OK, So I have a small issue with my group.

After beating the goons in New Meen, and looting all their blasters, one of them has decided that the best course of actions will be to use fellow PCs as ‘bait’ to lure out muggers, mug the muggers, and sell the guns.

Rinse and Repeat.

He also wants a new ship, and has decided stealing one is the best option. And knowing this player, he won’t stop pursuing this idea.

Now I saw someone, somewhere, suggest that if it’s easy to steal a ship, it’s easy to have YOUR ship stolen… that makes sense, but he doesn’t care, as he doesn’t want the ship they have. Partly because the ‘free repairs’ they got on Ryloth, didn’t fix every last little thing that was wrong… because I ruled the engineer doing the work didn’t have the require parts for the (as the player put it), the most common freighter in the sodding galaxy? This guy is a hack and rubbish!!!!!

(Now, im not really against letting him do this, except ive paid cash to have a ship plan printed, and its a good ship.. it has things it need fixing, which I hoped would engender them to this ship, and make it a home.... its good for almost everything. Plus, it sets a precendent that if he wants a ship, he can just steal it.. nice and easy. Which will cause issues. And I dont know quite how to work in the consequences of piracy at this point, as everything im running, or planning on running, is prewritten.)

He also seems to grab hold of anything I might say in error and makes a huge deal over it… when Ota (reading from the book adventure) said that Teemo would have the bounty cash on him, and Ota would make sure it was given to the PCs… he ranted about how that worked? Would they recover it, and give it to Ota, who would give it back?? And just went on and on about it.

Now I don’t want to come down hard on this player, he is a good guy, and has really behaved himself the first 4 sessions we ran, but I can see things slipping.

I do have one of my other players on side, he can see the benefits of the ship they have, and isn’t inclined to change it… but I can see arguments on the horizon if Player A cannot have the ship HE wants.

Equally, another player keeps suggesting when a problem arises in a less than inhabited area, that the best solution (as with New Meen), would be to return to the ship, and “nuke them from orbit” so to speak… basically strafe them from the ship until nothing is left.

How do I deal with this kind of thing???

Cheers

RD

There are a few ways to go from here.

Idea 1, let them do whatever they want. They them amass a ton of money then get hacked. If they think crime is super easy, make it happen ALL THE TIME to them. Maybe they gain a bounty as well due to all the crime that magically happens wherever they go? Basically let them commit as much crime as they want then spring consequences on them until it is more in balance with fun for everyone. You can always reintroduce the ship you want them to have later.

Idea 2, Make stealing as hard as it should be. Lock doors/encrypt systems, etc. Consider that stealing a ship is the combined crazy of stealing a car, computer and boat all at the same time. It shouldn't be something as simple as hotwiring it to make it magically be yours. Also the transponder has the captain's information imbedded in it, and hacking those is crazy hard unless you know what you are doing (and according to the empire it is impossible).

Idea 3, talk to the Player and try to aim their thuggish ways towards more constructive pursuits.

I went with Idea 2 when my Players wanted to steal a ship. The previous owner was a bounty target they captured and he was not willing to let them get it without a fight. They also ended up damaging a few of the onboard computers during the theft so it wasn't all as useful as it could have been.

Hopefully that gives you some ideas on a way forward.

Additionally... they need to use passage on the Freighter to get them back to Mos Shuuta... I can see them trying to steal that too. (well, one of them).

Additionally if you want to stop them from looting the weapons from corpses, try gene-lock with the self-destruct mod. Once or twice getting your hand blown off teaches a powerful lesson. If you want to go that route. =)

Law enforcement catching up to them will nip this in the bud. One instance of storm troopers showing up and taking them down and sending them to the spice mines of kessel. Roll up new characters and try this again. You have to make crime as costly as it is in real life. sure they get away with it for a short time but things catch up to them and that is that. And making them roll up new characters after going to prison makes it sting enough that hopefully on the second go around they realize their error.

OK, So I have a small issue with my group.

After beating the goons in New Meen, and looting all their blasters, one of them has decided that the best course of actions will be to use fellow PCs as ‘bait’ to lure out muggers, mug the muggers, and sell the guns.

Rinse and Repeat.

