Spotlight.
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I think the whole 'Luke and Leia' thing is partly why characters on not just the heroic level, but the epic level (which is how I would classify them), are often NPCs on some games.
That keeps everyone in that 'second tier but still impactful and heroic' space.
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But setting aside the whole "they all got killed" thing, I do think that being one of the few pilots in the rebellion who get to participate in the final epic battle against the Death Star is a "special" thing.
I think we watched an entirely different version of A New Hope, Wedge lives and doesn't even get a medal at the end, Hell Chewy didn't either but at least he Wookie got to stand with the group. To me I didn't see the pilots on the trench run as the best of the best I saw it as these are the folks we have on hand.
Now I would agree if there had been any sort of build to those pilots if they had done anything else in the movie but they literally show up to die except Wedge. Not to say that dying can't be special look at Obi Wan's death that is a special death and a character that matters, Porkins, Biggs, and the others whose names I would have to look up seem about as special as the dudes the storm troopers killed in the opening scene.
Heck the only reason I remember Porkins is cause the fat guy was named pork.Edit: to get away from the trench run in particular since not everyone can be the hero all the time. Even if you include EU stuff the only non-Luke non-Han pilots that get any sort of glory that were at the first Death Star fight are Biggs and Wedge who I would say do get big moments. The rest barely count as named characters.
Double Edit: I get not everyone can star in the scene but everyone in a scene should have a shot to make an impact, I know if I sat through a large scene and nothing I did mattered, while I would not complain about it, I can pretty much guarantee I wouldn't sit through a second.
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@thatguythere said in Spotlight.:
I think we watched an entirely different version of A New Hope...
No, we're just looking at it differently. You're looking at what actually happened in the movie script, which yes - everybody but Luke and Han were pretty much useless and completely ignored. I was trying to get people to picture it as a MU plot where there was no pre-ordained hero of the story. Everybody had a chance to complete the trench run, but only one would be the person who actually did it.
Edit: to get away from the trench run in particular since not everyone can be the hero all the time. Even if you include EU stuff the only non-Luke non-Han pilots that get any sort of glory that were at the first Death Star fight are Biggs and Wedge who I would say do get big moments. The rest barely count as named characters.
The "since" you're pushing aside there was the entire point of my original post. Not everybody can be the hero in every scene. It's just simple logistics.
And yet, a lot of MUSHers seem to feel that if they're not the hero, then they're just as much window-dressing as you seem to find the other Rebel pilots.Just how many "big moments" can you reasonably expect a Star Wars MUSH to have?
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I think, and this may seem a bit callous, but a lot of the onus is on the players themselves. Much of the time the people that end up being in 'the spotlight' are there simply because they look at the scene/situation and they take action.
I've been in scenes//ST'd scenes so many times where the squeaky wheel talking about not getting time to shine are about as proactive as that box of baking powder you forgot about in the back of a kitchen cabinet.
"Waugggh, she healed them before I did, Daphne did this action and i didn't get to do anything!" Well Daphne fucking paged me/posed doing the thing! There was no one set up to be the stars of most/almost all the scenes I run. Is it the ST's responsibility to pick up the crowbar to separate the wallflower from their perch? Do I really have to listen to someone who's only contribution is 20/20 hindsight and regret? At what point is it the players responsibility to just act?
For me, I am the star of my story, Luke and Liea and Han can be having a little menage-a-wookie over Palpatine's corpse as the grand finale of their victory lap of badassness, my focus is still on me, and my actions in the world, where some people may be doing heroic stuff, and that doesn't actually detract from my story.
Pick yer niche, do yer shit. Join things and be proactive.
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@wretched said in Spotlight.:
I think, and this may seem a bit callous, but a lot of the onus is on the players themselves. Much of the time the people that end up being in 'the spotlight' are there simply because they look at the scene/situation and they take action.
Of course a lot of the onus is on players - in fact I can think of very few issues within the hobby where at least a large part of the responsibility can't be safely placed on the players involved.
The thing though is you can't really change or fix people. We simply lack that capability. What we can do is design systems and implement procedures to mitigate the impact certain personality traits can have, or to minimize the ways they can be triggered if we can do it without creating larger problems elsewhere.
Let me give an example. Please note it's an example and not an actual proposal that everything should be done that way.
When @faraday pointed out not everyone can get the killing blow on the Big Bad she's right; that means we can have a large storyline where many people are involved, but as long as there's a mustache-twirling villain in the end, not all of those people will stab him in the face during the plot's climax. That person will be the one in the spotlight, and along with them, the Storyteller (be it staff or a player ST) will be under some scrutiny - it's just how it goes.
What if there is no big bad? If for example the objective is to stop a plague then a coordinated effort by players is needed to stop it; someone needs to do the research and figure out how it began, someone has to be the scientist who analyzes these findings and starts coming up with an idea of how to stop it, another gets to go gather the rare ingredients that might work as the cure, and a final party will need to go release it into the epicenter of the zombie-infested area.
In that kind of plot no one is the hero; there's no Luke, no Leia. We did it,
redditMSB!Now the question is... should this be something story-runners need to be concerned with? Is the minimization of jealousy and a conscious effort to spread the wealth something that's fair - or wanted - when plots are designed? Are we better off if we specifically try to create a spotlight-sharing environments or are we hamstringing our own creativity to avoid triggering people's somewhat baser instincts?
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
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@arkandel I don't think that will work. The jealousy is secondary to folks wanting to feel special. If you spread the spotlight around and everyone’s special, then nobody’s special and folks lose interest for a different reason. Plus even sharing the pie doesn’t prevent petty competitions about whose slice was bigger.
