Hi All,

To get detail about my campaign you can read the obsidian portal site

https://red-talon-wanted-dead-or-alive.obsidianportal.com/

The player who writes up the session logs hasn't written up session 5 yet. But the front page of the campaign site gives a pretty good summary of things

Star Wars
Red Talon: Wanted Dead Or Alive

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, shortly after the destruction of Alderaan, a con-man, Var Aruru , has used his “relationship” with Andra , a human fixer, to steal a data chip belonging to her employer, Grondo the Hutt . The data chip contains the locations and business ledgers of the Hutt’s criminal enterprises as well as for joint ventures with other member’s of the Hutt’s clan. Var Aruru plans to auction off the data chip on Corsucant. Interested parties include Hutts from other clans, Black Sun, the Pyke Syndicate, the Bothan Spynet, CorSec, ISB , …

Andra has hired the crew of the Red Talon to recover the data chip, destroy any copies that were made, and neutralize anyone who has accessed the chip.

The Red Talon’s crew consists of a four man team of bounty hunters: Thad Bane , a Duros lawman turned bounty hunter who is tracking his infamous uncle for killing his father; his partner, Tal Lee a human fringer with a penchant for rifles who is watching his friend’s six; their pilot, the lovely Twi’lek Vaesha Tarn , seeks to prove that she’s the best at what she does; while their mechanic/doctor droid M4-RK is an emergent AI who struggles against his behavioral inhibitors. To accomplish their mission, the crew of the Red Talon has teamed up with two more bounty hunters, Karsten Eshan , a human thug with criminal connections, and his partner J-8 a rebuilt and reprogrammed HK-50 assassin droid who is seeking the mysteries of his past.

The credits are good but this talented group of misfits faces stiffer opposition than they realize. The real battle is a shadowy chess match and not even Andra knows all the players. Her job as a fixer for Grondo the Hutt is to out think and out maneuver his opponents and get her team into a position where they will be the most effective at accomplishing the Hutt’s objectives. This is their story.

and you can get an idea of session 5 from this thread

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/130073-where-for-art-thou-lords-of-nal-hutta/

the latter part of the thread.

One of the things I'm doing is that each of my 7 PCs have a side story (except possibly for Andra whose "sidestory" is the hutt story line which is the main narrative which we will keep coming back to) the point is that every PC gets their turn to take center stage, and each PCs side story will take a minimum of 3 sessions to resolve. Last session (session 5) was about Vaesha dealing with the sex tape err holovid (nothing resolved, but the ante being upped), and J-8 discovering a little about himself/itself, i.e. how he was an HK-50 droid that was built by czerka.

This next session will be "Tal Lee's" turn to take center stage with possible spillage into "Thad Bane's" and "J-8"'s side stories.

So yesterday (Feb 27), "Tal Lee's" player finally got me the back story I had been bugging him about (with some input from myself and Thad's and J-8's players and another player or two), the next session will be March 7. And Andra's player can't make it (and I would have had a hard time explaining why Andra was helping out with this side story (as it's not Hutt related).

so here's what Tal Lee's player got to me

Tal Lee was the only survivor found at crash site by Thad Bane and his father. Tal's father was the legitimate heir to Czerka Arms being the direct descendant of President Pollard Seario , but he decided to flee instead of take the position. The heirs of secondary leaders of Czerka Arms, Jana Lorso and Janos Wertka , are struggling for control of the corporation ( http://swtor.wikia.com/wiki/Czerka_Corporation ). Descendants of Jana Lorso pursued Tal Lee's family to solidify their rule of the company. Janos Wertka descendants were looking to re-instate Tal's father (Tell Seario) as President, so the Wertka Family can become the second in command of Czerka Arms and remove the Lorso Family from the President's position. Neither the Wertka or Lorso Families know that Tal Seario survived.

