Has anyone tried a warship game?

By ColonelCommissar, in Star Wars: Age of Rebellion RPG

Managing starfighters is an interesting one here. Would you run it narratively, or have players rolling dice for it?

You've got a few options.

If the players all have starfighter pilots you want to roll it out like a normal encounter.

If it's all capship dudes, then just narrative the fighters.

If it's a mix, run both for a few rounds and then use the Arda mass combat rules to adjust the overall progress of the battle.

If you're doing a multi-character campaign like mine, everyone has a capship person, and everyone has a fighter pilot. You can either weave it all together, or do a kind of round robin where you cut to the fighters for a few turns, and back to the capship for a few turns, and then roll a mass combat to see how things are going.

I personally want to run a "carrier operations" style game, taking lots of ques from the Wing Commander series and Battlestar Galactica. Key roles would be CAG (commander, air group, maybe CSG in this case), maintenance officer, medical officer, intelligence officer, security officer/marine detachment commander. I would keep the position of ship's captain as an NPC though; I wouldn't want any of my PCs to "pull rank" within a game.

I'm debating heavily on how to tie in the starfighter aspect in this style of campaign. The main party wouldn't be manning the starfighters in this case unless it were a really small strike carrier of sorts. Maybe I could have the players play multiple PCs, with one group being a set of pilots. On the other hand, I like the idea of keeping the crews separate and maybe using the X-Wing miniatures game as something of a sideshow for the main RPG, which will determine the success of the various missions.

One thing I've thought of in such a set up is having people run two PC's. You have one group of PC's that operate as the command crew (so the captain, CAG, security chief etc etc) and then one group of lower level PC's who are junior officers and do the little grunt work. So these would be the guys who fly fighter squadrons (each PC could be in charge of their own squad). You could switch up the game play from missions and story arcs that focus on the main PC's and the challenges of being part of the command crew with missions and story arcs on being the junior officers (think of STNG episode Lower Decks).

If you wanted, you could start the players on one set of PCs (the bridge crew) to get them started, and have them flying a CR90. Once they got the hang of it you could move them up to a Nebulon-B and have a fighter unit assigned. Then you promote them to a Mon Cal cruiser for the Battle of Endor, have them as senior pilots in a whole wing, and switch the action between the capital ship battle and the starfighter battle (perhaps across a couple of sessions: do the initial starfighter clash with the fighter crews, the close-action engagement with the bridge crew, then attack the Death Star with the fighters at the end).

Edited by ColonelCommissar

The best concept I've toyed with in my head for such a game though is a BSG rip off in which the Yuuzhan Vong rip through and conquer the galaxy and what is left of the resistance is a rag tag group of fleets doing hit and run strikes.

Or set the campaign back a few decades, and you're ideally suited to a "lone wolf" rebel ship (possibly formerly imperial, but suffered a defection/mutiny) conducting raids on outlying Imperial outposts on the Rim. See also: Far Orbit.

You could but the Empire works on a different level. By using the Vong you can throw in concepts that wouldn't normal work together in a fashion similar to how BSG conditions forced Zarek and Rosalin to work together. A race that is less interested in ruling the galaxy and more interested in wiping out lesser species presents a different set of stories that I find intriquing and it kinda moves the game away from the standard Rebel vs Imperial situation. Not that it's a bad thing since AoR is a great game, just I toyed with the idea mostly to have a change of pace in the types of stories told.

In my AoR game, the PCs were put in charge of a Rebel attack on a supply convoy. Their characters were in a light freighter that was charged with boarding the disabled craft, but two of them were also in Y-Wings. I gave the PCs control over the Rebel forces, which consisted of a Corellian Corvette, a squadron of Y-Wings and three light freighters. One PC took control of the corvette, the Y-Wing pilots took control of their own ships and three wingmen (treated as a group of minions), and another PC took control of their light freighter and two wingmen (again, treated as a group of minions). As GM, I took control of the defenders, which consisted of a Star Galleon Armed Transport, 2 lightly-armed medium freighters and 4 heavily-armed ILH-KK Citadel-Class Light Freighters.

The AoR rules include maneuvers that work well for capital starships, primarily Concentrated Barrage, which prevents you from needing to roll for each individual turbolaser. And the minion/group rules work well to simplify entire squadrons of fighters.

The Y-Wings and Corvette together destroyed the Star Galleon, which dealt some pretty heavy damage to the Corvette as well. The 4 light freighters were eventually disabled and the medium freighters escaped into hyperspace.

