Inspired by the Rolling Openly thread and this 2009 article from The Alexandrian.net , I wanted to explore the idea of not prepping plots for our Star Wars games. After starting my third FFG SW campaign, I've begun to realize what a bad idea it is to prepare a plot (definition: a sequence of events). After running through several pre-written Edge and F&D adventures, I'm thinking that FFG line developers are beginning to push for the same approach.

So, how do we as GMs avoid wasting our times with plots in our home games without relying on players running and inevitably ruining their own self-directed games? As Justin Alexander says, create a situation .

1. Figure out who or what the antagonist of the situation is. It can be an NPC, a group of NPCs, a force of nature, or just the passage of time itself. This is the player's hook. Bonus points if the antagonist is directly tied to a PC's Obligation or Motivation.
2. Figure out what kind of resources the antagonist has at his/her/its disposal. This is what you will actively and passively throw at the PCs until they get to the final showdown. Don't limit yourself to just squads of minions. The antagonist may also have information against the PCs or some kind of location he/she/it uses as a base.
3. Figure out what kind of weaknesses your antagonist has and how the PCs can exploit them. It could be an angry spouse or a thermal exhaust port.
4. Figure out where the situation should take place. Since this is Star Wars , decide what combination of cities, planets, space stations, and/or ships is appropriate.
5. Have a solid understanding of those locations; NPCs that are likely to help the PCs so long as certain conditions are met; natural resources and/or vendors the PCs can use; terrain, flora/fauna, or weather conditions that can cause a problem; opposition NPCs that are unaffiliated with the antagonist, etc.
6. Figure out the win conditions for the PCs and devise methods that the PCs can use to succeed against the antagonist.
7. If there's no way to get through your situation without hitting a chokepoint, make sure your chokepoint has at least three ways the PCs can find it and overcome it.
8. Don't worry trying to counteract what the PCs are going to do. Concentrate on what the antagonist is trying to accomplish.

I love this, thanks for taking the time to write it up. Without thinking it through to this level, I realize this is what I've started doing more recently and it has resulted in a MUCH better game for my PCs.

I've taken to thinking of it as "don't design a plot, design a system." I begin by thinking about what would play out in the adventure were the PCs not there to interfere, and use that to shape everything else. This is essentially step 8. In fact, doing this properly means thinking of everything completely from the perspective of the NPCs involved, with little regard for the specific PCs. If you've done that right, you should also have made something that in theory could be utilized by any other GM that wished to run something similar.

Only once you feel you have enough of a system worked out should tweaks be made for gameplay purposes, as well as how it ties into obligation if you can (typically, this is a source of inspiration for the adventure from the start and isn't too hard). Working this way for my last several adventures has led to me developing areas, NPCs, and events that I wasn't even certain the PCs would SEE, much less interact with, simply because it felt like a thing which should exist. Yes, that means sometimes you make a hilarious character that the PCs literally never talk to, but it also makes it all the sweeter when they find it/them and do something you never expected. It leads to genuine surprise and fun on the part of everyone, and because you've spent the time to think about how all the NPCs and systems work you should never be thrown off guard to the point where you can't keep things running smoothly!

I'm going to mess with this checklist a bit and refer back to it as I rough out the next few adventures I design.

If you want the story to feel believable, figure out how the bad guy's plan would work without the PCs becoming involved. If it feels contrived at this point, stop and refigure it.

The antagonist doesn't always have to be a The Guy With the Black Hat. If we want to avoid situations becoming stale - and Heaven save us from escalating waves of Boba Fett knock-offs - we can look to non-sentient antagonists such as:

• a rancor chasing the PCs through the jungles of Felucia ( resources: plentiful food supply, weaknesses: doors falling on head, location: has plants and animals that can be turned on a Rancor and places to hide, win condition: PCs don't get eaten)
• a gravelstorm on Tatooine racing towards the PCs ( resources: plenty of rocks and sand, weaknesses: must stay close to the ground, location: spaceport, various hives of scum and villainy, greedy Jawas, win condition: PCs don't die from exposure)
• an expanding supernova threatening the PC's ship ( resources: the fires of creation, weaknesses: can only move 8 miles per second, location: a ship that can go faster than the speed of light... so long as the engines work, win condition: PCs avoid being reduced to carbon)

I wish I'd read that article earlier. I wrote up something similar about using this system in that way:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/188406-running-a-freeform-plot/

The key thing for me is that all my NPCs have motivations and clocks of their own. If the PCs take no action, the universe simply carries on without them, but there is always an injection point.

I do think using the narrative dice in this system makes it easier than some other systems, though maybe that's because it was only after starting up with this game that these issues started coming into focus.

So I love these Ideas, and have a few questions. I am making a campaign around Mask of the Pirate Queen, and have a few episodes built up around it. Here are the episodes, but I want to apply what you have described to these on this scale (as much as possible). So how would you change these, or embelish them, to make them more free-form.

