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So my group had just added two 2 new players when we started this session and the party had to cross the judland wastes of tatooine. Rather than going with the norm of renting speeder bikes or swoops, my group decided they wanted to rent dewbacks because: "dewbacks can't get sand in their engines and break down."

My group finds a nemoidian merchant who was selling dewbacks in Mos Eiesly but refused to rent them to my players. With his steep asking price of 8,000 credits a Dewback, one of my players had an idea:

While the scout (one of my new players) snuck behind an alleyway, the Faleen scoundrel proceedes to try and distract the merchant. After about 5 rounds of deption checks the bounty hunter reaches where the dewbacks are tied up. The problem was that the scout had no weapons that could cut the rope the dewbacks were tied to without making noise. After trying and failing to cut the ropes with his combat stunner, he realizes that he could just untie them, upon which he rolls a natural 1 on his dex check. At this time the nemoidien finally notices the scout and starts screaming. The nobel in the party tries to explain that they have no idea who this riff-raff is who is stealing his dewbacks but rolls a 3 on his decption check, also failing. At this point the merchant is screaming and about to call for help when the scoundrel promptly pulls out his blaster, stuns the merchant and yells "RUN!"

After stealing the dewbacks and exiting Mos Eiesly the Mando who has so far been completely sighlent says "You know, we could have saved alot of time and just shot him to begin with"

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"Don't ask questions and we won't have to lie to you"
"The true definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results."

Being still newer to the system (picked up the SECR around Oct. 2010) and having only GM'd Chapter 1 of the DoD game over the past 2 months, I wanted to add something that turned an already good game into a GREAT game for me.

I'm running the DoD campaign for two friends every other Tuesday. Naturally, we don't get very far very quickly. But, this story isn't about them. It's about my wife of 3.5 years, her sister and sister's boyfriend. My wife is a gamer to some extent (I got to her early and corrupted her ala GM Chris ), sticking almost exclusively to board games. I'm not talking about Sorry and Monopoly here, I'm talking competitive games like Agricola, Samurai Swords, Power Grid, Dominion (especially this one) and the WoW Board Game to name just a few that her and I play.

Well, one day her sister and BF were in town for the day and somehow I managed to convince all three of them to play SWSE with me DM'ing Chapter 1 of DoD for them. The BF is a SW fan and was familiar with DnD, but none of them had ever actually played an RPG before. My wife and her sister are fans of the movies, which made explaining races a lot easier.

To keep it simple, I asked them what they wanted to play and I rolled up characters for them. My wife, a Wookie Scout fashioned after her second favorite character (Chewie...which is only because Yoda doesn't have an official species and she didn't want to be a "half-a$$ed fake Yoda" as she said), her sister and BF both Human Jedi. I tried to do the best I could explaining the character sheet and what each number meant and how to play the game. After about 20 minutes of this, my wife politely turned to me and said "Honey, shut up and let's just play the game. You can teach us everything we need to know while we're playing."

Well, play we did...for at least 6 hours that day! There wasn't one special moment that jumped at me because it was the entire day of playing SWSE with people that hadn't played before that was special. It was just extra special that it was my wife and her family. We have a lot of fun...and the best part about the entire adventure, it was my wife and her sister that led the charge. They weren't timid or second guesing themselves, they just charged right in and said "I want to do this, tell me how I can do it." They took charge and had fun, a lot of fun! And all of this while my wife was 7.5 months pregnant. Our first wookie cub is due in less than 4 weeks.

Anyway...I've been playing DnD since the very day 3.5 came out. I enjoy DnD and still play, but I don't think I've ever had as much fun with my regular group of friends as I did with my wife, her sister and BF. And that my friends, is when a good game go GREAT to me.

Thanks for reading. I love you my beautiful wife and our soon to be mini-gamer. Thanks for playing.

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Who's the more foolish: The fool, or the fool who follows him?

So, there was some fun stuff last night in my Rebellion-era campaign. It's happening in an orbital city on Duro right after the destruction of the Death Star. The heroes join a Rebel cell breaking into an Imperial administrative building to slice into a Sector Moff's computer to steal some confidential orders coming down from the Emperor himself, detailing the Empire's post-Death-Star regroup plan.

The Jedi in the party used his lightsaber publicly for the first time last session, so I decided it was about time for an Inquisitor (or, a sort of Junior Inquisitor) to come looking for him. One group was flying to the core of the city to disable the gravity generators, so that another group could ascend to the restricted levels of the tower. Once in position, they would order the gravity back on (effectively dropping the stormtroopers in pursuit 100 stories).

