Seems a mite odd they couldn't just bait you to go there of your own free will why didn't they think you wouldn't oblige?
Capturing your pcs
Last night the GM kind of justified the event by explaining the events that lead up to the meagstun, but AFAIK THERE IS NO WEAPON IN FFG SW THAT STUNS ALL PARTICIPANTS WITHIN THE ENGAGED RANGE BAND..ok so he may have house ruled one as a GM.. but it stinks of a d20 TPK device.
Stun grenades are one obvious choice.
But Stokhli Spray Sticks [1] and the SSB-1 Static Pistol [2] both have the active Stun quality, which bypasses all Soak and is applied directly to the Strain Threshold of the target. Use a few of them at the same time, and you can easily take down a Rancor in a single round. Been there, almost managed to do that all by myself.
The situation that you described is one of those where I think the GM would have been better off by saying to the players at the beginning “Okay, I’ve got this idea for how I want this next session to go, and it starts by having you all wake up on Tatooine in binders.” Give the players some warning, give them a chance to agree to the idea, give them a chance to make that leap of faith with the GM.
I'm still bitter... probably because I'm still sober
I'm still bitter... probably because I'm still sober
Aaaaand, this is the hazard in capturing the PC's.
/!\ Warning! Proceed with caution when trying to work with this thematic device.
In our first group session my players were all in the same cantina at the same. Some PCs knew each other, some didn't. A bar brawl broke out and in the middle of the fight the entrance door burst open with several blaster toting individuals firing stun blasts at everyone. As the PCs went down, I let them make a Knowledge check but no one recognized them as members of the local SWAT team. Hours later, they woke up and the campaign began.
I'm not sure if my players were ok with it but I think I remember prefacing them that I was going to do some things in a cinematic fashion and just to go with it. This was my way of getting these normally solo people to work in a group. If they weren't no one said anything and we played as normal afterwards.
At Expanding Universe, your GM may not have intended that moment to feel like a TPK-esque device but rather was trying for something dramatic. If you were that upset about the total party stun (TPS, ha! Where's the new cover sheet?), you could have communicated your dissatisfaction to the GM and try to work out why the GM did that.
The situation that you described is one of those where I think the GM would have been better off by saying to the players at the beginning “Okay, I’ve got this idea for how I want this next session to go, and it starts by having you all wake up on Tatooine in binders.” Give the players some warning, give them a chance to agree to the idea, give them a chance to make that leap of faith with the GM.
EXACTLY!!! Let the PC's decide how they got there (locked up in binders). Similar to what I did recently, they all had to decide WHY they were heading the the Outer Rim and what they were escaping. No sense in making them run (or trying capture) because you can't dictate the results. I mean, maybe the PC runs to the Core instead? Don't leave such doors open. Better to tell the players the scenario and let them work out HOW it go there.
UPDATE: Well... after getting COMPLETELY HAMMERED over Christmas etc... I'm just going to go with. It ties in more with PC Hanz Olo.. ( I was going to name my twi'lek PC Dant'Ooine but thought it a but too much) so.. In game, I'm gonna sit back, catch some rays and drink Jawa Juice or blue milk
Start the adventure "in media res". Open up with the line, "The Warden gives you a shove, causing you to stumble into the cell. "Now you'll rot here for a while, Rebel scum" he sneers as he activates the force field."
Skips right past the tedium of being captured and puts them exactly where you want them, with no chance of a lucky dice roll messing up your plan.
Yeah, if you need the PC's to be captured, just have them captured. If you want a chance to have the PC's captured, by all means play out an encounter.
If you come up with an "unwinnable" situation and throw the characters in it, one of two things is likely to happen. 1. The PC's miraculously get out of your cleverly laid trap. 2. The players recognize it as an "unwinnable" encounter and feel cheated.
If there's some friction about the auto-capture non-played-scenario option, talk to your players. Ask them to trust you, and explain why you decided this citing your own reasons, or the reasons above.
- Eck
Quick question...I gave one of my PC's a lightsaber crystal that is very powerful and didn't think that the stats would be so game-breaking, but unfortunately when he fights he does about 30+ damage with his double lightsaber while everyone else does maybe max of 15. I just introduced a Imperial Star Destroyer pulling them in for capture via tractor beam and they will wake up in prison, then I will run a prison escape session where the meet the new player joining the group. My question is, should I take away that double lightsaber from that user but allow others to find and keep their own? They did have to spend time finding the crystals or earning them, then building the lightsaber itself before being able to use them so I would feel like a bad GM if I threw them all away...but at the same time I want to put everyone back on a similar skill level equipment-wise. What should I do?
A double-bladed lightsaber is basically two lightsabers that are joined in the middle.
So, maybe there is a Imperial scientist who has taken one-half of that lightsaber with him, and the PC can only recover the other half for now? Then you could give him something like a quest to find the other half?
On 1/23/2017 at 7:08 PM, bradknowles said:A double-bladed lightsaber is basically two lightsabers that are joined in the middle.
So, maybe there is a Imperial scientist who has taken one-half of that lightsaber with him, and the PC can only recover the other half for now? Then you could give him something like a quest to find the other half?
That's not a bad idea! The crystal in it came from the Jewel of Yavin so maybe they would be investigating why they had that and when they recover them they realize that his double lightsaber was cut in half so they could study it more like you said.
