Beyond the Rim, thoughts (Obvious spoilers)

By kinnison, in Game Masters

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In conclusion, my assessment is FFG did a great job on what they put in and what they left out, requiring me to fill out the rest of the details. I ginned up an epic trek through the Cholgana jungles. I ended up with a Star Wars experience very much to my liking.

Agree about the amount of details in the book. Was wondering if you had any notes about your trek, or if it was totally free form.

My players are at the Retreat, the Imperials have just flown overhead. The imperials don't currently know the location of the retreat but followed a tracking device planted on the players ship by a disgruntled drug dealer (addicts obligation). The imps have set up a base of operations near the players ship and deployed probes into the jungle.

The Survivors are panicking, Harsol attacked the players then tried to kill himself during the fight. I'm anticipating a trek back through the jungle with the survivors and am interested in ideas.

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Zombie, off the top o my head, I used the travel distance provided in the book and divided it into survival rolls to mark PC progress, with threats and advantages triggering encounters with those arboreal octopi and such.

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Are people beefing up the Imperials when they appear at the Retreat?

My players aren't combat gods, but I still think they'd make short work of a dozen scout trooper minions and their speeder bikes. Are these really that much of a threat against the group of PCs, the battle droids, the survivors, etc.?

This seems like such a wasted opportunity for a classic Star Wars set piece battle against the Empire.

What have people used?

Jaime

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Also, does it seem strange to anyone besides me that scout troopers do not have Piloting (Planetary) on their skill list? Isn't that more or less recommended for someone zipping around on Endor on a repulsor bike?

Jaime

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Also, does it seem strange to anyone besides me that scout troopers do not have Piloting (Planetary) on their skill list? Isn't that more or less recommended for someone zipping around on Endor on a repulsor bike?

Jaime

I noticed this the other day when going through my copy of the Age of Rebellion beta book. I ended up giving them Piloting Planetary anyway.

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It’s been a while, so I thought I’d give you guys an update on my campaign/BtR sessions. It’s been a busy couple of months, so we haven’t had the chance to play that often. As a matter of fact, we finished our 4 th session last Sunday. And believe it or not, the group’s still running around on The Wheel. :P

What happened to them? Let’s see… I’ll try to give you guys the ‘short’ version. ;)

So 2 of my players wound up joining the Sabacc game (see the modular encounter from ‘Suns of Fortune’), while the other 3 decided to find something worthwhile to do on the space station. 2 of them ended up picking up job where they had to track down a couple of vandals who has just wrecked a bar, and the 3 rd one ended up in Tasia’s Tapcafé (with him having been raised on Alderaan most of his life, this was the perfect opportunity for some character development).

I decided it was time to get things going, so I made it so Reom contacted Ralk, the Bothan NPC who is sort of in charge of the group. Reom told him he had a very lucrative job offering for the group, and that they should drop by asap. So that’s what Ralk told the players when he contacted them via com link. Unfortunately, he couldn’t reach the Big Game Hunter and the Slicer/Thief as they were playing that game of Sabacc, and they assumed they had just turned off their coms so they wouldn’t be disturbed (even if they hadn’t, the room they were in was blocking all com signals anyway :P ).

The Mechanic and Marauder said they would come by later, as they were in the middle of trying to find those vandals, and the Politico dropped everything he was doing to meet up with Ralk.

I’ll tell you, trying to manage 3 separate groups is tricky… but I think it all worked out fine in the end. The Politico and Ralk met up with Reom, and they already noticed that the IsoTech offices seemed to be in a state of ‘alert’, as there were many security measures active. So this gave the Politico the sense that, whatever they were about to learn, would be something important. Cue the whole story about the Sa Nalaor and the relationship with its captain and Reom’s missing father. So the Politico managed to bargain for 5000 credits as a down payment, and left the IsoTech offices with the datapod and the coordinates for the planet Rel said they were going to crash on.

In the meantime, the BGH and the S/T were playing their game of Sabacc. I used the game to keep some of the NPC’s they had met earlier in the spotlight. Playing with them were Barizon, the Arconan smuggler that the S/T had made up in the previous session, and Jarro Zapal, the Corellian Treasure Hunter who seemed to have his eyes more on the ditzy blonde, than on the game. Both Barizon and Jarro had to leave the table, as the rigged game was draining their credits. The BGH lost about 200 credits, but the S/T was rolling pretty well, and had won a nice sum. Carn Truuvik, the host, lured her in for one last game, which she lost… only to finally realise what was going on. Since she still had more money than she came in with, she decided not to act upon it. She did make a crude remark about the host’s ‘fair play’ policy as she left, to which his assistant sheepishly smiled. The BGH decided to follow her lead, and left the room.