So, the Jedi and the pilot are in the core, where there's a huge gravity well that sends anything that comes in contact with it shooting violently into the atmosphere below. They cut the gravity (which turns off the gravity well), then they hear the Inquisitor's lightsaber ignite. They start battling it out in the core, the Jedi (telekinetic prodigy) using Pushing Slash so as to use his Kinetic Combat, occasionally getting Rebuked on the push (but it doesn't matter, since all he has to do is get distance between himself and the Inquisitor). Then, the pilot has the idea to go hop in the ship and use the gun turret, since he wouldn't technically be firing into melee if the Jedi's using Kinetic Combat. He takes the shot and hits, dealing 32 damage, then hops back out to get in position at the gravity controls. He readies an action to switch on the gravity whenever the Inquisitor comes in contact with the gravity well, so the Jedi makes one final Pushing Slash... He has to use a destiny point to auto-crit, still only dealing about 18 damage, but successfully pushing him back into the gravity well, and boom... Shot into the depths below.

Superfun.

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My EotE Resources:
- Radar Map for Starship Combat
- Excel NPC Statblocks with Auto-Calculation
I wrote a novel! Kickstarter forthcoming...

A couple of months ago, my GM began using skill challenges for the first time. We were tasked with avoiding a meteor shower as we landed on Iridonia, which normally would be a simple encounter where the pilot would roll a couple of pilot checks and be on with it. However, using the skill challenge mechanics, what would have been a dull event became exciting for the whole party as our soldier blasted away at rocks, our jedi move objected meteors all over the place, and our noble tried to get in contact with ground control. It was such a well run and exciting encounter that, as our scoundrel pilot, I felt like I wasn't doing enough by just piloting the ship!

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"...and the trick usually lies in not thinking too hard about whatever you want to do, but just allowing it to happen as if it were going to anyway."

Hello Gamernation,

I just wanted to brag on possibly the newest Saga GM on the site, dragonmage_2. He got me into RP Games with D&D a few years ago, and now I have totally got him into SWSE. I have been running Dawn of Defience for him and our group over the last year, and have been salivating to get my Star Wars on from the PC side of the screen for awhile now.

My wait is over, and what started out as a one-shot adventure has sprouted down roots, and taken hold into at least an adventure trilogy, possibly even a campaign. dragonmage_2 has been a DM for over 20 years, and I got to play in his first shot at running Star Wars, it was EPIC!!!

Rather than going into a bunch of detail about the session, I just want to give a

BIG, HUGE, GIGANTIC,

<<<<<<_____SHOUT OUT______>>>>>>

to my best bud and gamer genius,

GM DAVE H, aka dragonmage_2, aka Master_Crate(oo66)

Last session I had a great experience with my players; it ranks as one of the most cinematic scenes we’ve played (and we’ve had some good ones). Most of my players couldn’t show, so the only ones playing were a Jedi Knight PC (level 10), a Clone Trooper PC (level 9), and the Jedi’s Padawan NPC (level 6). Even with a reduced crew, they decided to attempt to complete their mission.

They are late in the Dark Times/early in the Rebellion Era (~4 BBY). They had a mission on Imperial Center (Corusant) to infiltrate the Jedi Temple in order to retrieve some information there. To get to the Temple Sector, they were riding a hover train thinking that public transportation would be less obvious. To make a long story short, they were found out by some COMPNOR agents and a battle ensued in the train car.

Early in the battle, the trooper (who is a kick-butt ranged combat beast – seriously, it’s annoying as a GM sometimes) hits the emergency stop button causing people to go prone. After they get up, a battle ensues with the opposing sides shooting between fleeing passengers. In the battle, the Padawan is knocked unconscious. Seeing his side is seriously outnumbered (after some Stormtroopers arrive), the Jedi uses his lightsaber to open the door to the train car. I tell him that the track is high enough that he can’t even really tell how high it is (several km above the surface); however, there is another track 3 squares away but he can see that there are other trains travelling on that track. Here is the ensuing conversation:

Jedi: Okay, I pick up my Padawan and I jump.
GM: Well then make a jump check to try to reach the other track.
Jedi: No, I mean that I just step off into the air.
GM: But you don’t have a jet pack or Levitate or anything like that.
Jedi: I know.
GM: (Feeling a little worried) Ummm….okay. You fall.
Trooper: So what should I do?
Jedi: Follow me.
Trooper: Are you sure?
GM: Are you sure?
Jedi: Trust me.
Trooper: Okay, I jump.
GM: The COMPNOR agent just stands at the edge of the door and watches in disbelief.

