Hey everyone. I'm a longtime RPG player, but I've only GMed a few games before and mostly only from published adventures such as the Jewel of Yavin, but I decided to try and write my own story this time for two reasons: 1. It seems more fun and 2. the game I'm running will be set during the era of the SWTOR video game during the war between the Republic and the Sith Empire so there won't be any official support.

So here's the basic outline of the story I have so far. The PCs have just recently been knighted. They are called before the Council to discuss a matter of some importance. The Council reveals that Jedi Knights across the galaxy are dying. The first was a Master Julian Kor, a master of Battle Mediation, who was killed in a battle in the Illum System resulting in the loss of the Third Fleet. It was originally assumed that the Master was assassinated during the battle, but new evidence has surfaced that points to an even darker threat. The most recent victim, Master Xorne, was a prominent diplomat involved in important negotiations with the Hutt Cartel. A few days Xorne's Padawan reported feeling a disturbance in the Force and went to find her master. When she arrived in his room she felt overwhelmed by fear and saw her Master lying dead in his bed. There were no wounds on him. It was simply as if the life had been stolen from him.

The PCs will then be dispatched to Nar Shadda, to officially take over Master Xorne's role in negotiations, but their true mission is to determine what killed Master Xorne. The PCs will eventually discover that it is a lost form of Sith Sorcery discovered by a high-ranking Sith Lord under the command of Darth Nox,the Dark Councilor responsible for preserving the ancient knowledge of the Sith.

That's what I've got so far. I'd appreciate any critiques or advice on the story or simply running the game in general. Also one more question just occurred to me. When designing major antagonists do you think I'd be better off using the Inquistor system or creating a character using the standard character creation rules?

I want to read more

Seriously

I really dig this and I want to follow this plot. Can't wait to read more

I want to read more

Seriously

I really dig this and I want to follow this plot. Can't wait to read more

Well I don't have all the details worked out, but I've got the big ideas if you want to hear more. The first few sessions will take place on Nar Shadda where the PCs will learn that there is a small time Sith apprentice who has taken over a number of local gangs and is attempting to use them to increase his power base. His master is the aforementioned sith sorcerer, but this sith, Lord Deshawn, is more of an enforcer type, but he does have one clever trick up his sleeve. He's learned to draw upon the negative emotions, such as jealously and greed, that ran rampant on the Smuggler's Moon to fuel his power in the dark side. Once the PCs deal with him and his gang army they will discover a datapad that has recordings of him speaking to an agent he has in the Imperial Reclamation Service. The agent reports that his master has ordered them to the little known world of Tund to search for an artifact hidden in the tombs of the sith sorcerers buried there. He mentioned that his master needed the artifact to perfect his ritual.

Then they will have to infiltrate the Reclamation compound and locate the missing artifact which is buried in one of the tombs there. I'm going to try and make a Star Wars dungeon crawl out of this culminating in a meeting and possible battle with the spirit of the tomb's occupant. It's at this point that Deshawn's master learns of the PCs and dispatches his favored apprentice and assassin to deal with them. She just happens to be the sister of Zabarak PC. At the end of of this campaign they will be offered a major choice to either keep the holocron which contains the knowledge of the ritual so they can use it on the Sith or to destroy it. Obviously keeping it will grant major conflict as will using it.

I'm also planning on doing something special for Halloween involving an abandoned sith cruiser that the PCs stumble upon.

I'd just try to make sure that every player and their character gets to do something useful/cool and gets to have the spot light on them ones in a while.

If you don't get to do what your character is good at then you can still have fun but it's gonna have to come from somewhere else. I was a playing a combat focused character in a long champagne with only 3 major fights but I still had fun, because I had a good time playing my character.

That's what I've got so far. I'd appreciate any critiques or advice on the story or simply running the game in general. Also one more question just occurred to me. When designing major antagonists do you think I'd be better off using the Inquistor system or creating a character using the standard character creation rules?

Depends how many situations the antagonist is going to find himself in. I think character creation makes sense if you want an antagonist that's going to have to perform tasks aside from combat. If he's just going to be the big bad waiting in a throne room somewhere, don't go through the trouble. If he's going to have to tightrope across a ravine to negotiate with a Toydarian merchant who is only impressed with slicing skills, then might as well roll him up as a full-on character.

My biggest advice for running custom games is to be okay with wherever the story leads. Roll with what your players want to do, and don't get too set on what you assumed they'd do. Some of the best adventures we've had have come from my players going in an unexpected (but usually logical) direction. Sometimes you have to pause the action while you figure out what to do with what they give you, but it's worth it. Makes the galaxy feel a lot bigger.

