characters are being Rebels to rebels

By Samuel Richard, in Star Wars: Age of Rebellion RPG

So I just started a new campaign with a group and they created characters that were as distanced from the rebellion as possible (they said no to edge of the empire). currently they are trying to steal H-wing prototypes from some imperials because they are getting paid with one the h-wings. I was planning on them to hyper jump to a planetary base on Ord Mantel to rap up the mission. After that, I was wondering how do I bring them into the alliance. I had a basic idea of how to do it and it will involve getting involved on missions on Ord Mantel but I might need suggestions.

Thank you

21 hours ago, Samuel Richard said:

So I just started a new campaign with a group and they created characters that were as distanced from the rebellion as possible (they said no to edge of the empire). currently they are trying to steal H-wing prototypes from some imperials because they are getting paid with one the h-wings. I was planning on them to hyper jump to a planetary base on Ord Mantel to rap up the mission. After that, I was wondering how do I bring them into the alliance. I had a basic idea of how to do it and it will involve getting involved on missions on Ord Mantel but I might need suggestions.

Thank you

If they don't want to be part of the alliance, they could always go Saw Guerrera's route. Too extreme for the Alliance, but still anti-Empire.

While you may not see it very much in the original trilogy, the Rebel Alliance isn't necessarily one giant harmonious group.

From Rogue One we've got Saw Guerrar's splinter faction, considered much too extreme by the mainstream Alliance. From Legends, you've got Corellian Senator Garm Bel Ibis and his group, who split off after the death of Bail Organa due to major trust issues/paranoia that Ibis had with Mon Mothma. And as Rogue One showed, there's a number of other leadership voices apart from Mon Mothma, and any one of them could have decided that Mothma's approach is doomed to failure and decide to go it on their own using different methods. So it's quite possible for the PCs to be operating as part of one of those splinter factions. And perhaps one of those factions feels that how they handled things in the earlier days (ala Season One of Rebels) is the best approach, keeping things loose and fluid rather than being part of a large militia.

There's also bound to be countless local cells that have little to no contact with or support from the larger Rebellion, and instead are doing their own thing to resist the Empire.

You might be able to take some inspiration from The Expanse, either the TV show, or the book series. I recommend the books because, well they are really good, but because they also flesh out the Belters a lot more. In case you don't know:

The Belters is a term for the loose collection of human habitations in, or beyond the Asteroid Belt of Sol. Asteroid Belt...Belters...you get the idea. :D Due to the lack of large quantities of land for them to live on, the Belters are a very loose conglomeration of people living on tiny asteroids they've hollowed out, domed cities on a couple moons around the gas giants, and then a lot of people who pretty much consider their ship their home. They are as different from each other as you can imagine, but they all have a few things in common. Their hatred/mistrust of The Inners (people from the inner planets, Earth/Luna/Mars), a shared hardship of their existence where they are all one hull breach away from instant death, and a focused existence about keeping the essential components of life (air, water, food, recycling systems) working, or they all die.

Early on in the series, they are a very loose collection of relatively independent groups, similar language and customs and culture, but vastly different ideology on how to deal with their shared antagonist. Some were of the opinion of "only good Inner is a spaced Inner", while others were...slightly less lethal on the subject. While others tried to push for cohabitation. Many of them acted like terrorist cells, and they pretty much were to be honest. But to their eyes, they were the Glorious Revolution, fighting the good fight. "Gonna straight dust up 'dem Earters yah? Maykum fear de madre de morte, you sevah yeah?"

It's a fascinating culture in that world, and one I can easily see evolving eventually, with the mixed up languages forming a new one, etc. So, yeah, they could easily have their own little group, who are loosely aligned with the Rebellion, but don't really interact with them, and do their own thing.

Though you might want to actually ask your players if they want to be part of the Rebellion? From your OP, it doesn't sound like that's actually something they want to do? I don't know, maybe I'm misreading it. If they do want to join up, ask them in what capacity do they want to actually participate in the Rebellion, and then go from there.

There's also the real possibility that not every Rebel group knows what every other Rebel group is up to. My group of EotE rogues recently scored a great deal on a cargo haul (plus a few more things), but they had to store half the cargo and return for a second run. A group of Rebels (operating undercover; they did not advertise themselves as Rebels) offered to buy-in and take some of the cargo, but the PCs said no. The Rebels just walked away quietly...and then stole the stored goods out from under the PCs' noses while they were out on the first run. While my PCs were not themselves Rebels, the same could have happened just as easily between two cells of Rebels.

Maybe some background on their characters might help?

I've toyed with the idea of a group that fights the imps while ripping off the rebellion. Kind of edge meets rebellion where gaining the rebellions trust fighting while planing a big score against a wealthy noble who supports the rebs.

1 hour ago, TEK said:

I've toyed with the idea of a group that fights the imps while ripping off the rebellion. Kind of edge meets rebellion where gaining the rebellions trust fighting while planing a big score against a wealthy noble who supports the rebs.

