Hey all, I just ran my first session with a group of novice RPers (went fairly well overall). The obligation and advantage/threat/triumph really did help the players feel engaged and do interesting things (many of which I made up on the fly).

Set back and boost dice were very nice to have around rather than having to come up with number penalties in d20 games.

Fun stuff overall.

However I do have one grip about the opening of the adventure. It could be because I'm playing a rule incorrectly, but I'm not sure.

When the Gamorrean brawl breaks out, the PCs of course tried to break up the fight. Which ended up with the wookie in the group pinning one of the offending Gamorreans in a sleeper hold (rolled an amazing triumph with a ton of advantage).

And then ends up getting decked in turn and a fist-fight breaks out. However the Gamorreans are the [Rival] type of enemy and have an extremely high wound threshold and a massive soak value that pretty much negates all but 1 or 2 strain even on good rolls. Considering the big wound pool, this takes FOREVER to knock out a gamorrean even if Bargos's guards jump in.

This resulted in the PCs getting annoyed and feeling like they wanted to end the fight quickly....at which point weapons were drawn and the fight got a lot deadlier.

Hell at one point I was having the Gamorreans spend strain for extra manuevers just to help them out.

Downing 3 Gamorreans with soak 5 in hand-to-hand is just ridiculously time consuming. Did anyone run into this kind of trouble? How did you get around the issue?

Ours ended up with grenades getting thrown, people getting impaled, and all sorts of carnage leaving 4 Gamorreans dead, 1 PC badly mangled, 1 nearly knocked out, and another midly hurt but with a critcal injury. Oh, and an incredibly pissed off Hutt due to his office and lobby getting trashed by blasters and a frag grenade.and soaked in all sorts of blood and squishy bits.

That is a hell of a crazy intro to the game that really isn't overly fair (IMO). If I ever run a scenario like this again, it's going to be with Gamorreans as minions.

Nobody had blasters with stun setting?

Nobody says that the Gamorreans need to be taken past their Wound/Strain Threshold before they give up fighting.

A couple solid punches from a Wookiee, and there's no shame in calling the fight for fear of more hurt.

My players make heavy use of Coercion checks to intimidate enemies when the Enemies have already been beaten to a pulp. Though I can't remember where, there are special rules in the CRB that outline how to resolve/finish up combat with a single check.

I hope someone else that has the book on hand can give you the page number.

One check combat resolution is in the additional rules at the end of the GM chapter. AFB, so no page number.

My PCs let the Gamorreans duke it out and escorted Bargos out of the mess, so I didn't experience this, but some quick math says you're right. On the other hand, the module does say that the guards are just there to make a good show, so them backing down before passing out is understandable. Also, the module does say that if half of them go down, the other half retreat.

Still, I see your point: it's supposed to be a fairly easy sidebar to the adventure, to show that Bargos is hurting for money, and the numbers don't seem to add up.

All-in-all, though, I really liked that adventure, and it made a great start for my group.

Another topic on this adventure over here: http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/88820-debts-to-pay-adventure/

I didn't even bother with this scene. In the adventure it seemed to me a just a chance to beat up on Piggys.

In my adventures I foreshadowed a Local Noble was deeply in debt due to Gambling debts. one of the players gambled at one of the Nobles "Parties" and lost... badly. The next day the noble shows up at the players ship with a few guards and makes them a deal. Before the deal is done a group of Thugs acting as debt collectors show up and try to collect payment. Since the thugs were using "Shock sticks" (Basically force pikes with only stun settings) and the Guards stun batons, and the thugs were not even targeting the players it went rather smoothly. with the Guards and thugs unconscious, and the Noble stammering and trying to ignore the sleeping bodies all around him.

But i liked the Mine part of the adventure, it seemed like a classic Dungeon crawl as the players tried to gather evidence and figure out what happened.

if your players had trouble with the Gammorens, watch out, they are going to have trouble with the Binary Load Lifters later on. My players fled from them and barred the doors on them. it was only with the Aid of the administration droid and the Mine overseer that they were able to shut them down remotely.

Nobody had blasters with stun setting?

The wookie went in with fists, another went in with a force-pike on stun. The other two went for stun weapons (one pistol, one rifle). Even the rifle managed to only hit for 6 strain (hit with two successes).

The wookie got upset when one of the Gamorreans decked him pretty hard (in character) and pulled a vibrosword. From there the Gamorrean's vibro-axes came out and all hell broke loose.

Nobody says that the Gamorreans need to be taken past their Wound/Strain Threshold before they give up fighting.

A couple solid punches from a Wookiee, and there's no shame in calling the fight for fear of more hurt.

Actually did that. As soon as a Gamorrean got beat up too bad or started bleeding (or took mild critical or two or one nasty critical, they'd book it).

And once the grenade went flying, they all pretty much just booked it.

My players make heavy use of Coercion checks to intimidate enemies when the Enemies have already been beaten to a pulp. Though I can't remember where, there are special rules in the CRB that outline how to resolve/finish up combat with a single check.

I hope someone else that has the book on hand can give you the page number.

