Okay, so the whole pen & paper RPG thing is new to me, but I like the idea and I love Star Wars so here I am. I got the Edge of the Empire beginner game, and had a great time. Now I'd like to possibly take it further...but I can't seem to figure out if this beginner game is more-or-less where the 'guided' story-telling approach ends, or if the full game contains enough stories similar to this that it's enough to run with for a long time.

If I purchase the full game and dive right in as GM, am I required to make up everything in regards to story from here on out, or do I get a book of stories similar to what's provided in the beginner game (even the maps really help)? I don't have a problem with improvising things to an extent while we play to account for whatever the other players try to do, but I don't think I'm up for creating stories from the ground up. I need more guidance than that.

Any suggestions for someone who knows so little?

There's an adventure that's supposed to be a sequel to the Beginner game box, but you'll need the core book depending on what area of Star Wars interests you.

If you're having difficulty coming up with ideas take a look at what movies or TV series that interest you and combine a couple of ideas for a game.

For example I like to watch episodes of Leverage and am currently watching the first season of Elementary so depending on the characters your players run I could have them encounter an old nemesis of Pash an Imperial Customs Officer named Joa Olmos who was responsible for causing his last ship to crash that got him into trouble with his former Hutt boss.

It turns out they were hired to pick up a cargo on behalf of someone they assumed was legit but he conned them and now Olmos has been assigned to catch them!

They need to steal back the cargo and exonerate themselves preferably getting their crooked patron into an encounter with Olmos so he gets nabbed along with the cargo and time enough for them to flee off world...

Something like that, or maybe you'd prefer Age of Rebellion instead?

Okay, so the whole pen & paper RPG thing is new to me, but I like the idea and I love Star Wars so here I am. I got the Edge of the Empire beginner game, and had a great time. Now I'd like to possibly take it further...but I can't seem to figure out if this beginner game is more-or-less where the 'guided' story-telling approach ends, or if the full game contains enough stories similar to this that it's enough to run with for a long time.

If I purchase the full game and dive right in as GM, am I required to make up everything in regards to story from here on out, or do I get a book of stories similar to what's provided in the beginner game (even the maps really help)? I don't have a problem with improvising things to an extent while we play to account for whatever the other players try to do, but I don't think I'm up for creating stories from the ground up. I need more guidance than that.

Any suggestions for someone who knows so little?

Each game line also has pre-made adventure modules. While they are not as easy to run as the ones in the beginner and core rules, they do take most of the strain off a new GM. So far EotE has 2 adventure modules, AoR has 1, and FaD has one listed as upcoming.

RPGs generally don't give you much for adventures. The idea is to craft your own. That being said, the book does come with 1 adventure to run. The GM screens also come with an adventure. They also sell individual adventures which do have considerable length to them.

You can find all kinds of adventures on line also if you look around a bit. FFG even has some free adventures online. Taming the Black sun for instance was an adventure from some RPG day event or something. It works as a nice little adventure. Check each of the three game's websites for everything they offer.

So right now, available official adventures from FFG are:

The 3 starter boxes (EotE, AoR, and F&D)

The 3 core books

The 3 GM screens

EotE adventures: Beyond the Rim; Jewel of Yavin (fun heist style adventure)

AoR adventure: Onslaught at Arda 1

F&D adventure: Chronicles of the Gatekeeper

The F&D stuff isn't available. Its on the boat, in printing or in development. The rest of it is currently available though.

The stuff included in the starter boxes, the core books and the GM screens are all about the same length. A small 1-2 session adventure. The actual adventure books are longer and more detailed. I'd say 3-5 sessions probably. Depends on experience and length of sessions however.

Most if not all of the other supplemental books have small adventure encounters. I haven't actually read any, so I don't have a lot of info for you, but I'd guess that they are all just short encounters that you can weave into a larger adventure. You could probably fit a few of them into a single session. I'm sure they are handy for acting as filler for larger adventures you may build yourself. I read about one some time ago, I think it was about a swoop race (speeder bike like vehicles). I'd guess it describes some NPCs, the stakes of the race, how to handle the race along with different portions of the race course, obstacles, and threats during the race. Not enough for a single session, and certainly far from an entire adventure. But an interesting thing that you could work into an adventure. FFG may have a couple of these available online.

To a rookie, I'd say start with some of the small adventures first. The starter box, the book adventure and the GM kit/screen adventure, the official free ones. You'll get a good feel for how an adventure flows.

Next, look up some free online adventures and run a couple of those. Now you've used some free ones and some official ones. You can start to see what you like and dislike about various adventures. At this point you can decide how to proceed. Get more official adventures, find more free stuff or make your own.