While that was going on, the Marauder and Mechanic met up with the bar’s owner, who was busy cleaning up the mess that was left behind. They went into his office, and saw the cam footage of what had happened. A Klatooinian, Twi’lek and Rodian has started a brawl, which drew in other patrons and resulted in several broken windows, tables, you name it. One of the players wanted to know if he saw anything else on the footage, and although I hadn’t prepared any of this, I decided that he noticed that a perplexed Togruta woman was looking at the brawl. She had a package with her, and I told my player that he saw a hand grab the package, but that he couldn’t really see who the hand belonged to because of the limits on the camera range. So my players both guessed that those 3 thugs were maybe creating a diversion while a companion of them was stealing that package. The bar owner promised them a reward of 500 credits each, with a combined bonus of 500 credits if they managed to bring him the names of the vandals within 24 hours.

Their first order of business was to see if any nearby shopkeepers had seen anything, but when they couldn’t provide any useful information, they decided to head to the nearest Wheel Security Station to see if they could maybe help them. (Now during our previous session, the Marauder player hadn’t shown up, but he did came up with a reason why his character wasn’t present that session: he had gotten into a fight trying to defend some people from being mugged, but was rounded up with the muggers and had to spend a few hours in a cell.) So funny thing… they walk into that same Security Station, and the officer on duty looks at him all funny. :P Not long after, a Klatooinian gets dragged in by 2 other Security officers, and they make the comment that this guy probably had something to do with the fighting down at that bar.

This is where our last session began: the players manage to get 5 minutes alone with this guy, and they learn that he and his friends were hired by a Kubaz for causing a ruckus in the bar… although he doesn’t know why. They were being paid 1500 credits, and that was all the reason they needed. The players learn that the vandals have a small cargo ship in a close-by hangar bay, so they decide to check that out, but first they would return to the bar as they had obtained the names of the vandals, as was agreed upon between the players and the owner. The owner tried to give them only half (as he was certain he would never agree upon such a high reward, but was 'gently' reminded by the Herglic that he did, in fact, promise them 750 credits each). So the owner went to the Security station asap to press charges against the Klatooinian, leaving the players to their own investigation.

Our BGH and S/T return to their ship, where Ralk and the Politico had arrived with the datapod. Our S/T couldn’t join this session due to illness, but we agreed beforehand that she was just having a bad night (the deception during the Sabacc game only added to this) and that she went straight to her room and didn’t come out (probably went straight to bed even). So our BGH and P wanted to get a better idea of where they were headed, and entered the coordinates in the astrogation console. The BGH had a nagging idea that the coordinates seemed familiar to him, but he couldn’t really place it. That was, until he saw the console light up. While the destination dot was blinking in empty space, it all dawned on him. He had hoped to never return to that place (yes, his background involves real personal trauma on the C-planet… more on that later, in the next session or 2 probably ;) ), so it was causing him all sorts of stress (and **** it, I just thought about that I should have given him strain for that). The P was trying to pull the information about the planet out of the BGH, but he didn’t succeed. The only thing he got from him, was that it was a jungle planet… and they’d better bring guns. Lots of them.

So Ralk suggests that the 3 of them should prepare for the journey, and do some late night shopping, leaving the S/T sleeping in her room.

Meanwhile, the Marauder and Mechanic end up at the hangar bay, looking for the Rapid Rooster (the vandals’ ship, one of my players came up with that name even... not sure if there eve nare roosters in the Star Wars universe :P ). They find the ship, and I simply couldn’t resist… I told them that they had misheard the Klatooinian, and that the ship was actually called the Rabid Rooster, an image of a rooster foaming at the mouth… err, beak, clearly visible on the side of the ship. :P

The players notice that the boardwalk leading up to the ship’s cargo hold is down, and they carefully approach. I let them do perception checks, and I tell them that, aside from the sounds from the hangar bay, everything seems quiet inside the vessel. They make their way further into the ship, and stumble on 2 dead bodies, a Twi’lek and a Rodian… both with clear blaster shot wounds, still smoking too. On the table is a small container (which I describe as a type of container that they have seen before being used to store credits). So the Mechanic thinks this might contain those 1500 credits that the thugs were promised, opens it up… only to find a thermal detonator counting down with less than 2 minutes on the clock (I’m not sure if this is exactly how such a device works, but meh… whatever, right?), and he starts to freak out.

