Yesterday, the hypothetical group of Cypher Star Wars players assembled their characters; today, the GM will assign them their starting cyphers, tell them the beginning to the campaign, and then let them decide what they're going to use for their equipment selections. Jack, Mark, and Kris each get two cyphers with their Types as two Warriors and an Explorer; Mary gets three, as an Adept. Jack gave up all his weapon choices in exchange for a blue lightsaber, Mary traded her two Expensive choices for a green lightsaber, and Kris has chosen her two options as an electrostaff (which she describes as a medium bludgeoning weapon) and a techblade (a medium slashing weapon).
The GM's first decision is to assign cyphers rather than rolling them, to ensure a better fit for the starting characters; a melee-happy Jedi probably wouldn't pack a pair of thermal detonators around, after all!
Jack's Trandoshan Jedi is the first up, and the GM assigns him a pair of injectable cyphers - a stimpack full of red liquid that gives him a free level of Might Effort for ten minutes, and a kolto injection that heals up to the cypher's level in Might or Speed when used. Jack rolls 1d6+1 for each cypher's level, coming up with a 3 for the Stim and 5 for the Kolto. He also has an oddity - a fetish necklace of bits and pieces of creatures he has successfully hunted, a tally of his worth in the eyes of the Scorekeeper.
Mark's smuggler is next, and the GM assigns him a thermal detonator and a stim that can clear his mind, letting him recover up to the cypher's level in Intellect Pool when he uses it. Mark rolls 1d6+2 for the detonator, getting a 6 for a rather powerful little grenade, and 1d6+1 on the stim, getting a relatively weak pack that only heals 2 Intellect when used. He notes down that he got the stim from his contact, and suggests to the GM that he'd be willing to have it be something weirdly experimental, ripe for a GM Intrusion when used.
Mary's next; her Jedi Consular can have three cyphers, so the GM gives her a one-use holocron that can tap the Jedi Archives to answer any question with a degree of accuracy determined by the cypher's level, a holoprojector that can be programmed to display a realistic hologram of anything up to the size of a bantha for ten minutes before the power runs out, and a small crystal filled with swirling dark smoke and red lightning that can fully restore her Intellect pool, but also advances her toward the Dark Side. The GM throws in an oddity in the form of a dormant datacron that shows markings similar to those from the Rakata Empire.
Last up is Kris, whose droid gets a chemical spray that bonds parts for repair purposes, healing up to the cypher's level in Might, and a carbonite grenade that ensnares targets of the cypher's level or lower in frozen carbonite stasis for transport. Kris rolls 1d6+1 for both cyphers, getting a 4 on the repair spray and a 5 on the carbonite grenade. The droid also gets an oddity in the form of a bandolier that adheres things deliberately pressed to it, creating a trophy belt that the droid can use to showcase past successful hunts.
The GM outlines the start of the campaign - they've been hunting a Sith with a commando squad that attacked a Jedi training facility and fled after killing several Padawans, tracking them with the aid of the droid bounty hunter to the Smuggler's Moon, Nar Shadda. The game will begin with them coming out of hyperspace near the moon, in hot pursuit of the Sith starship; neither ship has strong enough weapons or shields to risk a straight-up dogfight, so they'll have to pursue the Sith to ground and hunt them through the twisted, garish mess of the overbuilt moon. Their goal is to capture the Sith, but the elimination of the commando squad is a benefit.
Mark says that he can have his contact arrange a relatively secure dock for them, away from the usual places that Republic citizens dock so that they won't be as obvious while they try to track the Sith down. Kris says she'll back the plan, and notes that she'll want to check the galactic network for bounties on the moon while they're there. Jack and Mary think it sounds good, and so the GM continues, noting that they'll be docking in the neutral turf between the Cartel factions theoretically loyal to the galactic powers, with easy access to holocomm facilities, a medical facility which doesn't always serve questionable purposes, and several outfitter shops that sell pretty much any good, legal or otherwise, that one could reasonably hope for. The group decides that, for now, they'll be living on the ship to avoid the surveillance that a hotel would bring.
The group turns to pooling their resources next to decide what they have in terms of equipment, agreeing that they should use it as a team since that was how the Jedi Council sent them out. Two Warriors means they have two expensive items, four moderate items, and eight inexpensive items, while an Explorer adds two expensive, two moderate, and four inexpensive. Mary has already burned her two expensive items to get a lightsaber, but she adds another two moderate and four inexpensive items to the list, for a total of four expensive items, eight moderate, and sixteen inexpensive items.
They agree that each of them gets a headlamp to wear when they need it, plus a knife for personal defense in an emergency, using up eight of the inexpensive items. They pool the other eight into four more Moderate items, giving them a total of twelve. They burn two moderates to get light armor for the smuggler and the Jedi Consular; Mark's smuggler wears a blast vest and reinforced pants, while Mary's consular wears robes reinforced with cortosis weave. Jack doesn't need armor, and Kris needs heavier gear. They burn three more to get each of the organics a healing kit, and another to give the droid nightvision capability as if using nightvision goggles. Left with six moderate, they pool them into three more expensive items, getting a total of seven.
Mark gets a medium blaster pistol as an expensive item, a relatively nice BlasTech model with engraving on the grip. Three more are spent to get environment suits for the organics, and another to get Kris a stunstick. Last, they pool the remaining two expensive options to get a very expensive item, outfitting the droid with a suit of heavy armor that essentially serves as armor plating bolted directly onto the droid's chassis.
With that, the group is pretty much ready to go on their first adventure.
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Next time, we'll look behind the GM's screen, such as it is, and see what might go into planning an adventure on the Smuggler's Moon for these PCs - and possibly go about making an actual adventure for people to try out.
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