Life Is Unfair | Star Master Log: The Circus Has Skilled Performers

Star Master Log

Jul 28

START HERE·EPISODE·SWN RULES EXPLAINED

Brian, who plays Captain Thorne, joins Jeff to talk about Episode 27. They get into how Thorne's role as captain took shape through play rather than any plan, and what it's actually like to give orders to a crew that sometimes does something completely different. The conversation also covers the Thorne and Haleyy relationship, and closes with a speed round where Brian makes a few things permanent canon, including one he might already regret.

[00:00:05] Star Master Jeff: Hey everyone, Star Master Jeff here, and welcome back to the Star Master Log. Today I'm joined by Brian, who plays Thorne. We're talking episode 27, entitled Life is Unfair. If you haven't listened to it yet, go do that first, because what follows is a spoiler conversation. You have been warned. Brian. Howdy. Welcome to the Star Master Log. Hey, thanks. Excited to be here. It's weird to have you on here. I feel like you're less a guest from the main pod and more of a guest from the Rules Explained segment. Yeah, kind of, I guess. It's fun to have my own little segment. I feel important. Yeah, I really love listening to those. So before we like fully dive in, I have some questions for you about episode 27, obviously. But could you just briefly give us a background of your history in tabletop gaming?
[00:00:57] Brian: Yeah, sure. So I've been doing it for a while. I'm 37 now. And my friends and I, when I was younger, probably like preteen, we used to play this game that we called Quest, where we would role play together. Somebody would serve as like a storyteller or dungeon master, and everyone else would just be characters. We didn't use dice. We didn't use character sheets. We just made up characters. And we told stories about what they did. Played that for years. We played it when we were camping, whatever. But once we got to be in like high school when I was maybe like 13, 14 years old is when we started to get into actual Dungeons and Dragons third edition. Well, it was 3.5 actually. Played that a bit very wrong for a while because we weren't very good. We didn't know what we were doing. I didn't own the book. It's probably the experience that made me so interested in rules is that my first real experience was everybody just lying and making up rules. So nowadays, I really love to read the book and tell people, you know, hey, did you know this is how it's supposed to work? Other than that, though, I mean, I've been playing games for years. You and I have been playing games for years. I like rule sets because it gives you something interesting to work in. Rules light is fun for me because I like to play new systems all the time, and when the rules are heavy, it takes a long time to get into it. But if it's too light, I feel like it's not mechanically interesting for me, so I like to try to find some kind of balance of a system that has some kind of progression or some kind of interesting mechanical features to it, but still isn't so heavy that it takes three hours to explain to anyone how to even make a character. Like GURPS.
[00:02:33] Star Master Jeff: Hey, I love GURPS. I love GURPS too.
[00:02:35] Brian: I will not besmirch GURPS on this program.
[00:02:38] Star Master Jeff: But you know, it's actually interesting that you say that because I actually see a lot of parallels with that attitude towards gaming and the way that you play Thorne because Thorne is also like similarly likes order and putting things into boxes. And especially in this episode, he's sort of running like the whole op to like get the black market ownership module. He's like directing Felix, he's telling Robert, go scout, go find like Overwatch, he's trying to manage ISO like crazy chaos. So do you also see a parallel like that? Do you play Thorne how you would be in that situation? Or is there something else going on there?
[00:03:18] Brian: I think you're kind of onto something. And I would say I play him like that more and more all the time. But originally, when we started playing this campaign, we didn't really know what Thorne's role was going to be until we sort of got into it. And the role of captain was almost like thrust onto me. I was making a merchant, but I didn't know that I was going to be like a leader figure to everybody else. But the more that their characters started to see Thorne as a leader, the more I as a player can start to see Thorne as a leader. And so more and more all the time, I'm just trying to incorporate that kind of stuff into my play style because I like to give people space to do what they want to do. But also I've noticed that when we play, sometimes we just need somebody to step in and say, okay, you do this and you do that, and let's just stop talking about it. And why not be the captain who says that? So I try to find a balance between letting people do their own thing and not being bossy, but still playing the character whose job it is to be bossy, if that makes sense.
[00:04:16] Star Master Jeff: I guess the follow up question for that is being put into those situations with these sometimes increasingly chaotic people. Do you actually feel like your plan is happening? Or do you feel like you're directing a circus and then you just try to hold it together the best you can?
