abookfulblockhead
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Posts posted by abookfulblockhead
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I’m getting a hankering for Sequel material. I feel like a Resistance game could be a lot of fun, but there just isn’t enough material out there to build a campaign around yet.
The Resistance is easy. A lot of their stuff can continue to be old ships maintained for a war footing.
But the First order really needs some mid-sized vessels. I need corvette and frigate sized ships that fit the aesthetic.
It’s not that there are things on screen that I want statted out. I can take care of that myself. I just feel like the era is a little sparse right now, and needs some love to really expand on it.
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7 hours ago, Imperial Stormtrooper said:I have a question, are you just using captain as a placeholder essentially? From what I know an imperial officer with the rank of captain could have up to an imperial-class star destroyer and a small fleet under their command.
I may have an idea that helps you with other branches, I made a senior member of the stormtrooper corp, to assist an imperial admiral. I gave him a upgraded weapon (a concussion rifle), and made him part of a specialized branch of the corp, a hazard trooper, and gave him the hazard trooper armor and a slight change in stats to reflect this.
I think this could be generalized, pick a weapon, a specialty corp which would give new armor and a slight change to stats. Then have support of regular stormtroopers and a few specialty troops mixed in, possibly the same ones as the senior member.
Yes, "Captain" may not necessarily reflect the character's actual rank. I'm using it as a "game term", to reflect a particular set of mechanics.
Given the particular order of battle I use, most officers with an ISD will probably have a dozen or more smaller capital ships under their command. I'd probably use something like "Admiral" as my game term for a character with such a vast array of resources.
As for your trooper idea, I think the character you described would fall under the category of a Lieutenant - an enforcer for the admiral in your example.
The problem I've had is more focused on how moght I adapt this if I want to build, say, a Captain for a planet's army. He may not have a Capital ship, in that case. So what would I use as a baseline unit for allotting him resources? A template for a military base? Some particular unit of military force (Batallion, Platoon, Division, etc)?
Though you bring up an excelent point - that Star Wars has given us numerous examples of specialty corps, any of which make an excellent source of inspiration for unique assets that a Captain could call upon.
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First off, I doubt my players read this forum, but if you are a member of Lantern Outpost, or enjoy the soap opera "Can't Help Falleen In Love" go away! This thread is classified!
With that out of the way, I've been working on formalizing the creation of Imperial Officers. I felt the last big nemesis the PCs faced off against didn't really do much out of the ordinary. She was an effective antagonist, and her arrival generally signaled to the PCs that it was time to go, but in creating a successor, I don't want them to just feel life more of the same. I've also outsourced the ISB to a friend of mine. I wanted his choice for a successor to feel meaningful, and have a real impact on how future sessions played out.
I'd appreciate any feedback, and suggestions on how to extend these rules to higher ranks, or even different branches of the Imperial war machine (Currently, these rules are rather focused on the ISB).
At the moment, these rules just apply to the lowest tier of Big Boss Officers, whom I term "Captains".
A Captain has:
A capital ship (or ships): Either a versatile Silhouette 6 ship, like the Nebulon-B, or three to four ships of Silhouette 5, such as CR90 Corvettes, or Arquitens-class Light Cruisers.
Troop Transports and Fighters (optional): As a baseline, I assume that a ships complement consists solely of basic TIE/ln Fighters. If the ship has a hangar bay, I also assume it can stock enough troop transports (Usually Sentinel-class landers, though other configurations are possible) to deploy the ship's full troop complement.
Troops: Again, I stock these according to the vehicle profiles, with the general rule that 75% are basic minions (Imperial army troopers, Navy Troopers, COMPFORCE, etc), and 25% are stormtroopers. For every 8 minions, there is a rival-level squad-leader (Stormtrooper Sergeant, Imperial Army Officer, etc).
This is the baseline setup for any "Captain." However, each Captain should have their own unique Flair. Each Captain is given unique custom rules as follows:
Focus: This isn't so much a rule, as a broad strokes statement of what this officer is good at, and their particular priorities in the field. For example, "Riot Suppression", "Traffic Analysis", "Black Ops". This provides guidelines for the other unique elements
Unique Move or Rule: Here, I use "Move" in the style of Dungeon World - a narrative response the officer has to certain circumstances. For example, one officer might have, "The Wire" - After each mission, the Captain may choose to monitor a known Rebel contact, giving the ISB director greater knowledge of the Rebels' network, or deploy a SWAT Team to capture that contact and interrogate them. Other Captains might have a more direct influence on the rules - for example, "Urban Combat Training" - The Captain's forces gain 2 boost dice to any combat checks when operating within a city or space station.
