Wheels spinning in the mud...

By bsmith23, in Star Wars: Force and Destiny RPG

So as we gear up for the new book, it seems that the only story I can come up with is some variation of "go to hidden location, retrieve lost artifact before BBEG does or Inquisitor shows up". It seems to me too, that all the published stuff for F&D so far/to come follows the same pattern.

So can we get the creative juices flowing of some really juicy plots for a group of FS in hiding to shine?

There is a non-force using scholar who has been aiding force sensitive children hide from the Empire. An Inquisitor is zeroing in on the "operation" and the PCs must decide if they will help (and potentially expose themselves), or play it safe and stay hidden.

You really want to find a teacher who can tell you how to make those awesome lightsaburs. You know about one old geezer, but he's annoyed a pirate gang recently. Afterwards, he wants to actually lead the pirate gang, with you owing him favors.

Another city's gravball team is coming over, and two of the players have siblings on the team, but on different sides! And someone poisons one of the teams, so the sibling there needs some immeadiate replacements, of the PC kind.

You're broke, but need to book passage off this planet before the Inqui-ship lands, so what's a scheme that gets you there? What kind of a crew is the starship running, do they need to make a detour, are they carrying contraband?

Edited by Juriel

You were approached by the local drunken war vet. He hands you a lockbox, 500 credits, and ticket for passage to Dantooine to deliver the box to an old friend. As the shuttle was leaving hyperspace, you see a Star Destroyer coming out of orbit.

The Man? He was a Jedi in hiding who saw that you were strong in the force and has been keeping an eye on you for a while. He foresaw the empire was coming to round up recruits for inquisitors. He opted to stay behind to hold them off while you escaped.

The lockbox? It contains his old lightsaber. The woman you were delivering it to was intended to teach you in the ways of the force. Unfortunately, when you get there, she's missing, but there appears to be no sign of forced entry or struggler.

Edited by kaosoe

The PCs receive information that the Empire are comming to wipe out a planets population. Do they help the people? If so how?

The college student in the apartment next to one of the players was killed last night, and the local authorities suspect the PCs. Do you make a run for it or try and prove your innocence? How do you keep it from escalating to an Imperial Case? What about the real killer?

The Empire is holding/studying the <relic/jedi/mcguffin> on a remote planet. You receive a tip that the guard will be low as troopers are pulled for Empire Day parades, giving you one night to strike.

Upon touching a force-powered object, the PCs all fall into a Force-linked dream...

The PCs have reason to believe that deep in this ancient ruin is a force-powered device that will help them locate a teacher, but the ruins are not what they seem.

A prominent crime lord is consolidating power in a distant but metropolitan planet (ostensibly the characters' home). He/she is a dark jedi (maybe order 66 survivor gone bitter), ruthless in destroying their competition and bringing order to the world.

The end result is that everyday life is generally better for the common people despite the criminal oppression and underlying fear. The dark jedi is now recruiting apprentices and considering expansion to other worlds.

If the dark jedi is toppled, other criminal factions will move in to fill the void, many worse than him/her. If they are left to run things from the shadows, the planet will descend into a constant state of fear and oppression.

When he/she learns of the PCs and ask them to join him/her – and maybe learn more of the force from someone trained – what do the players do?

Edited by Doc, the Weasel

The players are trying to keep the whereabouts of a child strong in the force from getting into the hands of the empire. Unknown to them it is Luke, they take on the mission to setup false information that the child is in fact one of the players knowing full well their sacrifice at the end of the story is worth saving the Galaxy

Edited by Kilcannon

You could watch the Clone Wars series for inspiration, there's a lot of good stuff in there. If they are trying to go the light side way, helping others should be a no brainer.

- A distress call from a spaceship that's been attacked by pirates and left for dead in desperate need of repairs.

- A planet with some global catastrophy the players can prevent one way or another. Relocating the populous to get away from a flooding, putting out a forest fire, shutting down the ancient machines that cause the planet to break apart, shutting down the network of satelites that threatens the people, and so on.

- Have a relative taken by the empire and let them try to rescue them. Plot twist: they are also force sensitive and are trained to be an inquisitor when they are found out. Bonus points if one of your players has fun in switching it up and take the place of his sibling for a while, infiltrating the group when their original character is taken prisoner themselves.

