Star Wars feel: The No No list

By Archlyte, in Star Wars: Age of Rebellion RPG

On ‎08‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 8:39 PM, Maelora said:

*PLOT TWIST!*

After the players have completed 'Revenge of the Banhammers' and stand victorious, they discover the entire thing was a set-up, and they were being filmed by 'Alliance xXx: Your Own Private Rebellion!' as a prelude to the events unfolding in Jabba's Sex Dungeon (TM). With the Mods vanquished, the debauchery (involving the elomin starlet Herylcha Tyk Rhinann in her first full feature, and veteran zabrak performer Bayla Bae, winner of 'Best Alien Scene' at the ABA21 Mind Evaporator Awards!) can progress to its climax (available for a mere 5000 credits from a reputable HoloNet channel near you)

I am (almost) ashamed to admit this actually inspired (if that's the right word) some MarcyVerse art :)

So thanks to kaosoe for actually contributing to the madness :)

Not all heroes wear capes.

5 minutes ago, kaosoe said:

Not all heroes wear capes.

True. Only the heroes that want to have their careers irreverently cut short by a horrific wardrobe malfunction wear capes.

Edited by Absol197
35 minutes ago, Absol197 said:

True. Only the heroes that want to have their careers irreverently cut short by a horrific wardrobe malfunction wear capes.

Poor Stratogale... *shakes head*

I'm currently playing in an SWRPG game and the GM plays music from other genres, makes references to regular world stuff, and in general doesn't seem to really like Star Wars all that much except for where the EU crossed over into anime-friendly concepts. It's making me feel like I was on to something with this thread as I am getting a very low percentage Star Wars experience in that game.

7 hours ago, Archlyte said:

I'm currently playing in an SWRPG game and the GM plays music from other genres, makes references to regular world stuff, and in general doesn't seem to really like Star Wars all that much except for where the EU crossed over into anime-friendly concepts. It's making me feel like I was on to something with this thread as I am getting a very low percentage Star Wars experience in that game.

With how specific the music selection for Star Wars is, I can understand using stuff from elsewhere, and the real-world references sounds perfectly fine for a casual game, but the "seems to not like Star Wars that much" part is actually a bit worrying. Any chance you could provide an example of your GM's "anime" influences?

...**** meesa, it's the Nagai, isn't it?

Edited by Degenerate Mind
13 hours ago, Degenerate Mind said:

With how specific the music selection for Star Wars is, I can understand using stuff from elsewhere, and the real-world references sounds perfectly fine for a casual game, but the "seems to not like Star Wars that much" part is actually a bit worrying. Any chance you could provide an example of your GM's "anime" influences?

...**** meesa, it's the Nagai, isn't it?

Well last game we were attacked by a ninja. The real world music wasn't bad for the most part, but it was jarring because we hadn't had any star wars music so it was the only feels music we got and it took me out of the game. There was a lot of earth cussing and the general descriptions of things didn't tend to paint the picture of star wars, it felt more like Aliens 3 or something. Hardly any aliens or droids, none of which were described in a way that felt right. Not to mention every single NPC was a super *******. Now I can see people in the outer rim not being friendly, but openly antagonizing armed strangers is just suicidal, and every NPC engaged in this. I felt like the GM was flirting with murder hobo rage lol.

5 hours ago, Archlyte said:

Well last game we were attacked by a ninja. The real world music wasn't bad for the most part, but it was jarring because we hadn't had any star wars music so it was the only feels music we got and it took me out of the game. There was a lot of earth cussing and the general descriptions of things didn't tend to paint the picture of star wars, it felt more like Aliens 3 or something. Hardly any aliens or droids, none of which were described in a way that felt right. Not to mention every single NPC was a super *******. Now I can see people in the outer rim not being friendly, but openly antagonizing armed strangers is just suicidal, and every NPC engaged in this. I felt like the GM was flirting with murder hobo rage lol.

Jesus Christ, that GM is utter garbage. Even my waifu isn't that trash. Why haven't you abandoned that game like a deformed Spartan baby yet?

