So, after having read the Aftermath Trilogy by Chuck Wendig, I am absolutely dying to DM a game set just after the battle of Jakku, with Luke Skywalker rebuilding the Jedi Order. There are just sooo many interesting plot hooks set up in that trilogy (particularly in the 3rd book) that are begging to show up in an RPG.

We have absolutely no clue what Luke has been up to since Shattered Empire (a comic set immediately after Return of the Jedi), so there's plenty of room to explore what he's been doing. There's infighting among the various crime syndicates in the Outer Rim, with the Hutts, Black Sun, the Red Keys, and plenty of other criminal organizations vying for power and trying to grow in strength before the New Republic has the power and authority to wipe them out. There is a roaming nation of pirates, banded together and building a fleet around a stolen Star Destroyer. There is constant conflict dating back to the days of the Republic between various worlds with rivalries as old as time. There are worlds who are trying to establish their own independent governments now that the Empire has collapsed, refusing to join up with the New Republic. There are Imperial holdouts across the galaxy, tightening their grip on the planets they control, and often fighting with other Imperial holdouts for superiority. And there is a Dark Side-driven organization, known as the Acolytes of the Beyond, gathering Sith artifacts and claiming to get their commands in dreams from the spirits of ancient Sith.

With all of these details, I feel like this would be the absolute best setting for me to begin a new campaign in. Sadly, I simply don't have enough players able to take part in a second game, and I don't want to end the current campaign for my own selfish desire to start a new game in a new setting.

So my question to you guys, has this ever happened to you? You found a setting or came up with an idea that you'd absolutely love to DM, but sadly were unable to? If so, share your stories! I'd love to see more ideas for campaigns I may never get to run!

if you are looking for more players I would love to sign up for a spot. weekends I can meet in person at FFG or I'm available over voice client for gaming.

1 hour ago, WontedKitsune said:

if you are looking for more players I would love to sign up for a spot. weekends I can meet in person at FFG or I'm available over voice client for gaming.

Sadly I'm only able to do local games at the moment, otherwise I'd love to invite you to join. I was mostly making this post to share the really cool setting more than to look for players.

A well thought-out campaign idea is a good thing. I would advise you to make notes as you think of more things for this future game while still keeping up interest and running the other game.

On 10/24/2017 at 4:17 PM, Underachiever599 said:

So my question to you guys, has this ever happened to you? You found a setting or came up with an idea that you'd absolutely love to DM, but sadly were unable to? If so, share your stories! I'd love to see more ideas for campaigns I may never get to run!

Well, I can't really limit this answer to Star Wars. But a series of storylines that I never got to run:

Werewolf: The Apocalypse. The pack operated in an area that had a Slumbering spirit, tied down by mystic rites. The ties were fading, as there were no more ritemasters in the area that new the specific ritual to re-apply the binding, and if the spirit woke up, that entire portion of the country would pretty much just be dead, either physically or spiritually.

Abberant: The Eruption event that caused Supers was global, and caused massive problems, including having an entire city come under the rule of a powerful Super, who ruled with an Iron Fist. If you've ever played the first inFamous video game, or seen Escape From New York, you have a basic idea of the setting. The PC's would be part of the first batch of Supers used for law enforcement, and they would basically just be air dropped into the city and said "Try and fix the problem, you're on your own." I'd then have the PC's try and reclaim the city, section by section, fighting Lieutenants along the way and uncovering the plot as they do.

I think there are some others, in fact I know there are, but I can't remember them atm.

Just my personal opinion, but if I were you, I would stop worrying about canon as of session 1. Assuming your characters are his students, they already know that Kylo is going to butcher them all in about 30 years, presuming they are still kicking around by that point. I can only imagine what kind of a damper knowledge of the inevitable might put on a group of players. PCs in this scenario would fill in the spots of Legends characters like Kyle Katarn, Corran Horn, and Kyp Duron: their actions carry galkaxy-shifting, warlord-killing, planet-destroying consequences, and they can't possibly be expected to leave any kind of distant future canon intact when they're in a position of power like that; not without some serious railroading, either on your or their part.

Long story short, during session zero, tell them that you have absolutely no idea what kind of chaos they are going to wreak upon a galaxy far, far away, and that they shouldn't be too concerned with what the political landscape is going to look like in three decades when Hosnian Prime blows up & all the Jedi ared killed off, and that it's likely not to occur with a movie cast at the reigns in your game.

I have a several session long thing planning using the game The Division as a plot. Our heroes will eventually be dropped onto a planet, in my case Corfai (likely butchered spelling) where on an island a plague has broken out and hosed 90%+ of the population. In turn the survivors have divided themselves into 3 factions, each with a boss fight of some kind and dealing with the plague by our characters as well. This ties into my big story with the fact this plague isn't from our galaxy and has been dropped here intentionally by The Big Bad Guys. If memory serves I made this a 7 triumph threshold to create a cure (this was designed for a player with 3 or 4 int and 4 or 5 medicine). Each remaining success would make the following roll easier, each failure would make the next roll harder. Yes this had been play tested hence the 7 triumph threshold.

Side missions included: recruiting or defeating each faction; intent being one would be reasonably easy to recruit, the other two moderate to hard. Along side all of this I also have a random generation table (d100 based) for exploring the city. Sometimes there would be empty streets, sometimes civilians in need, sometimes two factions duking it out, sometimes randos on patrol. In the process of cleaning up the streets civilians could be recruited to gain advantage dice in doing some things on the island. Once the 7 triumphs were made and the other factions taken care of the party would receive the island as a 'reward' which would also give them a base of operations for taking back the systems they would eventually learn they were losing to The Big Bad Guys.

My party at the time my game was disband were around 500 XP and pretty well equipped for getting their job done. Had a reliable method of transportation, and adequate credits to keep themselves going. I'm working on getting a new group going and passing this off to a guy who prefers to GM.

S-seven triumphs? You meant successes, right?

No, triumphs. Based off my testing, it took around 30 rolls to accomplish this goal. Given one in theory can make as many rolls per session as one desires it makes for good drama. We can also take mass combat rules and apply them here too so as the doctor acquires more of a team, he/she would get additional boost dice and eventually can add additional yellow dice. Keep in mind my former medic was rolling 4 yellow and 1 green die PER roll for a medicine check. By no means was this designed to be a single session ordeal either. This of this as a season finale that lasts a minimum of two episodes or as Transformers Prime did it three or four.

My mission isn't for a rookie group, when this would have started the group I designed this for would have been sitting at around 600 - 800 XP, we played every other week and occasionally every week for waaaaaaaay longer than we should have per day.

2 minutes ago, ASCI Blue said:

No, triumphs. Based off my testing, it took around 30 rolls to accomplish this goal. Given one in theory can make as many rolls per session as one desires it makes for good drama. We can also take mass combat rules and apply them here too so as the doctor acquires more of a team, he/she would get additional boost dice and eventually can add additional yellow dice. Keep in mind my former medic was rolling 4 yellow and 1 green die PER roll for a medicine check. By no means was this designed to be a single session ordeal either. This of this as a season finale that lasts a minimum of two episodes or as Transformers Prime did it three or four.

My mission isn't for a rookie group, when this would have started the group I designed this for would have been sitting at around 600 - 800 XP, we played every other week and occasionally every week for waaaaaaaay longer than we should have per day.

...So that doesn't require a total of seven successes in a single roll. That's not nearly as insane as I was afraid it was.

I would like to caution you against this plan for a few reasons, although you ultimately know your group better than I do and better understand what works for you guys.

The first reason I think this is a bad idea, is because rolling over and over and over again to make a check just sounds BORING. That's before I know it boils down to my ability to get a 12 on my d12's a certain number of times, which makes every other possible roll on that dice literally useless. Again, you know far more about your own group than I ever will, but repetitive rolling is not my idea of good drama.

The second reason is that the only things more inconsistent and fickle than a d12, are the capricious and uncaring dice gods we loathe and worship so shamefully. At least a d20 will have a recognizable bias after a certain point; my d12 was always just fair enough to drive me to superstitious rage or joy when I used a greataxe in D&D. The same has proved true for the fancy specialty dice FFG uses. To quote myself, after rolling double blanks on their d12's twice in one session: God may be dead, but Satan is clearly alive and kicking.

