So I finally finished my first adventure. It went well, despite taking significantly longer than I thought it would. In large part, that was thanks to advice from you guys. As some of you may remember, one of my biggest concerns was keeping the credits payout for my players fair so they don't imbalance the game by equipping themselves with ridiculous gear. I'm being fairly lenient with it, since they're eager to get fully equipped and I can tailor the difficulty accordingly, but I may have to make some... adjustments after the first session.

So, in preparation of my game, the players ran through the starter adventure among themselves. It's the one involving them building up a bounty from Teemo the Hutt and stealing his ship. We didn't give them experience for it, but they are using that background to influence their obligations. Their obligations now sits at 100 (meaning they can't spend experience) and about 30-40 points of those are tied to Teemo. I intend to diversify that Teemo debt by having various groups of bounty hunters and opportunists who can develop into long-term and individualized adversaries. They figure they'll just wipe out the debt by planning an assassination mission against Teemo. I suggested that might not be the best idea, but I'm not going to impede them. Murdering a Hutt, well, might just make them a bigger target.

Let me get into the specifics of their first story. The crew picks up a job from a big-time trader. He's former smuggler who's put most of his shadiness behind him, and he's requisitioned the team to go find his younger brother, a former smuggler who hasn't put his shadiness behind him, who crashed landed in a backwaters outer rim planet. They negotiate a 3000 credit fee, which seemed a reasonable payout to them, even with the additional money they might get over the course of their adventure. So they land on this planet, a formerly booming mining colony of mountains and swamps that's now run dry. It's just the desperate hanger-ons left, mostly making a living stripping the last bits of ore and selling furs. There's a dilapidated firespray in the port with the markings of a criminal gang and an Imperial transport. The Imperial naval officer is trying to requisition a land transport. They head into town where a mechanic is working on a couple of heavy speeder trucks. They learn that one of the trucks has been stolen and he's trying to fix up the other two so they have working vehicles. After much social bungling and some terrible rolls, they get their hands on one of the speeders, convince the mechanic to sabotage the other (which will inevitably be taken by the Imperials), and get rough coordinates for where their target's ship crashed down. In the process, I manage to divert them away from trying to negotiate a deal with the Imperials, under the presumption that the Imperials are hunting the criminals who docked in the bay (What they don't know is that the Imperials are corrupt officers from a nearby trading port. They have a scheme where they sell a portion of their seized contraband to these pirates. The players' target scooped a ryll shipment out from underneath the nose of both parties. The pirates are here to get the drugs, and the Imperials are here to make sure they get their hands on the thief. So the team goes into the jungle and absolutely slaughters their way through the combat encounters I have planned. There's a couple of rodians guarding the stolen land speeder. They slaughter them, find their target inside, and learn that the rest of the rodians are unloading ryll from the crashed ship into the speeder. They cleverly set an ambush, take out all the minions in pretty much one blow, and head to the ship to get the rest. Here I massage the encounter with their leader so he's set up an ambush. This one is much harder. The party's gand findsman takes a lot of damage before they knock their adversary into the water. Then they're left dealing with the ship. It's crash landed on the edge of a lake and about to sink. We run a pretty cool, time-sensitive encounter where they're trying to unload the goods before the ship sinks. Meanwhile, some sort of big, ambiguous sea creature is swimming around in the pond. This is definitely the highlight of the session. Most of them are scrambling to unload the goods. Their droid is trying to dismantle the ship's gun so that they can take it back with them. These guys are spending light side points like crazy (and creatively). They barely manage to dig themselves out of a watery grave with just a couple bundles of ryll to show for it (in addition to those brought back by the rodians they ambushed), and the droid ends up sacrificing the cannon to use as a depth charge.

They get out of the jungle, wounded but alive, only to find a roadblock set by the Imperials. As their diplomat is trying to negotiate with the Imperials, the brother the party saved clues them in that these dudes are bent, and that they're just going to unload their guns on the party and dump them in the swamp. Again, it's a slaughterhouse, with them utterly annihilating the Imperials in literally two moves. I'm fine with this. It's my first time running game, they're having fun with it, and they've had both a harrowing combat encounter and a fun setpiece. The Imperial ship is gone when they get back to the port. They've made an enemy out of the naval officer (Who, coincidentally, has some wheeling and dealing set up with Teemo, and who now knows their cover ID's), and possibly the pirates they killed. Their leader will likely come back, mangled and seeking revenge.

So here's where we are. The team talked the smuggler they rescued into a 80/20 split on the ryll they took, which I vaguely described as six large bundles. They also got away with the pirates' Firespray and a few dinky pistols. I have some leverage here. From the moment they spotted the Firespray I described it as basically on its last legs, so I can severely depreciate any money they get from reselling it. I might have the ryll turn out to be severely cut or otherwise damaged to mitigate a huge payout from that. Plus, them trying to fence these goods with 100 obligation on their backs can probably fuel a few more stories. When they do get paid, they'll likely use a significant portion of that paying down debts so they can actually spend experience.

So, my question is, can anyone give me going rates for spice in the SW galaxy? While we're at it, does devaluing the things they've taken seem like an unfair, cheap shot to the party? They did some clever things in the first session, and I want to reward them for that, but I also don't want to give them too much too quick. Also, does anyone know of resources that describe stats for big creatures? I'd like for them to tackle some, but intentionally left the swamp creature as a deus machina this session because I was in a rush and didn't feel like they were ready to tangle for it (Plus, I think the threat of the creature was actually more effective than having them see it). Technically, they should have accrued a decent amount of obligation this encounter, but I don't want to overkill them with 100+ obligation, so I may credit some of that towards their background obligation or hand wave it for now. After all, the way this party operates, they're bound to build up plenty of ill will in the future. They may have gotten the raw deal with this smuggler anyway. Instead of just getting the credits quick and simple, they're now going to have to fence it themselves, and they're operating in a climate that's pretty **** hostile towards them. I also know they're going to utterly ransack everybody they kill (and I suspect the death count will be HIGH) for things to resell. Any advice on potentially limiting that?

The going rate for spice: Ryll is listed in the Lords of Nal Hutta book as 50 creds for 1 dose or 4,500 for a 100 dose cargo container.

One of the biggest limiting factors you can place on any group is going to be time. You’ve already discovered that, by your description of the ship sinking into the water.

If they don’t get enough time to ransack a place, then you can limit what they can get away with.

Another huge limiting factor is what can they carry with them without being over burdened.

Sure, that guy you killed had a really nice Light Repeating Blaster, which you would love to take with you. But you’re already at your limit for what you can carry.

The less you make easy to smash-and-grab, the less they will be able to take with them as they ransack the place in the limited amount of time they have, and the more important it becomes to them to remain quick on their feet and able to escape whatever is chasing them.

The remainder can be damaged in combat, difficult to sell on the black market because they’re clearly stolen goods that will be impossible to move (like all sorts of Imperial weapons), or perhaps destroyed as the last desperate act of a maniac who is determined to try and stop them however he can.