Tales of MaricopaCon 2013 VI: Star Wars Edge of the Empire - The Edge of Despayre

The Edge of Despayre is a prison break scenario.  First run as a New Year's Eve game in 2012, I tightened the focus, and rewrote the endgame to turn it from the intro to a short campaign into a self-contained adventure.  The truth is I've run prison break scenarios in just about every sci-fi system I've ever run, and while the trappings are different depending on the game, the basic plot is the same.

The inspirations for this particular scenario were the old Classic Traveller adventure Prison Planet, the Star Wars novel Death Star, and the d20 Modern Post-Apocalyptic setting Darwin's World.

The characters are an odd mix: the stormtrooper who realizes he's been fighting on the wrong side and years to escape; a political prisoners; con men; an ingenue; and a smuggler set up by his comrades.  They are then stuck in a prison camp full of some of the worst scum in the galaxy.

Effectively, in four hours, the players have to scrounge, trade for, or steal the needed equipment, and formulate a plan for an escape from Despayre, the prison planet that is home to the under construction original Death Star (the one that will eventually be destroyed by a farm boy from Tatooine).

In the meantime, while they are working on solving the main plot line, a variety of complications and sideplots threaten to derail them.  Their camp is run by a martinet commander who threatens to derail their escape plans.  The camp guards are a sadistic bunch who could care less whether the prisoners live or die.  Also, just to add to the festivities, there is a serial killer on the loose in the camp, and one or more of the characters may be the next victim.

Without doing a blow by blow synopsis, due to a combination of wise horse-trading, offers of sexual favors (yeah, the players went there...I just went along), and outright guile, the group managed to escape the world only to be chased by TIE Fighters, including a TIE Advance being flown by a great pilot who may, or may not, have had a Darth before his last name (I'll never tell).  The group managed to hold their shuttle together, singe a few of the Imps, and then, just before the inevitable weight of numbers began to tell, a small Rebel contingent, intent on attacking the Death Star, materialized from hyperspace to give the pursuing TIE Fighter wing something else to worry about.

We had a group of players for this game which included at least one player who was familiar with the Beginner Game, as well as at least one fan of the EU.  The game went well, and everybody had a great time.

Tales of MaricopaCon 2013 I: The Idiot's Array

Suzette (Mrs. Grognard), Grant (Spawn of Grognard), and I (Grognard) settled in at the hotel Friday night.  I took the evening not so much to go over the scenario as I did another pass at the rules.

The Idiot's Array might very well entail my first vehicle combat in the new system, and even though I've run about 20 hours of Edge of the Empire in total since the beta book came out, it's just enough of a weird system that I was nervous.  I didn't sleep much Friday night as a result, which meant I was tired going into a marathon 15 hours in the Mesa Room in Centennial Hall at the Mesa Convention Center.

The scenario went smoothly.  We had a full table, six players, including Mrs. Grognard.  I don't want to give too much away about the plot, except I really wrote as a effectively a film noir-inspired homage to Casino Royale, with a fair amount of some of the wonderful, early Han Solo/Lando Calrissian trilogies, and just a dash of the Timothy Zahn Thrawn Trilogy to give it that kick over the edge.

Every NPC the characters meet has an agenda, often at cross purpose with each other, and by the end of it, the players wound up doing something unexpected that threw the main villain, an Emperor's Hand, for a complete loop.

In general, the scenario went well, but the pregenerated characters I provided weren't great.  I learned a lot about character building from The Idiot's Array, and ironically, the pregens for The Edge of Despayre were much better constructed.  For those who want to know my opinion, if you aren't dumping virtually all of your starting experience into Characteristic increases, you're doing it wrong.

Still, by the end, the group had won the sabacc tournament, had created such a confused situation that at one point Imperial stormtroopers were firing on the Emperor's Hand, and managed to escape, albeit with a couple of PCs and the Imperial Admiral who was the point of the whole scenario, badly wounded.

For all of the players with the exception of two, this was their first exposure to the system.  Feedback was positive.

Useful, Non-Fantasy Flight Games Books for Star Wars Gaming Goodness

I've been busy with con prep the last couple of weeks, but felt that I could be helpful by offering some non FFG resources I still use for Star Wars game prep.

If you don't have these, go find them and buy them:

The Star Wars Atlas. Not an RPG supplement, but a LucasBooks offering. The best job of making sense of the myriad planets of the EU and their proximity to each other ever.

d20 Star Wars (WOTC-Out of Print-RCR): Galactic Campaign Guide:
Yeah, it's dated. Yeah, the statblocks are for a version of the game that stopped being supported during the Bush years. But the combination of floorplans, plot hooks, game ideas, and best of all, random name generators for about two dozen species (including all 7 in Edge of the Empire), I've been using this book non-stop since I bought it.

