Hi, I am a fairly new GM, and a HUGE Star Wars nerd. I have seen every Movie, every show, have read many books about star wars, and have run a few One-shot sessions of EotE and AoR. My most recent endeavor was a pathfinder campaign I game mastered over the summer, which was Incredibly fun (According to me, and my players). The thing is, I want to start a long lasting star wars Campaign, but as you may have noticed, the previous sessions I have done for this game were only one shots. I needed to think of something that would get my players deeply invested, something that would make their characters feel important. That's when It hit me, combine the freedom of EotE with the Duty system and military feel of AoR. This is what birthed my Idea for a Galactic Conquest series.

The Idea would be similar to the Empire at War expansion: Forces of Corruption, have the PCs start their own faction, and build it from the ground up . I possess: Lead by Example (Contains Mass combat rules), Desperate Allies (Base Building), EotE (Core Book), AoR (Core Book), FaD (Core Book).

What I need is:

• Ways the PC's could acquire vast amounts of credits to fund the Faction.
• Ways the PC's could acquire soldiers/Units (Rather than Just hire them)
• Ways the PC's could gain facilities (Hangers, Secret bases, Factories, Ect.)
• Ways to track the Factions' influence and presence in the galaxy
• Ways that the new faction could considerably damage other factions (Empire, Rebellion, Hutts, ect.) and loosen their control of the galaxy
• Finally, If you are aware of any other books which could help me, please refer me to them.

As I mentioned, I am a fairly new GM, and this is a big task for someone with as little experience as myself, This is why I will take all the advice I can get. Thank You.

I roundtable a game with 2 other storytellers/players and 2 regular players in which we are doing exactly that. Former Separatists who went into hiding and are trying to rebuild the resistance in the outer rim. Eventually they will tie into the greater Rebellion, but they may stay independent. Anyhoo,

Credits, in my opinion, are not difficult to come by, even in large amounts. There are many ways to gather credits in substantial amounts; trading, salvaging, high stakes gambling, shipjacking, and even easier if your party includes a force user as ours does.

Not really a workaround there. Get credits, hire men. Or build battle droids if you are former Separatists.

Steal them, build them, Take them over

As the storyteller you are introducing a completely new element into the game with that one. I would consult other games and see how they did it. There was a system for that in Star Wars Saga edition Galaxy at War I think, but it has been a while.

Not to be a jerk, but I feel this question would be the missions your group would be undertaking.

As a last point, the costs of things in the RAW can be really wonky. Base Building, Homesteads, Starting a Business, I basically add a 0 to all the costs. Same for ordinance on the personal and ship scale. There is just a lot of common sense stuff that is off in my opinion. Finally, this game is not built for what you are trying to do. I prefer this to Saga in many respects, but this is not one of them. You will have your work cut out for you if you want to try and make this work.

One way for the PCs to acquire soldiers and facilities could be for them to take on obligations to planet and organisations they control.

An example could be that the PCs control Corellia and wants to take over Duro. By taking on the obligation "Weak defence at Corellia" the PCs gain a attack fleet. The the obligation can be triggered by an imperial fleet approaching Corellia. The PCs would then have to either defend Corellia or lose Corellia. This can be scaled, at the start of the campaign it could be recruiting freedom fighters in a village.

Faclities could be gained in a similar way, except the obligation would be to supply the facility with material or personnel. The obligation could also be a debt. E.g borrow money from a trade consortium.

Yea credits don't seem all that hard to come by if you're willing to get your hands dirty. As for the military side, you should give a regular pay, an amount that you deem worthy. I give my players amounts based on their ranks. They get extra cash from salvage, and the ships they sell off. They've acquired a few ships through means that are traditionally not legal, and then sold them off.

A base is easy to come by. There are countless wrecks through out the galaxy, they could take one over and convert it. They could set one up on a lightly populated world in the Outer Rim or even Wild Space. There are base building rules in a few of the books, lead by example I think has some. Or they can find an abandoned station somewhere and use that.

As the faction grows in influence, soldiers and people will come. Trick is how to track that. You could track it like AoR tracks Duty, and contribution. Come up with your own name for it, and give points to it as your players progress.

As for books, I'd start with Strongholds of the Resistance, and some other location based sourcebooks for EoE, and FoD, if there are any for FoD.

