My players have landed on a planet, and I am trying to start a deep cover campaign for them. The first part of the mission will essentially be recon of infiltration entry points and setting up the false identities needed to get into the imperial base at a low level, and the ultimate goal is to get reassigned to a secret base where the empire is working on a secret unknown project. I am looking for help to determine some obstacles my players may face to accomplish this, as well as little things they can do in the process to help the alliance or the planet they are in out. The planet they are on right now is a mining planet where the surface is almost uninhabitable so everyone lives in underground cities. I have set up the Admiral of this system as a formidable strategist, but he is not always at the planet and his captain follows things completely by the book and is predictable. The captain and local governor admit the admiral gets results but do not care for his unorthodox and extreme methods. The people of the planet are extremely frustrated with the heavy martial law implemented by the admiral.

Why does a system have an admiral? A governor is probably more appropriate as the highest local authority.

I think the trick here is pushing the characters to find ways that they can seem loyal and provide good service to the Empire, while not actually working against the Rebellion. Maybe they could help respond to a cave-in that happens in the mines, rescuing and treating Imperial personnel while also helping equipment and supplies find their way to the Alliance?

-Nate

13 hours ago, tunewalker said:

My players have landed on a planet, and I am trying to start a deep cover campaign for them. The first part of the mission will essentially be recon of infiltration entry points and setting up the false identities needed to get into the imperial base at a low level, and the ultimate goal is to get reassigned to a secret base where the empire is working on a secret unknown project. I am looking for help to determine some obstacles my players may face to accomplish this, as well as little things they can do in the process to help the alliance or the planet they are in out.

I'm thinking some kind of almost Montage like sequence, where you show a bunch of little 1-3 roll encounters in close succession before moving forward.

Getting access to a secret project basically requires a few things

1) Show excellence in your field (which should relate to the project) as well as a good record of working well with others, and the ability to get a security clearance.

2) Impress the right people who have the clout to get you assigned to that project.

3) The project must have openings, or the person you impress have enough pull to make a position for you.

In a lot of cases as a deep cover guy, what you're doing to help the Alliance, is to help the Empire. If you're trying dig into their organization, you need to look like the perfect employee. If you're getting into trouble, getting security suspicious, and so on, you won't get that posting that gets you access to what you're really there to do. At best you might be able to sabotage another employee in minor ways, or delay something with pointless bureaucracy for a few days. But leaking important information vital to the war effort is probably going to get you caught. that said, if you have Force User with Morality on board, this might prove a good morality event.

I'd look at encounters where the players are trying to learn snippets about the project they can leverage. Maybe this base is the unclassified logistics center for the real thing, a place where people and equipment pass through regularly on it's way to the project.

So first would be something like a name. Once they know they're dealing with "Project Round Hammer" they'll have something to reverence.

Next what the project's functional area is. So like maybe a lot of Infantry come through, or perhaps there's a selection program here, where a lot of infantry come, but only the "best of the best" move on to the secret program.

So now the players can start dropping hints to their higher ups. "Hey sir, I was reading Comlinks Monthly and I noticed there's a new KX-90 Hardened Comlink that's supposed to be a lot lighter than the KX-20's we normally use, and with better encryption and waterproofing. Might be the kind of thing the guys over at Round Hammer can use..." This can confirm the project and possibly get back some vital intel. "Huh, I didn't know you were read in on round hammer. That's a good idea though, see what depth the waterproofing is rated to and let me know."

Ok, so now the project's confirmed, AND we know that it involves underwater or amphibious operations. What kind of ships are hauling supplies to round hammer? Ok, now we've got a range and we can search for planets that are watery and within range.

At this point try drop a chance for the players to double down. They are helping load the transport to Round Hammer, and have a chance to sabotage it so there's a loading accident. "Oh no, the cargo team is hurt! Whatever will we do?"

"Ya know sir... me and Steve and Nancy... we've all been through loadmaster school. Our clearance is a little low, but we could take over and just ask no questions, and probably get the supplies on time. Just process our clearance datawork and it'll probably be all done and clear by the time we get back.... we won't tell if you won't... and we'll be totally covered if this happens again."

Now just get a signal out once your there and we'll know the exact location of the base and Intel can try and monitor it more closely.