The New Star Wars Essential Chronology (Lucasbooks). Yeah, it's a few years old, and could do with an update, but its great for a concise treatment of the EU, and oh, yeah, has provided me with seeds for a good dozen scenarios over the years.

d20 Star Wars (WOTC-Out of Print-RCR): Coruscant and the Core Worlds. Yeah, it's dated. But it has great writeups of locales, NPCs, and adventure seeds on a couple of dozen important worlds in the Galactic core...all very easy to convert to Edge of the Empire (and the system info is basically unchanged).

d20 Star Wars (WOTC-Out of Print-RCR): Geonosis and the Outer Rim Worlds. Does for the Outer Rim what Coruscant and the Core Worlds did for the central part of the galaxy.

d20 Star Wars (WOTC-Out of Print-RCR): Ultimate Alien Anthology. Let's face it. If Edge of the Empire has a weakness, it's the lack of playable species. While this book is a few years old, and statted for d20, converting races from d20 to Edge is simple as can be. Together with the Unofficial Alien Supplement on the GSA's website, this should give you all the alien races you could ever want, and more.

Miscellanea

None of these comments really justify a post of their own, but they've been stacking up a bit, so here goes:

• I ran two games at last week's Free RPG Day.  Eschewing the convention of actually running one of the scenarios given out, I instead ran two Delta Green Scenarios, the classic scenario Convergence, as well as The Last Equation.  Both games went well.

• Work continues apace on The Idiot's Array.  It's taking a bit longer than I expected, but I've finally got an outline, so it should speed up.  I'll be posting a few builds once I have it written into coherent shape.

• I will finally be giving Danger Roadwork Ahead a playtest tomorrow.  We'll see how it goes.

• I will be attending Imperial Outpost's Gamer Garage Sale on Saturday.  Hopefully, I can find some goodies there as I did last time.

• Chaosium's Kickstarter for Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition is in its final hours.  The stretch goals have sweetened the pot considerably for backers, and if you were on the fence before, I recommend a second look.

• Finally, I'll have some spoiler-free information about The Edge of Despayre posted later today.  It's based on the starter of a short campaign, that's on hiatus at the moment, I ran on New Year's Eve last year.

New Skill for Star Wars Edge of the Empire: Knowledge (Gambling)

I'll be posting pieces of the design work for Idiot's Array as a write them.  First up, and created today for the game is a new skill Knowledge (Gambling).

My general approach on creating on new skills and mechanics for existing games is pretty conservative.  I rarely house rule for the same of house ruling something if there's an existing, working mechanic for it.  In this instance, there is no such mechanic.

In the Beta version of the rules (and a very odd omission for a game focused on Scoundrels and other Edge of the law types which Edge of the Empire is about), there is no game mechanic that addresses the knowledge of games of chance.

While such things as bluffing, picking up on an opponent's tell, creating electronic or other cheats, etc. can be easily covered by the game's core skills, there is no mechanic that says, I know the rules, and have instinctive feel for what the odds of winning a sabacc round with a particular hand are.  For this reason, I've invented the following:

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Knowledge (Gambling) (Int):

You are familiar with the rules, and more importantly, the strategy and odds of winning and losing in most games of chance.

Note that Gambling will do nothing towards helping you with gaining a psychological or mathematical edge in games of chance where such elements in a particular game of chance may be present.  This better lies in the domain of other skills, depending on what the character is trying to do (e.g. Coercion, Cool, Discipline, Negotiation, Perception, Skulduggery, Streetwise, etc).

This skill is available as a Class Non-Career skill to all Edge of the Empire character classes Careers, as gambling and games of chance are a large form of entertainment in the rougher edges of the galaxy.

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If I were writing this for official publication, I'd probably want to think on that third paragraph a bit, but the truth is, we've seen scenarios, stories, and novels where characters from a variety of walks of life gamble, so I didn't really see putting restrictions on the character classes this was available to.  If a character wants to spend one of their precious skill points on Knowledge (Gambling), I think they should be able to do it.

Needless to say, this skill will be available to some (but not all) of the characters and NPCs in the game.

EDIT: Groan.  Still trying to Use Star Wars Saga Edition terminology with Edge of the Empire.  I should be able to break myself of the habit in about another decade.

MaricopaCon Game Preparation IV: Star Wars: Edge of the Empire - The Idiot's Array

Work begins on this one today.

My goal in creating this scenario is to create a game that will have the feel of a cross between the old L Neil Smith Lando Calrissian trilogy of novels and the much more recent Bond film (and to a lesser extent the novel) for Casino Royale.

We're going to stretch Edge of the Empire, and see how well it runs an investigative game, in other words.

For those curious, no EU characters will be present for this one.

I'll discuss more about this once preparation is complete in a few days.