Hi all,

So, after six sessions, my group has completed the Whisper Base starter game and the Operation Shadowpoint addon and we're ready to take a step into the larger universe. I've picked up the Jewel of Yavin adventure based on various comments on these boards - I know that it's for EotE rather and AoR but I figured I could make a few tweaks (might need to post a separate question to see if any other AoR GMs have any tips for that conversion, but we can get to that later).

Anyway, the beginning of the JoY book has a short story-piece where we first learn about

, and it got me thinking - in the Star Wars movies we frequently get to look over the shoulders of the Imperials as they chase down the heroes - do any fellow GMs include tidbits and additional information for their players that their characters wouldn't know about in order to give the players a better picture of the story? Or does it strain the player knowledge/character knowledge boundary a little too far and break the game?

The story piece in JoY gives a little background info on the characters which the players may be able to build on in the latter stages of the adventure, but it's not a huge amount - have GMs (either EotE or AoR) running Yavin given this flavor piece to their players as background?

Thats the one thing I find lacking from the games that WEG got very right - something I try and interject into my home-brewed games: the cut scene. They don't have to be terribly elaborate (or very long), but starting off a game with one always seem to set the "Hey! It's Star Wars time!" mood to me, and they help fill in some story for the players when used mid-game. Used properly, they can really impart a sense of urgency without having a real clock running.

I usually go the other way and never run a cutscene during game. Between sessions, though, I tend to send out little snippets of stories focused on other characters, to give the players a sense of how their actions are shaping the world.

I usually go the other way and never run a cutscene during game. Between sessions, though, I tend to send out little snippets of stories focused on other characters, to give the players a sense of how their actions are shaping the world.

That's a nice idea. I think I'll start doing it.

I run cut scenes when they finish a story and start the next one, but never really have too much happen during gameplay. If things need to happen, they don't always have to know about them.

I had a character kidnapped and replaced by a droid with a disguise to look like the player "off camera". I wanted to see how the player would role play it. I added in a list of actions he had to perform that could potentially reveal himself to the group.

The incident ended with the disguise kind of short circuiting and a player noticing and exposing the droid underneath (the Player rolled a triumph on the reveal). They were able to get their character back and keep going with their normal team after that. ... Hrmm I guess there was a bit of a cut scene after that incident, so I guess I do both?

I do send out some between-session emails with snippets but I focus entirely on the PCs when I do so. The furthest I go for you-didn't-see-this-but is to include the whole party in emails when only one PC is involved, assuming that the character involved would tell the others afterwards.

I try.

I don;t always succeed at having cut scenes planned for the whacky shens my group gets up to. I doubt that'll change with system.

It'a a style thing. In our games we use to play almost everything, but, I understand that people focus mainly on plot or adventures parts.

I liked a lot "cut-scenes" or off-camera from campaign on Edge, but the better would be, as to your players and agree about what game style do you want.

I like cutscenes. Since the PCs aren't involved, it can be totally railroaded, so I'll often make a script and hand highlighted copies to the players so they each take a character and read his lines. I think they work best at the beginning of a session to set the mood. I haven't used them for Star Wars yet, but I have for Deadlands (think cowboys and zombies) and 50 Fathoms (fantasy pirates). In Deadlands, the posse was chasing one character's nemesis into California, the domain of Famine. The cutscene involved the villain stealing cattle and horses from a poor farm, and murdering the farmer's eldest son. The group later found the same farm, but everyone there had turned into a ravening ghoul out of starvation. It helped set the tone of the setting, and really show the villain for the sonofagun he was.

I usually add some embellishment to the recaps I write after each session, but I never thought to add cutscenes that happen outside the PCs point of view. I like the idea, though.

I like to use cut-scenes as teases for upcoming developments or to remind the players of backburnered story elements. I don't ever throw them into the middle of action, but will typically employ them either at the end of a session or during a major transition.

So here's a few more ideas for you:

Back in college we had a guy running a D&D game for us, and he liked using different kinds of cutscenes. One was like a council of elders arguing about the big bad evil threat, I think maybe the decision was reached to hire our party.

In another, he started the session in combat, in some sort of horrible situation that we shouldn't have been in. We all scrambled to engage this fight for a few rounds, then he launched into, "three weeks earlier," and we were right back where we had left off the previous session. That horrid situation was just a few rounds of a fight we were likely to find ourselves in, and now we were dreading how it might come about.

Another way to start a session is to hand them a few generic NPCs, which they will be controlling for the intro. Let's say the adventure is to locate a lost battleship or something. It's recently lost contact, but with hints of some unknown threat. The characters might play through the last stand of the NPCs on board the ship, as some sort of aliens hunt them down. Then the PCs are hired to find the lost ship and find out what happened. Kinda tricky to keep everything vague, but it's worth a shot.