In my AoR game, the PCs were put in charge of a Rebel attack on a supply convoy. Their characters were in a light freighter that was charged with boarding the disabled craft, but two of them were also in Y-Wings. I gave the PCs control over the Rebel forces, which consisted of a Corellian Corvette, a squadron of Y-Wings and three light freighters. One PC took control of the corvette, the Y-Wing pilots took control of their own ships and three wingmen (treated as a group of minions), and another PC took control of their light freighter and two wingmen (again, treated as a group of minions). As GM, I took control of the defenders, which consisted of a Star Galleon Armed Transport, 2 lightly-armed medium freighters and 4 heavily-armed ILH-KK Citadel-Class Light Freighters.

The AoR rules include maneuvers that work well for capital starships, primarily Concentrated Barrage, which prevents you from needing to roll for each individual turbolaser. And the minion/group rules work well to simplify entire squadrons of fighters.

The Y-Wings and Corvette together destroyed the Star Galleon, which dealt some pretty heavy damage to the Corvette as well. The 4 light freighters were eventually disabled and the medium freighters escaped into hyperspace.

That sounds like a pretty fun battle.

Now I really want Lead by Example and really want to play a Commander.

Managing starfighters is an interesting one here. Would you run it narratively, or have players rolling dice for it?

You've got a few options.

If the players all have starfighter pilots you want to roll it out like a normal encounter.

If it's all capship dudes, then just narrative the fighters.

If it's a mix, run both for a few rounds and then use the Arda mass combat rules to adjust the overall progress of the battle.

If you're doing a multi-character campaign like mine, everyone has a capship person, and everyone has a fighter pilot. You can either weave it all together, or do a kind of round robin where you cut to the fighters for a few turns, and back to the capship for a few turns, and then roll a mass combat to see how things are going.

I personally want to run a "carrier operations" style game, taking lots of ques from the Wing Commander series and Battlestar Galactica. Key roles would be CAG (commander, air group, maybe CSG in this case), maintenance officer, medical officer, intelligence officer, security officer/marine detachment commander. I would keep the position of ship's captain as an NPC though; I wouldn't want any of my PCs to "pull rank" within a game.

I'm debating heavily on how to tie in the starfighter aspect in this style of campaign. The main party wouldn't be manning the starfighters in this case unless it were a really small strike carrier of sorts. Maybe I could have the players play multiple PCs, with one group being a set of pilots. On the other hand, I like the idea of keeping the crews separate and maybe using the X-Wing miniatures game as something of a sideshow for the main RPG, which will determine the success of the various missions.

One thing I've thought of in such a set up is having people run two PC's. You have one group of PC's that operate as the command crew (so the captain, CAG, security chief etc etc) and then one group of lower level PC's who are junior officers and do the little grunt work. So these would be the guys who fly fighter squadrons (each PC could be in charge of their own squad). You could switch up the game play from missions and story arcs that focus on the main PC's and the challenges of being part of the command crew with missions and story arcs on being the junior officers (think of STNG episode Lower Decks).

My group often does setups like the above but we sometimes get up to three or four PCs per player. Possible breakdowns are all or some of one ground combatant per player, one fighter pilot per player, one capital ship crewman, per player, and one capital ship commander per player with one player being the commander of the group of ships and those who have no interest in command playing crewmen.

We keep them seperate but linked. For example the campagin might be set with the players as members of the Corellian secrtor forces. The ground troops will be attached to one unit, the the ship the capital ship crew runs is attached to a section, the group of capital ships run by players is a different section, and the fighter pilots are either on a base or a carrier that is part of a third section so they never get assigned the same missions or battles but actions of one group might still impact the others. For example the ground team might capture data which leads to a mission being assigned to one of the other teams, the fighter team might fail to take out a target and the capital ship be sent in as a second attempt or the capital ship might fail a mission and then the Imperial forces that the naval section faces in a later mission become stronger as a result.

Edited by RogueCorona

This game loves split parties, as well as multi disciplined characters. I can't see why you can't have 1 party that does everything, don't get me wrong 2 parties (or 3 for cap, fighter and ground) means specialists come to the fore. But if your group only meets fortnightly or monthly then you want to put as much time as possible into 1 character.

I could see:

Commodore/Diplomat in charge of ship and Face on the ground.

Rigger/Gadgeteer fixes the ships and is a heavy on the ground.

