Overprep

FFG can't even 'get it right'. The Beginner adventure has the PCs landing on a planet and interacting with a culture that's supposedly been wiped out in one of the recent cartoons.

Long Arm of the Hutt release predates all of the material that covers the sterilization of Geonosis. The actual writing likely predates the entire Disney purchase of Lucasfilm. FFG didn't 'get it wrong,' they had the rug pulled out from under their feet.

Hence why I put it in quotation marks.

'Canon' is always changing. Todays' 'canon' is tomorrow's 'Legends'. When the next bunch of films comes along, much of the new stuff will get demoted, a la Thrawn and Force Unleashed.

Which is part of why I don't think people should stress out over it. What they do in some cartoon doesn't affect my table.

Whafrog "What do you mean by "skipping over a dozen"?

The PCs do have star charts and undoubtedly will look them over to see where they are going. Refueling and such may, or may not, require stops along the way but they should certainly have the option to take shorter jumps and visit the worlds as they go. I don't know that they will but its a possibility. Its certainly 'realistic' in that travelers of the space ways may click on the nav-computer data base and "Hey, Denon. Isnt that an all city planet, like Corruscant? Lets stop and check it out."

Fair enough, depends how you run the game. I usually have several plot threads that the players are in the midst of resolving, so their choices end up naturally gravitating towards only a few options, and there's rarely the luxury of sight-seeing. At the start of a session, if they haven't already decided, I lay out the options, and there's always an "option D"...go somewhere completely different.

If they do, I need to be at least a little prepared for it. Granted, I cold construct the adventure to disallow such things but that's typically frowned upon. So would not allowing the players to see the star charts when they travel to avoid them getting distracted.

I'll quibble over the word "disallow". The opposite of "more prep" is not "disallow", and nobody here is arguing that you should constrain the player's choices. It's just that with so many options, it's worth considering a different approach than trying to stock it all like a dungeon. And if they have a specific (and timely) reason to need to be in a place, then you can more easily rule out needing to be prepared for the others.

Whafrog "What do you mean by "skipping over a dozen"?

The PCs do have star charts and undoubtedly will look them over to see where they are going. Refueling and such may, or may not, require stops along the way but they should certainly have the option to take shorter jumps and visit the worlds as they go. I don't know that they will but its a possibility. Its certainly 'realistic' in that travelers of the space ways may click on the nav-computer data base and "Hey, Denon. Isnt that an all city planet, like Corruscant? Lets stop and check it out."

Fair enough, depends how you run the game. I usually have several plot threads that the players are in the midst of resolving, so their choices end up naturally gravitating towards only a few options, and there's rarely the luxury of sight-seeing. At the start of a session, if they haven't already decided, I lay out the options, and there's always an "option D"...go somewhere completely different.

If they do, I need to be at least a little prepared for it. Granted, I cold construct the adventure to disallow such things but that's typically frowned upon. So would not allowing the players to see the star charts when they travel to avoid them getting distracted.

I'll quibble over the word "disallow". The opposite of "more prep" is not "disallow", and nobody here is arguing that you should constrain the player's choices. It's just that with so many options, it's worth considering a different approach than trying to stock it all like a dungeon. And if they have a specific (and timely) reason to need to be in a place, then you can more easily rule out needing to be prepared for the others.

I think the trick is to more ask yourself things like "what plot hooks can I freely connect where? If they decide to go to a "jungle world" because reasons, can I have something there for them to run into that will advance the plot?" Maybe you have a hook that involves them going to some First World planet, but they decide to avoid anything heavily populated. Ok then, maybe instead, they run into a small excavation group on the jungle planet they go to, that happens to have connections to a corporation that is involved in your plot. And while they are there, (and possibly getting into adventures with the NPC group), they find a data packet mentioning a person of interest to the party. Previously, this would've been given to them by a twi'lek in a cantina, but hey, nothing saying they can't be told about it by a disgruntled worker, annoyed they're out on the a$$ end of nowhere, working for this jerk of a hutt! And hey, you guys just saved his life, screw the boss! Sure I'll tell you guys why he's got us out here! It's cause of *insert your slightly altered plot hook into PC cheek, reel in*.

Blamo, end result is same, with different skin.

As a friend of mine put it, the trick to GMing can be summed up in the following example:

GM: You are at a crossroads, you can go up the path into the mountains, or go down the path into the valley."

