Darths & Droids/Characters

The character sheet (tee hee) for the webcomic Darths and Droids. This page shows the various characters and the tropes related to them. If the character is a PC, the various characters they play will be here as well.

Jim
Jim is a roleplayer of the "XP and loot first, plot later" variety, and is more interested in having a cool adventure than in puzzles or plot. He tends to jump head first into things, often while barely understanding the situation and frequently making things worse. But Jim isn't stupid: he's actually a highly intelligent graduate student who can come up with plausible explanations for the most nonsensical stuff in the Star Wars universe. He just likes to "turn his brain off." He has developed a rather obvious crush on Annie, culminating in them starting to date at the end of Episode II. The relationship sours between Episodes II and III, but later recovers.

Plays Qui-Gon Jinn, Anakin for about two strips, and later Padme, then Captain Antilles Kyle Katarn in a campaign between Episodes III and IV.

"Owen: Yes. They used to be a peaceful, meditative race, until about ten years ago, when they mysteriously acquired weapons and started shooting at pod races. They began terrorising town dwellers, claiming some sort of broken promise. They've descended into barbarism.
 * Action Girl: He plays one, anyway.
 * Aggressive Negotiations: Naturally, Jim is fond of this trope. Although he claims to need a laser blaster to properly negotiate, because the laser sword's reach isn't good enough.
 * But He Sounds Handsome: Both Jim himself and the characters he plays have nothing but praise for other characters played by him.
 * Character Derailment: In-universe. His handling of Padme is completely different from how the GM did it.
 * Cloudcuckoolander: His philosophy on gaming starts with a Forrest Gump reference and ends with "Chocolate dice!". Also, it seemingly never occurred to him that when he learns something his character isn't supposed to know during session he should simply pretend not to hear it until Corey did just that.
 * Gambit Roulette: His plan for the Mos Eisley pod race. Goes Up to Eleven because almost every single step of the plan by all rights should have ensured its spectacular failure, and yet it still somehow works.
 * Genius Ditz: Double Subversion: He's a genius most of the time, it's only when he's gaming that he's a moron... but because the comic is entirely concerned with a game campaign and we never see the characters in any other setting, he still comes across as an idiot with flashes of brilliance on a particular subject (geophysics).
 * There are hints that he may be prone to ditzy behavior even when not gaming. After all, he did yell in public that vampires do not sparkle in the daylight...
 * God Save Us From the Queen: As Padme.
 * Idiot Hero
 * Lawful Good: In-universe. Qui-Gon, in theory.
 * Malaproper: Sort of inverted, Jim immediately and authoritatively states a random definition for whatever alien word the DM mentions.
 * Meaningful Name: Jim being one letter off from Jin. No longer meaningful as of Qui-Gon's death.
 * Nice Job Breaking It Hero: Every other day. And this is an understatement. And most of the time he (apparently) doesn't even notice when it's pointed out.
 * Nice Job Breaking It Hero: Every other day. And this is an understatement. And most of the time he (apparently) doesn't even notice when it's pointed out.

Jim: Wow. I wouldn't like to be the one responsible for that."

"Pete: Roleplaying is his downtime. He likes to turn his brain off."
 * Noodle Incident: Has had several, the two biggest being Annie's game between Episodes II and III and between Episodes III and IV where they went through the Dark Forces games and Jim was Kyle Katarn. After this game he seems to have been banned from playing Jedi or owning a laser sword.
 * Obfuscating Stupidity: He's working on his Ph.D.


 * The Real Man
 * UST: With Annie throughout Episode II, getting upgraded to an official relationship by the end.
 * Word Salad Philosophy: His personal philosophy seems to be this. Then again, he's probably got a better one when he's more lucid.

Ben
An old roleplaying buddy of Jim's. Ben is often the voice of reason, and tries his best to rein Jim in. He's rather more focused on the role-playing than Jim--he's one of the few participants to distinguish between in-character knowledge and out-of-character knowledge, and he's even taking drama classes to help with improv. He's also very good at thinking his way around the GM's setting and rules. He has a habit of pointing out the flaws in the setting. He studies medicine outside the campaign, if only it's because his father wants him to. After his sister Sally confronts him over this in Episode III, he goes away to rethink his life, and doesn't return until two years later during Episode IV.

Plays Obi-Wan Kenobi.


