I've been throwing together a list of events that can happen in the depths of space. Mostly because I want Astrogation to be more interesting. Making an Astrogation check when you've got TIEs bearing down on you is pretty good, because the cost of "Well, you failed, you can roll again next round," is an actual cost. We need things to happen when you fail a fairly low-stress roll. My thought is that whenever the ship jumps to hyperspace, the Astrogator makes a check. If he fails, they still make the jump, but it's only partway (more failures mean less distance travelled), and the GM will have a handy little table for random events. He'll roll a d10 (or maybe 2d10 for that nice bell curve). Stuff in the middle is pretty mild. "Off Course," "Dense Nebula" and so on. Stuff at the low end may actually be beneficial, like finding an uncharted planet, or a salvageable wreckage. Stuff at the high end will be troublesome, even downright nasty. Asteroid fields, ion storms, pirate attacks, Imperial patrols, even Interdictions. Advantage can be used to subtract from the roll, making beneficial results more likely, while Threat will add to the roll, making things worse.

My hope is to put together a small set piece for each item on the menu, so GMs will have a quick way to play out some old-timey "random encounters."

Here's my list so far, feel free to suggest new additions.

Asteroid Field
Nebula
Debris field
Truck Stop - Heavy traffic
Interdiction trap
Imperial patrol/checkpoint
“Where the heck are we?”
Ion Storm
Pirates
New planet

Ït's life, but not as we know it."

Bouncing close to a supernova.

How about actually getting stuck in hyperspace when the hyperdrives cut out? What would happen if you're in the hyper dimension, and then ignite the boosters, activate a hyperjump, and what not?

I like where @Xcapobl is going with things in hyperspace!

Maybe they see something...weird.

• If certain creatures in a certain animated series can enter hyperspace, that implies there might be other creatures that can enter it...or possibly live there.
• I wonder what an ion storm in realspace looks like in hyperspace?
• could a glitch impact the timeline so that the PCs exit hyperspace before they enter?
  • hey, that's how the Emperor got to Mustafar so quickly after his battle with Yoda!

4 hours ago, Xcapobl said:

What would happen if you're in the hyper dimension, and then ignite the boosters, activate a hyperjump, and what not?

"They've gone to plaid!"

An other idea I once actually used in a D20 campaign, was to have an NPC provide a ship with a highly classified and experimental new hyperdrive system. If you thought the Milennium Falcon was fast... Of course, they didn't realise it at the time, but that galaxy far, far away they were looking at on the destination planet after almost a month of continuous travel... ?

What if a hyperdrive accident (or like in my campaign deliberate action) causes the ship to overshoot its planned destination by a galaxy or two? Or like in my campaign, where the party visited a rogue star that was ejected from the galaxy by gravitic turbulence, and it took its planets with it. A single star in the void between galaxies, with one of its planets housing a barely livable ecosystem to sustain guardians for some ancient Sith secrets brought there by a mysterious ship centuries ago. A ship that itself had traveled for a few generations at more manageable hyperspeeds.

Time travel as a part of a hyperspeed glitch. I am slightly wary when talking about time travel in a roleplay campaign, for all the things it can, and most likely will, mess up. of course, one fantasy campaign I GMd actually made this the central theme. The characters started in a busted up world, with evil winning at every corner, and magic itself being outlawed, punishable by death (as magic could end the evil winning streak, of course). The central theme here was for the characters to be sent into the past, to a critical juncture where one of the four emperor's sons was about to dabble in some seriously harmful powers of the nether realms.

In Star Wars, time travel would imply you know where you are going (or when, more appropriately). It is then imperative to keep an open mind as to what might change, and it often involves letting go of canon/legends completely. I very much like the idea of alternate realities and timelines, don't get me wrong on that, but your average Star Wars story doesn't involve a party of characters that travels the multiverse like they did in the series Sliders, getting into an alternate reality every week.

Just posted this in another thread about a spooky (Halloween) one shot, which ties in with the strnge things one might see in hyperspace...

Spooky, and in the spirit of things ( ? )...

They enter hyperspace, something unforseen happens and they are stuck in hyperspace. During finding out what went wrong and how they can get out of hyperspace again, they start to see... things. Things reminding them of long lost loved ones and old comrades. Not just Force ghosts, but... ghosts.

So to try to tackle the issue of being "stuck" in hyperspace indefinitely.

Eventually you run out of food and water and die a very slow painful death that includes eating team mates and friends. Regardless of whether or not they wear plaid.

ON the flip side, in the Star Wars universe if you were to somehow "get stuck" in hyperspace, you could always steer close to a known gravity well, until that gravity well disrupts your hyper drive and kicks you back into normal space. So it's actually not that big of an emergency.

It's almost how like if you were driving down the freeway and your breaks go out. You would kick the transmission into neutral and "coast" to a stop and if you had to shorten the stopping distance, roll over to the side of the road to increase friction.

So not really an issue.

And for the issue of traveling between galaxies? That's not possible in the Star Wars universe using star wars tech (as we know it).

So if you go that route then I guess you've transitioned to playing Battlestar Galactica 1980 . . . or Lost in Space.

25 minutes ago, Mark Caliber said:

It's almost how like if you were driving down the freeway and your breaks go out. You would kick the transmission into neutral and "coast" to a stop and if you had to shorten the stopping distance, roll over to the side of the road to increase friction.

So not really an issue.

