Hey guys, I've run into a bit of a vague problem and I thought to utilize the great ressource of crowdfunded wisdom.

So hopefully you could give me your two cents on this; in any case I'd appreciate the input.

I've just started out trying to GM myself last week. As of now I've done the insane number of exactly 1 session.. Which obviously leaves some room for improvement. Though that is not what this is about.

As a guy trying to hold the fort with one session games for now I've had a look into the FFG ressources on here and used the 'Shadow of the Broker I' adventure, which went rather well (although my PC's completely crushed it, but that's another story).

I realize this is probably highly specific but could be broadened a little to reflect the core problem of how to keep the mystery with a character that calls for that.

For those of you who don't know those short broker adventures: There is this guy called "the Broker" that bascially acts as a Mcguffin so the PC's have the chance to get a very basic, one session plot going and receive their fair share at the end.

Now, in those adventures the boker is basically a guy who just calls them up, which we all thought was a little boring. I wanted to keep this guy an enigma, as I was sure I'd use him again some time in the future.

Instead of calling them up, we kind of fudged around a little and incorporated a weird Datapad in the session prior to my first one; this Pad started sending out an odd mystery signal that could barely be traced. In my session I had them start off following the signal into a field full of space debris. Nothing unusual, just uninteresting. The signal guided them to an old escape pod in which there was a blackbox that held information until accessed through the pad (a two part thingi with a decoder, which has relevance later). They then got their info on the pad which wiped itself after 5 minutes, just like the blackbox. They then had to contact numerous personell, open up a specific bankaccount under certain circumstances bla bla, in order to receive payment after the job was done. Aferwards the adventure (more or less) commenced as planned.

The point of the whole ordeal was that I thought it felt more immersive and a little more interesting for them having to jump through these safety measure hoops in order to get the job by this high profile guy. I thought it worked well; although I'm now starting to struggle coming up with new ideas of how the Broker could contact them (I'm doing part 2 today).

Any ideas in that regard?

For session 2 they'll receive the same signal, although from a planet this time. It'll lead them to this small restaurant in an alley entirely filled with Droids, who hand them the digital menue and ask them to choose a dinner. Nothing unusual again, just a bit of a weird clientell. They can then make a perception check to realize that their Datapad decoder fits into the menue and it is there where they'll get the info. After the usual 5 minutes (less if they fail the computer check for accessing it), the pad will whipe, including all Droids around them.

I'm obviously vastly inexperienced but though this would be more fun than getting a simple phonecall. Any thoughts on how you'd do it differently? Or maybe even some other ideas on how to contact them in the future (if I'd desire to use the Broker again)? The only conditions I'd apply would be that these informations could theoretically accessible to others if they came first (the idea is that a selected few have those kind of Datapads and the PC's stumbled upon one by accident and now just keep using it) and that there would be as little contact with humanoids as possible.

Anyway, thanks for sticking with me through this oddly specific post.

Have you thought about having them find a dead body near where they've hidden that data pad and discover he's carrying an almost complete duplicate of their datapad except he's carrying data crystals with recordings revealing others have been recruited like them except someone most probably imperial is actively hunting them down and killing them.

The last entry reveals the corpse found out about them and after being mortally wounded by a trio of assassins escaped them and tried to deliver a warning to them.

It is at this point the three assassins turn up who are assuming the PCs work for their latest target and as witnesses need to be eliminated... how many PCs do you have in your game by the way?

Sorry just some thoughts on what you posted!

Very interesting idea, I kinda like it. We're 5 PC's, 6 people total. Usually we swap GM's depending on whether we're doing a one shot thing or multiple episodes of one big adventure. I like the idea of finding a dead body. It could even be a corpse with an active datajack or something like that.

I'm not sure if I feel confident enough to branch off too much from the beaten path with these sessions, but I'd love to hear ideas for this.