Help with ideas for a star wars campaign!

[S@tanicoaldo]

So my official players are back and they decided they want to play a game in the Star wars setting, that's fine I'm a huge star wars fan, the problem is that they want to use the universe of the movies and I'm not that familiar with it.

Is there a central galactic government?
How much influence does the first order has?
How is trade and other non-war related business going on post-empire age?

Is anyone more familiar with the inner works of the new movies universe please help me out.

Anyway here are the plot points I plan to use.

-The players said that they want to be a group of mercenaries. I'm going to make them a famous group of mercenaries that used to work for the empire.

-Now that the empire is gone they are trying to get in touch with their old clients.

-One of such clients is an imperial bureaucrat, a power hungry man who was able to retain most of his wealth during the fall of the empire and now lives a life of reclusiveness and debauchery.

-He was quite aware the emperor was a Sith lord and found the power displayed by the dark side quite interesting and now that the emperor is gone he wants to get that power for himself.

-He knows one of the emperor old assistants has the coordinates for an old Sith temple were the emperor stored a vast quantity of Sith artifacts, books of sith lore and scrolls of sith arcane secrets.

-The group is hired to find this guy and with he location bring the artifacts of sith magic to him.

-The problem is that the man, tired of wars and violence gave up his position and became a monk of the B'omarr Order.

-I love the B'omarr Order, the idea of brain jars in spider droids is so creepy and great, I also love how they paid the ultimate price to distance themselves from mundane pleasures and sensations to focus on the meditation and contemplation of the universe.

-The B'omarr Order monk is about to be initiated and is not collaborative, his monastery is also in a remote location of a dangerous planet.

-The dark side of the force is strong on the temple and it may mess up with the character’s minds like that trippy Ray sequence in the last movie.

-In the temple there is a member of the original sith race frozen in Carbonite, if freed he will pretend to be sympathetic to the players but will try to betray them in the worst moment possible.

These are my ideas, what you guys think? Any other interesting aspects of the star wars universe you guys think it's worth exploring?

EDIT: Oh and they will find the head of a silver c3p0 type droid named Maria and she will guide them in the sith planet .

[Koo Rehtorb]

Who ****ing knows? The new movies are an empty setting that makes no sense.

[Pleh]

So my official players are back and they decided they want to play a game in the Star wars setting, that's fine I'm a huge star wars fan, the problem is that they want to use the universe of the movies and I'm not that familiar with it.

Is there a central galactic government?
How much influence does the first order has?
How is trade and other non-war related business going on post-empire age?

Is anyone more familiar with the inner works of the new movies universe please help me out.

Anyway here are the plot points I plan to use.

-The players said that they want to be a group of mercenaries. I'm going to make them a famous group of mercenaries that used to work for the empire.

-Now that the empire is gone they are trying to get in touch with their old clients.

-One of such clients is an imperial bureaucrat, a power hungry man who was able to retain most of his wealth during the fall of the empire and now lives a life of reclusiveness and debauchery.

-He was quite aware the emperor was a Sith lord and found the power displayed by the dark side quite interesting and now that the emperor is gone he wants to get that power for himself.

-He knows one of the emperor old assistants has the coordinates for an old Sith temple were the emperor stored a vast quantity of Sith artifacts, books of sith lore and scrolls of sith arcane secrets.

-The group is hired to find this guy and with he location bring the artifacts of sith magic to him.

-The problem is that the man, tired of wars and violence gave up his position and became a monk of the B'omarr Order.

-I love the B'omarr Order, the idea of brain jars in spider droids is so creepy and great, I also love how they paid the ultimate price to distance themselves from mundane pleasures and sensations to focus on the meditation and contemplation of the universe.

-The B'omarr Order monk is about to be initiated and is not collaborative, his monastery is also in a remote location of a dangerous planet.

-The dark side of the force is strong on the temple and it may mess up with the character’s minds like that trippy Ray sequence in the last movie.

-In the temple there is a member of the original sith race frozen in Carbonite, if freed he will pretend to be sympathetic to the players but will try to betray them in the worst moment possible.

These are my ideas, what you guys think? Any other interesting aspects of the star wars universe you guys think it's worth exploring?

EDIT: Oh and they will find the head of a silver c3p0 type droid named Maria and she will guide them in the sith planet .

Brother Ook isn't wrong, but we can be slightly more helpful than that.

The nice thing about the Abrams trilogy is that it's so blank you can pretty much do whatever you want.

