Tribute adventures for old movies

By Chagidiel, in Star Wars: Age of Rebellion RPG

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I havent played Age of Rebellion yet. But i have been GM for Edge of the Empire. Was thinking a little about what kinda AoR camign i would want to be a GM for. And then it came to me, im thinking about making a tribute campaign based on old classic world war 2 movies.
Where Eagles Dare, the Rebel cell is gonna infiltrate a Imperial base to try find a captured spy and reveal traitors among their own ranks.
Dirty Dozen, plan an assasination of high ranking imperial officers.

The Guns of Navarone, Destroy a imperial super weapon along an important hyperspace route.

and so on =)

One thing that is gonna be important, is not to use stormtroopers as canonfodder. More regular Imperial Army, and Stormtroopers as the elite they are supposed to be.

Fairly simple main plots with a lot of roleplaying elements. Cool plot twists and fubar situations.

Edited by Chagidiel
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I just today started contemplating an adaptation of "Assault on Precinct 13".

Also, in a purely coincidental numerical theme, "The Thirteenth Warrior"... Which isn't a classic movie but is heavily based on "Beowulf" so it averages out. :P

Edited by Aluminium Falcon
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I see 'Thirteenth Warrior' as a classic. Love, love, love that movie.

I've been toying with something like 'Treasure of the Sierra Madre', which was adapted brilliantly for Fallout New Vegas.

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I see 'Thirteenth Warrior' as a classic. Love, love, love that movie.

I do, too.

You could go really nutty and cast ewoks in the wendol role... They do indulge in the eating of other sentients, it seems.

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Hahaha! I made the Jedi into the bad guys of our campaign, why not ewoks? :)

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Does that mean they start off in an Imperial prison or facing a Rebel Council on various charges relating to their original Edge of the Empire career?

Have you thought about a game set around The Sea Wolves or using Force Ten From Navarone as inspiration for a sequel for one of your examples noted above?

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I did not really thought about using the same characters EotE. But to start in an Imperial Prison and be rescued by a Rebel raid could be a cool starting point. Pherhaps they already have done something noteworthy and is why the rebels are trying to rescue them.

Sea Wolves. could be a cool Sabotage mission in deep space. Like trying to sabotage an Imperial customs frigate so an transport containg freed slaves can ran past them.

Force 10 from Navarone. Could be split in to subplots throughout other adventures, just that their cell has ben infiltrated by an ISB agent. When too much is starting to go wrong, Realise that they may have a traitor among their own ranks.

My plan was really to try keep it all in one system or maybe one planet, their struggle against the Imperial oppression. i would want in a Tirpitz aspect also, Star Destroyer that is hiding in the sector, an orbital repair dock around a moon or an astroid that they have to sabotage/destroy in the end game.

But watching old war movies with a Star Wars "filter" is kinda fun.

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How about linking that traitor to the event that got them locked up in the first place?

For all intents and purposes the traitor doesn't know they wasn't either executed or killed in the escape after all Imperial propaganda would be working to their disadvantage as being undercover they're reliant on accurate intel and if its one thing everybody knows no plan survives first contact with a group of players! :)

Could all be done in the same system after all the end of Guns of Navarone sees Peck and Niven sailing away whilst Anthony Quinn stays behind even though the book sequel has him hoisted away to help with Force Ten whilst the movie threw in some alternatives one of which was played by Harrison Ford...

Could just have them return to their old haunts letting the Imperials think they fled out of the system.

So... if you do run Force Ten they're going to have to find some science fiction version of a dam to blow up so it can cascade and take out their approaching reinforcements... :rolleyes: :P

Hmm... how about they're building a new series of Fortresses to secure the system and your group has a little time to infiltrate and set up a series of explosives so they can cause some kind of enhanced blast to take out the new Fortresses as they're going online sort of like what they did with the Death Star except your group is fleeing TIE Fighters inside the system and the Fortresses are turning to face the passing Rebel Fleet...

Edited by copperbell
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One cool thing instead of a "dam" would actualy be that the repair dock, would be on the planet surface, a gigantic array of concrete pillars, support buildings, army barracks and so on. A place on the surface where combat damaged Star Destroyers could land for extensive repairs. Dont know how that would work in theory but i kinda like the ideá. It would be so intimidating, they have Stormtroopers and can launch out TIE fighters.

I can alost visualise the devestation after blowing up a few pillars and se the Destroyer crash down to the ground destroying everything beneath.

