I thought about posting this in the GM Only threads but I'd like players to read and respond to this as well.

We finished our EotE campaign on Saturday night. For most of us, it was our second go at the system and it went much better than the first time. Not only did we have a better understanding of the rules, we dropped a couple of toxic players and gained a more experienced and enthusiastic player.

THE RUNDOWN

Going in, I wanted to have a dramatic arc in the campaign that mirrored the Han Solo journey; scummy fringers that become heroes of the Rebellion. More on this later. To summarize, the campaign started with the players inheriting a bar in Mos Eisley, which they could use as a home base. They started with a local reputation as part-time troubleshooters, so the overtaxed Mos Eisley police and Whiphid crime lord Lady Valarian offered them employment opportunities. These were:

• Solve the mystery behind an uptake in syndicate violence in Mos Eisley to prevent stormtroopers from being deployed to the city (re-write of Elven Fire from FASA's Shadowrun ).
• Discover the reason behind the "death" of Figrin D'an, former lead of the Modal Nodes (re-write of One Stage Before from FASA's Shadowrun ).
• Recover the lost chemical formula for a rather potent kind of death stick (re-write of On the Run from Catalyst's Shadowrun ).
• Race against various criminals, academics, and Imperial agents to recover various Force-powered artifacts (re-write of the "Dawn of the Artifacts" saga from Catalyst's Shadowrun ).
• Find a lost child on behalf of the Rebellion (re-write of Ivy & Chrome from FASA's Shadowrun ).

The PCs recovery of the missing child - the lost daughter of the Arkanis Sector Moff - put them in a bad position with the Imperial military and stormtroopers burned down their bar in punishment. As a result this drove the PCs to the Rebellion, where they:

• Rescued a starship designer from a Victory-class Star Destroyer (re-write of Starfall from WEG).
• Stole technical plans from an Imperial government contractor (re-write of Mission to Lianna from WEG).
• Stole a fuel container train and defended a Rebel base from Imperial attack (re-write of Black Ice from WEG).

I had originally planned two more adventures after the last one but the final battle in the last adventure was so climactic - and I didn't have the energy to script out an attack on a Super Star Destroyer - that it felt like a good conclusion.

LESSONS LEARNED and/or WHAT I WISH I HAD DONE BETTER

1. I wish I had stuck with just Edge of the Empire- style stories. There's nothing wrong with the idea of a transitional EotE to Age of Rebellion campaign, but it's not the most unique(?) Star Wars storytelling experience. Edge, and Force and Destiny for that matter, give you the opportunity to play out stories that the films and TV show(s) ignore - personal stories about people getting by in a galaxy run by corrupt governments and powerful crime bosses. There's nothing wrong with playing scrappy Rebels but it's very... been done.

My next campaign will be a blend of Edge and FaD, for those who want to get deeper into Force-use and mystical adventures. The Rebellion/Empire conflict can be a peripheral thing or just a source of employment.

2. During the Force-artifact recovery story line, I introduced a band of Matukai as the player's patrons. I portrayed them as do-gooders, like the Jedi, but from the shadows and in secret rather than the light and in public. If the Jedi were samurai, the Matukai were mystical ninjas. One of my players, who was playing a Colonist Entrepreneur, said he also wanted to play a Force Sensitive, so they seemed like a good fit as instructors. The idea I had was to have the player master the use of a sci-fi halberd (wan-shen), and have that be his signature weapon when he was fully inducted into the Matukai.

Well, that idea went out the window when he recovered a pair of lightsabers from a Dark Jedi and took up one of the lightsaber specialist classes from FaD. There's nothing wrong with that, per say, but the interesting narrative bits were lost when the player started min-maxing with lightsaber talents rather than using the wan-shen with stats that we created together from scratch. And since Matukai don't use lightsabers, there was no story reason for him to stick around.

Also, and this was partly my fault, this character hogged a lot more spotlight time than the other PCs as it was a lot easier for me to craft Force-related adventures rather than focus on the needs of a Hired Gun Enforcer or a Colonist Scholar. I'll do better.

