The Battle of Hoth

[obidancer]

I'm soon going to have my players assigned to the protection of Echo Base. How would you have your player participate the most excitingly to the Battle of Hoth?

[Son of Fire]

Personally I would keep them off the main battlefield.
The main reason for that suggestion is…well…they’d get slaughtered, and its no fun trying to harm walker scale baddies with character scale weaponry. So they would be constantly running for their lives, and that does not give much of a sense of accomplishment, and seeing that Echo base is lost eventually that will just cement that feeling.
But if they are in the base proper fighting the stormies, buying time for the reb’s to escape, then they are at least fight for an attainable goal. And if they succeed then it would make quite the story. That way continuity is maintained and they will still fell they have completed their mission.

Well that’s my two cents.
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"My schooling not only failed to teach me what it professed to be teaching, but prevented me from being educated to an extent which infuriates me when I think of all I might have learned at home by myself." - George Bernard Shaw

[Volar the Healer]

Put the players in a place where they can see the whole thing; perhaps as small unit leaders in the center of the line on the main axis of attack. Give them a heavy weapon or two they're responsible for. Maybe they can bring down one AT-AT. (yeah, right.) The director should tally the points of damage the players inflict. Decide how many rounds the players must hold to match the movies, and let 'em do what they can. The director must create the 'shock' of battle and show the players "The full might of the Empire". Done right, this will be something the surviviors will talk about for years.

When we did it, we used WEG miniatures and AT-AT models on a 4'x8' table draped with a white cloth. The director assigned the Imperials' shot randomly, and let the dice fall where they did. Some of our players fought as ground troops, the pilots fought in the snow speeders. The most remembered was the squad leader who took command of another squad as well as his own after the second's squad's leader (a player) had been incapacitated. The incapacitated player later said he could picture the other fella carrying him off the field. Defeat in battle is a great opportunity for individual heroism.

Everyone loved it. I did too, even though my character was killed (failed the required survival/repulsorlift op roll when the snow speeder crashed).

Some times no matter how well trained or how well equiped, the dragon wins. If you're gonna be a Rebel, you gotta pay the price.
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Know Jesus, Know Peace.
No Jesus, No Peace

[Ray]

Put 'em in Snowspeeders that protects the South Quadrant of the Base. The opposite side of the main attack force. They don't have to deal with too many AT-ATs, but alot of AT-STs and CAVs and Snowtrooper Chuckwagons.

Then, they're the last folks to board the Last Transport Ship, but the wounded (From the recent fighting) still need to be loaded. The Snowtroopers, however, are at the gates, and it's up to them to hold them off while the loading is taking place.

Then, if they get through all that, the X-Wing Pilots they were supposed to get to protect the Transports are injured/captured/unavailable/drunk/ect., and it's up to the PCs once again. The Ion Cannon is still firing, so the ISDs are no problem, but there are Tie Fighters and Bombers to worry about!

Finally, after all that, and they get to the Rendevous Point, they find it under Imperial Attack from an Interdictor and Escorts. Someone now needs to escort some Y-Wings on a bombing run against the Interdictor's Shield Generators while the Rebel Cruisers take on the Escorts, which could do some serious damage to them.

And then... Then... They can rest. Secure in the knowledge that, while the Empire has struck a blow against the Rebellion, they didn't get in as good a one as they wanted due to their own bravery!!!

Even in Defeat, there is Victory.

[Maximilian Bernas]

Try and do the cinematic thing and split the players up some. By bouncing back and forth between groups, you should be able to create a bit more tension. Try and goad the chars into doing things they might not otherwise do (e.g. a pacifist medic choosing between firing on a searching snowtrooper or let his wards get captured to receive better medical treatment [only to find out that outright killing is the Imperial M.O.]).

This is also a great time, as suggested above, to assist in the evacuation.

Except, have them be the escort responsible for the crew of the Anti-Orbital Ion Cannon "150." That is the ion cannon that fires to clear the way for the evacuating shuttles. It is manned entirely by 150 Alderaanian soldiers who are quite willing to die for the Alliance. The chars must find a way to evacuate the crew (and maybe booby trap the ion battery itself?) and escape Hoth <relatively> intact.

