Campaigns
Campaigns
So your group of players had their first Star Wars adventure, and everyone enjoyed themselves. In fact, the group decided they wanted to play the same characters again next time you all got together and start up right where you left off. Congratulations: a campaign is born!
The easiest definition of a campaign is:
A series of linked, consistent adventures played by a group of recurring player characters. As play continues, the player characters affect their environment and have their personalities developed in the process. Each adventure becomes a part of the overall, continuing story.
Campaigns can be planned or spontaneous (as in, everyone really has a good time the first time they play Star Wars and decide to keep on playing), but the process of devising a successful continuing story is the same.
The Starting Point
Whether the campaign is planned or “just happens,” the first factor is how the characters got together in the first place. Often, a first adventure will establish the characters, possibly give them a ship, and possibly establish them with the Rebel Alliance.
However, if a campaign is going to be established, the gamemaster should make sure that the players are happy with the situation. They shouldn’t be forced to play Republic operatives if they really want to be smugglers. Therefore, the gamemaster should have a quick discussion with the players about whether they want any substantial changes to the setting or tone of the adventures before the true campaign gets going.
Types of Campaigns
When establishing a campaign, the gamemaster has several formats to select from.
Episode
Episodic campaigns closely resemble television shows. The adventures are linked by: • a common set of characters, • possibly common villains, and • often a base of operations and a small number of gamemaster characters who serve as an extended family.
Beyond that, each adventure is fairly independent and can vary immensely in style and tone. While there may be continuing subplots—like a burgeoning romance or a continuing villain—most of the time a new player can join without being at a real disadvantage. Each adventure stands alone.
This type of campaign is best for groups that meet infrequently or are likely to have players joining and leaving on a regular basis.
Series
Series campaigns are more like continuing comic book series. Adventures can vary dramatically in style and tone. Most series campaigns have a number of long-term stories, with a couple of episodic “interludes” to allow the player characters to rest while foreshadowing the next major story. They are linked by continuing subplots.
Series campaigns are a good middle ground between episodic campaigns and epic campaigns: they give the gamemaster the latitude to do whatever seems most interesting without requiring the intricate plotting of epic campaigns.
Epic
Epic campaigns are the most structured campaigns. Each individual night’s gaming is one chapter in a long, detailed continuing saga. The best example of an epic campaign is the original Star Wars trilogy.
In these campaigns, plot threads run through every adventure—such as when Han Solo mentions Jabba the Hutt in Star Wars: A New Hope. Solo’s debt to Jabba becomes a major plot point in The Empire Strikes Back, and Solo is finally turned over to Jabba in Return of the Jedi.
Epic campaigns are suggested for serious groups that play frequently and are very involved with their characters. They require intense plotting, with the gamemaster carefully orchestrating the overall story—planning the “fate” of the characters, as it were.
The Campaign’s Goal
Most campaigns have some sort of goal. Most of the time, it’s simply to keep playing until everyone gets bored and wants to move on to something else. However, if the gamemaster establishes clear-cut goals, it creates an opportunity to structure the campaign so the tone and story can change direction before players get bored.
An important consideration in setting a goal is the desires of the players and characters. If the players want to be smugglers and con men, it’s a good idea to suggest a tangible goal, such as earning enough money to buy their own ship.
You might even impose a goal: if they want to be smugglers, assign them a debt (like Han’s to Jabba) so the characters are motivated to resolve a continuing problem.
Of course, a goal that goes unfulfilled for too long is frustrating. In time, the characters should be able to fulfill the goal—whether it’s paying off their ship or toppling a troublesome Moff. When a goal is finished, the characters (and players) should have a little time to relax. Then you might present a new goal or allow the players to choose their own.
Example goals might include: • ferrying scouts through Wild Space, or • deciding to start working for the Rebel Alliance.
The Campaign’s Tone
Star Wars campaigns (and adventures) can have a wide variety of tones. It’s a big galaxy, so there’s plenty of room for unusual settings or adventures with unique “feels.”
Most campaigns will have a consistent theme or tone. The gamemaster and players should decide what’s most desirable: • Are the characters working directly for the Republic, doing noble, heroic missions? • Are they free agents—sometimes dragged into the war, but mostly trying to stay alive and profit? • Is the tone action-and-adventure, or dark, gritty, and dangerous?
