Who is currently running Star Wars D6

[The Game Guy]

I was curious other then Pathfinder (with Grimace a Co-GM) who is running a PBP game here who else is currently running Star Wars D6.

What is the game about? What is going on in the game? Feel free to post actual play posts.

[Jamfke]

Over at the Rancor Pit (http://www.rancorpit.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1818), I am running the third Episode in a series called Rebel Uprisings, set just after RotS. The crew is currently on a mission where they've picked up some data files from a Geelan trader on the Zirtran?s Anchor space station. They got the files and escaped the station and a brief engagement with a young armored bounty hunter just before Zirtran?s Anchor disappeared. Of course, the Empire's few ships in the area that escaped the disappearance got holos of the crew's ship jumping away as the station vanished and laid the blame on them.

Some strangeness has been happening to their ship, the Du Cass' Dream, which began while they were on the station. It began to fly itself, arm its weapons, plot hyper jumps and even send a few simple messages. They are still trying to find out why it is happening.

While hopping around, they found an errant MSE droid skittering through the smaller access tubes and have decided that this must be the menace. They are trying to corner the little beastie to see what is controlling it and how to get back control of their ship.

Over at my forums, Role Players Direct (http://roleplayersdirect.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=7&st=0&sk=t&sd=a), I have another post RotS game going that is in its second episode titled Dissention. There we have a pair of renegade clone troopers, one who fell in love with his female Jedi general and defended her from the rest of his squad when Order 66 was issued, and the other who participated in the Jedi Purge at the temple as a member of the 501st. He went back through the temple after the first strike and found a single youngling survivor hiding in a vent in one of the training rooms. Instead of killing the child, he told him to stay hidden and he would return to take him to safety, which he did. Ever since, he has had to live with the guilt of what he'd done and now he wants to rectify it. The other members are a Jedi Padawan who's been trying to find out all he can about other survivors of the Purge, a Trianii pilot/mechanic and an assassin trying to change his bloodthirsty ways.

This crew is on a mission to retrieve a high ranking official from Abregado-rae to be taken to Alderaan as he may have intelligence about the Emperor that might give a fledgling rebellion an edge to fight him. They were side tracked on their mission by a band of clone trooper pirates led by none other than our renegade trooper's Jedi lover. They are currently aboard a large container ship which was used to scatter large chunks of debris in an Imperial shipping lane to knock vessels out of hyper space (which is how our crew stumbled upon them), and are making nice with the Commander.

[cheshire]

It's interesting because this is the first time that I've run a game that wasn't D6 Star Wars. :)

I'll probably pick up a short campaign in December. It's been my tradition to do 3-5 adventures for newbie gamers who want to get the feel for the hobby.

[The Game Guy]

Jamfke, very cool. Keep us informed on what goes on with your games. I love to hear what others are doing in the rpgs they are running.

[Kalzazz]

Im using Star Wars for the basis of my Space Opera (or maybe Space Fantasy) game, but not running Star Wars itself

[Whill]

Im using Star Wars for the basis of my Space Opera (or maybe Space Fantasy) game, but not running Star Wars itself

A new game based on Star Wars? Cool. Please post details about your world somewhere! I'm working on a Star Wars campaign but I am creating an entire sector (and then some) from scratch, and I would still be interested in hearing about your game.

[The Game Guy]

A new game based on Star Wars? Cool. Please post details about your world somewhere! I'm working on a Star Wars campaign but I am creating an entire sector (and then some) from scratch, and I would still be interested in hearing about your game.

I agree and I second this. I would love to hear some details about this.

[Kalzazz]

Well, its set more or less here, except some X amount of time in the future (so the present day is mostly ancient history/pop culture, the average citizen of that time knows as much about us as we know about the Ancient Greeks)

The Jedi exist, and are a powerful group, but not super powerful, they believe in the Force, and also George Lucas the Prophet. Some people think they are super cool, some people think they are insane (okay, so your religion is based around some Ancient Earth guy who made movies?!)

Blasters and lightsabres exist, but havent completely replaced guns (in particular AK-47s and Sten guns are super popular and inexpensive weapons), gun stats are bumped enough to compete with blasters compared to SW

The entire galaxy is under control of the World Government Fleet, which is extremely extremely hands off in its ruling (it collects taxes, defends itself from direct threats, and attempts to make sure nothing else gets big enough to challenge it, but will fanatically avoid getting involved in local matters aside from occasional anti piracy efforts), the Fleet specifically will not get between member organizations going to war with each other or otherwise expose itself. If forced into 'petty domestic squabbles' Fleet actions are done on the order of 'Overwhelming and Punitive Force.' Fleet uses the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to break up 'Monopolies of Power' before they get big enough to pose a real threat to 'Galactic Stability', normally this is done peacefully, but if peaceful breakups fail overwhelming and punitive force is used, after which rarely remains anything to break up

