I think people are taking my thoughts out of hand here. . .

The concern: players looting every corpse to get the creds to buy things, making the game from heroic Star Wars madness with the smuggling, underhandedness we get in EotE to a dungeon crawl.

The psuedo-concern: Utilizing looting to undercut the Obligation mechanic (without doling it out due to looting).

A major question: How often do you see character use looting as a mechanic for upgrades instead of buying gear? Also, how often do you see party members purposely ransacking corpses for high-end gear to sell? If you've dropped in a tough and well equipped bounty hunter, how long does the body have to cool before the party starts calling dibs on weapons/armor/gear utilized by them, especially with things like the ship?

(Again, note that in prior versions of Star Wars, Stormtrooper Armor has a Black Market price of about 10k per completed suit, netting a skilled party about 5k or more per suit, so some returning players may expect this as a money maker.)

NOT a concern: looting for a purpose. Stealing a blaster rifle to fight your way out of the detention level, looting a Stormtrooper's armor or an Imperial Uniform so you can walk among them, turning the defeated Stormtrooper's Helmets into drums after everything is said and done, swiping a datapad to get the codes you need to slice into the system that has the plans of a planet destroying superweapon == awesome.

Hopefully that puts this back on track a bit. . .

Preventing a victorious army from looting a city it has taken is notoriously difficult.

Preventing a victorious PC from looting their foes is even harder. So I say make the best of it.

I think people are taking my thoughts out of hand here. . .

The concern: players looting every corpse to get the creds to buy things, making the game from heroic Star Wars madness with the smuggling, underhandedness we get in EotE to a dungeon crawl.

The psuedo-concern: Utilizing looting to undercut the Obligation mechanic (without doling it out due to looting).

A major question: How often do you see character use looting as a mechanic for upgrades instead of buying gear? Also, how often do you see party members purposely ransacking corpses for high-end gear to sell? If you've dropped in a tough and well equipped bounty hunter, how long does the body have to cool before the party starts calling dibs on weapons/armor/gear utilized by them, especially with things like the ship?

(Again, note that in prior versions of Star Wars, Stormtrooper Armor has a Black Market price of about 10k per completed suit, netting a skilled party about 5k or more per suit, so some returning players may expect this as a money maker.)

NOT a concern: looting for a purpose. Stealing a blaster rifle to fight your way out of the detention level, looting a Stormtrooper's armor or an Imperial Uniform so you can walk among them, turning the defeated Stormtrooper's Helmets into drums after everything is said and done, swiping a datapad to get the codes you need to slice into the system that has the plans of a planet destroying superweapon == awesome.

Hopefully that puts this back on track a bit. . .

All about timing. Give the PCs something better that is more pressing to focus on. Grabbing the odd weapon with an upgrade here or there isn't bad. If they're fighting in a civilized area then the time they take to loot could be spotted and reported (Criminal Obligation), the gear could be damaged (apply one or more ranks of sunder to it).

Also if you're worried about them gearing up too fast then balance NPCs with skill rather than equipment. A large minion squad with blaster pistols, low wound threshold and skills in ranged light can be just as dangerous as a lower level rival carrying a blaster rifle.

Yes. No looting in Star Wars.

...Aaaand the "Missing the Point Entirely Award" goes to...

Seriously, read the posts. No one is saying PCs shouldn't loot useful equipment and even sell it, only the OP is finding that his group is going to the extreme.

Seriously, read the posts. No one is saying PCs shouldn't loot useful equipment and even sell it, only the OP is finding that his group is going to the extreme.

Roleplayers, like dogs and children, find it far easier to understand yes or no than sometimes. :0)

Seriously though, this is the problem - wanting people to only loot when it is cool to do so, and when it is cool to do so is gonna vary person to person.

So I liked in Die Hard when John McLane gets his hands on one of the bad guys MP5s and then sends the bad guys down in a lift wearing a santa hat with a note saying 'ho ho ho now I have a machine gun'. Or how, since he doesn't have any shoes, he takes off a dead terrorist trainers and tries them on, commenting that it was just his luck to kill the only terrorist in the world with feet smaller than him.

Or in Firefly, when Jayne thinks River and Simon have been left behind so he goes through their stuff and takes what he wants. When they are then rescued, he rushes to their room and dumps all their stuff on their bed before anyone notices.

