Greetings y'all.

I'm planning on running a play by post online game set on Coruscant during the final years of the Clone Wars.

I intend to have the players play multiple characters that would run through the three parts of the story happening. The government/Jedi which would involve politicians, senators along with Jedi operating on Coruscant during the war. The Clone Troopers, focusing on the Coruscant Guard as well as possibly arc/clone commandos operating to defeat separatist terror threats and attacks, and lastly the underworld/civilians the people and criminal elements that are dealing with the situations of the war. This all creates the larger exploration of the Galactic capital during this pivotal time in galactic history.

What I'm asking is for any advice as I have the idea of where I want to go with this, just not exactly sure on how to execute or what elements I should put great deal of thought on. Any and all tips or suggestions are welcome.

Any chance you are doing it on this forum? If so, I'd be interested in joining.

If you could expound a bit more on the individual points, it would be helpful. I'm not entirely sure how to advise you, given what little information I have.

I was planning on running it on discord, but I might be willing to run on this forum. Haven't done that before, been a while since I've done a play by post so would need to get more familiar with this forum first. But if I do it here, I'd gladly let you join.

Okay I can go into further detail. Just give me a little of time to properly gather my thoughts.

3 hours ago, darthsylar12 said:

What I'm asking is for any advice as I have the idea of where I want to go with this, just not exactly sure on how to execute or what elements I should put great deal of thought on. Any and all tips or suggestions are welcome.

Being as least specific as possible...if you haven't watched the Clone Wars animated show, it's well worth it for this kind of thing. There are numerous episodes that take place on the surface and underworlds that are fantastic idea-mines.

4 hours ago, darthsylar12 said:

I'm planning on running a play by post online game set on Coruscant during the final years of the Clone Wars.

I intend to have the players play multiple characters that would run through the three parts of the story happening.

Each player plays multiple characters? That's okay...just asking for clarity.

Three parts of the story? PBP can be notoriously slow, but very accommodating to people who don't have 3-4 hours blocks to play or can't find a online/local group. Coruscant can have many, many little features to go through, but PBP can take 3 months of real time to do one little "side-quest". Sure, at a game table, it can take an hour or less to do such a thing. Things really have to streamline for PBP to have pacing and accomplishment. I played in one where we had a beginner 'flashback' scenario that took two months real time. It was brief in the GM's mind, but plays out much longer. It might be wiser to play out ONE part of this Coruscant history (probably with 1-2-3 mini-parts) and see how it goes.

Or, now that I think of it, did you mean three parts as in the players will touch on all three areas as they play? Still, its very ambitious. Maybe just do one part very well? It'd be a shame to plan out a massive campaign only to never use the last 90% of it. What element should you put a great deal of thought into? The very first thing you do. Have it play out and wrap it up with XP and a lead into the next scene. Frequent XP is good. About 10xp per month played is okay. An ambitious plan may not survive contact with the players.

If the idea is to run basically three different campaigns, one way to do that that would work better than trying to do one one session, then another the next session, etc. is to run three PbPs concurrently. You as a GM have the advantage of being able to set the pace of the campaign (well, slow it down anyway), so you shouldn't have to worry too much about getting overrun. Plus, in my experience, you'll have plenty of time to plan while waiting on people.

Just something that comes to my mind.
It could be helpful to have 3 very separated plots for the 3 factions, so metagaming between the chars isn't the main focus. That way you could, for example, weave the criminal's main plot effects on coruscant into the other two plotlines but avoid things like Criminal Char A is blackmailing Senator Char C.
This way the Players can concentrate on the goals of the respective plotline but still notice that decisions and outcomes affect the other stories to a degree.

Although I'm not sure if it would be helpful to plan out the big picture a little more than I would with 3 non connected campaigns, as it could be quite a deed to entangle the plots loose enough to avoid stepping on each others toes and tight enough for people to actually notice how things affect each other.

Thank you all for the responses and ideas. I’ll definitely read through them carefully and post feed back this afternoon as I continue plotting this out.

Something else to consider, especially since you've chosen such a volatile period/location/group of actors (politicians, Jedi, clones, etc.), is whether or not you will be constrained by canon.

If the PCs are lucky/clever enough, they could theoretically do something which prevents Palpatine from taking absolute power over the Republic. Are you prepared to go into AU territory if need be? Or will Palpatine have enough fall-back plans that he absolutely cannot lose?

Not much to add on HOW to run it. However, coruscant is a big task to run a campaign on. Massive world, super populated, lots going on. Props to you for this challenge. Go big or go home, right!?

Anyway, only advice I could give, plan areas in small sections, one at a time. Do sector 515 (fake example) to begin. Map out the areas of interest, stores etc. And have the first few sessions set there.

Then when your ready to move on, plan out and build your next area. Perhaps Level 12 of the coruscant underbelly and have them spend a few sessions there or with the ability to travel between that and the first area.

This might be the best way to handle it, without getting overwhelmed by coruscants massive size.

13 minutes ago, CloudyLemonade92 said:

Not much to add on HOW to run it. However, coruscant is a big task to run a campaign on. Massive world, super populated, lots going on. Props to you for this challenge. Go big or go home, right!?

Anyway, only advice I could give, plan areas in small sections, one at a time. Do sector 515 (fake example) to begin. Map out the areas of interest, stores etc. And have the first few sessions set there.

Then when your ready to move on, plan out and build your next area. Perhaps Level 12 of the coruscant underbelly and have them spend a few sessions there or with the ability to travel between that and the first area.

This might be the best way to handle it, without getting overwhelmed by coruscants massive size.

This is a good idea, sortnof similar to how you would in an old school hex crawl campaign. Having a rough idea sketched, but only expanding out in detail as and when you need to.