Tal Lee seeks to follow his father's wishes and leave Czerka Arms. Tal sees himself as a farmer, but because of his families past fears those in the farming community who would respond negatively to his family's past. Tal and Thad have been have been close since Tal was found at the crash by Thad's father. Tal was adopted by a family, and Tal supports the family farm that has fallen on hard times. Tal left with Thad because the Lorso Family was investigating the crash again, and Tal wants to watch his friend Thad's back. The Wertka Family is still motivated to locate Tal; the Lorso Family would want to kill him. Czerka Arms is supplying the Empire, so the Empire keeps the corporation under surveillance to protect the Empire supply chain. Because Tal is a direct descendant of President Pollard Seario he can access facilities and technology owned (or previously owned) by the original Czerka Corporation (now Czerka Arms).

Tal Lee's past is only known by Thad Bane's immediate family although those close to Bane's family know that Tal seemed to appear out of no where as a child.

The general plot of the next session is that Tal is going home (to the homestead of the "Lee" family that adopted him on an outer rim colony world, the world where Thad Bane's father was a marshal, planet not chosen yet, I could use help with that), to drop of some credits to help out his adoptive sister (who inherited the homestead) and her husband who have fallen on hard times. The nearby-ish town has gotten a bit lawless.

aside

Thad's father was the marshal before Thad's uncle (his father's brother), Cad Bane (yes THAT Cad Bane) killed Thad's father when Thad's father tried to take him in to face justice for the accidental death of an innocent bystander in pursuit of a bounty (Thad's father was a lightning fast draw, faster than Cad, but missed the shot in their wild west style show down, and Cad didn't actually want to kill his brother but wasn't willing to go quitely ). Thad had been the marshal like his father before him, until he left to become a bounty hunter to acquire the skills needed to take down his uncle, Cad Bane. Thad Bane is famous as the Duros bounty hunter who wears a kamperdine armored tailored jacket, being a lightning fast draw, and being Cad Bane's nephew. the combination of "duros who wears a kamperdine armored tailored jacket" and "Cad Bane's nephew" acts like a "circle of protection" against most of the significant underworld players, and Thad is more than a match for most of the riff raff not in the know. But I digress.

After Thad left the nearby-ish town (which needs a name, please help), the next marshal was appointed by a rather wealthy land owner, smallish mining magnate (needs a name, his son who is being groomed as his heir needs a name), and the marshal looked the way at the underhanded dealings of his patron. So the small frontier town transformed from a farming community into more of a mining colony where everybody either works for the mining magnate or is too scared of him to do anything. Miners routine cause trouble for the townsfolk both by being generally rowdy on their own time and when being muscle/enforcers on behalf of the mining magnate.

So the plot for session 6 is that Thad and Tal come home to drop off some credits, to Tal's sister, see the deplorable state of their home town, and hopefully decide to do at least something about it, it'd start by them defending some townsfolk they grew up with from some miners/muscle extorting them. The Red Talon also has a fully stocked armory, the PCs have a habit of collecting weapons from their vanquished foes, so I don't keep track of how many standard run of the mill blaster pistols, etc. they have now, so I figure that the PCs are going to arm the townsfolk (which will put the armory at a place where I can track the contents again) and teach them how to use their weapons and take back their town, and there will probably be a showdown between Thad and some "gunslinger" that the mining magnate hires to take back the town from the townsfolk who just took it back. Anyway the mining magnate or someone working for him who has a connection to czerka is going notice a strong resemblance between Tal and his biological father " Tell Seario", and they're going to contact czerka (to get someone else better equipped to deal with the crew of the Red Talon to take action), and the Lorso family is going to send some goons/professional-muscle (as opposed to miners moonlighting as muscle) to investigate. And then there's a massive combat in town. And the rest of the party (besides Thad who already knew) learns that Tal is a "rightful heir" to control of czerka. With corporate/political intrigue to follow in subsequent sessions, as the Wertka (protecting, currying favor, and exploiting) and Lorso (trying to kill) families fight over Tal. The Lorso's will hire some top tier assassins (which Cad Bane will kill to protect Thad, Cad is actually quite proud of Thad)

So that's the big picture, for Tal's side story but I could use your help/ideas for fleshing out the next adventure (March 7, i.e. a week from today). Can you guys suggest plot points and adventure features?

