7 minutes ago, Maelora said:One of my friends actually pointed out that Jar-Jar Binks, of all people, is actually an outlier for his species, as we see gungans are not only racially diverse (Boss Nass almost looks like a whole other species) but they're also not clownish and comic like Jar-Jar, and in fact they seem to find his antics embarassing. It's sort of like having someone like Kim Jong-un representing the entirety of humanity.
I feel a Mel Brooks movie in there........
It's a bad comparison, I was trying to think of someone clownish, but at least Jar-Jar was harmless.
I think I used up my brain-cells tonight on the Tom Cruise jokes
1 minute ago, Maelora said:It's a bad comparison, I was trying to think of someone clownish, but at least Jar-Jar was harmless.
I think I used up my brain-cells tonight on the Tom Cruise jokes
Some clowns are scarrrryyyyy.........besides butterball is personally harmless unless you're a slice of swiss cheese.......
Interesting that FFG were only allowed to give us one Gungan subspecies, and the other wasn't even to be mentioned.
8 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:Interesting that FFG were only allowed to give us one Gungan subspecies, and the other wasn't even to be mentioned.
Given that they gave Gungans a Presence 3, it seems the profile would apply to Ankura as well.
And also: we are now just 6 posts away from this being to most replied to post EVER on EotE Game Masters forum.
At the risk of being outlawed here and stoned as a heretic, being simple is a feature.
I found over years of Live Roleplaying that if you have a complex character, with complex motivations and costume, people won't interact much with you. But if you have a simple, extreme character, such that people quickly work out how you are, they interact far more with you. To the extent that you get included in songs and jokes and references. MANY people prefer characters and environments which can be quickly understood.
Sure, it is far more realistic that despite the exciting lava pool the characters are fighting near is not representative of the whole planet, but it is far easier to understand if it is. Which means less words on background, and jumping straight into the action (whether movie or game). There is nothing that says that an alien that looks like a large insect has a society that is similar to an social insect on earth, but if it does, then it's quicker to understand and process.
A character can grow and evolve and change, but I've found the favourites tend to be those that can be explained to friends in a bar in a couple of sentences, and give enough to understand the hours of stories about them you then can regale!
2 hours ago, Yaccarus said:Given that they gave Gungans a Presence 3, it seems the profile would apply to Ankura as well.
I do not understand that Presence level. Agility? Yes. Presence? What have you been smoking?
2 minutes ago, MonCal said:I do not understand that Presence level. Agility? Yes. Presence? What have you been smoking?
Ankura are sociable and often choose to be leaders, and Jar Jar was a Senator. Plus, Jar Jar proved surprisingly good at convincing people in many situations.
By the way, don't think I blindly follow FFG species stats. Caamasi not getting a Presence 3, Whiphids getting Cunning 1 instead of Intellect 1, Chevin getting Presence 1, Zabraks only getting 10+ in wound/strain threshold, Trandoshans getting Agility 1, and Bothans not getting a rank in Perception are ones that I strongly oppose, for example.
11 minutes ago, MonCal said:I do not understand that Presence level. Agility? Yes. Presence? What have you been smoking?
"...a measure of moxie, charisma, confidence, and force of personality...
...natural leaders, draw attention when they enter a room, can easily strike up a conversation with nearly anyone, and are quick to adapt to social situations..."
Jar Jar has several of those things and was a representative of his species in the Republic who could get anyone talking even if he annoyed them, Boss Nass was a leader of his people with moxie and confidence, General Tarpals had both confidence and a force of personality. I'd say from the examples we've been given of Gungan characters, they fit the bill for having high presence.
Edited by GroggyGolemWe read the episode I scenes differently, I would say.
47 minutes ago, Yaccarus said:By the way, don't think I blindly follow FFG species stats. Caamasi not getting a Presence 3, Whiphids getting Cunning 1 instead of Intellect 1, Chevin getting Presence 1, Zabraks only getting 10+ in wound/strain threshold, Trandoshans getting Agility 1, and Bothans not getting a rank in Perception are ones that I strongly oppose, for example.
The Shistavanen having Cunning 2 and Intellect 3 is the one I don't understand. I would have reversed that for sure.
1 hour ago, SavageBob said:The Shistavanen having Cunning 2 and Intellect 3 is the one I don't understand. I would have reversed that for sure.
