Webcomic / Darths & Droids

Ten-foot laser pole not included.

"Jar Jar, you're a genius!"

— Qui-Gon Jinn (a.k.a. Jim)

What If? Star Wars as we know it didn't exist, but instead the plot of the movies was being made up on the spot by players of a Tabletop Game?

Well, for one, the results might actually make a lot more sense, from an out-of-story point of view...

Darths & Droids is a Campaign Comic created by The Comic Irregulars (David Morgan-Mar and seven of his friends from work), following the footsteps of DM of the Rings, which used a similar premise for The Lord of the Rings. However, while DOTR featured a railroading GM herding a bunch of bored Munchkin players with an iron fist, Darths & Droids has a more tolerant GM, who's willing to let the players get Off the Rails and contribute to the development of the setting, if that's what it takes to have a fun and interesting game. Indeed, the very plot of Star Wars, with all its inconsistencies and bizarre leaps of logic, comes about because the players constantly force the GM to improvise.

And that's not all; the Irregulars seem to be taking perverse pleasure in actually changing things from how they happen in the movies as much as they can while still being constrained by actual screencaps. This ranges from introducing the "Lost Orb" side-quest, all the way to Darth Maul being a hired bounty hunter who's, at worst, a Punch-Clock Villain. Even Palpatine seems like a good guy.

In the blurb for each comic, there are often links to This Very Wiki (one of its creators is a known troper), and there are even comics named after tropes, as well.

The comic is being translated into a variety of languages, including German and French. Notably, some of the translations are pure Gag Dub, including Pirate, poetry, Zero Wing-esque mangled English and tlhIngan Hol (Klingon). Nearly all strips from Episode I are available in German.

Darths and Droids has completed campaigns based on the six original movies, Rogue One, The Force Awakens, Solo, and of all things, the Star Wars episode of The Muppet Show.

The first campaign, The Phantasmal Malevolence, got a licensed stage adaptation, which you can view here. A filmed adaptation of the stage adaptation is available to watch here.

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The players from the original 3 movies correspond to the five basic RPG Player Archetypes, although Morgan-Mar claims it was unintentional.

Characters

All tropes related to a specific character can be found on the character sheet.

• The Brain: Ben, playing Obi-Wan Kenobi during the prequel trilogy, and once he dies in Episode IV he takes over Chewbacca from the GM. He starts the sequels as Lor San Tekka before moving on to General Hux and Rose Tico. He prefers to think rationally before acting, comes up with sane plans, but is quick to resort to fast-talking the GM if nothing else works. Also points out the unlikelihood of situations they run into. At some point since Episode III he stopped coming to game sessions, but he eventually returns for Episode IV (as a result, he winds up missing the Rogue One campaign).
• The Real Man (though arguably with a side-order of The Loonie even stronger than Sally's): Jim, initially playing Qui-Gon Jinn, then, after the death of Qui-Gon, Padmé Amidala. In Episode IV, his early characters (including Captain Antilles) wound up being Mauve Shirts, until he settled in as "Han Solo".^note The Harrison Ford character, though in the strip his and Greedo's names were switched until Jim shot first and stole the Solo identity. This in no way came back to bite him eventually. Those "early characters" were apparently all in Rogue One, starting with "Kyle Katarn" (Saw Gererra) before picking up "Bria Tharen" (Jyn Erso) and Bail Organa from the GM. In the sequels, he's Poe Dameron. He's a gung-ho, enthusiastic player, often blindly rushing into danger. He's also prone to humorous misunderstandings of the setting, bizarre and obviously incorrect explanations, and creation of Plot Tumors. His insane plan regarding the pod race must be seen to be believed (yet he's also pursuing a Ph.D. in geophysics; in Pete's words, he relaxes by doing things that let him turn his brain off and surprises the other players when they realize that he's not as stupid as his play style suggests).
• The Loonie: Sally, playing Jar Jar Binks in Episode I. By the time the Episode II campaign started, she decided Jar Jar was stupid, and bounced around several characters before mainly settling on C-3PO and Yoda. She then played K-2SO in Rogue One and multiple characters in the sequels including Kylo Ren, Administrator Snoke, Maz Kanata, and Admiral Holdo. She's Ben's kid sister, who he once brought to a game session when their parents weren't home. As she's grown up, she's matured into a social activist. Many of the wacky elements of the setting, such as the Gungans (including her own character), Toydarians, and an elected 14-year-old queen, are products of her wild imagination; the GM seems to have largely left the task of designing settings and alien races to her, in acknowledgment of the fact that she is more creative with such things than he is. Sally is also pure awesome in a can, given that she was able to accomplish the flat-out impossible feat of making Jar Jar Binks likable.
• The Munchkin: Pete, playing R2-D2 in most campaigns, both Chirrut Îmwe and Baze Malbus in Rogue One, and Rey in the sequels. He joined after Jim told him about the game and designed his character in advance using Min-Maxing, resulting in a verbally-challenged non-humanoid robot with insane mechanic skills. He took the same approach for Rogue One, creating a blind monk and his deaf and mute familiar that both have an array of combat perks. He has something of a soft spot for Sally, which makes a lot more sense once she sticks with C-3PO for Episode IV.
• The Thespian: Annie, initially playing Shmi Skywalker but soon switched to Anakin rather than shoehorning Shmi into the adventuring party. As of Episode IV, she's Leia and Darth Vader. For Rogue One, she played Cassian Andor; and in the sequels she's Finn. Ben told her about the game in drama class. Her unfamiliarity with typical RPG player behavior results in amusing misunderstandings, such as her mistaking Qui-Gon for a robber when he attempts to search Shmi's house for loot. Her roleplaying tends to be filled with Hidden Depths and moral ambiguity, which sometimes screws with the more straightforward mindset of the other players. As a joke, she plays what is considered to be the worst acted character from the prequel trilogy.
• The Sixth Ranger: Corey, joining the group in Episode IV and playing Luke (named Luke Amidala in this case; with the aliases "Adam Lars" and Luke "Starkiller"). With Luke's disappearance in the sequel campaigns, his new character is BB-8. He's Pete's nephew, being just a little older than Sally. He got interested in the group after hearing Pete talk about it, but was stunned to find it wasn't a role-playing video game. Nonetheless, he seems to be getting the hang of things pretty quickly.
• The Game Master: No Name Given, playing everyone else; mostly NPCs but he also plays a part in the Episode IV adventuring party as Chewbacca until Ben takes over the role. He also plays major roles in Rogue One as Bodhi Rook and the original player for "Bria Tharen" (Jyn Erso). He too often sees his carefully written campaigns get shot to pieces by the players going Off the Rails, but knows better than to try Railroading and usually doesn't do any more than make a sarcastic comment in response. More often, he just rolls with whatever the players come up with. He also tends to differentiate NPCs with Just Some Stupid Accents, and he enjoys playing authority figures that get to call the PCs on their shenanigans.

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Darths & Droids provides examples of:

Tropes # to E

• 13 Is Unlucky: At one point, R2-D2 (Pete) and Chewbacca (GM) play a game within a game, and R2 backstabs Chewbacca's character to loot his corpse. He finds 13 gold coins, and a cursed item which forces him to pay for the resurrection of Chewbacca's character.
• Accidental Misnaming:
  • About half the time Jim says anything, he gets its name wrong. Sio Bibble is "Bubble", Jedi knights are "Cheddar monks", Sebulba is "Sir Bulbar", etc. Taken to absurd lengths when Jim gets to name Padmé's entire family, then says the wrong names later.
  • Lampshaded with the TIE fighters, which Jim misremembers as PIE Fighters, causing Sally to rush to an explanation that convinces everyone to ignore the original name.
    Corey: PIE fighters?
    Sally: It stands for Plasma Ion Engines!
    GM: No, no, they're called —
    Pete: Too late, it's canon. They're PIE fighters now.
    • The joke goes further when Rogue One reveals that the GM wanted to call them Sienar Fleet Systems Line Fighters, but the party kept comparing them to giant bow ties.
      GM: Okay, fine, they're TIE fighters. Just don't change the name again!
• The Ace: Wedge Antilles. He's a shapeshifter, ace pilot, managed to steal the plans for the second Peace Moon from utterly bogus coordinates, and blew up said second Peace Moon. In addition, he's one of the friendliest characters in the entire setting and is genuinely heroic. All of this, and he's an NPC. He's also been in four of the seven movies covered so far, even being retconned in during the Rogue One arc and taking the place of several alien side characters at points.
• Acting in the Dark: In-universe. When Jim is telling Han's backstory, Pete reads the part for Tobias Beckett without knowing the twist that Beckett is an undercover police officer, not an actual crime boss, until the part when it's revealed to Han (then-Chi'ra).
• Acting for Two:
  • In-universe, whenever the GM plays multiple NPCs. It's lampshaded after a lengthy scene where the GM switches between multiple Funetik Aksents:
    Ben: You know those improv classes Annie and I went to?
    GM: Yes?
    Ben: I just wish they could have seen this.
  • Annie (as Princess and Darth Vader) gives a master class in this trope, playing major characters who are also deadly enemies and playing it completely straight.
  • Jim does this occasionally, but inevitably winds up playing both characters as... well, as Jim.
• Adaptational Context Change: A recurring source of humor; all the famous lines are in there, but almost never said by the original character or with the original significance.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • Several villainous characters are re-imagined into being heroic characters who are going against the party due to their rampant insanity. Notable examples include Darth Maul and Jango Fett. Additionally the relationship between Anakin and Chancellor Palpatine is inverted. Anakin is the one corrupting him.
  • Anyone with the title of "Darth" (who isn't Vader) gets this. In canon, "Darth" is the name of a Sith, a rank in their hierarchy. In this universe, it's just a way of saying "Retired Jedi," and is little different than the title "Sir" or "Doctor." Heck, Palpatine openly says that he's Darth Sideous in the end of the first playthrough, and Yoda is a Darth here (having retired from the Jedi after the Purge, Sally says that her title is Darth Sain.)
• Adaptational Badass: Nute Gunray was little more than a Big Bad Wannabe under the thumb of Darth Sidious in the original movies, here he's completely independent from him and ends up being the true mastermind of the separatists and is essentially the Big Bad of the first three campaigns. This even goes to the point where he ends up surviving, in a way, past the prequel era. In fact, he becomes the Big Bad of the Sequel Era, with Snoke reporting directly to him.
• Adaptational Jerkass:
  • R2-D2 is deliberately rewritten as a rude Jerkass who willingly leads his teammates (especially Ben, whom he dislikes) into danger, in a total inversion of his canon self.
  • This version of Anakin Skywalker is also much more evil, with most of his more sympathetic traits removed completely.
• Adaptational Villainy:
  • Han Solo when played by Jim turns out to be The Mole for Darth Vader, and to have attempted to murder Luke, who only just managed to distract his attention in time. Also, the "Did Han shoot first or did Greedo shoot first" scene when we first meet him is much darker than in the film; Jim's character isn't defending himself against an enemy who is getting ready to shoot him, but just murdering someone in cold blood in order to steal his ship. Ironically, fans speculated that it would be more likely that Annie would play Han and Jim would play Leia than the other way round, given that Jim with his Black-and-White Morality wouldn't have the subtlety to play a mercenary. In fact, Jim actually makes Han more mercenary than the film version - and yet somehow we still feel for him when bad things happen to him, even when we know he deserves them.
  • Vader is mostly the same, except for the fact that she's actually Padme, and Anakin died on Geonosis. Even worse is that she ordered the destruction of Naboo, her home planet, as an example of the Death Star's power, something even Tarkin disagreed to.
  • Galen Erso also seems to be genuinely working for the Empire, rather than being a mole for the Rebellion. Likewise, Bodhi Rook is also an Imperial loyalist, but is stuck with Rebels because they're his ride away from an exploding city and he hasn't been in a position to turn on them yet.
  • Finn is introduced as a really enthusiastic Stormtrooper, who thinks torching fleeing civilians is great. And then he pretends to defect to the Resistance to feed intel to Phasma instead of genuinely pulling a Heel–Face Turn as he did in Canon.
• Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: Inverted, with the webcomic taking pains to avoid plot holes in the films. Why didn't Luke and Leia's adoptive families give them false names to better hide them? Here, they did! Why does Han Solo mix up measurements of distance and time? Because he's not actually a captain and misheard the sales pitch of the guy he stole the ship from.
• Adaptation Name Change:
  • "Princess" is no longer Leia's rank, it's a name that her adoptive parents called her to hide her true identity.
  • Luke's full name is "Luke Amidala", and grew up under the alias "Adam Lars". He switches to "Luke Starkiller" when he joins the adventuring party. The name Skywalker never shows up.
  • The names of Greedo and Han Solo are switched up: the green alien at the Mos Eisley Cantina is actually a shapeshifter named Han Solo, and the human con artist Greedo shoots him and steals his identity.
  • In the Rogue One campaign, Saw Gerrera and Jyn Erso are renamed Kyle Katarn and Bria Tharen, two major characters from the Star Wars Legends continuity. This is because those names were dropped earlier by Jim years before Rogue One was released, back before Legends was rendered non-canon (and Rogue One wasn't out yet), so they were canon at the time. Subverted when Jim takes over playing "Bria", as he changes her name to Jyn Erso on the grounds that "Bria Tharen" was an alias she used to distance herself from Galen Erso.
  • And, most notably, the Death Star is called "Peace Moon". Or not; as of The Force Awakens, Starkiller Base is the actual Peace Moon and the Death Star was just a defense platform.
• Added Alliterative Appeal:
  • The GM's narration in episode 692.
  GM: Delivered to this dark, dank den of despair, you discern a disarray of disheartened, disfigured, and dismembered droids.
  Pete: You've been practicing that sentence, haven't you?
  GM: Definitely.

