NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 6121755" data-attributes="member: 22779">@ Aenghus - sorry, couldn't posrep you either.  Good stuff.  Star Wars has been brought up as an example of mystery, so, let's use Han Solo for a second.  Now, Han has a backstory element - he owes money to Jabba The Hutt.  But, let's presume, for the moment, that he wants to keep this secret from the rest of the group.  He presents himself as a mercenary out for money with no real attachment to the Rebel cause.  Note, everyone else in the group (apart from Chewie I suppose) has direct links to the Rebel Cause.  This is what the campaign is going to be about.So, just before they fly off to fight the Death Star, Han's player announces he's leaving because he has something he has to do.  He's gotten paid, and he flies off.  Luke's acid comments about "That's all you are good for" ring pretty true.  Han comes back in the nick of time, so, everything is still good.  Note, nothing, at this point in the campaign, has actually happened that connects Han's background to the events in the game.  Apart from a very short bit with Greedo I suppose, but, since Han is alone at that time, no one actually knows about that because it was done away from the table to maintain Han's secret.So, forward to Empire Strikes Back.  Again, Han announces he's leaving because he's got to go see a man about a horse.  The other players, by this point, are asking him why he's leaving, but, he remains mum about it.  The in game situation, which everyone else is directly invested in, interrupts Han's plans (frustrating Han's player to no end) but, he keeps playing through it because he's at a N'raac style table and he's not allowed to voice any disagreement with the group.  Finally, The Big Reveal.  Han is caught by Vader and given to the bounty hunters.  Before the rescue, he gets frozen in carbonite (removed from the game - a direct consequence of his own actions) and carted away.  Everyone else finishes up the storyline and moves on.Now it's Return of the Jedi.  There is a huge galactic war going on.  A new Death Star is being constructed.  There's death and chaos everywhere and things look hopeless for our PC's.Han's player pipes up, "Uh, guys, aren't you going to come and rescue me?"Now, why would they?  They have no investment in this.  This is entirely Han's player's thing.  At no point was the rest of the group every consulted about this, nor did they ever have any real chance of fixing this.  Had Han's player simply turned to Leia and asked her to use her spy network to forward the money to Jabba, or, considering this is an SF setting, had he just used some sort of banking service, he'd be in the clear.  But, no, he kept it secret.  So, now the entire group is expected to drop whatever they are actually invested in, so that they can retrieve Han's character from a situation that none of them are even remotely invested in.  The only reason is because Han's character has a glowing PC halo above him, so that makes him important.  Things like the Princess doing her duty to her people, Jedi ethics about the greater good, all that kind of stuff?  Don't matter.  We are presented with this plot and we must follow it to its conclusion.Yeah, as a player in this game, I'd have booted the Han PC from the group after Hoth and gotten someone we could actually trust and who actually wanted to play the same game as the rest of us.</blockquote>

Verification