1 hour ago, Degenerate Mind said:

Jesus Christ, that GM is utter garbage. Even my waifu isn't that trash. Why haven't you abandoned that game like a deformed Spartan baby yet?

I'm trying to be less like me. Me seems unpopular so I thought I would give everyone else a try. So far it's not working out

38 minutes ago, Archlyte said:

I'm trying to be less like me. Me seems unpopular so I thought I would give everyone else a try. So far it's not working out

That's a cynical and self-pitying way to put it - it's also quite insulting to those of us who have argued with you here, on top of that.

There's a marked difference between having different interpretations of what makes Star Wars into such a fantastic setting to play a game in, and being... what you just described.

I've seen a number of different approaches described in this thread for runing games, from your focus on capturing the themes and feel of the Original Trilogy to how Maelora quite literally has her own thing going for her. These are all perfectly valid by my standards, as I don't believe there's such a thing as evilbadwrongfun, but there is certainly such a thing as a garbage player or game master. The guy you're having a problem is using a narrative game system to lazily throw just whatever together without rhyme or reason, and has a clearly adversarial approach to games - these are absolutely red flags, but it has nothing to do with why many people simply have a different view of the Star Wars universe than you do.

Your particular interpretation of the setting is limited to the films, and not even ALL of them. This is of course going to clash with a bunch of people that love various parts of the Expanded Universe, Legends and modern canon both included (like me), or with people who enjoy different atmospheres and tones combined with traditional Star Wars (like Maelora) - there's significantly more to the Star Wars franchise that you dislike than you like, so there's going to be a lot more Star Wars zealots who disagree with you than who agree with you. This no more invalidates your play style than yours invalidates ours, and what you're doing here is participating in a game that is poorly run and that you can't stand, then indirectly blaming us for it. If I didn't have such a high opinion of your honesty and intelligence, I would accuse you of making up a crappy strawman to make your detractors in this thread look bad.

If the game's as awful as you've implied, drop it. Don't stick around because other people on the internet disagree with how you like to play make-believe - it wastes your time and does absolutely nothing to get back at people who argued with you.

Edited by Degenerate Mind
43 minutes ago, Degenerate Mind said:

If the game's as awful as you've implied, drop it. Don't stick around because other people on the internet disagree with how you like to play make-believe - it wastes your time and does absolutely nothing to get back at people who argued with you.

If the others at that game are having a good time, it wastes THEIR time, too.

6 minutes ago, Stan Fresh said:

If the others at that game are having a good time, it wastes THEIR time, too.

I take back literally everything I just said. @Archlyte , you need to stay in the game to punish the heretics for having evilbadwrongfun.

Edited by Degenerate Mind
1 minute ago, Degenerate Mind said:

I take back everything I said. @Archlyte , you need to stay in the game to punish the heretics for having evilbadwrongfun.

Yeah, have a bad time. That'll show 'em!

If I never hear the Star Wars music outside of the media or a video game, I will be content. I don't own any, would never play any.

2 hours ago, Archlyte said:

I'm trying to be less like me. Me seems unpopular so I thought I would give everyone else a try. So far it's not working out

I have three reactions to this.

  • First: huh? That's sad. Disagreement != unpopular. In the context of this thread and setting the Star Wars mood, I think you set such a rigid standard not even you could adhere to it. If you can't find a group that wants to be, and enjoys being, as strict as you about their gaming experience, then you either give up playing or you lighten up. Those are the only paths to the light.
  • Second: on the other hand, call the wah-mbulance.
  • Third: are you just trolling this thread now?

I'm not sure which of the three are correct, if any, so I'll leave it at that.

