I'm currently creating planets for my story and campaign to be set in. It's hard work but fun, as I build from scratch thirteen planets, their flora and fauna and their politics. This is what I enjoy the most and I'm having a great time doing so.

But what to do next.

Do I.....

.....create a strong story and try to keep the games following a set script?

Or

.....create a bunch of characters, throw them into the setting with cool and exciting missions and see what happens?

Fellow Games Masters; is it better to have a strong story and stick to it, or to just take it one mission at a time and see where the gaming takes the story?

This is up to you and the players, there is no right answer. Personally I like having an overarching story to tell, but sandbox play can be a lot of fun too. And there's no reason you can't mix and match. Have a few sandbox games where you drop hints about larger events/histories/characters and have those larger events slowly take on greater importance.

First off, check out the old WEG planets collection for tips on creating new planets. Even has a set of random rolling tables if you need a last minute world.

For story what I like to do is write a campaign outline first to figure out where its all supposed to go over the course of 10-20 adventures. Just a sentence per adventure, like you'd find on a VOD menu.

Once you are happy, go back and do a adventure overview for at least the first 3-4 adventures. Just a paragraph for each adventure going over key plot points and elements you want to include.

That done, go back and script out the first 2 adventures. And try and stay one adventure ahead of the players when you write.

The end result is your campaign has direction and you can add foreshadowing and intro elements that are relevant later, but you're not so far ahead that if the players go off script (or you accidently introduce an Urkle) you dont lose days of work, and if things go to far you can just revisit the outline and either work to correct the plot, or reoutline the story to fit any changes.

What I've done for our new campaign is this:

Rough ideas of several larger sequences that play on the characters' Obligations and Motivation.

Basically a very rough overarching plot that relates to the backstories of each character. I've blended several of them together, so the shadow organization that sponsored the Archaeologist and the Outlaw Tech could be related to the crimelord with the bounty on the Doctor. The Assassin's obsessive target could be associated with the rogue Rebel group who framed the Pilot.

Those are still just ROUGH, like Ghostofman said, just a few sentences or a vague outline.

And then I'm staying roughly one to two sessions ahead of the players. This lets me respond in a satisfying way to what the players do in any given session. The Doctor chats up a girl in a bar (which was not something I planned at all), so perhaps she embroils the party in intrigue with a slave ring.

Then whatever happens with the slave ring will affect the underworld contacts to whom the party are trying to fence their discovered relics. This was my original plan for the next session, but the Doctor chatting up the girl in the bar gave me a better idea.

Be sure you can react to what your characters do, they will appreciate it.

If you're creating a region you want them to play in I'd say both are fine. Think of an over reaching story you're trying to tell. Then borrow from the new supps and make some small modular type encounters for them to cherry pick like sand box fashion. Have that all feed into the main plot.

Either approach is fine but if you want players on rails, you have to keep in mind you either have to deny them freedom of movement, so they don't just say, "lets just fly away" or the story has to be something they are fully bought into, "they've got Bob in cell block D!".

I think creating your own region make sand box easier for you, you can plop down one of your favorite personalities and easily make it up as you go.

Thank you for that.

When the brain is fried from too much thinking and planning it's good to know what others think. From each of your comments I have gleaned the following:

(1) Have a final destination. Beginning, middle and end. Not a game by game " this must happen or all is lost " but a more flexible approach.

(2) While taking the plot one game at a time, try to figure out what happens next according to a rough idea. Much like tree campaigns. If Rebels lose, this happens. If Rebels win, this happens.

(3) Remain flexible. Nothing ever goes to plan when gaming and unexpected things might happen. Try to work with them, perhaps using such unexpected events to further the main story.

(4) Even with a main plot, never be afraid to drop the players into a situation completely unrelated and see what happens. Especially when doing so will give my grey cells a breather and the players a chance to stretch their own creative juices for a change.

I'll reiterate what our other fine commenters have said that it's up to you and your group. If you don't have the same expectations, you might be in for a bad time. However, if you're all having a good time, then you are doing it right.

I run a semi-sandbox and what I have found to be a boon (and I've mentioned this several places elsewhere, pardon me while I beat the dead horse) is the concept of Fronts from Dungeon World. Make some of those, set them in motion in your galaxy, and let the players decide what/if they're going to do. Of course it helps to make them things that force them to act....

