Star Wars - Dark Trooper Campaign

Had anyone told me 20 years ago that I would someday be playing - let alone GM-ing – a 5 year campaign I would have laughed heartily. Even more so, as my groups over the years had rarely played any coherent adventure over more than one session. Most groups had multiple game masters taking turns in GM-ing one-shots or a high player and/or character fluctuation, and some groups simply dissolved for different reasons (some of which were the members not getting along well). In addition the overall interest in continued storylines was very low.

This campaign started out the same way: Simple one-shots without anything in common. The first adventure featuring the “Herald of Vitiation” was meant as a one-shot for a convention and played out pretty decently. I then “recycled” it for another group and it suddenly developed a life of its own. Some time later the adventures of the “Rattattouille” began, where I was asked by the players if this could be the start of a coherent campaign.

But, alas, several things happened within short time: Some players resigned (partially due to moving to a distant city), others regularly missed planned sessions, while others could only be there like 2 or 3 times a year on some conventions. There was little to no chance of having a coherent playgroup to even think about playing a campaign where each session would add to the storyline.

In addition, I was not feeling very well at that time due to personal circumstances, and I only enjoyed a select few roleplaying games for which game masters were quite rare. As a consequence I became a “forever GM” and I totally disliked having to wing it every single session to come up with the most original ever adventure of the week with totally new setting and never before met NPCs and so on. Instead, I wanted to create a continuity by having past NPCs show up again, the outcome of past missions become important in the future and past decisions shape the way the setting would react. I wanted to have an ever growing stack of material to use and come back to, so the adventures would be connected even if the players or characters were different.

At that time the first movies of the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) had come out, and what was most fascinating for me about these movies, was the fact that you could easily watch them separately and just enjoy a single movie, or you could watch more or possibly all of them and witness the meta-plot developing over the course of the whole series through short scenes, references and post-credit scenes.

I realized that if I was to fix all the problems with my fledgling campaign I had to do just the same as the MCU. Each adventure had to be a self-contained storyline with beginning, middle and end, so it would feel like a normal and satisfying one-shot to a one-time player and a veteran alike. Returning players should experience recurring NPCs, ships and places as well as references to past events, so it would feel familiar to them, like they been there before. First-time players needed to be set up with a short, but precise introduction to what was going on there and what they could expect, so they were able to identify the key narrative elements woven into each session.

So I did exactly that, and - with some very rare exceptions – all of the players had a blast with these adventures, sometimes even asking half a year in advance on which convention I would be and if I would continue with this storyline on that date. And it was lots of fun for me, since I finally had the means to plan ahead and play a larger meta-storyline over a longer period of time.

Now, here’s some of the stuff from and about this campaign that I wanted to share with you. Have fun! :)