Two points:

1) Why? Is it for the credits? Remember selling items only gets you a starting sale price of 25% the value. So Blasters Pistols START at 100 credits... Negotiate that vs. the buyers Negotiate skill, toss in some Setback dice since the things are obviously hot (maybe even upgrade), and that should settle this down a bit.

2) Simple response to this is the back-hack.

Just ask "If the players were in a town, and one went out to hassle someone and never came back, what would the others do?"

The players are for all intents and purposes assuming this is a cheap video game with bad AI. It's not. Soemone goes missing, 5 more show up looking. They go missing? I hope your players have missile launchers, cause they're gonna need em..

He also wants a new ship, and has decided stealing one is the best option. And knowing this player, he won’t stop pursuing this idea.

Ask them what their plan is, and refer to my last post. If you stole a car and just started cruising around with it, what would happen.

It'll be great fun till they hit that first Customs inspection and are asked to present ownership datawork.... Then it's 15 Criminal Obligation for all! Hope you guys didn't' have any plans of leveling or having your full strain threshold...

Equally, another player keeps suggesting when a problem arises in a less than inhabited area, that the best solution (as with New Meen), would be to return to the ship, and “nuke them from orbit” so to speak… basically strafe them from the ship until nothing is left.

Of course! What could possibly go wrong!?!?

Oh yeah... this:

Or maybe one of these:

The Landspeeder has sufficient hardpoints to mount Blaster Cannons, the Speeder Truck can mount a Concussion missile launcher or torpedo launcher.

Just remind your plays that while they are amazing and brilliant, they are also probably not the first beings in the galaxy to think of that, and it might not work.

This isn't about the ship at all, it's about the player. It sounds like he thinks he can bully* you into getting what he wants just by creating a stink. You need to lay down that law right away, or your game will fall apart. Talk to him well before the next session and find out what his concerns are, and tell him yours. His having questions about how something works is one thing, but blatantly scoffing in-game and criticizing it is another: it's disruptive and disrespectful, and probably makes the other players uncomfortable. If he can't present his concerns in a constructive way then...it's time to decide whether to ask him to change, or ignore his ideas, or ask him to leave. Hopefully it doesn't come to the last two.

One thing is apparent to me: if he wants to be setting up anti-mugging operations, or contemplate stealing a ship, he (or his character) has no real pressure. In other words, whatever the current plot is, he's not feeling compelled to complete it. This is usually a bad situation for a GM to be in, especially if you have players with differing ideas about how to handle "down time". The clock has to be ticking. If it's not, players get into all kinds of trouble because they don't know what to do. Even when the PCs technically have a lot of time (the ship's in the shop, let's go shopping), I try to make sure there is a purpose to their downtime (meet with the contact, search the databanks, find some obscure item that requires more than one PC, etc). And all these are dealt with in a couple rolls for each character, done over 15 minutes of play time.

Anyway, if they don't really have an overarching goal or time commitment, then you can't really stop them attempting any of these actions, but you can use this as a vehicle for a bigger plot of your own. One or two mugging operations might go okay, but the local gang or crime lord isn't going to accept that for long, and the tables can easily be turned. Let them do it twice and then spring an ambush of your own. Make sure the leader utters the classic line "So, these are the meddlers"...

And if they steal the "ship they want", well, that's probably a sweet little number owned by someone important, who isn't going to take kindly to such activities. This is where Obligation can come in...sure they got the ship (if they succeed...and make that a tough fight), but the whole party is going to earn 10-20 Obligation in the form of a bounty, and that is going to cost them.

The short answer is you can take anything they want to do and make it have larger and longer lasting consequences.

* bully: an overused word these days, I mean it in the loosest of its original senses.

Edit: some points were already made while I was typing, but it's too much to edit...

In stories there are repercussions to every action. Steal a ship? Maybe it belongs to a trader that works for a Hutt, or worse...a rather noteworthy Bounty Hunter that loves to keep tabs of where her stuff flies off to.

Selling blasters that are stolen? Umm...once a fence takes notice that "...these are the guns I sold to...oh dear." they'll end up with more heat on them then they'll know what's good for them.

Confident Shipjacker talking to the comms that just came in,"What do you mean I owe you your shipment of stolen Imperial Probe Droids? What?! In the hold? Umm...someone wanna check what's in back?"

