The rough outline of the story follows the movie Collateral

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collateral_%28film%29

The story takes places at the end of 19 BBY.

My group will be approached by a travelling 'salesman' that wishes to be brought to several different planets in the current sector to meet some old aquaintances.

He will be about 30 years old, well dressed and uses a spacer's chest to store his belongings. A Heavy Blaster pistol in a concealed holster is his only weapon. His right arm up to his shoulder has been replaced by an openly visible bionic replacement. If questioned about it Mr. Praxan will lament about loosing it in the wars due to collateral damage/friendly fire.

For his rather large payment he demands to be not disturbed in his single cabin and that the ship stays never longer in port than 24 hours should the crew wish to make other businesses. There will be no notification of his existence in any logs or other documents.

On the first planet he will simply wander of with a little backpack and return about 20 hours later ready for departure. If asked he will respond with a little smile that he had a good day and will return to his quarters awaiting departure.

He will stay in there most of the time only leaving it for meals in the dining hall.

On the second planet he will wander of again with his little backpack and request the ship to be able to depart in only 12 hours. The PCs can haggle for a few more hours but 18 is the maximum he wants to stay here.

PCs wandering around and checking the news/contacts will hear among other things about the murder of a high ranking Imperial officer on the last planet they visited. Seems like a heart attack.

Mere minutes before the agreed upon time limit runs out he will return in a similar happy mood.

Planet number 3 will be something bigger like Eriadu or another comparable planet. This time he will grant them 2 days to pick up some legal business for their next target. Again he walks of with his backpack and disappears into the crowds.

On the second day when several PCs are out shopping/meeting clients an office building in the middle of the city will be the target of a terrorist attack. A bomb will blow away the top three floors, shattering a lot of windows on the side facing the crowded streets showering the passerbys in glass shards and concrete fragments.

The PCs will either be witnesses or even victims of the attack, getting slightly wounded.

The spaceport will of course be in lock-down for several hours till the security declares their ship safe and releases them to go on. Their passenger will return while the legal cargo is brought on board, somehow not getting noticed by security or other bystanders.

After the ship has left the port he will make a snide remark about cities getting more dangerous. When being asked about the explosion he will coldly remind them that he pays them to bring him to his locations and nothing else. When being pressed or even threatend he will resort to Force-slamming people against walls, Force-choking one and producing a blue glowing lightsaber hidden in his bionic arm.

He will make clear that they are his taxi, and should therefore mind their own business since that is what he pays them handsomly for.

As soon as the tension goes down and the PCs return to their posts the ship will be hailed by an Imperial Customs Corvette. Before their ship is allowed to leave Imperial Space they will be borded and checked again since there could be something hidden in their cargo.

The Imperial officer in charge is rather upset about the bomb attack and has little sympathy for any excuses. The ship will dock and a boarding party of 3 customs officers with 6 Naval troopers will check everything again.

That is, until Mr. Praxan goes on a killing spree using his Force powers and lightsaber to slaughter them. He will throw a smaller bomb through the docking ring before closing the doors. He will then order the pilot to get to a safe distance. The explosion onbard the Corvette will hinder it from following the PCs.

On route to their next target the PCs will get their opportunities to talk to Mr. Prax about his killing trip to which he will tell him about how he and his friends were betrayed and killed by Clone Troopers and their commanders, costing them their lives and him an arm. Since most of the officers have been promoted or stationed on different worlds he plans to visit them and return the favor.

Their next target is a rather backwater world with only a little garrison. Mr. Prax intends to both kill the officer in charge there for costing him his arm and to rob the armory of anything useful. Should the PCs show interest in joining him he will welcome them as long as they follow his lead. Should none join him he will let slip that his spacer chest contains a nice little bomb to make sure the ship is still there for his return.

Should the PCs join him he will lead them straight through the small garrison killing Imperials left and right, stopping only to pick up some more explosives and he ends it with torturing the Officer before cutting him to pieces.

Withouth their help he will do it a bit more subtle but still bloody.

Mr. Prax will return from his latest excursion and give orders about their fifth destination. The target this time is a hollowed out asteroid used as a hidden listening post during the Clone Wars.

With some obtained codes (and cylinders) from the previous victims the transporter can dock at the asteroid. Unluckily for Mr. Prax several of the stationed troopers there instantly recognize him and sound the alarm. Luckily for the PCs and their passengers there are only 4 squads of each 8 Troopers stationed there.

The ensuing battle will be hard and brutal, but the Jedi once again truimphs while the PCs are busy with preventing the self-destruction mechanism doing it's job.

The asteroid can be used as a base for the group should they survive the rest of the adventure.

