I agree with HappyDaze. It's an adventure of several disjoint parts that don't really fit together. It doesn't help that what for me is the most interesting part of the scenario, the soap opera surrounding the bidders in the auction, is only a small part of the scenario. I remember tinkering with the adventure a lot to make it fit my players.

While I haven't played it (yet?), I agree with Daze and Njae. JoY feels terribly constructed and I have to say that most of the other adventures (Arda, Rim, the starting adventure in AoR) feel a bit weak too. To my mind a lot of connections don't make sense, too much is crammed in and I feel the players are railroaded down a track that no one would take. Instead of the race, for example, I would have forged tickets, sucked-up to one of the big bidders to get an invitation or conned the seller into believing I was a rich guy wanting to bid high. That makes much more sense than the race AND it allows a low enough profile to not ping any security alerts to any of the many security agents involved (the seller's goons, Bespin security, ISB,...).

No disrespect to the writer intended, I like the adventures anyway because of the background material they provide. Especially JoY. While I feel that the set-up (important race at Bespin and a high-class auction) totally contradict Lando's statements in "The Empire strikes back" (about the operation being too small for the empire to notice) and the string of events feeling artificial, I really like the depth of the background on Bespin, the characters and the artwork provided. If you tear the adventures apart, rearrange the pieces, add 50% your own story you will get a lot of mileage out of the products. That's why I will continue to buy future adventures.

P.S.: To the writers: I suck as a GM and I couldn't have written better adventures. This is a lock-down-on-anybody post. I REALLY appreciate your material and creative energy.

Guessing my GM altered the adventure. We didn't use the race to get in. We used it to impress a bidder after we were already in. He and another bidder had a rivalry and there was a bragging rights thing going on between them. We ...umm... affected a pilot's ability to fly and then our pilot stepped in to take his place. He won and we made big points with the bidder...

My group actually turned things around and snitched on Aris and her father and then jetted away from Bespin. They just didn't care to pull a heist at all, and I was OK with this since I found this adventure really weak overall.

Can I ask what you found weak? I haven't read through the whole thing yet... just the descriptive parts at the beginning. I was working up to getting my PC's interested. So I'm not prepping to debate you or anything. I'm honestly curious.

The race feels really forced, especially as it's just a way to get into the auction. Why do the race at all, when you could instead forge invitations to the gala or do anything that would draw less attention. In fact that's what really bugged me - the guys doing the heist shouldn't be the same ones trying to jack up the bid. This adventure would work so much better by splitting the party for most of it, but this tends to be a real pain in the ass to GM. Oh, and the race...I just want to be clear that it seemed totally forced into the storyline.

Strangely for my players, the race is what they were most excited about and put the most effort into. It was harder to get them to focus on planning the heist. Then my group do try and find a swoop race on most every planet they visit as the team pilot and mechanic seem to be real thrill seekers.

I did change the story up a little though to give it more time and had the race at the beginning, but the gala happening 3 days after the race, so they could enjoy them more as separate entities, with time to prep the race and then prep the heist and party. Also, in my game they have been hired to see the Shen's to do the heist but send the money elsewhere using a specially created computer spike by another old enemy of the family...so my group are doing the job to actually mess with the Shen's on behalf of someone far more powerful (they also get a cut of the funds transferred, but I can control how much a little easier).

For me the most boring, overly complicated and seemingly irrelevant party of the story is the actual party and trying to raise the bids. It'd have been a lot simpler to have said the high bid will be X and all things being equal this is the order of who is most likely to make that bid and who definitely will not have been the top bidder. The drama at the party is interesting for role play and would be more so if the team ignored worrying about the bids.

At this moment my team are at the party with the actual theft to take place, but they have made preparations ready for it and will split into two groups (one for the jewel, one for the droid).

That's what I mean: the race is really OK and if that's what your players like: go for it and forget about the heist. It just felt artificial to me to connect the two in this way.

I think the race is there in case there is a pilot in the group and allow him to shine a bit.

I think the race would have mattered more if it had been connected with the bidders greater; There is a Hutt team after all and not every person is going to be overly invested in the race

I guess the adventure is largely about producing an ambundance of material, so that the DM can either connect the dots or leave it. Otherwise the complaint might be it's too structured and left too little room for DM interpretation.

