As a GM, have you ever gotten tired of the PCs in your game? In mine they have Motivations that I'm getting utterly bored of trying to accommodate. I play a fairly open sandbox, and while it's worked out in the past, right now it's starting to fail me (and just me - my players are having a great time). Here's my crew:

Artine Nakiri - Human Ace (Pilot) motivated by Ambition (Status) and Relationship (Sibiling). The player says that the character wants to be someone important, but the player doesn't stay focused on any goal long to achieve it. Hardship comes up, and she's ready to ditch whatever she's built up and try for something else. Her sibiling is another PC, Sardeya Nakiri.

Sardeya Nakiri - Human Smuggler (Force Sensitive Exile, Scoundrel) motivated by Ambition (Freedom) and Relationship (Sibling). This character is unscrupulous and not in the charming rogue sort of way. She's a bloodthirsty gunslinger and as shifty a character as they come. She's motivated by personal liberty, but only so far as herself and her sister.

Beyor Cyvan - Sullustan Explore (Fringer, Trader) motivated by Ambition (Greed) and Cause (Capitalism). He's the captain of the ship and the guy that's most proactive at getting the group to do things. Sadly, I just don't give two $hits about another get rich quick scheme or smuggling run after the last six months of running them.

Hugo Vossk - Trandoshan Hired Gun (Bodyguard) motivated by Ambition (Expertise). He just wants to be good at his job of keeping everyone alive. Not terribly exciting, and not really something to build adventures directly around (not that it doesn't come up constantly as an indirect goal of many of their adventures).

Most recently my group got duped into a swoop race that involved buzzing over a Tusken village and killing as many of them as they could. Rather than balking at the task, Artine was all over showing off her piloting skills and skill with pistols and grenades. She slaughtered several Tuskens in a manner that might make Anakin proud.

Shortly after that they were brought in by Jabba to run spice and slaves from Ryloth. I had hoped that they might have some moral objection considering that they had two regularly appearing NPCs that opposed it, but they were just like, "OK, we'll do it for now until something better comes along." The NPCs promptly split from them.

Lately, I find myself rooting for their opponents to win. I want to see the PCs killed off, but their rather good at what they do and I'm opposed to breaking the verisimilitude of the setting by having all of their opposition artificially inflated to awesome levels.

OK, enough rambling...

Has anyone else found that a lack of positive character Motivations is bringing their game down?

My players' characters usually have a decent motivation. Rarely do I get the "I just want to get rich" or "I just want to make a name for myself" from most of them. I do have a player that does generally go for the renown motivation no matter what his specialty is. I guess I am a bad GM because usually, that character's motivation gets largely ignored unless I get more than just "I want to be a good bounty hunter". Typically that player character's motivation fits most games I run without any effort from me.

If I were you, I would sit down with my players, talk about the game so far and ask them (individually and alone if you can), what direction they really want to see their character going. Keep pressing them until they give you more information than just "Well, I am happy with what we are doing now" or "I just want to become a better bounty hunter".

If you're not liking the sandbox, try making it less sandboxy. They're running spice and slaves, get them caught by a ship they can't outgun or outrun and mix it up! They may not even notice that the game is more structured. And even so, if you're not having fun running the game your options are really to find a way to have fun again or you may as well just call it.

Do you also play from time to time as a player character? may be you need some fresh air.

Have you been playing as a GM to SW for long? Time to change the setting?

Cheers,

Yepes

If you're not liking the sandbox, try making it less sandboxy. They're running spice and slaves, get them caught by a ship they can't outgun or outrun and mix it up! They may not even notice that the game is more structured. And even so, if you're not having fun running the game your options are really to find a way to have fun again or you may as well just call it.

There are few ships that they are unable to evade. Thisvgame is very PC friendly, and the Pilot is able to do amazing things with a starship. Catching them on the ground is a far better option.

As far as my fun goes, right now I want them to fail spectacularly and die. That's why I'm putting the game on a 30 day hiatus while I consider what I want to do.

Most recently my group got duped into a swoop race that involved buzzing over a Tusken village and killing as many of them as they could. Rather than balking at the task, Artine was all over showing off her piloting skills and skill with pistols and grenades. She slaughtered several Tuskens in a manner that might make Anakin proud.

That was probably the most epic thing I've seen you type Happy.

Hell that makes me proud of this group, and its not even my group. Although I suppose I'm more inclined as I already deeply seeped in the dark side.

Sounds like you might have to put a few more rails on, or at the very least 2. I'm normally against such a tactic, but sometimes (as I've mentioned before) a PC just HAS to die for whatever reason.

I think you have a couple of choices. Either A) get them to care about something or B) let them continue to wander down that dark path and let them be surprised where it leads.