On 9/1/2017 at 9:30 PM, JamesDeath said:

Ways the PC's could acquire vast amounts of credits to fund the Faction.

This is pretty straightforward, depending on how criminally flexible they are. If any of the PC's have built a trade related character, this would be a great way for them to shine, and use their talents to improve the monetary flow.

Ways for them to establish flows of income off the top of my head:

• Investing in legal interprises and stock markets of various planets.
• Establishing legal businesses for things like resource acquisition or manufactoring
• PC's that are crafters (Cybernetic Doctor, Droid Tech, etc) could sell their constructions for profit
• Archaeological findings of the party could be sold for nice profit, etc.

If they are setting up a full fledged Galactic Faction, then they are definitely going to need to invest. They need a large, steady flow of income to finance their endeavors, and that's something that's only interesting once as a GM. I would have little story arcs for a handful of "investment ventures" for the party. 3-4 sessions worth of adventures and setting up of sources of income. I'd look to SWTOR the MMO for inspiration here. Each new planet had their own individual storyline, plus there were events from the meta-plot that threaded between planets. You could have one planet that is all about getting the ruling noble family on the side of the PC's, but first you have to get a particular member of the family into power. Doesn't matter which one, as their are several vying for the lead position, but depending on which one they back, it can significantly color how their Faction will be represented. Do they back the warmongering child who has a vast military manufacturing system in place, but is hated by the populace, and other planets? Or do they back the nicer child who can provide them with increased income, as he can galvanize the planet's infrastructure to streamline it more for the PC's favor? Another planet, they perhaps have to liberate the local population from another group that has subjugated them, as the planet is rich in resources. Doing so would give them a local population pre-disposed to helping the PC's, and they could perhaps start mining the resources, etc.

Stuff like that is what I would suggest.

On 9/1/2017 at 9:30 PM, JamesDeath said:

Ways the PC's could acquire soldiers/Units (Rather than Just hire them)

Basically same as the above point, but focused on personnel. You could make it more abstract, by having them recruit some group that is willing to provide troops on a regular basis, but they have to be trained. So as the campaign progresses, and their Faction grows in power, you can say "another shipment of troops arrives at your base, ready for deployment." A mini-story arc for this is ideal, just like the above stuff.

On 9/1/2017 at 9:30 PM, JamesDeath said:

Ways the PC's could gain facilities (Hangers, Secret bases, Factories, Ect.)

More of the same really, though this one could be a bit easier, if the party just blasts off into the deep unknown and looks for various places off the beaten path.

I'd have the pilot PC take front stage on this, so they could shine, and let them make Astrogation checks to determine likely areas of interest for what they are looking for. "Hmm, this system here, is a quadruple star system. The likelihood of it having any planets that support life is minimal, given the tidal forces making an accretion disk near impossible. However, their might be some good planetoids and asteroids we could hollow out and make into a secret base." You could then have them run into all kinds of "weird ****" out in space. Lost cap ships adrift from an ancient battle (floating dungeon crawl for you to play with). Massive astronomical event that they have to navigate and survive (nebula pulses or solar flares, etc). A pirate group that had the same bright idea they did, and already set up a base here, and now they have to fight to survive and/or take over the pirate base once they empty it of occupants. Great chance for some space combat and space related skill checks, to make that Pilot focused character feel they got their money's worth in XP expenditures.

On 9/1/2017 at 9:30 PM, JamesDeath said:

Ways to track the Factions' influence and presence in the galaxy

I would take a page from the Duty system on this really, just reskin it as Notoriety, or Renown, or something like that. Have them earn points towards the 100 point total, and each time they "level up", it increases the likelihood of them being known by various factions in the galaxy. Rank 0-1 would be things like "Who are you again? Is that some kind of extreme sports club?" 2-3 would be like "I think I've heard of you guys, don't you like, run some kind of thing out on the Rim or something?" 4+ would be "Hey! It's the *Insert Name of Group* guys! " etc etc. And build from that. It could factor into if their reputation precedes them at a new acquisition location, or if they end up running into trouble. "We've heard of you jerks! You're the group that's going around all over the Outer Rim, gobbling up small settlements that can't support themselves, and lashing them to your yoke for power!" or the positive equivalent of that, if they are making a good oriented faction.

I would use this score to determine if there will be any positive/negative modifiers to dice pools to interact with various groups.

