I was recently inspired by the swedish RPG "Mutant: Year Zero" when it comes to the structure of the player group and the structure of the campaign.

For those of you who don't know, the premise is basically that the players are part of an "ark" of mutants in the post apocalyptic world.

They are all part of the ark and go on expeditions into the surrounding "zone" to gather resources and explore their surroundings.

The group doesn't have to b the same players from one session to the next.
If a player can't come, that just means they're back at the ark doing something else.

I was thinking of doing something similar for FFG's Star Wars RPG, and the most natural setting seems to be that of AoR.

Having the players be part of a local resistance base that they have to help build up and get intel/resources for.
The entire thing will of course be pretty local. They won't go gallavanting off on long adventures to the core sectors or anything like that.
And the "missions" will have to be kept short enough to be able to finish in one or, at most, two sessions.

But one thing missing from the transition between the games will be the lack of knowledge.
In Mutant: Year Zero, the players have been isolationists for their entire lives, so next to nothing is known about the outside world.

That is not the case in most SW settings. Sure, there could be the element of placing the base in an isolated and unexplored area, but the'd stil know alot about the surrounding systems and even if they don't, it won't take alot of scanning to get most of the information.

I guess the "lack of knowledge" will have to be about the imperial forces in the area.
And if I play it that the base is planted there by rebels from another sector (ie. a growing rebel cell actively expanding into another sector) then I could play alot more on the unknown.

Anyway, if anyone has any input on this, I'd appreciate it.

EDIT: I should add that I plan on running this campaign at the school I work at, with one 2 hour session each week and possibly different kids each time (or at least not the exact same constellation of players).
I will be creating pre-made characters for the players to use, to save on time.

If you want to replicate the feeling of not knowing what's out there, you could have the party be members of the crew of a crashed capital ship. The capital ship would have the supplies and resources to act as a "base" but because the ship crashed on an "unknown planet" they might not have any idea what's out there...

The Diplomat book has base building rules, and the colonist book has homestead building rules, and strongholds of resistance has some larger scale bases with some mechanical elements you might use to craft your setting. I would argue that a campaign of Imperial-aligned civilians that are colonizing a new world for the purpose of resource extraction might provide as many narrative opportunities (including the chance to change sides from Imperial to Rebel, or criminal) as using an actual base, but yeah. Sounds like a cool campaign!

I'd had an idea for the group along those lines. They would run an independent safe house on Coruscant that catered to anyone. The place would act as both secret temporary operational location or hideout for the client, and would also fill the client's needs on any activities while on Coruscant. The unknown part was the PCs at least would never know who was showing up, who they were, or what they would need. Their 'unkknown' shadowy handler would, but they were at the location on stand by. It allowed for an episodic nature to the sessions with different 'shifts' coming and going on duty, and different needs for different clients.

One idea i have had kicking around is using the Base rules but putting the base deep inside a large (Silhouette 7 or 8) lightly armed capital ship . The capital ship is some kind of reconnaissance ship sent into the Outer Rim, Unknown Space and Wild Space to discover potential new resources and civilisations that could provide support to whoever owns the ship. This could be an Imperial ship, a Rebel ship, a Corporate ship, a Core Worlds ship run independent of galactic government or even a Hutt/Gang owned ship.

The party have a Duty to the ship, almost any of the Duties work in this scenario. They also have their own "Quarters" on the ship that use all the normal rules for bases found in the AoR Diplomat Career book "Desperate Allies". Alternately it could be run using the Far Horizon rules for Homesteads/Businesses/Space Stations, its just flavoured a little differently.

As their contribution rank goes up and their base expands it represents them becoming more influential amongst the crew, with more impact on the day to day operations and missions of the ship. They would also get regular use of Shuttles, and could go on "Away" missions to the system of the week.

The “mother ship” might even appear to be a “wandering comet”, or perhaps dug into the core of a real wandering comet, but with drives attached.

This could serve as a mobile Shadow Port, into which their smaller ships can dock.

A player of mine specifically asked for more of this kind of thing in the game, and I've been deep-diving into the Ark rules from the Swedish RPG "Mutant: Year Zero". I'm beginning to think you could almost port the rules over wholesale.

More info:

https://philgamer.wordpress.com/2015/04/23/lets-study-mutant-year-zero-part-5-the-ark/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYIhryP0l2k

Thanks for all the suggestions guys.

However, due to me posting one complaint about the company/school decisions on facebook, I was nearly fired and have been taken off pretty much every thing I was doing above and beyond what I was hired for.

I won't be playing anything with the kids at work.

Hopefully this might inspire someone else to play a campaign like this, but for me it's not going to happen.

Thanks for all the suggestions guys.

However, due to me posting one complaint about the company/school decisions on facebook, I was nearly fired and have been taken off pretty much every thing I was doing above and beyond what I was hired for.

I won't be playing anything with the kids at work.

Hopefully this might inspire someone else to play a campaign like this, but for me it's not going to happen.

Why I've always been hesitant to"Friend" my employer and coworkers.

Everyone is so thin skinned these days.

Thanks for all the suggestions guys.

However, due to me posting one complaint about the company/school decisions on facebook, I was nearly fired and have been taken off pretty much every thing I was doing above and beyond what I was hired for.

I won't be playing anything with the kids at work.

Hopefully this might inspire someone else to play a campaign like this, but for me it's not going to happen.

Did you expect something like freedom of speech?

Thanks for all the suggestions guys.

However, due to me posting one complaint about the company/school decisions on facebook, I was nearly fired and have been taken off pretty much every thing I was doing above and beyond what I was hired for.

I won't be playing anything with the kids at work.

Hopefully this might inspire someone else to play a campaign like this, but for me it's not going to happen.

Did you expect something like freedom of speech?

No, but I didn't expect to be fired over a pretty vague post on facebook.

But I'm not here to make my case about keeping my job, I'm just here to say that I'm not doing that campaign any more.

One of the AoR books (diplomat?) had rules for bases, and FH has homesteads and businesses.

I could see the lack of information style "ark" game working well. Imagine a cryo-storage facility from the very old republic (1000+ years ago), and the contents start waking up in a universe at war. They wouldn't know any of the factions involved, the surface of the planet would be radically different (assuming they even knew where they were). If they were from far enough in the past, even technology would be new and strange. They might not realize how blasters work, be amazed at the speed of ships, etc.