Adventures on Ord Mantell

Good afternoon!

Here is a brief record, mostly for my own amusement, of a series of FFG Star Wars Edge of the Empire Role Playing Games with my son Matthew, young Moana, his girlfriend, and Andrew his mate from way back.

Anyhow, Matt (playing a Trandoshan called Tray'eesk - a pre generated character from FFG's free RPG day game Something-Something-Black Sun) and Andrew started the adventure by being pursued by a couple of Stormtroopers down the streets of a minor settlement on Lothal, after Andrew's character, Matwe (another pregen from the same freebie - this was a very much pick-up-and-run-with-it afare using Mythic's GM Emulator random encounter tables. On the fly, like...) had stolen some money to try to help pay off his brothers debt.

Yay for Andrew reading his character's background!

A brief overview...
  • First session
    • Firefight - a bit of a shoot out with a couple of Stormtroopers, which the PCs won
    • Drunk's speeder - I rolled for a random event, it came up as intoxication, so...along careened a drunk in his landspeeder, who falls asleep at the wheel, and piles his speeder into the footpath where the PCs were standing.
    • Chase - a brief chase ensued with the Imperials in hot pursuit. The PCs got away surprisingly easily. 
    • Stop - another random roll, vehicle disables, so I had the speeder stop suddenly under the pretext of having the machine auto disable a certain distance from town. An anti theft device, so to speak.
    • Friendly stranger - another roll, random friendly stranger - 'twas the friendly droid that was overseeing some larger Ag Droids that were working in the field beside the road. It gives them directions to it's master's farm over yonder hill.
    • They crest the hill (I roll - the dude's rich) and they see a prosperous homestead. Complete with a hanger full of vehicles, and a Jumpmaster 5000 parked nearby.
    • They kidnap a mechanic, get him to start the ship, throw him out and blow up the hanger as they escape.
    • Entering orbit they encounter an Imperial Gozanti Cruiser and its accompanying Ties. (Yes, I was using my X Wing minis!)
    • Space fight, they escape into hyperspace. After a number of failed navigation rolls.
    • Since their rolls were so poor, I locked them out of computer mid hyperjump as they get a message from the farmer telling them that they are heading to Ord Mantell and the waiting arms of a Trandoshan Bounty Hunter.
    • They decide to bail out as they are flying over the barren wastes, Matt's character deciding to shoot up inside ship on the way out.
  • Second Session
    • Matt and Andrew land safely and meet Moana's character who was also on the same Mesa searching for her patron.
    • They see a small settlement over the way, and head down, entering after a brief run in with the locals...who run with their tails between their legs. Turns out that Trandoshans can be quite intimidating.
    • They enter the main admin block / hotel / bar / space mall for the night, get called down to the bar (another random roll that I interpreted as "The king is dead, long live the king!")
    • The new town leader offers them a simple delivery job to one of the main cities, and contacts to get off planet.
    • On the way there, they are caught by the bounty hunter who had been hired by the farmer to get them. He was following the distress signal from the escape pod.
    • After another brief chase, Matt backed their speeder into his. Unorthodox way to end pursuit, but quite effective.
    • A brief firefight (I had to downgrade their opponent from Nemesis to Rival - they were getting cut up pretty bad!). End result = one dead bounty hunter.
  • Third session...Infiltrate...
    • All done with three laptop embedded webcams! Suffice it to say that this production won't win any awards!
    • The crash opened up the boot ("space boot")// cargo compartment at the back of their speeder to reveal...to Andrew's character...a repulsorlift-equipped storage container with a Twi'lek inside. Andrew tries to hide this from the rest of the group ("nothing to do with me...") and attempts to transfer it to the bounty hunters speeder where he had instructed the others to wait. He fails his repulsorlift operator's roll, it crashes down from the edge of the boot, opens up and spills its occupant!
    • An [amusing] argument ensues as to what to do with their new passenger. The boys want to keep going with the job as planned, Moana, after Mr-Subtle-GM drops hints to her character that the person she's looking for has also been captured by the same organisation and is in a holding pen back where they came from, tries to convince Matt and Andrew to turn back.
    • They do.
    • Again, more amusing role play ensues (@ 51:55 above) concerning the plan to subtly - or not - "I'm a Trandoshan. That's what I do!" - roll on up and rescue the girl - and they manage to get into the warehouse uncontested. Thanks to some clever coercion and intimidation.
