((The RP XP with MJ #30 – Q&A #3))
Since this is a Q&A article (if you’re new here, I do this every 10th issue) and I have a personal story of my own, we’re going to leave Tarik, Yulel and the “MJ Fiction Players” alone this week and concentrate on your questions, especially since one of the questions involves the fiction that kicks off the column each week.
My story involves the near destruction of this column and my life in SWTOR. Ok, my wife would roll her eyes and call that the exaggeration that it is, but as a writer/producer/RPer I tend to lean toward the dramatic. The short form is this: This particular article may seem a bit like it was hastily thrown together. That’s because it was. In fact, if this wasn’t a Q&A week, there probably wouldn’t be an RP XP today.
For those of you who don’t follow me on Twitter, you missed the dramatic story about my dead video card and loss of a couple day’s work on my pending novel and various editing projects – not to mention the loss of valuable MMO time. The short end is… I found a nice card (and highly recommend the GeForce GTX 550 Ti for anyone on a modest budget and, like me, don’t have what I’d call a “gaming rig”). The card is more than a match for Star Wars: The Old Republic as well as graphics grinders like Skyrim. If you’re shopping for a card, check it out. My old one, in case you’re curious, was a GTS 240 and came stock with my Dell Studio XPS, which is a great machine for creative types who aren’t run-gun-slash-kill gamers. There are gaming machines specifically for that.
RolePlayers don’t really need that kind of power though, do we? 
Now enough about me. Let’s talk about you. On to your questions.
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((The RP XP with MJ #29))
Darth Tagious stood over the corpses of six Republic soldiers and sneered through a rasping exhale. A jutting steam pipe nearby added to his hiss, the sound echoing off the rusty tubular chambers of the Works deep within Coruscant.
He angled his head up, his piercing red-tinted eyes glaring miles through the heavy structures as if he could see his apprentice with the human Padawan they had left to die.
“So, Veetha… you mean to betray me to the Jedi,” Tagious breathed. “Let them come.”
Of course it didn’t really come as a surprise to the Sith Lord that his Rattataki apprentice would turn on him; it was every good apprentice’s challenge to eventually try. But the ebb of Force energy off the girl was different, clouded, masked in some way.
Tagious left Veetha with Tarik for a reason. He wanted to be done with her. He wanted to use her to lead him to the Jen’Hutis.
His sneer became a shallow laugh, then a roar of victory. Who better to lead him than the illegitimate daughter of a Jedi Knight?
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((The RP XP with MJ #28))
Yulel came awake after a short dream about floating on a cloud. It was then she realized she’d been moved, chair and all. She was still on Mannett Point but in a different room of the separatist base. A gruff-sounding man shouted, “And you…. You can untie her once we leave.”
A weak female voice responded, “Yes, master.”
Master?
The smuggler forced herself to remain calm. She held her breath and listened as the man left the room. Once he was gone, Yulel flinched at the sudden touch of gentle fingers around her head as the female who spoke removed her blindfold.
When she felt the cloth float away, Yulel gradually opened her eyes to a squint. The separatists had moved her to a small dark room made of bars with an electromagnetic lock. The cell was in a larger room filled with crates and supply canisters all marked for orbital transport.
Joining her in the room were several female Twi’leks, all of them bruised and dressed in tatters of former street clothes or uniforms, all huddled together in a corner. The one who removed Yulel’s blindfold and was now working on the knot at her ankles was dressed as a dancing girl. “Wait,” she said. The girl stopped working on the bonds and looked up at her. The young Twi’lek’s skin was the color of a clear winter sky, her eyes a brilliant green that should have been filled with the wonder of youth. Instead they looked dull and sullen.
Yulel spoke softly with a slight tremble in her throat. “W-What are they doing with us?”
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((The RP XP with MJ #27))
“How much further?” Jenla sneered as she stepped over a clump of something that could have been random Huttmuck or chemlizard scat.
Neither the Mandalorian nor his sister turned back, so Jenla trudged on in silence and tried to keep up.
Margis whispered to her brother, “Your mate is somethin’ of a complainer. I woulda thought the Empire raised less squeamish lieutenants.”
Boarsch raised his chin and squinted past his sister. “She’s a good officer, Margis. She’s smart and dedicated. Leave her alone already.”
Margis shrugged and gave up on the taunting. The Chiss Imp wasn’t really worth her time. Besides, they had reached the edge of the reservoir. “Here’s what I wanted you to see, Boar.”
Boarsch and Jenla stood on either of Margis and looked out at the stagnant rust-colored lake.
“What are we looking at?” The agent asked.
Margis looked up at her brother. “This is my village’s water supply.”
As Jenla wrinkled her nose in disgust, Boarsch said, “You drink this?”
Margis nodded solemnly. “Almost as-is. The water purifiers gave out some time ago.”
Jenla said, “You could die drinking this slime.” That’s when Margis finally turned to acknowledge her.
A tear formed in the hardened Hutta woman’s eye. “The doctor in our village says I have about two months to live.”
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((The RP XP with MJ #22))
Ord Mantell was generally no place for a crazy Twi’lek girl, especially with all the territorial squabbling between the Republic and the unpredictably superior separatists, but that’s where Yulel ended up.
