# Starforging the Jedi tags: #thoughts #game/rpg/starforged It's not often I get to tinker based on a *Mastodon* thread, but this is the time and place. ![[Mastodon - Jedi in Starforged.png]] ![[Starforged (cover).jpg]] -- https://social.vivaldi.net/@lextenebris/113542210263002594 This is actually a little bit harder than I thought it'd be. **[[Ironsworn - Starforged|Starforged]]** is a wonderful, disturbingly flexible game with a ton of Assets that let you create some impressive characters out of the box with a lot of growth potential, but they tend to be surprisingly grounded. Even the addition of the more over the top elements of **[[Ironsworn - Starforged|Sundered Isles]]** don't open the door terribly wide at some levels.^[For some prime examples of the difficulties I had in covering characters like Wizards in **D&D**, see *[[Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny - DND to Ironsworn|Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny: D&D to Ironsworn]]*.] But we're not necessarily trying to be Yoda or even Obi-Wan.^[Well, maybe the younger Obi-Wan.] More of a younger Luke Skywalker or [Galen Marek/Starkiller](https://swfanon.fandom.com/wiki/Darth_Starkiller). This is well within the realm of possibility. ## Start with the Truth We're getting ahead of ourselves, though. Roll back to our Truths. You want them to effectively say that the gods are dead, magic is rare but real, and you want an bit that says that the Force is really the only supernatural medium out there, even if Force Cultists like to make up dumb terms for it.^[Like "the Thread." Idiots.] ## Fractionate the Factions You can't really have **Star Wars** without representation of the core factions. And by the core factions, what I really mean is both *the Empire* and *the Rebellion*. Those are non-negotiable. We know who they are, we know what they want. We know how they relate to one another, for the most part. Starting with two really solid factions is going to make thinking about what is to come a lot easier when it comes to putting together the story on the fly. I would argue that it is likewise necessary to have *the Jedi* themselves as their own faction, a suppressed religious order, which happens to involve a bunch of relatively to moderately powerful psychics and telekinetics which the current empire would love to hunt down and kill to the last. Having defined these three and the Jedi separately so that they can make their own decision going forward is important. After all, how interesting would it be if the few remnants of the Jedi council decided that what they really wanted to do was get back in the good graces of the Empire? You could see the faction schism and pick your sides. All sorts of fun things could fall out of that.^[Look, that alone is just about enough to make me want to really run this thing.] It certainly wouldn't be a bad idea to throw in a couple of more factions of smaller influence or size, some local smugglers, a pirate faction, the local criminal underground, a small colony that wants to remain independent. The options are shockingly unlimited. Without the faction setup, however, you're going to be robbing yourself of the tools to have a good time. This is one of the places that I really appreciate what **Sundered Isles** brings to the table because their discussion of factions is even better than the one in the base **Starforged** game. ![[Starforging the Jedi - Factions.png]] > [!tip]- On *Pocketforge* > (Here and elsewhere, if you see game mechanics rendered out, it'll be from *[[Pocketforge]]*, the best aide for running **Ironsworn**-derived games out there. Seriously, it's the bomb-diggity.) ## Time at the Academy - Making Malachron All the tools are in place. I have an idea for a Jedi who's not among the most powerful, but he's a man of good intent and good grace. He doesn't advertise his Force-active nature, just keeps his head down and moves from planet to planet, not making waves, just a quiet man with a heavy secret. *Sarku "Terrog" Malachron.* The way character creation is structured in **Starforged** pleases me because it starts with not setting your stats, but with picking your assets, the things that make your character unique, the powers that you have, and by extension, the things that you are most likely to be trying to do on a regular basis. It's really good for focusing your mind on what's important about the character first. Crucial, in fact. ### Walking the Path So let's start at the top. The first thing we need to do is pick two paths, which will set us up on describing who we are. I'm not limiting myself just to **Starforged**. I have **Sundered Isles** assets in front of me as well, which is going to be important here in a minute. But let's start with the obvious. ![[Starforging the Jedi - Initial Paths.png]] Sometimes the answer is to go with the most obvious solution, because that's how things are going to fall out. The Jedi are all *fugitives* from the Empire, being actively hunted down, whether they like it or not. Obi-Wan Kenobi managed to hide in the most obvious planet in the galaxy because Darth Vader had a distinct phobia of sand and wouldn't go back there even if you offered the sainted spirit of his mother in trade. Fair enough, it is kind of a crappy place. Being able to trade off **weak hits** for **strong hits** in exchange for the Empire closing in on you is a great mechanic that can drive a lot of story and having it give you a tick on your quests legacy track doesn't hurt either. You're going to be doing this fairly often. Unlocking the two additional options is something you're really going to want to think about. Well, you're going to want to think about unlocking the second one. The third one you get for free just by taking out the extremely powerful entity that's hunting you down. Good luck with that. Having dispensed with being a fugitive, we take up a little bit of Jedi power: *telekinesis*. Our friend here is not the most practiced at it, but pushing, pulling, lifting, and constricting things about your own size is pretty intense. Of course, unlike the wizard in our **D&D** conversion, this actually runs on raw Momentum, which is a pretty serious resource consumption. Of course, it also gives you +2 to the move, which is a significant boost as well. Trade-offs are serious business. ### Tell Me About Your Backstory Let's figure out what good old Malachron here used to do. Or rather, what's happened to him to bring him to this point? I don't have a particular inspiration on what's been going on with him, so I'm just going to roll on the backstory prompts. > **Backstory**: You are guided by a vision or prophecy. Frankly, I'm into it. Jedi are known to get weird visions and make prophecies. Malachron should be no different. In his recent meditations, he has seen *a shining future in which the Jedi Order is reformed, operating from a golden palace, respected and revered for their wisdom and their power.