I have this dilemma for my "Team 50" gaming group (we're all over 50). We don't get to play a lot, so when we do play I want to kind of move the story along fairly quickly. The characters are all from the Beginner Box > LAotH, and my friends are having a fun enough time with them that they have no real interest in creating their own.

Part of the dilemma is they are still running from Teemo, and I'm kind of tired of that, plus they've mentioned they look forward to a time where they can decide what to do without that threat over their heads. Through a series of player decisions and winging it on my part we are well off the LAotH rails, and I have no intention of trying to bring it back.

The next game is tonight, and we left off at a cliff-hanger: they stole Trex's ship and went to Ryloth, where they met an Imperial agent who was expecting to deal with Trex, but is happier dealing with humans. The Imperial agent has a load of Clone Wars era battle droids ready to be delivered to Trex or whoever, destined for Teemo. The PCs decided to pretend to be the designated recipients, so now they're in an underground subway system meeting with the agent. But they don't have the payment. At this point, Trex (bandaged, and angry from being left for dead on Tatooine, and having his ship stolen ) shows up with a crew.

One other side bit that will come into play: in an earlier session after having a bar brawl with Trex's associates, a Zyggerian (slaver) came up to them and offered them medical supplies and help. They didn't take the bait (I made it kind of obvious in the hopes of foreshadowing), but had they taken the bait they probably would have been stuffed in a crate on the next shipment out.

Back to the cliffhanger: no doubt there will be combat. If nothing else, Trex will see the Imperial with the PCs and assume he's been double-crossed, and a three-way fight will ensue. The droids will shoot at everyone...probably. I'm hoping to make it obviously overwhelming for the PCs to the point where it seems like a good idea to take off, after which there will probably be a chase through the subway system (possibly with droidekas...woohoo!), and if there is a chase the train they're on will probably develop a technical problem (the nature of which they've already discovered through a previous triumph). If the chase happens, at some point they will run out of track, with a choice of riding the train into a ray-shield, or leaping off at the last platform they see before the end. I hope they pick the platform, but either will work storywise.

And who should be on the platform (or behind the ray-shield)? The Zyggerians. They are just loading a couple of Twi-lek girls into a crate when a train comes screaming by and 4 idiots jump off...and 3 seconds later there is the horrendous thundering of the train hitting the end of the line.

After a moment of stunned looks and shrieking, the lead Zyggerian will recognize the PCs. "My friends!" he says, in his thick Russian-ish accent, "so glad you could drop by!" By this point the PCs should be nearly incapacitated

But here's where I'm not sure what to do. The larger arc is to have the PCs destroy a slaving ring. I also want to satisfactorily end the Teemo arc...either he is dealt with, or he thinks they are dealt with. To affect the latter, the main idea I had was this: as the PCs are laying there after their train-leap, Trex (assuming he's still alive) comes motoring up. The Zyggerian and Trex know each other, and a brief stand off ensues. The Zyggerian thinks he can get a good price for a skilled pilot, mechanic, etc and is unwilling to relent, plus he has plenty of fresh help all around him, all armed with stun whips and guns. So they come to a deal where Trex gets a small cut, which actually makes Trex laugh, and as he parts he says "Trading one master for a worse master, not smart", then he pulls out his datapad/iPhone-ish thingy and takes a picture. "Teemo's going to love this." The assumption is that Teemo will consider them dealt with, so if they can just get free of the slavers, their lives will be their own.

At this point I would just have to tell the players they are outgunned and that is that. The next opening scene would be herding them onto the slave ship and describing a few of the other passengers, and then setting up various chances to get clues in their environment, get free, and take over the ship. If all else fails the Zyggerians will have ship trouble, and will need either the mechanic or pilot to help them out of a jam, which opens new opportunities I have planned. (If the players ask "why should I help" the answer will be "less whipping, more food" )

Anyway, my main problem is the transition feels too railroady. Sure, there are plenty of ways none of the above could play out and I may have to wing something completely different...players being players. But I'm usually pretty good at "nudging" so that the course I'd like them to take seems the best option, so I'm pretty sure I can get them to that platform...