Campaign adventures in order

v The PCs need to follow a Consortium Message (Trail to Saleucami)

v Mask of the Pirate Queen

v Making a home of the Vault they raided in MotPQ for the Consortium (or themselves) to use (Cracking the Vault) this can only be done if they side with the Consortium at the end

v Hunting down the New Queen that was installed later on as the book says may happen (or coronating a new one if you joined the queen) (The Queen Reigns Again)

v (if players side with the queen) Assassinate Sykes while avoiding bounty hunters (The Renegade’s Revenge)

v Take Advantage of the Imperial Slave Trade to recruit some eager to escape slaves (usable no matter who they side with) (Out of Chains, into Villainy)

v Find and work with Dengar to kill the private army working to protect a shipping drop off point (Blaster Bolts Before Smoke)

v Leave the Consortium, or the Sorority, and make away with an item valuable to someone who can protect you (an agent secretly working for the Black Sun) (The Freedom Run)

v If they are a freelancer for the Consortium, they could try to help with the Black Sun secretly, giving life to new obligations for a new campaign. (Double Money, Double Danger)

So i guess my question over all is, how can I make these basic ideas be what the PCs want to do, so they can direct it?

A) Player created worlds. The Begging for XP session 0 rules are a good start ( http://beggingforxp.com/2013/session-0-our-player-generated-setting-for-star-wars-edge-of-the-empire/ )

B) Never write ahead of yourself. You'll be too tempted to force things to end up there. I had a rough idea for a third act in my current campaign that went out the WINDOW based on what my PCs did, and now I'm taking it in a totally different direction. Focus on making whatever is up next really solid and well thought out, and let the players guide where you go next. It'll mean you need several weeks of writing between arcs (at least I do), but it is worth it

So I love these Ideas, and have a few questions. I am making a campaign around Mask of the Pirate Queen, and have a few episodes built up around it. Here are the episodes, but I want to apply what you have described to these on this scale (as much as possible). So how would you change these, or embelish them, to make them more free-form.

Campaign adventures in order

v The PCs need to follow a Consortium Message (Trail to Saleucami)

v Mask of the Pirate Queen

v Making a home of the Vault they raided in MotPQ for the Consortium (or themselves) to use (Cracking the Vault) this can only be done if they side with the Consortium at the end

v Hunting down the New Queen that was installed later on as the book says may happen (or coronating a new one if you joined the queen) (The Queen Reigns Again)

v (if players side with the queen) Assassinate Sykes while avoiding bounty hunters (The Renegade’s Revenge)

v Take Advantage of the Imperial Slave Trade to recruit some eager to escape slaves (usable no matter who they side with) (Out of Chains, into Villainy)

v Find and work with Dengar to kill the private army working to protect a shipping drop off point (Blaster Bolts Before Smoke)

v Leave the Consortium, or the Sorority, and make away with an item valuable to someone who can protect you (an agent secretly working for the Black Sun) (The Freedom Run)

v If they are a freelancer for the Consortium, they could try to help with the Black Sun secretly, giving life to new obligations for a new campaign. (Double Money, Double Danger)

So i guess my question over all is, how can I make these basic ideas be what the PCs want to do, so they can direct it?

You have two problems. The first problem is that you're trying to make your ideas the PCs' ideas, and by extension, the player's ideas and that removes agency. The other problem is that you've already created choke points for yourself.

• Making a home of the Vault from MotPQ (What if they decide they want to live on their ship? Or they want to pool their resources and start a farm as a side gig?)
• If the players side with the queen... (What if they don't?)
• Recruit some eager to escape slaves... (What if they don't?)
• Find and work with Denegar... (Why would they?)
• Leave the Consortium/Sorority... (What if they like the Consortium or Sorority and want to stay?)

I would suggest stepping back and waiting to see what the situation is until post-MotPQ as there are three possible endings:

1. The PCs side with the Zann Consortium.
2. The PCs side with the Sorority.
3. The PCs stick it to both sides and make enemies of both.

Options 1 and 2 have pretty much the same result - a new alliance and a new enemy - but Option 3 can really throw a monkey wrench into any future planning. If you're like me and you really want to plan out a possible future situation, assume that the PCs are going to have at least one new enemy and assume that enemy is going to be making plans that may or may not affect the PCs.

That said, it's not like you have to toss out all your brainstorming ideas. Here's an approach I might consider:

Situation 1 - The PCs are approached by either a third party from Saleucami or the Consortium/Sorority. Someone undesirable (a group of criminals, the Consortium, or the Sorority [again]) have set up shop in the base. The patron can't/won't pay the PCs but they're in a position to deed the land and the base itself to the PCs as a reward for removing the undesirables. This is the hook. What the PCs do from here depends on them and the actions of the antagonists in the base will be determined by the resources they have and their weaknesses. Hint: For a more engaging game, the PCs will have to do more to get in/secure the base than simply assault it with guns and bombs. Perhaps the PCs will have to convince the wary locals that they mean them no harm. Maybe they have to cut off supplies and starve the baddies out or sabotage their water supply.