 * Aloof Big Brother: Toes the line between this and Big Brother Mentor.
 * Deadpan Snarker
 * Honor Before Reason: Not only is his version of Obi-wan an example of this trope, but Ben's commitment to staying in-character means that Obi-wan will, at crucial moments, take actions that Ben knows full well to be bad ideas.
 * Lawful Good: As a Jedi, Obi-Wan should be this in-universe. Ben does well with the Good half, not so much with the Lawful, but still better than Jim.
 * Leaving You to Find Myself: He goes on a two-year-long journey to rethink his life after Sally questions him why he's doing exactly what their father wants by studying medicine during the Episode III campaign.
 * Meaningful Name: Ben was a name Obi-Wan took after the purge.
 * Mr. Exposition: Shares this role with Sally in episode IV.
 * Nice Job Breaking It Hero: Not nearly as bad as Jim, though.
 * The Obi Wan: Seems to be taking this role since his return in Episode IV for Corey, though also showing the same "enlightened" outlook toward others. Playing the Trope Namer helps.
 * Only Sane Man: At least among the players, though he's not above twisting the insanity around to his benefit.
 * Put On a Bus: He's nowhere to be seen at the start of Episode IV.
 * The Bus Came Back: He returns in episode 719.
 * The Roleplayer
 * The Smart Guy
 * Walking the Earth: Or something to that effect. It turns out Ben disappeared in the time between Episode III and IV to find himself. Only he forgot to really keep in contact, so everyone thought the worst, especially Sally.
 * Well Done Son Guy: According to Sally, the only reason he's going into medicine is because his dad wants him to.

Sally
Ben's younger sister. Initially she only tagged along with Ben because her parents couldn't afford a babysitter that night, so the GM worked her into the game, and she ended up enjoying it far more than anyone expected and sticking around for the rest of the campaign. She's also wildly imaginative and not afraid to contribute to the world-building--many of the stranger aspects of the prequel trilogy were her contributions.

Played Jar-Jar Binks in Episode I, then kept switching between a bunch of minor side characters like C-3PO, Mace Windu, and Yoda after she got bored with the Non Action Guy.


 * The Atoner: As Mace Windu, she accidentally killed off Jango Fett. Mace spends the rest of the arena battle in a remorseful daze.
 * Attention Deficit Ooh Shiny: Has a strong tendency to decide a character or activity is "stupid/boring" and look for another.
 * Badass Adorable
 * Berserk Button: She doesn't like it when Ben is insulted in her presence.
 * Cloudcuckoolander: Plays these. In real life she's just young and can have a short attention span.
 * Fleeting Passionate Hobbies: In addition to her frequent switching of characters, in Episode III, she switches interests from ice skating to fashion design to fantasy world-building to journalism to politics to veterinary medicine in between each game session.
 * Hidden Depths: Short attention span or not, she has a gift for worldbuilding. At one point, when the DM let her flat out design a set, she left him and Ben speechless in awe. She later claims that she wishes to be a fantasy writer and has apparently mapped out an entire planet.
 * The Loonie
 * Rescued From the Scrappy Heap: Intentionally. Sally made Jar-Jar likable in the series. It got so good, Jim said "Jar-Jar, you're a genius," and it was perfectly believable.

Pete
An old friend of Jim's. Pete tries to abuse the system as much as possible - for example, he designed his character as short, armless, and unintelligible so he could get advantages elsewhere. Spent most of Episode II bitter about a low-fantasy campaign that he, Jim, and Ben played during the first Time Skip.

Plays R2-D2, and subbed in for the GM when he had to leave for a family emergency in Episode II.

"Ben: Wait, Pete, when did you decide to be evil? [Beat Panel] I can't believe I even said that."
 * Bathe Her and Bring Her To Me: Inverted. He requests that he be cleaned and oiled by the Queen's most beautiful handmaiden as a reward for saving the ship.
 * Chaotic Neutral: In-universe he claims this is R2-D2's alignment. Ben, however, thinks he's actually of evil alignment.

"Pete: Look, I cajole dice, I beg them, I even punish them. But never in my life have I manipulated them."
 * Everyone Has Standards: Pete might be a Munchkin of the worst variety but he reacts with offense when accused of rigging his special die to get Ben killed.


 * Her Codename Was Mary Sue: He should NEVER DM and play a character at the same time for this reason. Well this and Railroading.
 * Hidden Depths: In-universe Annie is very surprised when it's revealed that Pete has a job and that, presumably, he does have a life outside gaming.
 * Killer Game Master: When Pete guest GMs he puts the others through a killer death trap course as revenge for their actions in another campaign, although no one's character is actually killed thanks to some luck and some sucking up.
 * Min Maxing/Munchkin
 * Odd Friendship: With Sally, though it sometimes seems a little one-sided.
 * Railroading
 * The Scrappy: Intended as such, but the fans seem to disagree. The Comic Irregulars have stated that, in addition to redeeming Jar-Jar, they wanted to take one of the most beloved characters and make the fans hate him. Hence, R2-D2 is a rude, self-centered munchkin. The problem is, Pete himself isn't that bad of a guy, and he's hilarious to the readers.
 * Token Evil Teammate: At worst.