Edited by Chagidiel
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I'm getting that Anakin moment you know where he reprograms the Malevolent to make it look like the hyper drive is fixed but its really going to send it careering into a nearby moon... ;)

They defuse the explosives but remain unaware that they've infiltrated the computer controls so the next descending ship is sent careering into the top of the repair docks and descends into the depths smashing into everything in its path...

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This is a rough idea of what i was thinking too do.

The player characters are in prison for crimes connected to their duty or obligation. A rebel infiltrator among the guards will help the players to escape. The imperials has destroyed several rebel cells in the system the past year and the rebellion is desperate for new agents. The infiltrator is deep undercover as one of the guards and will never reveal his face to the Players for security reasons. The infiltrator will even provide the characters with a safe house in the nearby city.
The Characters have escaped imperial custody and is now wanted men. They have a safe house and a base of operations in the city. But supplies are running low and they are ill equiped. They get a message on a com unit in the safe house, an anonymous voice Thanks them for their services (connected to their duty). They now have the choice of joining the fight against the Empire or leave as "free" men. But if they stay they have joined the Rebel Alliance and they need to get supplies, so they can be prepared for future missions. A small convoy is to depart from a nearby imperial armycamp to supply a scout regiment. Characters get a map, and possible routes for the convoy. They are to ambush it and hijack the supplies. (Thinking here that the players can try to infiltrate the the army compund, steal information, Or kidnap and interigate an officer. Or they could stay in contact with the "rebel headquarters" who can supply them with information at the cost of Duty, the more they do them selves the more they prove their worth for the alliance). Ambush and hijack the convoy should not be to complicated, getting the supplies back to safe house should be the tricky part.
Better equiped now and their first offical mission is now over. The Alliance has lost contact with one of their agents in the city and they need to find him. A more detective type mission of finding a missing person. They get his code name and the location of his safe house. The rebels find out during their investigation that the agent has been compromised and gone in to hiding, ISB has is now on their trail to find the same agent. They race against the time to find the agent before ISB tracks him down. (Either they gain a contact or loose him to ISB)
Information about a transport ship has entered the system, eye witnesses has seen a large ship enter the atmosphere of the planet, heading towards a remote woodland region. The characters get the job to investigate. They find a remote city in a mountain region now under the control of the Empire. The town is under a martial law. The Empire is builduing something huge here, a large area as been been cleaned of wood and rocks, preperations for laying ground for large builduings, and a dozen large concrete pillars are beeing built, the pillars a square shaped and around 100m on each side and a around 10-20 meters high at this moment. A castle high on a mountain side has been converted to the Empires local headquarter. No trace left of the ship, but a Lamda shuttle is on a small landing platform. The characters finds out that the ship they searched for dropped of construction supplies and slaves. When they report their findings to the Alliance, they get orders to free as many slaves they can and hijack that shuttle. They get coardinates to a rendevouz point, where to fly the slaves, its on another remote location of the same planet. Now they see the rebelbase, with a few troopers and a small hangarbay.
Still at the rebelbase, they get briefed about an experimental weapon system being tested along the hyperlane in their sector. On a moon orbiting a gasgiant in the system is the mainstation for a tractorfield that stops every ship entering the system so a customs frigate can board and search the ships. On this moon is also a big ion canon to disable trouble makers. The Charcters get the mission to get to the moon in their captured Lamda shuttle and disable the tractorfield and sabotage the Ion canon. This mission is crucial to the alliance so that they can get a ship out of the system and give "safe" passage for other alliance ships passing through the system.
Back in their own base in the city, the charcters get the info that a delegation of imperial officer, politicians are coming to the city from Corusant. They are here to do an inspection of all the instalments in the system. The Characters get the mission to ambush them on some point of their planet wide tour, assassinate them all and get their data and locations of all the bases. This is actualy a trap set by ISB to see if the rebels take the bait and try to do something about this group of officers. After the characters succefully flee and find their way back to their safe house. They learn that the Alliance infiltrator that helped them escape has been captured.
Now they need to return to the remote imperial base where they freed the slaves and stole the shuttle, to infiltrate the castle and free the infiltrator. The complex on the ground now almost complete, has these huge pillars that stretches around 200-250 meters up in to the sky. On their mission they finds info that a this is the headquarters of ISB and the complex that has been built is a repairing dock for Star Destroyers. a Star Destroyer is heading to the system to get repairs. Now they must destroy complex. The destruction of a Star Destroyer and the destruction of a ISB headquarters should be an epic victory.

I want to do a small scale epic campaign that gives a feeling of fighting for my home. Recurring allies, villains, places. and the ability to recruit more people for their rebel cell. Get some soldiers to use with squad rules. Build up their own base and so on.
Edited by Chagidiel
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I've been thinking on adapting The Keep for Star Wars. Many elements of it can be readily adapted for Star Wars.

