As the topic name suggests, I am looking for some advice on running a game more centered around drug trades...where it may differ is that my PCs want to be the manufacturers.

To give a little background with regards to how this came about, it first started with one of my player's Obligations. In preparing to run the Jewel of Yavin adventure, my friend and I created a character for him with a "Dark Secret" angle...long story short, he has one half of a potent narcotic formula called Liquid Bliss. This guy is no scientist though, and does not currently have the means of deciphering the data chip it is on.

As we ran through JoY, I decided to incorporate the NPC Kaltho the Hutt into his Obligation rolls since he seemed like a natural fit. The story took a bit of a turn, with the players discovery of a Bliss manufacturing lab aboard Kaltho's yacht (Which of course, only produces a half-potency strain since they are only in possesion of the other half of the drug.) Being the natural murderhobos that they are the players saw fit to take his ship by force...which they succeeded at due to both planning and luck.

Of course, nothing ever goes completely as expected, and this was no exception. In the process of taking the ship, it was severely damaged both externally and internally. The lab itself sustained heavy damage (Explosives were involved) and all slaves manning it were killed. The party from this point continued on with the rest of the adventure and I now find myself here. I have ran one game with them arriving at Nar Shaddaa to introduce a new player to the group, and also to incorporate some of the great material out of Lords of Nal Hutta. However, I am kind of at a loss here.

They do now have goals; rebuild the lab, decipher the formula, find distributers and so forth, in addition to their other obligations. I feel like theses are all really great plot seeds...I just don't feel I know how to execute them very well.

I would recommend that you start building a network or web (however you want to visualize it) out from the plot seeds that you have. Just make a checklist of locations, items, people, organizations, etc. that connect with with the players, the plot seeds, and one another. Along the way, introduce cause for conflict between the PCs and NPCs as well as between NPCs. This way the PCs have problems to deal with and have NPCs with problems to manage who'll want to get the PCs involved in.

For example: rebuilding the lab. Where are they going to get materials, workers, and the money to do it? The ship is probably high enough profile, along with its owner, that people will come looking to reclaim it. Who else might know about the lab and its products, and, hearing about the events at hand, want to get a piece for themselves? Where will the PCs go to rebuild it? How will locals, especially law enforcement, react to the PCs rebuilding a wrecked ship that they don't own with facilities to produce drugs?

Try to think about the potential relationships and creating sources or causes of conflict.

Shameless Booster Blue comment....

So to make sure I've got the points:

• New synthetic drug, Liquid Bliss
• Requires a 2-part formula to make "the good stuff"
• Kaltho the Hutt has half, and was running a moble lab
• player has other half, and is typical "blast em" type player, not a scientist.
• Players destroyed Hutt's mobile lab and got away with a sample of "the other half" product.

So... Now the players are in the vertical city and want to set up their own shop by attempting to reverse engineer Kaltho's half and combine it with theirs? That about right?

"The Wire" is a great show to watch for a more down-to-earth treatment of some of the practical issues involved in running a drug ring (probably a little more realistic than Breaking Bad).

I wouldn't necessarily want to bring "The Wire"-levels of grit and reality into a Star Wars game, but I'm sure there are a lot of ideas that could be useful in there.

Shameless Booster Blue comment....

So to make sure I've got the points:

• New synthetic drug, Liquid Bliss
• Requires a 2-part formula to make "the good stuff"
• Kaltho the Hutt has half, and was running a moble lab
• player has other half, and is typical "blast em" type player, not a scientist.
• Players destroyed Hutt's mobile lab and got away with a sample of "the other half" product.

So... Now the players are in the vertical city and want to set up their own shop by attempting to reverse engineer Kaltho's half and combine it with theirs? That about right?

That is the jist...although I suppose I left out the fact that they killed Kaltho in the process >.> So that is definitely going to be an issue that comes up (Bounty hunters, Hutt enforcers are going to be wise to them.)

The suggestion for making a weblike checklist sounds like a good plan, I think my issue is more a matter of keeping all of this organized and such, all the possible interactions they may have are somewhat overwhelming to me. I have only ran Beyond the Rim and Jewel of Yavin so far as a GM so the idea of a more sandboxish adventure is both daunting and exciting.

I use Realm Works, which is a program for GMing. With it you can create places/people/items/plot points etc. and tag them or link them together, specify relationships etc. It's handy, but also costs money. However, you can use any program that'll do something similar, like Microsoft OneNote, or some sort of wiki (some people use Obsidian Portal), or a number of other programs that'll help you keep track of who's related to whom, what, and why. Or figure out a clear and consistent paper organization scheme, though that's not quite as flexible in some ways as digital.

Don't forget to kill the fly

There are plenty of mind-mapping programs out there that you can use to collect various different thoughts about different things, and then explore different connections between them.

They’re kind of like more generalized outlining tools that let you work in an arbitrary number of dimensions, instead of just a linear organization.

You could also use a cork board, 3x5 index cards, and string.

Don't forget to kill the fly

Or in this case a Brizzit:

Had another seession since this topic was started, actually went quite well even with missing two out of my five players. I am lucky that several of them know how to translate their advantage/triumphs into segways to advance the plot when I am low on ideas @.@ I managed to work in the modular encounter Deal Gone Wrong during the meeting between my new player and the other PCs; they walked into the firefight between the smugglers and arms dealers which was delightful. I plan to use the Dead Road as a basis for finding their soon to be drug chemist who they learned is somewhere in the Bootana Hutta. So thankful FFG makes these modular encounters, they are detailed enough to flesh out a longer adventure but still vague enough that I can alter and repurpose them to fit our own story.