Recruiting for a new EotE PbP group

By ShadoWarrior, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

I posted a reply here in response to member "stevemfred" seeking a PbP to play in.

Due to the unfortunate demise of my old PbP group (family commitments, etc.), and seeing that there is substantial interest in the community here for more PbPs, I've decided to start a new PbP EotE game. Prospective players do not have to be experienced in FFG's SWRPG (although it will make things go much faster if you do know this system), but I would prefer that if you're new to FFG that you at least have played d6 (WEG) or d20 (Saga) SWRPG.

I have commitments from:

Recruiting is now closed. Anyone else who's interested (migs6000, Jon D, Meynolt, Wichenstaden) can choose to go on a waiting list.

The game will be set in the time frame 0.5-1ABY. None of the PCs will be Force-sensitive. The reason for this is to allow for an EotE party to transition to AoR, if you choose to do so in the future, without undue plot/canon complications.

Once a player has been accepted into the group, the player's next decision needs to be to choose a role for their PC. In SWRPG, there seems to be seven main roles (eight, if you add Force user):

  • Face - Presence; Charm + Negotiation
  • Tech - Intellect; Computers + Mechanics
  • Rogue - Cunning; Skulduggery
  • Medic - Intellect; Medicine
  • Ace Pilot - Agility; Piloting (Space)
  • Close-combat - Brawl; Melee
  • Gunner - Agility; Gunnery + Ranged (Heavy)

The above list is in descending order of how important the role is to overall party success at accomplishing most missions (IMO). The top three are must-haves, if the party is playing in a published FFG module. Note that since both medic and tech have the same key attribute it is possible to create a 'fixer' character build that does both. My experience is that such a character would begin with a tech career and then, if they really wanted to, pick up a medical specialization later on (preferably after the game has started rather than during the initial build process). I have discovered that the medic is not a mission-critical role. While it's very useful, as it greatly increases the rate of healing of party members, a party can manage without a dedicated healer if they are careful, they have the right gear, and the tech is built optimally (or at least what I consider to be 'optimal').

After I have at least 4 players, we can all jointly decide what sort of game we'd like to have. We can begin with running the PCs through the published Beginner module (which is a pretty good adventure for starting characters), or I can adapt an old d6 or d20 adventure, or I can devise something from scratch. The latter two options will significantly delay the start of play, as I have nothing of that sort already prepared. As a GM, however, I have run players through all of the published FFG EotE (and AoR) adventures, so I am well-acquainted with them and could get things going quickly, if you'd like for us to take the expedient route. Fair warning if you're leaning towards something custom: for anyone who's familiar with my Saga-edition PbPs, my homebrew adventures are brutally challenging. Great fun, but require serious thinking on the part of players to progress the main plot -- and to avoid a TPK.

Although this will be an EotE game, equipment and species from all of the FFG SWRPG books may be used (subject to GM approval, of course). I am also willing to consider species from fan-created supplements, though it's unlikely that I'll agree to allow such unless you can come up with a very good reason why you should play that species.

In addition to creating your character mechanically (by hand or with a character generator), you will also need to provide a detailed physical description, background (backstory), and personality description. No more than two characters may link their backstories together. Players will select their own Obligation and Motivation, and your background write-ups must include at least a hint as to why your character has their particular Obligation and Motivation.

Edited by ShadoWarrior

Wait wait wait... As in, ShadoWarrior, the most widely feared GM on Saga-Edition.com while it still lived? You may recall a young kid full of bad ideas who somehow got promoted to Moderator... Frequently made awful submissions, and made such poor decisions in one of your Play by Post games - what was it, Rise of a Republic(?) - that his Mandalorian swordsman got isolated and mowed down by Dark Troopers whilst singing... Surprisingly, I think the only casualties on that mission were a Jedi and yours truly, Jaden Korr.

Never thought I'd run into you on the internet again... :lol:

Anyways, I would love to get involved. I'm ordinarily skeptical of all play by post, but your commitment to GMing is outstanding. I joined in some games on Myth-Weavers (which lets you have your own private forum for the game threads AND supports in-post rolling with Edge dice), but they all went under. You though, I trust to stick with it.

Welcome aboard, Jaden, er, Muttonchop. And thanks for the praise!

Yeah, the old name went... I grew up a bit and got less obsessed with Jedi Academy, and hopefully got a little smarter. There's at least less residual teenage stupidity left in me.

You totally deserve the praise. You had play by post games that ran upwards of a year, which is amazing by today's standards (I may be a little jaded from a lot of failed games), and the quality level was always very high.

You had play by post games that ran upwards of a year, which is amazing by today's standards

And they'd still be running today if the Saga-Edition.com forum host site hadn't gone poof and taken with it over a dozen active PbPs, of which 4 were my own. But that's history, and once I discovered EotE (when it was still in beta), I abandoned d20 Saga and have never looked back. As you may recall, I loathe level-based game systems. FFG's, like WEG's d6 SWRPG, is skills-based.

I'm down to play. Not sure how PbP works but I really just want to get into a game. Still very new.

I'm still very interested in playing. I've got a couple of character ideas - a Mandalorian merc with a knack for machines and a tricked-out carbine, and a talented pilot from Ord Mantell with a string of bad luck and a hankering to prove it's not his fault.

