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About wilsch

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  1. This site is by far the most accurate and best documented resource. You can start at an overview of the Empire, or jump right into rank organization and appearance. If you want at-a-glance, try this site.
  2. Only once. The party was on Tatooine for the first time and having played original content for a year or more, we all had this wonderful meta-revelation of where players were and who they could meet. So when they hit the cantinas looking for a slicer, I had BoShek step into frame and offer a lead. Subtle and brief but fun. Edit: Actually, no! I dropped an uncredited, disguised Seventh Sister in for a cameo once, too. May bring her back, again, for color.
  3. The skill IDs for Janz, Kalla and Grenzo might be for color or contingencies. Unless I'm misreading, their increased efforts are represented by Setbacks only.
  4. In broad strokes, you can take this inside or outside. Inside, it's a good chance the Hutts are focused on kings and queens, not pawns -- so they'll assume the buyoff was a dirty trick from the top. The farmer might have a short remaining life expectancy, and as a twist, Durga might haul the party in front of him and...admit how impressed he was. I mean, my players were once tested by a Hutt with assassins; incensed, they brought one of the bodies into court, dumped it on the floor, and the highly amused Hutt immediately offered them wetwork (they'll, uh...think about it). Outside, and someone the governor answers to might enter the picture, wondering where their product went. New faces, new plots. I'll admit I'm a sucker for adding a narrative branch at every opportunity. Love the intrigue. Good stuff!
  5. Yeah, some of these rules are so goofily written. A clearer explanation might've been "Add Ability dice to the check pool equal to the highest number between the two. Then, upgrade Ability dice to Proficiency dice equal to the second number." It implies that the highest number can be shared and doesn't need a giant paragraph for edge cases. Sam and Jay -- you guys need a copy editor?
  6. Incredibly, after three years and more than 35 sessions, my players have been in combat only about a dozen times. In part, I credit the SW/Genesys dice system, which has made frequent skill checks fun, and allowed us to satisfy the need for dice-rolling out of combat. The party is also well-balanced and in-tune with realities of the underworld, so when I offer alternatives to fighting, they pick them. Climaxes in our adventures that come to mind: - Setting charges in an Imperial archive campus to max fuse times available with timer malfunctions, barely escaping rush hour crush, and confronting the liaison to discover the employer are Rebels - Maneuvering through 3 Hutt auctions against vastly better financed rivals, with a little horse-trading and a little subterfuge - Means-testing a multi-point smuggling route, including one stop where the handoff ship gets impatient and jettison cargo into a gas giant's gravity well - Smuggling an enormous, unmistakable pirate and his assassin droid companion off an asteroid station under the nose of client gangs and Empire-backed sector security - Infiltrating a syndicate's posh, mile-high nightclub and extracting the obligation-trapped musician who got people in the door, though not before cracking the owner's office safe and cleaning it out They love being clever and prudent, and I'm more than happy to challenge them!
  7. If your players want a logistics element in the game and you're not totally opposed, go for it! My group just passed our third anniversary and we track both credits and fuel. Keep credits proportional and fairly consistent. Real-world values aren't too far off: - 50 credits should be come and go. Drink money or cover charge. Usual docking fee. - 500 credits is a long voyage or painful fine. Imperial-class docking when the job's in space Manhattan. - 1000 credits parallels some better gear for context. Small-time job. Big bribe for little fish, little bribe for big ones. - 5000 is where decent work starts out. Lots of group payouts between this and the next range. Can add up to repair or medical care after a tough scrape. - 10000 should get your party's attention, no coincidence with Han's fee. Solid jobs with some risk. Good work, better if it's regular. -20000 should be rare or come with strings attached. Multiple payments. Much above this becomes funny money; other people's cash that players are handling but not keeping. Have an NPC ask for this to get players to ask for Option B. Remember that in the (dramatized) crime world, money is king and many adversaries will ask to be made whole and get "square" before they raise arms. Money talks, and big spends can get your players to where they want to to. If you do it right, credits flow in and out in bundles all the time. On fuel, I set price to 50 credits and gave the YT-2400 capacity of 70. Llanic to Socorro is 3-5 cells. One player just really enjoys gassing up, so it's worked. Didn't bother with rations, and never got around to maintenance fees. WEG's Tramp Freighter resource categorizes spaceports as Basic, Standard, Stellar, Imperial -- 50, 100, 200, 500 if you like. Finally, while I created rules to abstract repair parts with a dice pool, wealth can be tracked easily with good, old-fashioned paper and pencil. But as stated above, make your players do it!
  8. I said I hadn't read it yet. 😎 What I and my friend (a character in my campaign, running one of his own) have had success with is the opposite, starting with simplified/abridged versions and working to RAW if players are willing. You've gotta understand the level of gaming expertise we're dealing with, and the value of running at that level to capitalize on other aspects of roleplaying that the (older) group excels at. Arranging trees and marking purchases and tallying pools accordingly may not be much to you or me, but I know from experience it will be for them. I'm fairly rules-light and pacing-focused myself, so it's no big deal to me. Again, I hear you. But for me and mine, something a little different comes into play.
  9. Haha, or you're being a little over-prescriptive. My friends and I have been running a table for three years. Rest easy; we run RAW where it works but we also know what we like.
  10. Oh, I hear you. It's more the discussion here and the concepts in the links that have helped direct what I want to keep and what I might replace. Bookkeeping is a subjective thing. All said and done, the OP's point about organization and tracking for more casual players (like mine) still stands for me.
  11. I'd held off on getting into Force rules all this time; the sheer bookkeeping didn't hit me until I browsed this thread. Appreciate the links to house rules. I'll be making an Accelerated version for an incoming new player, no doubt.
  12. I get the strategic concept, but house rules are only as good as their player reception. Were it me, I'd compromise and add Intellect as an associated characteristic.
  13. I like this and may change it back.
  14. I added options for players to pass Boosts, plus a more defined spend-store mechanic with System Strain. Lots of other simplifications that work with my table like splitting movement and attacks to broaden choices, no Speed, one-sentence descriptions, decoupling from talents, so YMMV. PDF here. (Obligatory props to Whafrog for inspiration.) Players have enjoyed it so far. It hasn't solved the problem of a natural, mechanical ebb and flow of dogfighting. I suspect a trio of positions/modes that trade superiority with instability are the answer, but that's a big thing to tackle, and potentially too much for players who just want to line up a shot for their gunners, jump out and get on with the adventure.
  15. I'd interpret it as Kasdan, Kershner, Lucas and Kurtz still figuring out what the mythos meant, and a line in a slow and over-budget production deemed good enough for print. "Don't use the Force in anger; with power comes responsibility" is the best consensus I see here.
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