Fishing for Ideas

[laztheinfamous]

I have started a campaign recently, but I'm not too sure how to advance. Nor am I sure I'm putting this in the right section. So if it needs moved, by all means, please do so. No harm no foul.

Characters: Keith the Wookie, A smuggler, Timz Dood (a former Ubirotrettette trainee), and a old spacer type.

Time Frame: Post Battle of Yavin, immediately post Battle of Hoth.

Location: Tapani Sector, Procopia.

Set Up: The PCs have been asked by Alliance High Command to do a terrible job, a horrific job, one that will take all their skills knowledge and cunning to operate. They must live in a beach house, attend parties, go to sporting events and ... Ah. Perhaps a bit more explanation. The Alliance is replacing a now deceased minor noble from out system into Tapani high society in order to raise money for the Alliance. Specifically, they are going to pretend to be a now deceased minor noble (and his retinue) trying to raise funds for charity. Their goal; 4.6 Billion credits (yup, that's with a 'b'). Which will allow them purchase much needed materials for capital ships.

Awesome setup, no doubt. So that's where I have the problem. Besides the typical things in the Lords of Expanse book, I'm not too sure on how to inject 'adventure' into this set up. While seductions, duels, and the occasional brawl all fit in. However, I'm at a loss at what else to do. So I'm kinda fishing for ideas. The reason I'm asking is because I like to throw out a lot of adventure hooks the PCs can pick up on or ignore at their choice and then go from there rather then rail road them along some grand plot.

[Lancil]

Go and watch all the reruns of Jersy shore.

But seriously, I have no ideas for you, if its not about "blast and slash" I'm not much good.

[Bren]

The beach house and the dead noble sounds a bit like Weekend at Bernie's.

This sound like an idea my GM would use. Part of the fun for her would be putting my non-noble, non-suave and sophisticated PC in a situtation where he has to hob nob with the upper crust while figuring out how to make witty and urbane conversation and use the various specialized cutlery to eat whatever strange entrees are on the feast.

One key thing for Tapani - involve them in politics.

Perhaps they need to ingratiate themselves to wealthy or influential patrons. The patrons may be wealthy or may just have the sort of social influence the PCs will need to get the right sort of people to attend their parties.

Make them have to interact with old childhood friends of the noble they are impersonating. Someone that new him/her as a child but they have not seen each other in many years. Good fun having someone calling the fake noble by whatever nickname evolved. See any PG Wodehouse novel for the types of silly nicknames that the English upper class used.

Take another tip from Wodehouse and have some noble trying to mooch off the PCs or get them to invest in the NPCs crack brained scheme to gain wealth. One popular scheme involves the creation of a gambling syndicate using supposed inside information on a sporting event.

If they are trying to raise funds, they will undoubtably be competing with other nobles' existing causes for donors. In Tapani that could give rise to various NPCs scheming against, spying on, or challenging the PCs to duels.

Some rival relative may suspect they are not the true heir, actual person, whatever and start trying to find out their secrets or prove they are a fake.

Who plays the fake noble? I assume it's not the Wookiee, but it doesn't sound like any of the PCs are of noble background. Faking the part may require a good culture skill which a lot of PCs don't have.

Good luck.

[Mythosaur]

Have the party infiltrated by some thieves/con artists looking to steal some of this wealth that this minor noble is building.

Noble manor is actually built on top of land that once belonged to Sith burial tombs. Someone finds evidence of the hidden entrance.

The original noble was being targeted for kidnapping by paid bounty hunter, but is aware of the death and switch of the minor noble. What does this bounty hunter due with this knowledge?

Minor noble is invited to speeder races, serving as a sort of celebrity, and host for the opening ceremonies of the great speeder race, however, it is during the race that someone goes to steal the prize credits, and the replacement noble and retinue are caught in the middle of the action.

Replacement noble finds out that the original noble was involved in an underground slavery ring. Does the replacement noble do the right thing, and risk the wrath of the criminal organization that was profiting from the slavery, or does the replacement noble use the extra credits for their goals.


I am not sure if I have any ideas that make earning credits exciting, however, if you think about what else could happen in the process, that might make the adventure exciting.