What site were you planning on running this under?

I'm done, assuming this isn't a Skyp thing.

I'm down to play. Not sure how PbP works but I really just want to get into a game. Still very new.

Same boat (As far as play by post goes)...I'd love to join in, would be nice to not be the GM for a change.

Edited by Meynolt

I'm pretty familiar with EotE but I've never done a PbP game. I'd be interested in joining if there's room.

Sent you a PM. I'd like to join, also.

Also interested in a young Taipani noble who is out of favor at court at the moment, and has decided to tour the outer rim (politico/entreprenure), a Selonian gunslinger, or an extremely strong (and durable) construction droid (mechanic)

I'm thinking a Nikto Marshall or a Chiss Marauder.

Also interested in a young Taipani noble who is out of favor at court at the moment, and has decided to tour the outer rim (politico/entreprenure), a Selonian gunslinger, or an extremely strong (and durable) construction droid (mechanic)

Don't let him play the construction droid! It's deadly!

:D

Also interested in a young Taipani noble who is out of favor at court at the moment, and has decided to tour the outer rim (politico/entreprenure), a Selonian gunslinger, or an extremely strong (and durable) construction droid (mechanic)

Don't let him play the construction droid! It's deadly!

:D

You're thinking either the Marauder Load Lifter, or the Knight level Construction droid Mechnaic/Gageteer. presumably this is only a starting character

Not to put a damper on anyone's creativity (God knows I'm kicking around ideas too) or be that guy, but Shado did mention that the first step is to jointly decide on a type of campaign, which is important to sort out before characters...

I'm probably just thinking of this because my IRL group is notorious for creating characters that don't fit the game, like shoving Rocket Raccoon into a political Age of Rebellion game. :huh:

So what are you guys thinking game-wise? I for one would like to rule out murderhobo-ing as a campaign premise. Otherwise I'm pretty flexible.

Well GM intent has been laid out to be Edge of Empire transitioning to Age of Rebelion. My first thought is that we're a gang of smuggers that gets drawn into arms deals, and thus into supplying the rebelion

Hey! Some of that cargo is perfectly legitimate, thank you very much!

Maybe some of this is ego talking, but I'd like to think I'm decent at making my character concept fit the group. Take the pilot, above - perhaps someone else wants to play a focused pilot more, so I could be a co-pilot who's better with a spanner than behind the yoke. Or the merc; maybe he hangs with the group between big contracts because he has a crush on the mechanic, and adventure seems to fall in their laps. The closest I've come to a lone wolf character still worked with the group because they were ordered to by the one who held their debt, and didn't even resent it.

As to theme, I'd personally prefer we skip the 'smugglers working for a Hutt' trope, or at least move away from it quickly. I've run people through the beginner adventure so no surprises will be there for me; if we do run through it first, I suspect it would be little more than a fleshing out of the characters' personalities and how they work as a team. I'm not opposed to that, but I want to make sure we all know where we stand. I'd be in for some good exploring missions in the long run, whether that's finding a lost convoy on a forgotten hyperlane, or discovering new planets and newer threats. I've already got an archaeologist in another game and don't want to duplicate, and no force-users would seem to close off the 'force artifact' plots.

"Smuggler's working for a hutt" is common because it explains two things- where we got the ship and kind of obligation what we might start with.

As a 6 person crew, the firespray might be a bit... cramped, unless half the crew is droids that can be tossed in the holding cells closet. that leaves us, out of the pre-approved starting options, the *cough*Falcon, the *cough*Firefly, a base of operation (slash buisness), a bunch of Y wings, a stolen shuttle, or some stuff only a jedi would be interested in. Of course, the GM ould give us more options.

I'd also shy away from the smugglers stereotype, like Evan. When it comes to the ship, I feel that you can just say someone owns it, or it's a joint purchase, and then have more interesting obligations than a) a debt or b) a bounty for stealing it. I'd also second his notion about some exploration. If you took some pointers from Sahara (excellent movie and associated book series), you could have a pretty solid mix of exploration, archaeology, espionage, and good old fashioned gunfights.

As for premade adventures, I've never run or played in any of them. I hear Beyond the Rim is kind of in this vein. We could do a prefab as a launching point and branch out from there.

I'm ok with smugglers but I really think we should wait to see who makes before making plans, since it will be dependent on who's in the group.

I created a Bith mechanic if I'm still allowed in on this group.

an Exploration game sounds really interesting. I messaged the GM with a few different character ideas but I am willing to play what ever role the party needs as I find them all interesting. My other games have been more heavily combat focused (not murdo hobo but routine combat) that being said it would be interesting to play in a game that used combat more as a secondary feature. My number one Once the group is finalized we will have to discuss what we are looking for and what equipment we would like to use. A base of Operations sounds interesting but may not be the best for an exploration game.

As for the pregenerated campaigns i have played part of the beginners game and read though a bunch of the others for ideas but have not played any of them completely through so i would be happy with one of them or with a custom campaign. though in my experience even pregenerated campaigns become custom quickly.

So what happened to Shadowarrior anyway?

Uh, it's only been like thirty hours since this was posted. Probably managing his other games :P