  • Capped off by Pete's last line of the strip; "Darn."
  • The title of Episode 416: Flying Flank Flunkies Fight Floating Fleet
  • The title of this and all the other one-shot comics mentioned under Alternate History.
• Affably Evil: The clone troopers are Affably Amoral. To a man, they are friendly, helpful, and enthusiastic about their jobs — to the point that when it comes time to execute Order 66, they are both surprisingly eager to do the deed (a fact Palpatine comments on), and unfailingly complimentary and sympathetic to the Jedi they're gunning down.
• Affectionate Parody: Both of Star Wars and tabletop game players
• Aggressive Negotiations: As early as Episode 2, Jim (Qui-Gon) is already invoking this trope:
  Qui-Gon: I can't negotiate with a sword! I need a blaster!
• All for Nothing: A repeated source of frustration for the GM is when they do things that take a long time to set up, only for it to get scrapped within minutes of the players encountering it. The painstakingly modeled ship they started Episode 4 on was abandoned almost immediately. At the very start, they had to stop a session once Jim and Ben got down to the planet so they could set up an actual map for the planet's surface "Instead of exploring a hundred million miles of blank paper," only for it to get thrown away once Sally comes up with the "Go through the core" plan. Zam Wessel and Grievous both had huge backstories that involved multiple pages, only for them both to get scrapped fairly quickly.
• All Girls Like Ponies: Sally enthusiastically declares that Jar-Jar "has a face like a pony!" and later decides that Gungans all ride on dinosaur ponies. In strip 24 they said they "had to resist very strongly the urge for Sally to say that Otoh Gunga was full of ponies", saying that "at some point in this wonderful fantasy world Sally is building, the GM has to step in with something that requires more response than the players just marvelling at stuff.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: In Jim's backstory for Han, Qi'ra is still in love with Han three years after their doomed relationship in Correlia, even though Han is not only a criminal, but he intentionally abandoned Qi'ra in Correlia and stole her identity, all because the criminal aspects of Han is what makes him so charming.
• All Planets Are Earth-Like: Firstly spoofed, and then actively averted by the GM in response, resulting in the production of a Single-Biome Planet. The GM was trying to get them back on the damn rails so they'd go to Coruscant, not stop off on a planet he hadn't thought up yet.
• All There in the Manual: Episodes I, III & V have detailed notes describing the GM's initial story concept before the players massively derailed everything. Meanwhile, II and IV have the game played between I and II, and Jim's attempt at GM-ing.
• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • In-Universe — one of the main purposes of the comic is to reinterpret the original characters: Palpatine may be a good guy, Dookû is a Well-Intentioned Extremist, Darth Maul is a private detective and... Jar Jar is... a genius?
    Jar Jar: Dis meaning war, wesa needs to have a stronger leader! Mesa suggests Chancellor Palpatine gets emergency powers!
    Palpatine: What?!
  • Especially in the case of Palpatine, when he saves Obi-Wan Kenobi. They turn the whole reasoning behind the eventual start of the Jedi/Empire conflict upside down; instead of Palpatine slowly corrupting Anakin until he's prepared to attack Windu in Palpatine's defense, it's Anakin playing both sides, eventually convincing Windu that Palpatine is a sleeper agent before showing up when they fight and attacking Windu, ostensibly to defend Palpatine against his unjustified attack. They even manage to make Palpatine's killing of Windu into a fairly awesome moment for Palpatine.
  • When Anakin starts to tell Padme of his horrifying plans she not only already deduces it but is totally on board with it. Of course the whole killing children thing is a bit too much for her.
  • In the fourth session, the Empire as a whole seems to be Ambiguously Evil and the conflict is one of Order Versus Chaos rather than Black-and-White Morality.
• Alternate History:
  • In this world, Star Wars was never made, producing a few cultural changes. The biggest of these changes is that there was no upsurge of interest in science-fiction in Hollywood during the 70s and 80s, resulting in Star Trek remaining an obscure 60s show instead of the massive movie and TV franchise it is in our world. Then there are alternate histories within alternate histories within alternate histories within still more alternate histories in the other fictional comics that exist in the world of Darths & Droids and worlds within the worlds ^note So far: Harry Potter, The Sound of Music, X-Men, Aliens, The Wizard Of Oz, 300, Avatar, Terminator, Jaws, Casablanca, The Muppet Movie, Inception, Pirates of the Caribbean, Back to the Future, Futurama, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Forbidden Planet, Ghostbusters, Jason and the Argonauts, Thunderbirds, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park, Bridget Jones's Diary, David Attenborough's The Life of Mammals, National Lampoon's Vacation,E.T., Apollo 13, Pac-Man, and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
  • Even more interestingly, one Comments on a Postcard strip reveals what that universe is like without the webcomic Postcard existing, which looks suspiciously like our own. And a Square Root of Minus Garfield strip shows a universe without Garfield.
• Always a Bigger Fish: Of course. Summon Bigger Fish!
• Ambiguously Jewish: Darth Maul.
• Analogy Backfire: When Yoda explains the path to the Dark Side:
  Yoda: They're steps. One after the other, they come.
  Luke: So, is it inevitable, then?
  Yoda: No. If once you start down a Path, not necessarily forever will it dominate your destiny. Walk both directions on a Path, you can. That's why it's called a Path, not a river.
  Luke: But salmon can swim upstream.
  Yoda: A metaphor this is. Take it literally do not, little fishy.
• And That's Terrible: Spoken by Jim as a part of Blatant Lies.
• Animal Stampede: In "No Gnus Is Bad News", when Rey gets Kylo Ren trapped in a gorge, Corey jokes that they'd need a stampede of wildebeests to kill him. Pete at least hopes the GM takes the joke seriously and rolls for a random herd of wildebeest.
• Anti-Hero: Weirdly enough, Palpatine so far. Throughout most of the series, he's been portrayed as a Reasonable Authority Figure, and he even saves Obi Wan during the escape from Grievous' ship, but it turns out the Peace Moon really was a weapon. However, he only made the plans to act as a deterrent, like MAD in the Cold War.
• Antiquated Linguistics: Hilariously enough, this is Chewbacca's hat.
• Anti-Villain:
  • Darth Maul and Jango Fett are private detectives. They're really only antagonists because the players screwed up, which is repeatedly lampshaded in The Rant.
  • Palpatine is slipping into this role as he's increasingly manipulated into shooting dogs that may or not need shooting.
• Apocalypse How:
  • In a Class 4 example, how did Mustafar become a molten volcanic planet? It was originally Naboo. The Trade Federation took over the planet and moved it into the orbit of a nearby gas giant, causing increased tidal activity and, in turn, volcanic activity, all so they can smelt it and build the Peace Moon. However, ultimately it turned out that most of the population survived, Theed was protected by a force field, and the planet itself was liberated offscreen by Jar Jar, who then moved it back to its original orbit.
  • And then in #774, the moment you've been waiting for for the entirety of Episode IV: the Peace Moon blows up Naboo.
• April Fools' Day:
  • For 2008, the strip was replaced with a self-made replica of the scenes, claiming Lucasfilm had issued a cease and desist about using screenshots.
  • 2010 had the strip get interrupted by the grandson and grandfather from The Princess Bride.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Lampshaded here, both by the GM and in the author's notes. Although the characters, particularly Ben, frequently question details, the one thing nobody in this version doubts is the existence of the Force itself. Given that Jim had been allowed to decide that the Force is generated by micro-organisms in your cells (and therefore that anyone can be made into a Jedi by giving them a blood transfusion), he and Ben are satisfied that this counts as science, therefore all characters played by Jim will be willing to accept it.
• Arc Fatigue: Lampshaded In-Universe. While catching up on the plot during his two-year absence, Ben comments "Is this the Peace Moon plans? Still?" (Pete: "But the real ones this time!")
• Arc Welding: Welded by the strip's writers. In the Gamemaster's campaign:
  • General Grievous is Chancellor Valorum gone completely mad. Though he was loony even in his Chancellor days.
  • Mustafar is a smelted down Naboo for use as the Peace Moon. It's later welded together with Alderaan as well, as the Peace Moon's target. That being said, Alderaan still does exist as a world separate from Naboo, and still exists in this version of the Galaxy.
  • Jedha City is relocated to Tatooine, and the color of the sky in the iconic sunset shot from A New Hope is caused by the city's destruction (said destruction threw debris into the atmosphere, and the reason it's harmful is the high level of crystals in the debris refracting the light). The GM also confirms that Jakku is also Tatooine.
• Arc Words: For Anakin in Episode III: "Trust me." The irony being that Anakin is deceiving almost everyone.
• Are We There Yet?: Jar Jar in this episode.
• Armor-Piercing Question:
  • While Obi-Wan and Yoda are discovering the Jedi Temple massacre:
    Ben: Sally, this is serious. You need to play it seriously.
    Sally: Just because you do everything Dad tells you to!
    Ben: What? No I don't!
    Sally: Why are you studying medicine then?!
  • So armor-piercing that it facilitates his Walking the Earth, becoming the mentor in the process.
  • It's then later turned into an Armor-Piercing Response.
    Sally: Why did you leave without telling me?
    Ben: Someone dear to me made me question my life.
    Sally: What stupid dorkhead was that?!?
    Ben: She asked me why I was studying medicine.
    [beat]
    Sally: Oh.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
  • Episode 329:
    Obi-Wan: Let's see. You stole the plans for a symbol of peace. You're allied with (a) a known megalomaniacal warlord and (b) a criminal sociopath. You have not one, but two, armies at your disposal. You've captured me — unfairly — and are holding me with no means of escape. And you're monologuing.
    Count Dookû: I am monologuing?!
  • And in Episode 356:
    Poggle the Lesser: ... trespassing, destroying assembly line equipment, sabotaging factory computers, flatlining 6 droids, killing 15 Geonosian factory workers — [gasp!] — and parking illegally on a steam vent.
    Padmé Amidala: To begin with, this case should never have come to trial. The steam vent was inadequately signposted.
  • And in Episode 558:
    Mace Windu: Nute Gunray is behind everything... the Jedi Archives, the clone army, my apartment block....
• Artistic License – Space: The strip comes up with an explanation for Episode VII's worst case of this (where the explosion of a sun is somehow visible in real time from another star system). The beam from the new Peace Moon (i.e. Starkiller Base) travels backwards in time, and actually destroyed the Hosnian system 50 years ago, as Galen Erso knew he'd be in trouble if his superiors didn't get to see a nice explosion when their weapon was being demonstrated.
• Ascended Extra:
  • Anakin started as a random kid made up on the fly when the players went off the rails; the GM had not even thought up a name for him. Later, Annie took over the character for herself.
    Pete (upon meeting Anakin): Clearly a completely unimportant NPC.
  • Two items were granted this from their original versions.
    • The orb that Boss Nass holds up while yelling "PEACE!" at the end of Phantom Menace is actually the Lost Orb of Phantastacoria, a near-limitless power supply that's been the driving force behind many adventures, and was the power source behind both Peace Moons. In fact, the name of the quest that the group have been in for years now- instead of being "Star Wars"- is the Lost Orb Quest.
    • That Snippet of Japor necklace that 9-year-old Anakin gives to Padme in Phantom Menace, is in reality an artifact that grants immortality and invincibility as long as it is on the person in question. In canon it was just a piece of jewelry that Padme wore as a gift from Anakin.
• Ascended Meme: The question whether or not Annie was pregnant during the campaign corresponding to Revenge of the Sith was a topic of a hot debates on the Irregular Webcomic forum, and ultimately it was referenced in the comic itself. Ultimately, Annie wasn't, but the confusion over it among the players inspired Padme to become pregnant.
• Asteroid Thicket: Lampshaded- Jim (a geophysicist who has spent two years studying space geology) rightfully points out that the asteroid field in Episode V shouldn't actually exist, which prompts Annie to call it "A massive region of randomly moving, closely packed, enormous giant space rocks."
• Avenging the Villain: Jango Fett's reason for opposing the PCs, though the person he is trying to avenge, Darth Maul, wasn't exactly evil.
• Awesome, but Impractical: When going through Luke's character sheet, "Survival: Snow" is one of his skills, along with "Survival: Desert", "Survival: Forest", and "Survival: Swamp". Annie (playing Leia) questions how a character who spent his whole life in the desert ever learned to survive in a snowy climate, not to mention that he wouldn't need it there. It's justified in the story that Owen and Beru were crazy, paranoid, survivalists.
• Backup Twin: Poe's twin brother Allan, who shows up after Poe dies in a PIE fighter crash. And then Allan dies in the big ship assault in Last Jedi, leading to his other twin brother Edgar implausibly showing up to replace him in the same scene. "Edgar" soon lets slip that he's really Poe and only pretended to die, twice.
• Badass Army: Yoda's assessment of the clone army.
• Badass Boast:
  • Anakin is the legend.
  • On a meta level, the Comic Irregulars' reaction to Disney announcing Episodes VII - IX^note though, considering that they managed to redeem Jar-Jar, it's probably entirely justified.
  "The good news is: We should be finished with Episode VI around then, and will be able to move smoothly on to parodying Episode VII. If the new movie sucks, we will redeem it. On the other hand, if the new movie is awesome, it will be awesome. You can't lose."
• Bad Boss:
  • Grievous, who kills his own minions just because one of them interrupted his monologue.
  • Darth Vader, who kills any troops or officers that fail him even in the slightest. It even goes to the point that after capturing the Rebel Hoth base, he has his troops call in an orbital bombardment on themselves (because the heroes managed to escape).
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • In the fourth campaign, Jim mentions that his next character would be named Greedo, leading to expectation that his Greedo would be killed by the NPC Han Solo. As it turns out, "Greedo" murders "Han Solo" and takes his place.
  • The fifth campaign is building up to a Luke, You Are My Father moment, where Luke reveals to Darth Vader that he's his son... only for Vader to reveal that it's not Anakin but Padmé wearing the Vader armor, thus being Luke's mother rather than his father.
  • The improvised campaign following the Rogue One flashback strips starts out as an adaptation of Star Wars: Ewok Adventures, only to switch it for, apparently, The Star Wars Holiday Special... but instead of that, it ends up as an adaptation of an episode of The Muppet Show that has the Star Wars cast as guest stars.
• Bathe Her and Bring Her to Me: Inverted.
  R2-D2: For my reward, I wish to be cleaned and oiled by your most beautiful handmaiden.
• Batman Gambit: How Pete gets Corey to save the party at the sarlaac pit- he launches a laser sword to NPC Lando, knowing that Corey will intercept it.
  C-3PO: So, do you really think Lando could have done all that with the sword?
  R2-D2: No. But I knew Luke could do all that to protect him.
  Leia: That was your entire plan all along?
  R2-D2: It was sub-branch gamma-IV all along.
• Beard of Evil:
  • Spoofed. Jim immediately assumes Sio Bubble is evil just because he has a goatee. Jim's suspicion of the GM pulling this trope continues into the second game, and has expanded to include Senator Organa, of all people, in this strip.
  Jim: Don't think I haven't noticed your goatee.
  • Made more hilarious due to Jim's original character, Qui-Gon, sporting such a goatee.
    Qui-Gon: Fine. But we're not taking Bubble. That goatee is a death sentence.
    Obi-Wan: Uh... don't you have a—
    Qui-Gon: No.
    Obi-Wan: Can I see your character sheet for a—
    Qui-Gon: You may not.
    • By injecting midi-chlorians into Anakin, he creates the main villain of the entire campaign. Qui-Gon really is evil.
    • The entire Droid War was started because Jim started to ransack one of the meeting rooms when he was supposed to be negotiating.
  • Made even more hilarious when the GM's notes for the Princess Bride campaign had a side note about Count Rugen:
    Has a goatee! Should be fun when others don't believe Jim that he's evil.
  • When Darth Vader first appears in a campaign corresponding to A New Hope, Jim isn't sure whether he is evil or not because he can't see whether he has a goatee.
  • When Ben finally shows up, Jim comments "Cool beard."
  • Humorously, the cast list for the Sandals and Spartans alternate reality comic notes that Jim/Leonidas "trusts [the evil Theron] implicitly due to his nifty goatee."
• Beat Panel: Used very often:
  • Right here.
  • Double beat.
  • Ladies and gentlemen, the ultimate beat panel. The next strip in the sequence takes it to a new level with shots of Anakin's face in-between panels of Padmé's player Jim awkwardly confessing to romantic interest in Annie.
  • This (warning: major spoilers!) is an entire Beat Strip, meant to resemble how there was a three-year wait until Return of the Jedi explained the plot twist of Empire Strikes Back.
  • Jim draws 4 beats in a row when he asks the others whether they like his attempts at romantic dialogue. Doubles as a Take That! to Attack of the Clones, since the dialogue is straight from that film.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Annie is invoking this with her character Leia's relationship with Luke. Corey doesn't catch on right away.
• Best Served Cold: Jango Fett's ten-year plan to build an army and destroy the Jedi Order and the Republic just to get revenge against Obi-Wan.
• Big Brother Instinct: Pete for Sally, to the point that he calls out Sally's actual brother Ben for being a poor role model.
• Big "NO!": Done at various times throughout the comics. Some examples:
  • Annie/Anakin after being told that Cliegg Lars is his stepfather.
  • Anakin again when Mace Windu announces his decision to simply kill Palpatine rather than put him on trial.
  • Jim does this after he's pushed out of the gunship into the desert as part of Ben and Annie's plans to protect the Senator from harm.
  • Boba Fett does this after Jango tells him that Obi Wan killed his father, Darth Maul.
  • Sally's reaction upon learning that all of the dinosaur ponies are gone.
  • Anakin's reaction to being told that Palpatine now controls him, rather than vice versa.
  • Leia does this twice in episode 772: when the Peace Moon is about to destroy Naboo and when Vader reveals that she is his daughter.
  • Vader gets a subdued one when he learns from Obi-Wan that his son has allegedly been killed then impersonated by Luke.
  • Corey (who plays Luke) gets one when Ben (Obi-Wan) doesn't even roll the die and lets himself get killed by Vader.
  • Corey and Sally do it simultaneously upon the equally simultaneous realizations (a) by Luke that Vader is his father and (b) by Yoda that Anakin is still alive.
  • In a reversal of the original trilogy, Vader, upon being told that "Starkiller" actually is his son Luke... shortly after having cut his hand off.
  • Boba Fett does one when Han was about to reveal what happened to Obi-Wan, but was cut off by being frozen. And then again when Han was thawed out, only for him to have amnesia and forget Obi-Wan completely.
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • In the Nerds Speak Klingon mentioned below, Pete's Quenya die rolls a neldë (three), which causes him to say that his periscope is rácina (broken). Especially awesome because that word is used only once in J.R.R. Tolkien's entire legendarium, which means the writers put some serious effort into this incredibly obscure joke.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: Ow, my squeedlyspooch… I mean, my splanch!
• Bizarre and Improbable Ballistics: Subverted; Qui-Gon cannot use blasters to shoot other blaster shots out of the air. Please note that this actually happens in Coruscant Nights, one of the Star Wars novel series.
• Bizarro Universe: A lot of characters from the Irregulars' take on Star Wars are 180-inversions of their more familiar selves. Qui-Gon is a moron, Jar Jar is well-liked and helpful, Palpatine is a Well-Intentioned Extremist manipulated into making poor decision by Anakin, Chewbacca is articulate and sophisticated, Greedo and Han have swapped names, Grand Moff Tarkin is appalled by the Death Star, and Darth Vader is actually Padmé.
• Blatant Lies/Suspiciously Specific Denial:
  • Pete: I'm not Railroading you here.
  • "No, I'm fine, Annie. I'm not annoyed at all." See how good a roleplayer Sally is?
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: The translation into Zero Wing-style Engrish. Probably a Shout-Out to the notorious "Backstroke of the West".
• Blood Knight:
  • Jim's first character, Qui-Gon Jinn, refuses to consider any diplomatic options and assumes all problems must be solved with smashing enemies with a laser sword. It helps that Jim has no idea players can get experience points for things other than murder until about halfway through the campaign.
  • Padmé, in an In-Universe case of Character Derailment, becomes obsessed with killing her opposition and blasting her trusted advisor, Sio Bibble, for having such a sinister-looking goatee.
