When I was putting together my group's campaign I skimmed "Beyond the Rim" and always just assumed I'd run it early for 80-90 XP on the road to more advanced adventures and the excellent "Jewel of Yavin".

Now that I'm going and reading through BtR in more detail I'm seeing there's a lot of busy work planned for the PCs. Scanning for wreckage with sensor problems, trudging through the jungle to different debris sites, and various fetch tasks on Raxus Prime.

Please understand that I am not saying FFG put out anything less than a quality product. The book is full of useful information. However, I'm wondering if my PCs are going to grow bored with all the time-eating tasks.

When you gents ran this was it exciting? How did you manage to keep the pace up even during the trudging? Any thoughts on how to play out key scenes for best roleplay effect are most appreciated.

My group is about to finished up BTR, it tooks months and I went from six in my group to 3. The adventure length and my group shrinking, has more to do with my group dynamics then the actual adventure itself.

First you are right there can be quite a bit of busy work and my group did get bored at times. Also be aware unless you are good at going off the cuff (or as FF likes to phrase it, make it cinematic!) there will be additional prep time for you as a GM as FF has a bad habit of giving you a brief outline of events and the area and making letting you fill in the rest. An example I can give is the crashed Sa Nalaor, they don't give you a map and expect you to fill out any additional rooms yourself.

So yes I am a bit aggravated by the adventure, but it does have fun and exciting moments too, like the Wheel, dealing with Storm Troopers on Cholganna, dealing with the survivors etc.

In short, it can be a fun adventure just prepare to do some work ahead of time and maybe cut out/ modify some of the busy work.

There's really only as much busy-work as you want to include. The characters do not have to get all the information at the Wheel to proceed. Scanning for the wreckage and investigating the different parts of the ship (the engine, the escape pod, the ship itself) was probably the most fun because I got to introduce the dangers of Cholgana slowly. Transit times in the jungle are up to you...you can go in 15 minute intervals or let a single Survival roll determine how much trouble it takes to get to their destination, depending on how much you want to drag it out.

The only slow spot I had was once the captain and compound were found. My son was the only player, which can sometimes make social situations crawl a bit...being the only source of conversation can be exhausting

In short, make the story your own, don't feel compelled to include everything mentioned.

There is a lot of material in Beyond the Rim that players may end up skipping right by. Sure, you can push a few of those encounters back into the path of the players, but doing it too many times ends up feeling forced. Just play it out and expect that some of those encounters will get left on the cutting room floor.