1) They're hired by an old smuggler to help locate and retrieve relics from a ship located within an asteroid belt home to a rundown mining settlement.

When they arrive they find someone has attacked the settlement and during the course of their investigation realise someone in the settlement found their lost ship and brought it to the settlement.

The problem is did they release something they shouldn't have and that's whats causing all of the problems or is someone doing all this to secure the relics for themselves?

2)You wake up in the cargo hold of an old Firespray ship, an antiquated holo emitter splutters into life as someone in black robes and a weird face mask notifies you that you are all suspected of being force sensitives and due to be delivered to Mustafar for interrogation.

You're offered the ship you're within and whatever resources left aboard but told to get as far as possible before the Inquisitors come after you.

The Inquisitors function as a recurring threat with an episode revealing the person who freed them is one of the Inquisitors but why they released them and what they get from this remains a mystery.

3) You have crashlanded on the world of Tython claimed to be the Jedi Home world.

Care to go take a look?

Making your way in the Galaxy today takes everything you've got. -

1) You need money (to fix your ship, or get lightsaber parts, or to feed the hungry alien children). [insert most Edge of the Empire Adventures]

2) The Empire is doing something BAD! You should stop them. [insert most Age of Rebellion Adventures]

3) A Force sensitive NPC is in danger from the Empire. Will you risk your cover to help her?

4) Even Jedi get lost sometimes. You're in the middle of nowhere and you need to make it back to civilization.

5) Even Jedi get found sometimes. You live in the middle of nowhere but the Empire has found Nowhere. They haven't found you yet. What do you do?

Edited by pnewman15

1) When the Jedi Temple fell, one of your PCs left behind a friend, and assumed they were dead. Until now. This friend has fallen to the dark side in their quest for vengeance. How the PC deals with this is up to them.

2) With Ilum essentially a death sentence, the PCs must seek out new sources of lightsaber crystals. The varied natures of the PCs pull them to different planets, guided by the force. Each planet presents its own challenges, testing a PCs talent and resolve before yielding a suitable crystal. (I've had this idea kicking around my head since reading Suns of Fortune. The book details quite a few different natural crystal formations, and getting access to any of these crystal formations presents a very difficult challenge).

Examples include: Tracking an ancient beast, such as a Krayt dragon. Protecting the natural beauty of a planet, including its rare crystal formations. Brokering a peace treaty (and receiving the crystal as a gift).

3) An Imperial vault is said to be impregnable. But they never anticipated a heist planned by force-sensitives.

4) A PC lost something important. They want to find it again.

5) A prisoner is being held at a high-security prison. The Alliance (or other relevant group) has stolen a cloaking-capable vessel that could reach the station undetected. The downside? The cloak is double-blind. Without an active sensor suit, only a force-sensitive could guide the vessel to the station without colliding with the dense asteroids surrounding the station.

If you look at the book Heir to the Jedi you see a semi "Force Sensitive focused" story without needing the goal to be a holocron or the biggest baddest inquisitor. The story is about Luke between episode 4 and 5. You see him struggling with learning new powers without a master, without anyone to teach him. It is a good read.

My F&D game I'm currently running from the Beta book is shaping up to be very EotE. They were all rounded up by the Empire for being Force users, and they had to escape and steal a ship. Now they're all hiding out from the Empire.

It depends on how improvised you want to go with the Force, but I've been filling a good bunch of sessions in my beta campaign with exploring the mysteries of the Force. Starting with a disturbance that basically compelled the players to look into (along with other Force-Sensitives...some of disreputable character), the characters were set on the path of chasing a "cascade in the Force" across the galaxy; both in an attempt to divine the ultimate source of the disturbance while also trying to curb it's impact on the innocent (at least at first...some have found power in abusing this disturbance).

Of course, that hasn't been the whole campaign. There have been asides where the group had to keep their ship in good shape, especially after their brushes with the Empire (some led by an "Inquisitor-ish" character, some not). That also includes times where the group had to run jobs to keep their trek across the galaxy well-funded.

Edited by ImperialSpy

An underground railroad type of campaign could work for a variety of adventure's. You could have contacts (conductors) all over the galaxy all with different motivations. Some could be altruistic, others you may have to pay off, Hutts, crime lords, planetary governments, Corporate execs. may like the idea of having access to Jedi for "special Jobs". The overall goal is to keep force sensitives on the move and never in one place for very long and pick up new ones as you go. You can still do the temple raids too if you want.

