The point at which a lot of campaigns have derailed is, where named characters start to appear, and players deliberately start to interfere with the flow of both the adventure, and the continuity of the setting. I am very fortunate to have had players who didn't do so, but ample horror stories of players with the mindset "If it has stats, we can kill it!"

I know of Game Masters who actually need to stay away from established eras just as not to give their players a chance of rolling high enough and impregnate princess Leia, or blow up the Milennium Falcon, or kill Darth Vader before Luke confronts him on the Death Star II.

4 minutes ago, Xcapobl said:

The point at which a lot of campaigns have derailed is, where named characters start to appear, and players deliberately start to interfere with the flow of both the adventure, and the continuity of the setting. I am very fortunate to have had players who didn't do so, but ample horror stories of players with the mindset "If it has stats, we can kill it!"

I know of Game Masters who actually need to stay away from established eras just as not to give their players a chance of rolling high enough and impregnate princess Leia, or blow up the Milennium Falcon, or kill Darth Vader before Luke confronts him on the Death Star II.

This is where establishing the "box" is important - what is the named character there for? Rarely should a named character come directly after the PCs - much like PCs, NPC's have the same motivations. They're going to follow up leads that are specifically important to them. If the PCs steal Vader's TIE fighter and send a personalized insult to him, Vader still wouldn't waste his time tracking them down personally. Vader's motivated at this point by finding Luke Skywalker and locating the hidden Rebel Base on Hoth, if it isn't directly pertaining to one of these things, he doesn't care. He can get another starship, and send the whole of the ISB and Inquisitorial forces after a ship thief - he's operating under different motivations.

If you do have named PCs appear, you need to define exactly what they are there to accomplish in the story - do they deliver a plot hint? Do they give exposition on something else going on the universe that provides foreshadowing/timing information/narrative device? Do they have a McGuffin that is needed for the rest of the adventure/campaign/story to move forward? Once you establish what they are doing for the story, then frame the rest of the situation in the guise of that, to prevent the scene from derailing. Say you have Han Solo meet the PCs to secure some cargo for the Rebellion using the Falcon. Your PCs might get the bright idea to kill Han and/or steal the Falcon. While they might get the bright idea of taking on Han and Chewie, and even believing that they could do it, they might think twice when they find out that in addition to the dynamic duo there's a whole squad of Rebel soldiers alongside who've arrived to help load and transport the cargo. As a precaution, they've secretly taken over the entire spaceport to ensure "no Imperial entanglements" and so have the place filled with informants, spies and special forces. The importance of the cargo that would warrant Han's presence personally would be enough to warrant the additional security, and therefore it isn't a stretch. Once the cargo is transferred, they leave, if things so south, then the soldiers and Han fall back to the Falcon and they retreat. If the PCs get a lucky shot and drop Han, the soldiers drag him on the Falcon and take off. Minimize the risks and make sure there is a box, a scene that must occur and then poof!

15 hours ago, Vondy said:

I commend you. When I run across offensive formatting, I usually skip the read.

Kyla's posts are absolutely worth reading...

... although that pink-on-black formatting does melt my eyes. I usually copy/paste into a plain text email so I can read her, 'cause it's definitely worth it.

I'm not gonna disrespect the eccentricities of others as I have plenty of my own.

<cracks knuckles>

Well, the MarcyVerse was expressly set up to slaughter sacred cows… but not indiscriminately. That is, I know my players are better than just murdering an NPC ‘because he’s canon’. If Lando had betrayed them during ‘Jewel of Yavin’ (a la Empire Strikes Back) then they would have a perfectly good reason for killing him. As it was he didn’t, the Entertainer PC flirted with him at the party and that was pretty much his role in the story. Canon NPCs turning up don’t always have to take centre stage. As I say, I’m lucky to have good players who value their characters (there’s one whose personality is to be a murderous psychopath, and we’ll get back to her later).

