I originally wasn't going to weigh in, but part of the idea behind the Blaster/Saber is it's designed for a time with Jedi in hiding.

"But in war time Jedi may try to hide!"

Yes, but it's a little different in this Era. I also want to pull out the old "Lightsabers are unique to individual Jedi, their shaping guided by the Force." I don't think it's unreasonable to say 'nobody came up with the idea'. Also to be fair, to be fair. @Ellri has not said you absolutely can not have it. Just that it's creation would need to be well explained.

@Ellri has not said you absolutely can not have it. Just that it's creation would need to be well explained.

This can not be said enough. The idea hasn't been rejected just asked for justification.

That all said, as much as this is RPG's Persistent World RP, it can't please everyone. Expanding Horizons tried and it didn't fair well so if the GMs do ultimately decide to ban a lightsaber design that was used by one Jedi-in-training in a recent animation, I really don't think that's a big loss.

@Euphonium

mostly unimportant number crunching [+]

If you really wanna try number crunching from vague bits of lore, we could also get more specific- let's ignore the rest of known space and look exclusively at the Galactic Republic on the eve of the Clone Wars. The Star Wars Rules Compendium makes mention of that the population of untrained force-sensitives is somewhere around 10 times that of trained force-sensitives. The Jedi order is at approximately 10,000 strong on the eve of the Cone Wars, which would mean about 100,000 force-users. Say 99.99% don't come up with the exceptionally basic idea to combine a lightsaber and a blaster while also managing to combine them, we still have ten different people running around with them. In the Republic alone, excluding the rest of the population of known space, the Unknown regions and Wild space. This is also at a time when the republic was in decline and down to something around 1.2 million member worlds when they previously had control of nearly 50 million populated systems.

Of course, you are completely missing the forest, being far too busy headbutting the trees. The main thing here is that a person took two very common pieces of technology from the time period (lightsabers and blasters) and said they wanted a single tool to be able to function as both, while being a little shittier than either individually. Basically, they want a spork. This is in a time period where the Republic is building gravity cannons that can grab asteroids and hurl them into planets and people take issue with a fucking spork. Is it goofy? Sure. Is it game-breaking? Not even a little. Is it innocuous and 100% reasonable to do? Yep.

Aaaaat any rate...

The main problem I see with this bit, @Lord Wraith: "Just as silly as retracting interest over something so small." Is that I don't really see that as being the scenario. Basically, if it really were just: "I want to use a spork and I refuse to play in any game that won't let my character use a spork", then that would be silly and unreasonable. I don't really see that as being the case here.

I see it more like someone going:
"I wanna use a spork"

Then getting a response of:
"such eating utensils are not relevant or even seen as concepts"

Followed up with s'more nonsense like:
"the odds of anyone having such a specific variant of their primary eating utensil in this era are astronomical. Anyone applying with such would have extremely good reasoning for it to be approved."

In that scenario, I kinda feel like the person would be perfectly reasonable to think something along the lines of: "eeeeeh, maybe I'm not interested in playing in an RP you're running if you're this uptight about something as insignificant as a spork." Ultimately, while it is true that not being able to eat with a spork is a small thing to lose interest in an RP over, seeing how poorly a mod handles small and insignificant things can be a pretty strong indicator of how they'll handle the rest of their RP and thus a very reasonable thing to lost interest over.

How, exactly, was it poorly handled? The lightsaber blaster was invented by a child in the Imperial Era. There is no record of such a contraption prior to Ezra's making of it, as far as I'm aware, so there's absolutely no reason that one should assume they existed prior in any sort of number. That's what Ellri was talking about, clearly. But if a reasonable argument for why someone might have one, as has been said in this thread NUMEROUS times, it would be considered by the mod team and potentially allowed. That's literally all that was said.

Everything else that was argued about was basically you saying "well for this, this and this reason, it might be possible that it exists" which is fine, but your ideas being refuted isn't the mod team poorly handling anything. In fact, most of this has just been players talking about why or why not lightsaber blasters could or could not exist.

Seems to me like you're giving Kitty a great deal of charity in his/her reason for not wanting to play the game, yet giving absolutely no charity to anyone that disagrees with you. And its really rather silly that you'd go to such lengths to make a point about how terribly ass-pained everyone must be for not immediately agreeing that this belongs in an out of era story that sticks fairly close to the canon. Star Wars isn't exactly a serious thing, and a Roleplay set in Star Wars isn't really either, so its not something to really get all that fussy about. But I don't think that means all manner of things should be allowed just for the hell of it, no?

