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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Water Bob" data-source="post: 6095168" data-attributes="member: 92305">I've been looking over that old Star Wars rule set. Man, I love that game. I've been thinking of running a by-the-seat-of-the-pants, blasters firing, princess saving, asteroid dodging game using just the first edition rules.I haven't found all of my old stuff yet, but I did uncover an adventure I've never played: Battle For The Golden Sun.This looks perfect. I'm not 100% going to do this yet--just thinking. But, if I do run it, I want to change the beginning a bit. I want to set the players up as normal citizens (as normal as you can get in the Star Wars universe), and then let them make decisions during play as to if they want to be Rebels...or maybe they'll go more towards the Fringe.Here's what I'm thinking....We'll start the game on Alderaan. This is shortly before A New Hope. I've got three players right now, so I'm thinking I'll start them as the crew of a tramp light freighter. They can pick from an assortment of aliens, if they don't want their characters to be human. I've got all the Alien books. There's a ton of species to pick from.The Trade Federation has been heavily taxing the local space routes, and our PCs start the game fallen on hard times. Credits are tight. Payment for their ship is due.First scene of the game session: I figure we'll start in a spacer bar near the starport. Their looking for work. There's actually lots of work--lots of small cargos that need to be taken to different worlds, but the problem is, once you figure in local export tax, then import tax at the destination, the Empire's transport tax, and now, the Trade Federation's lane tax, there's nothing left for profit.The bigger shipping lines are soaking up all the smaller cargos. They can make it work, financially, by the shear quantity of freight that they can move at one time. Plus, the big companies are politically connected, getting the quantity discount from the Empire and the Trade Federation (and with many of the worlds that they service).This situation is leaving scraps for the independent--the tramp freighter captains.All of that is a bunch of BS I just made up, but I think it's good enough for a Star Wars game. Maybe I'll refine it. Besides the "push" this creates to get the PCs off planet, it also puts a bad taste in their mouths for the Empire.So, for the one and three man stock light freighters, finding a profitable job has become an exercise in managing expenses. Some jobs filter through the cracks, sure, but operating a vessel of this size is no longer a matter of just going to a posting office and grabbing the next ticket.At this point, a droid approaches the PC's table and introduces itself. It's designation is G0-B-TWN, but the droid tells the players that they can address it as "Gobiteen" or "Gobi" (Go Between....get it?).The PCs have heard of this droid. Since times got tough, and the law on Alderaan is fairly strict on the fringe element, spacers have set up a method of business contact without having to identify themselves. The droid is used as the go between, and each side doesn't know the other.Now, this is a fairly risky way to do business. The freighter captains don't like not knowing their employers, but as times have become lean, even the most honest captains have resorted to this method of business.Many times the jobs that Gobi will have are those that are just trying to skirt the high taxes. And, sometimes, the jobs are of a more nefarious quality--gun running, things like that.A freighter captain that deals with Gobi takes his chances. But, there are those in the spaceport that have made runs for the droid and have been quite happy with their compensation.So Gobi has a deal for the PCs. Would they run a cargo of local wiker tradeables (baskets, figurines, ornate chairs, wall hanings and the like) to Coruscant? The run pays quite well. The stipulation is that the PC's ship must leave within 4 hours.Let's see...good compensation...leave within 4 hours...deal through Gobi...and it's a cargo of wiker do-dads. Riiiight.But, that's the deal.If the PCs don't take the deal, then I think it will be time for an action scene with some toughs by the local crime boss. Where's the money?Or, if the PCs bought their ship legitimately, this crime boss becomes a legitimate Repo agent. Either way, where's the money?The PCs don't have it.Now, maybe, the ship will be taken, and the game will go off on a tangent. I need to think about this and be prepared. But, hopefully, the PCs will take Gobi's job. Because they've got no real other choice. It's a bit of a railroad, but this is Star Wars. And, I won't stop them from not taking the job. If they don't, I'll probably change the