Cool alternative to Asteroid Field...

By edwardavern, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

9 minutes ago, Rimsen said:

Clever GM does not use the new hyperspace rules.

Now I might just be a simple country GM, but seems to me that a truly clever GM uses everything and the kitchen sink to make a good story. I don't think hating on the sequels is true to the spirit of OP's question, but I believe you are entitled to your opinion and that isn't up for debate.

13 minutes ago, themensch said:

Now I might just be a simple country GM, but seems to me that a truly clever GM uses everything and the kitchen sink to make a good story. I don't think hating on the sequels is true to the spirit of OP's question, but I believe you are entitled to your opinion and that isn't up for debate.

I absolutely agree with you, and you are right that my post was more about on the "canon-hate".

However the main reason I don't use new era material is that is mostly contlicts with EU. EU is sure as **** a lot or time conflicts with other parts of the EU. I simply ignore those parts.

Why? /Personal opinion initiated/ I think a set (rigid) universe is a more stable base for roleplaying. For me, it's easier to prepare. I know how the planet works, what's the NPC's motivations I insert, and I only need to make up a conflict for a story. Sometimes the PC themselves game themselves trouble, so I can work with that easily. If players can bend the rules to get out of trouble, to resolve problems (Han and the atmospheric jump-in to Starkiller Base) it undermines my work.

It works for us, might not work for you, but I strongly believe that you need to set boundaries for your world. It can be EU, it can be canon, anything else, whatever, but you can't just mix up everything. Players and GM has to have similar expectations about the world.

It's hard to play when for you getting in a secret military base is a lot of preparation and danger, and the players says, "nah, I just leave the hyperspace at the back door of the base"

Edited by Rimsen
Typos

Rotted corpse of an enormous dead space slug

LOVE this idea! I'm seeing ships zooming about between rib bones the size of star destroyers! :)

Accre  tion disc/debris field ar  ound a gravity w  el  l. 

Love this one, too. You can also have great fun with time dilation effects around strong enough gravity wells, like a black hole. We actually stole an idea from the pilot of Andromeda to have a Jedi Padawan and an ex-Clone Commando (who had had his "Order 66 chip" removed) fleeing a Clone attack following Order 66 by trying to slingshot around a black hole. Due to time dilation, by the time they were pulled out (by a smuggler salvage team - the other players, of course), nearly 20 years had passed in the rest of the galaxy , but subjectively, only moments had passed for them.

Was a cool "mini-campaign" because we were playing a few sessions that really needed a couple of fully qualified Jedi in the Rebellion era. :)

7 hours ago, themensch said:

Now I might just be a simple country GM, but seems to me that a truly clever GM uses everything and the kitchen sink to make a good story. I don't think hating on the sequels is true to the spirit of OP's question, but I believe you are entitled to your opinion and that isn't up for debate.

Watch out, talk about doing whatever it takes to make a good story confuses a lot of people around these parts

8 hours ago, Rimsen said:

Clever GM does not use the new hyperspace rules.

I wasn’t referring to the “rules,” but the effect, which was started when Lucas did his add-ons to the Original Trilogy. There’s a scene with the Falcon that looks as if it’s traveling through a tunnel during its transit through hyperspace. That’s what the newer movies are taking their visual effect cues from, but feel free to take it or leave it.

There’s a lot that a GM could do with this concept. Maybe the Empire designs a new spacecraft with the ability to “lock on” to another ship and be “dragged” by them through hyperspace (since not every freighter they want to track will be so easily accessible for tracking devices and/or having their hyperdrive disabled). Maybe the PCs ship’s hyperdrive springs a leak and creates a cloud that takes things in close proximity with it when it jumps (if you think this could give too much wiggle room for the PCs to get out of hand, have it be an enemy’s ship who does this and causes problems for them).

Again, hyperspace is a viable option for a clever GM.

Edited by Flavorabledeez

One of the hazards that your PC's are NOT likely to encounter in deep space is a thread jacked discussion on the Merits of Creativity vs the Laws of Physics and how to apply them in an RPG.

So I'm creating a new topic in the GameMasters Forum. To continue THAT discussion click below.

And now back to your regularly scheduled discussion about deep space anomalies. ^_^

11 hours ago, Rimsen said:

I absolutely agree with you, and you are right that my post was more about on the "canon-hate".

I'm sorry if I came off unusually harsh, my apologies. I feel there's plenty of room for all opinions in this thread!

1 hour ago, Mark Caliber said:

And now back to your regularly scheduled discussion about deep space anomalies. ^_^

How about some more close-together anomalies?