Just thought I'd add my thoughts as someone with less knowledge of Star Wars:

The only real problem I see with using a "lightsaber spork" in the first place is: why? Why does it even really need to exist?

Now, I'm not at all knowledgeable about the Old Republic, since my main exposure to the series is through the movies, but I'm pretty sure the reason it likely wasn't conceived was because there wasn't a point. I mean really, I'm pretty sure there are already stun weapons in Star Wars, right? ESPECIALLY in this time period where just about anything seems possible. The point is, if you have a wide variety of options for pre-existing weapons that are already far better than the spork, why go out of your way to make it?

I'm not familiar with this "Ezra's" story, but doing a little googling reveals he is just the right person in the right place at the right time. He's a non-traditional Jedi and Rebel whose sole purpose for making the blade being he was terrible at deflecting blaster fire. In other words, rather than deflect the bolts he'd rather take cover and shoot back. Having a lightsaber on you also drew a lot of attention, so it made sense to keep it both on your person and disguised simultaneously. It was also made out of spare pieces, because weapons that weren't owned by the Empire were harder to come by.

There's no way in hell a blaster will be of any significant help against an adversary of equal skill, that much is just common knowledge. Yes, there are exceptions, but for the most part blasters are pretty shite compared to lightsabers. So why not just be a Jedi/Sith who carries blasters, stun or no, as well as a lightsaber or two? In a universe with more accessibility and acceptance for these kinds of things, I feel like it doesn't make sense to have it exist anyway. The only exception I can see this in is a behind-enemy-lines type of guy/gal, but even then you're not surprising anyone unless you show your blade's colour. Again, any decently skilled Jedi or Sith can easily redirect blaster fire, so using them against such a foe is pretty much useless. And against lesser foes, a standard lightsaber or decent blasters would do the job just fine.

I got nothing against it if someone can think up a good reason for it existing. But from my understanding, there's no niche for it to fill, so justifying it IC is pretty hard, especially in the hands of a skilled combatant.

I think the primary reason is for a non-traditional approach. Hell, in the OR Era, it could be they run at the same time etc etc. Point is, we have literary license here. What's wrong with saying yes if it's well written and the writer can prove they won't abuse it?

I think the primary reason is for a non-traditional approach. Hell, in the OR Era, it could be they run at the same time etc etc. Point is, we have literary license here. What's wrong with saying yes if it's well written and the writer can prove they won't abuse it?

@Ellri has not said you absolutely can not have it. Just that it's creation would need to be well explained.

There's nothing wrong with it, and that's the current stance, as had been said already.

EDIT: If my comments come across as rude, I apologize. My point might be a little more strongly worded than I might've intended. I'm just tryin' to illustrate that there's really no fight to be had here. I have my own issues with some of the Persistent World stuff thus far, so I'm all for presenting issues to the mod team, but I'm really not sure this is an issue since basically everyone is in agreement about it, as far as I understand it.

This is so my forte <3

I'm in the middle of a DnD campaign, literally taking turns as I write this, but I was too excited I couldn't wait.

In terms of the roleplay, I love what everyone has said so far. I do agree characters should to some level be moderated. Padawans can be OP if you're not careful, but I do agree that there are some more adept padawans, some that are born with a natural gift of the force. I'd love some flexibility on characters but making sure everyone knows how far is too far.
I'd love to see different stories in one overwall big RP campaign.

We have a decent amount of players interested, so each of those characters might interact or at least know who each other is at some point in time. One group of characters are busy fighting with Hondo and his band of pirates on Florrum, while the others are trying to chase down a bounty hunter headed for that very conflict, intending to eliminate one of the Jedi busy in that battle.
I'd love to see interconnecting stories and characters interacting with each other within reason; with that I'll also mention holograms, mentioning other characters when the opportunity arises. I love interconnecting stories, and being mentioned by another character for one reason or another, just adds to the depth.

Super excited to see this flower open up, I've felt somewhat empty in the creative roleplay department ever since a LOTR roleplay between some friends had to meet its end due to IRL commitments.

