Star Wars Campaign: Setting Up the Setting (Attn: Jon)

Our KOTOR campaign.
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erilar
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Star Wars Campaign: Setting Up the Setting (Attn: Jon)

Post by erilar »

Jon, everyone got a lot of time to talk out what they want and expect from this campaign, so you should do the same. Here are the things we talked about:

Q1) Do you have any objection with playing in the KotOR time period?

Consensus so far: Nope.

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Q2) In what specific period during the KotOR era would you like to start the campaign?

A rough breakdown of the period:
  • * The Great Sith War
    * The Old Republic reconstruction period after the Sith War
    * The Mandalorian Wars
    * The Jedi Civil War (the KotOR setting)
    * The "Dark Wars" period (the KotOR II setting)
Consensus so far: During the reconstruction period after the Great Sith War. That way, we have the option to bump the time period forward to visit the other major events as well.

We may do so by advancing the characters a few levels. This way we get to experience several power levels over our proposed 1-yr campaign.

As the players choose sides during philosophical splits such as the Jedi Civil War, some could even make the (hidden) choice to go Dark Side and actually become the enemy NPCs when we bump the time frame forward.

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Q3) Will the characters' "home/guildhall/clubhouse" be a spacegoing vessel? Who would own it - a player, or an organization such as the jedi council or academy? Or will the clubhouse be a location on-planet somewhere?

Consensus so far: It makes sense for the party to have access to a ship. One of the characters could own a vessel. We'll start them with a real pile of junk, and that way they can either strive towards a shiny new model, or keep fixing up the existing one. The owner of the vessel may begin the game in dept for the purchase of said vehicle? In other words, the Mystery Mobile will also evolve and "level up" as the characters do.

At this point, Cory is thinking that he wants to be the pilot/ship owner guy. There could be multiple ship owners too, and some of these pilots could own a fighter instead of a freighter/cruiser?

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Q4) Do you plan to play a jedi? If so, do you want your master/mentor to be heavily involved in your day-to-day affairs?

Consensus so far: The jedi players want to be recent graduates from an independent (i.e. not specifically associated with the council on Coruscant) jedi academy. They prefer to be on pretty loose strings with their masters. In general, they have been let out into the world to test their wings. (Different characters should be able to have different levels of involvement with their masters if they like without much problem, though.)

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Q5) Do we want to start at an advanced char level?


Consensus so far: 2nd level. Gives a little room for customization and enhanced char background via multiclassing, but still allows us to experience low-level play to model neophyte fresh-grad jedi, etc.

We'll probably artificially bump the experience level up at several appropriate times during the campaign.
"This enemy you cannot kill. You can only drive it back damaged into the depths, and teach your children to watch the waves for its return." - Quellcrist Falconer
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Re: Star Wars Campaign: Setting Up the Setting (Attn: Jon)

Post by T1Mirage »

erilar wrote:Q3) Will the characters' "home/guildhall/clubhouse" be a spacegoing vessel? Who would own it - a player, or an organization such as the jedi council or academy? Or will the clubhouse be a location on-planet somewhere?

Consensus so far: It makes sense for the party to have access to a ship. One of the characters could own a vessel. We'll start them with a real pile of junk, and that way they can either strive towards a shiny new model, or keep fixing up the existing one. The owner of the vessel may begin the game in dept for the purchase of said vehicle? In other words, the Mystery Mobile will also evolve and "level up" as the characters do.

At this point, Cory is thinking that he wants to be the pilot/ship owner guy. There could be multiple ship owners too, and some of these pilots could own a fighter instead of a freighter/cruiser?
I think this should be investigated further. I do not like that necessarily 1 player owns the ship.
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Post by NukeHavoc »

Background information on the setting here:
http://www.griffcrier.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2187

Also, I posted my own summary stuff there, but Lance's is better and more succinct. :)
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Re: Star Wars Campaign: Setting Up the Setting (Attn: Jon)

Post by NukeHavoc »

T1Mirage wrote:I think this should be investigated further. I do not like that necessarily 1 player owns the ship.
"own" in this context meaning "up to his eyeballs in debt". :)

Cory had mentioned wanting his character to work toward owning a ship of his own (rather than starting with one) but at the same time the majority of the group wanted to have access to a ship with which to flit around the galaxy.

I can see a few ways to accomplish this:

1) The Jedi Academy that the party's Jedi are associated with provide them with a small starship and perhaps a fighter or two to aid them in their quest. The rest of the characters could then be employees hired to staff the ship, fly the fighters, etc.

2) Cory's character (and perhaps one or two others who are interested in this aspect of the campaign) "own" the ship, but are up to their eyeballs in debt thanks to the 200k+ pricetag of buying even a junker. They take on the Jedi as paying passengers, and agree to help them with their missions, because hey, they need to make those debt payments *somehow*. In order to simplify and book keeping, I'd say as long as the Jedi are passengers, the loan payments and fuel costs are met by the Jedi. This frees up Cory & Co. to spend money on improvements ("yeah, it seems like she needs a new hyperdrive") or paying down the remaining debt.

3) As #2, but have the owner be an NPC.

