/tg/, I have an issue. My players want to play as the Empire. Again. Sith/inquisitors/knights of Ren may or may not be involved. The trouble is, I just can't think of a compelling plot for the Empire.
The heroes are usually underdogs. Imperials have odds stacked severely in their favour at basically every given moment of the story, and trashing underequipped, small rebel cells just doesn't seem interesting to me.
What do I do?
>>46452064
Internal corruption plots could be workable. Have them be forced to deal with corrupt officers, administrators, bureaucrats, etc.
You could polish it up that whoever this person/group is, that they're going after the sector's Moff, Admiral, or even the Emperor in some grand power play.
Instead of being underdogs in the same way rebels or smugglers would be, they're just forced to deal with the calamity of being in the right place at the wrong time. Plus it could give you all sorts of opportunities to cameo important figures (including rebels), and could then even segue to a "do we or don't we" situation if they find the Empire is just too corrupt for them to continue serving.
Anyway, that's just my 2 cents at too early an hour.
Stop being unoriginal. If anything it seems like the perfect set up.
Starts with the enemies basically being pisses civilians who are rebelling and the PCs start from a position of relative safety and power. As the campaign progresses, they get more organized, better trained and equipped.
They get their own heroes and pose a legitimate threat, and the PCs need to contend with these rebel heroes while ensuring they aren't losing planets and the Empire starts to erode around them.
>>46452064
The transport gets shot down in enemy territory and they have to defend it for 26 hours as rebels forces lay siege to their position.
They have to deal with internal politics, make them watch as an otherwise good man is thrown to the wolves because it would help the moff slightly.
A bro tier co is a rebel spy trying to flip the PCs.
>>46452064
How about being among the groups that rearmed the First Order prior to Force Awakens? There's a little info on that now, and you can compensate for the missing info by either making it up on your own or having the PCs be in a cell that has a mission that does not have anything to do with any major characters.
>>46452064
Watch a shitload of old 'Nam movies. Powerful USA vs crappy peasant commies. Then have the players take the role of the US/Imperial troops.
>>46452064
You are one of those GMs that mistake intentionally denying the players personal power with "creating drama".
Kill yourself.
>>46452064
The Empire fell for exactly two reasons:
>1- Because it consistently underestimated the Rebels
>2- Because Anakin Skywalker decided to redeem himself of being a terrible person and an even worse father, letting his son go on multiple occasions that would have ended the plot
You want to focus on number 1.
>Every scouting report is an underestimation if not an outright lie.
>There are traitors within your ranks- they're not called 'Rebels' for nothing.
>Bullshit Jedi Purge survivors come to ruin your day and then flee the second they start losing.
>If it's not sabotaged, it either doesn't work or it will stop working at some point.
>Storm Troopers will desert or go crazy because their control chips are cheaply made and get damaged easily.
>Other commanders screwing you over out of spite or for personal gain at your cost.
>Fucking Vader getting all up in your grill and killing your men if shit doesn't run smoothly (and it won't).
>Bureaucracy. That is all.
Try applying Murphy's Laws to even the most highly resourced and heavily trained faction, and see how easily problems come up.
>>46452064
There are two ways I'd run it.
Either the mobile campaign, where the players are Inquisition agents that are always on the move. Always in pursuit of the next clue, the next bit of data or weak point in the rebel security that will give them the information they need to finally apprehend a rebel leader who's responsible for some crazy amount of damage to the Empire. This way the players are constantly exploring new worlds, interacting with new people, searching for the truth to some mystery.
The other potential way I'd run it would be the stationary campaign, with the players put in command of a system, or small sector of space, and be charged with overseeing its wellbeing in the empire. This way the players have to gather resources, train and outfit new battalions of storm troopers, All the while they have to deal with overly corrupt politicians and bureaucrats (or worse, honest ones), rebel and terrorist cells, mad scientists, monsters, pirates, criminals, and rivals who would usurp their position in the Empire.
>>46452064
OP the only problem you have is your lack of imagination.
>>46452064
Make it about cutthroat internal politics. The rebels aren't the enemy you worry about. Your rivals and treacherous subordinates are your real enemies.
>>46452064
Think Only War.
The Empire is big, it doesn't have nearly sufficent ressources to police the whole galaxy. It doesn't matter that the empire is winning everywhere else if the local rebel cells outnumber you.
