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S-Foil
Sub-Lieutenant
Joined: 21 Feb 2011
Posts: 70
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 Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2018 8:25 pm Post subject: |
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Emancipation mission: This can either be a traditional jailbreak (say a captured Rebel) or a wholesale freeing of prisoners or slaves. I like this one because it's a good segue into other missions. Once you've the former prisoner(s) you need to get them to safety or they lead to further adventuring.
Such missions don't always need to be rescuing princesses from Death Stars but that's not the worst model. I think that mission type also lends itself well to splitting the party in a good way. Characters can each use their specialties in different locations to help the overall mission. Since full frontal assault probably is t the best plan, characters not focused on combat get to contribute more to the effort. |
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Kytross
Line Captain
Joined: 28 Jan 2008
Posts: 806
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| Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2018 9:24 pm Post subject: |
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| S-Foil wrote: | Emancipation mission: This can either be a traditional jailbreak (say a captured Rebel) or a wholesale freeing of prisoners or slaves. I like this one because it's a good segue into other missions. Once you've the former prisoner(s) you need to get them to safety or they lead to further adventuring.
Such missions don't always need to be rescuing princesses from Death Stars but that's not the worst model. I think that mission type also lends itself well to splitting the party in a good way. Characters can each use their specialties in different locations to help the overall mission. Since full frontal assault probably is t the best plan, characters not focused on combat get to contribute more to the effort. |
Like Artoo and Threepio doing the tech thing, Obi-Wan shutting down the tractor beams, and Luke, Han and Chewie rescuing the Princess! Awesome scenes and great use of a split party. |
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S-Foil
Sub-Lieutenant
Joined: 21 Feb 2011
Posts: 70
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| Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2018 10:57 pm Post subject: |
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| Kytross wrote: | | S-Foil wrote: | Emancipation mission: This can either be a traditional jailbreak (say a captured Rebel) or a wholesale freeing of prisoners or slaves. I like this one because it's a good segue into other missions. Once you've the former prisoner(s) you need to get them to safety or they lead to further adventuring.
Such missions don't always need to be rescuing princesses from Death Stars but that's not the worst model. I think that mission type also lends itself well to splitting the party in a good way. Characters can each use their specialties in different locations to help the overall mission. Since full frontal assault probably is t the best plan, characters not focused on combat get to contribute more to the effort. |
Like Artoo and Threepio doing the tech thing, Obi-Wan shutting down the tractor beams, and Luke, Han and Chewie rescuing the Princess! Awesome scenes and great use of a split party. |
Exactly. I like to give players a little meta knowledge suggesting they do split into pairs. As a GM you do need to keep some stuff in mind, again IMO. Your players should trust you won't screw them if they split the party and you need to make sure the sub-groups have obvious-to-the-player options if they run into trouble. Things like possible escape routes or things they can use to choke point the bad guys.
As an example the garbage chute in the holding cells and the shut blast door in the Death Star shaft in ANH. There's so many classic adventure tropes in ANH scenes you can riff off of. Over the years I've probably had players reenact most of the original trilogy. I try to not make it too obvious but it's cool when a player realizes the reference mid-swing over a bottomless shaft.
Non-OSHA compliant Imperial architecture makes for good adventure locations. |
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garhkal
Sovereign Protector
Joined: 17 Jul 2005
Posts: 14303
Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2018 4:10 am Post subject: |
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One thing on the splitting. How do you run the separate groups?
If they don't have someone good at comms, to encrypt things, they need to remain quiet or alert the imperials (scum) to what they are doing/where they are. So how do they keep in contact?
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Pel
Line Captain
Joined: 10 May 2006
Posts: 983
Location: Texas
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| Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2018 11:22 am Post subject: |
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I try not to split them up too much. It's a pain, but I am curious how you handle it.
Piracy/Privateering - depending on how long you and your players want to do it, and for whom you're engaging in piratical practices.
Procurement - this was mentioned under Supply Runs, but actually buying the beans, bullets, and blankets that make the Rebellion run leads to a lot of possibilities. What if the buyer doesn't show, or someone steals the cash, or maybe "IT'S A TRAP!". 
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garhkal
Sovereign Protector
Joined: 17 Jul 2005
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Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2018 5:18 pm Post subject: |
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Alternately, the buyer IS cosher, however ISB Still gets wind of the transaction, and either tries to raid the sales point, OR puts a tracker in their goods, and lays in wait to hit their base once they get back home with the goods..
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S-Foil
Sub-Lieutenant
Joined: 21 Feb 2011
Posts: 70
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| Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2018 5:27 pm Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | One thing on the splitting. How do you run the separate groups?
