My campaign which is set during the Old Republic Era has been running smoothly with players expressing their enjoyment of the game -- or at least it was up until the last session. Monday night, something I hadn't expected occurred. The Sith Lord nemesis they were fighting won.

Blame the dice. Blame my still limited experience with this system, or my lack of imagination; a fight that was meant to be a challenge and push them to the edge went totally wrong at the end.

Alright, so sometimes the bad guys get the upper hand. Ask Han Solo about Bespin.

I had the players roll their Resilience and improvised a scene where they awakened as prisoners aboard a starship. Now, I need help and suggestions. Should my players escape their bounds and take over the vessel? Find themselves dumped on Kessel or someplace similar? Or be taken to Korriban for questioning? What other possibilities arise?

The campaign has been mostly home-brew with scenes and encounters adapted from several modules and source books. The players are now knight level + with four successful adventures under their belts. I would welcome any ideas and suggestions on how to proceed.

16 hours ago, Jaen said:

My campaign which is set during the Old Republic Era has been running smoothly with players expressing their enjoyment of the game -- or at least it was up until the last session. Monday night, something I hadn't expected occurred. The Sith Lord nemesis they were fighting won.

Blame the dice. Blame my still limited experience with this system, or my lack of imagination; a fight that was meant to be a challenge and push them to the edge went totally wrong at the end.

So you basically had an end similar to Revenge of the Sith? That's fine, and certainly in theme with Star Wars.

16 hours ago, Jaen said:

I had the players roll their Resilience and improvised a scene where they awakened as prisoners aboard a starship. Now, I need help and suggestions. Should my players escape their bounds and take over the vessel? Find themselves dumped on Kessel or someplace similar? Or be taken to Korriban for questioning? What other possibilities arise?

Tons of possibilities, first question I have is, do they want to continue with these characters? Because depending on the mood of the players, you could easily pull a Revenge of the Sith, have them retire the characters (perhaps to return later as Mentors and NPCs), and cook up a fresh new batch of heroes that have grown up in this Sith Lord's victory. If they don't want to retire them, and you want to continue, then the door is wide open.

You could have them try and break out of the ship they are on, steal a ship and try and escape, that's totally an option sure. You could have them get dumped on a prison planet, to suffer until their dying days...and then escape. If they have information the Sith Lord might consider vital, then yeah, having them taken to his stronghold for interrogation is also an option.

Personally, I'd make plans for all of them, in the very loose framework kind of way, and then run the idea of continuing past the players. If they are like "heck yeah we want to continue, and I want to escape", then I'd have them wake up on the ship with some options to try and escape. If they don't succeed, well that's ok, as you can then go to Plan B or C, which is the prison planet, or interrogation option, which would again offer them chances to escape.

If you think the likelihood of them escaping is slim to none, you could maybe put those PC's on hiatus for a bit, and have them cook up some allies of their PC's, who plan a rescue mission for them. Assuming they made friends, and didn't just murderhobo their way across the galaxy. You could then run a mini-arc from the viewpoint of the other PC's, give your players a chance to try out a character with a different skill set, and have fun messing with their PC's in a way that is a bit more detached than doing it to them while the player is controlling them.

Really it's up to you guys, because you have a ton of options avilable, and sneaking out of big bad guy ships/stations, and stealing a ship to escape is kind of a running theme in the Star Wars franchise

17 hours ago, Jaen said:

My campaign which is set during the Old Republic Era has been running smoothly with players expressing their enjoyment of the game -- or at least it was up until the last session. Monday night, something I hadn't expected occurred. The Sith Lord nemesis they were fighting won.

Sweet! I would LOVE to play in a campaign where this happens! The PCs shouldn't always win, as it makes winning so much sweeter.

17 hours ago, Jaen said:

I had the players roll their Resilience and improvised a scene where they awakened as prisoners aboard a starship. Now, I need help and suggestions. Should my players escape their bounds and take over the vessel? Find themselves dumped on Kessel or someplace similar? Or be taken to Korriban for questioning? What other possibilities arise?

Oh, the options are myriad! It starts with whether the players want to keep their current characters. I would sure hope so.

First, perhaps a brief reason why the Sith Lord kept the alive? Perhaps he is no Sith Lord at all, but answers to a higher power who in no uncertain terms said "You will bring me those Force Users [the pcs] alive."

Or maybe he is so full of him/herself that a quick clean kill here isn't enough. Instead the Sith Lord is now traveling to the PCs homeworld or (other place that is emotionally close to the PC) with the intent of destroying it while the PCs are forced to watch.

