Hi all, looking for a bit of advice here.

I've voluteered to run a game of SWRPG with some friends once our Call of Cthulhu game wraps up next session.

People have started considering the career specializations they wish to be - a reasonable first step for me to gauge the direction I should be heading in for the adventure anmd the materials I'll need for a session 0. I figured I'd open it up to all careers across the systems. I'm no stranger to the game and I think the systems mesh well together. I may have miscalculated my players a little as I've only known them a short while...

One thing I wasn't expecting was for all players but 1 to pick a F&D career.

So currently I have 5 would-be jedi and a smuggler. It's an odd combination and I'm trying think of the types of adventure I could run with this composition. I'm worried my smuggler might feel a bit out in the cold and that the party is going to be very lopsided.

Honestly, I'm also a but disappointed myself. The Star Wars universe is huge and the game is diverse but the player choices seem a little... narrow. I think the majority of my players will be keen to play some high adventure but suspect my non Force character is looking for something grittier

So:

Should I be worried about the party composition?

What sort of adventure could I run here?

Has anyone got some decent ideas for catering to the one player who's looking for a little more edge in his empire?

Thanks for any help!

First question: Are they actually Jedi or force senstives that are skilled elsewhere? The first question is to ask how this group of missfits would be together ihen the first place, what kinda work they do or rather what history they have with each other? I consider that essential, though I personally hate the "we met in a tavern and became best buds for life". Basically, what is their career? Beyond their stat sheet.

I would also make a point of disallowing starting out within the Jedi tradition (No lightsaber trees and no one from that tradition, at least directly). It would encourage greater diversity in concepts which can converge once you start introducing a master/holocron e.c.t It's worth noting that all are on the run at this point, so the motivation for working together should come from eachother, not you (e.g. the smuggler might be the life long friend of another party member. Make the first few sessions more about their mutral survival prior to finding their destiny, this will allow you to get that edge vibe that should keep people more focused on how to survive between jobs while developing skills.

Well, here's what I'd do (if the players were all cool with it, of course)...

1) Give the smuggler the ship; make it clear that it is HIS ship.

2) The Force-sensitives are all students at a small, secret school being run by some NPC.

3) The Force-sensitives all need to go somewhere; maybe to Ilum to get crystals for their lightsabers. The NPC master can't go along for some reason; hires the smuggler; trans-galactic road trip adventures ensue.

4) When they get back to the school; they discover that it has been destroyed / captured / whatever, and the NPC master is dead.

5) Force sensitives now have no home to go to, and the smuggler has by now realized that these guys are handy to have around (and maybe they're ALL wanted fugitives now).

You should've started with having an idea yourself for the basic plot and direction of the story you wanted to run. Telling people up front the kind of environment they will find themselves in will invariably temper career choices.

You should also point out there will be a myriad of functions that need to be handled including combat, social skills, healing, tech stuff, knowledge stuff, etc. That can also guide people's choices. All the bases can be covered in the F&D book, but it won't necessarily feel like a bunch of Jedi if that's what they're aiming for.

If you do have 5 Jedi wanna bes and they're starting at session 0 characters be prepared for them to be very disappointed in their characters. It takes a lot of xp to get to that Jedi-ish feel.

What British said.

Keep in mind that the force sensitive trees are *not* Jedi. They are doctors, diplomats, explorers, hunters, mechanics, spies, pilots, and bodyguards (Consular Healer, Mystic Adviser, Seeker Navigator, Seeker Hunter, Sentinel Artisan, Sentinel Shadow, Warrior Ace, or Guardian Protector). Just because they're force sensitive does not mean that their character's focuses are narrow.

Now... if they're all running variations of Warrior or Guardian and are building characters that smell suspiciously of Kenobi, then you might have a problem.

[edit] It also may be worth noting what everyone's experience with Star Wars games is. This is probably the first game I've played that allows force sensitive options where those options don't dominate the game. If you've played Saga, or Kotor, or even just Force Unleashed, then you could be reasonably worried about *not* being force sensitive and ending up irrelevant. It may be worthwhile to address that issue. My group is split 50/50 force sensitive, and the most effective combatant in the group is not sensitive.

