I am GMing beyond the rim and last session the players messed up so much that I am unsure on how to proceed with the story.

So far the PCs have:

Lost the IT-3PO droid to the yiyar clan, didn't notice the ISB tracking device, destroyed the nightflyer (the droid was inside) during a dogfight in the skies of Cholgana, spend 14 days searching the aft engine section and finally they killed captain Harsol outside of the main hull ruin WHILE leaving survivors.

Now I am at a loss on how to proceed, I don't know how Cratala and the rest of the survivors should react to the PCs when the PCs find the camp, when will the empire arrive, how will the survivors react when the empire arrive etc.

I welcome any advice on how to continue the story.

Well with Harsol dead the loss of IT-3PO is kind of irrelevant as far as I can remember so that actually ties off that wrinkle. :V

The obvious outcome to their situation is that the survivors return to their camp, warn everyone the PCs are invading marauders, and when said PCs show up they're faced with a camp of angry and armed survivors that outnumber them several dozen to one. This will undoubtedly be considered a failure on their part by Reom and it's very unlikely he'll pay them at all, and I wouldn't be surprised if their Obligation to him (If any) actually increased as a result of their bungling the job.

But, I think a more interesting solution would be that the survivors are delayed in getting back to their camp by wildlife, injuries, whatever. This gives the PCs a chance to find the main camp before word of what they've done reaches Cratala and the rest, allowing them to approach peacefully after passing some Charm or Deception checks. It also makes things more interesting if they have some time to build up rapport and trust with the camp before the other survivors of Harsol's group return with their tale.

Another way out is for Cratala to be secretly grateful for Harsol's death, as it frees the camp from his paranoia, and approach them with an offer to get her and her research off the planet--unfortunately they'll need to sneak into the camp at nightfall to retrieve it, but she gives them all the intel they need to do so.

And then of course feel free to have the Empire show up whenever is dramatically appropriate.

The PCs don't know where the camp is, this is easily rectified by having hack one of the B1 droid, see the route they took to the main hull ruin and trace it back.

Now about the survivors arriving at the camp after the PCs: the 2 survivors left with 2 reevos AND the PCs have to patch themselves up (one is 2-3 strain away from fainting and another is (after stimmpacks and medicine checks) 2-3 wounds below threshold and missing an arm) and in addition they have no vehicle other than their ship. With all that in mind I find it very implausible that the PCs arrive at the camp before the survivors.

About Cratala being grateful for getting rid of Harsol 's paranoia: yeah that could work, sure it will be difficult getting Cratala to trust them after what they did and they would have to sneak into the camp to be able to talk to her,this could be very interesting.

If I remember correctly, half the camp is against Harsol anyway, so that faction will likely be pleased. The basic motivation for most of the survivors would be (I would think) to escape from their isolation, so any player action that plays to that will get good traction. Cratala is terrified of the Empire (or does she still think it's the Republic?), but is so intellectually oriented that any promise of new work in a fully stocked laboratory will be appealing. Drizzle hints in those directions as needed.

The survivors know about the empire, it was the empire that hunted them.

Yeah about half the camp is against Harsol but being against someone is one thing but hearing that he was cut in half by a Zabrak welding a lightsaber is another thing, especially considering that until Harsol died they were shooting to stun and not to kill while the PCs were shooting to kill from the beginning.

Well, if they kill Harsol on first sight, they will also probably slaughter Cratala and the rest of the survivors.

Well, maybe you change how many in the camp hate Harsol, you don't have to stick with what is written. I'm curious how the fight with Harsol started. In the module he's pretty ready to use force to make the players come with him, and I remember thinking that was one aspect of the module that was very poorly written. Nothing worse than telling players, who are fully armed, that they *have* to do something under threat of violence, it's an invitation for them to fight back, stun guns or not. I disliked it enough to rewrite that part entirely.

So maybe Harsol was just too much of a hard case among his own people. Maybe his minions are just thugs that keep everyone afraid, and now the PCs will be "greeted as liberators"...lol.

But if the PCs just opened fire, then that's probably what they'll do if/when they find the camp. Without knowing your players though, it's hard to suggest anything. Do the players care about the plot or rewards from Reom? Are they motivated by money, obligation, prestige, mere survival? Or do they want to kill everything and take the loot? If you're okay with that kind of thing, then a ******-and-grab of Cratala and/or her log books would make a valuable prize. Some of the survivors might fight at first, but most will probably scatter and flee (they know good hiding places, one would have to assume) so you don't have to let the PCs slaughter the whole camp.

If you're not okay with that, then you may have to send the PC's packing and do something else entirely. Unless the survivors are relieved to be rid of Harsol, I don't see a way to salvage the situation diplomatically. The Imperials give you the freedom to up the ante or chase them away as needed.

