First of all a WARNING...
Following on from these kind words is a narrative about my adventures on Free RPG day at Leisure Games in North London - a big mail order enterprise and my bricks and mortar LFGS...
SO SPOILER ALERT - SPOILER ALERT - SPOILER ALERT
Imagine Sheldon shouting that and you may well get the idea.
So if you are still reading and intend to play the adventure at some stage - stop now! See I warned you, don't come bleating to me when it spoils the fun.
Arriving at the shop I was like a little wannabe Stormtrooper kid at Empire Day eve... Just gimme my pressie and let me get playing. Hats off to FFG (yet again) as the freebie adventure booklet was up to their normal awesome standards - when one can get it as a pdf I suggest you do as it also serves as an excellent primer for new players. Once I had my pressie in one hand, coffee cup in the other I headed to the allocated table and awaited my new gaming buddies and GM_Yam. Niceties out the way we were told to choose a character. It was my first time playing, as opposed to running, the game and I knew which character I wanted - a Wookiee. Not that this would be a surprise to most people who know me but wait - I had a legitimate reason. Anyone who could not converse in my native language would be met with wookiee speak from my (apparently out of production) SFX ap and ....
Following on from these kind words is a narrative about my adventures on Free RPG day at Leisure Games in North London - a big mail order enterprise and my bricks and mortar LFGS...
SO SPOILER ALERT - SPOILER ALERT - SPOILER ALERT
Imagine Sheldon shouting that and you may well get the idea.
So if you are still reading and intend to play the adventure at some stage - stop now! See I warned you, don't come bleating to me when it spoils the fun.
Arriving at the shop I was like a little wannabe Stormtrooper kid at Empire Day eve... Just gimme my pressie and let me get playing. Hats off to FFG (yet again) as the freebie adventure booklet was up to their normal awesome standards - when one can get it as a pdf I suggest you do as it also serves as an excellent primer for new players. Once I had my pressie in one hand, coffee cup in the other I headed to the allocated table and awaited my new gaming buddies and GM_Yam. Niceties out the way we were told to choose a character. It was my first time playing, as opposed to running, the game and I knew which character I wanted - a Wookiee. Not that this would be a surprise to most people who know me but wait - I had a legitimate reason. Anyone who could not converse in my native language would be met with wookiee speak from my (apparently out of production) SFX ap and ....
Would you trust this Doctor to manipulate your joints?
My chosen one was a Wookiee called Grabow by name, Doctor by trade. Yep dear readers you indeed read that correctly- A DOCTOR. I quickly came to the conclusion that he had to be a chiropractor and his obligations were from when he has had to borrow money to pay off some malpractice 'out of court settlements'.
Character settled, new colleagues wokkieed at - it was time to head off on a few hours of escapism.
Our motley crew had been 'asked' by the Pyke family to return their favours (read decrease their obligation) by entering a building that supposedly belonged to the Black Sun Organisation and slice into their computers to get information on a spice delivery which had gone astray. What appeared to be an easy job turned pear shaped when Jovel our Bothan slicer uttered a stream of expletives; just before the alarms went slightly haywire. She claimed it was someone else who was tampering and all eyes turned to Mative (the human smuggler) who had a rather guilty look on his face and used; not for the last time; the phrase, "It wasn't my fault..."
To cut your perusing time down by a load let's just say we got out of their fast via our droid driven taxi only to be pursued by a number of Black Sun security guards; who I imagine were worried more for their immediate personal security once word got back to their bosses, than they were from our gang hanging out of the sides of a beat up taxi speeder... Little did they know!
Blaster shots zimmed off the side of the taxi, swoop bikes swept around the return fire when Grabow (who was feeling a bit left out of the action only having a short range 'holdout pistol' (I'm a doctor honest; I don't shoot people) idly shot up at a vid ad screen holding cable that stretched over the street they were re-enacting a scene from (insert any car chase scene laden TV show here) down. (one yellow, one green trying to outdo three purple difficulty dice and two black setback dice later saw a look of disbelief flash across GM_Yam's face as one triumph, 2 net advantages and one net success was rolled). Swinging down behind the taxi the vid screen laden cable took out 2 swoop bikes and a air speeder - a contented wokkiee noise emanated from the front seat. Other notable bits of the chase were Matwe's wild shooting that took off the arm of our droid driver - "It wasn't my fault..." and the wookie managing to grab one swoop bike rider off his bike, grab the ID lanyard (yes even after thousands of years people still insist in wearing them outside the place of work) and then drop him to the ground below. Remember folks its not the fall that is deadly - just the landing.