Notably the rest of the World Government no longer exists for the most part, as it was destroyed by the World Government Fleet during a coup, and while figurehead rulers were appointed for a while the practice died out. Those World Government Agencies that still exist are pretty much no longer affiliated with each other and 'self supporting' (either through offering services for pay, or sending out their own tax collectors)

The more powerful member states of the World Government have pretty much turned into historical curiousities as well, having been destroyed in the fighting during the coup or broken up afterwards as 'Monopolies of Power.' Periodically someone tries to restore one of these states, such as the Great American Empire or the Neo Soviet Socialist Planets

Earth has become a huge urban disaster of pollution, decay and sprawl, but is mostly the center of the galaxy as it is home to the World Government and thus is considered an official no fire zone and center for diplomatic endeavors, with all major and many minor corporations and states having embassies there

[Kalzazz]

Will try and explain more later

[The Game Guy]

Will try and explain more later

Sounds very cool. Please keep us up to date.

One thing though: AK-47's still exist in your game?

[Kalzazz]

Handing out AK-47s and Sten guns sometimes to mooks helps with the 'enemies are bags of gold with legs' syndrome

[jontheman]

I spent years running huge Star Wars campaigns in a place called the Setnin Sector, which became the basis of the website www.lightsabre.co.uk - if you go over to there and have a look at the guides section, about 90% of the material, timeline and the stories are the result of gaming sessions.

The website is now a hugely successful Star Wars fan site.

[Whill]

I spent years running huge Star Wars campaigns in a place called the Setnin Sector, which became the basis of the website www.lightsabre.co.uk - if you go over to there and have a look at the guides section, about 90% of the material, timeline and the stories are the result of gaming sessions.

Cool, thanks.


Will try and explain more later

A Star Wars-like future in which the Jedi Order revers George Lucas as a prophet. Interesting. :)

It sounds like this future has a multi-star-system-scale civilization? So there is hyperdrive or some other FTL tech? Or are all the "planets" in one system, as in Firefly?

[The Game Guy]

I spent years running huge Star Wars campaigns in a place called the Setnin Sector, which became the basis of the website www.lightsabre.co.uk (http://www.lightsabre.co.uk) - if you go over to there and have a look at the guides section, about 90% of the material, timeline and the stories are the result of gaming sessions.

The website is now a hugely successful Star Wars fan site.

I will check that out. thanks for letting us know about it.

[Kalzazz]

Yeah, generic multi star system scale civilization, though 'civilization' is applied very loosely in parts. The World Government applies a very laissez-faire approach to governing and lets all the little 'brushfire' wars and such go their own course. And if any civilization or such gets to influential the World Government applies the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to break up the Monopolies of Power

Hyperdrives are the main way of getting from Point A to Point B, and news and such travels primarily at the speed of hyperdrive mailships, though small 'spacecars' exist as well and are the most popular means of interplanetary hyperspace transportation, with the added benefit of being driveable on roads (well, use repulsors rather than wheels, so flyable on roads), liners exist as well, and are generally either used for high speed luxury transport (like the Concorde equivalent), luxury transport of normal speed (like cruise ships), or transport for the financially challenged (like Greyhound). Popular routes thus are filled with swarms of ships going from point A to point B, and littered with space stations offering repairs, food, hotel rooms and so on. And guarded by gangs of security forces from whoever has a vested interest in keeping the spaceways open (pirates normally go after the juicier targets, as spacecars dont tend to have much in the way of loot. But strings of pirate attacks can cause everyone to stay at home)

A spacecar has a x2 to x4 hyperdrive, no backup, hyperdrive needs to be tuned frequently (its generally recommended you get your hyperdrive tuned before every spacetrip), 1d-2d hull, 0-2d manuever, no shields, move 2-6, consumables for a week (in emergency rations), and no restroom, nav computer, or sleeping area. Seating usually 2-9 people. On the ground they are big, slow and clumsy as landspeeders go. But quite cheap, being somewhere between landspeeders and stock light freighters in cost, and extremely easy to use and operate

Shortrange Hypercomms - Shortrange hypercomms are used by ships in hyperspace to chat with each other when 'close' to each other, most of them are kinda scratchy and voice only, but the most expensive models can transmit and receive holoimages and high quality sound. The three main uses of the shortrange hypercomms are for light freighter pilots to chat and avoid boredom, as well as to share info about the spacelanes and pass on warnings about security forces, for security forces to coordinate their efforts and call for reinforcements, and for pirates to coordinate their efforts in hunting the spacelanes. Spacecars usually only have low quality hypercomms able to receive only, such as when a security force starfighter orders them to drop into realspace or when broadcasting beacons are setup to deliver messages to whoever passes by (such as announcements of detours)

Shortrange hyperscanner - Sensors which work in hyperspace, used to avoid running into things, as well as to find prey and/or law violators. Security Forces, light freighters, and pirates are constantly tweaking their hyperscanners to get an edge on the opposition. Spacecars tend to have very poor hyperscanners and if safe driving habits are not followed can wind up detecting things to late for them to avoid them

[The Game Guy]

Kalzazz,

Very cool. I enjoy reading your posts. Please keep posting details, it's not only fun to read but it gives others ideas for their games.