Unique Asset: The Captain gains specific equipment or forces tailored to their focus. A Captain focused on countering Rebel Starfighter Raids may have his TIE Fighters upgraded to Interceptors. A Captain focused on "Riot Suppression" might provide their troops with shock prods and powerful stun guns (giving a convenient narrative reason to hit the Wookiee in the strain threshold).
A Lieutenant: This is a Nemesis character, who handles a particular part of the Officer's forces. This might be the leader of the Starfighter squadron, a personal enforcer, or even just a cunning slicer or analyst. I also draw on the various lieutenants as potential candidates for promotion, should a Captain need to be replaced.
To give a full example, if I were to rework the Captain my players just dealt with, she might look like this:
Name: Captain Shanri Lataea
Ship: Grey Maiden (Nebulon-B Frigate)
Troops/Transports/Fighters: Standard complement
Focus: Slicing and Traffic Analysis.
Unique Rule: Once per session, once Rebel activity is exposed, Lataea may make a computers check to crack the team's commlinks. Despair may be spent at any time to allow her to reattempt this check.
Unique Asset: Storm Commando squad. A 5-man team of elite stormtroopers, specialized for black ops missions. (My PCs hate these guys.)
Lieutenant: Judro Gyll, leader of the Storm Commando squad. On promotion, Gyll would gain the Focus: Black Ops. His custom move might involve abduction or assassination of key targets.
So, that's my general framework. As a said, feedback, ways of extrapolating these rules up the chain of command, or applying them to other branches of the Imperial military, even just suggestions for particular special moves or assets, it's all appreciated.
Richardbuxton reacted to this -
20 hours ago, Stan Fresh said:But Thrawn was in command. Their individual actions are on them, but that they're able to go out of line like that in the first place is on him. The hell kind of military leader are you if you can't make the commanders under you do as they're told. Thrawn's lacking in people skills. He's a master analyst, but he can't inspire loyalty and confidence, it seems.
What really impressed me about these episodes was how desperate the situation for the Rebels felt. The way that frigate was just torn apart, the suicide run of Sato and the two unnamed crew members, the overwhelming numbers of the Empire, that awe-inspiring shot of Hera and the the orbital bombardment... Those were all all beautifully animated, but they also really carried a hefty emotional punch.
Konstantine was definitely not Thrawn's fault. The admiral disobeyed a direct order, and was openly insubordinate when Thrawn ordered him to return to position.
Plus, Konstantine is not part if Thrawn's task force. The troops with the Chimera emblem all seem well-trained and faultlessly loyal. Plus, they've got the audio logs. Konstantine's last words might as well have been "Leeeeeroooooooy Jeeeeenkiiiiiins!"
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Heh... Desslok, you've been on the reddit thread, haven't you?
Thrawn shooting God in the face is my line!
In all seriousness, though, the stakes have definitely been raised.
Next season could very well be some Cloak and Dagger type stuff on Mandalore. The Empire and the Rebels both want the Mandalorians on their side, but I doubt they'll be able to outright lend military support. That would just make their particular faction seem too weak to stand on their own.
So it's going to be a lot of moving pieces behind the scenes while the mandos fight on the front lines.
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Even an MC-80 needs to resupply sometimes.
A lot of missions from the old TIE Fighter and X-Wing DOS games revolve around ambushing capital ships during resupply. So I think it's reasonable to expect that after extended combat operations, Rebel forces may need to resupply.
Maybe there's a convenient resupply nearby. Maybe their supply freighter was ambushed by the Empire, or waylaid by pirates. Or maybe there's a Nergon-16 shortage in the sector and explosives cost a premium.
Sure, the Alliance can procure explosives. But probably not nearly as many as they'd like, and then probably only near their most vital strongholds like the HQ and the main fleet. One of the ideas emphasized in the AoR core book is that the Alliance makes do with what's available, which isn't always top of the line
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Last I saw Gardulla, she was being chased out of the Hutt Council's palace by Darth Maul and Savage Oppress
SEApocalypse reacted to this -
Here are a few from my game.
Fisher King - one of the older ISDs in service, with a lot of cannon scoring over its hull from numerous battles
Reverend Father - Carries an Inquisitor
Nightlilly - A "PR" ship. Has a large audience hall for flashy ceremonies, and big press conferences.
A few I haven't quite fleshed out yet:
Impending
Calamity
Chimes of Winter
Apex
Barren Mother
Lady Law
Mark Caliber reacted to this -
My AoR group captured a Gozanti Cruiser, which the wookiee proudly named the Wookiee Star. It's growing on us.
When I ran EotE for the first name, I misheard a player suggest the "Silver Arrow" as a name for their YT-1300. I misheard it as "Sombrero" and the other player immediately said, "Yup! We're the Sombrero now"
Seeing as I was usimg the bright orange Krayt Fang picture, I had to agree that it kinda looked like a sombrero
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Dump stats are still alive and well, in this game its normally intelligence (unless your playing a class the resolves around it), or brawn.I disagree with this. If your games have a dump stat, the GM is not putting the characters through their paces.
