Just curious how GMs list bounties and the availability of that information in your games. Do you have Bounty Offices like in the Mos Shuuta map, or some other means of listing them? Also how do you handle non-guild and non-Imperial bounties? Can people who acquire a bounty be indexed super easily?
Edited by ArchlyteHow do you handle Bounty listings?
I've not had a chance to thoroughly read through No Disintegrations; but Galaxy Guide 10 from the WEG D6 line depicted the process as rigidly organized and full of red tape. I ran it that way back in the day, but I eventually decided that it wasn't a lot of fun.
So in my campaign now, pretty much any planet with a significant Imperial presence is going to have one or more locations where anyone with a valid IPKC can search through postings. However, because I play up interstellar communication as being kind of on the sluggish side, a given office will probably not have every active posting; just local ones and high-priority ones for people who are known to be on the move.
As for crime world bounties, that's a whole 'nother ballgame. Those are usually learned by word of mouth, just like most everything else in the community.
1 hour ago, Vorzakk said:I've not had a chance to thoroughly read through No Disintegrations; but Galaxy Guide 10 from the WEG D6 line depicted the process as rigidly organized and full of red tape. I ran it that way back in the day, but I eventually decided that it wasn't a lot of fun.
The idea was that the BH Guild has administrative REMF to handle all that red tape. That's part of why you paid your dues.
Mainly to reinforce Vorzakk & HappyDaze have already stated.
The IPKC (Sorry I don't remember what the acronym stands for) is a pretty expensive license to hold but it does give you access to the Bounty Hunter database, which I play as being similar to the National Association of Realtor's MLS service. Every major Imperial world will have IPKC data access that any IPKC member can link to their datapad.
Conversely, I haven't actually given this subject much thought since my player's aren't registered bounty hunters and they find themselves being hunted by Bounty Hunters, rather than doing the hunting.
But . . .
If I associate the IPKC database to the MLS then I'm going to assume that a bounty datasheet is going to have a ton of information on each subject. Name (obviously) Aliases, nicknames, homeworld, parent's addresses, known associates and THEIR addresses, last know location, employment info and notable skills.
Physical descriptions are obvious with an emphasis on distinguishing marks. If biometric data is available, that will be part of the record too.
I'd also assume that bounty hunters are going to have a "cooperation" clause in the IPKC, so hunters would also register which people they are pursuing and their area of focus. For instance Bosk may decide to sit on Greel's second cousin, while Boba heads over to Paqualis to see if Greel is holing up with the Aunt who distanced herself from the family. Meanwhile Calo just reported that the parent's haven't seen Greel, and sniffing around the hometown has shown nothing so Calo is going to head over to Skako to check up on the whereabouts of Greel's 'roomate' back when he was fingered on a Grand Larceny charge and spent a nickel on Skako.
Part of the reason the Bounty Hunter's would report their progress is also to keep them from stepping on each-other's toes. Having two bounty hunter's on Skako would just be a waste of time and effort, especially when no one has checked on Greel's sister currently living on Ord Mantell.
My problem is that I haven't had to deal with this question, so I don't have any practical experience to provide. Maybe this will help.
Hopefully others will be able to chime in and provide some really useful insights.
46 minutes ago, Mark Caliber said:IPKC (Sorry I don't remember what the acronym stands for)
"Imperial Peace-Keeping Certificate" if I'm not mistaken.
46 minutes ago, Mark Caliber said:I'd also assume that bounty hunters are going to have a "cooperation" clause in the IPKC, so hunters would also register which people they are pursuing and their area of focus. For instance Bosk may decide to sit on Greel's second cousin, while Boba heads over to Paqualis to see if Greel is holing up with the Aunt who distanced herself from the family. Meanwhile Calo just reported that the parent's haven't seen Greel, and sniffing around the hometown has shown nothing so C alo is going to head over to Skako to check up on the whereabouts of Greel's 'roomate' back when he was fingered on a Grand Larceny charge and spent a nickel on Skako.
Part of the reason the Bounty Hunter's would report their progress is also to keep them from st epping on each-other's toes. Having two bounty hun ter's on Sk ako would just be a waste of time and effort, especially when n o one has checked on Greel's sister currently living on Ord Mantell.
See, in my mind, this exactly what they wouldn't do. What you're describing sounds very much like a police force. Bounty hunters operate outside of some of the restrictions of the law, while not actually being the law
I could see a Team or group of bounty hunters doing that from time to time, but for the most part I see bounty hunters operating individually, privately and not sharing the info that "Greel's buddy on The wheel lent him a ship three weeks ago".
Sharing info means someone else gets paid and while I'm sure there are altruistic hunters out there who just want to catch the bad guy most are motivated by getting paid a big score.
44 minutes ago, Vorzakk said:"Imperial Peace-Keeping Certificate" if I'm not mistaken.
Because only the Empire is so debased that they hyphenate "peacekeeping."
TCW Season 4, E22 shows a local bar with a transmitter capable of showing bounties. Since the droid complains about the bounty hunters "monopolizing all the transmitters", presumably the transmitters can show other info as well. So it's basically public info available on the holonet. If it was a criminal enterprise offering bounties, no doubt there would be a shadow site for people "in the know", but those in the know probably wouldn't be using them in a public place.