I've done a campaign where the heroes walked down that path for so long at some point they just became anti-heroes. They didn't even realise it until they were so far down there really was no looking back. That moment you reveal what they've become is epic. The minute they all collectively went... wait... pretty much made the campaign for me, even though I wanted to squish them beneath my black boot.

Personally I can't stand the thought of hosting a murder-hobo game, I'd have warned them already that the piper will get paid, and then it will just happen. Those NPCs that ran off? They'll sell out the PC's, giving up destinations, ship names, etc. You're the GM, you control the universe, you can always overwhelm them. That said:

I've done a campaign where the heroes walked down that path for so long at some point they just became anti-heroes. They didn't even realise it until they were so far down there really was no looking back. That moment you reveal what they've become is epic. The minute they all collectively went... wait... pretty much made the campaign for me, even though I wanted to squish them beneath my black boot.

Very cool idea, if you can stomach it for long enough.

Unfortunately, I don't have any experiences to share. All my rogues have been lovable. But I can imagine how a nihilistic lot like that could be a drag on morale.

Have you talked about it with them? I'd be open about the fact that all the grim-darkness is taking its toll on your desire to continue the campaign. Do you think they'd be willing to tone down the nihilism, or explore their characters' hidden hearts-of-gold? If not, maybe tell them you're ready to throw in the towel. You can craft them one last finale, or if one of them wants to GM, they can take it from there.

Or like Shadai said, maybe they need a moral wake up call. Let the slave-trading, money-making jobs dry up for a while. Only available work is for the rebellion (or some similar 'heroic' group), and in those circles, they'll be viewed as monsters. If all the murder and slavery has been just an abstraction to the players, make it visceral. Reveal the consequences of what they've wrought.

I haven't personally had this kind of experience, but I think they might rethink their ways when the civilized universe decides to strike back. Try having the empire and rebellion both start looking to eliminate this menace to society. An Imperial Interdictor with a battle group stationed on a major hyperlane checking traffic could make a good start. They could run, but they are being pursued. When they try to hide, they find themselves getting hit by rebels who don't want the Empire looking too closely at that planet. A Hutt responds to the bounty placed on the group by the empire by sending goons flooding an entire sector. Not too much of that before they have to trade out their ship, change their names, and start looking for allies. Or else disappear beyond civilized space, then you are into an exploration campaign.

Neither the Empire nor the Rebellion cares much about what these characters are doing. The PCs know that they are small fish so they avoid the big fish at all costs. They tend to take the path of least resistance, and it's been hard to motivate them to try for anything epic. Yeah, Star Wars slogging around in the mundane.

They stick to the criminal side because group Obligation tends to range from 60-80 most of the time, so those are the elements that the game rules tell us are more likely to deal with them. Of course, if they were criminals with hearts of gold it might be more appealing to me, but they're rather common small time criminals that keep trying to cook up get rich quick schemes while avoiding taking sides.

The game says to keep them hungry, but when acquisition of credits becomes their only consistent goal, my interest plummets.

Ok then let a criminal rival wipe them out.

If they work for Black Sun send the Hutts or Tyber Zann to clean them out or vice versa, small fish are the first to target and die.

If they prove hard to kill then they could become a symbol ... that needs to be protected or destroyed.

A young aspirin criminal who wants to prove himself starts wiping out small groups with known affiliations to send a message to their bosses before he takes those out. Your players are such a small group.

Their latest Spice shipment was bad and killed several people and henchmen of their target. He blames them and offers a bounty.

The most important family member of their sector governor was a Spice-addict and killed himself, therefore the goverment starts to crack down on smugglers and dealers.

A patrol group of up to 3 Victory-Class Star Destroyers with their 72 TIEs are sent to their sector to simply halt all smuggling (or at least make it **** risky) but no one knows since it is a last-minute-order-change. Your group is (one of the) first to run into them.

...

Gimme a couple hours and i'l have a dozen more reasons for them to be afraid.

Most of those reasons sound highly improbable. Sorry, but that's how I see them. The characters might get caught up in some of the impersonal obstacles, but only until they decide to drop everything to relocate across the galaxy. They just don't do anything significant enough that groups are going to care enough to come after them specifically. In this, they are good at being small time criminals.

When two crime syndicates go to war for turf/influence they usually target the small fish first since that is where their clients get their stuff from. And if they can they try to get the suppliers too so that the addicts now have to go to their suppliers. If your players are small fish that deal/supply that they will get targeted TOO, not only.

Same goes for a crackdown because the Imps want to show that they are the big ones now. They will harass hundreds of ships and show off their superior firepower.

Or the death of a politicians close friend/family member, who then puts pressure on his law enforcement to do something about the drugs.

