A Sense of Scale

[aegisflashfire]

Thinking back on the various campaigns you've run, what was your threat level? What is your preferred enemy threat level? What are the consequences if the heroes lose?


ANH: Planet Scale threat/Galactic Implications. The Death Star can wipe out systems/fleets and as a terror weapon can influence the overall struggle
ESB: Battle Scale/Some Galactic implications. This battle is more personal, and would undoubtably cost the Rebellion more than it can lose, but a loss here doesn't change the galaxy forever. Rebellion may rise again.
ROTJ: Planet Scale/Galactic Implications. A loss here will cripple both wings of the Rebellion (Fleet/Ground forces) but the leadership of the Empire is also in the balance.

TPM: Small Scale Threat/Local implications. The heroes can lose their lives, few gungans die, Naboo changes leadership
ATOC: Sector Scale battle/Galactic Implications. A big chunk of the jedi are at stake, and Geonosis proves a key battleground, but a loss here doesn't wipe out the entire jedi order; its just one win/loss in the clone wars. (admittedly a costly one)
ROTS: Galactic Scale Threat/Implications. The leadership of the entire republic is at stake as is the Jedi Order.


Courtship: Personal threat. Minor threat of Dathomir witches getting lose on the galaxy, but its evident that they can do that normally. There's a side conflict of the Sector Scale where Han takes out a warlord, but its so minor I'm not including it.
Thrawn Trilogy: Sector Scale threat/Galactic Implications. Thrawn's manufacturing a huge number of clones, and he threatens the fledgling new republic, but even 250 warships isn't enough to really turn the tide here.
Jedi Academy: Sector Scale Threat. The Suncrusher is only so powerful but its never really in the hands of the 'bad guys' Maybe planetary scale. Daala only has 4 star destroyers.
NJO: Galactic Scale Threat. trillions of lives on the line. no way around it.
Clone Wars Episodes: Anywhere from a single person/jedi to planetary threat level.



So what are YOUR threat levels? Typically I run with Planetary/Sector level threats. Falling Star is Galactic Scale, about on NJO level)
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GM of Falling Star: D6 Star Wars Campaign Podcast

[Leon The Lion]

For my current campaign:

Threat level: Pan-Galactic.
What happens if the heroes lose? End of the Galaxy as we know it. Actually, end of the Galaxy, period. As in, it's going to be destroyed. All of it. Specifically? All the stars will be extinguished. They will get eaten by He Who Hungers, The God-Machine. Their planetary systems and their inhabitants will in turn be harvested by His worshippers for raw materials to fuel their eternal crusade. This will not be the first galaxy this happened to.

How's that for a threat level?

Single adventures never yet had a threat level higher than planetary, but this is what it all is building up into.
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- Tom Lehrer

[Zarn]

I usually keep things on the local / system to sector scale, with the occasional hint of a much more dangerous element. Interestingly enough, in my so far latest extended campaign, a chance encounter with a local, unique alien race made it so that the player characters ramped the threat level from local / system to galactic in pretty much one go.

My group - two players, one Jedi starfighter pilot (like you do) with a long-range Y-wing, one well-armed smuggler ripoff with his droid sidekick, encountered an alien race that could pretty much copy anything, but had very little creativity of their own.

They were very much militant production engineers, but their tech base was hampered by its very patchwork nature - and no real sense of cohesiveness. They had a well-functioning but old slugthrower rifle (think Lee-Enfield Mk 4), they had some ancient and slow transports with simple asteroid-clearing lasers and no hyperdrive, and they had an immense reproduction rate (as well as limited regeneration powers in their youth, ensuring that as long they were fed, they could multiply very fast).

They had two basic in-system colonies in addition to their homeworld, and very, very limited contact with the greater galaxy. There was some evidence of a Force-using race having a colony on the homeworld, and some evidence of genetic (Sith alchemy or Infinite Empire - but the players didn't pick up on that) tampering making the alien race the extremely narrow-focus, uncreative race they were when the player characters encountered them.

Basically, they had reached a Malthusian equilibrium, and weren't able to get out of it with their current tech base. They weren't on any official charts, so they hadn't encountered anything but the occasional scout, drifting artifacts from the previous race there (and without any Force sensitivity, little ability to utilize or copy the more advanced technology available, as it relied on Force use).