Situation 2 - Dengar approaches the PCs and offers them a cut from a mercenary job if the PCs can help him to drive off a mercenary company. This is the hook. Figure out the antagonists' resources and weaknesses and where the action takes place and you're solid. Hint: In order to up the drama, the PCs should be horribly outgunned and outnumbered. They will have to make use of the local terrain and any unarmed local support in order to defeat the mercenaries.

Situation 3 - The PCs are approached by either a third party or a representative of a group they already work with. The Empire has entered a backroom deal with slavers on Zygerria to supply workers for Imperial mines. The Zygerrians have set up a slave depot on a remote world. The PCs' patrons want the slave depot shut down. This is the hook. While the PCs can always attack the slave depot or engineer some sort of "Great Escape"-style breakout, they can also attempt to convince the galactic media outlets to come investigate. Slavery is technically illegal in the Empire, after all. Anyway, set up the slave depot, the guard details, and their resources and you're good to go.

Or, Option 4, the PCs manage to screw over both sides without making enemies of either...

It sounds less like we're arguing against plots and planning, and more like we're still planning an adventure campaign as normal, just making sure that outcomes of critical plot pivot points aren't singular.

I mean, everything here:

Here's how I would break it down:

1. Figure out who or what the antagonist of the situation is. It can be an NPC, a group of NPCs, a force of nature, or just the passage of time itself. This is the player's hook. Bonus points if the antagonist is directly tied to a PC's Obligation or Motivation.
2. Figure out what kind of resources the antagonist has at his/her/its disposal. This is what you will actively and passively throw at the PCs until they get to the final showdown. Don't limit yourself to just squads of minions. The antagonist may also have information against the PCs or some kind of location he/she/it uses as a base.
3. Figure out what kind of weaknesses your antagonist has and how the PCs can exploit them. It could be an angry spouse or a thermal exhaust port.
4. Figure out where the situation should take place. Since this is Star Wars , decide what combination of cities, planets, space stations, and/or ships is appropriate.
5. Have a solid understanding of those locations; NPCs that are likely to help the PCs so long as certain conditions are met; natural resources and/or vendors the PCs can use; terrain, flora/fauna, or weather conditions that can cause a problem; opposition NPCs that are unaffiliated with the antagonist, etc.
6. Figure out the win conditions for the PCs and devise methods that the PCs can use to succeed against the antagonist.
7. If there's no way to get through your situation without hitting a chokepoint, make sure your chokepoint has at least three ways the PCs can find it and overcome it.
8. Don't worry trying to counteract what the PCs are going to do. Concentrate on what the antagonist is trying to accomplish.

Isn't so much an argument against plot, but just a pretty standard framework for adventure and campaign design.

You'll still have to hook the players into the story and motivate them to proceed through, or parallel to it, adapting to their choices and personal motivations as you go. Without that you run the risk of the players going to the cantina and getting drunk while Darth Baddgui takes over the galaxy because they never got sufficiently involved and motivated to stop him. The only change I'm sensing is instead of assuming that when Steve finds out Baddgui is his ex girlfriend's former roomate we account for the possibility that Steve sides with him instead of dueling him to the death, or figures out how to otherwise resolve the conflict.

Isn't that really it? Or am I missing something?

You'll still have to hook the players into the story and motivate them to proceed through, or parallel to it, adapting to their choices and personal motivations as you go. Without that you run the risk of the players going to the cantina and getting drunk while Darth Baddgui takes over the galaxy because they never got sufficiently involved and motivated to stop him. The only change I'm sensing is instead of assuming that when Steve finds out Baddgui is his ex girlfriend's former roomate we account for the possibility that Steve sides with him instead of dueling him to the death, or figures out how to otherwise resolve the conflict.

Isn't that really it? Or am I missing something?

A hook is just the set-up for a situation. Whether you jam the hook in the players' mouths ( "As we enter the story, your ship has dropped out of hyperspace in front of a damaged tramp freighter that's broadcasting a distress signal." ) or pretend that the players' have a choice ( "Your ship's communications system picks up a distress call. The message makes it sound like their hyperdrive is broken. What do you do?" ) they're going to bite down on it. The best hooks already ping off of an Obligation or Motivation but even the weakest hook holds up as part of the basic social contract of RPGing; everyone at the table wants to create a collective story and in order to have a story the players have to actually bite on the hook. As long as the GM doesn't dictate what the players do after the hook is bitten, it's not a railroad.

Prepping without a plot means the GM doesn't set up a sequence of events or variants on events that must be visited in order for the adventure to have a satisfying conclusion for the players. By your example, if you're accounting for Steve siding with the Darth Baddgui rather than dueling with him you're still prepping a plot and creating possible chokepoints and/or possibly laying down a railroad and/or doing a lot of work you don't need to. We're not programming video games so we aren't obligated to create decision tree formats and alternate endings for our players.

