My group plays using Roll20 in 3 hour sessions, up they are very flakey and some show up half and hour after we were supposed to begin. This means it takes forever for us to get started and we are crawling through our campaign at a Hutts-pace. We still have fun, though I wish they were more dedicated.

It's worth spending the time to politely express your displeasure with the constant tardiness. They're stealing time from you and the other, more dedicated players.

My group plays using Roll20 in 3 hour sessions, up they are very flakey and some show up half and hour after we were supposed to begin. This means it takes forever for us to get started and we are crawling through our campaign at a Hutts-pace. We still have fun, though I wish they were more dedicated.

It's worth spending the time to politely express your displeasure with the constant tardiness. They're stealing time from you and the other, more dedicated players.

When our GM cancelled last nights game at the 11th hour, I made my displeasure know.

My group plays using Roll20 in 3 hour sessions, up they are very flakey and some show up half and hour after we were supposed to begin. This means it takes forever for us to get started and we are crawling through our campaign at a Hutts-pace. We still have fun, though I wish they were more dedicated.

It's worth spending the time to politely express your displeasure with the constant tardiness. They're stealing time from you and the other, more dedicated players.

When our GM cancelled last nights game at the 11th hour, I made my displeasure know.

There are a very few real world events that would excuse this... family emergencies (e.g. a woman's water breaks, a family member's car break down and you have to go pick them up)

My group plays using Roll20 in 3 hour sessions, up they are very flakey and some show up half and hour after we were supposed to begin. This means it takes forever for us to get started and we are crawling through our campaign at a Hutts-pace. We still have fun, though I wish they were more dedicated.

It's worth spending the time to politely express your displeasure with the constant tardiness. They're stealing time from you and the other, more dedicated players.

When our GM cancelled last nights game at the 11th hour, I made my displeasure know.

There are a very few real world events that would excuse this... family emergencies (e.g. a woman's water breaks, a family member's car break down and you have to go pick them up)

Yes, he does offer valid excuses sometimes; more often than not, though, it's a vague I going to have to cancel.

My group plays using Roll20 in 3 hour sessions, up they are very flakey and some show up half and hour after we were supposed to begin. This means it takes forever for us to get started and we are crawling through our campaign at a Hutts-pace. We still have fun, though I wish they were more dedicated.

It's worth spending the time to politely express your displeasure with the constant tardiness. They're stealing time from you and the other, more dedicated players.

When our GM cancelled last nights game at the 11th hour, I made my displeasure know.

There are a very few real world events that would excuse this... family emergencies (e.g. a woman's water breaks, a family member's car break down and you have to go pick them up)

Yes, he does offer valid excuses sometimes; more often than not, though, it's a vague I going to have to cancel.

To be honest is fairly easily resolvable, set a hard time start at a hard time and people can join in when we get there. We have a group of 6 at the moment and we generally adopt the policy of arrivals start at 1pm and sessions start promptly at 2pm unless people really want to wait. That way the players who arrive on time can get to it and perhaps prompt the late arrivals to get a move on. Unless it's a matter of schedual I find tardiness towards getting to the gaming table fairly inexcusable.

Communication is also an issue with our group, even though we used Roll20's email system. I might ask a question and not get a response for over a week.

Sometimes we get Sweet F.A. done - one player may not be able to make it so we'll sit down, chat s***, eat empty calories and pick apart a movie... errrr I mean watch a movie..

We recently sat down and watched The Harley Quinn Movie.. yeah,,, go for it Window Cleaner Man!! We're rooting for you! Oh, you just died, dammnn, such potential

Go-to are Eps I-III, they're always a good watch too.

So...

My current group has been mostly together since 2002, so we've got a fair amount of synergy by now (I've played with some of the players significantly longer than that). We get together once a month, for 7-9 hours.

Previously, when I was running Star Wars using the Saga Edition rules, we used to be able to get through an average of three major "things," possibly with other elements peppered in. I hesitate to call it an encounter, because sometimes, one "thing" might be a major planning session, of a big shopping expedition, or exploration of a new location.

One of our other GMs was having trouble with pacing, and I game him the "three things" advice and it seemed to work for his D&D game, too. Except that, since it was 4E, it might sometimes take a session and a half to do a major fight.

I've now switched to a Firefly RPG using the EotE rules, and I run it like a TV show. We get through one "episode" a session, typically with a few major encounters, exploration of a new location or two, some character and sub-plot development, etc., ending with either a satisfying conclusion or a nice cliffhanger. Although I feel like we get more done these sessions, there is the unfortunate side effect that, because of the somewhat consistent pacing, if they aren't actively doing something major at 7 or so, they're waiting for the other shoe to drop.