Option 1:

Players: We go up!

GM: You meet an old man outside a hut at the foot of the mountain.

Option 2:

Players: We go down!

GM: You meet an old man outside a hut in the bowl of the valley.

Overprep

I wont argue with you but that is of course an opinion. Running an entire session on what one jotted down on a napkin at lunch would be considered laughable and a clear method of turning a game into a GM making up a story to entertain his friends. Its all quite variable and dependent on the personalities at hand I am sure.

I respect your opinion though. I have thought at times that I put too much work into my prep but Im not sure how I could change that if I could. Anything less would feel inadequate. The worlds we make for our games, afterall, become our own personal canon. If an entire session of player action in a world generates nothing more than some vague, generic descriptions then the entire game is vague and generic. Not at all what I believe most players are looking for. Just MY opinion that time of course.

Whafrog "What do you mean by "skipping over a dozen"?

The PCs do have star charts and undoubtedly will look them over to see where they are going. Refueling and such may, or may not, require stops along the way but they should certainly have the option to take shorter jumps and visit the worlds as they go. I don't know that they will but its a possibility. Its certainly 'realistic' in that travelers of the space ways may click on the nav-computer data base and "Hey, Denon. Isnt that an all city planet, like Corruscant? Lets stop and check it out."

Fair enough, depends how you run the game. I usually have several plot threads that the players are in the midst of resolving, so their choices end up naturally gravitating towards only a few options, and there's rarely the luxury of sight-seeing. At the start of a session, if they haven't already decided, I lay out the options, and there's always an "option D"...go somewhere completely different.

If they do, I need to be at least a little prepared for it. Granted, I cold construct the adventure to disallow such things but that's typically frowned upon. So would not allowing the players to see the star charts when they travel to avoid them getting distracted.

I'll quibble over the word "disallow". The opposite of "more prep" is not "disallow", and nobody here is arguing that you should constrain the player's choices. It's just that with so many options, it's worth considering a different approach than trying to stock it all like a dungeon. And if they have a specific (and timely) reason to need to be in a place, then you can more easily rule out needing to be prepared for the others.

Boy, doesn't stocking a dungeon sound easy now! Laugh. I see your point, and I really don't think my players would hedge me if I hinted I wasn't prepared for a choice the made. It would be awkward for me though, and I would like to avoid it if I can.

The best advice I can offer is to channel your inner Obi-Wan and speak "from a certain point of view."

Don't use absolutes - the PCs want to interact with Twi'leks? Have them put in contact with an "expert" who relates the information, or a holonet site they go to get facts. Then, later, if the site or contact told them something that you later find to be untrue, then it wasn't you messing up, it was the opinion or disinformation of the contact/site/etc.

When on a planet, only talk about things in the location that they are; don't have representatives speak of the planet/continent/greater area. This way, you can minimize the specifics and if something is proven out of context later, narrative hand-wavery can explain it as a local quirk or custom.

Always make sure that facts come from NPCs or spurious data sources - never as fact from you as the GM. That way, anything that is later wrong has an in-game reason for change if it needs to later, as well as relieving you from needing to constantly remember a billion precedents.

Sorry, this has nothing to do with this thread but something you posted caught my attention. The idea that characters could log in and look up data on the holonet as you suggest. I didn't think it worked that way, or at least the popular consensus is that it doesn't. Has something been decided in the FFG StarWars universe to change it?

My understanding was the Holonet is not a database but a medium of communication. One that allows FTL broadcasts and message delivery but in itself is nothing more than what someone on the sending end, well sends out. Someone could watch a documentary about Twi'leks for example, if the Imperial programmers felt the need to show one, or they could contact a library or university somewhere via the holonet (if they had clearance) and request information. (Which would have to be sent back, something like an email) but there is no INTERNET like cyberspace location in Star Wars where information sets dormant ready to be accessed, viewed and downloaded. Is there?

Boy, doesn't stocking a dungeon sound easy now! Laugh. I see your point, and I really don't think my players would hedge me if I hinted I wasn't prepared for a choice the made. It would be awkward for me though, and I would like to avoid it if I can.

