Hi all.

Was thinking about running a campaign sometime in the next 6 months, and I have a rough outline but I just can't seem to get those gears in my head spinning.


So, I'm looking for any imput you can give. No idea too crazy.

So here's the premise:

The players are all crewmembers on a bulk freighter.
When the game starts, the freighter has been attacked by very well armed and organized pirates.
The crewmembers have been separated and tortured, and the pirates have locked them all in different rooms and spaced the rest.
The pirates then set the ship to self destruct and leave with the cargo.

Now, I want the cargo to be something from a secret research facility that was being shipped in secret and the pirates were not pirates, but professional security forces from a military tech corporation.

The general campaign plot is akin to the first two seasons of the Expanse, in that the players have to find out what was being transported, find out who was behind it and finally destroy the item because it's way too dangerous.

There'll be a few other things from the expanse, like a test of the weapon on a space station and the evacuation of a colony that's breaking down after a clash between imperials and rebels knock out the generator and air support.

My players haven't seen the expanse and that's why I'm doing a bit of blatant stealing

Sorry if I seem a bit rambling, but I'm at work and don't have much time to write this down.

How worried are you about sticking to canon (or even to Legends)?

59 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

How worried are you about sticking to canon (or even to Legends)?

As long as it doesn't directly contradict current canon, I'm fine with it.

So no stealing the deathstar plans like in One Shot Podcasts Campaign.

Why did the PCs get locked up instead of spaced? I'm just wondering if there was a reason that could be used in the rest of the story such as someone saving them from death on the Security Force and what reason they would have to do that.

Sorry I don't have any advice atm, but I like your campaign idea. I too am trying to work on a more 'detective' as of now.

8 hours ago, Archlyte said:

Why did the PCs get locked up instead of spaced? I'm just wondering if there was a reason that could be used in the rest of the story such as someone saving them from death on the Security Force and what reason they would have to do that.

Everyone got locked up from the start, the "pirates" started torturing the crew randomly, and seemingly for fun, and then spacing them. The ones that are left are simply left because the "pirates" finished their prep work for the self destruct.

I have, however, decided that it's not the players ship that's set to self destruct, but rather a Rebel Alliance ship that the "pirates" brought there to make it look like Rebels attacked the ship.

The subsequent destruction of the Rebel ship would wipe out the bulk freighter too, but leave scraps of rebel ship there to make it look like a rebel attack.

The players are locked up and the pirates have vented the air from the corridors, opened all major bulkheads and airlocks and shut down the reactor on the bulk freighter, so the players have to escape somehow and get to spacesuits, and off the ship.
There's supposed to be working escape pods on the Rebel ship, I'm thinking.
Or if the players come up with some other means of escape, that's fine too.

They have a few minutes before detonation as the "pirates" want to get out of the system before detonation.

I'll flesh out the story a bit more here soon, but not today, as I woke up with a headache and have to go to work

'Unlimited Power' has a grenade weapon called Blue Shadow Grenades. Pretty much, its a biological weapon in grenade form. The original Blue Shadow virus was pretty **** mean, kind of the Star Wars version of the Plague that we know and love. Victims would have breakfast with their families, and dinner with their ancestors. Perhaps the shipment that was boosted from your players was an enhanced version of Blue Shadow Grenades. Not only were your players shipping this stuff without being told, but now some Meathead Mercenary outfit has them and is either going to use them or reverse-engineer them. Or both.

2 hours ago, LugWrench said:

'Unlimited Power' has a grenade weapon called Blue Shadow Grenades. Pretty much, its a biological weapon in grenade form. The original Blue Shadow virus was pretty **** mean, kind of the Star Wars version of the Plague that we know and love. Victims would have breakfast with their families, and dinner with their ancestors. Perhaps the shipment that was boosted from your players was an enhanced version of Blue Shadow Grenades. Not only were your players shipping this stuff without being told, but now some Meathead Mercenary outfit has them and is either going to use them or reverse-engineer them. Or both.

I was thinking in the same lines, but more along the lines of it being a variant of the Imperial bioweapons project I71A (aka. "the sickness"), but in a much more diminished form that would take longer to fully develop and gain conciousness.

On 7/16/2018 at 3:33 AM, OddballE8 said:

..... the pirates were not pirates, but professional security forces from a military tech corporation.

