Guest Stars - Star Wars Campaign 2025

Since I set my campaign just after the Battle of Endor, I have many main characters from the movies and TV shows to guest star in the campaign. However, some of them are poor choices. 

Luke and Leia are right out. They would break continuity. 

Han, Chewie, and Lando are available from the original movies while Ashoka, Zeb, Sabine, Hera, and Agent Kallus from Rebels could appear. I can tack on a few more such as a very old Kelleran Beq and slightly younger versions of the characters from the Mandolorian. 

That is not a bad group for the heroes to meet. 

But who do they fight? 

The Empire is collapsing. I will hypothesize that the remaining Imperial ships need planetary systems to resupply, which is why they are interested in the Meneth System. There will also be the usual scum and villains passing through and maybe sticking around. 

Meneth is strong enough to not align with either the Republic or the Imperial remnants. I've decided that the Menethian leadership thinks of itself as the core of a new Empire. Not having Sith lurking around makes them more self-centered than evil. They also had enough trouble in the system to prevent them from participating in a war-like colonization program. They are the ship in the bottle in Star Wars form. 

As far as bad guys go, I can have Imperial remnants, the old droid army kicking around, plus a handful of Night Sisters, and maybe an escaped Inquisitor or two. The Inquisitors were a pit of vipers and it stands to reason if one of them survived to the Ashoka TV show, there is more than one. That also adds in people like Baylan Skoll, Shin Hati, and their ilk who are good fodder for guest stars.  

The Home Town Heroes are going to be the characters. Of the original 6 Jedi, 4 force adepts, and 6 children Jedi candidates, 3 force adepts and 3 Jedi survived. That leaves the 6 force-sensitive children who are adults by now. Star Wars has no demographic info, we can guess that Meneth may have its own emerging force adepts to supplement these numbers. The players should have no trouble creating Jedi-like characters. This was my player's main complaint in my last Star Wars adventure. The Rebel base is there to provide other types of heroes like pilots and fringers while nobles and such can be from Meneth. 

I will keep my Neimoidian bounty hunter, La'ow Houd from my last series as a contact. He is a data dealer, not a killer. I like the idea of someone who has more than adequate defenses to punch way over their weight class.

Wining and Winning

My wife, Kitty, and I love wine tasting. Our favorite destination is the Adirondack Winery in Lake George, New York. It’s not just a stop for us; it’s a tradition. We visit four times a year. We try once a season and hit the mark almost every year. 

Adirondack Winery has an impressive lineup of over 40 wine varieties. We’ve proudly or shamefully sampled and purchased every single one. It’s no surprise we’re members of their Case Club, which comes with a variety of perks for those who purchase at least 12 bottles a year. For us, that’s easy. During each visit, we usually leave with a case in hand, and we keep going by adding three more bottles to our collection every month.

We are rapidly running out of room for wine. In our living room, we have a wine rack with about a dozen bottles. In the dining room, the legs of our dinner table have slots for 12 more bottles. Since we are gifting a bunch of bottles, we have at least a case of bottles waiting to be wrapped. 

Maybe you noticed that I had an ad for wine.com on my blog. It didn't work. No one clicked it. Not even once so I took it down. The link provided in the post is informational only, I don't receive anything from ADK for promoting them. 

The bottles are shipped in excellent packaging, a type of form-fitted cardboard. They use FedEx so the wine can be directed to a secondary drop-off point like Walgreens. In NY you need to show ID for wine deliveries. 

This growing collection has led to my latest project: designing a wine cellar. Kitty has officially put me in charge. To that end, Kitty selected a special Christmas gift that will be used to make this happen. I can't wait to start showing that off next year. 

But you know what I really want? 

Toys. Models. Buildings. Spaceships. 

I missed Mecha Monday this week, but I did make two posts this week to make up for it. If you like to order wine or know of a winery, you might be able to pick up some of these bottle-form containers. 

If you cut them apart with a pair of scissors and slap some paint on them, they start to look like buildings. This one looks a bit like a hanger or bunker to me. They have that old adobe Star Wars look, like Mos Eisley. 

I realized I don't have any grass or sand, so I will need to pick some up to texture the bottom edge. 

Depending on your paint job, you can deck them out for many different scales and themes. The slab-like arches can be painted to look like garage doors or regular man-sized doors depending on need. I have to say the Commando looks massive and threatening next to this thing. 

Since my last post was about Star Wars, I hope to do a campaign using a lot of Star Fighters. My pick for these are either Bandai 1:144 scale models from my local comic shop or small metal models from Studio Bergstrom. I have purchased a few ships from Studio Bergstrom and I suspect I will amass a lot in the future because I like models as much as wine. 

