I need help with an adventure idea I have...

[Bobmalooga]

My players rely way to much on the technology of the game and not enough on their own skill. I want to place them in a situation where their trapped on a planet (I'm thinking a world wide series of EMPs that destroy technology...) where they are forced to rely on skill, cunning and the force. I want a decent enemy they can face off against, I was thinking the Vong but since I've never used them before and I'm not all that knowledgeable about them I'm not sure about that route.

I've also thought about using another SW race, something that has a hatred of tech (much like the Vong do...) but nothing comes to mind. Where ever I do this, I want it to be remote and out of the way...I'm thinking the outer rim somewhere.

Has anyone ever done anything else like this? if so what route did you take? Any ideas on how I should handle this, because as it stands now I want to strand them there with no hope of backup and make it a 'Magnificent Seven' type situation where they are the heroes fighting off a horde of alien invaders intent on killing the populace and them both.

Thanks in advance.
Keith

[Raven Redstar]

You could always put them on a planet that has Ion storms, and if they activate any tech other than a blaster, *pow* struck by an ion bolt and the tech is smoked, not to mention, they take damage.

[Hellcat]

Another thing you could try is to have them mysteriously captured and all their equipment taken away before their dumped in the middle of no where. Let the villian have a compound near by where the PCs equipment is.

Or have them be captured and thrown into a cell without their equipment then try to figure a way out of the cell.
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[Urban Spaceman]

I once had a group crash on Sevarcos, which I got from one of the SW Adventure Journals (I think it was reprinted in one of the Classic Adventure collections too).
If I remember rightly, the severe sand storms there, combined with the spice in the air, made certain technology (including blasters) dangerous to use.


Another idea is to maybe put them on a planet where some sort of local wildlife is sensitive to the energy emmisions from technology. See how many times they get attacked before they realise it's best to leave the tech at home!

[garhkal]

One of the planets i made for a module i have in the sparks universe has just what you are looking for. Check your PM's for info.
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[Kytross]

Magnificent seven? Save Anchorhead, or another small town on Tattooine, from an attack by Tusken Raiders.

Have your group's ship and cash stolen over the course of an adventure, next adventure all they have is the tech on their back.

[Tusk BloodFlail]

You could have them here about some contest where all who enter get no Tech of any kind. It could be full of traps and creatures and they will find mundane equipment to use on the way. That way they could enter the scenario of their own free will and you dont have to steal or destroy any of their items Of course the whole thing could just be some trick and all the contestant get stunned at the end and sold into slavery for gladiator fights
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[atgxtg]

I ran an adventure once where there was asomething that leeched power from other devices. It would drain powerpacks, energy cells, and so on.

[mdlake]

Idea 1: Require the players to court a low-tech culture with some kind of taboo--religion, honor, post-apocalyptic terror, whatever--against technology beyond a specific, arbitrary level.

Idea 2: Infect your players' equipment with something that ruins circuitry, like Urban Spaceman's spice. It's dormant until activated by current, so the sooner your players catch on, the more equipment they preserve. Their ship, naturally, goes haywire and must make an emergency landing. After a suitable interval of figuring out what's going on, the players need to find a fix. Happily, the planet has a fix for the problem. All they need to do is trek to its source and back, with little more than kit-bashed bows, spears, synthrope, and optic binoculars to aid the journey.

Ideally, there should be a reason the cure is so easily at hand: the planet has circuitry-eating viri and thus microbes that evolved to eat them; the planet has trace quantities of circuit-burning dust in its air, so the settlers have learned how to cook up a chemical neutralizer; an ancient race built an artifact to destroy technology (i.e., enemy ships) that pass nearby so PCs can find and smash the artifact...

I like Raven's idea, too. Simple. Getting the PCs back off-planet could be tricky, however; perhaps it's better to send them to a storm-plagued region of a planet.

[Bren]

I think an adventure I ran might suit what you are looking for.