If you're not familiar, the tl;dr for Fronts is:

1. Pick a bad thing, any bad thing, the climax really

2. Pick a couple steps (2-3) leading up to bad things, like things that will happen if your heroes don't react

3. Make 2-3 more of these, and see if you can find any way to have them intersect (not necessary but cool)

4. Set things in motion and stand back!

If you're not familiar, the tl;dr for Fronts is:

1. Pick a bad thing, any bad thing, the climax really

2. Pick a couple steps (2-3) leading up to bad things, like things that will happen if your heroes don't react

3. Make 2-3 more of these, and see if you can find any way to have them intersect (not necessary but cool)

4. Set things in motion and stand back!

I'm not familiar but that looks interesting.

Hi everyone!

My style is more like I create a few REALLY important fixed points about the story and I let the rest to a sandbox style.

I focus mainly on characterization, ambientation and interpreation. A lot of moral choices, good action, intrigue and mistery... romance, scary dark side things... XD

A few fixed "planned" events and sandbox. As a sample I use to say "your past is that someone called X is behind you, you probably will arrive to planet X and will find an important clue and finally you will confront the final boss". All the things and choices between those fixed points and sandbox. (This is a sample of a 15 years old game XD)

For me, scripting stories has almost always ended badly. My players are amazingly adept at throwing a story off the rails. And if I try to bring it back, they seem to detect the railroad attempt and then go the opposite direction.

As others have said, it will be different for every gaming group. But one of the strengths of this system is that you can easily run a 3-4 (edit) hour session with literally 5 minutes' worth of planning. Also, when you and your players put your creative heads together, you will likely end up with a much more memorable and enjoyable session than if you try to write out the story ahead of time and then coax the players along, or worse just railroad them.

At least, that's what I've found to be true.

"The best laid plans never survive first contact with the enemy."

As others have said, it really does depend on the group. My experience with being a GM has shown me that no matter how well I think I have the campaign mapped out, the players will decide to go elsewhere and do what they want, even if it leads to their deaths.

That said, this is what my GMing has turned into:

0) Get a basic idea of the group and what they are prone to do.

Example: my current group is a blend of combat loving people with a heavy bend on RP. I throw in a combat here and there, but as the party is not combat specc'd, it comes up maybe once every other session.

1) Get a scenario that gets everyone on board. Have plans B-Q on hand just in case the first one doesn't get their attention. These can be saved for whenever they are needed as hooks later.

Example: With a brand new group, I originally planned to have them sabotage a corrupt mayor's attempt to win a local competition. It was rejected because the party wanted something BIGGER and even more anti-Imperial. I then offered a mission I had for "later": sneak into an Imperial Hangar and destroy a prototype TIE fighter.

2) Have enough stuff to keep your campaign goals in line while giving the party the feeling of doing whatever they want.

Example: An old group of mine opened up the campaign with stealing a Marauder Corvette with a skeleton crew for the Alliance. They were then left with no one to report to but wanted to still do their job. They had goals for the ship, and even though they went all over the galaxy, they still worked on those goals at every stop.

3) Don't be afraid of repercussions or changes.

Example: A group I had decided to NOT continue with a campaign hook of helping a particular individual. They individual was in a bad spot because of it, and the world changed afterward because of that failure.

A Star Wars example would be the party not accepting a bit of cargo for the Alliance due to not enough money, and they learn that the Rebel Cell that was hiring them for previous jobs was killed off.

4) Keep having fun, even if it is one short mission at a time without an overall campaign in mind.

Example: Sometimes, you just CAN'T design a campaign. Players keep joining or dropping, it's a group you don't know anything about, or you just can't be bothered to make a full-length campaign that you know is going to fall apart. At that point, make the campaign focus on the antics of the party, even if there's no major concrete story goal at the end beyond the next adventure and/or hitting that big score to let them retire.

Lots of great advice from LibrariaNPC.

Episodic TV shows are a great model for building an RPG campaign over time, in my opinion.

Very often when an episodic adventure show is written, they may have ideas in mind but they might leave things vague and fill them in later. Not everything has to be plotted out in advance.

A new character might become a fan favorite, or an actor might leave the show. These things require plot changes to feature the new character more, or explain the absence of the missing actor.

Sometimes it can be fun to just drop some hints about something bad that's on the horizon and fill in the details later.