All those situations are not aimed specifically at your group but literally at dozens/hundreds of them at the same time.

The 'Their latest Spice shipment was bad and killed several people and henchmen of their target. He blames them and offers a bounty.'-bit is specifically aimed at your group. When a drug cartell claims that the stuff was clean when given to your smugglers but ended up bad when given to the sellers that your players will get the blame. Not that unrealistic.

A patrol group of up to 3 Victory-Class Star Destroyers with their 72 TIEs are sent to their sector to simply halt all smuggling (or at least make it **** risky) but no one knows since it is a last-minute-order-change. Your group is (one of the) first to run into them.

You forgot the Interdictor Cruiser and a Captain who has a personal vendetta against smugglers and pirates...

Just came across this. IMPS .

I've done a campaign where the heroes walked down that path for so long at some point they just became anti-heroes. They didn't even realise it until they were so far down there really was no looking back. That moment you reveal what they've become is epic. The minute they all collectively went... wait... pretty much made the campaign for me, even though I wanted to squish them beneath my black boot.

This. This is good.

It seems like they've been able to delay most of the consequences of their actions (both physical and moral) but noone can do so forever. For physical opposition, work around those NPCs that abandoned them. Who are they, what can they do, who do they know who would be willing and able to help them hunt the PCs. Essentially create a party of antagonists to hunt the heroes.

You can make NPCs suprisingly capable with teamwork and planning without resorting to massive stat buffs. Approach Encounters (all of them, not just combat) as a tactical problem. Don't openly pit your wits against the players (that way lies madness) but have your NPCs plan and prepare for situations in the same way PCs do . My players have suffered far more because of the thoroughness and determination of lowly mooks than at the hands of any Big Bad.

On the moral side of things, start dropping subtle hints. They clearly realize they are criminals, but players' minds don't usually equate the legality of their actions with the morality of their actions. Maybe they start facing opponents known (in-universe or out) for being "good guys". Rebel agents (or Republic Judiciaries, depending on era) are the obvious option, and the Alliance is probably harder on slavers and other "evil" criminals as the Empire is.

You can have a contrast without bringing out the moral equivalent of heavy artillery though. By personalizing the players' opponents in ways that cast them in a positive light, you can hopefully let them realize the depths to which their characters have fallen on their own.

If they tend to loot corpses, they can stumble across family holos or love letters. After escaping a firefight with security guards, they can spot a news report commending one of their foes for bravery (possibly posthumously). NPCs can commit selfless acts to protect each other from the PCs (bonus points for promoting a Minion to a Rival or Nemesis because of this). CorSec (the Corellian Security Force) has a better reputation than, say, the Corporate Sector's "espos". The moral quality of their opposition is not restricted to Hutt gunmen or Jedi Knights.

And that Force Sensitive, how often does she use Dark Side pips on the Force die? Or use Influence to compel others? If you were to waive the Strain requirement to use them, (or even the Destiny Point requirement, just not both) how often would she?

And if the group participates in (or at least aids and abets) any more massacres, like the thing with the Tuskens, you might just want to flip the rules mechanics around altogether, so that the Force Sensitive uses the Darksider rules and the PC's use Dark Side Destiny Points, while you use Light Side ones.

I'm not sure I correctly portrayed what happened with the NPCs. They walked away from the characters and washed their hands of them. That doesn't mean that they become antagonists. When you have a falling out with friends the natural result isn't to become their nemesis.

I'm not sure I correctly portrayed what happened with the NPCs. They walked away from the characters and washed their hands of them. That doesn't mean that they become antagonists. When you have a falling out with friends the natural result isn't to become their nemesis.

That really depends on who the friends are. Some people can be mighty vindictive, especially on the fringe.

How would the table feel about a slight mid-campaign motivation retcon? You wouldn't have to change much, just have each of them add to their motivations to include some element external to themselves or to the group.

For instance:

The Greedy Trader can still be motivated to look for the next get-rich scheme, but he also has a small enterprise he's running on the side. Maybe it's a shipping company with two employees and a rusted-out freighter, or a small mining venture. It's barely paying expenses now, but if he works some angles and sinks some money into it, he ought to be able to rake in a decent monthly profit.

His Capitalist cause links him to some kind of guild or corporate alliance. Doing favors for them gets him in good with the right people.

The sisters might have a third sibling (or parent, or relative) external to the group. This relative is someone they care about as much as each other and will need their help from time to time.

The status-seeking pilot should pick what she's after and run with it. Professional racer? Stage performer? Holovid star? Give her the foot in the door and let her seek her fame and fortune from there.