What I would recommend instead is that you leave a couple incomplete attempts at synthesizing a cure around the island: perhaps one that almost worked, but failed to deal with an unforeseeable mutation in the virus that occurred recently after the original samples were taken, an incompletecure jealously guarded by one of the nuttier groups of survivors, and possibly the incomplete, partially deleted notes from the secret Imperial facility the virus was created in (and which it escaped from, of course). Combine or change those as you wish, but at the end, the group's doctor has pne **** of a check to make, depending largely on the facilities used, the number and quality of prototype cure notes/research they have acquired, and potentially how far along the doctor's own infection is.

It would tie the success of your party in investigating what happened on the island & interaction with the survivors quite strongly, it'll still allow for rerolks in the case of failure, and best of all, it'll allow for unforeseen consequences if the players roll a despair or two (has anyone seen I Am Legend?) - which your minimum triumphs for default result plan does not/might not.

Just my two cents on a good way to make the cure more directly tied to what the players are accomplishing in their exploration.

Say, OP, you aren't particularly opposed to running an online game, are you? It's occurred to me that this game of yours would be a marvelous opportunity for me to play that Gand Findsman character I've been siting on for so long. Due to technical difficulties in regards to internet availability out in the country, I won't quite be available until early January, but you didn't seem to think you would get a chance to run the game in the immediate future anyway.

23 minutes ago, Degenerate Mind said:

...So that doesn't require a total of seven successes in a single roll. That's not nearly as insane as I was afraid it was.

I would like to caution you against this plan for a few reasons, although you ultimately know your group better than I do and better understand what works for you guys.

The first reason I think this is a bad idea, is because rolling over and over and over again to make a check just sounds BORING. That's before I know it boils down to my ability to get a 12 on my d12's a certain number of times, which makes every other possible roll on that dice literally useless. Again, you know far more about your own group than I ever will, but repetitive rolling is not my idea of good drama.

The second reason is that the only things more inconsistent and fickle than a d12, are the capricious and uncaring dice gods we loathe and worship so shamefully. At least a d20 will have a recognizable bias after a certain point; my d12 was always just fair enough to drive me to superstitious rage or joy when I used a greataxe in D&D. The same has proved true for the fancy specialty dice FFG uses. To quote myself, after rolling double blanks on their d12's twice in one session: God may be dead, but Satan is clearly alive and kicking.

What I would recommend instead is that you leave a couple incomplete attempts at synthesizing a cure around the island: perhaps one that almost worked, but failed to deal with an unforeseeable mutation in the virus that occurred recently after the original samples were taken, an incompletecure jealously guarded by one of the nuttier groups of survivors, and possibly the incomplete, partially deleted notes from the secret Imperial facility the virus was created in (and which it escaped from, of course). Combine or change those as you wish, but at the end, the group's doctor has pne **** of a check to make, depending largely on the facilities used, the number and quality of prototype cure notes/research they have acquired, and potentially how far along the doctor's own infection is.

It would tie the success of your party in investigating what happened on the island & interaction with the survivors quite strongly, it'll still allow for rerolks in the case of failure, and best of all, it'll allow for unforeseen consequences if the players roll a despair or two (has anyone seen I Am Legend?) - which your minimum triumphs for default result plan does not/might not.

Just my two cents on a good way to make the cure more directly tied to what the players are accomplishing in their exploration.

The rolling can be done at any time. 7 triumphs is a hard limit to be reached. I found my notes: Our doctor in question had a die pool of 4Y 1G, this is vs a constant 4P. 20 Advantage (uncancelled) can be used to purchase 1 Triumph. 5 successes (uncancelled) can be used to buy one blue die. Failure cancels successes on a per roll basis, threat would cancel advantage on a per roll basis, failure and threat have no effect on the banked successes and advantages. This also gives the doctor time to do other things vs be a lab monkey for an entire session, my group was 7 players and we would play for over 10 hours per day. There is also the ability to upgrade the medical staff to roll 6 yellow dice vs a steady 4 dice. I also allowed PCs and think at one point I had accounted for a medical staff of X people would buy blue dice. I'm with you on rolling a ton isn't a good time, I also know this player was 'that guy' who would sit in a corner half aware of what was going on and only really play when directly addressed. I had seen him in another game doing the same thing and confirmed this is habitual behavior through a few other mutual friends. With another player more familiar with the system the thresholds may need to be modified.