Medic/Analyst slices, does coms and helps repair, then is the medic and tough too

Peacekeeper/Squadron Leader leads the Fighters during space combat, and is the Driver on the ground, can be Pilot of the big ship too, all in the name of protecting the weak and oppressed

Pilot/Gambler is the Cap ship pilot with a shady background and a risk taker.

Seer is the Battle Meditation/Mind Trick/Sense specialist, useful in any situation, also able to scout

If I were to try that type of campaign my PCs would be low ranking officers and high ranking NCOs. I'd have the action revolve around mixtures of away missions with NPCs tagging along to provide firepower under the squad rules. The officers would be pilots and intelligence officers while the NCOs would be soldiers, saboteurs and commanders. I would have them get into situations where they would have to figure a way to best use their assets. I'd make sure that one or more of the situations to deal with would call to all the PCs so they wouldn't have to break up the team. I'd write the scenarios with die rolls to use if the NPCs are sent or if the PCs go so I could quickly deal with the NPC assignments and get on to the roleplaying. In classic cinematic mode all the threads would come together for a firefight with either the NPCs rolling in to rescue the PCs at the last minute or visa versa.

For space battles I'd have the pilot PCs running fighters and assault shuttles with the non pilots in the assault shuttles trying to take the enemy capital ships. I'd have the overall battle progress as the PCs progress. If the pilots are doing great then the overall space battle would be going great. If they are taking hits and not dealing any then the overall battle would go bad. Same way with the ship board actions.

As the PCs gain rank they would have more NPCs under their command and the assignments would be larger with them playing a greater role in their planning.

But first I need to get more than two players to show up each session. I almost got them killed off last week because the soldier player didn't show up and I am not a big fan of putting characters on auto pilot. I had a squad of marines show up and help them get through the rest of the session.

This game loves split parties, as well as multi disciplined characters. I can't see why you can't have 1 party that does everything, don't get me wrong 2 parties (or 3 for cap, fighter and ground) means specialists come to the fore. But if your group only meets fortnightly or monthly then you want to put as much time as possible into 1 character.

You could have 1 party that does it all. But I think in some situations it doesn't always make sense for the command crew to be constantly going on away missions. When you're in charge of a capital ship to some extent your adventuring days are kinda behind you. Which isn't to say that you can't run it with a single party, just that for some of us it doesn't always make sense to have the command crew adventuring.

It would of course come down to the type of ship your commanding, but the bigger the ship I think the less likely the captain and command staff is going to leave the ship to do some other adventures. So in that regards maintaining more than one character makes it easier to logically have people go on adventures so that the campaign can focus on different types of styles of play.

This game loves split parties, as well as multi disciplined characters. I can't see why you can't have 1 party that does everything, don't get me wrong 2 parties (or 3 for cap, fighter and ground) means specialists come to the fore. But if your group only meets fortnightly or monthly then you want to put as much time as possible into 1 character.

You could have 1 party that does it all. But I think in some situations it doesn't always make sense for the command crew to be constantly going on away missions. When you're in charge of a capital ship to some extent your adventuring days are kinda behind you. Which isn't to say that you can't run it with a single party, just that for some of us it doesn't always make sense to have the command crew adventuring.

It would of course come down to the type of ship your commanding, but the bigger the ship I think the less likely the captain and command staff is going to leave the ship to do some other adventures. So in that regards maintaining more than one character makes it easier to logically have people go on adventures so that the campaign can focus on different types of styles of play.

Your right there, the biggest ship captains would never explore distant uninhabited worlds (unless their last name is Picard!). i guess it comes down to how you structure the campaign and the characters. I was merely pointing out that if you want to only have 1 character to think about then its entirety possible.

After a little thought I realised this could be done in any of the 3 systems using only core book Specs, just depending on what the actual objective and history of the crew is. Crossing lines only gives more flavour and variety.

Your right there, the biggest ship captains would never explore distant uninhabited worlds (unless their last name is Picard!). i guess it comes down to how you structure the campaign and the characters. I was merely pointing out that if you want to only have 1 character to think about then its entirety possible.

After a little thought I realised this could be done in any of the 3 systems using only core book Specs, just depending on what the actual objective and history of the crew is. Crossing lines only gives more flavour and variety.

Yeah you could do it with a single party. I think it comes down to size of ship. I'm far more likely to find it reasonable for the command crew of a CR90 going off on adventures and away missions than I am to think that the command crew of a MC80.

