What is Darths & Droids?
Darths & Droids is an "RPG screencap comic".
- RPG - The characters in our comic are roleplaying game (RPG) players. The Game-Master (GM) guides the players as they take the roles of characters on a quest in a science-fiction universe.
- Screencap - Our visuals come from screencaps (still frames) of Star Wars movies.
- Comic - This means it's funny. We hope.
Inspired by. When Shamus Young ended his strip based on the Lord of the Rings as a roleplaying campaign, he expressed surprise that nobody else had begun one on another movie. We were surprised too. A gap needed to be filled.
Although this is "another RPG screencap comic", we are deliberately approaching things from a different angle than Shamus did. Firstly, he did the "barely competent, railroading GM with players who hate the game" thing so well, and explored so much of that territory, that we wanted to do something different. Our GM is an easy-going guy who most of all wants his players to have fun. He's not straitjacketing them into his preconceived story; he gives them free rein to do pretty much anything they want, and then builds (more or less) logical consequences on top of that. He allows his players to improvise and invent some of the details of the setting, so long as they don't conflict too badly with what he'd originally planned, and that it can be worked into the story somehow.
We're not trying to produce DM of the Rings, Mark II. Shamus' comic was side-splittingly hilarious, but with little attempt to adapt the source material into a coherent overarching story. We're aiming for funny, but our primary goal is different. Story and characterisation are our raison d'être.
How much do the players know about Star Wars?
Another of our goals is to explain how some of the stranger elements of the canonical Star Wars setting and story might have come to be. The comic
takes place in an alternate universe, where Star Wars does not exist. The players don't know anything
at all about Jedi, or Tatooine, or Anakin Skywalker before the game begins. The GM has some sort of storyline and setting details in mind, but not fully
detailed. He creates the setting in response to what the players do. If the players make some (not patently ridiculous) assumption, or improvise
something in order to explain what they're doing, then the GM adopts it and adds it to the setting.
For example: If Obi-Wan comes up with an explanation for why something as stupid-sounding as laser swords are actually really useful, it's not because Ben (Obi-Wan's player) knows how badass lightsabres are, it's that he's making it up to achieve some immediate goal within the game, and the GM then adds that fact to his game universe.
How old are the players?
That's deliberately unspecified, so you can make up your own mind. There are some clues in the strips, and you will learn more as time goes by, but we
don't want to give specific numbers just yet.
What game system are they using?
It's deliberately vague and unspecified. There are elements of several different games in it, plus some stuff that we just plain made up.
So either imagine it's some fictional commercially available system, or call it a home-brew system. Either way, it's definitely not
either one of the
two Star Wars roleplaying games, since
they (nor Star Wars itself) don't exist in the Darths & Droids universe.
What movies are you going to do?
We plan to do all six Star Wars movies. We'll think about life after that when we get there - that's a long way off yet.
Why didn't you start with Episode IV?
Most roleplaying campaigns tend to run chronologically, so it made the most sense to start at the beginning of the story.
"Darths & Droids"??
Yeah. Give us a break. We had to come up with a name within a lunch hour - the same lunch hour where we discussed the idea, decided to
do it, plotted out a metaplot involving the players and GM through the first three movies, and wrote the first strip.
When does the strip update?
Three times a week! On Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. Update time is 10:11 GMT, the same as Irregular Webcomic! Why those days? Because most
other 3-a-week comics update Monday/Wednesday/Friday. We like to be different. And it gives you something new to read on the days many other comics don't update.
Is the RSS feed available through LiveJournal?
Yes, here: http://syndicated.livejournal.com/darthsanddroids/.
So how did this come together?
Less than 24 hours passed between my idea to do this, and the first comic being posted. I dithered a bit, worried about the time commitment. Then at lunch at work
the next day I shared my thoughts with some of my workmates. They immediately said, "Yes!! We must do this!!" So this comic is very much a collaborative
effort with a hard-working team of 6 or 7 people behind the scenes, cooperating on the writing, the screengrabbing, and the compositing. This assuages my
time pressure fears somewhat.
So who are the Comic Irregulars?
The creators of Darths & Droids are Andrew Coker, Andrew Shellshear, David Karlov, David McLeish, David Morgan-Mar, Ian Boreham, Loki Patrick,
Steven Irrgang.
What software do you use to make the strips?
The font used for dialogue is Gosmick Sans. The sound effects are
Damn Noisy Kids. The DVD was ripped to file using DVD Decrypter,
from which we do frame-by-frame viewing and screencaps using VirtualDubMod. Well, at least that's what
most of us do. One of the other Comic Irregulars ripped the DVD using some Mac software and views and screengrabs using some other Mac software.
Two of us assemble the comics using Photoshop. Three of the other guys use
Inkscape. And the Mac guy uses Comic Life. Yes, the strips have been
assembled by a total of six different people, using three different graphics editors, on three different operating systems.
More questions? Praise? Abuse? Use the forum, Luke.