This is pretty long, so bear with me. Just wanted to see if this is common in this game.

I've been running RPG's since 1984 or so. This is my first try at running Star Wars, and I've been running since late February of this year. The dice system is pretty confusing for me still, but I'm slowly getting the hang of it, after 30 years of D20 or D6(cough,Shadowrun,cough) systems. I decided to set my campaign 2 years before Rogue One/ANH. I'll assume now that everyone's played Mask of the Pirate Queen.

Here's the players: An Astromech Technician/Slicer, Twi'lek female Bounty Hunter/Skip Tracer, Twi'lek Smuggler/Pilot(twin sister to BH), and my GMPC human male Hired Gun/Bodyguard. Normally, i do NOT have a character, but I made an exception , since they had no one to work the ship turrets.

I started off by running the short adventure in the back of the EotE CRB. It went pretty well, but the PC Astromech Droid Slicer managed to save J9-B8 (rolled a Triumph, and i allowed it). After chopping the limbs off, he stored the functioning head and torso on board the ship as a toy to tinker with later.

This should have told me something.

The rest of the adventure went well, including getting R4-W9 to join the party (after hiding his dismembered friend in a storage locker in the engineering section of the YT-2400 they have.)

The next session, I was handed MotPQ. Ok, looked pretty straightforward, but it was obvious it needed tweaking. More of an idea book(which I prefer) than a railroad run. MotPQ was a really fun one to run, with some good chances for all the PC's to shine. I don't have the book in front of me anymore, it's not mine. Here's where some of my questions are, and I'll try to remember the order of events as best as i can.

After the players landed at the jungle crater, they ran into a pack of the local creatures. They were getting stomped pretty good, IMO, so i had the clone troopers rescue them. The PC/Clone Trooper team then went on to take down the Veiled Sorority crater hideout like it was made of tissue paper. They set their weapons to stun, to maximize loot potential. I thought the looting was a bit over the top, so I asked, "And how are you going to get 60-90(don't quite recall the number) encumbrance of gear and weapons , and five other people back to town?" Their reply? "Loader droid FTW!!"I couldn't argue their creativity. Bonus 10 XP for saving all the Clone Troopers and 5 more for quick thinking. They only missed Mandy, whom I upgraded to a full Sith when they came back a day later to grab the 20+ weapons they had to leave to fit the clone troopers in the speeder. They saw on the surveillance videos that she cut her way out with a red lightsaber to rescue the people the PC's stunned, and they left, vowing vengeance on the party. I love recurring villains. ?

Question 1; was it appropriate for me to upgrade Mandy to a full Sith, and save all 20+ Sorority members to return later?

Later, after arriving at Ord Mantell (or wherever the PC's have to do Chapter 2 of MotPQ, don't remember), the players decide some robbery was in order. So they did some Underworld checks, and found out a shipment of spice was leaving the planet that night. The Droid went to place the security cameras on a 5-minute loop while the rest waited in the shadows. After the Tech rejoined the BH, they attacked. The BH stunned the two at the door, then charged in to take down the rest. The Droid player yelled,"No witnesses!" and headed for the engineering section by himself. One of the thugs jumped in the ventral gun turret, and fired on the Smuggler and the HG, causing massive damage to the security station building. Alarms go off, people are running about in confusion. Meanwhile, the Tech is setting the engines to overload while the PC's are still in combat (he rolled THREE triumphs, iirc). He rigged it to detonate in 5 rounds, and simply left for the speeder the players had stolen earlier, without saying anything. The internal alarms gave the BH the hint, and she hightailed it out of there, grabbing the Smuggler and HG on the way. As they were loading the stolen spice onto the speeder, a single security guard ran up with firefighting gear, assuming an accident. The players fast talked him into thinking it was an engine overload, and to evacuate fast. He did. The PC's escaped, but i required a Formidable Piloting(Planetary) check from the Smuggler to hide in a building's shadow, or the whole party, iirc, takes Pierce 20, Burn 60, and Wound 100 damage from the blast. (Note: I wasn't angry at the PC's: I was completely guessing at the damage caused by an explosion of that magnitude.) She made the roll, with an assist from the BH. The group decided to immediately head for Tatooine to celebrate while the place cooled down. They came back when a hand-written letter from Venlana arrived, telling them to get back to work.