E.g. These campiagns are unlikely to work for every set of players, so cherry pick the best and recycle what you don't use.

... so that the DM can either connect the dots or leave it. ... too little room for DM interpretation.

No D in EotE, no DM either!

(Sorry, couldn't resist)

If they do fail, give them repercussions that would allow them to retry, seeing that planning is important. Get them arrested, and make it easy enough for them to escape so they can say "Ok, lets think about this and do it smarter." Especially if they have to plan to get out of jail. Which, in a side note, I would love to start a session in jail and have to break out, it would be fun.

The race was a big thing for our group. We already did racing both as s way to make money and as cover for travelling around the different planets.

We liked the adventure overall. A lot of crazy stuff happened. But I understand groups vary.

... so that the DM can either connect the dots or leave it. ... too little room for DM interpretation.

No D in EotE, no DM either!

(Sorry, couldn't resist)

Episode IV had Leia locked up it the bowels of the Death Star.

Episode V had Han, Chewie, and Leia locked up in Cloud City.

Episode VI had Chewie, Luke, and Leia locked up in Jabba's palace.

I'm sure that there is plenty of D if you look deep enough.

Episode IV had Leia locked up it the bowels of the Death Star.

Episode V had Han, Chewie, and Leia locked up in Cloud City.

Episode VI had Chewie, Luke, and Leia locked up in Jabba's palace.

I'm sure that there is plenty of D if you look deep enough.

OK, D in the classical sense, but not in the classical RPG sense. They didn't purposely enter, kill monsters to get treasure and, NO, the rancor does not count.

If the players find alternative ways into the gala, to fix the cloud car race, to break into the exhibition room or whatever, there is not stopping you from going off-script. We did some heavy cheating in the cloud car race: one of the players exploited the abrasiveness of the Hutt driver and his gambling problem by setting up a sabacc game where he tricked him into believing his copilot had cheated, while the others sabotaged the two main competitor's cars. During the gala we dove into the soap opera and used the rivalries to drive up the price, but in several ways the adventure had not outlined. We also backstabbed the Shens but mostly ignored the security firms. So we didn't keep to the vanilla plot but still followed it in broad terms. As it is, JoY provides a mission and a framework for that mission, but many of the scenes can be omitted. You don't need to race, you can bluff your way in to the gala. You don't need to mess around with the auction at the gala, you can do pre-gala work on the bidders. The only thing you really need to to is to try to steal the jewel and reroute the bank transfer, and even those can be fudged. If your players don't want to play a heist adventure, JoY might not be the adventure for them.

Well my team finished the Jewel of Yavin adventure now and I didn't exactly run it to the way it is written.

The team won the race, got into the gala and even got the star-crossed lovers together. They managed to get some of the bids raised through deception and force powers and the final bid was £250k and it was Vorse they got to pay it (as they didn't want to rip off a Hutt).

So after the gala one team stole the banking droid and sliced it with the spike they'd been given by their true employer (not Shens, even though the Shens thought they were, but the Black Suns) and transferred the funds perfectly to an unknown account.

The other team left and went up the wind tunnel where they had made preparations earlier and broke into the museum. They faced Elaiza and our force sensitive Wookie convinced her to let them steal the jewel on the basis they'd help her get a new saber crystal (using a Force and Destiny adventure later). They stunned all of the guards, but after making an earlier deal with the Defel, they made it appear that he'd been killed and thrown into the wind tunnel and his doom (though really he was off to start a new life of crime).

They handed the jewel over to the Shens and told them that the funds would be coming over in due course and left for their ship to see what the morning would bring once the theft was discovered.

To their surprise, shortly after the theft was discovered, the team bounty hunter found a dead or alive bounty posting for Ahrend Shen and an imperial bounty for Grayson.

So the team hunted down Ahrend and took the bounty (dead, so he couldn't talk) and re-stole the Jewel (which he had on his ship). When the Wing Guard arrived, the Bounty Hunter showed her license and the valid bounty and was able to walk away (they never checked her for the jewel).