My group I GM for has 4 (sometimes 5 but he will probably leave) players, and I am the only one who has read the whole CRB. We currently Play EOTE but I have a character who We have decided he will be trasitioning his character to a F&D guy (sorta) by buying specializations and then force powers and the like but he uses obligation.

I started them on a campaign that includes Mask of the Pirate Queen. I made a short adventure to start the campaign, and it gave them a ship. The third and last part of that mini-adventure was supposed to have them use their new ship they just won to beat past some Sorority Fighters (they had no clue at the time about the fighters affiliation) and jump to Saleucami. It got cut off though, and they got the ship, broke atmosphere, and then I had an emergency I had to leave for so we finished that tonight.

In the whole 4 hours we gamed, THREE of those hours were spent in ship to ship combat, that I had been hoping would take 20-40 min. It was mostly due to only two of the players knowing before hand any of the manuevers and actions available to them, one of them not paying a ton of attention, and all of us looking up weapon qualities.

So here are some questions:

How long do you guys and girls usually take in ship combat?

And do you require your players to read the CRB, some of it, most of it, or none of it?

How do you deal with 2 or three PCs who are always looking to kill when possible?

Ship-to-ship combat can be really rough, if you don’t have players who have a lot of experience with it. I’ve been playing the game since a little after the EotE CRB came out, and I’m still not fully comfortable with ship-to-ship combat. I’m getting better, but I’ve still got more to learn. I definitely lean on the players and GM in the group who have more experience with it than I do.

To that degree, I think it’s a really good idea for the players to be fully conversant in the rules of the system. Not only read the CRB, but read all of the additional books, too. Or, at least as many as you can.

This is supposed to be a collaborative game, and even GMs can sometimes do things that aren’t correct. So, any player should be able to at least ask an intelligent question about whether or not X is the right way to do things, but then they should also be willing to just accept whatever the ruling of the GM is and move on.

If it turns out that the GM got it wrong, then you can bring up that issue offline and work out how that kind of situation is going to be handled in the future.

If the PCs are going to kill and always make sure that they don’t leave any witnesses behind, then sooner or later they are likely to run into opponents that will do the same. And that would end the game. At the very least, they’d have to roll up new characters.

If you’re the GM, then when they do that kind of thing, you could ask them if they really want to risk the consequences. If they do, then that’s on them.

If you don’t like running a game like that, then you could have a discussion with them and let them know what your feelings are, and if they’re not willing to play nicer then maybe they need to go find another game somewhere else.

But any time you have a problem with the way things are happening in the game, it’s probably a good idea to start with having the appropriate parties sit down and talk about it outside the game.

Aye that just it really. A dangerous bounty always yields a more prepared bounty hunter/opportunists. If your players on bent on leaving no witnesses, then the same psychopaths that want the bounty on their heads from brutal clearouts will be attracted and boy you know things have esclated when one of the bounty hunters downs a PC and rather then engage the others, just kills the downed PC and states "you did this to many of my friends, I'm not going to rest until you all join the same shallow grave!" It's kind of like holding a mirror up to them.

Though I would always recommend talking it over. A lot of players tend to build attachments to their characters so it's usually best to talk things over and let death happen as part of a narrative rather then *** for tat. It never works.

That being said, I am only assuming that these players are doing unwarranted killings; a downed minon isn't necessarily dead after all in the same way that PC's aren't necessarily dead and if all the players are doing is pulling guns when corned thats fair enough. Just consider adding bounty obligations should the players start recklessly starting fights whenever they can and let said obligation role show how notorious they are getting in this region of space.

My character once obtained a bounty of around 10/15 for robbing a hutts skyscraper and he loved it because it was precisely that "tough target bounty hunter" that he was waiting to come across. It created quite a nice plot hook of the character always being hunted and contributed toward some heavy handed methods of staying ahead of his hunters, both imperial and bounty hunter.

Yeah I will probably add new obligations. As they were landing on saleucami, they decided that 65 credits a day was too much money to house a ship, so they landed out in nowhere and using ship-side communications called in a taxi. I said that the taxi would cost them 250 credits, and rather than be willing to pay up he just wanted to murder the driver and steal the vehicle. The group was okay with it, and then I told them they would all gain 5-10 obligation for murder. Then he went on to explain how he could do it without being discovered and was unhappy when I said obligation isn't always just about people knowing what you do, but your demeaner. We ended up having our force sensitive use influence to make the guy more friendly and willing to lower the price to 150. It was a rough session, but in the end the players were happy.

On another hand I am glad that I am not weird for slow ship combat. They were fighting 6 of the Cutlass-9 fighters and it took their ship almost to 1/2 health which gave them the urgency needed to keep the excitement up. They just weren't super sure on actions and neither was I. Its better now, but still a bit rough. Anyway, thanks for the help. I just can't wait for one of my players to start GMing so I can be one of his players. Then I will get to see both sides of the spectrum.

