I was talking in another thread about some... issues my table is having with certain aspects of the campaign stories. Specifically, I'm playing Return to Hoth and my table just hates Benex. They don't trust him as a character and they'd rather just leave that planet and never deal with him again. They feel like they are his errand boys and all they do is help out an ungrateful band of mountain folk, when before they were off running around with Han Solo or blowing up Star Destroyers.

And they've got a point. I mean, why don't the Rebels go elsewhere? Because they don't want to run into the Empire? Please, they do that literally every mission. If they can't go to another planet, why don't they just go somewhere else on the planet. They just came from an ice world. Are you telling me that they can't stand the harsh conditions of this other place? Or why don't the Rebels just agree to relocate Benex to some other place and be rid of him? Or just kill him and take over the colony? It just seems like there are so many easier solutions than dealing with him.

I know this isn't really a problem with gameplay, but has anyone else had a table that just didn't buy into the premise of the campaign, or specific missions? Which missions were they? Does anyone have any suggestions on how to fix these perceived plot holes? How did you fix yours?

Another issue. Hasn't come up at my table yet, but I can see it happening very easily with Jabba's Realm. I know that if I played JR with my current table, and they won, they would want to kill Jabba. In those situations, where they have guns pointed at Jabba's head and have him at their mercy, they would just take the credits and ships he's promising and then kill him. Which clearly won't work if I want to maintain some kind of continuity with the movies. If I just read what's in the campaign book they will be disappointed. I know it. But I can't think up a way around it. What reason can I give them to leave the planet, feel like they've accomplished something, and also let Jabba live?

4 hours ago, Pollux85 said:

I know that if I played JR with my current table, and they won, they would want to kill Jabba.

Don't let them win

But seriously - if you're okay with changing a bunch of things, you should make sure that you end on the mission with Jabba's barge (called Mutiny I think). You could set up a couple extra skiffs that the Rebels can't access, with Jedi Luke, Han, and Lando duking it out with Boba and a bunch of weequays and Gamorrean Guards. Then, when they get to the part where they take down Jabba... I don't know what you do. But make it fit the movie better.

Basically, you can just write them into the movie, if you want. Might still be too much of a stretch for them, but you know your group better than I do!

Benex is looking after a colony of civillians, and potential wounded rebels from the battle of hoth. i make my Benex quite weak and looking up to the rebels. if they fail, I play up that Benex was let down by the rebels which makes his betrayal later, if it happens more believable. as he would do anything to protect the people.

and why not kill jabba. these are alternate timelines. you could play it that way.

I think it's funny. Nobody seems to trust Benex. Even before anything really happens. I guess that's what happens when your name is Benex and you lead a cult-like group in the mountains

7 hours ago, Pollux85 said:

Another issue. Hasn't come up at my table yet, but I can see it happening very easily with Jabba's Realm. I know that if I played JR with my current table, and they won, they would want to kill Jabba. In those situations, where they have guns pointed at Jabba's head and have him at their mercy, they would just take the credits and ships he's promising and then kill him. Which clearly won't work if I want to maintain some kind of continuity with the movies. If I just read what's in the campaign book they will be disappointed. I know it. But I can't think up a way around it. What reason can I give them to leave the planet, feel like they've accomplished something, and also let Jabba live?

Jabba would never put himself into a helpless position. He would have a group of mercenaries/explosive devices/rocket launchers/whatever aimed at the Rebels' families, with orders to kill every last one of them if something were to happen to him. So if they win and they still want to kill him after they know this, at least you know your friends are sociopaths.

You could always just imply that the Rebels have been ordered to protect Benex's colony by Rebel high command. Maybe make that part of the story- the Rebels don't really enjoy being around these ungrateful yokels, but they eventually realize its the right thing to do. You could even tinker a little and have an almost Magnificent Seven kind of plot, where the Rebels teach the villagers how to fight, and (assuming they got the Echo Base troopers earlier in the campaign) you could upgrade them to Elites once they've been taught- and they can only be used in story missions, but come at a slightly reduced price. And honestly, there are only a handful of missions that involve him (almost half of RtH is side content).

As for them wanting to kill Jabba- well, I guess you could always switch out canon and just have them off him. Or you could go with what Stomp suggested and sort of have a different retelling of the destruction of the Khetana.

1 hour ago, subtrendy2 said:

You could always just imply that the Rebels have been ordered to protect Benex's colony by Rebel high command. Maybe make that part of the story- the Rebels don't really enjoy being around these ungrateful yokels, but they eventually realize its the right thing to do. You could even tinker a little and have an almost Magnificent Seven kind of plot, where the Rebels teach the villagers how to fight, and (assuming they got the Echo Base troopers earlier in the campaign) you could upgrade them to Elites once they've been taught- and they can only be used in story missions, but come at a slightly reduced price. And honestly, there are only a handful of missions that involve him (almost half of RtH is side content).

As for them wanting to kill Jabba- well, I guess you could always switch out canon and just have them off him. Or you could go with what Stomp suggested and sort of have a different retelling of the destruction of the Khetana.