Forged in Battle has been out of stock for some time, but I suppose you're right. Shistavenans sound like an Intellect 2. Although I'm no expert.
19 hours ago, Norr-Saba said:so i have been waiting for almost a week and still not been approved to post, so i doubt anyone will actually end up seeing this but i've read through the entire post and have been wanting to say something since page 4.
I have to be honest that i think that the O/P's assumption about the relatability of human characters and unrelatability of inhuman ones is a bit of a stretch for me. I don't mean to overgeneralize the O/P's ability as a Dm and i don't need to restate what others have already said about the quality of the players or of the DM, but there are a few points that i will touch on.
I am a Person of color who plays tabletop, and for me playing a human character is not inherently relatable due to the fact that yes the majority of characters in starwars have been human, but they have also been white humans, with lando being the only person of color in the original trilogy and very few coming after him. This is something that is a recurring theme in a lot of the gaming community, with the default not being human, but being white humans, whether it is sci-fi or fantasy this has been the case for decades, with one of the greatest offenders imo being star-trek where even its aliens are white humans with a bit of makeup, whole species of not humans in funny hats, but white humans in funny hats if we are to expand the trope a little bit. This fact is further illustrated by the fact that my current avatar, the ridiculous caricature that it is, is one of the closest i can find to someone like me with all of the human options from the edge of the empire avatars being white.
so for me, for the longest time, and i'm sure for people who find themselves in my situation, playing a non-human is easier to relate to in many cases than playing a human, and with edge i usually play a mandalorian due to their cultural diversity, but most often a non-human mandalorian.to build on this, someone said that humans have no description in the game except for corellians and mandalorians (although mandalorians are not a totally human group) which means that with no limitations, a human character can be from anywhere and their actions would seem totally normal and appropriate for them because hey they're human and a monolith in star wars.
I have seen the O/P talk about how this is not as easy for aliens or droids because players either do not connect with them or they play them as reskinned humans, and therefore not as the O/P wants them to. To this i have to say two things
- that as multifaceted and diverse as humans can be, aliens should be allowed to be just as much so. this means that even though aliens and humans from their respective human cultures are going to have their own cultural norms and mores, and sometimes more than one group of these considering aliens are no more confined to a single planet than humans are, not all peoples from a culture are going to act within those norms. did this alien grow up around primarily humans, are they assimilated as a result or do they act even more like their culture as a result, do they have a globalized/galaxized perspectives, what are their personal quirks and manerisms, so on and so forth.
you should never allow your characters to be stereotypes whether they are alien or human, and as a game master it is up to you to encourage your players to avoid this, which honestly might require worldbuilding from both you and your players, which should be done for even your human characters. there should never be just a generic alien any more than a generic human, what planet do they come from, what culture do they identify with, what was their homelife, how do they relate to their culture, how do they relate to their fellow players through all of this, and if there is not enough of their culture known then how would you and the player like to fill in the gaps, these are all questions that should be posed to players as they are developing their characters in order to ensure that they can form a connection with them and with their team mates.
- second point is that we are playing in a highly globalized galaxy, and with few exceptions most alien and human species have come in contact with one another, and there is going to be some cultural drift across species, from how they perceive their galaxy to what they find attractive, and most likely having the most dominant species (humans) and the most exotified humanoids (twiliks, ect..) being found attractive by everyone. What this means for gameplay is that not only are you going to have aliens that act very similar to humans, but you are going to have humans that act very similar to aliens, lets remember that this is a distant galaxy in a different time, and there is no reason to assume it is the norm for humans to think the same way as we do any more than it is reasonable for vikings to think the same way that we do now.
final point i want to make in direct response to the O/P is to ask if you have considered how your own biases have affected your players, not to say that you do it consciously and its understandable after reading through what you yourself have encountered with past players, but even if it is unsaid players can sense when you just don't like their character, which can prevent them from feeling comfortable enough to properly engage in the system, i also saw you ask someone if one of the GM's players with an alien character had their own arc, and this is a second thing that i wanted to point out about how your own bias might be affecting the situation, because it may be unconsciously preventing you from creating these opportunities for your players. This is something that going through the questioning process with all of your players about their characters can also help with, and i really hope this helps.
