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GameMastering quiz! The correct GameMaster response to a player asking "Can I do X?", where X is instantly fatal is:
- Sure! Roll up a new character.
- Are you sure you want to do that?
- Uhhh... make a Wisdom roll...
- (roll dice and ignore result) No, sorry. Try something else.
Answer:
Actually, it can be any of those responses, depending on your style of play, the grittiness of the game, and your players' expectations. Remember folks, there's no right or wrong way to play, as long as everyone's having fun!
Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)
Wait.
Hang on.
Timeout.
This time freeze thing actually happened in the movie? There really can't be any other way to interpret the blaster bolt hanging in the air in all the panels, can there? I'd been guessing a little bit that the GM would end up calling a do-over or something else would interrupt the game with later events basically ignoring that it happened, and the Time Stasis thing would turn out to be just an Irregulars invention for the comic, but actually being a movie event didn't even make the list.
This seems less like a Star Wars movie and more like a Marvel movie to me now. Time Stasis would fit in quite well in Doctor Strange, especially with all the time manipulation that happened there. *checks release dates* Huh. I guess Doctor Strange came out later, so that movie could be seen as pulling from this one then. I wonder if the troopers and Poe were all CGI here along with the bolt, or if the bolt (and background) was all that was digital; that's still quite the special effect either way. It's not the same with a set of still images, but I bet there's going to be a lot of other neat cinematography bits we'll be getting later like this, now that these kinds of effects have been shown to actually be a thing. Definitely a step above the previous movies, except for maybe the giant battles in II and III. (The bolt's also got that nice glowing blue color that I hope we get more of.)
And now it's Poe's turn to die. He's got a doom mark as well which needs resolving, and by the phrasing of the last line there, Jim's interested in rolling up a new character as well. Or maybe that's just normal Jim. It's a little hard for me to tell, and the same goes for Corey by the look of it. Hope BB's put enough distance on rolling away into the desert or to a ship to steal, otherwise we'll be looking at a TPK which is a heck of a way to start a new campaign. Well, as much of a TPK as there can be when it's one of the party doing all the killing.
Commentary by Keybounce (who has not seen the movie)
Prediction: three strips until Sally's character destroys Poe.
We see light frozen in time and space. This isn't completely impossible; we can achieve something very similar on a very tiny scale in the lab. Of course, that takes incredibly controlled conditions, and I can only imagine the amount of energy it takes to contain such a large amount of energy in the form of a blaster shot.
But hey, we're talking about a universe where the energy needed to completely obliterate a planet can be generated in the size of a small moon without destroying that moon from heat generation. Where the energy needed to power a planet-sized city is possible to generate without boiling that city-planet from excess heat. We're talking about where the power of the mind can lift a fighter up against the backdrop of water trying to weigh it down.
Let's face it, in this universe energy is dirt cheap.
That leads to an interesting question. if the constant in E=mc2 is not c squared, but something much much smaller (so that energy is much easier to create, and an occurrence of energy such as the blaster shot needs much much less to influence it, as well as the amount of heat generated by waste being much much smaller), how does this affect physics in general?
Maybe that's what we're looking at. Maybe part of the reason that we can go faster than light in this universe is that the fundamental concept of relativity is different. A universe where energy is cheap and not hot.
Finally, the law of cinematics tells us that with this much attention on Poe, something will happen to let him survive. So, let's change that prediction: two more comics until something unexpected happens to let Poe run away and live.
Transcript
Kylo Ren: Bring him to me.
GM: Two troopers run over and punch Poe in the stomach. <roll> Take 3 damage.
Poe: Oooh. Do I take the damage repeatedly because of the time loop?
GM: Uh... no. It breaks the stasis and you collapse on the ground.
Poe: Awww...
GM: The troopers drag you past your frozen blaster bolt.
Poe: Can I touch it?!
GM: Uh... <roll> No. The troopers have your arms restrained.
Poe: Awww...
BB-8: Have you stopped trying to get yourself killed yet?
GM: The troopers throw you at Kylo Ren’s feet.
Poe: So, radiator-face, is the mask to protect you, or to shield me from your hideous visage?