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Talon Sky
2010-10-14, 07:09 PM
Heya playground, I need a little help. I'm going to be running a Star Wars D&D style game soon, kind of based on the mission style that Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy has. PCs have a choice of 5 missions they may investigate at their discretion, in whatever order they wish. After 4, they can return to the Jedi Temple for the big story-line mission, or go for that last mission for the extra EXP. So as to not be a total rip-off of the game, this will happen afterwards ;p They are obviously playing New Republic Jedi.

My problem is having 5 ready adventure hooks prepared at once. I have my first few so it won't be an issue for a few weeks, but after these I need to do some serious thinking! Here's what I have (taken and modified from another idea thread), which they may choose in any order:

1. An isolated moon of recluse dirt farmers has placed an order for a shipment of indentured servants though they refuse to pay the agreed upon price upon delivery. During negotiations or attempt to collect the full amount owed, it becomes apparent that the farmers intend to cannibalize their new labor.

2. Terrorists break into an experimental AI installation, intending to reprogram it with an unknown consciousness.

3. PCs are visiting a New Republic space station which terrorists attempt to hijack, to make an attack on the orbital station's equipment and planet below (e.g. taking a power station that beams energy directly to collectors on the surface and turning it into basically a gargantuan laser cannon.)

4. New Republic workers are terraforming a planet for the colonisation of a displaced species, possibly destroying some primitive indigenous life in the process in some cases. Aliens appear on some colonies and start "terraforming" them to their own specifications, which happen to be incompatible with human biological needs.

5. A huge asteroid is detected on a collision course towards a heavily populated planet, which must be evacuated (to one or more neighboring planets and moons, in the same star system) on relatively short notice. PCs must help with the evacuation. Shortly after impact, another celestial body is detected, on a collision course with another planet in the same system! Clearly something fishy is going on. PCs discover a pirate ship nearby and on investigation, discover information on a 'Transsystem Mass Driver' of an ancient civilization.

NEXT STORY MISSION: These terrorists are indeed working on uncovering the Mass Driver and probably either have it already, or have a working prototype. PCs must attack their base and disable it, and discover a Sith-like figure in charge.

After this 5-6 week adventure line, I need some ideas. Obviously the attention should turn to the Sith's taint in this, as they are more or less wiped out since the destruction of the Disciples of Ragnos on Korriban. Or, you know, so the PC's think. In the background it's really the Imperial Remnant behind everything, including the terrorists attacking the New Republic.

Thrawn4
2010-10-14, 07:42 PM
Sorry to disappoint, but although I enjoyed JK3, I disliked the concept of the story for several reasons: jedis are no special police force, several problems were patiently waiting for the time the jedi solve them, arbitrary sith involvements...
In order to make it more realistic, I would suggest you to offer two possible missions and to make the choice meaningful. For example, the outcome of the first mission could influence the situation in the second.

Jack Zander
2010-10-14, 11:18 PM
Instead of creating so many situations that they can do at their leisure, I think it would be much more fun to simply come up with 2-3 hooks. They have an influence over the mission they select, and some other group of Jedi tackle the others. You can have the events for all of them already planned out assuming no players are involved, and then they hear what happened on the other missions when they get back (or maybe they keep in touch during a mission).

This will give your players some meaningful choices to make. Do they select the mission that may take several weeks to complete, forgoing several other missions, or do they risk the chance of a rookie Jedi group "messing it up?" This may also give you some insight into their alignments and motives.

If you are worried about having to prepare 3 whole missions and only use 1, or having to come up with an entire adventure on the fly if you don't prepare any, I suggest doing this: Give the players their next selection of adventures at the end of a session. Once the pick one they commit to it and you only have to prepare an adventure path for that mission.

Once you get the story rolling you can have some really interesting choices for the players to make. They can disrupt the enemy in one location or goal, but the enemy can still win in other areas of the galaxy. This will help alleviate villain decay (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VillainDecay).

Violet Octopus
2010-10-15, 03:44 AM
I agree with the above. Having a galaxy that's static apart from the PC's adventures is less exciting.