Another aspect of tone is deciding what kind of action the players want: • exploring new worlds, • smuggling as a main occupation, and whether it’s for profit or to aid the Rebellion/New Republic, • pursuing specific long-term goals.
A Base of Operations
Most players will want a base of operations for their characters. The base is where characters relax and get a break from the struggles of life. However, while a base should offer a semblance of security, it should also be filled with potential for adventure. A base where characters never get dragged into an adventure lets them escape too easily.
Suitable bases include: • starships, • Rebel bases, • specific starports and planets, • the homes of friends of the characters.
Example: Han Solo’s base of operations while smuggling out of Nar Shaddaa was a small apartment in the Corellian Sector of the planet.
You might decide: • the characters are from Tatooine and adventure in the Outer Rim, or • the adventures are set primarily in the Corporate Sector.
And, of course, a Rebel base is always filled with intrigue and adventure hooks.
Player Characters
When devising a campaign, the player characters are central to what unfolds. They deserve as much consideration as any other element of the game. Gamemasters should work with players to build a history for each character: • How and why is the character the way he is? • Where did he come from? • What are his likes and dislikes? • What does he look like? • What skeletons are hiding in the character’s closet?
Smart gamemasters mine character backgrounds for new adventure ideas.
As time goes by, characters will come and go, but some will last for a long time. Those that last will eventually reveal personality—often through their reactions to events you throw at them. Study the well-played characters. They can become walking, talking adventure hooks.
Talk with players who run interesting characters and ask permission to add personal touches that become hooks. For instance, if a player character shows strong hatred toward Imperial Naval officers but has never explained why, you could suggest the character’s parents are in the Imperial Navy—and that their vessel has been assigned patrol orders in the character’s home region.
If you and the player discuss the character, interesting revelations will probably emerge and provide material for many adventures. This development fleshes out the character and drags the rest of the group into dramatic situations.
Let Player Choices Shape the Campaign
Some players don’t follow pre-generated adventures as intended. They come up with unconventional solutions. As gamemaster, be ready for this—and look for ways their strange actions can shape the future course of the campaign.
If you allow flexibility, players will feel gratified: what they do matters, and it affects their surroundings.
Don’t Kill Characters Arbitrarily
Players get attached to their characters. Therefore, the gamemaster is cautioned not to arbitrarily injure, alter, or kill a character. A character can die if the player does something knowingly stupid, or if the character makes a heroic sacrifice. But it is unfair—and upsetting—to kill characters without due justification.
Obi-Wan Kenobi died in a dramatic, worthy fashion. So did Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker. It’s disappointing to play a character for months only to have him killed by being run over by a landspeeder or by falling and breaking his neck. On the other hand, if the character dies while saving an entire planet from catastrophe, it is still upsetting—but comforting to know the character died a hero.
How Characters Affect the Universe
Remember: the characters will always affect your campaign in some way. Make sure the players get a chance to see the results of some of their actions, even if those results don’t manifest until several adventures later.
One of the easiest ways of showing characters how their actions are affecting things is reputation. • Have the player characters done anything noteworthy or infamous? • What sort of reputation have they earned among the Rebellion, the Fringe, and the Empire?
If the characters have proven themselves to be untrustworthy and double-dealing, they will find few people willing to work with them. If the characters are known for being bloodthirsty, they may be attacked by gamemaster characters without provocation.
Time and Setting
In Star Wars, deciding when the campaign begins is just as important as where.
Have your players decided they want to play: • in the days of the Republic when Anakin Skywalker was in his prime, • during the Rebellion when Vader was smiting Rebels and intercepting Senate courier ships, or • after Vader and the Emperor are dead and the New Republic is in power?
The eras are very different in tone and character roles.
Rise of the Empire Era (prequel era)
The Empire does not exist yet. Palpatine sits as Supreme Chancellor of the Senate. The Republic is embroiled in the Clone Wars, fighting the Separatists’ droid armies. It begins as a time of peace, which later declines into all-out war. Jedi are far more common in this era than in later times.
Dark Times Era and Rebellion Era
In the Dark Times (during the time of the Rebels animated series) and the Rebellion era (during the original movies), the Empire controls almost all of the galaxy. • It is a dangerous time to be a Rebel, and the Alliance is running more often than it is waging war. • Smugglers face heavy scrutiny and harsh punishments. • Corporations and other competing interests are powerful, but careful not to draw the Emperor’s wrath.