Here There Be Gremlins
Schedule of Events
9 years ago - Colony established by followers Professor Nils Baris.
1 year ago - Increase in localized seismic activity. Unbeknownst to the colonists, one of the quakes causes the unsealing of the dome in the center of the swamp ruins. This causes reactivation of the sealed Central Core production facility and release of the anti-tech nanites.
6 months ago - Tech failures begin.
3 months ago - Tech failure rate increases.
1-2 months ago - Virtually all technology has failed. Work begins on sending a “manual” distress call.
1 month ago - Windmill powered old-style radio distress calls are broadcast.
the present - distress call is picked up by the players' ship and they investigate

Act I: Distress Call
Mayday…Mayday…This is the Baris Colony on Noteris IV. We are an independent colony in need of emergency assistance. Any ship, please respond….Mayday…Mayday…
The colony is a bunch of back to nature farmers who believe conflict occurs when people live in large communities. So they have set off to set up their small scale utopia. Unknown to them, the batrachian inhabitants of the planet are not just primitive hunch-backed, frog-like aliens but the descendants of the builders of the ancient ruins on planet. Assume all batrachian stats are 2D, except melee attack 3D, brawling 3D. They are armed with crude spears STR+1D damage.

This act ends with the rescuers landing and an attack on the colony farmers by a small group of Batrachians.

Act II: Baris Colony
Meet the colonists. Investigate the problem. Begin experiencing tech failure. This may disable whatever ship or shuttle the PCs used to arrive on planet.

Baris Colony is a small, independent colony established about 9 years ago by followers of Nils Baris. There are 123 human colonists.
Important Colonists
Vory Haichem: Male human, he is the leader of the colony. Vory is an avid follower of Nils Baris. He is older and heavyset with thinning gray hair.
Bet Moldar: Female tech and the creator of the emergency radio and power system. She is tall and thin.
Norda Haichem: Male human, he is Vory’s nephew. Norda is impulsive and overconfident. He leads the colony’s defenses. He is muscular and in his early 20s.
The Defense Force: Mostly composed of the unmarried or male colonists. They are armed with survival knives and homemade spears and clubs. There is one Needle Shell Rifle (a gunpowder firearm) with 21 shells (7D damage).

This act ends with the discovery that the ruins in the swamp are connected to the failures. The colonists know of the ruins, but have never explored them.

Act III: Into the Ruins
Journey to the ruins. The trip is plagued by Batrachian attacks and increasing tech failures. If there has been any travel between the planet any orbiting vessel or if the players’ ship has landed on planet, the ship itself will be effected by equipment failure.

The Tech Failures
The tech failures are caused by alien nanotechnology. The nanites feed on and rapidly drain any energy power sources. The also can cause damage to some types of circuitry as well. At first the nanites needed to adapt to the new (Empire-style) technology. This caused the failures to be sporadic at first. As the succeeding generations of nanites adapted, the failures became more and more frequent. Now all power sources on the planet have been drained, and all existing technology has failed. To simulate this effect: Roll 1D6 every time an item is used or exposed to nanites. On a 1, the item’s power source is drained and the item is damaged. Spare power packs count separately. Roll for each item at least once per day and increase the difficulty number by one for each day after the PCs are exposed to the nanites. (So by day 3 a roll of 1-3 on 1D6 drains an item.

A good TECH or specific repair roll can determine that the mysterious tech failures are not normal equipment malfunction, but some unexplained power drain.

The nanites are controlled by an ultra high frequency binary overchannel that broadcasts above the level of normal communications. Good (or lucky) communications or sensors rolls can detect the overchannel broadcasts.

How to Notice the Ruins
- If the PCs specifically scan for unusual communications or indicate that they want to scan all frequencies they can detect the overchannel broadcasts. The source of the communications seems to be in the ruins inside the swamp.
- Scanning for unusual power readings can detect an operating power in the ruins inside the swamp.
- Scanning for artificial structures can detect the traces of the maglev line leading towards the ruins in the swamp.

This episode ends with (hopefully) the solution to the problem.

Nils Baris: Background
Nils Baris was a philosopher and scholar of the Old Republic. Baris was opposed to those factions advocating greater centralization of authority in the Republic; seeing centralization not as a source of peace and stability, but as a source of ever increasing conflict. His theories gained some acceptance, but after the rise of the Empire COMPNOR banned his works and began persecuting his followers. Under pressure from the government, Baris retired from his position at the University of Byblos, but continued to publish privately until his death 10 years ago.

The background below is useful if you have a character who is a scholar or characters with good Knowledge skills or interests in culture/history/sociology/anthropology etc. It is pretty easy to ignore if you don't or if it is not of interest to the GM or the players.