I honestly lean more towards the command crew not going. That was one of the big things I enjoyed about BSG over Star Trek sometimes. Adama and Tigh pretty much stayed on the ship and commanded the action from CIC. It was more reasonable to me than the number of times Picard and Riker beamed away (granted maybe if BSG had transporters ......). One of the defining moments for Sisko, in my opinion, was when he had to take command of strategic fleet operations and couldn't go out on missions anymore. And that's one of the things I feel B5 did well too. Granted the command staff on B5 went on adventures too but it was rare for the entire staff to leave the station at once. So they did a good job of mixing it up.

Overall, sure I think it can be done with one set of characters, relevant to the size of the ship in question. I just think having more than one PC opens up more options for play. What ever works best for the group in question I suppose. I just lean more towards, the higher up the chain of command you move the closer you get to being behind that desk.

A capital ship game (whether it's an explorer/colonist-centric Edge of the Empire, task force Age of Rebellion, or roving training ship Force and Destiny) is definitely on the Bucket List of Campaign Ideas. It's an idea that's slightly outside of the norm, but every line supports it to a certain degree, and being outside of the norm just makes it more interesting.

It is, effectively, in the queue, and I can only hope that some day it gets to the front of the line.

Edit: Think I just got another Meet the Party idea . . .

Edited by Cannibal Halfling

More possibilities: EotE Colonists/scouts for Colonists. AoR resource finding/political support seeking ship. FaD Archeologist ship, searching for lost knowledge.

On the command crew debate, I can definitely see the command crew of a CR90 going ashore on missions - dropping off the cargo after a blockade run springs most directly to mind - since they have something a bit more piratical and informal to them in my view. They're also probably a bit more expendable. The command team on a Nebulon-B would most likely only go ashore in extreme circumstances though, and the Mon Cal cruiser likely wouldn't be abandoned. In my view running at least two lots of PCs would probably be needed: one to serve as the command crew and be the main focus, and one to man the starfighters and go ashore for plot advancement purposes.

The best concept I've toyed with in my head for such a game though is a BSG rip off in which the Yuuzhan Vong rip through and conquer the galaxy and what is left of the resistance is a rag tag group of fleets doing hit and run strikes.

Or set the campaign back a few decades, and you're ideally suited to a "lone wolf" rebel ship (possibly formerly imperial, but suffered a defection/mutiny) conducting raids on outlying Imperial outposts on the Rim. See also: Far Orbit.

You could but the Empire works on a different level. By using the Vong you can throw in concepts that wouldn't normal work together in a fashion similar to how BSG conditions forced Zarek and Rosalin to work together. A race that is less interested in ruling the galaxy and more interested in wiping out lesser species presents a different set of stories that I find intriquing and it kinda moves the game away from the standard Rebel vs Imperial situation. Not that it's a bad thing since AoR is a great game, just I toyed with the idea mostly to have a change of pace in the types of stories told.

Fair enough. Personally, I'm not a fan of BSG, so I'm not familiar with the exact concept or feel you're going for, and the Vong are the biggest reason that I'm happy about Disney taking over the franchise and scrapping their whole story, so I guess I approach that gaming idea from the exact opposite angle you do: I generally try to take an idea I like and see how best to fit it into the classic era Rebellion. Seems like the core concept is flexible enough to work pretty well in a variety of situations.

If you could manage to play the thousands of NPCs on board a capital ship and keep track of whatever accents and quirks you write them one could make command crew PCs campaign work without the Kirk Clause being engaged. A Nebulon B frigate is huge with dozens of levels, thousands of crew and all manner of problems that could arise requiring the crew to make hard choices. A list of adventure seeds could include the following...

The Alliance Frigate Storm Breaker, on a mission to disrupt the Empire's supply runs, while at a Alliance supply base in addition to the regular supplies picks up crew replacements. Once they are in hyperspace the fecal matter hits the rotary air displacement machine. A handful of the new crew are Imperial saboteurs. They set bombs in several key locations and make their way to the shuttle bay to escape. However, the PCs being blessed by fate the Chief Engineer (PC) finds one of the bombs and sounds the alarm. There are plenty of things to do and they need to be done fast. All without needing to leave the ship.

