Star Wars d20 – share your experiences! (Please)

[Methinkus]

Star Wars d20 – share your experiences! (Please)

I’ve started DMing a darkside campaign for the revised Star Wars d20 system and its my first experience GMing that system, so I decided to post this in the hope that I could find some inspiration. My campaign is set in the New Jedi Order era and I have read most of the books from that setting, (they weren’t great, but I wasn’t expecting them to be anything world shattering anyway, I just wanted to be familiar with the timeline) and I have a vague idea of what I’m going to put my players through, but I wanted to hear about other campaigns that people here have been through, mostly just because I’m interested but also because I am hoping someone will say something just amazing or give me an idea to use in my own adventures!

I don’t care when your campaign was set or how long it lasted or if your characters were “evil” or not, I’d just like some people to share some of their experiences here. If no one does, I wont be hurt

Thanks in advance!

 

[bwgwl]

well, this upcoming sunday will be the first session of my Star Wars campaign. after this weekend, i can let you know how it went.

it's set about 2 years before AOTC. the PCs are 2 Jedi (one Guardian, one Consular; both Human), a Zabrak Scout with a tramp freighter and a big debt to a crime lord, and a Human Noble.

the basic story arc for the start of the campaign is going to involve a dark side cult vaguely descended from the Sith, which is trying to take control of a group of worlds and then join the Separatist movement.

(the funny thing is, these pseudo-Sith cultists think that once they join the Separatists, they'll be able to take control of that organization and found their own new Sith Empire. little do they realize that the real Sith already control the Separatists.)

if the campaign lasts until 15th-20th level, i'll run the Clone Wars and the Jedi Purges toward the end of the campaign.

 

[Ds Da Man]

I'm doing the Dark Jedi campaign right now, with the original d20 SW core book. First adventure, get group together, get a ship from a bad guy, fly to planet to assassinate a leader trying to organize planet into joining the Galactic Alliance (this campaign is set way before the battle on Yavin). It went pretty smooth, and with crits taking down wounds, PC's were more apt to deal, instead of just shooting ( I also house-ruled that point blank shots, 5 foot for pistols, 10 for rifles, do an extra die of damage). All in all, this system has single-handedly did what I couldn't in almost 6+years of playing with the group, ROLEPLAY. I loved it, and DMing was a breeze. I let the jedi's roll sometimes for their "spidey-sense" and just to scare them. I let the scoundrel make some nefarious dealings. All in all, best opening session yet. The Dark Jedi were scared to open their lightsabers, for fear of Light Jedi hunting them down. Beware DARTH MAXIMUS!!!

 

[bwgwl]

we had the first session of our SW campaign this weekend. it was all right, although i think the players enjoyed it more than i did...

we also play a D&D campaign, and it's terribly obvious the players are having a hard time adjusting from a D&D mindset to a SW one.

they'd rather sneak around and be paranoid than act heroically. they feel the need to coup de grace unconscious foes so they "won't wake up later and try to shoot us in the back."

oh well. hopefully they'll get more into the spirit of the game in later sessions.

 

[Dagger75]

I'll give what I got.

First I have had an on again off again Star Wars game running for 4 years. At most had 6 players but mostly it is a solo game.

Here is the story, Basically it now revolves around 1 tramp freighter pilot and his adventures with the Rebellion, the empire, piracy and striking out alone against the galaxy.

I don't know if you are looking for adventure ideas but looking for jedi holocrons is always fun. They could be hidden in ancient temples, in a rich mans museum, on a Yzhuzic Vong (very bad sp) controlled planet.

Try to capture a force user before those nasty light sides guys get a hold of him.

Thats basically all I can think of now. I hope this helps

 

[hong]

we had the first session of our SW campaign this weekend. it was all right, although i think the players enjoyed it more than i did...

we also play a D&D campaign, and it's terribly obvious the players are having a hard time adjusting from a D&D mindset to a SW one.

they'd rather sneak around and be paranoid than act heroically. they feel the need to coup de grace unconscious foes so they "won't wake up later and try to shoot us in the back."

oh well. hopefully they'll get more into the spirit of the game in later sessions.