Pause while other PCs look in the cargo hold and then, "Oh crap...hey genius, you may want to come back here."

All of a sudden, that old rust bucket of a ship that smelt of Wookiee rut and refuge sounds like the best mobile home in the galaxy.

Time for the passive aggressive break-up: Let them take the ship he wants, but have it piloted by droids. The droids vent the atmosphere and expel him and everyone else into the vacuum of space where they all die. Tell the players that you want to take a few months break before you start up again. Give it a week, then call everyone but the problem player and start back up again with the same characters and consider the missing player a bad dream sequence.

Let them bait a few muggers and kill and steal their stuff. before long the local crimeboss will hear about this and send out a few gangs of his heavy hitters to deal with "dese new guys who think they can muscle into my teritory". He might even sic a bounty hunter or two on them.

Ok, time for a serious solution: Many of the solutions offered here are great, but most of them involve escalating force. It seems to me that you have a power gamer on your hand, and a power gamer loves more carnage because it justifies his need to become more powerful. I'd say go the opposite direction. Let them kill some 'muggers' who turn out to be local neighborhood watch, totally innocent. [Criminal Obligation] You could even have them be starving kid pickpockets. Then let them watch as the locals are preyed upon by real criminals. Merchants no longer want to do business with them. The families file a greivance with the local goverment or crime lord, who in turn puts a lien against the ship until restitution is made. [Debt Obligation] Sooner or later the total group obligation will exceed 100, which means nobody can spend experience. Since you control the reduction of obligation, you use it to reward positive behavior change.

Also, don't give them XPs for the mugger rinse repeat anymore....they're not learning anything new.

I think back to what happened to Joey Jo Jo, the Jawa with a dream.

Joey Jo Jo was looking to make a name for himself. While wandering the desert he spotted a lone Astromech just twirping and beeping to himself. "There!" Joey thought to himself, "There is what's going to make the name Joey Jo Jo famous! I just know it!" So out whipped his Ion Blaster and the blue little Astromech went down like last Wednesdays trash can. Joey Jo Jo called his friends immediately, "Have I scored the BIG one! Come help me move this thing."

Hours later, Joey Jo Jo and his mates were cruising the wastelands in their hot ride, celebrating the awesome find when along the horizon they spotted ANOTHER Droid! "Holy Hutt Balls!" Joey exclaimed and immediately they scooped up this other sweet hunk of automation with Credit Signs in their eyes.

Well Joey Jo Jo thought to himself. Okay, he has the Droids and a bunch of other scrap, maybe he could make a profit off of them at some local swap meet. That'd be grand. Well sure enough, the horn went off and a call went out that some Moisture Farmers in the North were looking to up their hired hands. "Sweet! I'm all over that one." And off Joey and company went to make a huge tons of cred. Sure enough he stuck it to those Moisture Farmers with a huge turn over in profit. But unfortunately that snotty kid of theirs must have screwed with one of their less-impressive models, and so he had to give up the new shiny one he'd just found. No worries though, he still took off like a bandit! And it was Blue Milk and hot Rodian tail tonight for him and the boys back at the cantina, for sure.

Well, as it turns out those two Droids were a tad more valuable than Joey Jo Jo has anticipated, and not a few hours later, he and his band of merry mates were blasted to pieces by Imperial Stormtroopers riding iguanas. Tough luck Joey Jo Jo. Looks like you bit off more than you could chew without fully looking into why these Too-Good-To-Be-True things, were Too-Good-To-Be-True. Maybe next time when a Jawa with high hopes finds a wandering Droid in the middle of the desert, he'll actually check out just what that Droid is, and why it's there before looking for the quick and easy profit.

Utini indeed, little Jawa.

Think about the consequences.

You want to mug the muggers? When violent criminals get hurt thing normally escalate.

The players steal a ship, what happens when a ship is stolen? Wouldn’t you have the Imperial Navy chasing you, the owner of the ship and if the ship was expensive perhaps bounty hunters as well.

The player characters, while they may be criminals, often rely on being invisible. That beat up wreak of a ship flies under the radar, it is the everyman ship that people don’t notice.

Players tend to be good guys wearing black hats. Do they want to become petty criminals?

That all said. Allow the player his rope, then have one or more of the other players make a knowledge test of some kind against two difficulty dice. Warn them about some of the issues you would think they could face. This then puts in front of the players some of the possible consequences of their actions should they go ahead with them.