New Republic Era
After the death of the Emperor, the galaxy is dramatically different. • The Republic is trying to assert power, but it’s difficult. • The Empire disintegrates into countless factions. • Companies, criminal interests, and other factions assert more and more power.
There is more parity—often the Republic is as powerful as the Empire—and multiple factions may operate openly on a given world.
A Campaign Outline
Once the gamemaster decides to get a campaign going, a good beginning needs to be implemented.
Remember the opening scene from Star Wars: A New Hope? A small vessel is pursued by a huge Star Destroyer. Almost immediately: • the Rebels have been vanquished, • the droids have escaped to Tatooine, • and we meet central figures: C-3PO, R2-D2, Princess Leia, and Darth Vader.
A fast-paced opening grabs attention and places everyone right into the action. Beginning a campaign with a strong kick hooks the players quickly.
Campaign start ideas
• Escape pods: The Rebel transport carrying the characters is shot out from under them by an Imperial Star Destroyer. The characters scramble for escape pods. An uncharted planet lies within range of the pods’ engines.
• Framed: The characters meet high-ranking Rebel leaders for an assignment—only to find the Rebels are out to arrest them. Someone has framed them. They have limited time to prove their innocence.
• The containers: A mysterious stranger hires the characters to transport several containers to a planet. In space, the containers accidentally open, releasing disgusting creatures intent on killing the characters. Who is the stranger? What is his agenda? Are the creatures lab-made?
• Derelict ship: The characters find a derelict Corellian spacecraft, with no trace of the crew. The ship is laden with clues and leads to several places. The characters must piece together what happened. Where is the crew?
• Penal colony: The characters start on an Imperial penal colony. They get to know prisoners, learn guard routines, plot an escape, and pull it off. Perhaps a top-secret experiment is being conducted, using prisoners as test cases.
One good way to begin is to have the characters start off not knowing each other, but thrown together—say, transported on an Imperial prison frigate to a penal colony. This lets players roleplay introductions and first impressions.
In the prison ship example, one bit of background could be how each character ended up there: • Did a family member turn them in? • Were they the last survivor of a ship full of smugglers?
Flexibility
Campaigns should be flexible to reflect the characters’ participation and impact. Perhaps, whichever path they take, they will eventually wind up doing the adventure the gamemaster wanted—but what happens will be flavored by player choices.
Are they full-fledged Rebels, or just drifters?
The first adventure should hook the characters into the action, but the overall goals of the campaign don’t have to be obvious until the second or third adventure.
Plotting
Keep in mind the “onion” theory of adventure design:
The players peel off one layer of plot, only to find another lurking beneath it… and another… until they finally reach the real purpose of the campaign.
With the first adventure set up, plot where the campaign should be headed. Over the first few adventures, the characters can: • meet the main villain, • hear of the villain by reputation, • discover who is messing with their lives.
They should also meet support characters—villains and heroes alike—and begin seeing the background threads of the main plot.
Example: If the campaign will end with running an Imperial blockade to supply a besieged planet, foreshadow early: • tales of woe about the planet, • smugglers who tried and failed to run the blockade.
This builds tension and encourages anticipation.
It’s useful to have one or two players act as journal keepers for the group. They track pertinent facts, clues, and gamemaster characters. This becomes especially helpful by the third month or so, when the gamemaster gets hard-pressed to brief everyone on what’s happened.
Every campaign should have a definite conclusion—something the characters can strive for and later say, “Yes, we did it.”
Beyond the Main Story
To keep player interest up, give a sense of achievement. When a campaign’s goals are met, the action doesn’t stop—loose ends and subplots can expand into the basis for the next campaign.
Example campaign outline
• The group starts on an Imperial prison ship (no equipment). Each was arrested for different reasons (chosen by players).
• Rebels attack the ship and free the characters.
• The Rebels were told by an Imperial informant that the ship carried valuable tech. A leak is suspected.
• The Rebels commission the characters to follow up on the informant and loan them a battered old freighter (its crew died boarding the prison ship).
• En route, privateers attack the freighter—apparently the characters inherited the crew’s enemies as well as the ship.
