Lock this topic! (By New Year's Day!)

[Lord Daskar]

"There's a reason that evil empires with a "leave no survivors" policy were so successful. It's because they left no survivors. They burnt the villages, they salted the fields, they made sure that even the fleeing refugees hiding in caves had nowhere to go and no food to eat. They did not let random wagons pass by unscathed merely because they didn't look like they had any enemies in them.

[Lady Amber]

So I happened to be looking at the Members List, and I noticed that there are two accounts named "alexandre" on here. Odd.

[Lord Daskar]

Of the four classical elements, fire is by far the most primal. The most challenging. The most dangerous. The most transforming. The most visceral.

The most fun.

[Hickory]

Whatcha reading?

[Lord Daskar]

This thing I found earlier, sorta like a comic. It's Star Wars as a D&D Game but I don't think the players know that Star Wars exists. The things I posted are part of a commentary type thing.

http://darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0001.html

Got a description of Luke, "We're looking for a dangerous lunatic.... He's a home-schooled survivalist from a nearby off-the-grid compound."

[Hickory]

Lolz.

[Lord Daskar]

Han's line about the Kessel Run in the movie has a long and convoluted back-story. The various drafts of the film script include notes about Han's boast that the Millennium Falcon is "the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs". The problem of course is that a parsec is a unit of distance, not time. (At least in English it is - but then the characters are speaking English on the screen, so one may reasonably assume that words have the same meanings they do in regular English.)

The revised fourth draft of the film script makes it very clear what Han's line means. Immediately after the line, it says:

Ben reacts to Solo's stupid attempt to impress them with obvious misinformation.
In other words, Han is trying to boast, and using a word he doesn't know the meaning of, which makes it obvious to Obi-Wan that he's lying through his teeth. Even in the shooting script, Han's line is followed by a note stating that he is "obviously lying".

Which is all well and good, but unfortunately even the acting talent of Sir Alec Guinness did not make it quite clear enough that Han's line was intended to be interpreted as a completely bogus fabrication. The result is that masses of Star Wars fans have tried to come up with a reason why the Kessel Run really could be flown in "less than twelve parsecs".

If you take Han's line at face value (rather than a transparent lie), the most favoured explanation is that the Kessel Run is a smuggling route that skirts a cluster of black holes (known as The Maw). The standard, relatively safe, route around The Maw is somewhat circuitous and measures 18 parsecs long. Daring pilots can cut closer to The Maw, trimming distance off the route, at some risk to life and limb. Han Solo, being the daring pilot he is, managed to cut so close that he got the distance down to less than twelve parsecs, and thereby making the run in record time.

This explanation eventually became so favoured that it has been officially adopted into the Star Wars Expanded Universe canon.

Which raises a whole bunch of other questions about the consistency of what was actually intended versus what has later become canon. In short, a whole Galaxy of woe could have been prevented if only it was made clearer in the first place that Han was simply clueless.

[Kitsune]

* Kitsune is tired.

* Kitsune is going to take a nap.

[Lord Daskar]

"A vital member of any gaming group is the person who defuses any intra-group conflict. This applies both in-character and out-of-character. While in-character bickering can be amusing (see the X-Men or Avengers movies*), there needs to be someone who can put a lid on it in times of crisis when the group has to pull together to achieve a major goal. It can also wear thin easily, so remember that if it stops being fun, just drop it.

Player bickering is more serious, and has to be stomped on quickly. It helps to have someone good at interpersonal relationships in your gaming group. Someone with excellent emotional perceptiveness and social skills. In your group of nerdy friends... Yeah, quick, recruit someone!"

[Aimless Gallivanter]

aaaaaaaaaa

[Lord Daskar]

"...Han: If I'm not shooting I have to get within melee range!

Pretty elementary, really. If the French had just managed to close to melee range, Agincourt would have turned out totally differently.

Of course... they didn't.

There's a lesson in that somewhere. But not that it applies to roleplaying characters!

EDIT: As several readers more versed in late medieval history than us have pointed out, the French actually did manage to close to melee range at Agincourt. They lost the battle more because of poor discipline and tactics and the disadvantage of terrain than being mowed down by English longbows. The earlier Battle of Creécy was a better example of victory by force of archers over a larger force who couldn't manage to close to melee range.

Never say you don't learn something by reading webcomics."

[Aimless Gallivanter]

aaaaaaaa

[Cornflower MM]

*Listening to Troye Sivan* *Realizes that I've found almost all my favorite music and books lately through Jet*. . . . . . .

Whoops.

[Jetthebinturong]

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

[Cornflower MM]

You evil person with excellent taste in books and music!