If you're talking about Battle of Naboo era B1 battle droids, you're also talking about the ones that relied on the droid brain aboard the capital ships in orbit to function. Too big for a Silhouette 4 transport (and maybe even a Silhouette 5 one), they'll need either a planet-bound emplacement, or a capital ship (and the corresponding crew), and the corresponding crew to run it.

Also, after the Battle of Naboo and the ensuing Clone Wars, the Empire has passed strict laws regarding the construction and possession of combat capable droids. Basically, it's flat out illegal, and possession is proof of intent to use for criminal purposes from a legal stand point. There are narrowly crafted exemptions for security droids which are limited to stun weapons, but that's about it.

Well, the droid they found was repurposed as a worker droid on a small mining planet. And of course it's illegal. They'll just have to be careful won't they

That'll be perfect to use against them if I think they're getting too strong or complacent. BAM! An Imperial customs check.

Yep! The fleet of the Imperial Customs Bureau is the *biggest* concern of the space-going populace. The corrupt ones tend to be too expensive for the small time, independent traders, and the honest ones tend to be *very* strict on following the rules. A completely by-the-books ISB captain is going to give honest traders fits, and it's only going to get worse if you actually have something to hide!

That's something to to keep in mind for droid characters, too...

1. Armed droids are considered dangerous.Droids are property.
2. Droids are property in the Star Wars universe, not people. Even the examples which clearly demonstrate the ability to independently think and reason.

When someone guns down your Rodian friend, the charge is murder. When they gun down your droid, they'll get charged with vandalism, and (maybe) reckless discharge of a blaster. If your droid was armed, *you'll* be charged with something, and they'll walk.

If you're talking about Battle of Naboo era B1 battle droids, you're also talking about the ones that relied on the droid brain aboard the capital ships in orbit to function. Too big for a Silhouette 4 transport (and maybe even a Silhouette 5 one), they'll need either a planet-bound emplacement, or a capital ship (and the corresponding crew), and the corresponding crew to run it.

Also, after the Battle of Naboo and the ensuing Clone Wars, the Empire has passed strict laws regarding the construction and possession of combat capable droids. Basically, it's flat out illegal, and possession is proof of intent to use for criminal purposes from a legal stand point. There are narrowly crafted exemptions for security droids which are limited to stun weapons, but that's about it.

So basically the catch is, they get to these droids but aren't capable of using them due to not having a droid brain. That's awesome. I'm definitely going to use that. Knowing these players, they're going to collect all the droids for scraps if they can't use them, so at least they'll get a small amount of credits out of the quest.

Newbies get very gun shy and often lock up when presented with opportunities for Roleplay.

In our second session (we finished the beginner box adventure in the first session) we started Long Arm of the Hutt. At the beginning, several things are occuring on the ship, most of which are mitigated via the computer. The player who has never played any Tabletop RPG before was our computer guy.

As the GM, I told him what the computer was displaying and then I said, 'so, what do you want to do". He, himself, is an IT guy so he's very familiar with computers and technology. But because this was a game and his first time RPing, he had no freakin clue what to even say.

So, I and the rest of the group had to encourage him, like "do you want to click on the icons, do you want to interact with the computer to figure out what to do?", etc. They needed a little encouragement from time to time and a little nudging, like, "there are still rooms to explore...", or "you could always go check that out..." or something.

Sometimes players forget that they can kinda do what they want within common sense, because they expect the GM or someone tell them what they CAN do, and they stop thinking about what they WANT to do.

<sup>One thing I would keep in mind in this scenario (which sounds like a ton of fun, btw), is that the droids were deceived to come on your PCs side. Deceptions tend to come out in stories. For example, as an aside to a few sessions, you could have an NPC, whether a more advanced droid or organic, become increasingly suspicious, forcing the player to, once or twice a session, keep up the deception with checks until they fail.

Once the news is out, you could set up scenarios where they have to silence the NPC that discovers them, otherwise a certain amount of the droids revolt.

There's also the question of restraining bolts. If the PCs ever chose to bolt their droids, I'm sure those droids wouldn't like them, and on top of that, a mass purchase of them would probably draw some Imperial attention, in light of the laws against owning large amounts of droids mentioned above.</sup>

So what I've sort of decided to do is just drop the droid angle from my main plans. I have a small droid thing planned where there's like some out there in the swamp, like maybe ten of them and only two are really salvageable. But basically I've just sort of worked to make a couple pretty complex cities (Theed and Morenia) and I'm hoping there's enough there to occupy them for several sessions. I'm not looking to drop the droid angle, but I'm hoping that this will emphasize that "yeah, this is going to be a long, long proccess."