She waved to the Gand pilot and ducked out from under the hot vents of his ship’s repulsors just as the small vessel lifted off and banked up into the clouds.
“Hey! Idiot! You almost took my head off!” She called up to the receding dot of a ship as it vanished. She pulled the straps of her pack so that it rested snugly against her shoulder blades and muttered, “I know you were in a hurry to leave, but that’s no reason to–”
The blaster bolt whizzed by Yulel’s head and stung her tchun as she twisted and dove behind a large rock nestled in an overgrowth of brush. Bolts continued to thump into the ground around her, crack at her stone cover and blaze through the air as she rolled off her back and scrambled to dig the blaster out of her pack.
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((The RP XP with MJ #21))
Aaaahh! What happened to my RP XP? Where’s the witty picture? Where’s the ongoing fiction about the smuggler who stole the rock? They’ll be back, my friends. But this week I thought I’d address an aspect of the game few RPers even consider.
This edition of the RP XP is all about in-game preferences for RolePlayers. Early last month, swtor-life’s own Mr. Warlock gave some great advice for preference settings to make your life easier in Star Wars: The Old Republic. The first of his two-part series can be found here. While those prefs were awesome suggestions for gaming, they don’t necessarily meet the oddball needs of those of us who fly the crazy RPer’s banner.
That got me to thinking about what preferences I use and how I pick them to suit my RP needs.
Keep in mind that these are my own choices. Yours may be different. I just thought I’d share what I found and maybe give you some ideas for tweaking your own SWTOR setup….
Continue Reading » ((The RP XP with MJ #18))
We here at the staff of ((The RP XP with MJ)), in recognition of the holiday weekend, would like to take a moment to thank you all for your continued comments, questions and support.
The RP community, even in a massive game like SWTOR, is a relatively small group. But we are family. We are the ones who embrace the “Fourth Pillar” and create a fifth: Our Own Epic Stories. So, it is with great honor and humility that I thank you all for keeping the art of RolePlay alive and well, for fostering it in others, and for being the greatest, closest most dedicated community in gaming.
May your holidays be filled with joy and swtor this weekend! Happy Life Day!
And now, some words from the staff….
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((The RP XP with MJ #17))
“Hutta is wonderful this time of year if you don’t inhale too deeply,” the bounty hunter chuckled as he escorted the imperial agent past the palace of Nem’ro the Hutt.
Jenla smirked. “Why the hell did you bring me here, Boarsch? You know how much the Hutts nauseate me.”
Boarsch hid his amusement by pretending to look away from her, concentrating on some activity at the end of a side street. Since the attack against the Jedi and Sith two days ago, Jenla Ruf and Boarsch had been on the run, skirting the outer rim systems and playing hopscotch with the main merchant runs where the Empire and Republic often traded blows. They just arrived on Hutta to re-supply and get work done on the ship. Distant blaster fire marred an otherwise quiet day.
As they turned down a particularly putrid alley rank with the smell of waste, Jenla stopped and held up her hand. “I am not going down there.”
The bounty hunter kept walking as the agent unsteadily glanced back down the main road.
“Did you hear me, Boarsch? I’m not going down there.”
The bulky Mandalorian shrugged under his armored shoulders. “Suit yourself, darling. I’m sure a Chiss woman by herself wearing an Imperial uniform will be just fine standing on the corner all alone.”
Jenla scowled and glanced from side to side, then watched as Boarsch continued down the alley. In a few paces he’d have to turn at the end and vanish from her sight. Looking back toward the spaceport, she saw two Gamorreans with heavy weapons waddling toward them. “Wait. …Boarsch, wait!”
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((The RP XP With MJ #16))
Yulel sat on the floor of the cabin aboard the Regail and nervously stroked her lekku. She brought her head tails over the front of each shoulder so she could hold them as she sat on the floor and rocked like a pouting child.
“This ain’t fair, ya know.”
The armored trooper stood in the open doorway of the cabin. He stood alert, his rifle held at port-arms. He wore his helmet so Yulel didn’t know if he was looking at her, at the wall, at the floor….
“You got a name, flatfoot?”
The helmet moved slightly. The electronically-augmented voice came out. “The name’s Wex. Not that it’s any of your business, thief.”
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((The RP XP with MJ #14))
I hope those of you relative to my time zone here in the U.S. had a spectacular Thanksgiving, and I hope those of you about to try Star Wars: The Old Republic for the first time ever during today’s launch of the Beta Stress Test Weekend have as much fun testing the game as I have.
Since I’ve been tied up with all kinds of holiday fun this week, not to mention all the holiday fun we’ll be experiencing in open–err, I mean ‘weekend‘–beta, I thought I’d make this week’s RP XP with MJ much, much shorter. In fact, I’m going to make it so short I’m not even going to write it.
I’ll be back next week with a very special edition of ((The RP XP with MJ)). Until then, good hunting out there in Betaland! And, if you see someone throw up a “LFG-RP” in General chat, it’s probably me. Come say ‘hi’… In character, of course.
Now, I’ll head out and let these guys take it from here. You’ve probably heard that RolePlayers “hear voices.” Well, sometimes we like to let ‘em out. These guys, whom you might recognize, wanted to come out and say a few words about what they’re thankful for….
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