Note that with one click of her comm device, Ventress takes the bounty. No doubt all the "last seen on planet..." info, and other critical info, is included. There's no forms to fill out, no registration...presumably she's already registered with a bondsman, as mentioned towards the end of Season 5, when Ventress is tracking Ahsoka.
One lesson is all this tedious stuff is handled off-screen. Another lesson is to watch TCW: it answers so many questions.
Having just rewatched that episode, I was about to post much the same. But @whafrog saved me some typing.
11 minutes ago, whafrog said:Another lesson is to watch TCW: it answers so many questions.
Important to note that the episode order and the chronological order is all off. It can create so many questions until you know that.
37 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:Important to note that the episode order and the chronological order is all off. It can create so many questions until you know that.
There is a simple solution, bookmark this page:
https://www.starwars.com/news/star-wars-the-clone-wars-chronological-episodeorder
2 hours ago, Mark Caliber said:Mainly to reinforce Vorzakk & HappyDaze have already stated.
The IPKC (Sorry I don't remember what the acronym stands for) is a pretty expensive license to hold but it does give you access to the Bounty Hunter database, which I play as being similar to the National Association of Realtor's MLS service. Every major Imperial world will have IPKC data access that any IPKC member can link to their datapad.
Conversely, I haven't actually given this subject much thought since my player's aren't registered bounty hunters and they find themselves being hunted by Bounty Hunters, rather than doing the hunting.
But . . .
If I associate the IPKC database to the MLS then I'm going to assume that a bounty datasheet is going to have a ton of information on each subject. Name (obviously) Aliases, nicknames, homeworld, parent's addresses, known associates and THEIR addresses, last know location, employment info and notable skills.
Physical descriptions are obvious with an emphasis on distinguishing marks. If biometric data is available, that will be part of the record too.
I'd also assume that bounty hunters are going to have a "cooperation" clause in the IPKC, so hunters would also register which people they are pursuing and their area of focus. For instance Bosk may decide to sit on Greel's second cousin, while Boba heads over to Paqualis to see if Greel is holing up with the Aunt who distanced herself from the family. Meanwhile Calo just reported that the parent's haven't seen Greel, and sniffing around the hometown has shown nothing so Calo is going to head over to Skako to check up on the whereabouts of Greel's 'roomate' back when he was fingered on a Grand Larceny charge and spent a nickel on Skako.
Part of the reason the Bounty Hunter's would report their progress is also to keep them from stepping on each-other's toes. Having two bounty hunter's on Skako would just be a waste of time and effort, especially when no one has checked on Greel's sister currently living on Ord Mantell.
My problem is that I haven't had to deal with this question, so I don't have any practical experience to provide. Maybe this will help.
Hopefully others will be able to chime in and provide some really useful insights.
There is one other benefit to having an IPKC: It grants you the legal authority and privilege to purchase, carry ,and use Restricted weapons.
15 minutes ago, whafrog said:There is a simple solution, bookmark this page:
https://www.starwars.com/news/star-wars-the-clone-wars-chronological-episodeorder
It's not entirely simple: You then have to fight with Netflix to switch episodes before the 10 second timer runs down. First world problems...
Ah, I bought them off iTunes...
I am inspired to discuss another couple of points.
Hollywood (:: sarcasm:: which handles truth so well :: /sarcasm :: ) tends to try to paint bounty hunters as a lawless bunch. If that's the flavor you like, then run with it.
However, in reality, Bounty Hunters, ARE an essential part of the law enforcement community. And most Bounty Hunters are nice, sociable, happy people. (I've rubbed shoulders with a couple).
And another point, I'm less concerned with how the writers of a cartoon handle bounty hunters in the Star Wars universe as to how a GM should handle bounty hunters for their campaign (as the OP is requesting). But that's me. If you want your bounty hunters to be exactly like the miscreants in the Clone Wars, viola.
I also have the issue that I'm not really that big of a Star Wars fan.
(fsk fsk hisssssssssssssssssss!) Okay calm down everyone. It's going to be okay.
But the sad truth is that I have about 6 movies that I like to use as source material, some cartoons which lend some inspiration, three rule books with some cool pictures and wookiepaoeedia (misspelled intentionally, so I wouldn't have to actually fish out the correct spelling) and that database is useful to me about 50% of the time. (The other 50% of the time I tend to wonder what the insipid author was smoking when they came up with that idea).
And the other useful source that I turn to is reality.
I like reality a lot and I tend to lean in that direction.
So for me here are my assumptions that relate to Bounty Hunting.
1) FTL batch data communications is fast and easy. Maybe even cheap. This means that Bounty Hunter data will travel quickly among civilized worlds.
2) FTL real time AV communications is difficult and expensive. I REALLY restrict this in my campaign, so to encourage the players to move about the galaxy. That means no long distance video calls.
