SWd20 adventures for 1st Lvl

beldar1215

Explorer
Hello All,
I have a group of 4 kids 9-15 years old who want to try a Star Wars game. I need a good 1st level adventure to use for this. I thought there were adventures on the Wizards site, but I can't seem to find them. Any ideas were I might find some good stuff? Thanks for the help.

Beldar
 

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http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=starwars/article/sw20010315a Is one adventure, with all the others listed on the left. Unfortunately some of the newer ones aren't really "adventures" as much as they are minis scenarios.

Although, in my experience you don't need much in the way of prepared adventures for Star Wars like you might for D&D. It might just be my experience with it, but if you know the Star Wars universe well enough, have some stats for generic characters (especially antagonists: when in doubt have some Stormtroopers show up :) ) and a bit of an adventure outline.

Here's an example of a 1st level intro adventure, a year-long campaign I was in began with this adventure:

In the Rebellion era PC's are on Tatooine. They are either new arrivals to the spaceport for various reasons, or are local residents. Some PC's may secretly be rebels, others just average Imperial citizens who might not like the Empire but aren't (yet) rebels. One PC might be force-sensitive (I wouldn't allow more since they're supposed to be rare, but with a group of young players, I might not allow any to avoid jealousy among the player base).

They are taking a hoverbus from Mos Eisley to Mos Espa when a speeder with some Stormtroopers shows up and pulls the bus over.

The troops come aboard and start looking around, although they aren't saying why and they don't have to explain themselves to anybody. Secretly they've been tipped off that some rebels are onboard and smuggling weapons, and they are whether the PC's are or not. The troops place everybody under arrest and order them out of the transport, and begin searching the PC's and the transport. Eventually some contraband is found on the bus: a crate full of blasters stowed in the cargo compartment. The troops declare the whole bunch to be Rebels and decide to perform a mass execution. If the PC's don't resist at this point, an NPC among the group pulls out a hold-out blaster he had hidden and opens fire, just as a few rebel reenforcements come out from behiind some rocks.

There is a shootout, the PC's who don't have weapons will get a quick chance to grab a trooper's blaster rifle (or some of the blasters from the crate) and start firing. The NPC Rebel who started the fight is probably killed, although when the PC's win the Rebel(s) who came to their aid come over and introduce themselves. About at this point some speeder bikes with a few other Troops show up as backup, and the PC's get to have a chase scene as they drive the transport (or preferably some speeders the Rebels had behind those rocks) in a chase and running blaster fight with some troops on a bike.

They elude the Imperial pursuit, but their speeder is crippled (either from a blaster shot or from a close scrape with some rocks) and comes to a stop, leaving them stranded in the desert. Before long, a Jawa sandcrawler comes into view, and the PC's get the fun of trying to negotiate with Jawas for some spare parts. This is also a chance to use some skill checks like Diplomacy/Bluff/Intimidate, Repair, maybe Survival to help people last in thet Tatooine area.

Eventually, they get the speeder repaired, and if they try to go back to town they find they are now wanted as Rebels, and wanted for killing a squad of stormtroopers (and they're being searched for like Luke et-al was in ANH). The Rebel who rescued them takes them to a small hidden base in Beggars Canyon (if you recall the game Rebel Assault, it's that base), where they get to join the Rebel Alliance and from there the campaign can go in lots of directions. Fortunately it's a training facility to the PC's can be trained for almost any role in the Rebellion from there. If any of the PC's want to be starfighter pilots, the base is actually a flight training facility with a few T-16 skyhoppers. and basic training facilities.)
 

ragboy

Explorer
beldar1215 said:
Hello All,
I have a group of 4 kids 9-15 years old who want to try a Star Wars game. I need a good 1st level adventure to use for this. I thought there were adventures on the Wizards site, but I can't seem to find them. Any ideas were I might find some good stuff? Thanks for the help.

I would suggest getting the Star Wars RPG boxed set. I ran my kids through that first to get them familiar with a simplified version of the system. The downside is that it's set in EP I-III, which limits your options. Not sure if you can still buy this off the shelf, but I picked one up for my nephews off of e-bay a few months ago for $5... it even comes with dice and a young Chewbacca action figure... :)

Also, I've been playing with them for about 2 years now, and have built up quite a collection of home-grown NPC's, ships, scenarios and full campaigns in both the first and second trilogy timelines. If you e-mail me directly, I can send that stuff over.
 
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Ragboy's got a great suggestion. The box set is a great intro to the game if you can get your hands on it...though it may be hard to get, its definitely worth tracking it down.
 

