path?" relates to progression in the Jedi order or knowledge of the Force, the only two destinations for a Jedi.

There you have it. I hope to run this setting hack sometime this year, either at Go Play Brisbane, or at Gencon Oz. Your comments are welcome, especially if you think I've misread something about DRYH or the Jedi.

Don't Feel Your Anger

This is another DRYH setting hack.  It's the application of DRYH to Star Wars, but very specifically to the story you'd tell about the temptation to go to the dark side of the Force.

Exhaustion becomes... The Force

I chose this one because using the force is exhausting!  It requires concentration and focus, and the more you use, the more powerful you are.  But use too much and you'll collapse from the effort.

Madness becomes... Anger

This is the danger cycle for the nascent Jedi.  To really unleash the power, it takes more than Discipline, it takes passion.  Anakin was most powerful when he unleashed his anger, and the Emperor encouraged it.

Now, to add to this, the Fight and Flight responses need to change their flavour.  The Fight response can remain the same, resulting in an unbridled massacre of men, women and children (for example).  The Sandpeople don't stand a chance.  Flight, however, is going to be characterised by terror.  The darkness of the dark side is like staring into the abyss.  It can be overwhelming to a Jedi not used to it, and will probably terrorise them.

Similarly to Don't Lose Your Head, you could choose to limit the number of Force boxes for a padawan and let them increase as the character gains more competence with the Force.  It makes for interesting character progression, and also reflects the stronger temptation of the young Jedi to use their Anger to get more dice!

Don't Lose Your Head

Some various ideas occurred to me recently about setting hacks for Don't Rest Your Head. It might be more accurate to say that some of these are just different contexts for the DRYH rules, but that's just semantics. The interesting part is play.

Don't Lose Your Head
Yes, this is the Highlander setting. Although the setting is quite old (at least 22 years old, by my reckoning) it is still quite evocative and has potential for some great roleplaying.

Exhaustion becomes... Bloodthirst
For those who remember the first movie (we don't talk about the other thing that was allegedly a sequel) there is a remark made about the Kurgen that “all the killing has driven him mad.” This is a real phenomenon for soldiers, or anyone else who has to wield a firearm for money, and I think that there is plenty of scope for this to be part of the struggle for the Immortal. This is a human variant that is driven to kill in order to become all that it can be. The urge to seek each other out and battle to the last is instinct, and I think that this would be an interesting characteristic to keep in check throughout the story.

Madness becomes... Quickening
This stuff can do anything, and takes the place of a good plot wildcard. Does the Immortal need to run like the stag? Can do. Perform some crazy acrobatics while dodging a sword cut? Can do. Meditate to find another Immortal? Can do. Use it too much and the Immortal will gain permanent Quickening, meaning that a little of their humanity (Discipline) is lost and they are one more step removed from mortality. Lose enough discipline and the Immortal is a dangerous NPC with no humanity left, but with plenty of Quickening.

The only system hack that I would suggest is the starting number of Quickening boxes and the acquisition of more. Start the new Immortal with only two or three boxes, representing the limited control that they have over it. There are two ways in which this could increase: mentorship and taking the head of another Immortal. A mentor can increase it by only one box, no matter how long is spent under instruction. Taking the head of another Immortal, however, would add another box of temporary madness that the Immortal can use. As an example, Willam Mcleod starts out with two boxes when he meets his cousin/uncle Connor. After some training, William goes up to three temporary boxes that he can bring to any conflict. After taking the heads of two other Immortals, this goes up to five. So, for each conflict, he can bring up to five temporary dice of Quickening.