There are tools to make this seamless, what tools you use depend on what you are comfortable with. If they go completely off the beaten track, I ask for a few minutes (they can get a(-nother) beer), look up a few things, find some pics if possible etc. But the best tool for me is honestly just percentile dice and a couple questions. Is the planet hot or cold? Is it barren or lush? Is that shopkeeper angry, happy, or morose? Usually by the time I've asked myself a couple questions (and resolved, or ignored, the dice results ), the wheels are already spinning and the narrative just pours out. (Then I make notes later so if they go back it's not completely different.)

My understanding was the Holonet is not a database but a medium of communication. One that allows FTL broadcasts and message delivery but in itself is nothing more than what someone on the sending end, well sends out. Someone could watch a documentary about Twi'leks for example, if the Imperial programmers felt the need to show one, or they could contact a library or university somewhere via the holonet (if they had clearance) and request information. (Which would have to be sent back, something like an email) but there is no INTERNET like cyberspace location in Star Wars where information sets dormant ready to be accessed, viewed and downloaded. Is there?

Lots of threads hashing this out, with, as you can imagine, varying opinions Here's one, no more or less valid than others: I just treat it as an analogue to the Internet, but in Imperial times, the Internet in China. I do this because managing the player exceptions of the alternative is not the least bit interesting to me. I'll be damned if I had to waste my own and the player's time explaining the boundaries of a Star-Wars-information-economy-as-imagined-in-the-70s...dear void what a chore that would be.

Boy, doesn't stocking a dungeon sound easy now! Laugh. I see your point, and I really don't think my players would hedge me if I hinted I wasn't prepared for a choice the made. It would be awkward for me though, and I would like to avoid it if I can.

There are tools to make this seamless, what tools you use depend on what you are comfortable with. If they go completely off the beaten track, I ask for a few minutes (they can get a(-nother) beer), look up a few things, find some pics if possible etc. But the best tool for me is honestly just percentile dice and a couple questions. Is the planet hot or cold? Is it barren or lush? Is that shopkeeper angry, happy, or morose? Usually by the time I've asked myself a couple questions (and resolved, or ignored, the dice results ), the wheels are already spinning and the narrative just pours out. (Then I make notes later so if they go back it's not completely different.)

I actually use the old percentile dice in much the same way, only to further flesh out areas Ive already touched on during prep, rarely to start from scratch. I also keep them at hand during play and often use them to generate specifics that I would rather keep random rather than by my own decision. (How many guards are a the gate? How bright is/are the moon(s) this night? How far away is the nearest power station? Which way does the big nasty go when crawling out of its lair?)

My understanding was the Holonet is not a database but a medium of communication. One that allows FTL broadcasts and message delivery but in itself is nothing more than what someone on the sending end, well sends out. Someone could watch a documentary about Twi'leks for example, if the Imperial programmers felt the need to show one, or they could contact a library or university somewhere via the holonet (if they had clearance) and request information. (Which would have to be sent back, something like an email) but there is no INTERNET like cyberspace location in Star Wars where information sets dormant ready to be accessed, viewed and downloaded. Is there?

Lots of threads hashing this out, with, as you can imagine, varying opinions Here's one, no more or less valid than others: I just treat it as an analogue to the Internet, but in Imperial times, the Internet in China. I do this because managing the player exceptions of the alternative is not the least bit interesting to me. I'll be damned if I had to waste my own and the player's time explaining the boundaries of a Star-Wars-information-economy-as-imagined-in-the-70s...dear void what a chore that would be.

I hear and understand, its actually one of the things my little group sat and chatted about over a burger a few weeks ago. (yeah we got some looks) We actually came to the conclusion as a group that what we call the internet doesn't exist in Star Wars. Data is stored locally in computers, but you have to access them specifically and individually to retrieve it. Communications pathways are an entirely different technology. Yes, you could access a computer directly via some communications link, if the link established and left open and the system wasn't protected but due to the same catastrophes that issued in limits to the use of wireless technology it would be a rare thing indeed to find a system susceptible.

My understanding was the Holonet is not a database but a medium of communication. One that allows FTL broadcasts and message delivery but in itself is nothing more than what someone on the sending end, well sends out. Someone could watch a documentary about Twi'leks for example, if the Imperial programmers felt the need to show one, or they could contact a library or university somewhere via the holonet (if they had clearance) and request information. (Which would have to be sent back, something like an email) but there is no INTERNET like cyberspace location in Star Wars where information sets dormant ready to be accessed, viewed and downloaded. Is there?