With the information stored in the base Mr. Prax finds his last 3 targets:

A Medical station where the traitorous regiment he commanded is currently recuperating from their RotR campaign.

A Nebulon B Frigatte where one wanted Officer enjoys his new post (and upgraded firepower).

A Space Station along the Corellian Run where the wanted officer is in charge or Logistics and Distribution of the materials passing through.

The PCs can make suggestions in which order to go at these targets and how. As far as loot is concerned Mr. Prax has no trouble in letting them keep anything they find as long as he gets his target.

The Medical station is waiting for a shipment of drugs and other material. The small security team is no match for the Mr. Pax (with or without the group) and the wounded certainly are neither.

The Officer in charge is barely armed with a stun-gun.

Loot: Lots of medical equipment and drugs.

The Nebulon B Frigatte will be attracted by faking either an emergency and requesting aid OR by posing as ISB agents. Either way they will get access to the ship, where the officer can be found on his bridge calling for reinforcements against the Jedi.

Loot: lots of military hardware.

The Space station is filled with civilians, their shops, freighters and a Logistic Division of the Imperial Navy. Landing on the station itself is no problem since traders come and go all day long.

Again faked codes get them inside the Imperial section, where most personnel are plain dock workers busy with shifting crates, barrels and containers of goods around to send them further along the Corellian Run.

Of course Mr. Prax is a man of little patience and cuts everybody down who stands in his way until he gets his target.

Now, there is a 33% chance that at the first of these 3 targets that the Executrix shows up.

That chance goes up to 66% at their second target and automatically happens while they are busy with their 3rd target.

The Executrix is an Imperial Class Star Destroyer Mk I under the command of the Hero of Coruscant.

The trickiest part will be to separate the group far enough from Mr. Prax when the 501st shows up so that they can try to hide or even attack Mr. Prax. Should the PCs not attack (and kill) Mr. Prax then Lord Vader will have his entrance ... and make very short work of the Jedi.

Aftermath:

Depending on their actions (staying on the ship, attacking Mr. Prax, ...) the soldiers will be cautious but not hostile. Any pointing to the bomb in the spacer chest will result in the disarmend of it and the crucial tip in scales to be considered another victim.

They will still be held for interrogation to wrap up any loose ends or questions the Empire could have before they get released.

Should of course there be evidence for their own crimes against the Empire be found ... well that is then the next adventure.

Any ideas, suggestions, plotholes i overlooked?

To quote a wise man:

It's just my opinion sir, but your opinion has too many imponderables.

...If I might say so, sir, any undertaking that requires the presence of four people in one place at the same time, while 2 of them are unaware of the fact, is fraught with the possibility of mishap, sir.

It's a good and interesting plot, but in my experience players excel at running a game off the rails in short order more often than not. What would happen if the PCs decide to side with Mr. Prax, or not side with him, or they try to kill him early, or they just ditch him on a planet and leave?

Also, what are your players going to be doing for each of the 12-48 hours planetside? Consider drastically reducing the time required for Mr. Prax to do his jobs in order to keep the plot moving at a quicker pace and to leave less room for sandbox-style play.

A further suggestion is to break up your desired "linear" encounters into modular ones. Mr. Prax has his jobs that he needs to complete, your players have jobs that can intersect with Prax's in location, but I wouldn't assign a specific timeframe or location to them, or assume that your players are going to follow a certain course of action.

Courses of action that are obvious to you are not always obvious to your players, and vice versa. Don't try to "plan for all eventualities," but rather build your scenes/encounters modularly so that they can happen wherever and whenever they need to.

he will resort to Force-slamming people against walls, Force-choking one and producing a blue glowing lightsaber hidden in his bionic arm.

He will make clear that they are his taxi, and should therefore mind their own business since that is what he pays them handsomly for.

This is the point where the party probably kills your NPC.

Or try to capture him - there are huge bounties for active force users...

Apart from that - I learnt the hard way that players hate being spectators for too long. And it takes a lot of time in your script until they can do something meaningful - an that's the point when their passenger starts killing imperials with the Force.

There are too many assumptions in your script, although the whole idea is fun.

I think you need to change some fundamentals - either the PCs should know from the start what their mission is (perhaps they know mr.Prax or he delivers to one of the PCs a note written by someone important for that PC asking him/her to do as mr.Prax says) or after 2 stops someone approaches the PCs and tells them - or better they are witnesses to the killing and mr.Prax has to decide if he should kill them or pay them more for cooperation.

PCs wandering around and checking the news/contacts will hear among other things about the murder of a high ranking Imperial officer on the last planet they visited. Seems like a heart attack.

You'll have to bury that news story in a flurry of other news items. Otherwise you might as well hold up a sign saying "Your passenger just murdered that guy!"

