[PBP] FFG Star Wars: Echoes of the Force [IC/OOC]

OptimusZed

ECHOES OF THE FORCE

CHAPTER 1: ASCENSION

It is a time of great upheaval for the GALAXY.
Following the destruction of the second Death Star, the once-great EMPIRE is in retreat.
System after system is falling to the REBEL ALLIANCE, heralding the end of decades of IMPERIAL RULE.
Many once-thriving hubs of GALACTIC COMMERCE and trade have found themselves caught between the two WARRING FACTIONS.

Far from the Core, IMPERIAL OUTPOST HJ-374 sits on a planet whose coordinates have been expunged from all official charts.
Until recently a storehouse for political prisoners and captured REBELS, one of the outpost's work crews has uncovered an ancient ruin.
This discovery, along with the general instability in the IMPERIAL STRUCTURE, has led to a sudden influx of interested parties to this once-sleepy world.

HJ-374 sits directly in the path of the IMPERIAL REMNANT's retreat from the CORE.
The next REBEL OFFENSIVE may push the IMPERIAL NAVY out of the system, leaving all personell on the world stranded behind enemy lines.

The Rundown:

This is going to be an FFG Star Wars game for up to 4 players. We will be using the Morality system from Force & Destiny in lieu of either of the other two systems for reasons that will be apparent fairly quickly once play has started. Characters can be created using any of the materials produced so far, in all three lines. Droid, Imperials, Force Users, whatever. Go nuts. This is a premise that can handle basically anything you can put together. I would caution, however, against taking the starting Morality options that grant extra credits, as your equpiment situation is going to be rather... unpredictable. At least for a while.

Player characters will be involved in HJ-374 in some fashion at the start of play. It might be that you are an Imperial stationed there or a captured Rebel being held there, or any other option that puts you on a secret internment planet in the middle of a galactic war.

I am familiar with the system, though I have only run it for a few sessions face-to-face. I expect that the PbP format will allow me the extra time I need to look up rules that I'm not 100% on, but I'm definitely not above taking or soliciting advice from any vets that are playing or watching. I have a reputation in my face-to-face circles for being very ambitious and more than a little lazy, and this is reflected in the games I run. I will try to keep updates regular, but it is likely that we're a few months out from my life getting very hectic, so it's possible we'll hit some doldrums at that point. I also don't know exactly how to code FFG dice on the boards, so I'm going to need help with that right away.

I'm also going to be using this game to learn how to fiddle with the system, and I'm already building some stuff mechanically to poke around the edges that will probably be introduced pretty early on. If anything proves to be problematic or just not fun, I reserve the right to call a conference with the players involved to try and figure out an alternative that is agreeable to everyone. If you, as a player, feel as though there is something that's not going quite right or things have stopped being fun, definitely let me know so we can figure that out. I am not opposed to things like player vs player action as long as everyone involved is on board and it's kept friendly (between the players).

Please Be Aware: Things are going to get weird. The crawl up there is accurate to the situation, but it's not giving you the whole story. Just be ready when everything turns sideways, blasts into hyperspace and drops into orbit around a black sun.

Signups are open until I finish putting together my materials for the first chapter or I decide to close them, whichever comes first. It might be a little while getting this actually fired up on my end.

DevoutlyApathetic

Hmm this seems interesting. I'm sad that the only character builder is rife with "See book pg xx" but I suppose there is good reason for that. Also a minimal amount of math really so I may, *gasp*, build a character entirely by hand. Like some sort of primitive.

Super Namicchi

Seth

DaMoonRulz

@belligerent @Ardent @Steelhawk

Steelhawk

Hello! Colour me interested please!

Brody

Marking interest.

Ardent

Who what where when why why why why why?

DaMoonRulz

I just went through the other PBP where people seemed interested and @'d them here. Wasn't sure if you were actually interested or not, @Ardent

Grunt's Ghosts

I might give this a go. Are we playing the Rebels going into this place or the Imperials trying to hold it from the Rebels? From the crawl, it makes it seem we are Imperials.

OptimusZed

Grunt's Ghosts wrote: »

I might give this a go. Are we playing the Rebels going into this place or the Imperials trying to hold it from the Rebels? From the crawl, it makes it seem we are Imperials.

You are someone on site initially. Whether that means you're Imperial or a captive or some third party is up to you.

I edited the OP just to make sure that's clear.

belligerent

VERY VERY INTERESTED

Super Namicchi

ah what the hell, I love you Zed and I love Star Wars and it sounds like you have a really neat concept here

put me down as an interest

crimsoncoyote

Geth, roll 1eA+1eP+1eB+1eS+1eD+1eC for zed

I'm interested in this, but it seems there's already a lot of interest so I will be watching with gusto.