As Kyla said, it’s important to establish what the ‘box’ is with regards to canon. If its ‘anything goes, so kill who you like’ then make that expectation clear. If it’s to adhere strictly to canon, then make sure everyone understands and agrees with that. Above all, you need to keep the focus on the PCs and not have them as supporting cast to some canon character. Many of the things that make a good movie or TV series makes for a bad RPG, so our Cinematic Universe was created to rewrite everything from the ground up. During the early conversations, we had many discussions as to which canon NPCs would appear regularly and which would need to be killed off, either because their roles were not relevant now, or because the players really hated them. The top three most popular characters were then rewritten as mentor figures or recurring NPCs who would play a big role in supporting the PCs throughout the story arcs. These were:

Han Solo (portrayed by a 54 year old Harrison Ford). Our Han is more of a good-natured scoundrel and ladies-man than his tough-guy persona in canon. He’s a ‘cool old guy’, a former smuggler with a history of misadventures and escapades, always happy to tell a tall tale over a glass of Corellian whiskey. He exaggerates many of his stories, but that’s what makes him such an entertainer, and he doesn’t take himself very seriously. About twenty years ago, he faked his own death because he was sick of his own legend and that he couldn’t walk into a cantina without some idiot waving a blaster in his face… and the fact that his mistress (Breha Organa) told him she was pregnant with his twins and he decided it was time to settle down. They went to a desert backwater (*cough*Socorro*cough* ) where they bought a farmstead, a cantina and raised their twins, now about 13 years old. Han serves as de-facto town leader and sheriff of sorts, and a den-father to passing adventurers and young scoundrels. Part of him misses life on the edge, and he sometimes suggests that he should come along with his young friends on one of their escapades, ‘just to show you kids how it’s done’. His exasperated wife has thus far prevented any such activity, for fear of where it might lead. Han tries to be a good father and loyal husband, but he’s still a charming ‘silver fox’ and women just throw themselves at him, and he can resist anything but temptation. Breha quietly encourages his friendship with Jo and Cynn because she knows they’re not interested in men.

Ben Kenobi (portrayed by a 55 year old Ewan McGregor). His name is Ben; ‘Obi-wan’ was a name given to him as a young man by Qui-Gon, meaning roughly ‘old wise master’ – both as an acknowledgement of his sensible nature and a gentle admonishment that a young man shouldn’t always be so serious all the time. Ben was a hero for the Jedi Order, and tried his best to mentor the young Anakin and delay the inevitability of his fall. When the inevitable occurred, they fought and Ben was badly wounded. The Order fought against Lord Sidious and his new understudy for years after, eventually capturing Anakin and torturing him to learn that Sidious was Sheev Palpatine. When Ben healed, he learned that they still kept Anakin around to torture him (he’d killed some of the High Master’s favourites, and had therefore pissed off some of the most ruthless and vengeful people in the galaxy). They only agreed to mercy-kill Anakin if Ben himself did the deed; he did so, then left the Order in disgust. He joined the vestigial Systems Alliance, believing that the Order had gone too far and had to be stopped. For years, he’s trained the Emergent Project, teaching the AIS Sensitives to fight Jedi.

Ben is a noble and decent man, one made somewhat cynical by the compromises he has had to make in his life. He wishes above all to train a new sect of the Order in his own image, and having to train young Sensitives as military assets troubles him greatly – however, he sees no other way to stop his former Order and believes this is a necessary sacrifice. He mourns his lost Selonian love and many believe he seeks to die fighting his former companions in the Order. Ben is a mentor to the Emergent PCs and a trusted advisor to Aika Ulnar, who leads the Alliance. He tries his best to temper her ruthless and amoral nature with his wisdom and compassion. Ben has more silver hairs than gold now, but he’s still a mighty warrior in great shape and a force to be reckoned with.