Now that idea fro RtH is something interesting. The beauty of Star Wars is that you can tell pretty much any kind of story in that universe, and I'd welcome the chance to tell one of that type (although I do think JR naturally lends itself to the Magnificent 7 scenario better).

The best solution I can think up for the ending of JR is that Jabba bargains for his life by offering to smuggle them onto Coruscant, which would make it the set-up for Heart of the Empire.

1 hour ago, Pollux85 said:

The best solution I can think up for the ending of JR is that Jabba bargains for his life by offering to smuggle them onto Coruscant, which would make it the set-up for Heart of the Empire.

Problem with that is that it makes the timeline wonky. Jedi Luke may or may not show up at points in the campaign, establishing it after ESB. HotE takes place before ANH.

17 minutes ago, subtrendy2 said:

Problem with that is that it makes the timeline wonky. Jedi Luke may or may not show up at points in the campaign, establishing it after ESB. HotE takes place before ANH.

Say whaaaa? Are we just inferring that b/c they've got Ahsoka and Maul as figures, or has FFG confirmed it? I thought they were abandoning the timelines completely.

9 minutes ago, Pollux85 said:

Say whaaaa? Are we just inferring that b/c they've got Ahsoka and Maul as figures, or has FFG confirmed it? I thought they were abandoning the timelines completely.

Yes (inferring) and yes (abandoning). We are inferring that the Maul/Ahsoka presence puts us before Rogue 1. Technically, Rebels season 2.5. I forget the BBY date, if we even figured that out. But no, you don't have to play it that way given that FFG has abandoned time periods.

1 hour ago, Pollux85 said:

Say whaaaa? Are we just inferring that b/c they've got Ahsoka and Maul as figures, or has FFG confirmed it? I thought they were abandoning the timelines completely.

Well, I guess I'm just inferring.

FFG did abandon timelines for campaign, so I guess there's no way to really say where these stories fit into the timelines now. However, I always just figured this was done for player freedom- open groups and side missions. That way, a character like Greedo could be used in a campaign like Return to Hoth, for instance.

Campaign is still trying to tell a story, though. While it's not technically official, I think it's fair enough to say that characters that appear as starting or reserved groups in Main Story missions can kind of help determine when the story takes place.

So, I mean, ultimately I'm sure it's up to you. But it your group is so particular in the storytelling that they'd want to be the ones to kill Jabba, then I'd imagine they'd take issue with Maul and Ahsoka still randomly being alive well into the Galactic Civil War.

Just now, subtrendy2 said:

Well, I guess I'm just inferring.

FFG did abandon timelines for campaign, so I guess there's no way to really say where these stories fit into the timelines now. However, I always just figured this was done for player freedom- open groups and side missions. That way, a character like Greedo could be used in a campaign like Return to Hoth, for instance.

Campaign is still trying to tell a story, though. While it's not technically official, I think it's fair enough to say that characters that appear as starting or reserved groups in Main Story missions can kind of help determine when the story takes place.

So, I mean, ultimately I'm sure it's up to you. But it your group is so particular in the storytelling that they'd want to be the ones to kill Jabba, then I'd imagine they'd take issue with Maul and Ahsoka still randomly being alive well into the Galactic Civil War.

Meh. If it's not in the movies, then it didn't happen. Maul would be problematic, but I doubt everyone at my table even knows who Ahsoka is. To them, the comics and TV shows are like officially licensed fan fiction.

Just now, Pollux85 said:

Meh. If it's not in the movies, then it didn't happen. Maul would be problematic, but I doubt everyone at my table even knows who Ahsoka is. To them, the comics and TV shows are like officially licensed fan fiction.

No, I get that, and totally acknowledge that FFG does not (and almost certainly cannot) provide a canon timeline for these campaign. But even though there's nothing official, all I'm saying is I think it's rather obvious that this is in Rebels era. Even the AT-DP and the sentry droids imply that. This is, without being called so, a Rebels box.

But of course, all campaigns try to play the time period pretty close to the chest to avoid conflict, especially with side missions mixed in. Maybe, though, the story missions might give some clue about when it takes place, for certain.

19 hours ago, Pollux85 said:

Another issue. Hasn't come up at my table yet, but I can see it happening very easily with Jabba's Realm. I know that if I played JR with my current table, and they won, they would want to kill Jabba. In those situations, where they have guns pointed at Jabba's head and have him at their mercy, they would just take the credits and ships he's promising and then kill him. Which clearly won't work if I want to maintain some kind of continuity with the movies. If I just read what's in the campaign book they will be disappointed. I know it. But I can't think up a way around it. What reason can I give them to leave the planet, feel like they've accomplished something, and also let Jabba live?

To prevent Jabba's assassination at the hand of the heroes, here is one possibility. Jabba would tell them that he has put a bounty on Han Solo (even if timeline was dropped one can technically argue that JR is taking place between ESB and ROTJ). We can assume Boba Fett has not yet deliver the carbonite frozen Solo (I don't recall any mention of that in the campaign, but I could be wrong). Jabba would be willing to pay a little extra to the heroes if they can bring him back Solo because they are is kind of scums. The heroes might argue that Solo was captured by Boba Fett, that information being known from Leia/Chewie/Lando). Jabba might tell them he actually knows where Fett is at the moment. Borrowing from the now Legend Shadows of the Empire, Jabba could tell the heroes Fett fought IG-88 and had to stop on a planet to repair his ship. He would be willing to give the information ... but not now. If the heroes includes the mercenaries Onar, Vinto and Shyla, they might be lured by the large amount of credits they could earn by delivering Solo to Jabba. Instead if the heroes are mostly rebels (Gideon, Fenn, etc) they could value the opportunity of rescuing captain Solo.