19 hours ago, Norr-Saba said:on another point i saw on here but thought would be best to keep as a separate post due to the length of my previous one, on the subject of whether mandalorians represent a culture or a religion, i think it would be more apt to represent them as an etho-religious group which practices cultural-religious adoption of individuals into the culture, much like how judaism functions, In this way you can have people become mandalorians by embracing the cultural and religious aspects of it, and you could also have atheist mandalorians as well.
i actually identify a few similarities between mandalorians, jewish peoples and palestinians, which is why i take a lot of references for their culture from those two groups.
made these posts yesterday but my account wasn't approved for posting yet and didn't want them to get lost in the shuffle, so just to bring them to the front for consideration, here they are.
Another bad species, as recently highlighted by my game's new player character creation:
Muuns
113322 makes much more sense.
3 hours ago, MonCal said:We read the episode I scenes differently, I would say.
I agree in ep 1 Jar Jar was awful. It seems, with the Clone Wars series, they tried to show despite how gullible and simple he can be, that he actually has a capacity for greatness in him.
As another fun benefit for Jar Jar, there's the whole fact that the Force is constantly watching out for him.
Flips Destiny Point; trips conveniently and avoids getting blasted in the face.
Edited by GroggyGolemMore Canon notes:
Jar Jar is employed as a clown. That takes presence.
The way he earned the friendship of that orphan (Aftermath book 3) definitely showed charm.
1 hour ago, Norr-Saba said:made these posts yesterday ....
@Norr-Saba All that was well said.
1 hour ago, Norr-Saba said:i also saw you ask someone if one of the GM's players with an alien character had their own arc,
Also that was me, and I never responded with my answer to the OP (lost in the shuffle).
On 9/26/2017 at 5:07 PM, Archlyte said:I think this is really the best case scenario, because you seem to have squeezed out the horsepower from your players and they are fulfilling the roles in what sound like fun ways. Can I ask if any of these characters have had an arc? Have they been on a personal journey of change? What forces/situations/relationships did they encounter that caused them to change and how did the player portray this?
But my answer is: While we aren't that far into our campaign, I have a an arc planned for each character. Each explores parts of their history(obligation) with highlights on specifics to their species.
Pretty sure my players aren't on this forum so....for example the Gand is working to earn their family name, and I have an Arc planned where they return to the planet gand for their trial of Janwuine-jika . The Chiss is embarking on her own Arc of being raised on Alderaan and largely being a pacifist, but is finding conflict with this in dealing with A) having all her family and friends destroyed by the empire and B) the struggle of needing violence to survive in the underworld and C) reconciling her discovery of her grandfather's involvement with the criminal underworld in order to support the family.
These are simply the characters they have created, the fact that they are Alien is secondary.
I get the OP's point. The movies are about Humans being the Hero's and the Aliens are sidekicks. That's true. But The Star Wars Universe is a big place and ultimately its just a setting, and I personally like to enjoy the diversity and depths of a unique world.
9 minutes ago, ThreeAM said:The movies are about Humans being the Hero's and the Aliens are sidekicks.
All the more reason for nonhuman PCs. We need to break racist trends. #AlienLivesMatter
Personally, if you want to explore an alien species and culture in depth , the game should focus on that species and the majority (if not all) of the player characters should be from that species-culture-planet. Or, the other players should sign up for frequently being out of the spotlight. If you only have one of said alien, or everyone is playing different oddball aliens everyone wants to explore in detail, then you have to shift narrative focus away from the main story, or divide up your time too much, to play to the snowflake character. This is especially true if you have a "normal sized" or larger group (say 4+ players). Of course, the players of the non-exotic characters may be willing to serve as supporting cast for an extended arc about the alien leading man or lady, or you might be able to work non-exotics into a story about the exotics in an interesting way (works best with 2-3, IMO), but that's still a story focused on one species. Basically, I'm suggesting that while exploring an alien culture-species-planet is a perfectly valid thing to do in a game (and could be fun and rewarding) it works best if that's what the game is about. Otherwise, its tends to be make-work for the GM.
It all depends on how you want to play it. I could have a campaign go in depth to a culture and have none of the PCs be part of that culture. Stranger is a strange land is an old trope
6 minutes ago, korjik said:It all depends on how you want to play it. I could have a campaign go in depth to a culture and have none of the PCs be part of that culture. Stranger is a strange land is an old trope
That is still a story about said exotic species-culture-planet as opposed to a story with a character that turns said species-culture-planet into a tangent.