After the ship has left the port he will make a snide remark about cities getting more dangerous. When being asked about the explosion he will coldly remind them that he pays them to bring him to his locations and nothing else. When being pressed or even threatend he will resort to Force-slamming people against walls, Force-choking one and producing a blue glowing lightsaber hidden in his bionic arm.

He will make clear that they are his taxi, and should therefore mind their own business since that is what he pays them handsomly for.

And the game ends right there, with either Mister Mysterious floating home in a body bag or all your PCs dead. Either way, any player worth their salt is unlikely to continue past this point. Either they'll overwhelm him right there and then, catch him when he's sleeping, abandon him on the next planet as soon as he walks off with his backpack, or throw him under the bus to the Empire for no doubt sizable bounty he has on his head.

But no matter how you slice it, the game as written is not progressing past this point.

Byond that, the game is mostly the players being co-stars in their own story. As a player I'd resent the hell out of being lead about by the nose like this. So, lets see if we can salvage this and make it more PC friendly. . . .

On route to their next target the PCs will get their opportunities to talk to Mr. Prax about his killing trip to which he will tell him about how he and his friends were betrayed and killed by Clone Troopers and their commanders, costing them their lives and him an arm. Since most of the officers have been promoted or stationed on different worlds he plans to visit them and return the favor.

So, what's the story about - Prax and his Roaring Rampage of Revenge. Fine. Lets turn it on it's ear slightly. He doesn't out himself to the players, he doesn't threaten them or hold them hostage. Prax is also not as subtle as he'd like, and the players figure out what he's up to before he knows the jig is up.

What to do about it? Turn him in? get help from the Empire? Unfortunately his actions have brought heat down upon the players, naming them as accomplices (inadvertent tho it may be). Capturing and turning him in might work, so they'll have to catch him with his guard down.

Also, I don't like the Jedi idea. Dump that. Oooh, wait - make him a ex-confederate badass commando. Lots of skill, no Force powers.

Okay, we've got him captured and tied up. If you make the guy a power tripping psycho, you'll never get the players to follow along with his scheme. They'll sell him to the Empire, collect the bounty and try to clear their names - so you need to make him sympathetic.Make him a tragic figure more than a jerk. Justify his roaring rampage of revenge, just dont drag the players along for the ride.

Even at that, you've probably got one more Hit out of them before you lose your player's tolerance - so make it a good one. Also, dump the whole Vader thing. There's nothing more frustrating that watching a cut scene of the climax play out when the players should be driving the action.

So - bring up the climax, make the last hit someone big, something that you can turn up the excitement. Get the players involved somehow in the fireworks, instead of just being passive.

*****EDIT*** ***

Wait - I know. Spread it out over several games. Make Prax the B plot for several non-related games. Open with a passenger run, delivering him to a planet - he pays well, they part ways, say nothing more of it. A couple of games later, let them hear of an incident going down elsewhere on the planet, a hit against the Empire. As they're loading up their completely unrelated cargo, Prax shows up and pays well for a ride off planet.

Two more unrelated games later - Special Investigator Smith from the Imperial Intelligence corners the players. Ah - they're waylayed by a customs frigate as they lift off, under the orders of Smith. He's made them as Prax's ride off the planet the last time he hired them, so some fast talking to get the players out of trouble is in order. Eventually Smith comes around to believing their "We're just the ride!" story.

Smith tells them that if Prax ever contacts them again, to play along, do what he wants - but contact him via this special number. That way the Empire can set a trap for him.

Another couple of games later - Prax gets in contact with them again. This time, he's got a bigger target in mind, something better defended than usual, so he actually hires them as muscle to help on the job. Now is the time you make Prax sympathetic. Here's where you make the players doubt their motivation to throw Prax under the bus.

So, depending on how well you sold it, the players have to help Prax infiltrate a target (and get off planet) or they help him infiltrate and notify Smith. Either way, they'll have to pull the job of getting him inside The Compound where The Target is. The climax could be Prax figuring out that he's been sold up the river and engaging the players while the Stomrtroopers (who are not very discriminating) try and cut EVERYONE down.

There - much better!

PCs wandering around and checking the news/contacts will hear among other things about the murder of a high ranking Imperial officer on the last planet they visited. Seems like a heart attack.

You'll have to bury that news story in a flurry of other news items. Otherwise you might as well hold up a sign saying "Your passenger just murdered that guy!"

For the gaming groups that I've come across, this is a good thing. You can easily lose your players to a mess of confusion. Again, what is obvious to you is not necessarily obvious to them. You know what to look for, and what the news story signifies. The temptation would be to make it non-obvious, but in my experience, for players that basically means obscure.

