On character design and logic. Or lack thereof.
In which I ramble about bounty hunters in Star Wars, Boba Fett, and why I've decided to go with logic, rather than canon, in my fanficing. (Which, yes, I'm still doing. I've just been eaten by moving.)
I've been playing SW:TOR and loving it, as have a number of my friends. We're all Star Wars fans anyway, and the fun we've been having with the MMO prompted us to break out the old D20 Star Wars RPG and have ourselves a game over the internet (we're spread across two states - and even those of us in the same state live in two different cities). We're playing in an AU based off one of the Infinities comics - the New Hope one, I think.
Following my usual tendency to make the most useful of characters*, I'm playing a gambler with the attention span of a squirrel and an affinity for walking into obvious traps (especially when pretty girls are involved). The rest of the party consists of a deserter from the Empire, a mechanic, a drunken Force user, an escaped pleasure slave (who is almost certainly more than she seems), a rebel soldier (or a soldier from what's left of the rebellion, anyway), and a bounty hunter.
It's the last character on the list that prompted this post. You see, the player decided her awesome bounty hunter should have the exact same armor as Boba Fett. Which sounds like a great idea on the surface. You know, before one actually looks at Boba Fett's armor and all it contains and has attached to it. (And, no, I'm not talking about the Wookiee scalps.) I'm beginning to think we should've linked her Cracked's Boba Fett rant. Though, given that she replicated Boba Fett's armor after reading the description of it in one of the source books, it might be a lost cause.
What's wrong with Boba Fett's armor, you ask? EVERYTHING. Even if we skip the fact that he looks rather like a space hobo (seriously, have moths been at his cape?), the dude made some really bad choices.
- He's got pockets at shin level in his pants - which means he can only reach what's in them by bending over or dropping to one knee (not the best choice for a man in a dangerous line of work).
- He has a wrist mounted flame thrower that (at least according to the game source book) is fed from the fuel for his jet pack. Which couldn't possibly backfire horribly. Oh no.
- His jet pack also has missile/grappling hook launcher - because a jet pack is totally where I'd want to launch things from, what with the flammable fuel and all.
- And, speaking of flammable, the guy is wearing a cape with his jetpack. A CAPE!? There's a whole new "No capes!" waiting to happen. (And why has no one fan-arted this?) But that's not the worst!
- The worst, the winner of the "what was Boba thinking!?" award, is the fact that he has rocket darts on his knees.
That's right, guys. Boba Fett has the ability to fire darts with his knees. How, Mr. Fett, do you plan on aiming those? Your eyes are waaaaay up here on your head. Unless you're keeping a second set somewhere else, I'm thinking those darts don't hit their target very often. (Though I desperately want to go all Mythbusters and build kneepad dart launchers and test their aim. Desperately.)
So, yeah, my friend and fellow player read up all that at and just copied it for her character. Knee darts, high likelihood of self-immolation and all. I expect hilarity when she uses the knee darts.
But I can't blame her too much. Lucas and co. came up with that mess and, apparently, no one ever went "Cape and jetpack, whut?" or "Knee darts!? bwahahahahaha" at any point during the design process. This was clearly pure rule of cool with no thought at all for how any of it would actually work. After all, we were treated to another bit of rule of cool/lack of thought with the whole "No disintegration." line.
How the frak are you supposed to collect a bounty on someone you've disintegrated? You can't even prove that they're dead, much less that you killed them. (There is a part of me that wonders if Karrels Javis saying that people will probably think he was disintegrated if your Agent spares him on Hutta in SW:TOR was a writer's subtle poke at the whole disintegrating people thing.) And, besides, bounty hunters aren't, technically, assassins in the first place.
Or at least, they're not supposed to be. The lore suggests they're not (see the Bounty Hunter's Creed), the dialogue in SW:TOR suggests they're not. And yet, there's very little non-lethal weaponry for bounty hunting in either the d20 game or in SW:TOR. Hell, the only non-lethal weaponry my SW:TOR bounty hunter has (so far, anyway) are her electro darts. That's it. And those, by all logic, shouldn't work on people in heavy armor, being darts and all. (Though at least they're wrist fired, not knee fired.)
This has lead to my having to re-equip my SW:TOR bounty hunter for her appearance in my fanfics. She needs to be armed mainly with non-lethal weaponry: the electro darts, flash grenades, stun baton...some sort of ion weapon for shorting out droids or power armor, perhaps a sonic weapon, sticky foam... you know, things you'd actually use to capture someone. Ironically, re-outfitting her makes her more dangerous as a fanfic character, since Plot Armor doesn't work on non-lethal measures (something you'd think savvy villains would take advantage of).
And, no, she does not wear a cape with her jetpack. No flaming "No capes!" moment for her.
Damn, now I want to go fanfic.
And draw Boba Fett's flaming "No capes!" moment.
And build knee darts.
Knee darts. Bwahahahahahahaha!
*Someday, I really should try to come up with a complete badass in some game, somewhere. I always play the comic relief, the voice of reason, or both. Though I suspect that any attempt to make a complete badass would simply result my making a comic relief character with skilz. Look at my writing! My characters suffer from badass decay (or at least get handed the dude in distress ball) by the time I start writing about them! The real problem, of course, is that I prefer characters who are awesome and fallible. That second part tends to punt them out of badass territory.
