Instead, because unlike d6 there's no dark side point mechanic,

No, FFG has something FAR worse: repercussions.

greedster #1 killed one of the swoop gangsters. He used that to intimidate the leader into talking.

The leader could have lied. He could have sent them to a warehouse where a WHOLE bunch of his men were waiting. He could have had his men open fire right there and then.

What was worse was greedster #2 helping himself to the dead gangster's swoop bike.

"Wait - you killed Big Gerk and took his ride? Sorry man - there is NO way I am doing business with you! Gerk's friends might be here any moment and I don't want to get caught in the crossfire! Get the hell out of my shop!"

The greedsters love obligation, it means more confrontations and more loot.

Until the biggest gun in town shows up and sorts out matters. Cant loot if your dead!

Until the biggest gun in town shows up and sorts out matters. Cant loot if your dead!

Play the Paranoia RPG: The only rpg in wich players will acitivly try to AVOID aquiring new gear!

Obviously you wouldn't want to take it to Paranoia like levels, but sabotage and bad gear is another way to hinder them. They steal a tricked out speeder? Pity the previous owner had Magnavolt installed:

Or the previous owner comes directly from Q-Branch:

Or they steal a car with a trunk full of blow. . . and now every (extremely powerful) crime syndicate is now after them. And when they DO catch them (and catch them they will). . . well, death would be the easy way out.

Play the Paranoia RPG: The only rpg in wich players will acitivly try to AVOID aquiring new gear!

Obviously you wouldn't want to take it to Paranoia like levels, but sabotage and bad gear is another way to hinder them. They steal a tricked out speeder? Pity the previous owner had Magnavolt installed:

Wow. You know, sometimes I think the Empire just isn't sufficiently evil. If the Empire were REALLY run by a Sith lord, then there ought to be something Magna-Voltish installed as standard equipment on speederbikes and such. I mean, practically every Imperial vehicle is a bundle of explosives anyway (just see what happens when you hit a tree or bump an asteroid!), so it's not like they'd have to add a thermal detonator or anything. So, Rebel, think you're so clever hopping onto a bike? Click. KABLOOIE!

And if someone says, "My, but that would put Imperial personnel at great risk!" Like the Empire doesn't do that anyway? Luke's X-Wing gets shot, and the worst that happens is that R2 gets knocked out (not destroyed, but just temporarily inconvenienced) or some bit of paneling gets knocked off. But so much as look at a TIE fighter funny, and it's so much space dust. You'd think some Imperial bureaucrat would have an easy time figuring that it would be worth the SLIGHT increase in risk to Imperial personnel for the off chance of turning any Rebel into space dust who hops into a craft without the proper transponder.

Of course, maybe Imperial gear WAS working like that in the movies, only our Rebel Commandos on Endor were smart enough to have stolen code transponders that registered them as "friendlies" when they stole the bikes. Yeahhhh, that's the ticket. Oh, wait -- then it should've blown up as soon as an Ewok hopped on a bike. (Yay! I mean ... oh no, how terrible!)

Or they steal a car with a trunk full of blow. . . and now every (extremely powerful) crime syndicate is now after them. And when they DO catch them (and catch them they will). . . well, death would be the easy way out.

Oh, wait -- then it should've blown up as soon as an Ewok hopped on a bike. (Yay! I mean ... oh no, how terrible!)

I think too many people have been playing too many computer based RPGs and get into the habit of grabbing everything then can to sell it off. to the point a beginning character is going through an abandoned town and grabbing as many tin cans he can find and carry to sell them off, and MAYBE get a single stim pack.

I nipped this is the bud real quick with my group, who were playing in Long arm of the hutt and after dealing with the Bounty hunter ambush on Ryloth, thought about taking their rental airspeeder, and trying to sell it, or get the deposit back. a basic knoweldge roll told them that at best they could get a small finders fee for returning it. Or they could try finding someone on a planet they have never been on before who might be willing to give them credits to take the vehcile off thier hands and not kill them in the process to avoid any problems.

Then they wanted to grab up all the blasters and when I explained the crappy encumbrance, or to describe how they were going to carry a half dozen blasters, they didn't even bother

yea I am a killjoy, but it can get out of hand so easily.

"Send your companion to sell junk?"

I think too many people have been playing too many computer based RPGs and get into the habit of grabbing everything then can to sell it off. to the point a beginning character is going through an abandoned town and grabbing as many tin cans he can find and carry to sell them off, and MAYBE get a single stim pack.