Now as a GM, no matter what the players have their characters do, I can usually plot a path out of it if need be. At first, I couldn’t really see a way out of this. It was perhaps my most nervous moment as a GM that I have ever had. I don’t want to kill any PCs, but if they’re fool enough to just leap off into the air, I don’t see it ending well.

I told the players that they would fall for 10 rounds before hitting bottom. The Jedi spends a couple of rounds lashing his Padawan to himself with liquid cable (perhaps the second most useful item – after mesh tape – in all of SWSE). He then spends another round using his comlink to tell the trooper to get out a length of liquid cable with grappling hook (which he does). Jedi then looks for a speeder passing close by; lo and behold, there is one. The Jedi uses Move Object on the speeder, so they move 6 squares closer together, but still not close enough to grab onto. The speeder then gets to resist the MO with a grapple check – it fails. So the Jedi maintains MO to move the speeder adjacent to him. The speeder again fails the grapple check (the Jedi actually rolled very well for both the MO UtF checks). So now the Jedi can grab onto the back of the speeder (which was an open-topped air taxi as determined randomly), so he uses Inertia to just walk on the back of the speeder and into the back seat! The taxi driver is dumbfounded, first with his taxi’s inexplicable behavior, then with a pair of passengers just appearing in the back seat.

Next, the trooper throws his grappling hook at the air taxi and misses (horribly). So the Jedi uses Move Light Object on the grappling hook (twice to move it 12 squares into his hand) and hooks it to the interior of the taxi. The trooper then rolls a fantastic Acrobatics check, so he swings underneath the taxi, and up to the passenger door side and catches himself there hanging off the side. He then climbs in and smiles at the taxi driver, who composes himself and says, “Where to?”. The Jedi holds out some credits and says, “The Temple Sector….and keep it quiet.”

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aka Jim Jedi-Scramble

Quoting from the Saga Edition Core Rulebook: "The galaxy is a dangerous place (p. 143)...bad things happen sometimes. (p.246)"

That's awesome! In one of my previous game sessions my players were chasing a BBEG on a hover-trains. The PC's noticed that there was another train on their same track that would hit them in about 30 seconds. While the bad guys in the BBEG's train fired at them, all the PC's had to find ways to get across. While the Jedi and the PC he used move object on had no trouble doing this, I can't say the other 4 PC's had it this easy. We had a PC fall off of the hover-train while trying to jump to the other one. I was pretty much resigning myself to a character death when my PC asks if he could spend a destiny point to act out of turn, pull out and toss his liquid cable to hook it onto the train. I had him make an attack roll and he rolled a nat 20. Then he climbed all the way to the top (but not before spending another destiny point to catch another falling PC)

But the person who had the toughest time was probably the noble. He was the last person to jump and literally spent a round pacing on the top of the first train trying to figure out how to get across. His first plan was to fire his ascension gun across the train and swing across but the BBEG targeted the cable and destroyed it. Because strength was his dump-stat, he was sure he'd fail to jump across. 3 of my PC's got together on the BBEG's car with 2 of them holding onto the third PC so he could lean forward and reduce the distance the nobel had to jump as well as be there to catch him. Just as the trains are about to collide, the nobel jumps, spends a force point (barely making the check even at the reduced distance) and the other PC's catch him. While there wasn't a whole lot of attack rolls, my players all tell me that it was the most exciting and fun encounter they have ever had.

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"Don't ask questions and we won't have to lie to you"
"The true definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results."

Love it! I think many players (and GMs for that matter) forget that DP can be used to act out of initiative order; as your players found, this can be the difference between life and death. I also love it when players effectively work together.

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aka Jim Jedi-Scramble

Quoting from the Saga Edition Core Rulebook: "The galaxy is a dangerous place (p. 143)...bad things happen sometimes. (p.246)"

Hey GMs and TG I recently played a game of Dark Times campaign in which I'm also playing a character (don't ask). Me and my PCs had to infiltrate an Imperial Base on Felucia to acquire their ship. There were approximately 12 stormtroopers out on guard duty and they had to either go around them or fight their way through. There were no blindspots and most of the Players were playing soldiers. So, my Scout/Jedi used stealth to sneak up on one with his lightsaber while signaling w/ his lightsaber. The party got through that encounter and the entire base relatively unscathed.

Very nice. It's so fun as a player (especially) but also as a GM when the players come up with a plan that completely solves the problem at hand - I especially love it when that doesn't involve combat!

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aka Jim Jedi-Scramble

Quoting from the Saga Edition Core Rulebook: "The galaxy is a dangerous place (p. 143)...bad things happen sometimes. (p.246)"

Here is another one that included some fantastic role-playing from one of my players.

