F&D adventures without the force?

By kmanweiss, in Star Wars: Force and Destiny RPG

Huge star wars fan. Huge fan of Edge and Age.

My group has played several of the published adventures, some online ones we found, and created a few of our own. We've had a great time.

We're running out of material though.

I've been tossing around the idea of using the F&D adventures to help keep us busy.

You have the beginner game adventure, the core book adventure, game master's kit adventure, and Chronicles of the Gatekeeper.

But the issue is that none of the player characters are jedi, sith, or force sensitive. Honestly, they have no interest to evolve in that direction.

Are the adventures designed around the idea that one or more of the players are force sensitive? Would the adventures suffer from the lack of such a character? Would an NPC need to be brought along to accomplish certain feats (need the force to open a doorway for example)?

The problem with using these adventures (I have all of them and have the same problem) is they are totally Force user focus.

There really is no point to them if you don't use the Force.

There are tips if you've got a mixed party, but yeah, pretty much Force dependent. I would maybe suggest maybe using WEG adventures? There's a thread in the AoR forum where a user named Kyla has assembled some conversions.

Thank you very much!

It's also worth pointing out that most of the motive and rewards for these adventures assume there is a Force user. Soooooo like gaining a holocron is of no use to a non Force user. Same goes for lightsabre crystals. You can of course change the rewards but you would need to read each individual one to see where and how the Force applies.

It's possible to toss in a Force Sensitive NPC who hires the group to embark on a treasure hunting adventure for Force artifacts, but without some heavy editing, you'll greatly run the risk of the NPC taking the spotlight.

This would be the point where the GM(s) need to apply some imagination and creativity and come up with your own material. Modules are fun now and then when you've got writer's block. But otherwise, RPGs are infinitely more entertaining when you're developing the campaigns yourself. You don't have to wait for a module to say you're allowed to go somewhere, you just go. And if you do something completely unexpected that shapes your universe, you don't need to worry about something coming along later and kinking it up.

If you're running an Old Republic game, and your players accidentally Dagobah... just roll with it. Apply a little bit of Jar Jar Abrams and make a parallel universe. Now in this one, Yoda eventually retires to Tatooine, and Luke gets to go home after training to see Uncle Owen and old Ben.

Have your players about where they see their characters developing? Perhaps one or more of them wants to buy Force Sensitive Emergent...

No interest in force artifacts? Depending whether your a edgie or a rebellie the price on good crystals has never been better!

This would be the point where the GM(s) need to apply some imagination and creativity and come up with your own material. Modules are fun now and then when you've got writer's block. But otherwise, RPGs are infinitely more entertaining when you're developing the campaigns yourself. You don't have to wait for a module to say you're allowed to go somewhere, you just go. And if you do something completely unexpected that shapes your universe, you don't need to worry about something coming along later and kinking it up.

If you're running an Old Republic game, and your players accidentally Dagobah... just roll with it. Apply a little bit of Jar Jar Abrams and make a parallel universe. Now in this one, Yoda eventually retires to Tatooine, and Luke gets to go home after training to see Uncle Owen and old Ben.

While I'm sure you weren't implying the pretentiousness, it was palpable. lol. I totally agree, but with a wife, kids, kids events/activities, dogs, house, full time job, extended family, etc, the amount of time I have to craft up my own adventures is limited. The modules supplement the gaming experience and give me longer periods of time to build the homebrew adventures. I pull from online sources of modules also. I find a good blend of all three give a nice varied flavor to the game and world. It's taking me longer and longer to come up with material. 25 years of RPG gaming has pretty much tapped into every thing I can possibly think of, and since the vast majority of that has been with the same group, any rehash of older material (even from other systems) gets spotted immediately. Any idea pulled from any book, tv show, or movie is openly mocked for being unoriginal. It's a tough crowd.

Have your players about where they see their characters developing? Perhaps one or more of them wants to buy Force Sensitive Emergent...

No, we all pretty much hate playing force users. The non-force users in the star wars universe were always way more interesting characters. This is the third star wars RPG system we've played, and through all the years, and the dozens of characters rolled across all the systems, only 1 has ever even been force sensitive.

It's possible to toss in a Force Sensitive NPC who hires the group to embark on a treasure hunting adventure for Force artifacts, but without some heavy editing, you'll greatly run the risk of the NPC taking the spotlight.

Yeah, had a GM that always had some uber deus ex machina character in every adventure that did all the cool stuff while the rest of us sat around and 'watched' the scripted events unfold before them. I'm less than thrilled with this idea, but had considered it.