John Q. Mayhem

Explorer
wingsandsword said:
In the Rebellion era PC's are on Tatooine. They are either new arrivals to the spaceport for various reasons, or are local residents. Some PC's may secretly be rebels, others just average Imperial citizens who might not like the Empire but aren't (yet) rebels. One PC might be force-sensitive (I wouldn't allow more since they're supposed to be rare, but with a group of young players, I might not allow any to avoid jealousy among the player base).

They are taking a hoverbus from Mos Eisley to Mos Espa when a speeder with some Stormtroopers shows up and pulls the bus over.

The troops come aboard and start looking around, although they aren't saying why and they don't have to explain themselves to anybody. Secretly they've been tipped off that some rebels are onboard and smuggling weapons, and they are whether the PC's are or not. The troops place everybody under arrest and order them out of the transport, and begin searching the PC's and the transport. Eventually some contraband is found on the bus: a crate full of blasters stowed in the cargo compartment. The troops declare the whole bunch to be Rebels and decide to perform a mass execution. If the PC's don't resist at this point, an NPC among the group pulls out a hold-out blaster he had hidden and opens fire, just as a few rebel reenforcements come out from behiind some rocks.

There is a shootout, the PC's who don't have weapons will get a quick chance to grab a trooper's blaster rifle (or some of the blasters from the crate) and start firing. The NPC Rebel who started the fight is probably killed, although when the PC's win the Rebel(s) who came to their aid come over and introduce themselves. About at this point some speeder bikes with a few other Troops show up as backup, and the PC's get to have a chase scene as they drive the transport (or preferably some speeders the Rebels had behind those rocks) in a chase and running blaster fight with some troops on a bike.

You'd need to be careful with this, I think. Default stormtroopers are 4th-level Thugs, and a squad of heavily armed and armored 4th-level chaps might be able to put some serious hurt on the PCs.
 

beldar1215

Explorer
Also, I've been playing with them for about 2 years now, and have built up quite a collection of home-grown NPC's, ships, scenarios and full campaigns in both the first and second trilogy timelines. If you e-mail me directly, I can send that stuff over.[/QUOTE]

Ragboy,
I would love to see the stuff you have. I didn't see your email address listed. You can send me the info at beldar1215@gmail.com

Thanks for the help!
 

ragboy

Explorer
beldar1215 said:
Ragboy,
I would love to see the stuff you have. I didn't see your email address listed. You can send me the info at

Thanks for the help!

I'll make up a care package for you. Do you know yet what era you're going to play in?

On the Stormtrooper issue, they also have damage reduction, which adds to their lethality. Sometimes I just 'forget' the DR and let the kids blast their way through.

On general gaming, I found that the more fast-paced you make the combat (read: stripping out a lot of the complication in the combat rules), the more fun they have. They also get that thrill when their characters appear to be doomed, when something one of them comes up with (however crazy) saves the day...or at least extricates them from danger in the nick of time. Anyway... that's the philosophy I use when building adventures for them in SW or D&D.
 

John Q. Mayhem said:
You'd need to be careful with this, I think. Default stormtroopers are 4th-level Thugs, and a squad of heavily armed and armored 4th-level chaps might be able to put some serious hurt on the PCs.
They were 3rd level in the OCR, when this was run, the RCR stats are 4th level. I ran my own campaign for a year as well, starting at 1st level. In my experience a handful of stormtroopers are just fine as a potent challenge for some 1st level PC's. (most Star Wasr GM's I know also have generic Stormtroopers just fall down when they are hit with a blaster, it goes like that in the movies after all, let the elite/special troops actually bother with WP).

If you're really concerned, for an average party of 4 or 5 PC's, make it a small roadblock of two troops, like the one Obi-Wan and Luke encountered. Stormtroopers are the iconic foe of Rebellion-era Star Wars, and an introductory adventure should include them as adversaries (as well as other well-known Star Wars features, Tatooine, Jawas, speeder bikes & chase scenes, Rebels and the Empire). I liked that adventure because it seemed like a very Star Wars way for a wide variety of PC's to suddenly become Rebels and it encapsulated a lot of the things from the movies that people expect to see in Star Wars.
 

beldar1215 said:
Hello All,
I have a group of 4 kids 9-15 years old who want to try a Star Wars game. I need a good 1st level adventure to use for this. I thought there were adventures on the Wizards site, but I can't seem to find them. Any ideas were I might find some good stuff? Thanks for the help.

Beldar

I'd seriously consider starting the characters at a level higher than 1st. 3rd or so could be better. Everybody and his dog in Star Wars has a 3d8 weapon, and 1st-level combats can very very quickly turn into a slightly ludicrous exercise in Learning The 'Injury And Dying' Rules. And even in non-combat situations, 1st level characters won't be able to manage anything like the feats of the movie characters. If you want the kids to have a fun, non-frustrating first-up experience, then having them play with characters tough enough to take on a couple of stormtroopers without courting TPK might be a good idea.
 


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