Hi

I've just finished building my character for an upcoming Age Of Rebellion game but i'm playing a Smuggler Type from Edge Of The Empire expac. I'm not thoroughly clued up on SW Lore but i'll provide what I can give to help with assistance.

Our game is taking place 6 months after the first Death Star was destroyed by the Rebel Alliance and none of our characters have met each other yet.

My character is a former Empire Junior Flight Sgt who has deserted the Empire 1 month before the Death Star was destroyed. He hasn't defected, he has simply faked his death in a Tie Interceptor crash and has become a smuggler/transport for hire.
His reason for desertion and not defection was due to the fact while he no longer fully agrees with the Empire, he's seen some sketchy things the rebels have done too which to him makes them no better.

Issue is, another player in my group is a Twi'lek Rebel Agitator, and all i'm currently getting from the player in question is jeering for not picking a side/culpable cause i'm still siding with the enemy by being neutral because i've only deserted and not defected yadda yadda yadda.

So I would like some help in how would I portray this character in this situation and examples of anything even remotely "sketchy" the Rebels have done that would kinda paint them in a "no better than the Empire" light.

Thanks for reading!

Well, first I'm going to put on my GM hat and say that you should figure out if it's the other player jeering your perceived lack of commitment, or just them acting out how their character would think. If it's really the player, you should probably say something like, "Hey, I just want to play this character my way. I have an interesting idea for how he'll fit in with the rebellion, and I'd appreciate it if you allow me to play it out." The other player might not realize their behavior is putting you off.

But moving forward, I'll assume they're just being a mouthpiece for their character's attitudes. So here's a few ideas:

• Point out that your character is, in fact, fronting up for the rebellion by working with them. He could get in a jibe about how he's at least honest that he's here for the paycheck—not pretending like he's in it for the cause. (The implication being that your character doesn't believe the other character's high-and-mighty talk. It's a little adversarial, but it also makes it clear that they've got something to prove to you, as well as the reverse.)
• In Rogue One, we had a pretty tacit admission that the Alliance has engaged in assassination and sabotage, with a not-at-all-subtle suggestion that they've been cavalier about collateral damage. You could make that assertion generally, lay it specifically at Saw Gerrera's feet (remember: to the galaxy at large, he's just another rebel), or work with your GM to come up with a specific incident involving the Alliance that made your character think they weren't worth joining. (And don't let them make it a "misunderstanding;" have it be a sanctioned operation that went terribly wrong or else had "acceptable casualties.")
• Abandon the idea that your character has misgivings about the rebellion, and instead focus on the fact that he has misgivings about the Empire. It could be that he has no love for the Alliance and would just as easily work with anyone looking to make trouble for the Empire. Maybe he doesn't even have a strong objection to the idea of the Empire at all, but rather sees the leadership as corrupt and is fighting for change. This will require a bit of a tightrope walk to not sound like an Imperial sympathizer, but it's doable.

It's worth noting that, since you're playing in an Age of Rebellion game, there's an assumption that your character wants to help the Alliance overthrow the Empire, but their precise motivation for doing so can be whatever you want it to be. If that's not what you want to do, you should talk with your GM, because AoR might not be the right fit for this character.

I agree mostly with CaptainRasberry. This kind of conflict between characters can be very entertaining but if the conflict is between players then the two of you and the GM should sit down and work it out.

If it all character based, run with it. Give him specific examples of what you have seen the Rebellion do from the Empires point of view. If he can't convince you that there was a valid reason for that act to be done or some other way to do it you may start getting him to question his faith in the Alliance.

You say that you have not defected but it does not sound as if you have any desire to go back. Does this mean you still support the Empire? You need to decide these answers for your character before you can really face this other character.

I agree, if it's player vs player, have a chat, maybe it's not intended to cause you this conflict.

If it's character vs character that's actually a rich playing field, as long as it's handled with restraint.

On 11/3/2018 at 4:11 PM, EveryoneLovesRobots said:

Hi

I've just finished building my character for an upcoming Age Of Rebellion game but i'm playing a Smuggler Type from Edge Of The Empire expac. I'm not thoroughly clued up on SW Lore but i'll provide what I can give to help with assistance.

Our game is taking place 6 months after the first Death Star was destroyed by the Rebel Alliance and none of our characters have met each other yet.

My character is a former Empire Junior Flight Sgt who has deserted the Empire 1 month before the Death Star was destroyed. He hasn't defected, he has simply faked his death in a Tie Interceptor crash and has become a smuggler/transport for hire.
His reason for desertion and not defection was due to the fact while he no longer fully agrees with the Empire, he's seen some sketchy things the rebels have done too which to him makes them no better.

Issue is, another player in my group is a Twi'lek Rebel Agitator, and all i'm currently getting from the player in question is jeering for not picking a side/culpable cause i'm still siding with the enemy by being neutral because i've only deserted and not defected yadda yadda yadda.

So I would like some help in how would I portray this character in this situation and examples of anything even remotely "sketchy" the Rebels have done that would kinda paint them in a "no better than the Empire" light.

Thanks for reading!

Play it Bogart. Be yourself, and play your character. If your character feels attacked, steal some of the other character's stuff from under their nose. Or use your charm or whatever to put them down (may be hard, but not impossible.) This Twi'lek seems like a left-wing propagandist that, 'may give the rebellion a bad name,' or 'ultimately too radical and makes people side with the Empire.' Rebel scum come a dime-a-dozen, small potatoes.

One thing I would keep in mind is where you want your character's journey to take you?

Keep in mind that you were invited to an AoR campaign, yet made up a character neutral to the cause. If you stay neutral during the whole campaign the you might need a good reason why not to join the rebellion, as it will come up every game.