Now I should have put a bigger sense of urgency on both players as, in hindsight, they did take long to decide what they wanted to do with it. Live and learn, I guess. But anyway, the big Herglic Marauder takes the container and rushes out the ship towards the magnetic field separating the hangar bay with the vacuum of space. He rolls pretty well (didn’t even roll a despair to make the device go ‘boom’ :( ), and I tell him he basically stampedes through everyone, knocking people over left and right. He yells “Bomb!”, to make people move out of the way, and uses his everything he can muster to throw the container through the field, outside. The detonator implodes just safely outside the station, and everyone is just looking at the Herglic, thinking the guy’s a terrorist or something, running around with a bomb like that. Security rushes the scene, and the Marauder gets arrested yet again. The mechanic, still cowering in the ship’s cockpit, sees this all happening, but decides to just stay put.

While that was going on, my other 2 players were going over all the nifty gear they could buy, and when they got what they wanted, I told them that Ralk was going to buy them a drink at The Blasted Asteroid. Sort of a good luck drink for the coming mission, plus he didn’t know when they might come back to The Wheel, or have the chance to enjoy a ‘real’ drink.

So they enter the bar, and immediately notice that the place is a lot busier than usual, as if something is going on. The Politico decides to investigate, and walks up to Waroon Dak, the infochant. Seeing as how he has charged Dak with tracking down this Imperial Captain (the big bad from his background story), he wanted to know first if any information about him had popped up already. Waroon said that he was actually looking for the Politico, as he had discovered that said Imperial Captain was promoted to Moff, and that looking further into him might prove dangerous… so he was going to have to double his fee. (Now I know that it might be ‘illogical’ for a captain to skip several titles and go straight to Moff status, but I’m not that well-versed in the lore that I think of every little detail like that. I usually think about stuff like that AFTER… like now, for example. :P ) So yeah, my player’s mouth just drops. “You’re kidding me? A Moff?!”

He agrees to pay double, as long as the infochant gives him everything he can find on him. He also tells him that it might be a while before he comes back to The Wheel, as he’s going on a ‘secret’ mission. Waroon asks the Politico if this ‘secret mission’ might have anything to do with the Sa Nalaor, and again my player’s mouth drops. I let Waroon explain that there’s a rumor spreading like wildfire through the station, about tangible information on the missing Sa Nalaor… and it’s somewhere on The Wheel. Heck, that’s why all these people are here in the bar to begin with. Everyone wants a piece. The Politico offers to buy any information the infochant might have on the Sa Nalaor, and this is where he learns about the Separatist Cybertech staff, led by someone named Cratala, who went missing around the same time as the Sa Nalaor, and thay they might be linked to each other. The Politico recalls Reom telling about Ropok, and deduces that the former head of IsoTech might have been a Separatist himself. Him disappearing shortly after the Sa Nalaor seems to feed this idea. The player wanted to give Waroon the coordinates, see if he might know anything about the planet that’s supposed to be there, but he was clever enough to consult the BGH and Ralk about it first. They convinced him that that was a VERY bad idea, as anyone with enough credits could then simply purchase that information from the infochant. Ralk had also noticed Talo and a few others of the Yiyar clan sitting at another table, and he urged the Politico to proceed with caution. The last thing they needed was for IsoTech’s competition to learn about what the players were up to.

That’s when a ruckus started inside the establishment, and everyone saw Jarro Zapal climbing the bar, completely wasted. The BGH thought that Zapal took the loss of his credits during the Sabacc game pretty hard. So Zapal got up on the bar, and started shouting that nobody had a chance of finding the Sa Nalaor, expect for him. After all, he was the BEST treasure hunter in the galaxy, everbody else would simply fail. (I got this idea from someone on this forum, but can’t remember who… so whoever you are, thanks!) Ceoloe, the barman, drags the drunk down and tosses him out The Blasted Asteroid, with everyone in the cantina laughing at him. The Politico, completely paranoid now, assumes that Jarro Zapal knows more, even though the Nautolan BGH kept saying that the man is drunk and is probably just spouting baseless boasts. He decides to follow to the drunk treasure hunter, with the BGH following to keep the Politico out of trouble. Ralk wants no part in this, so he returns to the ship.