The sticking point here is convincing (as quickly as possible) the extremely vengeful crew to abandon their ion cannon and 'live to fight another day'. Even the Rebel Alliance Sourcebook says that "there will almost certainly not be time to evacuate the 150 itself." Apart from the poor sentence structure, that says it all.

If the chars fail, then despair and sorrow and revenge and all those other things come into play (be watchful of your Force sensitive chars at this time!). If they succeed, then they might see one of those Alderaanians later in the games that could a) lend advice, b) rescue the characters from a tight spot, or even c) resent the chars for denying them their right to die with honor.

The possibilities are endless (well, except Echo Base gets tronned... that much we know).
_________________
"Let your anger be like a monkey in a pinata"
- Master Tang

[Volar the Healer]

Combine all three of the above posts, throw them at your players at the same time and you should be able to bury them in the chaos of a battle gone wrong. Now, THAT sounds like a fun gaming session.

The reason the American army is so good at war is because war is chaos, and the American army practices chaos on a daily basis.
- General Erwin von Rommel
_________________
Know Jesus, Know Peace.
No Jesus, No Peace

[Scrawprin]

[obidancer]

My main idea was definitly to center the story around the Ion cannon. To defend it to allow as many transport as possible to evacuate, using both ground assault and speeders, then decide when to stop and evacuate themselves. If they fail to defend it, well they'll have to face several ISD during the evacuation... ouch, better run fast. They'd have to fight their way inside the base, maybe being pin down between a blocked corridor and a squad of snowtrooper.
I thought about having them to go to cloud city in order to get bacta treatment to the most severely injured. By the time they heal the wounded, the Empire will be on their tail again.. oh wait, no it's not for them... it's just to set a trap for some Jedi...
Also what do you think of the idea of a chase between an AT-ST and a player on a tauntaun, a desesperate run to bring back someone severly wounded?

[Volar the Healer]

Sounds Great.

Maybe the players cannot change the outcome of the battle, but if they understand their actions affect the chances of their escape, they'll be motivated to play better. If they do something really outstanding, perhaps Rebel command can recognize their efforts with a medal afterwards.
_________________
Know Jesus, Know Peace.
No Jesus, No Peace

[Son of Fire]

The chase with the AT-ST and tauntaun sounds cool.
_________________
"My schooling not only failed to teach me what it professed to be teaching, but prevented me from being educated to an extent which infuriates me when I think of all I might have learned at home by myself." - George Bernard Shaw

[Theron]

[Rerun941]

I was GMing a privateer/mercenary/smuggler group and had plans for them to participate in the Battle of Hoth. The idea would be for them to deliver supplies to the base and then get caught up in the battle. I was considering having one of the PCs siblings be a Rebel and have the group perform a search and rescue amidst the fighting. I love the suggestion of having to 'hold off' the Imperials for a certain amount of time because I was going to have the movie tie-in be that they have a high-level passenger to take off planet. Well, let's just say a certain smuggler says over the comlink, "Transport, this is Solo. Better take off, I'll get her off on the Falcon."

-Rerun
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Han - "How're we doin'?"
Luke - "Same as always."
Han - "That bad, huh?"

[therritn]

I actually ran a Battle of Hoth setting as part of my big Empire Strikes Back adventure which put the characters in this campaign in a behind the scenes type of environment. What I did was download parts of the ESB script to determine the order of events, and then worked from there. Two groups of PCs had two different roles. One group was a SpecForce group assigned as extra support for the Echo base troops and the other group was the crew of this transport who was delivering supplies to Hoth when the Empire attacked. Overall it was fun, but took a lot of time to prepare.

[Maximilian Bernas]

I actually started my mega-campaign on Hoth. Max's parents are/were medical staff for the Alliance from Corellia. His job was to make certain his parents made it to the transport and then rendezvous with the ion cannon support personnel for dust-off.

The former went fine, the latter... not so good.

He felt his first latent Force ability then, and it was downhill after that.

therritn, your story sounds awesome.
_________________
"Let your anger be like a monkey in a pinata"
- Master Tang

[Volar the Healer]