Fascinating. I was having a discussion/debate/flamefest on another board about Star Wars, and the feeling among many people was that the VP/WP mechanic _encouraged_ pragmatic-minded behaviour. This was contrasted to the damn-the-torpedoes approach that's apparently common in D&D.

 

[bwgwl]

Fascinating. I was having a discussion/debate/flamefest on another board about Star Wars, and the feeling among many people was that the VP/WP mechanic _encouraged_ pragmatic-minded behaviour. This was contrasted to the damn-the-torpedoes approach that's apparently common in D&D.

i understand what you're saying, hong, but i don't know if that's specifically the problem they were having

yes, in a VP/WP system, one good critical (especially when the average hand weapon deals 3d6 damage!) can ruin anyone's day, no matter how high-level you are. it would be reasonable to assume that this would lead to more "careful" gaming.

but i don't think that's what happened, exactly.

this same group plays in two other D&D games with different DMs. both of those other DMs run fairly ruthless, let-the-PCs-fall-where-they-may types of games. this has created a very careful, pragmatic, almost paranoid style of play, where the group plays extra-cautiously because any misstep on our part will be picked up on by the DM and used to attack the party. (sometimes, even when we are trying our best, we still get nearly wiped out because the DM felt like throwing a really difficult encounter at us. like an EL 10 encounter against a bunch of 4th-level characters. ahem, but that's a different rant. )

anyways, i'm not that kind of DM at all, especially not when playing Star Wars. i want my campaign to feel like the movies. in the movies, the heroes don't worry about stuff like that. they have no fear to go charging in against a dozen stormtroopers. because they're the heroes and that's what heroes do.

i want my campaign to be full of wahoo over-the-top highly-cinematic action. i don't want it to bog down into crawling along corridors searching for traps and running for cover every time 3 stormtroopers come around the corner.

 

[Prince Atom]

One Shot per Stormie

i want my campaign to be full of wahoo over-the-top highly-cinematic action. i don't want it to bog down into crawling along corridors searching for traps and running for cover every time 3 stormtroopers come around the corner.

Then I suggest you rule that the stormies don't have that many vitality points. I haven't looked at SW d20 v2, but in the first edition they weren't much more than first-level thugs. They couldn't take many hits, but they were still more powerful than first-level characters.

I once ran a WEG Star Wars one-shot, and the stormies just wouldn't go down. A friend suggested ruling that one hit put a stormie down, in order to get on with things.

So you don't really need much more about stormies than battle numbers. If you can recall their defense, their attack bonus, and their damage dice, you can throw gobs of them at the PCs and won't have to worry. Just say that whatever bad things happen to the stormies, they don't survive.

Dropped into a pit of lava? Screams all round. They don't even get to attempt a Fort save (or whatever) unless they have names.

Sucked out into space? No luck, the joys of decompression are all theirs.

Shot? Dead.

Poisoned? Dead, probably messily.

And, get this, stormies are so fanatically devoted to the Emperor that they'll keep coming, ignoring all obstacles... or so it seems. I have no doubt that if the Emperor ordered them all to march into the ocean, they wouldn't even stop to ask "How far?"

As soon as your PCs realize that it takes practically nothing to down a stormie, they'll get braver. Of course, named characters are something else.

TWK
...no match for a good blaster....

 

[bwgwl]

hey TWK, i'm totally with ya!

the problem is getting my players on the same page...

most NPCs don't have any Vitality, no matter what their level. 20th-level stormtroopers still only have ~10-13 "hit points."

i've only run them through one session so far, so it probably just hasn't sunk in yet. but of the numerous baddies they fought, only one had any Vitality, and he was only 3rd level. the rest were 1st-3rd level "mooks" with only Wound points.

there really isn't anything for the PCs to be that scared of. i'm a "softie" GM and i won't kill them out of hand (heroes aren't supposed to die until the last reel, after all!). they just are having a hard time realizing all this.

 

[hong]

i've only run them through one session so far, so it probably just hasn't sunk in yet. but of the numerous baddies they fought, only one had any Vitality, and he was only 3rd level. the rest were 1st-3rd level "mooks" with only Wound points.

Well gee, one session isn't going to prove anything! Give it at least three or four sessions. If they're still skulking around in the dark, then you have a problem.