The Three Principles (also known as Baris’ First Principles)
Principle I. Nature seeks equilibrium.
Principle II. Human capacities are finite.
Principle III. Man is a social animal.

Baris’s Four Main Theorems
Theorem I. Mankind seeks Harmony
Theorem II. Conflict occurs when no peaceful resolution is perceived.
Theorem III. Man is a political animal
Theorem IV. The size of the polis governs the scale and likelihood of conflict.

Corollary: Limiting the size of the polis limits conflict.

[Lostboy]

Maybe the PCs ship crash lands on a world with little or no tech, like endor or the surface of Ryloth. The group can only have what they can take from the crash and as they travel further make the ones carrying heavy loads roll stamina and have to dump items, they will have to survive as there supplies dwindle, and they are being hunted by the planets native population who make noise at night, boobytraps and maybe they can project false images like the wraith of Stargate atlantis to make the group use up there ammo.

This will force them to depend on there skills and wits but won't, if done correctly, make the players feel railroaded.

Good luck.

[Whill]

My next campaign will start with the PCs all having just met and then captured by a crime lord. This will be explained in the opening crawl, and the campaign will start out "in media res" as they are about to be excuted "Jabba the Hutt" style. So they will all start with no equipment except for the clothes on their backs. Makes character generation a little easier. Let the games begin!
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[Bren]

[Bobmalooga]

The last game that I ran (of which this post is a continuation of...) started with the players all on the run from the Empire on Fabrillion after receiving an odd information packet and asked to rendezvous with a blockade runner Arkanis system. The minor noble from Alderan was asked by his father, a Duke, to deliver the information to a certain Princess... As it turned out the group of players became the people who gave the Death Star plans to Leia thus making them instant members of the Rebellion.

I had a player whose character was a Grifter/conman (He was our 'face-man'...for those of you know are familiar with the A-Team...) who, because he was spotted often alongside of the minor noble (who eventually became the party Jedi...) reports began to circulate that this pc was in fact a Jedi. These rumors weren't helped by the fact that he had, at one point, gotten a hold of a lightsaber and began using 'famous historical names' as aliases such as the time he rented (and stole...) the speeder on Tatooine under the name 'Obi-Wan Kenobi' (Spreading the myth that Kenobi survived the Deathstar...) and then there was the time that he paraded around as 'Mace Windu' despite the fact that he looked nothing like him (Jimmy described the character as the lovechild of Dirk Benedict and Ben Affleck...LOL).

This all came to a head on Corelia when he pulled the lightsaber (keep in mind he had no powers or skill with the weapon, but rolled well enough not to lose a hand or other body parts...) and was able to fend on a squad of stormtroopers. He then proclaimed 'I'm Mace Windu, is that all you got?' only to turn around and find a dozen bounty hunters waiting for him. Jimmy found out its easier to hit with a saber than it is to deflect. This all came to a head when he was finally brought in by Inquisitor Tremayne and brought before Vader and Palpatine. Immediately Palpatine announces that he isn't Mace Windu and Jimmy replied with 'I was a changed man after the war...' things got ugly when the torture started and thats when he took to referring to Darth Vader as 'Wheezy' and Palpatine as 'Wrinkles'.

I still laugh every time I tell that story...I'm loving the ideas, they're all giving me something to think about...Thanks for the posts!
Keith

[Urban Spaceman]

Love it!

My last group had a stolen ID, and it became a running joke that they kept using this poor guys name everytime they needed to give one.

Eventually, I decided that this guy was a con man himself, who is increasingly suprised that half the charges on his "Most Wanted" rap sheet, are things that were nothing to do with him.
So, he advertised looking for himself (effectively), and hired the PC's under an assumed name, to break in to a facility, and steal something (had a sob story about a local con man who was blackmailing him using his childs meds).
They used the keycard he had 'copied' for them, and let them go through with the job.

When they got to where the meds were supposed to be, there was a message waiting on the vidscreen. When they played it, the guy revealed that he was the one whose name they've been using, attracting all sorts of wanted attention for him.
He also let them know that the key card they used to get in was his, so when the facility blows up in 2 minutes time, all official records will show that he entered the building, and died in the explosion.


The look on their faces was fantastic!