Hey guys, thanks for the input.

There's definitely some things I could have done in retrospect!

Genuine, thanks for the advice there - sets some concerns to rest I think. You, British and 2P51 are correct, of course. They're not going to be starting with Jedi and a range of skills will be necessary which I have made abundantly clear as I pitched the game to them. I'm concerned that I may end up with a bunch of kenobis anyway but I think we can iron this out in session 0 where I can lend a guiding hand but also as it's discussed as a party they'll begin to shake out their characters and roles.

Vorzakk, your idea is pretty similar to what I had started coming up with myself (Gratifying!) but significantly cleaner, so I might just nab that pretty much wholesale!

God, I HATE force sensitive enclaves, it's almost as if it's a pact to remain a virgin until your 30 to become a space wizard! XD It's so lame to start off with a group like that! No edge in that at all.

Here's what I would do; Make the mentor a bad ass pirate captain who picked the only living that avoids the kind of honest ports that would trap him, but this guy hasn't been idle while the empire has been growing, using his immense prediction and foresight to build a fleet of misfits, displaced war veterans and other scum. His plan is to rob, steal and otherwise be a general pest in the empires rear but he has always lacked one thing. A good crew to pass on the Jedi tradition he had, so what does he do? Well he starts tracking force sensitives down and tell the smuggler that this is his big break; if he can get these group of force sensitives eating out of his hand, he can be promoted to one of the largest ships in the fleet. How he gets these guys together is up to you; abduction (20 rep points if that person just lost a family member), selection from his crew or he just hires some guys with the intention on carrying the tradition on that he turned his back on 20 years ago.

There you can keep your edge and your destiny. Because as a pirate crew they are always short on resources and have a need for a tangible need for resources while presenting a leader that is both noble(?) but conflicted; every new imperial shipment raided threatens to drag him over to the darkness which also might spread this dramatic attention to the party. This forces he party to deal with both the criminal elements of star wars and a less then noble war against the empire, just as likely to be picking up fuel shipments as force artefacts and keeps the adventures varied.

This would also make the bosses death much more surprising.

It's not just that they won't be starting with Jedi characters but that there's no imperative that they develop toward being Jedi characters. That order has fallen and while PCs can choose to learn about it and try to follow in its steps, they don't have to, nor are they doing anything incorrect by deciding not to, whether that's because they don't learn about it or they decide that the Jedi had the wrong ideas.

That tends to be another difference between this game and most of the others - everything Force-related doesn't have to be viewed through the lens of a Jedi/Sith dichotomy.

I just started GMing my own game, and I had a very similar situation come up: Three players opted to play FaD, Force-sensitive, would-be Jedi, while one opted to be a Smuggler. I told them that I'd run a hybrid game, then, giving everyone some Obligation and the three FaD characters Morality. No one got to start with lightsabers. They have a ship, but it belongs to the Smuggler.

How I got them to travel together: I decided that have all been hired by an eccentric art dealer who specializes in selling rare Jedi and Sith artifacts. Because this stuff is illegal under the Empire, the art dealer needs the Smuggler to help him with running the stuff from system to system and for all-around skulduggery. He needs the Force-sensitive PCs to help him locate the stuff and to provide some extra muscle and knowhow, since he himself has no Force-sensitivity. The deal is that if they find any Jedi stuff that "works" (like a lightsaber or a kyber crystal), one of the PCs can keep it. But if it's just a Jedi statue or a scroll or something, it gets sold on the black market and everyone gets a cut.

So far, things are working out quite well. I'm finding that a lot of the adventures in FaD and EotE are quite compatible with a group like this. For instance, I just finished the FaD beginner game, replacing the scholar mentor character with the art dealer. The characters are now ransacking the Jedi temple in that game and planning to smuggle the Jedi goodies offworld. I think we'll run Chronicles of the Gatekeeper next, with this same general conceit about finding and selling Jedi stuff to wealthy collectors. I've also considered running The Jewel of Yavin , but rather than trying to steal the eponymous jewel, I might make the Jewel of Yavin a powerful kyber crystal one of the PCs can use in her lightsaber. Meanwhile, during the heist, the Smuggler will find lots of loot to find and fence, too. Ditto Beyond the Rim : Instead of a downed Separatist ship, make the downed vessel be a downed Jedi ship with artifacts inside. There's lots of potential overlap for both Jedi wannabes and Smuggler types in a setup like this.