This is my approach. You will never stop players from looting, so it makes more sense to try to make the looting seem cool.

Seriously though, this is the problem - wanting people to only loot when it is cool to do so, and when it is cool to do so is gonna vary person to person.

Nope, it's easy: follow the rules on Encumbrance and make selling those things that are illegal as difficult as they should be. PCs should always be allowed to loot and will still profit from it, but eventually they will start to become more picky about taking stuff beyond what is useful or of consequential value. No need to convince them of anything, just follow the rules.

How about saying to the players that excessive looting isn't very Star Wars and can we get on with the fun please? I mean, really, if they want a game about beancounters that hoover up every scrap of loot, just to sell it and settle down to a quiet life, why are they playing this game?

Get them to embody the Star Wars way. Of course their characters are living on the edge, desperate enough for money to take that dangerous job. If they weren't, there wouldn't be any adventure!

Nope, it's easy: follow the rules on Encumbrance

They can ditch the extra in the truck. What is this, the middle ages? :-)

Nope, it's easy: follow the rules on Encumbrance

They can ditch the extra in the truck. What is this, the middle ages? :-)

Sure if they happen to have a truck handy then let'm have at it. they still have to get the stuff from where ever they are to the truck and then they have to sell that truckload of Stormtrooper armor to someone. The point is to let them do it if they want but don't bend any rules to enable it. They'll likely loose interest sooner or later.

They'll likely loose interest sooner or later.

The essential problem is that they will probably lose interest long, long after the GM.

How to prevent looting beyond encumbrance:

* Players stash their goods in a truck. Truck is towed away (they didn't see the fire hydrant) while the players are elsewhere

* The fence refuses to touch that many imperial blasters after a stormtrooper slaughter earlier that morning

* Customs heading off-world are on heightened alert due to a slaughter of stormtroopers earlier that morning

* Random patrols check ID's, a sharp eyed Imperial spots the belt sticking out of a box

* Someone (with more way guns than the PCs) wants to steal their stuff.

* "Trying to sneak with an armload of grenades? Fine, have three setback die - oh yeah, and don't drop any."

How to prevent looting beyond encumbrance:

* Players stash their goods in a truck. Truck is towed away (they didn't see the fire hydrant) while the players are elsewhere

You know that they are gonna get another truck and then spend ten minutes checking the parking regs right?

Learn to love looting. It is just easier.

You know that they are gonna get another truck and then spend ten minutes checking the parking regs right?

On the other hand, if comes down to GM versus Player, then you're breaking one of the cardinal rules of the game. If it's come to that, the GM needs to talk to them instead. "I feel that looting is not genre appropriate to Star Wars" and find the root cause. Is the GM being too niggardly with the rewards? Do the players have too high an expectation for gear and equipment? Do they understand that rich characters are generally unmotivated to seek out the plot?

It might be more work than just rolling over and accepting their looting ways, but it's better for your game in the long run.

On the other hand, if comes down to GM versus Player, then you're breaking one of the cardinal rules of the game. If it's come to that, the GM needs to talk to them instead. "I feel that looting is not genre appropriate to Star Wars" and find the root cause. Is the GM being too niggardly with the rewards? Do the players have too high an expectation for gear and equipment? Do they understand that rich characters are generally unmotivated to seek out the plot?

It might be more work than just rolling over and accepting their looting ways, but it's better for your game in the long run.

I can't agree more with this. I might have to have this conversation with my players at some point.

I think there are a ton of great points being made, but as it clearly states in the rule book, the GM has final say and has full rights to shape the narrative as he or she sees fit.

That being said, I think if you are looking to stop/limit the "over-looting," you need to offer something in return, through either story advantages or interesting narrative.

For example, the party just dispatched a few minion groups of stormtroopers (for the sake of example). As a PC approaches a stormtrooper to pull the laminate armor from his dead, broken body, the trooper rolls over with a thermal detonator clutched firmly in his hand. With a weak, shaking voice, he says "criminal scum," and presses the primer.

[insert {athletics, cool, coordination, whatever} skill check here.]

As the smoke clears, the party members recover to see the remains of the suicidal trooper and his comrades damaged and covered with a dark black residue from the blast, rendering their equipment unusable.

This could then lead to some sort of shortcut, or maybe the blast cut the surrounding area's power, providing setback die to enemy attack rolls or no roll needed to bypass a security system the party otherwise would have had to slice.

