Darths & Droids IV: Not in Numerical Order

[137beth]

Also, this group has done split teams before: when Annie was playing Anakin during Episode III, despite Ben, Jim, and Sally all playing Jedi/Republic-aligned characters, and Pete noted something like "we're being evil now," in acknowledgement of the fact that R2 was also evil.

Then, in Episode V, Han was The Traitor, while Annie played characters on both sides.

[Rogar Demonblud]

That was Episode IV. V was when Luke was totally paranoid that somebody was a traitor.

Man, I really need to do another archive binge.

[b_jonas]

and Pete noted something like "we're being evil now,"

I think you mean the punchline of #783. And that was before he decided to tempt Luke to take over the Peace Moon.

[Morquard]

Looks like a split campaign, with part of the table on team one and part on team two. Not something I'd try, but this is an experienced group who know each other fairly well. so it should mitigate some of the PVP issues.

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The problem with that is, that the screencaps are very hard to support this. Yes Kylo's evil. But Finn is going to betray the First Order soon, and join Poe. And then Rey. And then Han... Unless its an undercover mission, given to him by Phasma (instead of the "report for brainwashing" talk) but who would believe Annie? That last problem of course exists no matter if the switch is honest or not. So I'm curious how they're gonna pull that off.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Given past experience, I doubt they'll stick too close to the movie. They made Cassian a pacifist for Force's Sake.

[Kantaki]

And now they're quoting Last Crusade.
Truly the niveau reaches ever new highs.
I love how the troopers immediately lampshade the fact that it's a bluff.

[Rogar Demonblud]

You missed the extra layer to the joke? Star Wars and Indiana Jones are both Harrison Ford series.

[Kornaki]

It was a small mistake to say the name Poe like that, he doesn't actually know if the bad guys know the name.

[Rogar Demonblud]

He also knows Poe is doomed by the laws of narrativity.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

It was a small mistake to say the name Poe like that, he doesn't actually know if the bad guys know the name.

Nah, he made the right call. If he hadn't named Poe by name, Jim might have assumed he had back-up and gone on the attack.

[keybounce]

Looks like a split campaign, with part of the table on team one and part on team two. Not something I'd try, but this is an experienced group who know each other fairly well. so it should mitigate some of the PVP issues.

Oh, yes, it goes

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What, you think I'm going to actually tell you? :-)

[SirKazum]

Oh, yes, it goes

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What, you think I'm going to actually tell you? :-)

You're really enjoying knowing more than we do for a change, huh?

[Rogar Demonblud]

Considering how we've behaved with some of those spoilers during the Rouge One arc, I'd say Keybounce has earned the right.

[DavidSh]

And this must be more from Last Crusade, because I can hear it Sean Connery's voice.

[Kantaki]

I love how, despite his expressionless mask, Kylo seems to have that perfect "are you kidding me" look.

[Rogar Demonblud]

And this must be more from Last Crusade, because I can hear it Sean Connery's voice.

The writing it down line is, and now I'm hearing all of Lor's lines with a Scottish burr.

[137beth]

I think you mean the punchline of #783. And that was before he decided to tempt Luke to take over the Peace Moon.

No, I don't, I was thinking of 576:

R2-D2: So, you're okay with Annie playing an evil character now?
Padmé: Yeah, we decided it was lawful evil, not chaotic.
R2-D2: Okay, now we've decided to be evil, we should be able to do anything we want.
C-3PO: I'm not evil! I'm all gold and shiny!
Padmé: And I'm still not evil.
Obi-Wan: Wait, Pete, when did you decide to be evil?
{beat}
Obi-Wan: I can't believe I even said that.

[Kantaki]

I so want to cackle like a lunatic right now.
Smart evil for the win*.
I have to wonder though, how much additional fun is Sally getting from murderizing her brother's character?

*Lor pretty much made clear he's not going to be helpful, so keeping him around is pointless.
Torture, moderately escapable death traps and stuff like that are only useful if you can still get something out of your prisoner.
Otherwise just shoot them. Or cut them down as the case may be.
In this case it might even get the guy's buddy to do something stupid. Stupider.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Tread lightly with that challenge. This is Jim, after all.