It might be more fun to think WHAT would turn your character to the Rebellion, keep it to yourself, and let the Agitator and/or GM chip away until they hit the hot button.

After all, even Han joined the Rebellion eventually...

31 minutes ago, Andreievitch said:

It might be more fun to think WHAT would turn your character to the Rebellion, keep it to yourself, and let the Agitator and/or GM chip away until they hit the hot button.

After all, even Han joined the Rebellion eventually...

I would probably tell your GM. Often they have enough on their plate without trying to work out each individual player's buttons. Depends on your GM though, they might enjoy it. I wouldn't though.

Either way it's a good idea.

Your responsibility will be to gel with the other PCs though, finding something your character can latch onto to keep them a part of the group.

Sounds a *lot* like the EotE character I made. Former TIE pilot, two years in regular TIEs four in Interceptors, left the Navy when his term was up. What basically caused that was him shooting down a transport, killing possibly hundreds of people, because he and his wingman were ordered to. A Moff was on the Star Destroyer he was stationed on, and when they encountered a couple transports leaving a rim planet, the captain was going to stop them, question, search, etc, but the Moff decided they were rebels and ordered them destroyed. When the captain balked, he shot him and repeated the order. The order was followed, transports were destroyed, and when he got back aboard my character learned what had happened on the bridge and that the people he'd just killed were the colonists they claimed to be, not the rebels he was told they were.

So now he's a freelance trader (read: smuggler). Driving a trash hauler isn't nearly as thrilling as an Interceptor, but it pays better and he's his own boss. He'll run cargo for either side, and won't betray agents of either to the other. The way he sees it, rebel leadership is sending good men to die for their own power and profit, just like Imperial leadership. And their habit of hiding among the populace and wearing civilian clothes causes civilian casualties, like the transport that he fired the fatal shot into. It doesn't matter who's in the fancy houses on Core worlds or the luxury apartments on Coruscant, nothing really changes. The rich and powerful get richer and more powerful, and the farm boys from Abregado-Rae (his homeworld) do the killing and dying, all for a few credits and maybe a scrap of ribbon. He's played that game already and has no interest in doing so again. Plus, the war is good for business. Running guns to insurgents here, HALO dropping a rebel team there, supplying spice to the imps on rim world and medical supplies to rebels on other worlds, they all result in credits, which put him closer to his goal of getting what he needs to fly to a world outside of imperial or rebel control and setting up a farm and living out his days in peace, untroubled by agents of any .gov or .gov-wannabe.

But that's an EotE character. If you knowingly joined an AoR game, you should probably figure out the point at which your sympathies move to the Alliance camp.

In the meantime, when that dirty noodlehead (that's what one of the characters in our group calls any species with lekku, head-tails, tentacles on their heads, mondrals, etc) runs his mouth, make up an atrocity that the rebels perpetrated. The Massacre of Galapos V (a research space station that rebels boarded, hijacked, stole all the data, and then pushed into a gas giant, killing the researchers and their families, a total of 459 people). The bombing of the Trusty Mynock, a popular hangout on (insert world here). 118 beings died in the blast, and hundreds more were hospitalized with serious to critical injuries, when bombs went off during a concert. The investigation determined that the devices used were repurposed proton bombs or torpedo warheads, or thermal detonators (take your pick), wrapped in sacks of nails, nuts, bolts, and chunks of transparisteel.

And when you name an atrocity, flip a destiny point to make it be something that actually happened and is known about.

Don't forget to mention how the corruption and abuses perpetrated by the Republic directly resulted in the formation of the Empire, and how the Galaxy was rife with chaos. *AND*, the Republic was so corrupt that when a few systems had enough and decided to leave, the Republic decided to create an army of slaves to *force* systems to remain. And he (your Twi'lek acquaintance) wants to bring *THAT* back?

You might be able to make him doubt the Alliance and his allegiance to it, and boy wouldn't THAT make for an interesting game?

20 hours ago, the mercenary said:

And when you name an atrocity, flip a destiny point to make it be something that actually happened and is known about.

This, so much this!

The entire point of things like the D-point system are to allow for things to occur in-game the same way the work in a film. Some stuff just doesn't come up until it matters, and then it really needs to come up.

So don't worry about citing a specific event that occurred in some author's novel, or a comic, or a video game. Just flip a d-point to "introduce a fact" and say what you think works in the scene. Boom, it's true, it happened.

This really illustrates a great use of a D-point in-game to resolve a possible issue out of game. It's ok to play the character, but if he starts being a d-bag about it, flipping a d-point brilliantly illustrates in-system how inter-party squabbling can lead to difficulty down the road.

As for what to say, just make something up that sounds good and let the D-point carry it.

- What about the school speeder bombings in the Tapani sector?

- What about the time the Rebels crashed a Durok-class cargo cruiser in Korono City to assassinate five people?

- What about the poisoning of the aquifer on Halon IV? The Imperial research base used snow-melt for it's water supply, all the rebellion did was kill hundreds of civilians and ultimately force the entire colony to be abandoned, except for the research base.

- How about when the Rebellion cut a deal with the Elrood underworld? You flooded half the outer rim with spice just to secure a secret hyper route.

- Four Words: Corporate Sector Authority Amnesty. Congrats, the Rebellion has sanctioned slavery provided you just call them "Indebted Employees" on enough datawork.

- Ewoks ate stormtroopers... the allies you're selling plushy likeness of to children would totally eat those children with the right kind of barbeque sauce. And oh, lets talk about that...

- You sell plushies of sapient species. Seriously that's gotta be some kinda racism.