Lots of threads hashing this out, with, as you can imagine, varying opinions Here's one, no more or less valid than others: I just treat it as an analogue to the Internet, but in Imperial times, the Internet in China. I do this because managing the player exceptions of the alternative is not the least bit interesting to me. I'll be damned if I had to waste my own and the player's time explaining the boundaries of a Star-Wars-information-economy-as-imagined-in-the-70s...dear void what a chore that would be.

I hear and understand, its actually one of the things my little group sat and chatted about over a burger a few weeks ago. (yeah we got some looks) We actually came to the conclusion as a group that what we call the internet doesn't exist in Star Wars. Data is stored locally in computers, but you have to access them specifically and individually to retrieve it. Communications pathways are an entirely different technology. Yes, you could access a computer directly via some communications link, if the link established and left open and the system wasn't protected but due to the same catastrophes that issued in limits to the use of wireless technology it would be a rare thing indeed to find a system susceptible.

I've heard it described, as the Holonet is the phone line, that your early 90's internet used to actually do anything. It's not "The Cloud", or anything like that itself. This is partly due, so that there is a reason why slicers actually have to do stuff directly, instead of remotely. Slicing Coruscant from Tatooine sounds cool, but it just opens up way too much in the way of potential plot holes to make narrative fun. Any information of secret (and thus juicy) knowledge, isn't on the Holonet, and has to be extracted directly (so dust off that slicing gear and follow your friends into that compound!), but I don't see why there couldn't be a city wide, or planetary wide holonet database/user board. The information on it would be suspect at best, littered with rumors, speculation, conspiracy theories and the life, but sure, why not? It could give your players tidbits on where to go. Maybe the slicer is surfing for local jobs, and catches wind of a person who reported seeing "a strange person who saved them. the person spoke oddly, and seemed to be ignored by the local thugs who attacked her, almost like they didn't know he was there." Hmm, that sounds interesting, maybe it's a Force Sensitive, maybe he can teach our party just why our pilot is suddenly able to throw tools around the workshop when she's angry. Hey look! Plot hook!

I could be wrong in this personal theory about the Holonet, but I don't see how, if you just use it like a public wikipedia/youtube, that wouldn't break the theme of the Holonet in Star Wars. It's ultimately not going to be a tool to hack and take down the Empire. But you could still have some connectivity to give your more digitally inclined players the feel they're not in the stone age, while flying in hyperspace. You could easily justify why it's localized in that the amount of energy it would take to transfer that much data at FTL speeds, is so prohibitive, that all you CAN do is send sketchy, low rez holograms. Anything more detailed/complex than that, sorry, you gotta bottle it up in data storage, and transport it yourself.

**EDIT**

bolded to correct typo

Look up what's been written by others about every nook and cranny in Star Wars for what purpose? To write it down again, or just in case? Is this a RPG or Star Wars trivial pursuit? Keep a few generic 'in case of PC dumbassery break glass' options handy and be done with it.

Data is stored locally in computers, but you have to access them specifically and individually to retrieve it.

That's the thing, that's how it's done now in RL, it's not any different, which is why I don't bother to make a distinction. People get confused by terms like "the internet" or "the cloud" as if the data is somewhere ethereal that anybody can just grab or "hack" into...it's not. If you wanted to break into Apple's iCloud, you'd have to go to the server farm, or bribe somebody inside to set up access. You can't just hack it from your basement. All hacks are inside jobs, ultimately.

I could be wrong in this personal theory about the Holonet, but I don't see how, if you just use it like a public wikipedia/youtube, that would break the theme of the Holonet in Star Wars.

Why? If the players are looking for specific information that's important to a mission, it's not going to be on a wikipedia-equivalent...just like it wouldn't be today. The players can't use that to "cheat" or bypass anything, just like you can't get on the internet today and find out who's "really" behind that shadowy corporation. Sneaky stuff worthy of an adventure session is always going to require legwork, facework, and...probably wetwork...

I could be wrong in this personal theory about the Holonet, but I don't see how, if you just use it like a public wikipedia/youtube, that would break the theme of the Holonet in Star Wars.

Why? If the players are looking for specific information that's important to a mission, it's not going to be on a wikipedia-equivalent...just like it wouldn't be today. The players can't use that to "cheat" or bypass anything, just like you can't get on the internet today and find out who's "really" behind that shadowy corporation. Sneaky stuff worthy of an adventure session is always going to require legwork, facework, and...probably wetwork...