I've found my players respond well to these surprise situations and often do not even mind lacking the opportunity to loot the bodies.

Or you could randomly pick were each enemy NPC was shot (if the players didn't call their shots), making only one set of armor lootable per 3 or 4 enemies. This is a logical course of action if your PCs are against situations like my first example.

Though I suppose the challenge is to stay creative and unique each time and not overuse the mechanic, but its great if you don't want the party to figure out a way to loot 10,000 credits worth of armor and weapons, but still want to offer the tension of a company of stormtroopers.

Keeping players wanting, is the key motivation of Edge of The Empire as is trying to find a way to relinquish themselves of their obligations. Its what the game is basically about. Once they accomplish either you are no longer playing Edge of the Empire and theme of the story is lost.

The logistics of gaining wealth are made intentionally complex in Edge of the Empire. The prices even for the most simple items is very high. A simple blaster pistol is almost the combined wealth of a new character. Its not intended that the price set be used for the purposes of determining the value of selling loot. You don't have to change the prices, or even worry so much about rarity, just consider the story complexities of selling off weapons and equipment.

For example lets say your players have collected a small pool of weapons which on the open market is worth a combined total of 20,000 credits. That's a lot of loot in the possession of the players. They now seek to sell it and you know that if you give them 20,000 credits to play with they will turn those lesser pieces of gear into powerful pieces of gear. Rather then running around with Blaster Pistols the group will outfit themselves with pimped out weapons and gear.

Consider the situation and apply it to the Star Wars universe. What happens when a new arms dealer enters a city and tries to sell 20,000 credits worth of product in direct competition with other arms dealers, or under the local authority, or what have you. If you create an adventure of it, make selling gear more then just a trip to local shop as a insignificant part of the session you have ultimately failed to capture the spirit of Edge of the Empire. Every actions the players take should have complications that are logical and believable, selling off loot falls into the same category.

In my opinion as long as everything they do is an adventure, with twists and turns, conflict and requires effort, whatever they get, they earned. But as a GM its your duty to make it an adventure, nothing on in the Edge of the Empire can be simple. That's in essence the spirit of the game.

It might be more work than just rolling over and accepting their looting ways, but it's better for your game in the long run.

There's really no need, just follow the rules and you'll be fine. I they get a truck, fine, if they want to spend the time going through bodies and dispatching unconscious or mortally wounded troopers to get their stuff, fine. Just don't bend or hand wave away any rules; stuff has encumbrance and will take time and effort to move, illegal stuff will be difficult and dangerous to sell, wearing military gear will raise suspicion, a truck will be conspicuous, etc.

The point is as soon as you start hand waving and ignoring the very rules that help create the challenges to PCs trying to get ahead in the world you minimize those challenges. This is a game of heroes caught up in a hard and seedy universe, trying to get ahead enough to make a difference, if it's not a challenge success is meaningless.

If this is a serious problem during your sessions, I see two ways of putting a stop to it. None of them are likely to please the players, but it seems to me that they're ruining your enjoyment of the game.

Option one is to simply say, when they go to loot the bodies: "It's broken". The armour was destroyed when you shot the guy, his weapon broke when he dropped it as he fell. No matter how much the players whine or call foul, tell them it's all broken. You're the GM, they can suck it up or leave. Keep doing this long enough and they'll get the message.

The second way is to reduce the amount of XP they get. If a session degenerates into a loot fest, simply tell them they're getting only 5 XP (or none) because instead of making progress on the story they spent their time selling used blaster pistols for 100 credits a piece. A couple of sessions of no XP will cut off this sort of munchkinism pretty fast.

If this is a serious problem during your sessions, I see two ways of putting a stop to it. None of them are likely to please the players, but it seems to me that they're ruining your enjoyment of the game.

Option one is to simply say, when they go to loot the bodies: "It's broken". The armour was destroyed when you shot the guy, his weapon broke when he dropped it as he fell. No matter how much the players whine or call foul, tell them it's all broken. You're the GM, they can suck it up or leave. Keep doing this long enough and they'll get the message.

The second way is to reduce the amount of XP they get. If a session degenerates into a loot fest, simply tell them they're getting only 5 XP (or none) because instead of making progress on the story they spent their time selling used blaster pistols for 100 credits a piece. A couple of sessions of no XP will cut off this sort of munchkinism pretty fast.

