Star Wars ffg Character Creation

[Shadow Reaper]

I'm toying around with pulling together a crew to run an online "show" based upon the Star Wars ffg roleplaying games, Edge of the Empire, Age of Rebellion and Force and Destiny. I love the gaming dynamic created by the narrative dice system, and I love the SW universe in general. I've watched several of these shows online and several offer some great play, despite none have been thoroughly satisfying. The players often don't know the game system they're using, even years into a game. Some GMs don't understand the game at all, which is really frustrating to watch, especially when they are leading gifted players. In short, the ffg gaming scene seems to be ripe for a show using the best elements of today's tabletop gaming, such as the Tabletop Simulator, electronic voice changers so players can toggle between out of character comments and in character dialog, and especially untapped is the rich variety of tech toys provided by the Star Wars ffg gaming system. I've yet to see any character using personal stealth enhancement of any kind, be it a Zephyr Stealth Suit, a Nightstalker Infiltration Suit, a Shakiyan Shadowsuit, a Personal Mimetic Concealment Suit or a Personal Stealth Field. This is just 1 sort of enhancement. There are dozens of others and I've yet to see much at all in the hands of cast members or the villains they face. Games and shows online don't seem to ever tap into the vast array of cyber enhancements available in the game. While some characters start to leverage the very advanced mod system for their weapons, they never mod their armor, their ships, nor their droids. GMs will sometimes mod something for the characters, but the players never seem to get involved enough in the game even to know what it offers. I'd like to see this change. Every ffg game I have watched is a "survival" game where the characters have sever limits to their finances. What if instead, they were well funded pirates?

So what I'm considering is developing a package to take to a skilled GM--someone who already knows the SW universe in detail, and who knows the Tabletop Simulator well enough to run a presentation quality game. It seems to me the first step is flesh out a possible set of characters to place in the universe as well as suggest the people who might play them. Key here is find at least 5 players who have already run characters in this game so they're focused on mastering the game rather than starting from scratch. Also, in accord with the ever present love of ships in all games sci-fi, I want to create a sixth character, that is the home of the other characters. I want something that like them progresses in its capabilities, and shines in its own right. It needs to be something we haven't seen much of, but that comes from canon. It needs to be in the canon literature and provide as many "hardpoints" or customization slots as possible so it can grow along with the characters. I have some ideas here.

Finally as to the characters themselves: what I have noted in viewing all the shows on YouTube is that almost every player wants to distinguish itself by playing non-human. This is counter-productive. What you end up with is a mish-mosh of weirdo races that are each different just for the sake of being different, and the result is the cast can't even consider things like covert operations because they can't blend in. The Star Wars galaxy is intended by design to be seriously anthropocentric. Humans are the dominant species, as is displayed by the near homogeneous constitution of the Empire. It seems to me that even if you add characters that are Corellian, Arkanian, etc., it really should not be obvious that they're a human subset. Central figures in Star Wars stories are intended to be human. Players should be contented with this and work within these boundaries, perhaps with a single exception; who by virtue of this racial distinction, either finds herself left behind on covert ops missions, or finds a way to authentically obscure her racial identity. It's fine to include a "weak link" so long as the entire crew are not weak links that disable all covert ops play inside the dread Empire.

So that's what I'm thinking, and I'm authentically interested to get real feedback on this project. Your insights matter. You're a gamer. You know about this stuff, even if you're not super-saturated in the Star Wars mythos.

Years ago I was playing Star Wars Combine and someone came into their forums claiming to be a Hollywood producer, looking for great ideas. I took the post at face value, and posted up a few pages on my thoughts about the burgeoning Cosplay community. Surprise of all surprises, the next season Heroes of Cosplay was born. That didn't turn out so well when the directors decided to manufacture conflicts between the players, in the same way they do on other "reality show" projects that utterly fail to represent reality. That was inauthentic as hell. Still, it goes to show that any innocent observation can be a contribution if offered in the proper spirit. And no. You do not get financial reward for offering ideas. That is not how life works. People earn financial reward by executing and turning ideas into actions. So if you have a great idea and want to be paid for it, that's great. Don't post it here. Go turn it into something great, somewhere else. If you have ideas of what you’d love to see in a Star Wars based show and don’t need to be paid for your genius, type away! There are no bad ideas but obviously, I can’t make any promises about what the GM will ultimately decide. This is all just spitballing.

 

[Shadow Reaper]

So here is a link to source materials for anyone interested: http://bastionkainssweote.blogspot.com/p/character-sheets.html

What I'm thinking of for 6 characters (including the ship):

1) Four of the characters start with a POS ship that either gets stolen, or blown up. A few episodes in, they hook up with a Light side pirate of sorts, who steals ships from the Empire for a living, and sells them to The Rebellion. They all come to live aboard a Baudo-class Star Yacht, the shortcoming of which is that it has virtually no cargo space for things like ground vessels. It is old, and the protagonists continuously "upgrade" the ship with mods almost every episode. Say 4 seasons or so in when the series is getting ready to end, the final upgrade is a cloak, that makes the ship invisible for the last season.

2) The Pirate, is a Shistavanan Shadow Sentinel (Force and Destiny), originally trained by the Inquisitors who cut out his amygdala and addicted him to Glitterstim, hoping to develop in him a telepathic Inquisitor. When the inquisitors killed his younger sister in order to generate hatred in him, he slew all the Inquisitors in the complex and escaped to join the Rebellion. He is a light side Paragon, training in the Enhance force feature and the Farsight force feature. He dual wields his Cortosis Forged Vibro-stun claws, Verpine Shattergun pistols and plasma grenades with great enthusiasm. This is a werewolf character. He is brutal, though not unnecessarily so, despite his penchant to bite off the heads of his victims.

3) The Commander, is a Squadron Leader Commander (Age of Rebellion) specializing in the force powers of Healing, Mechanics and Battle Meditation. Early on she replaces the Pirate character as pilot of their ship due to her superior piloting skills. She carries a single pistol which she seldom uses because she's generally busy healing the ship and characters. This is the least active and most powerful character in the group due to her Battle Meditation.

4) The Clone ARC Trooper is the lone heavy ranged combatant of the team. He wields various weapons of destruction to devastating effect, often from stealth. Since blasters and disruptor rifles leave a visual report, this character favors the direct approach where he can use any weapon he likes. He is trained in stealth but habitually avoids it based upon his chosen weapons. He also draws heavily from the Assassin subclass of the Bounty Hunter skill tree. This is the tank.

5) The Niman Disciple is often the face of the party, and draws on the force both to use her light saber defensively, and when roused to activate the Influence and Suppress force powers. This character supplements and supports the leadership of the Commander character, greatly enhancing the team as a whole. Through sheer force of will she protects her companions from dark side nemesis level opponents, whom they would have no chance against without her.

6) The Ataru Striker is the vanguard of battle met, often striking from the rear lines by leaping over the heads of her companions to land her devastating Hawk Bat Swoop lightsabre attacks on nemesis level opponents. She is master of the Move, Bind, and Sense force powers.

That's what I got to start. Note I deliberately left out Bounty Hunter and Smuggler because they're everywhere, and actually make better visiting characters than core characters. The ship is designed for 6 crew and the team for 5 so that visiting characters can be common.

What would you love to see from the Star Wars universe that you don’t see the seeds of here?