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Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Stormonu" data-source="post: 5033370" data-attributes="member: 52734">Having just come away from that movie, you are doomed to failure.  I hope you are kidding about trying to out-cool the Avatar movie <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />.  Trying to upstage another's creative talent is just something I don't think is fair to try, it may even lessen your enjoyment if you try and get your players to compare your game to the movie; they're two different beasts.  Still, everyone wants a good game.Take a pointer from most successful movies; gear doesn't make the characters invincible; those who rely on it too heavily often get splattered when it fails.  It should be tool to help them towards their goal, not an "I win button."Hmm...unobtainium?Remember, you need to design the elevator so the characters can't just threaten to blow it up or knock it out of the sky.  A perimeter defense grid (laser mines?) and possibly escort (heavily armed pirate ship-to-ship fighters?) to the station should help the characters from just using weapon systems to solve the problem.  You may want to set up a scenario where the characters will need to obtain access to the station from the inside to shut the defense systems down so they can make their escape once they have the FTL material.  This could require a split group action - one group to hack the defense systems, one group (or the same group) to mop up/pacify the pirates and a third group in the shuttle to take out the defenses (perhaps with stolen pirate fighters) whilst avoiding the pirate-flown defense force. This might work best if the characters think they've pacified the station, only to find stragglers waiting for them on the surface.  As an interesting twist, the pirates might send their own "boarding party" back up to the station at top to liberate their comrades and get the defenses back up. Like all bad guys, the best one is somebody who throws a monkeywrench into the characters plan, escapes the initial attack and comes back with reinforcements - it'll make players hate him, if you can pull it off.  Consider having the pirates using guerilla tactics to weaken the group before the final assault against a heavily fortified location; the characters have to work to get those heavy weapons to the mine in one piece to use against the virtually unassailable defenses that protect the mine.  Perhaps when the characters stage their coup in the spaceside station, he does something that somehow makes escape impossible (or really, really difficult) until the characters hunt him down and find out how to reverse what he did.  Perhaps he's set the station's self-destruct and is the only one with the code or key to stop the countdown.  Maybe he's encrypted the station's planetary map so the characters can't find the FTL material mine.  Maybe he's moved the only piece of equipment that can mine the material to a place where the character's can't hope to find it - or worse, the ore itself (the assault on the mine ends up with the characters empty-handed as the villain runs off laughing into the jungle for a final chase).Also, like all good adventures, you might want to consider a "complication" - a third factor that works against all sides to introduce a "race against the clock" scenario (a favorite plot device from the Aliens series, and many other movies).  I'm thinking the aliens the characters are fleeing from perhaps have learned the PCs escaped, and send a war party after the group.  Which shows up just when the group's deactivated the station's defense grid and taken the elevator down the surface.  Now not only do they have to face off with the pirates and get the FTL material, they've got to avoid an alien hunting party that wants to haul them back to the mothership for more experimentation.  All while the starbase is on a countdown to blow up...and the villain's run off into the jungle with the location of the ore they just paid in blood for.At least, it ought to make for an explosive Hollywood-style ending.  And if you stage it right, the pirate villain ends up getting his "just desserts" at the alien's hands (just in time to show up again as the alien's new "super-soldier" in the next adventure, complete with a grudge against the PCs).</blockquote>

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