Greetings!

I'm trying to do an experiment, but I need some help

I'm planing to run Star Wars: Edge of the Empire game with a twist: a sandbox campaign with an indeterminate number of players (10-14 players.). The idea is basically adapting the west marches experiment: No regular time, no regular party and no regular plot.

You can see the original blog post here: http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/78/grand-experiments-west-marches/

So, What is my original idea?

The PCs are based on a EF76 Nebulon-B frigate. This ship is the base base for the PC.

The ship is owned by an ex-pirate or mercenary who maintain the ship and a small group of soldiers of fortune (let's call him boss).

The Boss offers safe haven for all kinds of scum who takes missions for him and respect the rules of the ship: Doesn't matter If you are a fugitive or suspected Jedi... if you pay your bills and get your hands dirty when the time comes.

The Mercenary team inside the ship is always looking for help: People who knows how to shoot. Medics to patch in or out of the missions. Well spoken and respected member of the society, when deception or diversion is required.

The players who manage to join a session, do whatever they want. The players who don't participate, the PC stays on the ship or pursuing their own obligations. At the end of each session, they return to the ship unless something goes wrong. It basically works as one shot, unless the players decide otherwise.

What are the difficulties?

Obligation in general:

The obligation is variable: One session could play 2 players and the other 7. For this reason, the starting obligation should be the basic. No increase per credits or XP, or perhaps +5?

New Obligation: Keep the base ship flying

Every character on this ship must pay his room. Could be by paying for the provisions or bringing supplies Should these works like as a group obligation? For example discount 5 of each PC obligation and create a group obligation to represent the commitment to keep the ship with fuel, repairs and out of dangers.

Party's ship.

In EotE there is a ship for each group of PC. But, if I the group is variable in number, how can I assign one ship? What happen if one group destroys the ship and the other group get mad? What happen if some player wants a modification A and other player doesn't want it?

I'm thinking of having a stock of starships in the main hangar of the base ship. The players may chose whatever they want each session. Could be a YT-1300 freighter, a firespray and a Y-wing fighter. The problem I see is I feel i'm robing them the joy and suffering to have their own starship. Also, there is no motivation for buying upgrades

On the other hand, If 10-14 PC has only one ship, is too little for a reward. Should I give some upgrades? And If new players join the team?.

In advance, thank you for the time to read my struggles.

Duty is probably a better mechanic. With a group obligation of commitment.

I am running a similar style EotE game and I wish I had made my players use Duty instead of Obligation.

You've already identified one of the bigger issues: the ship. I started my players all in a Wayfarer, and quickly had them earn a small landspeeder and a Sil3 fighter. I _thought_ that would help mitigate issues with vehicle sharing, but I was dead wrong. If you go Duty, you can have your hanger and let them earn up to larger and larger (or just better and better) ships on a mission-by-mission basis.

Thank you so much for the feedback! I would like to use obligation, just to keep it as vanilla as possible for the EotE setting. But I confess that the Duty mechanic is a good fit for running a small operation or even the base ship in a long run.

For ships it sounds like you're going to need a couple of them. I would suggest something big, a Sil 5, like a VCX100 (In keeping the Peace) or even the Wayfarer with hanger space and or couple of docking rings. Then give them a smaller Sil 4 ship, possibly a Lambda to use on covert missions, then a couple of Y-Wings (great PC ship since they offer up to 3PC's a ride if anyone is an Astromec). That should give you flexibility with story writing and them options for Pilots and Smugglers as well as transportation.

Thanks again for the Help. I hope to jump soon in this campaign!

Rithuan