I was taking them through the old Doman of Evil WEG adventure.

***************SPOILER ALERT******************

One possibility in that adventure is that you can take enough mental trauma from the ‘Force’ damage (since much of the adventure is a Force vision) that you begin to go insane. There’s even a table that the GM rolls on to determine the effects (everything from sitting there drooling to being paranoid, to becoming homicidal). One of my player’s character got the paranoid/homicidal result. So I took him aside to explain to him what was happening, and that I eventually wanted him to attack other members of the party. He was _VERY_ uncomfortable with the idea, but I told him that: 1. I would not let his character get killed (I try not to be a butt-head GM, sometimes unsuccessfully ), and 2. If he role-played it well that I would make it worth his while in bonus XP. Reluctantly he agreed to do it.

This was one of those situations where the real-world interactions came to bear on the pretend world. The player whose character was going nuts didn’t always get along very well with some of the other players (one in particular). First he had his character kind of hang back from the rest of the group, especially during combat encounters. This wasn’t that remarkable in that he had done things like that with his character in the past. Then he increased the paranoid behavior by not letting any of the other characters get behind him. He also became less participatory in discussions and made paranoid statements like, “I think you’re all trying to take my stuff.” Etc.

Finally, the moment came where he attacked. It was at the abandoned cave that the party discovers. Once most of the party had entered the cave, the paranoid character attacked the one remaining party member that was outside with him. It took everyone completely by surprise. Now the cool thing was how the player was playing it – several members had lost all access to their Force powers, including the paranoid PC. Even still, the player had his character attempting to use Force powers on the other party members, knowing that they wouldn’t work (he really didn’t want to hurt any of his fellow party members). It really was a great solution to the difficult situation I put him into - and it fit well with the psycho situation his character was in.

Most of the other PCs were just trying to figure out what was going on. The paranoid PC loves fire/fire related stuff (*cough* Green Lizard), so they thought maybe the torches in the cave were driving him mad. The funny thing was that the player that he didn’t get along with very well wanted to take him out (I’m sure he felt very betrayed) and tried to do just that (even though to me it was obvious that the player of the paranoid PC was trying desperately not to really hurt anyone). Fortunately his attacks weren’t sufficient to kill the paranoid character (below damage threshold), just to knock him out (so I didn’t even need to employ GM fiat). Once that happened, the paranoia was broken and the character was back to normal – actually, I kind of treated it like the end of a dream sequence with all of the PCs coming out of an unconscious state at once.

I really was impressed with my player – I put him in a difficult situation and he dealt with it wonderfully! And yes, he did get a significant XP boost for his efforts.

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aka Jim Jedi-Scramble

Quoting from the Saga Edition Core Rulebook: "The galaxy is a dangerous place (p. 143)...bad things happen sometimes. (p.246)"

In my second campaign, my high-level characters had one of the most fantastic sequences that I worry I may never be able to replicate.

The game takes place in about 9BBY, during the Dark Times. The group has just returned to Corellia after a stealth mission in the Deep Core. They were asked by a Coruscant noble to obtain an artifact that had been handed down to him by his father, that the Empire had recently confiscated and was about to move to Byss. The artifact was a crystal that the heroes found lodged in an R-4 that they also brought back.

They were calling for a taxi to drive them to the countryside around the capital to visit the noble in his private retreat. As they were hailing a taxi, I decided to throw in some flavor text.

I did not expect it to go this far.

I had the party roll a perception check, and 3 of the 4 succeeded. They noticed a figure in a black cloak getting into the taxi in front of them, and that they were headed in the same direction. The Cathar Jedi made a check to scan for Force sensitivity, and surprise surprise, he was. The skillful Chiss pushed over the taxi driver and they flew after the cloaked figured taxi.

This quickly escalated into a tug of war of skills, with the Chiss and the opposing taxi making Pilot checks to catch up/loose each other while the cloaked figure and the Force sensitive heroes trying to push and pull the taxis apart and closer, respectively.

The chase took them out of the crowded capital and into the wilderness where the villain told his driver to make a beeline through the woods toward the vacation house. The heroes followed suit, and Pilot checks were flying everywhere (no pun intended) to avoid trees, collisions, and grenades being thrown by the droid hero. One of the grenades actually blew off the back of the villain's taxi, after which he began to blast the heroes with Force Lightning. The villain managed to beat the heroes to the retreat and get inside, so the heroes decided that stopping and getting out of the taxi would take far too long.

