Alt Univ Campaign Idea: Clone Wars if Anakin lost the Pod Race

By EliasWindrider, in Star Wars: Force and Destiny RPG

The CotR spoiler thread got me thinking of running a thread inspired by the Prequels clone wars CGI show but I didn't want "A rock falls everyone dies" (i.e. Order 66) to be the forgone conclusion to the campaign. I also didn't want the PCs (jedi knight/generals, clone troopers, naval officers, antarian rangers, other people with reasons to hang out with jedi in a war zone) to be overshadowed by Anakin and Obiwan.

So here's what I came up with, please make suggestions.

The Phantom Menace.

Anakin lost the pod race wasn't freed, quigon lost padme's ship, Darth maul attacked obiwan and quigon together and since he couldn't separate them by the shield thing he lost to their combined strength but he took out quigon as obiwan struck Darth maul down. Since there wasn't a reactor shaft in the desert of tatooine for maul to escape down, when he didn't die right away obiwan put him out of his misery (maul is *DEAD* in this universe), obiwan took maul's remains to the council on coruscant and padme and her entourage came with aboard maul's sith interceptor. The jedi council gets Intel on the sith but don't know who Darth sidious is. Padme makes an impassioned plea, calls for a vote of no confidence in chancellor valorum, palpatine becomes chancellor. Padme and entourage (but not obiwan) go back to naboo, their assault against the trade federation fails, the force padme to sign documents which legitimizes the trade federations invasion, the Trade federation now OWNS naboo. Obiwan is knighted.

Attack of the clones.

Obiwan and padawan are assigned to protect Bail Organo, apprentice takes the saber dart meant for Organo. Obiwan tracks the saber dart to Kamino (this was palpatine's plan for how the jedi/ republic learn of the clone army), fights jango, follows him to genosis, has his fighter transmit the message to jedi council. Obiwan dies in the arena on genosis but jedi leading clones show up to defeat genosans. The thing is that chancellor palpatine is NOT granted emergency powers (takes order 66 off the table) because 1) no senator Jar Jar binks and 2) he's seen as being biased in favor of war because of the trade federation occupation of his homeworld (naboo). So a committee of senators (including Bail Organo who is stressing diplomacy) are theoretically in charge of the republic military/war effort.

And GO.

So what are your thought on the timeline setting alterations.

PCs get something like 800 or 900 xp to star with, and 25K worth of gear, Narrative jedi PC can start as jedi career or any FaD career but are required to have at least 1 jedi spec, jedi get 18K of gear BUT can have an ilum crystal for free, have access to an artisan who can add 2hp to 2 pieces of gear, and NON-IMPOSSIBLE checks to mod lightsaber crystals automatically succeed WHILE IN THE CORUSCANT JEDI TEMPLE but the still have to pay the credit costs, party probably has access to a 2 skills holocron and a consular cruiser c70 retrofit or maybe an arquittens, or a squadron of fighters (varies by mission), but there could be a party ship piloted by an edge style ship. Using squad and squadron rules/meat shields. Clone PCs would command squads of clones/meat shields too.

Not sure whether I'd want to run this as a play by post or as a live game (probably starting in late October), I'd start it now but my daughter Abigail is due to be born any day now.

Sounds fun. Im in ;)

I like the premise, but then again I am a sucker for alternate reality stories.

Sounds interesting. If the game comes to fruition on the boards I would be interested.

I forgot to say what happens to Anakin... when his mom gets bought from Otto, so does he, he fights off the sand people and his mom lives, he thinks jedi are useless/pointless (because they couldn't help him) not evil. Would tell Sidious to go take a flying leap over the sarlaac pit. He goes on to be a famous to tatooine pod racer but isn't more than a footnote (if that) to galactic history.

18 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

Sounds fun. Im in ;)

9 minutes ago, AnomalousAuthor said:

I like the premise, but then again I am a sucker for alternate reality stories.

3 minutes ago, Sincereagape said:

Sounds interesting. If the game comes to fruition on the boards I would be interested.

If it comes to fruition, you three have the first slots, I'll offer the other 3 to @Rabobankrider and @Jonas Shaaf @AtariAssasin to make up for my part of the jedi star pbp ending.

Btw the campaign opening scene would be the battle of Genosis arena scene. Droids get to take a few pot shots at the jedi before Yoda shows up with the clones.

And if you want to play a "cannon" character not on the jedi council (no mace, Yoda, kit fisto, ... yes Quinlan vos, yes Ayla secura, yes commander cody) that's cool with me as long as you follow the same character creation rules as everyone else.