The rolls that resulted in no success or advantage would be those rolls where something happened in the lab, sample destroyed, odd mutation, or the like. The group is only able to gain ground never lose it. I'd like to figure a mechanic way to set a limit to find a cure, I'm just not sure how to do it. This way there would be some urgency to doing certain things vs becoming murder hobos for the sake of gaining XP. As the game doesn't really have turns or rounds, making a claim of you can roll X times per Y hour(s) becomes a challenge. By doing this it would be FAR more interesting and be able to have bad things have an effect on the rolls too.

In the case of group infection, it would be possible just not likely because they have adequate equipment to not have to worry about it. The opening of the game is group of bad-mofos show up, kick out the local gangs, then establish a secure location with a decontamination room. Same idea for this, they arrive clean, plague is NOT airborne in low concentrations, therefor it would take more than just breathing it to catch it. If I had made it to the map stage I'd have had places of high concentration where one would need some form of respirator. Hopefully the crew would get their base reasonably quickly then can start on the rest. It plays better than I can type it, promise. Once I get a chance to run a group through it, I may go ahead and type it up then toss it somewhere for anyone who wants it.

@ASCI Blue Ah, the inanimate version of a "that guy." I fully understand the necessity of creating a ****-ton of dice rolling to keep him busy while everyone else pays attention to the plot. I actually had one of those types in the last D&D game I ran, and I think he may have been more unresponsive than yours was. He arrived to most every session for the better part of a semester late, and only because I called him to remind him of the sessions he was missing. I once asked the party to give me a round of perception checks after they started collectively rooting around in a bugbear lair. After everyone else had given me the results of their rolls, I stared at him in undisguisable contempt for about a minute until he noticed the sudden quiet in the room. I asked him to leave the game by the next session.

He even brought his girlfriend a couple times - not that I minded particularly, she was a bright girl, and I was convinced by her third sit-in that if I sat her down in his seat, not only would she have had a better grasp of what was going on in the plot, but in how the actual game worked.

In hindsight, I think I finally understand the mindset of guys that "steal" their buddies' girlfriends. I think I may actually regret not realizing that before now, and on not acting on my newfound understanding. He certainly wasn't paying any more attention to her when she was there than he was to the game.

The sad thing is he had a decently cool character concept, I'd have liked to see it flesh out. Being a rookie GM however I put more emphasis on roll than role playing. This was improving the more often I ran games, I made the mistake of confirming my suspicions of some of my players which lead to the game ending well before they got to what I had planned.

3 hours ago, ASCI Blue said:

The sad thing is he had a decently cool character concept, I'd have liked to see it flesh out. Being a rookie GM however I put more emphasis on roll than role playing. This was improving the more often I ran games, I made the mistake of confirming my suspicions of some of my players which lead to the game ending well before they got to what I had planned.

Don't be too down about it, we were all awful GMs on our first try. Why, my earliest tales of retardation at the helm of a game are so bad, I intend to take them to my grave!

I'm not really down about losing the group. I've got another one in the works already, have a GM lined up.

On 10/27/2017 at 9:24 PM, Degenerate Mind said:

Just my personal opinion, but if I were you, I would stop worrying about canon as of session 1 . Assuming your characters are his students, they already know that Kylo is going to butcher them all in about 30 years, presuming they are still kicking around by that point . I can only imagine what kind of a damper knowledge of the inevitable might put on a group of players. PCs in this scenario would fill in the spots of Legends characters like Kyle Katarn, Corran Horn, and Kyp Duron: their actions carry galkaxy-shifting, warlord-killing, planet-destroying consequences , and they can't possibly be expected to leave any kind of distant future canon intact when they're in a position of power like that; not without some serious railroading, either on your or their part.

Long story short, during session zero, tell them that you have absolutely no idea what kind of chaos they are going to wreak upon a galaxy far, far away, and that they shouldn't be too concerned with what the political landscape is going to look like in three decades when Hosnian Prime blows up & all the Jedi ared killed off, and that it's likely not to occur with a movie cast at the reigns in your game.

Couple things I want to address here, though in general I totally understand where you're coming from. I don't want the players to be concerned with the foregone conclusions of The Force Awakens, because my game isn't taking place anywhere near the events of The Force Awakens. It's taking place a year after Return of the Jedi.