Lucas Lars (portrayed by a 46 year old Mark Hamill). The son of a moisture farmer on an important frontier world, the young Lars grew up troubled, squabbling and boozing and making trouble. All that changed when he crashed his speeder in the ruins inhabited by the womp-rats he had been using for target practise. Instead of eating him, the womp rats nursed and sheltered him and brought him food until he was able to heal. Humbled by their compassion and fascinated by their strange community, Lars was a radically changed man from that day, dedicating himself to the betterment of the world and helping others. He came into his Force powers soon afterwards, and Ben Kenobi sought him out, asking him to join the Alliance with him. Lars disliked the concept of training Force sensitives as military agents, and so travelled the galaxy for a decade, seeking out the ways of the past, trying to find the roots of the Jedi Order before it became corrupted (as he saw it). He discovered enough pieces to form his own tradition, the Followers of the Temple, eschewing the ways of the Order for self-enlightenment, personal responsibility and Good Samaritanism. He travelled the galaxy seeking out followers, and preaching the virtues of sanity, tolerance and a desire to better oneself. Charismatic and wise, he touched the lives of many, and developed powerful connections in all walks of galactic life. Now in early middle-age, Lars is in the prime of his life, a guru and spiritual leader somewhere between Bruce Lee, Jesus Christ and Terrence McKenna. His Followers work quietly and in secret, striving for peace and sanity in a galaxy gone bad. His preaches the ‘way of the real world’, where personal enlightenment is more important than doctrine or dogma – essentially, he teaches others how to be the best they can be and achieve self-realisation. He feels that race, gender and blood-lines are false labels and everyone is created equal, whether Sensitive or not. He does not judge – he knows from his own troubled youth that even damaged souls can find redemption. The Followers practise physical excellence and spiritual balance, and many find that sex or drugs can be gateways to enlightenment when used properly. Perhaps the only thing Lars fears is the pull of leadership – he desires to be a teacher rather than a leader, knowing that political power would corrupt his vision as it did the Jedi Order. The one sane man in a galaxy gone mad, Lars is a warm and wise mentor, a father-figure or older brother to those in his care. He's very much a 'hands-on' mentor and the Followers act as his eyes and ears. He's also the father of (a PC) Rhalia's son, Jacen, although technically the children of the Followers belong to all of them. The Jedi are amused by him, seeing his Followers as little more than a minor sex cult. This is as he wishes it; if they understood the threat he posed to them, they would bend all of their energies towards seeing him and his works destroyed. Currently, he seeks to end the Galactic Civil War, by bringing the most reasonable people in all the factions together to make a blueprint for a lasting galactic peace.

All these characters are fun to play or write for, and they are different enough from their on-screen counterparts to feel like they fit our game. It was nice to be able to ‘MarcyVerse’ them while being still treating the characters with respect.

Of the other ‘canon’ characters we use, some ended up more important than others. I intended to use Leia and Mara Jade, but they’ve not appeared thus far. As the PCs need their own antagonists, Jabba, Palpatine and Anakin were killed off long before the current timeline. Jabba was strangled by Ola’s slave-chain in a palace coup, which I felt was a nice touch. We actually ran the battle with Palpatine right at the very start when Force & Destiny came out, to test out how the high-level powers played. One of the PCs was there as her younger self, and witnessed the gory end of the man who would be Emperor. Anakin’s death is a major plot-point as is the destruction of Alderaan, something with vast, far-ranging complications. Out of respect to the 1984 version of Darth Vader, our version never donned the black mask and iconic outfit.

As the leader of a faction, the player who runs Aika Ulnar knows most of the galactic shakers and movers by name. She knew Tarkin as a young woman, and his rejection of her ambitions is what led to her joining the AIS in the first place. She sometimes dines with Admiral Thrawn – they see one another as worthy adversaries, playing a galactic game of Dejarik using planets and factions as their pieces on the board. Aika loathes most of the human leaders like Crix Madine and Jan Dodonna, considering them ‘weak, grey old men, terrified by their own erections and the prospect of victory’. She hates Mon Mothma too and the feeling is very much mutual, though she respects Gial Akbar and most of her alien adversaries on the AIS Council. Bail Organa is an important recurring character in the AOR games – he’s Aika’s lover and the father of her daughter Kirana, also a PC. He’s a darker character than in the movies, after the destruction of Alderaan and his wife running off to be with her smuggler lover. He’s something like a Mafia don – respected and feared, although he laments the compromises he’s had to make. He loves Aika, even if he doesn’t always like her, and she loves him, as much as she’s capable of it anyway. Their family situation is… complicated, so say the least, and father and daughter are um, closer than most (another thing that bothers him, but House Ulnar are decadent Old Republic nobility, so its par for the course there).

Savan Sizhran is a fairly minor character in the canon, but she’s of colossal importance to the MarcyVerse. She’s a literal ‘dragon lady’ at the heart of the Shadow Collective faction, a ‘velvet glove’ who employs seduction and bribery as her weapons of choice. She’s the mentor of the ’scum and villainy’ EOE group, and she touches many other plotlines, with her fingers in every pie. She’s poised to replace her uncle Xizor as faction leader, and a lot of fun to play. She’s something of a pulp Bond villain, only very genre-savvy and careful not to make the mistakes commonly committed by PC antagonists.

Padme is around, now in her forties. After nearly killing Anakin she is beloved of the Sith, and has decent relations with the Jedi through Ben. Both protect her around the clock. She keeps Anakin’s flayed, mutilated corpse around, encased in carbonite, and uses it as a conversation piece (or a table for sleepover snacks) for guests she really likes. She gave Kirana her Sith Shield after one such sleepover, impressed by her lack of squeamishness.

Boba Fett is out there somewhere – now in his late forties and the natural born son of Jango rather than a clone. Like Savan, Fett is very genre-savvy – he makes a very good living taking down mid-level targets like pirate lords or Imperial Moffs, and so he doesn’t take suicide missions such as fighting Sensitives or PCs. He’s ruthless but professional and fair, having led teams of bounty-hunters in his time and might be willing to team up with the EOE parties in the future for some important or profitable mutual goal. His motto is 'there's no credits in feeding an ego' and he knows when to walk away when he's in over his head.

The only killings of canon characters were done by one PC, the afore-mentioned psychotic, Kandria ‘Corellia Red’ Valouri. She’s a rogue Emergent, having a ‘Carrie’ moment during her training and slaughtering the entire facility, an event which completely fragmented her sanity. And bizarrely, on top of her intriguing and tragic backstory, she manages to be an engaging and likeable character despite crossing the Moral Event Horizon more times than most of us are comfortable with. I can count the number of well-played Evil characters I’ve seen on the fingers of one hand, and this is one of them. ‘Kandy’ was involved in the three-way war between the Empire, Alliance and Shadow Collective after the Mask of the Pirate Queen adventure, with Savan helping Aika win victory for the AIS. In the closing stages, she boarded Tyber Zann’s flagship, and threw a hissy fit about he was her ex-lover and betrayed her. Zann (who’d never seen her before in his life!) was somewhat perplexed as well as annoyed, so she shot him several times in the crotch before blowing his brains out. She’s now inherited most of his Consortium to go with the Veiled Sorority, and is a serious force in the Shadow Collective now.

The only other incident involving ‘canon’ deaths was instigated by a PC, in fact (Aika, natch) to mess with Kandy’s mind. Lady A put bounties on the crew of the ‘Rebels’ characters and nudged her in the direction of Jedi bounties on the two apostates. Red had to follow a paper-trail of clues that led her to kill the Lasat and the droid (skinning the former alive to wear his pelt after literally burning down an orphanage in the most gratuitous Moral Event Horizon yet, one that actually discomfited me). She then blew up the Ghost , and handed the apostates over the Order for execution. She had a rare attack of guilt (it happens, she’s a tormented little soul), remembering her youth, and let the two women go, tossing them out onto a desert planet to fend for themselves. She then got her Slicer friend to track down the source of these strange bounties and had an epic meltdown when she realised it was the AIS, with Aika ordering the whole event just to mess with her head…

If we ever get ‘Ghosts of Dathomir’, Kandy is slated to be the antagonist in that, as the official villainess being a red-haired, masked, lightsaber-wielding Bounty Hunter is a perfect fit for her. As the source of the Jedi-Alliance conflict, Dathomir is of immense importance to the F&D and AOR groups both. Everyone is hoping it will see a confrontation of the two most powerful PCs, both melee-focused Emergents, and settle the question of which PC is the most badass for good. I’m prepared for casualties this late in the story.

2 hours ago, Maelora said:

Han Solo (portrayed by a 54 year old Harrison Ford). Our Han is more of a good-natured scoundrel and ladies-man than his tough-guy persona in canon. He’s a ‘cool old guy’, a former smuggler with a history of misadventures and escapades, always happy to tell a tall tale over a glass of Corellian whiskey. He exaggerates many of his stories, but that’s what makes him such an entertainer, and he doesn’t take himself very seriously. About twenty years ago, he faked his own death because he was sick of his own legend and that he couldn’t walk into a cantina without some idiot waving a blaster in his face… and the fact that his mistress (Breha Organa) told him she was pregnant with his twins and he decided it was time to settle down. They went to a desert backwater ( *cough*Socorro*cough* ) where they bought a farmstead, a cantina and raised their twins, now about 13 years old. Han serves as de-facto town leader and sheriff of sorts, and a den-father to passing adventurers and young scoundrels. Part of him misses life on the edge, and he sometimes suggests that he should come along with his young friends on one of their escapades, ‘just to show you kids how it’s done’. His exasperated wife has thus far prevented any such activity, for fear of where it might lead. Han tries to be a good father and loyal husband, but he’s still a charming ‘silver fox’ and women just throw themselves at him, and he can resist anything but temptation. Breha quietly encourages his friendship with Jo and Cynn because she knows they’re not interested in men.

As always, I love reading everything I can about the MarcyVerse . However, these parts trigger my naturally suspicious nature...

Hmm...

Also, Socorro's not a backwater! Sure it might be dry...and hot...and dusty...but it's a wonderful world where...

Okay fine, it's a backwater.

18 minutes ago, Absol197 said:

As always, I love reading everything I can about the MarcyVerse . However, these parts trigger my naturally suspicious nature...

Hmm...

Also, Socorro's not a backwater! Sure it might be dry...and hot...and dusty...but it's a wonderful world where...

Okay fine, it's a backwater.

Well, the Cinematic Universe is built slowly, and many things are kept intentionally vague so we can detail them later on without using clumsy retcons. We'd visited Scoundrel's Luck and the Krayt Farm many times without really saying where it was. I fell in love with Socorro when I read the old WEG sourcebook, and so many things in it fit the MarcyVerse seamlessly.

I see MV Han as a guy who is trying his best to settle down, but he feels he has one big adventure left in him. He's torn between the stable life he has now, and the yearning for one last chance to play at being Big D*mn Heroes. It's actually a tough choice for his young friends, because they want to indulge him and let him be awesome one last time, but they don't want to take him away from his wife and kids either, or get him killed in some crazy escapade.

12 minutes ago, Maelora said:

Well, the Cinematic Universe is built slowly, and many things are kept intentionally vague so we can detail them later on without using clumsy retcons. We'd visited Scoundrel's Luck and the Krayt Farm many times without really saying where it was. I fell in love with Socorro when I read the old WEG sourcebook, and so many things in it fit the MarcyVerse seamlessly.

I see MV Han as a guy who is trying his best to settle down, but he feels he has one big adventure left in him. He's torn between the stable life he has now, and the yearning for one last chance to play at being Big D*mn Heroes. It's actually a tough choice for his young friends, because they want to indulge him and let him be awesome one last time, but they don't want to take him away from his wife and kids either, or get him killed in some crazy escapade.

I feel for the guy! Leaving your family for a giant adventure is tough! And I feel in love with Socorro from the beginning, too! Reading the WEG book only solidified my opinion .

There are huge - and I mean HUGE - gaps in my EU knowledge, so while I'd heard of it, I didn't really know much about it 'til you mentioned it.

The WEG books really were of a high quality, stirring the imagination with just enough information to build on. I love to tweak and shape things to meet my own specifications, so I love books like that one.

I thought our version of Han was something other groups could do, something that would be fun to GM or play alongside. Any kind of hero or famous name from a previous generation, someone who the younger people might look up to. It would obviously be great fun to adventure with someone like that (and the Krayt Fang adventures are among the lighter ones to be found in the MarcyVerse) but equally horrible to tell their next of kin that they won't be coming home

16 hours ago, Maelora said:

Kyla's posts are absolutely worth reading...

... although that pink-on-black formatting does melt my eyes. I usually copy/paste into a plain text email so I can read her, 'cause it's definitely worth it.

I'm not gonna disrespect the eccentricities of others as I have plenty of my own.

It's not a question of disrespect. It's a question of disinterest. I'm fine with personal eccentricities. I'm a bit of an odd duck, myself. But, when our eccentricities result in "make work" for others, it's not unreasonable to expect many of those others to shrug and take a pass. Some might take intentionally difficult to read formatting as a bit disrespectful to potential readers! It's a question of "how many people do I want to connect with?" That is, of course, a personal choice. To each their own.

On 10/7/2017 at 9:59 PM, Vondy said:

Some might take intentionally difficult to read formatting as a bit disrespectful to potential readers!

This is a fallacy. It implies intent, which is impossible to determine. The statement implies that A) the motivation for the adoption of the color was externally biased (meaning I chose it while thinking of others reactions to it) and B) When it became apparent the formatting was an issue I opted to ignore people and continue on. A is observed false by the fact that I have been writing in pink since this forum was forced with a grey background, and I did so because of my love for the color. B is observed as false in that the forum format of pink on black was derived in a thread in this very community by other people, and through their suggestions and instruction to me on how to code it into my forum posts - this was the communities suggestion back to me in order to have the pink color, not my own device. This shows interaction with others, and meeting a compromise, not disrespect to their opinions.

As for the question of "how many people do I want to connect with" - I find that personally hurtful. I come here to be part of a community, and have given a lot of personal time to be part of that community, as much as you or anyone else here (except maybe the Pirate .... I don't know if he actually does anything except sail the high seas of the forum waiting to remove the unwary of their conjectural plunder with his spoilers...). I don't come here to listen to myself, or to be precocious, I come here to take part in something with all of you. Up until this point it was gentle ribbing akin to the like my friends and I play on each other, and so even the dissent added something to the narrative, but I see it has turned to rot.

So, I guess the pink is dead.

Noooo!!

I liked the pink...

Bring back the Pink!!!

#BringbackthePink!

EDIT: Honestly, I think it would be even easier to read without the background, so maybe we could try that?

If I recall, the pink with no background worked okay for one of the themes but was far worse with the other.

3 hours ago, Kyla said:

This is a fallacy. It implies intent, which is impossible to determine. The statement implies that A) the motivation for the adoption of the color was externally biased (meaning I chose it while thinking of others reactions to it) and B) When it became apparent the formatting was an issue I opted to ignore people and continue on. A is observed false by the fact that I have been writing in pink since this forum was forced with a grey background, and I did so because of my love for the color. B is observed as false in that the forum format of pink on black was derived in a thread in this very community by other people, and through their suggestions and instruction to me on how to code it into my forum posts - this was the communities suggestion back to me in order to have the pink color, not my own device. This shows interaction with others, and meeting a compromise, not disrespect to their opinions.

As for the question of "how many people do I want to connect with" - I find that personally hurtful. I come here to be part of a community, and have given a lot of personal time to be part of that community, as much as you or anyone else here (except maybe the Pirate .... I don't know if he actually does anything except sail the high seas of the forum waiting to remove the unwary of their conjectural plunder with his spoilers...). I don't come here to listen to myself, or to be precocious, I come here to take part in something with all of you. Up until this point it was gentle ribbing akin to the like my friends and I play on each other, and so even the dissent added something to the narrative, but I see it has turned to rot.

So, I guess the pink is dead.

I agree with Tramp Graphics and Absol197! The pink was fine

That was the first post of Kyla's I have been able to read in a very long time. YMMV

With regards to the text formatting, I, too had a difficult time reading it while the chosen black background with pink characters was on. It did force me to perform another action just to enjoy the read, that being at the very least selecting said text to make it more legible. It reminds me of myself in my younger days when I just strutted onto the Decipher internet forum for Star Wars CCG as "Muppet Cavalry" (nickname I earned in said card game). I started to use Yoda-Speak in Each. And. Every. Post. People got tired real quick, cause they had to "translate" from the hacked grammar into normal sentences. I soon left that alias behind, as I wanted to be a part of that community too, not an outcast.

As for Kyla's answer to my post and staying a bit on topic:

Quote

This is where establishing the "box" is important - what is the named character there for? Rarely should a named character come directly after the PCs - much like PCs, NPC's have the same motivations. They're going to follow up leads that are specifically important to them. If the PCs steal Vader's TIE fighter and send a personalized insult to him, Vader still wouldn't waste his time tracking them down personally. Vader's motivated at this point by finding Luke Skywalker and locating the hidden Rebel Base on Hoth, if it isn't directly pertaining to one of these things, he doesn't care. He can get another starship, and send the whole of the ISB and Inquisitorial forces after a ship thief - he's operating under different motivations.

