Eltab
Lord of the Hidden Layer
The immediate vision I got was C-3PO tangled in a mass of wires aboard the Millennium Falcon as the battle ends: "Artoo, help."What self actions can you think of for characters who have no useful skills in starship combat? They have no engineering or medical or piloting or gunnery or computers or sensors etc. skills -- but you want the player to feel involved and not punished for excelling at a different pillar of the game.
- Give your "face" PC the radio controls and tell him to find out the identity and purpose of that approaching mystery ship.
- Maybe he can fast-talk your group out of trouble without firing a shot?
- Princess Leia, it turns out, can make battlefield repairs with stock parts - the kind you just pull out the malfunctioning one and plug in the new one.
- Almost anybody can jump behind a weapon turret control - but they may have a +0 net modifier because of being untrained. (Have you ever played the 'early' scenarios from Traveller:2300's included space combat game? Good luck hitting anything beyond range=1.) They still have a statistically non-zero chance to roll a '20'.
- Some people have so much aplomb that they can go down to the galley and cook a celebratory feast for our impending victory. It's not what you would think of, but it IS something to do. And it might give everybody else a Morale Bonus to their rolls as the aroma wafts through the air vents.
- As mentioned above, boarding party / counter-boarder action. This guy might want a turn at the radio, too, if the Face isn't doing too well.
- Computer geek gets the hyperdrive coordinates ready 'just in case' or before the ship is ready - he thinks he can bend the laws of physics, too, or at least has located a nearby loophole.