First off, I let canon inform my games, rather than rule them. My current players love that I integrate their game with the existing canon (Their game is set around the time period of Star Wars Rebels), but I don't make that canon force decisions for the players. If the party really wanted to, I'd totally let them try and learn about the Death Star, or try to take on Darth Vader (Key words here being "try," of course. I have built Vader using only F&D trees, with around 5k XP, in a way that could easily solo the party). However, I still love using the framework provided by canon, because it gives something my players recognize. When their story intersects with another story that they've seen told in Rebels, Rogue One, or the canon Star Wars comics, they get excited, even if they are two or three degrees of separation removed from that story. A simple name drop of Grakkus the Hutt had my players squirming in their seats, for example. That's also the goal of this game idea. Two of my current set of players have read the Aftermath trilogy and are familiar with the galactic events set up in those novels.The other two take constant wiki-walks on Wookieepedia and follow several Star Wars YouTube channels that have discussed the Aftermath series, so they're also knowledgeable about the setting. So drawing from canon to inform the story would greatly excite those players, especially since canon hasn't really explored what happened in the 23 years between Aftermath: Empire's End and Bloodlines.

That leads us to the next point, "presuming they are still kicking around by that point." There's 23 years between the time period I plan on setting the game and Kylo Ren's eventual fall to the Dark Side (at the minimum, possibly closer to 25-26). My game will not span 23 years, as I like my games to take place in something close to "real time," much like watching Star Wars Rebels. Each year worth of playing the game is one year gone by in-game, with a bit of wiggle room. So sure, the player's characters may eventually meet their fate at the hands of Kylo Ren. Or they may die during the campaign. Or they may leave the Jedi Order after having philosophical differences with Luke. Just because we know that Luke's Jedi Order is eventually destroyed doesn't mean interesting stories can't be told about that order. After all, there are plenty of people who enjoy playing games in the Clone Wars setting, even though logically their characters would be on a much shorter countdown-to-death than the ones in my campaign. Every character has to die eventually (unless you're an Elf in D&D), but knowing that your character will inevitably die doesn't put a damper on most games, right? So I don't see why it would do so here, especially since the game will never reach that point of inevitability.

And last but... Well, actually least, planet-destroying consequences. No. Just no. EU had way, way too many super weapons, and canon has two too many for my taste. I'd love for my players to be able to influence galactic events, take down Imperial warlords, and all that good stuff, though.

On 10/26/2017 at 10:56 AM, WontedKitsune said:

if you are looking for more players I would love to sign up for a spot. weekends I can meet in person at FFG or I'm available over voice client for gaming.

On 10/28/2017 at 1:02 AM, Degenerate Mind said:

Say, OP, you aren't particularly opposed to running an online game, are you? It's occurred to me that this game of yours would be a marvelous opportunity for me to play that Gand Findsman character I've been siting on for so long. Due to technical difficulties in regards to internet availability out in the country, I won't quite be available until early January, but you didn't seem to think you would get a chance to run the game in the immediate future anyway.

At the moment, I'm unable to game with people long-distance online, sadly. However, I've been saving all my notes on this setting and all the different ideas I've had for it. If my situation changes, and you're both still interested in doing a long distance game, I'd be happy to invite you two to my table.

@Underachiever599 I didn't expect your campaign to stretch on for three decades, just suggested that some players might have a nagging thought in the back of their head about the certainty of their grand endeavor being unsuccessful.

I definitely agree that superweapons are overdone on and off the big screen, but that was meant to serve as an example of how galaxy-warping PCs can be at that level of power and influence.

Keep me posted if you do get the opportunity and the inclination to run an online game for this, would you?

14 minutes ago, Degenerate Mind said:

@Underachiever599 I didn't expect your campaign to stretch on for three decades, just suggested that some players might have a nagging thought in the back of their head about the certainty of their grand endeavor being unsuccessful.

I definitely agree that superweapons are overdone on and off the big screen, but that was meant to serve as an example of how galaxy-warping PCs can be at that level of power and influence.

Keep me posted if you do get the opportunity and the inclination to run an online game for this, would you?

Absolutely. I'd love to be able to do online games some time soon, but I'll have to wait and see how things work out with my new job before I make any long-term plans