  • K2-SO, as played by Sally, is eager for combat, loves shooting stormtroopers, and basically shooting anything handy. It makes sense for a combat droid.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: In episode 766, Luke unknowingly borrows Anakin's catchphrase while trying to convince Obi-Wan to train him. Obi-Wan is not amused.
• Briar Patching: Pete convinces Corey to remove the restraining bolt keeping his character, R2-D2, from escaping by telling him to do anything but remove it in episode 706.
• Brick Joke:
  • "You are enlightened."
  • When the group returns to the Gungans and the bongo is mentioned to Annie, Jim calls it a fishing lure. Remember the fish?
  • "Bring on the space dreadnoughts bristling with atomic missiles!"
  • Another one has been set up for when Empire comes around...
  • And another one regarding Vader's future status as a Bad Boss.
  • Early on, Yoda's reaction to Qui-Gon's podrace scheme was a deadpan "Remedial course on Jedi Ethics, you need." Much later during the Revenge of the Sith climax, Obi-Wan brings up Jedi Ethics again and sets up a pun.
  • In strip #633, Jim suggests that Annie roll up a Pirate as her new character. Guess what Jim thought of making his new character after the death of Qui-Gon in strip #198...
    • Which of course is probably a setup for Jim playing a certain "Pirate" in the Fourth episode...
  • Here's another one.
  • Tuna booze oil.
  • Pete's special die apparently made a BIG impression in-universe, and not only on the players.
  • Pete taking -2 Reputation so R2 can get a periscope comes back to bite him in the ass when the Mos Eisley cantina puts him on their blacklist.
  • Hey Fetta! Guess where Obi-Wan is? He's- (One alcohol freezing-and-thawing later) -Dead!
  • In strip #771, when the "Peace Moon" blows up Naboo, one of the technicians (identified in the transcript as "Frank") has the line, "Woo! Twelve years at this station and I finally get to press a button!" Almost five-and-a-half years later, during the Rogue One arc, a technician identifed as "Earnest" says "Shame Frank is off sick today. He's been looking forward to pressing this button for 12 years."
• Brother–Sister Team: Ben and Sally, when their characters are on the same faction. It's more notable when they're respectively playing General Hux and Kylo Ren, who are Co-Dragons in the sequel trilogy, but it had a presence earlier in Episode III when they were playing Obi-Wan and Yoda trying to stop Anakin and Palpatine.
• Brutal Honesty: In strip #578.
  Padme: Say it with me now:
  Anakin & Padme: "I made it all up..." "to turn Palpatine against the Jedi..." "and now I'm all powerful."
• Bumbling Sidekick: Daine Jir starts to look like this.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Despite all his in-game stupidity, Jim is doing a Ph.D. in geophysics. It doesn't escape Annie's notice when he points it out.
• …But He Sounds Handsome:
  • Yoda (the character Sally mostly settles on playing) regularly talks about how smart and competent Jar-Jar (Sally's original character) is (despite her pretty much disowning him by the time the campaign gets to Attack of the Clones).
  • Jim has nothing but praise for his characters both in- and out of character.
• Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit": Since this is an universe where Star Wars is just a tabletop campaign, the weapons only have normal names with, as Jim puts it, "techy words in front"; hence, lightsabers are only referred to as "laser swords".
• Call-Back:
  • "Do you remember?" And if you start from here, you can see that Anakin went through every single step of the journey to the dark side. There are not enough Roleplaying XP points in the world.
  • A more humorous one shows up in episode 720: Chocolate dice!
  • An impressive 800-page callback joke occurred in episode 1058, where Han mentions the extremely implausible-but-canon destruction of the Republic Library's memory orbs by dogs that came up in episode 258. The joke started in 257, regarding the destruction of the Republic Library's books by dogs.
  • At the end of Empire Strikes Back, Nute Gunray's consciousness has taken over multiple Cloud City computer systems and are trying to take each other out. Pete remembers how he came up with that idea back in Attack of the Clones, which the GM admits:
    Yes, and a great idea it was too. For a villain.
  • So let me recap... ...This campaign is awesome.
  • A pretty funny one occurred near the beginning of Episode IV and concluded with the end of Episode V. As the other players are, in character, trying to explain to Corey the history of the campaign and the Orb of Phantasticora, he sarcastically asks if he can replay this cutscene later. Cue the end of V, where they start talking about the Orb, and he has no idea what they're talking about. They inform him that they've already explained it to him, and he asks if he can replay that cutscene now.
  • In the first strips of Episode VI, Sally tells Jim that she used to change her dream career quite often - which was indeed a running gag during Episode III.
  • ...Clear the intakes... ... and open the throttle...
  • At the end of Jedi, Corey still has the first quest Uncle Owen gave him, 1200 pages earlier, written down on his character sheet.
  • Jabba apparently didn't take it too personally that the Empire tried to blow him up along with the city of Jedha.
  • I don't suppose there's a control tower we can crash into?
  • We didn’t actually come here to free slaves. Look what happened last time we did that...
• Call-Forward:
  • "He'll be able to bullseye womp rats in our T-16 by the time he's five."
  • In episode 538, General Grievous tells Obi-Wan that he sees his future, that his flesh will be divorced and his robes will fall empty. Exactly what happens when Vader kills him and he becomes a force ghost.
  • As of episode 1336 they've already started making calls forward to the sequel trilogy when Chewbacca shoots down the speeder bike with his bowcaster. (And naturally, the actual sequel trilogy strips call back to the reference when appropriate.)
    Han: Hey, can I try that?
    Chewbacca: Never.
  • Obi-Wan fails a disarm roll, and accidentally takes the hand off of a would-be assailant in the Episode II campaign. A move that will surely be seen again...
  • In the A New Hope campaign, Corey is told that looking at Tattooine's sky for too long is dangerous. In the Rogue One prequel campaign, the destruction of Jedha City (located on Tattooine in this continuity) ejects enough data crystals into the atmosphere that "People probably shouldn't look at the sky for a few days — they could get radiation burns on their retinas."
  • Like the above, the prequel campaign was Vader's first try at choking someone only halfway to death.
  • When the TIE Fighters show up in A New Hope, Jim misremembers their name as PIE Fighters, and the other players decide they like that name better, over the GM's protests. Then Rogue One shows the very first introduction of those starfighters: the GM initially calls them Sienar Fleet Systems Line Fighters, but the players decide that's too much of a mouthful, and note how the models resemble bowties.
  GM: Okay, fine, they're TIE fighters. Just don't change the name again!
• Calvinball: The rules of the system are very unclear, but this is intentional, as they've said that they're not using any established system. Based on analysis from several strips, it appears to combine the following aspects:
  • The basic d20 mechanic from any d20 system (d20 + modifier versus target number to beat).
  • A Merit/Flaw system (Pete's Short and Mute flaws for extra skill points).
  • A reputation system, probably similar to the Wizards of the Coast Star Wars d20 system. For instance, Pete got a Periscope for -2 to Reputation.
  • Force Powers and other skills, including combat skills (Parry), appear to need investment with skill points, and it operates like any standard d20 mechanic (see above).
  • A highly complicated grapple system◊ (clearly a Shout-Out to grappling in D&D 3rd Edition).
  • A Class system that permits Multiclassing (Padme with a Rogue/Monarch).
  • A "defense dice" mechanic.
• Campaign Comic: The Trope Codifier.
• Canon Sue: In-universe: When Pete's running the game, he tends to overplay the awesomeness of R2.
• Can't Argue with Elves: The concept is tossed around here.
• Captain Oblivious: Mace Windu.
• Captain Obvious: Ric Olié as played by the GM.
• Captain's Log: Obi-Wan summarizes his subplot most succinctly in #521, with obligatory Shout-Out to Star Trek — more impressive since, in this universe, Star Trek only had a short run in the '60s and never became a well-known franchise.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Most of the villains from the films are actually anti-villains or even anti-heroes. In Episode III, however, this trope is played completely straight by General Grievous, in Ax-Crazy flavor.
• Catch-22 Dilemma: While searching for the hidden planet of Toprawa and the secret Imperial data facility there, Jim suggests they scour shipping data (launch locations, dates, and cargo manifests) for clues. The GM points out that those will be stored in the secret facility on Toprawa, too. Jim doesn't see the problem with this.
• Celebrity Paradox:
  • Explicitly acknowledged, and lampshaded the heck out of it; one annotation goes further on to imagine this hypothetical world without Star Wars, even including a strip, cast page, FAQ and episode list from a fake Harry Potter equivalent of the comic. Taken a level further when we learn that in the hypothetical world of the Harry Potter comic, the equivalent is a comic based on The Sound of Music. That world in turn is shown to have its comic equivalent be based on the first X-Men movie, and more.
  • Taken further in Hypnotoads and Hyperchickens. It is a Running Gag in the "alternative universe" strips that there's one actor that, due to the work that made them famous not existing, never rose to fame until their role in the first Futurama movie - including Billy West in the universe where Futurama doesn't exist.
• Cerebus Syndrome: The early strips mostly derived their humor from the absurdity of RPG tropes being applied to a setting meant to be serious, and players transforming it into the whimsical setting of The Phantom Menace just by being themselves. Later, the metaplot got more serious, focusing on interpersonal relationships between the players in more detail and noting how it affects the plot of the in-universe campaign.
• Chandler's Law: The GM quotes it directly in #1914, sending in Stormtroopers to try and get Rey and Finn moving in the right direction. He soon after has something break and spew team on the Millennium Falcon to break up an argument; Corey comments that he thought it was Chandler's Law again, but the GM quips that he "just wanted to vent".
• Character Development: Both the PCs and the players. Ben becomes less aloof and more flexible to others' ideas, Jim stops obsessing over "winning" and becomes a skilled roleplayer with Annie's help, Sally grows out of being an Annoying Younger Sibling into a surprisingly mature political activist, Pete sheds his Jerkass and Munchkin tendencies, Annie becomes more transparent about her feelings and roleplaying intentions, and Corey stops comparing the campaign to a video game and becomes more of an active participant.
• Chekhov's Gag:
  • In Darth Maul's flashback, we see a droid on the trade federation star ship asking the hologram Palpatine if he wants a drink, which looks like a gag. In Jango Fett's flashback, it's revealed that that was actually Jango giving a code phrase to Maul.
  • Happens again to explain the reveal that Vader is actually PADME. No. Really. Not only that, turns out that "Out of Character" shouting done by a "dead" Padme wasn't so out of character after all.
  • The running gag about dogs eating books in the Republic Library has an explanation, which in turn ties into another event seemingly forgotten from episode 238, answering questions about the operation that Bobba's mother couldn't pay for, yet was never mentioned again after she died and why Bobba looks like Jango despite not being his clone in this universe.
  • During the fight against General Grievous and his cyborgs in Revenge of the Sith, Pete quotes Robin Hood Daffy once the electro-quarterstaves come out here. MUCH later during Rogue One, he quotes the same scene amid dice rolls while fighting Stormtroopers as Chirrut.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • The morale bonus Pete gives because watching R2 fly is just that cool. It later comes back to throw a wrench in his Killer GMing.
  • The reason why the Senate boxes are shaped like Frisbees.
  • This very page used to describe the Lost Orb sidequest as "ultimately minor". Oops.
  • The Japor Snippet amulet which Anakin hands over to Padme early in the campaign is lampshaded in The Rant as one of many minor plot devices the prequel trilogy tended to gloss over. It was ultimately the MacGuffin responsible for Padme's ridiculous survival rate during the Prequel campaign...which also led to her surviving her Death by Childbirth and subsequently becoming Darth Vader.
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • The butler droid on the Trade Federation ship, who is actually Jango Fett in disguise. He is Darth Maul's partner.
  • Chancellor Valorum, who later reappears as General Grievous.
  • Nute Gunray, who later reappears to take control of R2-D2 and Cloud City.
• Chekhov's Skill:
  • The impossibly awkward scene where Anakin gets thrown off the shaak on Naboo was him practicing his Riding skill. It comes in handy in the arena on Geonosis.
  • Luke has survival skills for all sorts of terrain on his character sheet — even snow, which is noted as implausible on a desert planet. Luke visits planets with each of those terrains in the movies. Even better, they may have even been set up as such in-universe by the GM — Corey obviously isn't acquainted enough with roleplaying to set up his own character sheet, so the GM may have given him things planned to be useful down the road and justified it with Luke being raised by Crazy Survivalists.
• Chewbacca Defense:
  • What else would Jim use during the trial on Genosis?
  • Referenced in strips #1296 and #1304, where it is Chewbacca's eloquence as their defense lawyer which gets Han and him off their treason charges.
    Lando: Good call letting Chewbacca handle your defence.
    Han: Hey, that wasn't my idea.
    Chewbacca: He wanted to defend himself.
    Lando: ...
    Lando: Yeah. Good call letting Chewbacca handle your defence.
  • It comes up again in Backstory #93, after the reveal that Dryden Vos is actually a cop, and "Chi'ra" and Chewie are under arrest for the train job:
    Chewbacca: Isn’t there a legal process? Don’t I get to mount a defence?
    Dryden Vos: Haha! No, any defence you give would just confuse matters.
    Chewbacca: That would be the point, yes.
• The Chosen One:
  • Anakin of course, as spoofed in a Genre Savvy manner here. Drink!
  • Later, Rey is revealed to be Another Chosen One. Apparently, someone chose again.
• Clarke's Third Law: Invoked by the GM to explain how Boba Fett's angular-momentum-defying grappling line works in the Sarlacc pit fight.
• Clickbait Gag: The comic parodied clickbait by titling one comic page in a common clickbait format: Page 1151: "All They Did Was Have a Chat Over a Bottomless Pit. You Won't Believe What Happens Next". They went even farther with it here.
• Cliffhanger: The in-universe campaign of Return of the Jedi ends like the movie, with Anakin, Yoda, and Obi-Wan appearing as ghosts, but there's one change that makes it clear the heroes will have a lot to handle later on: Anakin is evil, and ready to meddle with the galaxy from beyond the grave.
• Cloudcuckoolander:
  • Pretty much any character played by Sally. And apparently, if Sally GMed, the plot would be The Muppet Movie.
  • Chancellor Valorum combines this with President Evil. Kneel before Valorum! As General Grievous, he's (mostly) lost this trait and seems much more competent. And angry.
  • The clone troopers are basically an army of Cloudcuckoolanders.
• Comically Missing the Point:
  • Doubling as a Call-Back to when he tried (and obviously failed) to use the Force to literally Summon Bigger Fish during the underwater sequence, Jim tries to attack the enemy droids at the Royal Palace with the same ability, much to the consternation of Ben and the GM. However, he relents and dials back on his action call—because he thought the resulting odor would be intolerable.
    Jim/Qui-Gon: "It'd stink up the palace for a week! Then [Padme]'d never give us a new boat!"
  • "Right... I'm glad I'm a recording and didn't hear that."
  • When Jim has Han try to track Luke in the middle of a snowstorm at night and rolls a 6, he struggles to grasp that he didn't have a hope in hell of succeeding.
  • Jim is completely incapable of recognising the canonical solution to "Luke is freezing to death next to a dead tauntaun", no matter how much the DM spells it out. Even when he gets it, he thinks it's a stopgap measure until he can set the tauntaun on fire which turns out to be foreshadowing of his true allegiance.
  • Jim also never seems to work out that "the Dagger Bar" and Dagobah are one and the same.
  • Jim (as Jyn Erso) climbs up the data tower "to get the high ground":
  Pete: Two words: King Kong.
  Jim: Yeah! Awesome!
• Coming in Hot: Aside from the crash of the Invisible Hand in Episode III, there is a parody of the trope here.
  Han: Chewie! Hit the... uh... forward!
  Chewbacca: "Forward" engaged.
  Pete: Match the rotation! Match the rotation!
  Chewbacca: Rotation zero radians per second: matched.
  Han: We're coming in too hot!
  [Millennium Falcon slowly lands on the Peace Moon]
  Clone Trooper: Wow. Slowest landing ever.
• Composite Character:
  • Some things from the movies get merged in this telling: Chancellor Valorum, General Grievous, and Captain Phasma are the same character; and a number of planets are merged together as well, including Naboo, Mustafar, and Alderaan, Tattooine, Jedha, and Jakku, and Endor and Starkiller Base. A lesser version is at the beginning of Episode IV, where random Rebel Troopers are used to represent Captain Antilles until the scene where the real Antilles appears, getting throttled by Vader.
  • The Rogue One campaign renames some of the characters after those in the Legends continuity, probably to preserve references made before Rogue One came out: Saw Garerra and Kyle Katarn become a single person, as do Jyn Erso and Bria Tharen. In addition, Bor Gullet (the telepathic octopus creature) is used as Jabba the Hutt. And both Tivek and a random alien prisoner are everyone's favourite shapeshifter, Wedge Antilles.
  • The Muppet Show campaign makes Kermit a rejuvinated Yoda. It Makes Just as Much Sense in Context. The other Muppets are poorly made clones of previous characters from the comic, including Angus McGonagle as Mace Windu, Animal as Salacious Crumb, Janice as Oola and Dr. Teeth as Jabba.
• Concept Art Gallery: On the Fan Art page.
• Conlang: R2-D2's beeps look at first glance like random onomatopoeic syllables, until Ben figures out that Pete has constructed an actual language out of them.
• Contagious Powers: You can become force-sensitive just by being infected with an actual jedi's blood. The only reason this method isn't used to create Jedi en masse anymore is because those who weren't born with it go mad.
• Continuity Nod: In and out of universe: Underwater oxygen extraction apparatus and grappling hook.
• Contrived Coincidence: Invoked by the GM when the rescue party tries to search the entirety of the Peace Moon for General Phasma. The first trooper they jump just happens to be exactly who they were looking for.
• Cosmetic Award: Your journey to the Dark Side is now complete! Achievement Unlocked!
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: During his duel with Yoda, Palpatine points out that if the Jedi had some ethical concerns with his leadership, they could have just talked to him about it. And apparently Sally ended up agreeing with him, as she decided to sort everything out with him after saving Obi-Wan.
• Cranial Processing Unit: Mentioned with reference to how strange it is that C3PO still works when his head is grafted onto a battledroid.
• Crazy Survivalist: Beru and Owen in the campaign corresponding to A New Hope.
• Critical Failure: Jim, twice in a row, with the second supposedly having 1 rolls pre-rolled out. This convinces Jim to just let his character pass, so he can roll up a ninja character (the GM vetoes that).
  • Comes again to Jim.
• Cross Player: Sally (as several characters), Annie (as Anakin and Finn), Jim (as Padmé), Pete (as Rey), and Ben (as Rose). In other words, most of the cast. The only one that has yet to do this is Corey, who plays Luke and BB-8.
• The Cuckoolander Was Right: Sally as Yoda accidentally reveals Annie's subterfuge in the opening stages of Ep. III, but naturally she doesn't realize it.
  Anakin: We must find the Sith Lord traitor.
  Yoda: Oooh. Who do you think it is?
  Anakin: I don't want to name anyone just yet.
  Yoda: It's you!
  Anakin: What? Er... No. Of course not. Who told you that?
  Yoda: Hee hee! Just testing. No, it's obviously Obi-Wan.
• Cultural Translation: Frequently a necessity when the fans translate the comics into various languages.
• Cursed Item:
  • When Chewbacca and R2-D2 play a tabletop RPG, Chewie anticipates that R2 might backstab him for loot. So he carries a cursed item in his own inventory, to punish R2 for such treachery.
    R2-D2: Heh heh heh. Let's see what loot I got from your corpse.
    R2-D2: Only 13 gold coins? And what's this?
    Chewbacca: You may find that your combat stats are no longer as impressive as you recall.
    R2-D2: You put a cursed item in your own coin purse?! What sort of deviant would do that?!
    Han Solo: I warned you.
    Chewbacca: Let's discuss how you're going to pay for my resurrection, shall we?
  • The sequel trilogy features a cursed map to Ahch-To that is said to doom anyone who gives it away to another.
• Cut Himself Shaving: Invoked to explain the alien Tion Medon's ghastly facial features.
  • Averted and lampshaded by Obi-Wan, who claims that some Jedi do this when they try shaving with their lightsabers. He doesn't, which is why he has a) a beard and b) a still-attached head.
• Daddy DNA Test: Vader learns that Leia is his daughter by having her DNA analysed and by having her blood tested for midi-chlorian count.
• Deadpan Snarker:
  • The GM.
    Boy, it must be really rough to have your campaign completely derailed...
  • R2-D2
    Pilot: General Glevious has gone mad! He'll kill us all!
    R2: In other news, grass is green.
    
