Celebrim
Legend
For the past 2 years or so I've been running a D6 Star Wars game in the which the PC's are guild bounty hunters in 15BBY, during the very early days of the Empire after the Clone Wars where the galaxy is still optimistic about the promises the Empire brings for peace, justice, security, and prosperity, and where the Imperial military is mostly busy putting down Separatist Holdouts and thus not actually a boot in everyone's back yet (and where it's possible for most of the galaxy to imagine that the Empire's victims deserve it for breaking the 1000 years of relative peace).
So I've like seven or so major adventures (5-10 sessions each) and three or four minor adventures (1-2 sessions each) into the game and despite having a lot of ideas for adventures, I'm starting to get a little writers block and having difficulty turning the ideas into interesting stories.
A simplified typical bounty hunting adventure has consisted of two phases - an investigation phase where the PC's hunt down the target and an acquisition phase where they try to capture or kill the target. Complications can arise of course. After a couple of years I've used up many of the twists I brainstormed up before the campaign and I'm getting burnout writing up the investigation phases which are all starting to feel redundant to me right now. A typical investigation phase amounts to going to some small town and talking with locals until the PC's get someone to trust them and tell the PC's where the acquisition is hiding. Occasionally it has involved gathering clues at crime scenes or former hideouts about the targets intended next destination. But overall I feel that the stories are soon going to be emulating the professional grind of a real job where you do the same thing over and over again and the novelty wears off. I'm getting tired of sketching out these small towns and colorful locals.
So I'm looking for ideas about bread crumb trails and how you put PC's on the track of people they are hunting. These don't have to be specific to the Star Wars universe, but experience with the particulars of the Star Wars universe would be helpful. In particular, the problem with a galaxy you can hyperdrive around in is that there are 400,000 inhabited worlds, a few hundred of which are easily in range of a hyperdrive jump at any time and you can't track people through hyperspace, so the whole Bounty Hunters in space type adventure is not something I've figured out how to do often. I've played the twist of the quarry has a busted hyperdrive already, but looking for other ideas for keeping the adventure on rails enough that players are able to follow someone in space, on planets, etc. In general, how do you equip PC's to track an NPC that is running from them?
So I've like seven or so major adventures (5-10 sessions each) and three or four minor adventures (1-2 sessions each) into the game and despite having a lot of ideas for adventures, I'm starting to get a little writers block and having difficulty turning the ideas into interesting stories.
A simplified typical bounty hunting adventure has consisted of two phases - an investigation phase where the PC's hunt down the target and an acquisition phase where they try to capture or kill the target. Complications can arise of course. After a couple of years I've used up many of the twists I brainstormed up before the campaign and I'm getting burnout writing up the investigation phases which are all starting to feel redundant to me right now. A typical investigation phase amounts to going to some small town and talking with locals until the PC's get someone to trust them and tell the PC's where the acquisition is hiding. Occasionally it has involved gathering clues at crime scenes or former hideouts about the targets intended next destination. But overall I feel that the stories are soon going to be emulating the professional grind of a real job where you do the same thing over and over again and the novelty wears off. I'm getting tired of sketching out these small towns and colorful locals.
So I'm looking for ideas about bread crumb trails and how you put PC's on the track of people they are hunting. These don't have to be specific to the Star Wars universe, but experience with the particulars of the Star Wars universe would be helpful. In particular, the problem with a galaxy you can hyperdrive around in is that there are 400,000 inhabited worlds, a few hundred of which are easily in range of a hyperdrive jump at any time and you can't track people through hyperspace, so the whole Bounty Hunters in space type adventure is not something I've figured out how to do often. I've played the twist of the quarry has a busted hyperdrive already, but looking for other ideas for keeping the adventure on rails enough that players are able to follow someone in space, on planets, etc. In general, how do you equip PC's to track an NPC that is running from them?
Intercept transmissions, find patterns from where crimes have occurred. Set a trap with some tantalizing bait.