The Freedom seeker. She's won freedom for herself, but someone she cares about is still trapped in some hopeless situation: slavery, prison, carbonite, etc. This might be the relative mentioned above, or someone else she cares dearly about.

Perhaps the Expert Bodyguard is the member of a guild, or has a small circle of old comrades he keeps in touch with. In any case, give him former group-mates that he feels as strongly about protecting as his current ones.

These might sound a lot like Obligations, but they're different in that the characters aren't burdened by any of these. They can burn bridges any time they want. The only difference is, severing those ties is tantamount to giving up on something close to the character's heart. I'd probably penalize that with a lockout of Motivation XP for some set number of sessions while they work to discover a new Motivation in-game.

The force sensitive has never rolled a force die other than to determine Destiny at the start of a session. She has no force powers, just the stuff from FSE that adds blue dice to Perception and Vigilance. She's totally untrained in the ways of the force and what light/dark even mean. The player certainly isn't opposed to having a darkside character.

I'm not sure I correctly portrayed what happened with the NPCs. They walked away from the characters and washed their hands of them. That doesn't mean that they become antagonists. When you have a falling out with friends the natural result isn't to become their nemesis.

That really depends on who the friends are. Some people can be mighty vindictive, especially on the fringe.

In the case of these NPCs, it's not really plausible that they would waste their time bothering with the PCs. Both have other things to do that would make far more sense.

Going the other way only plays into the PCs being abnormally important to the setting (as opposed to being the center of where the camera is pointed). The game revolves around the PCs, but the galaxy barely notices them.

I'm not sure I correctly portrayed what happened with the NPCs. They walked away from the characters and washed their hands of them. That doesn't mean that they become antagonists. When you have a falling out with friends the natural result isn't to become their nemesis.

That really depends on who the friends are. Some people can be mighty vindictive, especially on the fringe.

In the case of these NPCs, it's not really plausible that they would waste their time bothering with the PCs. Both have other things to do that would make far more sense.

Going the other way only plays into the PCs being abnormally important to the setting (as opposed to being the center of where the camera is pointed). The game revolves around the PCs, but the galaxy barely notices them.

Fair enough point about the NPCs. There were some really great suggestions earlier for things to get the characters caught up in events where they're not the center of universe but still become involved in a larger scheme/conflict (the gang wars, Imps cracking down on criminal activities in a region, etc). With some narrative these events are easily made to be targeted at a larger group of galactic "citizens" but the PCs are caught in the whirlwind simply by being in the wrong place at the right time. To me, that seems like the best course of action to keep the characters away from being overly important to the setting but still get them involved in something a little more epic feeling.

Another idea to stir up the pot a bit is to have them pick up a cargo that isn't what it seems. There are a multitude of directions that could go... Jedi/Sith relics, strange critters causing problems, an item that a notorious criminal group wants to intercept, etc.

There are always ways to make them pick sides. That guy they just killed/swindeled/wronged was a nobody. However, his brother's girlfriend's father's second wife's third husband was a hutt who took a liking to that guy. Even though he was a nobody, the hutt took it as a personal offense that he was messed with. Bingo-bango, instant enemies.

Or take a line from Usual Suspects. "The only reason you're still alive is because you didn't know you were stealing from Mr. Soze." Sure, what they have been doing was small time, but someone somewhere (who they never knew existed) had a bad day because of something they did. If something becomes personal there is no stopping what the NPCs will do to rain down upon the PCs. Now they either have to do jobs for Soze or come up with a way to get out from under his boot. Any heat that was coming down on Soze is now coming down on the players, because now they are a known associate of a big fish.

They can try to walk away all they want, but because things are personal it's not that easy.

HappyDaze, you seem to have an answer for everything. You've rejected every suggestion because it's "impossible", "improbable", "implausible", etc.

Are you sure you really want help with this?

For example,

You say that there are few ships your PCs can't outrun.

Aren't you the GM? Wouldn't you be able to MAKE a ship they couldn't outrun?

Most of the time in fiction, significant things happen because of the PLOT. Because it's time for the PCs to be captured--something happens that causes them to be able to be captured.

When you say "In the case of these NPCs, it's not really plausible that they would waste their time bothering with the PCs.", I would suggest that perhaps someone with enough ingenuity could come up with a way that they might want to become nemesises--if that's what you wanted to do. If not, that's fine--but in fiction, just like in real life, people make surprising choices all the time.

On the one hand, it is possible that the dozen or so people who have responded in this thread are just not clever or helpful enough to come up with solutions that would help you in the challenge you're facing.

Could it also be possible that you're just rejecting every offer without actually applying any ingenuity to how it might help you?

This is just a thought. I feel like you've been offered many helpful suggestions but none of them ever seem to be good enough.