Session Report: Exploits of the Virtuous Sparrow Episode II

Interlude Crawl Between Episodes I and II:


Crawl for Episode II:


For those of you who haven't read the prior session report, the following is the layout for the session reports for this campaign. Feel free to scroll to whatever interests you (though the mechanics part is really in context to the story, so you might want to at least read the portions that apply to the footnotes if you're just looking to see how it went mechanically)

The Players
The Story
Mechanical Footnotes
End Result
XP Handed Out

The Players
Ashley - Ama'reeha, a Twi'lek Colonist (career) Doctor (specialization) with a major (30 Obligation (from 35 because of addition of a fourth player)

Paul - Xavin, a Human Smuggler (career) Scoundrel (specialization) with a good (17 Obligation) Debt to Teemo the Hutt and a minor (5 Obligation) addiction to gambling (and cheating at said vice).

Sean - Cole Zannah, a Human Hired Gun (career) Mercenary Soldier (specialization) with a large (25 Obligation) bounty on his head from sleeping with a Planetary Governor's daughter and a minor (5 Obligation) addiction to alcohol.

Ben (new) - Nyluk, a Rodian Techniciann (career) Slicer (specialization) with a decent (15 Obligation) Bounty on his head.

The Story (Please note, any bolded numbers in parentheses are mechanical notes I will discuss in the footnotes section)

After receiving a warning from a rodian slicer named Nyluk who was looking to join the group, the crew of the Virtuous Sparrow fled Formos just before the bounty hunters sent by Velman Berikor arrived to capture Cole Zannah (this is touched on in the Interlude crawl above). They flee to the Corellia Sector and set settle down temporarily on the Gus Treta Inner System Market Station. Knowing they need to get out from under the shadow of Cole's bounty, they decide to get in with famed Infochant Liddy Ravora, proprietor of Bell's Cantina (see Episode II crawl). Xavin disappears on a gambling holiday.

On their way back through the Pirates Shadow asteroid field, they are ambushed by Twi'lek pirate Sil Dulana, who wants the rare Tralusian wine they are transporting for himself. He attacks with his freighter while two of his cohorts zip in from either side in TIE Uglies. Cole gets the drop on them though (1) and immediately flips the Sparrow around so Nyluk in the dorsal gun and Ama'reeha in the ventral can get shots off.

After some give and take, one of the asteroids drifts into the Sparrow's path, but Nyluk notices that it has actually been hollowed out and is a cleverly-designed mini space-station. Having already taken heavy damage but causing little (2), the Sparrow spins around again and fights to escape the asteroid field before they can be destroyed. Cole is fairly certain that once free of the field, Dulana will give up the chase and turn back around. He is correct (3).

Having provided Ravora with the wine for her cantina, she tells them she knows of two jobs available that could potentially help the crew out of their predicament. One is a job for a client who wishes to remain anonymous and involves extracting a datapad from a ship downed in the swamps of Talus. The other is a job for Gormo Vesadii Grasso, the Hutt who owns the very space station they are on. The Hutt has been losing credits on what he feels are rigged illegal swoop races (not rigged by him anyway) and he needs it investigated and handled. The crew discusses things over drinks and ultimately they let the flip of a coin make the decision. They are going to infiltrate a swoop race ring.

The first order of business for the trio is to obtain a swoop bike and ascertain when and where the races are held as well as how to get involved in one. Nyluk quickly comes up with the answer to the latter while Ama'reeha asks around about any underground Sabacc games that could end up with swoop bikes in the pot (4). After both obtain their respective information, they head over to the Sabacc game (5).

The plan for the Sabacc game is simple. Cole will play straight up while Nyluk and Ama'reeha cheat their hearts out. Between the three of them, they are sure one of them can get the stakes high enough for Grenzo (one of the players) to put up one of his many swoops. Things start out well enough with the PCs winning hand after hand as the stakes steadily increase. Then, their luck changes (6) and the losing starts. Before long, Cole is knocked out and leaves the back room for the cantina proper. Soon after, Ama'reeha has been ousted (though not caught cheating). She attempts to make nice with one of the other players but fails and begins loitering at the table.

Nyluk wins the following hand, forcing Grenzo to put up a swoop or bow out. The rodian does so and the next hand begins. Nyluk wins the pot easily, but as he goes to collect his winnings, his computerized cheating is discovered and the entire table draws guns on him (7). The owner of Bovo's (where the game takes place) says that Nyluk can leave in one piece, for some unknown reason. He agrees and exits, as does Ama'reeha, who has managed to slip the pink slip for the swoop bike into her pocket (8).

The three immediately race to turn in the pink slip for the bike before word spreads. They get it and have it sent to get refitted and prepped for the race the following day. On their way to where they are staying they're stopped by a Corsec officer and two squads and arrested for disturbing the peace. Nyluk recognizes that this is small potatoes for a Corsec squad and that they are likely corrupt. Ama'reeha and Cole, in the middle of surrendering draw down and prepare to fight.

The battle goes well for the crew of the Sparrow, though the officer is harder to take down than expected (9). Nyluk tosses a grenade into one of the groups, immediately dropping on of the three officers. Ama'reeha and Cole fight as well, though Cole gets fairly injured during the battle. Eventually, damaged but standing, the three emerge victorious. Then, they have an idea. They gather up the weapons and vests and badges from the bodies as well as the datapad from the officer, then take the bodies and sneak it all to the alley behind Bovo's after close.