Of course, you could always get punitive: make the survivors much more powerful, have the Imperials show up, blow up the PC's ship and simply leave, and the last scene is them fleeing into the jungle pursued by an angry mob, and...fade to black. Then, pick up the narrative: "It's been 20 years since you escaped the survivor's wrath and somehow you managed to eek out a feeble existence on this forsaken planet. You catch a glimpse of your reflection in a nearby pool...you're old and grey, with a beard down to your knees, which is good, because you have no clothes..."

...may not be entirely fair. If you don't like how the players are playing (maybe they just shoot everything they see), then you need to have a discussion with them about those kinds of expectations. But other than that, the players can't really "mess up". The game shouldn't be a train track, and having the players go off the rails is part of the reality of GMing. Your story, the module, the smallest encounter...you have to expect everything to be in a state of flux that is only settled once the events are in the past. If you try too hard to adhere to a story, or a module like this, it's bound to backfire.

EDIT: FFG boards did some ridiculous word blocking up there. These automated filters have no sense of context...

Harsol did attack them but he ordered his men and droids to set their blasters on stun (so that he could capture and interrogate them, remember that the PCs didn't have the droid so Harsol thought them salvagers), the PCs were the ones that started shooting to kill and not to stun and it was after Harsol was killed that his men and droids started shooting to kill.

Yes I fear that the PCs will try shooting their way into the camp but by that would go very differently because they are badly outnumbered.

About the messed up, I meant it about the plan and mission.

It's still a poorly written part of the module. From the PC's perspective, if Harsol is shooting on stun, maybe he just wants fresh meat, or to torture them later, there's no way for them to know. So you either have to have overwhelming odds so the PCs can wake up and see what really happened, or find a different way to lead them to the camp.

Well, maybe you change how many in the camp hate Harsol, you don't have to stick with what is written. I'm curious how the fight with Harsol started. In the module he's pretty ready to use force to make the players come with him, and I remember thinking that was one aspect of the module that was very poorly written. Nothing worse than telling players, who are fully armed, that they *have* to do something under threat of violence, it's an invitation for them to fight back, stun guns or not. I disliked it enough to rewrite that part entirely.

Out of curiosity how did you rewrite it? I came to the same conclusion myself while previewing it for later use in my campaign, and I decided Harsol would approach them alone on foot to talk while the rest of his men and droids were concealed in the trees covering him. Strikes a decent balance between Harsol not being an idiot while also not having him be paranoid to the point where there's no possibility for peaceful exchange, and still offering the opportunity for a decent combat encounter if things go sideways.

Did they leave anyone guarding their ship?

If the survivors get back to the camp first there's no reason you can't have one of them realise the newcomers must have their own ship so fortify their defences in case the PCs find them before Cratala figures out a way to locate their ship and if left unprotected that 14 days whose to say their ship wasn't located and they find the camp to discover their ship there and the survivors packing up to flee offworld!

As your PCs realise attacking isn't in their best interest have the Imperials turn up and now to get offworld they either help fend off the attackers or once the Imperial ship lands they wait for them to head towards the camp and try to seize their ship instead!

Really depends on what they do at this point!

As being said, overwhelmed and reset. Show them what's really going on and push for compromise and some social encounter to happen to mediate the mess created. Also, I support the idea of total failure and returning to Reom, getting no pay and receiving obligation. They clearly about to botch the job in your scenario... which is great for a story, growing out of failures is awesome.

As being said, overwhelmed and reset. Show them what's really going on and push for compromise and some social encounter to happen to mediate the mess created. Also, I support the idea of total failure and returning to Reom, getting no pay and receiving obligation. They clearly about to botch the job in your scenario... which is great for a story, growing out of failures is awesome.

It's not a total failure, they managed to kill 2 cyber-nexu so that means that they have 2 prototype cybernetics.

It's still a poorly written part of the module. From the PC's perspective, if Harsol is shooting on stun, maybe he just wants fresh meat, or to torture them later, there's no way for them to know. So you either have to have overwhelming odds so the PCs can wake up and see what really happened, or find a different way to lead them to the camp.

I agree that it's a weak part of the story (since there is a chance for the PCs to lose the droid) but then again you can have non murder-hobos PCs who don't shoot (to kill) the man that they know they can make a deal with and help them.

Out of curiosity how did you rewrite it? I came to the same conclusion myself while previewing it for later use in my campaign, and I decided Harsol would approach them alone on foot to talk while the rest of his men and droids were concealed in the trees covering him. Strikes a decent balance between Harsol not being an idiot while also not having him be paranoid to the point where there's no possibility for peaceful exchange, and still offering the opportunity for a decent combat encounter if things go sideways.