14 hours ago, OddballE8 said:

Everyone got locked up from the start, the "pirates" started torturing the crew randomly, and seemingly for fun, and then spacing them. The ones that are left are simply left because the "pirates" finished their prep work for the self destruct.

I have, however, decided that it's not the players ship that's set to self destruct, but rather a Rebel Alliance ship that the "pirates" brought there to make it look like Rebels attacked the ship.

Since they aren't really pirates but professionals, would they really torture and space people for fun? I get that they are staging everything to make it look like it was pirates or rebels to cover their tracks, and I also get that you need your players to be the ones left, but couldn't the same be accomplished with the other crew were either killed or injured when the pirate boarded, and thus its left to our heroes to save themselves and only a few injured survivors? or have one of the other NPC survivors heroically sacrifice themselves to save your PCs, and with his dying breath give them a "clue" to the cargo's true contents.

Ok, did a whooooole lot of fleshing out...

And then I scrapped most of it.


I decided to go with this (very simply outlined):

Empire is behind the whole thing.

They set up the bulk freighter hijacking to make it look like Rebels stole a bioweapon from a Corporation.

They then use it on a space station to make it look like the Rebels wanted to test the weapon on civilians.

They then gear up to unleash it on a whole planet of people.

Players must find out that the Empire is behind it all and stop them.

The Bulk Freighter attack is made by hired guns that the ISB has hired to make sure it can't be traced back to the Empire.
The hired guns plan to blow up the bulk freighter after they steal the bioweapon by setting a stolen Rebel ship to self destruct near the freighter.


That's just the basic outline so far. Still working on it, but I've got months until it needs to be ready

2 minutes ago, ThreeAM said:

Since they aren't really pirates but professionals, would they really torture and space people for fun? I get that they are staging everything to make it look like it was pirates or rebels to cover their tracks, and I also get that you need your players to be the ones left, but couldn't the same be accomplished with the other crew were either killed or injured when the pirate boarded, and thus its left to our heroes to save themselves any a few injured survivors? or have one of the other NPC survivors heroically sacrifice themselves to save your PCs, and with his dying breath give them a "clue" to the cargo's true contents.

They're hired guns, but they're also really ruthless hired guns who are the type who'd torture for fun if they know everyone's gonna die anyway and they've got time to kill.

Also, I don't want the players to fight off the pirates or anything like that. I want them to be utterly defeated and start from there. The attack and subsequent torture will simply be an introduction story, and not something they play through.

Their struggle will start with them having to figure out a way to get off the ship before the Rebel ship detonates next to them.

11 hours ago, OddballE8 said:

Ok, did a whooooole lot of fleshing out...

And then I scrapped most of it.

Oh I’ve been there... So many times ?

Love your idea of loosely basing the campaign on The Expanse tho... great series!!

3 hours ago, AceSolo5 said:

Oh I’ve been there... So many times ?

Love your idea of loosely basing the campaign on The Expanse tho... great series!!

I've had the great fortune of being able to watch it at work all day for the last three days

I work at a school, and we have summer activities for kids who can't be at home and these last days we've had like, three kids, and all they want to do is watch tv because it's too hot.

So I've been watching the Expanse on my laptop while they watch TV

Wow.... Great work if you can get it ? Wish I could get away with that at my place!!

I watched the first series a while ago then was desperate for them to release the second! The books are a really good read as well if you haven’t already!

3 minutes ago, AceSolo5 said:

Wow.... Great work if you can get it ? Wish I could get away with that at my place!!

I watched the first series a while ago then was desperate for them to release the second! The books are a really good read as well if you haven’t already!

It's not as great as it sounds

I'd rather be on vacation or do some real work instead of just sitting here watching TV.

But as far as **** jobs go, it's not that bad

Hello! My only thinking here at present is that, I like the idea of bringing it back to the Empire and your idea immediately took me to a though to bbeg.

Given the slightly complex and... grandiose? At least manipulative... Nature of the Empire's plan, I'd suggest making it the brain child of a particular Moff, Grand Moff or even an ambitious Planetary Administrator. Someone to act as a big bad but whose motivations are personal or petty enough that they'd involved targeting a corporation either out of spite or an even more convoluted plan to convince them to work with him in some capacity. He might be a political genus or he might be an over-reaching power grabber, depending on tone.