Edited by EliasWindrider

Padawan followers ala knights of fate?

Pdp or discord?

Padme is on Naboo because no anakin right? And a nobody? Along with R2?

Im thinking group ship is the sith intercepter. Repurposed for jedi missions

Edited by Daeglan

Jedi general probably should be restricted to after campaign start.

17 hours ago, EliasWindrider said:

The CotR spoiler thread got me thinking of running a thread inspired by the Prequels clone wars CGI show but I didn't want "A rock falls everyone dies" (i.e. Order 66) to be the forgone conclusion to the campaign. I also didn't want the PCs (jedi knight/generals, clone troopers, naval officers, antarian rangers, other people with reasons to hang out with jedi in a war zone) to be overshadowed by Anakin and Obiwan.

So here's what I came up with, please make suggestions.

The Phantom Menace.

Anakin lost the pod race wasn't freed, quigon lost padme's ship, Darth maul attacked obiwan and quigon together and since he couldn't separate them by the shield thing he lost to their combined strength but he took out quigon as obiwan struck Darth maul down. Since there wasn't a reactor shaft in the desert of tatooine for maul to escape down, when he didn't die right away obiwan put him out of his misery (maul is *DEAD* in this universe), obiwan took maul's remains to the council on coruscant and padme and her entourage came with aboard maul's sith interceptor. The jedi council gets Intel on the sith but don't know who Darth sidious is. Padme makes an impassioned plea, calls for a vote of no confidence in chancellor valorum, palpatine becomes chancellor. Padme and entourage (but not obiwan) go back to naboo, their assault against the trade federation fails, the force padme to sign documents which legitimizes the trade federations invasion, the Trade federation now OWNS naboo. Obiwan is knighted.

Attack of the clones.

Obiwan and padawan are assigned to protect Bail Organo, apprentice takes the saber dart meant for Organo. Obiwan tracks the saber dart to Kamino (this was palpatine's plan for how the jedi/ republic learn of the clone army), fights jango, follows him to genosis, has his fighter transmit the message to jedi council. Obiwan dies in the arena on genosis but jedi leading clones show up to defeat genosans. The thing is that chancellor palpatine is NOT granted emergency powers (takes order 66 off the table) because 1) no senator Jar Jar binks and 2) he's seen as being biased in favor of war because of the trade federation occupation of his homeworld (naboo). So a committee of senators (including Bail Organo who is stressing diplomacy) are theoretically in charge of the republic military/war effort.

And GO.

So what are your thought on the timeline setting alterations.

PCs get something like 800 or 900 xp to star with, and 25K worth of gear, Narrative jedi PC can start as jedi career or any FaD career but are required to have at least 1 jedi spec, jedi get 18K of gear BUT can have an ilum crystal for free, have access to an artisan who can add 2hp to 2 pieces of gear, and NON-IMPOSSIBLE checks to mod lightsaber crystals automatically succeed WHILE IN THE CORUSCANT JEDI TEMPLE but the still have to pay the credit costs, party probably has access to a 2 skills holocron and a consular cruiser c70 retrofit or maybe an arquittens, or a squadron of fighters (varies by mission), but there could be a party ship piloted by an edge style ship. Using squad and squadron rules/meat shields. Clone PCs would command squads of clones/meat shields too.

Not sure whether I'd want to run this as a play by post or as a live game (probably starting in late October), I'd start it now but my daughter Abigail is due to be born any day now.

The Trade Federation is part of the Republic. They could get away with a blockade, or even a small invasion to get the queen to sign some horrible trade agreement. But the invasion and occupation of the entire planet? That seems unlikely. Naboo was a trade dispute, not an invasion. The Senate would have likely pushed back against the Trade Federation taking full control of Naboo.

As for order 66. I don't see how anything would change that. The clone army was created by Palpatine, the order was already in place. There is no reason to believe that Palpatine couldn't have still given order 66 when he wanted to. Heck, all he would need is to talk to a single high ranking clone officer, give Order 66, then have the clone officer help him communicate the order to more clones.

If you are willing to hand wave all that away, then it sounds interesting...

1 hour ago, kmanweiss said:

The Trade Federation is part of the Republic. They could get away with a blockade, or even a small invasion to get the queen to sign some horrible trade agreement. But the invasion and occupation of the entire planet? That seems unlikely. Naboo was a trade dispute, not an invasion. The Senate would have likely pushed back against the Trade Federation taking full control of Naboo.

