Okay, I'm doing it. Been planning on running this since the box set first came out 1 million years ago.

If you don't know what Darkstryder is, its an old d6 box set.. it was designed for the players to have multiple pregenerated PCs taken from different groupings (ie: everyone had one pilot, one command staff, one ground fighty guy etc) of a rebellion corvette. It was a neat concept, that was almost impossible to pull off well. The story the game was set in, is friggen awesome tho. DISCLAIMER: I'm not going to go into a lot of detail on the plot stuff of the box set, its really long and kinda convulated. Largely this thread is intended for those already familiar w the set.. or for others who might have more generalized counsel.

Mechanically I'm not worried about the conversion to FFG I've done that a lot already, it's reflexive at this point.

Plot wise, I'm doing away with multiple PCs, its crazy hard to manage; and I discovered, when I tried this w d6, players get a lot less invested in their characters if they've got 4 or 5 of them. Also they end up w a favorite and it becomes a mess.

Basic premise, for folks who are unaware, Republic corvette chasing a rogue Moff, into unknown space.. almost a Voyager, Battlestar Galactica, or Lost In Space feel to the game. You never know what you're gonna run into, Canon doesn't matter as much, cause you're in crazy space, and scarcity of resources and ship damage is a huge factor.

I figure I'll start them all of with the F&D box set and a couple of the book adventures FFG is pumping out. Then they get sent out to chase the Moff, AFTER the rebel corvette has already started the chase. So the first arc of the game is PCs chasing rebels, chasing imperials. I'm gonna give the PCs a fast freighter so they can catch up.. but it's mainly going to be them ending up in systems seeing and haveing to deal with the fallout of the game of cat and mouse the rebels and imps are playing.

Act 2 is them meeting up with the corvette (for which I will have a cork board on the wall w bios on the mountain of NPCs.) And then Battlestar Galactica style drama.. while the force users try to deal w a rebel ship, who's discipline is fraying pretty bad and is rife with dissent and sabotage.

Act 3 is maybe them taking command of the ship, maybe not.. depends on decisions and rolls.. but act 3 is the protracted climax of them finally closing in on their prey.

I'm pretty happy w a lot of the ideas I have (more then I posted here aka: an instructor of the inquisitors has gone rogue taken a handful of students and is signing on w the Moff, one of the PCs is going to be a former student of his, one of the PCs ex girlfriend is an ex imperial that is pretending to be a rebel on the corvette her loyalties are not entirely clear, etc etc) but I love more input.

Anyone feel free to bounce ideas my way.. but especially if you're familiar with the box set.

Thanks for any input guys!

Have no input, I'm afraid, as weirdly, never heard of this before. Thanks for the heads up. Amazon wants $250 for it, soooo....D6 Holocron it is. Looks pretty interesting, I like the setting.

Surprisingly few people have heard of this box set. Holy moly, no idea it was worth that much. Still, never gonna part with it. I got it when it first came out.. glad to be putting it on other people's radar..

My group is 4 adventures in (Omens, Aaris, Homebrew Aaris follow up, Homebrew on Corjain) and will be starting Death is Remotely Possible soon.

Having fun so far.

My group is 4 adventures in (Omens, Aaris, Homebrew Aaris follow up, Homebrew on Corjain) and will be starting Death is Remotely Possible soon.

Having fun so far.

Neat! What's your set up? Or are you running it straight outta the book? If so, how are you handling multiple PCs. I consider myself a pretty good GM but that just didn't work for me.

I've got this supplement too, unused, never read it... I mean, I did look through some of it, but it was stashed pretty quickly, for some unknown reason.

If anyone makes a step-by-step strategy guide on how to turn this into a single-character per PC extravaganza, let me know yeah?

The multiple PC-thing was a huge turnoff for me, but I did use material from the campaign in a previous Star Wars game set in the Kathol sector.