Now the campaign can split: • Do the characters investigate why the late crew was hated? • Or do they continue to the informant’s planet? • Or do both—and discover the plots are connected?
On the informant’s planet, after dodging stormtroopers and TIE fighters, they learn: • the Empire planted misinformation: the prison ship was a decoy, • the real equipment went to a top-secret Imperial research planetoid.
The informant gives a clue to someone who knows more—then is killed in a last-ditch Imperial attack. The informant’s world also hosts the privateers, forcing the characters into underworld dealings, informants, and Imperial pressure.
The final adventure takes place on the research planetoid: • the characters trek through savage wilderness to find a hidden base, • discover it’s a war college developing an experimental weapon meant to wipe out the Rebels, • race to return with the information.
As they arrive in-system, they realize they’ve blundered into the middle of a huge space battle.
A campaign like this could take a dozen sessions—about three months if played weekly, or up to a year if the group meets rarely.
Other Possible Campaigns
• Vengeance plot: A grizzled old bounty hunter is shot in self-defense during a cantina fight. His adult children vow revenge. They research the characters and begin by attacking people close to them (like a favored mechanic) to gather information. Later they start tipping off the Empire, leading to adventures where Imperials seem one step ahead.
• The nav program: The characters stumble into a firefight in a backwater spaceport between thugs and a solitary figure. The figure dies, but gives them a navigational program pointing to a massive intergalactic junkyard where salvagers recover wreckage from Imperial–Rebel battles. The salvagers have accidentally recovered an Imperial prototype TIE fighter. Now everyone wants the plans, and it’s up to the characters to deliver the information to someone responsible—like a Rebel commander on another world.
Continuity
Continuity and consistency are two of the most important things for any campaign.
Continuity means the gamemaster makes sure that information presented in one adventure is successfully carried over into later adventures.
For instance, if the characters’ ship lost a laser turret at the end of the last adventure, the next time they play, that turret had better still be missing—until the characters spend the time and credits to repair it.
In the Star Wars game, the gamemaster is the director, writer, and continuity expert. Keeping track of continuity may take effort and bookkeeping, but the end result is a believable, accurate campaign. It adds an element of reality to the game.
Consistency means the tone of the game remains the same. For instance, if your campaign is a high-action affair with lots of spaceship chases and laser battles, and then suddenly—with no explanation—the players are given slow-paced, discreet adventures, the consistency has been interrupted.
In a consistent campaign, a stormtrooper is a stormtrooper is a stormtrooper. While there is always room for surprises, a consistent campaign keeps a standard, overall Star Wars setting. If the adventures are linked tightly and build up to some dramatic climax, continuity and consistency are critical—especially when clues and events from one adventure directly affect the conclusion.
Continuity and consistency also apply to gamemaster characters. If the players angered the customs official on Tatooine to the point where the fellow was ready to shoot them, then the next time the players see the official, the gamemaster must make sure that official is played correctly.
Populating Your Universe
Recurring gamemaster characters are a necessity for campaigns. These characters should be well-designed and well thought out by the gamemaster. Continuing gamemaster characters give the players the illusion of a “real universe,” and thus are very important to campaigns.
For instance, say the player characters keep running into Lenri Dar’, a planetary customs inspection officer. Lenri is essentially corrupt, and each time the players land their ship at the spaceport, they have to pay Lenri a hefty bribe so he’ll look the other way and not report their activities to the Empire.
Lenri could also serve a useful purpose: he may know information important to the players and the Rebellion. Ah, but he won’t divulge anything without the proper… compensation.
What you have is a character the players can hate with relish, but who also serves a purpose. If the character is portrayed consistently from adventure to adventure, he becomes more realistic.
Populating your campaign with an assortment of such folks will make the campaign believable. Prominent gamemaster characters should include at least one character who likes the players and is willing to help them with small favors and advice.
This character is a perfect mechanism for: • giving the party a break, • nudging them in the right direction, or • hauling them out of the fire in a truly dangerous situation.
That last function should not happen very often, or the players will get sloppy believing they have a safety net on demand.
A Suitable Villain
Every campaign should have an enemy. Not the Empire or Separatists—that’s a given. In this case, an enemy is a person (or people) with an identity, a personality, and an agenda.
The enemy does not have to kill the characters on sight. Instead, it might be someone who enjoys matching wits with the players: • an arrogant Imperial Naval officer, • a highly professional bounty hunter, or • a wealthy crime boss.