You can be a small garrison on a remote world near a powerful Rebel presence (hunter being hunted), a rebellious planet (stay alive and minimize damage until the star destoyers arrive to relieve you), hutt space (politics and corruption, oh!), space pirates (guerrila wars), non-rebublic alien race (equal power and diplomacy), alien menace (the thing, alien, predator, death troopers, mind-controlling bugs, forgotten force users,...)
Also grumpy bounty hunters that hunt the same person as you, wild beasts on a jungle planet,...
The lowest their beginning rank, the easier it is; Stormtrooper cadets will encounter challenge everywhere, inquisitors wit vast ressoruces at their disposal not so much.
Your biggest challenge as imperial agents is that, contrary to the rebels, you don't know who your adversaries are. The barmaid could be an assassin, the merchant a spy, the janitor a saboteur. If you trust them you'll get killed, if you don't you'll lose precious allies.
>ALTERNATIVELY:
Make them play undercover imperial agents. They have to conduct rebel operations while trying not to kill to many imperials, leaking intel to their superior, and sabotaging the Alliance rom the inside, without being caught.
Can be truly excellent if you have good players, and will provide drama as soon as they bond with rebel NPCs.
>using shitty nucanon
Don't do this
>Internal struggle
This is a good idea, TIE Fighter's main plot was centered on turncoat officers trying to switch sides or attempt a coup
Heroes needn't be underdogs, they can just be good people forced into bad situations. Imagine discovering in a modern military campaign your CO just ordered you to violate the Geneva convention on a mob of rioters. What do you do?
Sooner or later Imperials end up with this sort of situation happening to them: the regime just gets more and more corrupt and excessive over time, with Palpatine loyalists getting all the cushy jobs and power while old-school officers are stuck where they are.
>>46453297
I'm all for the evil empire ruthlessness creating the spark of revolution, but SW always struck me as particularly ridiculous in that regard. 90% of the rebel alliance must be composed of imperial army/navy turncloaks. At some point it should probably have been more effective to change the system from the inside, when the vast majority of the imperial forces was still composed of decent people.
Plus motives of some of those guys for joining the alliance are really petty (from the AoR rpg : My sarge was very mean to me, better desert, become a space pirate and start killing all my former comrades, that I had no gripes with). I can understand some of that, but they seem to be a vast majority.
I think the army is one of the place where you have the most cohesion (especially in dystopian sci-fi dictature where almost everyone should be indoctrinated since birth). Saying "fuck it" and turning against your brothers-in-arms instead of just retiring when you have enough should be a exceptionnal event.
And those guys had a galaxy-wide civil war a few years before, you'd think they'd be pretty keen on keeping order and peace.
Besides, I'd say that the Empire doesn't seems to reward talentless fanatics. Vader strangling people for failure, Thrawn being grand admiral, Pelaeon,...
>>46452064
You can base the whole thing on hunting down jedi and your team is sent on missions to go deal with them, enemies are rebels and rival factions
>be me
>discovered to be force sensitive
>trained by empire to hunt jedi
>lead a small group of people around the galaxy to hunt down rumours of jedi
>found a jedi on a shitty backwater low tech planet leading a tribe of natives (mission 1)
>Emperor demands we go investigate a rumour of a jedi/rebel cell on random planet (mission 2)
>rival inquisitor traps us on space station and we have to fight our way off (mission 3)
>Lord Vader sends us on a mission to go kill over powered pirate gang led by a force sensitive (mission 4)
>Emperor praises us and sends us to go kidnap rebel leadership of a certain cell (infiltrate mission 5)
>we are doing to well and Emperor/Vader decides we are a threat to them sends us after a high level jedi conclave (mission 6)
>we get trapped in the outer rim and frozen in carbonite for a few years
>wake up and the empire is now the first order
>join up with First Order and Knight of Ren
>sent to go kill rogue Inquistitors who survived but never joined the first order (mission 7-8)
>sent to destroy lukes Jedi academy (mission 9 and hard as fuck)
>>46453906
Contiued
you can add random shit in like rival inquistors trying to kill you, traitors you need to hunt down, pirates, bandits, Different darksiders you have to go kill or capture, artefacts from dangerous temples guarded by big force warped monsters you need to steal.
it wasnt all just rebellion, they were trying to take over the ENTIRE galaxy, and they never managed to enslave the outer rim, just parts of it.
>>46452064
Award them for being upstanding Imperial citizens instead of filthy rebel scum
Have them be Imperial Army. Not Stormtroopers but run of the mill infantry.
