Star Wars RPG

The Star Wars RPG is trademark and liscenced by the Jedi Knights at West End Games. May the Force (and your dollars) be with them!

"The Female of the Species"

Submitted by Mark Jackson

When I left off last time, I had just started up my first Star Wars game by dropping the PCs onto the planet Alderaan. Needless to say, they didn't stay for very long. Well, actually, one of them wanted to stay near the ocean. You see, my friend John was playing a female Quarren. She was the medic for the band of PCs. She had a hatred of Imperials. Something I forgot. First mistake.

Now, I suppose that I should have been leary when the ENTIRE group (except 1 Wookie) jumped at the oportunity to learn Force Skills due to their initial exploits of helping a lost Jedi. But, heck, it's Star Wars, so why not? Let them use the Force. It'll be fun! I'll just have Vader hunt them down if they get out of hand, right? They should be smart enough to keep their "abilities" under wraps right? WRONG. Mistake number 2.

There were a number of incidents where the PCs kept surprising me. But, one of the few that stands out in my mind was when I thought that I could make them run. That was my third mistake.

And it all played out like this...

I had planned an encounter where the PCs would be double-crossed by a band of thugs and then be left as the scapegoat for a smuggling opperation. Everything started just fine. The trap went off, most of the PCs were caught in a Gravity Net and the other gang was running away. I mentioned that the ground was beginning to shake as the PCs struggled to free themselves. Luckily, one of the Wookies was able to reach the trap and destroy it. That's when I decided to make the group run. I hoped to have a chase on Swoops through the city. So, the wall of the warehouse explodes in a massive eruption of energy. As the smoke begins to clear, the PCs see 2 troop carriers with Heavy Blaster Cannons approaching. But, it was the AT-ST that was the real prize. It was closing in on them, making the very ground tremble. I mentioned the nearness of the Swoops, hoping they took the hint.

Nope.

The female Quarren smiles, pulls her lightsaber, ignites it, and charges! The rest of the PCs pause, then pull their various weapons and explosives and follow.

I'm stunned.

Okay, so they didn't run at first. Surely they'll run when the AT-ST begins to shrug off the small arms fire and responds with it's Walker-Scale Blasters, right? Well, that was my final mistake.

The Quarren runs straight at the AT-ST. She runs between the Tank Transports, making it so they can't fire at her without possibly hitting the other. The other PCs cover her with their blasters, keeping the Stormtroopers occupied. A few Stormtroopers fire at her, but she is running too fast, or else she deflects the bolts. Finally, she's in the clear and running at the AT-ST. So, I calmly state that the main cannon zeros in on her and their is a massive boom as superheated air is forced away as the blaster bolts converge on her. I was already rolling damage when...

John: the Quarren's player "I deflect it.
silence, not even a cricket
Me: "Um...you deflect a Walker's Blaster bolt??"
John: "Well, yeah. At least, I'll try to."
Me: thinking quickly "Okay, but . . . you'll have to roll VERY high. I mean, like 30+ on your dice. Size difference and all."
John: "Okay, I'll spend a Force Point."
Me: "Okay, you get double the dice for your deflection. If you're going to redirect it, you'll have to subtract some dice."
John: (nods) "Yep. Okay. Takes the dice and rolls. The entire table crowds around him. He smiles and looks up at me.
John: "Got a six. On my drama dice."
Me: stunned silence "And your total?"
Another player: in awe "Um...28...before rerolling."
John: rerolls "Another six." rerolls again "A 4."
Me: "Okay, you connect, sending to bolt awa..."
John: "Back at the AT-ST. And I'm spending character points."
Me: "Roll it...and your difficulty is only 10 for...short range." I just couldn't go against what my own difficulty was, I realized.
John: "No problem. Got it."
Me: "Roll damage. You've earned it."
John: "Okay. (rolls) Does drama dice count on damage?"
Me: groans
Table: "Guess so!"
John: rerolls
Table: cheers
John: rerolls again
Me: consulting the damage chart "You...you just disabled it's power core. It can't move. Or fire. It's out of action!"

