Critique my Star Wars one-shot plot idea

[Asmor]

Ok, I'm working on a one-shot for star wars which I plan to run potentially three times or more for different groups.

There's a bit of a schtick, an idea I stole from the Cabal of Shadows RPGA campaign. The PCs all belong to 4 different factions, which each have a different mission. There are 16 different pregen PCs, 4 in each faction.

Quick plot: The Century Eagle (placeholder name for a ship) was a ship belonging to Corpocorp Inc. (placeholder name for a corporation) which crashed on a planet. The PCs are all sent out to recover the ship. A hutt bribed a less-than-scrupulous jedi on board to down the ship as a cover for a smuggling operation; there was another ship waiting on the planet to receive two crates from it.

Ostensibly, everyone is being sent to recover the ship.

The government (Is it called the Republic during the Rise of the Empire era?) believes the ship was downed by radical terrorists, and wants the person(s) responsible dealt with quietly and permanently.

The Jedi Council suspects that one of their own may have been responsible, and may be drifting towards the dark side. They instruct the Jedi sent on the mission to try and redeem the fallen Jedi and bring him back alive. Note that this is at odds with the Republics agenda.

Corpocorp Inc. had been conducting some illegal experiments on the ship, and doesn't want it recovered. They instruct their agents to scuttle the ship in deep space, providing a computer program which can simulate a malfunction and activate the self-destruct sequence.

Finally, there are the criminal agents of the Hutt. Other agents in the government have been bribed to get these people sent along, under the guise of being Republic agents. Their goal is to not be discovered and to alter the ship's manifest to get rid of all references to the missing cargo crates.

So... what do you all think? Sound like a fun idea? Any suggestions on making it work smoother?

 

[TarionzCousin]

If you have four different factions with four incompatible agendas, perhaps only some of the players will "succeed." Is that acceptable? Do the players know that it's a competitive game before signing up?

It could be fun, but you need to make the scope of the game clear from the outset.

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I like the different factions you've described. Their goals don't seem incompatible, so hopefully the "Worst Case Scenario" I described won't happen. It would be cool if players from different factions could negotiate with each other to help them reach their respective goals. Toward that end, I would recommend giving the players something valuable with which to negotiate. It could be as simple as money, or as complex as favors owed, blackmail info, useful items (extra lightsaber, anyone?), etc.

 

[Aholibamah]

I second what was said above. You might have however some surprises--a group that might be thought to be friendly intend to rob them of the salvage, or say another group that they might expect to be ruthless offer an alliance. You might also have two groups fight one another and give the pcs a chance to choose if the want to avoid getting involved, support one side or the other or some third option that they themselves might come up with. Overall it's a good one shot idea, sounds fun.

 

[Asmor]

I specifically tried to make it so that the missions aren't horribly at odds with eachother for this game. If the Jedis redeem their comrade, then technically the republic has failed at its mission but it shouldn't be hard for the jedis to convince the soldiers to let him live once he's restrained.

Similarly, if the soldiers go in blastin' and kill the fallen jedi without giving the Council's envoys a chance to talk him down, well, it was always a possibility that the jedi might have had to kill him anyways.

If the one-shot turns into a campaign for my regular group however (and it's looking like it will), I'm probably more likely to give the players missions that are distinctly at odds with eachother. Group conflict is fun.