The Alliance Frigate Storm Breaker, returning from a mission to insert a team of instigators and saboteurs far behind Imperial lines, has a minor collision with a larger ship that is adrift and has lost power. Initial scans show the escape pods have been launched and there are no life signs. The ship appears to be an Imperial cargo vessel that mysteriously lost life support and the crew abandoned ship. The cargo bays are loaded with crates that would be beyond valuable to the Alliance. So they board and load the best of the cargo into whatever spaces they can and return to Alliance space. The crates are infected with some kind of oxygen eating fungus spores and shortly after going into hyperspace the oxygen levels start to drop drastically as the fast growing fungus spreads. Hilarity ensues.

Gotta bounce, but you get the idea. Running a capital ship is a complicated affair. It doesn't take much to cause big problems that need to be solved without leaving the ship.

If you could manage to play the thousands of NPCs on board a capital ship and keep track of whatever accents and quirks you write them one could make command crew PCs campaign work without the Kirk Clause being engaged. A Nebulon B frigate is huge with dozens of levels, thousands of crew and all manner of problems that could arise requiring the crew to make hard choices. A list of adventure seeds could include the following...

The Alliance Frigate Storm Breaker, on a mission to disrupt the Empire's supply runs, while at a Alliance supply base in addition to the regular supplies picks up crew replacements. Once they are in hyperspace the fecal matter hits the rotary air displacement machine. A handful of the new crew are Imperial saboteurs. They set bombs in several key locations and make their way to the shuttle bay to escape. However, the PCs being blessed by fate the Chief Engineer (PC) finds one of the bombs and sounds the alarm. There are plenty of things to do and they need to be done fast. All without needing to leave the ship.

The Alliance Frigate Storm Breaker, returning from a mission to insert a team of instigators and saboteurs far behind Imperial lines, has a minor collision with a larger ship that is adrift and has lost power. Initial scans show the escape pods have been launched and there are no life signs. The ship appears to be an Imperial cargo vessel that mysteriously lost life support and the crew abandoned ship. The cargo bays are loaded with crates that would be beyond valuable to the Alliance. So they board and load the best of the cargo into whatever spaces they can and return to Alliance space. The crates are infected with some kind of oxygen eating fungus spores and shortly after going into hyperspace the oxygen levels start to drop drastically as the fast growing fungus spreads. Hilarity ensues.

Gotta bounce, but you get the idea. Running a capital ship is a complicated affair. It doesn't take much to cause big problems that need to be solved without leaving the ship.

You know, this is exactly why certain characters, like doctors and engineers, are super paranoid and hyper vigilant.

@CC: Don't be surprised if Geoff starts testing all loot for bacteria and fungus.

Also, the idea of a ship based campaign isn't old. In the right hands, it can be quite effective. Just don't be surprised if the PCs want to have better than minion level crew.

@CC: Don't be surprised if Geoff starts testing all loot for bacteria and fungus.

Ah, don't be so paranoid :ph34r:

On the command crew debate, I can definitely see the command crew of a CR90 going ashore on missions - dropping off the cargo after a blockade run springs most directly to mind - since they have something a bit more piratical and informal to them in my view. They're also probably a bit more expendable. The command team on a Nebulon-B would most likely only go ashore in extreme circumstances though, and the Mon Cal cruiser likely wouldn't be abandoned. In my view running at least two lots of PCs would probably be needed: one to serve as the command crew and be the main focus, and one to man the starfighters and go ashore for plot advancement purposes.

Not necessarily...

Remember the command crew is also the people most appropriate for representing the ship (and the government/organization they represent) in all official matters. So it's actually just as, if not more, likely that the command crew of a large warship will have to go in person to deal with official matters. How would you feel as the Grand Poobah of some colony or undiscovered world to have a kilometer long warship show up and the representative they send to deal with you be some junior officer or enlistedman not authorized to make big command level decisions?

If you want a real nasty real world example look up operation catapult, where a fleet admiral sent a captain to negotiate a surrender instead of going himself. Didn't go well...

If you want the more sci-fi version, Kirk went down all the time, Picard didn't go as much, but he did when he needed to and he sent the command crew down for everything, and Janeway would go down from time to time too.

If you are really against having the captain go down, make the captain an NPC.

On my ship running multiple characters has worked fine. I had to do a few tweaks to ensure it worked, but so far there's been no major issues and I haven't had to house rule much at all. In my experience depending on the character selection they have you need 3-4 characters per player. A Command level character for most encounters, a fighter jock to cover the space battles, and 1-2 support crew to fill things out (this will usually be shooters, nerds, techs, and scoundrels). We resolved advancement by the players getting a pool of XP per adventure they can spend on any of their characters. To discourage the players from dumping it all in one, I remind everyone that with a full crew, and multiple characters, there's no reason for the GM to pull any punches, so character death is totally possible.