Ok, here's the thing: I never got around to deciding the Obligation for that, so the Droid player,(I think) in a later session, hand-waved and said "20 Obligation sounds good". That sounded a little low. So I went home and started rolling some dice. Here's what came up..

The explosion did this: 430 dead, 940 inured. Three freighters destroyed(2 belonging to Zann Consortium, their employers), 7 damaged, needing 1D12+12 months in the shop each. 19 businesses destroyed. Twenty-six local law enforcement killed, 75 Stormtroopers killed. There was 30,000 credits each of spice on board the other 2 Zann freighters that were destroyed. They made 8,000 credits profit from the sale of spice they stole. The sole surviving security guard(the one they fast-talked) described them accurately. I decided NOT to award XP for this level of damage.

After my table finished MotPQ, I decided that that should haunt them. Huge. I think that Porenn(the Twi'lek at the end) figures out they caused the blast. And he sends Venlana(it doesn't specify she's dead) or elite bounty hunters to hunt them down to pay for two new freighters , 60,000 credits worth of spice, and two elite crews. Also, The Empire and Ord Mantell Security would love to ask them some questions... ?

Question 2: What's the Obligation (if any) for that much destruction?

Question 3: Is a situation like this, is all the Obligation on one PC(since it was the Astromech by himself; the closest player, the BH, was at the front of the ship fighting), or is it group Obligation, since they all were part of the heist?

Please remember I didn't make any of this up, and I'm not trolling you. This is what they did, and how I guessed it should be handled. I'm new to this system.

All comments, advice, and opinions are appreciated.

No need for disbelief. That kind of cluster-F happens pretty regularly in my games. I don't see the problem with the Sith upgrade, or keeping the Sorority alive, especially if it has a good story reason, which you seem to. As to how much obligation, I would say 10 points per character, including the GMPC. This adds 40 to the group obligation, which ought to make it hard to operate openly.

Yeah... this sounds pretty typical. Maybe not the scale of it, but certainly the intent.

What you did with Mandy sounds reasonable, but it depends on the direction you want to take the campaign. If you want them crossing Force users, go for it. Either pick up the Force and Destiny core book and use the rules for making Inquisitors, or grab Ghosts of Dathomir and base Mandy's new life on the baddie from that module. (Jynserra? Something like that. I'm AFB.)

No matter what, though, swearing vengeance sounds good. Because they let all the Sorority members live, maybe she'll just aim to ruin them financially rather than try to kill them. Then again, if she's full dark side, maybe not.

As for Obligation, you have a couple of options here. As Edgookin suggests, you could put 10 points on each character; you can also give them a Group Obligation of 40, which means the negatives of an Obligation roll would apply to the group as a whole. Depending on the circumstances you're looking for, either would make sense. I'd probably go with a Group Obligation, since Ord Mantell's government probably has a warrant out for everyone, and won't be satisfied with just one of them under arrest. But you could have them each individually listed, and maybe double the Obligation for the PC who's actually responsible for the explosion.

And that's just for the Criminal Obligation from Ord Mantell. If the Zann Consortium is also coming after them, that could be another Obligation, Bounty, for 10 points. And in that case, it would probably be individual.

If you're worried about the group continuing to feel like they can act however they want without repercussions, I'd say you're going down the right path. Make sure their actions have consequences. Just because someone rolls a Triple Triumph doesn't mean they get away with whatever they're doing. Their characters exist as part of this universe, and so they have to find a way to live as part of it.

Wait, you didn’t give them xp?

No no no. Always give XP for stuff like this. Just make sure it comes with obligation to match. Them all being wanted criminals with 6 digit bounties seems appropriate enough of a discouragement.

but never withhold XP. They still worked hard for what was an epic stunt and it’s worth extra. They’ll need it when the bounty hunters come for them.

21 hours ago, Ehrran said:

Question 1; was it appropriate for me to upgrade Mandy to a full Sith, and save all 20+ Sorority members to return later?

