So my first session is nearing, next Sunday, going to be tackling character creation and then diving into Trouble Brewing at the back of the book to get the group a taste of Edge, and then figure out which premade I should run afterwards. But are there any tips or anything anyone can offer for running the adventure at the back of the book? Anything I need to watch out for or anything? I assume there's a good number of you guys who've run it, it being in the main book and all. lol

Main thing I know for sure is be ready for a curve ball from your players.

The book lays out a way to go but be ready for players to just skip stuff because of rolls and how they RP things, or just find a way to skip it sections.

Otherwise the book is a good guide line so be ready to make somethings up on the fly.

I actually ran the first part of this last weekend. In our game, this is more of a side quest as our group has been playing for some time now.

At the beginning there are several mini encounters the book says you can use to make Formos feel like a living, breathing place. Just be careful at how you incorporate them. Since they don't affect the outcome of the main story arc, they can become a distraction as the PCs may initially believe it is part of the main story. You aren't given much information on where to go with them, and the PCs may continue to press the encounter.

So if you use them, be prepared to go off the rails a bit. For example, in the encounter where the smuggling deal is made and the swoop bikes speed off, my group immediately went up to the remaining NPCs that were standing there and demanded to know what was going on. A short time later I had to come up with stats on the fly as a fight ensued when the NPCs refused to share any information other than "check the cantina" (which is what the book says to do). My group ended chasing the NPCs on foot through the streets and killing a couple of them. Then they broke into the cellar under the house looking for drugs to sell. And they found some with a couple good rolls. And it was a lot of fun.

So be prepared to do some improve. It doesn't have to be perfect, and your PCs will enjoy handling things the way they want to.

I actually ran the first part of this last weekend. In our game, this is more of a side quest as our group has been playing for some time now.

At the beginning there are several mini encounters the book says you can use to make Formos feel like a living, breathing place. Just be careful at how you incorporate them. Since they don't affect the outcome of the main story arc, they can become a distraction as the PCs may initially believe it is part of the main story. You aren't given much information on where to go with them, and the PCs may continue to press the encounter.

So if you use them, be prepared to go off the rails a bit. For example, in the encounter where the smuggling deal is made and the swoop bikes speed off, my group immediately went up to the remaining NPCs that were standing there and demanded to know what was going on. A short time later I had to come up with stats on the fly as a fight ensued when the NPCs refused to share any information other than "check the cantina" (which is what the book says to do). My group ended chasing the NPCs on foot through the streets and killing a couple of them. Then they broke into the cellar under the house looking for drugs to sell. And they found some with a couple good rolls. And it was a lot of fun.

So be prepared to do some improve. It doesn't have to be perfect, and your PCs will enjoy handling things the way they want to.

That's one thing I was afraid of when I was reading through it, I was like "Man, these 'side encounters' are super distracting and are going to derail this so uber badly." I'm incredibly terrible with any kind of improv, to the point where my current Pathfinder game I'm running, I've typed up an adventure that is a PDF that's 165 pages long with a 35 page long "companion pdf" detailing NPCs and everything, just so I have all my bases covered and I'm prepared for anything they decide to do, took me about 8 months to put together, but it paid off since I don't have to do improv stuff.

I also think trying to do improv stuff in an RPG system I have 0% experience in is a bad idea, because I'm running these premades first because I don't even know the first thing about how to build an encounter. lol. So, unfortunately probably just going to skip over all the random stuff at the beginning, even though they give a good glimpse of the setting. :/

I would suggest you re-evaluate your definitional of building an encounter .

I know that in Pathfinder there are rules for making an encounter at a specific "level". This game has none of that. You will eventually get a handle on how difficult a given adversary will be for your players. Until then, the best bet is to remember that this is a story telling system, not a combat simulation system. You may make a mistake when selecting the number of minions but that is not as important as knowing ahead of time what will happen if they win or if they lose.

If/when the players derail the story and go in a direction you did not have detailed out, take a moment to decide what will happen if they win, and what will happen if they lose. With that in mind you can make the opponents they are facing whatever would make sense for the story and not need to worry if the "Encounter" is the right "Level".

I hope that helps.

Here's a floor-plan for the YV-666 freighter your party will (possibly) be boarding near the end of the adventure. Helps a lot for any firefights you run inside the ship. I had a neat combat with the players scouting out those multiple levels, wondering when the aqualish dude was going to jump them.

http://www.swagonline.net/image/yv-666-deckplan

Also, skipping the optional encounters is seconded by me. Not worth the potential derailing of the plot. The only one you might want to keep is the water-seller who intorduces the PCs to Formos and sets them up to get pickpocketed. I had a great moment there where I stole the Gand force-user's blaster. Pretty funny when he went to whip it out in a gunfight later.

Here's a floor-plan for the YV-666 freighter your party will (possibly) be boarding near the end of the adventure. Helps a lot for any firefights you run inside the ship. I had a neat combat with the players scouting out those multiple levels, wondering when the aqualish dude was going to jump them.

http://www.swagonline.net/image/yv-666-deckplan

Also, skipping the optional encounters is seconded by me. Not worth the potential derailing of the plot. The only one you might want to keep is the water-seller who intorduces the PCs to Formos and sets them up to get pickpocketed. I had a great moment there where I stole the Gand force-user's blaster. Pretty funny when he went to whip it out in a gunfight later.

I wish I'd had that deck plan when I ran it. I couldn't find one with a google search.

In my opinion, the adventure may be better suited to PCs with a little bit of experience than starting PCs. My players struggled with the combat encounters, though I will admit, they weren't terribly optimized.

I'd only run one or two of the optional encounters. Pick which ones you think are the most interesting.

How did people handle the end counter with Dobah an the YV-666 and the ships medium laser cannon?

The encounter seems a little vague, did you make the hide out big enough to land another freighter? Did the crew use the laser cannon on the landing ship or on the approaching PC's (I imagine with ship to personnel damage this may kill someone)?

I was thinking of running it quite fast with the cannon only used on the landing ship then a missed shot starts to bring rock down from the ceiling, maybe add possibility of a compete cave in if a despair is rolled.

Then a long distance blaster fight while it remains even and a retreating fight though the YV-666 if the PC's get the upper hand.