The three or four dozen ships I already have are going to be the focus of a lot of Miniature Mondays. I will be mixing that up with Mecha Monday, because a good mech is like good wine. 

Star Wars D20 - The Donations of Palpatine

I am creating a Star Wars D20 campaign using the Star Wars Role-Playing Game I reviewed here. Unlike my last foray into the world of Star Wars, this series will be heavy on Jedi, Manolorians, and star fighters. This post contains many of the ideas I will present in Session 0. 

The system Meneth is in the Outer Rim. It has always been unaligned with any galactic power due to the array of ion cannons defending it. Novema and Seguna are the two habitable worlds in the system. Novema is the seat of power in the system with Seguna producing most of the food for export. 

I hate the Star Wars timeline for its numbering convention, but the story starts in 19 BBY, with Order 66. Five Nu-class shuttles were on Novema for resupply for a trip to Coruscant. Four shuttles carried 20 clone troopers each. The last shuttle carried 3 Jedi Counselors and 3 Padawands to escort 4 force adepts and 6 children who were potential candidates for the Jedi order. 

As they made for orbit, Order 66 came in. 

Chaos ensued with a 4 on 1 dogfight in the upper atmosphere. The Jedi ship danced between several incoming freighters, including several operated by Mandalorian refugees. From the ground, it looked as if the Clone Troopers went nuts and were gunning for each other, which was actually the case. After several tense minutes, the order to fire on every ship was given. The ion cannons were very effective, 

Three-quarters of the Clone Troopers died as the ships crashed, along with two Jedi and one Force Adept. Most of the remaining Clone Troopers were seriously injured. Most tried to integrate with Menethian life, but a few joined the criminal underworld, fled the system, or joined the Silver Blades. 

Fast forward to 5 BBY. A fleeing group of Battle Droids attempted to take the planet. By this time, Meneth was protected by a vast array of deep-space ion cannons. Three Droid ships crashed on Novema while one was trapped in orbit around Seguna. None of the Battle Droids were able to activate and attack either planet. 

A fifth fully activated Droid ship crashed on an asteroid and has become a horrible thorn in the side of the Menethians. They prevent full coverage of the system with the ion cannon array and allow pirates into the space lanes. 

One final time jump to 5 years after the Battle of Yavin. There are five factions in the Meneth system: 

1. The Jedi,
2. The Silver Blades, 
3. The Menethian government, 
4. The remnants of the Droid Army,  
5. and a small Rebel base. 

The Menethians allow the Rebels to refurbish older fighters and small ships on Seguna. It is a tiny port among many, protected by the Ion Array. The Rebels assist in the defense of the system with their elderly Y-Wings, and faster A-Wings, plus a few X-Wings. They are not allowed a bigger presence. The Rebels will not bring "hot" ships known to the Empire into the system or new items like B-Wings. 

The locals have been providing old speeders to the Rebels, which are being converted to special operation vehicles for harsh environments. Their tactical value is dubious. 

The Silver Blades are the remaining Manolorians plus a handful of Clone Troopers headed up by one of the Force Adepts who declined to join the Jedi. They act as an independent force on Novema, usually opening the way for the remaining Jedi to negotiate peacefully. They all wield Silver lightsabres that stun as opposed to wound. They are not as skilled as Jedi when using them, a Silver Blade cannot block blaster fire, but their armor makes up the difference. 

Silver Blade: (Light Saber) Damage: 1d4 stuns DC 15, 1 kg, size medium, simple group. 

The Jedi have a small temple on Seguna. While they do not see eye-to-eye with the Silver Blades, they often accompany them on missions when negotiation is necessary. Most people believe the Jedi are old, wiser counselors for the Silver Blades. Everyone is inclined to keep up this appearance. 

During the planting and harvest seasons, the Jedi will offer their manpower to the local farmers. It is very boring, but it allows the Jedi to get their ears to the ground while trading for necessary items. The Jedi generally don't have much money.  

The Imperial warlords want to smash the Meneth System but are stymied by the five factions. In one case, a Star Destroy was attacked by all five factions at once, the distress call sent was worrisome, to say the least. Their next attempt was another disaster. Believing the Droid base was the front-line defense, they bypassed it and flew into the teeth of several fighter squadrons backing up the Ion Array. 

The fleet limped out of the system and resorted to guerrilla tactics and civilian ships to get spies and saboteurs into the system. The player characters will investigate the Imperial interference while also helping the local fighter squads beat back hit-and-run raids by the Imperials. If they can, they are also charged with dislodging the Droid Army from their asteroid base. 