Three ideas:

* The Jedi suspect the terrorists will try to build more mass drivers. Reviewing the plans shows a key material or component that is rather rare. Either the component is only made in one place, or the ore is exclusive to one planet. The party can go to this plant/factory/warehouse, possiby improve its defences, and stake it out for when the terrorists likely arrive.

* So they're trying to track down Sith. Quite clearly, one of their leads needs to be A TRAP. They are met with overwhelming forces and a bounty hunter (or Imperial experiment) with minirepulsorlifts in his arms, justifying the Sith rumours. Main goal is to escape, though if the party are resourceful, they can possibly make lemons into lemonade and steal an enemy ship (plus intel stored in its computers) when making their getaway.

* Noone in the new Jedi has strong, Yoda-style farseeing powers (I'm not familiar with canon post Jedi Academy, and I don't know how strongly your campaign cleaves to canon), but there is a Force Disciple on some planet, which they know about through hearsay or because Luke has actually met the FD. Trouble is the FD is very reclusive. Challenges: Tracking him down (he evaded the Purge, so this should be hard), environmental hazards, hostile locals in the same vein as Sand People, convincing him to help you track down the Sith.

FelixG
2010-10-15, 05:32 AM
Your players may go "swah" to idea number two...Whats the difference between this experimental AI and any droid brain they could buy in a salvage shop?

I might change the terrorists to a specific group, the imperial remnant is always good for that kinda thing :D

One mission could be that a Jedi Enclave was attacked, all signs of the personnel are gone, all artifacts computers ect have been completely destroyed to leave little trace as to what happened to them. As you are going for a darker theme they could have been attacked by an old clone wars era rogue droid control ship, the droids are kidnapping force users to try to infuse themselves with the force users blood to gain force powers them selves (there is precedent for this in the star wars universe surprisingly 0.o)

Alleran
2010-10-15, 06:39 AM
Noone in the new Jedi has strong, Yoda-style farseeing powers (I'm not familiar with canon post Jedi Academy, and I don't know how strongly your campaign cleaves to canon)
Luke develops crazy awesome farseeing powers around the Hand of Thrawn books. Cilghal is also adept with the technique, though she's more focused towards healing. Corran was mildly experienced with visions, too. You're right, however, that there is no single supremely awesome vision-seer in the New Jedi Order that I can think of right now - it's generally spread around to a lot of different individuals. The Unifying Force concept didn't really hit the Order until post-Yuuzhan Vong War.

Honestly, though, by the time you get to the high end, you're either a Kyp Durron or a Yoda in terms of your Force usage. Unless you're actually Luke Skywalker, who does both... better than either of the others.

Talon Sky
2010-12-16, 06:44 PM
Thanks for the ideas everyone! After several silent weeks and a rather....failed opening session....we're playing again tomorrow. The opening session, which involved the PC's coming to Luke's Academy and their original master dying was interesting, but I could tell that things fell a bit apart. For one, two of our regular players couldn't make it....and may not be able to make it to any more games period. That leaves me with two players....fine, they both want to play and have a nice Guardian and Counselor partnership going. To help them out a little, I fudged in Luke as their new master, instead of Jaden Korr who I intended (and was going to keep ambiguous to frustrate them. :p ) I figure a more powerful master would help move the story along a bit more.

And terrorists is the wrong word per say, but that's how the New Republic views them....much like how the Empire called the Rebels terrorists. They're actually pirates, paid off by the Imperial Remnant to undermine the New Republic. That way their little treaty stays put, but the Empire will slowly grow in strength while the New Republic flounders.

BG
2010-12-16, 08:36 PM
I'd actually worked up an entire campaign based on a gigantic junker Imperial prison ship. It was a prison for particularly dangerous political dissidents that was incredibly classified. Unfortunately, the captain of the ship went crazy, and all of the Imperial command who knew about it died on the Death Star. Now it's been floating out in space for years, and the prisoners have descended into a state of anarchy.

You can have there be an Old-Republic era Jedi on board, or maybe they just managed to get a distress signal out, and the players have to go rescue it.

Vaynor
2010-12-17, 01:13 AM
The Red Towel: Thread necromancy.