I’m going to start things a little bit differently this week with a small poll. Hands up anyone who read the first installment last week?
*counts*
I see you not raising your hand in the back. Go. Read. I’ll wait…
All caught up? Okay, second part. Anyone who is not surprised that I’ve chosen Fantasy Flight Games’s Star Wars Roleplaying Game for this adventure, please keep you hands up. Put that other second hand down! This is a precise science here.
*counts again*
Let’s see… carry the one… That’s kind of what I thought.
The reasons I went with Star Wars over literally any other science fiction RPG on the market today is a pretty simple one. I really, really, really like the system. The system is intuitive and provides for very individualized resolutions, leading an adventure to never being run the same way twice. And with an adventure idea as open ended as the one I have in mind, open ended dice results are only going to help. The setting also easily provides for everything that I need it to do without having to try to shoe horn anything in. The Polynia could have been active at nearly any point in the Old Republic. Set the asteroid field in any sector in the Outer Rim that could reasonably be considered autonomous from the galactic government. The technology could be anything – Rakatan, Celestial, or something related to the ancient Sith. Take your pick, really. Their employer could likewise be anyone. Maybe a particular Hutt Crime Lord found the location of the Polynia and wants the tech aboard to sell it to the highest bidder, hiring the PCs in an Edge of the Empire game. Maybe the PCs are Rebels in an Age of Rebellion game and Rebel Command has given them a mission to recover the tech so they can explore the logistics of setting up bases within the Deep Core or in the Maw Cluster where the Empire can’t reach them. Maybe they’re a group of Force users in a Force and Destiny game and the ship is actually secondary to the technology that is powering the gravitational field in the middle of the asteroid field. The number of ways that you can hook a group of PCs into this game are nigh endless.
Where I really like the system is their use of what is known as the Action Track, which was introduced in the the adventure module Onslaught at Arda I. To be fair, the Action Track is a generic enough concept that it could be easily adapted to any game system with a minimum of effort, but because it had it’s inception in this form in a Fantasy Flight product, I’m going to highlight it in their system first*.
The Action Track, at it’s core is a glorified hour glass. It can be used as a countdown to track any number of things before an event happens. Each time one of these units expires, the GM moves the Action Track up. When it finishes, the event happens regardless of where the PCs are or how ready they are for it. Now, here’s how I plan on instituting it with the adventure –
The PCs encounter an uncharted ion storm on their way into the field. In flying through the storm, their ship becomes damaged. How badly depends entirely on how well they roll to make it through the hazard. Bottom line, their ship is damaged and they have a limited amount of power left before it dies. The amount of power they have left is represented by the Action Track. They can only explore so many sections of the asteroid field before their ship dies. How many sections they have on the action track is directly related to how well they weathered the ion storm. The worse they do, the fewer sections they have due to increased damage and the size of the leaks. Patch jobs can be done to add additional sections to the track, but it’s a bandage at best. They need to replace parts. Luckily, there’s as well preserved ship somewhere in the asteroid field that might also contain another mission objective depending on the makeup of the party. You can also add in encounters that will directly affect the Action Track, such as a swarm of mynocks that can attach themselves to the ship and drain additional power if the PCs aren’t able to deal with them quickly enough. Split the asteroid field into various sectors. Moving between sectors of the field and initial exploration costs a section from the Action Track. Any additional exploration within that sector costs another section of the Action Track.
You can add another wrinkle into the adventure by including a pirate or smuggler group that is using the asteroid field as a base of operations. Maybe they are aware of the derelict ship, maybe they’re not. Either way, they probably won’t appreciate an unknown ship poking around their territory. They could also be an out for PCs who manage to run out of power before they find the Polynia, allowing them rescue with strings attached in the form of Obligation. They could also provide a secondary source of spare parts should they prove victorious over an attack or are able to strike an accord with them. This can also be an option for the GM to include another main NPC into the mix should they desire to have someone other than a “one and done” smuggler boss or pirate captain. Below is a stat block suitable for inclusion into your game as a pirate leader should you desire another faction to use in your game.
Willem Ki’id [Nemesis]
Brawn 4 Agility 4 Intellect 3 Cunning 5 Willpower 3 Presence 5
Soak Value 5 W. Threshold 20 S. Threshold 14 M/R Defense 1|1
Skills: Coercion 4, Cool 3, Coordination 2, Deception 3, Gunnery 2, Leadership 3, Ranged (Light) 4, Melee 3, Outer Rim 2, Skulduggery 3, Underworld 2.
Talents: Adversary 2 (upgrade difficulty of all combat checks against this target twice), Command 2 (add 2 boost dice when making Leadership checks. Targets gain 2 boost dice to Discipline checks for the next 24 hours). Feral Strength 2 (+2 damage to all Brawl and Melee attacks), Nobody’s Fool 2 (upgrade difficulty of all Charm, Coercion, and Deception checks against this target twice), Improved Quick Draw (draw or holster a weapon as an incidental twice per round).
Abilities: Pirate Leader (may spend a maneuver giving orders to other pirate allies in medium range, granting them 1 boost die on their next check)
Equipment: Corellian cutlass (Melee; Damage 8; Crit 3; Range [Engaged]; Defensive 1, Vicious 1), 6 dueling pistols (Ranged [Light]; Damage 9; Crit 2; Range [Short]; Accurate 1, Limited Ammo 1, Pierce 1), armored clothing (+1 soak, +1 defense), pistol brace
There are plenty of ways that you can run this adventure in hooking the characters, getting them into the asteroid field, and even in what challenges and threats you want to throw in the PCs way. Have fun with it and make it your own.
*So there.
Ben Erickson