When all was said and done, in 2 rounds of combat, a lone female Quarren charged a contingent of the Empire's finest and singlehandedly disabled a AT-ST with IT'S OWN WEAPON! I was amazed, the table was cheering, and the Quarren had just earned a place on Vader's Most Wanted List. At last count, I think her bounty was well over 100,000 credits. She took it as matter of pride.

I'm Glad He's On Our Side!

Submitted by Ray

After the Nebulon-B Frigate, "The Far Orbit", and her crew were almost completely taken out of action (Due to various things), the only chance the crew had for survival were "The Insano Twins", Capt. Jack, the insane smuggler, and Oota, the even more insane Rodian bounty hunter, and Lac Nars, the continually suffering groundie who's stuck with those two idiots.

Needless to say, it didn't look good.

Oota was investigating a few objects on the hull of the capital ship (VacSuit w/magnetic shoes), with nothing more than a few explosives, some thermite, and his "Verti-Go Line Caster" with a magnetic head grappler. Seeing that a boarding action was being made, Oota shot a line out to one of the shuttles, and flew to the top of it... Finding an access pannel, he opened it up, and...

"What are you going to throw in that would do any decent bit of damage?" "Well... Let's see what Oota has... Thermite? Nah... Frags? Nah... Concussion? Nah... Detonite? Nah... Thermal Detinator? YA!!!"

Tossing one of the most damaging weapons in the game system into the panel, Oota then flew back to the "Far Orbit", and relative safety...

One MASSIVE damage roll later, a small part of the cockpit was the only remains of the shuttle.

From that one little bit, we've decided to get superhero costume for the guys... Which one is Oota getting?

"Bat-Rodian", what else?

Mop Sith Up!

Submitted by Ken no Kishi

My first game was a Star Wars RPG- only played maybe half a dozen missions before semester ended (it was all a bunch of guys in my dorm) but we had our share of interesting incidents.

I came into the game on the second start- the first was a standard infiltration of an Imp base, and had one PC facing off a couple of stormtroopers with a broom he had gotten out of the janitor's closet.... So we go on our mission, down to a planet to search for a Sith temple. At one point, we're walking through the jungle, and we get attacked by some beasts- a couple sorta like tigers, and a couple more along the lines of elephants. So, as the fight goes on, one player decides to show off his beast riding skills. His PC climbs a tree, and drops down onto the back of one of the elephant types, hoping we can use it as a pack animal.

He rolls, and succeeds. At which point, the GM tells us that the PC has discovered that the animal is covered in tiny spines, which numb anything they come into contact with.... The PC drops like a rock and wasn't much help for the rest of the fight.

That player made a number of mistakes through the game. He drank from a river that was a cross between the Fountain of Youth and a healing spring, and ended up having the voice of a nine-year old boy for the rest of his life. When snuck into a base through a secret passage, in disguise, when one of the gaurds asked us where we came from, he answered "Oh, we were just taking a nap over in the corner." A fight broke out. He also lost both of his arms in a fight with some Sith Lords.

Not that the rest of us were imune to it, either. At one point, where our party had been split into two groups of three by a trap door closing, one side stood on their side, facing off with a number of Sith controlled beasts- the aformentioned PC got hit in the face with a misaimed blaster bolt, but pulled a miracle on his rolls, so he only got a burn mark. Meanwhile, on the other side, the other three in the party were bored, so I pulled out a deck of cards and our PCs played blackjack for five credits a hand. The GM decided to send Sith beasts to attck us for that. And my PC lost 15 credits!

Our GM always like to punish us for talking out of character, especially in combat. So, I always made sure I had something to keep myself occupied with while the GM rolled combat with the other PCs. Once, I had a pair of chopsticks, and was using them to take my 10mm die and stack them in a little pyramid. My GM noticed, and decided to intervene.

GM: Devin, for the love of God, put the chopsticks down!
Me: I can't! If I put them down, then my mind will wander, and I'll say something stupid that'll annoy you, and then my character will die horribly for it!
GM: (After a pause) Okay, good point, keep them out.