Having them all flee an extermination attempt, and have the smuggler hired, his ship, and they are found out and all wanted together (common obligation).

Also if you all have wannabe Kenobi's then that smuggler is going to shine as an awesome face if they put all that xp into combat.

I think that you could also run as a group of force sensitives isolated from galactic events needs a guide.

Or maybe the smuggler knows about jedi and is smuggling then like a star wars version of Schindler's List.

I tried a similar thing mixing (in the end) all three systems. AoR and F&D can be reasonably easy. Getting Edge in there legit is hard and imo not worth the hassle unless your PC can really come up with a good reason the smuggler would be working with force sensitives (if you're post Order 66). In my KOTOR era game it was a cluster of er.. stuff and it crashed and burned.

Convince the Smuggler PC to start as a Dark Side Sentinel and shady as all get out, then watch as the rest of the party are envious of his fun

No seriously, I would chat to the odd player out. See if they will concede to a FaD game this time with the plan of a gritty Edge game another time

I really don't see the problem, other than making sure the smuggler has a chance to shine. Make sure he gets cool adventures and rewards, rather than being the chauffeur for everyone else. You might need to look over the character sheets every now and then, asking yourself, "What can this guy do that the others can't?" So when he pulls it off, he can just smile and say, "Yeah, well, while you guys were busy meditating on rocks, I was out being awesome."

My thoughts exactly!!

So my first thought is to level the playing field a bit and tell them at the start, no lightsabers. They gotta earn those. This also allows the smuggler to feel less like the odd man out.

Sure... That works. However I'll tell you what, I don't know about smuggler, but as an artisan, mostly because of its career specs, I am not really intrested in pursuing the force.

He is totaly badass, tricking police droids into letting him get close enough to slap a restraining bolt on it. Taking control of cameras and sensors any place his team has to fight in is now standard protocal. He has an awsome droid sidekick that hovers and scouts around. I got two force users that are super combat oriented. No lightsabers yet... I never feel left out. Im the eyes and ears in a fight and the sneak saboteur!

I would totally play the force senseless one in an FaD group.

I could see a smuggler face charecter always rescuing the jedi from a trap with his freighter, or talking his way out better then a jedi can mind trick and never let them hear the end of it.

Id be constantly asking them to hand me stuff, and generally being an irreverent ****... Really stick it to them that my morality is my own, not some conjured up hogwash to keep me from turning into some crazy anger fiend monster... In fact... Anyone want to gm that?

I'd also suggest giving your smuggler a big enough ship so everyone can participate in space combat if the situation arises; a dorsal gunner, a ventral gunner, a pilot, a co-pilot, an engineer, etc. Maybe also consider a NPC partner for the smuggler, like a droid. At your session zero, I suggest getting as much info from your players as possible; what do each of their characters hate, what does each of their characters love, and why does each of their characters stay together? Your players will probably come up with multiple ideas they think is cool, and all of this could help you. Just soak it all in.

I have a similar problem with my group. So when we went into F&D only two players kept their old characters and just picked up a force tree. I let the players making new characters use the Knight Level rules.

Well now i have a new player coming in who wants to be a Rebel sniper. So when i helped her make her character she also used Knight Level rules and is now a Sharpshooter/Trailblazer. With her gear and abilities, I'm pretty sure she could take down any of my Jedi players. But I also told her if she wanted later she could pick up the Force-Sensitive Exile/Emergent for 30XP. Which we get 20-30 XP each session.

Plus if they start to ignore the contributions of the non-Jedi characters then i would call it arrogance and just start giving conflict.

In legends there is this one bothan jedi survivor of Order 66, who turned into a casino owner... That's a fun idea.