We're not having a session this week (we played some d&d 3.5 instead) so I figure I have enough time to flesh out these two cities really well and make sure there's plenty to do. That said, is there anything you guys would consider must haves for Naboo?

That said, is there anything you guys would consider must haves for Naboo?

Gungans?

That said, is there anything you guys would consider must haves for Naboo?

Gungans?

Haha, I can't say I dislike your direct approach. I should have listed the stuff I already have

There are a few Gungans in my current plans but yeah, not nearly enough! I don't really see much interest from my PCs to visit an underwater Gungan city but I should probably plan one on second consideration. They've been pretty surprising so far. So far I just have some Gungans that live in the city (not too many, though, given the times.) There are also some Gungans doing raids on a local Imperial Garisson. I'm also hoping to introduce a rival Gungan bounty hunter name Djar Djar.

Borvo the Hutt is present in Morenia and they will definitely be running into Moff Panaka

Beyond that, I have libraries for them to visit, museums, restaurants. I even included the Naboo Puppet Theatre. Is the colluseum in Theed really a must have? I'm not entirely sure how to utilize it and unfortunately I do not see my PCs getting into the Royal Palace.

So what I've sort of decided to do is just drop the droid angle from my main plans. I have a small droid thing planned where there's like some out there in the swamp, like maybe ten of them and only two are really salvageable. But basically I've just sort of worked to make a couple pretty complex cities (Theed and Morenia) and I'm hoping there's enough there to occupy them for several sessions. I'm not looking to drop the droid angle, but I'm hoping that this will emphasize that "yeah, this is going to be a long, long proccess."

We're not having a session this week (we played some d&d 3.5 instead) so I figure I have enough time to flesh out these two cities really well and make sure there's plenty to do. That said, is there anything you guys would consider must haves for Naboo?

The Imperial Place / Vacation Home for the Emperor.

^{One thing I would keep in mind in this scenario (which sounds like a ton of fun, btw), is that the droids were deceived to come on your PCs side. Deceptions tend to come out in stories. For example, as an aside to a few sessions, you could have an NPC, whether a more advanced droid or organic, become increasingly suspicious, forcing the player to, once or twice a session, keep up the deception with checks until they fail.}

Once the news is out, you could set up scenarios where they have to silence the NPC that discovers them, otherwise a certain amount of the droids revolt.

There's also the question of restraining bolts. If the PCs ever chose to bolt their droids, I'm sure those droids wouldn't like them, and on top of that, a mass purchase of them would probably draw some Imperial attention, in light of the laws against owning large amounts of droids mentioned above.

Actually, we were running the GM screen adventure as our first one before letting out into the sandbox, and let's just say that a certain droid out there is DEFINITELY planning a revolution right now. Between that and the fact that one of my player's is a Gand who had a prophetic vision of droids coming to slaughter his poeple (the other players don't know) the entire droid army angle (which the players introduced all on their own) becomes just entirely too juicy. They are ripe for failure in this regard, it seems.

One direction I'm thinking of taking this in is actually letting them build up a decent enough sized army and then having the droid revolutionaries hijack most of it. He would then head off on his merry way to Gand. I'm thinking the droid revolutionaries will have some sort of Imperial vessel that they've hijacked, which will allow me to have some rebel forces come in to help out my PCs in protecting Gand, that way they aren't entirely overwhelmed by the droid army. This is going to be extremely tricky.

Okay and one more thing: The last few days I've been hard at work building up a sandbox world for Naboo. It isn't exactly on the "edge" of the empire so there's a lot of original work and stating in there. I'm hoping to finish my first really rough draft in the next day or so and when I do, I'll start a new thread with the entire document and I'm hoping that A) people will find it useful in planning their own Naboo based stuff and B) some of you can come in and tell me just how much I mucked up all the stats for the creatures and whatnot.

Where do the players intend to keep this droid army?

A lot of droids take up a lot of space!

Do they have a ship or a base big enough?

All they have right now is the starting YT 1300. They're working on upgrading to a better ship first but I think they know it's going to be a massive undertaking. They know they won't have this army is going to happen for several dozen sessions. It'll be a LONG time.

1) Does the first group of Gamorreans use minion rules?

RAW for the Biginner box, Yes they are minions.

2) I tried to buff the minion stormtroopers from 3 to 5. Does this mean they would roll 4G 1Y ? I may just need to reread the section on minions again.