Edit: geth can roll each of FFG SW dice by doing XeY, where Y is the first letter of each of the names of the dice

zed:

1eA+1eP+1eB+1eS+1eD+1eC 0 successes, 1 advantage [1eA=S/S] [1eP=A/A] [1eB=-] [1eS=F] [1eD=Th] [1eC=F]

A Dabble Of Thelonius

Very interested. Love the system but haven't gotten to play it. Incredibly intrigued by the story hints you're dropping. Will work on character concepts at work tomorrow.

Grunt's Ghosts

Would you mind if I played Vox Nor'zu from jdarksun's old game? I have to trim 150 XP off him but same character.

Super Namicchi

if I get picked, I'd like to play with the concept of an old coot of a Jedi Master who got locked away on this little shed of a world, whose skills and connection to the Force have atrophied severely

basically your Jolee Bindo type

Grunt's Ghosts

So I've trimmed off the extra points and now have Vox Nor'zu for your consideration. I'll take the Ambition Morality as Vox as always seek to gain rank and power as they are about control. However, how would this work as Vox is a Dark Side character from the beginning? Or is there a Dark Side Morality thing I could pull from?

Intro to Vox for the game:

Vox sat in the middle of his quarters, a small room normally for high ranked enlisted personal. His lightsaber pike floated in pieces around him, coming together slowly. It was a Force training exercise he had learned about from old Jedi records that worked well for this Inquisitor students to help hone in their strength and precision with the Force. The Jedi used it to clear their minds, but Vox allowed his mind to think and run while doing this. And his mind had much to think about.

The Empire was gone. Soon, those on this base would start to try to figure out what to do, which will end as it always does when you cut off the head of any group. Infighting, desertion, soldiers going rogue, revenge, plots, schemes. Chaos. Vox hated that. He remembered when he was younger, fighting for the Republic. The Separatist had tried to bring chaos over the peace of the Republic, and the young Zabrak had joined as soon as he could. He fought in the Republic Infantry with a mix of clone and enlisted forces. After the Empire had rose from the Republic, Vox continued to serve, becoming one of the first students in the new Imperial Officer Training Academy. It was here he learned of his Force Sensitivity and was soon recruited to the Imperial Inquisition. Vox served many years as Inquisitor during this time. However, while most Inquisitors followed the order of finding and killing Jedi, Vox decided to lure them to the Dark side and retrain them as Inquisitors, especially those who were padawans during Order 66. He also searched for Force Sensitive individuals, and after a few years, he revealed his Inquisition Academy to Lord Vader and the Emperor. The Emperor was not pleased with him at first, but Vader saw the use for Vox's Inquisitors. Vox gain the title Headmaster of the Imperial Inquisition Academy and trained new students how to fight against Jedi and Force Sensitive enemies while training them to take other roles within the Empire. It had been years since Vox had gone hunting for Jedi, most of them being killed by now, and his Academy was one of the Empire's more prestigious military colleges in the galaxy. His days had been filled with training and recruiting new students, as he hand picked each student who would train to become Inquisitors.

Until a few weeks ago. Before the Empire fell, he felt something in the Force. It woke him suddenly and the feeling never when away. After a few days, Vox packed to find what strangeness was calling him. He left orders to keep the Academy running like normal to the Instructors and traveled until he came across Imperial Outpost HJ-374. Whatever was the cause of the disturbance was coming from this location. Vox used his Inquisitor Authority to gain access to the base, an act that displeased many of the ranking commanders there. He had searched the base for weeks but found nothing. Then the news of the Empire's Fall came to him. Everyone knew it, however, the commanders had been keeping everyone in line, but barely. It didn't take the Force to see the looks of confusion and doubt across the men's faces. Everyone wasn't sure what to do. Without an Empire, no one was getting paid, which meant that the higher ups no longer had any real authority to give orders. But half these men had no where to go, some wanted to return home to their families they left behind, and others were looking to use this as an opportunity to gain something for themselves. It would take only one act, one word, to send this base into chaos. But still, the feeling was there. Vox couldn't leave just yet. The final pieces of the pike snapped together and, using the Force, Vox ignited the blade. It's yellow glow and low hum filled the gray room. Vox stared at the blade for a moment before turning it off and Force Moving it to lean against a wall. Then he opened up an encrypted call with the computer in his room.

Inquisitor Melina Olreb shows up on the screen after a few moments. The human woman is nude except for the bed sheets she's quickly wrapped herself in. "Nor'zu, I'm glad to finally hear from you." Melina was a young Lieutenant Commander of a Lothal station when Vox first met her. She was a pretty woman, human with brown hair and brown eyes. She had a small scar across her lips from a fight with a Jedi Master, and while she wasn't Force Sensitive, her natural skills allowed her to win that fight, alone with many other battles through the years. She was one of Vox's first recruits into his secret academy, one of his most trusted friends, and the love of his life, not that either would admit it openly. Seeing her nearly nude wasn't unusual for him.