I have another question regarding capturing your PC's...one of my players has always been more "munchkin-like" than others, he wants the OP powers, the awesome lightsaber, crazy artifacts, etc.. I ended the last session with the PC's Imperial shuttle they stole getting locked in a tractor beam and started getting pulled towards an Imperial Star Destroyer that they didn't notice because the long range sensors were broken and never checked.
He said that at the beginning of the next session he is going to want to roll a check to hide his lightsaber and an artifact he has with him so they can't be found when they get imprisoned. I advised him that he would be given new clothes to wear and wouldn't have any place to hide it...so you can probably guess where he thought he might *hint hint bend over and cough*. Anyways I told him I didn't think that would be possible and he wasn't a fan (not that I expected he would be).
I was planning on screen-wiping that part where they got tractored in and basically just say they were identified as possible rebel insurgents and were brought aboard the SD and they would pump gas into the shuttle to knock them out, then retrieve them and take away their weapons, then lock them up...Would that "screen-wiping" remove too much of player agency? I was going to setup an entire prison break scenario and introduce a new PC into the campaign there so I wanted to make sure they didn't manage to get super lucky on a dice roll and be able to cut and run.
I have a few more questions regarding healing and interrogation as well...
I really haven't let the PC's rest for the past few sessions so a few of them have crits and many can't use stim packs anymore because they have used the max allowed in a day (It's been a couple of action packed sessions over the period of about 1 day in game). Since I am capturing them and putting them in prison I was debating on allowing them to heal their strain and wounds since they have been in holding for a few days and may have received medical treatment to make sure they stay alive. The crits on the other hand may be the problem, they wouldn't really be able to heal them in captivity, would they?
If I decided to interrogate the PC's should I do it via questions written down on a paper or pull them into a side room? Do you think torture would be permitted like Vader did to Leia with an interrogator droid?
Has anyone had experience with this type of prison break before in game? I know we have seen it on tv shows and in A New Hope, but disabling the tractor beams, sneaking through the station, and fighting off stormies, then flying away in a stolen ship might be a tall order. What do you guys think?
Hi Ender07,
The strain will definitely recover over a couple of days. (Hours really).
As for the wounds and crits, that will depend on the prison that they are in. A 'civilized' prison will provide the needed medical care needed for the players to recover.
A Hutt run or other third world environment will not provide the needed care and the wounds become an added form of torture. There may, however, even in this badly run institution be a medical technician or doctor who helps out the wounded as best they can with what they've got.
And, no I've never participated in a "prison break" adventure before.
7 hours ago, Ender07 said:He said that at the beginning of the next session he is going to want to roll a check to hide his lightsaber and an artifact he has with him so they can't be found when they get imprisoned. I advised him that he would be given new clothes to wear and wouldn't have any place to hide it...so you can probably guess where he thought he might *hint hint bend over and cough*. Anyways I told him I didn't think that would be possible and he wasn't a fan (not that I expected he would be).
Well, a simple x-ray would find a lightsaber that had been inserted rectally. The same would likely be true for any other large-ish object.
Personally, I’d let the guy hide it (or think he hid it) anywhere he wanted, but then depending on how he narrated the process of hiding it, I’d give the captors a good chance to find it. You could do that as an opposed check, using the PCs Skullduggery versus the NPCs Perception, or whatever other skills you think are appropriate, and then make adjustments as necessary.
QuoteI was planning on screen-wiping that part where they got tractored in and basically just say they were identified as possible rebel insurgents and were brought aboard the SD and they would pump gas into the shuttle to knock them out, then retrieve them and take away their weapons, then lock them up...Would that "screen-wiping" remove too much of player agency? I was going to setup an entire prison break scenario and introduce a new PC into the campaign there so I wanted to make sure they didn't manage to get super lucky on a dice roll and be able to cut and run.
This would totally depend on the players and their characters. Some groups would be just fine with this, some won’t.
But it has been my experience that most “munchkin” type players are not okay with screen-wipe methods of handling these kinds of situations. They usually have to be dragged kicking and screaming into any scenario where they don’t auto-win every time.
Well it's a narrative story, both players and the GM have to work together and sometimes that responsibility of control has to favour one more then another. I would probably give them a chance for them to volunteer surrender then opt for more aggressive methods. Give the players the option to do either and take great care to state the overwhelming odds and allow them a couple of rolls to make preparations to be caught, but hide potentially dangerous artefacts.
Of course, in having both a force artefact and a lightsaber, it's very unlikely you can hide both of those on person. Hiding it within the ship, rapid disassembly or even digusing the item's true purpose might be possible though (I would only allow the player one attempt at one of these options though.). I would enforce the fact that shoving items where the sun don't shine is incredibly dangerous and he could not do it with both(personally, I don't understand why anyone would consider swallowing a lightsaber...). Though if one didn't want to be caught with those items on person; well thats what safe houses are for.
If you don't mind them trying to make a break out, give them a chance of a knowledge check. If they succeed they have the rough idea of where to find the tractor beam codes; which will be either be useful in escaping or in staging a breakout. Otherwise just ask their promission to do something cool, make sure to give them details that can be useful, chance to observe codes for doors, make a note of where their gear seems to be taken.
"Random Jailbreaks" are also fairly crappy. I would often allow players to figure out how exactly they are going to get out of the box, if they can smuggle tools through the fine gap, all the better.
Edited by LordBritish