The dice pools of Minion groups work a little differently. Minions don't have ranks in skills, they gain them through numbers. the profile will list the characteristics the minion posesses, as well as the skill names they contribute. The number of skill "ranks" that a minion group posesses is equal to the number of minions-1. So, I believe the Stormtroopers have an Agility of 3? and for the purposes of this discussion I will assume so.

A single Stormtrooper (ST) minion with his Agility of 3 would roll GGG. Each ST beyond the first would add in a skill rank, and thus follow the rules for Upgrading dicepools. So, a group of 2 ST woul roll YGG, 3 would be YYG, 4 would be YYY and 5 would be YYYG. Note the additional green from having a higher "skill rank" in this example. 6 ST would be YYYY and 7 would be YYYYG. Now, depending on your personal intreperation, this may be as high as a minion skill could go, assuming Minions are restricted to 5 ranks in a skill, just like the PC's are. Personally, I would never field something as formidible as ST's in groups larger than 5, but that's just me.

3)Why do the players roll initiative? Does the player who "wins" get to determine what slot he wants? Do you just roll it to determine what slots the PC's get and which the NPC's get? Also, do minions all act in one slot? Or do seperate groups of minions each roll for a slot? Who do minions attack?

The initiative system in this game is one of my favorite aspects. Determining Initiative can be a bit tricky if you're not used to it. I'll go through it step-by-step just to make sure I'm clear in my explaniation.

1) The GM will need to determine the nature of the conflict, as their are different skills that could be rolled for Initiative. If a participant is expecting/planning on the conflict they would roll their Cool, representing keeping their head before the blood starts to fly. If a participant is not expecting the ocnflict to open up, they would roll their Vigilance, representing how "reactively" aware they are of their environment.

2) The GM will need to determine the number of participants in the conflict. The PC's will need to each roll their initiative seperately to generate a number of Initiative Slots . For the NPC's, Nemesis and Rival rank characters normally also each generate their own Initiative Slots, and each group of like minions will also generate an Initiative Slot. I specify like only from a mechanical perspective, as any given group of Street Thugs will probably vary in race/sex greatly. This is where determining the size of the minions groups comes into play, especially in respect to your PC's survivability. A sufficiently large group of Peasants with their fists can kill a heavily armored PC in one shot if they have enough successes.

3) These rolls are at no difficulty, and a based around the number of successes, then advantage, the Triumph, then PC's win ties. So, if 4 PC's were fighting 3 NPC's the following could be a result of the rolls.

"Side" Success Advantage Triumph

PC 3 0 0

NPC 2 0 0

PC 1 2 0

NPC 1 2 0

NPC 0 3 0

PC 0 2 1

PC 0 1 0

4) Starting at the top and going down, each side (PC or NPC) will determine who takes a turn. This is not fixed, and is not determined by the initiative rolls. The only restriction that I am aware of is that no participant (single or group) may act twice in a given round (a full cycle, top to bottom of the initiative order). PC1 may take the second PC slot on the first round then the last on the next, then the first once a new round has begun.

As far as minions go, as stated they operate in groups. As far as who they attack, that will depend on circumstance. Depending on the relative training a minion group has received, they may or may not be more or less tactically inclined. ST will have great tactical awareness, perhaps targeting the support characters in an effort to gain an advantage, whereas Street Thugs will probably focus on the biggest threat.

4) I have a trandoshan melee weapon user. For him to attack from medium range, does it cost his manuever to go from med -->short then his action to move from short-->close? so he has a "wasted turn" basically? or can he take 2 strain to take the additional manuever and then as an incidental go from short --> engaged and make a melee attack?

1) to go from Medium to Short would require 1 Manuever.

2) to go from Short to engaged would require 1 Manuever. You can exchange an Action for a manuever, but in this case he would probably rather take the 2 strain.

3) Action to Attack.

He would not be taking any Incidental actions, as there are some out there he could take, but I tend to stress terminology, especially game terms, to reduce confusion.

5) My wookie wanted a bowcaster, so I gave him one with the profile of a blaster pistol. My assassin BH wanted a carbine to scale off Ranged [Heavy], so i did the same thing, carbine with dmg profile of a blaster. Do I need to do something similar to my melee user's Vibro-axe? Or is part of the disadvantage of using that is closing in and being attacked?

the Corebook has the stats for a Bowcaster in the gear section. Blaster Carbine's already use the skill Ranged:Heavy. The vibroaxe is a TERRIFYING weapon. Yes, you are bringin an axe to a gunfight, but that axe can cripple an opponent in one hit.

6) Can you spend 3 advantage thusly: 1 Boost die to next PC and 1 boost die to the on deck PC?