Of course, Cade, my character, still was stupid enough to challenge a Sith Lord to a duel and got his soul sucked out, temporarily....

Nice place to visit, but...

Submitted by Mark Jackson

I decided to start up a Star Wars game. But, as is always the question, how? And where? Well, I decided that I'd be mean (what GM doesn't?).

FIRST SESSION -

Me: (setting the stage) : Your ship's hyperspace computer starts blinking. You're about to arrive at your destination to drop of you last shipment.
Captain: Good. I go up to the cockpit and prepare for sublight manuevers.

Me: The stars reassert themselves. You are quckly approaching a peaceful, blue-green planet. Very few orbital installations are present.

Captain: (starting to get suspicious) Um, okay. Well, I open up a comm with the Port Control.
Me: (dropping into official voice mode) This is Alderaan Port Control. Please identify yourself and your business.
Table: (silent)
Player 1: Did you just say Alderaan?
Me: (Smiles and nods)
Player 2: I don't wanna go down there.
Captain: (responds to Port Control, then mutters) I've got a bad feeling about this...

Of course, at that point, we had to pause for a few minutes. And I had to dodge the dice that were coming my way. Of course, they eventually got me back...

No Prisoners!!!

Submitted by Ray

Well, we were playing Star Wars... Good Nerd game.

Anyhow, we were told to bring back Stormtroopers and officers to interogate, when the groups groundie goes "We don't have any non-leathal weapons!"

"Blasters have a stun setting." I told the player out of character...

"I know, that comment was in character. NO PRISONERS!!!" Well, we ARE talking about a 6' tall green guy with a "Have a nice death" button and more weapons than a battleship...

Table-Throwing at 4d+1

Submitted by Miguel Valdespino

We added a new player to our Star Wars campaign, and I showed another player my character sheet with picture. He asked what the skill table throwing was about, and we had to tell him.

Aleria Shakara is a female human bounty hunter who has some unusual sources of recreation. She was alone in a seedy bar when a fight broke out. Since she hates Rodians (bad childhood experience), she used the fight to beat on the one next to her. Unfortunately brawling was a strength skill and she wasn't doing as well as I'd have liked. She got a chance to get her breath back when the Rodian went down, hit by a person thrown by one of the Gamorreans in the bar. After kicking him in the appropriate place, she started to go for the door, because she figured security was coming soon.

Unfortunately, she got within Arm's reach of a Gamorrean. She ended up flying across the bar and crashing into a table. At the table was a well dressed gentleman who had been calmly sipping his wine through the fight. Since she ended up sort of in his lap, she grabs him, and kisses him right on the lips. She then graps the 2' circular table top and whacks the unidentifiable being next to her and heads for the door. (better melee than brawl) As she leaves the bar, she flings the table top like a discus.

I roll sixes on all dice, and the table goes sailing across the room, bounces off the head of a Twylek, and crashes into the mouth of the Gamorrean that threw me, taking him down in one blow.

After that I had to get the specialty.

Who needs the Force when we have Crunch!

Submitted by Ray

Well... Here's a story of character survival in the Star Wars universe...

We were playing in the "Far Orbit" game (A Privateer style deal), and had multiple characters. The two that are involved with this is St. Pierre, the security cheif/boarder commander, and Crunch, my character who's a Klatoonian. Klatoonians are, basically, a humanoid pitbull... And Crunch had the brain processing power of Forrest Gump... But was a strong fellow!

We were in the process of boarding an Imperial freighter that, supposedly, had over 6 MILLION credits worth of cargo on it!

'Course, it was WAY too good to be true. Using our former Imperial-Owned Nebulon-B Frigate (The "Far Orbit" itself!), the lions share of the boarders were able to get on the freighter posing as Imperial troops doing a random inspection. We left the non-human boarders (Along with Crunch), as back up in the back of the shuttle, so our cover wouldn't be blown, yet have superiour firepower still available.

St. Pierre sent his teams down to various places of the ship, bridge, engeneering, and the cargo bay, where that team was ambushed!!!

