Read me first:

http://swvotri.blogspot.com/2016/06/introduction.html

So I'm going to be running an Edge of the Empire campaign which begins the day after "liberty dies with thunderous applause".

I've got a lot to do in the build up to launching the campaign. In fact I debated waiting to post this topic until I had more than just an introduction. But I will share here some extra details:

My character is a Gand by the name of Kikkass. Yes really. He has a protocol droid for translating to the various races he has to deal with. Kikkass is not THE MAN, aka top dog, head honcho, big boss etc. Truth be told, he's the third in line to the throne and will be created as a PC with obligations just like everyone else. As I'm GM I doubt Kikkass will leave the office, aka sandcrawler, too often. With the help of a protocol droid for translating, his job is primarily handing out jobs.

But as a top enforcer of "the boss", the time might come for him to get into some action. He owns a VCX-100 for off-world excursions. No attack shuttle, just a rear weapon. One of the crew is a Neimoidian with friends among the Mustafarians, the same Mustafarians who witness the slaughter of Gunray and the other Separatist leaders.

The Neimoidian will also have a connection to someone on the Lucrehulk-Class Droid Control Ship. Which I plan on using to connect both of those missions. Though he'll go to Mustafar so that the Mustafarian characters have a familiar face.

The rescue mission on Coruscant, the one I'm most excited about planning and running, will require a little more explanation. My initial thought is some of the senator's people are talking in a cantina and are overheard. They're then approached.

Alternatively, the senator hired smugglers for her humanitarian efforts. Perhaps the PCs were hired, were given a generous payday, and now feel a sense of loyalty which motivates them to help her.

I've a lot of planning and background building to do before kickoff. I'll be posting further developments here. Hopefully it won't be long until I setup a YouTube channel and I'll post that.

Rather than typing out walls of text, I'm going to try a more audiovisual approach. I'll be creating some Google+ Collections for the campaign story and Holonet broadcasts too.

Will keep you informed. Going to order a microphone headset and look for some Star Wars sound effects to download. Background music will of course be Star Wars, unless I work in other music. My natural voice sounds bad on recordings, but hopefully the mike will help. That and I can modulate my voice somewhat

Let me know what you think of my ideas so far.

I'm not sensitive.

I can take honest thoughts and opinions.

Forgot to ask:

Which Beginner Game is best for a Galaxy Map?

Might seem a stupid question, with my focus being on EotE, but I can make the other games work with it if they're better.

So which Beginner Game has the most detailed Star Wars map?

The Force Awakens Begginner Game out in September has a galalxy map. The EotE box has a YT-1300 deckplan/Mos Shuuta city + cantina map. The AoR box has a Wilderness/Secret Base map. The FaD box has a Mountain Top map.

The Force Awakens Begginner Game out in September has a galalxy map. The EotE box has a YT-1300 deckplan/Mos Shuuta city + cantina map. The AoR box has a Wilderness/Secret Base map. The FaD box has a Mountain Top map.

Shame. But I can wait for a map.

Read me first:

http://swvotri.blogspot.com/2016/06/introduction.html

So I'm going to be running an Edge of the Empire campaign which begins the day after "liberty dies with thunderous applause".

I've got a lot to do in the build up to launching the campaign. In fact I debated waiting to post this topic until I had more than just an introduction. But I will share here some extra details:

My character is a Gand by the name of Kikkass. Yes really. He has a protocol droid for translating to the various races he has to deal with. Kikkass is not THE MAN, aka top dog, head honcho, big boss etc. Truth be told, he's the third in line to the throne and will be created as a PC with obligations just like everyone else. As I'm GM I doubt Kikkass will leave the office, aka sandcrawler, too often. With the help of a protocol droid for translating, his job is primarily handing out jobs.

But as a top enforcer of "the boss", the time might come for him to get into some action. He owns a VCX-100 for off-world excursions. No attack shuttle, just a rear weapon. One of the crew is a Neimoidian with friends among the Mustafarians, the same Mustafarians who witness the slaughter of Gunray and the other Separatist leaders.