  • The site of an asteroid impact on a planetary body
  • detritus from a long-abandoned mine
  • an unstable star ejecting a lot of coronal mass
  • a dying binary star system where one star is siphoning mass from the other

4 hours ago, Flavorabledeez said:

Watch out, talk about doing whatever it takes to make a good story confuses a lot of people around these parts

I wouldn't go that far - I think different people and different tables enjoy different things, and that's okay.

sMzlCJRVJGObxJfDO7Brg0_8wOI=.gif

  • Within a very heavy traffic zone between an orbital station or moon and its planet.
  • A battery of mass drivers are slinging ice rocks through the area quite often.
  • Tunnels inside a honey-combed asteroid.
  • Active, robotic capital shipyard.
12 hours ago, Rimsen said:

Clever GM does not use the new hyperspace rules.

I've always been of the opinion that any new supposed contradiction can easily be explained away in Star Wars since its space fantasy. A little imagination can allow for any new rules to fit in just fine. We did exactly this when new hyperspace "rules" were brought forth by Ep. 7, for example.

29 minutes ago, Sturn said:
  • Within a very heavy traffic zone between an orbital station or moon and its planet.
  • A battery of mass drivers are slinging ice rocks through the area quite often.
  • Tunnels inside a honey-combed asteroid.
  • Active, robotic capital shipyard.

I've always been of the opinion that any new supposed contradiction can easily be explained away in Star Wars since its space fantasy. A little imagination can allow for any new rules to fit in just fine. We did exactly this when new hyperspace "rules" were brought forth by Ep. 7, for example.

By new I refered to specificly the Ep7 changes, which is bull by the hyperspace rules so far. But it's off topic, so let's not go down the rabbit hole.

On topic: I think I haven't seen yet said, but you could introduce thr Maw installation. It's near the Kessel, which also has plenty of story opportunities.

On 1/4/2019 at 11:31 PM, Mark Caliber said:

No.

I have studied SW Hyperspace and once a ship is there, it can't interact with anything else, in or out of hyperspace. (Yeah, I know, Rogue One ignored all of the hyperspace conventions established to date). ALL OF THEM <self censored>. :blink:

But no.

In TRAVELLER, Jump Space is bizarre and a person could go mad coming face to face with . . . that undefined essence that is Jump Space, Just don't stare into the . . . void? Just keep telling yourself that they'res nothing in that something. And watch yourself if you have to do repairs on your ship while in Jump. Take a buddy with you and make sure you keep your eyes firmly fixed to the hull of the ship. Sure 'nothings' out there in Jump Space . . . right? Just don't look at it. :o

In the HONORVERSE, the biggest obstacle to hyperspace are the gravitational sheers, but thank goodness that gravitic sensors were developed. THAT's an environment where ships can engage and shoot at each other, but it's ludicrously difficult to pull of. You'd need to know exactly when, where, and how fast the defender is going in order to set up an intercept. (IIRC, the Peeps pull it off once).

But in Star Wars? Nope. Hyperspace is a very very quiet existence. Unless something goes terribly wrong on the ship. Like the poorly maintained reactor having its core control rod driver break and the auto emergency sequence slams the rods into the shutdown position, cutting all power to the ship. Flying through hyperspace on battery only power is not a pleasant place to be . . . But everyone is taking care of their ships. Right?

On 1/5/2019 at 10:49 AM, themensch said:

Didn't Poe's Black Squadron have comms while they hung out in Hyperspace awaiting their signal to attack Starkiller Base? Speaking of ignoring conventions....

On 1/5/2019 at 12:22 PM, Mark Caliber said:

I will not speak of that movie nor the other one. My opinion on . . . them should be pretty clear. To quote Gollum "I hates them. I HATES them!"

18 hours ago, themensch said:

Let me know when you're the new Pablo 😄

Regardless of personal opinions regarding the newer canon, @themensch is correct regarding communications between ships in hyperspace with realspace. It doesn't only happen in the movies either, but also in Rebels , and, I believe, in Clone Wars . There's no reason why they couldn't either, since what we're dealing with, in these instances are hyper-transceivers . These are long-range comms which send signals through hyperspace for real-time communications across the galaxy. Why wouldn't they work for communications between locations in realspace and hyperspace?

The flight through a nebula was mentioned earlier in this topic, and I have to admit that the movie Titan A.E. comes to mind when I think about it. The addition of something like the Angels would be a cool, possibly distracting side adventure.

It may be part of an epic last stand for an in person campaign I'm working on, but I'm looking at having the party try to fly out of the effects of a mass shadow generator (may be too ambitious, but it's one **** of a way to go).

I also like the idea of a ship, shipyard or space station big enough to fly around, that seems pretty cool.

6 minutes ago, Rabobankrider said:

It may be part of an epic last stand for an in person campaign I'm working on, but I'm looking at having the party try to fly out of the effects of a mass shadow generator (may be too ambitious, but it's one **** of a way to go).

I also like the idea of a ship, shipyard or space station big enough to fly around, that seems pretty cool.

scene9.jpg

Hi all,

I'm looking for interesting things in real space other than asteroids and have this situation going on:

The imperial agent PCs are chasing down a rebel ship which is trying to go through an asteroid field in order to escape the gravity well of an interdictor cruiser.