Accommodating the Unrequested

I was going to call this post, "When the players change the rules" but it isn't that at the end of the day.  I used to play in a shared world with 3 rotating DMs who also played characters. This is obviously where my love of NPCs came from as when a player stepped into the DM role, their character faded to NPC status. 

One of my co-DMs favored oddball player characters, usually a druid or illusionist but he really liked the idea of an archer. The real class was Fighter or Thief depending on the stat placement, but with a bow and always unarmored. 

And it drove me nuts. 

First, he would sink into the background trying to avoid melee. Then the player would switch to DM mode after the combat and wanted to roll a 1d20 saving throw against a crushing blow for each and every arrow fired. As a DM with a table full of characters, I have better things to do. But I couldn't stop him. He would fixate on it. 

The HAPPY archer

How annoying. 

The problem was hidden and had to do with the archery rules in AD&D. He led the pack of players as archery comes before melee in the rules. From his perspective, he was making a couple of rolls and sitting idle for far too long. Eventually, he'd run out of valid targets and his combat role was nullified. 

To spice things up for him, I addressed the problem with environmental conditions. I encouraged him to carry a ridiculous number of arrows in multiple quivers. A quiver on his back, a quiver on his horse, a pair of quivers on the pack animals, and maybe one or two more on the horses of other players. I didn't want him focused on "preserving arrows" from the start. 

A firing position

The next environmental condition I presented is, that his character would have a variety of firing positions to choose from. As an archer, I figured he'd scout good positions, stuff with either cover or concealment. This was a nod to his lack of armor and cranked up the drama by having enemy missiles strike a fence, or a door, or whatnot. This also meant he could pluck an opponent's arrow out of the barrier and send it back. 

Later, I added special rules to make him feel more engaged. He had a collection of special rules that gave him a choice of pros and cons to choose from in combat. 

While this may seem unbalancing for the rest of the party, like I was making the archer more special, it did not. What it did do is break up the whole "marching order" shenanigans into something more realistic and slightly more badass. 

Ah... Ranks.

Without options, players will often place their characters into a block with the fighters in the front and the squishy characters in the back like a giant military formation. This action made sense when OD&D was a titch away from simulating armies. It doesn't make sense in a small combat action, which is what D&D does now. It also diminishes the role of squishy characters, regulating them to a boring non-combat role, even worse than the example archer character. 

With the archer acting as overwatch, the party would naturally break up into groups, with no one "in the rear", like a real tactical unit. The front is everywhere. The melee types would form up as a small group or two with the archer lending his firepower and sweeping the battlefield. By not having every character visible from the get-go, thieves and assassins were free to blindside attackers. This often created situations where the squish wizard got to engage in front-line action by having one fighting guardian and an archer overwatch. Or placed the squishies under the direct cover of the archer, seen, but unreachable. 

It really envigorated combat. 

It allowed me, the DM, to use more enemies and track them more easily. The party told me what to do with them so I didn't have as much to track. I have a table rule that characters including monsters don't die until -10 hit points, allowing me to reuse unique enemies. And unique characters remember. The players' tactics create my tactics. 

"What are they doing?" asked the party.

"One of them is approaching you. The others are looking around for something." 

"They don't see me?" asked the archer. 

"No, they don't."  

This is all very organic. 

And it adds a nice meta, which is rare and cool. We all know the trope where the players hear the DM's dice rolls, right? Well, with the characters' tactics dictating the flow of combat, this diminishes the cause-and-effect observation of these die rolls. They are never unnoticed but somehow fall into the background. 

A good example of this is skulking characters moving silently or hiding in shadows. I roll the dice, get a result, and make a choice. There is a delay between the roll and the visible action. There is nothing better than a good move silently roll resulting in an opponent turning away from a stalking assassin. 

It also hides the obviousness of morale rolls. The enemy isn't retreating because of a die roll, they are retreating from a superior force. This can eliminate the anticlimactic "we're out of targets" situations by replacing it with "how bad do we want to chase the targets?" 

Personae Dramatis - Flameheart and Jen

I use a set of standard NPCs in all of my campaigns. These folks are bearers, guards, horsemen, and archers. They are the typical NPCs the party will hire and somewhat control. Of all of them, a couple will become henchmen and followers. These are all bog standard until the players decide to ask more of them.  

I am not a fan of arming the party with a Gandalf-style NPC. I don't mind powerful NPCs adventuring with the party, but they should not provide important information and direction for the players. The party is adventuring for its own sake, they need to be Gandalf types, not following one or more of them. 