I don't see these as being positive solutions. I've seen a GM get kicked from the table for this kind of thing.

If this is a serious problem during your sessions, I see two ways of putting a stop to it. None of them are likely to please the players, but it seems to me that they're ruining your enjoyment of the game.

Option one is to simply say, when they go to loot the bodies: "It's broken". The armour was destroyed when you shot the guy, his weapon broke when he dropped it as he fell. No matter how much the players whine or call foul, tell them it's all broken. You're the GM, they can suck it up or leave. Keep doing this long enough and they'll get the message.

The second way is to reduce the amount of XP they get. If a session degenerates into a loot fest, simply tell them they're getting only 5 XP (or none) because instead of making progress on the story they spent their time selling used blaster pistols for 100 credits a piece. A couple of sessions of no XP will cut off this sort of munchkinism pretty fast.

I don't see these as being positive solutions. I've seen a GM get kicked from the table for this kind of thing.

Ultimately the real solution is a conversation and coming to some consensus with a group over what people want to do. Forcing a GM to do something they do not find fun is just as bad as a GM screwing with a player's fun for the same reason. We all get together to game, we all have work together as a group to enjoy it as much as possible.

Ask why they insist on looting. Explain how you (as GM) feel about it - the issue may just be that it bogs down the game (both in terms of cataloging all the loot - one of the services I do for my Pathfinder group but it is tedious as hell at times - and in terms of game time - adding 10-30 in-game minutes to the end of each encounter as everything that can be looted is removed and stored somewhere). Often there are underlying reasons for un-fun stuff, or it is simply a clash of genre expectations (Player A wants to be like the movies, Player B wants to be a gritty attrition, Player C focuses on realism and needs to know how many uses of blaster gas are left in each power cell, etc), and those expectations can be worked out, more often than not, in ways that still allow everyone to have fun. And the odd time, yes, it will mean the player who insists on getting their way to the detriment of others will leave or be asked to leave.

(Player here can be both a player or the game master.)

One of my players has a Disruptor Pistol. So at the end of the last adventure the party was confronted by a high level bounty hunter, specifically I pulled out the Master Bounty Hunter in the Core Rulebook because it was at that moment they realized that a fairly massive bounty had been placed on their heads after ripping off a Hutt to the tune about 75,000 Credits

After the adventure they travel to a Cantina to celebrate when the fight breaks out. They did manage to kill the Master Bounty Hunter in the resulting fight (although one of the characters perminately lost an Characteristic Point after taking a big critical hit from the Bounty Hunter's flame thrower). Three of the PCs being particularly battle hardened meant that they were able to take the Master Bounty Hunter down (with some severe damage).

So the fight's over and and the Smuggler Scoundrel in the group says he I wants to loot his armor.

My reply was, "What armor? You blew him away with a disruptor pistol. There is barely anything of it left."

Here's my two-cents, I let my players take whatever they want if they could explain how they carry away the loot. Mainly weapons. They can keep what they want, or sell it off for half the book price value. That way they can upgrade weapons without buying stuff, or get some quick cash. In the Long Arm of the Hutt adventure the players used their captured weapons to outfit the some residents of New Meen and had them augment them for a larger attacking force against Drombb and his Thugs at the end of Act I. My thought process is, you are going to your weapons/gear until they are exhausted, but if you can find something you want, and it upgrades your arsenal.....do it. Loot it and keep it for later for barter, sale, or war-trophy.

Here's my two-cents, I let my players take whatever they want if they could explain how they carry away the loot.

Well, as I said before you don't really need to much more than give the Encubrence values for the items and let them do the work.

Let them tell you what their taking, to where, by what route, how many trips it's going to take, and how long it will take for each trip.

If it takes long enough or they have to pass through an area that may have opposition, have at it. If they spend so much time that events pass them by or allows their opposition to ready themselves, then have them show up at the next location and find only some cigaret butts and a Hutt slime trail (metaphorical), or maybe an ambush.

Play it out

Play it out

That gets you a game focused on looting, which is kind of the opposite of what is wanted.

Once or twice maybe, but once they see you're going to make them do all the work and the consequences will be real, it'll likely drop off. At least you'll get some of your players on your side as they get tired of waiting for the others to play Logistics Wars.