I'm noodling an Age of Rebellion campaign and pulling ideas from historical insurgencies. I want to set the tone in the first adventure by establishing why the Empire must be opposed. I'm thinking about something along the lines of what you'd see at the beginning of most shows where bad guys do bad things and the heroes are not yet involved. Problem is, while that may work great in TV or Movies, I don't know how well that would work in an RPG setting. Any suggestions?

Try tying it in with the backgrounds, bonds, obligations, duties, or whatever of the characters.

If one of them has the 'Justified Avengers' background (AoR page 44), then discribe friends and family of the character to be shot to pieces. If one has 'The New Recruit', also mention one of the assaulted NPC's escaping, and have that NPC be the mentor, or recruiter, for that player character. If you also blend in Obligations from Edge of the Empire, and a character would have the 'Betrayal' obligation, then have this opening scene include either the character betraying the targets of the opening scene, or being betrayed (like Leia was when Tarkin decided to blow up Alderaan anyways).

Point is, this sort of opening can work, but a mentioning of random atrocities by the Empire doesn't evoke the same feeling as an opening scene where one, two, three, or all of the players can relate to, through their characters' obligations, duties, etc.

You could have it introduced as a news bulletin on the holonet perhaps. "This just in, footage has been presented of the Illustrious Imperial Forces, crushing yet another *insurgency outpost/colony uprising/pregnant, orphan nun shelter/whatever* ! Sources report the victory is absolute, and our beloved Emperor's troops will be re-establishing order in no time!" Assuming they're watching it from an Imperial friendly news source.

Or some video footage that is smuggled out that is played for the player group. Think of the face melting scene from The Last Starfighter for example, or the big reveal from Serenity about what the Inner Planets Alliance was actually up to. Assuming the party is already a party, this could work very easily. If you haven't actually established them as a group yet, I would take some time with each of them in a short 1 on 1 session, giving them some terrible experience with the forces of the Empire.

If they've already meshed as a unit, then have them uncover something that establishes just how many puppies the Empire has stomped on for your Evil Meter's purposes.

One idea I've been thinking about is starting a game around ANH in that your players are all living within a remote star system that once was held by the separatists but due to their rampant greed and pointless savagery (think blue shadow virus and that energy satellite system spread through an asteroid belt surrounding the world that had the cure to said virus) the locals drove the separatists out and rebuilt their system.

Cue the arrival of the Imperials who don't care that the system isn't any longer under separatist control that's just the excuse they're using to usurp control of the system as its an ideal stepping stone into a section of the Outer Rim that is otherwise outside of their effective range.

Your players witness the arrival of the Imperials their immediate and unprovoked attack in the face of the locals being friendly and your players have to find their own way off the world and into hiding as the Imps have a Interdictor preventing them from simply jumping out of the system.

So they need a place to hide, lucky they have a smuggler who knows an out of the way shadow port to catch their breath, however in the process they've drawn the imperials attention who mistakenly (maybe not?) think someone important is aboard their ship and they want them found and interrogated as they need evidence to back up their original reason for attacking and to do that they need someone alive long enough to confess to their fraudulent claims.

Now you have a system with say maybe one known inhabitable world but thanks to the miracle of technology quite a few hiding places say make the second world hold some floating cities ala cloud city, the first world a mining colony using one of Lando's walking mining factories from the Legends canon, the fourth world is a desert world ala Jakku maybe have that be a Geonosis colony that's escaped the attention of the Imps the fifth orbit is an asteroid belt with a gas giant the sixth along with the seventh which has a ring of ice asteroids orbiting it.

The eighth and ninth are actually water worlds with remarkable underwater life maybe even a Quarren and Mon Calamari underwater colony, the ninth is an ice world and former home to a Listening outpost as well as a Early Warning base which was obliterated when the imps arrived a mistake which allowed the main world to mobilise their fleet which although small wasn't completely wiped out by the imps meaning a rebel cell would have some suitable backup if they fancy a capital ship battle!

There's an outer asteroid belt in case they need another secret hiding place including Hoth-like worlds hidden within it except they'll need rebreathers out there since its as close to vacuum as you can get unless you have a space base or two which they do since given the presence of hyperspace capable ships why wouldn't they explore the Oort cloud?

Does that help?

Not every moment needs to be role played. I tend to put a lot of stuff into the opening crawl to set things in motion. I will typically read a full page (1.5 spacing Times New Roman 12) before the first dice are rolled.

Watch the original "Red Dawn". Pay attention to what the invaders do to the civilian population: Mass execution style shootings/ Mass Graves, looting of the local resources, detaining people for no reason.

Also, read up on what various communist regimes have done to their civilian populations. Like Stalin and the forced labor camps and execution of the farmers, Pol-Pot and the Cambodian Killing Fields. Mao rounding up intellectuals and sending them to work camps.

Have the PCs observe one or many of them or even start en media res, where the PCs are waiting in ambush having watched several "un-reeducationable" people having dug a large pit and they are now kneeling down with several armed Imperial army/ Navy troops watching over them. Then the party spots them wheeling out an light repeating blaster and about to shoot the detainees in the back....

I have had the players assume the roles of characters other than their own PCs at times to let them experience something important to the campaign but not necessarily involving the PCs. They get to witness first hand other, sometimes deadly, events.

Imagine spending a session with the players as citizens of Alderaan tipped with last minute info that the DeathStar has targeted them. They have a few hours to try and convince the authorities, manage a panic and evacuate. If they dont, boom, perhaps they all die in the attempt. The next session they as their regular characters hear a holonet broadcast that some catastrophic seismic upheaval has destroyed Alderaan with millions perishing. They know better and have a much more personal connection to what happened there as Players.

I have had the players assume the roles of characters other than their own PCs at times to let them experience something important to the campaign but not necessarily involving the PCs. They get to witness first hand other, sometimes deadly, events.

Imagine spending a session with the players as citizens of Alderaan tipped with last minute info that the DeathStar has targeted them. They have a few hours to try and convince the authorities, manage a panic and evacuate. If they dont, boom, perhaps they all die in the attempt. The next session they as their regular characters hear a holonet broadcast that some catastrophic seismic upheaval has destroyed Alderaan with millions perishing. They know better and have a much more personal connection to what happened there as Players.

Having a side mission or two, with the players as other characters is a very fun thing to do. You can ramp up the stakes a lot more, and not worry about killing them. And, they can also be a little more reckless if they want to, knowing these aren't their "main characters".

Another idea could be to have the players in position to see a group of people (maybe Rebels, maybe just a fed up occupied population) defy the Imperials, and be met with a complete disproportionate response. Someone throws a homemade explosive at the Imperials and they respond with a full scale artillery bombardment indiscriminately targeting homes, schools, hospitals, etc. Aside from establishing why the Empire has to be opposed, it also brings home to the players that they have to be careful about how they do the opposing if they don't want to put a lot of innocent civilians in a position to become collateral damage.

Can you imagine the Empire hitting several worlds claiming they're either separatist loyalists or just demonstrating how ruthless they are by devastating areas simply because the world's government questions their presence?

Now imagine this is all deliberate since they're doing this to force a reaction draw out a potential enemy simply by attacking innocents knowing full well their enemies compassion will force them out of hiding where they can kill them!

Now if they demonstrate what that was like before Tarkin died on the Death Star....