Darths & Droids

If you want to hurry up players who can't seem to make a decision or are taking forever to plan something when they should really just get a move on, the trick is to roll some dice and announce something that they have to deal with immediately. Here's a handy table for fantasy games: Roll 1d10:

<roll> You hear booted feet approaching.
<roll> Smoke starts pouring into the room/vicinity.
<roll> The temperature drops rapidly and you can see your breath condensing in the air.
<roll> Suddenly the roof collapses!
<roll> A dragon/chimera/roc flies overhead, blotting out the sun.
<roll> A brawl breaks out between two nearby NPCs.
<roll> A portal opens in the middle of the room and a demon steps out.
<roll> A flock of birds suddenly takes flight in panic. What startled them??
<roll> The weather takes a sudden turn for the worse: heavy rain, snow, or gales.
<roll> A person/a building/the moon vanishes in front of everyone's eyes.

And here's one for modern/science fiction: Roll 1d10:

<roll> You hear a crackle of static followed by an urgent voice in Russian.
<roll> An alarm goes off.
<roll> Earthquake!
<roll> The door buzzes. It's a package delivery. Nobody ordered anything.
<roll> The power goes out.
<roll> You hear an explosion in the distance.
<roll> Everyone's phones ring at once. It's your nemesis. (Or all your mothers.)
<roll> An alert goes off on a nearby terminal that your network is being hacked.
<roll> You all suddenly notice a strong smell of fuel.
<roll> A man bursts into the room waving a gun. (thanks Raymond Chandler)

Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)

Hmmmmm. I get the idea there won't actually be a race. Rather a shame for the money-making side of things as that was the whole stated reason for Finn and Rose to show up to Canto. On the plus side, we're getting that stampede I expected before! That should mean plenty of opportunities to steal from the fat-cat patrons, or at least piles of money they leave behind.

With the high frequency of similar looking panels in the previous few comics, I suspect that this was a very small scene that was stretched out. Pete and Sally's kids never showed up in a different position. Jim's kid never showed up in any panels with anyone else. Now, it could be that the only good looking and usable frames are the ones we've seen so far, essentially being the opposite of frames like panel seven. Those are useful to show motion occurring, but completely lacking readable faces to use for dialogue, so there would be much less for the comic to work with there. Ben playing Rose wouldn't have been nearly as amusing if the mismatch between the words and the facial expressions was missing.

Transcript

Finn: So when’s the race?
GM: <roll> You hear booted feet approaching.
Temeri Blagg: It’s the bluebo’les!!
Arashell Sar: I reckon we start the race now!
Rose: We can’t be caught here.
Rose: Finn! Get on a fathier!
Police officer: ’Allo ’allo ’allo, what’s goin’ on ’ere, then?
Rose: Charge!! We release all the fathiers and flee past the cops.
[SFX]: thud thud thud
GM: The police scatter as the fathiers clatter up the ramp, throwing sparks off the daubcrete.
Finn: Do these fathiers have bare hooves?
[SFX]: click click clack clackety clack
GM: No, they wear fathier-shoes.
Rose: Yeah! Now this is shod-racing!