On the way to the ship, he is contacted by the Marauder, and learns that he is yet again in custody. Lucky for him, the hangar bays are filled with security cams, so the officers quickly see that the Herglic is telling the truth about trying to save everyone in the hangar bay. On the security footage, the players sees that, just a few minutes before he and his companion arrive at the ship, a Kubaz had entered with a package under his arm, and left shortly after tucking away something in his robes (a blaster?)… with no sign of the package. (I had some time between before last session to come up with a closure for the vandalised bar job, so I thought to end it with a cliffhanger/red herring type of ending). So the Marauder and Mechanic finally meet up and learn about their upcoming trip to an unknown planet (although Ralk knows where they are going, as the BGH had told him in his background story, he decided to respect the BGH’s silence about the matter), and decided to grab a new gun or two on their way back to the ship.

The session ended with the Politico confronting Jarro, but instead of getting any real information out of him, received a dose of vomit on his pants. He wanted to hurt the man for that, but noticed Security approaching, and left with the BGH, hearing how the Security officers took the drunk away. The BGH, not a fan of the Politico’s new odor, walked behind him. The Politico turned to say something, and rudely smashed into someone. When he turned, he saw Talo and 3 Rodians standing there. One of the Rodians was wearing a cast around his arm (see the part about the Rodian trying to hit the Mechanic during the Big Game Tournament). The Rodians made a snide remark about the human’s intelligence, and the player’s character just loses it. He draws his gun, but the BGH was just in time to pull the guy’s arm down, having the blaster shot hit the floor before a Rodian’s feet. One of the Rodians tries to punch the Politico, but he manages to block the attack. Things are about to go down! But then the Rodian with his arm in a cast urges his companions to walk away, as he notices more Security approaching. The Politico decides to do the same, and walks past the Yiyar goons… smashing his arm hard against the wounded arm of the Rodian as payback. The Rodian glares at him, and hisses that he’ll get the Politico sooner or later. “Echuta!”

And that was it... the ‘short’ version. *cough*

I’m really liking where all of this is going. Even though it can feel quite hectic at times during play, it all seems to come together nicely. And once again, I can only confirm what everyone keeps saying: don’t fuss about the details, or about trying to get everything ‘right’… in the end, only the fun matters. We all had tears in our eyes from laughing, last Sunday, when the Politico player was talking to Waroon Dak. He started every sentence with ‘I get a bit closer…’ By now, he had said that like 3 or 4 times, so we could all just imagine him sitting right in front of the infochant, nose touching nose. So the player decided to undo this awkward situation he felt himself in, and the first thing he says is “I want to try to get the guy alone with me… so we can talk in private.” Everyone just lost it after “want to get the guy alone with me”. :D

Oh man, can't wait to continue this game... I'm hooked!
Edited by Veruca
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So it was driving me nuts not having an image for the Deep Dark, so I found one that I like and made a deck plan for it, just in case my party tries to board/hijack it.

I used some photoshop magic to change things around and modify the deck plans to suit the adventure (and Star Wars). Huge props to the original authors of the pieces.

sienar_fleet_systems_scout_ship_by_adamk

aCHLMPs.png

Here is the image that inspired me. http://adamkop.deviantart.com/art/Sienar-Fleet-Systems-Scout-ship-404918622

Here is the deck plan that I used to make the Deep Dark. http://breandan-ociarrai.deviantart.com/art/Dark-Nova-Taniwha-Deckplans-227434035

Also, I wanted a printout for my players of the Retreat so they would get a sense of what was where. I like visuals a lot. Again, I took Jshock's image and modified it to suit my needs (Hope he doesn't mind). Feel free to use these in your own game or as reference if they help.

wMuCuJ8.jpg

Edited by ianinak
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My own impression was that the Skywatcher-class Scout was supposed to have rather spartan accommodations. As you've shown it, it looks rather luxurious with big private cabins each with a private refresher, and then there's the pool...

i really like the village map.

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Yeah, it was the best floorplan that I could find that was 90% what I wanted. It doesn't match the description exactly, but it's close enough for me. Besides, the pool seems like it would be awesome on long trips scouting. The poor scout troopers in the passenger bunks have pretty sparse rooms, but the crew (3-4) and 2 scout trooper officers do have nice accommodations.

