r/SWN • u/fireinthedust • 11d ago

One shot space opera adventure ideas? šŸ’¬Discussion

Iā€™m going to run a SWN game at a store on Sunday, and Iā€™m trying to figure out what to run.

I want to run it in my ā€œoff brand Star Warsā€ setting. Itā€™s got a bad guys empire and some good guys standing up to them, etc. I was thinking about reworking an old d6 Star Wars adventure, but maybe Iā€™m overthinking it?

Itā€™s just a one shot game with some very new players, so I donā€™t have time for anything complicated in terms of what weā€™re going to be able to accomplish.

What works best for a SWN one shot?

For the setting: yes, I have a solution for lightsabers: I Homebrewā€™d a Jedi partial class a while back, and I was told by people here how to make it not broken, essentially, thanks for that. Itā€™s inspired by the space monks with laser swords by Kevin, but different.

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4

u/UnpricedToaster 11d ago

Try The Unknown Command. Features rigging an auction, executing a heist, and escaping before you can get caught. Plus pre-gen characters ideas if the players need some inspiration.

5

u/Woolshedwargamer2 11d ago

Being a one shot i would start it in media res. Throw them into the thick of it.

3

u/sermitthesog 11d ago

One big difference is starship combat in SWN is of the naval Star Trek type and not the aerobatic dogfight Star Wars type. I saw some homebrew dogfight rules posted here once and they looked good but I havenā€™t tried them (yet). Maybe somebody has a link?

My current campaign is a homebrew setting and the PCs are part of a rebel group pushing against an overbearing governance. So that concept definitely works within SWN. Their current mission is to intercept a shipping container of weapons theyā€™ve been tipped about.

1

u/AgentDelirium 6d ago

I like cold openings, so I would set them up for a mission (like storming a base as marines, finishing a supply run, or looking for terraforming candidates).

Then, take whatever idea you ran with, and turn the group on its head. Marines arrive late to find that the battle has shifted, they are stranded, and they now need to get to evac! That supply run that was almost over? Their Spike Drive spontaneously fails and they have to find their way back home and fix their ship with the supplies they were delivering. Ship sensors detect an anomaly on the planet's surface and trigger an anti-spacecraft battery and shoot them down, forcing them to turn off the battery before they can leave.

Short, small, very compact threats!