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<     Episode 2534: Violent Crumble: It’s the Way it Shatters That Matters     >

Episode 2534: Violent Crumble: It’s the Way it Shatters That Matters

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Cinematically, anything that people or vehicles might crash through will yield obligingly, creating a mass of harmless shards that never seem to cause any damage and merely look spectacular. Compare to real stories of people who do things like accidentally walk through a glass door and end up in hospital with severe lacerations.

How you handle this sort of situation in a game depends on your sense of realism versus story logic and fun. For real fun, however, you don't have to decide this in advance. Just let your players try things and dare them to figure out how realistic the result will be.

Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)

Spaceships will have trouble deflecting an entire planetary surface. I think the term is called lithobraking, though it usually happens from the other direction. Even super sci-fi spaceships will try and avoid crashing into meteors and asteroids, if only because it's unnecessary potential damage. Shields would only do so much in the end!

Hah! That is definitely something Pete would claim for any bonuses it would give. Mooks? Who cares, they're not the main characters! Though I also think this is the first time it's come up on the players' side. I know I've mentioned things as being driven or dictated by the narrative before, but it's interesting to see at least one player start thinking along the same lines.

... It's going to be hilarious if we find out Ben passed a note to the GM saying, "I shoot the crystals loose before we crash into them". Loosely falling crystals would be much easier to smash through.

Transcript

GM: <roll> <roll> <roll>...
GM: The pursuing fighters all hit projecting crystals and explode.
GM: Leaving you to deal with the rapidly constricting passage ahead.
Rey: It’s crystals. Crash through them! How tough could they be?
[SFX]: whoooosshh...
Poe: Rhodochrosite has a shear modulus around 50 gigapascals[1], similar to iron.[2]
BB-8: {sotto voce} Never tell him the modulus.
[SFX]: kaboom! {the last PIE explodes}
Rey: Yeah... but... this is a high-tech setting. Surely the Falcon, a goddam spaceship
GM: Repeatedly described by several people, you included, as a, quote, “piece of junk”.
Rey: —is made of far stronger material.
Chewbacca: Those PIE fighters sure weren’t.
[SFX]: whoooosshh...
Rey: Yeah, but they’re mooks! We’re the heroes! Gun it, Chewie!
Chewbacca: I have utmost respect for your confidence in narrative causality.
[SFX]: whoooosshh...
[SFX]: Shatter!!! {the Falcon flies free of the tunnel, spraying shattered red crystals high into the sky}
Rey: If you’ve got the unfair advantage, use it!

[1] Fu, Jia & Bai, Hao & Zhang, Zhaoyuan & Lin, Weihui. (2018). “Elastic constants and homogenized moduli of manganese carbonate structure based on molecular dynamics and Reuss-Voigt-Hill methods”. IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering. 423. 012046. doi:10.1088/1757-899X/423/1/012046.

[2] Rayne, J.A. & Chandrasekhar, B.S. (1961). “Elastic Constants of Iron from 4.2 to 300°K”. Physical Review. 122 (6): 1714–1716. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.122.1714.


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Published: Tuesday, 22 October, 2024; 02:11:03 PDT.
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