My players suggested directly engaging the Gladiator. I reminded them that if they do so, it can directly engage them too. It might have a hard time hitting with the turbolasers, but if it hits even a few times, the PCs' ship is toast.

The issue with Mass Combat is that, while it insulates the PCs from (most) risks, it also makes them largely into spectators. This is one of my biggest issues with FLT.

9 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

My players suggested directly engaging the Gladiator. I reminded them that if they do so, it can directly engage them too. It might have a hard time hitting with the turbolasers, but if it hits even a few times, the PCs' ship is toast.

The issue with Mass Combat is that, while it insulates the PCs from (most) risks, it also makes them largely into spectators. This is one of my biggest issues with FLT.

I agree, it's a very difficult situation. I've run Mass Combat twice. Once in the source it was originally introduced in - Onslaught at Arda I - in which I thought it was well handled simply because the players had a "special operation" that took up most of their time during the battle (with a few chances to engage at the periphery). I added a very small one to Chronicles of the Gatekeeper to satisfy my ends and help engage my players, and that felt... odd. One player led the combat while others engaged in their own infiltration task, which went well, but I tried to give the player who led the combat and actual scene in the fight (defending/assaulting a main bridge), but due to time constraints and lack of planning, it went... eh?

Mass Combat should be carefully handled, and I haven't read it enough in detail with FLT to really tell how they do with it (I just skimmed it to see what the player can do against the Gladiator). I feel the same way as you that the Gladiator would be extremely dangerous to tackle. A Raider, however, using the squadron rules to insulate the players... that might be doable. Taking out or damaging the Raiders early, in this case, allows the capital ships to focus on disabling the Gladiator.

Regarding that, I think it's a reasonable tactic for the Rebels to try to disable rather than destroy it when they arrive. After all, hit and run engagements are their tactic, so they know all about the importance of leaving as soon as they're outnumbered, and they know exactly what they're afraid of happening to them when they run. With two days or so to plan in hyperspace and intel on the flotilla they're taking on, I could see a cunning captain being able to leverage enough firepower to leave the Gladiator dead in the water if they don't have to worry about Raiders and a ton of TIEs.

10 hours ago, Kestin said:

I agree with Jedi. The back and forth about what the Gladiator does or does not do - at least to the degree that it's this heated - is useless. Now, I'm the first in line to run things as close to RAW as possible (if I didn't want RAW, I'd not have bought the book, after all), but if you care this much... change it. IIRC, it's not a hard change to make. You can use literally the entire adventure up to Act IV as written and alter a few details of the last battle.

It's been a bit since I've poked too heavily into it (we're not running it for a while yet), but the current Gladiator Captain has done everything he can to make this mission secret. I can't remember if that means the Imps have no idea where he went or not, but I thought he was taking the Raiders on a "training exercise" out and about space. He specifically doesn't want people to know where he's going because he's partially trying to cover up a truth about him as much as he is gain an advantage in the political pecking order by dealing a blow to the Rebels. All you have to do is give the Rebels more opportunity to ensure there aren't survivors. That can include involving the PCs more heavily, or just bringing the Rebel ships in soon enough to trap them between the planet (which was heavily prepared for them) and space, finishing them off.

Oh, and nowhere does it say that this is the Rebel Fleet (the one with Mon Mothma and Luke and co. wandering the starts looking for a new home after Yavin). I don't know about your game, but in mine, a lot of Sector Forces either have access to or are entirely comprised of ships of the line. The big stuff and the technologically advanced stuff is reserved for the home fleet, but even the Sector Force on Arda I has a "Rebel cruiser" (which is not used during the course of the game at all except to have a meeting on, which is bad form but a different discussion); I've framed it as an MC30c that's understaffed and in disrepair. I'm not saying the Imps wouldn't chase down Rebel vessels anywhere they were seen - my game takes place a few months after Yavin and the Empire is cracking down hard on Rebel activity - but they also have a lot on their plate. Food for thought.

I agree that the module does a good job of setting things up so that only the attacking Imperial fleet knows where that fleet went (and why) and so that if none of them escape the Empire won't know what happened to them. If any Imperial vessels do escape I think the Empire would definitely send a larger Imperial fleet back to Xorn to look for any clues as to the location of the Rebel fleet (any of them) or cells and then destroy the shipyard or put a hidden garrison there to catch any pirates or rebels coming back to the port not knowing of the battle there.

I don't plan on running it the way HappyDaze has but I respect the way he did do it and think that a good GM sets up the proper expectations for an adventure. If you're going to run it so there really is no chance of the PCs stopping the Imperials from jumping away then that outcome should be clear from the beginning and your game becomes like HappyDaze's preferred story.

I plan on giving the PCs a chance at stopping the Imperial fleet from escaping because I like high adventure swashbuckling heroic star wars games. I like to have a game with negative consequences and hard choices and sometimes no good choices but I like to keep things in the heroic realm more often than not (for me that fits the tone I love of the movies and animated series the best). I'm sure I'd enjoy playing in HappyDaze's game but I prefer to run a somewhat different style of game (it sounds like).