I actually answered that truthfully and that response should be taken in context with my previous post concerning playing in a game. I was thinking that maybe I'm being too insistent on being precise about this stuff (given all of the intelligent answers opposing being discerning) so I decided to play in a game that I initially thought would be closer to my standard, but ended up being no where near it. This is after all a game you cannot play by yourself, and you need to have some ability to play with others. I also thought that maybe by trying to play in a relaxed setting I could appreciate the points made by the "casuals" here who don't really give a rat's *** about whether or not something feels like Star Wars. I figured I should at least entertain the idea that perhaps I was wrong and shouldn't be so picky. My response was meant to convey that I was in no way successful in this experiment. I was attempting a little humor but I have been having a crap day. My jeep overheated on the way to work because I just paid it off finally 3 months ago so of course it had to break. I spent the day working with teenagers with anger problems and then came home and answered that post. I'd like to spend a forum Destiny Point to roll a new Posting check lol.

39 minutes ago, Archlyte said:

"casuals"

Still with the condescension. What the ****, man.

44 minutes ago, Archlyte said:

I actually answered that truthfully and that response should be taken in context with my previous post concerning playing in a game. I was thinking that maybe I'm being too insistent on being precise about this stuff (given all of the intelligent answers opposing being discerning) so I decided to play in a game that I initially thought would be closer to my standard, but ended up being no where near it. This is after all a game you cannot play by yourself, and you need to have some ability to play with others. I also thought that maybe by trying to play in a relaxed setting I could appreciate the points made by the "casuals" here who don't really give a rat's *** about whether or not something feels like Star Wars. I figured I should at least entertain the idea that perhaps I was wrong and shouldn't be so picky. My response was meant to convey that I was in no way successful in this experiment. I was attempting a little humor but I have been having a crap day. My jeep overheated on the way to work because I just paid it off finally 3 months ago so of course it had to break. I spent the day working with teenagers with anger problems and then came home and answered that post. I'd like to spend a forum Destiny Point to roll a new Posting check lol.

And I took your post as truthful. And I still find you lumping us in with that guy to be insulting and petty.

Despite what you seem to believe about us, disagreeing with you about what constitutes Star Wars does not make one a "casual." I find it astounding that after a dozen pages of back-and-forth debate with so many of us, you can still be so condescending towards a difference in taste regarding what parts of Star Wars people like.

3 hours ago, Stan Fresh said:

Still with the condescension. What the ****, man.

2 hours ago, Degenerate Mind said:

And I took your post as truthful. And I still find you lumping us in with that guy to be insulting and petty.

Despite what you seem to believe about us, disagreeing with you about what constitutes Star Wars does not make one a "casual." I find it astounding that after a dozen pages of back-and-forth debate with so many of us, you can still be so condescending towards a difference in taste regarding what parts of Star Wars people like.

Even before "casuals," I was struck by

3 hours ago, Archlyte said:

(given all of the intelligent answers opposing being discerning)

I think this illustrates something of an irreconcilable difference in how this issue is discussed. I didn't intend to polarize the people in the discussion but it has happened. Why is casual automatically bad? Wouldn't it be natural for me to not feel affinity for the opposite viewpoint? I even tried to explain that my post was coming from a persona who was experiencing something of a bad day. I see that really counted for nothing and has made me reconsider the nature of these forums. I see that this is simply a battlefield of ideas rather than a sounding board. I wanted to talk about this topic to see if there were compelling reasons to do things differently than I was doing them, and while there were some good arguments I think that they basically amount to sophistry and the excuses of the agents of the status quo. You don't need to make it like Star Wars because Star Wars is whatever we want it to be. That seems to be the thesis, and I agree with that, but there still seems to be a current of defensiveness. Why would you worry about someone else having a more rigid standard than what you have for your attempts to emulate Star Wars? This game is after all set on a theme, and one that I find to be excellent. To me, the idea of trying to approach that theme in the best way I can perceive isn't a bad thing. Part of that process requires discernment and editing, so not every concept can be a winner.