Information gleaned from the incursion was downloaded to Jovel's data pad and then taken to their contact, a besalisk called Chopper who ran a vehicle scrap/repair shop. Again cutting a longer narrative rather short the four armed jolly chap relayed the info straight to the Head Pykee and informed the group that his boss was pleased and that their obligations had been cut... Even Grabows settlement for Chopper's step brother whose slight manipulation had gone wrong the year before. When dealing with a wookiee chiropractor and being smarmy enough to try to say what you wanted doing in the Wookiee's native tongue it is probably best to practice the slight guttural nuances that distinguish the phrases "Gee my two shoulders are sore can you sort them out?" from "Gee my shoulders are sore can you take them out?" Grabow had always insisted that it was a misunderstanding. But back to the story on hand. It was also relayed to the group that a further substantial amount of obligation could be paid back by making the double crossing bounty hunter scumbag (who the downloaded intel plainly showed he had just given the missing spice to the Black Sun mob for a slightly higher margin of profit) pay... By pay they meant stop breathing; but you get the general gist.
More by luck than by judgement (although it can be sure that this is not how the group saw it) the next stop on the 'find out more about the scum bag Kaa'To Leeachos (the nikto bounty hunter) was the Zelcom Tower; a high tower of legitimate business offices which hid certain, lets say more nefarious goings on. Amazingly (well due to amazing rolls no matter how many difficulty dice were added and a very high number of triumphs rolled) the group got in and out and found out the probable location of Kaa'To's hideout and rendezvous for a delivery of arms later on in that evening. If this was a highlights reel then at this point dear reader you would be seeing the amazingly well played out pretend argument between Matwe and the Wookiee that was done to mask the noise of the rest of the gang breaking through a wall into the main office in the building and which not only distracted the security but ended with them arguing and bickering amongst themselves as they took sides.
This was due this time by the rolling of two net TRIUMPHS !
So circumnavigating a possible 2-3 set piece scenes and with no actual shooting since the initial pursuit (much to the consternation of Trayseek our Tranndoshan gun fiend) the gang set of to lay in wait for Kaa'To in the industrial complex just out of the city.
How, dear reader, can what happened at the complex be conveyed to you in any sort of believable way. Despair and triumph mixed with explosions, stealth moves that makes your dear old memaa's hip breaking bounce down the stairs look like a Delta Force model operation, and ending in Kaa'To (evilly) laughing so much he fell tripped over the railing and fell disarmed straight in front of a rather angry Grabow. To use a well known ancient phrase:
"Job well done..." so long as you don't look too hard!
All in all it was a rib tickling, fear inducing trip through the StarWars universe which showed exactly what Edge of the Empire is capable of producing. We hardly touched on quite a lot of the set pieces outlined in the book yet the action kept flowing and we got there in our own unique way without really realising that that wasn't quite the way it was supposed to go. Now I have been on the other side of the dice so to speak it just confirms my thoughts that this game is just ... Freekin' Awesome and that FFG have to be the best games company out ...
Character settled, new colleagues wokkieed at - it was time to head off on a few hours of escapism.
Our motley crew had been 'asked' by the Pyke family to return their favours (read decrease their obligation) by entering a building that supposedly belonged to the Black Sun Organisation and slice into their computers to get information on a spice delivery which had gone astray. What appeared to be an easy job turned pear shaped when Jovel our Bothan slicer uttered a stream of expletives; just before the alarms went slightly haywire. She claimed it was someone else who was tampering and all eyes turned to Mative (the human smuggler) who had a rather guilty look on his face and used; not for the last time; the phrase, "It wasn't my fault..."
