In our gaming group we are looking to start an Edge of Empire game. The GM wants it to be more of a Firefly like game. Meaning the party chooses a Captain, he goes out and recruits his crew (rest of the group) and they do whatever missions they want and can find while trying to stay flying. Perfect fit for Edge of the Empire.

I was elected Captain of the ship, which means I was able to choose our ship. GM is changing the starting stuff up a bit so I can start with a YT-2400.

My plan is when we do character creation, we always like to do them as a group activity, to basically give them a list of what I, as the captain, is looking for to fill his boat. My character type will most likely be a Smuggler - Scoundrel, unless anyone thinks there's a better choice for a character type to fit the captains role, which will probably be a Face type character. Politician caught my eye as well as Trader for other possibilities.

What kind of crew members do you think I should look for to fill my boat to keep it flying? I'm ok with multiple people filling multiple rolls or crossing over.

Ideas I have come up with are: (Mostly stolen from Firefly)

Pilot

Mechanic

Muscle / Hired Gun

Medic (?)

Face character (?) ----- Most likely me in the Captain roll.

Hit me up with your thoughts.

you need at least one droid or force user.

If your ship is armed, make sure you have a gunner. Otherwise, check with your GM. He may have specific mission ideas that call for extra coverage in certain positions.

Don’t forget that you can potentially fill out some positions with NPCs — either droids or other species.

The ship you've chosen typically only has a crew of two. It might be on the small side for what you're thinking of doing.

The ship you've chosen typically only has a crew of two. It might be on the small side for what you're thinking of doing.

It may only have a crew of 2 (officially), but it does have passenger capacity of 6. Crew capacities are somewhat flexible in any RPG. I think it means a minimum crew of 2, typically pilot and co-pilot. It typically does not include gunners, mechanics, and other crew, who are treated as passengers.

Four PCs -

1) pilot (the face)

2) mechanic (the brains)

3) gunner (also the muscle)

4) co-pilot (can be a jack of all trades, operates sensors, does the astrogation, fires the second gun, maybe a bit of face)

A good co-pilot is a fringer, fringer fills in a few roles within the group. They are one of the best astrogators in the game. As well as being good on the ground either as a pilot or when dealing with the underground. They may not have any particular standout talents but just about every talent is solid.

Just tossing out ane ideabased on your groups desire to use Firefly as inspiration.

Include one character who has Force Sensitive Exile as a universal specialization. (River)

Include one character who has Force Sensitive Exile as a universal specialization. (River)

Just remember that a Universal spec cannot be a career, and therefore cannot be the only spec that the character has.

You can add a Universal spec to a character, once they have been given their career and first spec, but there has to be at least one other spec assigned to them before they can pick up the Universal spec.

EotE IS Firefly! (Welcome home). Except that the Galaxy makes more sense than the 'verse.

Other than that, everyone else has already given you great advice.

If you're not 'stuck' with the YT-2400 (The o'le Duce 'n Four), I still prefer the YT-1300. It's a tad bigger, same weapons coverage and bigger.

Did I mention that it's bigger? (More cargo).

And it's better for customization. ('cause it's bigger).

There's also the YT-2K. It was highly hyped but then turned out to be rather underwhelming.

Don't feel obligated to stick with Smuggler to be the captain; captaincy is dependant on the support of your crew, not on your specialization (unless you're engaged in barratry). Within the Smuggler career, Charmer and Gunslinger are both lots of fun, too.

Don't be afraid of leaving a base uncovered, or only partially covered. Make sure you have a good spread of strong characteristics, and a few good skills, but that's really all it takes for basic coverage, and people should be able to play the character they want to play. Your skills are the stuff you're good at, while your talents are the stuff you're great at.

Also, be sure the GM understands that the Career and Specializations people choose should inform the types of adventures he runs. If someone has decent Intellect, and takes a point in Medicine, that's great, he can patch people up and help deal with Critical Injuries. However, if someone makes a Doctor, that needs to be important. You need situations where him being a Doctor has an effect on the plot, as it did when Simon infiltrated the big city hospital, or where he was kidnapped by a village who needed his skills.

