Hey

I am looking for a little advice on story ideas... below is a little synopsis of the campaign I am putting together, like the films it is split in to 3 acts.

I am struggling with act 2. The idea, the players have a series of very easy smuggling runs which pay well but smuggle illegal substances. The act needs show how the drugs or other illegal stuff effect normal people.

I have a few ideas floating about, super soldier drugs tried on a local populace, drugs laced with chemicals to leave the populace docile to reduce the chance of rebellion.

But a story about addiction doesn't feel very Star Wars like , so any ideas would be very welcome.

In a way, Anakin Skywalker's story has many of the same elements of a story about addiction.

He finds himself addicted to anger and rage, and Palpatine acts as a 'dealer', continually prompting him to give in to those feelings more and more. His friends warn him about the effects but he doesn't listen. Eventually he even lashes out at the people he loves and hurts them.

On the other hand, as it relates to your specific campaign ideas--

Are you basing your ideas for the themes of the campaign, etc, on your players' Obligations, Motivations, and the details of their characters?

A lot of the details of what happens in the campaign, should, IMO be based specifically around the characters' Obligations.

If you had a character with Family Motivation or Obligation, they could find that some of the crates of spice they smuggled made their way to the characters' home planet and one of their family members has become addicted.

Characters with a Criminal obligation could find themselves taking on more notoriety because they're smuggling spice successfully.

How does this relate to your characters themselves?

Why not go with a weapon of some sort?

• Weaponized virus - computer or biological.
• Small, compact, and very deadly concealed weapons.
• Poisons or Toxins

Make it about the characters.

* One of the characters finds out how cool glitterstim is (hint: it's really pretty cool) and must get more or face withdrawal symptons. Too bad there's only the load available they're smuggling. He should steal from it, yes. Who'll notice it's only 99 of 100 doses? Well, the Hutt crime lord and his pissed off henchmen, that's who.

* Character's sister starts doing the drugs because her brother is so cool and she wants to be like him. Falls in with the wrong crowd, needs to get rescued. Still won't see the light. If you feel a little bit dark, toss in her getting ganked in a dark alleyway because she was high and pissed of the wrong Gran. Maybe her brother sees it but is just this second too late - maybe just that inch fast enough to hear her whisper how she wants more of the stuff

* Character's aunt/niece/dad get's hold up in another dark alleyway by guys who need money for the next fix. PCs find the drugs they've been smuggling. Bonus points for Uncle Ben-ing the family member.

* Empire moves in on them, catches them, makes them responsible for other drug smuggling operations they have nothing to do with. If you want to go dark, execute one of the characters (or have them being tortured with the permanent loss of a limb - cybernetic hands are all the rage in the Outer Rim).

Make. It. Personal.

Thanks for the replies.

Basing the story around the characters is a sound idea. They haven't been created yet and this is preparation work is mainly to get an outline and introduce character details a little later.

I also like the reflection based on Anakin and I am trying to look to Star Wars legacy and see if drug use is incorporated into mythology.

pressie, I just started a new campaign with my playgroup and I've got a lot of ideas for the overall idea of how the campaign *could* go.

But I came up with almost all of those ideas after the characters were built. I was inspired by Enter the Unknown and my wife liked the idea of a Chiss Archaeologist, so we have built our campaign around a group of characters who explore the galaxy and look for relics and such.

From each character's Obligation I've added complicating factors because of that. The players gave me a lot of leeway to come up with backstory for some of their ideas, so I can tie them together in various ways.

They're searching for a specific relic, and indebted to an organization who paid them to find it. The crimelord who has a bounty on another character might be associated with the organization sponsoring the other characters. The Rebel splinter group who ruined the Duros Pilot's life and set him on the run may factor into that somehow as well.

I'd strongly recommend you get your players to come up with ideas about their Obligations and Motivations before you kinda 'lock down' your ideas for the campaign.

If you're talking literally about "Star Wars: Legacy", then addiction is definitely featured in the comics series by that name. Luke's descendant Cade Skywalker is addicted to deathsticks, and it goes into that a bit.

Thanks for the feedback progressions

When planning a campaign I tend to follow a half built approach, we play weekly so the management/preparation for the sessions can get a bit over whelming for me if I leave too much till the start of the campaign.

I don't necessarily lock down story, but I do like to have a big pool of ideas to draw from. One of my favourite books to aid in preparation is Sly Flourish's Lazy DM, I put together short story ideas on index cards. I combine this with Dungeon World 'fronts' which allows me to highlight the story threats. The order 66's podcast has also helped building my campaign pool with their idea of generic set-pieces in a holocron.

Apologies for not explaining myself properly, when I was referring to the Star Wars legacy I meant how the original stories are based on the classic heroes journey of story telling. But your suggestion has given me an unexpected resource when trying to deal with drug addition, so thank you.

The Original Trilogy is heavily mapped to Hero's Journey . So you can explore the darker themes and still have it have the "Star Wars feel" as long as you can map it to Hero's Journey as well.

Being Edge of the Empire, most games will involve grittier themes than the OT but keeping the same general character progression story arc makes it feel more Star Wars. At least it has worked so far in my game where my players are running characters who regularly engage in crime, assassination and regime change.