    • I had them all set up for a fire fight, but, after conning their way in and actually getting the girl - who was a little old lady, in point of fact - they grab the "boss" (actually, an underling - consider him middle management) and Triumphantly escape back into the streets of the settlement.
    • 'Twas a very entertaining session.
  • Fourth Session...Chase...
    • Their speeder careens onto the streets of Nils Telsh, followed by a speeder and two, then four bikes.
    • They approach the main gate, which was backed up with "law abiding" folks slowly coming and going in and out of the settlement. They manage to shoot the speeder at the rear of the line which spins out of the way. Most of the other waiting speeders also scatter from their speeding vehicle. All except a little old lady who was just gathering her weekly groceries and toodling back to her homestead. Tray'esek managed to fly over her just as the gates / forcefield came down - the little old lady gets rear ended by the pursuing speeder and plows into the gate itself. Arguments over insurance claims ensued...
    • As the crew speeds away, Matwe and Tray'eesk argue over what to do with Dave, the middle management man. Tray'eesk wants to throw him, Kira and Matwe want to keep him as leverage. Matwe even tries a bit of a physical altercation, which Tray'eesk brushes off. That decided....he throws Dave out of the speeder.
    • They manage to get back up atop the Mesa, and drive, with varying levels of success, to Kira's waiting ship - a VCX100 named the Kombucha which Moana just happened to be drinking at the time of it's christening...
    • As everyone piles aboard they realise that the data card that Kira had been carrying at their first meeting, and that had fallen out at said meeting, was needed to successfully avoid tracking out of the system, so...
    • Dave gets bundled in the back, Boberina and Maz settle in (they've both had a hard day) and our three intrepid adventurers head back to the edge of the Mesa with equipment to locate the data card.
    • On the way Tray'eesk manages to get the speeder stuck at the same point that he did on the way to the ship, and, rolling a triumph to free it, Matthew decides that Tray'eesk lifts the speeder and carries it the rest of the way to where they had first met!
    • As they round a small outcropping they are met by Dave and his gang. Tray'eesk immediately throws the speeder, with Matwe on board, at the nearest thug and knocks him out!
    • A gunfight ensues, with Tray'eesk getting up close and personal with Dave, while Matwe stays in the speeder for cover, dealing with those around Matthew's character, while Moana had Kira deal with the speeder bike that was flying around like an annoying fly.
    • Dave goes down, the rest of his gang bai. Dave's captured. Again.
  • Fifth Session...Escape...
    • The crew gets back to their ship, Matt even rolled a triumph on his driving, so he decided, after spinning the speeder around to avoid a crash, to reverse it all the way back. Matwe was unable to perceive what had distracted Tray'eesk to cause the near crash in the first place...
    • Tray'essk, being Tray'eesk, immediately demands to throw Dave out of the airlock as soon as they break atmo, causing a bit of a ruccus at the front ramp. "Out of my way, old woman!" he demands to Maz, who promptly shuts the door on him - the crew are locked out of their own ship!
    • After some...negotiations which elicit promises of dubious authenticity out of Tray'essk to behave, they get in, give over the data card to C4, their astromech droid (Marvin, their mechanic droid mopes around in the engine room), and away they go.
    • As C4 flies the Kombucha low over the Mesas, Kira, Matwe and Tray'eesk "negotiate" with Dave for his safe release in exchange for their safe departure. (Well, mostly they try to persuade Tray'eesk not to rip Dave's head off - again, another very example of entertaining role play from Matthew!) Andrew has Matwe hand over a com pad to Dave to contact his employer for further negotiations. Which his employer, the new mayor of Nils Telsh, Ru Baruba Kang, does via the arrival of two pirate Zed 95s.
    • In atmo ship combat ensues, with Maz playing a vital part in the top turret, while Tray'essk, after ripping Dave's head off while everyone else was busy, manages to dispatches the second Zed with a lucky shot from the docked shuttle.
    • Just as a C-Roc cruiser hoves into view.
    • Kira slices into the cruiser's weapon system, disabling it's main gun for a turn, whilst also instructing C4 to make the jump to hyperspace.
    • The cruiser makes one successful attack ("We can't take much more of this...") as they finally escape Ord Mantell.

The distribution of 48 XP points then ensues, Moana upgrading her character with Force Powers, as her pre-gen was actually from the Force and Destiny book. Cool!

Now onto some treasure seeking Beyond the Rim...who knows, perhaps Matwe will be able to gather enough to pay off his brother's dept back home...

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