brainstorming help request: linking published adventures

By cupajo, in Game Masters

So, I'm going to be running a new EotE game here in the next month or so, and I'd like to tweak the published materials a bit so I can link them into an over-arching story. I'm hoping that some of you GMs who have run some of the published materials (or fan-made stuff I might not be aware of) might have some ideas for how it might all be incorporated.

What I've got so far:

I'd like to position the party so that they're caught in the middle of a power struggle between two Hutt crime lords, Teemo (Escape from Most Shuuta) and Bargos (Debts to Pay), who may or may not be brothers. I haven't decided yet.

The back-story that I've come up with is that the party has, for a little while now, been trapped in a kind of indentured servitude to Teemo and, after attempting and failing to steal one of his ships to escape, they're on the run from him in Mos Shuuta.

After the fight in the cantina, Bargos is the one who clues the PCs in (via a long-range communicator provided by the Devaronian bartender) to details about the Krayt Fang and what kinds of repairs it will need. In exchange for this info, he asks that they take care of the Gavos mining business, for which they will be compensated ("My brother has slaves. I have employees").

Once he sees how they handle themselves, Bargos has other paid work for them (Jewel of Yavin, Beyond the Rim, etc etc). But what I would like is to figure out a way to re-tool these adventures so that they're basically about Bargos working an angle against Teemo. He's stealing (or otherwise acquiring) things that Teemo wants before he can get them.

At the climax of the story arc (in what I imagine will be a heavily-modified "Long Arm of the Hutt") Bargos will propose a truce with Teemo and will travel (PCs in tow) back to Mos Shuuta to negotiate the return what was taken. What the party doesn't know is that "what was taken" includes them and, as a peace offering, Bargos offers the return of Teemo's indentures servants. However, it's all a ruse, part of a plan to get the PCs in position to kill Teemo on Bargos' behalf (shades of Luke to Jabba in RotJ "as a token of my goodwill", but also of the Mexico episode of Breaking Bad).

So, that's what I've got so far. What I'd really like is some ideas on how I might incorporate 'Jewel' and 'Rim' into this arc. Or any good fan-made stuff out there that might fit neatly into this story. Any ideas?

Edited by cupajo

For JoY, maybe the most obvious and simplest option is that Teemo and Bargos want that jewel, and one of the teams in the race has been hired by Teemo, and Bargos sent the PCs to deny Teemo the jewel.

BtR is more complicated though. Maybe some bounty hunters under Teemo's employ set up the plot by trying to eliminate the PCs to get at Bargos, for example?

I've just started my Gming of EotE and am trying to connect some of the advntures together, I hope to get some input from this excellent forum

First a bit of background:

Instead of giving my group a starting ship I let them have fallen in disfavor with Teemo from the beginning, they failed him in some way and Teemo has as punishment taken their ship and gave it to Trex, now this was a few months ago and this act from Teemo was it!

The group decided they couldn’t trust Teemo any more, so they have been waiting for the right moment to steal the ship back and get away from Tatooine.

They are now on the s hip and will soon discover the incoming Tie fighters. They have not searched the ship yet.

Now I have a twil’ek in the group who will know about Búran B’an and his story as a leader of the New meen mining community and he is also known for his struggle to make the tw I’lek community control the lucrative ryll-spice trade so the money goes to the people living there.

Hopefullythat’s enough to make them go and help Búran B’an. One thing that I feel is need or that feels odd is that as they destroy a few Tie fighters, which is probably what they will do and all other groups who have played inEfMM this and that should mean they are wanted by the imperials, I guess you can‘t destroy Tiefighters and get away with it? Can you?

My very sketchy idea here is to insert Crates of Krayts

How?

Well the Hutt Sinasu, needs someone to get the crates and deliver them to him, he knows that the PCs have made a fool of Teemo, stealing his property under his nose and escaping through a spy at Teemos place, and knows that the PCsare coming to Ryloth,and he doesn’t mind that the PCs have made a fool of a fool of Teemo because he wants to take over Teemos bossiness. And the weaker Teemo gets in the eye of Mos Shuuta inhabitants the easier it will be.

As soon as the PCs they have dealt with the section:

A VIOLENT INTERCEPTION LaoTH page12

And when they want to land I think Sinasu will contact them and offer a deal,he will change the ships id-signal and there by hold of the imperialsin exchange for a transport-run, what and when he will explain later right now they have about 30 seconds to decide or the imperials will know they are here and go after them. I know my players will feel forced to take the offer but I’m ok with that, If they don’t take the offer the imperials will board the ship and I guess trail and sentence them to death for rebell activity and sabotage and murder of imperial Tie fighter pilots and poroperty.

If they take Sinasu’s offer They land at Nabat and if my twi’lek play isn’t present he can prospond the LaoTH adventure., as he wants to be part of that. and the Sinasu mission Krates of Krayts can be run instead.

when I’ve searched about the consequence for destroying the Tie fighters, whichi fell is strange, the empire can’t let that go unpunished in my eye that’s like saying we are weak so do what you want to us

I was aalso thinking Sinasu could offer them to make the paperwork so its seem l ike the arethe rightful owners of the ship in the future maybe as a obligation worth 5 points?

Nice plan. (If the people I live with talk me into doing another game, mind if I borrow some of those ideas?) Using "Long arm of the Hutt as the finale instead of a follow-up to the beginning of the story is a pretty interesting idea. Are you planning to drop hints so the players have an opportunity to understand power play in which they're involved?