Making it single PC isn't too bad. I'm just using the roster of the crew (almost all whom were intended to be PCs) as my NPC list. With some tweaks.. Jessa is a childhood friend of the big angry zabrak Aggressor PC in my party. The twi'lek that "owns" the Izzels is Reom from Beyond the Rim (Isotech CEO).. the Defel is the same Defel from the Jewel of Yavin. I intend on running the first book from the set, with the idea of "what problems would arise, AFTER the Farstar leaves" Then my PCs show up and have to deal with the fallout... After the PCs catch up to the ship, I will just run the characters of the Farstar as NPCs who always seem to make the decisions that will cause my PCs the biggest headache and further plot.

Tho I'm having everyone roll up new characters, my last game was a year long EotE game, so I'm continuing the story of a lot of those NPCs.

They spent most of the EotE game supplying guns to the very Moff that their F&D characters are now hunting. The climax of the EotE game was them betraying the Moff to the rebellion.. you know, cause he's a ****. And fighting a legion of baddies whilst trying to assassinate the Moff... with Paige's commandos assaulting from the skies.. Of course the Moff got away. They were pretty upset that their big ending resulted in the bad guy getting away. Which of course is making this campaign even more poignant.. Cause you know, I'm a ****.

My group is 4 adventures in (Omens, Aaris, Homebrew Aaris follow up, Homebrew on Corjain) and will be starting Death is Remotely Possible soon.

Having fun so far.

Neat! What's your set up? Or are you running it straight outta the book? If so, how are you handling multiple PCs. I consider myself a pretty good GM but that just didn't work for me.

Adding my own "filler" episodes in here and there, and allowing the players to make certain decisions on their own unless there's some really solid reason not to.

Otherwise I'm running it almost verbatim.

For multi PCs I....

Had the characters list Obligation/Duty/Morality, but I don't check it or make a point of adjusting it, it's just there as more an RPing tip. The campaign as a whole doesn't really support those mechanics very well, so I felt it better to not worry about it.

Players choose 1 character from the command set (pregen knight level) and one from support (pregen "padawan" level +75). They make a third using normal creation rules and get a +20. The Knight and Padawan characters as pregen ensures they come out balanced, or at least in line with the original character concept (Qesya for example is a total BEAST). GM has final say over who gets what to ensure no single player gets two characters with secret ties to each other. (So no one gets both Ademetrum and Gul-rah or something). Likewise as the chain of command shifts at certain points I also try and keep the same player from owning an entire chain of command (So no one gets Ademetrum, Gorak, and Thyte) or owing an entire functional area.

Each character the players design or select must fill a different role category, as the game progresses if it's found a player needs an additional character or two, they can build it or pull from the existing stable. So everyone should have at least a ground person, a fighter pilot, and a senior leader. Some players have made that work, others added on an additional character just to round it all out.

If needed, the players may take temporary control of any unclaimed PC should the adventure call for it and/or their existing character set include no one appropriate for the adventure at hand. They will only have access to the redacted character description of course...

XP rewards are pooled for each player. So (for now) you get about 30ish XP for completing an adventure. You can spend that among your characters as you wish. To discourage dumping it all into a single character I reminded the players that I know EXACTLY where it all going all the way to the end and who needs to be alive for Endgame, and that list is a VERY SHORT list. So unlike other campaigns I've run... almost no one is safe. If the PC dies... he dies, and I may make death easy if I need to.

When encounters start it's established what characters are available for that encounter. Usually this is self-resolving.. "OK, you're sending the combat shuttle to dock with the damaged bulk cruiser... who are you bringing along? OK, Gorak, Gunthar, BG-CV0, Dajus, and an NPC astromech (I'll say it's R3-JNTR) anyone else? No? OK, anything goes down on the cruiser, that's who's gonna have to deal with it."

Larger situations, like a space battle involving the FarStar and Fighters will allow the use of all characters as appropriate and jump around form scene to scene.