I nipped this is the bud real quick with my group, who were playing in Long arm of the hutt and after dealing with the Bounty hunter ambush on Ryloth, thought about taking their rental airspeeder, and trying to sell it, or get the deposit back. a basic knoweldge roll told them that at best they could get a small finders fee for returning it. Or they could try finding someone on a planet they have never been on before who might be willing to give them credits to take the vehcile off thier hands and not kill them in the process to avoid any problems.

Then they wanted to grab up all the blasters and when I explained the crappy encumbrance, or to describe how they were going to carry a half dozen blasters, they didn't even bother

yea I am a killjoy, but it can get out of hand so easily.

Our old D&D GM use to pull stuff like that to: Treasure chest contents:300 gold (hoorah!) in copper pieces. (haroo!)

And no bags of holding.

Our old D&D GM use to pull stuff like that to: Treasure chest contents:300 gold (hoorah!) in copper pieces. (haroo!)

And no bags of holding.

Honestly, it's the only way to get those treasure chests full o' gold shiny coins that are always represented in the artwork and the minis. ;D

To a certain extent, I've tried to tackle some of this as follows (I paraphrase -- in person I tend to get EVEN WORDIER THAN THIS, and there's some discussion involved): "I do not want to be caught up in nickel-and-diming every last credit your character is scrounging for. Therefore, when I say that this job pays 2000 credits, or you find loot worth 500 credits, in the game universe, it's probably much, much more. However, I'm assuming that your characters have normal lifestyles, they eat food (or, if droids, they get oil baths and fuel cells and maintenance cycles), little expenditures come up, and so forth. In between adventures, you're running jobs and getting paid, as long as you haven't totally killed your rep and you don't have millions in bounties on your heads."

"But for our purposes, most of that just sort of balances out. Our adventures are focusing on the exciting parts. The money you write down on the character sheet represents liquid assets you can spare for 'adventure stuff' -- better gear, or the occasional bribe. If the adventure takes place in a cantina, we assume your character can afford a drink; it's only if you deliberately want to buy the most expensive bottle of glowing star-wine to impress a lady, or if you want to buy a round for the house that it'll eat into your written-down credits."

"Also, I know you guys are shrewd businessmen. You're looking for ways to cut corners, make a profit, and so forth. That's all part of business, and it's part of any rolls you make when you're trying to make a deal. If there's any looting to be done, and there's no good reason you can't stop to do it, I'm not going to give you a detailed explanation of every last guy's pocket contents. I'm just going to call for a Perception check and give you an abstract of what it's worth in credits, unless it's something REALLY useful, like a thermal detonator or an encrypted datapad that might have some secrets on it. If we spend too much time where you name every possible nook and cranny you might look into for 'sweet loot,' it's going to take us all night, and some folks want to get on with saving the galaxy or just shooting stuff. :)"

So, anyway, any time the heroes get something that amounts to "treasure," I feel no shame in just boiling it down to abstractions such as "5,000 credits worth of loot -- but you need to find a black-market buyer," etc., and letting someone write it down, rather than going into excruciating detail. Sometimes I DO go into detail, just because I get inspired -- and also because I don't want it to become a "tell" that "any time the GM is specific, HE WANTS YOU TO NOTICE THAT." I mean, it might be TRUE, but I don't want to be too obvious.

If someone wants to spend more time looting? Because that's just the sort of guy he is? Well, if it's just not appropriate (such as, PEOPLE ARE SHOOTING AT YOU) then I'll at least spell out the apparent pros and cons before any dice are rolled -- because these are EXPERIENCED adventurers and this tip on my part stands in for the "intuition" that any inhabitant of this universe would probably have if he's lived this long.

So, for instance, rather than rolling out all their attacks for several rounds while someone decides to loot all the bodies and pry up the floor panels, I'm just going to UPGRADE the mooks' collective attack roll by a few steps to reflect that our greedy hero is giving them plenty of chances to improve their aim rather than cutting out like any reasonable person would. If the player is fine with that and takes his chances, then I'll stick to it. If he makes a few extra credits for the effort, so be it -- but if he makes a regular habit of it, eventually his number is going to come up (and if everyone ELSE has rushed on ahead, nobody's left to bail him out of his self-created mess).

Another thing I've done: Whenever "looting" happens, rather than tallying up each thing that is found and reporting to a player to write it down, then letting the players wrangle over how to divide the spoils, I'll typically tell the players, "You EACH get X credits," and I do the math myself. If there's some potentially plot-important stuff (e.g., 5 blaster rifles, and the players have heretofore been fighting with sharpened sticks), then of course I'll spell that out separately, and if there's some wrangling over who gets the spare rifle, so be it. Now, there's a chance a player may declare that he SPECIFICALLY DOES NOT WANT TO SHARE, but most of the time the players will just take it at face value when I start a new campaign doing it this way, and we can move along quickly. (Wow, it saved SO much time in a Pirates of the Spanish Main RPG campaign I was running a while back, when I just did the math MYSELF.)

