[LJ Idol] It's a Trap!
This one strikes near and dear to my heart. Because I am a Star Wars fan from a long long time ago... and also I have run the Star Wars RPG since it came out.
The last full campaign I ran had some moments in it. The character who found out the hard way that he was of a Jedi lineage when people came to get him and he had to run or die; the religious fanatic who found out that the leaders of his religion had altered the scriptures and brought forth a commandment to murder that had not been there before; the smuggler with a heart of gold (and a taste for it) who had to, finally, decide between money and loyalty.
There were moments of drama, and comedy, and PCs hating each other but staying there because while they hated each other they could at least trust each other because they had the same aim.
And then there was the missions briefings for Special Operations Group JG-12. Oh, god, the briefings.
You see, JG-12's operational handler was Lt. Lux, a Mon Cal. The same race as Admiral Ackbar.
This one:
So I would do the briefings by opening my jaw, flapping my lower lip to talk (pulling my mouth down in an arc) and putting my hands over my eyes... oh, it'll just be easier to show you in this medium:
(Yes, it looks ridiculous.)
So there I am, delivering my mission briefing to them in that pose, doing my best Mon Cal voice, and they are trying hard not to bust up laughing. (Sometimes they didn't succeed in that, and we'd have to start over after everyone just started laughing.)
There we went, the first session starting with them evacuating from Yavin IV at the end of A New Hope, and all the way through, timing it so that they were always somewhere else and couldn't interfere with the movies. By the end of it I had a Microsoft Project sheet with 15 different groups listed on it as to what they were doing, including Vader and the Emperor and the major characters of the movies, and some enemies they made along the way. It was great, and it felt alive.
The final adventure - they knew it was, because they realized it when they got the message that Han Solo had been rescued from Jabba's palace - started with them about to head to the Forest Moon of Endor, when now-Captain Lux (promotions happened in this campaign) called them. He'd been assigned to a small supply compound that was their base, and they were to stop there before heading to Endor for the assault.
Then as they leave hyperspace in the system, they got a message:
"No! Turn around, flee! The Empire is here! They know about us - about you - and the Inquisitor wants you! It's-"
And a lightsaber blade appeared through his chest.
His eyes went wide, and he gasped:
"...a trap..."
Despite me doing The Mon Cal Face, no one laughed.
And as his body fell to the floor, their archenemy showed on the screen and challenged them to come and get him before he killed the other hostages.
He'd gathered personal enemies of each character for his strike force, and it was a deeply personal - and deeply satisfying - fight. Everyone had something to do, everyone had a shining moment, and everyone felt it had really felt like a Star Wars game. There was pain, and loss, but at the end, they stood against the Dark Side and won.
Yeah, it was a trap - but they cared about the situation, or the trap wouldn't have worked.
The last full campaign I ran had some moments in it. The character who found out the hard way that he was of a Jedi lineage when people came to get him and he had to run or die; the religious fanatic who found out that the leaders of his religion had altered the scriptures and brought forth a commandment to murder that had not been there before; the smuggler with a heart of gold (and a taste for it) who had to, finally, decide between money and loyalty.
There were moments of drama, and comedy, and PCs hating each other but staying there because while they hated each other they could at least trust each other because they had the same aim.
And then there was the missions briefings for Special Operations Group JG-12. Oh, god, the briefings.
You see, JG-12's operational handler was Lt. Lux, a Mon Cal. The same race as Admiral Ackbar.
This one:
So I would do the briefings by opening my jaw, flapping my lower lip to talk (pulling my mouth down in an arc) and putting my hands over my eyes... oh, it'll just be easier to show you in this medium:
(Yes, it looks ridiculous.)
So there I am, delivering my mission briefing to them in that pose, doing my best Mon Cal voice, and they are trying hard not to bust up laughing. (Sometimes they didn't succeed in that, and we'd have to start over after everyone just started laughing.)
There we went, the first session starting with them evacuating from Yavin IV at the end of A New Hope, and all the way through, timing it so that they were always somewhere else and couldn't interfere with the movies. By the end of it I had a Microsoft Project sheet with 15 different groups listed on it as to what they were doing, including Vader and the Emperor and the major characters of the movies, and some enemies they made along the way. It was great, and it felt alive.
The final adventure - they knew it was, because they realized it when they got the message that Han Solo had been rescued from Jabba's palace - started with them about to head to the Forest Moon of Endor, when now-Captain Lux (promotions happened in this campaign) called them. He'd been assigned to a small supply compound that was their base, and they were to stop there before heading to Endor for the assault.
Then as they leave hyperspace in the system, they got a message:
"No! Turn around, flee! The Empire is here! They know about us - about you - and the Inquisitor wants you! It's-"
And a lightsaber blade appeared through his chest.
His eyes went wide, and he gasped:
"...a trap..."
Despite me doing The Mon Cal Face, no one laughed.
And as his body fell to the floor, their archenemy showed on the screen and challenged them to come and get him before he killed the other hostages.
He'd gathered personal enemies of each character for his strike force, and it was a deeply personal - and deeply satisfying - fight. Everyone had something to do, everyone had a shining moment, and everyone felt it had really felt like a Star Wars game. There was pain, and loss, but at the end, they stood against the Dark Side and won.
Yeah, it was a trap - but they cared about the situation, or the trap wouldn't have worked.