The players are actually making a connection with the characters, because while as a whole they jump around, the adventures also tend to feature small "cliques" of characters doing things away from the full support of the ship as a whole, giving the players time to get to know them. (Gunthar has really become a fan-favorite, and the banter between Ademetrum and Gorak has gotten great as the security officer has apparently been holding mandatory training sessions to teach the crew a complex tactical sign language [*gives the "I can totally take all four of then if you keep that heavy blaster suppressed while Dajus sneaks around behind and sabotages the shield generator using that fusion cutter sitting in the toolbox on the shelf next to the broken droid head" hand signal*]).

So far so good...

Ah, Darkstryder. I've got the box, all the books, and all the miniatures, and have never done anything with them.

Wow Ghost! That sounds really good! I wish I lived wherever you are so I could get in on that! I like the pooled exp idea.. hadn't considered that.

I've got a couple experienced players, but the rest are newbs to gaming, so I will likely keep my single PC format. but your should totally keep updating as the game goes in. I'm curious how things will unfold. Especially in the case of your PCs favorite *knowing wink*

Good job on pulling off one of the more difficult box sets I've come across.

Wow Ghost! That sounds really good! I wish I lived wherever you are so I could get in on that! I like the pooled exp idea.. hadn't considered that.

I've got a couple experienced players, but the rest are newbs to gaming, so I will likely keep my single PC format. but your should totally keep updating as the game goes in. I'm curious how things will unfold. Especially in the case of your PCs favorite *knowing wink*

Good job on pulling off one of the more difficult box sets I've come across.

I've been planning this since EotE first came out, but waited until the FaD beta so I'd have time to work out the bugs and ensure I had enough players options.

Hey ghost, would you be willing to share your pre-gen characters?

Ummm I suppose...

It's Darkstryder though, so there's too many to just list them all.

Anyone in particular you want to know about?

this website may help a little

http://www.dailydoserpg.com/rpg/index.html

click on the farstar link link to the left and on crew for the whole crew in ffg stats

Ummm I suppose...

It's Darkstryder though, so there's too many to just list them all.

Anyone in particular you want to know about?

I have been thinking about setting up this campaign following your lead, but as you have already done the heavy lifting on the pre-gens it would be really helpful to have all of them to use to get the campaign started, it would save me a lot of work.

I don't suppose you set them up on ogg's character generator?

this website may help a little

http://www.dailydoserpg.com/rpg/index.html

click on the farstar link link to the left and on crew for the whole crew in ffg stats

Edit: after a lot of searching on the site I found the farstar crew. These are great as NPC stats but would take a bit of work to convert them to pre-gen PCs. Not impossible and this gives me a good place to start.

Ummm I suppose...

It's Darkstryder though, so there's too many to just list them all.

Anyone in particular you want to know about?

I have been thinking about setting up this campaign following your lead, but as you have already done the heavy lifting on the pre-gens it would be really helpful to have all of them to use to get the campaign started, it would save me a lot of work.

I don't suppose you set them up on ogg's character generator?

Nah, roll20.

I'll see what I can do though.

The only really hard part is sorting out the Spec to the character. You really gotta take a look at the old stats and hash out what slot they fit, and what the right combination of talents to skill is.

You have to "Unlearn what you have learned" a bit and really dig into the numbers because a lot of characters have job titles and backstories that don't really match their intended function within the campaign. In D6 it was no biggy because there was no class system, so they all had the stats they had. Now it can get a little tricky because you may read that a character's job is X, with a backstory of Y, but looking at his actual numbers you find he's really Spec A instead of the assumed Spec Z. So be ready to divorce the name of a Career and Spec from it's in-game function.

In the conversion sometimes it was pretty straight forward. Gorjaye as Hotshot/Squadron Leader, Doc Akensah is a Colonist Doc, and other obvious builds like that.