[00:04:32] Brian: It is a little bit like a circus, but it's like a circus where all of your performers are very skilled. So they are just doing their own thing sometimes and it falls apart. But, you know, in this episode specifically, there was even a scene where a drone came flying over and Steph's first inclination was to shoot it down. But she said, you know, out loud, Haleyy's not going to shoot that because, you know, that would be too impulsive. And even just as a player, I was like, no, you should just do it. I think that would probably advance the situation in a positive way. So I like to just see what happens. I'm fine with giving an order and something completely different happening. Like in the starship combat rules, where it mentions that the captain says what everybody should do, each station should do on their turn, but they don't have to do that. They can do whatever they want. I actually really like that because it creates an interesting tension where we can later, like Thorne can yell at Robert later and say, hey, why the hell did you do that? I told you to do this. I'm not mad though. I don't care. I think it's great, hilarious fun when they go off script or do whatever they want to do. If I say go left and Felix goes right, That's fine. It just means that we have something interesting to talk about later.
[00:05:45] Star Master Jeff: Do you feel like that puts you into a position of having to be the parent and everyone else gets to kind of just be chaotic?
[00:05:50] Brian: Maybe a little bit. But I think that I don't find myself needing to scold them so much as just say, do this. And then if that's not what happens, so be it. I think maybe there is room, though, for Thorne to be a little bit more strict with the rest of the crew. It might even lead to some interesting situations and add some interesting tension, which I would love to explore. But so far, I've mostly just been letting people do what they want to do and kind of trying to be hands off so that it doesn't come across as me not wanting them to be that way when it's really just Thorne trying to keep everyone in line.
[00:06:27] Star Master Jeff: Right. So Thorne and Haleyy have a pretty interesting relationship. How do you as a player view Thorne's relationship with Haleyy?
[00:06:36] Brian: So from the very beginning, when we first made the characters and described what everybody looked like and who was good at what and that sort of thing, I decided right away that Thorne sees Haleyy as a sort of bodyguard. He's kind of a small guy. He's focused mostly on trade. you know, doing business. He's not that great with a gun as we repeatedly see in every combat. So when he sees Haleyy, this gigantic wide woman with huge muscles and, you know, he's like, oh, I'll just stand behind Haleyy. In the early episodes, I used to say that all the time. I stand behind Haleyy. So it's sort of from there, once Haleyy's, I don't want to say her mind is deteriorating, but as her situation got more complicated and she got more confused, it just felt to me like, Thorne would be compassionate about that and I don't have a lot of people to be compassionate toward, Robert's weird, Felix is too hard but Haleyy gives me those opportunities where she's just like I don't know what to do because I'm confused like in character the character Haleyy is confused about what's going on mentally or she's looking for direction because she's used to being a soldier so I use those opportunities as like a way to build a relationship That is it's like a friendship. I see it mostly as like the same way Thorne felt towards [[Kano Rix|Kano]] in the flashback episode. You have a bodyguard. They save your life enough times. It starts to form something more.
[00:08:04] Star Master Jeff: Right. And that is shown in this episode, too, because I saw his motorcycle topples over at the end. She's stuck under enemy fire. Thorne doesn't drive the Aurora back and put everyone in danger. He hands Haleyy a thermal flare and he's like, go get him.
[00:08:21] Brian: Yeah. So for Thorne, like even after everything, I mean the whole time, Thorne sees Haleyy as the most dependable crew member. Don't tell the others I said that, but... Guys, stop listening. No, but she's like the one that you can always count on to get things done, at least from Thorne's perspective. She was a leader. She's got people under her. She's good with clones. I think I mentioned that in the episode. I know that it's safe to trust Haleyy with whatever's going to happen. Whereas when I send Robert or Felix to do something, I don't know if Felix is going to end up high or if Robert's going to end up covered in grease. But I at least know Haleyy is going to give it her best effort. As far as how it feels to kind of send her off, it's more like I didn't want to risk everyone. If I drove that car back around, I was expecting the whole thing to possibly go and all of us just getting blown up at once. So I was sort of trying to keep everybody undercover. I just felt like Haleyy and ISO have the best relationship. as far as anyone has with ISO at this point. So not only is she the one that I most depend on, but she's probably the one that ISO is the most likely to trust. So it just made the most sense to send her. It does put her in a lot of risk, but I think that's sort of what Thorne is always doing, is just putting Haleyy in some sort of dangerous situation, and then later saying, hey, you know, thanks for taking care of that, or I'm sorry that I have to continue counting on you, but I'm going to continue counting on you. Even when she was getting kind of messed up in her head, there was a scene, I forget which episode, where Thorne kind of takes her aside and says, hey, I know that this is heavy for you, but I need you to be here because you're the only one I can count on.
[00:10:01] Star Master Jeff: Okay, we're going to move into the speed round. I'm going to ask you a bunch of rapid fire questions. And careful, because when you answer them, they will immediately become canon. So whatever you say is canon instantly. So careful. Let's start off with something easy. What is Thorne's favorite food?