When I worked for the State of Florida, they issued me a car that caught on fire while I was driving it. I was going about 45 mph down a county road and first noticed the power steering was out. Then I noticed the power brakes were out too. A major intersection was coming up, so I decided to slow down by hitting several of the wooden posts along the side of the road. It took six of them along with standing on the brakes before the car stopped. Then I used the fire extinguisher and put out the fire. When I called it in, I was told "You should have let it burn; it's easier to get a replacement than to get the repairs done." No concern was expressed for my safety. Gotta love Florida!

1 minute ago, Mark Caliber said:

ON the flip side, in the Star Wars universe if you were to somehow "get stuck" in hyperspace, you could always steer close to a known gravity well, until that gravity well disrupts your hyper drive and kicks you back into normal space. So it's actually not that big of an emergency.

Hence why I mentioned, as some form of complication, that the hyperdrives cut out already, as your ship is stuck there. So the emergency is about being there, in hyperspace, while by no rights you should still be there. Really an issue, which could be a short adventure on its own. Especially if you find things in hyperspace (which we all know is some magical other dimension simply to allow faster-than-light travel anyways) which also shouldn't or couldn't be there. Stuff that could lead the ship back into normal space, perhaps as a reward for assistence offered or something, before the party needs to revert to cannibalism.

5 minutes ago, Mark Caliber said:

And for the issue of traveling between galaxies? That's not possible in the Star Wars universe using star wars tech (as we know it).

This idea was inspired by an old Marvel Star Wars comic, where Luke and Leia were stranded in some void, and they found a half-mechanical, half-organic vessel. They had to survive the internal countermeasures and shipboard defenses first, and then found the pilot who explained he was the last of a warrior caste that bonded with his ship and fought terrible wars. I believe (memory lane here) the warrior-vessel fled into the void between the galaxies to flee from the wars he had to fight. The comic ended in a Star Destroyer finding them, and that being destroyed in a jiffy by the weapons of the warrior-vessel. Except for superweapons like the Death Star Laser, also very un-Star Wars-like, seeing how this was a single starship, not a moon-sized space station, that disintegrated a Star Destroyer.

Then again, I never really looked at the Star Wars movies and thought Star Wars had a place for 80's style zombie infestations too, until I saw zombie stormtroopers. Or literally the Nightsister Zombie and Nightsister Spirit in Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes which are far from Jedi Force Ghosts for that matter. As such I believe the Star Wars galaxy can be home to many things not shown in movies, series, games, and books as well.

13 minutes ago, Mark Caliber said:

So if you go that route then I guess you've transitioned to playing Battlestar Galactica 1980 . . . or Lost in Space.

Or I am playing a Star Wars game using the freedom that a roleplaying game gives us to do as we please, see the thrill and enjoyment in the faces of the players, and contain such ideas to single adventures in private campaigns.

I like the ideas, but blasting clear out of the Galaxy isn't something I would ever decide by a random roll. That's a whole story in itself. I'm thinking about complications. In a D&D game, it would be the trouble cause by failing a Survival check while traveling through the wilderness. Maybe you come to a river, with no bridge in sight. Maybe you find an ogre's lair. Maybe you're ambushed by goblins. Most of them should be solved with a couple of rolls, and perhaps the ship gets a little banged up. The Interdictor Cruiser would be the kind of thing you can only get with a Despair, but that's about as nasty as I think it should get.

I'll try to get a set-piece or two typed up over the weekend.

1 hour ago, HappyDaze said:

Gotta love Florida!

If you'd claimed that this had happened anywhere else, I might have been incredulous; but I've spent enough years there that I 100% believe you. Good thing you didn't try the parking brake; the whole vehicle would have probably ripped in half.

5 minutes ago, Vorzakk said:

If you'd claimed that this had happened anywhere else, I might have been incredulous; but I've spent enough years there that I 100% believe you. Good thing you didn't try the parking brake; the whole vehicle would have probably ripped in half.

This was back when I worked for the Department of Juvenile Justice in 1998. They had also issued me a van with an exhaust leak. I was out doing home detention checks (knock on door, chat 5-10 min, return to vehicle and chart in air conditioned comfort), After just a few hours I had a splitting headache and felt like crap, so I called it a day and returned to the detention center.

My boss:"Oh, did you take van 4?"

Me: "Yeah, why?"

My boss: "They said someone took van 4. I was going to call you and see if it was you."

Me: "Why? What's going on with van 4?"

My boss: "They said something about an exhaust problem. You don't look so good. Maybe you should go to the clinic and get checked out."

Me: "OK, thanks.."

And then I discovered the joys of carbon monoxide poisoning. Thank you again , Florida!

I've been itching to break an encounter with these guys out with a failed/threat filled out/ despair on an astrogation roll, but haven't gotten the opportunity yet. Appropriate for the season too.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Starweird

13 hours ago, oneeyedmatt87 said:

I've been itching to break an encounter with these guys out with a failed/threat filled out/ despair on an astrogation roll, but haven't gotten the opportunity yet. Appropriate for the season too.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Starweird

Hadn't run across those before.

Hmmm...might be worth having on tap in case of a bad roll as my players make their way to Roon through the Cloak of the Sith in the next session....

I like using "random encounters" as the consequence for failure, but don't forget Advantages and Threat (and of course, Triumph & Despair) on those rolls. Sure, a fail means your jump didn't end up where you wanted, but those 3 advantages and 2 triumphs you still somehow got (do your dice hate you?!) mean that while you didn't get where you wanted to go... You probably just went where you should've gone to begin with.