Need AoR game ideas? How about some war movies!

By Desslok, in Star Wars: Age of Rebellion RPG

As much as I love the Hunt for Red October I don't think it would work well as a Star Wars story. At least not in the OT era. What's the Empire going to do call up Mon Mothma and tell her a new Imperial supership has gone rogue and will attack the Alliance? Or maybe Leia will call up some grand moff and warn them that an Alliance prototype has gone renegade and is about to attack the Empire.

It would work much better in the Clone Wars era and might work in the sequel era though.

No no, this works. The Empire uses disinformation to trick the Alliance into attacking the ship. They leak information to the Alliance through the Bothan Spynet or other source that "Captain Chon Seannery has deployed the Red Hammer Cruiser to destroy the Alliance" with it's ship-crushing cannons. This makes the Alliance think they have a chance to ambush and destroy the ship before it can destroy them, when in reality they're helping the Empire locate and destroy the rogue warship.

The mission starts off as a hunt to find the Imperial warship and destroy her, but quickly can turn into a "we need to get this to the Alliance!"

Edited by DarthGM

Any of the "hunt for Nazi gold" movies would work for an EotE/AoR game. For a modern take watch Three Kings.

Edge type characters drafted into the Rebellion would be looking out for a little extra loot to keep. While on a normal mission they pick up a transmission about a vault full of Empire loot stolen from alien races they subjugated. It's a race for the players to accomplish their normal mission while also stealing the gold before the Rebels find out about the gold and/or the Empire kills them. The Rebels would want to keep the gold for the war effort or to give back to the aliens it was taken from. Greedy players would want to keep it. Add in some extra stakes, such as going after the gold might tip off the Empire about the presence of a Rebel cell operating in that area.

movie: the great raid.

team goes in to free rebel POWs.

possible twist: real mission is to retrieve a high ranking officer or failing that kill them.

movie: mr roberts

due to being consummate pain in the rears the group is sent to a back water supply ship.

allows the group to rp some shenanigans. +10 if you do cagneys voice. 20 extra xp to who ever throws the palm tree out the airlock.

movie: operation petticoat.

ship getting repairs done at maintenance facility prior to escorting a delegation back to their home system. imperial raid cause them to flee. hijinks and hilarity occurs.

twist: she's the male of the species.

My first thought was Kelly's Heroes, but somebody beat me to that so I'll offer up another idea: Flame & Citron (Flammen & Citronen), a Danish movie about the Danish (of course) Resistance in WWII. The main characters are an assassin and a getaway driver, and there are plenty of plot twists, unexpected complications, and betrayals that a good GM could use as inspiration for a campaign on an Imperial occupied planet. Even the Nazi officers and the sympathizers are well developed characters instead of stock bad guys, so a GM can take cues for making good antagonists from this film (if he or she doesn't mind reading subtitles).

Heck, even if you don't harvest plot hooks from this movie I highly recommend it.

The Movie:

The Battle for Sevastopol

The Elevator Pitch:

Lyudmila Pavlichenko defended Odessa and Sevastopol against the Nazis and quickly became the best female sharpshooter in history with more than 300 kills to her name. This is that story, more or less

How is it:

I caught this at the Seattle International Film Festival a couple of days ago, and it's really good stuff. Very visceral and Saving Private Ryan-like. It might be a bit to character-centric for a Star Wars game, but it has some great moments in it that could easily be strip-mined for some general wartime incidents. Sniping the tank viewport 3 times in the same place to kill the driver, the tripwire that launches a flair so enemy artillery can pinpoint the target with a barrage - that sort of thing.

Game suitability: 40%

As much as I love the Hunt for Red October I don't think it would work well as a Star Wars story. At least not in the OT era. What's the Empire going to do call up Mon Mothma and tell her a new Imperial supership has gone rogue and will attack the Alliance? Or maybe Leia will call up some grand moff and warn them that an Alliance prototype has gone renegade and is about to attack the Empire.

It would work much better in the Clone Wars era and might work in the sequel era though.

Something like this would work better with the captain of some prototype ship trying to escape with it and give it to the Rebels. It then becomes a race to see who can get the ship first.

Agree. Also thinking along the lines of Firefox too (though arguably more a spy film all the way up the end, then the really fun stuff) - Starfighter with 0.5 hyperdrive(?) (thinking along the lines that Firefox was supposed to be a 'Mach 6 capable fighter/bomber'

Also... Force 10 from Navarone (coz' ya know, it's got Harrison Ford in it...)

Edit: Ok, he's technically in Apocalypse Now as well, but more significant a role in Force 10... Also just remembered The Big Red One (Mark Hamill) - I think, been a very looong time since I saw that.

Edited by MDR101

Just gonna toss this out there....

Anyone else seen 'Valkyrie'?

This might sound kooky, but Hogan's Heroes has some great ideas for "side job" scenarios: infiltration, espionage, sabotage, rescues, smuggling of prisoners, etc.

This might sound kooky, but Hogan's Heroes has some great ideas for "side job" scenarios: infiltration, espionage, sabotage, rescues, smuggling of prisoners, etc.

I was just going to suggest this. I could totally run a humorous game that way with the right players.