By the same token, lots of specs have the Pilot skills. Those should come in handy, piloting through difficult locations. If someone takes a spec that's heavy on the Piloting talents, they're saying "I want this to be a thing. "

By the same token, lots of specs have the Pilot skills. Those should come in handy, piloting through difficult locations. If someone takes a spec that's heavy on the Piloting talents, they're saying "I want this to be a thing. "

I would encourage the players to discuss this sort of thing with the GM, so that everyone is on the same page.

You don’t want the GM assuming that one of the players definitely wants their pilot to be a “thing”, if that’s not actually what the player wanted.

Communication is a two-way street, and especially important on things like character concepts, game concepts, and other things that should be discussed in a “Session Zero”.

There's also the YT-2K. It was highly hyped but then turned out to be rather underwhelming.

Bah-Dum-Tish!

Well thank you all for the replies! The more I read into this book the more I find that this is definitely a good fit for the game type the GM wants to run. Going to touch on a lot of your posts and provide more info about our recent discussions with the group. We are currently wrapping up a Hunter: The Vigil game, about 2 sessions left in that. And there most definitely will be a "Session Zero" where we talk about the game and make characters.

The GM is very good about making sure everyone fits and their characters shine at the appropriate moments during the game. He's usually the "Make whatever character you want, and I'll make it work in the story" type of GM.

Preemptive party make up: Droid Mechanic, Human Pilot, Wookie "Muscle/Gun man", and 1-2 undecided, plus myself, also still undecided.

I didn't mean for it to sound like THIS IS THE JOB/CLASS YOU HAVE TO DO when I, as the captain, go out and recruit characters. Its more of "I'm looking for a Mechanic, can you do that? Oh you also make explosives and can slice things? Great!" Just looking for someone that can fix my ship when it breaks. If they are a Fringer with the Mechanics skill that's fine. Politician with Medicine? Sure. They can do whatever class they want, as long as they cover something that I am looking for.

Didn't notice that about the YT-1300, picked the 2400 to not be too cliche, but you do bring up some good points.

Speaking of ships. Is there a section that talks about how much room a speeder bike/swoop would take up in the cargo hold?

GM has stated for right now we will be using the 3 main books, so Edge of Empire, Age of Rebellion, and Force & Destiny.

GM has also stated that no one will be starting play as a Jedi or Force Sensitive. And told me that he will randomly select a crew member to be Force Sensitive at some point.

IMO, there’s lots to like about the YT-2400. The YT-1300 is fine, but I do slightly prefer the YT-2400.

Regretfully, this game is a bit more “wibbly-wobbly” than I would like when it comes to handling encumbrance relative to vehicles.

If your GM is okay with keeping that stuff more on the narrative level, you should be fine. Otherwise, we can help you with some “rules of thumb” that may be helpful, but there’s always going to be a certain amount of “fudge factor” that you — and the GM — are going to have to deal with.

If you're basing yourself on Mal, I'd say he's a scoundrel who took ranks in mercenary soldier.

Malcome Reynolds may also be a Mercenary Soldier who became a Scoundrel . . . (Sorry. You left that one wide open TheBalzan).

One of the things that I really like about the YT-1300 that our group is flying, is that the GM let us drop the backup Hyperdrive for another two Customization Hard Points.

Yeah, that's a total of eight customization hard points for our lovely YT Millennial. And yeah, you could do the same thing with the Duce n' Four, because they both come with the same barely useful class 12 hyperdrive.

And I know ya'll are going to ask, "But what happens if we loose the main hyperdrive?!?"

You which I say "Pft!" (Yeah that's a literal quote), "Listen. I've got this. Besides, have you guys seen the Talent Tree for Engineer Mechanic? What could go wrong?"

To be honest the wayfarer medium transport has a much stronger "firefly" vibe to me, lots of room for cargo, even a few small vehicles (speeder, swoop, etc)

Malcome Reynolds may also be a Mercenary Soldier who became a Scoundrel . . . (Sorry. You left that one wide open TheBalzan).

One of the things that I really like about the YT-1300 that our group is flying, is that the GM let us drop the backup Hyperdrive for another two Customization Hard Points.