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Somewhere here is a very similar thread (WW2 movie inspired adventures) believe it or not. :)

I ran a d20 SAGA campaign once in which half of my adventures had connections with my old WW2 movie fandom. Titles included: Kelly's Dodonna's Heroes, Where Eagles Rebels Dare, and A Bridge Bounty Too Far.

Kelly's Heroes is an easy Rebel commando conversion. The party stumbles upon some intel regarding a secret gold bank Imperial arms cache that has supposedly been left unguarded. When they finally get there using stealth through Imperial fleet patrols, they discover an actual Tiger tank AT-AT standing guard over it! If things go bad, you could even throw in the AT-AT commander is disillusioned with the Empire and may be willing to negotiate with the players during a stalemate to let them blow up the AT-AT..........if they fake his death and let him take half of the goods.

Edit: Fixed the link.

Edited by Sturn
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Might I recommend these two flicks from my favorite Italian director (yes, I like him better than Leone) - Enzo G. Castellari: Eagles Over London and The Inglorious Bastards. If we were playing a Rebellion vs Empire game, I would have stolen those two stories long, long ago - really good stuff.

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Here's a film that would make a great conversion for a Star Wars adventure.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjSG5enizgw

It's the true story of the rescue of over 500 Allied POW's from the Japanese near the town of Cabanatuan in the Philippines by the US Army 6th Ranger Battalion, Alamo Scouts and Filipino guerrillas.

Edited by zathras23
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"The Bridge of River Kwai" would be great - with players being the Rebels sent to destroy an important Imperial installation only to find that it is being defended by captured Rebels. Even better (but I guess better for one-shot, convention games) - in the first scenario PCs are captured rebels who are building the structure, maybe they're inspired, maybe they want to sabotage etc. The second scenario - as explained in the first sentence.

However, a word of advice - I've ran "Where Eagles Dare" SW adaptation and the problem is that since these films are classics, everyone knows them and/or recognizes the scenario very quickly. Unless there are some major changes later on, the games can turn to a railroad fest and end with frustrated players. It is related to another problem too - copying after films may lead to a situation when GM tries to 'reenact" the whole film and players are really pawns without any decision making power...

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However, a word of advice - I've ran "Where Eagles Dare" SW adaptation and the problem is that since these films are classics, everyone knows them and/or recognizes the scenario very quickly. Unless there are some major changes later on, the games can turn to a railroad fest and end with frustrated players. It is related to another problem too - copying after films may lead to a situation when GM tries to 'reenact" the whole film and players are really pawns without any decision making power...

Agreed they should be inspirations, not duplication attempts.

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Somewhere here is a very similar thread (WW2 movie inspired adventures) believe it or not. :)

I ran a d20 SAGA campaign once in which half of my adventures had connections with my old WW2 movie fandom. Titles included: Kelly's Dodonna's Heroes, Where Eagles Rebels Dare, and A Bridge Bounty Too Far.

Madin's Heroes sounds so much better to me though.

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I'm surprised no one has mentioned an obvious choice like Red Dawn yet, the original not the new one. The Party is a group high school equivalent students on a small independent colony.having a nice peaceful day when the Empire invades. Great IMO for a beginner level campaign.

Or what about the John Wayne film The Sea Chase? You could run that one from either side. Perhaps the party is the crew of or crewmembers on an Alliance transport or corvette in port at a neutral planet whose government declares allegiance to the Empire and the ship to flee to safety, perhaps further complicated by the ship not being fully supplied limiting its range and thus it possible destinations.

Or a planet's government has secretly allied with the Alliance but an ISB agent escaped on a corvette or armed cargo ship and the party is on a ship sent to hunt the ISB agent's transport down before the agent can make a report on what has happened.

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Somewhere here is a very similar thread (WW2 movie inspired adventures) believe it or not. :)

I ran a d20 SAGA campaign once in which half of my adventures had connections with my old WW2 movie fandom. Titles included: Kelly's Dodonna's Heroes, Where Eagles Rebels Dare, and A Bridge Bounty Too Far.

Madin's Heroes sounds so much better to me though.

Did you mean Madine's Heroes?

Dodonna was chosen since that was who the PCs were interacting with as commander of the Rebel base at Dantooine. Dodonna's name not having the same number of syllables as "Kelly" was not important. Anywho, Crix Madine had not yet left the service of the Empire during this time period of the PCs adventures so calling them, "Madine's Heroes", may have revealed Crix's turncoat nature and had him tossed in a detention cell. :)