* Thankfully, that leads directly to the next step, which is to write your background vow. I think it becomes very clear very quickly what kind of vow needs to be on the table. ![[Starforging the Jedi - Background Vow.png]] The vow has a rank of epic, meaning it is going to be extremely challenging to actually pull off. But that's okay. This is the background thing that you're always working on when you don't have something more pressing. Sometimes it's going to give rise to further vowels. It's a motivation. A signal to other people communicating what you want. If you're playing in a group co-op or guided, the background vow tends to be something shared in order to keep you as a cohesive group who wants something that motivates you together. This is a good thing. It solves one of the major problems with TTRPG groups in general. ### I Ship It Malachron *could* just take a *Starship* asset here but I don't think that's appropriate. He's not that flashy. He keeps his head down and his nose clean. Not too many Imperial entanglements, if you know what I mean. He can always book passage off this rock with a scruffy nerf-herder or something. ### Last Asset 'Til Clarkesville We need to pick one last asset. And as I'm flipping through the cards from **Sunderd Isles**, one jumps out at me that is obvious and clearly necessary. ![[Starforging the Jedi - Sorcerer.png]] If a *sorcerer*'s ways are good enough for Lord Vader, then by the Force they're good enough for Malachron here. The initial unlock on it is perfectly appropriate to things that we are going to find useful, both *Securing an Advantage* and *Gaining Ground*, are going to be coming up a lot because telekinesis eats Momentum for candy, and anything that gives us the possibility of more of it is just going to pay off later even if we have to trade Stress for it when you accidentally discover something due to a match *(that the girl that you were swapping spit with is your sister should count as a tick on your discoveries legacy*). You learn all sorts of things in the heat of the moment. Being able to unlock picking up more Force powers for less experience is kind of a big deal as well. While there isn't much on complex Force rituals in the mainline story, I'm sure Darth Plagueis would have a thing or two to tell us about it. ### Run the Numbers At this point setting your stats is easy you know what kind of a character you are you know the sorts of things that you concentrate on doing. It's just a matter of putting numbers in the right place. ![[Starforging the Jedi - Stats.png]] We've talked a lot about what this character is and what they want. And this is where it all comes together. Highest stat is +heart because this is a guy who feels things passionately and can make connections with other people on that basis. He is healthy in both spirit and body. So he has +iron at 2 as well. He's clever (+wits), which is how he tends to get out of trouble when he's run down, not a guy that focuses on moving quick or slinging guns (+edge). He's more of a close range combatant, but would really rather not get in trouble in the first place. Which probably makes you wonder why his +shadow is only 1. This is one of the great things about stats in **Starforged**. They don't have to represent the fact that you're *bad* at a thing. They can simply represent the fact that when you the universe doesn't necessarily want to cooperate. Story complications tend to come up when Malachor needs to go slinking about. Life is funny that way, the poor bastard. Condition meters all get set to the starting values and then that stuff is done. ### Polish Him Off There's three more steps left on the summary, but they all flow together in very much the same sort of construction, so we'll tackle them all at once. First, we need to envision our character, figure out what they look like, how they act. We've already turned up a lot of things simply by working out what they do and why they do it. > [!info] Envision > Sarku Malachron is a middle-aged man of pale skin, pale hair, and eyes which are almost colorless. > > He usually moves with a little bit of a hunch, as if trying to keep ducked down behind whatever crowd is nearby. > > While other Jedi on the run cling to their robes or something that looks very similar, Malachron is doing everything that he can in order to blend in wherever he happens to be. Given the choice, he prefers to stay in the lower echelons of whatever social group is around because they receive less scrutiny. Last bit: the gear. - The clothes on his back - Some food, enough to last a few days on the run - A flashlight - *A lightsaber* (pale yellow) The last is an enormous deal because it is both a powerful tool that allows some magnificent things in the fiction (cutting through a bulkhead, anyone?) and a clear sign that this guy isn't what he seems. It can be taken away and recovered. It can reinforce a threat. Ooh, it's a joyous toy. ## Exunt There you have it. A Jedi, a situation, and the potential for more. If we were actually going to play this game, we would be setting up a sector in order to figure out what's going on at the moment and drive the new story. We'll leave that for another day. It's worth picking up **Sundered Isles** if you want to run a story in which the supernatural or supernatural forces take a notable hand in the proceedings. The particular flavor might need to be tweaked here and there, but the assets alone are extremely useful. You might have noticed that I didn't specifically say whether Malachron was going to end up light side or dark side. He could go either way. One of my favorite things that have come up as axioms in this new era of RPG design is the phrase *"play to find out."* I don't know what the answer is; I'd need to play and find out. That's a great place to be. Want to play **[[Star Wars]]**, either solo or with a group? Pick up **[[Ironsworn - Starforged|Starforged]]** and **[[Ironsworn - Starforged|Sundered Isles]]**. You'll have all the tools you need. *Play to find out.*