Personally, I like #2 the best myself; I enjoyed the early days of the Blackrazor campaign when our heroes were motivated as much by managing their guild's enormous debt as they were about glory.
"Oh, I'm so sorry. Forgive me. I'll try and be a tad more quiet as I desperately struggle to break free -- and save all creation!" -- Doctor Strange
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Post by NukeHavoc »

Something else that came up frequently, but which we're kind of punting on until after we have a playtest, is the role of starship combat in the campaign. I think most folks are interested in it, but we're not sure how we'll it will work. So ... we need a playtest (and we didn't get around to doing one on Sunday).

I'll start a separate starship playtest thread in this forum, and hopefully we can get together to do one sometime soon.
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Re: Star Wars Campaign: Setting Up the Setting (Attn: Jon)

Post by T1Mirage »

NukeHavoc wrote:"own" in this context meaning "up to his eyeballs in debt". :)
Ok. Then own does not mean in charge of?

Let me explain. I've had bad experiences in the past with situations where someone "owns" the keep, castle, hide-out, spelljammer, etc. and decides to do something that others (or even myself) is against. For example, in a campaign when we had a place and someone decided they would make a torture room. Being a paladin, it made for almost an impass - but when we discussed the reason from someone being that "this is MY" hide-out (which we all shared) came out and caused a lot of problems. In a Spelljammer campaign, it was "No, we are going (ship turns 90degress) this way" which was a "f#ck you, I am the captain, and you can't do sh#t". See then, I feel that PCs must be eliminated as my person is being kidnapped, etc. (i.e., going against my will).

So, that is my reason for the apprehension on the topic.

My other concern is that I could get immensely pissed about it at the table ergo why I am raising it. I feel I am pretty easy-going but it is a trigger for me that I fly off the handle (along with being ignored or treated like a child).
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Post by setanta14 »

I think the idea of multiple smaller ships (either added to a larger one, or instead of) is a good choice... perhaps fighter size single seaters, or maybe room for up to 3-4 per ship.
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Re: Star Wars Campaign: Setting Up the Setting (Attn: Jon)

Post by NukeHavoc »

T1Mirage wrote:Let me explain. I've had bad experiences in the past with situations where someone "owns" the keep, castle, hide-out, spelljammer, etc. and decides to do something that others (or even myself) is against. For example, in a campaign when we had a place and someone decided they would make a torture room. Being a paladin, it made for almost an impass - but when we discussed the reason from someone being that "this is MY" hide-out (which we all shared) came out and caused a lot of problems. In a Spelljammer campaign, it was "No, we are going (ship turns 90degress) this way" which was a "f#ck you, I am the captain, and you can't do sh#t". See then, I feel that PCs must be eliminated as my person is being kidnapped, etc. (i.e., going against my will). So, that is my reason for the apprehension on the topic.
I understand where you're coming from, and it's certainly caused issues in a variety of groups. I've never tried it, and while I might have been apprehensive about it in years past, I think I think our group's mature enough, role-playing wise, to handle this,

Yes, there could be conflict that arises (e.g. the Jedi decide they want to fly into Mandalorian space on a highly-dangerous mission, and Cory's character balks because hey, he doesn't want his ship destroyed...) but I think that would be the better kind of conflict.

With the setup I was describing (particularly scenario #2) then any tyranical impulses that Cory might be feeling would be offset by the fact that the Jedi are the paying customers who need to get from Point A to Point B.

If we went this way, I think we'd need to lay some ground rules on what the captain does, where his authority may lie, etc. to avoid the kind of situations you're describing, but honestly I don't think Cory's interest lies in leading the group as "captain" so much as having fun with the occasional odd job, buying parts, and generally trying to keep the ship running.

Another option is the "first among equals" kind of thing; we've got a couple of characters with a vested interested in the ship (at the very least Cory and I are both interested in characters tied closely to the ship). One may be the captain, but they've all got a piece of the ship, and all have a say in what the heck it's doing.

Look at it this way -- Han may have been captain of the Falcon, but that didn't stop him from helping rescue the princess, attacking the Death Star, or loaning it to Lando for the final assault on Death Star II. Personally, that's the kind of captain I'm looking for. :)
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Post by erilar »

I agree with Ken's sentiments here. My first reaction when reading George's concern was that due to the nature of our group, it almost certainly wouldn't be a problem.

Some degree of tension along those lines would even make good roleplay fodder. Heck, think about the things that happened in Firefly and Serenity. The tension between Mal-as-captain and Mal-as-friend/compatriot were interesting.

Mal was also the "leader" of the band because Serenity was his ship - that won't be the case here. The jedi academy will have hired the pilots to transport the jedi chars where required, and ship owners will be getting paid very well (hazard-pay well if I understand the weight of 200k credits).

It's kind of like the difference between hiring a taxi and hiring a diplomatic limo. The limo driver is trained in evasive and combat driving, and a certain level of risk is understood.
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Post by T1Mirage »

As long as my points are understood and we cover my concerns, any story approach will do. I do like your mention of what the captain does/does not do, etc.

Personally, I think we all want Han flying the ship.

Since we know little about the personalities and combined with my past experiences, I felt it was important to call it out now before going further.

Thanks for listening.
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Post by Hardcorhobbs »

I am definitely not looking to be the leader of the group. I just think it would be cool to run a character who is the captain of a ship. I'm certainly willing to come up with good reasons why he's willing to take the ship into harm's way. And if we go with Ken's option 2 above, the jedi are paying off his "baby", so he'll certainly be willing to take some risks.

I.E. the captain my be apprehensive at going broadside against a star destroyer... but depending on the pay the "juice may be worth the squeeze".
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