Hey again!
My players are going to be at Nar Shadda in the next adventure, and if they look around they will probably find a pub that has bounties showing. I wanted to make a couple of bounty hunting side quests for the players to partake in, but I have a bit of a problem working out how to do it. Have your players been going for bounties? If so, how did the "side quests" work?
Thanks!
Bounty Hunting
My group has always been more on the "kick in the door and shoot anything that moves" side of things. So for us, bounty hunting side quests are usually pretty simple. We're given a location (perhaps with a minor amount of investigation first) and head out there and shoot up the place. It has always been a bounty for a gang leader, so we have to fight our way through the gang first.
A fun thing you can do with bounties is mess around with the payments. Have a couple different people put bounties on the same person and let the party figure out who to collect from. Some might pay more or less. They might be able to double dip and get paid from two people, depending on if they just want evidence or a body. Might be able to negotiate for more money from one because you can claim the other guy will pay more. Could have the imperials pay a bounty but put a tracking device in the cred stick and/or have the cred stick go bad and lose funds in it.
Quest cards . The last time I ran a sandboxy campaign (not SW), I made a bunch of quest cards for the players to better keep track of major and minor quests. Cue predictable ribbing vis-a-vis "video games", but it kept things focused in a world where anything goes . Making "Wanted" cards seems like the least artificial application of this technique...
Quest cards . The last time I ran a sandboxy campaign (not SW), I made a bunch of quest cards for the players to better keep track of major and minor quests. Cue predictable ribbing vis-a-vis "video games", but it kept things focused in a world where anything goes . Making "Wanted" cards seems like the least artificial application of this technique...
That's amazing! Thank you so much for the idea
Will it be strange to make quest cards like that for other types of quests in this game?
Quest cards . The last time I ran a sandboxy campaign (not SW), I made a bunch of quest cards for the players to better keep track of major and minor quests. Cue predictable ribbing vis-a-vis "video games", but it kept things focused in a world where anything goes . Making "Wanted" cards seems like the least artificial application of this technique...
That's amazing! Thank you so much for the idea
It depends. I would only use it for "jobs" or "opportunities" where an actual client is involved. The "face" of the card should be the focus of the quest -- for bounties, a mugshot of the target; for more complicated/non-standard quests, a picture of the client. The technique is data reduction -- you can introduce 3 or 4 opportunities at once and let the players decide what they're going to do for next session/adventure. That gives you the GM time to prep for what they've chosen.
Other plot hooks are already covered by RAW mechanics: motivation, obligations, duties. So I wouldn't use them there.
I could see them, however, being useful maybe in a AoR game where the PCs are working directly for the Alliance. You might give them a choice of campaigns (in the military sense of the word) with longer-term goals: "Bring X Planetary System into the Alliance", "Sabotage Imperial Shipyards in X System". Major quests where it might take many adventures to complete. Might even work in EotE if the party is working for a crime boss. Either way, the cards are there to facilitate choice -- the players have options, they choose, and when they're done they have physical reminders that other jobs are waiting, and if there are some jobs they don't want, it's no big deal, you just don't prep those. As they complete jobs, make new cards, offer them those opportunities.
The Order 66 podcat had a great episode where they talked about episodic campaigns, and lot of what they mentioned there would apply here, even if you're running a "standard" campaign with the same people every week. You can tangibly structure a campaign that moves back and forth between over-arching plots and side jobs.
Personally I like having a rival bounty hunter also looking for the same bounty-head.
Speaking of bounty-heads, you should watch Cowboy Bebop for a few ideas.
Someone on another thread made a generator out of these tables I made, but I can't dig it up right now. Should generate random bounties and their value. Note value is not related to what the splatbook gives - I'd come up with this prior:
