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Monday, August 21, 2023

#RPGaDay2023 - Day 21 - Favorite Licensed RPG... and Twenty Questions About It

Day 21 of #RPGaDay2023 and I'm certainly a loner today, Dottie, a rebel. 

RIP: Paul Reubens, you weird dude.

For each day I'll be answering the question provided, and for fun, review how I answered a similar question during #RPGaDay a decade ago.  Scout's Honor, I have not peeked at the older answer.

Day 21s prompt is "Favorite Licensed RPG" 

For the third time in #RPGaDay, I bring up Star Wars D6, so I'm going to take up this space and answer "Twenty Questions About My Campaign - Star Wars Edition" like I have for some of my other games. 

1 - Where are all the Jedi?   I was told there would be Jedi!!!!!!

You were told wrong!  I set the game in what would be 5 BBY, so rumors and innuendo are all they have to go by.  Even the oldest character, Frokazza the Wookie, was quite young when Kashyyyk fell, so only recalls legends in his neck of the literal woods.  That all being said, the group has encountered a figure wielding two red lightsabers in the Ul-Mor Caves on Volturnus.   They also encountered a mysterious orange saber-wielder in a mysterious complex deep under planet 579-908, while on a side-mission from a Safari Ship.  The crew never pursued anything force related from those encounters.

2 - Wait... Volturnus is a series of Star Frontiers modules.  An Safari Ship is a GDW adventure for Traveller... What sort of bastardization are you doing???

Whatever I darn well please, thank you very much!  Seriously, with the non-rebel status of the crew, I needed some different adventures.  Plus, I'm pretty certain no one in my group played Star Frontiers or Traveller (beyond character creation), so they were great sources to mine.  

3 - How much non-Star Wars stuff have you used?

Outside of a WotC Star Wars free adventure and one from Fantasy Flight, probably the rest.  In fact my predilection for Traveller stuff is #RPGaDay's fault.  For Day 26 of 2019, the prompt was "Idea" and that was my public launch of the Challenge Challenge:  Mining old Challenge magazines for ideas for multiple games.  I reviewed Challenge #25-29 for campaign before dumb me realized that "Challenge" #1-24 were actually the Journal for the Traveller's Aid Society, and once I pulled out that material, it was perfect for the crew. 

4 - Wait the crew of the starship does WHAT???

They're exotic animal brokers.  LEGIT Imperial licensed animal brokers.  The main man himself, Ne'vets Aharo, is very meticulous with his paperwork, and maintaining above-board relations with multiple Imperial bureaucrats, resources in most planetary agencies, and notes relations with law-abiding, anti-rebellion personalities.  

Not that he's adverse to any side work, if the money's right.  You need a large shipment of endangered Azure rabbits transported to a fringe world for a feast?  For the right credits, Ne'vets has the know-how, the staff, and the equipment to make it happen. 

5 - Completely ridiculous!  Where do you even run an exotic animal broker business out of?

The true business office is on Bestine, but that is the equivalent of a bank of PO Box businesses in the modern day.  Ne'vets small ranch is on Takodano, where he has an uneasy relationship with a certain Maz Kanata.  

6 - Maz? One of mysterious cool things about the last trilogy that they butchered?  What other canonical things are you toying with? 

They did team up with a bounty hunter on Hosnian Prime and competed for a bounty against a certain smuggler and his Wookie co-pilot.   A fun "oh crap" moment when I realized they arrived  right when the events of a certain novel were occurring.  Don't worry, no one died....

7- Who have these guys ticked off?

Pirates around Dathomir for calling a Star Destroyer in to seize their base.   Black market rival Laroc Sniksnab,  The Droid Liberation Front on Cloud City.  And they may have pissed off the entire Black Sun for shooting up one of their casinos, unknowingly aiding in a robbery of one of their vaults, and the wanton murder of numerous Black Sun operatives on and below the streets of Naboo.  

8 - And who are they friends with?

Well, certain imperial agencies LOVE these guys, so much so that they've been offered tens of thousands of credit APIECE to merely be support on some ecological mission (So far, Ne'vets as evaded answering them.)  They're also members of the Ul-Mor tribe, friends of the Kurabanda, drunk-dial first calls for Abel Norrum.