Heck, Lucas even did this with the script for A New Hope. Obi-Wan was going to survive the Death Star escape and die before the Rebels fought the Empire on Kashyyk with the Wookiees.

In trimming that down to one "episode", Lucas had Obi-Wan die, they blew up the Death Star, and then introduced Yoda and turned the Wookiees into Ewoks and made a second Death Star.

Lots of great advice from LibrariaNPC.

Episodic TV shows are a great model for building an RPG campaign over time, in my opinion.

Very often when an episodic adventure show is written, they may have ideas in mind but they might leave things vague and fill them in later. Not everything has to be plotted out in advance.

A new character might become a fan favorite, or an actor might leave the show. These things require plot changes to feature the new character more, or explain the absence of the missing actor.

Sometimes it can be fun to just drop some hints about something bad that's on the horizon and fill in the details later.

Agree that LibrariaNPC had lots of good advice. As have everyone, including you.

My favourite TV viewing is NCIS. Every episode is different with a different case to solve. But at times a theme develops that, in some cases, has spanned series. You think you've heard the end of it but then it comes back. Sometimes you discover things about characters you never expected, or you learn how they know each other.

So the Episodic approach might well serve here.

Have a BIG PLOT, but work it into occasional episodes while having fun missions. These mission can lead into each other, but the BIG PLOT remains in the background until it erupts in their face.

Episodes sound good to me.

One of the things I find tricky with this game is the Obligations mechanic. When that comes up in game, it can be tricky to try and shoehorn it into whatever plot you might have going on. It's helped me to not look too far ahead planning-wise session to session and try to be more open to letting things happen as they come up and as the game proceeds with the players and GM working together.

My personal favorite model is Joss Whedon's TV shows Buffy and Angel.

They also featured many "monster of the week" episodes that were just a case to be handled, but over a whole season there was a main plot featuring a "Big Bad", and as the season went on the tension ramped up until the climax.

But what to do next.

The way I usually start out a game is by building a sector - about 10 or so planets. Not completely full write-ups, but a fleshed out capsule. Something like this:

TAL DOR

Run by the Eternal Monks of Rabota, Tal Dor Station is the main refueling point for ships crossing the Danagon sector and a junction point of several trade routes. Much of the traffic heading coreward passes through Tal Dor, the station is large enough to accommodate larger ships and bulk freighters and has received the blessing from several Hutt clans to remain in business - for a consideration in the fuel prices heading towards Hutt space.

The Eternal Monks of Rabota follow a path spiritual development leading to insight into the true nature of reality. The Eternal Monks believe that meditation and service are means of changing oneself in order to attain that enlightenment. Nothing is fixed, permanence is temporary, actions have consequences and change is inevitable.

Freighter captains, on the other hand, hate refueling here. While the prices are extremely low, the free salvation that comes with every fill-up almost makes it worth pushing onto the higher prices of Hutt space.

PLANET FUNCTION - Refueling station

TERRAIN TYPE - Space Station

STARPORT - Stellar class

POPULATION - 100 thousand

GOVERNMENT - Theocracy

MAJOR IMPORTS - Starship equipment, technology, processed ores

MAJOR EXPORTS - Fuel

Once I get a colorful and interesting playground to run around in, I'll build some characters that the players are likely to run into, both enemies and allies. Customs agents, crime bosses, rival tramp freighter captains, bounty hunters, imperials and so on. Again, not too much detail, but a couple of sentences to hang the hook upon.

B'ura B'ran

Spice Mining Overseer at New Meen. He's not a Warrior but he knows how to effectively run a spice mine and is loved by his people.

Nyn Kalbo -

A female Twlek leader of the New Meen mining settlement on the planet Ryloth. Deals with the spice distribution and management with B'ran

Asha Odikar -

A female Zeltron Smuggler. She runs solo onboard the Infinity , specializing in fast, small cargos over big flashy loads.

Brother Jaxon -

Monk on Tal Dor Station, enjoys chatting with Mahetha. Likes chess.

Boris the Blade -

Badassed bounty hunter. Flies the Fair Warning , generally out of Atikan.

Once I've got my supporting cast, I'll work on incorporating what the players came up with for backstory, tweaking my vision to sync up with what the players bring to the table.