What's also been reiterated throughout this thread by other posters is to make sure the antagonist has a goal or goals. They can be objectives with or without timelines. If your antagonist is just squatting in his bunker like a red dragon sitting on a pile of gold in a Gary Gygax dungeon, that's not an antagonist, that's a piece of terrain. When your antagonist's goals and your players actions intersect, that's where the interesting conflicts come in.

You still have a plot , you just don't have a path .

You'll still have to hook the players into the story and motivate them to proceed through, or parallel to it, adapting to their choices and personal motivations as you go. Without that you run the risk of the players going to the cantina and getting drunk while Darth Baddgui takes over the galaxy because they never got sufficiently involved and motivated to stop him. The only change I'm sensing is instead of assuming that when Steve finds out Baddgui is his ex girlfriend's former roomate we account for the possibility that Steve sides with him instead of dueling him to the death, or figures out how to otherwise resolve the conflict.

Isn't that really it? Or am I missing something?

A hook is just the set-up for a situation. Whether you jam the hook in the players' mouths ( "As we enter the story, your ship has dropped out of hyperspace in front of a damaged tramp freighter that's broadcasting a distress signal." ) or pretend that the players' have a choice ( "Your ship's communications system picks up a distress call. The message makes it sound like their hyperdrive is broken. What do you do?" ) they're going to bite down on it. The best hooks already ping off of an Obligation or Motivation but even the weakest hook holds up as part of the basic social contract of RPGing; everyone at the table wants to create a collective story and in order to have a story the players have to actually bite on the hook. As long as the GM doesn't dictate what the players do after the hook is bitten, it's not a railroad.

Prepping without a plot means the GM doesn't set up a sequence of events or variants on events that must be visited in order for the adventure to have a satisfying conclusion for the players. By your example, if you're accounting for Steve siding with the Darth Baddgui rather than dueling with him you're still prepping a plot and creating possible chokepoints and/or possibly laying down a railroad and/or doing a lot of work you don't need to. We're not programming video games so we aren't obligated to create decision tree formats and alternate endings for our players.

What's also been reiterated throughout this thread by other posters is to make sure the antagonist has a goal or goals. They can be objectives with or without timelines. If your antagonist is just squatting in his bunker like a red dragon sitting on a pile of gold in a Gary Gygax dungeon, that's not an antagonist, that's a piece of terrain. When your antagonist's goals and your players actions intersect, that's where the interesting conflicts come in.

OK, still not sure I'm getting it.

I mean I see that you're saying the players need to maintain agency, or at least the illusion thereof, but I have trouble seeing how not preparing an event chain and encounter sets can generate a game that doesn't feel aimless after a fashion. At some point the players are going to slip and generate a dead end thread if you don't know where they are supposed to go and have options to get them there.

I mean, so what if I know what resources Darth Baddgui has and his motivations? If the players aren't lined up to to engage Baddgui whats to stop them from wandering off and forgetting about him completely as they get tied up in typical petty player things?

I guess what I'm not seeing is how trying to freeball it makes sense when given any major story impacting decision you can usually pretty easily determine the top two or thee possible outcomes and account for that. There might be some fine details to iron out on the fly, but nothing that will seriously impact you. So it seems like you could just as easily generate an adventure/campaign that presents lots of player choices, but is geared to flow in the same direction and generate the same action scenes and beats regardless of if it's on a train or a truck.

I mean I see that you're saying the players need to maintain agency, or at least the illusion thereof, but I have trouble seeing how not preparing an event chain and encounter sets can generate a game that doesn't feel aimless after a fashion. At some point the players are going to slip and generate a dead end thread if you don't know where they are supposed to go and have options to get them there.

I'll be bold and say "there are always options". That's why I love the narrative dice, they have yet to fail me. But I'll also say there are two levels of planning, macro and micro.

For the macro, that's where the NPCs and their motivations and actions comes in. It's not aimless if things keep moving forward. Just an example from my own campaign: it's really a simple tale of the Empire buying up resources on a planet, driving all the foresters, miners, etc out of business by changing laws, creating trade barriers, etc. But all their friends/family/Obligation-related people are involved and affected. At first the threat is just "there" in the background, but the noose is slowly tightening. In the end they will have to make choices (that process is already starting), and as the GM I don't really care if they pick their planet and families or pick the Empire because either way will have consequences. But those consequences have the potential to be far too intricate and detailed to put down in an event chain or encounter tree. No matter what they pick, the PCs will never touch on all the possible consequences, it would take too long to play out. I know this without even knowing what they would be, the PCs have simply met too many people. But whatever they pick, the consequences will be epic on some level (...or at least I hope so, I could of course totally flame out...).

Thinking about this, I suppose there are "event chains", vague and unformed as they might be. I know eventually the Empire will tighten its grip, bring more resources to bear, find out who's been opposing them...and meanwhile the PCs will have changed the trajectory (or even eliminated) of some of those events. But I'm not sure big cloudy bubbles with misty strands between them really counts as an event chain in the usual sense. Honestly, I don't even know who the BaddGai is yet! It could be any or all of the key players.

