A Success, a Triumph, and a Despair. Fun!

[RLogue177 1,506]

This is how last night's session ended.

The PCs had 98 packets of muon gold. They heard a rumor that there is a guy on Ryloth (jn Lessu) paying "top credit" for that particular spice.

They flew to Ryloth to go looking for the guy. The Rodian bounty hunter used his Streetwise to find him in a local dive bar. He was a big Trandoshan thug with a jetpack who offered them 3000 credits for 100 packs of muon gold. The Trandoshan then instructed the PC to meet him in two hours at a warehouse a couple blocks away to make the deal.

So, the Rodian, the Force-sensitive twins, and the Kyuzo spy go to the drug deal. The fifth PC, a human engineer, stayed behind on the ship. The Kyuzo leaped up onto the roof of the sketchy, two story warehouse and found a skylight with a nice view while the other three went brazenly in through the front door. The warehouse is fairly empty but has several stacks of crates here and there. The Trandoshan with his jetpack is there in the middle of the place along with some other human thug. The Kyuzo, looking through the skylight, sees a bunch of armed thugs of various species hiding behind the crate stacks.

Drugs first, right? The Trandoshan tells his henchman to count out the packets. The money is presumably in the briefcase on the floor several meters behind the drug dealers. While the guy is counting the packets, one of the Force twins uses his Jedi mind trick on him. "There is one hundred packets."

The player gets his dice pool together and rolls. The end result is one Success, one Triumph, and one Despair. So, success - the thug counts 100 even though there are only 98 there. No worries.

I said, "for your Despair... it's a double-cross! The Trandoshan smirks at you and points his blaster rifle in your direction. The thug chuckles, and a bunch of other armed thugs come out from behind the crates. And for your Triumph, what do you guys like?"

"A rival gang shows up!"

I loved this idea!

Suddenly, in the midst of the double-cross, side doors burst open and a bunch of Twi'leks led by a Karkarodon smash into the scene!

And that's the cliffhanger we ended on. Next session will open with rolling initiative.

[RLogue177 1,506]

Now I just need to stat all this up. I have two weeks till we play again.

I need the Trandoshan boss with his jetpack and blaster rifle. Probably just a Rival, that's fine. His second can also be a rival. Maybe his thugs can be in two Minion groups, or one large one.

The Karkarodon can also be a Rival, along with his second. The Minions of this gang can be in two or three smaller groups. Maybe the Karkarodon is more of a melee guy with a larger weapon.

The warehouse certainly isn't huge, and there are random stacks of assorted crates. Multiple exits, including the skylight. Is there anything else special about the place? What's in the crates? Or maybe they're just empty.

Motives: the Trandoshan. He is one of a few lieutenants in service to a bigger boss who is buying up (and also manufacturing) as much muon gold as he can get his hands on. Since this scenario has become a double-cross, the Trandoshan is greedy. He figures he can get the drugs for his boss and keep the money for himself and his crew.

Motives: the Twi'leks. They are a group of "concerned citizens" who have learned the big boss is connected to a string of Twi'lek abductions throughout Lessu. They have learned the Trandoshan works for him, and they've learned of the drug deal in the warehouse here. They hired the Karkarodon, a bounty hunter, to lead them into this skirmish.

Motives: the PCs. They are already talking today about having the Kyuzo come in through the skylight, grabbing the money case, and leap back out. They don't care about the drugs, but they want their cash. I doubt they are interested in fighting either or both gangs, but they'll have to fight some before they can flee.

Edited February 6, 2018 by RLogue177

[korjik 688]

That is why this game is awesome. Few other games are designed to add something like that off a die roll. 

Tho I do have to say, if they dont get away with the cash, the drugs and the contact number of a twi'lek babe, they really arent trying hard enough. 

[Yaccarus 1,214]

I’ve gotten two triumph, two despair, off of two proficiency, two challenge.

[Split Light 672]

Some of my favorite rolls involve triumph and despair.  Our current campaign is now over 1000 xp so there's a lot of yellows and reds getting thrown around.  It's actually getting to be a bit to much, taking some of the uniqueness out of a bunch of triumph and/or despair, which is one of the reasons we're getting ready to retire this group and start the next generation.

[syrath 1,316]

The triumph/Despair mix is known in our group as the Jar Jar Binks roll.

[RLogue177 1,506]

More fun with Despairs.

We played last night. The PCs left Ryloth and planned a trip to Wxtm, another system in the same sector. They never made it. The pilot failed his astrogation check and got a Despair too. A couple days into the journey, the ship came out of hyperspace ahead of schedule and the proximity alarm sounded. Racing up to the cockpit, the ship was on a crash course with a planet.

No worries, right? A [hard] Piloting check will recover the situation, and they can be off again. The pilot failed the roll with another Despair and a Threat!

I gave the ship a little Hull damage and System Strain as it entered the planet's atmosphere at a bad angle (the Threat), and a crash on the surface was going to be imminent (the Despair). Looks like a water world.

The NPC droid sat in one of the chairs in the rec area and buckled up for the impact. Only one of the five players took note of that and buckled up himself.

The crashed on the surface of the water world, skipping the ship a couple times like a rock on a pond. More Hull Trauma damage and System Strain. I had each person not buckled up make a [formidable] Athletics or Coordination check to avoid taking damage. I treated that like a Short range fall. The pilot failed his roll and was taken out by the Strain damage. (His Strain Threshold was already lowered because it was his Obligation that triggered for the session. Bad dice night for him.)

Other PCs were hurt a bit as well. The NPC droid and the one PC who buckled up only took some Strain damage. They performed some damage control. The pilot, hardened Rodian bounty hunter that he is, whimpered in the cockpit seat. However, the ship wasn't sinking at least. It bobbed a bit in the water, listing to starboard a little.

They got a visit from a couple of the local inhabitants. Sentient, full-aquatic, stone age hunter-gatherers (I said they look like the guy from The Shape of Water). The Rodian, once he had recovered a bit, stripped down and went for swim call with them. They asked the NPC droid, who is the only character with ranks in Knowledge (Xenology), what he knew of this species. He rolled a success with Threats. He didn't know anything about this specific species, but he told them what he could. However, with the Threats, he pointed out the clawed hands, the sharp teeth, and the sloping foreheads, and he suggested that these people could be aggressive man-eaters. One of the PCs then tried to coax the pilot to come back from his swim, and he threw some shiny credits in the water to distract the fishmen. (They weren't aggressive at all; they were very playful and curious.)

Eventually, they got the ship underway again and back out to space. The pilot attempted his astrogation check to get to where they were wanting to go... and failed it. (That's where we packed it up for the night.)

[afrodave 2]

Thanks for this.  New to this system, been playing games for years.  I wasn't sure if the triumph/despair stuff, was answerable in whole other groups showing up, like that. Glad to see that others are doing this.  Thanks for the input and good luck to them.