    Obi-Wan: Your path to the Dark Side is complete!
    R2: Achievement Unlocked!
• Death by Adaptation:
  • General Veers, killed in Luke's Roaring Rampage of Revenge after Dak's death.
  • Anakin actually dies on Mustafar. It's Padmé that becomes Darth Vader in this version.
• Deception Non-Compliance: When R2-D2 (as played by Pete) was secretly being controlled by Nute Gunray, Pete tried to let other people know it as much as possible. This involved swapping the Ls and Rs of his beeping sounds (as is done to satirise the accent given to the character in the film) and acting out of character.
  Pete: I was subtly trying to indicate that something was wrong with me! I tried to abandon the party back on Hoth, remember? I was totally acting out of character! Don't tell me none of you noticed?
• Deleted Scene: An unusual example: deleted scenes from the films are reincorporated when they can add to the comic's plot (or an extra joke). invoked
• Detect Evil:
  • Jim wanted to know if he had this classic tabletop spell as his character first arrived on Tatooine, so he could slaughter a village without losing points for hitting good guys.
  • At the end of the Return of the Jedi campaign, Jim proposes an end to the moral debate about whether the Emperor's good ends justified his evil means: use a spell on his corpse!
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Lampshaded in episode #685.
  Leia: I'm ready to die for the Rebellion, "Lord" Vader.
  Darth Vader: Did you just air-quote me?
  Leia: "No".
• Different World, Different Movies: The Rant to comic #50. Star Wars doesn't exist in the players' universe, because the comic wouldn't make sense if it did. So various other Star Wars-influenced things are also different, including Darths and Droids itself, which has become Wands and Warts, a Harry Potter comic. There's a link to a mockup of a Wands and Warts page, with a similar rant at the bottom, except that it links to a comic based on The Sound of Music (Notes And Nazis), and so on and so on.
  • Interestingly, in one of these alternate realities Star Wars movies (or at least The Phantom Menace) do exist (according to The Rant).
• Distinction Without a Difference: In Han's backstory, Beckett, Qi’ra, Lando and L3-37 stays in Orron III for six months even though they are police officers and only Han and Chewie are prisoners. Jim says that they are not stuck on the planet, they just don't have a ship to fly home.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • This strip, where Pete's hacking attempts quickly become suggestive of. . . something else.
    Pete: This shouldn't take more than 6.2 seconds.
    Annie: Not everything is about how fast you do it.
    Pete: Damn. Rolled a 3. Must be a bad connection.
    Annie: Take your time. Slow and steady.
    Pete: Don't interrupt the master at work. Sod. 5. ...This normally doesn't happen.
  • Annie's feelings after she and Jim roleplay Padme's death on Mustafar also have certain... overtones. Especially if one ignores the words "in character".
    Annie: It was amazing. I've never felt so comfortable letting myself go in character before. I never found anyone I could trust.
• Don't Explain the Joke: Not exactly a joke, per se, but in Backstory #188 we get this exchange:
  Enfys Nest: I heard this one guy goes around murdering prisoners for merit badges!
  Pete (as Beckett, reading a script written by Jim): That guy sounds like a right schmuck.
  Jim: Beckett was being clever.
  Pete: It’s not clever if you explain it.
• Don't Try This at Home: Pete's dice get this treatment.
• Doomy Dooms of Doom: This episode title; this strip also introduces a Drinking Game.
  • Later, Sally sings "The Doom Song".
• Dramatic Irony: In-universe and out; because of Ben's commitment to the line between in-character and out-of-character actions and knowledge, he and the audience know that Anakin would have left Obi-Wan to die, but Obi-Wan does not. Ben doesn't hold it against Annie because it's in-character for Anakin, but notes that there might be trouble in-game if Obi-Wan found out.
• Drinking Game: Pete is playing one; drink every time a cliché shows up! invoked
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The majority of the Phantom Menace strips were focused mostly on satirizing both the film and classic Dungeons and Dragons tropes. A heavy emphasis was placed on the player characters attempting to fast-talk the GM, and derail his plans, and on several running gags (particularly Jim's tendency to come up with ridiculous definitions for the GM's made up words). Over time, the focus shifted towards the ongoing story of the campaign, and developing the personalities and relationships of the players.
• Earth-Shattering Kaboom:
  • Done to Naboo in place of Alderaan in Episode IV.
  • In #971, Pete paraphrases the Trope Namer when an Imperial walker is blown up. (He had been hoping to steal it himself.)
    R2: Kaboom? There wasn't supposed to be a camel-shattering kaboom!
• Easter Egg: Many readers may still be completely unaware that the Irregulars have already done a take on Solo, since the link to that adaptation is hidden in the transcript at the bottom of this page (when Jim presents the notes of his "awesome backstory"; the link is him saying "Here it is.") There was really no announcement that they were even doing this one.
• Either/Or Title: Episodes 131 and 132.
• Epic Fail:
  • Pete fires his laser cannons in the middle of a massive space battle. He misses everything.
  R2-D2: ...Ramming speed.
  • The party infiltrating Jabba's palace in Episode VI. The GM didn't even do much aside from designing the lair with typical defences and countermeasures for a minor boss, as well as a few other additions to keep the encounter from being a complete walk-over (the guards wore shock-proof suits, Jabba had immunity to Force Suggestion, the rancor was laser-proof and there was an alarm system on Han's defroster). Everyone still got captured. To top it off, the GM put a bog-standard pit trap in the throne room just because there's always one, and they fell right into it.
  GM: Thank goodness I didn't put a rake on the floor.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  Vader blows up Naboo with the Peace Moon.
  Leia, Luke, Han, Obi-wan, and C-3PO: (stunned silence)
  R2-D2: You. Utter. Frakking. Bastard.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep":
  • The GM is always referred to as such, even though at least Jim and Ben presumably know his name. None of the players address the GM by name. Pete claims the job before Annie says the name on. Later, Pete just doesn't include him in the apology for arriving late.
  • Princess Organa's first name actually is Princess, rather than Leia. And then the opposite turns out to be the case.
• Everyone Has Standards: Pete makes it clear that even if he's tricky he will always play by the rules.
• Everyone Knows Morse: In this strip, Ben attempts to communicate with Jango by firing shots in Morse Code. Of course, his ship is unarmed.
• Evil Chancellor:
  • Subverted; Jim's suspicions of Sio Bibble have no basis in fact or reality.
  • Chancellor Palpatine (possibly). Bizarrely enough, if Sally's comments in Episode 704 are anything to go by, the Imperial Senate may be taking this role towards Emperor Palpatine, basically flipping the situation in the movies on its head.
• Evil Plan: Anakin's/Annie's grand scheme in Episode III is to play the Jedi Council, Palpatine, and Ben/Obi-Wan against each other, making each of them think the other is Sith, with the ultimate goal of standing atop the resulting chaos and gaining complete control of the galaxy as The Man Behind the Man. Jim and Pete are left slack-jawed in admiration. The gambit ultimately fails after he is dismembered by Obi-Wan, then is found by Palpatine and dies; Padme becomes Darth Vader.
• Exact Words:
  • This strip
    Anakin: You're pulling my leg.
    Palpatine: Well yes, but it's better than falling to my death.
  • On full display during Obi-Wan and Vader's fight, Vader refuses to be addressed as Anakin. As it turns out, Vader isn't being metaphorical. Then Vader says Ben "killed the only one I'd ever loved". Indeed he did, by chopping their limbs off.
  • Another in #1059 when, after being teased about his Single-Biome Planets, the GM promises "there won't be one type of land" on Bespin (which is a gas giant, and thus has zero types of land).
  • Pete gets caught by this when he realises too late that R2 is not covered under Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy:
    Pete: I thought they couldn't hit live targets!
    Annie: They can't hit organic beings, you metal moron.
  • Jim falls into this when it's suggested that Sally get a famous Ape scientist to speak in the defense of monkeys her university is testing. What is meant is "A scientist who specializes in apes," similar to Doctor Jane Goodall. What he thinks they mean is "A scientist who is also an ape," and thus says that they should get Doctor Zaius. Hilariously enough, a few comics later Ben reveals that he did dress up as Dr. Zaius.
• Excited Title! Two-Part Episode Name!: "Episode #1136: Corridor of Destiny! Old Friends Catch Up On Situations!"