I've got so much interest in this I'm gonna explode. :D

This is so my forte <3

I'm in the middle of a DnD campaign, literally taking turns as I write this, but I was too excited I couldn't wait.

In terms of the roleplay, I love what everyone has said so far. I do agree characters should to some level be moderated. Padawans can be OP if you're not careful, but I do agree that there are some more adept padawans, some that are born with a natural gift of the force. I'd love some flexibility on characters but making sure everyone knows how far is too far.
I'd love to see different stories in one overwall big RP campaign.

We have a decent amount of players interested, so each of those characters might interact or at least know who each other is at some point in time. One group of characters are busy fighting with Hondo and his band of pirates on Florrum, while the others are trying to chase down a bounty hunter headed for that very conflict, intending to eliminate one of the Jedi busy in that battle.
I'd love to see interconnecting stories and characters interacting with each other within reason; with that I'll also mention holograms, mentioning other characters when the opportunity arises. I love interconnecting stories, and being mentioned by another character for one reason or another, just adds to the depth.

Super excited to see this flower open up, I've felt somewhat empty in the creative roleplay department ever since a LOTR roleplay between some friends had to meet its end due to IRL commitments.

I've got so much interest in this I'm gonna explode. :D

Join us on the Discord when you get the time! Lot of discussion goes on there, and its the easiest and quickest way to get questions answered and connect with other active players.

Oh, this sparked more discussion than we expected.

We're not banning lightsaber/blaster hybrids outright (though we personally dislike the idea in this era).

We are however, as some interpreted above, requiring anyone who desired it to thoroughly explain how their character's invention of it came to pass, with good reasoning for why in a way that fits the Pseudo-Canon period.
Because Jedi are not in hiding currently, the excuse that fit for Ezra in Rebels Will not work here. Another might, but it needs to be well thought out and explained. Including how it will fit into the character's tactics.

---

@Bea
Feel free to drop by the discord at any time for discussion.

As someone who doesnt know enough about the subject to have a valid opinion, it sounds to me like a gunsword, which has floated around in peoples mind since the gun was invented. There are even real life historical examples of them floating around. That's on one planet over lets say a roughly 500 year period of firearm use.

It seems silly to assume that 100 quadrillion people over the course of... okay I have no clue how long star wars' timeline is. It seems silly to assume no one has ever tried to build one before. I also don't see what would stop a non-force sensitive from building one themselves, unless the technology is a closely guarded secret of the jedi.

I'm in the same boat as most, having only seen the movies, so I dont know this Ezra character, what i would say is that unless it is actually stated he invented the first lightsabre/blaster hybrid ever, it is entirely possible that is only the first one that has been shown in canon.

I'm also confused about the argument that one has to be a force-sensitive to use a lightsabre effectively? To deflect blaster bolts, I fully understand. But in lightsabre on lightsabre combat it would seem to me its just wielding a hyper dangerous sword. I am by no means a swordsman, but i have sparred on occasion with friends who are (or as close as one can get in modern day, aka, fencing/Hema/kendo, yes they studied the way of the blade xD), and I've never hit myself, unless I'm doing something ridiculously stupid. Obviously an untrained individual would not fight effectively, but i see no reason a trained individual couldn't. Why someone unable to block blasterbolts would think engaging in cqc is a good idea I have no idea (in a large scale battle, I imagine a lightsabre would be a pretty good way to settle a random barfight).

Again though, i know next to nothing about Star Wars lore, each of my points may have a perfect explanation. If it is explicitly stated that Ezra invented the very first lightsabre/blaster hybrid, I would say one shouldn't break canon. I would also say I dont see any problem with saying that kills your interest, why roleplay if you cant roleplay what you want?

Albeit, the reply was curt, but perhaps they didn't want to argue further? Yes they were told it would be allowed if it had a sufficiently good explanation, but perhaps they thought wanting one was a sufficiently good explanation?

