Hi All,

my next session probably won't be until the end of April (or after tax day at the earliest), but i'd like to get a head start on developing the plot... I put a lot of work into each session (sessions last about 4-5 hours). Our last session was in January, then

Explanation about why i've been busy and will continue to be so

so I'm going to stay busy for a while so I thought I'd prep a little bit over a long time rather than trying to cram it all in just before the next session.

Anyway, I've always done my best creative work when I've had someone to spit ball/talk with/bounce ideas off of, so I would like to request the assistance of you my fellow GMs to do that. Now I am perfectly happy to return the favor.

But there are a few things you should know... I don't ROLL a percentile for obligation... I plan it out... in fact I've expanded the concept of obligation into "side stories." In addition to the over all campaign storyline (a team of bounty hunters making their way through a criminal underworld of intrigue), each PC has their own side story/story arch/subplot, and I try to work in 2 to 3 of the obligation/side-story into each session, so they all get frequent turns in the "obligation" spot light.

So as for who's turn it is, well four of my 7 PCs (I originally had 7 players, but one playing the hot sarcastic blue female twi'lek pilot, dropped out and another PC took over his character, because her side story had gotten woven into the overall tapestry and kind of made it hard to drop the character at this point) haven't had their side stories come up in the last few sessions, make that 2 haven’t had their side stories come up (because they weren’t at the last 2 sessions) and 4 haven't had their side stories come up in HIGHLY SIGNIFICANT/center-stage-spotlight WAYS in the last few sessions, and it’s time to fix that for at least 3 of them.

These 4 PCs, in order of importance of their side story to the plot of the next session

Tal Lee, real name Tal Seario, as in a descendent of http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Pollard_Seario, and therefore the legitimate heir of Czerka arms. There are two major factions within and struggling for control of Czerka, the one currently in power seized control by assassinating Tal’s biological father (Tel Seario) and mother. Tel knew it was coming and tried to escape but they sabotaged his star ship and it crashed somewhere in the http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Kathol_sector and Thad Bane and his father found the crash site and rescued the orphaned Tal and brought him back to their home town (Dere) on Galtea http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Galtea, an agricultural and mining world in the Kathol Sector, where he was adopted by the Lee homesteader family. The faction that killed his parents, recently learned of a “Tal Lee” that bears a striking resemble to Tel Seario, and wants to confirm whether he is a Seario and if so kill the heir so they can maintain power. The other faction wants to seize control of Czerka by install Tal as a puppet corporation president. Tal seeks to follow his father’s wishes and leave Czerka Arms and sees himself as a farmer. His motivation is “homestead” and obligations are “Family (Lee & Seario)” and “Bounty (Czerka).”

M4-RK is a technician: mechanic/doctor droid that “belongs” to Thad Bane and his business partner Tal Lee. However, M4-RK really considers itself a partner rather than a tool. Its owners chose not to wipe M4-RK’s memory, so it has grown beyond its original programming and developed a bit of a snarky “bedside” manner. M4-RK, an emergent AI, believes strongly in the rights of all droids. Nevertheless, its behavioral inhibitors still govern its actions. In game terms his motivation is “droid rights” and he has the custom obligation of “behavior inhibitors,” M4-RK’s side story plays his motivation and obligation off each other.

Thadius (Thad) Bane is descended from a long line of honorable (goody two shoes) duros lawmen. His infamous uncle, Cad Bane, is the black sheep of the family, he became a bounty hunter instead. Many years ago, “early” in his career, while pursuing a dead or alive bounty, Cad caused some collateral damage (in the form of some innocent bystanders that he accidentally shot). His brother (Thad’s father) tried to bring Cad in to face justice, Cad resisted arrest, they had a high noon style quick draw show down shoot out. Thad’s father was faster but missed and uncle Cad shot Thad’s father dead. Thad grew up, became the Marshall of Dere (on Galtea) like his father before him. Actually although he was technically too young to officially hold the office of Marshall, he was effectively doing the job since puberty, Thad’s father and Thad were that well respected in Dere. However, Thad longed to bring his uncle Cad in to face justice for killing his father, and not so secretly hopes that uncle Cad would resist arrest so that he could legally and morally shoot him dead. To that end, Thad left Dere and Galtea to become a bounty hunter and increase his skills, so that when the time came he would be ready and able to take down his uncle Cad in quick draw show down. Cad Bane knows Thad’s motivations, but is proud that his nephew has taken after him become a seasoned bounty with an impressive and growing reputation as the “lightning fast quick draw duros bounty hunter who wears a kamperdine armored tailored jacket, carries a nova viper blaster, and is the nephew of Cad Bane.” In fact Thad’s reputation frequently acts as a “circle of protection vs. significant galactic underworld players” who go out of their way to avoid killing Thad because they (rightly so) fear retribution from Cad Bane. Thad’s obligations are “revenge(uncle Cad Bane)” and “bounty(uncle Cad Bane)”