[Rogar Demonblud]

For one you forgot, Keybounce, is when players have loyalty to competing organizations (the stereotype being thieves guild versus order of paladins).

[Morquard]

Spoiler: Don't read, Keybounce

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So which characters do we have available to be taken by the players. Rey obviously. I still have a hard time seeing Pete being her. Han and Chewie. Obvious choices here are Jim for the time Poe is assumed dead (and maybe actually dies, with Wedge being Poe from then on), and Chewie being Ben. That really leaves Pete with Rey... Or does it? Rey could be Ben's new character and Chewie is just an NPC sidekick for Han at that point. After all Ben said he will make a new character.

So here's my guess now, Pete having figured out you can be evil in this game, will reroll and be Hux. The reason he left so apruptly was to prevent the GM from actually introducing his "good" PC. At the end and for the next two movies he'll go back to R2.

[Rogar Demonblud]

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Phasma is more likely, IMO.

[b_jonas]

Spoiler: Don't read, Keybounce

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So which characters do we have available to be taken by the players. Rey obviously.

Spoiler: The Force Awakens spoilers

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On the imperial side, Captain Phasma and General Hux (both of whom are used in the film to demonstrate how Snoke treats imperial officers just like Vader does), and Supreme Leader Snoke himself. On Rey's planet, Unkar Plutt (who was clearly played by Sally in the movie, but this can change in Darths & Droids). On the rebel's side, Maz Kanata and Rose. There's also some rebels who already have been player characters, but some of them conceivably could switch: Han Solo, Chewbacca, Poe when he reappears, R2-D2, Princess Leia, one short scene with Luke, and possibly thousands of past Jedi as Force Ghosts. Also former NPCs Admiral Ackbar and Nien Numb.

[Fincher]

Spoiler: Don't read, Keybounce

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So which characters do we have available to be taken by the players. Rey obviously. I still have a hard time seeing Pete being her.

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My working theory is there's some "pretty girl" feat Pete took because it has something he wants, and whatever diplomacy it gave him he traded away which is why Rey has poor manners.

[Morquard]

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Phasma is more likely, IMO.

Spoiler: The Force Awakens spoilers

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On the imperial side, Captain Phasma and General Hux (both of whom are used in the film to demonstrate how Snoke treats imperial officers just like Vader does), and Supreme Leader Snoke himself. On Rey's planet, Unkar Plutt (who was clearly played by Sally in the movie, but this can change in Darths & Droids). On the rebel's side, Maz Kanata and Rose. There's also some rebels who already have been player characters, but some of them conceivably could switch: Han Solo, Chewbacca, Poe when he reappears, R2-D2, Princess Leia, one short scene with Luke, and possibly thousands of past Jedi as Force Ghosts. Also former NPCs Admiral Ackbar and Nien Numb.

Spoiler: Don't read, Keybounce

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Hmm both of you are right, there's some more characters, and I totally forgot about Phasma. She's just so... unmemorable. The one thing she does, that matters, is surrender immediately and give in to the demands and lower the shields to the entire base. Rose, Ackbar and Nien Numb don't even appear in Episode 7, so this would be a REALLY long time for that being Pete's character or Ben's replacement. So I was looking at those first.

Unkar Plutt, you are right about however. That could be Ben's new character. I didn't really get a Sally vibe from him (unless it's Episode 1, 11 year old Sally). So yes, that could be Ben, and when he doesn't want to leave the place to flee, he switches to Chewie - maybe that switch was planned with the GM, and Unkar Plutt was always meant as a filler character. Like "Here, you can play this NPC till we meet your PC".

Phasma could be Pete. But she's gonna appear soon now, in the movie (and while they fudge some things, and sometimes pull a facial expression from elsewhere, the general order of scenes stays the same), and he just left. But I also think Rey's star-destroyer-climbing scene is up soon too. So with two players missing the party might just call a stop to the game and "continue next time", before either of those scenes happen.

Snoke does even less in this movie, so I don't see him being a PC, either.

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My working theory is there's some "pretty girl" feat Pete took because it has something he wants, and whatever diplomacy it gave him he traded away which is why Rey has poor manners.

Spoiler: Don't read this one either, Keybounce

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That would certainly be IC for Pete... but see above, unless they call the game session soon, Rey's gonna come up.

