Ok, so first I hope no one from my store and in this campaign will be here lol If they sneak in I'll live, but *shrug*

So we have an 8 player group which is a challenge in itself, having a rough time scaling combat for that many PCs, especially when they are quite thorough about environmental threats, one is a droid and immune to many such threats, and they have an obsession with gathering NPC droids. I have a sub group named Brown Town; An Ace Pilot (Clone), Ace Gunner (Dug), and Engineer Modder (Droid) that came as a 3 man team at character creation with an Arc 170. ((I should note we're playing 1 year before Order 66)) A Soldier Commando (MonCal) also from the Republic. A Colonist Doctor (3 fingered race from the homebrew thread here?) and Bounty Hunter Assassin (Mandalorian - RSB) are both civilian additions to the team from day 1. After their first mission (detailed below) a Spy Infiltrator (Honestly forgot, will update when I find it) and Explorer Archeologist (Chiss) joined up. After that I put on the brakes for joining. The Spy is playtesting a modified version of a lightsaber technique to allow Agility (Melee) for light bladed weapons, to-hit only, not damage. They've all been given the Recruit universal for free and it does not count towards their total specs. Finally, their party ship is a heavily modified Gozanti class with a Spy Slicer AI that gains XP at a much reduced rate from them. The AI's primary job is to defend the ship's computers from hacking, should I decide to incorporate ship to ship EWAR. Any other time she automatically counts as a Boost die when acting on the ship in a skill she could conceivably aid with. The Modder droid has also added a B2 Battle droid to the crew, reprogrammed to operate ships guns and defend it while the team is away. So far the AI and B2 are nice for unoccupied players to take over, otherwise they function as friendly NPCs. The ship's CO and team leader is also an NPC who largely gets forgotten in his office aboard when things start happening, which is as planned.

Hopefully that's a good primer on the team. We are very combat oriented and that's part of the problem, my campaign idea was planned out before the team was built and I'm not entirely sure how to skew it more into their area of expertise, if I should at all. In fact it was heavily tech and artifact related, and so far the only player skilled in those is the droid, so, much of the attention is accidentally falling on him.

The campaign, set just before Order 66, largely deals with the government organization of G.R.H.I.D. (Grand Republic Hazard Intervention Division), an agency that dates to the original Republic and which has been acting in the shadows to protect the Republic from extreme threats and unallied force sensitives (Forcers) for thousands of years. Recently, Mace Windu became the first ever Jedi director when he stepped down as the Jedi Council leader. he's been slowly changing the agency to be more friendly towards Forcers but there is a lot of opposition. He recently promoted one of his strongest supporters, Agent Simfeld, who was given a team of his own, the Party. The first section of the campaign will involve the Party going on GRHID missions throughout the galaxy, detaining Forcers or other threats as needed and bagging and tagging artifacts to deliver to the Warehouse 87 crew in the Outer Rim for safe keeping. Largely to get used to the game system as half or more are new to it, and those that aren't have only limited experience. Once Order 66 hits though GHRID will be shattered as the immense clone presence turns on it and Windu goes missing.

The Party will lose almost all ties to GHRID and thus lose access to most of the fancy toys and databases and etc they had access to, spending a fair amount of time just trying to survive in the chaos while the Empire forms (this part will probably be fast forwarded) Agent Simfeld will eventually come across rumors that Windu is still alive somewhere, and will gather the team together again to try and track him down. They'll probably be based out of Warehouse 87 and it may feel very EotEesq (They've already managed to form lose ties with a Hutt and we're only a month in so I fully plan to keep him around) I want this part to be a very hard struggle for the party after playing so long with so many crutches, so help knowing when to trigger this section will be appreciated (as far as "when are they ready?") Around the same time Agent Simfeld gets his rumors, he'll be contacted by a small handful of other old allies who will want to pull GRHID back together, queueing the building of a rebellion. The party will have to decide if finding their leader or building the rebellion comes first, or if they'll try to spread themselves equally between the two.