There is a table that lists some of the possible uses of advantage and threat in the Core Book. As well as I can remember, any given roll can "activate" each of the entries ONCE per roll, unless otherwise specified . So, yes you could spend the advantage in this manner.

I hope this helps.

Actually the Beginner Box adventure as written doesn't introduce minion rules until Encounter 5 with the Stormtroopers, so I believe the intent is that the Gammorreans are handled individually, rather than as a single minion group.

Of course once you're familiar with the rules they obviously fit the profile of a minion group so there's no harm in doing it that way.

I just played Escape from Mos Schuuta with my new group to introduce them to the rules, so I didn't bring up minions until the Stormtroopers.

2 hours is way too short, there is so much non game related talk and distractions you are probably really looking at an hour of actual play. I agree with a previous poster that 4-5 hours is a nice sweetspot.

Highly suggest you talk about a no cell phone rule, but have scheduled breaks.

2 hours is way too short, there is so much non game related talk and distractions you are probably really looking at an hour of actual play. I agree with a previous poster that 4-5 hours is a nice sweetspot.

Highly suggest you talk about a no cell phone rule, but have scheduled breaks.

Totally agree, in the games I am GMing I would definitely have a word with people about texting or taking calls during our game time. A break every hour and a half or so (or after a tense encounter) is a good spot for people to check their messages, send a text, etc.

Actually the Beginner Box adventure as written doesn't introduce minion rules until Encounter 5 with the Stormtroopers, so I believe the intent is that the Gammorreans are handled individually, rather than as a single minion group.

Of course once you're familiar with the rules they obviously fit the profile of a minion group so there's no harm in doing it that way.

I just played Escape from Mos Schuuta with my new group to introduce them to the rules, so I didn't bring up minions until the Stormtroopers.

Correct. I had stormtroopers on the brain.

1) ...The box is pretty on rails, and I feel like it did not offer a lot of opportunities to RP or really get into character as GM.

2) ...How do I help them focus more on what I think EotE is supposed to be about? That sounds rather dictatorish, but what I mean by that is simply I love Star Wars. I love the ups and downs, (Triumph and Despair), the hilarious yet threatening situations, (3PO and the comlink on the death star), and how the characters slowly grow to respect and like each other. So "by what it's supposed to be about" I mean the outcome of the situation because of the dice, not the outcome of the dice. Oh, yea, and then the situation.

If I'm understanding your question correctly, you're asking how to get the players to immerse themselves past the mechanics and tactical. This requires looking past the mechanical yourself and figuring out ways to reward non-gameplay-mechanic action with game-play mechanics. Regarding the beginner box, when one of the players said "I'm going to try to persuade him to sell us the part", I responded "OK, let's hear it." At first he was dumbfounded, but once he realized I wasn't going to let him have the dice until he spoke in charecter (or something close to it), he blurted out something (I can't remember) that was in line with the PC he was playing, and well reasoned, then I gave him the dice and tossed a boost die in there. He still failed, but he (and the table) got the idea. Having broke that "wall", we continued the conversation and one of the other joined it as well triggering further rolls.

Look for oppertunities to encourge (and sometimes require) the players to describe their actions. Instead of "I'm taking cover and aiming at thug A", encourage "I'm crawling behind that low wall on the map, and then bracing my arm on top of it". Of course, having a map helps, but then you can reward descriptive narrartion when appropriate. "Your crawling was unnoticed by the thugs, combined with the steady surface you're bracing your arm against, I'm giving you a boost die".

Once the players see the immersion playing into the mechanics, and vice-versa, it should come easier and with less prompting as time progresses.

What I have become a big fan of is when players roll a lot of advantage and they choose to pass a Boost die to someone else, I ask them "why" their fellow player gets a boost. Make them describe what is occuring that caused the boost die.

For example, navigating an asteroid field. There's a pilot and navigator. If the pilot rolls advantage and wants to give the navigator a boost die, the explanation could be, "the pilot has noticed a sizeable gap between two asteroids and asks the navigator to focus his astrogation sensors in that area", thus, the navigator gets a boost on his astrogation check because they may have found an optimal path to focus on.

But encourage the PLAYERS to come up with those narratives rather than dictate to them what is occuring. Basically, ask "why does player 2 get the boost die? Describe what is happening"

I know this is after the fact, but what I learned this Sunday is this: let the dice help you tell the story .

I know this is after the fact, but what I learned this Sunday is this: let the dice help you tell the story .

Heh...it's like they're called "narrative dice" for a reason, or something.