Hey all,
So I often scan these forums to find inspiration for both adventure hooks and encounter ideas. This search has yielded some great results, so I wanted to return the favor. I am going to provide a brief campaign journal of our last few sessions, including an explanation of encounters to provide inspiration to those who might know where the want the campaign story to go, but are unsure how to keep developing interesting encounters beyond the typical Team A vs. Team B deathmatch (not that there is anything wrong with those). Our game is a combination of Edge of the Empire and Force and Destiny with the story tending toward Edge. Please post if you find this record useful, and I will try to keep updating with campaign recap as things progress.
So without further ado,
Somewhat Dramatis Personae:
Jace Borden : Human male bounty hunter focused on sniping and piloting. If there is a leader to the party Jace is it, and he agonizes more than the others on any moral quandaries that I might put to the party, much to my usual joy but occasional annoyance.
L.V. : Quadrapedal droid hired gun, former law enforcement. Sold due to programming quirks that make memory wipes somewhat pointless, as her memories eventually return. Second best bruiser after Serenia, and probably the most gadget loving of the group.
Serenia : Human female Guardian, almost-padawan. The best bruiser (seriously almost invincible between brawn/armor/force sense). Played by a somewhat crazy person who is constantly on the hunt for mounts of any size, shape, or level of consent.
Azlaw : Zabrak male Shadow, reclusive skulldugger (<-word? I want it be). Plays with stealth, social skills, and computers to stay out of danger but still inexplicably focused on melee over blasters. Also the one focused heavily on filling in the party’s many skill gaps. He is only one with Computers, Streetwise, Deception (only social skill they use, L.V. has Coercion but never uses it), Stealth, Skullduggery, and Survival. I think he is planning on branching into Mechanics but I might veto that and make someone else do it.
General Campaign Path: Each of the players (for various reasons) is indebted to a Hutt named Kaevo, who resides in the Teth system. Kaevo has recently purchased a nearby almost-uninhabited system called Shola (not sure if this is canonically possible, but I ran with it). Kaevo makes the players his marshals in the system, and will release them from their debts in exchange for a year or two of service in this capacity. Grilles, an adjutant of Kaevo and the only female Gammorian (Grilles? get it?), manages supplies for Kaevo’s new colonies in the Shola system and gives the players their quests sometimes.
Ok so that was a lot of ado, but without any further further ado ado:
Adventures:
Adventure 1: Kaevo has the marshals deal with some smugglers who were hiding in the Shola system. Basically used the adventure at the end of the EotE rulebook.
Verdict: awesome session
Adventure 2: Kaevo has the marshals investigate a mining station that has gone dark on Anastrophe (one of my planets). Basically used the adventure “Debts to Pay” from the GM pack.
Verdict: dud, I get that it was supposed to be atmospheric but my group was not having it .
Adventure 3: Hokey Religions… (Azlaw absent for this session) Grilles tells the marshals that a people-mover named Quince is docking on the Anastrophe colony before bringing pilgrims to a shrine on Shola’s innermost planet, Draluuj (think I stole this name…). Shola’s radiation is dangerous on the inner planets so the pilgrims (who cannot leave after arriving) are basically killing themselves. Anastrophe station is run by a tag team of a smooth talking Twi’lek and a Gand big game hunter.
Encounter 1: Quince asks for an escort to Anastrophe station and comes out of lightspeed with a tail of angry thug-pilots. His ship’s engines are damaged so the Marshals’ firespray and Z-Tie (from Adventure 1) deal with two poorly piloted headhunters with ease.
Verdict: Good Encounter, I play the space battles a little rules-light.
Hook: After docking, one of Quince’s pilgrims changes her mind about her pilgrimage and flees the station in the dead night. She goes south on a speeder bike into a dangerous desert canyon. Quince (who the players hate for some reason) convinces them to go and bring her back in exchange for lots of money. The Twi’lek gives the players a speeder truck and tells them not to go near any water they might find (The Gand is out hunting). The players wanted to take their ship (they’re not stupid) but I told them that the desert is rocky and there might not be any place to land.
Encounter 2: A pack of Gundarks (they go in packs right? I dunno) pursue the players down the canyon. There are one or two Gundarks on top and many in the canyon.