Yeah I will probably add new obligations. As they were landing on saleucami, they decided that 65 credits a day was too much money to house a ship, so they landed out in nowhere and using ship-side communications called in a taxi. I said that the taxi would cost them 250 credits, and rather than be willing to pay up he just wanted to murder the driver and steal the vehicle. The group was okay with it, and then I told them they would all gain 5-10 obligation for murder. Then he went on to explain how he could do it without being discovered and was unhappy when I said obligation isn't always just about people knowing what you do, but your demeaner. We ended up having our force sensitive use influence to make the guy more friendly and willing to lower the price to 150. It was a rough session, but in the end the players were happy.

On another hand I am glad that I am not weird for slow ship combat. They were fighting 6 of the Cutlass-9 fighters and it took their ship almost to 1/2 health which gave them the urgency needed to keep the excitement up. They just weren't super sure on actions and neither was I. Its better now, but still a bit rough. Anyway, thanks for the help. I just can't wait for one of my players to start GMing so I can be one of his players. Then I will get to see both sides of the spectrum.

Another way of handling it would be a slow burn introduction. First of all let them do it once you cross the moral hurdle, then have the taxi firm discover the driver gone missing; track his route and before they know it they return to find crime tape around the Starship, and the next bar they walk into there is a general bounty for any crew of that ship. Though how you handled it was fine and you nipped the issue right in the bud and that is commendable, while the desire to save money is strong; even horrible bounty hunters like Bossk have to act professional enough in towns to get a reputation, few people get a postive reputation from random murder, I would much rather my character got his bounty obligations for epic level crap. E.g. breaking into a Hutt's skyscraper to raid his vault! XD

One thing that's worth talking about to the players is that everything will cost them something, be it time money or quaility. In their case i would probably cost them greatly.

Then again, talking about having a ship pot to handle all repair/mundane expenses is also cool. My party was terrible for that. No one ever wanted to spend any money on anything ship related thus in space combat we were woefully outgunned since players were only interested in personal investment. It ended up with our ship being disabled in an astroid field during a vicious space shootout and having to transport over to the ship we were meant to be rescuing to prepare for the waves of borders. Fun times. XD

We actually had our first honest to goodness space battle this last weekend and it wasn't too bad. The GM dropped this encounter on us toward the end of the session and we weren't expecting any trouble so when 3 rebel x-wings jumped and attacked us were were not prepared!

The fight started narrative, with our pilot in the cockpit learning that the three attacking X-Wings were on an attack vector. Moments later, the lead element contacted us and indicated that our crew had turned in one of their key assets and now we were going to pay for it. The pilot notified the crew of the situation and we sprang to get to action stations . . or battle stations. You get the idea.

Problem was that our Proxy Droid (Named DV-8) decided that he might be a better gunner than my player, so I found myself in a fight to the dorsal mounted quad gun, while the ventral gunner easily raced to her station in our YT-1300.

One agility dice roll later, my character out maneuvered the droid and settled into the combat station. (Agility 4 vs 3).

So, narrative wise, the X-Wings are "shooting" at us but we're not rolling damage and narrative wise our pilot is going evasive.

We are also trying to dissuade the attack. "We mean you no harm, we have no idea what you're talking about, we might be sympathetic." but to no avail.

The X-Wing pilots then seek the advantage and they drop onto our tail. The lead element fires and misses the Vestian Bat.

It's obvious that we're going to get the beat down and now!

My gunner swings his quad cannons aft and lights up one of the wingmen. One of the bolts hits, but it's a pretty routine hit and it damages the X-Wing.

The ventral gunner follows suit and attacks the other wingman, but blows the other wingman to smithereens with two hits. "oops too much." <shrug>.

In response, the Lead X-Wing drops a photon torpedo . . . and it misses. However that bird is now swinging back around to take another swing at us.

My gunner follows it around and hammers at space to knock this torpedo down. I missed, but had four advantages with the roll, so I transferred 4 blue dice to the ventral gunner for his attempt. He gets on bolt onto the torpedo and we're safe from that hitting. (Thank goodness he didn't shoot two of those)!

In response the wing element shoots a volley at our ship and hits, doing about 25% structural damage.

Both of us swing around to discourage the attackers, and my gunner hit once but with all of the success, I also blow the lead X-Wing out of the system.

The last X-Wing, damaged and having just witnessed his buddies both being vaped in short order, he bugs out and we happily let him on his merry way.

Note that we did not roll or do the initiative phase.

But overall, it was a quick 15 minute battle between two relatively small forces.