It's your game, you get to do what you want.

I mean... a little weird sure, but so what?

Also Sith and "force user with a red lightsaber" are not mutually inclusive. So she can be anything you want her to be if you feel you need to dial it back a bit down the road. I mean, if they didn't see her use a force power too, then she could just be someone with an interesting tale to tell about getting a lightsaber.... or maybe it's a boring tale and there's a pawn shop owner out there that tossed something into the wrong bargain bin...

21 hours ago, Ehrran said:

What's the Obligation (if any) for that much destruction?

My opinion: If you thought this was fubar enough to not award XP... probably whatever it takes to exceed 100 total.

This does two things (you can read along with me in your book on page 108):

1) This affects their reputation. Put simply they probably are on several wanted lists and looking at a bounty or 6 on their heads. Maybe they aren't up for "named" hunters showing up to take them down, but enough B and C listers are probably on their tale that they'd actually prefer a single Boba. You can have fun here though in that they've probably got competing bounties. A legal listing here, and Illegal one there. So they can get bagged by one group of hunters only to be able to get free when that group get jumped by another group hoping to cash in a different bounty. Also buying anything legal more than a cheeseburger is impossible, and buying anything illegal is likewise gonna be a trip. "You want a what? Chummer, you're too hot to touch right now, the Imps even find out I talked to ya and I'll end up getting the happy shot from an interrogation droid. Go fake your death and get your face rearranged or something and then we can talk, but for now: I don't know ya, I don't wanna know ya, and if I see you around here I'll call ya in and collect the bounty myself."

2) Until you're below 100, NO SPENDING XP! That way you don't have to feel like a chump for not awarding XP, but they can feel like a chump for going so rogue they can't settle down enough to spend the XP they have and continue to accrue.

By cranking them up you not only set up some mechanical and narrative repercussions, but also they now have to deal with that obligation and get it back down if they want out from under all that mess. It's a plot that hooks itself.

21 hours ago, Ehrran said:

Question 3: Is a situation like this, is all the Obligation on one PC(since it was the Astromech by himself; the closest player, the BH, was at the front of the ship fighting), or is it group Obligation, since they all were part of the heist?

Group.

It's called aiding and abetting.

Besides, if you just give it all to one character then a group like this will probably just have him go suicidal so he can die and then generate a new character with no obligation, and fix everyone's problem. It was a group decision to execute the garbage can's evil scheme, now they gotta live with it.

On 7/23/2018 at 10:27 AM, BadMotivator said:

Wait, you didn’t give them xp?

No no no. Always give XP for stuff like this. Just make sure it comes with obligation to match. Them all being wanted criminals with 6 digit bounties seems appropriate enough of a discouragement.

but never withhold XP. They still worked hard for what was an epic stunt and it’s worth extra. They’ll need it when the bounty hunters come for them.

I didn't think of that. I'll award them with 10 extra XP for that, and everyone gets 10 more Obligation on top. ? I'll have to go over my notes. I'm not sure if they even have a group obligation at all yet. They all have individual obligation so far, and we've added a new player. A Gand(iirc) Tech/Outlaw Tech. They're a little bit suspicious, because they know he slips off at every stop to do ...something...out of their sight, they can't figure out what. And this was the player's idea, before he learned about the explosion. ?

On 7/23/2018 at 4:55 PM, Ghostofman said:

It's your game, you get to do what you want.

I mean... a little weird sure, but so what?

Also Sith and "force user with a red lightsaber" are not mutually inclusive. So she can be anything you want her to be if you feel you need to dial it back a bit down the road. I mean, if they didn't see her use a force power too, then she could just be someone with an interesting tale to tell about getting a lightsaber.... or maybe it's a boring tale and there's a pawn shop owner out there that tossed something into the wrong bargain bin...

My opinion: If you thought this was fubar enough to not award XP... probably whatever it takes to exceed 100 total.