How they did it: The players wisely elect to keep driving instead of stopping to fight (always a risk with this group). The mob of Gundarks throws rocks at the truck but does not gain ground due to Jace’s always excellent piloting. L.V. lobs grenades behind them into the canyon, collapsing it and stopping the Gundark mob just in time for one of the top-running Gundarks to jump into the bed of the truck. Serenia and L.V. engage the Gundark, who knocks L.V. off the truck. Jace, panicking, spins a donut (in a canyon I know, massive difficulty, still passed) to get him off. Serenia uses this distraction to lop off the Gundark’s head.
Verdict: Good Encounter, scared the players but a little too set-piece
Encounter 3: The players come to a wider portion of canyon with a large lake in the middle. The reluctant pilgrim has crashed her speeder and is unconscious at the far end, but the lake is populated by a large dianoga (just a mid sized with almost everything x2) which uses its tentacles to drag the unconscious pilgrim into the water, Yum!
How they did it: Hyper-wary of the Twi’lek’s warning, the Marshals drop a grenade in the water, so the x2 dianoga is now x1. Jace sets up a sniper position on his side of the lake. Serenia and L.V. start skirting the lake on the thin strip of land between the canyon wall and the water. Dianoga tentacles wrap the leg of the unconscious pilgrim and attack L.V. and Serenia. L.V. gets entangled, and Jace somehow (high roller) hits the tentacle on the pilgrim from across the lake (here I made despairs hitting the pilgrim of course, but like I said, the dice are strong with this one). Serenia fights off the tentacles but not before L.V. gets dragged under (droid underwater? no problem) L.V. swims up and Serenia grabs the pilgrim and they all escape before things get any more hairy. Verdict: Good Encounter, again scared the players but too railroaded I think
Moral Quandry: On the way back the Gand hunter meets the marshals and offers them tea, then offers to take the pilgrim off their hands and say that she died. Everyone is on board with this (again, they hate Quince), except Jace, who feels he would be a pretty bad bounty hunter to just let his quarry go. He agonizes for far too long, eventually siding with the party which would have overruled him anyway.
Verdict: Good Adventure, one or two points where they saw the rails but overall good stuff
Adventure 4: Neimoidian Brain Rot
Hook: On a gas giant outer planet, Chiasmus, disease strikes a colony. The Marshals are tasked with retrieving medicine from an abandoned old republic station on one of Chiasmus’ moons. They land on the jungle world and meet a group of soldier-types who are headed to the same station to steal weapons. their leader is Fulvo, they are the Stragglers.
Encounter 1: After trekking through the jungle the Marshals and their new allies find the station, which is surrounded by a primitive tribe. They see the tribal shaman throw screaming sacrificial victims into the station that they are supposed to rob.
How they did it: The Marshals move quietly around the camp to the less guarded rear of the station. They subdue a passing patrol and Azlaw finds a route whereby they slip inside.
Verdict: Decent, probably should have made stealth a little harder
Encounter 2: Inside they find crates of both medicine and weapons, but not before they are noticed by an Acklay, to which the natives have been sacrificing.
Verdict: Decent, it came out ok but I probably could have run this one better, kind of the parties own fault that the Acklay was not really killable (they don’t mod or upgrade their weapons at all )
Encounter 3: The group treks back to their ships, being pursued by angry tribesman.
How they did it: Everyone passes their ‘keep walking’ test except Jace, prompting a tribal attack, which Serenia destroys handily.
Verdict: Good, kind of off the cuff, but added a more typical combat to the Azlaw show, so brought a lot to the adventure I feel.
Encounter 4: In orbit the ship is attacked by droid fighters reactivated by the station (or something I dunno). They easily escape.
Verdict: Bad, fairly pointless, I did not stat out the fighters early so they were just outclassed. Waste of time in retrospect.
The Marshals deliver the medicine and have a party with the grateful survivors. The Fulvo and the Stragglers leave them a message confessing that they are part of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor!
Verdict: Middling, this adventure had some slow bits and was a little lacking on combat, but all in all it was fine.
Next week Adventure 5: Imperial Entanglements
Again if you have questions/comments/criticism let me know, I’ll keep posting if people are interested in more junk ideas from my campaign!
Edited by dtstarbird
) I've been meaning to post details of my groups adventures so far (about 5 sessions in) but just haven't had the time yet!