Hadn't thought of the Coercion check, but we actually did do the single check resolution towards the end (once three Gamorreans ran) after the grenade blew up.

Fists? Stun batons? Christ. My players just drew their blasters and killed all of them...

We just came off of a year of Pathfinder before this game, so "murder" is their default reaction in any seemingly dangerous situation.

Got done with a second session and surprisingly we weren't able to finish up the adventure. Granted we got started late and PCs been moving slowly and methodically (been treating it very much like a horror flick and I decided to play along with failed or threat on perception rolls leading them to odd sounds and such.

Kept the atmosphere a mix of creepy and macabre humor. Had particular fun with the chef droid and medical droid.

As a bit of a background, I have 4 PCs.

1. A Chiss Bounty Hunter (Assassin) that is working undercover for the Ascendency for a number of different reasons.

2. A kepto-maniac Explorer (Archeologist) droid with a grudge against humans......which I now realize is pretty much just Bender

3. A Wookie Hired Gun (Marauder) exiled from Kashyyk and on the run and also had some Black Sun dealings he's indebted with.

4. A Twi'lek Smuggler (Scoundrel) who was sold into slavery and managed to escape and now on the run from the owners and sever family issues.

Starting off we rolled 6 light-side and 1 dark-side destiny points and no obligation triggered so we were slinging destiny points around like mad for everything.

The schmucks completely bought the droids' stories and bought in one hundred percent. The chiss was pretty much slowly inspecting and sweeping the rooms all military style (not surprisingly) and the wookie got impatient and started opening doors and wandering off. Bender pretty much tried to loot everything in sight....I actually had to keep track of every room he tried to raid...and of all rooms, he didn't scour the computer room so the PCs never found the case of credits.

They didn't really search Landing Pad B and never bothered to review the security camera footage (just watched the current footage on the 2 active cameras).

Rolled down the tunnel and found the miners (left the admin droid behind). Wisely sent Bender ahead who got shot-up a bit by Bonda and Marv. The smuggler had to spend a lot of her time calming everyone the hell down as both the miners and PCs were pissed, all the while alarms were still going off (I already had them at 3 generators down due to how slow they were going.

On the way out they loaded up in the mine car with Marv, Bonda, and another two miners piled up on the ore hopper with the plan on having the two flunkies take the vehicle and second near the entrance back for the others. Of course they just floored it and blundered into blaster fire.

Everyone dove for cover, but the wookie tried to go on a ramming spree. However the droids landed a successful rifle hit, but suffered a despair so ended up shooting out the engine of the vehicle.

EV-8D3 ended up with a successful Scathing Tirade EVERY **** TIME and ended up causing much rage among the PCs. The best part being where the wookie went after the PK droids with a vibrosword and completely whiffed due to the setback dice and I got the best quote of the night:

"I'm going to rip that supervisor droids head off!"

And then completely in character, the wookie dropped the sword and tried to break everything with his fists.

Battledroids retreated leaving 4 dead (1 disabled due to strain) and the two PK droids destroyed...poor little guys and also counting against the 165k budget. Taking some quick time to heal-up and recover strain (many of them were very low on strain due to Scathing Tirade and threat).

The Twi'lek failed the first skulduggery giving the droids time to setup and advance the starship preparations. PCs, Bonda, and Marv setup a firing line and let loose as soon as the wookie opened the door. And in appropriate fashion one of the load lifters barged on in all through a hail of gunfire (almost no damage).

The wookie jumps on the load lifter and with bare hands tries to wrench an arm off to little (no) effect. Load Lifter misses crushing the wookie while a blaster fight through the door starts off. And then something epic happened:

Bender moves to engage the load lifter with a force pike and rolls a double triumph. Yep, 2 yellow dice and 1 green and he gets two triumphs. At which point I just go: "....Well.....what happens?" Bender narrates a pretty epic duel with the load lifter where he ends up single-handely disabling it (he didn't kill it, just completely imobilized the leg servos and left it barely twitching (his choice to do so).

Fight spills into the cargo hold with EV-8D3 hitting once again with all the scathing tirade from behind cover and even managed to shoot the wookie that ran into the open after the second load lifter (battle droids quickly died). Load lifter beats the wookie silly (14 damage and 1 strain) and EV-8D3 gets shot by the chiss assassin and decided to bail out and take the lift up.

I had to flip a destiny point to make the medical droid mystically appear from behind crates to intercept Bender and Marv so they couldn't get to the supervisor droid and proceeds to inflict 3 critical hits on Bender over 3 rounds.

Wookie double stim-packs and takes 2 strain. Load lifter misses again (4 load-lifter attacks had 3 misses which was amazing or the PCs would have been in very rough shape). After the ruckus died down EV-8D3 escaped to the landing pad, the PCs are beat to hell, both load-lifters are functional, but one is nearly wrecked, and most of the other droids are scrap.

And that is where we ended.

For the awesome narrative and a double triumph, I gave Bender extra XP at the end of the session. The wookie also got extra XP for staying completely in character (eating the raw meet served to him by Chef, getting impatient and wandering off and opening doors without much caution, and dropping his weapon to fight not one, but two load lifters hand-to-hand).