This does two things (you can read along with me in your book on page 108):

1) This affects their reputation. Put simply they probably are on several wanted lists and looking at a bounty or 6 on their heads. Maybe they aren't up for "named" hunters showing up to take them down, but enough B and C listers are probably on their tale that they'd actually prefer a single Boba. You can have fun here though in that they've probably got competing bounties. A legal listing here, and Illegal one there. So they can get bagged by one group of hunters only to be able to get free when that group get jumped by another group hoping to cash in a different bounty. Also buying anything legal more than a cheeseburger is impossible, and buying anything illegal is likewise gonna be a trip. "You want a what? Chummer, you're too hot to touch right now, the Imps even find out I talked to ya and I'll end up getting the happy shot from an interrogation droid. Go fake your death and get your face rearranged or something and then we can talk, but for now: I don't know ya, I don't wanna know ya, and if I see you around here I'll call ya in and collect the bounty myself."

2) Until you're below 100, NO SPENDING XP! That way you don't have to feel like a chump for not awarding XP, but they can feel like a chump for going so rogue they can't settle down enough to spend the XP they have and continue to accrue.

By cranking them up you not only set up some mechanical and narrative repercussions, but also they now have to deal with that obligation and get it back down if they want out from under all that mess. It's a plot that hooks itself.

Group.

It's called aiding and abetting.

Besides, if you just give it all to one character then a group like this will probably just have him go suicidal so he can die and then generate a new character with no obligation, and fix everyone's problem. It was a group decision to execute the garbage can's evil scheme, now they gotta live with it.

Nice.......I will definitely have to do this.

I have an NPC that is stalking them for something the droid did a session later. The droid announced he was doing some slicing to learn more about the next target on Ord Mantell. Double Triumph with a Despair! ( I had upgraded because of the increased security level i thought that zone called for). He stated that he wanted to "Slice all the information in the universe! BWAHAHAHAHA!!" (His actual words). I thought that an astromech droid did not have infinite download capacity, and what is most of the web in RL?

You guessed it, crap.

So...because of his Despair I let him download the info he was after, randomly mixed in with about 600 terabytes of cute pet videos and another 300 terabytes of infomercials and "Twi'leks Gone Wild" videos. He passed out from the overload of cuteness, and the rest of the party had to drag him a mile back to the ship. Hilarious RP moment. It took him a game"day" to get the garbage out of his system.

It also alerted Ord Mantell Security to a severe breach. They, in turn, called the Empire for help. They dispatched a Star Destroyer with a command crew mostly consisting of slicers. The commander is simply known as "Merlin". Take Thrawn's stats/abilities, and re-imagine him as a Slicer.

An Imperial star destroyer was probably excessive. Maybe a victory star destroyer. ISDs are too valuable to send after something like this.

30 minutes ago, BadMotivator said:

An Imperial star destroyer was probably excessive. Maybe a victory star destroyer. ISDs are too valuable to send after something like this.

That depends on how cinematic you want to make your story. You can play the Empire as being bound by limited assets (and thus using smaller ships and Imperial Army garrisons), or you can go for full on cinematic with only the iconic representations (Imperial Star Destroyers and Stormtroopers). Neither is wrong, but I think that any campaign should decide which way it wants to go and stay consistent on that tone.

I started with smaller ones and built up over time as the characters gain notoriety with the Empire.

On 7/25/2018 at 9:18 AM, HappyDaze said:

That depends on how cinematic you want to make your story. You can play the Empire as being bound by limited assets (and thus using smaller ships and Imperial Army garrisons), or you can go for full on cinematic with only the iconic representations (Imperial Star Destroyers and Stormtroopers). Neither is wrong, but I think that any campaign should decide which way it wants to go and stay consistent on that tone.

Then again, most players in a freighter hear "A Star Destroyer dropped out of hyperspace in front of you." and don't ask whether it is Imperial, Victory or Venator. They just know they are outclassed and either need to run or talk. Fighting isn't a viable option.

6 minutes ago, Edgookin said:

Then again, most players in a freighter hear "A Star Destroyer dropped out of hyperspace in front of you." and don't ask whether it is Imperial, Victory or Venator. They just know they are outclassed and either need to run or talk. Fighting isn't a viable option.