As for order 66. I don't see how anything would change that. The clone army was created by Palpatine, the order was already in place. There is no reason to believe that Palpatine couldn't have still given order 66 when he wanted to. Heck, all he would need is to talk to a single high ranking clone officer, give Order 66, then have the clone officer help him communicate the order to more clones.

If you are willing to hand wave all that away, then it sounds interesting...

Sign the right contract and the Trade Federation can own Naboo. Which is what I think was the plan. As the movie they are talking about signing a contract to legitimize their invasion. Sidious also said he would MAKE it legal. So yeah...

As to Order66 as it is worded I agree.

Here is Order66
Order 66: "In the event of Jedi officers acting against the interests of the Republic, and after receiving specific orders verified as coming directly from the Supreme Commander (Chancellor), GAR commanders will remove those officers by lethal force, and command of the GAR will revert to the Supreme Commander (Chancellor) until a new command structure is established."[1]

But on the other hand if the Jedi dont do the whole ignore who had the army made and used a seperatist employed merc as the master template for plot reasons. Order 66 can be nullified. Also if the Jedi dont ignore these contingency orders for plot reasons they can be minimized. For example placing an alert on Order 66 being issued can result in far more Jedi escaping the order and acting. Also if we have Mace Windu not being a moron and rushing into a clear trap was dumb. What should have happened is he reported to the Senate instead of Palpatine himself when he was told Palpatine was a sith lord.

But I will let Elias put his thoughts on these questions.

I would be interested in this game, but would only be able to do a pbp. Is it just clones and jedi in this one?

It's Play By Post., will be in FaD beginner game forum. Any character that has a reason to hang out with jedi in a war zone is fair game. I was thinking yes to padawans, in particular having Ashoka be one of the player's padawan. Wasn't sure how I was going to run it mechanically but padawans are npcs unless a player really wants to play a padawan... for example if someone wanted to play Ashoka as their character, I'd allow it.

@Jonas Shaaf can attest that when I run a game I use "side stories" what that means in this case is when you choose a morality/obligation/duty I want some campaign spanning story hooks related to it, sketch out the narrative progress related to your m.o.d. that you want to make over the campaign in particular name some characters related to that narrative progress/character growth and how the interact with it. This will be a starting point for me and I will try to work multiple side stories per session.

Btw xp awards will be 5 xp per week awarded mondays, if you don't post in the IC thread in a week you don't get the 5 xp that week.

I'm going to hand wave that because of Palpatine's perceived over eagerness for war (to liberate naboo) a special legal status of him being chancellor but someone else (chosen by the Senate) was appointed to be supreme commander of the GAR. Call it Backlash from a failed grab at emergency powers.

The opening scene will be battle of genosis, but then there's going to be a little time jump (to start of clone wars cgi series which I'm going to steal much plot from). I'm not going to quibble over the build for the opening scene, so starting jedi general is fine.

Padme is on naboo but not quite a nobody she is the "terrorist" leader of "the insurgency" against the legal trade federation government (no anakin, highly unlikely for Luke or Leia to be born but Anakin could have kids with someone else though).

Sith interceptor is too small for the party ship it conceivably needs to hold 30 - 40 characters.

Some limitations on gear.... no cortosis quality (can't buy it, I may introduce a few items you can take from adversaries) no gear that lets you bypass parry and I'm modifying the crossgaurd lightsaber hilt to not disarm on a triumph but instead when you parry an attack on which a despair is rolled. Also quickdraw can grant a upgrade to initiative checks in quickdraw showdowns only. The croc gonzati is horribly broken and is not a candidate for the party ship.

Can I get a confirm from the initial six players, if I don't get an "I'm in" in the next 24 hours I'll offer the slot to someone else.

There will be 3 threads IC, OOC, and Misc. OOC thread is for talking about what just happened or is about to happen in IC. Misc is for whatever. If you have an issue with a ruling I make you get 1 post to make your case, I'll respond, you get 1 post to rebut, and then I'll render a final verdict. If you continue to argue 1 conflict, and the conflict for trying to impose your will on the force universe doubles with each post after that. Otherwise I'm going to be pretty lenient with conflict. Will roll for morality either once every 2 months (first of odd months), and if conflict accrues too fast I may switch to once a month.

The illum crystal is free, you can buy another crystal with credits, or if we're on a planet like christophsis (sp?) and you want that planet's crystal we can arrange for something to happen to your current crystal/saber (your choice which) and you can be without your saber for a suitable period and get a free replacement (planet crystal). If you want a cyclic crystal array, let me know we can arrange for your mission reward to be a crystal instead of something else.