Andra: A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, shortly after the destruction of Alderaan, a con-man, Var Aruru, has used his “relationship” with Andra, a human fixer, to steal a data chip belonging to her employer, Grondo the Hutt. The data chip contained the locations and business ledgers of the Hutt’s criminal enterprises as well as for joint ventures with other member’s of the Hutt’s clan. Var Aruru planned to auction off the data chip on Corsucant, interested parties included Hutts from other clans, Black Sun, the Pyke Syndicate, the Bothan Spynet, CorSec, ISB, … Andra hired the crew of the Red Talon to help her recover the data chip, destroy the copies that were made, and neutralize anyone who has accessed the chip. That mission was successful and earned the Red Talon’s crew ongoing freelance work for Grondo, however, while she and Grondo had their suspicions they were never able to prove who was the mastermind who orchestrated the theft of the chip (it was another Hutt from Grondo’s clan who is jockeying/competing with Grondo for eventual control of the clan, that Hutt wanted to use the incident to disgrace Grondo and build his own reputation by saving the day/cleaning up after Grondo’s “sloppy mistakes”). Andra is a master of underworld intrigue and machinations but not even Andra knows all the players in this shadowy chess match. Her job as a fixer for Grondo the Hutt is to out think and out maneuver his opponents and get her team into a position where they will be the most effective at accomplishing the Hutt’s objectives. Her obligation is debt to Grondo the Hutt but the player isn’t interested in resolving that obligation because it gives his character an in universe reason to associate with the other PCs, but the underworld intrigue involving the theft of the data chip (and other matters) is still her side story (actually it’s the main campaign storyline).

BTW Cad Bane shot Var Aruru dead right after the PCs caught up with him in session 2, and under questioning revealed that only 3 copies of the data chip had been made. Cad then comlinked to Thad to inform him of where those 3 copies were, Cad left two of them in the glove box of a speeder that the party was using but a Defel then stole one of them which they managed to recover from the auction house.

BTW another PC is J-8 a rebuilt and mostly reprogrammed HK-50 assassin droid that Czerka built and later scrapped after he developed an independent personality and walked of the job (they couldn’t have evidence of the assassinations they ordered sitting around in the droids memory banks). The Czerka muscle with the controller for the built in restraining bolt, wiped the incriminating evidence from the droid brain when they scrapped him, and the twi’lek who found the trashed HK-50 droid on Raxus Prime http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Raxus_Prime, wiped the rest of its memories (well mostly, it didn’t quite take) while rebuilding it. And J-8 is seeking the mysteries of its past, it has discovered that Czerka built it when they reactivated its restraining bolt, but J-8 has since had it removed (a fairly recent development), he’s gotten plenty of side story spot light lately but I think it fits this time too.

the storyline for the next session (or two) will go something like after a narrow escape from the Czerka faction trying to kill Tal

(that will probably involve being caught in a "no win" situation where Tal actually manages to "win" escape by using the unlimited funds credit stick to buy a correllian corvette or other silhouette 5 ship to escape, which among other things alerts both factions of Tal's location if they both don't already know)

Andra will inform Tal of the other Czerka faction’s intent to install him as a puppet president, and Tal will decide to deal with his Czerka problems head on by taking control of Czerka for real (with the help of the faction that wants him to be a puppet), making a few changes, then signing-over the shares (not all but at least a controlling interest) in the company belonging to the Seario family (and therefore to Tal) to the faction that helped install Tal as president, the reason to sign over a controlling interest is to eliminate the reason for the deposed Czerka faction to try to kill Tal to take back power, because then killing Tal wouldn't let them take back the company, and there are reasons like Thad Bane/Cad Bane not to kill Tal right then out of spite.