The team also has a Marshal who claimed the "Venture" ship was part of an investigation and impounded the ship (and convinced the Wing Guard of the case after they'd searched the ship), so the team also stole the ship.

After all this they left Bespin and headed back to Ryloth where they got paid their 30% cut of the sliced funds by their Black Sun recruiter (who now told them who they were working for) and then they went to a contact whom they had used once before (and still do not know that the Bothan is part of the Rebellion) to get the BoSS database sliced to register the Venture as being bequeathed to them (at the cost of 30k).

They then met with Elaiza as agreed previously on Tatooine and actually gave her them Jewel of Yavin in the end, and she agreed to train the Wookie in the true ways of a Jedi Knight and went back to their base on Ryloth with them to conduct a few weeks of training.

This is pretty much the summary of how it all went and they are now pretty flush for cash and have a nice new luxury ship to go with their YT-1300, but they did unfortunately get the attention of Zerka Fol who will be certain to make an appearance (they got her attention by trying to convince her [fake] mining corporation to invest in their mine and budding starport...considering they mine spice, this may not have been the best attention to attract).

They team had a great day with dice rolls and got quite a few triumphs and no despairs...so that really helped the adventure outcome...the Force was with them!

A lot of stuff

Ah, this I like. I think the adventure is pretty well put together, but obviously not every group should approach it the same way. The race is that kinda wonky part that may feel shoehorned in, especially since it has that feeling of "major event that NEEDS to happen!" Of course, the pilot is facing some decent competition, and a couple of bad rolls mean "Ha! You lose!" Which is then followed up by "Oh! But you make it to the gala anyway!" When I finally run it, I'll be adding a couple of points. First off, the race will be entirely optional. Forged invitations or tagging along with the bigwigs will be called out as viable options. Second, just participating in the race will be enough to get into the ball. That's just how it goes every year. The perk of being the winner is the prize money, and that everyone wants to be seen with you. Fat bonuses to pretty much every social encounter at the gala.

Well my team finished the Jewel of Yavin adventure now and I didn't exactly run it to the way it is written.

Actually it sounds pretty much like an ideal solution and I think the writer(s?) would accept this as "according to script". The players are supposed to move the story along in the FFG system, after all.

Well my team finished the Jewel of Yavin adventure now and I didn't exactly run it to the way it is written.

Actually it sounds pretty much like an ideal solution and I think the writer(s?) would accept this as "according to script". The players are supposed to move the story along in the FFG system, after all.

I've run games long enough to know that it is hard to run a game completely as written and that they need to be tailored for your players for everyone to have fun.

A lot of stuff

Ah, this I like. I think the adventure is pretty well put together, but obviously not every group should approach it the same way. The race is that kinda wonky part that may feel shoehorned in, especially since it has that feeling of "major event that NEEDS to happen!" Of course, the pilot is facing some decent competition, and a couple of bad rolls mean "Ha! You lose!" Which is then followed up by "Oh! But you make it to the gala anyway!" When I finally run it, I'll be adding a couple of points. First off, the race will be entirely optional. Forged invitations or tagging along with the bigwigs will be called out as viable options. Second, just participating in the race will be enough to get into the ball. That's just how it goes every year. The perk of being the winner is the prize money, and that everyone wants to be seen with you. Fat bonuses to pretty much every social encounter at the gala.

My team loved the race and really modded up the cloud car to give them an edge and the Twi'lek bounty hunter bad girl made sure the pilot of the corporate team wasn't well rested the night before the race!!! At the party the team pilot lapped up all the attention, being something of the fame hungry gal she is, and danced with many a person including Lando when he made his appearance.

It took them a while to figure how and when to influence the bids, but I liked the way they got into the spirit of it and how they knew who they didn't want to have the winning bid, so they'd not be upsetting yet another powerful Hutt (having just got out of service to Jabba after the Teemo incident).

Good luck with you adventure and what you have said all sounds viable options for the story.

If your group is not the planning type, trying to force them to plan is not going to go well. It won't be fun for them and likely not for you either. All the "teach them a lesson" advice is likely to lead to some unfun sessions.

You can either ditch the adventure (which is difficult since you paid for it), or you could alter it to work as run and gun. The latter is more likely to lead to more fun at the table, so I would do that.