Hey guys!

So, I'm diving into my first session for this game tomorrow. I will DM and I'm trying to prepare as well as I can for it, since it will be at an event, and my table will be filled by completely new and random people.

And the chance any of them will be familiar with this Star Wars system is 0%.

One of the things I usually do to prepare, is check encounter difficulty and whatnot, but...

I'm going to DM the adventure included in the core rulebook. Reading it just now, I find there's no suggested number of players, nor are there any rules to adjust above or below.

Is that intended? If so, how do we evaluate difficulty?

Scaling encounter difficulty can be tricky at first in this system. You should assume about 4 PCs as a "typical" group, and then adjust things up a little if you have more players than that. There are no rules for setting encounter difficulty the way D&D and Pathfinder have CR; you just need to get some experience with what your players can handle and then gradually adjust things based on experience, group skill composition, equipment and so on. There's no hard-and-fast formula for it.

That's what I was afraid of. Ok so I'll consider 4 and see how easy or hard it feels. A LOT of added stuff comes into play when it's a new system to everyone. Especially with the funny dice.

Hey guys!

So, I'm diving into my first session for this game tomorrow. I will DM and I'm trying to prepare as well as I can for it, since it will be at an event, and my table will be filled by completely new and random people.

And the chance any of them will be familiar with this Star Wars system is 0%.

One of the things I usually do to prepare, is check encounter difficulty and whatnot, but...

I'm going to DM the adventure included in the core rulebook. Reading it just now, I find there's no suggested number of players, nor are there any rules to adjust above or below.

Is that intended? If so, how do we evaluate difficulty?

Flip to the end and read the encounter with the assassin droids. That's probably the toughest encounter in the adventure and it does give some advice for scaling the number of droids based on party size. I don't recall if there are other points in the encounter where it gives that sort of advice, but at least that should give you an idea what the default assumption is.

Awesome. Let's see.

Bare in mind, it's generally very easy to get put down - like, unconscious - in this system, especially early on. Blaster rifles are unforgiving when you only have 2-4 soak, but it's actually fairly hard to die. So be liberal with the Stimpak drops if a fight goes rough, and be sure to reassure them when they go unconscious after getting shot twice, that it's only temporary. And if the whole group goes out because of a string of bad rolls (or bad judgement on your part), make sure to just use that to make the story more interesting, not the end.

"Great, how can we ever escape from a friggin' Star Destroyer?!" Well, after a day or so of captivity they're just minding their business in their cells when klaxons start to go off and their guards scramble, the ship is clearly under attack. After a few tense minutes the whole ship is rocked like an earthquake and things literally start to go a little sideways. Some of the ships main systems are damaged. More sirens and fire suppression units go off, sparks flying everywhere, and your cell doors... just pop open with the signature "wooshh"...

Also, if a battle starts off poorly, or you realize halfway thru "Oh man, I put too many Stormies/space pirates in here..." consider morale; are the people/NPCs they're fighting really gonna fight to the death, or if they get blasted good, once, would the NPC prefer to just play dead until the PCs moved on in hopes they get to see their favorite lady (or man), or kid again. Have 'em make Discipline checks for it even, if that makes you feel better about it.

Just sayin', outright mission design and encounter balance is not and should not be the be-all and end-all of your experience.

This is all great advice. I did find that even with the CR rating, things didn't necessarily go smooth. All it took was a few 1s on the d20s and suddenly a fight seemed a LOT more difficult. Or maybe people unaware of the fact you actually need to BURN a troll to kill it... dice won't help there.

Hmmm ok