Previously on The Outer Rim Blues
Our crew met with Lyra Dax, Agent of Black Sun, to discuss the missing refugees. Lyrda agreed to tell them where those Iktotchi refugees were in exchange for an extraction job. There is a derelict Nebulon B frigate adrift in space that has a hi-tech cargo she would like retrieved. And we have an accord!
Coming in Hot
Hurrach’s astrogation skills ( a Triumph AKA Critical Hit!!) place the Blue Harvest in the best recon spot to see activity on the derelict Nebulon B frigate, including two starfighters finishing off another YT-2000 before docking back at the frigate. Drace follows up with some amazing piloting skills, destroying one of the docked fighters and jamming the second one as he docks the Blue Harvest!
Traversing the Frigate
At this point, I introduce an Aploclayse World-style clock called “And then a Remnant Arrives.” I don’t tell the player’s how many ticks it’s got, I do tell them when I mark a tick as a result of the fiction we generate or threats that come up.
They use the ship’s displays to plot a route to the bridge’s cargo section. Using various fast travel vehicles and paths, they lose some time re-routing past collapsed or sealed areas before they reach the main vertical shaft to take a lift down to the main bridge level.
The Turbo Lift Death Trap
A hazard I had prepped was a bobby-trapped turbo-lifted, hacked by an R2 droid. I mostly wanted the players to know there is a faction in opposition to them onboard and introduce opposed tests. The R2 unit would actively contest any attempts to override the turbo-lift —which was headed to an upper level with a hull breach! The custom, ‘rich’ dice of Edge of the Empire turned what might have been three miserable and boring failed checks into The Turbo Lift Death Trap! It fell out like so:
Darro fails to override the lift controls but discovers someone is actively interfering. Failed with advantage/s
Realizing they’re about to get ‘spaced,’ Huurach assaults the control panel, I don’t recall, by shooting or punching it. It all shorts out, and the lift brakes between levels. IIRC, a success with threats?!
They climb out of the lift. Darro finds a control box in the lift shaft to signal for another lift…but drops his tools into the darkness of the shaft! Failed with threats.
They climb out of the lift and make the long climb down to the main bridge via service ladders/paths. I mark the “And then a Remnant Arrives” clock and ‘screen-wipe’ to them walking through a vacant bridge deck.
The Cargo
In the bridge’s cargo hold, they find several service and cargo-lifter droids at work. A quick search reveals their specific cargo container already loaded on a cargo droid, but a droid spider leaps out when Drace moves to grab the container. It’s a quick fight but tricky because the spider droid stays engaged with Drace, making it hard to shoot. The players come out on top, and to the victors, the cargo!!
Session Thoughts
We got all the basics down. Building dice pools, reading the results, or ensuring the VTT got it right!! Nice flow of Light/Dark-side points to boost the dice pools. The spider was a Minion class NPC and only one, but it served the function of likely-low stakes combat and providing information on other factions interested in the cargo.
I’ve taken to finding and using one new Foundry VTT plugin every 1-2 sessions. The plugin has to fit my play style and add to the ease of use. I don’t want to turn our sessions into an animated video game. But the VTT could do more for us. This session I showcased two plugins. Yendor’s SceneActor does avatar pop-ups, which is very useful! Clipboard Image plugin makes importing images and map tiles as easy as cut & paste.
Prepping Next Session (Player Spoilers)
I’m aggressively opposed to using the three act structure to design sessions or adventures around. However, I do love me some of the other tools of literature…like foreshadowing. That’s what IG-100C next session is for. The IG-100 series of droids, AKA Magnaguard, show up (IIRC) in the Star Wars prequels and Clone Wars. Why is one on this lost frigate and after this crate? I’ll float this encounter around the turbo lifts, and it’ll have the support of the R2 hacker droid. I am anticipating the players to come back for round II. If they avoid this, I’ll count on threat dice to appear somewhere to introduce the IG. Failing that…there’s always the next session!
I still have that Remnant Arrival clock with two more ticks open on it, various ship hazards…and a survivor of that jammed starfighter —I bet they’ll want some revenge!
Hazards: Sealed doors, not responsive lifts, no LS or lights, --R2 unit hacks.
And I guess I better figure out where those refugees are!! 🤷🏾♂️