Zann Consortium hates the Empire, but it doesn't much care for the Rebels either. Most former Separatists feel the same way.

Thank you all for your great advice, I think their going to choose rebel route because of some players having to leave and the ones replacing them are part of the alliance but thanks again.

I recently started a game with players that I didn't know. They voted to play Age of Rebellion, then promptly made 3 out of the 4 characters barely or not really rebels at all. I limped this along for a while, but they were trying to play for cr rather than to fight the Empire, so several sessions in after trying several things to get them more into the Rebellion side of things I just old them that we may need to just start a new game. We talked it over for a while, and two of the players decided to make new characters that were aligned firmly with the rebellion, and also aligned with the remaining original (Rebel) character through background tie-ins. I told the guys to make the new characters at the same xp total as their old characters, and was in general very impressed by their solution.

Going forward if I get players wanting to play AoR then I will make those connections and make sure that no one is just looking to play an Edge character with the Rebels counting on them and bankrolling their activities.

5 hours ago, Archlyte said:

I recently started a game with players that I didn't know. They voted to play Age of Rebellion, then promptly made 3 out of the 4 characters barely or not really rebels at all. I limped this along for a while, but they were trying to play for cr rather than to fight the Empire, so several sessions in after trying several things to get them more into the Rebellion side of things I just old them that we may need to just start a new game. We talked it over for a while, and two of the players decided to make new characters that were aligned firmly with the rebellion, and also aligned with the remaining original (Rebel) character through background tie-ins. I told the guys to make the new characters at the same xp total as their old characters, and was in general very impressed by their solution.

Going forward if I get players wanting to play AoR then I will make those connections and make sure that no one is just looking to play an Edge character with the Rebels counting on them and bankrolling their activities.

You were smart to talk to your players. I likely would have just asked them if they wanted to break away from the rebellion and turn the game in to an EotE game. You did well.

On 9/15/2017 at 0:15 AM, Archlyte said:

I recently started a game with players that I didn't know. They voted to play Age of Rebellion, then promptly made 3 out of the 4 characters barely or not really rebels at all. I limped this along for a while, but they were trying to play for cr rather than to fight the Empire, so several sessions in after trying several things to get them more into the Rebellion side of things I just old them that we may need to just start a new game. We talked it over for a while, and two of the players decided to make new characters that were aligned firmly with the rebellion, and also aligned with the remaining original (Rebel) character through background tie-ins. I told the guys to make the new characters at the same xp total as their old characters, and was in general very impressed by their solution.

Going forward if I get players wanting to play AoR then I will make those connections and make sure that no one is just looking to play an Edge character with the Rebels counting on them and bankrolling their activities.

I know this is a bit of a necro, and I was ultimately curious as to how you guys would have approached my primary AoR character. I made a Quartermaster/ Analyst Diplomat with the Duty of Resources Acquisition I was CONSTANTLY trying to make money and set up trade deals or straight out steal things for the alliance. My character WOULD pocket quite a few things but the thought process was always I needed money to make money to acquire more stuff for the alliance like half my profits would go to the alliance while the other half was put into my groups current operations, I had a very real habit of having my group never ask for requisitions from the alliance if they needed something that wasn't a ship I figured we could probably get it ourselves and not burden the Rebellion with it (stole a ship from the Empire a couple times as well.... so not always did we need a ship either.) I think a couple times they would go over my head, but that was only because the Spy or the Commander of my group was playing something close to the chest and didn't want me accidentally blabbering something or having it get tortured out of me if I got caught while I was stealing or if a deal went sideways and I was turned in, but any way the idea for the character was all about getting stuff for the group to use and getting more assets for the Rebellion to use for other groups that were less self sufficient.

On ‎11‎/‎15‎/‎2017 at 3:24 PM, tunewalker said:

I know this is a bit of a necro, and I was ultimately curious as to how you guys would have approached my primary AoR character. I made a Quartermaster/ Analyst Diplomat with the Duty of Resources Acquisition I was CONSTANTLY trying to make money and set up trade deals or straight out steal things for the alliance. My character WOULD pocket quite a few things but the thought process was always I needed money to make money to acquire more stuff for the alliance like half my profits would go to the alliance while the other half was put into my groups current operations, I had a very real habit of having my group never ask for requisitions from the alliance if they needed something that wasn't a ship I figured we could probably get it ourselves and not burden the Rebellion with it (stole a ship from the Empire a couple times as well.... so not always did we need a ship either.) I think a couple times they would go over my head, but that was only because the Spy or the Commander of my group was playing something close to the chest and didn't want me accidentally blabbering something or having it get tortured out of me if I got caught while I was stealing or if a deal went sideways and I was turned in, but any way the idea for the character was all about getting stuff for the group to use and getting more assets for the Rebellion to use for other groups that were less self sufficient.

I think that it seems like you enjoyed the money aspect while not losing sight of your overall goal and also representing a realistic situation.