For the micro: sure, sometimes I plan pretty intricate encounters, but that's only when I know where the PCs will be. Otherwise I might have, on a session-by-session basis, 3-4 possible encounters or plot points I want to introduce. We may not get to all (or any) of them, but I can't think now of a session where I wasn't at least able to connect an encounter to a larger issue.

I have a feeling some people spend a lot of time on a "multi-micro" approach...basically each cloud at the macro level is well-defined, and they have to find a way to string them all together. If that works for you, great, but for me it's always been a waste of time. The players always break the strings, and it's way more interesting for me when, because of past events, they start creating those strings to connect the clouds on their own.

You still have a plot , you just don't have a path .

No. As I said:

definition: a sequence of events

If a GM isn't putting together a sequence of events - and a sequence of events doesn't have to be in a set order (see Choose Your Own Adventure books which are still railroads) - he isn't putting together a plot .

OK, still not sure I'm getting it.

I mean I see that you're saying the players need to maintain agency, or at least the illusion thereof, but I have trouble seeing how not preparing an event chain and encounter sets can generate a game that doesn't feel aimless after a fashion. At some point the players are going to slip and generate a dead end thread if you don't know where they are supposed to go and have options to get them there.

I mean, so what if I know what resources Darth Baddgui has and his motivations? If the players aren't lined up to to engage Baddgui whats to stop them from wandering off and forgetting about him completely as they get tied up in typical petty player things?

I guess what I'm not seeing is how trying to freeball it makes sense when given any major story impacting decision you can usually pretty easily determine the top two or thee possible outcomes and account for that. There might be some fine details to iron out on the fly, but nothing that will seriously impact you. So it seems like you could just as easily generate an adventure/campaign that presents lots of player choices, but is geared to flow in the same direction and generate the same action scenes and beats regardless of if it's on a train or a truck.

If your players are creating their own chokepoints in an adventure, GMs can prepare for that by having three simple routes to a successful task. I will point you to The Three Clue Rule . If the PCs need to get the secret code to access Darth Baddgui's lair from Q-TEE, the GM should have at least three solutions ready so that the PCs can access what Q-TEE knows.

1. Q-TEE regularly visits the Droid Spa. The PCs try to kidnap him there and fail. However, this doesn't dead end the adventure because...
2. Q-TEE needs a ROM upgrade and the PCs happen to have some high-end droid parts in their ship.
3. Q-TEE was built in with a recall signal that can be triggered at the spaceport master computer complex.

It's actually not that hard to prepare three routes. If you can think of one route, the other two can easily spin off that.

If you want to motivate your players to engage Darth Baddgui then your players need to have Obligations and/or Motivations that somehow cross streams with Darth Baddgui's plans. If your player's Obligations don't cross paths with Darth Baddgui's plans then I don't see why you'd even bring Baddgui into the campaign. This is why I strongly suggest that all GMs plan adventures that match what the players have brought to the table with their characters, rather than trying to shoehorn characters into an adventure.

Having to account for every player action and providing alternate reactions is a) a bunch of work that doesn't need to be done, b) really inelegant and c) assumes a GM can account for every contingency. And if the players somehow slip by you... well, you're forced to railroad them to get them back on task.

It's just a matter of improvisation, yes?

GM starts by throwing the players a hook, providing them a bit of background and information, and an ultimate goal, then the players decide how they want to follow up, then the GM master responds according to their choice, then the players respond to the new information and happenings, wash, rinse, repeat. Whether or not the GM's responses are fabricated entirely from the aether or adapted from prewritten encounters is not really important.

I really enjoy this thread- thank you for your guidance and sharing your views very cleanly and concisely.

In my games, I ask each player to select one minion from one of the Adversary Decks that matches a part of our intended campaign. They needn't develop a reason why they think it'd be cool or useful (unless they feel inspired), but it has helped me motivate players to try different angles as they try to 'unlock' that minion they expect to see.

So I love these Ideas, and have a few questions. I am making a campaign around Mask of the Pirate Queen, and have a few episodes built up around it. Here are the episodes, but I want to apply what you have described to these on this scale (as much as possible). So how would you change these, or embelish them, to make them more free-form.

Campaign adventures in order

v The PCs need to follow a Consortium Message (Trail to Saleucami)

v Mask of the Pirate Queen

v Making a home of the Vault they raided in MotPQ for the Consortium (or themselves) to use (Cracking the Vault) this can only be done if they side with the Consortium at the end

v Hunting down the New Queen that was installed later on as the book says may happen (or coronating a new one if you joined the queen) (The Queen Reigns Again)

v (if players side with the queen) Assassinate Sykes while avoiding bounty hunters (The Renegade’s Revenge)

v Take Advantage of the Imperial Slave Trade to recruit some eager to escape slaves (usable no matter who they side with) (Out of Chains, into Villainy)

v Find and work with Dengar to kill the private army working to protect a shipping drop off point (Blaster Bolts Before Smoke)

v Leave the Consortium, or the Sorority, and make away with an item valuable to someone who can protect you (an agent secretly working for the Black Sun) (The Freedom Run)

v If they are a freelancer for the Consortium, they could try to help with the Black Sun secretly, giving life to new obligations for a new campaign. (Double Money, Double Danger)

So i guess my question over all is, how can I make these basic ideas be what the PCs want to do, so they can direct it?