But the answers to your questions seems to depend on exactly when your campaign is taking place. At the start of The Force Awakens, the central government is the Republic, which has a treaty with the remnant of the Empire, the First Order which is supposed to prevent hostilities. The First Order isn't bothering with pretenses and is basically doing what it wants. For reasons unclear (probably just sloppy writing), the Republic keeps its end of the treaty and isn't using its own military, but is supporting Leia's Resistance more or less off the books.

First Order influence at that point pretty much goes as far as going around killing whoever gets on their bad side.

After The Force Awakens, the republic is gone and the First Order is rapidly assuming control wherever it can, though the Resistance is slowing their progress. Firsr order influence is pretty strong by this point.

We have no data on anything in the galaxy outside the war except that it seems to still be a place where the rich get richer off the poor getting poorer, so commerce continues about as well as it ever did, it seems.

Plot points:

-mercenaries is about the best way to play any star wars game unless you go full jedi.

-the mission seems pretty solid. Looks like a fun game.

[Bohandas]

Which movie, because there's two or three regime changes over the course of the series

[Sinewmire]

My understanding, almost all guesswork, is:

After the overthrow of Emperor Palpatine, the Empire suffered a string of military defeats, most noticeably at Jakku, against the fledgeling New Republic. This forced the Moffs and Admirals of the defeated Imperial regime to sue for peace.

The galaxy was left with a small area of Imperial holdouts on the outer rims, where the defeated Empire agreed to mutually disarm. The great fleets were decomissioned, the troops mostly returned to their families. The New Republic celebrated victory and went about rebuilding the galaxy and the senate.

Within the Imperial Remnant, a powerful Dark Side user named Snoke led a new Imperial political movement called The First Order. They offered revenge for the humbling defeats, and their ranks swelled with old officers of the Empire and new, hotheaded youngsters like Hux. The chance to win back the pride of the Empire made them the domnant force in the Imperial Remnant, and Snoke became the Supreme Leader of the ex-Imperial Forces.

The First Order weren't able to build new shipyards or dramatically increase their fleets without the Republic noticing, so instead they started building a new superweapon. They didn't have the resources to build one from scratch, instead Starkiller Base was constructed on a world important for (reasons) and using brainwashed recruits, stolen from their parents.

Some of the heroes of the Republic were not willing to let the opression of the Empire live on in any form and without the blessing of the Senate infiltrated the Remnant with a view to help its' people throw off the shackles of their tyrannical government. They called themselves the Resistance. Led by Leia Organa, they and a crew of volunteers used outdated equipment to try and weakend the First Order's grasp.

The Force awakens saw the superweapon used, decapitating the Republic, killing most of the senate and military command, and putting the First Order in a position to launch a surprise attack - the had a number of Ace-In-The-Hole type weapons such as their Dreadnought ships. Given the swiftness of the First Order victory, I'm guessing they had small, hard-hitting fleets ready to drop into republic naval bases and lay waste to ill-prepared ships still "at anchor". The Resistance were no longer trying to topple a regime in it's own territory. Instead they were Rebels, trying to escape.



What does this mean for your players?

1. The First Order isn't democratically elected, they have taken the Republic by force. There's gonna be a LOT of rebels, splinter fleets and those who survived the attack and might want to fight back.

2. It might be fun to play the section between The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi - the First Order launching surprise attacks with smaller forces against a powerful but sluggish Republic.

3. There's plenty of older Imperials still alive, and serving in the First Order (likened to old Nazis hiding in Argentina by TFA's writers!) and also plenty of young hotheads who've been brought up hearing how strong and great the Empire was. Kylo Ren and Supreme Leader snoke probably aren't Sith. This means it is quite likely they have other Dark Jedi working for them (ie. the Knights of Ren). Good character fodder.

4. Trade etc is likely similar to how it was in the Old Republic, but with less beaurocratic stagnance. The New Republic seems more like it is resting on it's laurels rather than not caring about standards of living, slavery etc. There's still plenty of hellholes, like Jakku (Tatooine but even less to recommend it).

5. Snoke and Kylo Ren do NOT have the loyalty and fear the Emperor did. There are plenty of officers and nobles jockeying for position (note Kylo Ren and General Hux's rivalry) and a savvy operator could certainly have an eye on the top job. Given that the new Supreme Leader straight up murdered the old one and took his throne? I suspect a lot of people are going to be having the same idea.

7. The First Order fetishise the old Empire and the Sith. Searching for Sith artifacts is a 100% legitmate idea for Dark Side users.