2 hours ago, Archlyte said:

I think this illustrates something of an irreconcilable difference in how this issue is discussed. I didn't intend to polarize the people in the discussion but it has happened. Why is casual automatically bad? Wouldn't it be natural for me to not feel affinity for the opposite viewpoint? I even tried to explain that my post was coming from a persona who was experiencing something of a bad day. I see that really counted for nothing and has made me reconsider the nature of these forums. I see that this is simply a battlefield of ideas rather than a sounding board. I wanted to talk about this topic to see if there were compelling reasons to do things differently than I was doing them, and while there were some good arguments I think that they basically amount to sophistry and the excuses of the agents of the status quo. You don't need to make it like Star Wars because Star Wars is whatever we want it to be. That seems to be the thesis, and I agree with that, but there still seems to be a current of defensiveness. Why would you worry about someone else having a more rigid standard than what you have for your attempts to emulate Star Wars? This game is after all set on a theme, and one that I find to be excellent. To me, the idea of trying to approach that theme in the best way I can perceive isn't a bad thing. Part of that process requires discernment and editing, so not every concept can be a winner.

C'mon now. Let's not be disingenuous. It's not just the use of "casual" (although more on that in a bit), but your entire context of its use:

23 hours ago, Archlyte said:

I also thought that maybe by trying to play in a relaxed setting I could appreciate the points made by the "casuals" here who don't really give a rat's *** about whether or not something feels like Star Wars.

You've agreed that how "something feels like Star Wars" can vary among people, then turn around and say this. (Here's where the more I mentioned above comes in.) It reads an awful lot like those challenges we hear about more and more, where people declare others to not be a "real" fan of something if they don't share all identical views of that work. "Gatekeeping," it's called. And, I must say, the so-called gatekeepers tend towards the toxic end of their particular fandoms.

As a comics fan, I used to participate in the forum of a well-known, once quite popular writer/artist. The regular posters there (and the writer/artist) would routinely refer to those who didn't know chapter and verse of characters' histories or weren't intense collectors as "civilians." They seemed to take pride in setting themselves at a different tier than other fans...all the while mystified as to why comics fandom was viewed as insular and exclusionary, and was hemorrhaging readers. "Civilians." "Casuals." It all smacks to me of elevating oneself above one's fellow fans in a condescending manner.

Then there's:

23 hours ago, Archlyte said:

I was thinking that maybe I'm being too insistent on being precise about this stuff (given all of the intelligent answers opposing being discerning) so I decided to play in a game that I initially thought would be closer to my standard, but ended up being no where near it.

The clear implication here is that taking different approaches to a game with its roots in a property we all share an affection for makes one "less discerning."

I can give the benefit of the doubt that you may not have intended the post to come across that way, but now, after a few of us have remarked on it, it looks like you're doubling down.

At any rate, I wish you the best in your gaming endeavors.

3 hours ago, Archlyte said:

That seems to be the thesis, and I agree with that, but there still seems to be a current of defensiveness.

It's not defensiveness, it's having to defend against your constant "accidental" and "unintended" attacks.

Edited by Stan Fresh
6 hours ago, Archlyte said:

Why is casual automatically bad? Wouldn't it be natural for me to not feel affinity for the opposite viewpoint?

Because your premise is self-serving and misguided. There's nothing casual about my enjoyment of Star Wars. I really really like it. The difference between us seems to be more about inclusion vs exclusion. I think I have an expanded view of what Star Wars can be. Star Wars is broad enough to include all themes found in westerns, spy novels, byzantine political drama, film noir, and seedy/sexy angst-ridden tragedies...among others. Since you seem to find it important, my view is *strongly* supported by what is implied or directly on display in TCW and Rebels.

In contrast, your view seems to be rather myopic . You appear to be stuck in the opening scroll of E4. So calling the rest of us "casual" is so far off the mark as to be laughable.

And meanwhile, I still get to play the game -- and enjoy it *as* Star Wars -- with people who aren't even Star Wars fans. Imagine that.

"I

like

big Hutts and I cannot lie..."

It is unlikely that anyone who spends hours hanging around this forum discussing Star Wars and gaming in Star Wars universe can be accurately described as casual

Edited by Darzil
3 hours ago, Darzil said:

It is unlikely that anyone who spends hours hanging around this forum discussing Star Wars and gaming in Star Wars universe can be accurately described as casual

Amen to that. :D