Edit: Oh oh, I'd also suggest looking for a really compelling reason for the players to pursue this. If they aren't rebels then they won't be under orders. Why don't they just walk away? What is going to drive a group of players you have no control over to pursue the perpetrators of this horrible crime? You. Might get lucky and they just do it for vengeance. But I'd try to prepare something a little more compelling.

Yeah, I was thinking along the same lines yesterday.

It would explain the need for secrecy.

Is this an Age of Rebellion game or an Edge of the Empire game? I ask because, tonally, fighting the Empire is a different animal than Average Joes working on a freighter and trying to pay the bills. Unless the players are all freighter workers and, coincidentally, also happen to all be Rebel sympathizers, why would they even care if the Empire is trying to frame a group of confederates? Also, keep in mind that in The Expanse , the protomolecule plot was a fairly small conspiracy run by a corporation, not the United Nations or the Martian Congress.

If you want to emulate The Expanse , I'd suggest sticking to Edge of the Empire and using some aspect of the Corporate Sector Authority as your Big Bad Guy, not the Empire. Yes, the Empire is the defacto bad guy in Star Wars but they're so big and control so much that the players are going to feel helpless.

Rather than having the pirates working for the Empire, have them be mercenaries in the employ of a biomedical company that's a member of the CSA.

While on a run through the Corporate Sector, the PCs' ship is boarded. The players have to fight off the invaders in order to protect the ship or, at the very least, to survive long enough to make it to an escape pod. When the PCs make it to safety, they find that they're wanted for piracy by the CSA Security Police. If the PCs want to clear their name, they will have to piece together who attacked the freighter and why, all the while avoiding the authorities and trying to find someone who believes that they're innocent.

The backstory could be that the freighter was transporting a biological agent on behalf of Chiewab Amalgamated Pharmaceuticals Company. It turns out, said agent is super-illegal in CSA space - it has a super-scary name like "The Red Reaper" or whatever - and Chiewab hired an independent freighter to ship it from a Chiewab development lab in one part of the Corporate Sector to a depot in another part of the sector. An independent freighter would allow Chiewab to avoid Espo suspicion and attacking the freighter and killing the crew ensured there were no witnesses who could report a suspicious package to the Authority. Once Chiewab discovers that the PCs are still alive, they'll send freelance bounty hunters and mercs after the players.

• There's nothing wrong with the Empire being the bad guys, but...yeah. If it's an Edge of the Empire campaign, with people who aren't planning to sign on with the Rebel Alliance, it doesn't have to be the Empire as a monolithic entity. Every Moff and Governor has their own projects, special interests and plots to take over...whatever the next step up the ladder is.
  • A Moff is still incredibly dangerous but a far more manageable opponent than the entire empire, especially if he has to be subtle about why he wants them captured or dead because he can't afford to draw attention to what he's doing.
  • Knowing what happened with the plague when Vader tried it is a very good reason to keep it secret.

8 hours ago, SanguineAngel said:

Edit: Oh oh, I'd also suggest looking for a really compelling reason for the players to pursue this. If they aren't rebels then they won't be under orders. Why don't they just walk away? What is going to drive a group of players you have no control over to pursue the perpetrators of this horrible crime? You. Might get lucky and they just do it for vengeance. But I'd try to prepare something a little more compelling.

• A compelling reason to chase the origin of a slow-burning infectious bioweapon? I think I can see one straight off the top of my head....

Is this an Edge of the Empire game, or a Age of Rebellion game? Or, maybe a combo. Do you want a serial game, or an episodic game?

Who is the villain of the story, and what are they trying to accomplish? "The Empire" is okay, but I think it should be narrowed down to a single individual, like a nasty, nihilistic moff or a weapons R&D director whose department is not meeting its goals. If the villain is, more or less, the entirety of the Empire, that's not very accessible to a small group of PCs in an EoE game. In an AoR game, the PCs have bosses sending them on the mission-of-the-week against the Empire, which could tie into the theft, but it's not as cohesive.

How are the PCs invested in what's going on? Their current situation seems to be "escape the self-destructing ship." Once that happens, then what? Are they going to pursue the theft purely out of altruism? That's pretty nice of them. Are they being paid to chase the thieves down? Is it revenge? All good reasons to care, but how many hurdles will they have to jump before they think it's too much. Maybe they're being coerced into action.

Some of these can be answered by asking what the theme and tone of the campaign is.

Just a few thoughts to help prime the pump.