I'm starting out a campaign too, and I'm thinking about the same questions you are. I plan to try out the Inquisitor system for BBEG's to start, and have been making decisions to specifically drive the narrative. One of the things I love about this system is that it lends itself very well to modifying itself to help drive the story forward, and I see the Inquisitor system as having a lot of potential in that. For instance, I'm playing with the idea of not fleshing out the adversary completely to start - instead, set the scene where they adversary is revealed, choose appropriate Inquisitor bits to reflect what they are supposed to do in the scene, then leave the rest unselected.

That way, when the scene plays out, I can "fill in" dramatic and story appropriate options for the Inquisitor based on what the PC's do to help tell the story I'm trying to tell. I won't buy anything I don't need to, nor buy something before the dice roll it's needed on, that way, I can push the story as it's needed and develop the character over time through the narrative.

This...

I'm starting out a campaign too, and I'm thinking about the same questions you are. I plan to try out the Inquisitor system for BBEG's to start, and have been making decisions to specifically drive the narrative. One of the things I love about this system is that it lends itself very well to modifying itself to help drive the story forward, and I see the Inquisitor system as having a lot of potential in that. For instance, I'm playing with the idea of not fleshing out the adversary completely to start - instead, set the scene where they adversary is revealed, choose appropriate Inquisitor bits to reflect what they are supposed to do in the scene, then leave the rest unselected.

That way, when the scene plays out, I can "fill in" dramatic and story appropriate options for the Inquisitor based on what the PC's do to help tell the story I'm trying to tell. I won't buy anything I don't need to, nor buy something before the dice roll it's needed on, that way, I can push the story as it's needed and develop the character over time through the narrative.

Don't fret over stating the BBEG early on, use narrative to make it clear they are just way more powerful, or never put them in a position to be overpowered by the PC's.

I love the idea that the first time the PC's see the BBEG its a holovid of them killing or "extracting" information from someone, clearly using Dark side Force Powers.

On a general GMing note, this system loves you for handing out Setback, Boost and Challenge dice regularly. Add flavour to scenes so there is a reason to upgrade checks or add setback. also look at the core concept and backstory of every PC and come up with a couple of short story ideas to incorporate into the campaign, creating a short list of fairly generic encounters. then when you are planing sessions pick one or 2 and flesh them out a bit more depending on whats happening currently in the campaign. it will give the players a kick knowing that your listening to them, and giving the PC the spotlight for a bit.

Always be aware of the player's power to go completely off the rails. Try not to chain too many assumptions together that they will go here, then find this, then use it to go there, etc, because the more links in the chain, the more opportunities for them to break the chain and leave with you without a plot.

Try and have backup plans, ways to reskin your encounters, or ideas about what your NPCs are doing in the background, so that if your players go in completely the wrong direction, you still have events to present them with, and critically, feel confident enough to allow them to go in the direction they want to, and you don't feel obligated to yank them back onto the rails right away.

While your players *will* inevitably 'go off the rails', remember, they may be the main protagonists in the story, but that doesn't mean the universe is on pause while they're not present somewhere.

The *story* revolves around the PCs, but the *universe* does not.

When you decide what the various antagonists' goals are, give them a basic timeline to a few milestones of their plan, working under the assumption that the players *don't* interfere. Then, when the players *do* interfere, you adjust the timeline, and some details of the plan to compensate, just as the villain would. If the players completely miss the main plot, one of those milestones should *thoroughly* demonstrate that something is happening.

Just as an example:

One antagonist is a sith-wannabe, intent on digging up 'an ancient artifact of immense power' (a sith holocron that might be able to teach the wannabe some basic, but nasty Force techniques). If nobody interferes, it'll take him a few weeks to a month to get the job done and retrieve the holocron (milestone 1), and then a few more weeks/months to complete the training (milestone 2).

Milestone 1:

• If the players interfere, they may manage to retrieve the holocron first, destroy it, or maybe just slow him down. (Depending on how successful they are.)
• If they don't interfere, he retrieves the holocron, completing milestone 1, and in the process unleashes some creatures altered by ancient Sith Alchemy. That *should* get their attention, right? Now they stop doing odd jobs to earn cash for their first ship, and start pursuing the main plot. (Yay!)

Milestone 2:

• If the players interfered with the first milestone, the antagonist now has to adjust his plan to compensate. Maybe there's another artifact, or he's forced to do with a lesser artifact he disovered during his escape from the PCs. Or, maybe he's intent on tracking down the PCs and stealing his prize from *them*. It could be a lot of things, but it should make sense to the antagonist.
• Or... Maybe they didn't interfere, but now they've put ended the threat of the creatures he released, and gotten some clues as to the miscreant in the process. That's a good time for them to start trying to chase him down and stop him. (And maybe they've earned enough favors and gratitude to get that ship...)
• Or... maybe they didn't interfere, and worse still, they were off world for some reason, and manage to completely miss the news of giant green nexu and rancors rampaging through their favorite city 'back home'. (Oops!)