I am not entirely against offering points of refuge or safety to a party in times of need. However, these people are NOT to travel with the party for long (if at all) or provide extra oomph in a fight on demand. Usually, they have their own fully formed plans and goals which have nothing to do with whatever the party is doing. They offer a respite from an unexpected threat to the party. 

I describe them as Personae Dramatis to set them apart from regular NPCs. They are chance encounters that provide further insight into the setting of the game, without requiring the party to follow them or buy into another plotline. They tell a story outside the one the players are experiencing. And like any good story, it offers the players entertainment, news, and most usefully, a brief respite. Tom Bombadil springs to mind. 

I am not a poet, so I swing for comedy and a bit of false tension. 

In my campaigns, Flameheart and Jen Tanner are two examples of Persona Dramatis. 

Their main traits are right in their names. Jen was a runaway from her father, the town tanner. She disliked being a social pariah at the edge of town. Tanners live at the edge of town because they use ammonia for the tanning process. The main source of social stigma is the use of urine to obtain ammonia. The second source of stigma was the incredible taxes they paid. Urine was double taxed, once in its collection and once again on its sale. This created the impression of stinking, rich tanners and evil tax men. This is the real-world source of both the phrase and the trope of evil tax men.  

Ick. I love it when real life intrudes on my RPGs. 

Flameheart was a ridiculously old red dragon, one who had sunk to eating equally old cows to survive. It was only a matter of time before someone put a lance in his chest. 

Flameheart stumbled upon Jen in her attempt to escape her dull village life. It wasn't long before the Tanner family caught up with the pair. They found the whole village guard not up to the task of rescuing Jen, who very much didn't want to be rescued. 

I will save the full story for another time. Here is how I use these Personae. 

When I present Jen and Flameheart, they are encamped near the party, causing a ruckus they are unaware of. The presence of a dragon is often a reasonable explanation for a pause in the character's adventures. 

Think of Jen and Flameheart as a mobile fortress or safe area, no matter how the reactions go. If the party goes into hiding from them, so will anyone following the party until the dragon leaves. If Jen convinces the party to stay for a time, no one will approach the party. 

In general, I don't have much cause to stat up Jen. She sometimes has a potential boyfriend in tow depending on how I feel. He also doesn't get stats, unless I decide to have him join the party. Usually, the boyfriend is very pretty and less than helpful to Jen and Flameheart and might be better off in the party.  

I have given Flameheart the following stats: 

AC: 1, HD 8 (46 hp), Att: [ 2x claw (1d6), 1x bite (4d8)], or breath weapon (special). THAC0: 12 (+7), MV: 90' (30') / 240' (80') flying, SV D8, W9, P10 B10, S12 (8), ML: special, AL: Chaotic, XP: 2000, NA unique, TT: H. 

Flameheart has the following spells:  

Level 1: Charm, Light, Sleep.
Level 2: Detect Invisibility, Invisibility, Phantasmal Force.
Level 3: Dispel Magic, Fly, Waterbreathing

Flameheart shared his horde with Jen and she always carries the following when stat'ed up: 2 Bags of Holding, Bracers of Armor (AC: 4), and Boots of Levitation.  

As mentioned before, Flameheart is extremely old. To the point of weakened health. This is reflected in his HD, attacks, hit points, and saves. He will not retreat if Jen is threatened, hence his special morale.  

He has two different breath weapons due to his age. He has difficulty breathing fire. He can breathe fire on a save vs. breath weapon. On failure of this save or when he desires it, he will emit a massive jet of obscuring smoke instead of fire. It lasts 3 rounds. This may sound like a joke, it isn't. 

While the smoke does no damage, it is a very dangerous situation. He is smart enough to follow it up with one or more spells to cause chaos. He is savvy about his limitations and can turn them into true threats. He will use his spells creatively in conjunction with his smoke to terrorize victims. He may turn invisible, charm a victim, or use Phantasmal Force in the next round. 

He has a 35% chance of being asleep when discovered. Jen mitigates the danger as she sleeps as much as a typical 22-year-old woman. Jen is smart and disarming, allowing the dragon to wake or appear unexpectedly on opponents.

From a DM's perspective, Flameheart and Jen represent a minor threat and a dangerous refuge from larger threats the party might face. If the party presents itself as needy, Jen may attempt to assist them more than providing a safe haven. Due to Jen's exposure to the tanning profession, she is very money-conscious and savvy about exploitation. 

They are always chaotic, but not necessarily evil.