Did character creation and then managed to run about half of the opening scenario last night. All in all, things went pretty well. Here's how it all broke down.
Character creation:
- Only 4 of the 5 players could make it. The 5th made excuses about being in the hospital.
- Of the 4 who made it, 2 of them had solid character concepts and I allowed them to choose their obligations. The other two rolled.
- Only 1 of the players had read up on the rules and understood how everything worked. We geeked out at one point and started throwing terminology around and got some seriously confused looks from the others. I should point out that, we're all in our 40's and we've all been gaming for at least 25 years, so its rare for a game to throw completely new terminology at us.
- Explaining out to create a character though was a breeze. Only one player had an issue but he's always just a little slow on picking up new games.
- The EotE core is the standard we're using to create characters. With a good concept, I'm allowing players to access the career supplements and in the case of one player, use a career from AoR.
We ended up with the following:
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Twi'lek Gunslinger/Force Exile
- Obligation: Betrayal - She was an assassin for a criminal organization and refused her last contract.
- On a side note: prefers to use thrown weapons rather than guns.
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Chiss Slicer
- Obligation: Debt - Screwed up really bad back in the Chiss Ascendancy and now owes an exorbitant amount of credits to one of the families. He's not allowed back until he pays off said debt.
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Gand Doctor
- Obligation: Addiction - A gambling addict who's made some really bad decisions.
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Xexto Outlaw Tech
- Obligation: Betrayal - Built some tech for a crew of thieves. They did the job and framed him for it rather than pay him. He's looking to settle the score.
-
Human Commodore or Squadron Leader (missing player)
- Don't know what his obligation is yet but he's playing a disgraced Imperial officer.
The only thing I asked is that no one play the loner/a-hole type and that while they were starting off as individuals coming together, that there be some kind of sparse relationship between at least one other PC and their character. As they decided to have some kind of criminal background, this was easily done. The Gand paid off many of his gambling debts by acting as a "mob" doctor. He'd fixed up the Slicer a couple of times. The Twi'lek and Xexto had a business relationship.
The session started with the players prisoners on the Imperial Vindicator Class cruise Valiant, headed for the prison on Kessel. Sometime during the night, the ship apparently has some kind of disaster. Being convicts, the PCs aren't told anything and seem to have been forgotten about. By mid-morning the Gand started to panic as he needed food in order to survive and finally got the attention of someone by beating relentlessly on his cell door. Whomever it was didn't talk to him but did provide each character with enough food to last at least a week.
They tried everything they could think of to figure things out. Listening at the doors and paying attention to the various mechanical sounds. The tech managed to dismantle his light fixture without breaking anything or electrocuting himself, hoping for a crawl space about the light, but come on... this is the Empire. It's not that easy... He eventually tried to use the wiring to set up an electrical trap on the door but just couldn't figure out how to attach the wires. Eventually, the Gand, unable to talk, as he didn't have his translator, managed to scrawl a message on his discarded food container. The young ensign, who'd been providing them with food, let him know that the ship had somehow been pulled out of hyperspace and hit a comet. They were stripping and evacuating the ship and the prisoners would be released in due time.
Of course, they were completely forgotten about.
A week or so later, the lights went out, the artificial gravity shut off and the ventilation system cut off. The PA system began announcing a count down to the self destruct initialization. Luckily for the PCs, as a safety measure, all internal doors were unlocked. The PCs fled their cells, did a quick series of introductions and quickly found their gear which had been stored in a nearby office. Trying to figure out what to do, one of the PCs mentioned that the self destruct could be deactivated from the Bridge or Engineering. No one ever caught on that this guy knew way too much about Imperial ships.
In a rush to get to engineering, I had them make a series of skill checks. They were dealing with no gravity, near perfect darkness, an unfamiliar ship layout and floating debris. There were a couple of close calls and a couple of great saves. They learned how to use Advantages and Threats to help and hinder each other as they raced through the ship. And quickly got the hang of describing the action rather than just giving someone a boost or setback die.