On 9/1/2017 at 9:30 PM, JamesDeath said:

Ways that the new faction could considerably damage other factions (Empire, Rebellion, Hutts, ect.) and loosen their control of the galaxy

These would be significant story arcs in my opinion. I would try and focus on either the planetary, or system level for these types of damaging campaigns. Depending on the method, this could either be a large scale military action, or a drawn out social/political adventure, with a bit of combat tossed in there.

I would establish certain "choke points" of influence for whatever group is being targeted. If it's a military type approach, describe the forces that they know of, and have several facilities, or ships that are the backbone of their influence in the area. If they can remove these factors, it will weaken the grip of the faction in the area.

If they are going for a more political/economic method of destroying the other group, have similar ideas, but focused on key political figures, and corporation/infrastructure that can be messed with. For example, they could set in motion a series of events to make a local Hutt leader lose face and prestige in the Cartel, thus making him seem unfit to control such a large area. Or perhaps they fake certain profit figures, making the "lucrative" market not seem worth their time, thus forcing them to pull out. Stuff like that.

The best answers to these questions will come from your players, and hopefully through the lenses of their characters. Thats the best way to keep it from feeling like a railroad.

If you're not already familiar, I'd highly suggest going over to BeggingForXP.com and taking a look at the "Session 0" post (which is what I linked). He details a great method for both creating layered detail in a campaign and also increasing PC involvement and investment.

Several people have provided some great ideas. My advice would be to take it a little bit at a time; don't be afraid to wrap up a story arc and advance the timeline in the next session. Trying to cover all of your bases at once is going to require too much bandwidth - break it into manageable chunks and it will be better for both you and your players.

The easiest is the money if you have a trader entrepreneur quartermaster pc in the group. With enough xp in their respective tree they can make a fortune trading using the rules outlined in the crb under galactic economy... using the rarity modifier a small investment with the right talents can quickly turn into 1/2 a million or more per session. Our quartermaster took a beat up xwing and sold it and used the proceeds and a hwk290 (75 encumberance) to turn it into something like 1.5 million credits in one trip... bought an interceptor iv (10 000 encumberance) and had it decked out with hanger bay and 4 modular fighters and is now ready to do the return trip with a cargo hold full of 300 000 worth of product which he will be able to sell for probably close to 1.5 million again... this time almost pure profit. (He is paying quite a bit on taxes to stay legit)

If the trader...or ... or... has more than one of those trees it's even better.

Talents to keep in mind are master merchant, know somebody, wheel and deal, and sound investments.

Buy or sell for 25% more or less, reduce the rarity of a legal item you are buying once per rank, sell for 10% more per rank and gain 100 credits per rank... Combined with the rarity modifier they could be buying for 25% less then selling for 500% (or better) more.

It is a little broken but that is also up to the gm... there are pirates and such that would be more than happy to lighten the load of any trader.

The only thing I'd mention from this campaign is combat becomes silly in the personal scale. Why would a faction leader ever delibertly engage themselves in combat? So career and specs become more meaningless... Or feel arbitrarily roped in.

The only exception is maybe the leader style specs and jedi. Everything else would be the generals or political leaders just issuing orders or decisions.

On 9/7/2017 at 7:20 AM, TheShard said:

The only thing I'd mention from this campaign is combat becomes silly in the personal scale. Why would a faction leader ever delibertly engage themselves in combat? So career and specs become more meaningless... Or feel arbitrarily roped in.

The only exception is maybe the leader style specs and jedi. Everything else would be the generals or political leaders just issuing orders or decisions.

I would agree, except we have General Solo, General (and Princess and sole surviving royalty of a dead planet) Leia, General Calrissian, and...whatever rank Luke had, directly going on adventures in Return of the Jedi. The currently ruling Queen of a planet is running around with a blaster shooting people, etc. So there is precedent in Star Wars for the heads of the organization to get directly involved.

Sure, it makes about as much sense as the entire command staff of the Enterprise going on an away mission to a hostile planet, but it's a story and it's meant to be adventurous, so I personally just ignore the "real world" logic of this when it comes to things like that. PC's want to do things directly, which means, regardless of their station, they want to get into the thick of things.

Stars without Number have faction Rules.

Saga the force unleashed campaign guide has faction Rules.

Those are the 2 I know of.