Edited by ianinak
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So far I've really been getting my money's worth out of BtR. We finished our 8th session last week, and we ended it when the crew had just breached the vault, grabbed some leftover valuables, and were making their way back to the bridge... when they had to run back to the cargo hold because they were being chased by a Cyber Nexu. So I'm guessing we might get about 12 sessions, if not more, out of the book.

It did start to irk me a bit to miss some basic representation of things. Like what a Reevos looks like, or the Deep Dark. But some of those things are easily found on the internet (unless they're something FFG created themselves, like the Reevos). However, if I can give a tip to the devs for future supplements, it's to add more visual representations of things that are appearing in the adventure, and leave the more generic stuff out of it. For example, we have no real use of an image of a shooting Wookiee (see page 95), but we do of an image like the one on page 63 (Cratala). Visual aids help us GMs a lot to describe things to our players.

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I was able to use Map of the cargo level in book for a Map of the Adventure. I blew it up and gave some names to places. I have yet to use it, but it seems like it will be good to have just as a reference point for players

Would you be willing to email me your file of the map of the cargo level?

Ian

If it helps... here is the generic one that I made for my game. I actually had to enlarge the hangar in my other version , since my crew has an e-9 explorer as their starting ship and it is quite a bit bigger than a yt-1300.

Ikb6QyS.jpg

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Here's my take on the Scout Ship, with thanks to those who originally designed and posted it. It's only a quick render, to give an idea of the size, etc., but I think it works okay. I'm yet to get to the Imperial attack on the Retreat, but I have a funny feeling my players will be stealing this...

aCHLMPs_zpsbaa8e6f5.jpg

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Good call on not including the yiyar clan. I did the same thing and it worked out great. Having the ISB involved makes it much more fun. The rolls you created are awesome. I will try to use them in my campaign.

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My party didn't mind this adventure, though some of the things (like the Yiyar subplot) were a little contrived. I'm new to GM'ing, so I just ran with the adventure as written.

My party, though, instead of dealing with things diplomatically, prefers to shoot everything up, so the Yiyar clan has pretty much all been killed/tortured beyond sanity now. They also went to have a shot at Norta when he first appeared, since he was a rodian. They also noticed the 'Jawas' on a perception check, immediately drew their blasters and shot Talo before he could pull into the alcove.

The other thing they did, one of my players is an ex-ISB slicer, so knows all the protocols and sliced into the Deep Dark to grab clearance codes. He managed to lie his way through the final encounter (despite me using all four of my destiny points upgrading all the checks) before they were able to land and attack scrapheap point. *Sigh* It was funny when it happened, but the penultimate battle never happened because of that. My revenge was making the wookie, who was flying their ship out alongside the corvette, do an astrogation check before jumping out to the rendezvous point. We have a lost wookie on our hands now :)

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We've played 10 sessions now, and the players have just discovered The Retreat. I'm really getting my money's worth out of this book. :D

We're coming up on a part where I'm planning to integrate one of my players' background. My idea is to make it that the survivors found a new type of rock/gem/stone/precious metal a few years after they crashed, and that can only be found on Cholganna. Inside the rock is some sort of liquid that Cratala managed to alter and use in her cybernetics, and to great effect.

Now one of my players is rocking a crude cybernetic arm, and I'm positive he's going to ask Cratala to upgrade it. This is where I'm going to send them on a side mission (if all goes according to plan, that is). Cratala has run out of the stones, safe for maybe one or two, which is not enough to use on a single cybernetic. The cache they'd found years ago has been depleted for some time now. One of my other players (Big Game Hunter) has been on Cholganna about 5 years before, hired by a small mining company that was digging for the same stone, but ran into some Nexu trouble (so they hired him to deal with that problem). So at this point, I'll remind my BGH that he has seen the stones before, at the mining site of that small company. So with some luck, they might check it out. (If not, meh, I'll let the adventure continue as normal.)

Anyway, the stone has a non-shiny violet color, rough edges and a bright blue liquid in its center... but I'm having trouble coming up with a name for it. That's why I'm coming here, hoping you guys might have a few suggestions.

What do you think the survivors would call this stone? Maybe the BGH knows the rock by a different name?