Disabling the self destruct was done as an unskilled assisted check. With just seconds or minutes, they weren't really sure as the system was on the fritz, the slicer managed to save the day. They then restarted the backup power as the main core had been damaged during the self destruct initialization. With a successful computers roll and a Triumph, the slicer pulled up a complete inventory of the ship and sadly, almost nothing had been left behind. They did discover an impounded freighter was still listed as being in one of the hanger bays.
With gravity restored, the PCs split up to explore the ship before leaving. The slicer headed to the bridge. The tech stayed in engineering. The doctor headed for the medbay and the gunslinger started searching for other survivors. The gunslinger used their first destiny point to find some commlinks and everyone stayed in contact.
On the bridge, the slicer managed to restore sensors. He picked up a small shuttle craft making its way towards the ship. The PCs rightly surmised that it was an imperial ship left behind to make sure the detonation happened. In a panic and having no desire to fight, the PCs raced to the hanger bay hoping to find the impounded freighter waiting to take them away. To their dismay, the freighter could only be described as being "up on blocks". It was obviously in the middle of being dismantled.
Deciding that there was no other option than to try and fight, the slicer headed back to the bridge to coordinate and act as over-watch. The tech, gunslinger and doctor headed down to the secondary docking ring that the shuttle was approaching. Hoping to either prevent them from boarding or set a trap. Unfortunately, the time wasted heading back and forth from the hanger gave the shuttle more than enough time to dock. The 3 PCs rounded the final corner to find 3 teams of stormtroopers and a sergeant walking down the hallway.
Initiative
PCs easily out rolled the npcs and set their order to what they considered to be advantageous. Gunslinger, doctor, tech and then the npcs. The gunslinger and doctor were the only two PCs with weapons. The gunslinger unleashed a throwing star, hit the sergeant and critted and then dove for cover. The doctor shot and did some minor damage to one of the stormtrooper teams. The tech, thinking outside the box, used a destiny point to find the controls to the blast door that just happened to be between the PCs and the troopers. He brought the blast doors down and just smirked and said, "I'm done". As a xexto, he gets 2 free maneuvers per turn and I asked him if he wanted to do anything else. Multiple times. The player of the gand even did a stage whisper telling him to find cover. Nothing...
The Sergeant spent a destiny point to find the controls on his side and the blast doors reopened. The first 2 teams of storm troopers opened up and mowed down the tech. The third team crept to the corner of the hall and fired around the corner, hitting and critting on the gunslinger. It was a minor crit, just forcing her to go last on the next pass.
It continued like this for another round or two and when the gunslinger took another shot that knocked her unconscious, the slicer decided to spend a destiny point to find the controls to the anti-intruder defense system. A linked pair of heavy blasters popped out of the ceiling and he began mowing down the storm troopers. Well, mowing down is an exaggeration. With no skill in gunnery, he was firing on pure luck. We also decided that any Threats he rolled affected his next roll rather than the next ally roll as the system just tended to buck on him. They managed to route the storm troopers and as the sergeant was retreating back into the airlock, the slicer made a computers check to activate and slam shut the airlock door. With a success and a triumph, he not only shut the door but crushed the poor sergeant as well.
The session ended with the doctor managing to do some first aid on those hurt and the PCs discovering that the dismantled freighter was apparently once used as a mobile brothel. They now just have to scrounge up enough parts to get it space worthy.
We still need to work on using advantages, threats, triumphs and despair in more interesting ways. Destiny points can change the game, although we're also Fate players, so its nothing new there.
Combat was slow but we're still learning the rules and I'm sure it will go faster the longer we play. And... for an unarmored PC, combat is deadly. I narrated the combat scene and no one had an issue with it but I may bring out the battle mat to give all of us a visual reference.
At least one player is going to tweak their character, which is fine when dealing with a completely new system. And they've gained some XP.
Next session we'll deal with the pirates who set up the trap to bring down the Valiant (did you really think it would just accidentally hit a comet?) and the repairs to their flying brothel.