Whether you're more simulational or narrative knowing your players (and what style they enjoy and what seems realistic/reasonable) and setting up expectations is important. I think the module as written is a railroad that goes nowhere when it sets up the expectation of going somewhere. There's a spy passing on information and a briefing with the Zan Consortium and the Rebel Alliance and it seems to me like someone at some point would mention "Hey, what happens if the Imperials just bug out once the Rebel fleet arrives?". The module sets things up so that the PCs are totally focused on what happens before the Rebel Fleet arrives - the Rebel Fleet is almost like the McGuffin coming for the PCs and once it arrives then the module is "resolved" in their favor (if they survive, along with all the allies they've kept alive) when really the module is setting up a completely different ending where the McGuffin just forces a failure where the Xorn will be lost.

It feels like a trick. The module sets up the reasons why the PCs don't just start trying to evacuate everyone immediately after their arrival on Xorn but then goes on to negate most of those reasons in the Deus Ex Empirial ending.

My plan for the PCs being able to disable the Gladiator is by infiltrating it and knocking out it's engines or hyperdrive or whatever. They're going to be presented with the mission of docking with the Gladiator in order to rescue the spy anyway...so I'm just going to alter that and instead of it being a race to rescue the spy before she's killed, she's going to ask them to find a way to disable the Gladiator so it cannot escape. Still a chance for them to fail - and get captured - and it offers a high-stakes intense and fun series of encounters .

I freely admit that I like my AoR games to feel more like Rogue One than The Force Awakens.

2 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

I freely admit that I like my AoR games to feel more like Rogue One than The Force Awakens.

And it sounds like a lot of fun (I think different styles of game are fun, even if I have a preference). And at least your players know what to expect. If I was running more of a Rogue One style game I'd run it the way you do. Even with my current plans it could still end up that way if the PCs don't want to disable the Gladiator (and raiders) or fail to.

12 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

I freely admit that I like my AoR games to feel more like Rogue One than The Force Awakens.

Me too. My game is titled "Friends Like These: A Star Wars Story". Doesn't mean the Rebels can't win every once in a while. Even in gritty WW2 movies (which Rogue One was supposed to be thematically like), sometimes (some) people survive and the objective get accomplished (at cost). I think there's a flaw in thinking a "real" or "simulation" type story has to take a total 180 from the heroes magically being pulled out of the situation every time.

In my mind, where realism diverges from high, heroic adventure is after the cavalry arrives. In heroic space opera, the cavalry arrive, the good guys scrape by in the nick of time, and then they have a medal ceremony and forget almost all of the consequences. In a realistic game, you pan down from the victory to the flaming wreck littering the ground and the soldiers crying among them; you talk about how the people rebuild, how they got hurt, and how they're going to move forward. If the bad guys got away, they come back. If they didn't, you talk about the cost of achieving that - now the heroes have to replenish and replace, worry about spies and being traced, etc.

Again, there's nothing WRONG with evacuating Xorrn and setting that as the expectation. That's realistic as well! I just think, for the sake of discussion in this thread, at least (where we're getting together to discuss ways to "fix" FLT), it's a mistake to equate realism with losing. It's all about the scenario you set up as the GM (so players don't think victory or loss has been handed to them) and, more importantly, the tone you set while you do it. It's as much what goes on adjacent to and after the main action as the detail of the action itself!

In my mind, the Rebels don't win stand-up fights against the Empire, and I don't care for the extraordinary efforts made by the author to make this one the possible exception to the rule (until the scripted end derails that hope). This is why I change the Rebels' goals rather than change the ending.

That's where you are wrong, Happy Daze. The rebels can win a stand up fight against the empire without any problem, if they pick the right fight. After all they have warships big enough to take on an Imperial class star destroyer (which is much more powerful that a Gladiator) and frigates and covettes good enough to match the imperial navy's Raiders. As for fighters the X-wings are generally superior to the TIES. So the Rebels have all the means to win a fight, what they lack is numbers, so they have to pick fights where they have at least a decent superiority. And Xorns situation looks to be an ideal for the rebel fleet to smash the empire's forces. Nervi's fleet is big enough to be a serious threat to the planet but small enough to be easily matched or overpowered by the rebellion: the book explicitly mentions a Mon Calamari cruiser dealing with the Gladiator, and the GM can easily add enough frigates and covettes to give the rebel fleet superiority. They also have the surprise on their part, while the Empire's fleet location is kept a secret from their own command. So if now imperial ship escapes, the planet is safe. So the battle of Xorn can very reasonably be a victory for the Rebellion even from a simulationist point of view, if the GM wants it to happen.

Let me clarify: the Rebels cannot hold territory against the Empire. FLT goes to almost absurd lengths to try an allow a situation where it can happen and then it dashes those hopes.

