Maps aren't necessary at all. They are good visual tools, but I've found in my games that if you aren't careful they end up bogging down gameplay.

10 hours ago, ScruffyHanSolo1987 said:

Update: I've now purchased the Edge of the Empire core rulebook. I have also invested in an additional two sets of dice, plus a copy of Fly Casual and No Disintegrations. Sadly, my local game store did not have the GM screen, nor the beginner's game in stock. However, the books I now own are of the highest standard. The various works of art contained within these fine tomes are simply vibrant and palpable. To my surprise, there are Firespray 31 Patrol and Attack Craft, plus Corellian YT-1300 Light Freighters. This was an equally exquisite inclusion. Also, the galaxy map is gorgeous, which was a excellent addition. I'm incredibly impressed with Fantasy Flight Games and their production of such amazing merchandise. Once again, thank you all for your assistance. I appreciate it immensely. If it had not been for the individuals of this forum, I would have been blissfully adrift in the vast cosmos, never quite confident in what to obtain. Anyway, happy gaming and: May the force be with you...always.

I've seen the beginner boxes for sale at Barnes and Noble in CA. If you've got one near you it can't hurt to check.

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12 hours ago, SacredRebirth said:

Something like hijacking a slaver convoy, raiding a munitions cache, or a literal heist to steal something... definitely got me thinking!

So, I need is an objective with a hook, a method to introduce the objective, optional secondary objectives to help with main objective(always open to ideas from the group I assume), and defenses for the objective. I then let the group figure out how they want to tackle the objective.

Another burning question I have is about maps. I'm not sure how to handle them (or the lack thereof). Because the beginners game had one, I've never run a session without one, but I'm really bad at drawing. How necessary is it to create and use a map?

I have a lot of maps.

Back when Christ West/Maps of Mastery was running the bases and battlestations kickstarter I pledged at the 250+ level and got 1 printed copy of every map and tileset that Chris West every published under the Maps of Mastery line and a lot more digital content. I already had a couple of map sets and tile sets... having 3 sets of the "night life" tileset

https://maps-of-mastery-store.myshopify.com/collections/terrain-card-sets/products/night-life

is so hugely useful (you can build a cantina royale out of 3 sets).

A while back I also downloaded the wotc minis game "holochron" collection of fan made maps, a lot of them are crap but there are also some real gems/professional quality stuff. I've printed digitial maps which are normally 22 x 34 inches in four 11 by 17 inch sections at office max/depot, you want to go for the 80 lb paper (I have no idea why the convention is to measure thickness in units called "lb", but it basically means poster quality paper in terms of holding up/not getting wrinkled) so it'll hold up and be reusable. it was something like $1.40 per color single sided 11x17 inch page on 80 lb paper. It might seem like a lot but spending O($6) per session for 1 map that you can reuse for future games really is pretty cheap.

You can find a lot of starship deck plans on http://www.colonialchrome.co.uk/ you can use gimp to resize the image to approximately minis scale and cut it into 11x17 pieces to print. I printed the 4 decks of consular class cruiser on a 5 x 2 array of 11 x 17 inch sheets.

also a heist is an adventure, not a campaign, but it's very easy to do a campaign as a series of heists, almost like episodes of the leverage TV show but there should generally be at least a little bit of an overarching campaign plot, or maybe you can invert that with obligation/sidestories providing the overarching plot that connects a series of episodic heists.

13 hours ago, JorArns said:

Maps aren't necessary at all. They are good visual tools, but I've found in my games that if you aren't careful they end up bogging down gameplay.

They can, particularly if you take the time to hand draw detailed maps, if you hand draw on a dry erase reusable map poster, keep the detail low and already have the map sketched out on paper rather than inventing it on the fly.

if you print maps in 11x17 sections like I do, then that part is quick, and for convenience we say you can move anywhere within an 11x17 sheet of paper for 1 maneuver, and move between sheets of paper as a maneuver. Based on maneuver cost, raw compattible range bands are

short range: same sheet of paper, 0 sheets away

medium range: 1-2 sheets of paper away,

long range: 3-4 sheets of paper away,

extreme range: 5+ sheets of paper AWAY.

since my "that's not a coffee table, that's a dinner table for hobbits" coffee table is 56 by 34 inches, I can fit a 5x2 array of 11 by 17 inch sheets of paper on it, so... extreme range is literally "off the table" for us.

By the way I love using the wotc minis in my games, there's a pretty good variety, and when there isn't something quite right for a PC or important recurring NPC I generally buy a "sort of close" mini from trollandtoad.com or miniaturemarket.com or coolstuffinc.com have it shipped to @Tramp Graphics who customizes them for me for $20 per mini including shipping them back to me (we both live in the 48 continguous USA states).