After all that, now I've got some room to let the players Sandbox as they wish "Well, we can take ship parts from Tal Dor, sell them at the Seleitan Mining colony - and if we hurry, we can get there just in time for the sabbac tournament!" and still have some room to come up with game ideas - "Seleitan asteroid field, huh? Bet there's some ancient artifacts in and amongst the rocks. What if an artifact dealer shows up with ancient Sith artifacts during the tournament. . . ."

Its a lot of work, and requires some editing (sometimes on the fly as ideas don't work out) but I've been pretty successful with this approach many times in the past. Give them somewhere familiar to hang their hat, a recurring cast to give it continuity and enough room to explore.

Plenty of great advice already. One thing I now do religiously is Session 0.

That way I make the group come up with half the stuff (people, places, problems) that they are interested in exploring with their characters. I weave things I am interested in exploring into the stuff they are and just let it ride from there.

Then I run in fixed intervals of sessions/Episodes (I set this at 6-10 depending on the game and the people involved). Between each Season I have a "Session 0 Redux" where as a group we review the stuff from before, possibly remove a couple things that just didn't pan out or otherwise not working, and add some new things based on stuff that happened in the Season we just finished. This recalibrates the setting elements for the next stretch. Then rinse and repeat.

That way I keep involving things the players want to see without my having to overcreate material that will never see the light of day. I also find I get more buy-in from the players this way since there is the between Season check-in where they have continuing input on a meta level.

But what to do next.

The way I usually start out a game is by building a sector - about 10 or so planets.

I'm currently working on thirteen planets. Scheduled to begin posting on my blog from 10th March, I'm going to introduce each planet in three parts detailing the planet itself, any plant and animal life and then their political views. Later I'll flesh them out, but I wanted to get the bare bones done first.

I've got my YT-1300 Century Mallard and my Firespray Liberation 4 named. Their names are joking opposites of Millennium Falcon and Slave 1. I've even given them the famous saying of those who crew them.

I want to play both Edge of Empire and Age of Rebellion, and now I have the basis for how both cross each other.

One of my planets is going to be a war zone. During the Clone Wars it got attacked by a large CIS fleet which required a strong Republic response. The attack was just a feint, one of many to spread out the Republic forces prior to the attack on Coruscant. Suffice to say a Jedi leads the Republic attack and does a good job of tipping the balance.

Then came Order 66.

But this Jedi was not so easily put down and took out many a Clone. Unfortunately, he did get wounded but a grateful population hid the Jedi and helped him to heal. One of the people to take care of him was a beautiful young woman and love soon followed. Thanks to Obi-Wan and Yoda, he knew not to return to the Jedi Temple so decided to make a home for himself with the people he fought so hard to protect. Two sons followed, two years apart. The oldest was his father's favourite as the boy was force sensitive so his father spent time training him. The youngest was not so sensitive to the force, but his mother spent time teaching him shooting.

Then came Darth Vader.

The boys were 8 and 6 at this time. Tie's screamed through the sky as the shuttles started landing. From the ramp of one shuttle came Darth Vader and eighteen elite Stormtroopers. Sensing the incoming danger the Jedi had his wife and boys flee leaving one of his lightsabres with the oldest son. His wife had other ideas. Leaving her pistol with the youngest boy, and giving instructions and money to the oldest, she says her goodbye and heads back to help out her husband. Arriving just in time to see Darth Vader kill him, she finds herself taken prisoner. Vader has managed to learn of her oldest son and intends to use her as bait to draw him into a trap.

Naturally the boys are concerned about their mother, but the youngest is more determined to rescue her. This leads to friction between them as the older literally has to drag his little brother along to the prepared rendezvous that their parents arranged. Century Mallard , managing to outwit the Empire, lands and takes the boys ( the youngest kicking and screaming ) to the planet where all manner of scum and villainy meet. Oldest boy gives the crew their pay and inquires of any known Rebel operatives on the planet.

The crew may be scum, but they're not heartless and a boy asking for help won't be ignored. " Wait here kid while we ask around ". It isn't long until the crew manage to find a group of Rebels, there to get their hands on a HWK-290 for their missions, and they are willing to take the boys. But only the older will go with them. Believing the Rebels won't help rescue their mother, and that his older brother is just a coward saving himself, the younger sets out to join one of the bands of misfits and scum.

Meanwhile, Darth Vader has their mother taken to a prison planet that does not exist

In my first planned mission, a group of Empire operatives hire some bounty hunters to carry out a kidnapping for them.

It will be a team of three, one pilot and two crew, who own a Firespray by the name of Liberation 4 .