Unless it was a stated prerequisite of the campaign that "We are all playing noble, heroic rebels fighting the wicked forces of the empire and greedy corporate interests," or some-such, then I think that playing a greedy sticky-fingered rogue is just as legitimate a character archetype as the stoic noble soldier. I just need to make sure that I'm even-handed about it, and I'm not somehow punishing the more "stoic" players.

Our old D&D GM use to pull stuff like that to: Treasure chest contents:300 gold (hoorah!) in copper pieces. (haroo!)

And no bags of holding.

Honestly, it's the only way to get those treasure chests full o' gold shiny coins that are always represented in the artwork and the minis. ;D

Speaking of treasure chest full of shinies. This happened one adventure:

Rogue checks treasure chest for traps: doesn't find any. Opens the chest: Inside is what appears to be golden coins. So he sticks his hands in scooping up handfulls of gold "coins" except they are not gold coins, they are small thin golden discs, their edges filed to be razor sharp. And covered in poison. Que cries of "medic!" and grumbling about sneaky DMs.

Next room, another chest. Rogue checks for traps again. Nothing. Rogue opens the chest. Inside is a golden statue. Rogue stands back and has the wizard cast magehand to lift it up (suspecting it also had a poison coating.) as the statue is lifted out of the chest we hear a click and BOOM!- weight activated trap blows up the chest. Luckily we all kept our distance.

Looks like someone had a copy of this:

My favorite out of the book - a thin layer of coins over a flesh eating blob. Eager thief sticks their hands in - BAM! Gets fed upon! Brilliant! (Edit - my bad! It was the Gold Coin Fountain on page Page 49 that I was thinking of)

(Actually check out the PDF of Traps and Traps Too - any number of these insidious devices might be easily co-opted for a Lost Sith Tomb on a long dead planet. Just perfect for your greedy players!)

Speaking of treasure chest full of shinies. This happened one adventure:

All that nonsense does is slow play to crawl as the characters check every inch of the "dungeon" for traps, never trust a flagstone they haven't slowly shifted weight onto, etc. It's a tedious, bothersome way to play.

Speaking of treasure chest full of shinies. This happened one adventure:

I'll walk from a game if the GM starts that sort of adversarial nonsense. I put up with it 30 years ago when I didn't know any better, now I know better.

All that nonsense does is slow play to crawl as the characters check every inch of the "dungeon" for traps, never trust a flagstone they haven't slowly shifted weight onto, etc. It's a tedious, bothersome way to play.

Yeah or GM saw he was taking it a bit to far, and he eased it down after that. Altough it was slightly justified as the rogue had been doing some stuff based on player knowledge over character knowledge. (missed a deteced trap roll- dm said: "you find nothing" and the rogue went "nobody move let me check again")

Oddly enough later we started playing Paranoia and we didn't mind having our characters tac-nuked every session.

I guess it all comes down to what people expect from a game.

Yeah or GM saw he was taking it a bit to far, and he eased it down after that. Altough it was slightly justified as the rogue had been doing some stuff based on player knowledge over character knowledge. (missed a deteced trap roll- dm said: "you find nothing" and the rogue went "nobody move let me check again")

Oddly enough later we started playing Paranoia and we didn't mind having our characters tac-nuked every session.

I guess it all comes down to what people expect from a game.

Next time they loot a body or vault, give them a cursed item. Then they can spend some time and effort trying to get rid of it.

A bit of a tangent, but here is how I deal with the "you failed your detect-traps roll" / "okay, I roll AGAIN!" situation:

>>> Once the heroes are in dungeon mode, I assume that the thief is AUTOMATICALLY listening at doors, checking for traps, etc., ALL THE TIME. (I tend to default on the assumption that the heroes are COMPETENT to have lived this long despite their rather hazardous line of work.) Rather than having the thief roll every time, I wait until the heroes actually encounter a trap (or ambush). Then, unless for some reason the thief was indisposed, before I resolve any checks related to the trap, I give the thief a chance to Detect Traps (or equivalent, depending upon system). If he detects it, then -- aha! The barbarian was JUST about to press on, when the thief gets a "bad feeling about this," and blows some dust from his hand, and some of it glistens upon a tripwire made of a single giant spiderweb thread stretched almost INVISIBLY across the corridor. Good job, thief!

