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Episode 1857: A Broad Perspective

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There are various types of enemies that a character can have in a game. Ones who simply want to kill you, ones who want to make you suffer by destroying all you hold dear, ones who want to steal your stuff, ones who want to crush your business, ones who want to ruin your reputation, ones who want to publicly expose your secrets. But perhaps the creepiest sort is the one who wants to observe you and follow you and track your every movement.

Give your PCs a variety of enemies of different types. Some will be dangerous to life and limb, while others will pose different problems. Just having enemies who want to kill the PCs is missing out on a range of other adventure-creating options.

Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)

Character inspiration can come from many different places, whether media that's been enjoyed, news articles that have been read, or personal life experiences. One of my characters found their concept start because I didn't have any good examples of that type in comics and movies, so I thought that I would make that a character type to fill that missing spot I had. Gaming, either tabletop or video, isn't quite the same as experiencing something from life, but even small amounts of experience can be good if they're taken seriously.

So Corey's campaign (which I still don't know what it could be) looks to me like it would have been the start of some baby steps by Pete to grow more. But it can be tough to change, so I'm not surprised that Pete picked out a Disadvantage that would end up being on the minor side. Perhaps Corey just needed to be a bit more obtuse or round-about when having this prince interact with the party, or Pete specifically. Pete's the type to overthink things, especially when he's dealing with something unknown. So giving this prince a special sigil of some kind, and having the occasional mercenary attack have it on them, or the hotel the party is at for the night suddenly has it appear outside the door would be good ways to reference that Disadvantage. That said, it would be hard for me to think of things like this up on the fly, so if this was an improv style game, I might have had to invoke Rule Zero were I in Corey's place.

Side note: that looks like a very silly hoverbike. Lots of exposed parts would be good for making fast repairs, but that would also mean the environment can get inside more easily. And on dusty, sandy Tatooine, I can't see any of the parts lasting a long time, let alone the red paint job. Sure it probably goes faster, but would that offset the increased maintenance checks?

Commentary by Keybounce (who has not seen the movie)

I've said it before. A disadvantage that is not actually a disadvantage is not worth any points. For example, if you have no dragons in your game, you cannot take "Tastes good to dragons". (Of course, if a dragon then does somehow show up, it will spit you out.)

Trying to explore real-life situations in a roleplaying game is actually a good idea. Being able to ask "what if", and pretend to be in certain situations, can actually be useful in various therapy treatment programs. Of course, it helps if the game system you're using is intended to portray realistic situations, as opposed to something like Maid.

Meanwhile, this star destroyer is a piece of junk. Why, the chances that this thing will fly again are astronomical. It's gotta be a million to one chance that we'll see this in the air before the end of the series.

Now, let me see if I understand this correctly. Rey has a "floater" for travel. She left it at the bottom of the hill, and climbed up the sand dune with her stuff, and we see her tobogganing down the hill here. Why would her floater not make it up the hill? Perhaps because it's old/in bad shape? (It sure looks like it's old/in bad shape).

Decommissioning big ships, in real life, is actually a nasty process. All the stuff that can leak out, pollute the land, poison the water, etc. We've had issues where the navy has been unable to afford to dismantle old ships because of the cost, or when it's actually questionable if the company doing the tear-apart can manage to make a profit from the salvageable, useful stuff with the expense involved. Of course, when you have no government watchdogs, and no one cares if you pollute a sand dune, it's actually easy to just strip stuff and expect to get a good return. So it's not that much of a surprise to find everything stripped out of this place.

What's surprising is that Rey somehow knew that there was still something left, and that it had been missed by everyone. That's more than just luck. That...

Working hypothesis: Someone went into a dangerous wreck, to explore in the darkness, and while avoiding all the grue or other local life that moved in for safety from the sun (speaking of which, where is the life that should be in there?), found something that had not been looted, recognized that it was potentially of value, did not have any way to get it out, and decided to sell information about something left behind inside there rather than try to get it out themselves.

... Yea, doesn't seem likely to me either.

Transcript

Rey: I collect my salvage gear and head to the nearest settlement.
{Rey slides down a huge sand dune on a makeshift sled}
Finn: What made you decide to play a woman?
Rey: When Corey's game started I was defending a guy on a stalking charge. I wanted to see things from the other side.
{Perched on the top of the dune above Rey is the crashed hulk of a star destroyer}
Kylo Ren: You didn’t exactly play a helpless waif.
Rey: I had that evil prince stalking me.
BB-8: So that’s why you picked that Disadvantage.
BB-8: Do you know how hard it was to come up with game-relevant scenarios where that was problematical for you?
{Rey drags her gear to a waiting hoverbike}
Rey: That was the other reason.
[SFX]: vrr-rrooom! {Rey revs the bike and heads off}


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Published: Thursday, 25 June, 2020; 03:11:18 PDT.
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