Greetings, GMs.
We just finished our first campaign - Debts To Pay, with
- Fenn, a Bothan bounty hunter with a Bounty (10) of his own
- Norpo, a Toydarian trader, intent on Amassing Fortune (15)
- Rarssk, a Trandoshan bodyguard, steeped in Betrayal (20)
- 41-Vex, a droid doctor with Responsibility (5) and Bounty (5) obligations.
Things didn't go quite to plan, both mechanically as a GM, and then narratively, but it all worked out in the end. the biggest GM issue was was that I completely missed the bit about Lookout and the shield-generators, so had to work that in mid-way through, but mostly got away with that; Rarssk couldn't join the group on the first session, so he gave me an excuse to send the other three back to the entrance where they could notice the increasing storms and also discover some other stuff.
Some highlights:
- Fenn became a fan of searching through the upholstery for loose change. He managed to increase his personal fortune by 23 credits.
- Norpo learned the inherent risks in escalating a non-lethal fight with a group of Gamorreans into a fight-to-the-death wielding only a combat knife.
- Fenn discovered a liking for the pancakes that the chef-droid made. Due to a miraculous series of difficult skill-checks, he made off with the droid during the escape and enjoyed the fruits of it's labour for years to follow.
Now, the way the mission was resolved was not quite how I'd expected:
- It took them so long to get through the combat phases on the way out of the mines, that it was inevitable that Lookout destroyed enough shield generators to doom the mining facility.
- They made off with the 165,000 credits, the chef droid, the administration droid, Marv, Bonda and 5 miners.
- They killed EV-8D3 and R2-B7 after taking off.
- They persuaded the miners not to immediately tell Bargos about the destruction of the mine, and set them up with enough funds and the administration droid to seek work elsewhere. They dropped them off at a trade-hub on the way to see Bargos.
- Even after paying off the miners, they still had 100,000cr left for Bargos. They told him the mine was struggling and in a state of near-financial-collapse, so only had 80,000cr to give him.
I am now left with the question of rewards. I have already granted 15xp for the three sessions it took to complete the adventure, but am unsure of how much Obligation to give them for not leaving Bargos totally happy, but then they also met some obligations. I don't want to over-pay on what is essentially a short starter-campaign. I was considering:
- 15xp each just for the session time
- 5xp each for completing the mission just enough to not actually fail it in a storm of droid-rebellion-fuelled rage.
- -5ob for Norpo - he has Amassing Fortune as one of his goals in life, so I thought I'd chip some of that off for tricking Bargos out of 20k, and talking the rest of the group into letting him invest it in trading opportunities.
- 5xp for Rarssk - as a BH he came to Norpo's summons and saved his life.
- 5xp for 41-VEX - his backstory includes a drive to gain credits to fuel self-improvement.
Not sure what to give Fenn. He already has a little more XP than the others due to some leftover from character-creation, and his Obligation is a Bounty.