[Anonymouswizard]

Spoiler: Keybounce, spoilers are also here

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I suspect they're going to move Rey's SD scene later or just skip it, possibly with a 'and here I was going to introduce Pete's new scavenger PC' if Pete=Rey is correct.

Actually, the more I think about it, the less likely I think it is that Pete made a First Order character, because he's the one who's always been the most against intra-party conflict, and the three people he's most likely to have spoken to during pre-campaign discussions are Corey, Jim, and Ben, who all made Resistance characters. So I suspect Pete is playing somebody who is at least potentially allied with the Resistance.

I'm still going to 'Poe gets repaced by Wedge, Ben plays Rey, and Pete plays General Hux, who is already a spy', with a session close happening soon.

[theangelJean]

I was actually wondering about other, non-spoiler-related reasons for Pete to have left abruptly after Ben's character death. (Okay, and one spoiler-related reason, which is the one I originally thought of, but I really really hope it's not that.)

Pete's the min-maxer, who likes his characters to do maximum damage while being (theoretically) unkillable, right? Does he have a particular aversion to character death? We've heard him grouse all the way through Ep 2 about one character death (Vizzini), and in the sessions we've seen he's only ever lost a character in a TPK, right? But now, with the prospect of intra-party conflict, he's going to be up against not only whatever the unnammed DM can throw at him, but also the other players' characters. He can hope that opponents created by the DM are appropriately challenge-rated, but PCs aren't going to be balanced against him or each other. I mean, one of them has just slaughtered another one mercilessly.... He might even have to (shudder) roleplay his way to avoiding conflict... Either way, this is going to call for an extreme change of strategy.

The alternate direction I'm really hoping this won't go in is...

Spoiler: Character prediction related spoilers

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this being the beginning of romantic feelings in Pete. Sally's character has just slaughtered someone, and she's clearly no longer kidding around. Little girl's all grown up now, right? It's a cliche for a reason, and that reason is bad: female characters "growing" from children to love interests (to mothers to grannies), as seen from the perspective of the male characters. I really hope they're not going to play the Kylo/Rey story that way. And I don't want Sally involved in another inter-player romance at all, because that would make two for two female characters with romance arcs. I'm hoping the writers take the story somewhere else more original.

[Kantaki]

Never change Jim, never change.
Time-loops are scary though.
At least Kylo's affect the mind too.
And probably aren't permanent.
Otherwise Poe might experience the joy of being a Grey Boy victim*.

*Villain from Worm.
Could trap his victims in time-loops and effectively heal himself with them.
Usually inflicted something seriously nasty- like burning alive -on his victims and then set the reset point to just before the pain began.
If he was feeling kind he left them enough time to talk.
Word for agonizing word as they suffer again and again.
Thankfully he was dead for the majority of canon. Until someone had the bright idea to bring him back for a "best-of murderous nutcases".

[Fincher]

Rules Lawyer: If talking is a free acting, thinking must be a free action, too, so he can talk and think as much as he likes in that split second.

Of course, neither Ben nor Pete are there to argue the point.

[137beth]

The alternate direction I'm really hoping this won't go in is...

Spoiler: Character prediction related spoilers

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this being the beginning of romantic feelings in Pete. Sally's character has just slaughtered someone, and she's clearly no longer kidding around. Little girl's all grown up now, right? It's a cliche for a reason, and that reason is bad: female characters "growing" from children to love interests (to mothers to grannies), as seen from the perspective of the male characters. I really hope they're not going to play the Kylo/Rey story that way. And I don't want Sally involved in another inter-player romance at all, because that would make two for two female characters with romance arcs. I'm hoping the writers take the story somewhere else more original.

Sounds like a reasonable concern. I hope that

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Rey will be played by someone other than Pete. Come to think of it, she could be a new player, much in the same way Luke was a player new to the group. That would make sense for some of the same reasons. At the start of ANH, Luke knows much less about the history of the Jedi and the empire than all the other main characters except Han. At the start of TFA, Rey knows much less about the history of the Jedi and the empire than all the other main characters.

If not a new player, we still don't know who Annie's playing, so she could also be Rey.