Maybe the Sith Lord wants to turn them all to the Dark Side, so he has kept the alive to torture and tempt.

Or so full of cruelty and malice, this Sith Lord has dropped them on an extremely dangerous and inhospitable planet. Turning it into a macabre game, he/she tells them if they can find their way through the deadly landscape and get to the "safe" point they win and will be freed. The sith lord watches this whole event play out for his/her amusement, of course assuming the PCs will all die and he/she can cackle with glee.

In any of these scenarios the PCs have a chance to escape and rely on their wits and whatever limited gear they can can scrounge to effect an escape. Also in all of these cases there is a clock that is 'ticking' putting added pressure.

22 hours ago, Jaen said:

My campaign which is set during the Old Republic Era has been running smoothly with players expressing their enjoyment of the game -- or at least it was up until the last session. Monday night, something I hadn't expected occurred. The Sith Lord nemesis they were fighting won.

Blame the dice. Blame my still limited experience with this system, or my lack of imagination; a fight that was meant to be a challenge and push them to the edge went totally wrong at the end.

Alright, so sometimes the bad guys get the upper hand. Ask Han Solo about Bespin.

I had the players roll their Resilience and improvised a scene where they awakened as prisoners aboard a starship. Now, I need help and suggestions. Should my players escape their bounds and take over the vessel? Find themselves dumped on Kessel or someplace similar? Or be taken to Korriban for questioning? What other possibilities arise?

The campaign has been mostly home-brew with scenes and encounters adapted from several modules and source books. The players are now knight level + with four successful adventures under their belts. I would welcome any ideas and suggestions on how to proceed.

Go with the flow, this is an awesome narrative opportunity for you... as long as you're all still having fun there's no reason to stop now.

Ask them what THEY want to have happen next.

Do they want a desperate escape from a ship before they're delivered to whatever dire fate awaits them? Run that. Do that want a big prison break adventure (perhaps freeing lots of other wrongfully -- or rightfully -- imprisoned beings along the way)? Run that. Do they want to stage a daring escape from the Sith Lord's own stronghold, perhaps making off with some choice artifacts or his favorite cloak along the way? Run that. Getting player feedback for what their characters would like to do next is always a good step to take, especially if your players are mature enough to say "while my CHARACTER would think it's horrible, I as a PLAYER would have great fun if this happened. . ."

I'm actually setting up something similar for my next session. The players will revive a Darth of the True Sith Empire (from the SWTOR MMO) from carbon freeze, and he'll con them into helping him find his daughters before curb-stomping them. They'll awaken in the medical bay of the ship of a smuggler they'd befriended earlier in the campaign after their gruesome defeat, which will push the players into enough XP that the Jedi PC will earn her Knighthood (after the following session where she goes through my version of Jedi Knight trials). Why I kind of want to have a big battle where the players (and one GMPC) get their behinds kicked, so have a suitable climax before moving into full-on Jedi Knight levels.

This is definitely a case of "plan, don't plot". Have a loose framework ready for any scenario that comes up.

They wake up on the prisoner transport to Ominous Location. From there, they could

• Escape the ship
• Seize control of the ship
• Wait until they are delivered, then immediately escape the facility
• Remain prisoners for a time, gathering intel and allies before breaking out

And those are obvious choices. Your players may come up with something completely off the wall. What's important here is to have the world around them progressing outside their action. What are this Sith Lord's plans and motivations? Have them move forward and let the players work with what's given.

The nice thing is, if you craft the bones of a basic jailbreak, that set piece could happen basically anywhere with very little tweaking.

Talking about the future goals of the group is usually a good idea.

That being said, there are so many sweet options for jailbreak here. First however, come up with what the Sith ultimately want with the characters. This does not have to be super complicated and can be as simple as "killing them is not enough". Maybe they are to be pitted against each other in arena fights, maybe they are a gift or maybe someone wants to seem them betray their beliefs before they die... whatever it is, let them know. In case of a complex scheme at least give them something.

As for the break...

The ship they are on could be attacked by rivaling forces. During the battle the cells are damaged and they can go ahead and try to escape.

Maybe the ship is damaged so badly that the Sith abandon it and leave the pcs on a disintegrating ship, that will not take them much of anywhere.

Maybe they end up with a whole new problem by being picked up as slaves by a Hutt.

Maybe someone has a bone to pick with said Sith Lord (they certainly make a lot of enemies) and seeks to free the PCs in return for help.

Those are just a few ideas of the top of my head, there are many other options and opportunities.

God, I wish I could get something like this to happen in my games. I've thrown some seriously challenging things at my party, and always make plans just in case the party actually fails. But so far, the dice have favored my party through thick and thin. It's kind of disheartening to think that the closest my party has come to losing was to a random encounter against some carnivorous plants that was simply meant to make traveling through a forest a little more compelling.

Anywho, a lot of the suggestions above have been pretty great! My biggest recommendation would be to think about what the Sith Lord's goals here are. What's the Sith's motivation for keeping the party alive? Personally, I've always been a fan of having the villains try to turn the heroes. I've actually succeeded in turning one of my players fully to the Dark Side in my campaign, and it's lead to some excellent narrative events! (That player's character is now actively seeking out Darth Vader in an attempt to learn more about the Dark Side. And hoo boy, it's lead to some excellent internal strife among the party.)

On 1/26/2018 at 3:03 AM, Underachiever599 said:

Personally, I've always been a fan of having the villains try to turn the heroes.

This. See if any of your players (individually of course, not all together) might want to be turned a bit, or all the way. If they accept, you could have that player stage a "jail break," giving him and the Sith Lord a cover, and allow them to escape a la Han, Luke, and Leia from the Death Star. Now the Sith Lord has a mole inside the Jedi Order, and a lot of the group's missions seem to have mysteriously increased complications. Should allow for some interesting roleplaying, especially if you and the player can keep it a secret from the others.

I would caution to make sure your group is the kind of group this would go over well with, though. Some groups might be offended or angry when the revelation of a traitor within the party comes to light, while others will love the twist and the drama. Either way, make sure you know how your players will respond before you try something like this.

On 1/24/2018 at 2:41 PM, Jaen said:

Should my players escape their bounds and take over the vessel? Find themselves dumped on Kessel or someplace similar? Or be taken to Korriban for questioning? What other possibilities arise?

Ask your players what they think happened, you'll probably get some great ideas. To be honest you're in a perfect situation to create something together from an Unexpected Result™.

This sounds like a great problem as long as everyone is on board. As noted by everyone above the options are endless... I really like the idea of some kind of great escape. But yeah probably the best is to get the input of your players and see if you can surprise them with some amalgamation of their thoughts.

Maybe send an email to each as if you are only asking that one person what they would like to see happen. Or give them each a secret to keep from the others that will be the key to their future. My soldier had some visions that were the prelude to his becoming aware of his sensitivity which enabled our party to escape an impossble situation... that was actually much like the final battle in last Jedi before it came out come to think of it... his visions were so far out and strange that he was hesitant to disclose them but as they came to pass he started to share which ended up saving countless lives...

Hadn't happen to me yet but I have prepared an option of capture in case any enemy will beat the players to submission.

I want to thank everyone for their suggestions. My players are having a great time.

It is now two sessions past their defeat and they are in the midst of taking over the ship on which they were being held. In the process, they have discovered/created a very temporary ally in a Sith apprentice who very much desires his master's death; the Jedi has resisted (for now) being turned to the darkside and the Scoundrel has discovered that she is, in fact, Force Sensitive.

This community seems to love hearing the stories of the games in play and how they work everything out... I know I do. Feel free to post more in depth descriptions and story arcs when ever you are up for it.

In my experience - the players always do what you haven't played for. Unless you railroad them to the point you want them to. So if you plan for them to recapture the ship they will decide they will simply wait until they are in prison. Or vice versa. So my suggestion is to have some ideas about both scenarios and just go with the flow. And hope the Force is with you on that one

Jaen,

I've been thinking about putting together a TOR era campaign for when our group is limited in numbers (we normally play with 5 players, but are often down to 3). What did you use for your conversion of TOR-era NPCs? I'm about to start working my way through the KOTOR Campaign Guide from the SAGA edition, with OggDude's character generator running in front of me, but if you had another source floating around that you could point me to that would be great and save me a bunch of time.

Cheers,

Daronil.

First, let me apologize for being so slow to reply. I was out of town and have not checked the boards.

As for converting NPCs, basically, I didn't. The Sith Lord they faced was the Fallen Master nemesis from Force and destiny accompanied by his apprentice, the fallen apprentice rival. The only change I made was to give the master Rav Naaran's Wrack from page 35 of the module Lure of the Lost. Imperial soldiers and troopers were generic minion groups which I ran using the Adversary cards. Incidentally, these NPC and Creature cards are a resource I highly recommend.