There's some other details, but nothing really noticable when it comes to actual play.

Edited by Ghostofman

Certainly, playing the Battle of Endor as a Mon Cal cruiser would be awesome

Well, right up until you experience firsthand the firepower of the fully armed and operation battle station...

Certainly, playing the Battle of Endor as a Mon Cal cruiser would be awesome

Well, right up until you experience firsthand the firepower of the fully armed and operation battle station...

The first time a player proclaims it to be a trap, I will give them 10 Conflict...

How would you feel as the Grand Poobah of some colony or undiscovered world to have a kilometer long warship show up and the representative they send to deal with you be some junior officer or enlistedman not authorized to make big command level decisions?

The flipside of this is that, in all likelihood, it would be far more "In the Style of the Republic" to send a diplomatic mission. It may very well arrive in a warship (especially as a Mon Cal ship, crewed mostly by Mon Cal, but also Quarren, Ishi Tib, Humans, and others...but with a fighter complement of a variety of species as well is a a great symbol of the diverse and cooperative nature of the Republic), but it is also likely to include a delegation from the Diplomatic Corps, which would be responsible for interfacing with the various levels of the planetary Poobahry.

In this case, it'd again make perfectly good sense for the players to run multiple characters. Were it my game, I'd likely have the leader of the diplomatic delegation to be run by a player other than the one who does the fleet admiral. I'd try to have each player that wanted to do so to be able to run the "leader" of some aspect of the charter. So in fleet engagements, one player is the fleet admiral, for diplomatic missions, a different player is the Republic ambassador (with other players being junior diplomats, assistants (like Winter), security, records-keeping, etc.), for "covert ops" another player is the team leader, for the fighter wing complement, another player still can be the wing commander/squadron leader, and in the ground forces, another player is the general (if it's a big force), or a lower ranked leader of a smaller force.

Obviously, there's not likely to be an even mix of all of these types of action, so it's important to have an open discussion with the player group prior to picking spots and drawing characters, and have everyone work out what their positions will be.

You could but the Empire works on a different level. By using the Vong you can throw in concepts that wouldn't normal work together in a fashion similar to how BSG conditions forced Zarek and Rosalin to work together. A race that is less interested in ruling the galaxy and more interested in wiping out lesser species presents a different set of stories that I find intriquing and it kinda moves the game away from the standard Rebel vs Imperial situation. Not that it's a bad thing since AoR is a great game, just I toyed with the idea mostly to have a change of pace in the types of stories told.

Fair enough. Personally, I'm not a fan of BSG, so I'm not familiar with the exact concept or feel you're going for, and the Vong are the biggest reason that I'm happy about Disney taking over the franchise and scrapping their whole story, so I guess I approach that gaming idea from the exact opposite angle you do: I generally try to take an idea I like and see how best to fit it into the classic era Rebellion. Seems like the core concept is flexible enough to work pretty well in a variety of situations.

I liked the Vong but hated the story execution of the NJO period. So I see the Vong as a salvagable concept that can work as an enemy if you removed it from the NJO nonsense. I do think the Empire can do a lot but their stories are fundamently different.

Not necessarily...

Remember the command crew is also the people most appropriate for representing the ship (and the government/organization they represent) in all official matters. So it's actually just as, if not more, likely that the command crew of a large warship will have to go in person to deal with official matters. How would you feel as the Grand Poobah of some colony or undiscovered world to have a kilometer long warship show up and the representative they send to deal with you be some junior officer or enlistedman not authorized to make big command level decisions?

I think it boils down to mission. I think the problem is that not every mission you'd run in such a game would be important enough to send the captian down. Thus keeping the command crew involved in all the missions can become difficult. For instance, sure the captian may go speak with representives from another planet that the Alliance is trying to woo to their cause, but he's not likely to go on a mission to inflitrate a Imperial base. Running the command crew will obivously change up the styles of missions you can run and I think in some ways that can be limiting.

Certainly, playing the Battle of Endor as a Mon Cal cruiser would be awesome

Well, right up until you experience firsthand the firepower of the fully armed and operation battle station...

The first time a player proclaims it to be a trap, I will give them 10 Conflict...

My son plays a Mon Calmari and we are playing the "Dead in the Water" module that came with the GM Kit. As soon as the droids attacked he yelled "It's a TRAP!" He was quite pleased with himself.