In most cases yup. In mine, the drall shipwright in my group starts requesting serial numbers to check if it was one he worked on.

On 7/22/2018 at 7:25 PM, Ehrran said:

All comments, advice, and opinions are appreciated.

OK, coming from a loooonnnnggg RP background myself (about as long as you, give or take a year) and all 5 editions of Shadowrun too, think back to those for a moment. Notoriety is a runners destruction. That's pretty much one of the ways I view Obligation, certain ones anyway. Pretty much Notoriety. As Ghost mentioned, it can seriously impact just being able to walk into the local McBantha for a bite to eat.

As for the evil trashcan/psycho cylinder, I've had plenty of player that like to play characters like that over the years. My personal approach has always been let them hang them selves with whatever rope they decide to buy. As mentioned, it's an actual evolving world out here. Reputations will get the better of them. If the locals get wind that it's "those guys" in town, they will adjust appropriately, "we're not equipped for that level of possible destruction. Better call in the Empire/Big Guns/Professionals/etc." Let the opposition scale with the level of apparent ability, not necessarily their actual skill sets if you need to. If they cause destruction on the scale of a clone platoon, the authorities might think a full platoon is involved and respond accordingly. After a while, the PC's/Characters should start policing themselves, that is unless the characters LIKE having that many people after them because they let one psychotic character run rampant.

My Advice: Watch out for Slicers.

Your player who is the Slicer sounds like they may become a giant pain in the *** (unless you enjoy constantly stuffing him on his plans to download the Galaxy). One approach you can take for this is to decide that the HoloNet isn't the Internet, and that the technology isn't a direct analogue to our technology so the same knowledge doesn't apply. My experience is that people read the word Slicer but in their head the words "I'M A DO-ANYTHING WIZARD" reads across their internal display. There is a lot of things that they will try in my experience:

• Avoid the Adventure by using the security footage to find a safe route there
• Bypass the Combat Characters (Friendly or Enemy) by Hacking the Environment or making a wireless Droid Army out of nearby droids
• Attempt to kit bash new technology
• Remotely Steal Money
• Bypass Ship Combat by Remote Piloting other vessels
• Place Bounties, Criminal Records/Erase Bounties, Criminal Records
• Hacking Droids to sell or to act as their servants
• Downloading massive but mundane amounts of information
• Attempting to find diaries or journals or any other thing in which they feel the Bad Guy would have written down their every thought or plan.
• Using Computers to bypass the need for a Mechanic/Gunner/Underworld/Skulduggery skill

A lot of this stuff would be fine in a mild version or if used once in a great while, but in my experience the Slicer character is often seen as the character who can do anything as long as they have a datapad. I make them almost always have a physical connection to something to manipulate it, and the difficulties should be higher than your first inclination. The things I let them do well are open magseals and door locks, disarm traps, or to help mod stuff. To me they are Rogues, not Dr. Strange.

Most of the "advice" here is a perfect example of why I refuse to use Obligation in my games. "My players did something I didn't want them to do, so let's punish them with this meta-currency!"

If you don't want your players to murder their way through adventures, you talk to the players like a friggin adult, you don't do passive-aggressive **** like not giving EXP or suddenly slapping a 40-100 point Obligation onto them. Obligation is a currency you use to get favors or express failure such as having to drop your smuggled goods, its not there to punish playstyles you disagree with.

1 hour ago, Silim said:

Most of the "advice" here is a perfect example of why I refuse to use Obligation in my games. "My players did something I didn't want them to do, so let's punish them with this meta-currency!"

If you don't want your players to murder their way through adventures, you talk to the players like a friggin adult, you don't do passive-aggressive **** like not giving EXP or suddenly slapping a 40-100 point Obligation onto them. Obligation is a currency you use to get favors or express failure such as having to drop your smuggled goods, its not there to punish playstyles you disagree with.

There's a difference between killing the bad guys in combat, and causing mass destruction and death to whole swaths of a city.

27 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

There's a difference between killing the bad guys in combat, and causing mass destruction and death to whole swaths of a city.