No interest in force artifacts? Depending whether your a edgie or a rebellie the price on good crystals has never been better!

I was considering some ideas along this line. A hutt gangster hiring someone to find artifacts to make him more powerful or richer. An archeologist sympathetic to the republic hires them to find jedi artifacts to help rekindle the jedi as a force in the galaxy. Things like that...but if the actual adventures seem to focus around force users, force powers, unlocking knowledge of the force....well, I feel the adventures might fall a little flat. If a good portion of the adventure is tapping into the history, my group is going to ignore all that, grab the loot and hit the road.

I would say that these could certainly be used without any force users in the party and work reasonably well. Some may take a little reworking, especially the beginner game where at least one part is focused on the characters using their force powers as an opportunity to teach how to use them in a game. And yes, many of the rewards and hooks are focused on force users but that doesn't mean you can't substitute your own hooks.. and while a holocron has little purpose to an average bounty hunter directly... there are lots of people out there that will pay to get ahold of one. Such as hut bosses, collectors, etc..

I particularly liked getting caught in a trap, and the trapper joking that were my character strong in the force, I'd be able get out easily. Only to find that due to the particular characteristics of the trap, my Knight Level FaD character was still 10 XP from being able to defeat the trap... in several different ways! (Formidable Discipline roll to defeat overwhelming emotions of embarrassment and despair! :) )

I've run a couple of these for a mixed group of mostly non-Force Users and they run just fine. As others have said just thrown in a few challenges based on your groups Skill set (add some Slicing or whatever) and some non-FU specific rewards and you're golden.

If you have a Force User in you group it's kind of essential to throw in a few Force User specific adventures in your campaigns otherwise those Player's will miss out on some of the cool SW feel. Plus it's always better to give those PC's an opportunity to earn their signature gear (Crystals and such) rather then just buy it.

If you don't have any Force Users then I don't really see the point.

Edited by FuriousGreg

Maybe the Force has an interest in them. Maybe you should arrange what comic book fans refer to as a trigger event.

This would be the point where the GM(s) need to apply some imagination and creativity and come up with your own material. Modules are fun now and then when you've got writer's block. But otherwise, RPGs are infinitely more entertaining when you're developing the campaigns yourself. You don't have to wait for a module to say you're allowed to go somewhere, you just go. And if you do something completely unexpected that shapes your universe, you don't need to worry about something coming along later and kinking it up.

If you're running an Old Republic game, and your players accidentally Dagobah... just roll with it. Apply a little bit of Jar Jar Abrams and make a parallel universe. Now in this one, Yoda eventually retires to Tatooine, and Luke gets to go home after training to see Uncle Owen and old Ben.

While I'm sure you weren't implying the pretentiousness, it was palpable. lol. I totally agree, but with a wife, kids, kids events/activities, dogs, house, full time job, extended family, etc, the amount of time I have to craft up my own adventures is limited. The modules supplement the gaming experience and give me longer periods of time to build the homebrew adventures. I pull from online sources of modules also. I find a good blend of all three give a nice varied flavor to the game and world. It's taking me longer and longer to come up with material. 25 years of RPG gaming has pretty much tapped into every thing I can possibly think of, and since the vast majority of that has been with the same group, any rehash of older material (even from other systems) gets spotted immediately. Any idea pulled from any book, tv show, or movie is openly mocked for being unoriginal. It's a tough crowd.

Sorry if it came across that way, but you do see a lot of GMs who expect to be handed every adventure and story hook. From the sounds of things, spanning 25 years of gaming, you guys have had a good run.

However, why are you the only one running things? My group has run quite a few different games at a time, and just about every player has taken turns GM'ing. It comes in handy when you all get together on the usual day at the usual places and say "So, anybody have something they're dying to run?" And if someone else has dreamt up an adventure, you let them GM for the day (or however many sessions it takes). That gives everybody a chance behind the screen, and everyone else a chance to play as well. Then no one person is expected to always come up with everything every time.

Ours usually ended up pretty in-depth as well. Someone comes up with a helpful NPC in a town somewhere, and those talents come in handy during a completely different session by a different GM. For those few moments, that player puts on their GM hat (metaphorically speaking, not a real hat... we're not weirdos ^.^ ) and plays that NPC again. Or you may remember some small detail the other guy mentioned in his game, and use that as the hook for your game next time.

Especially if you're being openly mocked for unoriginality after 25 years (looking at you, Simpsons season 27 and counting) then I'd say it's definitely time someone else try running the show. See how original they can be, and you get to enjoy playing for a change. =)