In terms of resources,I have all of the currently released books in the AoR and EotE lines (except the beta books, I don't have the AoR beginner game but do have the EotE beginner game), both GM screens, no cards, 6 sets of FFG star wars dice, and probably 400 or more WotC star wars minis. I have a bunch of digital copies of minis maps from the "holochron," 2 sets of night life tiles from maps of mastery, 1 set of the distant outpost tiles, and the first and second set of sci fi cargo tiles. I print maps at office max as needed. But will often throw down some "gaming paper" for scale of terrain.

It sounds to me like you’ve already got everything worked out.

So, what parts do you need help with?

details (e.g. is there a good "cannon planet" to set this on?)

npcs

locals

encounter ideas

names

and while I have all the books I haven't had the time to read them all completely or thoroughly, if there are relevant story/fuff/mechanics stuff I could steal from far horizons, pointing it out and page numbers would be very helpful.

I'm at a point in my life where time not money is the limiting factor on my gaming

and a back and forth conversation to bounce ideas off of, and flesh out the story, that is SOOOO very helpful.

Think if this was your game, what would your adventure look like and suggest that please

So for clarification do you want additional ideas for this particular character's story or for a different PC story?

one thing i would suggest is allow one of those big named bounty hunters to show up and try killing Thad. Have his uncle save Thad during the encounter by killing the bounty hunter with a ranged weapon. Make sure that Thad knows it was his uncle that saved him and his friends. That way the I am going to kill Cad Bane story moves a little more into the gray area. You may also consider having a little treasure hunt to find a secret stash/ time capsule or somthing like that left by his father.

any ideas for this adventure OR the continuing story (later episodes) related to any of the PCs. This story will focus on Tal and Thad, with possible spillage to J-8 and M4-RK, I've mentioned how J-8 fits in (with the Czerka connection) but about M4-RK...

The PC who is running M4-RK ran 41-VEX in the beginner game (his first choice for character not what he was stuck with) and liked playing him so much that he wanted to play a similar character when we switched to the full game. The beginner's box was the first time he played a pen and paper rpg but he is a natural role player. He's really interested in the story of M4-RK and is in real life a computer nerd (like most of us at this table) and was gung ho on playing up behavioral inhibitors in a asimov style "3 laws of robotics" and "hypocratic oath" type of way. I built the M4-RK character for him, based on what he said he wanted to play. We started with knight level play, started as a technician mechanic with bad motivator and from the start cross spec'd into doctor with pressure point, he has commented at the oddity of the non-violent doctor as being such a combat badass due to pressure point, and has suggested at toning down his combat prowess because he doesn't want to steal the thunder of the combat focused PCs, the combat focused PCs mow down minions like tissue paper (much faster than M4-RK) but against the nemesis with awesome soak and high wound thresholds (designed to solo the party)... he's a bit like a two bit street thug with a kryptonite knife going up against superman (i.e. pretty potent), compared to the a party of Rambos going against superman "who can't do jack" (hyperbole) to big blue. Anyway M4-RK is an emerging AI mechanic+medical droid who has behaviorial inhibitors but believes in droid rights (so there's story tension there), he saved the AI of an earlier model of the same droid which was a body double with a bomb in it to take out the people who were intending to follow the PCs to Var Aruru's location. M4-RK bought a factory fresh chassis of the same model droid to download his doppleganger's AI into, to avoid confusion the doppleganger is now referring to itself as ST-3V3, and there is some friction between the two of them about M4-RK being indirectly responsible for the deaths of a lot of not so nice people (which doesn't justify their deaths) by associating with the party of bounty hunters that racks up a high body count among bad guys (everyone they've killed so far has had it coming, most of them are not bloodthirsty or callous about killing, they've purposely taken additional risks to avoid killing people who weren't so nice but not a direct threat, so while the party is mostly combat monsters they are not "murder hobos" in the colloquial vernacular). The same player is playing M4-RK and ST-3V3; when they are in the same place he only gets 1 action an 1 maneuver to share between the 2 droids and he only gets 1 allotment of XP to split between the 2 droids, but it does allow him to be in more than one place at the time, and although he's new to roleplaying, roleplaying not rollplaying is his focus, he's also really good about writing up session logs in narrative format.