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Sounds like Eridium from Borderlands 2.

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I haven't played Borderlands 2, so that's a possibility.

That Charoite is giving me an idea though. Maybe there's 'good' and 'bad' stones. The good ones are filled with the precious liquid, while the bad ones are empty/duds. The liquid lights the stones up in the dark... hence the reason they discovered those stones in the first place.

I was thinking about calling the stone something like Liquidum or Liquidium. Sounds like it might be something that the survivors would call it.

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Possible ideas for what to do inside the retreat.

1. Have one of your players wake up in the middle of the night and need to use the refresher. When he's outside heading to the refresher, have him hear some noise near the HQ. When he goes to investigate, he sees the Yiyar clan stealing the chest holding all of the sample metal bars from Harsol's room. (Harsol received a letter asking to meet him behind the garage at this time to talk about someone plotting against him) As the player discovers the robbery in progress, the bells start ringing in the sentry towers and B1 Battle droids and others catch the Yiyar clan and the PC in the middle of the robbery. All are arrested and thrown into the caged off sections of the nexu cage. Yav Yiyar and clan try to point the finger at the player to lessen their involvement. At this point you can start an investigation with the players, or a trial against the player character, and if the player can't get out of this pickle or things get too sticky, shake things up with the imperial arrival.

2. Yav Yiyar and clan are either caught, or escape in the middle of the night with up to 10 survivors. (Including Rewna who Harsol hates to loose) This sends Harsol into a paranoid rage/panic, and he begins blaming the player characters. And unless he can be charmed / negotiated down by the players he works up into a rage and starts yelling that everyone is conspiring against him. If the Empire is introduced at this time, Harsol could loose it and start firing randomly at anyone running near him until he is subdued.

3. Yiyar clan decides to leave and are denied by Harsol. Now the players and Yiyar feel more like prisoners. Later that day one of the Yiyar clan releases all the animals from the nexu cage into the retreat to give cover and confusion while they make an escape attempt.

4. (This one specifically goes with one of my players who is motivated by power and feels that having a light saber would somehow make him powerful) An old clone trooper is still alive and in the camp! He was captured during the fighting at the planet Boz Pity. He is still alive because Cartla was able to identify the genes artificially implanted in the trooper, that would have triggered a rare genetic disease at age 35 and killed him. Hes old and in very poor shape because of all the artificial genetic ageing he underwent, but he has a fantastic story about the Clone War fight that happened at Boz Pity and about the ghost haunted and dead world of Boz Pity. (This can lead to a future story line for the players)

5. A Murder in the camp. Someone has taken advantage of the new groups of people in the retreat to throw suspicion on the players or Yiyar clan and get away with murder. Harsol asks the players to investigate the murder for him, while secretly investigating the players himself. He who laughs last, laughs best. 20 years ago one of the Sa Nalaor's crew members was passed over for a promotion and he/she never got over this spite. Or make up your own murder motive story.

Or just let your players loose in the retreat and let them get knee deep into there own trouble. Trying to steal Harsol's treasure, trying to copy the data in Cartala's medical droid. Trying to steal or copy the plans from Cartala's room, or anything else they can imagine.

Darthslash

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I was trying to keep the adventure short. My players don't have much initiative, and try to stay out of trouble. 3 sessions in (6 hour sessions)

Synopsis of the adventure in my log in the link in my signature. When are just at the end of Episode 2, where they are planning to elude the Imperials and get off the planet with Cratala.

Thier first night in the camp they spotted the Battle droids doing regular patrols, and near the end of the night they were attacked by some bark rats. They never figured out that Yav Yiyar was the ones who did it. Later after they did some jobs and went back to thier ship to get the supplies they brought, during the jobs they were able to interact with some of notable NPCs and get some more info on the state of the camp.

When they get back one of Yav's crew was caught trying to break into the safe. Then soon after Otal set off a bomb that freed a Nexu, which allowed Yav to grab one of the Med assistants as a hostage. During the stand off and the height of a climax, the Deep Dark did a fly-by. Harsol and Cratala completly lost it.

After the brief firefight, where the survivors pretty much did nothing after seeing their Captain go insane. Harsol was stunned Yav was down to one Wound, and critically injured when the survives surrounded everyone and told them to stand down, Yav Surrendered.

Now Yav and his crews is volunteering to scout out the Deep Dark so they might have a chance to get off the planet without being caught by the Imperials.