You have two problems. The first problem is that you're trying to make your ideas the PCs' ideas, and by extension, the player's ideas and that removes agency. The other problem is that you've already created choke points for yourself.

• Making a home of the Vault from MotPQ (What if they decide they want to live on their ship? Or they want to pool their resources and start a farm as a side gig?)
• If the players side with the queen... (What if they don't?)
• Recruit some eager to escape slaves... (What if they don't?)
• Find and work with Denegar... (Why would they?)
• Leave the Consortium/Sorority... (What if they like the Consortium or Sorority and want to stay?)

I would suggest stepping back and waiting to see what the situation is until post-MotPQ as there are three possible endings:

1. The PCs side with the Zann Consortium.
2. The PCs side with the Sorority.
3. The PCs stick it to both sides and make enemies of both.

Options 1 and 2 have pretty much the same result - a new alliance and a new enemy - but Option 3 can really throw a monkey wrench into any future planning. If you're like me and you really want to plan out a possible future situation, assume that the PCs are going to have at least one new enemy and assume that enemy is going to be making plans that may or may not affect the PCs.

Well, I guess my original plan was that those adventures are all depending on the if the PCs do this, adapt this story to fit the needs Here is a more updated version.

v 1. The PCs need to follow a Consortium Message (Trail to Saleucami)

v 2. Mask of the Pirate Queen… if the players side with the Consortium then they have a choice between two missions after this, or they could skip straight to 4. Or 5. If they side with the Sorority they need to go and take 3c.

v 3a. Making a home of the Vault (Cracking the Vault)

v 3b. Hunting down the New Queen (or coronating a new one) (The Queen Reigns Again)

v 3c. (if players side with the queen) Assassinate Sykes while avoiding bounty hunters (The Renegade’s Revenge)

v 4a. Take Advantage of the Imperial Slave Trade to recruit some eager to escape slaves (usable no matter who they side with) (Out of Chains, into Villainy) (Use if they did either 3a or 3b)

v 4b. Find and work with Dengar to kill the private army working to protect a shipping drop off point. Bossk will fight them. (Blaster Bolts Before Smoke) (use if they followed the Renegade’s Revenge )

v 5a. Leave the Consortium, or the Sorority, and make away with an item valuable to someone who can protect you (an agent secretly working for the Black Sun) (The Freedom Run)

v 5b. If they are a freelancer for the Consortium, they could try to help with the Black Sun secretly, giving life to new obligations for a new campaign. (Double Money, Double Danger)

I never did account for the fact that they very well may screw over both sides of the battle, but I can work around that.

5a and 5b are depending on the rest of the campaign, and are easily able to be changed, without to much trouble. if they side with the consortium in 2. (MOTPQ) I will use whatever adventure is the most appropriate of 3a and 3b, maybe making the hook and first encounters similar so that way I can run them, and then depending on their reactions to those items use one or the other.

I hope that made sense.

You still have a plot , you just don't have a path .

No. As I said:

definition: a sequence of events

If a GM isn't putting together a sequence of events - and a sequence of events doesn't have to be in a set order (see Choose Your Own Adventure books which are still railroads) - he isn't putting together a plot .

OK, still not sure I'm getting it.

I mean I see that you're saying the players need to maintain agency, or at least the illusion thereof, but I have trouble seeing how not preparing an event chain and encounter sets can generate a game that doesn't feel aimless after a fashion. At some point the players are going to slip and generate a dead end thread if you don't know where they are supposed to go and have options to get them there.

I mean, so what if I know what resources Darth Baddgui has and his motivations? If the players aren't lined up to to engage Baddgui whats to stop them from wandering off and forgetting about him completely as they get tied up in typical petty player things?

I guess what I'm not seeing is how trying to freeball it makes sense when given any major story impacting decision you can usually pretty easily determine the top two or thee possible outcomes and account for that. There might be some fine details to iron out on the fly, but nothing that will seriously impact you. So it seems like you could just as easily generate an adventure/campaign that presents lots of player choices, but is geared to flow in the same direction and generate the same action scenes and beats regardless of if it's on a train or a truck.

If your players are creating their own chokepoints in an adventure, GMs can prepare for that by having three simple routes to a successful task. I will point you to The Three Clue Rule . If the PCs need to get the secret code to access Darth Baddgui's lair from Q-TEE, the GM should have at least three solutions ready so that the PCs can access what Q-TEE knows.

• Q-TEE regularly visits the Droid Spa. The PCs try to kidnap him there and fail. However, this doesn't dead end the adventure because...
• Q-TEE needs a ROM upgrade and the PCs happen to have some high-end droid parts in their ship.
• Q-TEE was built in with a recall signal that can be triggered at the spaceport master computer complex.