Any other ideas? I really want to put the Teemo thing to rest this session.

Really, you can drop the slavers in anywhere, and once in a while it's ok to tell your players that they are simply taken prisoner. Out gunned, out manned, out of time, etc. It only gets rail-road-y if it is happening for every other adventure hook.

My group gets together once a week, but we only have about two and a half hours to play. I will often just hand wave a hook with something like "You have taken on a job transporting X to Y..."

My players don't mind because they know that the "get the story going" part is sometimes unnecessary. However, if I know we have the time or a player is absent, I will happily spend a session nudging, etc. and showcase player obligations or create new plot threads.

With my veteran players, we all like to share a knowing laugh when some classic railroad happens. Then we sit back and enjoy the ride, knowing that players will be players, and we won't be on the rails for long...

Since they had been dealing with an Imperial before Trex attacked nothing says the scene you described above is interrupted by a Stormtrooper intervention since the Imperial contact has been openly attacked and the Stormtrooper squad bursts in leading the Zyggerian to think Trex just double crossed him since he did just take out his datapad/mobile right before they burst in...

This leads to a fire fight between the Zyggerians and the Stormtroopers with Trex deciding to pull back and meanwhile the PCs now have the option of hiding underneath the platform since they can't really do anything else and waits for the firefight to end with the Stormtroopers escorting the surviving Zyggerians away with their erstwhile new captives and it will take a while before they thoroughly search the platform and where your PCs are.

However its at this point you let your PCs make a knowledge or perception check to realise this subway system has air shafts one of which they can get to underneath the station platform (service duct natural) you could now let them know they can recover 2 strain and anyone with a medpac and better yet medical skills make a check on another PC to help them recover for their recent injuries.

They have time for one check per player (who can use a medpac or has medical skills) during the commotion above them but once it starts to quieten down they need to move out maybe via that air shaft, however Trex taking this moment to try and confirm they're dead heads to where they were before the storm troopers arrive and realises they must be hiding nearby ideally he should think to check underneath once the last of them enter the air shaft and they start climbing obviously to escape.

A few side tunnels up the shaft give them other ways to escape as the Imperials noticing Trex send a shuttle to hover above where the air shaft hits the surface and drops a thermal detonator to seal the exit, this will collapse the air shaft making Trex and the Imperials think they're dead (unaware they had already taken the side tunnels since in their condition even with the limited healing the climb will be far too exhausting).

Resting up they will find the side tunnel links up with another air shaft and unless they decide to spend the next day or two there will discover they can escape without any trouble (though they don't need to know that!) but if they want to keep Teemo thinking they're dead they need both a new ship (somehow disguise it so Teemo can't trace it) and new identities which should be quite an adventure in itself!

Thanks for the input. We had the session and it went pretty well. I managed to nudge things enough to get them to land where I wanted, but the players were very clever and managed to arrive in decent health. Oskara had probably the most stunning dice roll I've seen yet: she got two boost dice from the previous PC who missed their shot with a ton of advantages, and two boost dice from aiming twice, plus a destiny point upgrade gave her a pool of YYYYBBBB against PS...enough damage to kill one minion outright, plus 9 advantages, which turned into 3 criticals, which meant 4 minions down in one barrage. Then, instead of having to leap from a speeding train, the mechanic managed to roll 2 Triumphs to bring it to a screeching halt.

So at this point I just asked them whether they minded if I just narratively shifted the story, because after months of intermittent play they were still running from Teemo, and they all graciously accepted. This is the pre-narrative for the next session:

whatfrog, something else your group might consider is to take on a more specifically episodic style of campaign.

If you've heard the Order 66 episode about "episodic" play, this is specifically what I'm thinking of.