Nyluk reprograms the datapad, making it clear it is blackmail being used against the officer by the owner of Bovo's (one of the players in the game) for the officer's dirty dealings. He then hacks his way through the security of the back door while Zannah and Ama'reeha dump the bodies in a dumpster in back. The crew then  heads into the empty cantina, watching out for the patrolling guard due back in four minutes. Ama'reeha spots a safe. While Nyluk hacks into it and Zannah plants vests and badges in a locker, they hear someone approaching. The guard is making his rounds two minutes early (10)! Ama'reeha quickly puts on her best drunk face and exits out the back, pretending to be drunk and moves to intercept the guard while the other two planet the datapad and hack Corsec's security from the bar to leave the breadcrumbs. They escape out the back and Ama'reeha extricates herself from the guard. Lastly, the fake an assault on Ama'reeha in the back alley, making sure someone calls in to Corsec and the bodies get discovered. Then they flee and head for the race.

The race is a success. Cole pilots their new swoop and discovers the gang of racers was cheating by laying traps on the course that appeared to be natural terrain. They recorded the entire thing and bring it back to Bell's Cantina as evidence. They arrive, smiling and happy, only to have Ravora frantically asking them if they have any contraband on board their ship. The crew races to the hangar to see what she's talking about only to find the Sparrow crawling with Corsec agents who have already removed Ama'reeha's crates of spice from the cargo hold. They are approached by a well-dressed Drall who tells them if they had handled his employer's job first, their ship wouldn't currently be locked in the hangar bay pending potential charges. He then says they'd best board a shuttle for Talus immediately to handle things.

Mechanical Footnotes
1 - The group rolled one exceptional initiative roll, putting one of their slots at the top of the order. They decided Sean should take it so he could point the ship in the proper direction to fire on their pursuers.
2 - The dice were just NOT the gang's friends for this fight. Crummy rolls on their end paired with AMAZING rolls on the part of Dulana meant within a couple of rounds the Sparrow was almost totalled.
3 - Cole makes a three difficulty Knowledge: Outer Rim check, which allowed him to know how Dulana's crew normally works.
4 - Nyluk made a Knowledge: Underworld check to obtain information on illegal swoop racing while Ama'reeha went with Streetwise to ask around about local high stakes Sabacc games.
5 - I wasn't expecting this (touch on this more in the End Results section), but in the Suns of Fortune sourcebook (the sourcebook for Corellia), one of the new modular encounters fit the bill perfectly. Modular encounters are encounters present in sourcebooks that can be used to fill out adventures or be dropped in anywhere as needed. In this case, it worked out great.
6 - In the modular encounter, the proprietor and his cronies want to suck in the PCs, so they start by losing. A lot. Then, once the PCs are invested, they start cheating and actively working against them. How this worked out in play was that the difficulty for the appropriate checks were two difficulty dice. Once the cheating on the NPCs' part started however, it was upped to two purple dice and a red die (the proprietor's Skulduggery skill), as well as one black die for each NPC still in the game. I didn't think my players would actually fall for the ruse, but they did.
7 - Ben, Nyluk's player. Rolled AWESOME on his last Computers roll for cheating. Unfortunately, he also rolled a Despair symbol on the red difficulty die, meaning that he was CAUGHT cheating.
8 - While the NPCs are distracted by Nyluk, Ashley had Ama'reeha make a Skulduggery check to palm the pink slip for the swoop.
9 - The officer was a Nemesis level NPC. Something common among these types of NPCs is that they have a talent called Adversary. For each point in Adversary someone has, every skill check made against them increases the difficulty by 1. It doesn't sound like much but it REALLY takes a toll.
10 - I didn't plan the guard coming back early (or this encounter at all, see the End Results section below), but Ben made Nyluk's computer roll to hack the safe's lock and, while he did succeed, he also netted three Threats. I interpreted that to mean the guard was ahead of schedule on his rounds.

End Result
This adventure was interesting for several reasons:

First, it was the first one I ran that I put together myself instead of going with something pre-published.

Second, we have a fairly limited time frame to play and the PCs went off the rails after fighting Corsec. I had zero inkling that they were going to get back at the owner of Borvo's for ousting them for cheating. So, I gave them an option. I said they can choose one of the encounters for me to simply narrate over and have them succeed at it. They can either plant the Corsec stuff at the cantina without playing it out, or they can do the swoop race infiltration without playing it out. They decided they wanted to focus on the vengeance and narrate over the swoop race, so that's what we did. And, as is often the case, the completely unplanned scenario was the best part of the session.

Third (though it ties in with my second point), the entire thrust of this adventure was meant to be the swoop race and infiltrating the ring. We didn't play that out at all, I simply narrated what happened and sent them back to the space station. And that was awesome.

So yeah, there were a few hinks (particularly with the space combat as, for some reason, I can never get the down in ANY Star Wars RPG), but overall everyone had a blast and we can't wait to play again. I've decided, since we play every two weeks, two do up an Interlude crawl on the Saturday way don't play to keep the players jazzed for the game the following week, and then an actual crawl for the next episode that I play for them immediately before the next session. We'll see how that works out.

XP Handed Out
20 (15 for the adventure itself and 5 just for the awesome role playing and ingenuity of the entire group)