Two of my players are Padawans from the temple attack that were able to survive. They went into hiding after the Empire found their location and for nine years took on other careers until a disturbance in the Force of thousands of Falleen dying brought them back into action and found each other as well as two other Padawans and an ex-Imperial Jedi Assassin who found out he was Force Sensitive.

You are hired by an unaligned group anonymously to deliver supplies to a village on Kashyyyk upon arrival you discover that the village is full of former jedi and force sensitives, go from there, probably a later in the game campaign but it works

I have a concept for how to lead on from the Beginner Game, if the players don't like their pre-gen characters:

Contained within the Beginner Box are several character tokens that could be used to represent other Force users, such as the woman in a head dress, the woman with a lightsaber, the woman with a hair braid, the woman with a fur jacket, the generic human male, the purple Twi'lek, the Duro, the Twi'lek with goggles or even - for a dark-side character - the hooded, evil-looking figures. Somehow the pre-gen PCs find out about one of these characters near them - perhaps they are a prisoner of the Empire in Reles, or maybe they simply wander into the valley of the Dawn Temple. That NPC comes to live at the temple, and represents one of the six classes. They are available for conversation and can answer any questions from the players, as well as 'advertising' their particular class. They tell the PCs about another of these characters, and they go and find them, bringing them to the Temple. Each of these NPCs is a Force user, representing on the different classes.

When six NPCs are accumulated, the Temple is then attacked by Imperials. The GM comes up with a reason effectively for the pre-gen characters to be killed off, while the other Force users escape. Once they are gone, the PCs pick up their new characters - the NPCs become PCs. The players may level them up with any XP they previously had so they are on the same level (this can be explained by these characters having been Jedi) and the players can then go on with their own characters.

Just my suggestion, but it's an idea I've been toying with.

Seems fun.

Something that you think you know is wrong. (Revan Revalation) You'll have to know your players fairly well, and it isn't for early game, but once they are in a groove of these other things, bring up a background of a character and introduce an NPC that either challenges it or shows them why something they always held as foundational is wrong. The parent they always looked up to was actually a top pawn in a Hutt family and ran away to raise you and now the Hutt knows about you and where your family is. The syndicate you are working for is actually an Imperial front and all of your activity has been aiding the Empire (or Rebels). Betrayal by a party member because your family destroyed their family and you never knew about any of it (best to get a bit of buy in from the player you want to be the Betrayer or they are not going to act appropriately... of course, if you have a NPC you are running in the group from the beginning, this is easy to do) - wait till the worst possible moment for more Space Opera goodness.

Bonds break or bend. Again, you'll need to know your players and how they work with their characters. Have an NPC provide a conundrum for your group on a moral footing. If you know your group well enough you can get them to have strong enough discussion as they work out how their characters feel. If you are adept at it, they won't put their personal feelings on their sleeves and be personally hurt about it, so be careful of your subject and timing. With some groups this can be difficult as they are not necessarily emotionally invested in their player. But for a good mature group this can be great to get ways to have the characters talk to each other instead of always dealing with NPCs. Take hot topics from current culture and adapt them to something they would encounter so it is a different guise. You aren't judging them on a moral basis, just providing an opportunity for discussion. A culture they encounter places babies with the wrong colored eyes out on rocks outside of town and the players find the baby before the village. The heroes of the village return the lost object and now the leaders of the village present them a problem with two women claiming the same child as their own.

I'm going to be running with something along these lines. Obi-Wan was waylaid by enemies en route to Tatooine (Imperials, pirates, unclear yet) and was forced to re-route to an even more isolated planet (more akin to Dagobah). He raised Luke as his own child, and the two have been braving the elements and eking out a difficult existence together without contact from anyone else - until the day the PCs arrive.

Edited by Pac_Man3D

I've been toying with this:

The party is returning to the Jedi Temple at the ending of the Clone Wars. This is, of course, the trap which Obi-Wan Kenobi puts a stop to. Battle for your lives, search for survivors, then flee.

Gone into hiding, years pass. The Republic and Jedi fade away, the Empire rises, and now more than ever the Jedi are needed. It's time to rebuild the Order.

I... Really like the base and settlement rules.