...ordinary characters and game mechanics

What exactly is ordinary, or rather, what exactly is normal, for SWG player characters, and how can that be represented best in Star Wars galaxies?

Some may now say "ordinary people, not supersoldiers", and mean low-level characters, but I think that's short-sighted. Heroes also can be – and often are – ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. Some players may define normal as anything their characters can beat by the dozen (and often lament the fact that there are not so many of those around to be beaten by their own character). Butt his is not so much about character background, but about looking what is ordinary, average or normal for the game mechanics.

If one takes a look at non-combat professions such as traders and entertainers as an example for ordinary people, then one notices quickly that just about every trader/entertainer is a master, and every master trader/entertainer is cl90. Of course, the first, knee-jerk-reaction for many roleplayers is to scoff at this, state that not every ordinary character is a master at his/her profession, and condemn game mechanics such as CLs as stupid and immersion breaking.

However, let’s skip this bias for a minute, and take a closer look at a „master trader“ or „master entertainer“. Are they really masters?

Anyone who has a bit of experience in game will tell you that it takes a lot more to become a master at crafting than getting the level. It takes good ressources, not insignificant experience in assembling the items and allocating experimentation, both for subcomponents as well as the final product. It takes an eye for business as well, pricing products, advertising, choosing locations for vendors and dealing with competition and re-sellers as well as securing supplies from ressource dealers and hunters – unlesss one does that oneself. In short, getting the „master trader“ title is not much more than the first step to actually master your craft, and in itself, it’s more like finishing your apprenticeship.

For entertainers, it seems more simple: Get master entertainer, and you can do all the fine dances and songs, just as everyone else. Again, while they are not as pronounced as with crafters, there are significant differences between „master entertainers“ too. From securing (IC) jobs to getting a reputation, from joining a band and learning dance routines and scenes to running a cantina, simply mastering doesn’t mean much other than one has all the standard dances and songs.

So, a master trader/master entertainer is actually a very good representation for „Joe/Jane Average“ – a character that has finished their apprenticeship, and learned a profession, but may or may not have (yet) excelled at it.

Now that we have a baseline, where does that put the rest of the characters, mainly the combat characters?

Let’s start with the „ordinary combat trained character“ – your basic cop or security guard. A master entertainer ooc profession represents those very well – unarmed training to subdue people, average fitness (cl90), and carrying enough gear to make a difference (armor, weapons) compared to civilians, but in trouble if dealing with people with better training. If combat-specced entertainer, then those „cops“ can handle just about every trader or entertainer. If geared up and prepared, and with some pvp experience, they can even handle unarmored combat characters.

Now let’s take a look at the combat trained characters – soldiers, criminals, thugs, bounty hunters, smugglers, hunters and so on – in short, the majority of the roleplayer characters in Star Wars Galaxies. We’re leaving the often very exotic in character backgrounds of many characters, such as clones, last jedi master, clones of a jedi master, hybrid and droids out for now, again focussing on mechanics.

Those characters are (usually) better trained for combat than civilians, and a cl90 combat profession represents this well, being stronger than a trader or entertainer. This difference is even bigger when the combat profession uses armor and weapons, and skill and planning. However, the difference is not that big that, if faced with prepared ordinary characters, a combat character can just walk all over a town – like in the classic western, if the townspeople mass for a posse, even gunslingers fare not very well.

Does that mean that every combat character at cl90 is a superduper mando commando? No. A cl90 smuggler with a DL-44 is what today would probably be a former national guard member who goes to the range every month. Or a regular soldier.

But what about the superduper mandocommandohunters and the ubersithjedimasterlords? What if one’s character concept requires the power to lay waste to armies of lesser characters? Well, superheroes would not die out with this system (also known as „game mechanics“). With the right mix of profession expertise, gear and tactics, at least „batman“ level heroes are not too hard to acquire. Of course, getting that right mix takes time and effort – and practise, both to learn the ropes, and to keep in shape. Using game mechanics, one will not be able to have one’s character become and remain such a „Batman Level“ supersoldier without spending a lot of time on combat. Indirectly it leads to characters that are strong in combat not being as strong in other fields since they lack the time for such pursuits.

So, the system in place actually delivers a rather balanced, and immersive mechanic. Surprise, surprise!

Incidentally, accepting cl90 as the baseline turns the game closer to Pre-CU as well, since back then, everyone had the same base HAM, and combat characters were tougher due to specials, weapon certs, and defense mods. Having both traders and combat characters have the same base health again may be a welcome touch of realism and immersion for some players, since there will be far less animals and other PvE enemies that are instadeath for some characters, and cakewalks for others.

Of course, the idea of considering cl90 as average and ordinary is not to everyone’s taste. Those who want to play superheros may not like it at all, preferring much bigger differences between „heroes and zeros“. And those who want to play average or supersoldiers without grinding up to cl90 may not be in favor of this idea either – even or especially if they go on about how winning matters not anyway.

Using game mechanics for combat turns the superduper mandocommandos and the forcelords into not so quite supermen - in order to be a supersoldier, one would have to go a bit farther than just writing stuff in one’s bio and quoting obscure EU bits and pieces. At the same time, average soldiers need some effort to level up as well, if one cares about winning a fight, and while reaching level 90 can be - and was – done in 10 days, not everyone is willing to spend so much time on building up a character, not if that time can be used on „pwning“ people in emote fights already or playing one’s master trader/master dancer/master slicer/master mando jedi.

For those that do not think one should start out a master though, and are not adversial to require people to back up what they claim with their characters, defining cl90 as ordinary and using game mechanics may be a way to find a common ground with a number of roleplayers, and something worth looking into – especially if they are sick of having to deal with half a dozen different rulessets and emote combat systems just to handle something – combat – that the game mechanics can handle as well or better, and without the „made this system so I win“ bias.