If they don't have someone good at comms, to encrypt things, they need to remain quiet or alert the imperials (scum) to what they are doing/where they are. So how do they keep in contact? |
For comms I'm typically pretty generous. Again looking back at the Leia rescue on the Death Star they had reliable comms between the support group (the droids) and the infiltration group (Luke, Han, and Chewie). I'll do behind the screen rolls when they use comms to see if the bad guys pick up something and get alerted but only when i think such an alert would be more fun for the players.
In the SW universe everywhere but the most remote areas would be filled with radio signals, spurious and intentional. Given that Imperials don't put hand rails above bottomless pits I don't see them enforcing emission standards either. So tracking enemy comms ends up not worth it in most places because separating them from background noise is a major effort.
In terms of the players splitting the group, as long as you give them time to make a basic plan they'll usually figure it out. They'll ask questions about patrols they see, secret entrances, and what ever. I don't have a problem suggesting things since they're picturing the environment as I described it, I might have forgotten to mention some details or didn't provide enough detail.
Running split groups isn't much different than running them all together. Just make sure players don't have separate characters communicate unless they explicitly mention they're using a comm. Unless the remote character is tapped into security cameras they can't see the environment of other characters so they shouldn't be giving suggestions. Players are cool about this 99% of the time. |
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Sutehp
Commodore
Joined: 01 Nov 2016
Posts: 1797
Location: Washington, DC (AKA Inside the Beltway)
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| Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2018 5:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Solo4114 wrote: | Which also brings up...
Escort/Bodyguard duty: Your team is tapped to provide protection for, and/or transportation to a Rebel VIP. |
NO, NOT THE ESCORT MISSIONS!!!! damn, but those ALWAYS sucked in every video game I played, especially in Wing Commander and X-wing/TIE Fighter. 
To get back on topic, I noticed that a number of mission types listed here match up with alot of the mission types for SpecForce campaigns from the Rules of Engagement-SpecForce Handbook. Which makes sense, of course.
| Pel wrote: | Piracy/Privateering - depending on how long you and your players want to do it, and for whom you're engaging in piratical practices.
Procurement - this was mentioned under Supply Runs, but actually buying the beans, bullets, and blankets that make the Rebellion run leads to a lot of possibilities. What if the buyer doesn't show, or someone steals the cash, or maybe "IT'S A TRAP!". |
Oddly enough, the Privateering and Procurement missions can be considered almost the same mission depending on who ultimately gets the booty. If the goods get delivered to the Alliance, it's a Procurement mission. If you keep most of the goods, but still have to deliver a cut to the Alliance in exchange for supplies and an up-to-date Letter of Marque, then it's Privateering. If you keep all the goods for yourself and you don't have a Letter of Marque from the Alliance, then it's Piracy (and the Empire will execute you if they catch you. Class One offense and all that).
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MrNexx
Rear Admiral
Joined: 25 Mar 2016
Posts: 2248
Location: San Antonio
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| Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2018 9:53 pm Post subject: |
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Siege relief: Your job is to go into a hot situation and either smuggle necessary supplies OR provide a counter-strike that allows those under siege to escape/break the siege.
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16381
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2018 10:31 pm Post subject: |
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| MrNexx wrote: | | Siege relief: Your job is to go into a hot situation and either smuggle necessary supplies OR provide a counter-strike that allows those under siege to escape/break the siege. |
One of the options in Hideouts & Strongholds was a planetary defense fortress, where one of the missions suggestions was smuggling in supplies while the fortress is under siege...
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garhkal
Sovereign Protector
Joined: 17 Jul 2005
Posts: 14303
Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2018 4:57 pm Post subject: |
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| S-Foil wrote: |
For comms I'm typically pretty generous. Again looking back at the Leia rescue on the Death Star they had reliable comms between the support group (the droids) and the infiltration group (Luke, Han, and Chewie). I'll do behind the screen rolls when they use comms to see if the bad guys pick up something and get alerted but only when i think such an alert would be more fun for the players.