Just to throw it out there, I think an excellent explanation is that the owner thought shooting weakened blaster bolts that stun rather than kill, was more civilized than dismembering people at the least (heresy, i know). However being capable of wielding a lightsabre they recognize the utility and defensive applications, as well as the incredible power they can bring to bear should they have to. Assuming the character is not ambidextrous, being able to switch between the two without having to drop/holster one for the other would have obvious advantages. (I believe this was the reasonig behind gunswords as well) This argument would mainly be for force sensitives, and Jedi - primarily force sensitives, Jedi would more likely be capable enough with the force to incapacitate others through other means.
A kind/wise jedi might feel that imposing ones will through the force to subdue someone was a violation of the individual. This would probably be a case by case basis: For a bounty hunter i doubt they would mind binding through the force. However an angry teen (pick a reason) might need to be stopped as well and dominating them in such a way would be an easy way to ruin any chance of reasoning with them. Getting shot by a blaster wont necessarily help either of course but it wont be someone wielding a power they barely understand to control them.

Again, I don't know nearly enough to give an actual educated opinion on this. I merely thought the discussion was interesting and wanted to share my thoughts, and potentially offer a solution for anyone desiring a blastersabre. My second explanation for Jedi may go against the Jedi code or w/e and be completely invalid interpretation as to how jedi view the force.

@Ellri

I joined earlier tonight! Looking forward to chatting with everyone!

Excellent. Feel free to just jump into any discussion you see there, or start your own.

---

@Headless
The key functionality difference between a lightsaber and a "regular" sword, other than the blade cutting omnidirectionally and such, is that a lightsaber's weight is all in the hilt. the blade has no mass, meaning that it can be spun around far more rapidly.

Force-users typically have a very slight sense of precognition, so normal people going up against a trained force-user will generally be at a significant disadvantage in a lightsaber duel. Not always, but generally. A wielder doesn't have to be Jedi/Sith, but not being one would generally mean constantly fighting an uphill battle.

As for definitely or not saying when they were invented, we'll put a quote of the article about these weapons below.

A lightsaber pistol was a type of lightsaber hilt designed by Force-sensitives seeking to conceal their Jedi heritage during the early rebellion against the Galactic Empire.

While the Jedi Order generally had no use for blasters, Force-users during the reign of the Galactic Empire often needed to conceal their relationship with the Force, and could not rely on using their lightsabers openly. Through customization, a second emitter could be added to the hilt that would release the weapon's energy as a projectile similar to a blaster bolt. Because the energy released was not encased within the focusing field that shaped the blade of a lightsaber, the bolts fired from the pistol hilt weakened rapidly as its coherence declined. These short-range stun bolts still caused some shock, but were not as effective as a blaster or lightsaber blade.

It doesn't say that they've never been invented before, but it implies it. Which is why anyone desiring one needs to explain really well why their character has one (rule of cool won't suffice), rather than it outright being banned.

Anyways, we think most everything about this has been stated. A lot of the same arguments appear to bounce back and forth.
The tech ain't banned, but it is restricted (requiring justification to the GMs to be allowed).

Much of the same can be said about other highly unusual pieces of technology. If you know or think it is something that is anything but mainstream and might/will affect power level of characters, as the GMs.

@Headless

I like your take on the whole thing, and having discussion is a good way to explore whether or not ideas like these should be allowed. Creativity is a wonderful thing and I'd like to take a creative concept under my wing myself, so I'm in full support for people experimenting and wanting to try certain things. Gunswords and blastsabres have a lot of things in common, which is why I'd like to bring up this little quote from wikipedia:

Pistol swords were not widely used and became uncommon relatively quickly, due to their expense and because instead of getting two weapons in one, one got a heavy pistol and a heavy, off-balance sword, as shown by the poor performance of the Elgin pistol.

I only found this out due to the Clone Wars series, but contrary to how fast and flashy they swing their blades around, lightsabers are pretty darn heavy. Not only those, but blasters, too. And naturally, when you combine them both, you get something which is inaccurate, expensive, heavy, and lacking in firepower. Prototypes can definitely be made, sure, but how many people would actively consider using them when there are better alternatives? Star Wars has wrist-mounted blasters which would more or less serve the same purpose, and it can more easily be argued to have one in-character. They're lighter, shoot further, are less expensive to make, and are more accurate, plus you can use them while wielding a lightsaber. If we're basing this off of history, which Star Wars likes to borrow from, I'd argue that blastsabers wouldn't be a popular choice because of all the info we can infer from reality and canon.