From then you could even set up one last mission related to the text above. Maybe Jabba really gave you the real coordinates to locate Boba Fett but he has a large garrison of imperial troops with him. In fact since the Shadows of the Empire are now Legend you could try to set up the Gall moon mission where the heroes accompagny Dash Rendar (use the alliance smuggler with a boost in his stats) to get back Solo. Even if the heroes defeat Fett, he would manage to escape with imperial help.

2 hours ago, player1690582 said:

Gall moon mission where the heroes accompagny Dash Rendar (use the alliance smuggler with a boost in his stats) to get back Solo. Even if the heroes defeat Fett, he would manage to escape with imperial help.

I absolutely love this idea.

I thought about this a lot. Here would be my action plan on how to make a big box campaign more ... cinematic:

• Less Side mission slots. 2 Slots should be enough. They then can act as a transition between story chapters, essentially breaking the story into 3 chapters.
• Let rebels have more influence on the side mission deck. Have them choose 2 red, 2 green and 2 grey side missions. Also give them the option of discarding the currently active side mission afte resolving a side mission (essentially giving them much greater control over which mission to take on, but not in which order)
• Introduce story allies and villains. TBG already has this with Lando and Blaise in a limited way. But none of the large campaigns has this. They could be a very good tool in telling the story. However, balancing the allies for gameplay might be tricky. Not sure if there is a silver bullet for this.
• Make true branching mission lines. For instance the first or 2nd mission could spawn 2 followup missions that then have no more branching until the 3rd chapter. Rebels should have more control over which branch to take (they don't know what lies behind the branch anyway!)

I really dislike that the story can't be coherent in the big box campaigns because mission outcome has too much influence on the story and you can skip around the branches after each story mission. Jabba's Realm did **very** good with how it chose to close out the campaign and I think not only is that the strongest part of the campaign (because it's spawned by a player decision), it also is a good template on how to develop more engaging stories in the future.

/edit:
One of my major criticisms of the JR campaign is that it **had** to break up it's last act with a side mission. This is particularly problematic if the heroes chose to side with Jabba. In that "branch" of the story you have 2 story missions that give the imperial player no access to mercanry units (because Jabba controls them). This is **amazing** from a thematic point. **But** it also get's broken up by the one side mission between these 2 story missions. In there, there is no such restriction (unless you play the one side mission that has such a restriction).
I was pretty frustrated with how that did work out ...

Agreed a lot with Jace.

Side missions are great, and a lot of fun, but we have 3 campaigns now that use them quite a bit. It would be nice to have at least one highly cinematic campaign that uses them less.

In fact, as far as I can tell, all side missions essentially boil down to one specific concept- the Rebel heroes help out the Alliance in some form. This is cool, and all, but could further be narrowed down.

For instance, consider this hypothetical campaign text, following a Story mission:

...As the Rebel heroes hop on the GR-75, they rejoice in their narrow escape from the two Inquisitors. Though the relentless duo would surely hunt them down again, the Rebels realized that they had some personal business they needed to attend to.

- Rebels draw two cards from the RED side mission deck, and choose one to resolve

By splitting up the side missions into their colors, a more cohesive story could be told. See, side missions could be sorted by color and type- Red, Grey, Green Unique, and Green Non-Unique. Maybe 4 of each the Grey and Red and 3 of each type of Green- with Non-unique missions referencing a mission to assist another Rebel team, while Unique would obviously be assisting a named Ally.

So, a quick Non-unique green text might read like:

After securing the plans, the heroes receive an SOS over their deep Holonet connection- a team of operatives has been compromised and is requesting assistance! Though the Rebels' current objective is of vital importance, the heroes decide to take a brief detour to save their friends.

- Draw two side missions from the Non-unique Green card pile. Rebels choose to resolve one of them.

Of course, there are other ways you could get really creative. For example, consider a hypothetical mission with Palpatine as a Villain, that the Rebels lose:

... Beaten and horrified at the Sith Lord's power, the Rebels just barely manage to escape with their lives. Hordes of crimson-decorated Imperial TIEs close in as the Rebel shuttle makes the jump to hyperspace... But the Rebels may not be as free of the Emperor's influence as they have been led to believe.

- Draw two Grey side missions. Then, draw cards from the top of the Agenda deck until an Agenda mission is revealed (if deck contains none, the Imperial player may choose one from the game box at random). The Imperial Player chooses to resolve one of these three missions.

If the Rebels had won the mission, they would have still gotten to choose their mission, so both the story and gameplay react to what happens in the campaign.

Relatively simple things like this could take one of the weaker narrative elements from the campaign (side missions) and integrate them a little more sensibly.