Hey all - long time lurker but now getting around to posting. The boards and the community around here are great!

I love all of the adventures that have been posted under the FFG banner, and I've read some (but not all) of the WEG / WotC stuff. What I'm looking for is a few "standard" smuggling packaged adventures. I like a lot of the stuff in things like Politics of Contraband and Instant Adventures, but I'm trying to find a few adventures that are somewhat down the fairway where the heart of the adventure is the smuggling itself. There doesn't need to be anything tricky like big plot twists, but would like some interesting NPCs, locations, memories.

Can anyone point me in the right direction? Can be fan made or even another gaming system that I can convert over?

Can anyone point me in the right direction? Can be fan made or even another gaming system that I can convert over?

Why, yes I can! I'm not aware of an existing, prewritten Star Wars adventure that actually involves taking a MacGuffin from Point A to Point B. That said, smuggling stories are a part of the cyberpunk subgenre so I'd suggest looking at published adventures for Cyberpunk 2020 and Shadowrun. There was a Shadowrun: Missions adventure called Smuggler's Blues that was written for 4th edition which might be a good place to start.

Air America, both the organization and the movie, can be great sources of inspiration here. Just google some declassified files and turn them into an instant adventure.

Get X dangerous and/or illegal cargo from point A to point B as quickly and cheaply as possible, while avoiding pirates, customs etc.

If you are into investing in the splat books (Hello, my name is Victor, I buy all the supplements... *everyone* Hi Victor) then I would recommend the "Fly Casual" book as it has quite a bit of smuggler stuff. Ideas about how smugglers fit into the game, running smuggling jobs with suggested payout modifiers and occupational hazards. There is also idea material for running con jobs, heists and games of chance. That sort of thing.

If you want more specific ideas I recommend using plots and characters from old films. If you were to rework "The Sting" from 1973, where the players are Redford and Newman, Robert Shaw is Quarren underworld boss with a weakness for gambling and Charles Durning's crooked cop is a vile Zabrak ISB agent on the take, then you have a story. Lure the mark in by losing to him at Hintaro then rig a pod race instead of ponies, fake the player's deaths at the end with imposter Imperial Intelligence agents and your players will worship you like the god that you are.

Have the players find that they are smuggling something they didn't bargain on, like in "The Transporter." Well, you need better villains than that, too cartoonish. Perhaps watch The Maltese Falcon" and use Sidney Greenstreet as a template for a Hutt boss. Or go over the top and use a character like Gary Oldman in "Leon: The Professional." Once you take the character, change the race and put them in a science fiction setting they are usually not immediately recognizable, but you still have a flavour of personality to draw on. Even if you don't do voices having their voice in your head gives you a feeling for how to read the dice results, because they don't just fall into a generic void.

You can even take non-villainous characters and just put them in the role of the bad guys. Got a favourite sit-com from when you were a kid? Put those characters in customs and duty officer clothes and then even the bumbling minions will be memorable. Wolowitz and Raj from Big bang Theory as the two officers tasked with being the thorn in the player's side. The first one is a huge creep about the Twi'lek engineer while the latter can't stop admiring the Captain's shoes "are those boots from Coruscant because they are seriously hot?" You only need to do this a few times and the characters and settings will start to emerge of their own accord.

You could get an almost infinite number of randomized smuggling adventures by setting up a series of d% charts.

Make tables for: Cargo, Pickup Contact, Location, Pickup Complication, Cargo Complication, Transit Complication, Dropoff Point, Dropoff Contact, Dropoff Complicaiton, Payment Complication.

Pull a randomized result from each table and boom, you've got an adventure.

Just be sure to keep all chart entries generalized enough to apply with any others (so instead of a Dropoff contact being "Jabba the Hutt", it might say "Hutt crimelord (major)" instead).

So that's 10 categories...even if you put just ten options in each chart, that's ten million different adventures, just with the basic chart description.

You could get an almost infinite number of randomized smuggling adventures by setting up a series of d% charts.

I’m pretty sure that someone has already done this, and probably published the results. You would just have to use the “search” box at the very top of the page.

They’re probably also linked in the thread entitled “Compiled Resources List”, or should be if they’re not. In that case, if anyone should happen to find anything like this and discover that they’re not already linked in that thread, you would do the community a service by posting in that thread with a link to them.

There are books from the West End Games version of the Star Wars Roleplaying Game that would have charts like this. Like maybe the “Galactic Campaign Guide”? Electronic versions of most of the WEG books should be able to be legally downloaded from the d6holocron website.

Not to sound too snarky but watch/rewatch all the Firefly episodes. I can't help but get a bit of a FF vibe from Edge of the Empire in particular. Sposedly influenced by Han originally so it makes sense I imagine. Some great examples and adventure elements/ideas to be had in that show. (though odd, as far as smuggling goes, not the movie)

Not to sound too snarky but watch/rewatch all the Firefly episodes. I can't help but get a bit of a FF vibe from Edge of the Empire in particular. Sposedly influenced by Han originally so it makes sense I imagine. Some great examples and adventure elements/ideas to be had in that show. (though odd, as far as smuggling goes, not the movie)

For that matter, although I haven't looked through them closely yet (they are on my "to buy" list, however), the Firefly RPG books could be helpful, as well.