Other times you had to dissect the stats and look at what the character was actually designed to do. Gorak, though "Chief of security" and a former "Free Trader" is statistically a Bounty Hunter:Assassin, because he's a stone cold killer that tends to be rather stealthy. Thyte, a former fighter pilot turned operations officer after a crippling crash is a Commodore, because his in-game function is a kind of leader and buffer, his history as a pilot is completely overridden statistically, and more just a story/obligation note.

Some characters are a bit of head scratcher, and you may have to get really creative to make them even kinda work if you want to match the original design. My best example is Edly Falsak who, though technically a "gunner," ended up as a Diplomat:Agitator/Recruit with a decent gunnery skill. It was a little odd to deploy him like that, but he ended up playing pretty in-line with his fluff as a mediocre weapons guy, but a solid poop stirrer.

Bear in mind I made my original stats a while ago, so I might build them differently now, both because I have a better grasp of the mechanics and because Specs are available now that weren't before (which reminds me, I need to restat Dan Droga to actually be a Droid tech now that it's an option).

this website may help a little

http://www.dailydoserpg.com/rpg/index.html

click on the farstar link link to the left and on crew for the whole crew in ffg stats

Thanks I will take a look.

Edit: after a lot of searching on the site I found the farstar crew. These are great as NPC stats but would take a bit of work to convert them to pre-gen PCs. Not impossible and this gives me a good place to start.

yw

Ummm I suppose...

It's Darkstryder though, so there's too many to just list them all.

Anyone in particular you want to know about?

I have been thinking about setting up this campaign following your lead, but as you have already done the heavy lifting on the pre-gens it would be really helpful to have all of them to use to get the campaign started, it would save me a lot of work.

I don't suppose you set them up on ogg's character generator?

Nah, roll20.

I'll see what I can do though.

The only really hard part is sorting out the Spec to the character. You really gotta take a look at the old stats and hash out what slot they fit, and what the right combination of talents to skill is.

You have to "Unlearn what you have learned" a bit and really dig into the numbers because a lot of characters have job titles and backstories that don't really match their intended function within the campaign. In D6 it was no biggy because there was no class system, so they all had the stats they had. Now it can get a little tricky because you may read that a character's job is X, with a backstory of Y, but looking at his actual numbers you find he's really Spec A instead of the assumed Spec Z. So be ready to divorce the name of a Career and Spec from it's in-game function.

In the conversion sometimes it was pretty straight forward. Gorjaye as Hotshot/Squadron Leader, Doc Akensah is a Colonist Doc, and other obvious builds like that.

Other times you had to dissect the stats and look at what the character was actually designed to do. Gorak, though "Chief of security" and a former "Free Trader" is statistically a Bounty Hunter:Assassin, because he's a stone cold killer that tends to be rather stealthy. Thyte, a former fighter pilot turned operations officer after a crippling crash is a Commodore, because his in-game function is a kind of leader and buffer, his history as a pilot is completely overridden statistically, and more just a story/obligation note.

Some characters are a bit of head scratcher, and you may have to get really creative to make them even kinda work if you want to match the original design. My best example is Edly Falsak who, though technically a "gunner," ended up as a Diplomat:Agitator/Recruit with a decent gunnery skill. It was a little odd to deploy him like that, but he ended up playing pretty in-line with his fluff as a mediocre weapons guy, but a solid poop stirrer.

Bear in mind I made my original stats a while ago, so I might build them differently now, both because I have a better grasp of the mechanics and because Specs are available now that weren't before (which reminds me, I need to restat Dan Droga to actually be a Droid tech now that it's an option).

Ghost,did you ever manage to dig the characters out of roll20 for me?

this website may help a littlehttp://www.dailydoserpg.com/rpg/index.html

click on the farstar link link to the left and on crew for the whole crew in ffg stats

Thanks I will take a look.

Edit: after a lot of searching on the site I found the farstar crew. These are great as NPC stats but would take a bit of work to convert them to pre-gen PCs. Not impossible and this gives me a good place to start.

yw

And I forgot to say "thanks for doing the legwork on these, they will be really useful "