I've run the module twice for different groups. First time I included the first act, but decided that the rival Rodian clan shows up after the players explore the ship, and then Harsol (alerted by the droid, once on arrival, and once when the Rodians attack), came in as reinforcements to help drive the Rodians off. Starting off as potential allies makes things a lot easier.

The second time I skipped the entire first act, leading to Cholgana with a different background and plot, so Harsol was kind of irrelevant. Instead I had survivor scouts hanging around the ship, who, after years of no contact, weren't being very careful in their scouting and were discovered by the players pretty quickly. When the scouts saw they were discovered, they tried to flee and started screaming about "the Imperials have found us!" One of the scouts, when cornered, pulled his blaster and said "You'll never torture me, Imperial dogs!" and then tried to shoot himself. The players intervened with a stun blast, proceeded to question him and assure him they weren't Imperials.

Basically in both cases setting up some reason to be sympathetic towards the people they need to work with.

They wasted 14 days poking around the stern section?! They do realize they're on the clock right? I realize the book leaves it up to the GM's discretion, but IIRC it also suggests the longest the Imperials take to get there is a few days. With 14 days passed, I'd imagine the Imperials have come to the camp, taken Cratala and her tech, left the occupying force, and are on the way back with reinforcements to collect the rest of the survivors. You did have an encounter w/ Harsol though, so maybe you could just have the Imps arrive to put things on track (and handwave the time that has passed). Though, with the amount of time which has passed you could also feel free to add all kinds of treasure hunters who've had time to get there by now.

No the PCs didn't know that they are on a clock (since they blew yiyar clan's ship to smithereens)

Anyway thank you all for your ideas, we played the last session two days ago and it ended the campaign, I will post the details later.

I'm curious how you handled it. Did they invade the camp guns blazing?

I'm curious how you handled it. Did they invade the camp guns blazing?

Quick answer:

Thankfully no, they went there for delivering the body of Harsol and managed to negotiate with Cratala.

So what happened:

The players hacked some of the B1 the droids that Harsol has brought along with him, they found the route that the droids have taken from the camp to the main hull site, took off with their ship and spend a day in atmosphere (dressing wounds etc.), corralated the video they get from the droids with the maps they have made from their previous scans, scanned a couple possible locations for the survivor's camp and finally (through a very lucky roll) found the survivor camp.

2 of them with harnesses into the forest at extreme range from the camp and walked there, when they neared the camp they said that they wanted to return the body of captian Harsol, they leave their gear outside the camp and are allowed to enter, there Cratala talkes to them alone and they manage to convince them that they aren't raiders or empire agents.

Then Cratala says to them that he wants to get off planet and and they manage to negotiate a deal for her and Reom, she tells them that they need to either sneak her out of the camp or (somehow) convince the rest of the camp to let them take her or convince the camp to let them take the whole camp somewhere else.

Then the 2 PCs depart in order to discuss what they want to do, they discuss various solutions and they even manage to find a nearby (barely) colinized planet to drop off the refugees if they have to take them all, and they decide to try to talk to them and see what they accomplish.

3 of them go again in the survivors' camp and try to talk to them, at the beggining they try to convince them that they aren't raiders and that they don't mean them harm... and they fail. That's the moment that the empire arrives, chaos breaks through the camp with the survivors scrambling in panic and preparation, then Cratala tells the PC, who was left on the ship, about their hangar and he gets their ship (a YT-1300) inside.

The 3 PCs in the suvivors' camp go into the laboratory in order for Cratala to get her staff and a copy of her research (and for Cratala to make sure her research doesn't end up in the hands of the empire), after that is done the 3 PCs along with Cratala and her staff break into a sprint for the hangar, the rest of the survivors see them and they follow them (one of the survivors stays behind in order to let the beasts free) and then **** start hitting the fan.........

As soon as the PCs, Cratala and her staff get on board the droid PC piloting the ship (the one who was in the ship in the first place) tries to close the "hangar door" while a bunch of survivors try to get on board, one of PCs helps them get into the ship so, that those trying to get onboard, aren't cut in half and the ship takes off.

Now a number of things happen almost simultaneously:

1) The empire scout ship moves to intercept the PC ship

2) One of the PCs rushes to the cockpit while shouting to the droid PC to turn back so they pick up the rest of the survivors

3) The 5 survivors who managed to get into the ship threaten to start shooting if they don't turn back to pick the rest of the survivors

And now have the following situation:

1) The ship airborne and is headed for space

2) The droid PC in the pilot's seat preparing to outrun/fight the empire ship

3) One PC in the bottom gunnery preparing to fight the empire ship

4) One PC rushing to the cockpit

5) One PC at the (for the moment) closed hangar door along with Cratala, her staff and the 5 survivors who have drawn their weapons.