The Neimoidian will also have a connection to someone on the Lucrehulk-Class Droid Control Ship. Which I plan on using to connect both of those missions. Though he'll go to Mustafar so that the Mustafarian characters have a familiar face.

The rescue mission on Coruscant, the one I'm most excited about planning and running, will require a little more explanation. My initial thought is some of the senator's people are talking in a cantina and are overheard. They're then approached.

Alternatively, the senator hired smugglers for her humanitarian efforts. Perhaps the PCs were hired, were given a generous payday, and now feel a sense of loyalty which motivates them to help her.

I've a lot of planning and background building to do before kickoff. I'll be posting further developments here. Hopefully it won't be long until I setup a YouTube channel and I'll post that.

Rather than typing out walls of text, I'm going to try a more audiovisual approach. I'll be creating some Google+ Collections for the campaign story and Holonet broadcasts too.

Will keep you informed. Going to order a microphone headset and look for some Star Wars sound effects to download. Background music will of course be Star Wars, unless I work in other music. My natural voice sounds bad on recordings, but hopefully the mike will help. That and I can modulate my voice somewhat

Let me know what you think of my ideas so far.

I'm not sensitive.

I can take honest thoughts and opinions.

I don't mean any offense but it sounds to me like you've made the biggest (in my opinion) mistake a GM can make... having a GMPC. It's also a mistake that virtually all newbie GM's (including myself way back in the early 1990's) make, so there's no shame in it. The thing is that the GM run's NPCs (non-player characters), having your own PC... it's pretty much impossible not to favor him over your player's characters. And your character being a bad@ss who saves your friend's characters makes them feel useless, like second fiddle to your uber GMPC. Your player's characters are the main characters, the story is supposed to be about them not about your NPC's.

Read me first:

http://swvotri.blogspot.com/2016/06/introduction.html

So I'm going to be running an Edge of the Empire campaign which begins the day after "liberty dies with thunderous applause".

I've got a lot to do in the build up to launching the campaign. In fact I debated waiting to post this topic until I had more than just an introduction. But I will share here some extra details:

My character is a Gand by the name of Kikkass. Yes really. He has a protocol droid for translating to the various races he has to deal with. Kikkass is not THE MAN, aka top dog, head honcho, big boss etc. Truth be told, he's the third in line to the throne and will be created as a PC with obligations just like everyone else. As I'm GM I doubt Kikkass will leave the office, aka sandcrawler, too often. With the help of a protocol droid for translating, his job is primarily handing out jobs.

But as a top enforcer of "the boss", the time might come for him to get into some action. He owns a VCX-100 for off-world excursions. No attack shuttle, just a rear weapon. One of the crew is a Neimoidian with friends among the Mustafarians, the same Mustafarians who witness the slaughter of Gunray and the other Separatist leaders.

I don't mean any offense but it sounds to me like you've made the biggest (in my opinion) mistake a GM can make... having a GMPC. It's also a mistake that virtually all newbie GM's (including myself way back in the early 1990's) make, so there's no shame in it. The thing is that the GM run's NPCs (non-player characters), having your own PC... it's pretty much impossible not to favor him over your player's characters. And your character being a bad@ss who saves your friend's characters makes them feel useless, like second fiddle to your uber GMPC. Your player's characters are the main characters, the story is supposed to be about them not about your NPC's.

I agree with Elias on this one. Having a PC as a GM makes it difficult to keep things centered on your players. When I was first getting into FFG's system for Star Wars, I had made a character with all the intention of playing. As we got closer to the first session, the original GM stated that he would like to play, as he had GM'd many games in the past while not playing very many himself, and requested that I take over. I turned my PC into a Nemesis level NPC that interacted (mostly social checks like Negotiation, Coercion, Charm, etc) with the PCs as an employer for jobs. But after the job has been given, that NPC isn't seen again until the job is complete and the time has come to collect payment. He still has the backstory and all that I had created for him.