Depends on if that city presented an immanent threat. I swore the gunner yelled, "Look out it's coming right for us!" just before he bombed them to ****.

17 hours ago, Silim said:

Most of the "advice" here is a perfect example of why I refuse to use Obligation in my games. "My players did something I didn't want them to do, so let's punish them with this meta-currency!"

If you don't want your players to murder their way through adventures, you talk to the players like a friggin adult, you don't do passive-aggressive **** like not giving EXP or suddenly slapping a 40-100 point Obligation onto them. Obligation is a currency you use to get favors or express failure such as having to drop your smuggled goods, its not there to punish playstyles you disagree with.

The Obligation system is a system generated from consequence however, the PC chose particularly to engage in the option that absolutely devastated the surrounding area then it might warrant an increase in obligation regardless. Probably regardless of any discussion I had, I would have given them a group obligation of at least 20 with their own boss; the stunt they did cost him major and in the same vain as Han Solo working for Jabba, he's gonna get that money back one way or another and the obligation would likely reflect a lack of loyalty from your own boss; it wouldn't be adverse to selling your location out for lump sums to keep other authorities busy. Otherwise there would be nothing keeping the characters actions (not to be mistaken for the players agency) in check.

I do agree that discussion of expectation is key in any incidence, so that the players and GM are on the same page about what they are expecting from this game.

On 8/3/2018 at 10:57 AM, Archlyte said:

My Advice: Watch out for Slicers.

Definitely. I'm finding out the hard way how creative this player is.(The player's studying to be an engineer in RL.) I may need to purchase the Special Modifications book and create my own Slicer to truly understand what he's doing.

A few sessions after the incident, the group was dropping off an NPC on a remote planet (as a method of introducing the BH player's switch to a new character, a female Togruta Shii-Cho Knight. I could be wrong, but I have the feeling he made a new character because I rolled a couple of lucky triumphs during a tough battle. Didn't kill or get a crit on the PC, but it really felt the burn. He's been at my table for years, and I've found that the quickest way to make him mad is to take more than 25 - 50% of his health in combat,but I'm digressing.). The R3 Slicer was at his station on the PC's ship while the rest were escorting the NPC. The players were being watched while wandering the colony, and the new Techie PC spotted someone ducking into an alley to use a commlink. He calls up the Slicer to inform him. I have him (Slicer) roll an Average Computer check, which he passes easily.

Here's where it gets weird for me.

The slicer says," I slice into their computer, and jam their transmission!" He rolls PPPPPDS. The 1 setback die because he's on the ground, the target is 150 miles in orbit overhead, and heavy snow is coming in. Some ability allows him to ignore 1 purple die, I'll have to research it; pretty sure i read it somewhere. He rolled 2 triumphs, iirc. I decided the ship was a CR90 Corvette, with a crew of 100.

Me: "Okay, their comms are down."

Slicer: Now that i have a backdoor into their system, i shut off their engines. They can't restart for an hour."

Me: "Uhmmmm..."(Like I said, I started this game system in February: I've still got a while before I master it, IMO.)

Slicer: "Now I open every door to space, and begin powering up the freighter to go get my new ship!"

Me: "You successfully open all the doors to space. Some do manage to make it to the escape pods and escape to the surface, there is no way to lock someone out of an escape pod. All but one officer. He calmly rises from his station, walks to the rear of engineering while his crew is pulled into space. He enters a code into a terminal, then looking into the monitor, gives you a knowing smirk before pulling a handle. The ship self-destructs with a blinding flash visible on the surface."

That last part? There's something going on in the background the players haven't seen...yet. Everyone at the session failed to notice that that officer was completely unaffected by being in an airless room for 2 full rounds. And he knew BBX (The PC Slicer) was doing it, and was watching. I said that before he died, you see a familiar symbol underneath his flapping jacket collar, Merlin's (the nemesis stalking him) symbol.

It felt kinda wrong to empty out a ship that quickly without some homework on my part first. So I allowed everything but the capture of the ship. Not to be petty, but because there's a third player on the board in my campaign. And Player Three has been around before the Old Republic...