Milestone 3, etc.

So now they have a minor Sith lord, who has some rudimentary skill with Sith Alchemy, corrupting an controlling wild beasts, causing havoc, and pursuing his further goals. Maybe he's figured out how to apply that alchemy to sapient beings, and has amassed a small armada of vile and vicious pirates, backed by corrupt creatures, and is making a play for real power.

Oh, and remember, very few villains (and virtually no villains more complex than a cardboard cutout) actually think of *themselves* as villains. Most will have some goal that they believe is so important that the ends justify the means, or maybe that there is no other way around causing the damage they're inevitably going to cause. Even the ancient Sith, openly warring with the Jedi, didn't just have 'cause death and destruction' as their goals. They felt they had been pushed out of their rightful place in the galaxy, and wanted to undo that injustice. The only way to do it, though, was to exterminate the entire Jedi Order. (But, after all, the Jedi deserved it, because of what they'd done to their one-time friends and compatriots.)

The Emperor's motivation was power, pure and simple, but he used it to impose order on a galaxy full of chaos. He caused (both directly and indirectly) a lot of pain, suffering, and destruction in the process, but that was all excusable (to him), because he was "bringing order to the galaxy". (Ok, ok, the Emperor is pushing things a bit. He's a cardboard cutout, but he was supposed to be.)

His underlings all along the chain of command (both civil and military) *often* thought that way, though. Tarkin, for example, had a full-on boner for *order*, and was willing to do whatever it took to ensure that order was imposed. Even if it meant cracking a few billion eggs in the process.

Oh, and remember, very few villains (and virtually no villains more complex than a cardboard cutout) actually think of *themselves* as villains. Most will have some goal that they believe is so important that the ends justify the means, or maybe that there is no other way around causing the damage they're inevitably going to cause.

The Emperor's motivation was power, pure and simple, but he used it to impose order on a galaxy full of chaos. He caused (both directly and indirectly) a lot of pain, suffering, and destruction in the process, but that was all excusable (to him), because he was "bringing order to the galaxy". (Ok, ok, the Emperor is pushing things a bit. He's a cardboard cutout, but he was supposed to be .)

His underlings all along the chain of command (both civil and military) *often* thought that way, though. Tarkin, for example, had a full-on boner for *order*, and was willing to do whatever it took to ensure that order was imposed. Even if it meant cracking a few billion eggs in the process.

It's for that reason that I sort of like the New Jedi Order cannon that claims that the Emperor foresaw the Vong invasion and knew the Republic couldn't stand against them so he created the Empire. It makes him less of a cutout.

You already have the biggest part of GM'ing down it seems. You know the world(s). As long as you can see where your players are you can relay that info to them. Thats all they really need, they'll find their way....or not;) Just keep your eyes on the surroundings and you'll be fine.

Oh, and remember, very few villains (and virtually no villains more complex than a cardboard cutout) actually think of *themselves* as villains. Most will have some goal that they believe is so important that the ends justify the means, or maybe that there is no other way around causing the damage they're inevitably going to cause.

The Emperor's motivation was power, pure and simple, but he used it to impose order on a galaxy full of chaos. He caused (both directly and indirectly) a lot of pain, suffering, and destruction in the process, but that was all excusable (to him), because he was "bringing order to the galaxy". (Ok, ok, the Emperor is pushing things a bit. He's a cardboard cutout, but he was supposed to be .)

His underlings all along the chain of command (both civil and military) *often* thought that way, though. Tarkin, for example, had a full-on boner for *order*, and was willing to do whatever it took to ensure that order was imposed. Even if it meant cracking a few billion eggs in the process.

It's for that reason that I sort of like the New Jedi Order cannon that claims that the Emperor foresaw the Vong invasion and knew the Republic couldn't stand against them so he created the Empire. It makes him less of a cutout.

I suppose that's true, but the Vong are kind of an issue for me from the perspective of being an 'unstoppable enemy' created *specifically* to create a weakness for the Jedi.

Of the hundreds of thousands of starfighter pilots and capital ship crews in the galaxy, who would inevitably be summoned to battle this mysterious, marauding army, a *tiny* fraction of them were Force Sensitive, putting them *on par* with the rest of the hundreds of thousands of other people fighting the same battle. But, the Jedi *still* had to be the ones to solve the problem of an enemy invisible to, and untouchable by, the Force, which only the Jedi can touch.

It's like having puppet-Pinocchio, and a bunch of normal people fighting a fire monster that's armed with scissors, but insisting that puppet-Pinocchio *has* to be the one to defeat it. He's exceptionally vulnerable to the enemy, sure, but the dozens of other people fighting right alongside him are *used* to dealing with fire, and know how to handle scissors, too.

:grump,grump,grump: