Brad, I admit that it's much, much harder to run that kind of game than a standard dungeon crawl, or just having a bunch of smugglers running around in a tramp freighter.

But I really wanted to go beyond the standard tropes, to play the game 'outside the box' and try to tell different stories this time around.

(When I rewrote our canon, I made sure the Alliance were not 'rebels' but a much, much bigger organisation, one with fleets and homeworlds and armies and resources and entire species... still smaller than the Empire, and still needing to pick its battles, but capable of taking on and beating its enemies if they play it smart.)

I have to handwave it sometimes, or make up stuff as I go along... but I wanted to encourage players taking offbeat careers and specs, like Scholar, or Propagandist, or Figurehead, or Strategist. I didn't just want them to be 'D&D adventurers in space'.

But yeah, that stuff takes way more work, and needs more player input too.

It's funny, games like 'Dragon Age Inquisition' try to put you as PC in charge of a larger organisation... but you still end up hunting rams for food and gathering blankets, when technically, you should delegate these minor tasks or just buy some meat or blankets with all the money you should have!

However, the 'War Table' did work well in a narrative sense, and I'm trying something like it for our Strategist/Figurehead Commander. The PC is supposed to be in charge of the overall effort, and doesn't need to personally go out and shoot stormtroopers themselves when they can order armies around. I'm still working on the system, but it basically offers them choices as to what battles to fight, what allies to make, etc. And I'm stealing quite a few ideas from the new 'Rebellion' boardgame.

I know The Patriot has a game where his characters are in charge of a pretty big independent faction. I wanted to ask him how he deals with such things but he's kinda gone quiet. He'd likely have a lot to contribute if he's reading this.

To me, part of the problem here is making poverty or wealth a central and defining part of the character's lasting concept, and expecting it to stick continuously and indefinitely This gets us back into the problem of the "no matter what happens, at the end of the episode, things need to return to the defining situation" trope.

This makes it harder for the characters to grow or face changes, for the story to progress, etc.

This is very important to us. Characters should change over the course of their adventures, and their ambitions and horizons should change.

It happens in D&D, as the party goes from killing rats in the sewers for coppers, to eventually building castles and running kingdoms.

Heck, we see it in the original movies with Luke, Han and Lando.

(... and that was one of the things that disappointed me about Force Awakens - after the end of the third film, we're back to Plucky Rebels vs Evil Empire, and Han is back to being a sleazy crook after all his development and character arc in the originals...)

Screwed up the quoting above:

You said " You always make valid points, KFF, I appreciate that."

Thank you I appreciate your measured and reasoned input as well.

But if the PC's are a "ragged pilot smuggler" a "kid on the run from the Empire", a "criminal with a bounty on his head", then yeah, they should probably be living with a tough need for credits most of the time.

Although that description pretty much sums up my first EoE group - a free droid, a twi'lek running from an arranged marriage, and a Force-adept on the run... who after several (mis)adventures and bread-and-butter smuggling runs, started their own businesses and helped set up a thriving settlement.

And their expertise (and favours owed) gets them pulled into bigger things despite their desire to stay out of the GCW.

Characters can, and should, grow as the adventures unfold.

Oh absolutely, and if a PC tells me "My character wants to become financially secure, that is a goal of theirs", then sure, as a good GM, I should allow that possibility (not certainty), in the game. I mean, if they join the Rebellion, and start spending their contribution, they could end up with a Homestead/Business. And if they invest in the "makes me more money" upgrades, then sure, they should absolutely start making more money in significant quantities. And then I get to mess with them in other ways "What's that? Someone broke into our place while we were offplanet and stole half our mechandise?! Who?! We must hunt them down!" Oh look, my plot hook has a nibble *reel in*.

My bigger problem is that I have difficulty running a High Stakes Game of the sort being described.

I don’t know what it’s like to be a prince with millions or billions of dollars of assets, but also with millions or billions of dollars of liabilities. So, I don’t know how to translate that into a Star Wars game.

Bail Organa presumably had quite a large sum of money and assets, and Princess Leia presumably grew up with that. But if I can’t understand how that works, how can I translate that into something that the players can understand?

I’m the same on running large organizations. I don’t understand how the Rebellion could make money to buy all those ships and provide the logistics and resources necessary to run and stock all those bases.

I don’t understand how the New Jedi Order could afford to operate and pay their people, or be able to provide ships and clothing and armor and weapons and droids to outfit their people with.

This is an evaluation of "what it's like to be stupid rich" from John Scalzi, in his book Lock-In (which is a great book by the way). One of the characters was the child of a very rich family, who happened to be a cop. The character described it roughly as thus:

"Once you have so much money, money just isn't a currency for you anymore. The only "limited resource" that you have at that point, is your personal time. So favors among the rich, don't boil down to things like "I'll give you 10 million credits if you later give me 10 million credits" it's stuff like "I'll help promote/support/publicize this humanitarian group you are starting up, if later on, you support my candidacy for local mayor" etc etc.

As to how the Rebellion paid for things, they had backers. Planets worth of resources and Gross Domestic Products that bolster their efforts. Once they become the ruling government, they are now investors in the New Order.

They probably also were able to "cut out the middle man" in a lot of ways. If you have/steal/build a mining facility in an abandoned asteroid belt that nobody goes to. You don't have to buy those materials for your cause. Just mine the stuff, process it, and send it right to your Rebellion friendly manufacturers. You don't have the problem of having to hit the Imperial market for 5 bajillion tons of durasteel to build your fleet (which would likely raise a few eyebrows in the Imperial Intelligence wing). Nah, you just mine it directly.

And it's not a purely one sided thing. Let's say this planet agrees to pay the Rebellion, in credits, and foodstuffs, the Rebellion, then agrees to defend the planet. Perhaps the planet isn't on the Imperial radar, but a pirate fleet in the area raids them on a regular basis. Hey look! We just bought ourselves a navy to protect us! All at the low cost of some credits, some food, and access to our shipyards that we don't use too much anyway! What a bargain!

All kinds of ways you can spin them having the resources to fund things. Though I remember in one of the D20 Star Wars books, discussing the "shipjacker" PC concept, that the Rebellion didn't so much "buy/build" those ships. More that they hired shipjackers to steal a lot of them from the Empire and other less than savory sources. Paying a team of shipjackers 1 million credits, to steal a ship worth 5 billion credits, is a pretty good deal. The jackers get paid big bank, and you get a mostly functional ship (that blast hole was there when we found it, honest) at a fraction of the cost.

Thank you I appreciate your measured and reasoned input as well.

I think generally the forums here are pretty civil. This thread alone has better general gaming advice than most gaming blogs. I know I respect a lot of folks here who I don't always agree with.

I was a big believer in the poverty approach for a long time, but recently I've realized that you don't need to keep the players poor to maintain an atmosphere of poverty as long as everyone around them is not also rolling in credits.

Using my group as an example, they just finished the first part of Beyond the Rim . Their contract with Reom guarantees them 10,000cr for finding the Sa Nalaor , plus bonuses if they bring back samples of any treasure or anything else interesting aboard (If they bring back Cratala I plan to double their fee). They were paid 1,000cr up front, which they instantly spent on three sets of adverse environment gear, grenades, and other survival knick-knacks since they knew they'd be exploring a hostile jungle world. If they manage to return with Cratala, her work, and metal ingots for Reom they stand to earn something like 25,000cr, which doesn't worry me at all because A. they're still wanted by both the Empire and a certain Hutt they crossed, and that kind of money won't come close to solving those problems, and B. I trust that they'll be frugal with that money and put it to good use as they did with Reom's down payment--their ship has plenty of room for upgrades and they pretty much own the clothes on their backs and the blasters on their belts.

Plus there's the fact that equipment isn't nearly as game-breaking as it was in earlier games like Saga .

To me, part of the problem here is making poverty or wealth a central and defining part of the character's lasting concept, and expecting it to stick continuously and indefinitely This gets us back into the problem of the "no matter what happens, at the end of the episode, things need to return to the defining situation" trope.

This makes it harder for the characters to grow or face changes, for the story to progress, etc.

This is very important to us. Characters should change over the course of their adventures, and their ambitions and horizons should change.

It happens in D&D, as the party goes from killing rats in the sewers for coppers, to eventually building castles and running kingdoms.

Heck, we see it in the original movies with Luke, Han and Lando.

(... and that was one of the things that disappointed me about Force Awakens - after the end of the third film, we're back to Plucky Rebels vs Evil Empire, and Han is back to being a sleazy crook after all his development and character arc in the originals...)

Well, now I think that we're touching on a larger problem in fiction, the plagues multiple media and genres.

TFA was openly and specifically created to "be Star Wars", by people for whom "being Star Wars" means all the stuff they remember about Star Wars as a kid. They don't want character growth or story progression or a living world... they want a combination of modern massive SFX with nostalgia from their childhood.

When a certain "creative" team got ahold of the Spiderman comics, and decided that they wanted the Spiderman of their childhood, they undid his marriage to Mary Jane and so on using an asinine "deal with the devil"... because the Spiderman they so fondly remembered was a geeky struggling young man with angst, not someone who had outgrown the problems of youth, formed an adult relationship and eventually married an actual adult woman, and so on...

E: typo

It says to keep the players hungry. Not broke. My limited experience has been that I can usually find more uses for credits than credits. I'm not broke or poor. I'm well-equipped. I have a ship. I even have some investments in some shadowy businesses here and there and they all need stuff. They need stuff to sell, stuff for maintenance, stuff for improvements, and stuff to replace broken stuff. So I am hungry. I am hungry for stuff.

Well, now I think that we're touching on a larger problem in fiction, the plagues multiple media and genres.

Oh Max, I wish I could 'like' this more than once.

I know why Force Awakens was made just to give us the warm fuzzies, I get that, it was a smart move by Disney in many ways. But with the enormity of the SW universe, I wish we could see new situations and heroes and settings, instead of telling the same stories with the same characters over and over.

I inherited a crazy, anything-goes campaign RPG campaign 12 years ago that is being played to this day, and characters have grown up, had kids, died, divorced, remarried, and their legacies have crossed a dozen times over. I'm always proud of how epic it feels that there are always consequences and the game never stands still.

Well, now I think that we're touching on a larger problem in fiction, the plagues multiple media and genres.

Oh Max, I wish I could 'like' this more than once.

I know why Force Awakens was made just to give us the warm fuzzies, I get that, it was a smart move by Disney in many ways. But with the enormity of the SW universe, I wish we could see new situations and heroes and settings, instead of telling the same stories with the same characters over and over.

I inherited a crazy, anything-goes campaign RPG campaign 12 years ago that is being played to this day, and characters have grown up, had kids, died, divorced, remarried, and their legacies have crossed a dozen times over. I'm always proud of how epic it feels that there are always consequences and the game never stands still.

That sounds so fun.

That sounds so fun.

Oh, it is. I sort of threw balance out of the window when one of the PCs gave birth to a talking kitten that granted wishes. But that game is still seeing some astonishing role-playing even today. I've had grown men and women crying at my table. Heck, I've cried at the table.

And somehow, it still has internal consistency and makes a strange kind of sense and logic. The characters feel amazingly 'real', somehow.

I had a thread recently where I bemoaned the idea of keeping the players hungry when it's taken to extremes. I just have a hard time trying to convince players that their characters would risk their property, their freedom, and even their lives for payouts that are so pathetically small. If I'm going to risk my 120,000 credit freighter--not to mention the lives of my crew--then I should have a payout that makes it worthwhile. This doesn't have to be cash; the Obligation system is there for a reason, but it needs to be meaningful.

My group is running with the 'big boys' with all its own problems

After a few stints for the Empire and GM Tarkin in particular they got the job as Governor/ruling council on a planet of the edge of the Mid Rim.
So they set up the usual triangle of agricultur, mining and light industry to make their new home self sufficient. Once that was done they wanted to go bigger.

My group has had their problems when they tried to get those development projects for their planet like a real ship yard/supply depot for the Imperial Navy.

Cash was not that much of a problem, they had to deal with people in their own weight class like a certain senator from Alderaan who opposes all new military installations. Then there is their new boss, the Moff running the sector with his own designs, and Imperial Intelligence keeps an eye on them since they like to trade favors with them.

I said it in another thread about this topic before but as a GM you just have to think big too and cash or a higher position is not only a boon for your group but a very good adventure hook in itself. Be creative.

I've found very few RPG's handle lots of money well. Notable exception being Rogue Trader - but that is a different mindset, you start off rather affluent and everything comes down to profit. Heck, that game the Zap Brannagan idea of sending waves of troopers to use up the pre-set kill limit of the murder bots is viable, as long as harvesting the tech from the murder bots yeilds more profit than replacing the crew sent fighting them. But, that is NOT Star Wars.

The murder-hobo thing isn't just a problem of D&D, but more commonly video games. Lets use two of my favourite past games: borderlands and Mass Effect. In borderlands you get gun after gun after gun. This was what the game was based on, killing enemies and getting those bazillions of guns. Mass effect 2 and 3 departed from that ideology, and you didn't loot enemies, instead you found a piece of gear lying around (or had to purchase it) that was different and placed intentionally as an upgrade. Honestly, I prefer the latter example for an RPG.

Also, as a GM, players will do what you reward them for. If you let them kill and loot for money, they will. Don't let the players sell looted gear anywhere.

If players are strapped for cash, and need to fix their ship; have a technician offer to repair it for free if the players do something for them. Make it worthwhile to go adventure to get something, rather than buy it in a store.

Did the party draw the ire of a bounty hunter? Give that bounty hunter a jetpack and if defeated, have that be the reward. If that was a hard and memorable fight, then the player will look fondly at the reward. They earned it

One of the failings with RPG's is the need to release more gear, and these game lines have fell prey to it. New books offer new blasters. New gear, while flavourful, generally has better stats than the default gear in the book. This makes it more desirable. I was a fan of just having "blaster rifle" or "blaster pistol" represent the different models of weapons throughout the galaxy, but now there are specific weapon models introduced, the generic core book ones seem lacking to many.

I had a thread recently where I bemoaned the idea of keeping the players hungry when it's taken to extremes. I just have a hard time trying to convince players that their characters would risk their property, their freedom, and even their lives for payouts that are so pathetically small. If I'm going to risk my 120,000 credit freighter--not to mention the lives of my crew--then I should have a payout that makes it worthwhile. This doesn't have to be cash; the Obligation system is there for a reason, but it needs to be meaningful.

I'm with you and I'm not with you.

Thousands and thousands of Americans in big cities risk their enormously-valuable property every weekend when they take AirBnB guests in exchange for some percentage of their monthly rent. These are relatively normal (if privileged) folks, not "adventurers". If your PCs aren't, by nature, risk-takers, then how do they get out the door?

This has been argued into oblivion before, but, if we're using a sociologically/psychologically realistic lens, only deranged people become RPG PCs . I don't actually care whether my PCs need 10,000 credits or 100,000 credits to get out into the world of my campaign from a numerical standpoint, but if they started to argue that their characters were gunshy about adventuring, I would probably tell them that their character needed to retire.

And a final thought about the actual numbers, since my PCs just ran through the start of BEYOND THE RIM: Reom's job is negotiable to about 12,000 credits up front and could/should take about a week. My PCs' ship is worth about 150,000 credits. If someone offered me a week's worth of work that would be worth about 8% of the cost of my house and car combined , I would probably jump at it, and I'm a total square.

Mass effect 2 and 3 departed from that ideology, and you didn't loot enemies, instead you found a piece of gear lying around (or had to purchase it) that was different and placed intentionally as an upgrade. Honestly, I prefer the latter example for an RPG.

Oh, absolutely. And I loved that ME 2 & 3 didn't give XP for combat either. That actually encourages you to get on with the mission and not grind for hours fighting people.

One of the failings with RPG's is the need to release more gear, and these game lines have fell prey to it. New books offer new blasters. New gear, while flavourful, generally has better stats than the default gear in the book. This makes it more desirable. I was a fan of just having "blaster rifle" or "blaster pistol" represent the different models of weapons throughout the galaxy, but now there are specific weapon models introduced, the generic core book ones seem lacking to many.

I actually find this game isn't too bad in that regard. Mostly, new stuff isn't just 'blaster pistol +1' but adds something new. Most new guns are suited for a specific role, like a rifle that breaks down into a carrying case or a tech tool that doubles as an emergency weapon. The rifle in Special Modifications is inferior to the baseline one, but it has loads of HardPoints and can be refitted in moments. It's a toy for the Technician to play around with, not the go-to weapon for a Sharpshooter. The Diplomat weapons aren't very powerful, but most of them don't look like weapons or are easily concealable. A lot of uber weapons are Restricted; great for exploring old tombs or distant planets, but you won't get them past Imperial checkpoints or the local crime boss.

I think FFG does a good job of feeding our cravings for 'new stuff' without adding too much power creep. Heck, I think I complained once that the 'Sons of Fortune' items were inferior to the baseline ones!

And the standard Core Book heavy blaster rifle is still the most broken weapon in the game!

I'm extremely glad that poverty isn't the main focus of the game I'm playing in because the need for wealth seems to be unevenly distributed amongst the characters.

One one hand, you have the two jedi characters that are perfectly happy with just their lightsabers and maybe some snazzy robes. Some credits now and then for modifying their lightsaber crystals is all the income they need. Both of them have a few thousand credits that they don't really have any idea what to do with so they have no problem paying our docking fees, cost for refueling, and all the miscellaneous petty cash the party has to come up with.

The party combat medic ended up with some kind of addiction to seeing explosions and so, for a while, she was literally throwing away wealth on one-use grenades and mines. Now she has a fairly good stock pile and has been donating money to the rest of us because she can't find anything else she wants to spend it on.

The droid went for a long time without any need of money whatsoever. But, now, we have Special Modifications and he's burning his proverbial candle at both ends building prototype droids, cybergear, and the occasional weapon or piece of armor for the rest of us.

Then you have the pilot who's always looking for ways to trick out the party's ship - which gets extremely expensive fast.

Finally, there's my bounty hunter character, who could probably spend 120,000 on gear, weapons, and item attachments/modifications and still have things I want to buy. Someday, I'd like to have my own scout ship but that's not going to happen for quite some time unless we come across a major windfall.

Let me tell you guys a little story about why it is important to keep credits low.

I had run a real good campaign with super skinflint bosses that kept my players perpetually broke. We were nearing the end of the campaign, and they were off the main world where most of the story was happening, dosing a little side adventure before the big finale I had planned.

They wandered into a casino to get some information, and through a series of increasingly bizarre die rolls, turned it into a heist. And I had made the mistake of saying the Casino boss was overseeing the unloading of some credits.

They murdered that Hutt, and stole all the credits. And, because I was excessively tired that night, I told them it would be enough to buy themselves a a large freighter or something.

I had not looked at how much a large freighter actually cost.

After dealing with the fallout of the heist (involving 2 more crime bosses in a power struggle) and now drunk with money and power, they flew their crap ship to a large trade hub, and preceded to roll excellently on checks to find any **** thing in any **** book they wanted, and upgraded all their weapons obscenely well. When they got back to the main world for the final battle, the wasted the Imperial Inquisitor in less than a round. And then did it again after I brought her back for round two.

IN SHORT: Never give your players money.

That doesn't sound like a money issue.

...GM Tarkin...

Now I'm picturing Wilhuff Tarkin sitting behind a GM screen: "Fear will keep the players in line. Fear of this Destiny Flip."

I'm with you and I'm not with you.

Thousands and thousands of Americans in big cities risk their enormously-valuable property every weekend when they take AirBnB guests in exchange for some percentage of their monthly rent. These are relatively normal (if privileged) folks, not "adventurers". If your PCs aren't, by nature, risk-takers, then how do they get out the door?

This has been argued into oblivion before, but, if we're using a sociologically/psychologically realistic lens, only deranged people become RPG PCs . I don't actually care whether my PCs need 10,000 credits or 100,000 credits to get out into the world of my campaign from a numerical standpoint, but if they started to argue that their characters were gunshy about adventuring, I would probably tell them that their character needed to retire.

Well, to be fair, the universe is essentially out to get the players. If something can go wrong and create a plot, then it will, and problems that would be handed off to other entities in the real world usually have to be dealt with personally. I mean, if you put your house/apartment up on AirBnB and someone wrecks it or steals from it, you call the police and you call AirBnB and it's a huge colossal mess but you go about your normal life while the wheels of those entities turn and you see what recourse you have. In an RPG, you're going to have to go after the absconding tenant yourself, or else spend an entire session greasing palms and doing favors to get someone else to do it, especially on the Outer Rim. So if the players aren't interested in "The Hunt for the Jerk Who Tore Up Our Living Room," adventure, then they're going to try to prevent that from happening in the first place. Sometimes being a player is about controlling risk so that you can pursue the adventures you want to pursue, as opposed to the adventures that result from carelessness, and that translates into being risk-averse in some situations. That goes double if the GM is trying to keep them in poverty and they'd rather have adventures where they use their cool new ship instead of adventures where they try to keep the GM from taking their cool new ship away (which is not to say that those are necessarily mutually exclusive).

