I totally agree, in Long Arm of the Hutt there are plenty of social situations that cannot (or should not) primarily be resolved by combat, like on Geonosis for example. I just feel that Escape from Mos Shuuta should offer at least a few oppurtunities to use social skills.
At the same time I get that it’s an introduction, that should take about an evening to play through and the focus is to get into the action swiftly. Our group that have played roleplaying games for years and years so we’re probably not the primary target audience.
The second scene is an entirely social encounter, getting the parts from the junkyard owner. The Overseer could also be talked to if players want to. However it’s true, the module is more shooting heavy.
That is true, I had forgotten about that part. It’s about five months ago since we played through the adventure.
It was a very short encounter (for our group at least). As I recall it, we got there, got the parts we needed and moved on quickly. Could be that we could have stuck around and had more of a social encountner, but I think we pressed on super quickly as we felt “hunted”.
Oh, yeah! I totally forgot about that one… it’s been two years since I ran this module. Shame on me for forgetting, though: my players took pity on that droid and liberated it. It became my GM presence in the crew. I actually swapped out the one in this module for the astromech from Trouble Brewing, since that was the one shot we’d played to get comfortable with the system. The droid had clearly fallen on hard times, so my players connected with it right away.
Thanks for this @jendefer. We just started a few months ago and I’m still running Long Arm of the Hutt for my group. Next session is Genosian Negotians. I thought we might be late to the game, esp with FFG’s forums shutting down. It’s nice to see recent posts and especially all the ideas in this topic.
I had some concerns about the Duke’s party, keeping my non-social characters involved. Nice to see that @k7e9 loved that encounter the most.
We are three players and our group only has one social character, a Bothan Charmer, me and the third player play a Twi’lek Modder and a Wookiee Heavy. While I have Presence 3 (beeing a Twi’lek) I have almost no social skills.
So our Bothan took care of the social business with the duke. The Wookiee and I engaged in numerous other activities that didn’d directly involce our social skills, like games, drinking, we had a dart-throwing contest (with some friendly betting) and we obviously interacted with some of the NPCs at the party.
So my advice @Filbert66 is to have some activities for the characters that are less socially inclined can be part of. :)
Wish I knew that when I first ran this adventure! That’s awesome. (I started GMing with this, unfortunately my take wasn’t that successful on this chapter)
Giving credit where credit’s due: the source for this idea was Nashable’s advice in the thread about Long Arm on the d20radio forums, another discussion that could be mined for ideas on this topic.
One errata to Act 2 on Geonosis: the adventure was written before it became canon that the Imperials killed everyone on the planet. So if you are trying to stay somewhat aligned with canon, what do you do?
I took the suggestion from Legends of the Galaxy to insert an Imperial presence around the planet, “searching for survivors”, which is generally how you hand-wave that there are some natives back (having hid off-planet and now returned, maybe with a queen). Makes for a nice optional encounter (if they roll poorly on Astrogation) and makes it clear why the Geonosians dislike the Imperials. Could even go so bad that they owe some Favor obligation to the imperial officer who still lets them go! Nice hooks for later.
In the alternate solution box, the writers suggest that evidence of building droids will raise Jabba’s ire. Why is that so bad? Because it is now frowned upon by the Empire, whom the Hutts are loosely aligned with? Doesn”t seem like a reason to imprison Teemo over. Any ideas to justify the narrative?
Initial thoughts… One take would be that Jabba would view it as Teemo over-reaching his “allowed” authority, that this droid army would be a threat to other Hutts. Another explanation would be that resurrecting Clone Wars weaponry could draw undesired attention to Hutt activities, that even if some of them are “loosely aligned” with the Empire, the Empire might have to come put a smackdown on something that serious.
Draws unwanted enforcement Empire attention to all Hutts, who normally like to operate behind the scenes.
Could be viewed as an aggressive ploy to “take over” another Hutt’s business.
I think I’ll add a flavor that Teemo has been known to make small attempts to do #2 in the past, such that any hint of building a larger force results in preemptive smackdown by the Hutt clan.
With the other point against Teemo of spying on Jabba, one could add that the past history of moving against a Hutt’s operations was directly against Jabba’s operations, say in Mos Eisley, or maybe the supplies in/out of there.
Query to all GMs: my PCs decided against the frontal assault against Teemo and instead did an intel-steal op. They rolled really well so went great for them. They are going to sell the info to Jabba who will “do the work for them” to clear him out, per the “An Alternate Solution” sidebar on p.46.
Any ideas how to dramatically narrate/play a the demise of Teemo? I tried to get them to meet Anatta in Mos Shutta but they arranged to meet him in Mos Eisley instead, because they justifiably don’t want to fly in their wanted ship (which they are retrieving) back to there. So I can’t describe the ship of bounty hunters flying overhead and walking a bound Teemo out and flying away. Shall I make a TV news item that they see while in Mos Eisley? Maybe a “did you hear?” gossip in the local cantina, with a shared holovid? Any way I could drag them into it??