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So this all sounds great in my head, but am I biting off more than I can chew? I've run large DnD groups before but this is my first time GMing AoR. What concerns am I going to run into? With many of the missions I had planned involving abandoned temples or Separatist R&D facilities and hidden labs where knowledge skills and possibly stealth are far more useful than raw combat potential, should I stay as is and they'll just be very prepared for the worst case scenarios while the 2 or 3 "experts" do the major work? Or should I shift the missions into a more military role to make combat more of a focus? How do I go about making a Big Bad that makes sense being an agent inside GRHID but that would remain relevant post 66? Or would that be a good time to victoriously kill one Big Bad only for a Bigger Badder Bad to rise from the ashes and torment the Party during Act 2? Some knowledge of Warehouse 87 (where they'd be hiding) would become known to the Empire when Warehouse 2 on Byss falls to the Emperor (He had to jumpstart his jedi/sith artifact hoard somehow), so I could see him sending people to look for W87, Inquisitors would fit well here I think. Also the remains of GHRID that turned sides would likely be the beginning of the ISB.

On a related note, what's a good way to go from a very large scale, vague campaign idea like this and narrow it down to the individual missions? I usually work from the other side in a very sandboxy way, letting the party guide the story where it wants to go, and I tell them what happens, but this group wanted much more structure than that.

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Where we stand now, the first mission was an emergency call to a secret Republic Phrik mine in the south of the Galaxy, on Kirdo II. The mine was attacked after mining into what appeared to be a temple. Upon arrival queue a modified version of the EotE GM Kit adventure where a CIS strike team attacked the base with a pair of Acolytes. Only when they reach the doors to the Mine, they're welded shut. The party has to find the original entrance to the temple. They spend some time in an abandoned city hidden in the terrible atmosphere of the planet and eventually complete a puzzle to get into the temple. I fast forwarded a ton from this point because I also wasn't used to having to end for a store to close, I usually play in basements lol. They find an old Jal Shey artifact, and a digital force ghost of a Jal Shey guardian who's battling the acolytes. The party soundly defeats the acolytes due to me not having a firm grasp of scaling and the Inquisitor rules, taking one of them captive, the other dying.

From there the party heads to a hidden Republic prison planet, nicknamed Space Australia, to drop off the acolyte. While there a massive Ion storm grounds the team until it's over. They learn that inmates have been committing suicide lately and having hallucinations. As the storm worsens, so do the hallucinations, to the point where even some of the party is affected. Guilt is the enemy of the day as those affected are haunted by those they've lost but could have saved. A riot ensues, the warden is overcome with fear and attacks the party, and a convenient archeologist visiting discovers the prison was built out of a kyber mine from centuries ago, tainted by the dark side, and when the new warden arrived she removed the old decorations from the office. One of those decorations acted as a force sink to keep all of this from happening, once it was replaced everything went back to normal. The team left for their next stop.

They made a stop on Glottal, deep in Hutt space, and the location of Warehouse 87, hidden from the galaxy. Here they dropped off the mysterious artifact they found on Kirdo II for further study, and were given their first real mission; to steal a prototype cyborg soldier about to be debuted on Antar 4. Meant to be the trooper equivalent to General Grevious, this prototype must not be allowed to stay in CIS hands. With orders to steal or destroy both the prototype and all data, they must infiltrate what remains of the CIS base on Antar 4 after its almost total destruction from a Republic attack months before. The party landed outside the bases shields, the Doctor choosing to stay behind in the ship (red flag) while the others made their way inside. The Mechanic rolling triumphs all night managed to get the entire team all the way to the top floor with only the minorest of hiccups, slicing every computer he came across and even falsifying credentials to assure a B1 commander over comms that he was just doing routine maintenance. (I actually made him burn 2 triumphs with that roll) The session ended as the party was face to face with a huge, mutated cyborg. Standing well over 7 feet tall and with a Sidewinder repeating blaster surgically attached to his arm they learned it was remote controlled, and sentient, always conscious even, but unable to control itself, or disobey commands if unlocked from remote control.

The plan is for them to take the cyborg from floor 25 back down and out to the ship, while fighting the entire time. The enemy will have slicers on hand trained (training?) on how to use the cyborg and will attempt to hack control of it, turning it on the party until that slicer can be dispatched. This gives the mechanic something to do during the fight, and I'll probably give control of the cyborg to the player of the Doctor who stayed behind. The B1 commander who was originally fooled, basically reported the odd event to his superior, who was not fooled and sent a proper security team.
Another option, that I'll hint towards but not give away, is that a lab on floor 24 could be used to blow out the side of the building, filling the air with the right gasses and igniting them, and the Doctor could fly the ship (with help from the AI) over to the blown out wall, giving to a much quicker escape. The only party member trained in Education (chemistry) is the Doctor though, and no one is trained in explosives otherwise.
Finally, regardless of how they choose to escape, just to make sure they don't stick around I'll be having Dooku's shuttle show up on scanners, and they already fully understand out of character that much like Vader in the future, if they tangle with Dooku, they will die.