Use obligation, be harsh here too. If the players steal a nice new ship, the players gain could gain some obligation for being Wanted and a Bounty. Even a small 5 point each to each player will add 50 to the group obligation and will probably push the entire group over 100. Make this part of the warning in the knowledge test, that way you will have the players forewarned and accepting of the consequences.

How will the nature of this bounty or being wanted affect their future work prospects?

However, don’t be mean, for the most part this player just seems to have a different expectation as to what he feels he can do and get away with. If you explained what would happen via that knowledge test, then you are not being mean.

One thing to keep in mind: You are in charge. On the one hand, if they forget that the universe they play in is something you narrate, that's good - it's telling you that you're doing your job. But on the other hand, nobody's forcing you to play along. You can stop narrating any time, stopping the game. Not only your players can stop the narration by pointlessly arguing, so can you. It is very liberating to know that you're not responsible for keeping the game going any more than they are. Without you, there is no game. Repeat after me: "I'm not doing this, this is stupid."

Remind your players that you try to create a story that should look and feel like a movie. Nuking stuff from orbit makes for a boring story, so is robbing poor people. Tell them flat out that this is not how you intend to tell the story, and that you feel they work against you by trying to force the campaign in that direction. (Because that's what they seem to be doing.) Tell them you don't think that works, and call it a night. Either they come around and find a way to cooperate with you instead of working against you, or you pull the plug on an experience that might make you feel miserable.

I'm not saying you should control your players' every actions, but neither should you allow them to control what you want to do.

Time for the passive aggressive break-up: Let them take the ship he wants, but have it piloted by droids. The droids vent the atmosphere and expel him and everyone else into the vacuum of space where they all die. Tell the players that you want to take a few months break before you start up again. Give it a week, then call everyone but the problem player and start back up again with the same characters and consider the missing player a bad dream sequence.

This. The chap himself is the problem - he doesn't seem to have an outlook that gels with what the rest of the group want. Is he involved in the game because you want him there, or because you need to make the numbers up?

I suggest not making criminal activities too hard to get away with, at least not if you want your players sticking it to the Empire from time to time. If they can't get away with a mugging or starship theft, it's going to be unlikely that they can get away with pulling any of the typical anti-Empire acts people want to see in Star Wars.

Edited because original was done on smart phone.

Let them loot blasters and sell them. Give them a contact to sell the guns. Then dangle a ship they want to steal, make sure that ship belongs to their contact and they don't know till after.

Best bet, talk to the player. Lots of good suggestions about how here. You are there to have fun as much as everyone else. Many players forget that, I feel. Running/prepping a game is hard work and takes time and there should be a social contract that you will help the gm tell the story.

If you, or the players, are not having fun, adult up and talk to the rest of the group. Discuss the issue, rather than enacting any paasive-aggresive bantha poodoo. Nobody wins with that.

Really though, it's not a conversation you should have to have with adults. I've found that the players who need this sort of pep talk should really be playing an open-world video game instead.

I went to sleep last night after reading this thread and I got all evil and devious in my thoughts... just like my GM! I didn't take this from a "teachable moment" perspective, just from the perspective of a GM going with their players' flow and making it fun.

Selling all those weapons is bound to get notice. So, downstream a sale, the buyer gets picked up by the Empire because he's supplying them to rebels. The players are small-time in this whole exchange but the buyer sells them out to protect his BIG-TIME suppliers who are actually stealing and smuggling Imperial shipments. The Imperial investigators believe the PC's are involved in those thefts and the smuggling and go after them. The PC's defeat the initial attempt to arrest them and learn from one of the investigators why the Empire is after them but also learn that the Empire's going to keep coming... unless they can prove they're not the suppliers the Empire thinks they are.

Finding the supplier and getting them arrested is suggested by the informer. He even agrees to help... It clears his name for the major screw up that led to his own capture and the casualties on his team. Maybe he has a reputation for considering his team expendable (he thinks justice is more important than any one person).

Ultimately, the PC's will have to decide what to do. On the one hand, if they get the supplier arrested, they're free and maybe have a good contact for future work and help but they seriously hurt the rebels by cutting off a major supply source of weapons and equipment. On the other hand, if they don't help the investigator, they remain wanted criminals and maybe even get branded rebels. This being Star Wars, their could be 3 or more hands, though. The PC's could come up with a solution of their own.