It's actually not that hard to prepare three routes. If you can think of one route, the other two can easily spin off that.

If you want to motivate your players to engage Darth Baddgui then your players need to have Obligations and/or Motivations that somehow cross streams with Darth Baddgui's plans. If your player's Obligations don't cross paths with Darth Baddgui's plans then I don't see why you'd even bring Baddgui into the campaign. This is why I strongly suggest that all GMs plan adventures that match what the players have brought to the table with their characters, rather than trying to shoehorn characters into an adventure.

Having to account for every player action and providing alternate reactions is a) a bunch of work that doesn't need to be done, b) really inelegant and c) assumes a GM can account for every contingency. And if the players somehow slip by you... well, you're forced to railroad them to get them back on task.

It's just a matter of improvisation, yes?

GM starts by throwing the players a hook, providing them a bit of background and information, and an ultimate goal, then the players decide how they want to follow up, then the GM master responds according to their choice, then the players respond to the new information and happenings, wash, rinse, repeat.

To the degree that all RPGs are improvisation, yes. The angle I'm coming from is the kind of work a GM puts into an adventure before even sitting down the table. Depending on how I as a GM define success within the parameters of the adventure, I may or may not provide the players with an explicit goal. The hook - which for the purposes of EotE is the Obligation mechanic - is just there to get the story going but the end state of the adventure might be something completely different depending on how the story evolves or if the GM has a different macro story for the campaign in mind. So long as it fits the tone of the adventure's story, sure, a game can certainly follow a pattern of player action/GM reaction.

Whether or not the GM's responses are fabricated entirely from the aether or adapted from prewritten encounters is not really important.

I agree but the GMs responses are still shaped by the situation the GM prepares - which is the pre-game work the GM should be doing - rather than an attempt to push the players back onto the plot train. My responses might be off the cuff but if I've done a good job of understanding the situation then my responses should feel like they fit the overall narrative and I shouldn't have to pause the game to come up with a response to player actions.

Well, I guess my original plan was that those adventures are all depending on the if the PCs do this, adapt this story to fit the needs Here is a more updated version. *snip*

I would still suggest that you not spend time worrying about adventures that require a specific PC/NPC relationship until that relationship is defined by the PCs. If you're spending time planning a situation where the PCs need to be allied with the Pirate Queen, it's time gone to waste if they aren't.

If you want to tempt the PCs away from the Consortium/Pirates, have the Black Sun representative approach them early in the campaign - and maybe more than once - and judge their reactions.

In that case, I'll disagree with your premise: There should always be several plots (as you define them) going on, even if the PCs don't engage with some (or any) of them.

The main events of a play, novel, movie, or similar work, devised and presented by the writer as an interrelated sequence.

I don't understand why a GM would want to spin his wheels by creating a bunch of plots that are never touched by the PCs or remove player agency by railroading PCs to get them back on the plot train. Again, we're not writing video games here.

Well, I guess my original plan was that those adventures are all depending on the if the PCs do this, adapt this story to fit the needs Here is a more updated version.

v 1. The PCs need to follow a Consortium Message (Trail to Saleucami)

v 2. Mask of the Pirate Queen… if the players side with the Consortium then they have a choice between two missions after this, or they could skip straight to 4. Or 5. If they side with the Sorority they need to go and take 3c.

v 3a. Making a home of the Vault (Cracking the Vault)

v 3b. Hunting down the New Queen (or coronating a new one) (The Queen Reigns Again)

v 3c. (if players side with the queen) Assassinate Sykes while avoiding bounty hunters (The Renegade’s Revenge)

v 4a. Take Advantage of the Imperial Slave Trade to recruit some eager to escape slaves (usable no matter who they side with) (Out of Chains, into Villainy) (Use if they did either 3a or 3b)

v 4b. Find and work with Dengar to kill the private army working to protect a shipping drop off point. Bossk will fight them. (Blaster Bolts Before Smoke) (use if they followed the Renegade’s Revenge )

v 5a. Leave the Consortium, or the Sorority, and make away with an item valuable to someone who can protect you (an agent secretly working for the Black Sun) (The Freedom Run)

v 5b. If they are a freelancer for the Consortium, they could try to help with the Black Sun secretly, giving life to new obligations for a new campaign. (Double Money, Double Danger)

I never did account for the fact that they very well may screw over both sides of the battle, but I can work around that.

5a and 5b are depending on the rest of the campaign, and are easily able to be changed, without to much trouble. if they side with the consortium in 2. (MOTPQ) I will use whatever adventure is the most appropriate of 3a and 3b, maybe making the hook and first encounters similar so that way I can run them, and then depending on their reactions to those items use one or the other.

I hope that made sense.

This is still just a list of adventures and encounter sets that the players have to traverse. But what is the story about? What is the over-arching plot? It seems to me the basic story is the PCs finding a way to carve out their own space in the criminal underworld. How they do this and what the end looks like is irrelevant. They could end up running the sorority or working for the consortium, or vice versa, or playing them off against each other while they rise up through the middle.