If you do have named PCs appear, you need to define exactly what they are there to accomplish in the story - do they deliver a plot hint? Do they give exposition on something else going on the universe that provides foreshadowing/timing information/narrative device? Do they have a McGuffin that is needed for the rest of the adventure/campaign/story to move forward? Once you establish what they are doing for the story, then frame the rest of the situation in the guise of that, to prevent the scene from derailing. Say you have Han Solo meet the PCs to secure some cargo for the Rebellion using the Falcon. Your PCs might get the bright idea to kill Han and/or steal the Falcon. While they might get the bright idea of taking on Han and Chewie, and even believing that they could do it, they might think twice when they find out that in addition to the dynamic duo there's a whole squad of Rebel soldiers alongside who've arrived to help load and transport the cargo. As a precaution, they've secretly taken over the entire spaceport to ensure "no Imperial entanglements" and so have the place filled with informants, spies and special forces. The importance of the cargo that would warrant Han's presence personally would be enough to warrant the additional security, and therefore it isn't a stretch. Once the cargo is transferred, they leave, if things so south, then the soldiers and Han fall back to the Falcon and they retreat. If the PCs get a lucky shot and drop Han, the soldiers drag him on the Falcon and take off. Minimize the risks and make sure there is a box, a scene that must occur and then poof!

Thanks. Enlightening. Probably more for other GMs out there, as I said I was always fortunate to have players who were never interested in derailing a campaign. But enlightening nonetheless. A couple of GMs and players I know might do well to take your ideas and suggestions to heart (such as Vader not being interested in personally hunting down a culprit who stole his, ultimately replacable, Custom TIE).

This subject is one on which I'm torn. I personally value adherence to canon in a Star Wars story. But I do believe that there are little ways in which you can interact with movie characters. Note that I said 'little', and that's basically what i mean: if I, as a player, might get the equivalent of a bit part or walk-on. A suitable reward for a well-played character and campaign for me would be something like tea with Leia or Mon Mothma.

Sorry, I didn't intend to derail the thread ....

Thanks to all the pink supporters out there, but just because I love it so, doesn't mean that I should do it (something something about modern scientific ethics and dinosaurs) ...

AS for the topic in question, I don't inject main characters into all, or even some, sessions. The characters need to be there for a reason, and if there's no reason, the character shouldn't be there. Mindless Philosopher is right, there are only a few ways that the PCs can interact with the movie characters, and so they should be a "there and gone" kind of thing. You should never "find a reason" to include them, let the story and campaign dictate that. When you do so, you find your players feel personally responsible for their inclusion, and tend to look at them as a reward, not an opportunity to abuse. Even when you do include them, make sure to know what their inclusion is for, why it has come about, and keep them on that track. When their job is done, make sure they are too. They also don't get to be the heroes by doing stupid things, but stacking odds in their favor. Even when things go wrong, they still have luck and destiny on their side, and so breaks tend to go in their favor. Plot armor protects them so long as they are serving the plot, and that means things like "narrow escapes" when they are no longer needed in your story. Make things heart-pounding, fast-paced, and above all story serving and you should do fine.

Finally, definitely don't try this form of plot device unless you are prepared to do extra work ... there is always an NPC that can fill the same role as one of the Canon characters, and if you don't feel having Luke there truly adds to the story you're trying to tell, there is always a clone wars padawan that may have survived Order 66 to fill his place. Another smuggler to make the run for Han, and another charismatic rebel leader that could stand in for Leia. On the flip side, Inquisitors are always replacements for Vader, or some other Darkside corrupted force user. Nothing is necessary, so make sure that when you include them you put the effort into it to match the importance of their appearance.

12 minutes ago, Kyla said:

Sorry, I didn't intend to derail the thread ....

Thanks to all the pink supporters out there, but just because I love it so, doesn't mean that I should do it (something something about modern scientific ethics and dinosaurs) ...

There;s an old saying: "You can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people all of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time." Also, don't let one or two people ruing things for you. IF it were a majority of the forum complaining about the pink, that would be one thing, but, if most of the people don't have a problem, don't sweat the nay-sayers. Do what you want.