The Jedi starfighter pilot's player has ... technojoy. And had to go get a cold shower. And then he started allowing the aliens access to the player character's technology base - and started showing them how to put it together to a whole. I decided "ah, why the expletive not", and just went with it. The Jedi starfighter pilot has some modest repair skills, and could get help from his Smuggler friend and the loyal astromech droid - and starts putting together systems.

First, he gives them a blaster rifle. The race copies it exactly, down to the serial number, is somehow able to get it to work perfectly - and the guy shows them that you can produce power packs without producing blaster rifles (no creativity, remember)?

They then ask to copy the Y-wing that the guy has. He not only allows them to do that, but designs what is essentially a pocket carrier based on a Frankensteinian modified copy of the Smuggler's space transport with two strap-on hangars for Y-wings, and a cargo hold. He helps them with medpacs (Fastflesh ones, not ones with kolto or bacta). He develops a way for them to make self-contained engine pods based on the Y-wing engines, and shows how to strap them on to their existing transports. He develops self-contained turrets, and further upgrade their existing transports (and straps a couple of 'em on the pocket carrier). And so on and so forth. He even allows them access to his lightsaber (!), and incorporates lightsaber technology in an assault boarding tube - crude, but functional.

The players are grinning from ear to ear when they leave. They've got a new ship that is a pocket carrier, an extra Y-wing to their original parked in the other fighter pod of the pocket carrier, a cargo hold full of blaster rifles (and some other miscellaneous items, such as a few dozen blast vests and helmets, a couple of extra astromech droids, a few dozen Fastflesh medpacs and so on). The aliens are sad to see them leave, but thanks them profusely for the gift of knowledge and wishes that they'll return soon with new stuff to copy.

And then it hits them. The race was confined to their system, pretty much. Not anymore - hyperdrive installed on both Y-wings and pocket carriers. They had crap weaponry. Not anymore - if not cutting edge, then at least very serviceable with blaster rifles, armors, and so on. Medical technology? Now their soldier drones are likely to survive much longer with the application of Fastflesh pacs.

Basically, they had given the race the tools to become a serious threat to the entire sector - and given enough time, probably the galaxy. The race just needed to get their hands on an orbital ship factory and corresponding databases and so on, and they'd be able to churn out copies at a World Devastator rate.

I loved how the technojoy player's face fell. The other player - the more sane one - just wanted to give them a blaster rifle to copy, get a cargo hold full of blaster rifles, and get out of Dodge. But nooooo, the technojoy player had to push it as far as he could. And created a horrible threat to their sector, and perhaps the galaxy, in the process.

It wasn't until he fully realized what he had done that I hit him with the Dark Side Point. Chagrined, he agreed that it was appropriate, and decided to try atoning for it by promptly leaving for the Rebel Alliance main base to give them most of the supplies they had gotten copied.

Other memorable campaigns were more personal in scope, but occasionally it was analogues for Centerpoint Station, Star Forges, Infinity Gates, Necrons, and what have you that popped up.

[garhkal]

Sector scale for me. That way there is lots to do, but it shouldn't have far reaching repercussions should things go belly up.
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[DougRed4]

So far most of my adventures for my campaign have been planetary threats at most.

I figure we'll continue to work up (to sector, and eventually galactic) level as they get more famous/infamous and skilled.
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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

[Ninjaxenomorph]

My campaign is currently at personal level, but will fluctuate. Currently, the players are (almost) all in it for profit/personal reasons, but an upcoming adventure will have them perform a mission with galactic implications (smuggling an X-Wing designer). I might have to scrap it, but a plot I was considering involved the players discovering a race of crystalline aliens isolated from the rest of the galaxy that were not only space-faring (yet short range), but had a high number of force-sensitives as navigators, royalty, and military.

[Bobmalooga]

My adventures for the players tend to, in the short term, be very personal with larger stories sweeping through the long arches of the game.
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[vanir]

Oh we typically move onto galactic threat level pretty frequently. It's a bit cartoonish but so is little green puppets running around with lightsabres.

The cylons just occupied 2 regional fleets recently in the campaign. Apparently WH40K is going to come slaughtering their way into the game under another GM's direction soon. I guess somebody needs to kill the battlestars the rebellion just got their hands on.