In the SW universe everywhere but the most remote areas would be filled with radio signals, spurious and intentional. Given that Imperials don't put hand rails above bottomless pits I don't see them enforcing emission standards either. So tracking enemy comms ends up not worth it in most places because separating them from background noise is a major effort. |
To me, as a military man, it made absolutely no sense there wasn't any sort of monitoring of comms aboard the death star, same with the Endor base.
| S-Foil wrote: |
Running split groups isn't much different than running them all together. Just make sure players don't have separate characters communicate unless they explicitly mention they're using a comm. Unless the remote character is tapped into security cameras they can't see the environment of other characters so they shouldn't be giving suggestions. Players are cool about this 99% of the time. |
Some are cool about it, but as you've seen in some of my threads, i have encountered others who will use meta knowledge...
| CRMcNeill wrote: | | MrNexx wrote: | | Siege relief: Your job is to go into a hot situation and either smuggle necessary supplies OR provide a counter-strike that allows those under siege to escape/break the siege. |
One of the options in Hideouts & Strongholds was a planetary defense fortress, where one of the missions suggestions was smuggling in supplies while the fortress is under siege... |
One of my modules is kind of this.. Rebels need to break through a blockade to drop off supplies to a besieged rebel base..
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Kytross
Line Captain
Joined: 28 Jan 2008
Posts: 806
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| Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2018 6:06 pm Post subject: |
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I think an argument can be made for both the Death Star base and the Endor base having gotten lax on communication protocols. Both were highly defended, and extremely isolated bases. They only had other imperials to account for, hence their relaxed attitudes toward comms.
No one got on the Death Star by accident, it was incredibly heavily guarded. Obi-Wan's plan was the perfect mix of insanity and skill to get past them. It shouldn't have, wouldn't have worked if their security was up to par.
The same can be said for the forest moon of Endor. The space defenses were enough to make sure no one could get through. It also helps that it was a trap.
But bear in mind that someone listening in on your comms should only be expected at a military facility. No one is scanning comms at a police station or a government building or a ISB field office. |
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Kytross
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Sutehp
Commodore
Joined: 01 Nov 2016
Posts: 1797
Location: Washington, DC (AKA Inside the Beltway)
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| Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2018 6:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Kytross wrote: | I think an argument can be made for both the Death Star base and the Endor base having gotten lax on communication protocols. Both were highly defended, and extremely isolated bases. They only had other imperials to account for, hence their relaxed attitudes toward comms.
No one got on the Death Star by accident, it was incredibly heavily guarded. Obi-Wan's plan was the perfect mix of insanity and skill to get past them. It shouldn't have, wouldn't have worked if their security was up to par. |
It also helped that Obi-Wan had the Force on his side to sneak his way to the tractor beam. The sparsely-manned corridors helped as well since a crew complement of 265,675 is only the size of a small city and that few people wouldn't densely pack a space station with a 100km diameter.
And most of the Imperials had no idea what was happening, as evidenced by this snippet of the conversation of the two stormtroopers standing guard near the tractor beam:
| Quote: | Stormtrooper 1: Do you know what's going on?
Stormtrooper 2: Maybe it's another drill. |
Remember, the Death Star is 100km in diameter and only the people near the surface even have access to any windows. as was lampshaded in the novel Lost Stars, most people on the Death Star won't even notice if it enters hyperspace and leaves for another star system...which means most people on the Death Star (except for the high-rank officers) won't have any idea where in the galaxy they are at any given moment.
And let's remember the exact reason Luke and company were even able to get off the Death Star in the first place:
| Quote: | | Leia: They let us go. It's the only reason for the ease of our escape. |
It's for that reason above all for the Swiss Cheese Security of the Death Star. Security is not gonna catch you if they're ordered to let you escape.
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Only some of it is for D6 Star Wars.
Just repurchased the X-Wing and Tie Fighter flight sim games. I forgot how much I missed them. |
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Solo4114
Commander
Joined: 18 May 2017
Posts: 256
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| Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2019 10:00 am Post subject: |
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| Sutehp wrote: | | Solo4114 wrote: | Which also brings up...
Escort/Bodyguard duty: Your team is tapped to provide protection for, and/or transportation to a Rebel VIP. |
NO, NOT THE ESCORT MISSIONS!!!! damn, but those ALWAYS sucked in every video game I played, especially in Wing Commander and X-wing/TIE Fighter. |
I think it depends on how you handle the NPC(s) in question. If they're low-grade morons or weak as kittens -- as they often are in video games -- then yeah, it'd be annoying. But suppose you end up with, say, a Princess Leia as your escort person? Or suppose there are other complications, like the loyalties of the person being escorted suddenly changing on you, or something else?
You could also have one of the PCs be the escorted person, for that matter. The actual play podcast "Falling Star" did this (although I think the campaign eventually fizzled out a couple years ago). That would probably help with the escort subject being dumber than a bag of rocks.
But yes, those X-wing escort missions were always kind of a pain. Why do the rebels insist on using so many unarmed freighters?!?!?! |
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