Tropes F to J

• Face Palm: When Jim Strip 573 realises that the restaurant where he had a row with Annie over dinner was the one that she worked in, and that he humiliated her in front of everyone. Okay, technically we don't see his face and palm, but Natalie Portman's body language perfectly captures Jim's feelings.
• Fake Identity Baggage:
  • "Han Solo" is reimagined as a serial identity thief who murders the real Han (represented by Greedo) in cold blood before stealing his ship. Han's outstanding gambling debt gets him in trouble with Jabba the Hutt. The fact that the original Han was a shapeshifter also draws the attention of Boba Fett (also a shapeshifter in this continuity) who wants to replace his damaged splanch with Han's.
  • By the start of the sequel trilogy, he's accumulated sixteen more identities' worth of baggage; he's wanted for at least two sets of gambling debt, a shotgun wedding, and the murder of Kylo Ren's father.
  Finn: You're Han Solo?
  Han: I used to be. The name's Xasha now.
• False Reassurance: The Rant in Strip 463 points out that any GM wanting to scare the piss out of his players should word his declarations in a way that just leaves open the possibility of threats lurking around corners.
• Fantastic Drug: Obi-Wan hints that the "moisture" Uncle Owen farms isn't water. See also "blue milk", which is used to suppress a connection to the Force.
• Fictionary: Pete came up with a whole language for Artoo's beeps. Ben managed to decipher it, which saved the entire adventuring party. None of the other players even realized that the beeps weren't just random sound effects.
  Sally: Why would you expect anyone to have gone to so much trouble to make a consistent language out of beeps?
  Ben: It's Pete!
• Fictional Social Network: #1165 "Forceful Takeover" has Darth Vader shut off his shuttle's computer while one of the clone troopers is browsing Clone Book.
• First-Step Fixation: In the Rogue One Campaign, the players are trying to get vital information from the Empire's top-secret archives on planet Toprawa, but they have no idea where Toprawa is. Jim suggests using information from planet Kamino to calculate Toprawa's location... but they don't know where Kamino is, either, and the only records of Kamino's location are going to be stored in the top-secret archives on Toprawa. With the players stuck, the GM relents and outright gives them Toprawa's space-coordinates—but now it's too late and Jim is fixated on his Kamino plan. He keeps reiterating that they're going to Toprawa so they can find Kamino so they can find Toprawa, even after they've landed on Toprawa.
• Five Stages of Grief: Cassian goes through these in sequence when K-2SO dies in Rogue One.
• Flanderization:
  • Ric Olié was already a Captain Obvious in the movie, but the comic deliberately took it even further — although it tries not to draw attention to it.
  • Flat characters are invoked for comedic effect when it comes to the NPCs. General Dodonna also comes to mind.
  • General Rieekan is a deliberate, in-universe example. In his first session, he's just a Jerkass who's all around rude and abrasive to everyone but especially offends Pete and Sally when he calls Pete a "stupid droid" and rudely orders Sally to go make him a salad. In his next (and final) session, the GM plays up to the only two players who noticed and commented on Rieekan's rudeness by making Rieekan a total "Droidist" where practically everything he says is a stereotypically bigoted phrase only directed at droids.
  C-3PO:You got a problem with droids?
  Rieekan: Hey, some of my best friends are droids.
  C-3PO: Name one!
  Rieekan: Well, uh...there was that one who, uh...made my salad.
  C-3PO: That was me!
  Rieekan: That was you? Sorry. You all look alike to me.
• Fleeting Passionate Hobbies: Sally during Episode III; every session she has a new career interest that she pours her heart and soul into, but come next session she's decided that her former interest was stupid, and now she has a new and much better one. She realizes by the end that she can have multiple interests and, still being a kid, she doesn't have to devote herself to a single career yet.
• Footnote Fever: The notes for episode 522.
• Foregone Conclusion:
  • The relationships between the players, reflected in-game by their characters, is slowly fracturing in much the same way as the original Star Wars characters did. And Revenge of the Sith didn't exactly end well. But it's completely, gloriously subverted in regards to Jim and Annie. They actually manage to reconcile their differences just as Anakin has started "his" Face–Heel Turn. Jim starts getting better at roleplaying, and for the scene of Padme's murder, is roleplaying so well, Annie actually has to ask Jim to stop roleplaying for a moment so she can tell him how much she loves him.
• Foreshadowing:
  • When Pete asks what a pod is, and Jim's response in the next panel. Guess what they end up encountering on Kamino?
  • Pete goes on an extended rant as he demands something more science-fictiony, such as space dreadnoughts bristling with atomic missiles. Then at the end of Episode 2, Pete suggests "a massive battle involving space dreadnoughts bristling with atomic missiles" (Annie: "As long as we're the ones with the dreadnoughts") and the GM takes notes. Remember how the Episode 3 movie started?
  • You may consider this dialog to be a foreshadowing to Return of the Jedi:
    Palpatine: And who shall judge who is wicked? Who else is to die?
    Anakin: Anyone who disagrees with me, for starters.
    Palpatine: I disagreed with you just now, Anakin.
    Anakin: Well obviously not you, Chancellor.
  • And another one regarding Jedi:
    Palpatine: This is fun; perhaps I should install a huge bottomless pit in my quarters for no apparent reason.
  • This speech by Valorum pretty much flat out tells you what his eventual fate will be, but you'd never realise it the first time through.
  • And then comes a piece of dialogue from Anakin/Annie about Padme/Jim. Considering how much development Annie plans out for her character and how involved she gets into them, this could be both, either, or neither foreshadowing or in-character anxiety.
    Anakin (describing an in-character dream): You die in childbirth.
  • "You are NOT wearing the queen's dresses." Guess who Jim ended up playing as about a movie later?
  • Grievous to Kenobi: "I see your future. Divorced from your flesh, your moth-robes fall empty."
  • One of R2-D2's flaws to support Pete's Min-Maxing (and suddenly gain rocket thrusters) is Tastes Good To Dragons. The DM (sarcastically) says he can keep them. Know what happens to R2 in the Dagobah swamp? He gets eaten, of course!
    SFX: Ptooey!
    SFX: < oooooooooooowwoooooooooooo >
    SFX: Kerassh!!
    GM: Lucky. That one almost came back to bite you.
  • In episode 186 Palpatine orders Maul to team up with the Jedi:
    Maul: I Work Alone.
    Palpatine: That's not what it says on your card.
    • In episode 283, we learn about his partner.
  • In episode 30 Sally asks if she can be a Jedi. The GM and Ben say no. Eventually, she plays both Windu and then Yoda (as well as the librarian).
  • Mace wondering who could be Gunray's sleeper agent. Also: "With respect, Master Windu couldn't spot a Sith if he was one." And this is almost literally the case - see Manchurian Agent below.
  • The notes for this strip has a table for losing parts of your body, including both legs and the left arm. Guess what happens to Anakin at the end of Revenge of the Sith.
  • Mah son is sometimes ze same way.
  • Luke's character sheet has Survival: Desert, Forest, Snow, and Swamp. Desert makes a lot of sense on Tatooine, but the survival skills in Snow, Swamp, and Forest set up the fact that the settings of the group's next two campaigns.
  • The players point out that they shouldn't be told what the bad guys are saying when they are not around. Annie is controlling Darth Vader by proxy, so it's perfectly justified.
  • At one point Sally jokingly claims that Anakin is actually the Sith Lord. Yeah 'bout that... Or not, given the Red Herring.
  • When talking about Naboo, Annie (playing Leia) hesitates on mentioning Padmé's burial. Turns out there's a reason for that.
  • As they approach Cloud City, R2-D2 calls it "Crowd City", in a context where he could just be making a pun. But it's soon revealed to be subtle foreshadowing of Nute Gunray, whose "Japanese" accent consists of switching his Ls and Rs, taking control.
  • The above is also foreshadowed in Episode IV, when just after escaping the Peace Moon, R2 starts switching Rs and Ls around in discreet ways, as in "Let your hatred glow", and "The ship's on the blink!" Nute's virus infected him when he tried downloading the Peace Moon plans.
  • The first hint that Nute lives in and controls the Peace Moon computers is the trouble R2 has shutting down the trash compactor. "It's like this Moon has a mind of its own."
  • And of course there's the dropped hint about phantom incidents.
  • In a similar vein, Lando's aide answering as "Robot". His name may actually be "Lobot", as in the film, but this is probably a hint that Nute Gunray has infected him and so, like Pete, he switches "L" and "R" around.
  • How does Chewbacca know Princess is not a traitor? Simple; because he already knows Han is.
  • Annie speculates "Maybe ghosts can use Force powers." It will turn out, in Ep VI, that the ghosts of Jedi have considerable powers.
  • Darth Vader accuses Obi-Wan of killing the only person he (Darth Vader) had ever loved. Makes sense when you read this.
  • In Episode 1097, C-3PO who is saying the opposite of what she means ever since her head was attached backwards, but the others haven't picked up on it directly says that Han isn't the traitor. Eleven strips later, we learn she was "right".
  • The DM's plan for Episode III says that Nute Gunray is unkillable in this game. Despite what the PCs think, he's right.
  • Spoofed throughout Jim's explanation of Han's backstory where Jim keeps pointing out the foreshadowing he made, even though the GM tells him that it just makes the foreshadowing less interesting.
• Framing the Guilty Party: Category 2. In Episode III, Annie as Anakin has been casting suspicion between the main characters, trying to turn them against each other at various times suggesting dark motives for Palpatine, Yoda, Obi-Wan, and Mace Windu. Upon The Reveal that Mace Windu is a brainwashed sleeper agent for the Trade Federation she seems genuinely shocked that one of the people she was trying to cast suspicion on was actually guilty of something.
• French Jerk: Dooku. But not regular French, he's Space French. And quite the unreasonable man.
• Friend or Foe?: In the confusion of a firefight, Bria Tharen shoots K-2SO. It would have killed K-2, but the GM invokes Schrödinger's Gun and says the shot hit an identical robot in front of K-2 instead.
• Funetik Aksent: Many Non Player Characters, but Dookû has the silliest one. Tarkin is given one in Episode IV.
• Gambler's Fallacy:
  • Pete scoffs at the superstition of "cursed" or "blessed" dice, and believes he is being scientific by completely misapplying statistical probability. According to one of the editorial comments, he has a hugely time-consuming system for "pre-rolling the 1s out of" his dice. ^note He rolls all his assorted d20s, selects those that rolled 1s, rerolls those, takes those that rolled 1s] again and places them in custom padded containers that prevent them from rolling any further. Thus, the odds of those dice rolling a third 1 in a row are 8000 to 1 against.
  • In Episode III, he tries to weaponize this trope against Ben during the fight against Grievous, handing him his "special" dice, all of which have only ever rolled 1. And then Ben rolls critical hits with all of them.
• Game Within a Game: The players' and GM's characters play one in episode 778.
• Gaslighting: This is another element in Annie/Anakin's deception plot in Episode III, twisting past events to put Anakin in a better light and manipulate the other Jedi.
  Obi-Wan: Do you know how many people died in that control tower? Thirty-eight. You caused those deaths.
  Anakin: You're misremembering, Master. I tried to steer us away from the tower. You'd just been knocked on the head, remember?
  Obi-Wan: Hmm. Are you sure? I thought—
  Anakin: Trust me.
• Gasp!: Collective ones from the Geonosians and the Republic Senate so far.
• Geeky Turnon: Annie's rather cunning plan during the pod race prompted Pete to say "I'm in love".
• Gender-Blender Name: The commentary for the page he appears on points out that if the franchise' naming conventions are still being followed than Vader's servant Vaneé is a Naboo native whose parents really wanted a girl.
• Gender Flip:
  • It's more due to being played by Sally, but in Darths & Droids, C-3PO is referred to as female.
  • Later, when it turns out that Darth Vader actually is Padme.
  • Darth Kanata is referred to as male in the comics, even though Sally is playing him.
• Genius Ditz: Jim is a real ditz in RPG, genius otherwise. See here to see him put the GM in his place when the GM uses the word "vergence" wrong, because he's doing a Ph.D. in geophysics. And later, he even works out the insane conditions that would make a planet like Naboo physically possible to patch up the GM's overlooking basic physics in the earlier strips. But lest we forget the second half of this trope:
  R2-D2: It's tough holding a grudge against someone who doesn't even notice.
• Genre Savvy:
  • All the players, except Sally and Annie in the first movie, are very wary of the conventions of tabletop RPGs. Corey is Wrong Genre Savvy — he knows the conventions of video game RPGs, which leads to some confusion when he first appears.
  • In-universe, Gunnery Captain Bolvan knows that just because an escape pod doesn't have any life forms in it doesn't mean it shouldn't be shot down. Too bad for him that Pete disabled guns before leaving.
• Geo Effects:
  • Done with Ben and Darth Maul, with quotes taken directly from Revenge of the Sith here.
  • Of course, also done in the usual place, final battle between Anakin and Obi-Wan in Revenge of the Sith. This time, the Higher Ground tactic gives Ben explicit battle modifier advantages.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Leia tries this on Luke to snap him out of his Heroic BSoD after Obi-Wan's death, though it looks more like unhealthy manipulation than anything else. Luke bluntly rebukes her, exposing that he has every reason to be angsting.
  Luke: I've been fed lies my entire life! Every person I've known for more than two days is dead!
• Glad You Thought of It: After the GM reveals that the rathar is four dimensional, Pete questions how can it be stopped by three-dimensional walls and doors back in Xasha's ship. Jim quickly says that it obviously means that Xasha's ship is four-dimensial too and praises the GM for thinking of that, when he clearly didn't.
• GMPC:
  • Temporary example with R2-D2, when the regular GM has a family emergency and lets Pete fill in because he has the most GM experience.
  • Chewbacca was an example, joining the group as PC Jim's eloquent sidekick, specifically designed to excel at all his dump stats, like diplomacy. Later became an ordinary PC due to the death of Obi-Wan aboard the Peace Moon.)
  • Bria Tharen (this universe's version of Jyn Erso, the main character from Rogue One) is initially played by the GM, then taken over by Jim, who promptly "renames" her to… Jyn Erso.
• Go Mad from the Isolation: In Episode V, Sally's Yoda has gone a bit bonkers from twenty years of isolation on Dagobah.
• God Save Us from the Queen!: Padmé, once Jim takes over playing her. And it continues when Annie plays her as Darth Vader.
• Goggles Do Nothing: Bodhi runs through all the things his goggles could theoretically do, except that he wears them on top of his head throughout Rogue One.
• Gone Horribly Right: So, Anakin, you want to corrupt Palpatine and become the power behind the throne? Sure, why not. Just be certain that you've not corrupted him enough to consider you a loose cannon, drain your midichlorians, and kill you. Oops.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: During the earlier strips, "frakking" is the harshest the language ever gets. The only exception is in strip #11, when Jim exclaims, "No, we just kick ass!" which happens before Sally joins the group. No longer applies during the Episode IV campaign and onwards, wherein Sally is a couple of years older and a bit more of a smart mouth, though they still refrain from using any of the harsher words in an effort to maintain the comic's PG rating.
• Grappling with Grappling Rules: Done here.◊ The grappling rules are in their own supplement which is longer than the main rulebook.
• Groin Attack: "I kick him where it hurts!"
• Guilt by Association Gag: Done by Sally in this strip.
• Had the Silly Thing in Reverse: Palpatine says this word-for-word after failing to kill Mace Windu with Force lightning.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Captain Needa of the Avenger appears to have one of these, going into a furious rant at the Falcon after they buzz his bridge and storming off "give Vader a piece of my mind!"
• Heads or Tails?: In strip 991, Leia and Han do a coin flip to determine whose flying the Falcon and who's manning the gun. The GM calls for a Dex roll. Jim rolls a 1. The coin falls through a crack and sets something on the fritz.
• Heel Realization:
  • Subverted by Pete in #454. "So we're the bad guys now? Cool!"
  • Played horribly straight by Anakin when he mortally wounds Padme.
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Pete, and even Jim during the first movie.
• Hey, Wait!: An Invoked Trope coupled with a Bavarian Fire Drill, courtesy of a Bluff check.
• Hidden Depths: Jim may be an outstanding Cloudcuckoolander, but he's far from dumb, given that he's studying geophysics. (Which actually comes up a lot in the game.) Sally regularly demonstrates a profound creative streak - designing memorable (if outlandish) characters, describing settings and outfits, and world-building Kashyyyk (which blew the GM's own work on Utapau out of the water). She also came up with the whole idea of the Dark Side by accident.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Pete's use of R2 as a Marty Stu comes back to bite him. And then when the GM gets back, he makes R2 go back through his own Death Course, making him miss the big climactic battle.
  • Palpatine gets his face disfigured during his confrontation with Mace Windu because he accidentally reversed Force Drain and it ended up blasting him rather than Mace.
  • "Greedo" stealing Han Solo's identity led Boba Fett to believe that he was a shapeshifter like himself. Now Boba wants his nonexistent splanch so that he can get back his shapeshifting abilities.
  • Pete, this time as Chirrut, probably would have survived the fuel pump explosion if he hadn't been so min-maxed.
• Homage: In between Star Wars-based campaigns, the players do ones in other settings that are eventually revealed to be based on other films:
  • The fantasy game Jim, Ben, and Pete played between episodes one and two was The Princess Bride. Pete was Vizzini, Ben and Jim were Inigo Montoya and Fezzik. He has reason to be angry.
  • Annie's game is heavily implied to be a mix of Van Helsing and Twilight, with a bit of Take That! against the source materials to boot.
    Jim: And that stuff about Pete being the Archangel Gabriel, where did that come from?
    Annie: Yeah by that stage I was just making up the stupidest things I could think of.
    ...
    Jim: They were vampires! You can't make vampires good! They're evil, they have to be killed, that's all there is to it! [...] And vampires do not sparkle in the daylight!!
  • It's also slowly revealed that Jim's campaign was derailed into the plot of Airplane!, with Pete playing Leslie Nielsen.
  • Ben ran a campaign that was supposed to be a version of Batman (1966) with the players in the "villain" roles, only they ended up becoming actual villains and turned it into The Dark Knight Trilogy.
  • Sally's "Robot Utopia" campaign where the players were robots who Turned Against Their Masters was Jurassic Park.
  • Finally in the sequel trilogy it's revealed Corey got to host his own campaign, which started as Voltron: Legendary Defender but ended up becoming Neon Genesis Evangelion once Sally got involved with the worldbuilding.
• Honor Before Reason: Sally challenges Dookû to a contest of lifting things with the Force as a way of capturing him without needing to risk killing him, relying on the idea that Dookû will be honourable to agree to it.
  Yoda: I don't want to kill you. Settle this with a Force Arm-Wrestle we will!
  Dookû: A... what?
  Yoda: Whoever lifts the biggest thing wins!
  Dookû: Zis is ridiculous. Raise your sword.
  Yoda: But this is how honourable Jedi settle things. Are you honourable?
  Dookû: Ah begin to regret zat Ah am...
  • Also the reason (in this universe) for the reason for the lightsaber duel between Anakin and Obi-Wan. The rest of the party is going evil (except Sally), but Ben refuses.
    Ben: I wrote "Good" on my character sheet and I jolly well meant it! Unlike some people!
• Hurricane of Puns:
  • #437. It even spills over into the News Post.
  • And this earlier hurricane. Hand puns AND sports puns.
  • Declaring the Empire's starships PIE fighters leads to some dessert puns.
  • Happens in #1323 with monkey puns, some rather elaborate.
  • The tree puns in #1348 get cut short when Ben gets too high-brow with "pneumatophore" (aerial root of a swamp plant).
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • This little gem from #42:
    Jim (as Qui-Gon Jinn): Fine. But we're not taking Bubble. That goatee is a death sentence.
    Ben (as Obi-Wan): Uh... Don't you have a —
    Jim: No.
    Ben: Can I see your character sheet for a —
    Jim: You may not.
  • In #1489, when Pete realises Annie has been running a complicated character arc again, he tells her she's putting way too much effort into the game. Annie replies "Doop, deep", referring to the elaborate Droid language Pete invented and used without expecting anyone else to even notice.
  • In Backstory #109, Han complains about his ship (which he just had won through gambling) being stolen, even though he himself is a serial thief.
    "Chi'ra": Why do these things always happen to me?
    Qi’ra: You stole Proxima’s coaxium, a guy’s speeder, my identity, and almost a train.
    "Chi’ra": See what I mean!
• I Am Spartacus: Han, Chewbacca, and Leia all claim to be Obi-Wan, in #1105.
• I Am the Noun: Anakin says this twice in Episode 626.
• I Did What I Had to Do: Anakin in Episode 108, after deliberately destroying Sebulba's pod (and possibly Sebulba).
• I Know You Know I Know: #242, possibly, which gets funnier every time you read it.
• I Take Offense to That Last One: Finn and BB-8's meeting in #1910 among other examples:
  Finn: And Poe never mentioned a jumped-up, half-watted, rusty-looking Huttball to me, but here you are.
  BB-8: Who's rusty-looking?
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: All the strips during Pete's tenure as the substitute GM have very long titles that describe the action of the strip using Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness, some of which double as flimsy defenses for Pete's Ass Pulling.
• Idiot Ball: A lot of the problems in the game could have been solved by someone going, "Jim, would you just shut up and listen for ten seconds in a row?"
• Idiot Hero: Qui Gon, as played by Jim. Three Words: "Summon Bigger Fish."
  • Obi-Wan has his moment when he jumps off a window after a droid in the Attack of the Clones arc.
• Idiot Savant: Jim may be as dumb as he can in the game, but he's a Geology student, and a very good one if his Lampshade Hanging of the implausibility of the height of Coruscant's buildings is any indication.
• If You Die, I Call Your Stuff: #228.
  Anakin: Can I have your (Obi-Wan's) laser sword if this ends badly? Try to toss it as you hit the lava.
• I'm a Humanitarian:
  • The Gungans, lampshaded by the title of this strip.
  • Humorously averted here.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy:
  • Lampshaded by Jim and immediately after that defied by the Clone Troopers themselves in episode 675.
  • Lampshaded again later on. Obi-Wan states the movie line about blast points being too accurate for Sand People - but then adds "It can't be clone troopers either. They're rubbish."
  • And then demonstrated by Jim, who decides to take the Ork method of marksmanship and hose down the pursuing TIEs with full-auto fire. Naturally, he misses despite having to roll a big bucket of dice. Corey, being an experienced FPS player, actually applies lead and smokes his targets with single well-aimed shots.
• Incoming Ham: General Grievous: Cyborgs. Under. MY. COMMAND!
• Indy Ploy: What is Luke/Corey going to do with a harpoon and tow cable against giant mecha walkers? Make it up as he goes, of course.
• In Medias Res: The players' Episode IV campaign starts three sessions before we start seeing it - and Jim has had a character die in each one. The Rogue One campaign covers these sessions, and reveals that there was a Total Party Kill at the end.
• Insane Troll Logic:
  • The solutions to the challenges Pete set during his brief tenure filling in for the GM. Usually, as well as being completely out there, the players had to make punishingly precise rolls to actually succeed (as it stood, they managed to survive without figuring out Pete's solutions, on blind luck alone).
  • Pete's reasoning on "rolling out the ones". The odds of a twenty-sided die rolling three ones in a row is one to eight-thousand against. So, if you roll enough d20s, you get a handful that have rolled two ones in a row. If you then place them in a specially padded container where they can't roll any more, then the next time you roll them, it's statistically unlikely they'll roll a third one.
  • Pete is really prone to this. His reasoning for having the Wookies charge the invading droids at the battle of Kashyyyk:
    Pete: This is just like D-Day. And the Wookies are the Germans.
    Ben: The Germans didn't charge the Allies.
    Pete: And they lost!
• Insistent Terminology: Pete insists that "venom" and "poison" are completely different things to which different game rules should be applied to.
• Insufferable Genius: Pete's pretty much the comic's version of Sheldon Cooper, in every possible sense.
• Intentional Engrish for Funny:
  • One of the alternate languages the comic is available in is Zero Wing.
  • Also the part where the players are assisted by a group of NPC pilots, speaking several languages while 3PO translates. The NPC lines are all Blind Idiot Translations, because the GM isn't multilingual and is relying on machine translation.
  • The GM's approach to a Japanese accent for the Tlade Fedelation Viceloy.
• Interface Screw: For three strips, starting here. When Boba Fett wouldn't stop monologuing about how he'd find and kill Obi Wan, Han got fed up and spat out that Darth Vader killed him in episode 4. The realization sent Fett over the edge.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Sally develops this sort of a relationship with the other players fairly quickly over the course of the first episode. Particularly of note is her relationship with Pete, who takes her under his wing and mentors her in how to best use Jar Jar's (and later 3PO's) abilities to her strategic advantage.
• Intermission: Between each of the films there is a three strip non-canon gag intermission. The one between Episode III and Episode IV is longer; "The Ballad of Jar Jar", using screencaps from The Clone Wars.
• Ironic Echo:
  • "You are enlightened."
  • There are several lines of dialogue taken straight from the movies — with Character A saying Character B's lines, and Character B saying Character A's lines.
• Ironic Name: While on Dagoba, Yoda takes the name Darth Sain. He's also a little loopy.
• It Was His Sled: An in-universe example of sorts: the destruction of Naboo is supposed to be a shocking revelation to the players' characters, but the players themselves already know it happened. Jim even gets a bit sarcastic about it.
• It Will Never Catch On: Sort of, when Padmé asks how she's supposed to get information from Anakin:
  Qui-Gon: I don't know. Flirt with him or something.
  Padmé: He's nine years old! Do you know how creepy that is?
• It's Not You, It's My Enemies: Annie plays it this way, blaming Watto and the Hutts, when explaining to Jim (in character) why Shmi isn't leaving with the party, but sending Anakin instead.
• I Would Say If I Could Say: Jabba uses this trope constantly.
• Jerkass: Pete's stat-obsessed, railroading, and killer GM attitude is quickly turning him into this. And he can't even understand why the other players are starting to hate him. He does apologize afterward, and admits he genuinely enjoys playing with the team. On the other hand, he was apparently using a "contrition" app on his PDA.
• Just a Stupid Accent:
  • Many NPCs, as well as Jim's Greedo until he dropped it as part of the "Han Solo" cover identity. When Jim's character gets brain damage and reverts to being "Freddo", his identity before Greedo, the accent comes back.
  • Dooku's ridiculous French accent, which includes mangled versions of words which are already French. The DM gets thrown when Sally starts replying in actual French, which he does not speak. Another character speaking the same "language" later on replaces "attention" with "attenzione", causing the players to speculate that "Space French" is Italian with the wrong accent.