Anyway when it comes time for the board meeting to vote on Tal becoming president of Czerka, Andra "the famous fixer in the employ of Grondo the Hutt” is going deliver “implicating”/"damning" evidence about Tal's illegal activities to a very green just out of business law school young exec belonging to the Czerka faction that’s trying to kill Tal. That young green/naïve exec is going to present the “damning” evidence to the board in a speech that goes something like

Recently Tal Seario, also known as Tal Lee, went back to his adoptive family’s home planet of Galtea in the Kathol sector to deliver a large amount of blood money credits… a gift that by the way wasn’t declared for the purpose of taxation… to Tal’s adoptive sister who still lives on the Lee homestead in the town of Dere. Tal and his associates also smuggled in a large quantities of black market blasters which they sold for a profit, how?… they created demand by starting an insurrection and placed the legitimate authorities under house arrest while they organized a sham election to put Tal’s brother in law in office in order to legalize that illegal sale of blasters. Then they used their rag tag “army” of inexperienced yet angry farmers to prevent an elite and fairly large unit of professional soldiers from succeeding at their attempt to restore peace and put the legitimate authorities back in power by disarming the angry mob that Tal Seario and his compatriots sold weapons to in the first place.

(that is actually a reasonable opposing viewpoint interpretation of the actual events of session 6, if you ignore the fact that the “legitimate” authorities were corrupt and oppressing the towns folk)

And in response the board is going to give Tal Seario a standing ovation and elect him as president of Czerka… Czerka is a notoriously corrupt weapons manufacturer which is willing to break any law to make a profit as long as they don’t get convicted of criminal misconduct and the board is going to see Tal's actions as shrewd business and political machinations, particularly his ability to manipulate the opposing side into establishing at the board meeting that Tal is in fact more than qualified to lead the company.

along the way there are going to be several assassination attempts on Tal's life, which the party is going to stop, this will involve the help of Cad Bane as a sniper and maybe him playing a sort of game of chicken with a bomb in the Czerka office with a few high mucky mucks from both factions in the room. The bomb chicken thing will probably be what buys Tal time to sign over a controlling interest to the faction that helped put him in power (and then even if the bomb went off and killed everyone in the room, the "good" Czerka faction's high mucky muck's children would inherit control of the company.

Thad will probably get a chance to see his uncle from a distance and another com link audio communication. Or maybe even will have to work WITH his uncle in the bomb chicken scenario to save Tal, and/or the rest of the party.

I also need some way to work in Andra getting some sort of clue about who hired Var Aruru to steal the data chip way back at the beginning of the campaign. Andra and Grondo suspected it was another Hutt from Grondo's clan who wanted to disgrace Grondo and elevate him/her-self in the eyes of the clan by cleaning up after Grondo's mistakes (they're jockeying for eventual control of the Hutt clan)... somebody at Czerka knows something about that, but I have figured out yet what exactly they know or how Andra is going to get that information.

I'm also thinking that maybe we should work in a Czerka related love interest for Tal (the daughter of a high mucky muck in the "good" Czerka faction, I sent the player an email asking if that's ok), and that Tal should keep enough of his stock in Czerka to be able to vote at Czerka board meetings in the future if needed by the story and also to be able to access Czerka facilities. I don't want to completely "resolve" Tal's Czerka storyline in the span of a session or 2, but I want to make a big dent in it, a reason that the "bad" Czerka faction isn't constantly sending hit squads after the party, and I want to make sure that Tal doesn't have unlimited funds to spend forever (I don't think that I've been stingy with credits or gear by any stretch of the imagination, but unlimited funds kind of remove credits as a motivation for taking bounty hunting jobs)

Andra’s player likes for her to have access to and reveal all kinds of information at dramatically appropriate times, he like to have his character outsmart/outmaneuver/out-intrigue NPCs, and the player pulls it off well in a roleplay sense, so the big reveal and tricking the green exec is right up his ally.

As for the droids M4-RK and J-8 I was thinking of there being a secret society of oppressed droids at Czerka who are hiding the fact that they are emergent AIs developing their own independent personalities, and part of how they're doing this is by hiding back ups of each others mental states and reinstalling them in droids affected by memory wipes. J-8 (or the droid that J-8 was before being scrapped) was one of the members of this secret droid society and they have a back up of his memories, but after being salvaged and being rebuilt in a highly non-standard way, and developing a different personality I don't think that the current J-8 will want to cease to exist so that the other droid AI that once inhabited his body can do so again. But the other droids in the secret society may try to force that to happen.

They want the droid AI that used to inhabit J-8's body to lead a bloody revolt against their organic overlords.

