https://star-wars-requiem.obsidianportal.com/dashboard

Absolution follows a crew of mercenaries trying to survive under the Empire's regime. However, on the fringes, the Empire isn't the largest threat to survival.

'Absolution' has become 'Requiem' and this thread is no longer going to be kept current.

Just had our first game tonight and reactions from my players were pretty positive.

I run this as a mostly sandbox style game, meaning I give them a mission and will typically give them parameters (no civilian casualties, take out target x to avoid severe loses, etc) and allow the players to approach it using themselves and a number of NPCs at their disposal to accomplish the goal however they see fit.

This first mission is a little different. My character, an NPC named Captain Jaster Solaris, the mercenary captain of their crew, is with them due to circumstances surrounding the mission. This means that he is able to put in his opinion, allowing me to give them a little more direction as needed. A little nudge in the right direction.

So far, this manner of play is working very well. By putting my character in the background and allowing the rest of the group to take the lead, investigate, and initiate combat, I am able to keep my own knowledge of what's going on out of the hands of my group while still being able to get involved in the action.

But **** if it isn't occasionally hard to keep up with.

Sounds very cool!

How many players do you have? I'm interested in the decision to run a GM PC who is charge of the group. As you say, that can be a tough tightrope to walk.

5. I almost had 7, but I'm REALLY glad that didn't happen. 5 is going to be hard enough to manage once they begin to get access to their minion groups.

There's a pretty nice spread, too. The majority of them are boots on ground kind of guys. One of them is a starfighter. One is a commander-type. He'll likely end up 'in charge of' the ground and raiding assaults. One is a demolitions expert. We have a bounty hunter who had a job go less then well, a deserter (really wish he would just decide where he deserted from. >.>), a former peacekeeper put into exile, a former Imperial soldier....

It's a really well rounded group with plenty of background for most of them. I might end up putting some of that background into the ObbyPortal site at some point. Type up some detailed history for the characters.

If it becomes relevant.

I would be glad to write up some more back story. Just let me know. The galaxy is big and full of bars where great stories can be overheard.

I would be glad to write up some more back story. Just let me know. The galaxy is big and full of bars where great stories can be overheard.

We'll probably go back and forth when/if that happens. Like, on weeks when some of our group can't show and we don't have enough people to run the mission properly, we might do a small group one-off or something. Or I'll just take some time through the week with everyone to start further developing their back story.

Had the second game on Monday night. Finished up our first mission with a fair amount of success.

https://star-wars-absolution.obsidianportal.com/adventure-log/the-price-of-failure-part-two

Presented the group with a few different mission options. They decided that they wanted to do an assault style mission.

So, I referred to my handy-dandy Atlas and found a planet with some background that we can use. Should be a lot of fun.

In case anyone cares, our last session was spent building the minion groups under each players command.

These squads will not always be available, and for a variety of reasons. But it's still an interesting concept, I think.

Each squad is made up of 3 characters. They are essentially a minion group and follow very similar rules for their rolls, but changed slightly in order to make them work in this universe. For each mission that a squad plays a part in, they will gain experience. Each squad has 1 character sheet that can be edited independently of the other squad owned by the same player.

During creation, the players each proposed 8 career skills for their squads. These 8 career skills were shared by both squads under their command. The players were then able to select 4 of those skills to receive a free rank in. As we used the Human as a base template for the squads, they also received 2 non-career skills and 110 experience.

These squads are not allowed to take talent trees. However, squads that have been used well and for a long period of time may be granted specific talents that relate specifically to their function. There will likely be an experience cost associated with this.

The players happened to create a pretty solid hammer; a group capable of handling just about any situation with some degree of aptitude. Eventually, they are going to succeed. Their squads were designed to turn their character into a scalpel, capable of tackling one specific type of problem and handling it exceptionally well.

Their squads have some degree of variance and are all capable of combat.

As far as rolling goes, the player handles all checks made by their squads.