Dropping the fake story, the full team came onboard, and four people were sent down to investigate the cargo bay... Two "Bubbas" (Generic NPCs which are little more than cannon fodder), Pao, the Raptor-like second in command of the boarders, and Crunch (Crunch is *ALWAYS* part of the first push, after he proved that he knew how to deal with grenades, but that's another story).

The two Bubbas went first, dropping down the ladder shaft expertly, and took covering positions for the other two on their way, Pao went next, and landed safely, and then Crunch went...

GM: "Roll Climbing/Jumping."
Me: "No problem, 4D6!" *Rolls*... "Uhhhhhhh..." *Rolls again*... "Three..."
(If you roll a 1 on a certain die, you have to roll again to see how much you take AWAY from your roll, which I just had!).
GM: "Crunch goes down, HARD! And can't do anything else... Oh, and you drop your blaster!"

After picking himself up, Crunch was almost completely blinded by a smoke grenade going off near him! Blaster fire echoed around him, and he watched all of his buddies go down! No shots even came near him, 'cause they probably figured he went down too hard to be any danger... BIG mistake!!! After less than a second, he saw his target, 18 Stormtroopers in three rows, one behind the other... 6 Prone on the ground, 6 Kneeling, and 6 standing.

"Crunch go APES***!!!", the main battle cry of Crunch, usually happens when he COMPLETELY looses it, and starts laying into other people!

Spending a Force Point (Which DOUBLES all rolls for the round), Crunch laid into all the troopers that he could see. The GM, feeling nice (And wanting to find out what kind of thing I'd do hand-to-hand, which is ALWAYS interesting!), also doubled the number of actions Crunch could preform. I won't go into a blow-by-blow... But, after he was done, there were two dead, four SEVERLY injured, and only 4 remained that weren't roughed up!!! Not bad for an unarmed person, eh?

Crunch had also been able to backflip his way behind the stormies... Where he came face to face with "An ARMY of Stormies", and a BUNCH of grenades landing at his feet. Smoke billowed out, and COMPLETELY blinded him!

Next round. Crunch wins initive, and starts running towards the ladder... Or, rather, where he remembered where the ladder was. A GOOD Dodge roll later, and a Fair Knowledge roll to figure out where the ladder is, Crunch was on his way... And the remaining Stormies that could opened fire on him, their helmets filtering out the smoke, and gaining a bonus for shooting at the back of a blind person running full out to get to a ladder.

Despite the fair bonus, only SEVEN shots hit Crunch (We never got a final number of Troopers, but it must have been around 50 or 60! And a small number of them were Veteran Stormies, which are VERY good shots!). Five of those shots hit Crunch square in the back, luckily where his armor is (+1 armor, but better than nothing!), one on the right wrist, and one in the right buttox ("SOMETHING BITE CRUNCH!")... The worst wound from those shots? A "Stun", a minor wound that only lasts for a round!!!

Then he hit the ladder at full tilt, the bridge of his nose smashing into a rung! HIS FIRST WOUND OF THE NIGHT! Done to himself.

Next round, another Force Point. This one only went into a combination "Climbing/Jumping" and "Dodge" to get up the ladder as fast as possible. After a roll of around 50, the GM didn't even BOTHER rolling to see if he was hit, "They just scortch the hell out of the bottom of the ladder!".

Now, for the bad news... St. Pierre was leaning over the hole, trying to find out what happened to his team, when he heard someone comming up the ladder, and wasn't able to get out of the way in time! Crunch rocketed out of the hole, smashing St. Pierre square in the face, sending him FLYING through the air to the other side of the room, where he dislocated his shoulder hitting the wall, and was knocked out cold. While the rest of the boarding team just looked with a slack-jaw look on their face (VERY much similar to the one on the GM's face), as Crunch jumped around, trying to put out the fire on his wrist and buttox!!!

The GM was *SO* sure Crunch was dead... He would have bet money... His cat... His Role Playing Books!!! But Crunch survived! And from here on out, *ALL* plans that involve up-close and dirty tactics HAS to have Crunch mentioned at LEAST once in it!