They decided to drive through the building. "Well, tally-ho!" Shouted the Chiss. "RAMMING SPEEEEEEED!" shouted the Cathar Jedi, as their taxi smashed into the trophy room of the vacation house, where they got into a scuffle with the villain holding their client hostage. The villain almost got away with the crystal the heroes found but he was Force Severed and became a much smaller threat. He continued to fight, even jumping on the hood of their taxi while they tried to escape, slicing off the steering column (only for the Chiss to substitute his hydrospanner) before he fell unconcious with his own Force use and fell into a lake.

Since then the taxi has become the calling card of great chase scene amongst my players.

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Train your sons to be strong, and your daughters to be stronger.
-Mandalorian proverb

Nice! I (almost) always love it when my players do something that is both creative and what I didn't expect!

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aka Jim Jedi-Scramble

Quoting from the Saga Edition Core Rulebook: "The galaxy is a dangerous place (p. 143)...bad things happen sometimes. (p.246)"

Ok let me tell you about the second session (first full session) that I ran with my current group. The Campaign takes place a couple weeks after Order 66. The group was going to deliver cargo of weapons to a general in what was left the Geonosian resistance. Since the crews former captain (long story) was the one that initially set up the deal, the General wasn’t very trusting. After being contacted by the party through unorthodox channels he arranged a meet with the full intention of taking the weapons, if they had them, by force without paying.

So the party arrives on a landing platform outside the hive. The co-pilot goes to unload the cargo, as the Smuggler and Jensaarai go into the hive to make contact. The Jawa in the party stays on the bridge to monitor things and prep the ship for departure if things go south.

(I’ve drawn this nice big map in preparation for a combat encounter full of cover and a big pit)

The general and his lackeys arrive and they start negotiating with all intentions of firing. Tensions are high but the players make some great persuasion rolls, so the deal goes down smooth. Money is about to exchange hands when the jawa notices something on the radar. 3 ships approaching fast. The Smuggler tries to speed up the transaction, but the General thinks he’s been double crossed. A fight almost breaks out again, but again some great rolling and role playing gets things back on track. The co-pilot finishes unloading the cargo as Geonosians start to take it back to the hive.

More ships appear on the scanners the jawa determines the first batch is 2 imperial fighters chasing a geonosian fighter the second group 2 imperial troop transports.
As the fighters fly overhead a lucky shot by an imperial sends the geonosian fighter into the side of the hive the deal is going down in. Debris falls from above. The smuggler dashes for the exit. The Jensaarai seeing the general about to get hit dives and knocks him out of the path of falling debris. He then quickly makes an acrobatics check to roll out of the way of another piece of falling hive.

The Jensaarai tells the general that the party will try to hold off the imperials as long as they can.

As he turns to leave I describe the geonosian fighter lodged in the hive about to fall down and block his exit. He decides chance it and make a run for it. I have him roll an initiative check, and roll one myself for the wrecked ship. He beats my roll by 1. So the Jensaarai dashes out of the hive as the wrecked ship crashes down behind him enveloping him in dust and sand but unharmed. He makes it to the ship just as the imperials land. He climbs on board and they take off.

But true to their word the party starts making attack runs on the drop ships on the ground; allowing the Geonosians to get all the cargo back into the hive. Soon though those imperial fighters return and start to attack the party’s ship. A nice combat ensues with the entire party engaged. In the end the party managed to blow up one of the drop ships, send a fighter crashing to the planet, and finished off the second fighter just as they broke off to orbit.

In orbit I had a starship combat planned (complete with boarding action) as they tried to get out of the belt. The party’s vessel took some decent hull damage so they elected just to run and with some good maneuvers made the jump to light speed unscaved.

So after all was said and done I now have this Geonosian Resistance General that I had originally planned as a enemy stat block I am going to have to turn into an ally of the party that will turn up again as either a future employer, source of info, or savior in a time of need.

I don’t have a problem with this. I revel in it.

I had a couple players later emailed me saying that the session was the most fun and memorable that they can ever recall having. One of the best they have ever played.
Great now I have a lot to live up to

I owe a lot of the success of this session to the Order 66 podcast. I took a lot of good ideas in encounter design and ship combat from various episodes. Thanks a ton guys.

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May your feet move faster than the thing that is chasing you.

The Sunrunner Legacy- a Star Wars Roleplaying Campaign

Just listen to any episode of The Real Gamers podcast for a "When Good Games Go Great!" examples. Pretty much, it's awesome.

http://realgamerspodcast.blogspot.com/?zx=2be91b563a8e0dc8

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LONG LIVE STAR WARS MINIATURES!!!
Brev

Host of Minis Mayham