1 hour ago, HappyDaze said:

In my mind, the Rebels don't win stand-up fights against the Empire, and I don't care for the extraordinary efforts made by the author to make this one the possible exception to the rule (until the scripted end derails that hope). This is why I change the Rebels' goals rather than change the ending.

42 minutes ago, Lareg said:

That's where you are wrong, Happy Daze. The rebels can win a stand up fight against the empire without any problem, if they pick the right fight. After all they have warships big enough to take on an Imperial class star destroyer (which is much more powerful that a Gladiator) and frigates and covettes good enough to match the imperial navy's Raiders. As for fighters the X-wings are generally superior to the TIES. So the Rebels have all the means to win a fight, what they lack is numbers, so they have to pick fights where they have at least a decent superiority. And Xorns situation looks to be an ideal for the rebel fleet to smash the empire's forces. Nervi's fleet is big enough to be a serious threat to the planet but small enough to be easily matched or overpowered by the rebellion: the book explicitly mentions a Mon Calamari cruiser dealing with the Gladiator, and the GM can easily add enough frigates and covettes to give the rebel fleet superiority. They also have the surprise on their part, while the Empire's fleet location is kept a secret from their own command. So if now imperial ship escapes, the planet is safe. So the battle of Xorn can very reasonably be a victory for the Rebellion even from a simulationist point of view, if the GM wants it to happen.

Ah, I get it now. I see where both of you are coming from. I think, in this case, it depends on how you set up your "greater" Rebel Alliance. Since, to my knowledge, there isn't a lot out there about the galaxy-spanning Rebels and what they can do (mostly just their inner circle), everyone has their own vision about what is possible for the Rebels. In my game, the Alliance can win, but it always requires cleverness, bravery, and sacrifice. I see post-Yavin as a time the Rebels become powerful but the Empire escalates, leaving the Rebels hunted and at a greater disadvantage than before because of crackdowns and yet more able to win the fights they choose to pick than ever before.

It makes perfect sense if your Rebels don't work that way. Sources definitely differ on how awful the Rebels are or aren't at winning fights.

Specifically, in this case, I tend to agree with Lareg that the Rebels can leverage superiority versus a Gladiator and two Raiders. We see Rebels in, uh, Rebels take down smaller vessels. The problem is always when ISDs or overwhelming numbers show up; on Xorrn, relative to the size of the Rebel detachment (at least, that's shown in artwork), this doesn't seem to be the case. Of course, that's my military-game bias; I want fights to be more fair so I can tell more traditional military stories. I'm not a huge fan of guerrilla warfare as a theme, so I skew my Rebels stronger.

5 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

Let me clarify: the Rebels cannot hold territory against the Empire. FLT goes to almost absurd lengths to try an allow a situation where it can happen and then it dashes those hopes.

I think the idea is that you aren't holding territory against the EMPIRE, you're holding it against a rogue officer and the resources he can pull. Very similar to the Whisper Base plot of the starter box: you can only succeed because the Empire doesn't know. Much like the Rebels would be immediately crushed in Takeover at Whisper Base if the Empire knew they had a secret listening post under attack, the Rebels at Xorrn would absolutely lose the planet if anyone beyond the Captain and his retinue knew about it.

They will know about it, as you said, if any vessel escapes. The question this thread hinges on, however, isn't whether the Rebels can hold Xorrn once the Empire finds out, but whether they can stop the Empire from finding out. If you think it's unreasonable your Rebel Alliance take down a Gladiator and two Raiders before they can escape and spread the word, then that's what makes sense, and you have to adjust the adventure by setting a fatalistic tone from the start, since they know they can't defend the base. If, however, you believe the Rebels have the ingenuity and resources to pull that off and ensure no survivor, then there's no reason they can't keep Xorrn. Given the reasons the Captain has for keeping his attack secret, after all, there's plenty of people to look into his disappearance, but no real way to find his final resting place - he'd covered his tracks too well.

Or maybe he didn't, and it's a continuing struggle to seed counter-intelligence so the Empire never discovers what happened to the Captain and what his true nature was. That, to me, sounds like an excellent plot hook for one of the characters in my PbP's group: a Force-Sensitive ex-ISB agent who was in the very first stages of being groomed as an Inquisitor before defecting.

3 minutes ago, Kestin said:

They will know about it, as you said, if any vessel escapes.

Or if the Gladiator sends out a distress signal (it is large enough that it most likely has a Holo-Net transceiver) or if any ship fires off hyperspace-capable probe/messenger droids.

Just now, HappyDaze said:

Or if the Gladiator sends out a distress signal (it is large enough that it most likely has a Holo-Net transceiver) or if any ship fires off hyperspace-capable probe/messenger droids.

All very real concerns. It's definitely up in the air about that; I could equally see Imperials doubling down on "secret, quasi-illegal personal glory ops" or being too confused (sure of their own superiority in general) to respond appropriately and being extremely efficient about warning their peers. This is where it comes down to a matter of taste, because at any point one of your players said "why did/didn't this happen?" you can produce an answer they're liable to accept.