If they choose to execute the cyborg, to put it out of its misery, GRHID command will be upset, and they'll earn minimum Duty, but they'll probably feel good about themselves. If they do so before escaping, I'll /have/ to point them towards escape option 2.

The security leader they meet during escape will become a recurring adversary, now that I've learned I can spend Destiny to allow an adversary to escape, without that I have no idea how to build one powerful enough to stand up to them and escape legit, without tearing them to shreds, and/or without relying heavily on the force.

Well I am Inexperienced with Role Playing games, but If your In a jam I would suggest using the age of Rebellion mass battle rules for two large groups of people fighting each other.

With many of the missions I had planned involving abandoned temples or Separatist R&D facilities and hidden labs where knowledge skills and possibly stealth are far more useful than raw combat potential, should I stay as is and they'll just be very prepared for the worst case scenarios while the 2 or 3 "experts" do the major work?

Modify the adventures and encounter to allow the combat doods to contribute, with an 8 person group (yoiks) you have to keep everyone relevant as best you can. It is Star Wars after all, combat is rather expected. Coming in at O66 leaves ample opportunity to inject opponents intended for defeat in combat, especially if the players are part of a Jedi sympathetic special missions group. By nature the Empire will place a priority on the elimination of groups exactly like that because of the threat they pose to the Empire. Likely they'll get one chance to get on board the Palpy train and after that will be declared criminals.

Just a few possible opponents include:

• Clone/Stormtrooper kill teams sent specifically to take them down.
• Proto Inquisitors and ISB agents
• Separatists that are seeking revenge
• Merc units looking to recruit them, or take them off the list of possible competitors
• Bounty hunters
• Renegades and warlords trying to consolidate power will likely be out after the same resources.
• Corporate security also trying to salvage the same materials the players are after.
• Rebel groups that still seethe players as "Imperials" based on their prior record.

So lots of people to get in scrapes with and I haven't' even talked about the usual suspects.

How do I go about making a Big Bad that makes sense being an agent inside GRHID but that would remain relevant post 66?

Seems simple enough. He starts as a "Big Good" a high up non-jedi military type that's all about preserving the Galactic government. Up front he's a pretty cool, if a tad intense, guy that really helps the players. He mentors them, tosses them extra support, backs them up when they need help, but who also makes and effort to maintain discipline and professionalism within the ranks that might rub the players the wrong way from time to time. He and Windu don't always see eye-to-eye (Think a crusty Sergent-major type that doesn't think Jedi=Soldier/Senior Officer), but he respects Windu for his success in the field, if not his methods and views.

When the O-poop hits the 66-Fan he sides with Big Palpy. He's the guy that tracks down and corners the players within a few days of O66 to personally recall them so they might be reorganized into a new special internal security force. When the players decline, he's by extension obligated to ensure they won't threaten the Empire.

On a related note, what's a good way to go from a very large scale, vague campaign idea like this and narrow it down to the individual missions? I usually work from the other side in a very sandboxy way, letting the party guide the story where it wants to go, and I tell them what happens, but this group wanted much more structure than that.

Try going more episodic. Take a look at various similar media, as well as pregenerated campaigns in other games and systems. Figure out the entire campaign in three paragraphs. The start, the end, and a middle to connect them. Then figure out each adventure in a few sentences. Now you've got your "season synopsis." From there start writing the first adventure, and get a good way through the second. As each adventure is completed, push on and write more about the next one, tweaking the story to match the players actions.

Usually things start with the gears already in motion and the time between episodes is hardly mentioned. Do something similar. Start an adventure with a short crawl or script for the players that establishes the conditions, and possibly segways directly into an opening combat encounter. Don't stress the time that passes between adventures, it's not relevant. Allow a shopping trip or whatever and then hand out the script/crawl. I mean, look at the movies. Something happened to get the Rebels from Yavin to Hoth, but it was less important then what happened at Hoth.

When you actually write your adventure plan, do so in such a way that keeps the players motivated to go in the direction you have planned. It's only railroading if the players are forced to go where you want, if they actually want to follow the tracks you laid down, that's just good GMing.

Also use the Warehouse. USE IT. Fill it to the gills with plenty of mundane useful things. Clothing for the major environmental types, tools, tents, cots, rations, space parts for their ship, even a small armory with blast vests, pistols, rifles, carbines, even a light repeater or two and a case of grenades.