3. Next time, I'll have the PCs write some character story hooks for me. I feel like I dictated their character arcs for them. Nobody complained but it's not as fulfilling as doing it organically and together.

4. Next time, I'll be a bit more proactive in watching character generation. That same Force Sensitive character, while great at hand-to-hand, felt useless in a starship fight because he didn't put any points into Gunnery, Leadership, Piloting or Mechanics. So I'll make sure allocates resources appropriately.

5. Next time, I'll make sure that PCs let me know what gear they're buying before they buy it, rather than spring it on me during the game.

Me: "Okay, you're sneaking through an Imperial Star Destroyer..."

Them: "Okay, we pull out our 80,000 credit stealth suits that block us from all EM frequencies and sound."
Me: "Fuuuuuuuuuuuuu... Uh, okay. There are Storm Commandos aboard who have macrogoggles that can see through stealth tech."

Them: "Fuuuuuuuu..."

6. Next time, I'll introduce one or two arch-villains/nemeses whose actions directly or indirectly affect the PCs.

7. And, finally, next time I'll run more of a "living" campaign with multiple factions for the PCs to have as patrons. If the PCs elect not to work with a specific faction, it's story will continue on in the background until dramatically appropriate. I'd like to get away from the bog standard "you have an infochant/commanding officer who gives you a job/mission. Go on that job/mission. Get paid/awarded." format.

2. This is a hard one to deal with. I call it "Shiny Object Syndrome." Sometimes players will discover something and find it absolutely amazing and focus on it to the exclusion of other things and maybe even go against background/personality traits they already established for their character. It happens, and it can be hard to adjust to once it has happened. I've actually seen this cause some players to abandon one character in favor of another, sometimes for good reasons, other times for bad.

3. Definitely have them input their backstory, and then so many sessions ask how they would like to see their character develop. Sort of a, "Now this is where you were, here is where you're at, where would you like to be," Q&A session. This can go a long way into keeping them engaged in the story by giving you more ways to hook them into it.

4. I find this is one of the most important parts of the whole "Session Zero" experience. Sometimes players (especially those accustomed to other systems) will fall into archetypal roles, specialize in them, and expect to only be called upon to perform in their role. Then they find out that they will be involved in speeder chases, and starship encounters, and heists, and negotiations, and stakeouts, and interrogations, and combat. And they realize they are not good at all but one, maybe two of those. A good GM can alert them to this before hand, give advice and make suggestions, and characters can all be competent at a few things, while still having an area to shine in.

5. Definitely. Especially things that they have to use talents to get, such as lowering something's rarity with Know Somebody or Black Market Contacts.

6. These don't even have to be BBEGs. They can just be a character (or type of character) that can set the players on edge when they run across them. For example, it could be something like Bounty Hunters, especially if you have one more more members of the group with outstanding bounties. It could be something seemingly benign like mouse droids (one of the characters in my game has a deep-seated feeling of fear and loathing in regards to mouse droids due to what they believe was an extreme act of betrayal). Just make sure that whatever you choose for this role, play it up without overshadowing the PCs too much. You don't want to fall into a trap where the antagonist rival is a GMPC that does outshines the PCs, or handily beats them, or whatever. On the flip side, make them capable, give them personality, and treat them like comic book villain. They usually have an escape plan, they don't usually fight to the death, they usually never give up, they usually keep coming back for more, and if they win, they usually don't just kill the PCs, they gloat and whatnot.

7. This is hard to do sometimes, as the infochant/faction rep/whatever makes setting the paryt loose to go do stuff easy. One thing you can do is to have one of these types of NPCs for each faction you want represented. If you have access, Shadowrun has a lot of cool things about the "Fixer" contact that brings jobs to the PCs, or that PCs go to when they need a job. If you don't have access, just think of all the people in the movies. When on the lam and in need of repairs, Han went to Lando. When in need of training, Luke sought out Yoda. When Leia needed a warrior, she sought out Obi-Wan. Add in contacts like a syndicate mini-boss, that old war-vet in the cantina, the undercover ISB agent, the jedi-in-exile, the bounty hunter's guild, whatever. Just make sure that the players choose what they want to focus on.