[00:10:22] Brian: Oh, good one. Thorne's favorite food is noodles, like ramen or udon or that kind of thing.
[00:10:28] Star Master Jeff: Hell yeah. I mean, he must love it on [[_Polyphn|Polyphn]] then when he was there. Yeah, that's where he gained it.
[00:10:34] Brian: I mean, when he was growing up, most of the food that he ate was very fancy. He was kind of a rich kid. And there was all kinds of fresh stuff all across [[Zephyrus Three|Zephyrus]] that he was able to enjoy. And his family was in trading, so he was always finding interesting cuisines and that kind of thing. But when he was on [[_Polyphn|Polyphn]] trying to figure his own shit out, is when he really started to get a love for just like the hole-in-the-wall ramen shop type of places. And that's where his love of noodles comes from. Does Thorne miss [[Dr. Elara Voss|Voss]]? Yes. But that's an interesting question. Almost more like a tool, though, than like a person. And I know that maybe sounds a little bit mean, but [[Dr. Elara Voss|Voss]] is really useful. She has a lot of information and access to a lot of things. But she doesn't have like a very strong relationship with Thorne. So the fact that she's not around anymore is more like a bummer, like you lost something rather than he lost someone.
[00:11:35] Star Master Jeff: What's one thing Thorne would never put inside of the Aurora?
[00:11:39] Brian: One thing Thorne would never put inside of the Aurora. I can't say Froggy because I already did that once. And I still regret it to this day. It's still wet back there. Yeah. I wouldn't do it again. I mean, I'll say that. One thing that he wouldn't put into the Aurora. I don't know. At this point, the Aurora is turning into something of a utility vehicle. For all it was worth originally, it's seen some rough times in our hair. So at this point, there's almost nothing he wouldn't put in there.
[00:12:09] Star Master Jeff: Okay. So this episode is the last episode on [[_Sibylen|Sibylen]]. Thorne is now back on the Scapegoat. He's going back into space for the first time in weeks. What is the first thing he's going to do when he gets back to his bunk tonight?
[00:12:25] Brian: It's probably once we finally have a chance to relax and we're just, you know, in space, flying to our next destination. Thorne's probably going to spend time figuring out how this all pieces together. We have a lot of threads. We have a lot of different people who know each other. And so Thorne is constantly in his free time trying to figure out what's the angle? Where are they going to come from next? How does this one thing connect to this other thing? So it's probably going to be just him spending a lot of time trying to take apart all the information that he's found, sort of decompress it and try to understand it.
[00:13:04] Star Master Jeff: I'm going to ask for one word to describe all the other people that are on the Scapegoat right now. So I'll name them and you give me a word. And let's start with Felix. Brilliant. Oh, Haleyy. Invaluable.
[00:13:19] Brian: Robert. Unpredictable. Oh, well, what about ISO? Very predictable. Predictable, but still explosive. How about Froggy? Um, regrettable. And I don't mean that in like he's regrettable, but the situation around him. And how about a word for the Scapegoat itself?
[00:13:41] Star Master Jeff: Freedom. Hmm. So going into the next session, what is Thorne most afraid of?
[00:13:50] Brian: Oh, there's so much at this point. But what he's most afraid of is probably ending up in something similar to Project Redwing. I mean, we know that we're chasing [[Viktor Strake|Strake]] or Strake's chasing us. It's a little bit of both. He's afraid of what happened to [[Vera Corbin|Vera]] and the others at the auction and how that's similar to what happened to PD and the others that were part of Project Redwing. And I think what Thorne's most afraid of is that if we don't win this war against Omnitech or [[Virodyne Labs|Virodyne]] or whatever it ends up being, that our fates may be worse than death.
[00:14:23] Star Master Jeff: So those that are wondering what Brian's talking about when he mentions Project Redwing, go all the way back to [[Episode 9 - Brother's Keeper - Felix's Story|Brother's Keeper: Felix's Story]], where we get a little taste of what Project Redwing is and learn some of its history. It's not for the faint of heart.
[00:14:37] Brian: One thing that you might not learn just from that episode alone is that when [[Dr. Elara Voss|Voss]]... put Thorne, you know, on the crew register for this whole mission, it was taking him off of the same fate that happened to [[Petey Champlin|Petey]]. So when you find out what happened to Petey, if you don't already know, just remember that that could have happened to Thorne too, if it wasn't for Voss intervening. Exactly.
[00:15:02] Star Master Jeff: Well, that's our time for today, Brian. Thanks so much for joining us. Yeah, thanks for having me. These are fun. Scapegoats forever. Scapegoats forever indeed. Next time on the Dark Star Adventurecast, the ownership module's installed, ISO's got a bunk, and [[Buddy AI|Buddy]]'s got a lot to say. The crew finally has what they came for, and the means to use it. All that's left is to find [[Dr. Elara Voss|Voss]] and make for [[Prometheon Technologies|Prometheon Station]]. Now the only question left is what's waiting for them once they get there. If you want to get these episodes two weeks before they drop publicly, the Dark Star Adventure Cast Patreon is where you want to go. Patreon.com slash Dark Star Adventure Cast. We really appreciate each and every one of our patrons and we hope to see you there. From Brian and I, thanks so much for listening and keep following that signal. Thanks, everybody.