direction of the adventure, making it the PC's vs. the Repo Agent, or the PCs vs. the Crime Boss.So...the PCs take the job. The cargo arrives. And, they need to lift off. I'll put a sense of urgency with the delivery of the cargo by moving the timetable up, explaining that a certain Alderaan traffic controller was going off duty earlier than expected...,"So, you got to leave port NOW!"The PCs will most likely want to dig into the cargo once its aboard. There won't be a lot of time to do that while its being loaded. I bet they'll wait until their in hyperspace. But, if the players figure a way, every container that they open does, indeed, have wiker do-dads in it.And, that won't make sense. What they're being paid is way too much for what they're carrying, even if the shipper is just trying to skip under the taxes. It can't be even worth the bribe to get off of Alderaan.When the deal is struck with Gobi, he'll offer to pay them half in electronic Imperial credits, or X amount (whatever I think the PCs should have as starting money) in hard currency--the rest once they reach Coruscant.If they take the electronic Imperial credits, these will completely blank out and become worthless (nonexistent) after a few hours. Of course, the PCs don't know this at the time of lift off. I'll tell them, though, if the players ask the right questions at deal time, that electronic credits can be risky once offworld.Once the PCs lift and break Alderaan's orbit, I want an action scene with an Imperial customs boat bearing down on them. "Come to and prepare to be boarded!" I might throw in a couple of fighters and an SDB just to make it clear to the players that they are outgunned.We can trade some pops here in a Star Wars-esque escape from the planet scene. Maybe the PCs will get lucky and knock off a TIE fighter or two......and that, right there, is changing their lives on Alderaan.......while they rush to get the navicomp ready to make the jump to hyperspace.The stars make lines, and, boom, the PC's ship escapes.But, something is immediately wrong. Alarms are going off. The ship should be safely in hyperspace now, but the instruments are showing that the ship is coming out of jump.That's impossible. The players might think that they're just outside the Alderaan system.But, in fact, they've suffered a hyperdrive mishap that has taken them far off-course, through a treacherous, gravitic-thick region of space, to the waterworld of Sedri. The PCs, though, will have no idea where they are until they can somehow figure it out.The ship is damaged, and it plunges through the atmosphere. I'll have the pilot do some throws for a heroic splash landing in Sedri's great ocean.There will be a few moments as the PCs recover from the crash. The interior lighting is flashing on and off. The PCs may check the ship. The hyperdrive is damaged, and she is taking on a bit of water. They'll plug the hole, I'm sure, but they'll find out that there's no fixing the hyperdrive without new parts and a starport repair facility. Comm's damage. Power finally goes completely out, and the ship is adrift on Sedri's world ocean.Then, the PCs hear a crash on the hull. Out the dorsal hatch, they exit the ship to see....that their ship has floated into the remains of a sea battle. There are pieces of vehicles (a big piece just slammed into the ship with the roll of the ocean) and bodies....yes, bodies, floating out in the water.There was some kind of skirmish here--some battle. Wait, what's that? Is that a stormtrooper floating over there?Then, in the distance, they see the colored beams of blaster bolts being fired across the water. How to investigate? Among the debris about the ship, the player see an intact sea-speeder.It's up to them. Do they take the sea speeder and investigate the battle in the distance...or, do they just stay with their ship?And, that's pretty much where the adventre Battle For The Golden Sun.So....what was going on with Gobi on Alderaan? I'm thinking that the PCs were set up to drag attention away from a different ship lifting with the real smuggled cargo. The PCs were played as fools.And, I've got room for recurring villians and other NPCs. It might be interesting to see Gobi show up somewhere after the PCs finish the adventure on Sedri. And, sometime, maybe on Sedri, or after they leave, they'll hear about their homeworld being destroyed by the Death Star.If I can find it, I also have the adventure called Graveyard of Alderaan. It's a neat little adventure that features scrap hunters around the asteroid field that used to be Alderaan. You never know how games will go. I like to set up a story, then when gaming, not hesitate to deviate from it when players go in a different direction than what I had planned.</blockquote>

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