This entry was originally posted at http://smurasaki.dreamwidth.org/119793.html.
I've been playing SW:TOR and loving it, as have a number of my friends. We're all Star Wars fans anyway, and the fun we've been having with the MMO prompted us to break out the old D20 Star Wars RPG and have ourselves a game over the internet (we're spread across two states - and even those of us in the same state live in two different cities). We're playing in an AU based off one of the Infinities comics - the New Hope one, I think.
Following my usual tendency to make the most useful of characters*, I'm playing a gambler with the attention span of a squirrel and an affinity for walking into obvious traps (especially when pretty girls are involved). The rest of the party consists of a deserter from the Empire, a mechanic, a drunken Force user, an escaped pleasure slave (who is almost certainly more than she seems), a rebel soldier (or a soldier from what's left of the rebellion, anyway), and a bounty hunter.
It's the last character on the list that prompted this post. You see, the player decided her awesome bounty hunter should have the exact same armor as Boba Fett. Which sounds like a great idea on the surface. You know, before one actually looks at Boba Fett's armor and all it contains and has attached to it. (And, no, I'm not talking about the Wookiee scalps.) I'm beginning to think we should've linked her Cracked's Boba Fett rant. Though, given that she replicated Boba Fett's armor after reading the description of it in one of the source books, it might be a lost cause.
What's wrong with Boba Fett's armor, you ask? EVERYTHING. Even if we skip the fact that he looks rather like a space hobo (seriously, have moths been at his cape?), the dude made some really bad choices.
- He's got pockets at shin level in his pants - which means he can only reach what's in them by bending over or dropping to one knee (not the best choice for a man in a dangerous line of work).
- He has a wrist mounted flame thrower that (at least according to the game source book) is fed from the fuel for his jet pack. Which couldn't possibly backfire horribly. Oh no.
- His jet pack also has missile/grappling hook launcher - because a jet pack is totally where I'd want to launch things from, what with the flammable fuel and all.
- And, speaking of flammable, the guy is wearing a cape with his jetpack. A CAPE!? There's a whole new "No capes!" waiting to happen. (And why has no one fan-arted this?) But that's not the worst!
- The worst, the winner of the "what was Boba thinking!?" award, is the fact that he has rocket darts on his knees.
That's right, guys. Boba Fett has the ability to fire darts with his knees. How, Mr. Fett, do you plan on aiming those? Your eyes are waaaaay up here on your head. Unless you're keeping a second set somewhere else, I'm thinking those darts don't hit their target very often. (Though I desperately want to go all Mythbusters and build kneepad dart launchers and test their aim. Desperately.)
So, yeah, my friend and fellow player read up all that at and just copied it for her character. Knee darts, high likelihood of self-immolation and all. I expect hilarity when she uses the knee darts.
But I can't blame her too much. Lucas and co. came up with that mess and, apparently, no one ever went "Cape and jetpack, whut?" or "Knee darts!? bwahahahahaha" at any point during the design process. This was clearly pure rule of cool with no thought at all for how any of it would actually work. After all, we were treated to another bit of rule of cool/lack of thought with the whole "No disintegration." line.
How the frak are you supposed to collect a bounty on someone you've disintegrated? You can't even prove that they're dead, much less that you killed them. (There is a part of me that wonders if Karrels Javis saying that people will probably think he was disintegrated if your Agent spares him on Hutta in SW:TOR was a writer's subtle poke at the whole disintegrating people thing.) And, besides, bounty hunters aren't, technically, assassins in the first place.
Or at least, they're not supposed to be. The lore suggests they're not (see the Bounty Hunter's Creed), the dialogue in SW:TOR suggests they're not. And yet, there's very little non-lethal weaponry for bounty hunting in either the d20 game or in SW:TOR. Hell, the only non-lethal weaponry my SW:TOR bounty hunter has (so far, anyway) are her electro darts. That's it. And those, by all logic, shouldn't work on people in heavy armor, being darts and all. (Though at least they're wrist fired, not knee fired.)
This has lead to my having to re-equip my SW:TOR bounty hunter for her appearance in my fanfics. She needs to be armed mainly with non-lethal weaponry: the electro darts, flash grenades, stun baton...some sort of ion weapon for shorting out droids or power armor, perhaps a sonic weapon, sticky foam... you know, things you'd actually use to capture someone. Ironically, re-outfitting her makes her more dangerous as a fanfic character, since Plot Armor doesn't work on non-lethal measures (something you'd think savvy villains would take advantage of).
And, no, she does not wear a cape with her jetpack. No flaming "No capes!" moment for her.
Damn, now I want to go fanfic.
And draw Boba Fett's flaming "No capes!" moment.
And build knee darts.
Knee darts. Bwahahahahahahaha!
*Someday, I really should try to come up with a complete badass in some game, somewhere. I always play the comic relief, the voice of reason, or both. Though I suspect that any attempt to make a complete badass would simply result my making a comic relief character with skilz. Look at my writing! My characters suffer from badass decay (or at least get handed the dude in distress ball) by the time I start writing about them! The real problem, of course, is that I prefer characters who are awesome and fallible. That second part tends to punt them out of badass territory.
This entry was originally posted at http://smurasaki.dreamwidth.org/119793.html.