Guess whose part of, if not leading, the team.

Guess where the mark will be taken once they have been handed over and payment received.

That is what I've got so far. More than I had before, but still work in progress.

Tamati ... you a kiwi?

Tamati ... you a kiwi?

North East England UK

I spent a month in Auckland New Zealand and just loved it. Because I like to hear my real name in different languages I asked a Maori I had befriended and they said that Thomas was Tamati. Of course I prefer to be called Tom in the real world, which is Tame in Maori, but I have to say Tamati sounds like a cool name so adopted it for my online and RPG PC persona.

Just in case anyone is wondering, I'm not much of a Star Trek fan. Not as much as Star Wars. But Wrath of Khan and Into Darkness are my all time favourite Treks next to First Contact. Though Khan was more awesome in Into Darkness and the choice of actor was awesome.

Question to fellow GMs.

Situation - the NPC has his agenda/view (part of his background story) on something and NO WAY he is going to change it. PC of course approach him and wants to convince him. Should I tell the PC that he does clearly see that he cannot convince the NPC and there is no roll even OR should I allow him a roll giving a lot of setback etc.?

Question to fellow GMs.

Situation - the NPC has his agenda/view (part of his background story) on something and NO WAY he is going to change it. PC of course approach him and wants to convince him. Should I tell the PC that he does clearly see that he cannot convince the NPC and there is no roll even OR should I allow him a roll giving a lot of setback etc.?

This is that rock and a hard place situation.

Allow them to roll when failure is ensured gets the ire up in some players, but not allowing them even the slimmest possibility of success will cause some other issues.

My approach to this: "It is clear that you won't get <NPC> to change his mind, but you may have given him food for thought/slowed down his approach to it after speaking with you."

A stall tactic at most, but if the party can't convince the NPC to change, perhaps slowing them down or putting in a possible threat/deterrent may be enough to let the party force a change.

Edit: I figured I'd give you an example or two that may help.

In a previous game, I already had it set up that the jerk NPC was going to sell out the party regardless of the threats. The Face of the group did some amazing RPing; he leaned in close enough and spoke softly, noting that if they were betrayed, he would be the last person they would find. The Wookiee of the group would start by ripping off the arms of his most recent employer. Then go down the line of the other employers they knew of (guesswork and research combined), always leaving the note that it was his fault for their misfortune.

It wasn't enough to stop him ("the money is too good" was the reasoning), but it was enough to give him pause enough to buy the group some time to get the job done.

In an entirely different game of swashbuckling adventure, the villain (a noble) was going to capture the daughter of another noble and force marriage upon her to acquire the holdings of her family. The party tried talking him out of it to no avail, but they made it clear that they would stand in the way. This bought the party some time as the noble then had to wait until he was able to get a messenger back home to send some more of his guards to him as the party had a reputation as a group to not fight without being prepared. This time, of course, was spent very quickly by the party who set up a small wedding and got a priest to marry the young lady and her selected groom.

Of course it lead to an epic battle and a recurring villain, but the point still stood that time was all they needed, and RPing and a good roll bought them that time.

It depends on the details and function, but it's certainly ok to say "No" to some things if you feel you must.

Stormtroopers will not knowingly or intentionally betray the Empire, Jabba the Hutt won't suddenly come to his senses and give up his criminal empire to become the Mynokhutt, the hero Tatooine deserves, but not the one it needs, The Emperor isn't going to stop building the death star to open a flower shop...

If it's a little more simple then that just use the "impossible checks" rule, toss out some setback, and go with it. Worst case scenario they succeed with a pile of threat so large you can probably count it as a triple despair. They change the guys mind for now, but later when it really counts, he changes it back, or chickens out, or otherwise completely leaves the players butts hanging in the wind when it really counts.

Question to fellow GMs.

Situation - the NPC has his agenda/view (part of his background story) on something and NO WAY he is going to change it. PC of course approach him and wants to convince him. Should I tell the PC that he does clearly see that he cannot convince the NPC and there is no roll even OR should I allow him a roll giving a lot of setback etc.?

Apply Setback dice liberally, and season with Destiny Points as appropriate. I have added as many as 5 Setback dice to a single pool.

However, be merciful when resolving Threats and Despair.

If they do succeed, it does not represent a true conversion, but at least the beginnings of doubt, as others have said above.