While the idea sounds cool, it's hard to justify IC based on these merits. Again, I like the idea, but I can't think of a solid reason as to why a character wouldn't seek any other alternative before inventing a prototype blastsaber. Unless that person is someone who likes tinkering with lightsabers and stuff, which would be interesting, which I think the GMs could get behind. A lot of stuff in Star Wars is done for the sake of looking cool, so it's not like there couldn't be a way to make a prototype for one character to use which solves most of these problems (save expenses), it just needs to be done in a way that makes sense imo.

Aaaaaand Ell already posted most of this. Bleh.

@Bea Did you just join the guild discord or the discord for the Persistent Galaxy too? We can't see you on the user list for the latter.
link to the second is found here:
roleplayerguild.com/topics/176141-sta…

@Ellri

Didn't know there was one for this topic too! Just joined!

@Headless

I like your take on the whole thing, and having discussion is a good way to explore whether or not ideas like these should be allowed. Creativity is a wonderful thing and I'd like to take a creative concept under my wing myself, so I'm in full support for people experimenting and wanting to try certain things. Gunswords and blastsabres have a lot of things in common, which is why I'd like to bring up this little quote from wikipedia:

<Snipped quote>
I only found this out due to the Clone Wars series, but contrary to how fast and flashy they swing their blades around, lightsabers are pretty darn heavy. Not only those, but blasters, too. And naturally, when you combine them both, you get something which is inaccurate, expensive, heavy, and lacking in firepower. Prototypes can definitely be made, sure, but how many people would actively consider using them when there are better alternatives? Star Wars has wrist-mounted blasters which would more or less serve the same purpose, and it can more easily be argued to have one in-character. They're lighter, shoot further, are less expensive to make, and are more accurate, plus you can use them while wielding a lightsaber. If we're basing this off of history, which Star Wars likes to borrow from, I'd argue that blastsabers wouldn't be a popular choice because of all the info we can infer from reality and canon.

While the idea sounds cool, it's hard to justify IC based on these merits. Again, I like the idea, but I can't think of a solid reason as to why a character wouldn't seek any other alternative before inventing a prototype blastsaber. Unless that person is someone who likes tinkering with lightsabers and stuff, which would be interesting, which I think the GMs could get behind. A lot of stuff in Star Wars is done for the sake of looking cool, so it's not like there couldn't be a way to make a prototype for one character to use which solves most of these problems (save expenses), it just needs to be done in a way that makes sense imo.

Aaaaaand Ell already posted most of this. Bleh.

Besides.... Far more intresting ways to conceal a blaster that's not in a obvious weapon.

Taking cuew from other universes low power limited shot derrenger style pistols, but easier to hide.

Or weapons built into jewrally, a prosthetic, or other objects that are not as obvious as carrying a light sabre when say your ring has a low power single shot hold out weapon built in.

Far more fitting for say a smuggler or undercover charceter to have access to such alternetove weaponry.

I see it more like someone going:
"I wanna use a spork"

Then getting a response of:
"such eating utensils are not relevant or even seen as concepts"

Followed up with s'more nonsense like:
"the odds of anyone having such a specific variant of their primary eating utensil in this era are astronomical. Anyone applying with such would have extremely good reasoning for it to be approved."

In that scenario, I kinda feel like the person would be perfectly reasonable to think something along the lines of: "eeeeeh, maybe I'm not interested in playing in an RP you're running if you're this uptight about something as insignificant as a spork." Ultimately, while it is true that not being able to eat with a spork is a small thing to lose interest in an RP over, seeing how poorly a mod handles small and insignificant things can be a pretty strong indicator of how they'll handle the rest of their RP and thus a very reasonable thing to lost interest over.

The reply was rather,

"You'd best have a good reason for having that spork."

Anyone with a substantial investment in their concept ought to be able to produce a line of reasoning. This is starting to draw close to 'heaven forbid the context maintainers want to keep things making sense for the context', especially given the raw field of concepts that can be explored and even implemented should people make a case for them.

How it works in practice is of course an entirely different matter, as this conversation is mostly theoretical and could even change with the GM giving input in the conversation.

Yes, I know I replied to something that is now not the flavor of today's discussion. I clearly require a software update and shall report for it immediately.

Freindly suggestion.

You been active 3 weeks and not even got off the starting blocks.

Strike while iron is hot not needing reheating in the forge.

If your gonna do, do it.