Hi fellow gms, something I’ve begun thinking about after reading this post from @Nytwyng about porting a town over as a home base, as well as seeing other post about having a base of operations, is what are the mechanical benefits of doing so and how could I encourage my players to set this up.

To clarify the current situation with my players, they are game time only been going for about three weeks despite having over 70 hours of play time, and have spent most of that on the run with no place to return to and I’m considering changing that.

What's their backstory?

You're going to need to find a way to make that base important enough to your players and in a way that they want to return there?

That backstory should help explain why and maybe how this happens, but firstly how is this important to your campaign?

I'd say the benefits aren't so much mechanical as they are narrative.

Having a "home base" allows for a stable of recurring NPCs for the characters to interact with, get work from, etc. Bringing someplace like this in can be as simple as an old friend of the group calling them in for whatever reason - the old friend needs help, has something (information, an item, what have you) to give them, or just plain wants to see them again - and then you give them a reason to work out of that location...a reason for them to like coming back to the place.

In my case, I started the campaign with a mutually beneficial business arrangement in place, providing them with a reason to operate out of the city. That private paramilitary group that I mentioned in the other thread - the one that served as a legitimate cover for the local Rebel cell - provides the group with free hangar space in exchange for occasionally doing work for the organization (usually a Rebel operation that would jeopardize the organization's cover). For me, giving the group the city to work from accomplished a few things: they've got a local perfectly legitimate business operative (*ahem*) to provide them occasional work (work that's been feeding a growing subplot) and - given the Firefly-esque nature of the campaign - a way to work in traditional "Rebels vs. Empire" sessions every once in a while, without going full-on Age of Rebellion.

If it's a smuggler group only. Let it be nar shaddar, the smugglers moon. Make them appealing to sell their stuff there. Even more of they have high obligation.

On 11/20/2017 at 11:53 AM, copperbell said:

What's their backstory?

You're going to need to find a way to make that base important enough to your players and in a way that they want to return there?

That backstory should help explain why and maybe how this happens, but firstly how is this important to your campaign?

The characters backstories are at odds a bit, I’ve finally got them to develope their characters somewhat which is a bonus, but given where they started they were never going to have a common core to build from.

One was a clone soldier, one was a chiss imperial, one was a police droid gone rogue, and one was an archanian offshoot mando all with very different backstories, however the clone soildoer also self identifies as mandalorian from a different faction than the offshoot al it could be possible to pull on those strings even though their would be tension.

As for hownit can be important to the campaign, the characters and players have not decided what they want to be yet, I’m running it very sandboxes with no set objective in mind I just like telling a Star warsey story, I plan to lay down some possibilities for them but at the moment they are just trying to go about their business and stay out of things as best they can.

4 hours ago, Nytwyng said:

I'd say the benefits aren't so much mechanical as they are narrative.

Having a "home base" allows for a stable of recurring NPCs for the characters to interact with, get work from, etc. Bringing someplace like this in can be as simple as an old friend of the group calling them in for whatever reason - the old friend needs help, has something (information, an item, what have you) to give them, or just plain wants to see them again - and then you give them a reason to work out of that location...a reason for them to like coming back to the place.

In my case, I started the campaign with a mutually beneficial business arrangement in place, providing them with a reason to operate out of the city. That private paramilitary group that I mentioned in the other thread - the one that served as a legitimate cover for the local Rebel cell - provides the group with free hangar space in exchange for occasionally doing work for the organization (usually a Rebel operation that would jeopardize the organization's cover). For me, giving the group the city to work from accomplished a few things: they've got a local perfectly legitimate business operative (*ahem*) to provide them occasional work (work that's been feeding a growing subplot) and - given the Firefly-esque nature of the campaign - a way to work in traditional "Rebels vs. Empire" sessions every once in a while, without going full-on Age of Rebellion.

Hmm I like this, and yea I love a narative style of play, so the benefits being purely narative are not a problem. I personally love trying to make npcs carry over that are memorable but it can be difficult when the players just go from place to place, but being able to be in an area and develope both it’s set up and it’s cumture seems like a great benefit, also I love the ability to introduce age elements to the game without out going full age, since two of my characters are mandos, and one of them has explicitly said that they were a freedom fighter at one point, I think I could do something like this on mandalore, I just got to figure out how to get the other two PCs interested.

1 hour ago, Storm-Trooper-God said:

If it's a smuggler group only. Let it be nar shaddar, the smugglers moon. Make them appealing to sell their stuff there. Even more of they have high obligation.

They are not a smuggler group unfortunately as I do love the sessions we played on Nar Shadda, but there is likely going to be things to pull them back there as I’m explanding on some of the subplots that our former GM developed on Nar Shadda that might make it neccesary for a return.

