RSS
In most games, players often skip over "down time". Things like eating, sleeping, earning a living, weapon practice, maintaining gear, etc. are simply ignored or very briefly glossed over. Which is fine, since they're not particularly exciting things to roleplay or game out in any detail, so it helps to get to the interesting stuff faster.
Some games have specific "down time" rules, codifying what characters can achieve during "non-adventuring" time. For example, if there are four weeks between adventures, you might be able to say that your PC spent the time studying and gaining a level in a skill, or crafting a sword, or brewing a potion, or simply doing some manual labour and earning some money.
Experiment: Imagine a game where you roleplay the down time in detail, and then gloss over the exploration and combat and finding treasure parts.
Commentary by Keybounce (who has not seen the movie)
Strip title: "Got Milk?"
So we seem to have...???
So apparently we have a tally mark of the amount of searching that has been done. It looks like the wall of dungeons from Order of the Stick. No groupings by five, 10, or any such reasonable groupings. Just one scritch per search. This is not a very usable system. There is no way to go back and really count, or track things. It's not in any way shape or form an optimized/usable system.
I'm trying to figure out where the stew comes from. We put what looks like three or four dehydrated blue blobs in water, and they turn into bread. In some sense, this reminds me of putting a pizza into a box in your kitchen, and asking for hydration level four. But nothing that we saw would account for stew.
Rey has a long-term place to live here. She's been here for a long time as seen by all the scritch marks, she's got all sorts of various knickknacks and doodads, she's got some furniture, etc.
- 1859 had her arriving at a tiny outpost, and she took her parts into town.
- 1860 shows her dealing with her parking space problems, and if this was a common thing you'd think she's used to it.
- 1861 shows a scrubbing station being used, and implies that it's a function of the trading post.
- 1862 has her meeting someone that she does not know, who is a location-specific NPC. And 1862 also tells us that she's not staying.
- 1863 says nothing about her "getting a good night's sleep" being at her place, just a generic sleeping spot.
Yet here, we are finding out that she basically calls this place home. And she doesn't know a significant NPC from this spot. And she's had this same parking problem for a while and is still not used to it.
Feels like the plot needs to be reviewed by a 5th grader.
Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)
That bread roll looks much more like a mushroom to me than any sort of proper baked good. At least Rey didn't need to get water from the quartermaster; that probably would have looked thick and oily even if it was potable. And I sort of wonder why she bothered to trade for rations when stew was already available. That 4 must not have been good for much else at the commissary otherwise.
And wow, that's a lot of tick marks on the wall. It's probably a great way to show that Rey has been here a long time digging around inside that star destroyer, but I can't help but think that there'd be a better way to keep track of numbers with tick marks than lots of lines in a row.
Yeah Ben! Pete's actually roleplaying in an immediately interesting way for once, so be patient! The beep language is very cool, but it's a layered sort of cool and it was a bit hard to tell sometimes when it was Pete talking and when it was R2 talking with a translator. Admittedly there have only been 11 comics with Rey so far, so maybe I'm just more interested in seeing how Pete develops Rey as a character. That said, a 16 and a 4 hardly make for being generally unbeatable even with extremely silly dice modifiers, so don't get cocky Pete.
Transcript
Rey: I retreat to my makeshift shelter.
Rey: I scratch off the final mark on my record of how many grid cubes I’ve searched.
[SFX]: scritch scritch
Rey: I add water to the rations.
GM: It puffs up into a small blue bread roll.
[SFX]: fizz... fizz... puff...
Rey: I take it and my stew outside to eat.
Lor San Tekka: {dead} I’m beginning to wonder if my new character will ever get introduced this session.
Kylo Ren: Ben! Pete’s doing really well with this character roleplaying. Like you normally do! Give him a chance.
Rey: Yeah, if your character was ever doing awesome stuff and being generally unbeatable, I’d give you a chance.