If you want to do crafting grind.... let me know what you want to make and I can generate a percentile table for you to roll against. (How long, what'll it cost) it'll be in the misc thread... so we don't have crazy long chains of dice rolls. Btw dice rolls on orokos.com, rolls normally posted in IC thread, I may occasionally call for a roll in the ooc thread.

36 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

It's Play By Post., will be in FaD beginner game forum. Any character that has a reason to hang out with jedi in a war zone is fair game. I was thinking yes to padawans, in particular having Ashoka be one of the player's padawan. Wasn't sure how I was going to run it mechanically but padawans are npcs unless a player really wants to play a padawan... for example if someone wanted to play Ashoka as their character, I'd allow it.

@Jonas Shaaf can attest that when I run a game I use "side stories" what that means in this case is when you choose a morality/obligation/duty I want some campaign spanning story hooks related to it, sketch out the narrative progress related to your m.o.d. that you want to make over the campaign in particular name some characters related to that narrative progress/character growth and how the interact with it. This will be a starting point for me and I will try to work multiple side stories per session.

Btw xp awards will be 5 xp per week awarded mondays, if you don't post in the IC thread in a week you don't get the 5 xp that week.

I'm going to hand wave that because of Palpatine's perceived over eagerness for war (to liberate naboo) a special legal status of him being chancellor but someone else (chosen by the Senate) was appointed to be supreme commander of the GAR. Call it Backlash from a failed grab at emergency powers.

The opening scene will be battle of genosis, but then there's going to be a little time jump (to start of clone wars cgi series which I'm going to steal much plot from). I'm not going to quibble over the build for the opening scene, so starting jedi general is fine.

Padme is on naboo but not quite a nobody she is the "terrorist" leader of "the insurgency" against the legal trade federation government (no anakin, highly unlikely for Luke or Leia to be born but Anakin could have kids with someone else though).

Sith interceptor is too small for the party ship it conceivably needs to hold 30 - 40 characters.

Some limitations on gear.... no cortosis quality (can't buy it, I may introduce a few items you can take from adversaries) no gear that lets you bypass parry and I'm modifying the crossgaurd lightsaber hilt to not disarm on a triumph but instead when you parry an attack on which a despair is rolled. Also quickdraw can grant a upgrade to initiative checks in quickdraw showdowns only. The croc gonzati is horribly broken and is not a candidate for the party ship.

Can I get a confirm from the initial six players, if I don't get an "I'm in" in the next 24 hours I'll offer the slot to someone else.

There will be 3 threads IC, OOC, and Misc. OOC thread is for talking about what just happened or is about to happen in IC. Misc is for whatever. If you have an issue with a ruling I make you get 1 post to make your case, I'll respond, you get 1 post to rebut, and then I'll render a final verdict. If you continue to argue 1 conflict, and the conflict for trying to impose your will on the force universe doubles with each post after that. Otherwise I'm going to be pretty lenient with conflict. Will roll for morality either once every 2 months (first of odd months), and if conflict accrues too fast I may switch to once a month.

The illum crystal is free, you can buy another crystal with credits, or if we're on a planet like christophsis (sp?) and you want that planet's crystal we can arrange for something to happen to your current crystal/saber (your choice which) and you can be without your saber for a suitable period and get a free replacement (planet crystal). If you want a cyclic crystal array, let me know we can arrange for your mission reward to be a crystal instead of something else.

If you want to do crafting grind.... let me know what you want to make and I can generate a percentile table for you to roll against. (How long, what'll it cost) it'll be in the misc thread... so we don't have crazy long chains of dice rolls. Btw dice rolls on orokos.com, rolls normally posted in IC thread, I may occasionally call for a roll in the ooc thread.

I would prefer live play. I find PbP is too slow to get really into. If possible

Things are not looking good for poor man Palpatine, really. No emergency powers, no possibility to give ordre 66, he is not on charge of the war effort, so no propaganda telling everyone how he is saving the republic everyday... I wonder how he will manage that.

Your setting sounds cool, tough, I'd really like to play with that

Can I be put on a waiting liste, just in case there's some room for me ?

6 hours ago, AbsatSolo said:

Things are not looking good for poor man Palpatine, really. No emergency powers, no possibility to give ordre 66, he is not on charge of the war effort, so no propaganda telling everyone how he is saving the republic everyday... I wonder how he will manage that.

Your setting sounds cool, tough, I'd really like to play with that

Can I be put on a waiting liste, just in case there's some room for me ?