"The Hunt for the Jerk Who Tore Up Our Living Room," adventure

Totally naming my next campaign that.

And thinking about it, that could totally have been the name of the D20 modern campaign that was The Big Lebowski.

Well, to be fair, the universe is essentially out to get the players. If something can go wrong and create a plot, then it will, and problems that would be handed off to other entities in the real world usually have to be dealt with personally. I mean, if you put your house/apartment up on AirBnB and someone wrecks it or steals from it, you call the police and you call AirBnB and it's a huge colossal mess but you go about your normal life while the wheels of those entities turn and you see what recourse you have. In an RPG, you're going to have to go after the absconding tenant yourself, or else spend an entire session greasing palms and doing favors to get someone else to do it, especially on the Outer Rim. So if the players aren't interested in "The Hunt for the Jerk Who Tore Up Our Living Room," adventure, then they're going to try to prevent that from happening in the first place. Sometimes being a player is about controlling risk so that you can pursue the adventures you want to pursue, as opposed to the adventures that result from carelessness, and that translates into being risk-averse in some situations. That goes double if the GM is trying to keep them in poverty and they'd rather have adventures where they use their cool new ship instead of adventures where they try to keep the GM from taking their cool new ship away (which is not to say that those are necessarily mutually exclusive).

A good friend of mine who I've gamed with a ton wants to start us up gaming again, but none of us have the heart to tell him that he's that GM, the one who makes the players more and more risk-adverse and frustrated because everything MUST BE A CHALLENGE , and anything you have is an opportunity for loss and chaos. Everything you try to do becomes a opening for him to mess with your character, every conversation with every NPC feels like a minefield, and it's always that one detail that YOU forgot to ask about that comes back to bite you, but it's YOUR fault because YOU didn't again and again thoroughly examine every minute detail of every encounter and room and scene.

I have just started to wonder if I took this too much to heart when at the death of an NPC, two of the four players at my table exclaimed "I loot his body!" While inquisitors and stormtroopers poured out of Lamda Class Shuttles just outside of the compound they were in.

I have just started to wonder if I took this too much to heart when at the death of an NPC, two of the four players at my table exclaimed "I loot his body!" While inquisitors and stormtroopers poured out of Lamda Class Shuttles just outside of the compound they were in.

Pretty sure those players would've said that even if you gave them tons of money and loot. That's just a default gamer mindset, doesn't matter what game you play. In fact, when I read that, my first response was "oh, they must play lots of D&D", where that's the default state of every character. Rampaging, murdering thieves, here for all your shinies.

My players don't tend to fully loot bodies. They might take an obvious weapon off of a dead guy's body (particularly if it's something valuable or exotic, such as a lightsaber, or if they're just replenishing a few grenades), but they don't tend to go through the dead guys' pockets or spend more than a few moments doing so unless searching the body actually seems to be important to the story.

I'm with you and I'm not with you.

...

I don't actually care whether my PCs need 10,000 credits or 100,000 credits to get out into the world of my campaign from a numerical standpoint, but if they started to argue that their characters were gunshy about adventuring, I would probably tell them that their character needed to retire.

Well, to be fair, the universe is essentially out to get the players.

...

That goes double if the GM is trying to keep them in poverty and they'd rather have adventures where they use their cool new ship instead of adventures where they try to keep the GM from taking their cool new ship away (which is not to say that those are necessarily mutually exclusive).

A reasonable reply, but I would offer this counterpoint:

Triumph.

That is to say: the universe is out to get them, because any time you roll the dice, you have chance for that dreaded (if you are "risk-averse") SUCCESS W/ THREAT result. But you also have lots and lots of chances for Triumph, arguably much more often than Despair. So yeah, you might want to minimize risk, as a character in this world, but you have huge chances of ancillary benefits coming at you fast and furious, since Challenge Dice come into play far, far less often than Proficiency dice.

So, sure, minimizing risk is something all competent professionals do. But since you have no "game" (just plenty of "roleplaying") if you take away the dice, in some very meaningful ways the impulse to avoid bad results is an impulse not to play at all.

Pump up the volume, M.I.A..