"Likewise. I'm sure you've heard the news."
"About the Emperor" Melina spoke, her happiness of seeing her lover faded as the conversation became serious. "Yes. Already top commanders are scrabbling to grab whatever power they can. I hear the Academy has gone into full lockdown for the time being. Where are you? I tried to contact you at the Academy but they said you'd gone somewhere."
Vox looked around the room, using the Force to scan for anyone who might be listening before continuing. "I can't say, at the moment. However, I felt something in the Force. Something strange is happening at this base, or this planet. I can't leave until I find whatever it is. What about you? Is your position secured?"
"For now. My title as Inquisitor is keeping the schemers from acting against me, but I'm afraid that the base commander might try to capture or kill me soon, just to secure his authority, as technically I'm the highest ranking person on base now. Should I come to you?" Melina said with a bit too much longing at the end. It hurt Vox to not be with her, as it would be nice to have her near, but she would be a distraction to him. "No, return to the Academy as soon as you can. Give the order that any other Inquisitors are allowed shelter there as long as they don't interact with the students. We know not all of the Inquisition was happy about the Academy being opened, but right now it's the only base the Inquisition has. As soon as I figure out what is going on here, I'll return to the Academy and we'll figure out what to do then. Until that time, you'll be acting as Headmaster, clearance code 11-Alpha-Delta-Naboo-Lothal-6. It will open the Headmaster office for you. Move quickly and let the Commander have his base. Return as soon as you can. And be careful. The Galaxy isn't what it was, and our titles will mean much less than they did before."
Melina bows her head slightly "I will. And you should also be careful. I'd hate to stay Headmaster forever." And with that the screen goes black.

Vox stands up and grabs his pike. He's going to need help for this. And worst, he's going to need people he can trust. Which will become harder and harder to do when the base finally explodes into chaos.

It was fun rereading the Crush the Rebellion thread. I really hope to play in this one as taking on the role of Vox again, years later, would be nice.

OptimusZed

Crotchety old Jedi exiles and high ranking inquisitors are both completely viable options for this campaign. The Jedi may take a little tapdancing to get involved initially, but that shouldn't be too hard.

The Brayster

I would like to register interest, even as reserve

Grunt's Ghosts

OptimusZed wrote: »

Crotchety old Jedi exiles and high ranking inquisitors are both completely viable options for this campaign. The Jedi may take a little tapdancing to get involved initially, but that shouldn't be too hard.

I can imagine that the two will get along just peachy.

OptimusZed

Grunt's Ghosts wrote: »

OptimusZed wrote: »

Crotchety old Jedi exiles and high ranking inquisitors are both completely viable options for this campaign. The Jedi may take a little tapdancing to get involved initially, but that shouldn't be too hard.

I can imagine that the two will get along just peachy.

Given the other option, I expect they'll make it work.

Edit: which is not to say that those two are a lock. Just that interesting tension and characters already established in the setting a bit are totally cool.

Super Namicchi

Not only that, I was thinking it would be a good way to provide necessary force training to folks who wanted to go Forcey without you necessarily having to wiggle around and build in some kind of contrivance

that said I suspect it may not be necessary, but that is a thing, and playing a character "rediscovering" his power is a concept I've not done before

Steelhawk

If I wanted to make a Cade Skywalker inspired Force-Enhanced-Piece-of-Scum would I better suited to building a F&D career and adding an EoE specialization? or the other way around?

I'm not sold on that idea, but playing around with concepts.

Custom Special

Ah geez you just posted this yesterday. I want to play this game!
OK time to go read the OP I guess...

OptimusZed

ArcanisTheImpotent wrote: »

Not only that, I was thinking it would be a good way to provide necessary force training to folks who wanted to go Forcey without you necessarily having to wiggle around and build in some kind of contrivance

that said I suspect it may not be necessary, but that is a thing, and playing a character "rediscovering" his power is a concept I've not done before

I think such a character could bring an... interesting perspective to this game, for sure.

Steelhawk wrote: »

If I wanted to make a Cade Skywalker inspired Force-Enhanced-Piece-of-Scum would I better suited to building a F&D career and adding an EoE specialization? or the other way around?

I'm not sold on that idea, but playing around with concepts.

In general, you want to start with a Force Rating. Smuggler to Seeker is going to cost more than Seeker to Smuggler because you'll need to grab Force Rating 1 from Exile or Emergent. I mean, some GMs (like me) would probably cut you a break if you made your pitch interesting enough, but otherwise it's just going to be more expensive. You can do a pretty good impression of any character archetype as a human with the right F&D specialization anyway.

Brody

I'm thinking of something along the Justice/Cruelty Morality, coming from an Inquisitor. I really like the idea of and right and wrong vs lawful and unlawful, and I feel like Star Wars provides a solid background to explore that.