[laztheinfamous]

Thanks for the ideas so far, guys.

If it matters, the PCs are all going undercover;

Smuggler= noble (cause he fit in the cloths)
Intelligence Guy= personal bodyguard (vibroblade specialty made that obvious, given the duels of the region)
Spacer= Chauffeur.
Wookiee= Manservant (and pretending to be a slave)

[garhkal]

[Bren]

[laztheinfamous]

As for how the wookiee is going to react to pretending to be a slave, rather well I'm afraid. Guy playing him hasn't ever played Star Wars before, and I don't think he's watched any of the movies since they were on Spike a few years ago. Doesn't remember that Han shot first. All he wanted to do was play the character with the biggest gun and the most fighty. Since he has a brawl; wrestling specialization, he has his wookiee act like Hulk Hogan. So either he'll embrace the whole thing whole heartedly or just put people into armbars. Not really sure which is worse for the character.

[garhkal]

Make sure he rolls willpower ever so often, as the slavery acting grates on his nerves.
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Praxian]

Hmm... I like it!

If you want to get deep and dirty in the trenches, I'd suggest digging through the various Star Trek stuff involving the Romulans. There's a TON of stuff involving politics, and the "losing face" in the local society of what happens if they get caught.

Also, what house exactly are they infiltrating? That will also decide on what kind of things they'll need to do to raise the funds. The easiest "House" for the Alliance to infiltrate would be Pelagia as they'd be the most Anti-Empire house that may even be willing to let it happen. The Jedi that used to be in the Tapani sector were mostly in this house as far as I remember, but they could do a dual-raising here. Raise up House Pelagia again, and increase their power base over time as well as bring up funds for the Alliance (and give the alliance an ally who could eventually help them out over time).

There's a lot of material in the source books that could help you out quite a bit with ideas. I'd make sure you have the players associated with one of the houses directly in the poitics. While sure, they're "replacing" a noble, make sure that they know a bit about the noble and that they start playing an appropriate role for the noble for the house he belongs to.

=D

[garhkal]

Another thing to consider..
Well several.

How exactly are you planning on letting the party raise the money?
How will they send it back?
Are there punishments in place should they decide "WTF, all this dosh. lets all go with it.. screw the rebellion!???
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[laztheinfamous]

As for what house they are infiltrating, prehaps I did not make it clear, they are pretending to be a noble from out of system, so not one that has any immediate ties. The Tapani sector isn't the only one with nobles. However, they have several ties to the Tapani sector.

As for how they raise money, that's going to be up to them. I suggested charities, however right now I think they are leaning toward making the Wookiee a swoop racer to win money. I'm not sure where that came from.

As for sending it back, they will be meeting an Alliance overseer soon (a 23er) who will act as courier. They don't have to send it all back at once, or have a set timeframe, but they will have a way to do it.

If they decide to co-opt the money for themselves, well, I haven't thought of that, and hopefully I won't have to. Chances are if they DO steal the money then the rebellion will rat them out to the Tapani, and send someone in after them as well. Let them have it from both sides.

(Does anyone else hit the new topic button instead of the new reply button? It seems like I do that every time.)

[Anakin]

As noble high life goes on, characters find more and more evidence about one of the original guy's hidden business. They realize that there might be far more money than they are trying to get, all ready in their custody (some hidden account). As they investigate, they draw closer to the money, but also realize that these "coins" derives from some REEEEALLY bad @$$ dirty business, and that somewhere there is a whole big city of people who are completely ruined and stuck in slavery because of this.
What will they do; fund a fleet of Mon cal cruisers for the alliance or save the city? Moral dilemma
_________________
If you fall seven times, get up eight times.

[Wisconsin Wookie]

If you are still looking to add some action, here's a idea:


Maybe they are invited to some sort of classy ball, party or show, and while they are there, a group of terrorists funded by an opposing political party takes the audience hostage. The characters have to maintain their cover while taking out the bad guys. Perhaps in doing they learn some important information about who the real players are in the system.

[garhkal]

Or have to become 'those terrorists' while maintaining their cover..
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!