Update for May the 4th Be With You!

Hello There! I hope everyone is enjoying Light Side. With the last updated I added Credits and Downtime Activities. There is now a pretty strong framework for earning and spending credits between missions. Please let me know how this is going in your home games! It should work pretty well, as it's closely modeled after the Downtime Activities system in Blades in the Dark, with a little bit of Critshow's Gear Point system thrown into the mix. Now that you can utilize downtime to try and clear Dark Side points, I have removed "repeatable" from the advanced improvement to "clear all dark side." I'm feeling pretty good about the "balance" of the balance system right now, but if you experience any difficulty in your home games let me know.

For today's update, I have added 4 playbooks (with 2 more coming tomorrow for Revenge of the 5th along with the updated rulebook). I have made some key edits to Jedi Moves and to some of the existing playbooks. I realized in my editing process that I had accidentally copy and pasted "refreshes" from an earlier idea based on how you can refresh your essence in Absurdia by Quinn Majeski (check it out, it's GREAT). I am sorry if this caused confusion. I never intended for that to make it into the game, and I have removed that text. I am also responding to some feedback asking for an "investigate" move, and there will be a new basic move that y'all can help me test.

OK, now to the fun stuff!
Today's new playbooks:
The Loreseeker - This non-Jedi Playbook was one of my absolute favorite concepts when Cap and I first started working on the game, but we eventually decided to focus on the more well-represented and "classic" Star Wars archetypes. The Loreseeker is inspired by Lor San Tekka, Merrin the night sister, and Chirrut. These are three very different characters that share one thing in common: they each have a relationship with the Force that has very little to do with Jedi teachings. This extremely versatile playbook allows you to mark Dark Side to wield the Force in your own unique way. 
The Politician - Another non-Jedi Playbook that was a tough decision to leave out of the original lineup. Inspired by our love of the Mundane playbook, The Politician is well connected in the Galaxy. They get captured, but treated well. They gather some of their best intel when in enemy prisons. They are shrewd negotiators, if not sometimes the butt of the joke. Depending on the options you choose, you can be as elegant as Mon Mothma, or as comedic as Jar Jar Binks. Either way, politics takes bravery in the Galaxy Far Far Away.
The Dyad - The three Jedi playbooks in the original lineup are great, strong, well represented archetypes, but the Dyad was always an idea I wanted to figure out. I love KOTOR, and the connections through the force between characters like Kreia and Meetra (the player character). Plus, for all that the sequels did wrong, the connection between Rey and Ben was one of the coolest things about them (until that damn kiss). This was a tricky playbook to design, since there are so few canon works to examine for move inspiration,  but I'm pretty happy with what we made. I rarely see the Pararomantic played in Monster of the Week, but it's design is so so clever. Obviously I left a good bit of it in tact, because I think those mechanics can work so well as less of a romance based connection and more of a connection through the Force.
The Sentinel - When drafting out the playbooks when Cap and I first sat down to try and design a Star Wars game, my first 6 playbooks were the Soldier, the Scoundrel, The Scout/The Consular, The Guardian, The Sentinel. They are burned into my brain from hours of starting new KOTOR playthroughs when I was a kid. The three non Jedi classes were easy to convert into narrative archetypes, but the Jedi classes felt much more mechanical in a way that doesn't really capture that Star Wars magic for me. They feel too neat in a way that works really well in a video game, but not so much for a Powered by the Apocalypse TTRPG. So the Consular and the Guardian became the Master and the Learner, and the Sentinel got shelved for a while. Working on it now, it has become one of my favorite playbooks. There aren't really any characters like this in the movies, and even fewer in the shows/books/etc, but there's just something really appealing to a Jedi who is weaker in the force, and so connects with normal people in a way the other Jedi just can't. Plus it gave me an excuse to put Jocasta Nu's Lightsaber rifle into the game, which just brings me so much campy campy joy.

Feedback is very much appreciated about any of these or the game in general. I have gotten a little feedback about how Jedi feel overpowered because so much of what they do runs through "Use the Force" and I'm trying to figure out what to do about that if anything. I'm leaning towards letting it be. They should be powerful after all. Two more playbooks coming tomorrow. I could release them now, but you'll see why these two needed to be release on Revenge of the 5th.

Thank you to everyone who has checked out this game. It is a huge passion project of mine.

Cheers,

Ian