The PC in the hangar tries to convince the 5 survivors to help them fight the empire ship and when they are victorious they can go back for the rest of the survivors, sadly he fails.

The PC who was heading for the cockpit reaches the cockpit, the droid PC (who was piloting) locks the cockpit door, the PC outside the cockpit door seeing that it's locked opens it, with his lightsaber

The deep dark empire ship moves to interecept (in one round will be in weapon's range)

And then.....

The droid PC piloting the ship opens the ship's hangar and starts flying the ship with barrel rolls and such so that people start falling and.... Cratala, and some of the survivors fall to their death while the PC there along with Cratala's staff and some of the survivors manage to hold on.

In the following rounds the battle with the deep dark starts, the PC outside of the cockpit (which was thrown out of the cockpit) tries to reach the cock pit, the PC in the hangar closes the hangar door, the droid PC opens it again and now the PC in the hangar, Cratala's staff and the rest of the survivors fall to their death.

The battle with the deep dark isn't going well for the PCs, the droid PC tries to enter hyperspace while inside the atmosphere and fails, the PC trying to get into the cockpit sees that he can't make it and goes into an escape pod and lands on the planet, the droid PC tries again the hyperspace thing and fails again so he and the PC in the gunnery get into another escape pod and land on the planet.

That's where the session and the game ended*.

I narrated what happened down on Cholgana, the PC who was trying to get to the cockpit and stop the droid PC round up the survivors who were left behind (6 persons who didn't die from the empire or the beasts) along with Cratala (she survived) and the PC who has fallen to his death (he also survived).

In the following days, together they managed to steal two hyperspace capable pods from the deep dark and leave Cholgana.

In the following weeks the droid PC and the gunnery PC managed to repair the survivors' shuttle and they also left Cholgana.

*the session ended because the time was 4 AM and the game was going to end either way because of real life issues (jobs, end of vacation etc.)

PS. I didn't write ALL of the session (it was a 7+ hour session) and this post is long enough as it is, if anyone wants to learn more about something please ask.

A great podcast's new episode handles aspects of the problem, you should check it out- http://www.madadventurers.com/tales-from-the-hydian-way-episode-72-the-new-path-tale/#more-16896

The droid PC sounds like an utter ****. Pardon my french. There is absolutely no reason why he couldn't have cooperated with the PC's and to me, from the information presented; sounded like he was just trolling for the **** and giggles. That is absolutely intolerable for any cooperative setting because the reasons for screwing everyone over out of a paycheck makes absolutely zero sense!

*Sighs*

It's very rare that I get irritable, but it reminds me of a similar situation where the droid attempted to liberate droid rights and everyone started turning on each other, ending with one player deciding not to talk to anyone and tried to savatage everything with the detachable compartment just so he would have the final say.. It was the most ridiculous session I ever had the displeasure of sitting through. Well, third most.

Basically, next session, have that talk about getting on. Character conflict can be interesting, but when deployed as a slapstick method, it's no fun.

He was afraid that the ship's life support systems would be too strained from having so many people on board and he was afraid for the ship's integrity.

I agree that at this moment the character became a villan but then again (from what i understood after the game ended) there was a misunderstanding with the player of the droid PC, he believed (despite me saying the opposite) that droids have barely no emotions if any and no sense of morality whatsoever.

...he believed (despite me saying the opposite) that droids have barely no emotions if any and no sense of morality whatsoever.

Even if droids have no emotions, they can have a sense of loyalty. Um...R2-D2?

Even if droids have no emotions, PC droids all have something that a standard droid doesn't have. Even whether it's a logical desire to amass more wealth, so opening the hanger door and ejecting everyone is just stupid. There is no justification for what he did, and he would be lucky to be allowed around a gaming table here.

As said, you need a firm talk about expectations. He probably found clowning around a laugh, but behaviour like that is detrimental to everyone enjoyment in the long run. There is no excuse for that stunt he pulled.

The reason he opened the hangar door was to protect himself.

In hindsight yeah we should have talked more before the game but we were really pressed for time (one of the players was in town for vacation and would only be around for a few days). The issue is that 3 of those players have almost no experience playing in a game that has white, gray and black*, they are used to playing games where everything is all shades of gray or shades of dark, it also doesn't help that most of them believe interparty conflict and playing a villain (while pretending to be a morally conflicted character) are the apex of roleplaying.

I will be more careful when I play with them again (this isn't my regular group) and talk a lot more about the game and their characters.

*or any semblance of a system but that's another issue