8. Dunno what your party are like, but suggest they think about being basically decent people but with warped political ideas. A party of dark, evil edgelords is boring for everyone, as nobody can shock anyone elses' character! :smallbiggrin:

[The Jack]

-In the temple there is a member of the original sith race frozen in Carbonite, if freed he will pretend to be sympathetic to the players but will try to betray them in the worst moment possible.

.

Everything is up to this would have me pretty stoked, but what's this guy's motivation. What's his advantage in the betrayal? How much of the galaxy has he missed and what does he need to catch up on? Maybe he could get the artifacts if he knew of them, but surely he could barter a better deal or use reason to get his evil ambitions going. Sounds a bit mustache twirling/arbitrary to me.

(Also don't you die if you're frozen in carbonite too long?)

[Pleh]

(Also don't you die if you're frozen in carbonite too long?)

"This is the Force we're dealing with. Malak could drop out of the sky right now and I wouldn't bat an eye."

As for why he turns on them, I agree that more thought should be put into it, but not that more thought NEEDS to be put into it.

Fable of the Frog and the Scorpion, "Why did you sting me? Now we are both going to die." RE: "What else did you think would happen? I'm a scorpion."

If cryostasis in Carbonite can be lethal, then even a powerful Jedi that can withstand such trauma might not come out unscathed. Maybe his time on ice has fractured his mind and he isn't making the same logical decisions he might have made before he was frozen.

But generally, yes, the lack of need for extra effort doesn't mean that more effort wouldn't be beneficial. I rather like the idea that this guy could be like a Darth Reddington from Blacklist, his empire built on criminal connections washed away by time, but then so are all his enemies and criminal records.

But then why betray the heroes? At the very least, it would be beneficial to him to not have anyone know where he came from. They know more than they need to know and that might be enough reason to tie off the loose ends. But if they proved potentially more asset than liability, why not keep them around a little longer?

[Bohandas]

(Also don't you die if you're frozen in carbonite too long?)

I don't remember anythig about that in ESB, though they were worried that Han might die immediately if the process was botched (which is why they tested it on him before attempting to lure Luke, who was the real target, into the freeze chamber)

EDIT:
And is carbonite dry ice? My understanding of oxyanion nomenclature suggests that the term carbonite should refer to ionized dry ice.

[Pleh]

And is carbonite dry ice? My understanding of oxyanion nomenclature suggests that the term carbonite should refer to ionized dry ice.

Pretty sure it's just a ficticious substance.

[The Jack]

I don't think I've ever heard of a real metal used in starwars. At best you've got variations of iron and steel with fancy names that don't really sound like they're iron/steel. I believe it's deliberate. Helps drive it in that it's a fantasy series.



If a big plot point could be "reactivating a CIS droid foundrys" at some point in the future then that'd be really cool. The Prequel movies might've been bad, but I really appreciate their worldbuilding, and uncovering a lost army is really the sort of awesome fantastical trope that people would love to see actualized in a more relevant manner (droids>Terracotta/Undead/demonic)

[Geddy2112]

If you are looking for a system, fantasy flight games makes The Force Awakens Beginner Game in their line of Star Wars games. I have not played it specifically, but I have played Edge of the Empire(in the same series, different time period) and it will have good mechanics as well as current lore.

There is also Wizards Star Wars RPG which is pretty much a 3.X clone if your group wants a classic D20.

[Corsair14]

The d6 system from WEG is likely the most flexible and easy to GM plus has the massive advantage of being a classless system. I cant post the link but there is an easily searchable site out there with all the books available for free download plus a few extra made over the years. Quite a bit of the material will still be useful since one of the keys of the SW universe is that tech is pretty much stagnant. An X-wing in the Rebellion era is still an X-wing in the JJ era. I imagine the economic systems, underworld and most other aspects of the galaxy are the same in both eras as well.

[S@tanicoaldo]

Well nothing in the carbonite article suggests it's lethal.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Carbonite

Anyway, if the pcs are foolish enough to free him he will be genuinely grateful for his freedom and the assistance he will need to recover from Hibernation sickness and will even help the group with the books and scrollls.

But he lusts for power, that's what got in Carbonite the first place, now that his former masters ar enot there to stop him he wants all the artifacts for himself and will not let the group get in his way, and since that will go againts the group main mission he will betray them.

But that's only a possible senario I'm not sure if my players will free him or not but they do have the terrible habit of trsuting npcs very easily, so i guess we will see.