9 - Abel... Norrum? 
Yep.  Imagine if Steve Irwin became a guide for big-game intergalactic safari hunters.   Possibly Ne'vets' best professional friend.  

10 - Any side gigs for when the Intergalactic Murder Hornet market slows down? 

Everything ranging from ship salvage (and running in to the Skittermanders from Starfinder), to prison breaks, movie piracy, to full blown corporate sabotage!

11 - So you're really not covering the Rebellion?

When you're a moneymaker and normally following the rules, rebellions are bad for business... until the Empire takes away that business, one day.  The now ex-pilot of the Pretio, Tarrie Prolek, had a half sister, Lotarna Savvn, who is a bad-ass Y-Wing Pilot, demolitions expert, saboteur, and rebel terrorist, who kept showing up.  First time, she blew up an Imperial ATM... (and a neighboring Jawa Juice franchise), and got away.  When Tarrie went missing after the previously mentioned Black Sun casino shoot-em-up, she stayed on with the crew for a bit, until she was caught by authorities for attempting to rob the same bank again on Botajef.  Her whereabouts are unknown.  

12 - Any special rules for the campaign?

Standard Star Wars 2nd Edition (Revised is my reference copy).  No major deviations, although we did do two episodes using A Complicated Profession to cover a near-death fever dream Ne'vets was suffering from while on the roof of that previously mentioned Black Sun casino.

13 - Hold on, is that a duck cosplaying as Boba Fett?

No, it's not a duck.  HE is a Sip'skudd, an avian race with many many eyes.  He is wearing armor that mimics the Mandalorian armor. 

And his name is Duk'k: The Bounty Hunter

14 - Why is there a Certificate of Appreciation in the cockpit from the Imperial Zoological Symposium and Exposition?

Because the crew saved everyone from utter death by capturing the very creature they captured for a Trillionaire tycoon who wanted the notoriety, but skimped on security.  The capture may or may not have involved shirtless, oiled up men, Wookie DJs, and a solo from Space Cats: The Musical, but you never know. 

15 -  What's up with all the monkeys?

What part of Exotic Animal Broker didn't you understand.

If you meant the monkey-like Kurabanda on Volturnus who led the crew to human civilization?  Bo'non'as and Oopsa was a filler campaign involving the tree-top dwellers and what happened after the humans were led away to their own people. 

If you mean the Beaked Monkeys of Quellor, who were discovered that they could do partially complicated tasks, so Tarrie and the group wanted to train them to be monkey butlers, but the last great monkey tuxedo pants creator was a Gungan tailor on Naboo, and that very same trip caused multiple run-ins with the Black Sun... all instigated my monkey pants?

I have no clue.  My players are insane.

16 - Any third party Star Wars idea to later add to the campaign?

Like basing the post-Empire world off of the Timothy Zahn novels. Maybe...

The whole Imperial job angle (which Ne'vets will never take) was a plot device to possibly hook them into the early episode the Campaign's early Star Wars episodes.  Probably would have flopped, but the various fauna and flora issues, plus an outside chance to learn about a "Murder Ball" might be enjoyed by at least this GM.  

17 - Why are there so many TV dinners on the ship?

SPACE TV dinners, thank you very much.  Single guys (and a gal) on a ship.  Rarely any set meal times, the personal dinners are the way to go, and great for luring werewolves on distant worlds.  Just don't get into a debate over the cobbler versus the space brownie.

18- Roger that, but, umm... Werewolves?

Well xenomorphs who have evolved into a near canine mammalian state.  Infected crew, infested the ship, infected the loose bunnies hiding within the hull of the ship.  Hilarity ensued.  #RIPCousinRancor #RIPTheEnitrePlanetOfUbrikkia

19 - What is the biggest score the crew is on the hunt for?

Three words:  Space Drop Bears.  

20 - Where can I find these odd escapades?

Right here on Gaming with Gnomies.  Start with Episode #0 and move on.  Each episode should have a link to the next.  Excitement!

Ten Years Ago Today: GURPS: Humanx was my licensed game of choice, fueled entirely by 25 year-old nostalgia.  I also had been the spectator to some awesome Star Wars games back in the day, and not a player.  Obviously, some of that has changed.

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