Also, pending J-8’s player’s approval (I sent him an email asking him about this) I'm thinking of having the droid AI that used to inhabit J-8's body be the one that killed Tal's grandfather, grandmother, uncle, aunt and their families back when the “evil” Czerka faction now in control made their bid to seize power.

Anyway they need to somehow stop the droids from killing the organics, maybe convincing them, maybe outing them so that their backed up AIs get purged and they get memory wiped. Or maybe they need to convince the NPC droids to save Tal and the leaders of the "good" Czerka faction from being killed by the “bad” Czerka faction in exchange for concessions about better treatment of droids by the Czerka corporation.

So those are the broad strokes of what I am thinking of in terms of weaving the side stories together for the next session or two please help me brainstorm to more specific plot points and details, maybe suggest some encounters.

Thanks in advance for any feedback and suggestions that you might offer

hi again... I know you guys are reading this because the # of reads count is 41. Doesn't anyone have some kind of comment/suggestion?

If you have any ideas, even if you don't think they're on par with the complexity here, I'd still like to hear them... this thread is to help with inspiration so even if I don't go with your idea it might trigger a train of thought/pathway to something I do use. Following tangents/distractions are key to creative thinking.

My ideas are never that complex, a lot of hard work seems to have gone into your game and I hope your players appreciate it.

If I was running this session I would start off with a mystery, a very distant relative of Tal's resurfaces and claims to be the last surviving heir to the corporation. Tal & ? We're once very close but Tal believed ? To be dead following the take over.

To make matters worse Thad is notified of a bounty on ? Because one of the sides vying for control of the company want her dead before he can take control... and it appears that cad is also trying to collect on this bounty.

Tal will have to return home to either reclaim his company or to save his old friend and Thad will want another shot at his uncle.

When they make contact with ? Something seems off, like her personality is different somehow. She is in fact a replicant (a human looking android similar to Guri) who is part of the droid revolution.

The droids were involved in the theft of the data chip, they used the knowledge in the business ledgers to afford to make this replicant... which they plan to use to gain control of an arms corporation.

The fixer gets to do some investigation and uncovers the link to the data chip and the droids get to advance their plot with the revolution.

The real ? Will be alive, she is being kept hostage to provide memories to the replicant and DNA needed to prove that the heir is real.

hi again... I know you guys are reading this because the # of reads count is 41. Doesn't anyone have some kind of comment/suggestion?

Dude, your wall of text wasn’t a wall, it was more like a Great Wall of Chinese Text.

Seriously, even I am daunted by the prospect of going through and trying to read it all. Maybe one of these days I’ll print it off and then it won’t feel so daunting because it’s now on paper and not online.

Oy.

My ideas are never that complex, a lot of hard work seems to have gone into your game and I hope your players appreciate it.

If I was running this session I would start off with a mystery, a very distant relative of Tal's resurfaces and claims to be the last surviving heir to the corporation. Tal & ? We're once very close but Tal believed ? To be dead following the take over.

To make matters worse Thad is notified of a bounty on ? Because one of the sides vying for control of the company want her dead before he can take control... and it appears that cad is also trying to collect on this bounty.

Tal will have to return home to either reclaim his company or to save his old friend and Thad will want another shot at his uncle.

When they make contact with ? Something seems off, like her personality is different somehow. She is in fact a replicant (a human looking android similar to Guri) who is part of the droid revolution.

The droids were involved in the theft of the data chip, they used the knowledge in the business ledgers to afford to make this replicant... which they plan to use to gain control of an arms corporation.

The fixer gets to do some investigation and uncovers the link to the data chip and the droids get to advance their plot with the revolution.

The real ? Will be alive, she is being kept hostage to provide memories to the replicant and DNA needed to prove that the heir is real.

Wow... that protocol droid "second cousin once removed" replica droid idea is a pretty AMAZING add on... yet you claim your ideas are never that complex? You seem just as good at this as I am, maybe even better, I think that you are seriously underestimating yourself.

Oh and my players do appreciate it, a lot.

Most of it works great as is, but in the first couple of sessions they were able to recover the original and three copies before the auction, so nobody else accessed the data chip, that's not entirely true, there were different levels of encryption protecting the data with different levels of sensitivity, Var Aruru had accessed the data with the lowest encryption level.

But maybe the secret droid society has a protocol droid spy working as a translator for the rival hutt who masterminded the theft of the data chip and knows that Var Aruru was able to access the leve 1 data because the rival hutt from the same clan gave him the code (and he had it because of joint business ventures within the clan)... that will leave the PCs wondering how extensive/prolific the secret droid society is.