>>46453401
The Rebels weren't 90% former Imperial pukes. The majority of them were former Separatists, militias that were screwed by the Palps' regime change, and races enslaved by the Empire.
>>46453401
>doesn't seem to reward talentless fanatics
>Tarkin decided to end a riot by landing his shuttle on the rioters, Palps gave him the green light for the Death Star project, he was too focused on his imminent victory to even consider the possibility of losing his superweapon
u wot m8
Also, what the fuck are you saying? There -were- a lot of Imperial defectors in Rebel service, just ask General Madine or Kyle Katarn.
Seeing entire populations murdered away from Imperial spindoctors saying "rebels did it" is a big goddamn deal.
>>46454401
Also, instead of actually fixing the problem with the AT-ATs' legs before going to Hoth General Veers ordered the man who discovered it reassigned. The Imperial services are full of loud, incompetent wankers, if you look.
Play space vietnam/afghanistan.
>Another patrol on this bumfuck jungle planet
>Laughing at the FNG because he keeps trying to keep his armor clean
>Saved his ass from stepping on another rebel landmine
>Found a village that we suspect is housing rebels. The Lieutenant ordered an air strike via Tie Fighter. Guys are getting uppity over lack of action.
>Sniper wasted TK-490. No tank support, so we had to rush the building ourselves, which was booby-trapped to hell and back.
>TK-075 finally snapped and fragged that officer that got attached to our platoon. LT and Sarge just laughed.
>mfw it's only Tuesday
>>46452064
You don't have to play an agent of the empire as "evil".
You can put the things in a different perspective from the movies. The rebels are not heroes, but terrorists who promote anarchy and chaos in the name of some bullshit ideal. The Empire may not be perfect, but is stable and organized.
Your players are loyal and devoted agents of the Empire. They may escort an important commander, or estract an undercover agent from a Rebel territory, or terminate a Rebel Commander and sabotage their supply lines.
>>46452255
Play Imperial troopers, in the wake of the fall of the Empire.
Deathstar Jr. Just exploded, they're stranded out in space, thoroughly outnumbered and very recently outgunned. What now?
>>46454401
>end a riot by landing his shuttle on it
That's standard 19th century doctrine, it's quite effective and didn't cause mass desertions at the time.
Let's not fall into ethnocentrism. There may be good in the heart of any sentient being, but that galaxy just got out a massive civil war with atrocities commited by both sides. I don't think that those people would suddently discover themselves a conscience after years of killing separatists that are the same than revoltee but in name.
Just because there is a cryor a mild short-term media coverage between two ad spotsfor most atrocities today doesn't mean it would be the case for every period in history (besides, even today not that many people join the other side after seeing warcrimes being commited).
>There -were- a lot of Imperial defectors in Rebel service
My point exacty ?
>>46452064
Imperials agents trying to stop a rogue Inquisitor/Admiral/Sith Lord from tearing the Empire apart in a bloody civil war. The mission is kept secret from the Empire as a whole so as of this second, you're all considered renegades. You have to take down the BBEG while avoiding, rebels, pirates, traitors and you're people.
>>46452064
Don't play strictly in SW universe as it currently stands. Set it somewhat into the future/past alternate timeline.
Depending on if the players actually want to be evil as all fuck or no you can easily portray the Empire as the underdog despite them being in control.
The rebels aren't just small terrorist cells, although those exist. They have a well funded and growing army. It's not a match for the Empire yet, but the Empire is wracked with constant sabotage and terrorist attacks. Many world's and many people have begun to resent the empire and secretly support the rebels, heel dragging and discontent are rampant. The constant obstructionism of Imperial forces and laws has led to the rise of more powerful criminal organizations than ever before seen.
The Empire is rotting from the inside and the rebel fleet is circling like a pack of vultures ready to feed on a dying animal the moment it breathes it's last.
The campaign could start with something dramatic like losing an entire imperial star destroyer to sabotage or the like.
Depending on good/evil axis of the players either play it up as their opportunity to gain power and usher in a new age of Imperial dominance, or that the Galaxy is falling apart, billions are suffering from crime and disorder, and they are the only ones that can return order to the Empire, etc.
>>46452064
Here's a suggestion.
Why not let them be the Knights of Ren? In fact, they're ALL the Knights of Ren. They're the founders of the order, and they're all Force-sensitive to various degrees.