Tropes K to O

• Karl Marx Hates Your Guts: A Discussed Trope here.
  Ben: You buy stuff at full value, you sell at half.
  Pete: First Law of Equipment Trading.
  Corey: So all these traders out there are making 100% profit on every transaction? You'd think they'd have banded together and taken over the galaxy by now.
  Pete: What, like some kind of... Trade Federation?
• Kill and Replace: The human character Greedo shoots and kills the green Rodian named Han Solo in the Mos Eisley cantina, and takes over his identity (and ship).
• Killed Mid-Sentence:
  • Count Dookû: "Non! Wait! Anakin, Ah am your f—"
  • Well, frozen mid-sentence, but Han was about to tell Boba about his father's killer's fate before the fateful freezing. He finishes his sentence after being unfrozen by Leia at Jabba's place.
  Han: Hey, Fetta! Guess where Obi-Wan is? He's—
  (111 strips later)
  Han: —dead!
• Killer Game Master:
  • Pete, as substitute GM, is the one who comes up with the droid factory scene from Attack of the Clones. He even laughs at Annie when she initially fails a roll.
  • Made even more evident when the original GM shows up and takes a look at the place, saying "Wow, I don't think anyone can get through this," making Annie and Jim's passage through the factory sheer luck — for instance, the chance of Anakin getting through those blades was approximately 0.5% (admittedly, before Anakin increased his chances with Force Abilities).
  • We do get to hear Pete's explanation though; most of the hazards actually had ways to avoid them altogether, the players just missed them because he was harrying them so much to make their moves. The authors also point out that many of these exist in the original scene as well. R2 runs the gauntlet solo later on, which is his punishment; he misses the big climax.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Jim, constantly interrupting the GM's explanations to provide one of his own that is always incorrect.
• Lame Pun Reaction: The final panel of strip #1232.
• Lampshade Hanging: All over the place. The webcomic lampshades so many illogical or improbable aspects of the Star Wars universe.
• Large Ham: The GM has way too much fun playing the NPCs. In particular, General Grievous.
• Laser-Guided Karma: The DM takes great glee in making the players' Heroic Sociopathy come back to haunt them later.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Jim plays Padmé after Qui-Gon dies.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Episode 1762 takes this to its logical extreme, where Statler and Waldorf's dialogue consists entirely of lines taken from forum posts discussing the strip itself and its decision to adapt The Muppet Show. Within the context of the comic, they are talking about the song and dance number performed by the cloned sheep.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Done by Padme in This strip. Note that it actually works.
  • Much later done by Pete.
• Legacy Character: Padmé takes up Anakin's mantle as Darth Vader after his death, into the IV-VI trilogy.
• Let Me Get This Straight...: Parodied by General Willard, who "summarizes" information the PCs just told him. Except his "summary" is longer and more detailed than the original report.
• Let's Split Up, Gang!: Despite being one of the primary rules for roleplaying not to play this trope straight, the gang rarely stays together. A recurring saying in the group is that they've "split the party four ways", as sometimes they split so much that it feels less like one campaign and more like four solo campaigns being run at once.
• Level Grinding: R2-D2 just wants to kill another hundred droids in order to get Enhanced Environmental Sealing before infiltrating the Trade Federation HQ.
• Like Is, Like, a Comma: Mon Mothma talks like this.
• Literal-Minded: Jim in episode 723, when commenting on Pete's statement that liquid metal is not cool.
• The Loonie: Sally.
• Luck Manipulation Mechanic: There is a mention of the "Fate Manipulation Re-roll" Jedi power. Anakin used a Fate Manipulation re-roll during Pete's factory sequence. Hilariously, Jim as Qui-Gon missed the point, and assumed the power only worked when a character in-game rolled dice. He's stoked about how useful it is when Ben points out that they've been rolling dice the whole time, and he never thought to use it until Watto's chance cube.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Done repeatedly, as parodies of the Trope Namer.
  • Cliegg Lars states "Anakin, I am your stepfather." And, as with the movie, followed by the Big "NO!".
  • Later on, Count Dooku tries to claim fatherhood before Anakin executes him. He's Killed Mid-Sentence.
  • "Boba, I am your stepfather." Boba is apparently the son of Zam Wessel and Darth Maul. Again, followed by a Big "NO!".
  • As early as Episode IV Vader reveals to Leia that she is his daughter.
  • Somehow, even after Luke discovers that Vader is his father before Vader does, the comic still manages to take the original iconic scene and give it a Wham Line. "Luke, I am your mother."
  • The cliffhanger to The Force Awakens is Luke saying the line to Rey, when she (and her player Pete) had believed that she was Han's child.
• Luke, You Are My Father: In a perfect mirror to the original scene, Luke reveals the truth to Vader in 1151... and then it gets weird when Vader says he is Luke's mother.
• Madness Mantra: In the movie, why does Grievous still have internal organs?
• Major General Song: The title and annotation of this strip.
• Major Injury Underreaction: By Ponda Baba.
  Ponda Baba: What the hell are you doing? I was just messing with the kid! That arm's gonna take me hours to grow back!
  Obi-Wan: Uh... I'm sorry... but...
  Ponda Baba: Nah, just kidding. It's gone forever. And it hurts a lot.
• Malaproper:
  • "Cheddar monks" and "Ratatouille", among other things.
    Padmé: I swing on my chain and kick the Nixon as it tries to attack.
  • And "passionfruit jelly" as part of the path to the dark side.
• Manchurian Agent: Mace Windu, who apparently was brainwashed by Gunray and became his sleeper agent. Sadly, he only realized this moments before his death.
• Marty Stu: In-Universe, R2-D2, Pete's character, during Pete's run as the temporary GM. Pete constructs the entire factory scene in Episode II, making it particularly dangerous to the other PCs, for the sole purpose of having R2 fly in and save the day. This is made most obvious in this strip.
• Meaningful Echo:
  "Are you calling me <something undesirable>?"
  "Are you?"
  "Are you?"
  "Maybe."
  • Lampshaded a second later. "It also causes deja vu."
• Meaningful Name:
  • Ben, Annie, and (until he takes over Padmé) Jim. In-universe, Annie's case is a coincidence because the GM named Anakin before she came aboard.
  • Pete is another, though far more subtle example. It comes from the scene in A New Hope where a Jawa shoots Artoo. After he keels over, the Jawa calls for his friends with this line: "Utini... Umm PETE!"
• Merlin Sickness: The GM reveals that the rathar/Sarlacc is a four-dimensional creature who move backwards through time, so the one in Han's backstory is older than the same one encountered years later in The Jedi Reloaded and The Forced-Away Kin.
• Min-Maxing: Pete loves min-maxing. It's the reason R2 is so good at hacking and repair but crap at everything else and unable to speak.
• Mondegreen Gag: As a Running Gag, Jim keeps making mincemeat out of the GM's phrasings. "To Naboo soil" becomes "Tuna booze oil".
• Monochrome Past: Flashback sequences are shown in sepia tones.
• Mood Dissonance:
  • The frequently stark contrast between what's happening in the game and what the characters are talking about outside the game. Taken to extremes here.
  • In-universe example for the game itself:
    So... anyone wanna shoot some space pool?
• Moral Event Horizon: invokedDiscussed with how to make players loathe a villain for an act, make sure to destroy a place they've actually heard of. Pete, of all people, is the one to call Darth Vader an "utter frakking bastard" for his personal one.
• More Dakka: Baze firing his machine-gun blaster in #1670 gets the sound effect, "Dakka! Dakka! Dakka! Dakka! Dakka! Dakka! Dakka! Dakka!"
• Most Gamers Are Male: There are two girls out of five (later six) players, which is still a higher percentage than normal. Both Sally and Annie come to the campaign as newbies and Pete, at first, clearly thinks most gamers should be male.
• Munchkin: Pete. Lampshaded in Strip 528.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Pete seems to view the rolling of his special custom die as the most epic thing in the history of gaming. He even asks Sally to film the roll because he's too excited to hold the camera steady. It seems like hyping up a mundane event at first, but it's later subverted: turns out it needs gloves and goggles to be handled and catches fire when thrown, meaning it probably is awesome.
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: Done by Sally in episode 695:
  Sally: (to Pete) I love it here. A beautiful desert cruise with wonderful friends. And you.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Sally after Mace decapitates Jango, leading to a Heroic BSoD for Mace.
  • Palpatine after killing Mace Windu.
  • Anakin after mortally wounding Padme.
• My Hovercraft Is Full of Eels: Pete refers to this trope by name in strip 279.
• Mythology Gag
  • There are a few scattered references to Star Wars Legends, specially in Episode IV (prior gameplay sessions include the opening level of Dark Forces, and Jim also mentions the incident on which the plans were retransmitted to Leia aboard the Tantive IV). These were later retconned into their adaptation of Rogue One.
  • Episode 35 and by association, intermission strip Episode 207 use footage from the Episode I deleted scene that involved a waterfall.
  • In episode 741, when the group tries to come up with a fake surname for Luke, Corey suggests "Starkiller," which was Luke Skywalker's name in early drafts of the original Star Wars script.
  • Ben's Chewbacca refuses to accept a medal until the war has been won. This is in reference to Chewbacca not getting a medal in the actual film because Carrie Fisher wasn't tall enough to hang it on him.
  • Chewbacca being named after the dog is not only a shout-out to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, but refers to the fact that the character of Chewie was inspired by George Lucas' Alaskan Malamute, Indiana.
  • "Join me, and together we can rule the Galaxy as father and son!!" and "Boring conversation anyway."
• The Name Is Bond, James Bond: "Killer. Luke Starkiller."
• Nepotism: A Running Gag in the sequel trilogy is that Kaydel Ko Connix^note played in the films by Carrie Fisher's daughter Billie Lourd firmly believes that Rey Solo gets special treatment because of who her parents are.
• Nerds Speak Klingon: In strip #1019, Pete (R2-D2) rolls a die with the numbers written in Quenya. (He has a lot of custom dice.)
  DM: Okay, I can't read Quenya. What does it say?
  Pete: (sigh) It says "your periscope is (Quenya)."
• Never My Fault: Darth Vader would rather blame Obi-Wan for everything than accept any responsibility for his actions.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • In order to win the pod race, Jim (still playing Qui Gon Jin) injects Anakin with his blood, giving him midi-chlorians and thus Force abilities. That's right. To rig a race, Jim empowers a character who will later become a Sith.
  • In the pod race arc, Jim is also responsible for arming the Tusken Raiders and causing them to be hostile.
  • One for Ben (with an extra bit of help from Jim). Trying to conceal Luke's identity from Vader ends up making the latter chase Luke, but for revenge.
  • By ignoring their original mission, they end up mistaking allies for enemies killing Darth Maul who was helping them obtain the Peace Orb. And Jango Fett was his partner, leading Fett to try to obtain vengeance against Ben a decade later in game.
• Ninja Looting: Referenced here.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Jim's vampyrates.
• No-Dialogue Episode: here.
• "No. Just… No" Reaction:
  • Windu's response about whether bringing balance to the force, in a galaxy currently void of the Sith, would be a good thing.
  • The GM occasionally does this when vetoing some of the players' ideas (usually Jim's).
• No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine: Here, with a link to the trope page. Although Palpatine is a hologram, so he doesn't actually get to eat anything.
• Non-Combat EXP: Jim is actually surprised that XP can be gained from roleplaying, rather than just fighting.
• Noodle Implements:
  • Pete's custom die. It's dropped from an apparatus Pete brings in a briefcase with him to each session, and can only be rolled once because it bursts into flames afterwards. The police were involved.
  • Judging from the sound effects, the die may or may not be made of firecrackers that are set off by a computer with a booming voice inside it.
  • Then he makes another. This one needs to be kept cold before use.
• Noodle Incident: Each Episode involves references to a Noodle Incident that happened in the interim since the last one, always involving a non-Star Wars campaign that's eventually revealed to be based on another famous movie:
  • Episode II: Pete's mad about something that happened in a low-fantasy campaign. It was The Princess Bride, and Pete was Vizzini; meaning his character was poisoned and the other players left him for dead, and even resurrected the guy who poisoned him.
  • Episode III: Jim and Annie have had a fight, somehow connected with a paranormal campaign that Annie ran. The campaign was a mix of Twilight and Van Helsing; with the players wrongly assuming that the vampires were Always Chaotic Evil. It culminated in Jim and Annie having an embarrassingly public argument about it, which Annie believed cost her her job until she really thought about it.
  • Episode IV: The group played a dramatic campaign run by Jim, which went better than it sounds. Or rather, he meant for it to be dramatic but the players found it ridiculous and ran with it. Jim's intended campaign was Zero Hour! (1957) but it became Airplane!
    • There were also three prior gameplay sessions of the episode itself where Jim's character died each time, one of which resulted in him not being allowed to have a laser sword anymore. In this case it's eventually revealed that the first thing his character did with a laser sword was cutting his own hand off with it.
  • Episode V: A crime-fighting campaign, this time run by Ben, but the players made it a lot Darker and Edgier than he intended. The players were superheroes tracking down a dangerous vigilante, and decided to lure him out by committing crimes. Ben intended it to be Batman (1966), but the players went Off the Rails and turned it into The Dark Knight Trilogy, with the players as "heroic" versions of the villains and Batman as the antagonist.
  • Episode VI: A "Robot Utopia" campaign, which was apparently a Turned Against Their Masters plot with the players on the side of the robots. The robot angle was a fakeout; the players were robot dinosaurs in Jurassic Park.
  • Rogue One and Episode VII: A Humongous Mecha campaign run by Corey. It started as Voltron: Legendary Defender, and eventually warped into Neon Genesis Evangelion.
  • Episode VII: Pete ran a Wide-Open Sandbox fantasy campaign. What it's based on is TBD.
  • Some other Noodle Incidents:
    • "The Sashimi Incident." We don't know anything about it beyond the name.
    • For the two-year skip between Episodes III and IV, Ben walked out of his life to do some soul-searching due to his arguments with Sally during Ep. III; we're not sure what he did during that time.
    • In #787, Han and Chewie talk about a "raid on Orron III" where they were captured and held prisoner for six months, but eventually got out and made a tidy profit.
    • In #849, Ben says he told his parents he was no longer going into medicine and was looking at other career options. Pete is impressed that Ben stood up to his dad, and Sally remarks:
      Sally: And dad'll get over it soon.
      Ben: You think?
      Sally: We needed a new kitchen table anyway.
• No OSHA Compliance:
  • Lampshaded and inverted. Ben observes that there are railings for 2 meter falls, but not for bottomless reactor shafts.
  • Speaking of bottomless reactor shafts, Palpatine decides he would like to get one here. A decision which he will in no way regret in the future.
  • In #1416, when Han/Jim manages to roll a natural 20 and knock a trooper over a railing to his death by throwing a box at him, what surprises Chewbacca/Ben the most about the whole thing is that there was a railing there at all.
  • Pete lampshades it with the Scarif (aka Toprawa in the comic) tower catwalk: "They went to all the trouble to put the controls in a dangerously inconvenient location, and then they went and put a railing around it?" (A few strips later, Jim asks if he gets a Dex save bonus for the railing; the GM has to admit it's never come up before.)
  • Averted in #1735; there's an elevator on the data tower so workers won't have to climb up through trap doors like Bria did. "It's part of Tarkin's OH&S (Occupational Health & Safety) drive."
  • A bonus strip explains that this was the weakness Galen Erso secretly designed in the Peace Moon; "No railings. Anywhere. Clone troopers will fall to their deaths by the thousands."
  • Lampshaded again in strip #2174, as "No Name"^note  Han Solo, at least in the films heads out to confront Kylo Ren:
    No Name (Jim): I walk out onto the catwalk.
    Chewbacca (Ben): Be careful.
    No Name: Relax. There are railings.
    GM: Actually, on this particular one, there aren’t.
    Chewbacca: There are railings everywhere except the most dangerous place to fall from?
    GM: I wouldn’t want to disappoint you.
• No One Could Survive That!: As described in episode 1155, concerning Anakin's fate after his duel with Obi-Wan on the molten surface of Naboo:
  Darth Vader/Padmé: He was horribly mutilated and burnt by lava. What do you think happened? He died, obviously.
  • This is actually subverted- Anakin actually survived there. Palpatine recovered him, took his midi-chlorians to give to Padme, then killed Anakin.
• No-Paper Future:
  • Lampshaded in character here, and the Rant discusses it further.
  Obi-Wan: Astromech droids should be back in the ship, not out here in a swamp.
  R2-D2: Do you see any paper in this universe? Someone has to project this stupid hologram for you!
  • It comes up again in the Muppet Show arc. Kermit explains that paper is outlawed because the production process affected its midi-chlorians and turned it evil.
• No-Sell: The rubber suits worn by Jabba's palace guards allow them to tank a Lost Orb-powered zap from R2's shock probe.
• Nothing Personal: Used by the clones when they are ordered to carry out the Darths and Droids equivalent of the Order 66 scene, along with a few more... touching lines.
• Not His Sled: Padmé, not Anakin, is Darth Vader after putting on the Iconic Outfit.
• "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer:
  • Linking to that very trope page in this strip when describing what the ballet in Revenge of the Sith was actually about in the off screen canon.
  • Comes up again in this strip when discussing the then-recent announcement of the production of a sequel trilogy of Star Wars films through the combined efforts of Disney and Lucasfilm.
  • The GM gives one when Pete calls him out on the alliterative names of the Ewoks:
  GM: They're perfectly normal names. Wunka is a wily and wiry warrior, and Widdle is Wicket's widdle brother.
  Pete: You're kidding me.
  GM: It's all written in my notes. I'm not just making this stuff up!
  C-3PO: You know, it's your job to just make this stuff up.
• Not-So-Omniscient Council of Bickering: The rebel council prove themselves a government in waiting here by dithering over whether or not they need a recess before making a decision.
• Not the Fall That Kills You…: What we have here is that rare creature, the Zig-Zagging Trope. One of the more elusive creatures of the trope-ic region, it makes its appearances here, here, and here. Count the Trope Tropes: Justified, Invoked, Deconstructed, Reconstructed, Subverted, Double Subverted, Inverted, and Lampshaded by name. That's one trope that has been thoroughly played with in a relatively small number of strips.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: While that's always been a part of his overall character (he's intelligent but roleplaying is his brain's off-time) Jim turns out to have been specifically doing this in with his character in Episode IV. The other players, after a whole lot of complaining about how dumb his ideas are, realize that he's coming up with dumb ideas intentionally because his character has a low intelligence rating, and also because he's secretly a traitor, selling the rebellion out to the Empire.
• Obligatory Joke:
  • Defied; fans eagerly anticipated seeing what the "Han Shot First" scene would be, but the creators knew early on they didn't want to make that joke and instead turned the scene into a legitimate plot twist (Greedo shot first, because Han was the green guy). They do, however, make the expected "shot first" jokes in other places, as a Running Gag about Han's tendency to shoot first and not even bother asking questions later, often shooting anything the group ran into before bothering to figure out whether shooting that thing was a good idea or not. Similarly, Anakin as a child is on the run after killing a boy called Greedo in a fist-fight, but repeatedly insists that it was really Greedo's fault because, 'He punched first!'
  • There were, of course, many references to Admiral Ackbar declaring things to be traps (although he never actually does so), mostly in the form of Akbar saying a word that can be taken as a synonym for "trap" in nearly every line of dialogue he gets. When it got to the original scene, he actually ends up declaring that it's not a trap, "we're just prats!"
• Obviously Evil: Spoofed in Darth Vader's introduction. The GM describes the imposing figure and especially how much black he's wearing, but Pete and Jim still aren't sure.
  Jim: If we could only see his facial hair.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Bail Organa's ambush on Polis Massa, which was apparently a major part of the campaign, happens entirely off-screen and is only told us via the players' dialogue, due to Rogue One lacking any corresponding scene to it.
• Off the Rails:
  • The wacky plotting of the prequel trilogy is "explained" as the PCs wreaking havoc upon the GM's original story.
    • The first film didn't have a plan to go down to Naboo. Jim threw things off when he decided to start looting the waiting room he was in, which triggered a violent response from the Trade Federation.
    • The GM wanted the players to investigate Zam Wessel's kid, Boba. Sally and the players' insistance on investigating other leads led to Kamino.
    • The GM's plan to get the players back to Naboo to fight an invasion never really works out due to a combination of Annie roleplaying Anakin into his increasingly dark role, and Ben following a lead to Utapau.
    • In The Force Awakens, Pete as Rey ends a fight too quickly, which leads to the GM invoking Stormtroopers and escalates to Ben as General Hux calling down an air strike on Niima Outpost. As a result, every storyline the GM had planned for the town is wiped out and Jim's latest character is killed before he could even be introduced.
  • This comic references a campaign Annie ran between Episodes 2 and 3 which went off the rails when the guys decided to attack the vampire and werewolf NPCs who Annie insists were friendly. At that point she said "what the hell" and ran with it.
• Omake: The aforementioned bonus "alternate universe" comics.
• Once for Yes, Twice for No: R2 is supposed to communicate this way (via Pete's PDA).
• One-Steve Limit: Averted; the original Greedo showed up in Episode I (where Anakin killed him) before Jim used the name for his new character. This was pre-lampshaded when Jim was designing the character, as Pete jokingly suggested the name in a Call-Back to the guy who got offed, but Jim was Comically Missing the Point.
• Only Sane Man: Amazingly, Jar Jar Binks of all people is portrayed as this within the game. Yoda even lampshades it, noting that Jar Jar is the only one who isn't acting like a fool. Outside of the game, the GM is this.
• Opening a Can of Clones: The comics and rants in Episode II note how the movies wasted the potential of having clones and shapeshifters. Later taken advantage of in Episode IV by making the original Han Solo a shapeshifter, allowing Jim's character to get away with impersonating him until Episode V, where, after capturing Jim's character, Boba Fett decides to cut him up and have a transplant of his flesh to restore his own shapeshifting ability.
• Our Monsters Are Different: In Annie's supernatural campaign between Episodes 2 and 3. The other players didn't appreciate how she wound up messing with their expectations.
  Annie: For the last time, you weren't supposed to kill those NPCs.
  Pete: They were vampires and werewolves! What else do you do with them?
• Out-Gambitted: The GM masterfully out-gambits Pete during a game within a game in episode 778.
• Overdrive: In the pod race.
• Overly Long Gag:
  • The alternate version of this strip, with the note that the alternate strip is how the scene would play out in an actual tabletop RPG.
  • "Fight! fight!"
  • The "X leads to Y" gag in 137, which becomes relevant to the plot later (see Call-Back).
  • The author's notes under 50 describe how the players' universe differs from our own and how the lack of the Star Wars franchise affects its pop-culture. The last line says; "The Comic Irregulars exist and are making a screencap comic based on Harry Potter", and if you click on it, it will take you to a fake Comic Irregulars site with an one-shot comic about Harry Potter... and an author's note with a variation on the original and pointing at yet another fake site with an one-shot comic on The Sound of Music, which has yet another variation of the author's note with yet another link at the end, which points to another fake page and so on and so forth. What makes this truly fascinating is the dedication to details: every single fake page has its own logo, color scheme, and tweaked FAQ, Cast and Archives pages. Oh, and every one-shot gag comic is actually hilarious with its own RPG lesson to boot. It goes a level deeper for every 50 strips of the main comic, so at this point it is very long indeed.
  • The comic's take on the brief sight gag in Return of the Jedi where Wicket the Ewok accidentally hits himself in the head while trying to throw a bola spins the shot of him falling over (a shot which in the movie lasted less than a second) into six panels of absurdly flowery Last Words (a mishmash of quotations, including Latin).
• Overtook the Manga: The comic hit this after finishing the Original Trilogy, as Disney had started making sequels but the Comic Irregulars didn't want to start to a new trilogy until it was finished and they could plot out the whole thing at once. They turned to adapting spinoffs, first with Rogue One, and then rather than doing Solo they went for The Muppet Show. With the latter, they also cut their release schedule from three times a week to once to stretch things out.

