Starting a new adventure group

[Kytross]

I'm starting a new player group. I've been wanting to run a new Star Wars campaign for a few years now and I've finally got a few people to commit. Two actually. Maybe three.

I want to run either a smuggler campaign or a pirate/privateer campaign using Platt's Smuggler's Guide or Pirates & Privateers. Something on the fringe of the galaxy where dirty deeds are done dirt cheap. I plan to either use the Rimma Trade route as the backdrop or the Daalang System. For a time period I will probably set it immediately following the end of the Clone Wars and the start of the Empire.

The Rimma trade route was taken by the Confederacy in the Clone Wars. Some systems joined the CIS willingly, like the Sluissi, while others were conquered, like Yag'dhul & Thyferra. This is a major space lane where there would be plenty of cargo for a smuggler team worth their salt, and plenty of fat prizes for a smart pirate band. Simultaneously the Empire will be cracking down hard on any sign of non-compliance. Planets will be purged and the space lanes patrolled. Except for Eriadu & Thyferra every major planet on the Rimma trade route has rebel or CIS leanings. My players would be in a prime position to be starting members of the rebellion.


Daalang was a major outpost for the CIS and their fortress was obliterated by the Republic. Situated on the edge of Hutt Space, at about the midpoint between galactic north and south on the slice. It's a cross path between a few spacelanes, and about the midpoint between the Perlemian trade route and the Corellian Run. In other words its the most important place in the middle of nowhere. This is the edge of civilized space, the Hutts have an influence here, the CIS were respected and loved here, and the Empire is hated, and rare.

Daalang is the closest I could imagine to a Firefly-esque setting in Star Wars. I won't necessarily be starting with Mal, Zoe, Wash & Jayne, but that seems to be the way we're leaning.


I'm looking for suggestions and comments. Any advice you have I'd love to hear it.

Also, much like the Azure Expanse, I will be rewarding my characters for participating in a thread here. Will I give them Character points or cash? Probably cash. I'm stingy with character points.

[shootingwomprats]

So is this gonna be a F2F game or a VTT game? If VTT are you looking for additional people? If you are getting closer to kicking this off do you have a date, day, time, communications, etc figured?
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[Kytross]

F2F. I never considered running it VTT. My schedule is usually too erratic. Right now it's fairly set.

I will have to consider this.

[DougRed4]

Sounds like a lot of fun, Kytross! Are you going to - like Firefly - keep things mostly to humans and near-humans (like one finds on Eriadu)? Or are you going to mix in plenty of alien species?
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Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green

[Kytross]

It's Star Wars, you've got to have aliens, especially in a pro-Confederacy campaign. Most of the systems that seceded from the Republic were populated by aliens.

Heh, I actually wrote this as my next sentence before I realized the ludicrous aspect of the comment:

[atgxtg]

One suggestion I have is to get together with your players and help them write up their characters. That helps to make sure you are all on the same page as far as the campaign goes.

It also helps is that if you can get some idea of what the players expect and what sort of things they ant to see in an adventure. And what they don't want to see. For instance, if nobody wants to play a techie character then they probably don't have much interest in fixing stuff. If somebody puts a lot of dice into bargain and value, then he wants to do a lot of trading. And so on.

The GM can have a lot of great ideas and fantastic adventures planned out, but they can fizzle out if he doesn't get the players "vested" in the campaign.

[DougRed4]

That's a great point by atgxtg, and it's one that even us veteran GMs should remember with ongoing campaigns.

@Kytross: I first read "Badger" and was thinking of the BB character before I even realized you were referencing that series; I can't believe we're at the very last episode! I'm a huge Vince Gilligan fan (since The X-Files, my favorite franchise), and am also a big fan of "Breaking Bad".
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Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green

[Kytross]

Lol Doug. Yeah, Breaking Bad is amazing & so is Vince Gilligan. Hancock got my attention.

Atgxtg, it is a good idea. With our conflicting schedules it's not likely that we will see each other as a group before the first session. I already have input from one of my 2 players, the other one will be talking to me tonight.

My players are vets. They know how to make characters to the point that the 1st one was mentioning the stats he was going to take as we talked about the game for the first time. He was thinking 3D to all attributes and spend his skill points in knowledge & Perception. Unless he goes Bith. Bith are the min-maxer's dream species. He already had his personality picked out.

I'm not saying he won't change his mind, but I'm certainly not worried about character creation.

Heh, of course once I introduce the two munchkins they'll probably both make Hapans for the 13D of starting attribute dice. Or Togruta for the same 13D & the combined action bonus.

[atgxtg]

You don't necessarily have to get them all together just as long as you all communicate with each other. I bring it up because I've seen a few campaigns tank because the players expectations and that of the GM differed.

I had a player go 3D in everything. He wasn't sure what he wanted to be and ended up with a fairly balanced character. His strength was that he was usually the 2nd best in the group at just about everything. His weakness was that he didn't excel at anything. At least initially.

[Kytross]

Excelling at something isn't all it's cracked up to be. The nicest part of being 3D all around is that you can contribute to whatever is going on around you.

On a different thread I talked about focusing different parts of my adventures on different character's skill sets, so everyone gets the spotlight at least once each adventure. With an all around character no matter what happens you've got something you can contribute. That's pretty cool.


I've got my players talking to each other and me via a group email. They both seem pretty excited.

[Kytross]

Update:

1 player wants to be a smuggler, 1 wants to be a pirate. I'm trying to get them to email each other to start talking.

Unless one of them gets their heart set on playing the Rimma Trade route I'm probably going to start them on Daalang. Being that close to Hutt Space, on a planet that was Hutt controlled before the Clone Wars, has inspired me to a number of storylines.

[atgxtg]

I wonder if your Pirate wannabe would like to try a Privateer? A lot of the Captain Blood stuff could work in Star Wars. An innocent get wrongly convicted of a crime and sold off as a slave to the Hutts, escapes, and goes privateering against the Hutt slavers.

Probably mesh better with the other PCs too.

[Kytross]

Heh, my captain player has 'tricked' me into giving him a stock YT-1300 freighter. I gave him the template collection for ideas and mentioned in passing that he could choose any template he wanted with the stipulation that he could also have the equipment that goes along with it. He chose the Freeworld Trader.

I would have given him a better ship, the YT-1760 once they get off planet, and let them upgrade to the YV-260 once they got a small crew. Of course, I still have the adventure in my head where they get captured by CorSec and have the opportunity to hi-jack a YV-330 out from under them.

He hasn't trusted me as a GM since our first game. He was the only experienced player in the game, so I ratcheted up the difficulty for everything he did compared to the other players. (One of the other players was a 9 year old girl, one of the other player's daughter) Otherwise he would have dominated the game, he wouldn't have had much fun and the others would have been more than a little annoyed. As it was we all had a good time though he developed a bit of a persecution complex.

We'll see how he feels after this game when he's partnered up with a more experienced player and both of them are facing relatively equal challenges.

[Kytross]

So then I bought a house. And then a player quit. And something else stalled us. And our hovercraft was full of eels.

We're finally rolling again. First game day is Jan 31, 2015. Wish us luck.

[Panzerjedi]

Indeeed.. best of luck man!!!
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