A few questions about the adventure or in general:

1. How do you deal with a droid wearing armor? It's a bit silly to me, but would you treat it as modifying the chasis with armor plates?

2. How much cash to replace the mining truck? 4 to 6 thousand credits?

3. How do you handle grenades against minion mobs?

4. How do you expect a Chiss to act? He's been having trouble staying in character and looking for advice.

5. What would you have done with the double triumph or even the despair on the Battledroid shots (successful hit, but rolled a despair).

6. Any other useful tips, ideas, comments?

And the big one: How do I run the next session? The adventure is pretty much in end-game and we'll be going to the next one. But I have no idea what is going to happen with the money or if the mine stays intact or how they deal with Bargos. I have very little to go off of to prepare for the next session (though I do try to use obligation rolls and PC actions to wing a good deal of stuff).

Does anyone have good ideas? I'm thinking if they piss off Bargos, transition into what is basically the Escape from Mos Shuuta mission into Long Arm of the Hutt (which works great for the Twi'lek character and could lead to family drama). Or even the CRB adventure if they choose to try and get familiar with Thekba the Hutt (the PCs were very interested in the financials of the mine) and I kinda want to tie it into a rebel alliance or black-sun plot.

It's kinda hard to pull the massive variety of character backgrounds together into a more focused plot. Especially since I basically have zero time or advanced warning as we transition into the next adventure.

Thoughts and ideas?

1. Yes.

2. Sure.

3. Are the minions close enough for blast to work on them? If they are primary target takes the hit and if Blast works everyone else for that is how I run it.

4. Refer him to EtU, cultured, aloof, conceited, educated, are all good descriptors.

5. Haven't played it.

6. Have fun and don't sweat rules, canon, mine, or anyone else's opinion here too much.

What about Lookout, and the R2 unit?

1. COrrect, think of it has armored plating.

2. Basically a repuslor car. No more then 4000. Tho just a new engine could go down to 2000

3. If the Minions are Engaged to each other and the BLast effect activates, it really has no additional effect. But as a GM i like to make it happen. Usually just think of it has hitting each minon individually, minus soak, and then apply damage to the groups wounds. Realistically it should wipe out the minion group, or leave one badly wounded

4. I always thought Chiss behavior was like the Star Trek Vulcans, contemplative, deliberate and calculating, lacking outward signs of passion.

5. I think you handled the Double triumph just fine. Look at tables 6-2 and 6-3 on pages 206 and 207 of the core rulebook for ideas. I like to think of them as critical failures, weapon jams, knocking over an ally, falling out from behind cover.. etc.

YOu still need to deal with lookout, and since they didn't find the safe, if they go after Lookout and return they could find Marv working with the Admin droid figuring out the costs the droid revolution cost them. A negotiation roll can be used to collect Borgo's cut. Marv wants to keep the mine running, and he can promise more profit if he can get more droids, more miners, and another year.

Just taking all the Credits would kill the mine, and still leave the players known as thieves.

What about Lookout, and the R2 unit?

.The R2 on the freighter, the admin droid is cowering somewhere (haven't decided where yet), the cook is still serving food to dead people, and Lookout is on his way to the final generator

3. If the Minions are Engaged to each other and the BLast effect activates, it really has no additional effect. But as a GM i like to make it happen. Usually just think of it has hitting each minon individually, minus soak, and then apply damage to the groups wounds. Realistically it should wipe out the minion group, or leave one badly wounded

I have been doing the same, but it seems a blaster rifle just does more damage. I was thinking total up all the damage then apply soak once rather than individually applying soak. However one character is just very grenade happy so I'll tweak it around.

YOu still need to deal with lookout, and since they didn't find the safe, if they go after Lookout and return they could find Marv working with the Admin droid figuring out the costs the droid revolution cost them. A negotiation roll can be used to collect Borgo's cut. Marv wants to keep the mine running, and he can promise more profit if he can get more droids, more miners, and another year.

Just taking all the Credits would kill the mine, and still leave the players known as thieves.

I was thinking of doing something like this, it entirely depends on the party's actions at this point. Or if they try to take the cash and shove everyone on the ship (thinking that they can't stop the last generator from being destroyed), maybe have a standoff on the ship as Marv won't let them handle the box.....or something to that extent.

Anyone have advice on how to start a new adventure without having much info to go on. At this point I'm not sure how the PCs are going to deal with lookout (or even if they are) or how they'll deal with the cash.

Starting a new adventure mid-session seems a bit daunting without much room to prep if the PCs do something weird and unexpected. Could also depend on how an obligation roll plays in

If the Storm shield generator warnings have gone off, Marv should make it quite clear to the players that if whoever is destroying them gets any further the mine would be destroyed. He could also tell him he would be glad to give them the profits from the mine (the credits in the safe, minus the cost of replacing the dead or damaged items, modified by negotiations) if they do stop lookout.

But after meeting with Bargos, if it goes well, he can inform them of a contact for a simple drop point shipment.