For every downed squad member, dead or otherwise incapacitated, their characteristics suffer by 1 point. Their characteristics CAN be improved, both in character creation and later down the line when I make a 'Dedicated' point available to the squad, and, as they are based off of the Human template, their characteristics cannot drop below 0.
Yes, this means that, if only 1 is left standing, there will be things they cannot do. However, this does play well. The squads are capable of standing toe to toe with a PC. However, individually, they fall very short. This gives more weight to exactly WHY these PC's are the hero's of the Absolution.

Next game will be on the 2nd, and will be the start of a new mission. Here's to new horizons!

Serif... This is some great work, you've got done very lucky players! Kudos to u man!

My only little pearl of wisdom is to be careful how involved your NPC party member gets with the action. Back in my high school days, I would sometimes throw in an NPC if, say, I was solo running someone. Of course, I tried to make him Mr. Awesome, which was a mistake. The PCs should always be the stars of the show and do all the cool things. NPCs party members should play only a secondary or tertiary role, and should, for the most part, be "seen and not heard"

Of course, it sounds like that's exactly what you're doing

My only little pearl of wisdom is to be careful how involved your NPC party member gets with the action. Back in my high school days, I would sometimes throw in an NPC if, say, I was solo running someone. Of course, I tried to make him Mr. Awesome, which was a mistake. The PCs should always be the stars of the show and do all the cool things. NPCs party members should play only a secondary or tertiary role, and should, for the most part, be "seen and not heard"

Of course, it sounds like that's exactly what you're doing

That was fully my intent.

I made him with +150 experience, but most of that got dumped into skills that did not have a direct influence on the role play session. Piloting Space and Astrogation, for example. With as high as I put the skills, it simply gave me more than enough reason to be able to just allow them to get away at the very moment I wanted them too.

He had some amount of combat skill, and I did use him to keep one of the PC's from getting his face totally crushed in (Rival level Gamorreans are a lot more powerful than they look on paper), but otherwise, he never rolled dice. He was present only to help keep the PC's on track and provide a gentle nudge.

I pit the players against each other with their squads before we started the new campaign.

I am a cruel Serif....

Things have happened since my last post.

We started the next mission in this campaign, titled "Thyferrian Bacta Crisis".
The group is now four sessions into this mission, and we expect an end to it after six. They have one more stronghold to assault before they're done.

Some recent changes to how we differentiate between Character Voice and Player Voice have allowed me to start writing the synopsis more like a story than a simple write up of what happened with a bit of flavor text thrown in. The fourth installment of this mission really shows how much more the story seems to breath with this change, and we are all interested in implementing it further into the story.

After the last session for this mission, we may step back for a session to do something a little more light-hearted. I'm interested in doing another PvP session like we ran before starting this mission. Live-streaming is a possibility, though that may depend on if people even want to see how it would go. Not going to do it if no one cares.

The next mission is planned to be a short one and will gain the crew some much needed supplies.
Fully customizable laminate armor, anyone?

"Thyferrian Bacta Crisis" may be at an end tonight.

If it does end tonight, it will have been a 5 session long mission. A pretty respectable length for a mission with no script, if I do say so myself.

I've recently bought a Mentor subscription to Roll20. First game with the new toys is tonight. I am using Dynamic Lighting, and a dice roller API provided by GhostOfMan. More API may be included over time as needed.

Not much to say about this mission. Check out the synopsis from the previous sessions if you like.

Meant to wrap this up earlier, but things came up for myself and players....

https://star-wars-absolution.obsidianportal.com/adventure-log/thyferrian-bacta-crisis-part-five

One more session to go for this mission. Running it on Monday night.

Had the last game in this mission on Monday. Going to be writing up the synopsis tomorrow, as well as probably working on the next mission.

After getting new armor for themselves and the crew, my players seem inclined to perform a defense mission. I believe I have some thoughts in mind for that one, but we'll have to see what comes of it.

Recruiting 2 to 3 players. Message me if you are interested.

Still looking for more players. Message me.

Just one more person. Game is on Monday, would like to get you sorted out before then.