To cut your perusing time down by a load let's just say we got out of their fast via our droid driven taxi only to be pursued by a number of Black Sun security guards; who I imagine were worried more for their immediate personal security once word got back to their bosses, than they were from our gang hanging out of the sides of a beat up taxi speeder... Little did they know!
Blaster shots zimmed off the side of the taxi, swoop bikes swept around the return fire when Grabow (who was feeling a bit left out of the action only having a short range 'holdout pistol' (I'm a doctor honest; I don't shoot people) idly shot up at a vid ad screen holding cable that stretched over the street they were re-enacting a scene from (insert any car chase scene laden TV show here) down. (one yellow, one green trying to outdo three purple difficulty dice and two black setback dice later saw a look of disbelief flash across GM_Yam's face as one triumph, 2 net advantages and one net success was rolled). Swinging down behind the taxi the vid screen laden cable took out 2 swoop bikes and a air speeder - a contented wokkiee noise emanated from the front seat. Other notable bits of the chase were Matwe's wild shooting that took off the arm of our droid driver - "It wasn't my fault..." and the wookie managing to grab one swoop bike rider off his bike, grab the ID lanyard (yes even after thousands of years people still insist in wearing them outside the place of work) and then drop him to the ground below. Remember folks its not the fall that is deadly - just the landing.
Information gleaned from the incursion was downloaded to Jovel's data pad and then taken to their contact, a besalisk called Chopper who ran a vehicle scrap/repair shop. Again cutting a longer narrative rather short the four armed jolly chap relayed the info straight to the Head Pykee and informed the group that his boss was pleased and that their obligations had been cut... Even Grabows settlement for Chopper's step brother whose slight manipulation had gone wrong the year before. When dealing with a wookiee chiropractor and being smarmy enough to try to say what you wanted doing in the Wookiee's native tongue it is probably best to practice the slight guttural nuances that distinguish the phrases "Gee my two shoulders are sore can you sort them out?" from "Gee my shoulders are sore can you take them out?" Grabow had always insisted that it was a misunderstanding. But back to the story on hand. It was also relayed to the group that a further substantial amount of obligation could be paid back by making the double crossing bounty hunter scumbag (who the downloaded intel plainly showed he had just given the missing spice to the Black Sun mob for a slightly higher margin of profit) pay... By pay they meant stop breathing; but you get the general gist.
More by luck than by judgement (although it can be sure that this is not how the group saw it) the next stop on the 'find out more about the scum bag Kaa'To Leeachos (the nikto bounty hunter) was the Zelcom Tower; a high tower of legitimate business offices which hid certain, lets say more nefarious goings on. Amazingly (well due to amazing rolls no matter how many difficulty dice were added and a very high number of triumphs rolled) the group got in and out and found out the probable location of Kaa'To's hideout and rendezvous for a delivery of arms later on in that evening. If this was a highlights reel then at this point dear reader you would be seeing the amazingly well played out pretend argument between Matwe and the Wookiee that was done to mask the noise of the rest of the gang breaking through a wall into the main office in the building and which not only distracted the security but ended with them arguing and bickering amongst themselves as they took sides.
This was due this time by the rolling of two net TRIUMPHS !
So circumnavigating a possible 2-3 set piece scenes and with no actual shooting since the initial pursuit (much to the consternation of Trayseek our Tranndoshan gun fiend) the gang set of to lay in wait for Kaa'To in the industrial complex just out of the city.
How, dear reader, can what happened at the complex be conveyed to you in any sort of believable way. Despair and triumph mixed with explosions, stealth moves that makes your dear old memaa's hip breaking bounce down the stairs look like a Delta Force model operation, and ending in Kaa'To (evilly) laughing so much he fell tripped over the railing and fell disarmed straight in front of a rather angry Grabow. To use a well known ancient phrase:
"Job well done..." so long as you don't look too hard!
All in all it was a rib tickling, fear inducing trip through the StarWars universe which showed exactly what Edge of the Empire is capable of producing. We hardly touched on quite a lot of the set pieces outlined in the book yet the action kept flowing and we got there in our own unique way without really realising that that wasn't quite the way it was supposed to go. Now I have been on the other side of the dice so to speak it just confirms my thoughts that this game is just ... Freekin' Awesome and that FFG have to be the best games company out ...