All you really need is handle on the major (and minor but important) NPCs, what their resources are and how they are going to react. You are then free to react to whatever the players do in a more organic way and let the tale tell itself. At the same time, the players will be more free to create connections of their own.

That list of encounter sets? That's just an idea mine, and you don't need to run them "as is" or in any particular order. When a session ends, you can decide what to present them with next based on how they've expressed their goals in the last session.

Your NPCs can also be fluid. I don't have MPQ in front of me, but I do recall one of the NPCs might betray the sorority. But the key plot element here is not the NPC, but the betrayal . So if the PCs have never met that particular NPC (because of other choices they've made), then you can switch the betrayal to another NPC. In other words, you divorce the plot elements from the specifics. Doing so allows you to keep some of the key features of the plot intact, without having to use elaborate event-chains. But more importantly it allows the players themselves to trigger the plot element. An example using the narrative dice might be a PC saying they want to use their Triumph on a Negotiation roll to get the NPC to betray the sorority. Well...awesome! They have the feeling of steering the story, and you get to look super accommodating by rolling with it seamlessly.

so i guess I am confused on how to write an adventure in the first place. So I am writing a small adventure to lead int to MPQ. I will attach a word online document of it.

I invite you all to give me some comments as you please. To leave a comment in the doc just highlight some text and right click the highlighted area. Then click comment. Please help, as I could really use it! thanks!

https://1drv.ms/w/s!An8dGmZKVqD2iWzLZ6Q487-fQd-w

Note that this is a work in progress and will change as I go.

Actually, the Womp Rat hunters sounds like a perfect way to start. At the beginning there has to be an understanding between GM and players that the players will accept the first hook. A "you guys are so broke, you're desperate enough to be womp rat hunters" type of mission is an amusing idea. I would just start in media res, or something close to it. They don't have to find the contact, a contact is already talking to them, giving them the mission in some way. He could beg them for help or use a chargen relationship (e.g.: "your brother used to work for me and I saved his butt, can you help me out?"), or simply be a good samaritan ("you guys look hungry. Tell you what, if you help me out I'll make it worth your while"). During the mission you can have them meet all kinds of characters that might show up again, from the grizzled old hunter who doesn't like "punks" cutting in on his womp rat bounties, to people they can use later as a refuge, to glimpses and interactions with NPCs they might meet later on. Whatever people you decide to use as "flavour" can easily become important facets in later sessions.

After the mission is done (probably no more than 2 sessions), the characters will now have a reliable contact. Maybe that's when he's impressed enough with their work that he passes on the information, and they get to meet the masked person. Maybe they already met the masked NPC, but she wasn't wearing a mask at the time, so the PCs don't know it's her, but their efforts were enough to get her interested.

Basically, start simple and straightforward. Toss in a bit of foreshadowing by introducing other NPCs tangentially, but don't divert from the main mission or reveal that those NPCs are important...they should stand out, but not stick out. Make the first mission amusing if you can, and somewhat rewarding wrt XP and money. Give the players some decent XP to spend and some money to buy small upgrades to their equipment so they can look towards a future where womp rat hunting is behind them, and...the hook is set.

EDIT: just to reinforce the media res thing...if you start with hunt for the contact, the players could easily get diverted, lost, frustrated at failed social checks to find him, or wondering what they're doing fighting a bunch of guys their supposed "contact" is screaming at. Because at this point they owe him nothing. You could say the PCs know him from "way back" or something in their chargen past, but that's only from the PC's point of view. From the player's point of view, he's still just a meaningless statistic. So the media res gets around that by avoiding all the potential frustration of the search and just launching into the story. After that, the players will have a reason to appreciate him, if only for the cash and opportunities.

My Modus Operandi is very similar, but I do have plots; in fact, I have more than one! However, I don't spend too much time prepping them - that is wasted effort if the PCs zig when you expected a zag. Instead, I do bullet points (if you're familiar with Dungeon World's Fronts , you know about this) to describe a series of events, but I spend little time really hashing them out because they're likely to change.

I realized, eventually, that I only needed to stay one or two steps ahead of my PCs. I had to know my setting backwards and forwards, and I had to be able to bring NPCs and set pieces to the table for wherever the action took us. That is what I really prep and continue to prep - the GM Holocron is never truly finished, even at 80Mb and rising.

I suppose this could be boiled down to the term "clockwork sandbox" where the PCs have full agency to do what they're going to do, but hey, so do my bad guys. What the PCs do will have a direct effect on the ongoing plots -- if they interact with them -- otherwise things will happen anyway, and the end result is a setting that feels alive and in motion and lends an air of believability to the ongoing narrative. Thus far this technique has been well-received.

I suppose this could be boiled down to the term "clockwork sandbox" where the PCs have full agency to do what they're going to do, but hey, so do my bad guys.

Perfect term...