Agility is the power stat, as it is in most modern rpgs.
Tell that to my grouo. Intelligence is their single most common stat. Everyone has 3 int in the party. The demolitionist and gadgeteer are constantly leveraging technology to their advantage (usually by making it explode) while the Quartermaster uses it for knowledge skills and more mundane computer usage. The Hotshot handles astrogation and does a little maintenance on her ship on the side.
Presence is probably their biggest dump stat. When the quartermaster isn't around, the group tends to rely pretty heavily pn coercion. (Wookiee and zabrak power duo can pull it off pretty well, too. "Bad cop, tear your arms off cop")
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If it's a single PC, I'll often allow them to get a shot off before initiative starts. Shooting doesn't always have to take place in structured time. Lord knows I do the same to them from time to time. Storm Commando snipers are no joke.
If it's a full on-ambush, I'll have the group make cool checks with a healthy handful of boost dice.
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Ammunition is not tracked in this game, but a Despair can be used to indicate a gun running out of ammo. Apply the same logic to the EMG Medpac and Medpac. If the Doc rolls a Despair on their medicine check to heal a critical injury then you could choose to have the basics run out, a 25cr expenditure will top it back up... if you have access to civilisation.
I agree with this sort of thinking. Just as your players are presumably reliading and recharging their weapons in between adventures, presumably they restock the medkits in between adventures. I wouldn't bother having them run out unless the dice indicate some kind of negative consequence occurs.
bradknowles reacted to this -
My duty progression is probably a little slower than most. I award duty per mission. Which is often two or three sessions. Generally +5 or so for objective completion and +2 for any instances of fulfilling duty.
I don't mind that too much. Especially since the Quartermaster is plannkng on picking up Propagandist pretty soon.
As for rewards, for their first contribution rank my group nabbed:
Quartermaster: an envoy droid from Desperate Allies
Demolitionist: an enhanced reflexes cybernetics package from Lords of Nal Hutta
Gadgeteer: An astromech droid (since they weren't planning on using a starfighter anyways, I decided to make it a Q7 from Stay on Target, just for fun)
Hotshot: A Shockrider crash suit from Stay on Target
I might have fudged the rarity up by one or so, but I also don't feel like that's dramatically unbalanced the game. Keep in mind the PCs could also get weapon and starship attachments as part of their contributions.
GM discretion really is king here though. I'm happy to treat speeder bikes or one-man starfighters as "gear" rather than a group vehicle, for example, or allow players to take a vehicle that is rare because it is no longer actively manufactured, rather than because it is powerful and expensive.
Jedi Ronin and Vestij Jai Galaar reacted to this -
I'm guessing this character is driving a silhouette 2 vehicle, like a landspeeder or airspeeder, and that he wants to mount blaster cannons or autoblasters and using it as an anti-infantry gunship?
The simple counter to this is Starfighters, Walkers or Repulsortanks. Something with a little armour that can stand up to that vehicle scale fire. The Empire always has reinforcements. Even crime lords will probably have a few armed landspeeders of their own.
If the PCs escalate to Planetary Scale, so too will their enemies. The baddies will generally commit just enough resources to get the job done.
Zakain and bradknowles reacted to this -
I like to think think it's the Ghost. Maybe they're returning the favour for Jan Dodonna's help when they raid the factory.
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I think the other thing to remember is that while the letter of the old canon is dead, its spirit very much lives on. Thrawn, for example, is very much inspired by his Legends appearances, and linking the TIE Defenders to him is also taken straight from the old canon.
It's obvious the creators have a deep love of the Legends material, and much of what came out of West End Games. Shantipole, for example, was a fun little nod. Sure, it wasn't a Verpine Asteroid base, but the name itself was synonymous with the B-wing. It hinted to fans of the old canon what was to come, without giving away the whole story.
The same goes for Malachor. It didn't tell us the whole story, but we had a hint of what it might mean.
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As far as the TIE Defenders go, do recall that the Rebels are planning a bombing run on the Lothal factory that's producing them, so it's entirely possible that said attack is sufficient enough to keep these new model TIEs from being put into large-scale production.
As for X-Wings, perhaps we'll see them later in the season as part of support from another Rebel cell. Granted, they are something of an iconic ship for the Rebellion, as well as being associated with Luke Skywalker, given it's his preferred ride in the films and for much of Legends, so maybe Filoni's intent is to keep the separate so that Phoenix Squadron can further develop it's own identity as an Alliance group.