Next up, Alliance intel said a load of staff guys just left on the last transport with duffels... looks like some R&R. ID them and drop a tracker on them so Alliance intel can assassinate them while they are on a beach somewhere.

Impress your boss one more time so he'll suggest you replace the dead round hammer guys... ya know you and Nancy are totally in the green on this, but Steve? Lt. Zarl there is just a bit better and would get assigned to round hammer instead. It would be unfortunate if Zarl suddenly started under performing... getting into trouble off the clock... losing things...

Congrats, you're the new logistics team for Round Hammer.

3 hours ago, Ghostofman said:

I'd look at encounters where the players are trying to learn snippets about the project they can leverage. Maybe this base is the unclassified logistics center for the real thing, a place where people and equipment pass through regularly on it's way to the projec  t.

This is exactly what the base they are at right now is, this whole thing helps tremendously. Should be a good few sessions.

6 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

Why does a system have an admiral? A governor is probably more appropriate as the highest local authorit  y.

It was originally written as a whole sector and I thought it was to much, but mostly it is because of the level of the project. I wanted this to be a thing where the Admiral is only really in this system because the project is in this system. So normally the Admiral would not be here and the governor would be the highest authority, which is also why the governor is not particularly happy. The Admiral is kind of overseeing a lot of things that would normally be beneath him all because of this pet project.

Edit: a note should be that my players are closing in on contribution rank 5 and have almost 800 xp. They can handle this level of opponent I believe.

The problem with trying to do long-term deep cover is that it is very easy to screw up the whole thing. In this game, failure with Advantages is a common result, but failing too frequently in deep cover situations is still failing. Sure, the story doesn't just stop, but it very likely switches to some other type of story at that point.

51 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

The problem with trying to do long-term deep cover is that it is very easy to screw up the whole thing. In this game, failure with Advantages is a common result, but failing too frequently in deep cover situations is still failing. Sure, the story doesn't just stop, but it very likely switches to some other type of story at that point.

I can cross that bridge when I come to it. It would not be the first time things went off the rails, and as long as the "pass fail" stuff has little to do with the actual infiltration and more to do with the information they gather and how they move up the ladder I should be able to mitigate it.

18 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

The problem with trying to do long-term deep cover is that it is very easy to screw up the whole thing. In this game, failure with Advantages is a common result, but failing too frequently in deep cover situations is still failing. Sure, the story doesn't just stop, but it very likely switches to some other type of story at that point.

This is why I was thinking Montage-style play. You can have the Adventure cover months of activity, so if the players slip up too bad they can just go back to being good little Imperials for a few months till things blow over.

It almost seems like you could apply a modified Obligation system where the players can use Obligation as a Resource to avoid any direct detection when a roll comes out unfavorable, but if they hit the threshold they have to do an Adventure or side-quest to drop it back down before they can continue... Maybe some kind of THREATCON chart or something...

3 hours ago, Ghostofman said:

This is why I was thinking Montage-style play. You can have the Adventure cover months of activity, so if the players slip up too bad they can just go back to being good little Imperials for a few months till things blow over.

It almost seems like you could apply a modified Obligation system where the players can use Obligation as a Resource to avoid any direct detection when a roll comes out unfavorable, but if they hit the threshold they have to do an Adventure or side-quest to drop it back down before they can continue... Maybe some kind of THREATCON chart or something...

Between this your prior post and some of the other things I have been reading I think I have figured out a great way for me to handle this. The empire is going to be looking for an engineering team to help out with this project. As the planet is largely a mining planet the group will be working at a supply depot/ parts factory that was recently installed by the empire. The empire will be hiring multiple engineering teams to make small very basic things for the larger project and get them process and sent out in a timely manner. There will be the promise that the best performing and loyal team may be promoted and transferred to the main project. With this set up I am going to use the Mass combat structure where the group will do an adventure and upon completion of this adventure depending on how well they did they will add upgrades/ downgrades, boost and set back to the "Mass charm check" the base difficulty and ability will be based upon an opposed charm check utilizing the teams lowest presence with their highest charm skill. Depending on how well that goes determines how they stand against the other engineering teams going into the next adventure. Sabotage, information gathering and schmoozing will all be very important to climbing to the spot they need.

4 minutes ago, tunewalker said:

Mass charm check

Neat idea.... I mean my mind totally broke when I first read those three words put together, but mechanically I think you've got something worth trying out.