Bottom line - as long as staff isn’t being horrible with blatant favoritism or anything, I don’t think this is a problem than storytellers can solve. It can only be solved by players showing some maturity.
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@arkandel I've run a ton like that. The people that were gonna complain trend to grouse about the relative value of each part of the story and complain their own is not as big as they would like. You can be disingenuous and try to locally make it seem each part is more valuable than it really is but that is mostly delaying trouble than avoiding it.
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@peasoupling said in Spotlight.:
@faraday said in Spotlight.:
But setting aside the whole "they all got killed" thing, I do think that being one of the few pilots in the rebellion who get to participate in the final epic battle against the Death Star is a "special" thing.
I don't know! Sometimes I think I might prefer playing a janitor with a real chance at meaningfully affecting the cleanliness levels of the Death Star than playing a pilot who is basically just set dressing in a battle they have no real chance of affecting in any meaningful way, other than by exploding prettily against a backdrop of stars.
I am not going to read farther ahead but I want to ask if this reference is on purpose or if you just stumbled right into basically a dig at how someone in maintenance can become the hero of the galaxy because, uh, fucking Finn "Sanitation" FN-2187.
Just sayin'.
"Excuse the hell out of you. He's a bag of dicks. I'm a carefully curated box of cocks." -- to @GirlCalledBlu upon being misrepresented.
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@coin said in Spotlight.:
@peasoupling said in Spotlight.:
I don't know! Sometimes I think I might prefer playing a janitor with a real chance at meaningfully affecting the cleanliness levels of the Death Star than playing a pilot who is basically just set dressing in a battle they have no real chance of affecting in any meaningful way, other than by exploding prettily against a backdrop of stars.
I am not going to read farther ahead but I want to ask if this reference is on purpose or if you just stumbled right into basically a dig at how someone in maintenance can become the hero of the galaxy because, uh, fucking Finn "Sanitation" FN-2187.
Just sayin'.
It was totally an accident.
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@arkandel said in Spotlight.:
It's pretty common in games to see exactly what you described, isn't it? The High Lady who's also hangin' out with the peeps at the pier, the billionaire philanthropist who sits at a bar to have a beer with the riffraff, the nobleman who's a great swordsman... these tropes are far from exceptions, they are very often the rule.
I don't have a problem with the nobleman who's a great swordsman, because the noble would actually have more access to both tutors and free time for training (assuming the noble is an "idle" noble, not a head of house).
But I totally agree that most nobles shouldn't have connections to riff-raff, or only to a few selected members of the riff-raff. I also agree that the noble shouldn't be as good at herding sheep as the shepherd, or as good at building a house as the carpenter, etc. To me, it's about opportunity and respectability -- a noble could be a perfectly good floral arranger, if arranging flowers is appropriate in your setting. But they probably aren't going to be awesome at being a butcher or a cooper -- unless that's appropriate in your setting.
The next step of this, of course, is that if you plan to have PC commoners, you should absolutely have these "inappropriate" noble skills be important to plot/mechanics.
@faraday said in Spotlight.:
want to get involved in more, talk to the game staff. Be proactive.
+100. I feel like this applies to everyone, not just support characters. If you want to be involved, talk to Staff. Look for plot hooks. Do something.
@faraday said in Spotlight.:
or even really Wedge most of the time.
Bite your tongue. Wedge is The Pilot. He's the only one with two Death Stars on the side of his X-Wing. Granted, I'm odd (definitely one of the exceptions you mentioned), don't like to play SuperSpecials, and most of Wedge's awesome is in Legends, but I would play Wedge before Luke any day. I just had to say that Wedge is freaking awesome.
@thatguythere said in Spotlight.:
To me I didn't see the pilots on the trench run as the best of the best I saw it as these are the folks we have on hand.
Totally agree that they weren't the best around, they were every single pilot available (they even had a non-junker frontline fighter available for the guy who had never flown outside an atmosphere before). But that doesn't mean they weren't special (assuming that it's a MU* scene where LukePlayer just happens to be the one who makes the shot and isn't pre-ordained to make the shot). Most MU* Events aren't the best-suited, they're whoever could log in at the right time.
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@faraday said in Spotlight.:
Just how many "big moments" can you reasonably expect a Star Wars MUSH to have?
Fair enough I understand the paucity of big moments, but I don't understand why anyone should be expected to show up, be pointless, and then be happy about it.
Of someone show up to a scene and for whatever reason has all the impact on it as third extra on the left, I would not begrudge them complaining or just saying fuck it. Why should anyone spend 3 to 5 hours doing essentially nothing?
The main reason I avoid big scenes is that vary reason, if for example 12 people show up and lets say there are four planned moments assuming a fair and equal change of getting those moments I would have a 66.6 repeating % change of wasting my time. -
@thatguythere said in Spotlight.:
Of someone show up to a scene and for whatever reason has all the impact on it as third extra on the left, I would not begrudge them complaining or just saying fuck it. Why should anyone spend 3 to 5 hours doing essentially nothing?
If that's your POV then hey - that's cool. I'm not saying you (or they) are wrong to spend your time elsewhere.
But for me? I don't give a crap if my character has a Big Hero Moment or not. I mean, sure, it's kinda neat when it happens but it doesn't drive my RP. I had immense fun being the lone Grounder PC in the 20-person scene in 100, making wisecracks to a NPC I was emitting. It's roleplay. It's a story. I didn't feel like the "third extra on the left" even though my character didn't really accomplish anything, ended up on the losing side, and got shot in the head and mostly incapacitated by some random NPC extra.
Different people like different things. All I'm saying is when you have a significant number of people feeling like "I've got a 66% chance of wasting my time if I don't get to do something awesome", you've got a serious logistical problem that I don't think is solvable.