Yeah, that's a total of eight customization hard points for our lovely YT Millennial. And yeah, you could do the same thing with the Duce n' Four, because they both come with the same barely useful class 12 hyperdrive.

And I know ya'll are going to ask, "But what happens if we loose the main hyperdrive?!?"

You which I say "Pft!" (Yeah that's a literal quote), "Listen. I've got this. Besides, have you guys seen the Talent Tree for Engineer Mechanic? What could go wrong?"

I personally love the Maka Eekai L4000, unfortunately there are no stats yet so just a reskin of the Wayfarer with better handling.

[image] http://t01.deviantart.net/RQ5SNuec6zBSR-DiFghYkQNVSRQ=/300x200/filters:fixed_height(100,100):origin()/pre15/914e/th/pre/i/2015/362/8/5/uhumele005_by_thebalzan-d9lrcfq.jpg [/image]

The ideal set of specs is (using only EotE specs):

- Smuggler/Pilot but could also go Smuggler/Charmer, Smuggler/Scoundrel or Explorer/Driver

- Technician/Mechanic (but all are pretty good)

- Hired Gun/Mercenary Soldier

- Explorer/Fringer (as Syrath said) but Archaeologist or Trader are both interesting and viable

Since 2002, we've played two Firefly-esque campaigns. The first was a Star Wars game using Saga, and now a Firefly game using EotE.

The first group had:

- Gunslinging merc

- Idealistic Jedi knight

- Ruthless pitfighter/freedom fighter

- Fledgling crime lord

We rounded the crew out with some recurring NPCs, including a medic, back-up muscle, and eventually a mechanic (notably absent!)

After a decade of fighting a lot, the group wanted something a little less battle heavy, so now we have:

- Smuggler/Scoundrel

- Smuggler/Pilot

- Technician/Outlaw Tech (the primary mechanic)

- Technician/Slicer (also serves as the knowledge guy and medic)

Again, we rounded out with NPCs, but they're the combat-heavy ones: a Colonist/Marshal and Hired Gun/Marauder.

Although the stats would have to be crafted, through both campaigns, we've extensively used Ryan Wolfe's amazing line of ships. Our crew currently has a Renegade-class:

http://www.rpgnow.com/product/111655/0hr-Renegade

One important thing to consider if you want to be like Firefly: secrets.

Okay, two: secrets and conflicting agendas.

Firefly isn't just about who's a smuggler and who's the best with a gun. It's also about Shepherd Book's and Inara's secrets, Simon's idealism vs. Mal's cynicism, etc.

We just finished Episode 12 (of our first 13-episode "season") with the crew being severely shafted and beaten the heck in a multi-crew heist, then running away from the Alliance to the yells of a Magistrate (who had previously romanced the slicer and is a secret nemesis of the captain's) who announced "Captain Melody Zhu, for the crimes of espionage and treason, you are bound by law!" (which left the other players going "Whaaaat? How did we not know this for 12 sessions?!?")

Prior to that, we've already discovered that the Pilot has a grown son who hates him, the Slicer has a whole ton of secrets to match his strange range of skills (he's sort of mix of Simon and Book) - and is now being framed for (among other things) the release of the Miranda Broadwave, and the Outlaw Tech has a very sick younger sister (which lead to a daring heist of a pharma company to steal her meds when the prices went up).

The Colonist/Marshal is an elegant gunslinging merc ("Edwards, gentleman enforcer," played my James Marsters) who is sort of the Zoe of the group (the most loyal to the captain and the least likely to keep secrets), but he's got a soft spot for the ladies that often comes up and inopportune times, and the PCs haven't quite yet realized that he's friends with one of the Big Bads has been been (unwittingly) giving them information. Meanwhile, the Marauder is a mysterious woman with a cybernetic implant who lost her memory when she came onboard with a ton of puzzling cargo. Who she is, what she knows, and what her stuff is represents a series of ongoing questions.

For the most part, the players pull together whenever anyone's personal issue comes up, but one day, they won't.

And that'll be an interesting day.

Has anyone played an EotE game actually set in the Firefly universe, with Reavers and Blue Sun?