so if you have ideas for inserting narrative tension between M4-RK and ST-3V3 over body count, or both of their aversion to unnecessary loss of life (hypocratic oath), that would be great too.

and the treasure hunt to find the time capsule is a great idea, I was thinking about Cad Bane saving Thad by ranged attack (he did something "similar" in the second session), Thad Bane is a goody goody (he comes from a long line of upstanding duros lawmen, Cad Bane was the black sheep of the family), so he will try to take Cad in alive but he's hoping (that once he's ready to take Cad down) that Cad will resist arrest and therefore "force" Thad to kill Cad. But yeah I'm loving the shades of gray thing. But rather than the ranged attack thing shooting open foes in the wild west quick draw show down (code of the west style code of honor among gun slingers), I'm thinking of Cad quietly taking "snipers" that the bad guy gunslinger had in place to "cheat" in case things went badly for him, and when they do he speaks into his comlink, "shoot him now shoot him now" to have Cad Bane answer back that "I've taken out your insurance, you dishonorable piece of !#$!, when you draw down on a Bane you should be prepared to pay the price if things don't go your way. My nephew beat you fair and square, and if you hadn't tried to cheat you would have at least had an honorable death." And then Cad head shots the named bounty hunter. In the clone wars episode, Cad had a sense of honor, in the episode where Kenobi went undercover as the bounty hunter who supposedly killed him.

What other ideas do you have?

For j8 you could have him star sleepwalking as they get close to finding things out. He stars completing an old mission buried in his hardware from before he could remember. The crew find out and stress teaching him to learn stone important part of his past.

The big guns called in to help could include j7. A droid that bears a remarkable resemblance to j8.

Mk-4r and st-3t3 have a wounded npc child. The only way to save him is by transplanting the heart of the injuried bad guy who shot the kid and did other really bad things. Do they save the kid?

j8 is a rebuilt HK-50 that was salvaged on Raxus Prime and rebuilt by a Twi'lek who named him J-8 and treated him more like a son than a droid. j7 would be the Twi'lek's previous attempt to build a son not an assassin from czerka, but sending another HK-50 would be a good idea. thanks for that.... it really helps but I will keep the idea in reserve for when Tal is put up in a fancy hotel by czerka and a "protocol droid" that looks a bit like J8 (like what he might have been before he was salvaged) is waiting on him as a tip off to "not drink the water/wine/etc"

The transplanting the heart of the injured bad guy into the kid is a great idea... i think I'll use it this adventure.

Do you have any other ideas?

Can you or someone suggest a canon/legends outer rim planet for the homestead?

what about names for characters?

what ore should the corporation be mining? what kind of critters should on the frontier world (that the colonists imported), is there a star wars equivalent of the family dog. Are there any legends dog like robots that a homesteader could use as a pet?

Honesty. I don't know canon that well just the movies. I use wookiepedia and the found four that kind of thing. I'd just look at the books to see if there is a planet you like or make one up. As for names I've a habit of using names like doc holiday for gunslingers and Steve Irwin for animal trainers etc... You probably wouldn't like my naming ideas.

I'd have them mining chromium. In legends a cording to wool I sped I a it is used as one of two materials to make hyperdrives. The other being titanium.