For making your own, start small. No massive galaxy wide spanning super adventures to save the universe. You'll dig a whole way to deep. Watch a couple sci-fi movies, take some notes, heck, copy the plot directly if you need to. I had a D&D DM that was notorious for this. We played the Princess Bride, Willow, Conan etc. The players would try to identify which movie we were playing this time and make bets behind the DMs back. lol

So don't get into the habit, but its a good starting point.

If I purchase the full game and dive right in as GM, am I required to make up everything in regards to story from here on out...

Yes, and that's the fun of it However...there are tons of resources from which to draw. As mentioned above, there is a continuation of the Beginner game that you can download from FFG that is about 3 times longer called "Long Arm of the Hutt". Check the Resources here:

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/star-wars-edge-of-the-empire-beginner-game/

There is also this beginner adventure, Under a Black Sun:

https://images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/filer_public/18/ff/18ff8afe-bf19-47a3-97e5-a313ded3d6b3/under_a_black_sun_lores.pdf

The core book itself does come with an adventure at the back, as does the GM screen.

After that there are two published EotE modules (so far): Beyond the Rim, and Jewel of Yavin. The last one needs characters with a decent amount of XP, so save it for last.

All that should keep you busy and learning for quite a while, and by then you will probably have a handle on how to create your own adventures. But you can still draw from lots of other resources. Sci fi games like Traveller have a lot of cheap PDFs available online, items like the "21 Plots" series available on rpgnow.com can be very useful to generate ideas. Also, some of the old West End Games books have decent adventures, you can get a lot of them from "d6 holocron".

Hope that helps!

Any suggestions for someone who knows so little?

When I was first starting out (when Dinosaurs ruled the earth), I over-wrote. I planned out everything - every encounter, every NPC, every map, planet and city - and 80% never got used (and the other 20% was re-written as the players did player things and didn't follow my script). Then I went through a phase where I planned nothing other than a vague idea and ran with it - but the games weren't as good as they could have been.

But that was ages ago. Now, I've gotten a good idea how much planning one needs to flesh out a game (and a couple of paths for player creativity). If it's a complicated game - a heist or a massive story arc - I'll do more detail. Otherwise, I'll have a document of about 6-8 pages at the end of the day.

The problem? I cannot tell you how much you should write. Only experience can do this for you!

But, until you get your legs under you, there are plenty of resources for you to draw on. The game at the end of the core rules, a couple of free downloadable games, two full on modules, and two region books with some adventure nuggets in them. Plus there's a game in the GM screen - all of that should give you a good grasp of running the game, and then you can start to diversify by plotting out your own.

For starters? Two things -

1) Think simple. The players have to break into X and steal Y. An encounter with guards, an encounter with some other thieves and a chase from the police on speeders - nice and simple and linear that doesn't have plot twists and multi layered encounters. And straight up tell your players "Hey, while I get used to designing games, the stories might be a bit simplistic. They will grow as we all get better at this."

2) Shamlessly steal your game ideas. Never be afraid of going to the Spaghetti Western well, the War Movie Well or borrowing the plot of a heist movie . Seven Samurai is your friend!

Thanks everyone, this is very helpful. I guess the idea of coming up with a storyline that's interesting and actually comes together in some sort of logical or at least satisfying way is a bit intimidating to me. I understand the job of GM isn't for everyone, so I'm just trying to figure out of it's for me . I may give the official ones a go as suggested and see if it'll grow from there naturally. Planning to start with just my 11-year-old boys at first so I think they should be pretty forgiving...

If you need some creative juices, follow this guy @swrpgadventures . That is all.

My advice to new GMs is always twofold: first, be upfront about your inexperience and make sure your players understand and are willing to work with you. If you know you can flub an encounter or take a break during play to figure out what's next, it takes a lot of the pressure off and lets you focus on telling the best story, not on worry about disappointing your players. Second, gives your players as much agency as possible. I'm a theatrical improviser, so I'm more comfortable than most making things up on the fly, but don't feel that all of the responsibility falls to you to tell an interesting story: your players are participants too. Come up with a story outline, start telling your story, and listen listen listen! If your players think something sounds interesting, let them go explore it. Prepare a few backup characters or encounters that you haven't fit in anywhere, just have some things lying around on standby, and ask your players what they want to do. I guarantee you won't be able to properly anticipate them anyway, so don't fret it, leave things vague and let them fill in the blanks.