Again, in my experience, if the players are catching on to the "plot twist" ahead of time, that's a good thing . If it is painfully obvious to you, it is just obvious enough to them to make them feel clever for figuring it out.

Brilliant Desslok!!

You have put a lot of great thought into this, and for that I applaud you. But it seems that is nothing more than a GM PC adventure. Let me show how great this guy is kind of thing. You have a real talent for story telling it seems, but I would recommend that you make the STARS of your game your players, not your PC. It is my humble opinion that the players should not have to sit and wait on anyone for a whole adventure. Not once did I see here they get to do anything cool, or be heroes, or even roll the dice... If I were a player in the adventure, it would probably be my last...Sorry.

I can't wait to read your revision if you do one.

Not to be mean here, but this is they very modern definition of a Mary Sue story.

Thanks for all the input. I will rework parts of it and try to post it this weekend.

But i will not cut out that Mr. Praxan is a KIA-presumed Jedi. Two of my 6 players have asked about Force users already, and i want to demonstrate why it is not a good idea to be one in 19 BBY. While they would get away with it for some time the Empire would react like a Rancor on Kamikaze (old SR3 combat drug). And i demonstrate THAT rather on an NPC instead one of their chars.

Wait - I know. Spread it out over several games...

A mere "like" isn't enough, this is genius!

I really like the basic OP premise, but this fixes it to be more player-centric.

I went so far with Dessloks idea of having Mr. Prax show up over several games.

Since it will take some time to get to the more dangerous situations or even the end it will be some time before i post an update here how it went and what else i changed (most likely on the fly).

Desslok fixed my rant that was going to be about this extended adventure being all about Mr. Prax with the PCs just a sideshow, being drug along. Spreading the returning Mr. Prax around through several sessions fixes this also.

Desslok fixed my rant that was going to be about this extended adventure being all about Mr. Prax with the PCs just a sideshow, being drug along. Spreading the returning Mr. Prax around through several sessions fixes this also.

I agree, and had another idea based on this theme. Now I'm brand new at this, so let me know if this is crazy:

Have the Jedi dude just show up here and there however is best. Then have the PCs be contacted by the Empire/Black Sun/Zann Consortium/Hutts for an extremely lucrative assignment. They are to go to Taris in search of an ancient Holocron supposedly located there. Unbeknownst to the PCs, though, our Jedi friend is also trying to track it down to keep it from falling into the wrong hands. Eventually they cross paths. Of course, the only way to be sure that the Holocron is indeed authentic is to have a Force Sensitive along to open it up. The Jedi agrees to help them as long as he is allowed to alter any data stored within that he feels should not fall into enemy hands.

If the players agree (not sure why they wouldn't, but hey they are PCs) and they find the Holocron (hacking through Rakghouls along the way), our Jedi goes to open it, starts convulsing and then falls down apparently dead. Turns out the "Holocron" was actually a mind prison trapping the spirit of a Sith Lord inside. When the Jedi opened it, the trap swapped spirits; now the Sith is in the body and the Jedi is trapped. Voila, you now have a nemesis!!

I would rather show my players why in 19 BBY it is not a good idea to be a jedi or other force user if you do not work for the Empire.

And an vengeance-driven Jedi Knight fits that better than a resurected Sith Lord that wants to get back into power.

Every one can sympathize with a war hero that risked his live for his ideals and got kicked in the balls. His thirst for blood and retribution can easier sway the players to his cause.

Whereas a power-hungry, death cheating, moraly corrupt Sith might make a good villain it is not something my group would play along.

I would rather show my players why in 19 BBY it is not a good idea to be a jedi or other force user if you do not work for the Empire.

And an vengeance-driven Jedi Knight fits that better than a resurected Sith Lord that wants to get back into power.

Every one can sympathize with a war hero that risked his live for his ideals and got kicked in the balls. His thirst for blood and retribution can easier sway the players to his cause.

Whereas a power-hungry, death cheating, moraly corrupt Sith might make a good villain it is not something my group would play along.

Who says a Sith has to be power-hungry and morally corrupt? However, I see your point as to what you are looking for. In that case, maybe make him an Altisian Jedi (a splinter sect of the Jedi, found here: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Altisian_Jedi ) and have it be his family that got killed. Then on one of the missions with him should be a "simple" one: the PCs raid an Imperial base while the Jedi sets detonation charges to blow it up. However, if the PCs look hard enough they discover that the resulting explosion will also wipe out the building where the wives and children of some Imperial Officers live. Turns out this was the Jedi's plan all along; the families here are of the (non-clone) officers that betrayed him, and he wants those officers to suffer every bit as much as he has since his family was killed. This would leave your players the job of either taking him down or talking him out of committing this act.