Similarly, if there's a room with an ambush that could've been avoided by hearing through the door, once the PCs declare they're going through the door, THEN I ask for the Listen-at-Doors check. If it passes, the thief warns them. If not, we resolve what happens when the door is opened.

This saves SO much time, and the thief still gets to prove his usefulness to the party. It also bypasses the "player-knowledge" problem, because the test is not made until the point of no return.

EDIT: Although I'm using fantasy trope terms, I use a similar method for other genres where someone in the party is the designated "scout" or "rogue" type. A similar method applies if it's a game system where EVERYONE gets to make a "Perception" or "Vigilance" check to watch for danger -- I just don't have the players make the rolls unless there *is* a danger to be checked for.

For Starwars I handle the traps / ambush problem by rolling the difficulty dice behind the screen. That way the player can not be a 100 % sure if he succeeded the roll and if he got correct knowledge from the roll or if only a fraction of what could be discovered is revealed to him. It helps unexperienced players to differ between their and character knowledge. I only allow multiple checks if the player can come up with pretty good RP reason why his character would bother spending so much time in the given situation.

To the speeder problem above:

I would have played it that way, taht the rebels will take the bikes for themselfs. At least they have a desperate need of equipment. If the players want to get theier hands on one of those they better explain themselfs to the rebel leader. That will require some tight negotiation on theier end.

The loot problem in general:

I find it not very starwarsy to loot corpses if you are not searching for a specific item that could be found on a downed opponent or if you are in desperate need of gear and weapons.

One of my players also likes to loot and grab every fallen blaster he can get his hands on. I think I have to do something about this because it doesn't feel right and gets repetitive. While the Rp players loot to progress the story, the others loot for the credits and the gain.

Other than that I have the problem, that 2 of four players really don't get sucked in to the story I'm trying to bring accross. As soon as we have social encounters, or even if only the story is progressed via dialogue with no skill checks for anyone, the said players are not very invested in the scene, don't contribute in any way and let the face of the group or the 4'th character handle things. The players appear that much uninterested that even if the story progresses well and the RP players are enjoying the session I feel to throw in a little encounter to get the attention of the other guys. Last session I gave in and throw in a totally unprepared encounter and I have to admit: It went awfull on my side. Unbalanced, uncreative and not fun.

I've talked to the players and they say they are fine with the balance between story and encounters and even found the last encounter enjoyable. My guess is that they are very game-mechanic driven. I have ideas to force them more into the narrative play, but I would love see them participating a bit without crazy fixes on my end.

I don't want to derail this thread, so feel free to ignore my last paragraph. I should post it in another thread.

For Starwars I handle the traps / ambush problem by rolling the difficulty dice behind the screen. That way the player can not be a 100 % sure if he succeeded the roll and if he got correct knowledge from the roll or if only a fraction of what could be discovered is revealed to him. It helps unexperienced players to differ between their and character knowledge.

I would suggest you roll in the open and have the player walking onto the trap make the check. You don't roll to see if they spot the trap and react to its presense. You are rolling to see what happens for the trap being there. Keep in mind you have 3 axis of results. Success/Failure: They spot the trap or fail to spot the trap. Advantage/Disadvantage the trap is a weaker than expected or goes off with greater effect, perhaps they spot the trap but only after they have activated it "click!" 4 minus the 2 disad gives you 2 minutes to render the trap useless. Triumph/Dispair: Could the trap be a dud, or the player that triggers the suffocation trap is a droid.

If your players are having trouble engaging in the story make them come up with parts of it. Man, that is a cool roll, what do you think it says to you about the trap you just stepped on? This a a cooperative game, so get your players participating.

For example have the main NPC approach one of the silient players and have him ask about the weather or just engage in small talk. Buy them a drink and just do nothing at all towards the resolution of anything. Have the player then test against a social skill, just an average test, success means that the face gets a boost when dealing with the NPC in question as he feels more comfortable with the quite player being in the background.

Maybe you could drop a hint that if they get the NPC a drink and butter him up they will get a better result in their negotiations. Think of this as a social encounter equivalent of space combat. The players not expert at the social encounters can still assist and make things easier.

This is great idea. I actually haven' t seen it this way. So basicly you don't differ between spotting a trap and setting it of. Failing to spot the trap will result in setting it of with severety if the consequences depending on the check, maybe asking for an additional atlethics check can make sense as well.

A successfull perception will still reveal the information about the trap, details depend on the check results, and will put the players into a problem-solving situation.

Cool way of handling this. Thank you.