I don't know about animals.

As for a social encounter. One of grodo the huts lackies happens to be on the planet and sees the group... Will there employer be happy the arnt looking for his chip.

My rule of thumb with using Canon/official planets is if I can't think of one off the top of my head that I'd be comfortable with using as a setting, I'll make one up on my own. They usually don't need more than a name, some facts about terrain, population and tech levels, and a couple of sentences to describe the environment so the players can tell one world apart from another (or rather, so you can remind them in a quick & consistent fashion).

As for pets, I think there's enough room in the Star Wars universe to describe a small domestic animal and worry about other issues, really. Here's three I just made up:

Hasset: a furry dog-like creature

Floomp: it's like a giant chinchilla

Walb: a cross between a puppy and a pony

Zixzoc: It's kind of a hippo, but with feathers

I just found an appropriate planet, this would be about 8 years before the DarkStryder campaign

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Galtea

and dogs exist in star wars... luke skywalker had one as a pet growing up

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Dog

please keep the suggestions coming

Has the rebellion found out about tal? They may recruit (kidnap) him to help destroy a new weaponcourse ing developed by the corporation for the empire. Your pilot may need to run a blockade or fly thug a canyon a part of that run.

You may also consider some kids off triathlon with flying shooting and....(cross country survival corse?) Your players can enter in an effort to gather information from (npc).

I want steer clear of the rebellion so the campaign stays "fringe", I have a lot of storylines going right now that I don't want to leave uncompleted. I am also going to stay clear of triathlons (Tal is a low key sort of guy, it's not his style to attract attention)

Keep in mind that I am trying to say this in the most inflamatory and humorous way possible (a way that makes the party look bad, there is ano there way to spin it to make them look like heros)

Tal and Thad go back to their home planet (Galtea) and home town (Dere) to deliver a large amount of blood money credits (a gift that wasn’t declared for the purpose of taxation) to Tal’s sister who still lives on the old homestead. The party smuggled a large quantity of blasters which they sold for a profit (30,000 credits of PROFIT, that's net not gross), how?… they created demand by starting an insurrection and placed the “legitimate authorities” under house arrest while they organized what many might consider a sham election to put Tal’s brother in law in office. Thad has a wild west show down with Kynxa Ezex (a female falleen gunslinger, used the gambler picture from fly casual, with serious talent who wants to make a rep for herself by burning Thad in a quick draw showdown with the intent of drawing out Thad Bane's villainous uncle, Cad Bane, so she could kill him too. She was partially successful despite the fact that M4-RK sabotaged her primary weapon using bad luck techno vodoo) while Karsten lost a duel with another vibró katana wielding “street samurai” on a nearby roof top, and the party lead an “army” of inexperienced yet angry farmers against an elite and fairly large unit of professional soldiers who were "trying to restore peace” by disarming the angry mob that the party sold weapons too. They illegally harvested a vital organ from one of the dying elite professional soldier that they shot in order perform an illegal transplant operation in squalid conditions. Vaesha committed vehicular homicide. And if J8 were not a droid many would have thought he crashed a vehicle while under the inluence of an illegal substance (hmm, what is the effect of mixing oil and alcholol?), and then burnt three wounded soldiers alive with his wrist mounted flamethrower because he lost his non terror weapons in the ?druken? crash. They also a sold large quantities of bootleg holovids (think “space dvds”) that they copied onto space flash drives that they knew to be infected with a powerful yet difficult to detect computer virus who's true purpose they aren't sure of. And if their ship was searched by extremely thorough customs officials, they might find hidden compartments full of top shelf alcohol (and other recreational chemicals) that they plan to sell on a nearby gangster planet (pembric II) but they haven’t delivered that cargo yet (it’s the next stop on their trip).

There’s an old saying that one man’s criminal is another man’s freedom fighter. The angry mob probably believes that the party are freedom fighters… what do you think?