I'll eventually let them discover through newscasts it was a Republic spy ship he took out...

I see abuses like this when remote slicing is allowed. Generally if the slicer has to have direct contact with the system to be sliced, the game works far better. This system doesn't pull of cyberpunk hacking very well.

@Ehrran

I think there needs to be more description from this player as to how he is doing what he is doing.

Player "I slice into their computer..."

GM "Wait, how are you doing that? What equipment are you using?"

Player "I use my Datapad"

GM "Ok you need to roll to establish a link."

And keep adding steps to show the enormity of what is being attempted. Slicing a door can be one roll, taking down a Corellian Corvette with a DataPad through a wireless connection is going to be many rolls with some steps being very hard. My general rule of thumb is that the bigger the consequence of the hack, the longer and more dangerous the system slice. I had one player rolling for a long time and had to keep coming back to him because he wanted into a city computer system and wanted control of a module. Basically I made him demonstrate his will to keep trying before rewarding him, and even then the dice did the work, not me. The multiple checks will keep Multiple Triumphs right out the gate from being an I win button.

GM: Ok you got two triumphs what do you want to use them for?

Player: I get into the system and have total control (this is where they get you by making giant sweeping statements with no description: I take over Imperial Command, I reprogram the Security Droid, I make the ship travel faster than it can)

GM: Ok you get into the Communication Module and have total control for about 3 seconds, what do you do?

Player: The system is designed to reboot in the case of a total comm system failure. So you are going to have to wait for it to come back up.

Yeah I have locked that stuff down big time. The most common thing I have to correct in my games is to let them know that in my game a Datapad isn't a Tablet, it's for looking up limited information and for recording data (thus the name). HappyDaze has it right in my opinion, if there were Slicers like that then every place you wen to would have cyberwars going on constantly with attempts to steal credits and hold atmosphere processing hostage.

The ability to hack a CR-90 is to me just a non-starter. Why would they hook their comms up to their main operations computer? That's a fairly expensive piece of military hardware with 100 souls on board, did no one realize that Snuffy the Slicer could just telnet in and kill everyone on board?

and TIME IS ALWAYS A FACTOR. There should always be a time crunch whenever possible. If you make it seem like the Galaxy is their for the taking and nothing else is going on they will try to take it.

But then again by what you were saying about the guy getting mad because his character was hurt, he's a baby. He want's the full release happy ending massage every game session with you pulling the handle or he's going to use external social pressure to try and foist the effects of his lack of self-control onto you. I must have fun and not be challenged or a tantrum is forthcoming.

I honestly think you must be a great person to put up with that and I know that players are hard to come by so I get it.

I'm going to invoke something from your OP, because in the old school games murder hobos at least were somewhat justified in killing NPCs because survival was hard won. Progression in levels and loot was necessary to try to stave off death in those early wargame DNA pen and Paper RPGs. But this game is a later generation Narrative version of those games and a such there is a lot of coddling and lack of danger. The ability to have a character die and to be ok with it is to me the hallmark of a good player. It's ok to register the loss and to miss the character, but dead characters must be sacrificed regularly on the tree of adventure so that we may have true excitement. If you guys were doing a really heavy story game or that's not the focus then you can live without the big danger, but when players are sociopathic the world must respond to the players like the your world will lose its ability to engage them as it lacks consequences.

@Archlyte: Ehrran's character-switching player is a different one from the I-wanna-crack-code-on-god-mode slicer player.

Aside from that, you list some very useful hurdles for a wanna-be-god slicer to tackle before pulling off anything big like that. Very useful!

10 hours ago, Bellona said:

@Archlyte: Ehrran's character-switching player is a different one from the I-wanna-crack-code-on-god-mode slicer player.

Aside from that, you list some very useful hurdles for a wanna-be-god slicer to tackle before pulling off anything big like that. Very useful!

Thank you so much. Yeah I re-read the OP and realized I was off in left field. The slicer thing was one of my first dilemmas when using this system early on so it's something I can relate to for a GM.

