Episode II: The Aimless Menace

In a move that startled me (and them a bit, I think) the party got their game on and did things that were both productive and Sith-like (they still don't have an overall goal yet and are sort of just wandering about looking for cool stuff to make them stronger).
I think it had to do with them having a decent combat very early on in the game and it sparked what little teamwork and brainstorming abilities they have as a group.

Sidenote: Honestly if you sat in on a typical game day with these people you would be surprised to learn that they are even friends (or that they know any words besides "faggot" and "Tyler is a faggot") so when they take it easy and do things that could be described "team-y" then you can look forward to them actually playing.

Well they get a job to negotiate with the enemy of Sloma the Hutt. Sloma wants this guy to be a subservient ally and the party is going to mediate this...

Negotiations!

Fierce Negotiations!

While the above image is something of a hyperbole; the party did open fire on the Bothan's rather numerous bodyguards and killed them all pretty quickly. They pretty much shot and killed *everyone* in the room except the gangster (who was now particularly willing to play ball).

See! That was the Sith-est of negotiations!

• Walk in and offer deal.
• Make sure tone is uninviting and borderline hostile.
• If they still don't shoot at you, threaten them.
• Laugh as you kill everyone in the room.
• Get your way anyway.

They got their payment and made a potentially important connection on a smuggler world. Good deal, I say.
Next they decided to head to Korriban (the Sith homeworld of old) to search for artifacts that will increase their power. They do make it, but attract the suspicion of the Republic and a few Jedi Ambassadors on the local station that happened to be checking out the quarantine on the ancestral home of the most ancient enemy of the Jedi Order.
They lie through their teeth and convince the Jedi to help them dig through the Sith tombs, they do it without arousing the suspicion of the Republic (that they know of) and the Knights land, sensing the party's evil immediately upon coming within forty feet of them.

Combat ensues.

Everyone does pretty well here, though there are seven people ready to fight only three Jedi Knights, it is a difficult battle as each of the knights are close to double the level of any single party member. They take advantage of their superior numbers and swarm the Knights. Except Tigerman (known as Ranek from here onward).
He's pretty much left with no support whatsoever and, despite being alone against an opponent double his level, bests him in single combat. I didn't even roll poorly, per se, I rolled fairly average the whole time; Ranek rolled a few critical hits and I don't think below a fifteen at any point in the encounter. He deserves an acknowledgement: bravo sir.
The other two Jedi pretty much got annihilated and caused minimal hurt. Most of the damage was done to the resources of the party, I think two destiny points were burned (in case you don't know, destiny points are gamechangers they can negate attacks entirely, even critical hits, activate tremendously powerful effects on force powers, or allow you to autocrit; you can only receive them by pursuing and making a big step toward some preset destiny. That is to say, they're rare) and that is a resource they will have trouble getting back anytime soon.

Finally, they finish up the combat and make their way into the Sith Tomb. Preparing to brave the traps of Lords long dead and take whatever powerful items they might find there for themselves, to use them and conquer the hated Galactic Republic.

And that's what I'll be covering next time.

The game starts with a whimper

Last night was the first session of a brand new Star Wars game of my own design. The party are fallen Jedi who are training to become Sith Lords and forge a new Sith Empire the likes of which the galaxy has never seen.

Above: The entire session

I feel like everyone is going to either murder everyone else or they're just going to do absolutely nothing. They spent about twenty minutes deliberating on getting over a pit and then figuring out the best way to get through a wooden gate. When they found some other Sith Lords who were all "Get out, this is our turf." they came *this* close to just sheepishly accepting it and leaving the planet.
Eventually two of them just said "Screw it" and they charged in and the two Sith were dead in a round and a half. They are getting established and used to their new roles as the designated bad guys (even though they are more respectful and controlled as bad guys than they ever were as heroes).
Well they took the Sith's palace and their servants for their own base and flew off to another backwater planet to see if it was a better base of operations.

Mind you we are now three hours into the session and everyone can't stop arguing about what to do next to save their lives.

They finally land at the backwater and started asking around about who was in charge (so they could depose them...or something, they were never very clear).
A typical exchange:
"Who's in charge here?"
"A Hutt named Sloma."
"What do you know of Sloma the Hutt?"
"It's a Hutt..."
Repeat the above about five more times.
Session comes to a close.

One way or another, I have confidence that this group will end up doing something it just might take awhile.

Endings and Beginnings

Tuesday night we finished the module we were running about four weeks earlier than we were supposed to because apparently we had skipped just about every important thing that it was possible to skip. It boiled down to a tower defense scenario where we were defending the city from the evil hobgoblin army and we were holding one of the main streets from the invading horde and trying our hardest to save the city from complete burnification. Well we made it to the last wave and were promptly murdered by rampaging undead, two of us killed outright and one sniped off the roof whilst in retreat.
My cleric was unable to climb, fly, run particularly fast, or dispel the wall of thorns blocking his escape down the street. I remembered that we were, in fact, holding a city street and assumed that there had to be doors to the buildings towering over me; I was correct, bashing down a door and staying in the cover of the structures as I made my speedy withdrawal from the conflict. The only other party member to make it out of the city with his life was the bard.
So in a fashion, I won; the city, however, was burned to the ground.

With this campaign wrapped up, I'll finally be running a Star Wars Sagas game on Tuesday nights now. The characters submitted have undergone name changes to things more appropriate and belonging in the setting. I currently await a few more so I can really get cracking on a more detailed plotline.

They've been trying to hammer out the details of how their characters all know eachother but for the most part they decided to go with originally being apprentices to Jedi Masters who were all sent on a mission together in the Unknown Regions (not sure exactly what the mission was but we'll get there) and ended up finding a Sith Holocron; unaware of what they had, they brought it with them on the return trip where it was accidentally activated and began to teach them techniques not of the Jedi Order. Finally, they decided they wanted to pursue the training that the holocron offered; feeling that their masters were entirely dishonest and were holding them back from what Force could give them.

General update of me and my gaming life so far:

So my cleric I've been playing has reignited my love of character creation and the game in general. Merrik Inniel has become quite powerful in just a few short sessions. The little scamp.
He's finally pulling his own weight in ways beyond "band-aids for the party boo-boos" and manages to kill things every now and again.
Unfortunately though, the module we've been playing is closing down and I'll be turning my hand to game creation once again. I will be running a Star Wars Sagas game for my buddies and I'm glad to do it. My games were my creative muse; they kept my thoughts fresh and flowing. I'm terribly excited to get back in the saddle and make a storyline go.
I'm preparing to take a few days and study the crap out of the core books for the system and brush up on my Star Wars history so that I can avoid my players pulling a fast one on me and getting something absurd early on because they were clever bastards and I gave them what they wanted out of sheer confusion.

The wiki related to that particular campaign is under construction and will be up and running ASAP.

So I guess I'll take some time to lay out what I got as far as plotlines go:
The party is Sith Lords and allies of the Sith Empire in the time of the Old Republic, a few decades or so after the Knights of the Old Republic games (if you're familiar with them).

That's all I got for now. I'm letting my players figure out their backstories before I go and design a story too detailed and end up derailing any interesting character histories they had thought up.
Plus it lets me design a plot centered entirely around them from the get go, no matter what their party consists of exactly the story will be ready for them, come what may.

Oh and so far two of them finished their characters: Nicholas Rage and Nicholas Mage.

Oh yes, this is going to be fun. I can tell.