Annie
An initial non-gamer and thespian. She met Ben through drama class, and he introduced her to the role-playing group. She initially saw the sessions as acting opportunities (and she provided a humorous outsider's perspective on the usual PC behavior), but she is getting the hang of the combat simulations. She clearly has a lot of fun collaborating with the GM on her characters' backstories, and playing the parts for all the angst she can. Has been dating Jim since the end of Episode II. Ran her own supernatural campaign during the second Time Skip, but the other players didn't take to it and it strained her relationship with Jim during Episode III. However, the two work out their differences.

Briefly played Shmi before taking over Anakin Skywalker, then switched to Princess Leia in Episode IV.


 * The Corrupter: How she plays Anakin.
 * Did You Just Airquote Darth Vader?: Twice!
 * Drives Like Crazy: Both in and out of character.
 * Lawful Evil: In-universe. Annie's playing Anakin this way.
 * Kansas City Shuffle: Uses this like mad, particularly in the third campaign where Anakin plays Palpatine and the Jedi against each other, trying to turn himself into the second most powerful man in the galaxy. The other players don't always know what's going on either; it appears the only person Annie has actually briefed on her plans for Anakin is The GM.
 * Meaningful Name: In the movies, "Ani" was a pet name given to Anakin.
 * The Roleplayer: Friend of Ben's from a drama course. Joined the game as a role play exercise. The other players don't mind it most of the time, but she occasionally takes it too far for them.
 * Rules Lawyer: One of her best moments involves her
 * Token Evil Teammate: Not actually, but definitely the ways she plays Anakin. Jim and Pete have no problem siding with Anakin even as "his" evil becomes more and more obvious.
 * UST: With Jim.
 * Catch Phrase: "Trust me."

Corey
Pete's nephew, who he brings along to a session early in Episode IV. He appears to be an experienced MMORPG-player (judging by some Leet Speak in his dialogue), and is unimpressed with their more traditional system. This causes immediate friction with Sally.

As of Episode IV, he plays Luke Skywalker (in D&D universe going by the name "Adam Lars", and later "Luke Amidala").

"Ben (as Obi-Wan): Let me explain from the beginning. You know your name isn't really Adam?
 * Bratty Half Pint
 * Culture Clash: With his uncle when he wants to use an electronic random number generator instead of rolling dice.
 * Cloudcuckoolander: It's hard to tell whether he's being sarcastic sometimes or whether he just doesn't really get that he's not playing a computer game with some of his comments, such as where he could see his inventory or if he could "replay this Cutscene later" after an Info Dump. He also occasionally gets in-character and out-of-character conversations mixed up:

Corey: Yeah, it's Corey. I know how this works."


 * First Name Basis: Calls Pete by his first name.
 * Like Uncle, Like Nephew: Started out as a mini-Pete of sorts, except he was interested in a different kind of games; it even got lampshaded by the GM. However, he seems to grow into...
 * The Roleplayer: And he's surprisingly good at it considering he's Pete's nephew. He even calls Pete out on it!
 * Wrong Genre Savvy: He has only ever played computer RPGs and is therefore unused to the conventions of tabletop roleplaying.
 * Wrong Genre Savvy: He has only ever played computer RPGs and is therefore unused to the conventions of tabletop roleplaying.

The GM
He comes up with epic campaigns for the others to play... which rarely last five minutes before they go completely off the rails. He's given up trying to railroad (except briefly in Episode III, where he becomes really insistent that Ben/Obi Wan go to Naboo) and instead works around the craziness that his players come up with. He still takes a perverse pleasure in ensuring that any morally dubious action the players take somehow returns to bite them in the rear.


 * Game Master
 * Large Ham: He has way too much fun playing the NPCs. And the sound effects.
 * Man of a Thousand Voices: Switches between various accents, from Boston to Japanese Ranguage to a French and Spanish Funetik Aksent to the Antiquated Linguistics of a hard boiled detective from Noir fiction. Ben has to give him props for doing this well when he is controlling three characters with completely different accents at the same time in an NPC conversation. That isn't to say he's always on top of it, though.
 * No Name Given: Lampshaded in The Un Reveal.
 * Only Sane Man
 * What the Hell Hero: Indeed, he states that one of the fun things about being GM is playing NPC superiors of PCs, so you can call this trope on them.