Matching the villain to the party
When determining the power level of the campaign’s chief enemy, look at the player characters.
Are they struggling smugglers with a single inept Jedi student in their midst and a broken-down Corellian freighter? Then an Imperial Captain with an Imperial Star Destroyer is a poor choice.
Instead, a bounty hunter, a scurvy crew, and their barely functional vessel may be a better foe.
What makes a good enemy
A good enemy should: • show up at the most inopportune times, and • be difficult to eliminate.
When the smuggler pilot—desperately trying to outrun a TIE fighter squadron—mutters, “What else could go wrong,” that’s the moment the bounty hunter drops into the scene demanding restitution for damages from a bar fight last adventure.
A villain can even appear to die, but no body is found. That’s the perfect way to bring them back without violating continuity, setting the stage for future encounters.
Uncertain allies
Besides allies and enemies, include gamemaster characters whose status is uncertain at best: shadowy figures whose morals, agenda, and loyalties are never completely known.
They may help the characters in one adventure, then betray them in another—usually depending on their needs at the time.
These non-aligned characters work best when they’re not part of the Empire, Rebel Alliance, Republic, or Separatists. They go about their merry way, considering neither side a friend nor an enemy.
The Campaign Develops
Once the game gets rolling, things change. Everything that happens in real life happens in the Star Wars universe, too.
The people, places, and things the characters are familiar with will change over time. As gamemaster, ask:
“What happened to…?” each element of the campaign while the characters were off doing something else.
Be ready to alter things as players affect their environment. For example, an annoying droid may eventually get its arms torn off by an angry Wookiee player character.
Stay flexible. Roll with the unexpected.
Future adventure ideas will come from what the player characters do now. Keep your eyes and ears open for unresolved minor subplots that can be expanded into full-fledged adventures later.
Keeping the Characters Hungry
One of the side effects of a long-running campaign is that competent players will accumulate wealth, possessions, and skills.
Over time, this can threaten game balance. If the players’ freighter has been modified and refitted so many times that it now has the firepower of a Star Destroyer, you’re going to have problems.
A campaign without real risk degenerates quickly: thrill, suspense, and tension vanish—and so does player interest.
Preventing the problem
Prevent it from starting by keeping rewards reasonable. • Don’t hand out a device that makes a ship invisible to sensor scans if the characters can keep it and steamroll the Empire. • Don’t assume the Rebellion/New Republic is wealthy.
In many instances, the undying gratitude of the Alliance—and maybe a medal or two—may be all the thanks the characters get.
If you keep escalating the stakes, you’ll be forced into bigger and grander plots until the campaign is out of control. Don’t fire your best shots right away—save something for later. Missions that affect only a few people can still be dramatic and exciting.
Look at the rescue of Han Solo in Return of the Jedi: the fate of the galaxy wasn’t at stake, but it was tense and emotional because it was personal—loyalty and love. Personal stakes are prime fodder for character development, and developed characters enhance a campaign.
Not every adventure needs to be: “The Republic’s survival hinges on your every move.”
Correcting course
If the players still accumulate too much money and equipment—well, even the good guys suffer setbacks.
Remember The Empire Strikes Back? It ends with the Rebels getting the worst of it.
A few devastating reversals can fit perfectly in a campaign and “prune” overpowered characters: • confiscation of property by Imperial customs, • destruction of a base of operations, • serious danger to a beloved gamemaster character, • a costly pounding on their ship.
Recovering from those reversals can become a campaign in itself: rescuing a beloved NPC, giving the customs officer his comeuppance, and finding a dockyard to repair their vessel can all link into a series of adventures.
Putting the Characters in Their Place
No matter how powerful someone becomes, there is always someone even more powerful.
Excessively powerful characters and ultra-souped-up ships will attract: • smugglers and pirates eager to make a name by eliminating them, or • an Empire that doesn’t take kindly to heavy firepower in non-Imperial hands.
As characters gain power and experience, it becomes important to demonstrate this fact in the occasional adventure.
Final Words
A Star Wars campaign, at its best, captures all the adventure and excitement of the movies. These campaigns take planning and careful thought, but the rewards of a well-played and thoroughly enjoyed campaign make the long hours worthwhile.
Source: REUP:223