The reason is to change the players "hunger." Credits shouldn't be a huge problem, at least not at first. The warehouse stocks provides that by ensuring they always have the basics. But that's not what your players need to be hungry for. Intel, friends, safehouses, support, that's the food the players don't have, and credits can't buy that anyway. That also provides you the GM with an entirely new set of adventure rewards t o entice the payers.

Don't overstock the warehouse though. Specialty gear isn't there. So if they all need night vision gear, they gotta find it. If the ship runs out of torpedoes, they gotta source more. While buying more on the open market is an option, that's also risky. The players have a price on their head, so every new black market contact they make might be totally OK with turning them in too. Raiding an old GAR storehouse on the other side of the sector is also risky, but if they succeed or fail they can still run home and lay low.

• Clone/Stormtrooper kill teams sent specifically to take them down.

Clone teams like during the pre-O66 period? Assuming there's at least one higher up who's already on Palp's "in the know" list and because our team's leader is openly pro-Jedi he wants us taken care of early? It'd certainly be a moral dilemma to fight them for our own team's clone, and probably lead to a "Why brother, why?" moment followed by "We had orders from the top" to start clueing the team in on what's coming. OR was that just because at the very very start of O66 the stormies were clones?

Currently most of their enemies are droids and the CIS in general, plus local fauna when in or around temples and such. But I do plan on them having to acquire artifacts that are in private collections in both Corporate and Hutt space, and probably a few in the Core as well. Which would mean dealing with private security teams. I guess those missions would just turn into FBI raids rather than a stealth grab or a negotiation.

Don't stress the time that passes between adventures, it's not relevant.

But do stress the time that passes during adventures still? Both I and the group are very used to tracking how many days or hours it takes to get from Point A to Point B, it lets the crafters know how much time they have to craft, but now that I'm thinking about it that's about it. Yesterday I actually sat down and worked out the timeframe so far, with most of their hyperspace jumps being about 3 days, they're about 3 weeks in. (Those Hutt space lanes aren't the quickest) As far as crafting is concerned I could just say "Between working on other things and relaxing you find about [dice roll] of time." With the size of the die dependant on roughly how long I want them free between the adventures?

Also use the Warehouse. USE IT. Fill it to the gills with plenty of mundane useful things. Clothing for the major environmental types, tools, tents, cots, rations, space parts for their ship, even a small armory with blast vests, pistols, rifles, carbines, even a light repeater or two and a case of grenades.

The Warehouse is largely filled with force artifacts and items deemed too strange or powerful to be loose in the galaxy, it's not an ordinance depot. But that said, I did give the group about 2k extra starting funds each to demonstrate that they're part of a government funded group and their basic needs are covered. I've also made sure to note that adverse environmental gear etc is already onboard the ship, which also has an armory, the plan was to make sure everyone had at least a light blaster pistol and padded armor available if they didn't buy it. Their base of operations is the Gozanti, the Warehouse is just one of a few frequent allied stops. After their current mission they'll be meeting the Contigo, a mobile HQ built out of a souped up Victory II (Very new and shiny for the time period). So I'm making sure the Gozanti has everything they /need/ (I'll be posting the Gozanti stats and deckplans in my ship thread when it's done), and I'm letting their NPC CO roll negotiation checks (since none of them are qualified yet) to request special equipment be provided such as special armor or in this mission they requested demolitions equipment. (He didn't pass, HQ determined demo equipment wasn't needed for the mission) And they seem very keen on Skyriming everything not nailed down while they're on mission so everyone quickly upgraded their light blaster pistols to carbines and heavy pistols, plus they all have air masks now (which the ship would have had anyway). They're probably just not used to money not being important yet, they'll catch on? Or should I try emphasising it more somehow? One of them did manage to convince the rest that the Hutt they found would be a better ally and "favor owed to us" rather than getting gear out of him, I was glad of that.

Clone teams like during the pre-O66 period? Assuming there's at least one higher up who's already on Palp's "in the know" list and because our team's leader is openly pro-Jedi he wants us taken care of early? It'd certainly be a moral dilemma to fight them for our own team's clone, and probably lead to a "Why brother, why?" moment followed by "We had orders from the top" to start clueing the team in on what's coming. OR was that just because at the very very start of O66 the stormies were clones?

Yes.

It took a few years to phase in the conscripted/indoctrinated stormtroopers, so if you have the players play through O66 or shortly after, clonetroopers are going to be a thing. How exactly it goes down is up to you and them, but if the players don't fall in line with Super Palpy pretty quick Clones will be the default Mook.

