Hi, all. I'm going to be GMing my first Star Wars campaign ever (despite having bought d20 Revised and Saga editions of the Star Wars RPG), and I'm working on developing the first adventure. The campaign will mostly be and EotE themed one, but there are a couple of characters built using AoR and F&D careers.

I have the basics of the adventure worked out. They're working as "troubleshooters" for a Bothan information broker and sort-of crime boss (mostly in corporate espionage, insider trading, and smuggling). They do work that requires boots on the ground and that needs to be untraceable back to her, with a front as an independent shipping company with their Wayfarer.

For their first assignment, they're going to be sent to find the former accountant of another crime lord, whose former boss has put a sizable bounty on him, supposedly for stealing from his boss. But the bounty is way out of line compared to past ones the crime boss has put on people for stealing from him before. The PC's boss recognizes this, and realizes something is up, so she sends them to find the target first so she can figure out what is so special. (He didn't steal from his boss. Instead, because he was the one moving all of his boss' money around, he knows the crazy, dangerous thing he is up to.)

I'm having a little bit of trouble figuring out what to do for encounters. Here is what I have so far:

• Investigating the target's last known whereabouts and associates to pick up the trail, resulting in a fight with the crime lord's goons who had the same idea.
• [something about continuing to track the guy down, including social/skill/combat encounter(s)]
• Finding the target and convincing him to come with them, or making him come
• Fighting off a named nemesis bounty hunter, probably with associates
• Maybe retrieving the data the accountant had that was so important

I'm not sure what else to include, or necessarily how to design those encounters. Any help would be more than welcome.

Also, does anyone have a list of Bothan names? I still need to come up with a name for the PCs' boss.

I would suggest overlaying something going on in the background - perhaps there is a gang war going on, or an escaped convict that everyone is nervous about. This will help bring the setting to life and also add additional hooks which could even relate to or overlap with your main story.

Also, I would recommend not spending too much time and effort planning one segment of your adventure, such as the affair with the accountant. Perhaps aim for enough content for one or two sessions, then move on to another related branch of your story. Just add in what comes naturally to the story. If you start putting in scenes or encounters just to "bulk up" the story arc, it can start to feel contrived.

http://donjon.bin.sh/scifi/name/star_wars.html#type=Bothan

Here's what I do when planning a session. Decide on reasonable goals and motivations for a few relevant NPCs, such as the players' boss, the target, the other crime boss, etc. These don't need to, and in fact mostly shouldn't, include the PCs in their reasoning. Just broad goals they will work towards accomplishing assuming the PCs don't interfere.

Then imagine the rough outline of how you see the adventure going if the players do nothing unexpected; where they would go and what they would find. Expecting your players to go along with this entirely is unlikely, but its good to have bits and pieces to fall back on, especially if your players are lost and confused and need direction.

Stat out a few characters for some encounters and have them handy on cue cards or sheets of paper. If your players meet someone new and unexpected, you can take the most similar pregen and reskin it, no worries. Now, you should have a basic framework for how things "should" go, the stats for the relevant encounters, whether they go as anticipated or not, and you also have basic motivations to fall back on when your players screw everything up and leave you wondering "what next?"

The goal is not to have one or two encounters polished to perfection, but half a dozen or more that will run smoothly, that you can switch between as your players dictate, or reskin as needed. Then as long as you've given your players something to interact with, be it characters or plot, you can let them decide where next, what next, while always having an idea of what's behind that door.

Most of my session planning time is spent figuring out what my NPCs are up to, some of which never comes to light, but it means my story is never caught off guard when the players change directions, because I already know what's going to happen next. By writing motivations, rather than scenes, you don't rely on your players acting a certain way, and by extension, mucking everything up by not acting that way.