Tropes P to T

• Painting the Medium:
  • Whenever an action scene occurs, the panel borders become angular and irregular, giving a sense that something frantic is happening.
  • This one does a pretty good job of reflecting the sense that while there is a pattern, the characters are having trouble following it, much like the reader may have difficulty with the page layout.
  • And when Pete becomes a temporary GM, resulting in the entire droid factory sequence, the titles for strips 333 to 353 switch from short and punny to extremely long and formal, reflecting the change in GMing style and mood. At least a few of them double as attempted defenses of the contrived Ass Pulls Pete was pulling to try and kill everyone else and make R2-D2 seem cooler. invoked
  • The GM's descriptions of the surroundings were initially written into the comic, but eventually the writers settled on a convention where they'll occasionally just show the scenery and have you assume that the GM (or Sally) is describing it. It works surprisingly well. (See Take Our Word for It below.)
  • In his usual fine form, General Grievous directs his hamminess at the audience in this comic's title.
• Pardon My Klingon: Seen here.
  Annie: Wow, I almost regret leaving the translator off for that.
• Paranormal Gambling Advantage: The Jedi have a "Force Manipulation Re-roll" ability, which they can use to re-roll one die per day (that is, the real-life dice they are playing the game with). When the Watto scene comes up (see the Film folder), Jim misunderstands the rule as referring to in-universe dice, and persuades the GM to go along with it.
• Parody Retcon: In-universe. Jim's plan for the game he ran between Revelation of the Sith and A New Generation was intended to be the "GREATEST DRAMATIC STORY EVER". The result was so over-the-top that when the PCs reminisce about the campaign and called it hilarious, Jim claims, "I completely intended it to be hilarious." He intended it to be Zero Hour! (1957). The group's usual antics turned it into Airplane!. This was also inverted when they tried to do a parody of superheroes; it was supposed to be Batman (1966), and they turned it into The Dark Knight Trilogy.
• Pass the Popcorn: Pete's reaction when Jim and Annie decide to discuss their relationship.
• The Password Is Always "Swordfish": Lampshaded in #863:
  Leia: R2, decrypt the coordinates [to the Rebel base]. Authorization code 1-1-A.
  R2-D2: That is a terrible, terrible code. I didn't even try any codes less than eight characters! (beat panel) Not that I seriously tried decrypting it.
• Pimped-Out Dress: Mentioned in the context of what armor class they have, their street value, and thinking they are laundry for the trade federation armada to wash.
• Playing Against Type: In-Universe. In Rogue One, it might have been more natural to have the idealistic Sally playing Chirrut Imwe, and perhaps the more cynical Pete playing K2-SO, rather than the other way round. Complicated by the fact that Sally is (almost certainly deliberately) playing K2-SO like a stereotypical Jim character - but Jim is just about perfect for Jyn Erso (renamed Bria in this version).
• Plot Tumor: Anakin, created by Jim in his attempts to pull a Gambit Roulette.
• Point Defenseless: Princess' plan for the transports to escape Hoth revolves around flying directly at the Imperial ships; their guns are calibrated for long-range targets, and coming right at them is the last thing they'll expect.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: "Has that made you angry? I think it's made you angry."
• Pre-Battle Banter: Luke runs into a fellow Tatooinian before the Death Star assault, resulting in this. Interestingly, the authors, who usually link to different tropes in their comments, couldn't find one for this scene, so Pre-Battle Banter was created in response.
• Promoted to Scapegoat: A variant; after offing Admiral Ozzel, Vader does not promote Captain Piett to replace him... until Piett trots out another piece of irritating random trivia about the life expectancy of Admirals who serve under Vader.
• Prop Recycling: In-Universe, "Mos Eisley is made of dreadnought!"
• Pun-Based Title: Aside from the comic itself, using other words for Dungeons & Dragons, many of the strip titles employ puns. The ones for "alternate universe" strips take it even further!
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!:
  Obi-Wan/Ben: What. Did. You. Do?
  Jango Fett: You. Killed. My. Partner.
  Grievous: Cyborgs. Under. My. Command!
  The Rant: WHY? DOES? GRIEVOUS? STILL? HAVE? A? BUNCH? OF? INTERNAL? ORGANS???
  C3-PO/Sally: Where! The! Hell! Have! You! Been?!
  R2-D2/Pete: You. Utter. Frakking. Bastard.
  Darth Vader: I! WILL! SHOW! YOU! THE! POWER! OF! THE! MIND!
• Put on a Bus: In-universe: Sally, bored with playing as Jar Jar, wants him to be hit by a bus. She got her wish two episodes later, as he was on Naboo when it was destroyed by the Peace Moon.
• Rage Quit: Pete accuses Ben of doing this when Annie gets a lucky roll and he opts to let Obi-Wan die. He comes back the next session as Chewbacca.
• Railroading:
  • When Pete takes over the GM role, he very clearly aims for the PCs to flounder in the droid factory and be heroically rescued by R2, though he adamantly denies it.
  • The regular DM is fairly good at avoiding this, though his reactions to the PCs' decisions make it very obvious when they veer off the path he had hoped they would follow... which is more often than not.
    GM: Can I see your skill level in Not Taking a Hint? I think you must be cheating.
• Rake Take: In this strip, the GM mentioned being thankful for not adding this in Jabba the Hutt's palace.
• Ramming Always Works:
  • This strip, which follows Pete missing everything in the entire battle.
  • Han mentions a Noodle Incident where he and Chewie rammed a space station.
• The Rant: Each page comes with some roleplaying or GM advice that's tied to what happens in the strip, though on some occasions they play the trope literal by having the Comic Irregulars' personal complaints about the films and the particular scenes the comic is covering. The campaigns based on Disney-made movies also have commentaries from two forum members who had never seen those movies (aurilee for Rogue One, memnarch for The Force Awakens, and Keybounce for both) in order to give a spoiler-free perspective.
• A Rare Sentence: The sentence "Jar Jar, you're a genius!" had never appeared on the internet in any context whatsoever (at least not where Google could find it) until this strip.
• The Rashomon:
  • Punned in the title of a strip where Jim recounts his own version of events that the GM has already plotted out, wildly contradicting the GM's version.
  • Palpatine's and Dookû's versions of their meeting.
• Reading the Stage Directions Out Loud: At one point, the GM passes Jim a note containing exposition for his character to deliver. He reads it all, including the bit saying, "Read this in a dramatic voice".
• Real Life Writes the Plot: In-universe. At the start of Revelation of the Sith, Annie is having relationship issues with Jim, which seems to be influencing the way she plays Anakin. Of course, since this is Annie, she has managed to stay completely in-character.
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • Surprisingly, Palpatine is one of these, completely at odds with his role as the Big Bad of the source material. It's Anakin who manipulates him into becoming the evil Emperor we know from the movies.
  • Jar Jar as well, coming up with brilliant tactical plans in Episode I, giving Palpatine emergency powers with a brilliant political maneuver in Episode II, single-handedly liberating Naboo in Episode III, and being the designated recipient for the Peace Moon plans in Episode IV until the Peace Moon blows up Naboo with him on it.
  • Lando Calrissian is played as one of these, as opposed to his double dealing in the films.
• Recap Episode: For a new player, it covers the events of the first three campaigns.
  Corey: Can I replay this Cutscene later?
• Recursive Canon: Narrowly averted (and how!)
• Red Pill, Blue Pill: Obi-Wan gives this choice to Luke in episode 726. Later, in episode 1020, Yoda gives this choice to Luke, who lampshades that he keeps getting offered these choices.
• Related in the Adaptation:
  • In Episode VII Rey is actually Rey Solo, and Han Solo/"Greedo"/Xasha is her father. This contrasts the canon explanation in Rise of Skywalker where she's related to Palpatine, which the writers wouldn't have been aware of.
  • Zig-Zagged with Boba Fett. Here he's actually the stepson of Jango Fett by Zam Wessel and her first husband, Darth Maul, meaning he's also not biologically related to the Clone Troopers.
  • Inverted with Kylo Ren, who is the son of Han Solo in canon. In the comics specifically, he's the son of Han Solo, who was killed by Greedo and his identity stolen.
• Retirony:
  • Maul's last words are, of course, "And to think... I was gonna retire after this case..."
  • Lampshaded on Jabba's barge after Vedain mentions he's a week from retirement and promptly becomes Sarlacc food.
  Vedain: Hey, Jabba, about that life insuraAAARGHHH!! [falls into Sarlacc pit]
  Sarlacc: Brain analysis commencing. Preliminary report: "Oh, the retirony..."
• The Reveal:
  • A few happen. Besides the cases under Luke, I Am Your Father (of course they had to include some), there's Darth Maul being a private detective, Jango Fett being his partner seeking revenge, Mace Windu being manipulated by the Sith...
  • Subverted in the case of General Grievous - it's Ben who figures out, and states, that he is actually ex-Chancellor Valorum in a cyborg body.
  • Another big one at the climax of Episode VI: it turns out that Palpatine isn't completely mad, he really is hearing voices. In fact, he's being haunted by the bitter and vengeful Force-ghost of Anakin.
• Reverse Psychology: How Pete escapes his restraining bolt. Later, how he makes General Rieekan stay on Hoth.
• Reverse the Polarity: Referenced by an awful pun in The Rant.
• Rewatch Bonus:
  • When we learn Palpatine is actually being haunted by Anakin, his insane ramblings somewhat begin to make some sense.
  • The reveal of Han being a mole for the Empire puts a lot of their speeches in a different light. For example:
    Han (to Vader): Wait, what are you doing? You're not actually going to torture me, are you?... But that's not how this works!
  • Once we learn that Pete was switching his Ls and Rs around, subtly imitating Nute Gunray's accent, to show he was infected with Nute's virus, it becomes very clear in retrospect when he was doing it.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: Corey on occasion. As noted under Wrong Genre Savvy, he's more familiar with video games and their tropes, but their roots in tabletop RPGs and the GM's flexibility put him in this trope from time to time.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: After having his wingman Dak killed and then stepped on, Corey/Luke goes on an offscreen rampage and supposedly destroys all the AT-ATs singlehandedly.
• Rock Beats Laser: Justified by flawed game mechanic rules. Hardwood sticks deal 1d12 damage (+3 from behind), while a poor quality blaster deals 1d10-1. Apparently the Stone Age rules expansion is not calibrated well against the space age rules.
• Rogue Protagonist: In Episode VII, a lot of the players start playing as villains. Sally plays Kylo Ren, Ben plays General Hux after Lor San Tekka bites the dust, and Annie's Finn and Jim's Poe Dameron undergo some Adaptational Villainy and act as double agents. Only Pete's Rey and Corey's BB-8 remain heroically straight.
• Romance on the Set: In-Universe example. Jim and Annie start dating after Episode II.
• Romantic Plot Tumor: In-Universe — the impossibly awkward love story between Anakin and Padmé in the films is replaced by an impossibly awkward relationship between Annie and Jim, which spills over into their characters.
• Rouge Angles of Satin: Parodied when they were doing Rogue One during the scene where Jim comes up with the call sign for their party; Sally asks if they can use normal things like colours and numbers and Jim comes up with "Rouge One". The party then proceeds to crack every makeup joke they can.
• Rousing Speech:
  • Sally seems to specialize in these: one with Jar Jar, and one with Yoda.
  • Palpatine finishes his address to the Senate with a rousing speech in episode 591
• RPG Episode: Yes, an RPG Episode within a Campaign Comic. The scene where the droids play a board game with Chewie is re-interpreted as the player characters playing an RPG in-game. It means we have a comic about people playing an RPG, in which they play characters that briefly play a different RPG.
• Running Gag: Several.
  • Someone asking what a particular word means, and Jim giving a completely wrong answer.
  • Tuna booze oil.
  • Mace Windu has no idea what's going on.
    Mace Windu: Why doesn't anyone ever tell me about stuff??
  • Jim's constant suspicion of "Bubble".
    • Or, in fact, any character with a goatee. Except Qui-Gon, of course.
  • Summon Bigger Fish. A variation involves Jim deciding to cast Summon Bigger Fish, the GM giving some semi-logical reason for why he shouldn't do it, and Ben yelling "That's your reason for not letting him do that?"
  • A minor one involves the various ways the "Peace Moon" could be used for an attack.
  • "Hey, [character], why don't y—" "They can't hear you." "HEY, [CHARACTER]!"
  • Sally being used by the GM to make elements of the setting. Seriously, most of Naboo, the cloning facilities on Kamino, the Dark Side of the Force, and more were all Sally inventions.
  • Where oh where are the space dreadnoughts bristling with atomic missiles?
  • The ten-foot laser pole.
  • Pete's custom dice (including binary, a "one-proof die", and one that qualifies as Noodle Implements by itself...)
  • Side references to the mysterious "splanch" organ.
  • The deep, backstory-rich NPCs the GM makes getting killed off anticlimactically.
  • Jim's characters have been subject to They Killed Kenny - see entry below.
  • Sally continually changing her mind about what she wants to be when she grows up, though this stops in the break between episodes 3 and 4.
  • The GM constantly uses exaggerated accents to differentiate various NPCs. They seem to be getting more impenetrable all the time.
  • Ben trying to "disarm" someone and then cutting their arm off by accident.
  • In the notes below the strip, a mention of gamers making Monty Python references frequently pops up.
  • "Help me, [character], you're my only hope" as a spoof of the original line from A New Hope.
  • Jim announces that he has an idea, only for someone else to guess that the idea is something ludicrous and shoot it down, or simply suggest a different idea, leading Jim to say "Ooh, that's even better."
  • Jabba using an idiom mentioning a human body part, then following it by something along the lines of "not that I have one of those".
  • Annie's consistent surprise whenever Pete says anything about his job (whatever it is)... until it's revealed that he's a criminal defense lawyer.
  • Several times during Han's time as "Chi'ra" in his backstory, other characters would ask him why does he have a girl's name.^note He stole the identity of his girlfriend Qi'ra and change the "Q" to "Ch" to make it sound less girlish (it didn't work). The first two times, it's in Jim's script; after that, the party are just messing with him.
  • Also in Jim's backstory, characters repeatedly use a stock phrase ^note (example: "Take that!"), then add "By which I mean..." ^note ("By which I mean 'take this punishment', not 'take my stick'").
  • "Words to the effect of 'no'." (Usually said by the GM, but occasionally Ben as well.)
  • Using quotes from the original films for entirely different scenes.
• Samus Is a Girl: Darth Vader after putting on the Iconic Outfit is not Anakin, but Padmé.
• Sanity Slippage:
  • Boba Fett becomes increasingly erratic upon Obi Wan's death.
  • Palpatine seems to have lost it good and proper come episode VI.
• Schrödinger's Gun: The GMPC Bria Tharen engages in a bit of accidental friendly fire, then the GM realizes he rolled enough damage to instantly kill Sally's character. So he says there was another robot directly in front of Sally's character, and Bria totally shot him instead.
  K-2SO: Hey guys! It's me!
  [Bria Tharen shoots K-2SO]
  GM: [roll] Hmmm. Critical. [roll] ... Um, Sally, what's your HP total again?
  K-2SO: 44. Way more than Threepio! That's a lot, right?
  GM: Uh... Wow. ...Looks like Bria totally took care of that Imperial combat droid that K-2SO was right behind!
• The Scottish Trope: The game referenced in the footer of this strip. It's F.A.T.A.L..
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Sally bails out when it becomes clear that Han is going to have to stuff Luke inside a gutted Tauntaun corpse to keep him warm.
• Selective Obliviousness: The GM comes up with a quest (Star Wars: Ewok Adventures) to rescue the missing parents of several children. None of the players are interested and choose to travel elsewhere, pretending that the quest doesn't exist.
• Self-Made Orphan: Most likely Anakin. Turns out that most likely he killed both his parents.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness:
  • General Dodonna's designated character trait, speaking entirely in overly verbose jargon.
  • Ben, as Chewbacca, delivers some gems too.
    (After Jim causes yet another disaster) "Please allow me to extend my heartfelt exasperation at this almost entirely self-imposed mass suicide attempt by prefacing my blame-attribution with the request for the identity of the person who gave Han a bloody blaster."
• Shapeshifter: Zam Wessel was one like in canon. Shapeshifters are then never seen or mentioned again in the movies, so the comic expands on them. The original Han Solo was one, which causes problems since Jim's character is not but stole his identity. Wedge is also randomly revealed to be one as well, which has let Wedge pop up in places (and faces) you'd never expect.
• Shoot Out the Lock: As in the film, Han shoots out the lock of his own ship to escape the Rathtars. The GM decides to put it down to a percentile roll to see if he succeeds, and somehow it does, much to his and Ben's utter bafflement.
• Shoplift and Die: Referenced in the case of Watto, although Ben pays enough attention to acknowledge that stealing from a shopkeeper would go against character anyway.
• Show, Don't Tell: Used in episode #271. We get: 1) a description of the cloning facility on Kamino, which is pretty spectacular; 2) a demonstration of Sally's growing talent for setting the scene; 3) the GM's willingness to set her loose with a vague description and see what she comes up with. All from a largely dialogue-free strip. Most impressive.
• Shout-Out: Now has its own page.
• Shout-Out: To Shakespeare:
  • #843 provides:
    Darth Vader: I have discovered Force powers never dreamt of in your philosophy.
  • In #1325 Palpatine quotes from Macbeth's final soliloquy. This leads into a barrage of quotes in the next strip.
  • Mortally wounded Stormtroopers quote the last words of Mark Antony, Claudius, Richard II and Richard III.
• Shout-Out Theme Naming: When Jim creates a Backup Twin for Poe Dameron, he gives the name Allan. And then he does it again and names their third brother Edgar; together making Edgar Allan Poe.
• Show Within a Show: See Alternate History.
• Shown Their Work: The creators occasionally show in the rant that they really know their Star Wars lore; explaining stuff like the existence of two Greedos (father and son), what exactly Palpatine is watching in that opera house, and the history of the "less than twelve parsecs" line.
• Shutting Up Now: During Darth Maul's monologue to Obi-Wan.
  Darth Maul/The GM:: Look, you seem like a decent kid. Shame I had to off your hot-headed partner, but he wasn't listening to reason.
  Qui-Gon/Jim: I'm ''right here'', you know! Me and my -8 hit points!
  The GM: (rolls) -9.
  Qui-Gon/Jim: I'll be quiet.
• Single-Biome Planet: The GM's inability to avert this trope gets mercilessly lampshaded.
• Sliding Scale of Silliness vs. Seriousness: As great as this webcomic is, it tends to go back and forth a lot on whether it's making fun of the Star Wars movies, or it's showcasing the strained friendships of a group of roleplayers who blur the line between fantasy and reality.
• Sociopathic Hero: Whichever side was in the right, during the campaigns corresponding to the prequel trilogy the most consistently vicious character was almost certainly Annie's Anakin. As the plot moved forward he was slipping gradually into Evil Genius territory.
• Something Only They Would Say: How Ben figures out that Grievous is Valorum.
  "Cyborgs under my command!"
• Something That Begins with "Boring": On the sandcrawler, R2 says "I spy with my little eye, something beginning with... D."... in a hold full of droids.
• Space Is Cold: Subverted here. In the very next moment, Annie, rolling with the punches, wonders, in character, if (s)he has a fever.
• Space Is Noisy: Spoofed here, and justified here in the notes.
• Space Whale Aesop: Lack of sleep can affect your judgement so much that you talk God out of letting you use Jedi fate-manipulation powers to save your life.
• Space "X": In strip #2416, Rose reads some of the products that can be purchased from the First Order, which include "Space Sports Almanac", "Space Jelly of the Month Club membership", and "Space space blankets".
• Spanner in the Works: Performed by Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon on Darth Maul.
• Speech Bubbles: Convention inherited from DM of the Rings where the PCs' text boxes are white, while the GM's boxes are yellowish. In the Rogue One campaign, commentary from the present-day players is represented by speech bubbles with blue outlines, whereas the flashback has the regular black outlines.
• Split-Screen Reaction: We get one for the destruction of Naboo.
• Spoofed with Their Own Words: On occasion. For example, when Jim describes midichlorians, he quotes Episode I word-for-word, much to the GM's exasperation.
• Stating the Simple Solution:
  • Boba Fett does this when his father goes on an evil gloat.
    Boba: Why couldn't you just shoot him?
    Jango: What sort of criminal mastermind would I be if I did that?
  • And here, Nute Gunray says Ben, Jim, and Annie should be shot instead of eaten by beasts.
• Stealth Pun:
  • In this strip, the red astromech droid (R5-D4) is represented in-game by a red four-sided die.
  • Here, we have "Two PIEs are squared away!" "The circle is now complete" (emphasis added).
• The Stations of the Canon: They still happen, sort of. Just not in the way that they originally played out.
• Stock Scream: Referenced to in this comic, (And for those familiar with the movies, that's an exact time it's used in film as well.) One of the Stormtroopers in the scene is even called Wilhelm, after another name for the scream.
• "Stop Having Fun" Guys: In-universe; this is Sally's opinion of Ben's roleplaying style.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: In episode 697 Corey wonders why droids aren't simply called robots, just like Jim did back in episode 3.
• Stunned Silence: Damn near everybody when Naboo is destroyed.
• Summon Bigger Fish: The Trope Namer, although Jim only thinks it's that trope. After years of giving Jim grief, in both comic and rant, for trying this constantly, he actually (almost)succeeds when he tries to lure the space slug from Empire Strikes Back into attacking the Imperial Star Destroyers. The rant seems rather embarrassed about linking to the trope for what Jim's trying to do.
• Super-Fun Happy Thing of Doom: The Death Star, a.k.a. the Peace Moon.
• Sure, Let's Go with That:
  • Half the plot is based on this, thanks to the GM's free hand with his players' inventions. It's used verbatim when Qui-Gon comes up with a patently ridiculous explanation of the Force involving midi-chlorians, and when Sally invents, off the top of her head, The Dark Side. Conversely, it's used by Jim when the other players assume Padmé is pregnant after some very vague roleplaying.
  • Many descriptions of creatures (mainly from Sally) and terrain (from Jim, who's a geologist) also happen this way.
    Jim: Large ring objects imply a very young planet. Barren, with rugged topography. And volcanoes!
    GM: O-kay... [scribble scribble]
  • Jim, as Padmé, puts a hairpin in his mouth in-character. When Ben applauds his idea to pick the lock, Jim notes that's a better idea than his (which was faking a medical emergency, of course).
  • When Annie compliments the campaign Jim GMed as "hilarious" (the game plans even say "If they get out of this alive it will be the GREATEST DRAMATIC STORY EVER."), Jim replies, "I completely intended it to be hilarious!"
  • The GM meant for the Slave Leia outfit to be exactly what it is in canon. However, Annie assumes "dressed like a slave" to be what Shmi was wearing ("Shapeless sackcloth sort of thing?"). The GM responds with this trope.
  • Early in Episode VIII, the players manage to extrapolate an entire arms race out of a single offhand mention of a periscope. The GM's response is "Yeah. All that. Well done."
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Played with. The players, and especially Jim, often tries to invoke this by pointing out the logical fallacies in the DM's setting (mostly when the more realistic alternative would work to their benefit. The GM usually shoots them down. In one example, the Falcon enters an asteroid field, with Jim arguing that the asteroids would be so far apart that you'd be hard pressed to hit them if you tried, and standing perfectly still (relatively speaking).
  • For a specific case, see No One Could Survive That!.
• Surrounded by Idiots: Grievous.
  Anakin: So, what are you up to?
  Grievous: My armpits in incompetence!
• Suspiciously Specific Denial:
  • Anakin to Padmé
    "I vow never to hurt you. Ever. I won't be jealous, or arrogant, or manipulative towards you." That's going to turn out well.
  • Pete:
    R2-D2: I'd be half-way to taking over the Republic by now: I'd add a backdoor control mechanism, outsource production to three independent contractors on Kamino, ensure the Senate are distracted by some meaningless invasion somewhere, and cover my tracks with fake blueprints.
    beat
    R2-D2: What?
  • And from Jim:
    Padmé: Yes. I will help you bring Anakin to justice. After all, you are the only thing standing between Anakin and complete domination of the galaxy. On his own, obviously, without me faithfully by his side. Seeing as I'm Good.
    Obi-Wan: Indeed.
    Padmé: I'll just go and talk to him in advance and make sure he's not ready for you.
  • This, which also has shades of Could Say It, But... and Trash Talk. (and Genius Bonus, as the above entry for Mythology Gag shows)
  • "I have indeed seen some rebels. They did not go into this vault that I am guarding."
• Take a Third Option: Discussed in the commentary for episode 1065, which notes that hiding is a viable alternative to "fight or flight".
• Take Our Word for It: When the GM is describing the Coruscant Sunset, we are treated to the picture, but we don't hear the words. Similarly, we never read the words Sally uses to describe the clone factory, just the pictures of it. But it's apparently enough to really impress Ben and the GM.
  • Pete's 'perfect' die, which is rolled by Annie against Ben in Revenge of the Sith. We can't see it, but it must be carried in a special case, it must be rolled on a steel tray while everyone watching wears safety goggles, and is too dangerous to roll indoors (apparently because it bursts into flames).
• Take That!: Many, frequently directed at the original films.
  • Especially when the GM suggests that Annie take over the role of Anakin when he enters the pod race:
    Annie: Um, okay... Let me just get into the right mindset.
    Qui-Gon/Jim: With my mini-chlorines in your blood, you can't lose.
    Anakin/Annie: Yippeee!
    Annie: Sorry, wait. That line doesn't work at all for this character.
  • "Giant worms in a desert is just silly."
  • "...and vampires do not sparkle in the daylight!
  • #916 gives a pretty clear one to the Special Edition, DVD, and Blu-Ray reedits of the Original Trilogy.
    Luke: What a great game! Let's replay it, but this time can I be Vader?
    DM: No, no, no!
    Leia: The original version is always the best. Let's not mess with it.
  • #1065
    Luke: (...) if you're counting on the trees and rocks for help, you're gonna be a pile of radioactive disappointment.
  • #1749:
    Jim: I should tell you about Han's backstory sometime.
    Pete: Oh, come on. Nobody wants to hear about that.
  • One to the official versions of both Padmé and Leia in #1912:
    Corey: (to Pete) You just wanted extreme sympathy and nonsensical political power for one so young.
    Sally: Pete played a princess, whose entire planet got destroyed.
    Annie: Hmm. To be fair, that is pretty far-fetched.
  • #2119 is a Take That to Anakin's story arc in ''Revenge of the Sith": "Someone turned evil by trying to circumvent the death of their wife is a pretty bad story hook. I see that now."
  • In Jim's backstory for Han, the romantic dialogue for "Chi'ra" and Qi'ra is lifted nearly word-for-word from Anakin and Padme's dialogue in Attack of the Clones. None of the other players are impressed.
    "Chi'ra": If you are suffering as much as I am, please tell me.
    Pete: Oh, we’re suffering all right.
  • The spaceport on Corellia is "big and gloomy and dirty and crowded with tired, frustrated people desperate to be anywhere but here. Like Los Angeles Airport."
  • In Backstory #132, Han's then-latest identity makes a dig toward The Star Wars Holiday Special.
    Chewbacca: I could see my family again.
    "Dominico": That’ll never happen, except maybe in some fevered holiday season dream that makes no sense.
  • #2393 makes digs at all three sequel movies and (especially) the first prequel one in a single frame.
    Luke: I've never seen the Force like this. Something is awakening within it. I was the last Jedi, and now there's the rise of... I don't know.
    Rey: Some sort of phantom menace?
    Luke: I don't even want to think about that.
• Talking Is a Free Action:
  • And so is reciting poetry.
  • Averted for the C-3PO and the Rebel pilots in the Battle of Yavin.
  • Likewise for tank fight in Jedha City. While Annie and Pete debate what to do next, all the GM-controlled characters just keep attacking.
• Tastes Like Chicken: The Gamorrean eaten by the Rancor, being in a rubber suit, tastes like a rubber chicken.
• Tempting Fate:
  • "Nobody's losing a hand while I'm in charge." Boy, that's gonna bite you in the ass, Jim.
  • Annie does this in episode 816, which the GM immediately makes her realize:
    Leia: Well, it could be worse.
    GM: Something slithers past your legs.
    Luke: Let me guess, giant rats.
    Leia: It's worse. So, so worse.
  • Confident that the Stormtroopers' inability to hit live targets means he's perfectly safe, Pete allows Han to take cover behind R2... seconds before a Stormtrooper blasts him.
• That Man Is Dead: Darth Vader says this about Anakin, naturally. Except psych! Anakin really is dead. Darth Vader is actually Padmé.
• That Mysterious Thing: Pete's die for special occasions is this from audience's perspective. We don't know how exactly it looks like, but judging by the other players' reactions it's... unusual.
• That's No Moon: Inverted.
• The Guards Must Be Crazy: The stormtroopers who stop the speeder in Mos Eisley are so stupid that Obi-Wan has no need to break out the Jedi Mind Trick. It turns out that all the clones are like this; without their leader, they'll accept any suggestion without hesitation.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Vader gives a stone-cold one to Obi-Wan upon their reunion in Episode IV.
  Darth Vader: I've been waiting for you, Obi-Wan. We meet again, at last. The circle is now complete.
  Obi-Wan: Anakin—
  Darth Vader: You killed Anakin. My name is Darth Vader. You consider yourself a paragon of radiance. But when I emerged from your shadow I saw the damage you had wrought. Look, Obi-Wan. Everything your light touches is corrupted forever. But I have a different light for you now. When you left me, I was the lowest of the low. Now I am the master.
• They Killed Kenny Again: This has been happening to Jim's characters. First Qui-Gon, then Padmé (though she was able to last a full two campaigns before passing). In Episode IV he went four-for-four, including Kyle Katarn and Captain Antilles, and they teased a fifth when Jim decided to name his new character "Greedo" until it was revealed that "Greedo" was Han Solo by a different name. It looked like another death was coming when Lando said Han didn't survive the carbon-freeze at the climax of Empire Strikes Back, but he was lying. In The Force Awakens, Poe Dameron is killed off pretty quickly and Jim's next character is killed before he even appears thanks to the players going Off the Rails and having Niima destroyed in an air strike, forcing him to resort to using Han again. Han then dies at the end of The Force Awakens, and Jim introduces Poe's Backup Twin only for him to get killed early in The Last Jedi (and replaced with another Backup Twin). Subverted when it turns out both twins are false identities; Poe had faked his death twice.
• This Is Gonna Suck: Almost any time the Grappling Rules are brought up, every veteran player at the table cringes.
  Anakin/Annie: I try and grapple with the driver.
  R2-D2/Pete: Oh no...
  Padme/Jim: Oops.
  Obi-Wan/Ben: Um...
  Anakin/Annie: What? Aren't there rules for grappling in this game? [Beat] Why are you all covering your dice?
• This Means War!: Sally of all people says this when Palpatine first force lightnings Yoda (her character).
• Throw-Away Guns: Lampshaded here
  Padmé: [to Obi-Wan] Did you throw away a perfectly good blaster?
• Time Skip: In-universe, there's a "real time" time skip of two years between every episode.
• Timmy in a Well: Spoofed in this strip.
• Title Drop:
  • Palpatine does one... sort of... in this strip. Not quite done in this strip.
  • An even better example is this strip, where Jim, having forgotten the Orb's name drops the episode's in-universe title.
  • And done twice here, right at the start of the flashback to the campaign based on Rogue One.
• Token Evil Teammate: Pete plays R2-D2 as this.
• Tomato in the Mirror: Possibly Mace Windu, who seemed shocked when Anakin stated that he's Gunray's sleeper agent.
• Too Clever by Half: Even after being filleted and sauteed by Obi-Wan, Anakin has convinced Palpatine that he's a loyal friend who can be trusted; but then he makes the mistake of asking for control of the entire military, even in the aftermath of everything that's gone before, revealing just how power-hungry he is and leading Palpatine to instantly lose all trust.
• Too Dumb to Live: Jim, always The Ditz, reaches the absolute nadir of stupidity in this strip where he has to either drop his blaster or the data crystal that the party had come all this way to find to stop himself from falling to his death and can't decide- he even seems to be more inclined towards keeping the blaster. Eventually he can only be persuaded when Pete points out that the data crystal would do more damage if he threw it at someone than the blaster would, convincing Jim to keep it since it's "even better than a blaster!" In fact he seems to suffering mild Flanderization into a player who's more obsessed with making sure he has a weapon at all times than literally anything else including not dying, as seen a few strips later when he's considering taking his chances on an 828 meter drop to certain doom rather than dropping his (new) blaster. In-universe, this was an earlier campaign being recounted now for Corey's benefit, so Jim's characterization at that time might be justified, as he was midway through the character developement we've seen through the entire comic; a running joke is that he's gotten five characters killed in as many campaigns.
• Too Many Halves: In this strip, Jim improvisationally describes Wookiees as being "kind of half-ape, half-dog, half-yeti hybrids." Pete notes that this makes them one-and-a-half times as big as you'd expect.
• Totally Radical: The smart missiles in Episode III's opening.
• Total Party Kill: Matching the movie, the adaptation of Rogue One ends with all of the PCs dying in one way or another.
• Tribal Carry: Through recycling the Return of the Jedi scene. With the difference that in this continuity, the "Ewocs" are capitalist cultists.
  Chewbacca: Well this just isn't fair.
  Paploo: Don't worry. You will be invoiced for the cost of these sticks.
  Han: What?! That's even less fair!
• True Companions: For all their bickering, it's clear that the GM and players really do love gaming together.
• Turn in Your Badge: While the actual phrase doesn't occur, the Jedi Council suspends Ben and Annie.
• Tyke Bomb: Boba seems to be becoming one.