If you're ever really stuck "What does she look like? Who does she work for?" "Uh...", ask your players for their thoughts. What would make a good story? What is interesting? What are they hoping the story will do? "Oh man, it would be so cool if she was working for my uncle, the smuggler!" You don't have to always give them what they want, but don't forget the part they play in determining the story. That goes double in a narrative heavy system like this one. Don't feel you have to do it all yourself.

Pick a TV show with simple adventure ideas and look at old episode plot synopses, then adapt to the Star Wars setting. The A-team provides easy fodder, but there are a ton of old shows you can just browse the episodes and pick and choose.

Thanks everyone, this is very helpful. I guess the idea of coming up with a storyline that's interesting and actually comes together in some sort of logical or at least satisfying way is a bit intimidating to me.

Hopefully this evolves for you naturally. What's going to happen almost right away, even if you're running a published module, is the players won't do what the script suggests they might do. They'll do things out of order, or make enemies of people that should be friends and vice versa. They'll pull something out of left field and you'll need to adapt. In the beginning don't be afraid to say so if you're not sure what to do next, maybe the players will come with ideas to help. But try to use each divergence as a chance to learn to roll with what the players come up with and flex those improv muscles.

the players won't do what the script suggests they might do.

Sun Tzu once said "No published game module ever survives contact with the Player Characters."

(At least, I think he said that.)

What helped me the most, was hearing how others ran their games. There are plenty of Live play podcasts out there if you got the time. The Whiskey Rebellion, Potelbat YALP, The Gathering of Dorks, and The Order 66 to name a few. Speaking of the Order 66 podcast, they did a kickstarter a few years ago and rewarded backers with access to some fan-made pre-written adventures. These adventures have been released to the general public. You can find them here .

the players won't do what the script suggests they might do.

Sun Tzu once said "No published game module ever survives contact with the Player Characters."

(At least, I think he said that.)

If he didn't, I know he would have if he'd thought of it.

the players won't do what the script suggests they might do.

Sun Tzu once said "No published game module ever survives contact with the Player Characters."

(At least, I think he said that.)

First, you got the wrong continent, it was a Prussian General, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmuth_von_Moltke_the_Elder

Second, it is lazy advice to give, to tell someone this. Nearly every single "tips for GMs" trods out this cliche and it is not helpful.

If you design a story that is horribly linear, yes the Players will surprise you and go a horribly weird direction. In the publish adventures/stories/etc if you don't appropriately plan for things, yes the Players will try everything they can to "win" even if it means pushing the GM past what they should reasonable agree to.

This doesn't mean you should blindly accept defeat and assume they will break whatever you write. This is what you get comparing writing to tactics of a General from the 1800s. The point of the quote isn't "don't bother to plan, it will break anyway" the point is to plan for adapting "means to ends". Don't have only one idea or method of completion of the task.

How does this apply to GM'ing? realistically it means plan for side missions/side stories/random fun. Sometimes you may think of a 10 step process that has to happen in order for the story to end and they may skip step 5 8 and 9 and that should be okay. Conversely just because a player comes up with a crazy nutso idea, doesn't mean it has to go exactly like they asked.

I had a Player facing a challenge that would have required (via the method he wanted) slicing a system that was manned by Imperial Intelligence, and connected to a planetary network. They wanted to "flip a destiny point, and happen to find an unmanned/guarded terminal". Initially, I though, well that is a bit more than a Destiny point should do, but I talked myself into it, the unfortunate part for the Player is they thought this removed all barriers/challenge from the slicing as the Imperial Intelligence agent was at the other terminal, but it was still hacking into the Imperial Intelligence system which was still quite hard. It tempered the suggestion of the Player against the challenge the situation was meant to have. It effectively "survived contact with the Players" but learned from the quote and "adapted based on the means". Learning this is how to not ruin a story of a GM or ruin the ideas posed by the Players.

Please note to other GMs/Players (I do not care how you would have officiated that encounter, it was just an example).

An example of someone flowing the quote like it was advice was a recap some GM gave on this forum of a Player that in the beginner EotE game, the Player (That was a former GM and flaunted it in ways that ruined fun for everyone) wanted to, with 1 check, slice the holonet, find out where Trex and his crew hung out, spread rumors, via the holonet. He then wanted this to make the crew not trust Trex and then leave him to fend on his own. The GM allowed it (they likely have given up all hope of controlling this Player) and they proceeded to end the story with zero effort. This is a scripted story going horribly wrong based on a Player that wanted the moon and was given it without effort or hindrance.

While both examples may have read that line from the General... one learned from it, the other was destroyed by it.

How does this apply to giving advice to GMs? it means, don't listen to 19th century advice to play a 21st century game. Also don't be lazy about giving advice.