Wish I could get in on a group like this! Sadly I am the GM for my group right now.

I like this type of thread. It's a good way to "learn" these lessons without having to make the mistakes yourself.

I agree with GreyMatter, good thoughts. Very appreciated.

2. This is a hard one to deal with. I call it "Shiny Object Syndrome." Sometimes players will discover something and find it absolutely amazing and focus on it to the exclusion of other things and maybe even go against background/personality traits they already established for their character. It happens, and it can be hard to adjust to once it has happened. I've actually seen this cause some players to abandon one character in favor of another, sometimes for good reasons, other times for bad.

Laser swords are literally the shiniest of objects! But seriously, that's a good point. Also, there wasn't a story-critical need to introduce that kind of object into the game; I think I liked the idea of a cool-sexy Asajj Ventress-type flipping around with two red lightsabers. What I didn't consider was what would happen if the PCs dispatched the character. I've been GMing for quite awhile and I still failed to consider the full possibility of what could happen when an NPC brings something into the game that I'd rather the PCs not have. Some lessons you have to re-learn over and over again, I suppose.

If I were to do it again, I think I would have fleshed out the Matukai a bit more, rather than just providing the minimal amount of information needed to make them a patron. I pride myself on running games that don't contradict existing canon (prior to Disney nuking the EU, that is) but the amount of information on Wookieepedia about this group is less than a paragraph. If I was a little more forward-thinking I would have put together a complete history that the PCs could explore, rather than being coy because I didn't have a lot of pre-existing information to work with.

3. Definitely have them input their backstory, and then so many sessions ask how they would like to see their character develop. Sort of a, "Now this is where you were, here is where you're at, where would you like to be," Q&A session. This can go a long way into keeping them engaged in the story by giving you more ways to hook them into it.

I think part of the issue with my group is that they (mostly) aren't the types to create an entire backstory. This may be due to their histories as D&D 3rd edition players and their interest in how mechanics affect play during a session, rather than shared narrative creation. To FFG Star Wars ' credit, I think this is the first narrative system they've played where it actually kept them engaged. But getting them to flesh out their characters' histories can be an exercise in pulling teeth.

For players like these I do appreciate game systems like Traveller or the Pathfinder Campaign book. If rolling on a chart helps you to put together a character backstory, I'm all for it. Sometimes a blank page is terrifying.

If anyone has any suggestions or tried-and-true systems for helping players develop an intriguing character backstory, I'm all for it.

4. I find this is one of the most important parts of the whole "Session Zero" experience. Sometimes players (especially those accustomed to other systems) will fall into archetypal roles, specialize in them, and expect to only be called upon to perform in their role. Then they find out that they will be involved in speeder chases, and starship encounters, and heists, and negotiations, and stakeouts, and interrogations, and combat. And they realize they are not good at all but one, maybe two of those. A good GM can alert them to this before hand, give advice and make suggestions, and characters can all be competent at a few things, while still having an area to shine in.

Yup. I think my assumption was that the player would take those skills later in the game. I probably should have checked character sheets each time it was updated.

5. Definitely. Especially things that they have to use talents to get, such as lowering something's rarity with Know Somebody or Black Market Contacts.

I feel like there were simply availability rolls happening. I wasn't aware of them, which was part of the problem. Also, I can't seem to find it in the book but are there specific rules for buying equipment that already has the mods attached?

6. These don't even have to be BBEGs. They can just be a character (or type of character) that can set the players on edge when they run across them. For example, it could be something like Bounty Hunters, especially if you have one more more members of the group with outstanding bounties. It could be something seemingly benign like mouse droids (one of the characters in my game has a deep-seated feeling of fear and loathing in regards to mouse droids due to what they believe was an extreme act of betrayal). Just make sure that whatever you choose for this role, play it up without overshadowing the PCs too much. You don't want to fall into a trap where the antagonist rival is a GMPC that does outshines the PCs, or handily beats them, or whatever. On the flip side, make them capable, give them personality, and treat them like comic book villain. They usually have an escape plan, they don't usually fight to the death, they usually never give up, they usually keep coming back for more, and if they win, they usually don't just kill the PCs, they gloat and whatnot.