Palpatine
The senator from Naboo, he seems to be pretty decent guy, working to keep order in the galaxy and shying away from underhanded dealings whenever possible. This is a stark reversal from the original movies: instead of him manipulating the well-meaning Anakin into joining The Dark Side, it's the other way around.

"Palpatine: In the wrong hands, [the Death Star] could be... disastrous.
 * Anti Villain: He orders the deaths of all Jedi in the field, but he was manipulated into it and feels regret about it.
 * The Corruptible: And Anakin succeeds in turning him.
 * Face Heel Turn: Manipulated into one by Anakin.
 * Only Sane Man

Anakin: But in the right hands?

Palpatine: There are no right hands!"


 * Reasonable Authority Figure: Apparently.
 * Retired Badass: A former Jedi Knight before he went into politics. Apparently in this universe, "Darth" is an honorific given to retired Jedi.

Darth Maul
A private eye hired by Palpatine to help recover the Lost Orb of Whatever, he is actually meant to be an ally to the PCs, but is not treated as such by Jim (who, of course, sees everyone in terms of XP and loot).


 * Antiquated Linguistics: He talks like a 30s hard-boiled detective, particularly the slang.
 * Bounty Hunter: Except not. He's really a Private Detective, but nobody relevant is willing to hear him out and team up with him.
 * Poor Communication Kills: Qui-Gon and he himself, as per the original movie.

Chancellor Valorum

 * Chekhov's Gunman:
 * Cloudcuckoolander
 * President Evil

Jango Fett
"Ben: He had a nervous twitch fighting living targets. He never hit."
 * Bounty Hunter:
 * Chekhov's Gunman:
 * Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: According to Ben, his aim sucked.


 * Roaring Rampage of Revenge
 * To the Pain: Delivered to Obi-Wan upon meeting.

Count Dookû

 * Cassandra Truth: Played with.
 * French Jerk: Complete with Funetik Aksent.
 * Well Intentioned Extremist

General Grievous

 * Bad Boss: He kills some droids for interrupting his monologue.
 * Final Speech: Gets a long one.
 * General Ripper
 * Large Ham
 * Man in The Machine
 * Wicked Cultured: Recites poetry during the first part of his duel with Obi-Wan.
 * You're Insane: Called out on this by Obi-Wan/Ben.
 * Wicked Cultured: Recites poetry during the first part of his duel with Obi-Wan.
 * You're Insane: Called out on this by Obi-Wan/Ben.

Mace Windu

 * Captain Oblivious
 * Cloudcuckoolander
 * Deadpan Snarker: In response to Anakin's cryptic comments.

The Clones

 * Cloning Blues: Apparently averted. They don't seem to mind their status very much.
 * Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Also averted here. They not only manage to successfully avoid shooting the droids but also kill most of the rebels.
 * For some reason, however, Obi-Wan still says that they's "rubbish" shots, and also applies this to their "clone-father", Jango. This is probably due to Ben's absence and lack of information, however.
 * Would Not Shoot a Civilian: They deliberately avoid shooting the droids in the middle of a firefight.

Darth Vader (Played by the GM in episode 4)

 * Bad Boss: Instructs his subordinates to execute themselves should they prove to be incompetent.
 * Cool Helmet: Oh, come on, it's Vader.
 * Crazy Prepared: A weird example in that while he, so far, has had an answer for everything, it's his subordinates who unwittingly provide him with the "crazy". Case in point; when he instructs one to execute everyone who knows about the Empire holding Princess Leia, and the guy asks if that includes himself, his only response is "Yes".
 * Dark Is Evil: Lampshaded.
 * Obviously Evil: Also lampshaded in the same strip.
 * Dragon With an Agenda: Set up as one before Episode III ended.
 * Jerkass: Forcechokes Motti not because he got insulted by him or anything, but simply because Motti pointed out that Vader shouldn't kill his staff for making mistakes.
 * You Have Failed Me: This one orders subordinates to execute themselves. According to Motti, he does it so often that they had to replace half the workforce during construction of the Peace Moon, putting its completion years behind schedule.

Owen and Beru Lars

 * Crazy Survivalist: In addition to surrounding the moisture farm with guns, they also tell Adam not to look up at the sky, among other things. When Adam is told about the rebellion and empire, Owen tells him to melt down the droids, who are telling "crazy lies, spread by outside folk". Even Vader was impressed by their defensive arsenal.
 * Killed Off for Real: As of Episode 735.
 * Properly Paranoid: The specific details of their paranoia may actually pan out, given how the story goes.