There has been some interesting discussion of slicer abilities here. One of the house rules in the game I run is that there is no wi-fi in Star Wars. Sometimes Computers checks can do remote stuff, but it's limited to short-range radio. I have been trying to make hacking more interesting for my Slicer player, and one good experience we had was playing the Quarantine Quandary module from the Shadow of the Broker series. That gave some suggestions for how far you could get with each Computers check, as well as having a mechanic for the dangers of time passing. As a result, the Slicer really had to make some decisions about what was worth the time-risk to go after. I've also taken a little inspiration from the alternate hacking rules in the Genesys core rulebook, where they split things out into hacker and sys-ops. Having your slicer encounter someone actively defending the network has the potential to make things more interesting, and lets you fold the hacking into the same round-based structure as combat, when that works for your story.

One last thought, an overly active and ambitious hacker is likely to start leaving tracks, even if just from hubris. That can lead to bounties, too.

If ships were that easy to hack into in the Star Wars universe, there would not be much room for fleets at all. Two factors in the Star Wars universe must be considered, at least in the first two eras of movies.

1) it is an universe where very little automation exists. Weapon systems are operated manually, it takes a large bridge crew to turn a ship, star fighter pilots require an astromech droid to act as a computer for hyper space jumps. Unless it is a simple system such as a starfighter or freighter, there isn't a single console that can operate everything. Most consoles can only do one thing. So likely all coms would link to is a commications network.

2) as such while there is a holonet for information, large by large all systems are analogue and cannot be accessed remotely. Data spikes can allow remote access to a system, but they require someone to plant said spike on the console or maintainace interjunction required for that role. As such, using one system (coms, which are more like walkie talkies and WW2 radios and a phone call centre then actual complicated commutation arrays) to hack into another (life support) is a strict no. This aren't shadow run where everything is linked together.

Well, aside from that one time that a reverse hack caused a ship to explode, but that's a kids cartoon so I don't really count that indicent in the larger field.

Its important to discuss these expections and sometimes say no when it does not make sense. Remotely hacking ships? The most you can do is get data and maybe mislead their sensors momentarily with some misinformation, that's it without a more direct connection.

On ‎8‎/‎16‎/‎2018 at 3:30 AM, LordBritish said:

If ships were that easy to hack into in the Star Wars universe, there would not be much room for fleets at all. Two factors in the Star Wars universe must be considered, at least in the first two eras of movies.

1) it is an universe where very little automation exists. Weapon systems are operated manually, it takes a large bridge crew to turn a ship, star fighter pilots require an astromech droid to act as a computer for hyper space jumps. Unless it is a simple system such as a starfighter or freighter, there isn't a single console that can operate everything. Most consoles can only do one thing. So likely all coms would link to is a commications network.

2) as such while there is a holonet for information, large by large all systems are analogue and cannot be accessed remotely. Data spikes can allow remote access to a system, but they require someone to plant said spike on the console or maintainace interjunction required for that role. As such, using one system (coms, which are more like walkie talkies and WW2 radios and a phone call centre then actual complicated commutation arrays) to hack into another (life support) is a strict no. This aren't shadow run where everything is linked together.

Well, aside from that one time that a reverse hack caused a ship to explode, but that's a kids cartoon so I don't really count that indicent in the larger field.

Its important to discuss these expections and sometimes say no when it does not make sense. Remotely hacking ships? The most you can do is get data and maybe mislead their sensors momentarily with some misinformation, that's it without a more direct connection.

I'm grateful for your explanation of the part about the ships. Why have manned fleets if they are likely to be taken over remotely and be used to kill their own crews. I also think that as commonplace as this technology is that it wouldn't be easy to basically destroy it on a whim from the comfort of your cheetah-stained gaming chair.

The part about manual control was also awesome. Well said.

Another thing I had to recently enforce in my game is that DataPads are not a combination of a Super Computer, Phone and a Tablet, but are essentially a little digital notebook and reference source. I don't think the thing would even have a wireless module most of the time. I also make it a big point that the DataPad that is used sometimes in Slicing isn't a normal DataPad at all, but is specialized or modified equipment. Too often players seem to want to use the inexpensive and ubiquitous DataPad as a Magic Wand.