[Kalzazz]

Hard to think what to post really, I dont have the organization or enthusiasm to convert the entire setting into one giant document all at a shot, so was just answering the transport between planets question

If have a specific setting question can answer that

[The Game Guy]

Hard to think what to post really, I dont have the organization or enthusiasm to convert the entire setting into one giant document all at a shot, so was just answering the transport between planets question

If have a specific setting question can answer that

Ok I wil.

And you don't have to post everything, just post what you think you would like to share.

[Bobmalooga]

I've run Star Wars off and on for the last twelve years and this is the story of how it all happened...I did a fair amount of crossover material (The players made it to Earth, Dealt with Star Trek races and even some pesky Transforming robots...) if anyone is curious I'll happily post stats.

Keith

It's finally time I sat down and told the story of how the 'Mutt Squad' was formed. It's sort of a funny story, at least it is to me as I was there at the beginning.

This game, which at the time wasn't called the Mutt Squad, or for that matter anything other than 'Star Wars: The RPG' started off in the hands of my very good friend Jimmy Bramble. who at the time was something of a novice Game master and looking to break into the field by running a Star Wars campaign. Now to be honest with you, me and anyone else who is apt to read this page, the truth of the matter is that the bunch of us (Robert Maxwell, Jimmy Bramble, Glenn Moss, Kevin Rowell, Ronnie Rich and myself included...) were all huge Star Wars geeks. I personally don't think that you have to be in order to enjoy the RPG, but it certainly helps.

Jimmy's idea was that this campaign would center around us all being pilots in the rebellion, the problem was that of all the characters brought into that game that night only one of them was an X-wing pilot and the rest were a random assortment of characters (including a Ship repair technician, a gambler, pirate and failed Jedi) that couldn't pilot an X-Wing if their lives depended on it. Somewhere along the way we picked up Rebecca Davison, Glenn's girlfriend and confident (and future (ex) wife.) as Rosh the smuggler, my cousin Derek (Dude) Thornton as 31-X and Mike Zaitz as Kryzah the Wookie.

By now you're realizing that there were eight players and a novice Game Master trying to juggle all these varying personalities, not an easy task to be sure. Personally I think that Jimmy did a wonderful job of getting us all into the game and sending us on our merry little way in the Rebellion. The problem that he ran into is the same problem that many Game Masters have run into...He wanted us to go one way and we fought that direction every step of the way. The module, of which I have long since forgotten the name, called for us to steal fuel supplies from the Empire and return to the Rebellion base with whatever it was that managed to get our hands on. The truth of the matter is that we probably shouldn't have been able to get away with slaving the droids on the Imperial fuel train into flying the thing back to our Rebel base, but with the help of Robert's Givin character Galdivar we managed to do just that and got away scot free (or so we thought...)

Now the module had just such a contingence plan in the event that something crazy like this happened, the Imperial tracking device leads the Empire to the system and our doorstep with a torpedo sphere to use on the hidden Rebel base (as some punk kid from Tatooine made some million to one shot and destroyed their Death Star...) a base, which by the way, had tons of civilians as the planet was an ardent supporter of the Rebellion.

Now comes the odd part.

Rather than evacuate the civilians from the planet, Jimmy had the Rebellion evacuating their various supplies and equipment. Needless to say we argued, we fussed and in the end Jimmy (a novice Game Master) quit running the game right then and there. I don't remember why, I'm almost sure thinking back on it now that the module said it had to go that way and rather than adapting to what we were trying to do, Jimmy felt stuck behind the veritable eight ball. So he quit running the game leaving us sitting on this Rebel base in some backwater sector of the galaxy with a torpedo sphere hanging over our heads!

Now for an aside note to all of this. I've run many game over the years. I'm not bragging about the matter, I'm just stating a fact. I'd run Star Wars before and really didn't want to see the game end, neither for that matter did Kevin Rowell. The two of us as we sat at the table decided then and there that we would Co-Game master the game. Everyone seemed to be okay with that idea and the very next week Kevin picked up the game and started off with us dealing with the pesky Torpedo sphere by using part of the fuel train that we had stole to destroy it.