My use of the word "would" in what you quoted is a typo on my part. Just re-read it, and I meant to say "wouldn't". Editing original source to correct.

Though i would say in RL you can potentially hack a corporation and get information about them. We've seen plenty of examples of those who are really really skilled at it, doing exactly that kind of thing.

The worlds of Star Wars are unique and full of individual character and should present that way in the game, or so I believe. I cant imagine just generalizing them during a session. The more you know ahead of time, the better you can present the image to the players.

That’s true, but there’s already so much out there that’s been written by so many people, and so much of it is contradictory. You just can’t possibly get it all, much less read it all, much less remember it all. There’s too much being generated too fast for you or any other person to possibly keep up.

Even the guys at Disney/LucasFilm can’t keep up with all the official Canon stuff that happens, because things do occasionally slip through. And that’s when you have a multi-billion dollar franchise and a massive department of people who are paid to do this as their sole job.

So, what you describe is a Sisyphean Task, not a Herculean one. It cannot possibly be done by any one person, or any group of people, anywhere in this world.

My recommendation is that you don’t try to take that road.

I like to use a concept that I learned a few years ago, which amounts to “Manage for the positive things that you DO want, instead of trying to manage for the negative things you DON'T want.”

The trick is that there is an infinite variety of things in this world that you don’t want — you don’t want to die, you don’t want to be burned, you don’t want to be shot, you don’t want to be electrocuted, you don’t want … and that list literally goes on forever. It cannot ever possibly end, because the list is growing faster than you could possibly process it.

So, instead, you manage for what you DO want. You want to be healthy and feel healthy. Well, that encompasses a whole lot of things, and you can set out some ideas of things you could do that could potentially help you in this regard, you can try to figure out which ones are more likely to be helpful versus which ones are more likely to be a low return on your investment, and then try to do some prioritization. You’ve still mostly avoided all the negative things you don’t want, but you’ve done it by focusing on the positive things you do want.

So, let’s apply that technique to the process of being a GM for Star Wars.

You know where the story starts, and you have some good ideas of where you think it will end, or maybe two or three ideas of where it might end. You have some ideas of places along the way where there might be opportunities for sidetracking.

Do some research on all those items, and write down what you think are the important aspects of those places/things. You will want to try to think like your players, but that’s the natural part. The part that would come less naturally is the part where you try to think like a normal person or a movie/TV watcher who is looking at this scene, so that not only can you describe things in terms that your players will understand, you can also do so in cinematic terms that would resonate with the audience behind the players. That helps keep the players in the right mindset as they go along.

Try to think of ways where the players could add to that narrative. They’re relatively smart people, otherwise you probably wouldn’t be spending much time with them. So, what can they bring to this table? Can they describe the smell of that food? Or the visual image of that creature over there? How do they describe what they can hear? Actively try to get them invested in creating the detailed descriptions based on your overall description, and then go with the “rule of cool”.

Now, you and I both know that no plan survives first contact, so you also need to have some things in your quiver that you can pull out at a moments notice and use pretty much regardless of where they are or what they are doing. This is where the Environmental Set Pieces come in. Also the NPC cards from FFG, or other sources. This is where the Galactic Campaign Guide might be handy. The idea here is to have a lot of tools at your disposal that can be used almost anywhere (maybe with some re-skinning), that can help get the players back on track, or at least provide some interesting brief mini side adventures for them, while they go through the overall story arc that you’re working on together.

But keep in mind that there is no amount of overprep that can help you actually be prepared for anything and everything that the players might possibly do. They have the network effect of being more than one person, and that network effect is beyond exponential or combinatorial.

The absolute best you can reasonably hope to do is to help create a believable and interesting story backdrop into which the individual adventures are found, and where everyone at the table has a lot of fun.

Focus on that fun, and everything else should be secondary.

Please understand, fully realizing the method of “Manage for the positive things you DO want as opposed to the negative things you DON’T want” is a life-long commitment — this isn’t a short-term diet that you can do for fifteen days and then you go back to all your old favourite snacks.

You have to understand that some days you’re just not going to be so good at it, and recognize that when you fall off the horse, you just have to get back up, dust yourself off, and get back on.

And you don’t have to aim for perfection. Just try to be a little bit better today than you were yesterday, and over the long term, that will get you to a much better place.