This is great idea. I actually haven' t seen it this way. So basicly you don't differ between spotting a trap and setting it of. Failing to spot the trap will result in setting it of with severety if the consequences depending on the check, maybe asking for an additional atlethics check can make sense as well.

A successfull perception will still reveal the information about the trap, details depend on the check results, and will put the players into a problem-solving situation.

Cool way of handling this. Thank you.

I wanted to share this with you all in this thread, I just wrote this letter to my group asking the question about looting. I was struggling on how to approach this and after reading this thread i came up with the following.

I a m curious how would YOU answer this???

Yesterdays game was pretty awesome in my book, and i believe was the first time you all came face to face with the sledgehammer approach of the Imperium...

I am still working on the XP as there were a lot of small separate scenes folks dealt with but i did want to draw attention to somthing i noticed and want to be address it and get your feedback on it.

The issue of looting the dead.

Now we all have played in fantasy setting where looting of our kills is common and expected. We find out information, gain new equipment, money, trophies ect ect..

But in Star wars i am wondering if this fantasy carry over is appropriate for the setting in certain aspects. Take the case of our battle last night. The party dragged the dead ISB agent and 2-3 storm troopers onto the ship before leaving.

So i want the party to consider why the did that IN character?? and would they???

I could see clearly grabbing the vibro-sword, rare tech indeed and valuable. I could even consider the ISB agent himself as he was a authority figure that may yield some small glean of information.

But why the storm troopers?Do you need extra armor? Weapons? Do you intend to sell marked imperial gear to merchants for cash? In the star wars universe this is a "immediate go to jail" card if caught, who would risk it? DO you intend to strip it for technology.. nothing fancy on them you cant buy at the local "Holo Shack" off the shelf. Troopers don't have cash.. And there is no magic unless your one of them who believe in the old wives tales of "Jedi's..pfft..

Basically i would like to see the party consider how they are looting and if they would truly go about it like that. The Star wars universe is not like a fantasy setting for that matter, most items can be purchased one place or another legitimately, cost will vary of course but the concept of looting to amass wealth from common gear seems beneath (IMHO) party ways..

SO.. why for in game reasons did the party take them..??

Learn to hand wave the details. XP reward isn't complicated, give the players about 10-15 XP for every 3-4 hours of effective play. I game from 9-12pm, on a good night where we get a few story elements done I go for 15 and where we stall and don't achieve much 10xp does feel right. Players may get a bump off me if they roleplayed well, did something remarkable or think of something important before it bites them.

As for the problem you have, hand wave the details, show the players there is no great reason to carry bodies all over the place.

First up penalise the players as they play. You are encumbered, I'll add a setback dice to all checks and make all tests one step harder. In addition I think you can all suffer 4 strain. So, carrying bodies around isn't much fun.

Second, was it worth it? You search the bodies and find nothing of value.

If the players press, point out. The armour wouldn't fit well and therefore would be painful after a time. The guns are marked and will cause you more grief than good. Most of the equipment is fixed into the armour. So perhaps you find a food bar or some such.

Finally, what was happening off screen? The other storm troopers are watching on the security 4473, 4989 and 1212 being dragged around. They are our friends, get teams of bad guys to corridor 43, come in via corridor 42 and through the droid repair shop.

Understand that in Star Wars the good guys are out numbered and out gunned almost every fight. Make sure if your players don't realise this that they learn.

When faced with a character whos tactics consist of "Point, shoot, loot", I take probably a little more sadistic glee than I should when it comes to them looting everything that isn't nailed down. The original post indicated that a player wanted to swipe some Imperial speeder bikes. Okay, fine...let him have the speeders. Then let the player find out just how hard it is to sell Imperial goods on the market...black, grey, or otherwise. Everyone seen 'Firefly', when Mal is trying to turn over the stolen goods to Badger, who refuses the deal? "The government stamp on every molecule of the goods. You were going to hand over imprinted goods and just let me twist, is that it?" The speeders could be labeled...speeder bike VIN tags, or what have you. Or, buyers are savvy enough to realize that these are IMPERIAL-model speeders. And the Empire takes a very dim view of anyone possessing their equipment. Either way, the speeder bikes are very hot potatoes.
Before too long, the players would start to realize that everything belongs to someone...and more than a few of those 'someones' really, really don't like it when people take their stuff. Im not trying to keep the players from looting, but making them stop and wonder if that looted gizmo would be worth any hassles down the road.

Before too long, the players would start to realize that everything belongs to someone...and more than a few of those 'someones' really, really don't like it when people take their stuff. Im not trying to keep the players from looting, but making them stop and wonder if that looted gizmo would be worth any hassles down the road.