As a reward for having gotten the fuel and temporarily dealing with the Empire (long enough for the Rebellion to get the civilians away) we were each given a reward and both Glenn Moss and I decided to pool our collective money and buy a used (very used) Ghrotc freighter that someone offered to sell us. I left it up to Glenn to give the ship a name and Kevin ended that game with me picking up next week. The truth of the matter is that Kevin really didn't run very many games, he opted instead to play more than game master, why I 'm not sure but it ended up with me running the majority of the games for the campaign. The next week we picked up and I had an NPC ask Glenn what name he wanted the transponder registered as and he replied 'The Dog pound'.

Their commanding officer replied that if the ship was the Dog pound, then they must be the Mutt Squad, because they were a motley crew. The players liked the nickname and it stuck (This is actually very similar to how my long running Marvel Superheroes campaign 'The Dead-End Avengers' got its name) and thus they became 'The Mutt Squad.' Along the way we picked up Jimmy who came back to the game as a player, playing Hargoth the Tuskan raider bounty hunter, Chris Tatta's character Domfree, Holly Nead as Illian Zaxnoran and Tim Moss (Glenn's younger brother) as Antony Carlito as well as Paul Umbarger as Kabarra the Wookie.

If you're keeping track we're now up to twelve players and little old me game mastering for them. The only thing I had going for me was that not all of them showed up at the same time and people had a tendency to drift in and out of the game on a fairly regular basis. We lost Tim, Holly, Glenn and Rebecca pretty quickly with my co-game master Kevin following soon there after. Jimmy, Robert and Chris all moved off as well and somehow Paul Umbarger managed to find us three new players in the blink of an eye. We added Larry Parr as Kazdan Navaro, Seth Walker as Punchana the Ewok and Alan Woods as Wook the wookie. We lost Alan pretty quickly, he had problems with the other players (outside of the game) and decided to bring the matter to the game table in the game. It was decided that after suffering through two such attempts to ruin the game that enough was enough and he just wasn't invited back. In the mean time my cousin Dude swapped over from 31-X to Thomas S. Blastech and Paul Umbarger dropped Kabarra in favor of Otas (Tak) Sands, a young idealistic farm boy who dreamed of being a Jedi Knight. (and whose player begged me to make him the relative of any and all existing Jedis either in the party or in the game universe, up to and including Palpatine's love child...)

Shortly there after Seth Walker also changed characters, this time deciding that since he got no respect as an Ewok, he would play a Quarren repair technician named Shubquix Rendilli. The game went along for a good long while with the new group now working for the New Republic fighting the Empire and taking on the bad guys. There came a time when I decided to bring the game to a breaking point (something I had done before...) and announced that I was going to bring it to a close. Now Paul Umbarger (whose character had found out he was the younger brother of Stromgald Caballa and who was well underway in his training to be a Jedi Knight) begged me to throw a Sithlord into the game as I had threatened to (and he scared some of the other players into believing that evil Sith were going to swoop down off the mountains on horseback to kill everyone!) and to give them the classic chance to join the power of the Darkside.

Now I knew where Paul was heading with that suggestion before he even got it fully out of his mouth and I told him I might consider it. The truth of the matter is that it was a better idea than what I had planned at the time (which at this writing fails to come to mind) so I threw in Darth Valious (who I had made veiled references to throughout the latter part of the game leading up to this confrontation. )

Now the other players (including my cousin Dude, who is a co-conspirator in a great many things I do) had no idea what was going to happen when the three Jedi (J.S. Boggins, Otas Caballa and Shubquix Rendilli) walked into the room to deal with this Sithlord. The offer was thrown down to join the Sith and betray their master came up, J.S. Boggins replied with some sort of Pithy retort and pulled his lightsaber. The Sith's armed minions revealed themselves (now changing the odds considerably) and Otas turned on his master and tried to kill him. The game ended with Boggins and Shubquix barely getting away and Tak being taken under the wing of Darth Valious to become his new apprentice Darth Bane!

The looks on the players collective faces was astounding and the silence was deafening, up until my cousin looked over at me and uttered an expletive, that I can't post here, cursing Paul and his entire family dating back to the beginning of the Umbarger clan (Wherever it was that they came from...) The players (well everyone but Paul...) demanded that I run another game to finish this one off, that I just couldn't leave a cliffhanger like that hanging unfinished.