Dropping Beyond the Rim into it is kind of a tough one, but would you have any aversion to making it a stand-alone, unrelated to the main plot? You can always try the old trick of baiting the players into a sabacc game, and the opposing player wagers some information. (Maybe he has a fixer who told him about the IsoTech job or he found the hyperspace pod himself.) Then you get to drop this huge exfoliating story on them like it's just some fun little side mission.

Jewel of Yavin could turn out to be trickier, depending. I've been trying to dress it up as a possible end-of-the-entire-game scenario. When my players first started Beyond the Rim, Arend Shen (in this interpretation, a collector of Jedi Artefacts masquerading as a Jedi Culture conservationist) approached one of them and offered to pay him handsomely if he could recover the luggage of a Jedi Master from the wreck of the Sa Nalaor. From there, he sends the PCs on some various "head to this Jedi heritage site and "rescue" whatever you can there "so it doesn't fall into the hands of the Empire" fetch quests. (Modular Encounters from Nexus of Power) He mentions the Jewel of Yavin at some point, implying that it's a potent Jedi artefact that may be hidden at one of these sites. The goal is to give a bit of gravity to the Jewel, to make it "that stupid McGuffin we've been trying to find for so long" rather than "the McGuffin in this quest". The fun part of it for me is putting regular setting/tone changes in the game and sending the PCs on spooky adventures that make their characters question their understanding of the universe as well as their own sanity. ANYWAY. Not saying you should do something like this, but it's an idea. However, if you could find a way to mix Jewel of Yavin in with Long Arm of the Hutt and make it one of those major plot points where the players have the opportunity to sink one brother and make a friend for life of the other OR sink them both and abscond with a priceless jewel that could buy them whatever way of life they want, well...

Edited by Superunknown

There are some really good ideas here; I'm a relatively new GM, so this be more my speed until I can actually create a functional campaign.

On 2017-03-07 at 5:39 PM, Silke said:

Steal all you want!

I've been doing some thinking, Still suprised that no one has adressed the issue about the player destroying and killing Tie fighters and there pilots. Am i the only one who thinks that letting the player get aawy with this without concecvenses isn't logical? The empire should do something In the end onThe Long arm of the Hutt there is a short note about this that doesn't make ay senese to me. the note is in the lines what ever in my eyes, let them pretend like it's nothing.

I think I'll have B'uran uncountious from his wounds when they find him, as the Tw'ilek in our group will not be here with us when they find him. So I can prospond TLaoTH for a little while.

I plan to let them done the 1 part that involves helping the miners but then wait with the geonosis part
One of the players have a Obligationstating he is on acontract , I'll let this contact helpthem out with changing the ownership of the ship and ease the pressure from the Imperials, in exchange for Crates of Kraytes transport. They will know this is done for Sinasu the Hutt as a obligation the contact has to him.

I'll change Sinasu's enemy to Bargos instead to take the heat up and show there is a war/power struggle between the hutts

After this they can do part 1 of LaoTH, followed by possibly Dept to pay:

Still in planing:

I'll throw in Dept to Pay as Bargos trying to get the players on his side as they seem resourcefull and, he would like them to work for him instead of anyone else.

6 hours ago, Silke said:

I've been doing some thinking, Still suprised that no one has adressed the issue about the player destroying and killing Tie fighters and there pilots. Am i the only one who thinks that letting the player get aawy with this without concecvenses isn't logical? The empire should do something In the end onThe Long arm of the Hutt there is a short note about this that doesn't make ay senese to me. the note is in the lines what ever in my eyes, let them pretend like it's nothing.

Oh right, forgot about that. So as it turns out, the players DID assault the Imperial forces. (Big surprise, right?) One of them was a nameless ISB deputy that I wrote up for this specific purpose. It took some effort for him to survive Beyond the Rim, because they sure tried like heck to kill the poor guy. Someone shot a speeder bike out from under him (critical +30) when he was ordered to return to the Deep Dark and warn the others that there was a team of murderers protecting the retreat. He made it back with only enough time to rescue two surviving scouts and escape in one of the PCs' ships. It was made very clear that this was for dramatic purposes, and the ship would be returned to the player in question before the start of the next session. That PC spent the 3 destiny points remaining at end of session to invoke the NPC assassin that lives on his ship for some reason- I thought that was sort of cool, so the Deputy got to take another hit (critical +40) before jumping in an escape pod. Then he showed up leading the sting on Scrapheap Point and introduced himself as ISB Lieutenant Kyle Katarn. By then, the PCs had decided he was pretty cool and that it might be fun to let him chase them another day, if he survived two ships exploding out of the trash pile. At this point, the PCs expected some group ISB Obligation, which they got. But at least it has a face on it- a face with which they have a shared history. Being clever little turnips, the PCs predicted that the obligation will exist as a source of dramatic tension until they do a quest to get rid of it- the quest that starts when Kyle says he wants defect because the Inquisition just gave him two choices.

It's great when the GM and the players know each other well, but sometimes it can be kind of irritating.

So short answer: My PCs don't get to kill Imperial forces without some kind of consequence, but they might as well get a recurring "friend" for their trouble, and he can only bring a certain level of resources to bear.

One thing you can do is look at all of the books and see what order they would look like they would be best in for the story you want to tell. After that you'll just have to think how you want them to connect/what happens in the downtime between the books.

Edited by MamoruK