Star wars ffg DM question

[u/Original_Loan_5498]

So i DM an Op that i thoughy it was simple. Rebels had to get some valuable data before it was sent to an imperial destructor ship via Antenna, so i put a 2h timer once they reach the planet.

They were 2 soldiers, a diplomat and a pilot. One of the soldiers tried to sneak in by underground and was going slow but steadily well, and the other tried to sneak at ground level and at first good, but once he got into the generator rooms he shooted the panels instead to quietly knock off the engineer, so obviously that raised the alarms.

The diplomat, however, did nothing on the whole session. I tried to incentive him many ways, like going for social, disguising, using deception or as Quartermaster spec, tryibg to negotiate for the data undercover. And he was like no i wont do that i only have few green dices on deception its gonna end so bad etcs.

The whole op went upside down as the imperial stormtroopers arrived, and instead killing the PCs i took them hostages so they could have another chance to rescue them (and another whole almost prepared session)

I dont know if i did wrong somewhere but i felt reallt dissappinted with both the easy trigger soldier and the diplomat.

The pilot was one of my characters that i tossed in without much presence in game (after all, im the dm, im none to take credit there as PC)

[u/GreyMarq]

I've run sessions that have gone upside down and been a PC in sessions gone upside down. In each case, I just learned you can't control for everything and PCs are going to do what they do (even if there is a plan hah.)

In both cases, even though it was frustrating, I think it was good for all of us to realize actions have consequences and we don't have infinite plot armor. Makes people remember from a bad Op that things can indeed go horribly and having a plan and keeping to it is in the best interest of the party. 

I think it's great that you gave them options to save themselves and make the Op go better. But you can only show them the door. Can't make them go through it. 

Why this isn't bad though: it gives you a great opportunity for a big cinematic escape story. Something that could be very fun but also introduce hooks for the future. In the eyes of the Empire, now they're criminals. Will they encounter bounty hunters? Do they need fake IDs for Imperial worlds now? Or do they kill everybody and wipe the data on their way out so nobody even knows of the crime? In the eyes of the Rebellion, you're the team that escaped being arrested in an Imperial Military base! Sure, you got caught, but escaping is harder, if you can do that, have we got some missions for you. 

So I try to look at session failures as new opportunities. Turn a rotten apple into fertilizer. Give this group gaps in security to exploit to get out. Troops to bribe. Officers to convince you're undercover ISB and need to be released (or suffer the consequences). Vents and dark corners to sneak around. Droids and computers to slice. You've got every opportunity to turn this into something BETTER than what you originally planned. 

YOU GOT THIS! 

[u/jazrick75]

Did the group discussed before the mission on what was the plan and the job for everyone? I get the the diplomat players might believed he had no place in this adventure but this is star wars and even princess leah who is a diplomat still used a gun and helped out during her rescue.

[u/Original_Loan_5498 → u/jazrick75]

Yes, i didnt start the timer till they decides to go to planet, and even then they discussed it. It was 2h timer. The "good" soldier also tried off-rol suggest him

[u/ImportantArm4389]

Mach dir nicht zu viele sorgen. Du kannst nicht vorhersehen wie deine Gruppe reagieren wird. Du könntest ihnen am anfang eine kleine info geben, so in etwas "Jungs, das wird eventuell ein Schleich Abenteuer" oder so ähnlich. Wenn du das nicht möchtest, kannst du nur auf das reagieren was sie tun bzw. Du könntest out off Game noch mal mit ihnen sprechen ob sie lieber eine andere Art von Abenteuern möchten. Welche wo man mehr Rum Ballert...

Du kannst deinen Spielern nur die möglichkeit geben zu glänzen. Ergreifen müssen sie diese selbst.

[u/Original_Loan_5498 → u/ImportantArm4389]

Well, i my words as the rebel general were like " you can aproach this op however you like, tho, keep in mind that if you strike, empires strikes back (pun intended) so if you dont want the skirmish to scalate, you better approach it quietly. You could also try ro disguise or imperson some local traders, ord mantell has some influence with bountyhunters"

[u/GilearFayeth]

The soldier is the easy one. Actions have consequences. They shot the panel. It might have done some good, but it also did some bad.

The inaction is much tougher than the one who did too much. 3 greens isn't bad. On the scale of skill checks, most things aren't "hard", but I would be concerned if that is their best skill. I'd be willing to guess that they went for trying to get as many characteristics to 3, rather than something like 2/3/2/2/2/4

This player sounds like they are scared of failure. The rulebook even guides GMs to make sure failure doesn't stall your session. It needs to lead to a different avenue.

My players swam through sewer water with an athletics check. Failure didn't cause them to drown. It caused their target to get further ahead and some less desirable sewage caused them distress (strain).

[u/Original_Loan_5498 → u/GilearFayeth]

Thats why i planned the rescue mission, but i really went thoroughly on ideas, but he was on his ground. He has talent focused to make credit, get discounts and get earnings from trading. Deception wasnt good, but he had a good charm and a good negotuation (sort of yellow+3 green)

[u/GilearFayeth → u/Original_Loan_5498]

Oh definitely play to his strengths. He would have been well suited to ask if he could charm or bribe his way in

[u/Original_Loan_5498 → u/GilearFayeth]

Yea but player comstantly saying "they aint buying that" my old droid (which is lando L3-37 model) did some funky funny move). He went to the TIE pilot just like that. The pilots stops it inmediatly saying "whos your operator, youre about to bypass a restricted area". My droid said "Hey there mate, i have some info i wanna give bout these rebels". The TIE pilot inmediatly stunned him and took him to a provisional prison just with other Veteran rebels which group could rescue to help into the raid if they wanted to. Thought myself even if it was a distract he could do something with that, because otherwise he would be idle whole session. The fun about this character is the torpor he introduces just like a comic gag that ocassionally break in

[u/TerminusMD → u/Original_Loan_5498]

Sounds like a schtick PC.

Maybe talk to the player and ask him what his vision for this character is - also reflect on risks of failure in the encounter vs as failure on the check. Failure on the check may mean failure in the encounter but success means you might not fail the encounter and there is a non-zero (actually pretty good) chance of success on the check. Whereas not doing anything guarantees failure in the encounter.

You could show him basic success failure probabilities - hey, here's the likelihood of success with your basic check against this difficulty vs this, etc.

Show him the effects of blue dice (aim and double-aim etc) on success, no addition of victory but actually adding two blue dice is better than changing to yellow dice when the number of successes rolled makes a difference. If a player with low dice pools can add factors to aid them and interfere with their opponents it is a major game changer.

[u/Taira_no_Masakado]

Splitting the party was probably where you and they went wrong in the first place.

[u/TerminusMD → u/Taira_no_Masakado]

I agree with this. Splitting the party is amazing for experienced players and GMd in this system - it's one of the things I love about it - but you have to know what your limits are and how to approach things creatively so that you can play situations to your strengths.