[Bobmalooga]

I was content to let Star Wars RPG lay for a good long rest and might have done that if not for George Lucas (yeah I'm blaming him, deal with it!), you see George Lucas went and released this movie you might have heard of called 'Episode II: Attack of the Clones' and when the bunch of us went to see the movie (and when I say bunch of us, I really mean Glenn Moss (Who had moved back to town), Tim Moss, Jimmy Bramble (who also moved back...), Larry Parr, Owen Barron, Seth Walker, Dude and myself...) I came out jazzed back wanting to run Star Wars again and the players decided that they were ready to come back and play again.

Jimmy Bramble brought in 'Ash' as a second in command to Glenn Moss's character 'Orbin Goss', Tim Moss brought in Kendo Fett (Guess who he was related to...), Dude brought back Kae' Caballa as the teacher of Larry Parr's 'Drex Marr' (in a surprising turn of events Larry had decided to play a Jedi, albeit a Corellian Jedi...) Seth Walker played TC-1 an android and Owen Barron brought in Tue Qui'Tanis a Nautalon outlaw. I threw Xam Jalba, a genetically engineered military experiment from the Empire into the mix and we were off to the races. Foster Bamford would later join the game playing Skizzle the Squib only to leave nearly as quick as he joined us and then Pete Spahn joined us playing an NPC (Garel Drayson) until I could get him back to the known galaxy and he could properly bring in 'Zorg' the mighty Trandoshan as his first of two characters. This game like many of the others had an interesting shelf-life with us losing players (Glenn, Tim, Larry, Owen and Pete) for a great many reasons. The game ended with the marriage of Ash and Xam as well as Kae' and Kalli. Anakin Solo (Who had been gifted with prophetic visions in my game and became my Oracle of Delphi as a result) ended the game telling the players their fates in game.
I didn't come back to the game for a long time, I can't remember how long it was off game but I know it was eleven years later in game when I picked up the campaign with my cousin playing Kae' Caballa, son of Stromgald Caballa who had been killed by his younger brother in the intervening years and who Kae' was now charged with finding and redeeming Darth Bane or destroying him at all costs. I used Shubquix Rendilli as the NPC teacher of Kae', Larry Parr brought in Rance Kellor, son of Kazdan Navaro, Seth Walker brought in Grishnak Nahathmaq, Our good friend Chris McDowell joined the game bringing Filva, the Filven from the planet Filve into the mix and later Ronnie Rich brought back J.S. Boggins who he was determined to get to Jedi Master status. This version of the game played out for a while and eventually came to an end as Chris McDowell and Ronnie Rich, who had been with us from the very beginning, finally had to bow out of the game.

I didn't run Star Wars again for a long time. The truth of the matter is that when you get a campaign that lasts for the length of time that this one has it tends to take on a life of its own. The weight of the thing that you've created hangs over your head like a veritable sword of Damocles and you look back on it thinking, if I do something else, am I going to screw it up? And so I left it alone, we talked about it and thought back on it fondly from time to time but after that it was time for Star Wars to end.

Until Pete Spahn decided that he wanted to run a game...The idea of a sid-quel (side-sequel) was, I'm sure, not in Pete's original plans. The truth of the matter is, I think he would have preferred to not deal with my game at all. Not that he hated it (at least I assume he didn't as he did love playing Zorg and Tuval...) but rather the lack of integral knowledge of the various characters and things that I allowed in the course of the game. But Pete relented and let me play the Grandson of my one of my favorite NPCs Wald, this opened the flood gates as Jimmy Bramble decided to play Mo the Jawa, grandson to 'Harry the Jawa' an NPC from my original game. My cousin Dude brought in Cid Galleon, Jeremy Haller brought in Bira and Owen Barron eventually returned long enough to play Bracken N'Dar for a short while.

In a relatively short amount of time we lost Jeremy and gained Dude's girlfriend Kayla as Zera Kirka, Jimmy moved (again!) and we got Seth Walker who brought in the Shrii the Triani Ranger. Now the funny thing is that Seth and I started working with one another and got to talking about my up and coming Jedi character training someone as a Padawan. Somewhere along the way we got to talking about the idea of a Klingon Padawan and were tickled by the idea of a Klingon trying to master his own inner rage and learn patience. The idea was too good to pass up and Seth left Shrii at the side of the road and picked up Dirka Kimalamala J. Nahathmaq, grand nephew of his original Klingon character Grishnak. Kayla decided to change characters as well and brought in the winged assassin Phenix and again we were off to the races. The game lasted a good long while and I think it?s fair to say that I had a blast finally getting to play again after all those years running the game. Pete took things in a direction that I wouldn't have gone, but I enjoyed it none the less. But like all good things the game came to an end when Pete had a serious of misfortunes and had to bow out of running the game just as Jimmy Bramble returned (once more!) to rejoin the game. He left us at a good place for an ending point and made us cherish the game all that much more.