It's tough to let go of the character you really want to play but as the GM, your job and focus is to create and shape the world your players will occupy. My advice is to run a few sessions to get a feel for the system (if you haven't already) and then work with one of your players to co-GM (every other session or so) so you can get some playing time in.

One way to help keep the GM from overly identifying any particular NPC as "his/hers" is to have multiple NPCs, both allied and opposed. This can actually help avoid making any one of them too central to the story, and they make good "temps" for players to run when their PC isn't in the scene (splitting the party is pretty common in Star Wars).

I gagree with Elias on this one. Having a PC as a GM makes it difficult to keep things centered on your players. When I was first getting into FFG's system for Star Wars, I had made a character with all the intention of playing. As we got closer to the first session, the original GM stated that he would like to play, as he had GM'd many games in the past while not playing very many himself, and requested that I take over. I turned my PC into a Nemesis level NPC that interacted (mostly social checks like Negotiation, Coercion, Charm, etc) with the PCs as an employer for jobs. But after the job has been given, that NPC isn't seen again until the job is complete and the time has come to collect payment. He still has the backstory and all that I had created for him.

I agree with both of you.

Thinking about everything I have to do as GM, can I really be bothered to keep track of a personal character advancement too.

I've quoted Oden Gebhac because that was exactly how I envisioned the character. He's rarely seen outside of the sandcrawler, which is where he's hands out jobs and pays the characters. Those who want to hire from him must find his mobile base, unless they can contact him through a Holo-Messenger.

Not going to lie, he was going to be a Gand PC with an extra 100 XP to represent him being more experienced. Would also keep him from being easily killed when he first gets used. Yes I did want him to be on hand to rescue the PCs if they get into too much trouble.

But I agree with making him an NPC. Nemesis sounds good, but in the grand cosmic scheme of things he's an enforcer.

Will think about whether he'll be Rival or Nemesis.

It's scary being GM.

Once the players start playing there's no telling where the campaign will end up. Don't want to make their lives easy, but I don't want to kill them off either.

It can be done, but requires a great deal of juggling and self-control.

For my campaign, I do have a GMPC, because the idea is, after the players are a bit more comfortable with the system, some of them will occasionally assume temporary GM duties, allowing me to play. When I GM, however, he mostly won't participate in the adventures, staying behind as an NPC to handle the administrative end of our *ahem* perfectly legitimate business enterprises. I do, however, plan for him to go along on certain specific adventures already planned out, as part of his past will serve as twists opening up new story hooks. He won't be there in a capacity to save the day, but to facilitate those reveals.

The Force was with me in that a last-minute addition to the group, without any prompting from me, put together a character who can serve quite nicely as my GM(N)PC's first mate on the ship, allowing mine to remain "off screen" as much as I'd like. Mine also serves as a way to hand-wave certain digressions and offscreen events to help set up certain future elements.

So he's not entirely stagnant and left behind the PC's, in adventures that I GM, he gets half the average XP of the group.

It's not easy, and if it gets to be too much hassle, well, there's always the shocking death of the captain.

It can work if your GMPC is the plucky astromech or faithful kid sidekick, always offering helpful advice and picks up the skills nobody else wants.

Not so much if you want to be Boba Fett, or Monobrow Boy from FU and throw Star Destroyers around.

It can work if your GMPC is the plucky astromech or faithful kid sidekick, always offering helpful advice and picks up the skills nobody else wants.

Not so much if you want to be Boba Fett, or Monobrow Boy from FU and throw Star Destroyers around.

Hey, Sam Witwer by all accounts (and occasional appearances on the order 66 podcast) seems to be a very nice guy in real life... calling him mono brow boy is kind of rude

Well, he may be an incredibly nice person but that doesn't make Maelora wrong... and Galen Marek/Starkiller's facial features are a bit Neanderthal-ish.

BTW, happy (belated) birthday, Maelora!