But the order is literally JUST THE PCs. They're going to have to train themselves to be Dark Jedi, and then they're going to have to train others.
i can't find the text file where i saved a post from some anon long ago, but here is a paraphrase.
campaign takes place just at ROTJ/after it. the players are regular stormtroopers/imperial officers at a garrison on some backwater world (e.g. tattooine). run like 1-2 missions of "keeping the peace" and "stopping gang/smuggler activity."
then rumors start that the emperor has died. new transmissions from imperial authority are sporadic, contradictory, and constantly about "staying calm" and that "everything is under control."
the disposition of town towards the empire gets more and more hostile as people learn of the emperor's death and the decline and eventual collapse of the empire. the players don't know what to believe: keep doing their job of enforcing imperial law, or go AWOL and join the rabble.
could be fun.
>>46454580
We're the Warriors!
>>46455349
I really like this one. It'd be fun as fuck to do.
>>46454537
man, Kashyyk must be a shitty, shitty planet to patrol.
The natives are badass, strong as fuck bigfoots, the wildlife hates you, there's barely any light under the massive treetops, it's hot, and the Rebellion is constantly trying to start shit to free the "workers".
>>46454925
>19th century doctrine
>applied to a far more advanced setting with the ability to send messages to the other end of the galaxy
>hoping it still works
You are a special kind of stupid
Also battle droids and mercenaries aren't unarmed civilians protesting being taxed to death so I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.
>ethnocentrism
What the flying fuck?
>>46452064
Sand crawler attacking.
>>46452064
If you want them to have tough odds, make them the grunts with the crappy overseers who are too overpromoted to actually do their jobs. Make the rebels and criminals well-organized and better-supplied (Works best if Empire is occupying the planet.)
If you want them to be heroes from a moral standpoint, focus on fighting criminals and possibly include resistance fighters that are more akin to terrorists and insurgents than true heroic Rebels.
>>46456410
There's a lot of things you can do with it, in fact. Like, I assume the Empire literally cannot tell who's a genuine Dark Jedi and who's a charlatan. They'd be making all kinds of requests.
At the same time, the PCs have to hide the fact that they're actually not that powerful - barring a few displays, like Vader's force-choke. They ALSO have to hammer out their mystical doctrine to get people interested in what is basically a cult.
Like, the best bet is for them to act mysterious, dress scary, and imply that they have all kinds of DARK KNOWLEDGE. Basically, couch the whole thing in ritual and misdirection.
>>46452064
It's nice to think that a government that goes too far will eventually cause the citizens to rise in righteous wrath and throw the rascals out. It's also convenient when all the defenders of the Evil Empire wear uniforms (except for the Secret Police spy). Unfortunately we know from centuries of experience that it doesn't really work this way. The worst tyrannies imaginable have been enthusiastically supported by people no worse than your or me.
Without going deeply into psychology here are some of the reasons why citizens support tyrannies. You can use these to make your fictional Evil Empire and its people something more than laser fodder.
Citizens fear the unknown will be worse than the known: a foreign philosophy, a strange religion, society breaking down to anarchy. They may fear and hate an enemy population, especially if they are a different religion or race. Let alone species. Do you hate the Bug soldiers because they are cruel and ruthless, or because bugs are icky? Many people fear that a new government would cost them their jobs or personal power; in a corrupt regime, they may have good reason to be afraid of justice. A clever regime's propaganda will play on all these fears, constantly portraying the foe as inhuman, the rebels as terrorist killers.
People who are used to obeying the law often have a hard time changing their habits when the law becomes oppressive. They still believe that "the police only arrest criminals; honest people have nothing to fear." When the rebels break into an armory to get guns, these people see only that a robbery was committed. Enough of this and patriotic citizens may volunteer for the army to fight these wicked rebels. Obviously rebellions find more support on worlds that were free until the empire conquered them. But even there, some citizens may hate the occupier but doubt the rebels would be any better. You can fight for "freedom" – but once you win, you have to set up the government.
>>46458803
And people may be loyal to the idea, or to the ideals, of a nation or
empire, even when the reality is tarnished. “My country, right or
wrong . . .”
It is not evil, or even cowardly, to be afraid of starvation, torture, and
death. Any successful rebellion must overcome these fears . . . to
convince the people that anything is better than slavery. Meanwhile, the
government is telling them that anything is better than anarchy. Which
is why rebellions have a hard time of it.
-John M. Ford
>>46454580
Last Star Wars campaign I was in was this. Rebels were pressing advantage while the Empire was fracturing on the inside. Pretty fun.