This brings us to the new game that only just started a few weeks back.

I decided that it was time to get back to Star Wars, I needed a break from Marvel Super Heroes and decided that it was time to fill in the gap between Pete's game and my own (as there was a one hundred year gap between the two games) I briefly considered picking Pete's game up, he even gave me his blessing to do just that, but in the end I decided that it would be to much like playing out the events of X-Men 1 and 2 and then having me direct X-Men 3, the Game Master styles were just to different to mesh well and in the end I decided that filling the gap between the two time periods might be a better idea. So now we have Jimmy Bramble playing Vexa Cath, Jedi Padawan to Strom Minigrod (younger half-brother of Kae' Caballa) Jedi Knight, my cousin Dude playing Starjumper (an Autobot!) a Transformer who has found himself in this strange new place, Harold Bates playing Sonya Milas, a Protean shape-shifter and business partner to Seth Walker playing the resident Smuggler Falco Crickhollow and rounding it all out with Beau Hammock playing Rishik Corsque, an outlaw looking for some well needed revenge. The game ended sooner than expected as the time drew to an end I was able to close it out with the birth of an important character from Pete?s game that launched us of course into me picking his game up and running with it for a little while?

I came back to Pete?s game and ran it for six-eight months bringing in new characters (Paldius Solenarda life model replica, Akivasha Millarea-A conwoman, Doctor Benjamin Pierce-Ship Doctor, Rysa Delrach Magatau-Imperial Knight turned Jedi Padawan and K?runked Fratr?an a six armed gunslinger?)

I want to thank everyone who has been a part of this game, all the players who have played a part in the making of this game...Robert Maxwell, Jimmy Bramble, Glenn Moss, Chris Tatta, Derek (Dude) Thornton, Ronnie Rich, Holly Nead, Rebecca Davison, Kevin Rowell, Paul Umbarger, Tim Moss, Larry Parr, Seth Walker, Alan Woods, Chris McDowell, Foster Bamford, Jeremy Haller, Owen Barron, Pete Spahn, Kayla Kirkland, Harold Bates, Beau Hammock, Justin Jones, Susan Bates, Mark Baird, Scott Arthur, Chuck Beckner, Chris Prewitt, Scot Baker, Stephanie Turner, Jeff Turner and Paul Bowls. (The last eight played in an adventures I ran in Ohio...)

I also want to take the time to publicly thank the talented Mark Hudson, whose art adorns the majority of the character pages. Mark has brought the characters that we all imagined to life for us, never failing to go that extra mile and always managing to surprise us with his talent as an artist. I also want to thank Mark for his use of his own campaign characters the characters will always have a special place in my heart thanks to you and your players!

[The Game Guy]

great story Bob, very interesting.

[Whill]

...The module, of which I have long since forgotten the name, called for us to steal fuel supplies from the Empire and return to the Rebellion base with whatever it was that managed to get our hands on. The truth of the matter is that we probably shouldn't have been able to get away with slaving the droids on the Imperial fuel train into flying the thing back to our Rebel base, but with the help of Robert's Givin character Galdivar we managed to do just that and got away scot free (or so we thought...)

Now the module had just such a contingence plan in the event that something crazy like this happened, the Imperial tracking device leads the Empire to the system and our doorstep with a torpedo sphere to use on the hidden Rebel base (as some punk kid from Tatooine made some million to one shot and destroyed their Death Star...) a base, which by the way, had tons of civilians as the planet was an ardent supporter of the Rebellion.

Now comes the odd part.

Rather than evacuate the civilians from the planet, Jimmy had the Rebellion evacuating their various supplies and equipment. Needless to say we argued, we fussed and in the end Jimmy (a novice Game Master) quit running the game right then and there. I don't remember why, I'm almost sure thinking back on it now that the module said it had to go that way and rather than adapting to what we were trying to do, Jimmy felt stuck behind the veritable eight ball...

The adventure you are referring to is called Black Ice, which was also the name of big the fuel freighter. I thought it was a pretty cool module overall. Wanting to evacuate the civilians is the noble, good-guy response to the danger they were in, but I think the adventure stated it was impossible to evacuate them all in time. Perhaps the original GM was not successful in communicating that (in his portrayal of the Rebel commander NPCs), and thus the argument in your group. Yes, the adventure was linear to the point that it wanted you to defeat the torpedo sphere, and that would have been why you couldn't evacuate all the civilians in time - so you had to save them another way (and a more fun way).