So palpatine has a number of options... e.g. CIS military victory replacing the republic w the th the CIS and dooku as a puppet dictator, with jedi hunted as war criminals while he himself escapes prosecution because he's NOT in charge of the war effort, with jedi younglings re-educated into warriors loyal to him and the holocrons and lightsabers etc. Of the jedi order seized and any jedi not convicted of war crimes on the outside without government backing support.... it's not ideal for him but it's not a bad contingency plan muhahahaha.... or manufacturing evidence to convince the sentient in charge of the war effort to execute order 66... wheels within wheels because machinations is what sith lords do. But it does emphasize how a seemingly insignificant event can alter the course of galactic history... butterfly effect.

And yes you're on the wait list.

8 hours ago, Daeglan said:

I would prefer live play. I find PbP is too slow to get really into. If possible

My schedule is going to be extra irregular because of new baby so isn't conducive to a live play game right now.

1 hour ago, EliasWindrider said:

So palpatine has a number of options... e.g. CIS military victory replacing the republic w the th the CIS and dooku as a puppet dictator, with jedi hunted as war criminals while he himself escapes prosecution because he's NOT in charge of the war effort, with jedi younglings re-educated into warriors loyal to him and the holocrons and lightsabers etc. Of the jedi order seized and any jedi not convicted of war crimes on the outside without government backing support.... it's not ideal for him but it's not a bad contingency plan muhahahaha.... or manufacturing evidence to convince the sentient in charge of the war effort to execute order 66... wheels within wheels because machinations is what sith lords do. But it does emphasize how a seemingly insignificant event can alter the course of galactic history... butterfly effect.

And yes you're on the wait list.

My schedule is going to be extra irregular because of new baby so isn't conducive to a live play game right now.

Even with wacky schedule i still prefer live play :)

@EliasWindrider I’ll probably have to drop out of this one. Been trying to make a character and feel a little overwhelmed. With a three year old, a table top game to run, and a lovely and supportive wife. I found myself being consumed by Star Wars the past few days.

I can commit to a lower level more simple game at the moment

Thanks for considering me. Best of luck.

9 hours ago, Sincereagape said:

@EliasWindrider I’ll probably have to drop out of this one. Been trying to make a character and feel a little overwhelmed. With a three year old, a table top game to run, and a lovely and supportive wife. I found myself being consumed by Star Wars the past few days.

I can commit to a lower level more simple game at the moment

Thanks for considering me. Best of luck.

@AbsatSolo you're in.

Btw anyone else who wants in should put their name on the wait list because I expect a least one of the invited players to decline

Never done a pbp before but I like to write and don’t get many opportunities to be a player. I’m in.

This sounds like an interesting alternate universe - one of my favourite tropes!

Are Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi's deaths required? Their presence as NPCs - either working together or separately - could create good plot hooks, particularly as they are both mavericks in their own way (despite OWK protesting that label). The absence of Anakin is the key change here; he is sort of like a force multiplier (pun not intended) and without him OWK seems far more manageable (although still probably should be relegated to NPC status). There are so many metaphorical fires to put out around the galaxy that QGJ and OWK's continued existence in the setting shouldn't affect that much.

I'm tempted by the idea of playing, even though I've never participated in a PBP before. Are there special formatting skills required for PBPs? (I'm still a forum noob.)

2 hours ago, Bellona said:

This sounds like an interesting alternate universe - one of my favourite tropes!

Are Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi's deaths required? Their presence as NPCs - either working together or separately - could create good plot hooks, particularly as they are both mavericks in their own way (despite OWK protesting that label). The absence of Anakin is the key change here; he is sort of like a force multiplier (pun not intended) and without him OWK seems far more manageable (although still probably should be relegated to NPC status). There are so many metaphorical fires to put out around the galaxy that QGJ and OWK's continued existence in the setting shouldn't affect that much.

I'm tempted by the idea of playing, even though I've never participated in a PBP before. Are there special formatting skills required for PBPs? (I'm still a forum noob.)

Quigon had to go because he wouldn't have let Anakin languish in obscurity. Obiwan... well I'm stealing left and right from the clone wars cgi show and most of them are about him and Anakin... easier to get him out of the way so the PCs can take his missions and the PCs not be in his shadow. In your ic post bold what your character say, and insert the dice rolls image link from orokos.com

Edited by EliasWindrider

Thank you for that information.

How many players do you have now, and how long is the waiting list?

On 7/4/2019 at 4:16 PM, Bellona said:

Thank you for that information.

How many players do you have now, and how long is the waiting list?

Four confirmed, no responses to 2 invitation and zero people in the waiting list.

Edited by EliasWindrider