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Old 02-16-2016, 11:15 PM   #81
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One thing I am trying to say (and perhaps failing to do so), is to me, worked example characters are waaaaay more useful than templates, and I think the lack of worked examples is a huge flaw in the DF/MH series. 3e Wizards for instance is awesome, as is Shadowrun 3e, and the DnD 3.0 DMG, because are full of full blown worked examples
It does explain why you talk more about Dun or Kendra than you do about the templates upon which they are built. I happen to believe sample characters are important too, as well as actual playtests. There's a reason I make those sample characters and those playtests write-ups, and they're not actually to show off my work or to excite you guys. It's to make sure that everything fits. Can I make the sort of character that I think fits? How does the character feel and play? Invisible to you guys is the process of back and forth that I do here. Kendra 2.0 was particularly notable, because the Bounty Hunter just didn't have enough disadvantages at first, and so as I wrote her up, I went back and revised the template, and based on that new understanding, the other templates got revised, etc.

Every template I've written so far has a sample character somewhere for exactly this reason.
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Old 02-17-2016, 11:08 PM   #82
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It's GURPS Day, and I continue my data dump week with the spy
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Old 02-19-2016, 12:12 AM   #83
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Today, we end the data dump with Background Lenses, which was probably my favorite part of this iteration (as much as I like templates, I really like context).

Next week, since I'm sure you guys liked this weeks data dump so much, is another data dump! This time we'll take the templates, remake the characters from Iteration 1, and see how well they perform in yet another playtest. See ya then!
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Old 02-19-2016, 06:24 AM   #84
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I would think say 'Monastic' or such would be key, for Jedi who were raised at the Temple since small younglings

I am also a bit hazy as to say what best corresponds to a Middle Class / Professional background
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Old 02-19-2016, 08:43 AM   #85
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I would think say 'Monastic' or such would be key, for Jedi who were raised at the Temple since small younglings
I've been toying with that idea for academics as well, or people who come from a temple planet. Sort of the intellectual equivalent to a survivor (ie socially awkward and very focused in a specific direction)

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I am also a bit hazy as to say what best corresponds to a Middle Class / Professional background
I used Humble Origins for that: The upper crust is Aristocratic, the bottom run is the Outcast, and the middle is "Humble Origins" (or possibly Wanderer). This doesn't really cover "Kid from the suburbs" as well as it does mechanics, farmers, people like Luke Skywalker, but Star Wars (and Space Opera in general) doesn't seem to have a lot of "guys like us." The common character is a peasant, not a yeoman. You'll note Humble Origins has skills like "Mechanic" and "Electrician" and it only lacks Farming because I can't imagine what you'd do with Farming in an Action framework, and it lacks "Professional Skill" because I wanted concrete examples and couldn't think of any. But a bartender who also happens to be a bounty hunter would probably be Bounty Hunter (Humble Origins)
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Old 02-19-2016, 09:48 AM   #86
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Honor Harrington of the series of the same name is literally a yeoman by class to begin with, so there is certainly a possibility

Not Space Opera, but Kim Possible is a totally middle class main character also

Also not Space Opera, but often compared to Space Opera, Horatio Hornblower is middle class son of a doctor
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Old 02-19-2016, 09:59 AM   #87
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Honor Harrington of the series of the same name is literally a yeoman by class to begin with, so there is certainly a possibility

Not Space Opera, but Kim Possible is a totally middle class main character also

Also not Space Opera, but often compared to Space Opera, Horatio Hornblower is middle class son of a doctor
They still play like humble beginnings though. Their parents may be better off that the rest of the crowd, but they still are limited to the money they make themselves, and are closer to the coal miner than to the Duke. To do middle class background you might add just a little wealth and add academic background skills rather than farming or mechanic.
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Old 02-19-2016, 10:11 AM   #88
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Wow, did I really say "Space Opera in general"? That's definitely my mistake. Let me say this better.

Quite a lot of space opera, and certainly Star Wars (and Warhammer 40k) represents times in crisis in a world that seems to draw as much (or more) from fantasy imagery than from modern imagery. You have princes and princesses and knights, and you have farmers and scallywags and old hermits. What you don't have are suburbanite teenagers and accountants and bored housewives who have a business on the side, the real "middle class."

But you do have that sort of thing in quite a lot of anime (Tenchi Muyo leaps to mind), and in Star Trek and in more modest, or modern-aimed space opera. My G-Verse certainly had it, but it was meant to be "Action Movies in spaaace" and action movies certainly feature a middle class modernity.