FFG can't even 'get it right'. The Beginner adventure has the PCs landing on a planet and interacting with a culture that's supposedly been wiped out in one of the recent cartoons.

Long Arm of the Hutt release predates all of the material that covers the sterilization of Geonosis. The actual writing likely predates the entire Disney purchase of Lucasfilm. FFG didn't 'get it wrong,' they had the rug pulled out from under their feet.

They ignored one of the primary pieces of advice from the WEG SW D6 writers manual, avoid writing adventures in areas where big canon events happen.

Sorry, this has nothing to do with this thread but something you posted caught my attention. The idea that characters could log in and look up data on the holonet as you suggest. I didn't think it worked that way, or at least the popular consensus is that it doesn't. Has something been decided in the FFG StarWars universe to change it?

My understanding was the Holonet is not a database but a medium of communication.

There are “InfoChants” (INFOrmation merCHANTS). One might connect to them via the Holonet.

Of course, the Holonet is heavily monitored by the Empire, so you might just be cooking your goose (or theirs) just by trying to use it at all.

There are other information networks out there, which might not be as well connected as the Holonet, and possibly not as well monitored. But Star Wars is a Universe that was dreamed up back in the 60s and 70s, in the days when cable TV was still new, and my grandfather could still make a really good living by selling Worldbook Encyclopedias door-to-door.

So, no — I wouldn’t say that there is an equivalent of Google on the Holonet. No search engines of any kind, at least not any public ones, and most of the ones that might exist would be run by the Empire.

If you remember what computers were like in the 80s, with modems and bulletin board systems, that would be a better analogy. Those people who were really lucky might have been connected to the ArpaNet, and they might have a hard-copy list of ftp sites that they could hit for information, but the protocols would be limited and the information of what is available where would not be widely distributed.

Though i would say in RL you can potentially hack a corporation and get information about them. We've seen plenty of examples of those who are really really skilled at it, doing exactly that kind of thing.

I don't know what you imagine those people are doing, but they aren't sitting at their computers typing code for a while and then gloating "I'm in..." That stuff only happens in movies...or early in the internet days, for about 5 minutes, when the thrill of getting connected overrode security concerns. Hackers need to phish or bribe, which are social skills. Either of those has to result in a password or some kind of malware that opens a gate.

There are smaller, less clueful, targets that could probably still be taken down today by a zero-day vulnerability in their webserver which is directly connected to all their other servers, including the one with all the nice fat user account data stored unencrypted.

But not many. Most of those low-hanging fruit got picked a long time ago.

Statistically, roughly 90% of all hacks come from insiders. People who are using or abusing their existing access to do something they shouldn’t. Sadly, most of these hacks are never discovered, or if they are discovered they are quietly dealt with and nobody hears about them. Most of the big attacks you do hear about are from disgruntled employees who are doing something as they leave.

Of the remainder, about 90% are done via social engineering, to get credentials from unwary insiders. Maybe you leave a bunch of “free” USB thumb drives laying around in their parking lot, or you get someone hired into their cleaning crew and they swap out some of the power strips for units that look identical, but actually include network sniffer hardware. Or maybe you spear-phish some executive who can’t be bothered to check that he’s actually being sent to bankofamerica.com instead of bank.of.ameri.ca.co, or whatever.

The remainder is totally external attacks.

Overprep

I wont argue with you but that is of course an opinion. Running an entire session on what one jotted down on a napkin at lunch would be considered laughable and a clear method of turning a game into a GM making up a story to entertain his friends. Its all quite variable and dependent on the personalities at hand I am sure.

I respect your opinion though. I have thought at times that I put too much work into my prep but Im not sure how I could change that if I could. Anything less would feel inadequate. The worlds we make for our games, afterall, become our own personal canon. If an entire session of player action in a world generates nothing more than some vague, generic descriptions then the entire game is vague and generic. Not at all what I believe most players are looking for. Just MY opinion that time of course.

"Prep the world, not the plot," they say. It's apt advice. If you still want to have an underlying story, that's great! I would suggest more than one, three being my sweet spot. The trick is, though, that the stories continue with or without PC interaction - however, the PC's actions directly influence the story when they do.

