Chameleon

I've just hit upon the solution to my difficulties with the character of Sabra in Firefly one-shots!

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I'm inclined to think that the best way to create characters for this game is to write down the three most important things about the character, and use these to create the character's Distinctions - probably the key defining element of characters in this game.

However, Sabra had always struck me as something of a 'void' character - she's the ship's pilot, she's involved with the Captain, but other than that we know virtually nothing about her. Well, except that she gets killed by an alien while swimming.

So, I was trying to come up with a good "third thing" about the character. And, being honest, I was doing so with one eye on the upcoming Christmas Game. However, I kept hitting on a criticism: "isn't it incredibly convenient that she just happens to..." Plus, of course, if she just happens to fit this adventure, she probably doesn't fit the next one.

Then the solution hit me: what if this character didn't have a fixed "third thing", but was instead built with two 'permanent' Distinctions with a third assigned at the time so that she always "just happens" to fit the adventure?

(Which is not without precedent in the Firefly RPG - one of the things that threw me on my first glance through the book was that the character of Saffron was actually quite different from Yo-Saff-Bridge. Because they took the wise decision to limit the complexity of NPCs, the publishers established that it was legitimate to rebuild such characters if they need to play different roles in different Episodes.)

So, that's my solution: Sabra will be built with the "Ship's Pilot" and (probably) "Hitched" Distinctions, plus a third "Chameleon" Distinction which will be assigned closer to the time. And that's that problem solved. Huzzah!