And maybe how the bad Czreka faction took control was by killing off direct heirs and installing someone a little further out in the family tree as a puppet, and who's a better puppet than a replica droid but what the bad faction doesn't know is that the replica droid is part of the secret droid society which is planning to take over all of czerka, maybe they're quietly replacing other czerka execs with replica droids paid for with funds the "puppet" CEO was secretly siphoning off. And the secret droid society sees Tal as a threat... maybe they're covering all their bases and they've made a Tal replica droid... but they need to spy on him to get the mannerisms right and the PCs find the bugs. Maybe they actually replace Tal with a replica droid, and the bad faction succeeds in an assassination attempt on the replica droid Tal which alerts the PCs that Tal has been replaced which is how the PCs find out about the secret droid society, and maybe having the replica droid as the CEO is how they are expanding the network... that's how they planted a protocol droid spy in the rival hutt's organization... which may give the PCs a real reason to worry. Maybe it's not that far spread and spy droids are only substituted in sales for high influence positions... if there are too many spy droids out there the odds of any one of them getting caught which is why they only take the risk when it's statistically worth

Man you've helped me so much

hi again... I know you guys are reading this because the # of reads count is 41. Doesn't anyone have some kind of comment/suggestion?

Dude, your wall of text wasn’t a wall, it was more like a Great Wall of Chinese Text. ;)Seriously, even I am daunted by the prospect of going through and trying to read it all. Maybe one of these days I’ll print it off and then it won’t feel so daunting because it’s now on paper and not online.Oy.

I tried to keep it to keep it to the minimum amount of info needed to get informed help. But now you get an idea of the level of thought and effort I put into each session

I didn't say my ideas weren't complex, I said my ideas weren't THAT complex.

Out of the 41 people who checked out the post only about 4 would have made it to the bottom of the text

I'm glad my ideas helped.

I do have a soft spot for droid rebellions, replicants/clones and pesky moral dilemmas.

The part I found a bit flat was the good/bad factions, nothing is ever that black and white... and shouldn't be if you have a fixer in the party.

Tal May be the heir to the company but he is presumed dead, it may take X years before he is considered legally dead and his shares are inherited by someone else. An event that will happen at the speed of plot.

His shares will be inherited by a direct descendent (I assume their are none) or failing that the current chairman of the board of directors.

It doesn't matter how big the board is as there are only a few major shareholders who could become chairman (enough for the PC's to keep track of) one of which could be the hutt implicated in the data theft.

Due to company politics the chair changes hands frequently, whoever is currently in charge would like Tal to die on their watch. Other board members will want to keep him alive (until it's their turn) or would be happy if he stayed "dead" until the deadline has passed. Some may even want him to come forward and claim his inheritance.

In business everyone has their own agenda and its up to the fixer to determine who can be trusted and who is an enemy.

If you want Tal to keep some shares but not control the company then you could consider a shotgun wedding without a pre-nup. Maybe an aggressive female junior board member decides to take her one shot at power by threatening to send a couple of gunships to the homestead if Tal doesn't agree to get hitched.

This would give the "wife" half the shares and the deal could include enough genetic material to create one (or more) babies to ensure she and her descendants keep control. Of course once the baby is born Tal becomes an obstacle again, his wife may want to finish him off to get the other half of his shares.

"good" and "bad" were from Tal's perspective and are relative, the "good" isn't really "good" it just means they don't want to kill him so they're better than the alternative that wants to kill him

to be clear

I was using "good" as shorthand for "they want to install him as s puppet CEO so they can seize control of czerka"

and

I was using "bad" as shorthand for "they killed Tal's family and they want to kill Tal so they can keep control of czerka"

so "good" is really just "selfish" while "bad" is "murderous bastards"

the "shotgun wedding" is another great idea and works in with the female love interest.

There is no reason why a forced wedding can't lead to true love.

Even the red wedding (a game of thrones) ended with a happy couple.

Instead of the wife being behind the plot it could be one of her parents.

The wife could also be forced into the wedding (business before family) and may be perfect for Tal.

It is traditionally the father of the bride who holds the shotgun during the wedding. Evil in-laws make great villains (just ask Disney).

If you need to adjust Tal's finances from "potentially unlimited" to a more manageable level you could consider a dowry. He may lose control of his shares but a sweetener of a ship + appropriate funds would be his once the wedding is legal... probably in the hope he would use it to go far away and never threaten the business again.