Explaining Kickers - I used Star Wars. And you?

[Judd]

When explaining new story-oriented game mechanics I find that movies are an easy way to relate them to a gamer, really allow how they work to sink in.

When describing SA's from TROS, I use Inigo Montoya and his need to avenge his father's death.

This week I had to describe Kickers and used Star Wars.

You come home and find Uncle Ben and Aunt Beru dead, Obi-Wan awaits a respectable distance away and the droid you know got your only known family killed beeps in your landspeeder.

Chewie tells you that an old man and a kid need quick transport off of Tattooine and are willing to pay good money too.  Time to talk to them and get off this rock before one of Jabba's goons finds you.

You must somehow hide the Death Star's plans as the Star Destroyer of Darth Vader is closing in on your ship.  You can hear the blasts of a gun fight as the Stormtroopers blast their way onto the ship.

It seemed to work.

Does anyone use any other films or media to describe Sorcerer mechanics?

[Paganini]

I don't play Sorcerer. But kickers are great things, and I use them alot. I like the movie Speed as an example.

"There's a bomb on the bus. If the bus goes slower than 45 miles an hour, it blows up. The driver just had a heart attack. What do you do?"

Edit: Actually, I just worded it like a Bang. But you get the idea.

[DannyK]

Chewie tells you that an old man and a kid need quick transport off of Tattooine and are willing to pay good money too.  Time to talk to them and get off this rock before one of Jabba's goons finds you.

This seems more like a garden variety plot hook to me -- the real Kicker for Han Solo IMO is something like "The bartender at the cantina gives you a message from Greedo.  You have 24 hours to pay Jabba the Hutt, or you sleep with the Banthas."

[Judd]

This seems more like a garden variety plot hook to me -- the real Kicker for Han Solo IMO is something like "The bartender at the cantina gives you a message from Greedo.  You have 24 hours to pay Jabba the Hutt, or you sleep with the Banthas."

"Does Jabba look like a bitch? Does he look like a bitch?"

"No."

"Then why'd you try to fuck him like a bitch?"

I really need to run an all-scoundrel Star Wars crime game at some point.  That'd be fun as hell.

Sorry, on with the thread.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Judd,

I think that picking movie moments as Bangs and Kickers is very, very problematic. The nature of authorship is so different in the two media that whatever you say tends to lead to multiple misunderstandings.

For instance, if we're looking at the first key decision point of Star Wars, for Luke, then we have to take a whole bunch of novel moments into account:

a) Luke gets injured by a vicious critter out there in the wilds of Tatooine, and is saved by Old Ben

b) Old Ben turns out to have known Luke's mysterious father; aunt & uncle say stay away from him and work on the farm forever

c) A little recording of a princess in trouble is found in the "hands" of a mysterious droid

d) Aunt and Uncle are killed by the Empire

Don't think of these as a plot sequence! I know you're doing that, right now. Just stop. Think of them instead as possible Kickers, each one written all by itself in the utter absence of the others' existence, during character creation

Do you see that any of them might be the player-written Kicker, and that the rest could be (a) GM-prep backdrop in response to reading the Kicker, (b) player-contributed clarification of the Kicker during the first session, (c) GM-contributed Bangs during the first session.

That's right - any of them could be (a-d), regardless of in-game order!

It's actually quite a straitjacket, for the person just grasping the concept, to lock down some feature of a transcript (textual story) as "obviously" the result of a particular game mechanic. The whole Sir Gerrick story in the Narrativism essay is designed to illustrate why that simply doesn't work.

Best,
Ron