Slaving the droids might not have been the adventure-suggested way of doing it (but it's a very creative one), but the end result is what exactly what the adventure suggested - flying the fuel ship into the torpedo sphere, thus destroying it and saving the rebel base and all the civillians. I think the adventure-suggested solution (read that as the Rebel commander suggests it if no player does) was that the PCs fly back into the fuel ship, take control of the bridge, manually set it on a collision course with the torpedo sphere, and then barely escape with your lives before the massive destructiion occures, therefore creating enough time to evacuate the base and all of the civillians before the Imperials sent reinforcements.

If I had been the GM, and I had tried hard to make it clear through my portrayal of the NPCs, PC research, whatever, that there wasn't enough time to evacuate everyone, and the PCs insisted on evacuating them anyway, then after some get evactuated, everyone else would have been destroyed. If the players escaped when they were evactuating some, they would feel aweful that they hadn't tried something else to save everyone else instead of only saving the small few that they did save. And Rebel command would have come down really hard on the PCs for not taking the advice/orders of their superiors. And the adventure would have ended on a very bad note, the mission would have ended in failure, and the adventure would not been very fun. Maybe the GM wasn't a good one, but come on, take a hint players, you know?

And I'm surprised that no one in the group thought of destroying the torpedo spheres to save the people. You're playing Star Wars, remember? Blowing stuff up is all in a Rebel's day's work. While saving innocent civilliians by evacuating them before a torpedo sphere destroyed them could still be exciting, all the player groups I ran this adventure for all came up with the idea of ramming the fuel ship into the torpedo sphere to buy them time to save the civillians, and they all thought of it on their own without having any NPCs suggest it to them. It just seems like the obvious solution to them all, and it was the most exciting solution, in my opinion.

As far as the rest of your game history notes, wow. Very imaginative. Thanks for sharing.

[Bobmalooga]

We did blow the Torpedo sphere up...it's just that we were told by the commanding officers that we had to clear the military equipment first and the civilians last...something that didn't sit well with us, we came up with the idea of blowing the torpedo sphere up to deal with the Empire to buy the rebellion some time to get away.

I found the adventure eventually and now own it, it is very linear...

Keith

[Whill]

sorry I wasn't more clear. I meant that I was surprised that no one in the first game session thought of ramming the ship into the torpedo sphere instead of evacuating the civilillians. You said your group's first response to the danger was to evacuate the civillians, and the argument with the GM about that ended the game session where it was. I realize that your group did destroy the sphere after you got back together to finish the adventure (the 2nd session for that adventure).

It still seems like the original GM didn't handle the adventure well. I ran the adventure for 3 different groups, and I don't remember any concerns about the Rebel equipment or the civillians after the torpedo sphere showed up. Destroying the torpedo sphere to save everyone and everything was logical enough for me. We all viewed it as a dramatic situation simliar to the end of ANH. If you succeed in destoying the Death Star, then they'll be plenty of time for evactuation.

And thinking outside the box is something that GMs are supposed to be able to do. There are no problems with linear adventures if you can handle it when they stray off course. I always make changes to modules, so they never play out exactly as designed anyway.

[The Game Guy]

I have been lazy but I need to update the Actual Play for the Star Wars D6 game Eric Gibson/Hellsreach is running.

We didnt play the week before but we played this past monday. I will in the next day do the actual play of the game we just played.

[Bobmalooga]

And thinking outside the box is something that GMs are supposed to be able to do. There are no problems with linear adventures if you can handle it when they stray off course. I always make changes to modules, so they never play out exactly as designed anyway.

I've prefered to make my own adventures and when I do use the store bought cousins I tend to change them around to fit my needs...Some of the adventures were excellent and then again some of them just plain sucked.

Keith

[The Game Guy]

I've prefered to make my own adventures and when I do use the store bought cousins I tend to change them around to fit my needs...Some of the adventures were excellent and then again some of them just plain sucked.

Keith

It's funny because I generally don't use store bought adventures whole. If I use them at all, I only use characters, vehicles and plot pieces but never the whole thing.

[Whill]

I've prefered to make my own adventures and when I do use the store bought cousins I tend to change them around to fit my needs...Some of the adventures were excellent and then again some of them just plain sucked.

Keith

I totally agree. Some of the modules were so cool while others sucked.

[Kalzazz]

I generally like adapting modules from other systems, settings, Im wary of using modules with the game for which they are intended

[Whill]

I generally like adapting modules from other systems, settings, Im wary of using modules with the game for which they are intended

I'm hoping to do that by using Serenity adventures for Star Wars.

[The Game Guy]

I'm hoping to do that by using Serenity adventures for Star Wars.

I am curious how you plan to do that since the world is a bit different. I would be interested to hear what you come up with.

[Stormchild]

I think Serenity is closer to Shatterzone than to Star Wars. But this is only background. As a rules system D6 should be able to handle it well.

[Whill]

I am curious how you plan to do that since the world is a bit different. I would be interested to hear what you come up with.