Not to sound too snarky but watch/rewatch all the Firefly episodes. I can't help but get a bit of a FF vibe from Edge of the Empire in particular. Sposedly influenced by Han originally so it makes sense I imagine. Some great examples and adventure elements/ideas to be had in that show. (though odd, as far as smuggling goes, not the movie)

Badger is a natural npc. How about as a Toydarian with a Cockney accent? AmIright?

Not to sound too snarky but watch/rewatch all the Firefly episodes. I can't help but get a bit of a FF vibe from Edge of the Empire in particular. Sposedly influenced by Han originally so it makes sense I imagine. Some great examples and adventure elements/ideas to be had in that show. (though odd, as far as smuggling goes, not the movie)

Badger is a natural npc. How about as a Toydarian with a Cockney accent? AmIright?

In Star Wars Galaxies (live and the emulator I currently play), my trader/crafter character is a Bothan named Bahdjer. I do the accent as closely as I can in text. (My wife's Shipwright/Droid Engineer is a female Wookiee named Kaywinnet.) Both are scheduled to make appearances in my EotE campaign.

Nytwyng, a Bothan, perfect.

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/90709-the-random-cargo-generator/

Fly Casual has a lot for Smugglers. I might consider picking it up, if I were you.

For something a bit more comical. Operation Dumbo Drop, both the movie and the actual operation.

Thank you all for your advice here. It's very helpful.

- Fly Casual seems like the best place for me to start.

- I'll go through some of the Shadowrun modules to see if there is something worth while, starting with Smuggler's Blues

- I've been through many of the Firefly modules. While they are very good for SW (and I plan to convert a few of them over, including Bucking the Tiger), they don't have proper smuggling encounters.

- The generic smuggling tables are fantastic, thanks! I'll do some work and come back with something here.

Also, I almost completely forgot: go read the WEG supplement Galaxy Guide 6: Tramp Freighters.

It's an entire book devoted to exactly what you're trying to do.

Thanks Hydrospanner. Tramp Freighters and then Platt's Smugglers Guide were the two first places that I looked. There is a lot of nice background material, but a lot less in the way of adventure outlines (which is more what I was looking for). I think that the next two books I'm going to go through are Scum and Villainy (which after reading an amazon review appears to have some adventure hooks) and Fly Casual.

Has anyone run or made any good smuggler scenarios they could share, having a hard time to make my own so I would appreciate the help

If you want something that can be a running subplot, feel free to borrow this--

Since session 1, my group has periodically smuggled a new spice called Glowpowder (because it's a powder that glows blue). Their employers have been using them to transport Glowpowder to different worlds, setting up new supply lines and business, since it's a new spice.

As Glowpowder slowly spreads, so do NewsNet stories of strange, almost supernatural, occurrences...objects without repulsor technology floating, flying, hurling through the air...strange electrical discharges, that kind of thing. Some users seem to go mad (at least briefly) hallucinating, or hearing voices in their heads. And some die...burnt out and desiccated as if the very life was quickly drained from them.

The group even saw this firsthand, when one (who'd stolen a few doses to sell herself) sold one to the daughter of a corrupt mayor who was looking to start and control the Glowpowder trade in her city. The daughter was floating in the air, speeders and other objects in her vicinity whirling through the air around her, lightning shooting from her body in all directions, before it finally consumed her.

Yeah...Glowpowder causes temporary, powerful flashes of connection to the Force. Not an intended effect, but hey...all illicit narcotics are potentially deadly.

Part of that subplot is that it ties into a different, far less revealed subplot that I won't mention here. (Some of my players read the boards. )

So...the pay is good, because the employers want to make inroads on new worlds.

It can also be fit into any other session that takes them somewhere. ("As long as you're going to Planet X, here's a crate of Glowpowder. See if anyone wants to do business.")

Wow! Someone zombied my first ever post

How savvy is your crew with Star Wars mythos? If not very, then hunt down Dark Horse Comics Star Wars Tales (issue 16 or Vol.4) for Han's "Kessel Run".

As you already said, the firefly series are basically "EotE, the Series". A group of smugglers go around doing jobs for seedy crime lords and have encounters with other seedy people, local governors, a variety of planets and the Empire. Mostly operating in the outer rim, but in a pair of episodes they go into the Core worlds. I the Serenity movie they go beyond the rim.

Look at old western adventures as well. Good for the outer rim adventures. SW is basically a Western series with hyperspace drives instead of horses, so you can get ideas there. The Deadwood series is a good place for a tatooine-like place with a local hutt (the bartender). 3:10 to Yuma stands as a good easily transferable example for an easy adventure.

My group is not into bank heists, but if your group is, there are a lot of great movies about that from the 70s as suggested.

Alien can also be played fairly easily. Just make sure it is a oneshot, or an advneture for a single player with NPC....

That from the top of my head before the coffee really kicks in. Hope that helps!

Cheers

Xavi