One where you play a team who has a specific 'job' in the way that an episode of a TV show like a police procedural, detective show, or old-fashioned action show features a story where you get in and out in 45 minutes and you're done.

Then next episode you have a new job.

This is just a thought, but it might help to have some story you can wrap up in a single session when you get together.

This is just a thought, but it might help to have some story you can wrap up in a single session when you get together.

Ha, if only I'd certainly try that if I had a different group of players, but then I wouldn't be in this pickle with a different group.

With these guys it took us most of the evening to resolve the platform combat and subway chase, because it was interspersed with social commentary, girlfriend woes, dinner, and whatnot...when they were engaged they were imaginative and fully entertained, but they tend to divert the conversation. Basically, they are very casual gamers, and the game is really an excuse for a social visit.

I have to tailor my expectations (and the game plot) accordingly. I don't think I really understood the degree of this before, and if I want the game to move forward more quickly I'm going to have to make combat shorter (you'd think Trex and 10 minions wouldn't take very long ), and make social resolutions have broader repercussions.

Haha, 10 minions?

Another thing that might factor into your combats is how much bookkeeping detail you do.

When I watched GM Chris run our con game a few weeks ago, not only did he do very little bookkeeping, but he often just tracked minion wounds in his head. He didn't even need to write anything down in several cases.

You might be able to still have a great adventure, but as a GM it might free you up a bit to handle the minions more loosely, so you can kill a few by GM fiat if the combat is going well and you don't want to worry about tracking every last one.

When I watched GM Chris run our con game a few weeks ago, not only did he do very little bookkeeping, but he often just tracked minion wounds in his head. He didn't even need to write anything down in several cases.

That's what I do. But these guys will take 15 minutes to decide whether to shoot at Trex hiding behind a pillar, or minions hiding behind crates; or how to spend their advantages; or whether to spend 2 strain to grab the broken droid remote controller from the Imperial agent or keep the strain and just let him have it. It's actually pretty amusing because they'll come up with hilarious narrative possibilities before they actually roll or decide, and they're having a lot of fun with it so I don't want to be a hardass, but it does take forever.

Games with my son are completely different and much faster. The main reason is he actually cares about knowing the rules, and these guys mostly don't. Only one does, the others actually told me they appreciate not having to know them beyond basic dice pool assembly. In some ways I'm learning to be a Menu Master, offering up 2 or 3 options for how they can approach a problem rule-wise and letting them pick.

I sound like I'm complaining about the combat speed, but I actually don't mind the way these Team 50 games go. I just wasn't sure when I wrote the OP whether injecting a narrative railroad would be well received, but it turns out it was okay. That said, I like the episodic idea, it's probably more suitable for this group, if I can find a way to keep the episodes to one or two sessions.

I am in a similar situation: I ran long Arm of the Hutt and at the end I have started running my own home brew. I used the mining camp as a base of operations for the players, I then made B'uan B'ran (The guy they save on the krayt Fang) as a fixer, the group came back to claim their ship and he gave them a job.

The players had to ship some medicines to a facility: I was going to have some thugs ambush the PC's on their way to the facility and try and prevent the shipment. But the players were very keen on discovering the conspiracy in that, when they arrive at the facility ....

So what in my mind began as a simple courier mission has mutated into more. But it began with the players being handed a job by a friend.

whatfrog, I hear you about the players taking 20 minutes decide whether to take a Boost or give a Setback or which road to take while fleeing from the enemy!

Our original group had this problem in spades. It's a slightly different mix of players now, but I do try to create the urgency of time. "Ok, while you are discussing whether to run or hide, the Stormtroopers are getting closer. They're now at Medium range."

Something you might try sometime in the future is to come up with the absolute most bare bones idea for a story, thinking "this would probably take 20 minutes of story time". A job like "Rescue my daughter from Tusken raiders in a camp just outside of town."

It might be simple enough to give you flexibility to make up complications along the way if you need to, but knowing that it IS simple enough to wrap up in one session.

Sounds like you've got it well in hand, though!