Trying to give them a dramatic conclusion to the guy who is holding a lot of their Obligation.
I am going to throw a different nemesis at them for a nice combat encounter soon. (Of course they chose something I had not expected and skipped it last session.)
Forget Teemo. He’s small fry. Grant them an audience with Jabba (there are great audio fx of his laugh to help set the mood). Jabba wants to thank them. Jabba wants to know who these pesky ex-employees of Teemo are. Jabba wants to know what else they might have found. Teemo’s other dealings most certainly include Jabba (I believe Jabba is like Teemo’s boss).
While Jabba appreciates the pc’s help, he doesn’t appreciate that outsiders have inner knowledge of Hutt activities. While Jabba can make an excuse for Teemo “taking a leave of absence”, the pc’s know the truth. And that’s bad for Hutt politics.
So…perhaps Jabba might even offer the pc’s a job as a way of saying thank you. A job that could go wrong. A job that if gone wrong, puts the pc’s indebt to Jabba. Perhaps halfway through the adventure, the pc’s might even realize this. That they might end up in a worse situation than they were in with Teemo. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
It sure would teach them that Hutt politics isn’t for the faint of heart.
one more thing in response to your tv news thing…the Hutts would quietly put Teemo away. He still has plenty of dealings that the Hutts would not want disrupted. More than likely a new up and coming Hutt will end up in Mos Shutta.
Thanks for the great ideas, Jorune. Yes, I have expected that Teemo’s palace would not remain without a leader for long. Jabba will send Bib Fortuna to assess the situation, the vault, the facilities, and report back so Jabba could pick the right aspiring Hutt to take over there.
Love the idea of an audience with Jabba, and him giving them a job. One option for the next scenario was the Debt to Pay adventure, and your suggestion is a perfect hook into it, like “Jabba wishes to extract maximum value from Teemo’s holdings, including this mine of promised but unknown value.”
I’m about to run “Escape from Mos Shuuta” … for six other players!
The pregenerated characters are not a problem, as I had already downloaded the two extra pregens which were available on-line at FFG’s website. (And still are? I haven’t checked recently.)
My main concern is balancing the opposition for six PCs, particularly as this will be only the second time that I’ve ever run this game system. I want to keep up the tension without overwhelming the party.
The opening encounter in the cantina is clear (one Gamorrean thug per PC) and the encounter to gain the McGuffin is a social encounter.
But should I add: more guards at the spaceport control centre, a third stormtrooper minion group, and more security droids in the landing bay/in the ship?
What about the space battle? There is only a limited number of weapon stations on the Krayt Fang, so would adding a third TIE fighter minion group be too much? Should I instead wait to see if the party disposes of the first two minion groups easily, and if so, then send in a third TIE fighter group “as belated back-up”?
Bonus question from a space battle noob: does the pilot have to use a manoeuvre to actually get the Krayt Fang to move, or is that part of the Evasive Manoeuvres/Stay on Target options during a dogfight?
Yes, one minion per PC is rough guideline. In spaceport control, they may attempt stealth or social checks, which means more minions won’t really matter (if they succeed). In same way you describe, could have two more come out of a door if combat starts. Of course, there are the security droids at the front door.
In space, more PCs on board can influence the battle still. GIve them the “other ship battle actions table 7-7” from CRB p.237. (Do you have a Core Rulebook?) It gave our face and extra mechanic something to do.
Space battle is abstract in this system. Each round is a while, and the ships are assumed to be flying about within their range bands all the time, unless they are at speed 0. Only if the pilot wants to go faster/slower, or change range bands relative to his enemy does she need to spend a maneuver to Fly (CRB p.232). Note that Krayt Fang has a copilot seat, meaning both pilot and copilot can do “pilot-only” maneuvers/actions, though two ship maneuverers in the same round will always incur a cost of 2 system strain.
I agree with Filbert. Spaceport only needs some backup if combat erupts, using the same guideline of 1 minion / PC.
Space is a bit different, unless you give them some starfighters to sit in, escorting the Fang I wouldn’t give them more fighters. They could end up destroying the lonely frieghter.
Could always do the GM-favored: hold reinforcements in the background and if the PCs easily eliminate the current enemies, add another Tie fighter or two. For reference, my PC group of 4 was able to destroy the 2 sets of 2 Ties by just using Stay on Target, taking about half damage to their Hull Threashold.
Later in another battle, when I gave them Fire Discipline, Scan Enemy, and Boost Shields actions, they were able to take out similar enemies and took only one hit.