I'm running a game right now where the PCs are contracted to help the Zann Consortium during their assault on MandalMotors to steal ship designs and ships. I'm tweaking it slightly, so the Clans are on board with it as long as Zann pays them under the table.

That said, one of the PCs wants to try a more covert, social session or two, so I decided to have the PCs be part of the backroom dealings to help Zann secure the deal. However, I'm having trouble trying to figure out how much they'll know. Zann is pretty notorious for not liking leaks and hitting back hard at people who upset him, and it seems like he wouldn't want to give contracted help too much information on his organization. I'm fine with tweaking his character a little, but even then it seemed a bit of a stretch to contract someone and give them all the info. The PCs have done two other contracted jobs for the Consortium successfully, so there is some trust there.

So I was wondering what are some corporate espionage style encounters I could set up for the PCs? Helping with a shell corporation? Trying to keep the Imperial liaison on the MandalMotors board occupied and busy while the final elements of Zann's negotiations are completed? What sort of job fits hired help but still allows them some space for social encounters?

They could be trying to investigate to find dirt on any number of MandalMotors board members to leverage to keep them quiet. Do some of them have heavy debt? Gambling problems? Criminal past? Embarrassing social gaffes? Some kind of Star Wars specific sociopathic tendency?

They could be put in the position of potentially kidnapping someone who absolutely would quash the deal and keeping said individual safe, secure, and secret until the proceedings were finished. This could include leaving a false and plausible trail of evidence that nothing was amiss, as well as ducking the skip tracers and detectives who are hired to find the missing individual.

Zann could hire them to get a more complete inventory of all the projects MandalMotors is currently working on, which could involve some slicing, charming engineers to divulge more than they want to, etc.

Alternately, they could be tasked to set a false trail for the Imperials that would lead back to the rebellion, providing Zann with all the plausible deniability he could ever want.

4 hours ago, JRRP said:

They could be trying to investigate to find dirt on any number of MandalMotors board members to leverage to keep them quiet. Do some of them have heavy debt? Gambling problems? Criminal past? Embarrassing social gaffes? Some kind of Star Wars specific sociopathic tendency?

They could be put in the position of potentially kidnapping someone who absolutely would quash the deal and keeping said individual safe, secure, and secret until the proceedings were finished. This could include leaving a false and plausible trail of evidence that nothing was amiss, as well as ducking the skip tracers and detectives who are hired to find the missing individual.

Zann could hire them to get a more complete inventory of all the projects MandalMotors is currently working on, which could involve some slicing, charming engineers to divulge more than they want to, etc.

Alternately, they could be tasked to set a false trail for the Imperials that would lead back to the rebellion, providing Zann with all the plausible deniability he could ever want.

I love that last one. One of the PCs has a sister in the Rebellion, so Zann wouldn't even need to make up stuff if it came to it, just show the obvious link that that woman and her brother must have been working together.

I like the first couple of ideas as well, thank you for the response! Getting dirt is definitely a thing I could see at least two of the PCs enjoying immensely, and slicing into other projects also is a cool mission to give them and gives both the social oriented and computer oriented players something to do.