So we have a space chase like Empire Strikes Back, BUT....... its a bit boring. I'm looking for something to make my Imperial Agent players go ... "ohhhh"

So maybe the rebel ship knows of something in the asteroid field that can help him escape and is flying towards it and the PC pilots ar , at the same time dodging asteroids, encountering this thing.

Now, i like the dead beast - maybe surrounded by small scavengers . . .

Other ideas are ancient mind field or something (the Star Trek TNG episode where the mines sap the ships of their power (Strain) so they have to use thrusters to escape.....

OR ancient mandalorian/sith war tech which boils down to missile launchers or gun turrets. maybe the remains of destroyed ships are here providing an extra hazard??

Ideas guys please?

Thanks!! :)

The ice rings around a gas giant? Or take the action down into the atmosphere of the gas giant itself. You could have mega-lightning discharges, planetary-scale storms, diamond rain, or dodging around amidst a herd of floating gas-bag like cloud creatures (stray laser blasts can ignite them).

I definitely dig the Big Beast idea, Knowhere anyone? Could lead to a lot more interesting questions; WTF was the thing to begin with?

I've also been noodling with the idea of an entire campaign that at least partially takes place aboard a Derelict SSD lost in the black between systems.

**** things are already enormous, could have a planets worth of different civilizations throughout its length!

OOoh or in a riff on that a Spacehulk; think 40K Orks but replace them with Jawas (Possibly mutated by space-fungus?) that have kludge together a bunch of broken capital-ships,

attached the whole thing to an asteroid and are off on a raiding rampage.

Or if you want to go with a horror angle, replace the Jawas with Rakghouls, maybe Rakghouls made form Jawas, so very small and very angry rakghouls...8D

On 1/6/2019 at 10:22 PM, ThreeBFour said:

The flight through a nebula was mentioned earlier in this topic, and I have to admit that the movie Titan A.E. comes to mind when I think about it. The addition of something like the Angels would be a cool, possibly distracting side adventure.

They might just already have been spotted near the moons of Iego. 😉

..."No we are NOT calling it Planet Bob!"

Don't forget atmospheric encounters too. Start the chase in orbit and take it into an atmosphere.

I made up these critters to make cloud battle pretty exciting. The players loved it too.

I have created large jellyfish-like creatures that float amongst the storms of Shantipole. I see them as challenging the PC in 2 ways. First is that the players vessel may collide with them, due to the difficulty of flying in Shantipole's atmosphere. Secondly the jellfyfish live of energy and will try to attach themselves to the vessel in an attempt to draw power, much like mynock does, but more powerfully.

Below are the stats I have come up with. I would love to hear feedback/suggestions:

Ted+Chin_Sky+Jellyfish.jpg

Shantipole Man O War.JPG

Very Nice Work! Thanks for the share!

7 hours ago, GandofGand said:

I definitely dig the Big Beast idea, Knowhere anyone? Could lead to a lot more interesting questions; WTF was the thing to begin with?

I've also been noodling with the idea of an entire campaign that at least partially takes place aboard a Derelict SSD lost in the black between systems.

**** things are already enormous, could have a planets worth of different civilizations throughout its length!

OOoh or in a riff on that a Spacehulk; think 40K Orks but replace them with Jawas (Possibly mutated by space-fungus?) that have kludge together a bunch of broken capital-ships,

attached the whole thing to an asteroid and are off on a raiding rampage.

Or if you want to go with a horror angle, replace the Jawas with Rakghouls, maybe Rakghouls made form Jawas, so very small and very angry rakghouls...8D

I am still waiting for the moment, that my players throw a despair in an Astrogation.

I have an encounter in mind with a derelict ship in a gravity well, and a dark jedi ;)

11 hours ago, Andreievitch said:

Don't forget atmospheric encounters too. Start the chase in orbit and take it into an atmosphere.

I made up these critters to make cloud battle pretty exciting. The players loved it too.

I have created large jellyfish-like creatures that float amongst the storms of Shantipole. I see them as challenging the PC in 2 ways. First is that the players vessel may collide with them, due to the difficulty of flying in Shantipole's atmosphere. Secondly the jellfyfish live of energy and will try to attach themselves to the vessel in an attempt to draw power, much like mynock does, but more powerfully.

Below are the stats I have come up with. I would love to hear feedback/suggestions:

Ted+Chin_Sky+Jellyfish.jpg

Shantipole Man O War.JPG

You're now my fav person!!

Feedback wise - I'd make them bigger doing more damage. Also I'd have them hydrogen filled so if shot or rammed, they go boom with a big blast radius.

Edited by mwknowles
On 4/9/2019 at 10:55 AM, Krazma said:

The ice rings around a gas giant? Or take the action down into the atmosphere of the gas giant itself. You could have mega-lightning discharges, planetary-scale storms, diamond rain, or dodging around amidst a herd of floating gas-bag like cloud creatures (stray laser blasts can ignite them).

This is a brilliant idea! It's happening!