As for the issues with this player, I can't count how many times I respond in threads like this with the same words: TALK TO THEM! Ask them what their intentions are when they do things you're having problems with. Explain to them how you are feelng. This being a narrative game, the player should understand that he has a lot of opportunity to help tell the story... if he's constructive about it. He even has Destiny Points to really influence things ("That guy doesn't have the parts but here's a Destiny Point that says he knows a local source where we can get them and he'll install them if we do..." and you get another NPC to hand the PC's a job, "Sure, I have the parts.. But I was looking for someone who can..."). There's no reason for him to complain when he can help.

I think this message is long enough. I'd switch to decaf if my parents allowed me to drink coffee...

It's a tough situation because the published adventure actually makes it pretty easy to steal the Krayt Fang from the Trandoshan bounty hunter.

I think they assume the PCs will use some restraint and take that for what it's worth--a free ship.

The players are for all intents and purposes assuming this is a cheap video game with bad AI. It's not.

This. This I cannot stress large enough. There are players out there that feel they are playing a video game. Yes, that can be fun, but to most it's not what an RPG is about.

This isn't about the ship at all, it's about the player. It sounds like he thinks he can bully* you into getting what he wants just by creating a stink. You need to lay down that law right away, or your game will fall apart. Talk to him well before the next session and find out what his concerns are, and tell him yours. His having questions about how something works is one thing, but blatantly scoffing in-game and criticizing it is another: it's disruptive and disrespectful, and probably makes the other players uncomfortable. If he can't present his concerns in a constructive way then...it's time to decide whether to ask him to change, or ignore his ideas, or ask him to leave. Hopefully it doesn't come to the last two.

One thing is apparent to me: if he wants to be setting up anti-mugging operations, or contemplate stealing a ship, he (or his character) has no real pressure. In other words, whatever the current plot is, he's not feeling compelled to complete it. This is usually a bad situation for a GM to be in, especially if you have players with differing ideas about how to handle "down time". The clock has to be ticking. If it's not, players get into all kinds of trouble because they don't know what to do. Even when the PCs technically have a lot of time (the ship's in the shop, let's go shopping), I try to make sure there is a purpose to their downtime (meet with the contact, search the databanks, find some obscure item that requires more than one PC, etc). And all these are dealt with in a couple rolls for each character, done over 15 minutes of play time.

Anyway, if they don't really have an overarching goal or time commitment, then you can't really stop them attempting any of these actions, but you can use this as a vehicle for a bigger plot of your own. One or two mugging operations might go okay, but the local gang or crime lord isn't going to accept that for long, and the tables can easily be turned. Let them do it twice and then spring an ambush of your own. Make sure the leader utters the classic line "So, these are the meddlers"...

And if they steal the "ship they want", well, that's probably a sweet little number owned by someone important, who isn't going to take kindly to such activities. This is where Obligation can come in...sure they got the ship (if they succeed...and make that a tough fight), but the whole party is going to earn 10-20 Obligation in the form of a bounty, and that is going to cost them.

The short answer is you can take anything they want to do and make it have larger and longer lasting consequences.

* bully: an overused word these days, I mean it in the loosest of its original senses.

Edit: some points were already made while I was typing, but it's too much to edit...

So sayeth the Whafrog, and so it is done.

so i am a GM in a morning session and a player in the afternoon session. to date in the afternoon session we have stolen 3 ships, looted a crate of 30 frag grenades and pick up as much as we can carry to sell off... if you are having that much trouble with that player kill him off

Interesting bit about mugging the muggers... As someone said earlier, this isn't a video game where one can farm. Criminal elements do wise up to things quickly, and take care of their own. Sounds like this PC is expecting goons, where really the criminal rings on Ryloth are sophisticated enough to essentially control the governing structure. In the case of mugging the muggers, they quickly discover that there are no targets to mug. As for stealing ships, go for it, but the BOSS signature is far harder to replicate than most realize. The real prize for the favour at New Meen wouldn't be the repairs, but an updated transponder, and effectively a legal transfer of ownership to the party (ie. They "found" it as salvage).