The way you describe your players characters I can't help thinking "A Team"!

Former clonetrooper, ex-police enforcer droid, chiss imperial and Arkanian Mandalorian sounds like a variation of the Leverage series.

Ask them how they met each other perhaps session zero their introduction so you not only get them more invested in their characters but also note down any interesting details (ideas) they come up with to include in your game?

1 hour ago, copperbell said:

The way you describe your players characters I can't help thinking "A Team"!

Former clonetrooper, ex-police enforcer droid, chiss imperial and Arkanian Mandalorian sounds like a variation of the Leverage series.

Ask them how they met each other perhaps session zero their introduction so you not only get them more invested in their characters but also note down any interesting details (ideas) they come up with to include in your game?

Lol I never thought of them as the a-team but that is kind of a way you can look at them. I’ve never watched the leverage series but I’ll have to check it out to see what you mean.

As for how they met, the chiss former imperial was an brought into the empire by her aunt and hoping to launch her career preasured a general name caulifore who ran covert bounty hunter teams for the empire to place her in charge of one of his teams, he gave her the ability to create one.

she recruited the archanian offshoot who had developed a reputation as a Jedi killer after settling a score with an archanian former Jedi who he hated simply because he was an archanian.

She also recruited the former police droid after he had also gained a reputation following a situation where he broke protocol and killed a large portion of the gangs in his sector, at which point he started self modifying himself into an Assassin droid.

Their boss hated them because they never brought anyone in alive which made thier missions to retrieve potential force sensitives or potential rebels a failure, everyone was always conveniently disintegrated. So when he had an opportunity to scrape goat them for a major offense he did so, stranding them on a planet where they could be picked off by bombardment.

Fortunately they met the fourth member of their crew on the planet, the clone soldier who was trying to turn his life around after so much hardship, and trying to do so by becoming an honest freight captain. He was also wanted by the empire though for other reason, and as soon he was seen with them he was conveniently attached to their crimes they were originally accused, so now they all travel together trying to keep living their lives and staying one step ahead of the empire while (and ok right here is the point that I really realize that we have actually created the space a team and I don’t know how none of us realized it) they help people along the way, although the helping others part is usually inadvertent.

In the game I'm playing in we're using our ship as our home base. Since we're a bunch of force sensitives and slightly criminally inclined, we tend to not stay long in any one spot and leave them on less than friendly terms. So we're basically a bunch of magical space hobos.

In my game my players found accidentialy (*cought*) an old forgotten asteroid base out of the days of the very old republic. They accidentially freed a young terentatek and awoke some ultra old B-Alpha Battle droids. after clearing the base, they found everything they would need to operate it (computer codes, repair manuals for the airfilters, spare parts for the medical bay, the key to the storage, a new (very old) ship.

At first they only took the ship and spoils and left the base. (it is well hidden in a asteroid field close to the "Wheel")

That was laying the hook.

After the next sessions, I let them encounter different NPC that would always search shelter for some reason (some refugees that needed to be evacuatet, 2 desillusied Stormtrooper that help them on a mission, an old Mon Cal Ship wracker that jumped abord while beeing chased, a group of archelogist that came into the crossfire between some farmers and raiders and so on. suddenly the ship get quite croweded (those people had no where to go and my players couldn't abonded them.

This was the bait

Then by some carefull wording i helped them to remember this abandoned base from the beginning... once there the Ex-military guys mentioned how perfect tactical and save this location seems.

The sinker...

Now they made this theire Homebase, gathering ressources for the people while also getting jobs from them, close to the Wheel nobody will suspect anything if theire supply shipments went that direction, they have a lot of buisness possibilitys and nowaday even a rebel cell that use them as base of operation (so they can get Rebel vs. Empire action), one of them has even family on the base...

hook, line and sinker!

@Nightone that is actually a great sequence of events and I think I’m going to use something like that (the sequence you used to encurage your players that is, i don't intend to steal your whole idea even though it is wonderful lol)

14 hours ago, Norr-Saba said:

@Nightone that is actually a great sequence of events and I think I’m going to use something like that (the sequence you used to encurage your players that is, i don't intend to steal your whole idea even though it is wonderful lol)

GM Rule No.1: steal whereever you can
GM Rule No.2: Have lots and lots of Fun with it!

On 11/21/2017 at 0:37 AM, Storm-Trooper-God said:

If it's a smuggler group only. Let it be nar shaddar, the smugglers moon. Make them appealing to sell their stuff there. Even more of they have high obligation.

This is also a good alternative for a smugglers home base.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Point_Nadir