I am working on an article about locations, and I was wondering how much detail the AoR Beta gives concerning PC headquarters given at creation. What is a synopsis of the rules? Do they give details or simply declare that they have a base of operations?

Not very much, just that PCs get a wad of credits for gear instead of a ship or squad of Y-Wings.

Not very much, just that PCs get a wad of credits for gear instead of a ship or squad of Y-Wings.

Thank you Donovan.

Whats your idea of a base/HQ?

1) Remote forest world, discovered by accident ala Blake Seven where the team can rest and recover with no Imperial interests in the area?

2)Modified Venator warship to serve as their base to operate from so they can keep moving around and out of the Empire's eyes and ears.

According to that first-look at GSA, the base is within a single system, which gave me the impression that it's intended to be #1 and not #2.

I agree with Chortles. It's less a "roving capital ship" and more a "secret meeting place with a weapons/gear cache on a specific world."

That said, I could see a case being made for GMs using the "base of operations" as the PCs being a Mission Ops group that's been assigned to a specific CR-90 Corvette, with missions being handed out by the Corvette's commanding officer. However, that doesn't mean the PCs get to call on the Corvette (or similar ship) to pull their fat out of the fire; if anything, the Corvette might just abandon them if things get too hot or the PCs draw too much Imperial attention to them. Much as the Alliance High Command might dislike the fact, it's much easier to replace a careless Mission Ops group than it is to acquire a new capital ship.

2)Modified Venator warship to serve as their base to operate from so they can keep moving around and out of the Empire's eyes and ears.

There's a Venator-class Star Destroyer in the latest Dark Horse comic too... it sits in the rubble of Alderaan.

2)Modified Venator warship to serve as their base to operate from so they can keep moving around and out of the Empire's eyes and ears.

There's a Venator-class Star Destroyer in the latest Dark Horse comic too... it sits in the rubble of Alderaan.

If anyone cares to look it up, it's the Audacity .

Although, Donovan, do the rules on that PC base/HQ allow for it to be a starship that's been stripped of hyperdrive and unable to have one reinstalled, permanently "stranding" it within a system, so that it's mobile only within the system?

Although, Donovan, do the rules on that PC base/HQ allow for it to be a starship that's been stripped of hyperdrive and unable to have one reinstalled, permanently "stranding" it within a system, so that it's mobile only within the system?

I won't quote the full text from the book, but the first sentence cites that the "base of operations" choice is meant by the writers to be for groups that operate in a specific system/sector. The trade-off is that this option limits their mobility, with the trade-off being an extra 2500 credits per player to reflect the additional resources said base of operations.

A system-bound transport would be a GM fiat, but my thought is that if the GM is going to give the PCs a ship of any sort, then they really shouldn't get the extra credits, or at least not quite as much since keeping a ship operating (even if it lacks a hyperdrive) is going to be a drain on their resources; perhaps they get the ship but only an extra 1000 credits?

How about a cover identity?

The base ship functions as a salvage ship and inbetween planning missions they have to upkeep both their base but also their official cover identity with the extra credits the results of a successful job completion...

Sounds a lot more easier than just a remote world with an otherwise undescribed base that grants some one time funds with nothing else to make it important to your players?

Imagine Armageddon the movie except Bruce Willis's crew are actually space miners who are contacted by an old friend to help thwart a dastardly Imperial attempt to decimate a world they both use to replenish supplies by sending an asteroid to bombard it making it look like pure chance when its not?

They start off with a base ship and a variety of ports they've used during their career along with some unofficial ones and after succeeding in saving that world end up on the Empire's wanted list forcing them to head further out into the fringe trying to make ends meet as well as the occasional rebel mission which could be just simply getting the supplies they need to keep their ship operational or prevent what nearly happened to them happening to anyone else?

Any takers?

I'm not sure how keen I am on bases as a whole. To me Star Wars is all about the huge universe with massive variety. If you don't have a ship available you're limiting yourself quite a bit.

I suppose the Rebels can provide you a ship when it's needed for a mission, but that that seems like it sort of defeats the purpose of not being given a vehicle in the first place.

Perhaps I'm just not seeing the big picture. I've never played a Star Wars game where the characters haven't had full time access to a ship, so I might just be having trouble visualizing the game. There could porbably be some appeal to being based full time on one planet that's at war, and fighting as part of a more local battlefield.

I'm not sure how keen I am on bases as a whole. To me Star Wars is all about the huge universe with massive variety. If you don't have a ship available you're limiting yourself quite a bit.

I suppose the Rebels can provide you a ship when it's needed for a mission, but that that seems like it sort of defeats the purpose of not being given a vehicle in the first place.

Perhaps I'm just not seeing the big picture. I've never played a Star Wars game where the characters haven't had full time access to a ship, so I might just be having trouble visualizing the game. There could porbably be some appeal to being based full time on one planet that's at war, and fighting as part of a more local battlefield.

I've been running a Saga Edition game for about four-plus years now, and for the first year and a half of it, the campaign was set entirely on Ord Mantell (during the Legacy Era). The players took on roles of folks who were working on building up a resistance movement against the Sith Empire on-planet. It had a sort of noir feel to it, and the players dug it a lot and it worked out really well.

Keeping the action and the plot localized to a single planet meant greater options for having recurring NPCs and ongoing conflicts, and the players got to feel like they were part of a really dynamic world. I can definitely see the same thing working in either an Age of Rebellion or Edge of the Empire setting.

My favorite is a balance of the two - free roaming and mono-planet: give 'em a sector to play with. Build 10 or so planets (with various levels of detail) and that gives a GM enough space to add and spotlight a variety of diverse planets but keeps the game focused enough that you can have reoccurring pirates and rival smugglers and crime lords and customs agents to harass (and help) the players,

I'm not sure how keen I am on bases as a whole. To me Star Wars is all about the huge universe with massive variety. If you don't have a ship available you're limiting yourself quite a bit.

I suppose the Rebels can provide you a ship when it's needed for a mission, but that that seems like it sort of defeats the purpose of not being given a vehicle in the first place.

Perhaps I'm just not seeing the big picture. I've never played a Star Wars game where the characters haven't had full time access to a ship, so I might just be having trouble visualizing the game. There could porbably be some appeal to being based full time on one planet that's at war, and fighting as part of a more local battlefield.

You're probably not alone in this, as a lot of veteran Star Wars gamers got their start with WEG's D6 system, and that one pretty much assumed in all of their canned adventures that the PCs had a ship and were simply flying in for the mission/adventure only to fly back out into hyperspace once they'd finished.

Even the movies themselves feature the heroes hoping amidst several different plants in different systems, with Empire Strikes Back really being the only one that had all three planets (Hoth, Bespin, and Dagobah) being relatively close to each other on the galactic map (not all in the same system, but not flung far across the galaxy either).

Rikoshi's on the mark when he said that using the option of a base instead of a ship means that there's greater chances for the characters to get involved with a specific set of NPCs, not just a constantly rotating cast of supporting characters that are really only relevant to the current adventure. And not every group of players is going to be down with that.

Personally, I'd probably make a heavy suggestion for the "base of operations" option, let the PCs spend several sessions in that area, and then arrange for them to acquire usage of a ship. Heck, depending on how fast they rack up the Duty points, they could very easily use their first Alliance Reward to pick up a light freighter such as the venerable YT-1300 or a Firespray-31 (for a smaller group), both of which have a Rarity of 4.