3) I have a Star Wars GM who has a very detailed IPKC source or color book and it was really inspirational (Sorry I cant cite the source) but it also tends to paint IPKC Bounty Hunters as organized, lawful (usually), and working within the framework of a highly regulated and structured entity.
4) No one can access data from Hyperspace.
I do want to address the issue of cooperation.
- YES! Bounty Hunter's want to be the one to get the collar! So they get paid. But so do Real Estate Agents.
- However, cooperation among Real Estate agents mean that you're going to "split" commissions most of the time, but that cooperation makes deals happen faster and that means you can do more deals. A similar level of cooperation among bounty hunters (especially if they are updating what was found or not found) can cut down on wasted time. eg: So Bosk is on snowy Arkania and spends a couple of days sniffing around for Greel. Frustrated, he updates on the project that Arkania is a dead end. Other Hunter's can take that into account as they evaluate the hunt in general and they are still free to head over to the Arkania system to see if they can do better ('cause Bosk does have a short attention span and not the best 'customer service' in the industry. Plus with that lisp, it's a good bet that no one on Arkania actually understood a word he said).
- And on the flip side, if Lev reports that he's got a lead on a guy matching Greel's description on Corsin, hanging out at a hostel, that signals to everyone that maybe this bounty is about to be cashed in, and maybe efforts would be best put to use elsewhere. Of if they're in the neighborhood, maybe they can drop a line to Lev to see if he could use some help.
- I think this system also implies that when a Bounty Hunter declares a lead, that gives them 'dibs' on that lead. So if two bounty hunters happen upon a subject and one had a lead post already, he's the one who's going to get paid.
So there are a couple more thoughts on the subject.
It's been an interesting intellectual exercise, but I'm scaring myself from being the GM for a bounty hunter. So much information and details to keep track of . . .
@Mark Caliber You are missing the whole point of Bounty Hunters, they are badass in a can of whatever brand you most enjoy ?
13 hours ago, Archlyte said:@Mark Caliber You are missing the whole point of Bounty Hunters, they are badass in a can of whatever brand you most enjoy ?
I never intimated that they weren't.
And why should I cover the obvious while exploring a new issue.
To be clear, I have no questions about how to handle bounty hunters in combat because the FFG rules on combat are easily understood by me. I've had my PC's go toe-to-toe with a couple of bounty hunters and the combat issues aren't hard or difficult to master.
I think I've contributed to this discussion sufficiently.
I'd probably have it be based on the sector of space. For example, the PC's get onto a bounty listing for doing stuff in the Core Worlds, it would probably be readily available information anywhere in the Core Worlds, but not so easily acquired to the Outer Rim worlds, and vice versa.
Personally I wouldn't even really worry about this. If the PC's have done stuff worthy of a Bounty, then that information will get out to the people most suited to give the players grief. Otherwise what's the point of having a Bounty on them if you don't use it to create conflict?
5 hours ago, Mark Caliber said:I never intimated that they weren't.
And why should I cover the obvious while exploring a new issue.
To be clear, I have no questions about how to handle bounty hunters in combat because the FFG rules on combat are easily understood by me. I've had my PC's go toe-to-toe with a couple of bounty hunters and the combat issues aren't hard or difficult to master.
I think I've contributed to this discussion sufficiently.
Oh I was just trying to make a joke, I didn't mean to offend you. I enjoyed your post and agreed with your statements and just wanted to chime in in an amusing way but I guess it came off kind of rude. I thought the funny little robot head would help convey my purpose but it didn't. Please don't leave the discussion I think your post was very interesting.
I have a PC created a Skip Tracer, but all the other characters were leaning towards characters that were more likely to be bounties than hunters. So in the background we had him be in ‘asset management’ for the Hutts. Essentially he used to be a slave that tracked down escaped or MIA slaves. I think they may end up working to pay off bounties by hunting down other bounties. The PC in question is very lawful.
The way I think I’ll handle this whole issue is similar to a lot of posts here regarding how to access the Bounty listings.
As for cooperation though, I think that’ll have two elements. The first is the hoarding type, like say, Bossk and Boba, in that they’re not likely to share information since they want the credits/glory themselves. Then there are the more sharing type. I see these as the individuals that would pass information learned up to their liaison, things like new or dead leads. From there I’m not sure if I’d have that info be simply listed with the Bounty, or available by paying an extra fee or maybe a gold class membership.
I imagine there as many ways to do this as there are people on the forum, and I am interested to see how in your Star Wars it is that BHs get their bounties. I have seen some material where you can check it from your ship, and other material will have an office. Terminals are one way I do it, but I want to have a lot of options.
I like the idea of bounty levels, so some may only post locally and be available on a planetary terminal, or a head office, universal or sector terminal, which might have more communication or processing power and be staffed by more than just a single droid or bounty officer.
I also like the idea of a bounty hunter plugging in a datapad at the planetary terminal to quickly download all the local listings to be sorted through at the nearest bar, cafe, hotel or what have you. Or maybe copies of dataspikes that can be physically taken.
On 9/29/2018 at 7:27 PM, the mercenary said:
Lol, The heights are a bit off. I clicked twice and had a 3m tall cathar and a 1m tall human. Outside of that, cool site.