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I've seen a number of folks ask about maps for this adventure. As an old-school RPG person, I found giving up map-based play tough initially, but think I have found something that scratches the itch, without becoming too detailed.

I've been experimenting with "Place Cards" rather than Maps. For example, when running the portions of the adventure at the Wheel, I had cards for the hangar, the bar, Reom's office, a general store, etc. In my GM Notes I had some tidbits and NPCs tied to each location, and let the players add other places, after checking with the station directory, or another NPC.

For the Retreat portion, I had places for the main gate, barracks, the garage, the meeting hall, etc. We scattered the cards across the table, and the players were able to break into smaller units and "be" in different places without confusion.

Edited by roll20calmly
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A little late to the party, but...

Not all of my players are as knowledgeable about Star Wars as the rest of us, so I whipped this up this afternoon to have Reom show them what they are looking for. I didn't know if anyone else might find it useful:

sa%20nalaor.jpg

Edited by Crazed Lasher
Posted at

I've seen a number of folks ask about maps for this adventure. As an old-school RPG person, I found giving up map-based play tough initially, but think I have found something that scratches the itch, without becoming too detailed.

I've been experimenting with "Place Cards" rather than Maps. For example, when running the portions of the adventure at the Wheel, I had cards for the hangar, the bar, Reom's office, a general store, etc. In my GM Notes I had some tidbits and NPCs tied to each location, and let the players add other places, after checking with the station directory, or another NPC.

For the Retreat portion, I had places for the main gate, barracks, the garage, the meeting hall, etc. We scattered the cards across the table, and the players were able to break into smaller units and "be" in different places without confusion.

That is pretty much what I started doing. I make a crude map and the players place their Mini's in certain areas, and i sometimes will have Mini's to represent NPCs. Since a majority of people are visual learners, this helps a lot when trying to organize things

Posted at

Hi all

Im running a sandbox campaign and to get my players on to Beyond the Rim I planted a destroyed astromech droid in a derelict spacehip in the middle of a dangerous asteroid belt.

The droid contained the message from the Sa Nalaor message pod, but it was heavily encrypted. There is no information on how the droid ended up with this message. I wanted to make something special out of it so I made these sound files. The idea is that a com officer on the Sa Nalaor managed to send this out in the pod 19 years ago.

Sa Nalaor message pod complete message

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ukk7g8bc0uxsas4/Sa%20Nalaor%20message%20pod%20complete.mp3?dl=0

After isolating all the data in the message you can play this for them

Sa Nalaor data stream

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4ktjv8vwiw4jzby/Sa%20Nalaor%20message%20pod%20data.mp3?dl=0

Sa Nalaor morse

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fdy0x0ovdqsfptk/Sa%20Nalaor%20message%20pod%20morse.mp3?dl=0

Sa Nalaor voice message

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rmqv09fg0mma4ht/Sa%20Nalaor%20message%20pod%20voice.mp3?dl=0

And here is the message in the datastream

SHIP IN DISTRESS - ABANDONING SHIP
Carrier: Hyperspace Message Pod G4X32-YV89-RN42
From: CIC Captain Rel Harsol
CIS, Munificent Class Star Frigate, Sa Nalaor
To: Ropok, IsoTech, The Wheel
MESSAGE AS FOLLOWS
Heavy structural damage and main sublight engines failure. We are trapped in the gravity well and cannot escape. Situation extreme. Requesting rescue and survival gear. Determined to follow the plan if we survive.
DISTRESS SIGNAL COORDINATES
System: Cholganna
Region: Wild Space T5 - MSLUB 4511,6S04935,2W
Edited by Plaindog
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Oh wow, the sleeping thread I was digging through recently for tips and tricks is miraculously resurrected. Even though I can't use this info YET, Mr. Plaindog, thank you much for posting this idea. Think I may adapt it as a future adventure seed- it's very "rogue event"-ey.

Thanks as well to all the rest of you who've been discussing this thing for the past three years. You helped a lot.

Last, put together some of my own maps for this thing and will post them soon for the heck of it, just in case any other GMs come nosing around for such things. Got half a mind to do some ink & brush & watercolour work again, so if any one wants nicer maps, feel free to ask. In fact, feel free to DEMAND. That might actually spur me to do it instead of merely thinking about it.

Cheers!

Edited by Superunknown