DevoutlyApathetic

So to be clear Zed are you basically saying all characters should have Force Ratings or just if you're gonna want a force rating it's better to start with one?

Also looking at the Morality rules.....do they actually do anything for non-Force Users?

Brody

DevoutlyApathetic wrote: »

Also looking at the Morality rules.....do they actually do anything for non-Force Users?

I'm sure he'll respond in a minute, but I think his point is that he has a mechanical change in mind that will be revealed once play starts.

OptimusZed

DevoutlyApathetic wrote: »

So to be clear Zed are you basically saying all characters should have Force Ratings or just if you're gonna want a force rating it's better to start with one?

That was more a general statement. Force ratings are kind of tough to pick up in play, and can be costly. The Smuggler>Force Sensitive Exile>Seeker example is roughly 30 XP more expensive than doing it in reverse. Not a huge deal, but those are XP you can spend on other things.

For my games, specifically, grabbing an F&D class and making a serious in-character push to learn how to use the Force would probably be sufficient for.

For this game in particular, just build the character you want to play initially, the rest will work itself out.

Also looking at the Morality rules.....do they actually do anything for non-Force Users?

It's much, much harder for non-Force Users to go dark side, and most will steadily climb the scale until they bump against the top. There are going to be some hiccups in that for this game, in the form of some very hard choices and moral compromise that should keep it relevant for everyone.

Custom Special

Zed, F&D is the one core book I don't have yet. I'd love to play in your PbP to get a hang of the system from the player side before I start running my own game in a couple months.
Are you looking for all Force characters, or would something like a Droid/non-force character work in your campaign? I was thinking something like a guard/police droid or a Duros pilot/techy character.

OptimusZed

Custom Special wrote: »

Zed, F&D is the one core book I don't have yet. I'd love to play in your PbP to get a hang of the system from the player side before I start running my own game in a couple months.
Are you looking for all Force characters, or would something like a Droid/non-force character work in your campaign? I was thinking something like a guard/police droid or a Duros pilot/techy character.

I'm definitely not thinking that everyone needs to be a Force User. Either of those ideas could work just fine, though we'd have to come up with some reason that a militarized droid would be at an Imperial outpost, since they don't really use droids when Stormtroopers will do.

A droid might also run into other problems, as yet unspecified.

Brody

How do you feel about non-human imperials?

OptimusZed

Brody wrote: »

How do you feel about non-human imperials?

I'm not opposed to them, specifically.

Indications are pretty good that the Empire is fairly racist. The uglier you are the harder the climb up the ranks is.

That said, this is a non-combat posting on the ultimate backwater. Security is pretty high, but it could be a place to stash undesirables who gain too much status.

Brody

That's fine. I'm thinking an imperial inquisitor that is on planet dropping off subversives. Not nesc dark side yet, although definitely being led that direction. More someone who believes in order above all else.

OptimusZed

Outpost-374 is a pretty popular place right now for any Imperial with ambition and the connections to know it exists. The dig in particular has the potential to skyrocket some careers.

The Brayster

Call me boring, but I would be thinking about being a member of Imperial Security in the place.

OptimusZed

Imperial Security, both in terms of the ISB and Stormtroopin' schlubs, is strongly in evidence.

DevoutlyApathetic

@OptimusZed Does the empire have it's Halburton like contractors? They are a giant evil empire...

I was looking at a Mechanic who escaped from growing up in Hutt Space and was happy to make a simple life fixing things up away from murderous criminal cartels whose idyllic life is upset by the coming Rebellion and his doubts that they'll respect his "independent" status.

OptimusZed

The Empire has several semi-independent corporations that design and build things for them. Contractors in the sense that they aren't officially government organs, but aren't really allowed to work for anyone else either. A character could potentially be part of an organization like that, sure.

DevoutlyApathetic

I was thinking more maintenance type of thing but that can be fixable. Heck, if they're doing design stuff he could easily be a fabricator of these new designs that the egg heads come up with.

Was gonna check with you, I'm using mechanic since tough fix-y guy is pretty much spot on though I'd like it a bit more criminalish, I know on my career skills I'm left choosing some stuff that I really don't care about. There isn't a more appropriate choice in some out of the way book is there? I may just be underestimating what I can do with the two human free floating skills.

OptimusZed

Mechanic is pretty much the best option for tough guy who fixes things. Either the Engineer or Tech version works. If you're looking for something more criminal-adjacent, Tech is probably your best bet.

If you're looking to be the maintenance guy, that's totally doable. Stormtroopers sure as heck aren't plunging toilets or rehanging doors. Sienar Systems would likely also have some kind of tech-oriented ground crew presence, even if it was very limited, to keep the shuttles and similar stuff running.