You can also make this a themed element. Season 1 might see regular fights with clone hit squads. Season 2 starts to see Stormtroopers phased in giving the trooper player some Clones>Stormtroopers RPing while also illustrating that time is passing and the galaxy changing.

But do stress the time that passes during adventures still? Both I and the group are very used to tracking how many days or hours it takes to get from Point A to Point B, it lets the crafters know how much time they have to craft, but now that I'm thinking about it that's about it.

Bingo. That's about it.

Some people, especailly D&D players get a little bogged down in the hour to hour day to day game progress, forgetting that that's part of the D&D mechanic, and not needed for actual story progression.

That said, if time IS a factor, factor it in a bit. So like if the players are dropping into enemy territory and need to foot march for three days, to reach the objective, make sure they carry 3 days worth of food and water, and suggest they bring along tents and other gear too. If they don't, start laying on the setbacks.

On a related note: Loot up the encumbrance rules, the players are technically capable of carrying quite a bit of gear when needed.

They're probably just not used to money not being important yet, they'll catch on? Or should I try emphasising it more somehow?

Emphasize it and they will catch on.

Make more use of environmental setbacks, and regularly send them on missions that require specific, if mundane, gear.

Also you can start applying modifiers for "the wrong tool of the job." This is a good one to toss in the mix to make the player think about their actual outfitting instead of just raw numbers and crunch synergy. A mission in dense jungle should have an effect. Pistols to carbines suffer no setbacks, rifles suffer one setback on all checks as they snag on vegetation, heavy rifles, sniper rifles and other big weapons suffer 2 setback AND two setback to athletics, stealth, and coordination type checks as they catch on everything. This sort of thing will help the players start to think of their gear, even armor and weapons, as a tool that can be swapped out for whatever is best, and not as some kind of number game on a character sheet. You can also show this going the other direction. When planning your encounters on the jungle planet the opposition (assuming they knew what they were doing and getting into) would be equipped with weapons like carbines and array guns, armored in heavy clothing or equivalent, and generally equipped to have no setbacks at all from the basic environment. Once the players see they are getting 3 and 4 setbacks for wearing heavy armor and carrying heavy weapons when lighter gear is more appropriate they'll catch on.

By extension it will also allow you as the GM to start damaging and destroying their gear without feeling so bad about it. so what if they lose a blaster pistol, they have 20 more on the ship.

As a simple NPC, toss in a quartermaster droid to the ship's compliment. If possible make him funny, so the players will be encouraged to interact with him regularly.

A bigger, but good example I can point you to is the old WEG Darkstryder Campaign. In that the players have an entire modified corvette at their disposal, and the book goes through almost room by room describing roughly what's where. In some cases it's just roughed out ("The upper hold contains field rations, cold weather gear, tents, climbing gear, and other similar field and survival equipment") in some cases it' get's a little more specific ("The maintenance bay is filled with crates of tools and spare parts, even an entire spare engine for the combat shuttle is here") and in some cases it gets very specific (The armory contains 100 blaster pistols, 50 blaster rifles...)

As you fill out the Gozanti you can do the same, just on a smaller scale. To represent this in-game, any time the players need a totally mundane piece of kit that doesn't have an exact specified quantity, have them roll for it, but with a reduced difficulty and, if successful, no associated cost. When they find out the crap is free, they'll use it. After a while you can have that gear start to run low as well. Credits are no good when you're out in the boonies and are running low on rations. It gets interesting when the players attacking an enemy base run right past the armory and to the mess hall to capture the food.

Just make it clear that you'll also be watching for abuse. There's plenty of cold weather parkas so the players can go to ice planets, not so the players can pull them out of their butts and pawn them whenever they want a few extra credits.

Unlabeled deckplans for the party's ship are ready~
https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/193704-4ndys-ladyjuliannes-custom-shipyard/page-5#entry2300661

I'll be providing labels and such over the weekend.

Unlabeled deckplans for the party's ship are ready~

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/193704-4ndys-ladyjuliannes-custom-shipyard/page-5#entry2300661

I'll be providing labels and such over the weekend.

Quite respectable.

Unlabeled deckplans for the party's ship are ready~

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/193704-4ndys-ladyjuliannes-custom-shipyard/page-5#entry2300661

I'll be providing labels and such over the weekend.

Quite respectable.

Ok, full deck plans and in game ship stats have been posted in the same thread. So you can see what the party is working with. I did knowingly ramp up the quality on their ship so I could throw bigger, meaner space battles at them, but also so it could function as a full HQ in space.