My take on lead antagonists is to have them be the ones who are sending their lackeys at the PCs. If the PCs can figure out who the antagonist is, find him and take him out within the rules, that's fair. I never play the "Smoke bomb! They teleport away!" card for big bads.

The campaign I ran just had a job/job/job format without any sort of evolving background story. I think it needed it.

The Matukai were a WOTC creation for the RCR edition Heroes guide, there was a saga edition update in the jedi book. I have both at home, I am currently vacationing in Peru but will be back this week so can email you scans of those pages if you like, it's not much but it's a bit more than a paragraph. Pm me if you want those pages

My PC's took my main BBEG Inquisitor's lightsaber in their first encounter with her. Agent Glint, Falleen Inquisitor, confronted them with a detachment of Snowtroopers in a temple they were investigating on a planet all but lost to most star charts. Our party is about half Edge, half F&D, it blends very well, making for gritty situations where the Jedi aspirants are forced to make tough choices - especially since they're a bounty hunting crew.

Anyway, our Miralan protector, Bihotz Onekoa had found the lightsaber of a dead Jedi who had fled to the temple after Order 66. Soon after this, Glint and her contingent showed up. Glint demanded all of their Force related artifacts in exchange for their lives - the lightsaber, and the holocron that led them there. They tried to lie to her, but being a rather social-based Makashi-type character, she saw right through it. Bihotz and Glint agreed to single combat; Bihotz had a couple ranks of Lightsaber which he used for his ancient sword, but only a rank of parry to protect him. Glint is a proficient Makashi duelist. I had her toy with him, but Bihotz proved to be a bit more than she thought he would be (rolling particularly well),, so Glint decided to stop playing games and incapacitated him with a vicious slash across the chest. For Roleplay purposes, I made a deal with Bihotz's player - we would allow him to remain conscious but put him at both his strain and wound thresholds.

The party's Force-healer NPC rushed over to tend to him while everyone else looked on, preparing to spring into action. Glint taunted him, then made a traditional dark-side offer - "Join me and I will teach you how to use that blade properly."

Bihotz, being an idealist white-knight type character, staunchly refused. Glint nonchalantly shrugged and clicked on her lightsaber, still in her hand, and the blade sprung directly into the healer's face. At this point we re-initiated combat, Bihotz somehow won initiative over Glint, clicked on his saber and attacked... He got a crit, and the roll was absolutely perfect. Maimed! Just as she killed Cadens, Bihotz struck, and she was too slow to parry, paying for it with her right leg!

Bihotz sprung up and rushed away, snatching her saber as she lay there screaming in shock and pain. The party made their escape with two lightsabers.

I didn't want more than one player to have a lightsaber this early in our campaign, so I ruled that each time it was used the user would gain one conflict since the Crystal is corrupted. The Sage, a Bith professor named Figrin M'ov, took and did use it a couple of times. II ruled that somebody at Paragon status could purify it with a few in-game days of meditation and a Discipline check.

Well, several sessions later Bihotz hit Paragon level and finally had an opportunity to purify it. He did, and the crystal is now consular green. Figrin is using it to construct his lightsaber, using salvaged parts from Glint's hilt and a Kloo horn.

His lightsaber hilt is going to be part of a Kloo horn - how awesome is /that/?

Sorry to rant, I just really love relating stories from our campaign.

If anyone has any suggestions or tried-and-true systems for helping players develop an intriguing character backstory, I'm all for it.

In the past, when I've needed help fleshing out a character's backstory, I've used this technique involving a Tarot deck to generate random elements before and gotten good results: http://www.errantdreams.com/2005/01/using-tarot-spreads-to-create-characters/

If you wanted to go the extra mile, I suppose you could get a sci-fi-themed tarot deck, but I'm sure you could adapt interpretations for any deck. The nice thing about tarot cards is they have the potential to be more evocative than a one line listing on a table.