NOTE: This wasn't intending to be rude to the previous poster, but to expand on the idea to make it more than just a regurgitated line.

Edit: Added note at the bottom. Additionally added a wikipedia link to the General that inspired the conversation.

To be fair, Desslok gave a couple helpful answers already in post #6. The "no module survives first contact" bit looked to be simply a bit of a humorous reinforcement of whafrog's encouragement, rather than actual advice.

Maybe this is a better quote then:

"In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

First, you got the wrong continent, it was a Prussian General, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmuth_von_Moltke_the_Elder

Welcome to the world of GMing! It's a lot of fun, but the most fun comes from engaging in entertaining story telling with your fellow players at the table. This system is great for that. If you and your players (boys) are laughing and smiling then you're doing the right things. Every GM has a different style but we are all aiming for the same thing. Good luck and you came to a very welcoming place for advice.

Hi Twinder,

There's a lot of good advice in here, but I'll keep it short and sweet: know your setting and you'll be better prepared when your players don't go the direction you anticipated.

I was thinking some more about this. Firefly would make excellent fodder for Edge of the Empire missions. Rob a hover train for a Hutt. Sneak into an Imperial hospital to steal medicine/drugs.

EotE - Firefly, Westerns, a long list of 1960's crime genre movies.

AoR - WW2 movies and TV shows.

Here is a list of TV shows and how they can give ideas that may fit into the FFG SWRPG

EotE / AoR = Stargate SG-1

AoR / FaD = Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D

AoR = Star Trek (Any of them)

EotE = Gotham / Flash / Arrow / Daredevil / Elementary / Sliders / Firefly

FaD = Sleepy Hollow / Penny Dreadful / Heroes

Just a basic list.

You can watch those shows and get basic ideas on how to expand them into short missions or long campaigns.

To move back a little bit, there are a fair number of published adventures for both Age of Rebellion and Edge of the Empire. In addition, the Resources section of this forum has additional 'fan published' adventures. There is nothing wrong with starting with these - indeed I'd strongly recommend it for a new GM. Playing through the published adventures will help give you a feeling for adventure design and the capabilities of your party.

It's also likely that you'll start getting a feeling for where changes can be made. Personally, I find that modification/expansion of published material is the first step to creating adventures, and I make a point to start with published adventures for any new system I try, even though I'm a well experienced GM.

I would say, for a noob GM, the best way to plan adventures is to a.) keep them simple and b.) crib shamelessly from anything. If you're here, you've at least seen the original Star Wars trilogy, and you've probably seen the prequel trilogy as well. Just based on that, you can crib a few storylines. Have the PCs do some smuggling runs, perhaps. (Smuggling for the Rebellion is strictly optional.) Or you could have a bounty hunter who hounds the PCs for some unknown reason and the PCs either have to beat the bounty hunter or get him/her off their backs.

After that...as copperbell mentioned, Leverage is a pretty good show if your PCs are interested in thieving or running scams. For straight-up smuggling, I'd recommend watching the anime Black Lagoon and applying the lawlessness of it to Star Wars. However, what really makes Star Wars special to me is how it can combine with pretty much any genre out there while still retaining its own flavor. You can do a hong kong action movie-style adventure that has the PCs fighting their way to their ship and throwing in gunfights, and car (speeder) chases.

You can also use the players' Obligation to craft a storyline. Most obligations have a little backstory to them, so if someone has a bounty or is in debt or has a responsibility to a lifelong friend, bring that up. Have the PCs figure out how to make a huge downpayment on the debt or evade the bounty hunter or help that lifelong friend open his new bait shop on Mon Calmari.

At the beginning, though, keep the plot simple. Don't try to get too intricate at first--a shootout in a docking bay with some swoop gang members is plenty exciting--you don't have to have minion groups with different numbers, some Rival-level NPCs and a Nemesis NPC when you can just have four or five swoop gang members trying to steal the cargo for their own.

Having said that , read the GM section in the EotE book. It has some great guidelines for creating adventures and running them.

Finally, don't be afraid to not be perfect. You will make some bad calls--it's the nature of the beast. If you do make a bad call, just admit it and move on from there. You'll have plenty of other chances to adjudicate dice rolls and determine what NPCs are doing.

This is a pretty ground-level approach, though. The biggest thing for you to consider is how much fun you're having running the game. If you're like me and most of the posters on here, you'll find out that you love GMing. It's very rewarding--you get to come up with the stories, you set the tone for the group, and you get to wear many hats. Everyone else is playing one character, while you're playing an entire universe of characters! If you do get bit by the GM bug, there are a LOT of resources out there. Explore, have fun, and use any helpful advice to hone your craft. Good luck!