Back on topic, I think the use of a GM(N)PC as a sidekick or droid is better, but still fraught with danger. One or two deus ex machinas and pretty soon, the party thinks they're bulletproof because your PC saves them every time they get into trouble. It's only a short slide down that slippery slope to the party feeling like they're the sidekicks, and soon after your game will implode.

This game makes it pretty difficult to actually kill a PC. If the party gets into a tough situation, it may be better to let them fail and deal with the consequences than to swoop in and save their bacon. There are a ton of helpful people on these forums who would be happy to answer questions and offer advice. The forums also have a search function which can help you find answers to questions other have already asked.

GMPC.... well I also did this fault once... back in the beggining of my P&PRPG life... after I created my first (the black eye) PC after only 2 sessions our GM decided that he don´t want to be the GM anymore... at the same time the other player (we were 3 at that time) told him that he won´t do it again just after two sessions... both looked at me ... and ever since then I became the major GM of our little group, (wich grew in size dramastacally)

After two more sessions I realized that I shouldn´t use the Char in direct action anymore... so I let him become an NPC (that grew stronger, became the leader of an mercanary band [berserk was THE anime back than for us].

I later realized that It was really hard to let go of him, and every time he appeared he outshined the PC... so I had to make him disapear... to unknown lands...

After some years of experiance as GM in different systems, I was able to make a PC in a "Vampire - Dark Ages - Campaing" and here I saw an the same trouble... he made himself a GMPC... and all story center around this all to mighty GMPC, it broke the game in the end...

One year ago the group decided to make a switching "shadowrun" in which a GM would only lead one adventure (with a maximum of 3 sessions) before the next take on. We cycle through 3 GM, since every not GM would get ahead of EXP this way we decided that the GMPCs would be allowed to take part in the adventure but only as back up, and with out providing any real help (like: "Hey lets do it this way it will work... I somehow know it") in the End the Players decided upon the amount of EXP the GM gets for theire Char... if it was to selfscentert he would get to less, if it was a good round it was more.

That work well for us.

In SW I though I would be a player and createt once again an PC... well after the beginnerbox... I once again am the GM ^^". My PC became an Nemesis that will die in the final encounter... because he is the BBEG that wants to destroy the universe... that way he is in the story, can be all powerfull but won´t outshine anyone... since he is doomed to die in the end...(with 80% possibillity at least, If the PC don´t totaly F***u* theire rolls)

But never again will I create a GMPC that works active with the players in theire adventures.

Long story told short, BE CAREFUL with an GMPC... they could lead to a lot of grief and despair...

Well, he may be an incredibly nice person but that doesn't make Maelora wrong... and Galen Marek/Starkiller's facial features are a bit Neanderthal-ish.

BTW, happy (belated) birthday, Maelora!

Thanks Snuffy!

I have nothing against the actor, but that character is the absolute low point of Star Wars for me, in every way. Despite some impressive competition, he's the absolute nadir.

In our campaign, he was killed off by some Alliance terrorists (who got wrongly touted as heroes because of it) and they kept his monobrow as a trophy...

(Also, Wil Wheaton is a lovely bloke, but even he admits his Star Trek character sucked.)

Anyway, my point was that a GMPC only works with an experienced GM, and if the character is there to support the players, not to replace them or steal their spotlight.

It's scary being GM.

Once the players start playing there's no telling where the campaign will end up. Don't want to make their lives easy, but I don't want to kill them off either.

We should print this on a T-Shirt.

I toyed with the idea to intentionally do a slightly over the top, "occasionally-save-the-day-GM-character". But only because I also planned a "phew-thank-god-we-finally-killed-all-those-mcguffins-but-now-we're-done-and-can-relax-with-our-backs-turned-moment" followed by said character remarking on the red stuff on his shirt and then a "McGuffin-claw/sword-sticking-out-from-his-chest-moment".

But the group moved into another direction where the character wouldn't be helping, and so I still got that ace up my sleeve