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Episode 1859: Toboggan Basement

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When a player points out a lack of something obvious that really should be available, but is conspicuous by its absence in your scene-setting descriptions, the only reasonable course of action for a GM is to double down and definitively deny that it exists. If this contradicts commons sense, all the better, because it then becomes a memorable piece of world building!

You can justify it later somehow. Yeah. That's it.

Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)

Ah hey! Another critter of Tatooine. Banthas, the frog thing, the sarlacc, and now a vulture thing. There's gotta be more than just these right? That's not nearly enough variety for an ecosystem, even a desert one.

Looks like the new Star Wars still has that weird relationship with wheels then. The only sizes I can remember ever showing up are tiny like R2-D2's and big silly wheels. Never any car sized or even wheelbarrow sized. Admittedly, that giant yellow whatsit is probably too large for a simple wheelbarrow.

So rather than riding to her destination so there's less work involved, Rey gets off the hoverbike and drags the salvaged parts elsewhere. There's gotta be a reason for that over riding to a workshop or residence, but I can't think of any. Rey didn't even lock the hoverbike up, so that's probably gonna be the last time we ever see it. Unless there's a community stigma against using without asking first or similar.

There's a lot of little singular structures in the background here. Maybe this community is a whole group of salvagers and they've set up in the remains of a number of shipwrecks. That'd be a good reason for going out to scavange the star destroyers; they can't purchase new, so they need to fix what they have. But since replacement parts would also cost more than they can afford, a small outpost would grow up around people who can find old parts and fix things. People who aren't skilled enough for that would work more on producing food, and there'd be trading back and forth to keep the whole place alive.

Hmmm. I think I remember seeing some discussion about how Episode VII was similar to Episode IV just after Lor San died like Captain Antilles. Going with that line of thought and the setting I think Niima has, I'm going to predict that within the next three comics, we're going to have BB-8 get captured by some village resident as valuable parts and/or Rey ends up trading for BB-8 to help with salvaging. It'll make for a funny turnabout for Corey "owning" Pete if that's the case.

Commentary by Keybounce (who has not seen the movie)

We start with a nice closeup of a vulture, or local equivalent. Then we blur to the red speeder heading into town.

That hoverbike is the most valuable thing around. She's taking salvaged parts in to... ? Trade? Buy and sell stuff? Her bike is probably worth more than anything else around. I suspect she'd have a better life moving to a halfway decent town, instead of one too small to support any scum and villainy.

Yea, that's a really poor town. None of the service droids, no anti-grav, no wheels, life is just a drag.

I seriously have to ask: How does that town survive? How does it manage to grow food? How does it have any trade with outsiders? Economic sense seems to be right up there with technological sense.

And yea, it's BB-8 commenting on being impoverished. We're talking a rolling wheel commenting on the lack of wheels.

Transcript

{Rey continues across the Tatooine desert. A scavenging bird pecks at some metal scrap}
[SFX]: vrrrrooommm!
[SFX]: Peck!
[SFX]: vrrrrooommm!
GM: You reach the tiny impoverished outpost of Niima and park your hoverbike.
[SFX]: vrrrrooommm!
Rey: I unload my salvaged parts and take them into town.
[SFX]: Dump!
[SFX]: drag...
BB-8: How impoverished is it?
GM: It’s so impoverished that most of the residents can’t even afford antigrav technology, and have to carry their belongings on their back, or drag them around in sleds.
BB-8: No wheels then?
[SFX]: drag... {an alien is dragging a sled full of belongings}
GM: Uh... No.
BB-8: That’s pretty impoverished.
[SFX]: drag...


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Published: Tuesday, 30 June, 2020; 03:11:25 PDT.
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