Tropes U to Z

• Understatement: When Anakin is being tested for Jedi skills, he says several disturbing things like "A cup, containing the blood of pointless sacrifice..." Mace Windu comments that they might need to talk to Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan about it, to which Yoda says, "A master of understatement, you are."
• Unfriendly Fire:
  • It's heavily implied that Pete intentionally got the Death Star attack squadrons killed in order to try and force Corey into helping him take it over instead of destroying it.
  • This is a running gag with Corey/Luke worrying about Wedge fragging him after Luke promoted himself to flight leader over Wedge. Learning that Wedge was a shapeshifter just made Corey even more paranoid.
    Wedge: (chasing the PIE fighter that's chasing Luke) Hold still just a second, I have to aim really straight here.
    Luke: Allow me to gesticulate wildly exactly how much I will be dodging at this point.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: The UST between Annie/Anakin and Jim/Padmé is the webcomic's version of the unbelievably awkward dialog between the characters in the movies. It's subsequently resolved at the end of Episode III, at the same time Anakin's completed his Face–Heel Turn.
• The Unreveal:
  • The GM's name. During his absence, the others tried to ask about him, but Pete quickly cut them off, saying that he has a family emergency, before they could say his name.
  • Whatever Pete's job is, it involves a suit and a tie, but no one knows what exactly he works as. When Annie expresses surprise at this, he says "I'm a —" before demanding to know what she thought he's working as instead. Ultimately subverted in Strip 1516 with The Reveal that Pete is... a criminal defense lawyer. Which explains so, so much!
• Unsound Effect:
  • Climb.
  • Somersault!
  • Door.
  • Sliiice!!
  • Prug!^*Yes, Nute Gunray's silly accent carries over into his sound effects.
  • Stick!
  • Hand!
  • Happens throughout this strip.
  • And then again in this strip.
• Unwanted Assistance: Pete's help was considered this by Annie on this page.
• Unwanted Rescue: After being The Drag-Along for most of Episode II, Sally finally comes on as Mace Windu and kills Jango Fett. The other players are not at all grateful, especially Ben, who felt that he should get to kill his own Arch-Enemy. Meanwhile, Sally is in shock over having killed a man, and resolves to play someone nicer next time. (Though this didn't stop her doing a fair amount of fighting as Yoda in Episode III, and playing an Ax-Crazy battle droid in Rogue One. She just wanted her character to be the greatest possible contrast to C-3P0 while still being a droid.)
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • Jim. Almost every single bad thing in the campaign is his fault, albeit unintentionally. Pete goes as far as to say everything in the campaign is the fault of Qui-Gon, even down to creating Anakin.
  • Pete, in the Rogue One campaign, min-maxed his character so heavily that the GM radically upped the challenge of the Topwara battle later on, leading to a total party kill.
• Uriah Gambit: Corey meant to get Wedge out of the way by giving him the wrong rendezvous point so he wouldn't have to be paranoid about Wedge's shapeshifting again. However, the coordinates ends up lining up with the second "Peace Moon," the comic's version of the Death Star, so Wedge just assumes Corey gave him some incredible intel and is thankful.
• Valley Girl: Mon Mothma's character has been inverted to the point where she sounds like a ditzy Dumb Blonde.
• Vetinari Job Security: Piett manages to survive episode V because, as Vader puts it, he strikes the perfect balance between competence and irreverence.
• Vine Swing: Ben as Chewbacca attempts to do this to get on top of an Imperial Walker, but Sally's suggestion turns it into a snake swing instead.
• Voodoo Shark: Used by the GM whenever the players question some of his worldbuilding choices. invoked
• Warrior Poet: General Grievous.
• Waxing Lyrical: When Padme and Anakin are on their way to their fate in the arena in 0358, they start slipping into a mix of "At the End of the Day" and "Do You Hear the People Sing" from Les Misérables and Peter Gabriel's "Don't Give Up". The GM is suitably confused:
  Anakin: Do we hear the people sing?
  Padmé: Is it the song of angry bugs?
• Webcomic Time: Every session takes approximately 25 strips, which equates to six weeks of real time for one week of story time, not counting the Time Skip between episodes. This isn't a hard-and-fast rule, however; the first session took only 17 strips, and the session breaks are not always made explicit in the strip. Also, every film/campaign so far starts two years after the end of the previous one, and since every film/campaign so far has taken a year and a half to get through, the time difference ends up balancing out.
• We Can Rule Together:
  • Darth Maul tries this to Obi-Wan. It might have worked if he hadn't just killed Qui-Gon.
  • In episode IV R2-D2 suggests this to Luke.
• We Named the Monkey "Jack": Chewbacca shares his name with Sally's dog. It's implied Sally named the character after the pet.
• Wham Episode:
  • The traitor is finally revealed. It's Han. And then a few strips later he's killed by the carbonite-freezing process. (He gets better.)
  • The new take on the famous reveal: Darth Vader is Padmé, and Anakin died on Mustafar.
  • The reason for Palpatine's Sanity Slippage in Episode VI is because he's been haunted by Anakin's Force ghost.
• Wham Line:
  • When Obi-Wan finally confronts Jango Fett, Jango starts spelling out just how badly the party messed up during The Phantom Menace: "Jango Fett, private investigator. Of Maul and Fett. You! Killed! My! Partner!"
  • Greivous boasts about having "Cyborgs. Under. My. Command!" — the same thing that Chancellor Valorum had once ranted about.
  • The players get an out-of-game one: "I brought presents." Not so much the line itself, but that it's spoken by Ben, who just showed up unannounced after going walkabout for a couple years.
  • The first Wham Episode above, where the group's traitor is revealed, ends with one. Not the reveal itself, but Leia's reaction to it: "I know."
  • The comic reverses the original Luke, I Am Your Father...before completely turning it on its head:
    Vader: No, Luke. I am your mother.
  • At the end of Return of the Jedi, Han and Leia become engaged. Then Annie drops the bomb on the group:
    "This was easier when you asked me in real life earlier today."
  • In The Force Awakens, BB-8 finally meets up with Rey — and Corey addresses her as Rey Solo.
  • From Captain Phasma: "Ask yourself: Why, if Nute Gunray had perfected the art of copying a brain into a digital mind, would he not create a backup of his most valuable general? The answer is: Of course he would. Buzz, buzz."
  • When Rey meets Luke at the end of The Force Awakens, she sadly reveals that Kylo Ren murdered her father (i.e. Han/Greedo/No Name/etc) — to which he replies, "Rey. No... I am your father." Even Rey's player Pete is stunned.
• What Could Have Been: An in-universe example: The final comics of Episodes I, III, and V show the DM's campaign notes, which reveal where he planned to take the plot if it hadn't been thoroughly derailed by the players.
• What If?: Star Wars were a P&P RPG campaign? It goes meta with the alternate comics that they would be doing if Star Wars didn't exist, including Wands & Warts, Notes & Nazis, Mutants & Miscreants, Enlisted Men & Extraterrestrial Biological Entities, Magicians & Munchkins, Sandals & Spartans, Avatars & Avifauna, Terminators & Temporal Paradoxes, Carcasses & Carcharadons, Trenchcoats & Turncoats, Amphibians and Anthropomorphisms, Heists & Hypnagogic Hallucinations, Barnacles & Bilgewater, Docs & DeLoreans, Hypnotoads & Hyperchickens, Chocolates & Chumps, Ids & Idiots, Egons & Ectoplasms, Helens & Harryhausens, Misadventures & Marionettes, Arks & Archaeologists, Theme Parks & Theropods, Darcies & Diaries, Marmosets & Meerkats, Gags & Griswolds, Elliotts & Extraterrestrials, Moonshots & Mishaps, Pac-Mans & Power Pellets and Drivers & Dubble-yas.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • In the commentary for episode 241, the Irregulars note that one of the joys of being a DM is using NPCs to call the players out on their mayhem.
    Yoda: Remedial course in Jedi Ethics, you need.
  • Done out of character to Annie by Pete.
  • Also done out of character by Pete and Jim to the Game Master.
  • Ben calls out the other players for playing along with Annie's plan for galactic conquest since they'll all benefit if she wins. He actually gets through to Sally.
    "I wrote 'good' on my character sheet and I jolly well meant it! Unlike some people!"
• Where I Was Born and Razed: Darth Vader destroying Naboo, although Vader's real identity - Padme - wasn't known to the readers at the time.
• While Rome Burns: When Palpatine complains about the Galaxy burning down around him, Luke asks him if he has considered taking up the fiddle.
• Whole Episode Flashback: The Rogue One strips take place a few years after Return of the Jedi, but involves the players describing a previous campaign to Corey and Ben, who weren't there.
• Who's on First?: Darth Vader's shuttle pilot is named Yorr. The GM takes it and runs with it.
• Why Don't You Marry It?: In episode 678 C-3PO asks R2-D2 why he doesn't marry his beloved dreadnought. Turns out R2-D2 thought about it.
• Wiki Walk: Referenced in The Rant for strip #875. The Irregulars give us a list of tropes to figure out which trope is being used in the strip, then say:
  "Bonus points for not getting lost inside TV Tropes."
• Wiper Start: At one point during "The Forced-Away Kin", Han (who in this comic is a much less competent pilot) tries to shut down a misbehaving hyperdrive by hitting controls and hoping, with the result that the Falcon's windscreen wipers start up.
• Women Are Wiser:
  • Annie spends most of her time rather closer to Terra Firma than the rest of the group. It's later revealed that outside of the group, she's not quite as reasonable and completely together as it might seem. The fact that Ben is slightly more reliable than she is, both in character and out, helps balance it out as well.
  • Sally also ends up being one of the more mature members of the group once she stops being an Annoying Younger Sibling, in particular when she helps Ben become less of a doormat to their father.
• Wretched Hive
  Pete: Oh how I love stock descriptions.
  • Revisited in Episode IV:
  GM: The hovercar arrives at an overlook giving you a magnificent panoramic view of the desert all around, and in the valley far below you the cosmopolitan bustle of... Mos Eisley Spaceport!
  Ben (as Obi-Wan): You will never find a more Wretched Hive of scum and villainy.
  Pete: I thought that place where Anakin lived was the hive of scum and villainy?
  GM: All of the Mos'es are wretched hives of scum and villainy. It's just that Eisley is the most wretched.
  Sally: Or that the ones that are even more wretched are so well-hidden that we'll never find them.
  GM: It's the most scummy too. Also, villainous.
• Wrong Genre Savvy:
  • Jim's insistence that Sio Bibble is an Evil Chancellor because of his goatee. As of Episode IV he still seems convinced that Bibble is the Big Bad and Palpatine is just his evil sidekick.
  • Corey's main defining trait, at least when he's introduced. He understands fantasy and sci-fi to an extent, but is heavily conditioned by tropes specific to video games. Thanks to an experienced flexible Game Master and the relationship between video game RPGs and their tabletop roots, Corey ends up being right for the wrong reasons fairly often.
• You All Meet in an Inn: Lampshaded by Pete.
• You Fight Like a Cow: Here, complete with Monkey Island quotes and a link to the trope page.
• You Have Failed Me:
  • But not for the definition of "failed me" that you would think...
  • When it gets to the first force-choke scene, Motti is complaining that they've had to replace half the work-force over the past six years due to Vader killing anyone he doesn't like. Vader decides that he has a point...and from now on he'll just choke all the incompetents half to death.
• You Killed My Father: "You. Killed. My. Partner." (Here.)
  • And then Boba Fett seeks vengeance on Obi-Wan for killing all three of his parents.
• You Talkin' to Me?: Bail Organa to Yoda when he rescues him from the Senate showdown with Palpatine. And Ponda Baba to Luke in the Tatooine cantina scene.

And, of course, all Star Wars tropes apply whenever they spring up in the collaboratively developed story.

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Mesa genius, and that gives mesa +5.

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