Since my son was born I turned over GMing duties to a former player, and became a player in his kotor era game, but 3 of our current players are using custom mini's I paid @Tramp Graphics to modify. One started as a princess leia hoth commander https://www.trollandtoad.com/p228015.html got resculpted longer blond hair, a paint job and a yellow lightsaber in the left hand, one started as a (human) jedi sith hunter https://www.trollandtoad.com/p292772.html and became a pantoran jedi, mine started as a Dass Jennir https://www.trollandtoad.com/p289680.html got black hair a and a silver (meant to be a repulsor fist cybernetic) right hand, @Tramp Graphics also used sandpaper to attempt a "frosted" look on the lightsaber, which is noticable, i.e. changes the appearance of the still green lightsaber blade, but didn't make it white (a white lightsaber blade was actually a rather difficult request, would have had to cut it off and replace it with something else and weakens the integrity of the mini, but the princess leia min's lightsaber is pretty solid so that might not have been such a big deal). The 4th party member is playing a male togruta shadow so the other than being female the Shaak Ti https://www.trollandtoad.com/p123182.html miniature was practically perfect already and for this mini the sexual dimorphism isn't very apparent, the face is just a little more slender than it would be for a "male" togruta

The point is that everybody in the party has a miniature that looks pretty darn close to how we envision that our characters look, and that adds something to the experience in my opinion, not sure it would be worth $20 per character in the party plus the cost of the base minis to you but if it is you could hire @Tramp Graphics to customize minis for you like I do. BTW my gaming group jokes that I have a minis problem/addiction, I have over 500 WotC star wars mins including about 6-8 customs that Tramp has made for me over the years. I've never played the minis game, i.e. I've only used them for the star wars RPG (3 different editions of the game, RCR, Saga, FFG)

If you want a suggestion for a campaign plot that encourages heist adventures you can borrow this from my last campaign.

Like I said, I use side stories (unrolled obligation on steroids). One of my PCs chose being indebted to Emil Mola star wars version of Keyser Soze (the usual suspects). The key points of Keyser soze and hence Emil Mola is that they unintentionally inconvenienced Keyser Soze, if they had intentionally inconvenienced Keyser Soze, they'd just be dead, but since they only unintentionally inconvenienced him they're being given the opportunity to work off their debt. The second thing about Keyser Soze/Emil Mola is he's a mythological criminal bogeyman, the criminals use to scare their kids... rat on your pop and Keyser Soze will get you, nobody works for him but everyone knows a guy who knows a guys whose supposedly done a job for him, so whether he's a real purpose or an urban myth is an open question in most criminals' minds, most think he's just a legend that maybe someone is capitalizing on but there's enough doubt about that they're afraid of him anyway.

When translating this to my Star Wars game here's what I had the galaxy at large know about Emil Mola.... Emil Mola was a minor human crime lord that Jabba fed to the sarlacc about 200 years ago, but despite this the Mola Cartel has continued to thrice while apparently still under the direction of Emil Mola. How is this possible? Well Jabba was fond of taunting the people he was about to feed to the sarlacc with "in his belly you will learn a new definition of pain and suffering as you are slowly digested over the next thousand years" so the sarlacc has apparently kept Emil Mola alive.

The unknown true story that I did not reveal until much later is that Emil Mola bribed the B'omarr monks still living in Jabba's palace to remove his brain from his body before it was fed to the sarlacc and he'said been hiding amidst the brain jars ever since, and issuing orders over the holiness ever since. Since even if a human had escaped from the sarlacc 200 years ago he would have certainly died from old age by now, Emil Mola feels that the time is now write for him to make his return to the galaxy. But he needs to have his brain transplanted into a new body and for best results it would be a clone of his original body in the prime of his life.

Things needed

200+ year old blood oath dagger with Emil Mola's blood on it (interfering with it's left is how two of my PCs acquired the debt to mola)

A ysalamir... go to mykyrr but need Talon Karrdre's help to harvest one so have to run a separate heist for him

An "experimental bacta tank" (TM) which is really a sparrti clone cylinder

After the quest giver gets these he clones a new body for Emil Mola which the PCs have to smuggle into Jabba's palace and keep Jabba distracted long enough for the surgery to happen and Emil Mola to get out, in the process they kill Jabba's pit creature a giant sand crab and Jabba request them to obtain a young Krayt dragon as a replacement. How the smuggled in the clone... frozen in Carbonite amidst some 50+ other Carbonite slabs containing individuals Jabba put out bounties on. Jabba thawed 3 if them out to inspect the merchandise and dropped the thawed out bounties into the sand crab pit and some PCs accidentally fell in to and they had to kill the giant sand crab to survive.

Yeah that was a side story for ONE of my PCs that inspired several sessions worth of adventures. I liberally mined wookieepedia/legends for interesting tidbits of eu lore to use.