I was planning on using the adventure plots and NPCs more than the world itself. The adventures for the Serenity game are mostly "jobs" that mercenary crews take to make money, and that fits right in with my next Star Wars campaign: a tramp smuggler crew with a ship and the need to make money, so the necessity to take jobs.

I have the Serenity RPG core book, and the adventure books "Into the Black" and "Serenity Adventures", but I haven't read them over in great detail yet. But just from scimming them, it looks like there will be plenty of good ideas for mercenary/free trader/drop point/smuggling jobs.

When I was first watching Firefly in the past couple months, I was so excited because the show itself is so much like the Star Wars campaign I was envisioning (except for my campaign will have fewer crew members and the ship will likely be a bit smaller with maybe a landspeeder but no shuttles). The campaign will be based in an original sector of space in the Outer Rim and take place in the two years leading up to A New Hope.

As far as the two universes, I don't think they are that different anyway. From watching Firefly/Serenity, I couldn't help but noticing that it could serve as an even more direct inspiration for a Star Wars campaign that takes place closer to the end of the Clone Wars, in which the some of the characters could have fought for the Seperatists and lost. Think Browncoats = Seperatists & Alliance = Empire.

[The Game Guy]

I guess you have a good point. You could probably scrape off the serial numbers and use them as generic game plot for Star Wars and probably many other sci-fi games.

I only looked at the Serenity Adventures book briefly, it looked good but it didnt look like something I would use so I didnt get it.

[Bobmalooga]

well at least for my version, of the Serenity...

But that sort of takes off of the topic.
Keith

[DeadBroke]

I'm still playing SW D6, online (link below). Campaign went from Apr 99 to Dec 02. Then got the bug again and managed to summon most of the original players for a restart Mar 07.

Campaign started as fringe/smugglers, with a benevolent NPC (Gessepe Kayne) captain looking to train up New Recruits as his legacy. They all brought their own history and bounty hunters and got caught up in his, steadily snowballing to the end of the second episode, Doctrine of Fear (about 12,000 posts through) where they were all captured by the Empire's Irregular Fleet. Some were set free, some supposed to be transferred to a prison planet but escape. They've mostly just reunited, and are plotting whether they're up for revenge - primarily because the Empire kept their beloved Captain Kayne. Finding out the tangled reasons for that will only lead them deeper into that place where the underworld and the Empire meet, to a point just before ANH.

[BigKyle]

Wow ! All these posts are fabulous and very interesting ! Please more.

[Rerun941]

Woohoo! I can finally say I have a Star Wars d6 gaming group in my local area. We had our first game a week and a half ago. The players are new to the d6 system, so our first adventure was really just a learning exercise.

I'm hoping to GM for them again this Sunday.

Here's my cast of characters:
Human Tapani Noble from House Pelagia (Sense: 1D)
Falleen Loyal Retainer to above
Sullustan Freighter Pilot
R2-D8 (The Sullustan's trusty Astromech droid)

I about fell out of my chair when the one player wanted to play an Astromech droid as his first choice.

We're playing approximately 1 year after the Battle of Endor.

[Whill]

Interesting Rerun. I've always argued that Falleen had to have non-nobles too, because a culture can't have nobility without having non-nobility. Very interesting that the Falleen is not the noble, and instead a loyal servent of one (a human one at that).

And yeah, I used to play in a group in which one player wanted to play an astromech droid, because R2-D2 was her favorite Star Wars character. We never ended up playing because the group was more interested in D&D.

[Dasharr]

I once had a player want to be a 3PO protocol droid, but other players who knew the rules better persuaded him that having 1D strength and 1D dexterity plus non-violent programming wouldn't be a good idea.

I once had another player ask to be a Giant Space Slug. I think he was joking.

[Rerun941]

I once had a player want to be a 3PO protocol droid, but other players who knew the rules better persuaded him that having 1D strength and 1D dexterity plus non-violent programming wouldn't be a good idea.

Thankfully, droids tend to get ignored in combat since they're not really a "threat" and I'm definitely going to make it worth the player's while for choose to play a droid.

[BigKyle]

I once had another player ask to be a Giant Space Slug. I think he was joking.

LOL

At least he didn't ask to be a red dragon or something ...

[cheshire]

I once had another player ask to be a Giant Space Slug. I think he was joking.

We have a running joke in the Rancor Pit discussion forums about "Fluffly," a hypothetical character who is one of those sentient Dathomirian Rancors. I can just imagine a campaign run where Fluffy meets your Space Slug player.

[The Game Guy]

My groups is still playing Star Wars D6. We have a long-forgotten Actual Play Thread in the General Games forum. Maybe I will get someone to update the thread.