Now, I don't go and write a giant story only to be disappointed when nobody hears it. I'll boil it down to a few timed bullet points with some idea of what will happen if the PCs choose to engage or do not. The fact that I have a story in my head greatly benefits the session if the PCs interact with the story, but having enough gumption and "generic prep (more on that later)" means they really can't tell if I'm playing out of a module, a scripted story, or if it's coming from whence the sun doesn't shine. A GM's body language and demeanor can go a long way when you're making things up!

Now, generic prep. Like 2P51 suggests above, having a small set of nondescript locales and NPCs that you can slap a coat of paint and clothes on at the drop of a hat will serve a GM well. Sure, designing specific locales and NPCs is still on the table, but when PCs zig when you expected a zag, a GM can be prepared for that. This sort of prep can't really be over-prepped in my mind.

A final piece of advice, which comes from O66's GM Phil, is to roll for Obligation/Duty/Morality at the end of a session with the intent that it will influence the next session. The benefits are twofold:

1. you have more time to prep

2. you add just a little extra je ne sais quoi to keep the players themselves hungry and eager for the next session. Anticipation, baby!

There's a lot of excellent advice in this thread, I hope it's useful.

Good stuff guys. Thanks alot. I've been running games for decades but am the sole gm most of the time. Nobody to discuss theory with. This is refreshing and really helpful.

Sorry, this has nothing to do with this thread but something you posted caught my attention. The idea that characters could log in and look up data on the holonet as you suggest. I didn't think it worked that way, or at least the popular consensus is that it doesn't. Has something been decided in the FFG StarWars universe to change it?

My understanding was the Holonet is not a database but a medium of communication. One that allows FTL broadcasts and message delivery but in itself is nothing more than what someone on the sending end, well sends out.

The Holonet has more versions than the movies themselves do. I generally try to give ideas by not making assumptions on how someone is going to use it.

In my games, the Holonet is a transmission medium linking datacores. For instance, Astrogation computers get their information over the holonet, presumably by linking up to the BoSS mainframe or some such. This is why some Navicomputers and Astromechs have limited jumps, because they have to get the data from a base somewhere as they don't have an uplink to the holonet. I don't use the holonet as an "internet" - aside from Navigational data the Empire has a pretty hard lock down on holonet traffic, but it can be monitored by skilled PCs or the Empire to mine for "buzz words" and then record conversations off of those buzz words (which is how the Imperials monitor for Rebel activity - luckily, the Rebellion has really good encryption to defy the monitoring).

Good stuff guys. Thanks alot. I've been running games for decades but am the sole gm most of the time. Nobody to discuss theory with. This is refreshing and really helpful.

This is what I love about these forums, all you guys are amazingly supportive of each other! I know for one my game has been greatly improved by conversations I've had with folks here!

Good stuff guys. Thanks alot. I've been running games for decades but am the sole gm most of the time. Nobody to discuss theory with. This is refreshing and really helpful.

I've got the same problem with my 2 friends. They're just either too autistic/socially inverted to run a game, or too awkward/stage frighty to run anything.

My one friend is just NOT good at improvising anything, like, at all. To give you an example, in the 2 person game I'm running in Old Republic, I gave them premade characters, which they agreed to. I gave him, what would basically be Obi-Wan Kenobi maybe 3-5 years before Episode 1. No longer a pure novice Padawan, but not entirely ready for his Trials yet. The other player, I basically gave him a Force Sensitive Kaily from Firefly.

The Padawan, I gave the personality quirk of "you don't really like/trust the new urchin your Master just picked up (the other player), as your Master is prone to helping the helpless even when they take advantage of her." This was supposed to color a bit of their roleplay together, to give him an excuse to be a little catty to the guy (who is his roommate, and they are naturally catty all the time). This one social aspect, "you are slightly suspicious of her, and kind of keep an eye on her" was such a speed bump for him, trying to figure out how to roleplay simply being unpleasant to the character at first, that he would take like 30-45 minutes, trying to decide how to respond to a simple social encounter. He'd sit there, simmering on the right thing to say, get slightly distracted by something, go back to thinking, get up to grab a drink, come back to thinking. Get derailed when I tell him to hurry up already! etc etc.

The other guy, tried to run an Aberrant game for us, and got so flustered when I sat down across from him, looking at him, waiting for his input as the Storyteller, turning beat red and suffering from performance anxiety like crazy, that he just couldn't do it.

....so yeah, I feel your pain about always being the GM

I'm hoping to get one of them to run something in this system, given it's "GM Light" design, but we'll see.