Filoni et al have basically stated precisely this: the rebels at Yavin had the X-wings and Y-wings. Phoenix Squadron had the A-wings and B-wings. We see them all at Endor because the Alliance has pooled their entire fleet for that operation
Which still doesn't answer why they decided to ditch the existing timeline for starfighter development, and bring in these ships before Yavin.
The old canon was messy, and due for a reboot. It freed up the chance to tell stories inspired by, and in the spirit of the Legends stories, but without being bogged down by the nitpicking details like chronology.
I like it. I think it's cool that the A-Wing gets so much love in Rebels. Old canon isn't canon anymore. Why should we be beholden to it?
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As far as the TIE Defenders go, do recall that the Rebels are planning a bombing run on the Lothal factory that's producing them, so it's entirely possible that said attack is sufficient enough to keep these new model TIEs from being put into large-scale production.
As for X-Wings, perhaps we'll see them later in the season as part of support from another Rebel cell. Granted, they are something of an iconic ship for the Rebellion, as well as being associated with Luke Skywalker, given it's his preferred ride in the films and for much of Legends, so maybe Filoni's intent is to keep the separate so that Phoenix Squadron can further develop it's own identity as an Alliance group.
Filoni et al have basically stated precisely this: the rebels at Yavin had the X-wings and Y-wings. Phoenix Squadron had the A-wings and B-wings. We see them all at Endor because the Alliance has pooled their entire fleet for that operation
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I feel like compelling someone to murder their friends is different from cutting those people down with a lightsaber. I think the "lighter" option would have been to compel the walker pilot to power down, or even non-catastrophically sabotage his own vehicle. It also undermines an enemy's ability to choose to stop fighting. And I think that's a pretty fundamental difference. If your opponents intend to kill you, then they have chosen to accept the risk that they themselves may be killed in battle. But they also have the free will to run away if they realize they're overmatched. And a Jedi of all people should respect when an enemy wishes to stop fighting.
Once you start undermining your enemies' free will, you're actually removing their ability to choose a non-violent resolution. I think the need to respect that choice is a pretty significant difference between the two scenarios.
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Also, GM question of the night: how much conflict (if any) for Mind Whammying the Scout Walker pilot to blow his friends away and then kill himself?That's some serious conflict. The mind trick is usually protrayed as one of those ambiguous powers. Using it to just trick guards into letting you past is pretty innocuous. It avoids violence, and it's not overly invasive. But probing deeper, and using it to completely subvert someone's will is pretty friggin' dark. Hell, if this weren't a kids show, it might have been darker to let the pilot live and have him realize that he just murdered his friends.
I don't allow "lack of options" as a mitigating factor in awarding conflict. That, in my mind is actually the fundamental struggle of a Force & Destiny game: Where does your character draw the line? What scenario can I put your character in that will compel you to tap into your darker self?
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Yeah, the Inquisitiorius has lost some of its menace after the Grand Inquisitor went down. I don't want to write them off as a threat though. These guys are Jedi hunters and I don't imagine them being dime a dozen. The Grand Inquisitor definitely had a long list of dead Jedi on his resume.
Also, remember that when we think of Jedi, we tend to think of the badasses like Obi-Wan, Plo-Koon, and the like. But not all of them were such expert swordsmen. I'd imagine the best blademasters would have been killed on the front lines of the Clone Wars. The survivors would have been teachers, diplomats, retired warriors past their prime... Still powerful, but not necessarily an Inquisitor trained to kill. Especially if they've got 20 years of rust to shake off.
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I think the ideas for ion missiles is pretty cool. I don't really have much critique for any of the examples in this thread, but it does remind me of the Mag Pulse torpedo from TIE Fighter. It was a weapon designed by the Rebel Alliance to temporarily disable a ship's weapons systems.
I might make them similar to your Ion Missiles, but reduce the system strain slightly. Then I'd whip up some sort of quality like "Disruptive" - For every two advantages spent, the target ship's weapons' systems cannot be used for one round. The more advantages spent, the longer the weapons stay offline.
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Drall (Drell? I can never remember which one's which, but they're both weird)
Wrong franchise.
At least it's still a Space Opera thing.
Besides, there is a Wookieepedia entry for Drell. It is one sentence, but I'm counting it.
... Now i want to make an EotE Suicide Mission a la Mass Effect 2.
How Much Duty for the Average Session?
in Star Wars: Age of Rebellion RPG
Posted
I generally award 5 duty apiece for completing the primary mission objective. I then ask people if they felt they accomplished something in line with theirt duty. If yes, I award 2-3 points for that.
Likewise, if the PCs do something noteworthy, like abduct a ranking NPC, that wasn’t their primary objective, I’ll typically award another 2-3 points of duty.
This is all before the propagandist invokes Positive Spin, mind you