From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Doug
Meerschaert
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2001 12:59 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [ogf-d20-l] Technical characters (was Does it make sense
for PCs to make things?)
<< > Thanks. So my Wookiee engineer can't be a hero. (And apparently,
neither can
> Chewbacca. So THAT'S why Leia didn't give him a medal at the end of
Episode
> IV...)
Chewbacca's a scout (or was that scoundral?); he's no more an engineer
than Han is. >>
Reread your earlier post: "Technicians are no more Star Wars heroes than
wookies are." Last I knew, Chewbacca was a Wookiee. Ergo, by your logic, he
is not a hero.
And though he has Scout as a class, Chewbacca has the closest thing to
Engineer skills the game has: Astrogate, Computer Use, Pilot, and Repair.
Add in Disable Device, and he'd be have the complete set.
<< > I get it: conform to the stereotypes, or don't play the game. But
whatever
> you do, don't fix the game!
Nope. Star Wars is about archtypes--oops, I can't use a neutral word
for them. "Stereotypes." >>
And you think this is a good thing? A game that forces you into a mold, and
a mold that is too confining even to fit its source material?
Are you seriously asserting that the game MUST be right, and cannot possibly
be broken in this regard? It's a fun game, but there are places where it's
fundamentally broken, violating common sense and even its own mechanics.
(That's why games have new editions: to improve things that weren't right
before, and thus sell more copies.) Blindly defending the game as it is
seems incredibly dogmatic.
<< (To head off the flame war, let me expedite it: Star Wars should have
rules for everything, not just what it was intended for. We should keep
fixing it until we have rules for the sexuality of jedi, and we can roll
for exactly how the folds in a dasihing vampire's cloak compare to those
of a powerful Jedi's. Anyone who insists that a game should contain
only those rules that are relevant to the game, and even have rules that
encourage its intended style of play, is a Nazi just like Hilter.) >>
Insults are NOT the way to head off a flame war. They're just a way to show
that you only see your point of view, not anyone else's. If you think that
making devices is no more relevant than folds in a cloak, then you must have
a singularly narrow-minded point of view indeed. I guarantee that every Star
Wars campaign more intellectually advanced than a "Knights of the Dinner
Table" kill-fest will eventually have players wanting to manufacture new or
existing devices rather than just buying them. Players are inventive and
devious and want to do the unexpected. It's their nature.
And there's nothing wrong with a "Knights of the Dinner Table" kill-fest
campaign, if that's what you enjoy. But there's something very wrong with
sarcastically deciding that you and you alone know which rules are relevant
to the game and encourage its intended style of play.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you're not narrow-minded. So please: explain why you
think that manufacturing new and existing items is outside the scope of a
science fantasy game. And if it is, why would they include the Craft skill
and item manufacture rules (albeit broken ones) at all?
Martin L. Shoemaker
Emerald Software, Inc. -- Custom Software and UML Training
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.EmeraldSoftwareInc.com
www.UMLBootCamp.com