5 minutes ago, korjik said:It all depends on how you want to play it. I could have a campaign go in depth to a culture and have none of the PCs be part of that culture. Stranger is a strange land is an old trope
But you'd have to have everyone's culture defined in order to be able to contrast them with the strange culture.
22 hours ago, Norr-Saba said:so i have been waiting for almost a week and still not been approved to post, so i doubt anyone will actually end up seeing this but i've read through the entire post and have been wanting to say something since page 4.
I have to be honest that i think that the O/P's assumption about the relatability of human characters and unrelatability of inhuman ones is a bit of a stretch for me. I don't mean to overgeneralize the O/P's ability as a Dm and i don't need to restate what others have already said about the quality of the players or of the DM, but there are a few points that i will touch on.
I am a Person of color who plays tabletop, and for me playing a human character is not inherently relatable due to the fact that yes the majority of characters in starwars have been human, but they have also been white humans, with lando being the only person of color in the original trilogy and very few coming after him. This is something that is a recurring theme in a lot of the gaming community, with the default not being human, but being white humans, whether it is sci-fi or fantasy this has been the case for decades, with one of the greatest offenders imo being star-trek where even its aliens are white humans with a bit of makeup, whole species of not humans in funny hats, but white humans in funny hats if we are to expand the trope a little bit. This fact is further illustrated by the fact that my current avatar, the ridiculous caricature that it is, is one of the closest i can find to someone like me with all of the human options from the edge of the empire avatars being white.
so for me, for the longest time, and i'm sure for people who find themselves in my situation, playing a non-human is easier to relate to in many cases than playing a human, and with edge i usually play a mandalorian due to their cultural diversity, but most often a non-human mandalorian.to build on this, someone said that humans have no description in the game except for corellians and mandalorians (although mandalorians are not a totally human group) which means that with no limitations, a human character can be from anywhere and their actions would seem totally normal and appropriate for them because hey they're human and a monolith in star wars.
I have seen the O/P talk about how this is not as easy for aliens or droids because players either do not connect with them or they play them as reskinned humans, and therefore not as the O/P wants them to. To this i have to say two things
- that as multifaceted and diverse as humans can be, aliens should be allowed to be just as much so. this means that even though aliens and humans from their respective human cultures are going to have their own cultural norms and mores, and sometimes more than one group of these considering aliens are no more confined to a single planet than humans are, not all peoples from a culture are going to act within those norms. did this alien grow up around primarily humans, are they assimilated as a result or do they act even more like their culture as a result, do they have a globalized/galaxized perspectives, what are their personal quirks and manerisms, so on and so forth.
you should never allow your characters to be stereotypes whether they are alien or human, and as a game master it is up to you to encourage your players to avoid this, which honestly might require worldbuilding from both you and your players, which should be done for even your human characters. there should never be just a generic alien any more than a generic human, what planet do they come from, what culture do they identify with, what was their homelife, how do they relate to their culture, how do they relate to their fellow players through all of this, and if there is not enough of their culture known then how would you and the player like to fill in the gaps, these are all questions that should be posed to players as they are developing their characters in order to ensure that they can form a connection with them and with their team mates.
- second point is that we are playing in a highly globalized galaxy, and with few exceptions most alien and human species have come in contact with one another, and there is going to be some cultural drift across species, from how they perceive their galaxy to what they find attractive, and most likely having the most dominant species (humans) and the most exotified humanoids (twiliks, ect..) being found attractive by everyone. What this means for gameplay is that not only are you going to have aliens that act very similar to humans, but you are going to have humans that act very similar to aliens, lets remember that this is a distant galaxy in a different time, and there is no reason to assume it is the norm for humans to think the same way as we do any more than it is reasonable for vikings to think the same way that we do now.
final point i want to make in direct response to the O/P is to ask if you have considered how your own biases have affected your players, not to say that you do it consciously and its understandable after reading through what you yourself have encountered with past players, but even if it is unsaid players can sense when you just don't like their character, which can prevent them from feeling comfortable enough to properly engage in the system, i also saw you ask someone if one of the GM's players with an alien character had their own arc, and this is a second thing that i wanted to point out about how your own bias might be affecting the situation, because it may be unconsciously preventing you from creating these opportunities for your players. This is something that going through the questioning process with all of your players about their characters can also help with, and i really hope this helps.
/Like/
I ran out of likes while catching up on this thread...