Traveling Through Uncharted Space

Also Battlestar Galactica can be a good place to look for ideas. Though it’s a bit different and obviously you can’T make your players come up with different conflicting agendas (though you could give them through obligation or NPCs), but lot of external crisis that needs to be solved :slight_smile:

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Space travel is both a potent opportunity and a challenge to pull off in an interesting way, and the above suggestions sure lists some cool things to throw at the PCs. However, as an experiment, let’s approach this from a story point of view. (IMHO, conscious GM choice is always better and more flavorful than random table reactionary stuff… although, tables can sure be used to gauge one’s creativity and imagination!). Why is the destination located in Wild Space?

If it’s there because someone needed to hide, then playing up the dangers and astrogation troubles involved in getting there might inform the location and backstory in interesting ways. Showing some reasons why the destination is a good place to hide could go a long way to back up that plot point (especially if you can also device a reason for why the hiders circumvented or blasted through said problem; if the PCs encounter a space monster on the way, the hiders have furnished their lair with a space monster skull). In other words, show of what travelling through Wild Space is about, and why it still remains wild.

If the location is way out in Wild Space just for random reasons, then you don’t really need to highlight the journey much. It’s just one more long journey through uncharted hyperlanes. (I would, however, not go out of the way to highlight how boring space flight is, ‘cause roleplaying the boring is VERY boring… It is always – and for Star Wars especially – better to focus on the high-tension moments of great drama, then to slog through “downtime”). In other words, don’t roleplay downtime if it doesn’t serve a purpose.

If the location exists in uncharted Wild Space for no reason, but you want an opportunity to explore WS and what it is all about, then the PCs MUST randomly come across WS stuff; Lasat or whatever. Do something that doesn’t really add to your story, but which adds to the flavor of Wild Space… and if you can, have that encounter inform your story in some way, like the encountered Lasat knows something vital about the location the PCs are about to visit; an old legend, or whatever.

Or, if travelling through uncharted territory is something you want to make happen simply to do some scouting episodes, then device a cool exploration adventure mini-campaign where the PCs get to discover and do something cool, which climaxes in its own mini-finale, before reaching the main plot location.

My advice is to embrace the travel and find a way to let it inform the specific story you intend to run at the destination and/or the overall campaign story arc.

Ask yourself questions like:
–Why Wild Space?
–Why a long “downtime” journey?
–Why this group of PCs and their ship?
–and, how can I turn these decisions into something that benefits the overall plot and/or individual player character arcs.

PS: Creative writing (or plotting, if you wish) is the best thing ever ;)

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