I'm going for the former in psi-wars. You could certainly recast the Humble Origins as the sorts of characters you might get in a sit-com or a rom-com, but that's not really the thrust of the direction I'm going in. This is a universe in crisis, in the midst of war, and in a civilization torn apart by war, the comfort and ennui of the middle class tends to evaporate (while contrasting that comfort and ennui with the dangers of the frontier are an excellent source of dramatic tension in, say, Star Trek)
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Old 02-19-2016, 10:24 AM   #89
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What you don't have are suburbanite teenagers and accountants and bored housewives who have a business on the side, the real "middle class."
That's no longer the case in Star Wars. They definitely delve into those things these days quite a bit.

They got wage slaves, urban life, corporations and all sorts of things like this.

While you don't see it too much in the movies, definitely in Clone Wars and other extended media. The Old Republic has you dealing with streeters, gangers, corporate offices, police and more.

What you see is very planet oriented. On farmer/backwater worlds you're likely to get the typical treatment you describe. On highly civilized worlds, Corellia, Coruscant (Where Humans Evolved), Nar Shadaa, and these worlds you will find a lifestyle much like modern earth but with more technology involved. Mandalorian home world is another example, where they had schools much like modern day show up in Clone Wars episodes, complete with kids acting like Scooby Doo and the gang. Sub ways, alleys, apartments, etc. They will include low lifes and the wealthy alike.

I'd say Star Wars has more in common with Shadowrun than Star Trek.
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Old 02-19-2016, 11:44 AM   #90
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I'd say Star Wars has more in common with Shadowrun than Star Trek.
I don't think cyberpunk is a very good model for Star Wars. In cyberpunk, technology trumps humanity. The world is going through dislocation because of the rapidity of technological development, which is stripping humanity of their humanity, both physically (in the form of cybernetic implants) and metaphorically. You're just a cog in this vast machine, and the only way for you to get ahead is to cast off the traditional role you have been given, and live counter to the generally accepted lifestyle (the "punk" of cyberpunk). The top of the food chain and the bottom of the food chain both know that the "American dream" is a lie, and so fight one another in the shadows, while the "sheeple" middleclass is enslaved by that lie. Cyberpunk is full of lies and deceptions, layers and layers of it, and you win with information, with getting to the heart of the conspiracy or the heart of the code, which are often metaphors for one another.

Star Wars doesn't work anything like that. It's pulp. Good guys are good, bad guys are bad, the common man is blue collar, someone who works with his hands, rather than someone in middle management. It's a world of legends and lore, of princes and princesses. It's a fairytale crossed with Wild West "Wahoo!" and late victorian adventurism. It tends to buy into the sort of idealism that would have a cyberpunk character sneering at you.

The presence of the middle class is vital in a cyberpunk story because they represent the foolish herds marching to their corporate suicide. They're also vital in Star Trek, because they represent what the Federation is protecting, the paradise that a Federation officer hopes to return to. In Star Wars, they might represent a dream, a utopian goal, that people want to ressurect, but generally Star Wars has an even "simpler life" sort of take. A Jedi would retire to a farm or a distant bog or become a hermit. He doesn't get a condo and a wife and a couple of kids who go to school. That sort of thing is a little more apparent in the Prequels because that was before the order of the Republic was torn apart by civil war and Empire. The Alliance cannot have a idyllic middle class because the Empire oppresses them, and the Empire cannot have an idyllic middle class because that would make the Empire seem like the good guys. They all have to be slaves or soldiers or fascist leaders. The dream of peace, freedom and a better life is what the Alliance is fighting for, but it's not what they have.

I will note further that low-lifes vs aristocracy certainly exists in Star Wars, but is covered by my lenses already. And the scooby-doo gang episode of Clone Wars featured aristocrats, kids who could just walk right up to the Duchess of their world and tell her what was up, rather than some middle-class kids.

Or so it seems to me, and thus that's the tack that I'm taking.

If you disagree and want to come up with a more "middle class" lens, feel free. The point of Psi Wars is not, of course, "Do it Mailanka's way." Were it that, I would just publish the setting material and be done with it. I publish it the way I do so that you can more cleanly pick it apart and put it back together. After all, a space opera game based heavily on the Action Framework would certainly make for excellent "Cyberpunk in space"
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