We're starting a new campaign in the new year, rotating between myself and a friend as GM. The premise is we are scavengers with a salvage company called "Sticky Fingers". The only real Star Wars fan is me, the others are fine with it as long as they don't have to know any SW trivia. There is one player who is relying on me to help him build a PC because a) he is the GM for a fantasy campaign, which takes up some time, and b) is too busy with family life to devote much time to a PC.

His PC concept is a know-it-all type...in another era he might wear a top-hat, monocle, and sport a cane. One could imagine him monologuing as he describes the effects of an upcoming explosion to a group of hapless minions, or holding forth on atmospheric irregularities as a pilot desperately tries to bring us to ground. How this fits with a salvaging company is beyond me but it's what he wants to play. He also very much wants to show up, say his piece, roll dice, and not think much about Talents.

I have three options I've offered, but I'm wondering if anyone has others. First is Scholar + Politico. Pretty straightforward, gives every Knowledge skill and every social skill, and many of the talents end up affecting the dice pool, which makes it easy for him. If I know him, once he learns what Scathing Tirade and Inspiring Rhetoric can do he will have fun with it. Second is Archeologist, which gives a pretty well-rounded set of skills, good for the group because we get a navigator and a pilot, and a cheap Well Rounded that he'd probably use for Ranged(Light) and Medicine, but no real social skills (which this player does know how to leverage, when prompted). Third is Diplomat:Analyst + Agitator. Good mix of Knowledge + social, with Computers as a bonus so he can be useful in other contexts, plus the Analyst talents, like Valuable Facts, are pretty cool.

Any other ideas? Something simple that doesn't take a lot of memorizing?

To help with how he fits in, how about using Entrepreneur in there somewhere? Maybe he's the office manager (who always ends up out in the field)...and also that one co-worker who always has to chime in with their experience knowledge about, well, everything (whether they really have any or not).

Archaeologist sounds interesting what's their opinion on Dr Aphra?

I am biased, because I am partial to the Archaeologist trope, in general... I would go with the Agitator/ Analyst in this case, which could indeed create a similar character, with better social talent options. The Agitator talents would be a lot of fun to play, and the Analyst does feature much the same useful crunch as the Archaeologist. I tried to come up with a better combo, independently, but could not.

9 hours ago, whafrog said:

His PC concept is a know-it-all type...in another era he might wear a top-hat, monocle, and sport a cane.

Your description for this character has me envisioning Sir Malcolm Murray, from Penny Dreadful, on the folio cover.

10 hours ago, Nytwyng said:

To help with how he fits in, how about using Entrepreneur in there somewhere?

I had thought of this too, but I don't think he wants to play the business type. At least there is that or Trader to grow into if he wants some of the useful Talents.

4 hours ago, copperbell said:

Archaeologist sounds interesting what's their opinion on Dr Aphra?

Not being SW fans...they've never heard of her. I'm not sure she'd fit the mold he's going for though.

1 hour ago, Edgehawk said:

Your description for this character has me envisioning Sir Malcolm Murray, from Penny Dreadful

I think that's definitely the look but I don't know anything about that character.

1 hour ago, whafrog said:

I think that's definitely the look but I don't know anything about that character.

Penny Dreadful is a show I caught on Netflix a while back. Timothy Dalton plays a Victorian era explorer (Big Game Hunter?) turned monster-hunter.

All of your ideas above are good, but... I'd mix it up.

(and as I'm also a huge fan of Penny Dreadful, and also thought of Mr Dalton's excellent portrayal - you should definitely watch it)

Go Archeologist/Scholar or Archeologist/Politico...

Or maybe add one of the more Social specializations to the Arc/Scholar mix once your friend gets a real handle on where he wants it to go.

If you're going to play for a while, I see nothing wrong with a solid 2 specializations and a dip into a third...

Inspiring and Scathing ? You've sold me on the Archaeologist/ Politico concept, though the different careers may be difficult for starting xp.

5 hours ago, Bishop69 said:

Go Archeologist/Scholar or Archeologist/Politico...

That's a pretty good option. Not sure why I was trying so hard to keep the specs in the same family. In my last campaign I pretty much waived the cost of extra specs (within limits), I think we might do that in this campaign as well.

On 11/18/2017 at 9:49 AM, whafrog said:

I had thought of this too, but I don't think he wants to play the business type. At least there is that or Trader to grow into if he wants some of the useful Talents.

Not being SW fans...they've never heard of her. I'm not sure she'd fit the mold he's going for though.

I think that's definitely the look but I don't know anything about that character.

Its probably not on your list for the above reasons but I'm fond of the quartermaster for a social spec.

He ended up wanting to have a technical bent, so we settled on Analyst/Mechanic, I think he's pretty happy with it.

What race is he choosing? When reading through these posts I kept imagining the character as a droid. But, I suppose the know-it-all arrogant droid may be a little overused and simplistic?

Human, always human. Even our D&D games are "historical". I offered him a Cerean and he said he had enough trouble running one brain...