More roleplaying today

Jon, Phil, Rob, Rod and I made an effort to increase our roleplaying today, and I think it improved the session. Also, with the holiday Monday we were able to have a longer game session, including a more relaxed time to just reminisce about old characters, players and situations, movies and whatever. As usual of late, we opened with D&D, then played Star Wars.

Jon built a gnomish dragon shaman, 10th level (including silver dragon bloodline) out of the new PH2, and Phil generated yet another new character, a dwarven fighter we helped him with. Rod & Rob's characters, Revan and Joseph Prax have been regular characters in this campaign since at least 2004; each of them found themselves in the position to be able to build churches at Ponoblish Bimpitigora (for Khadgar and St.Cuthbert), where the gnomes and their allies continue to successfully repel the continuing nightly raids of the drow invaders. The party has earned great respect from the gnomes for their role in these battles, and for taking the fight to the drow and returning alive. The roleplaying situations included Phil's character drinking at a whiskey bar, and Revan assisting in bringing a thief to justice. Character introductions were a primary element of the session, which climaxed with another (exciting but predictable) battle against the drow. Jon had to leave early, but the session was done about then anyway. XP: 2,500. GP: 0 -- but some post-battle items of value to be resolved later.

For Star Wars, I used my "Generic City Outlines" chart from March, and the simple notes resulted in a good starting place for an outstanding session. After finishing up "legal" details from the previous session with the attorney Milas in regard to the Wallathilla events, Pieda Bowmon II piloted Akbar's Trap to the Imperial-controlled world of Janthidor. The group donned their best "Special Imperial Service Operations Agent" personas as stormtroopers, officers and technicians at the Imperial slave city of Pholon on the world of Janthidor. At Janthidor's orbital station "Minuseight," Destro used an amazing elicit barter skill check to sell remaining cargo (scrap metal and electronics parts) along with bogus information Jarn Thro had, to earn over 100,000 credits for the ship fund over the true value of 13,000 credits worth of scrap metal. How? By bundling it together and naming it as "Sliced Credstik Parts" to the corrupt Imperial officer. This line of thinking worked so well, the group used the idea again (now as sliced credstik investigators) to infiltrate the Empire all the way to their rebel contact, Cap'n Verona at the duty station in the slave mines of Pholon. Having (as NPCs) a computer technician (Jarn Thro) and a mechanical/electronics technician (Mike Skaruyabutavich) helped things along in terms of credibility, especially when deep searches revealed punishable inproprieties in the monetary records of local Imperials.

Jaina was able to scrounge some really useful local information (over dumpster berry-cake) from Urchin, a homeless young Janthidorian; a bright colored and observant semi-warm blooded reptilian native. Ultimately, the party met with Cap'n Verona and along with the explosives expertise of Alpha Vega were able to detonate a large Imperial slave mining guard station, freeing hundreds of starving and mistreated slaves. Additionally, Cap'n Verona got a promotion in his Imperial rank to Colonel (thereby increasing his ability to help the rebels) and the party got over 100 tons of precious ores. Later, the party might want to investigate Urchin's description of high-level Imperial meetings involving "people in red armor" on this world. XP: 2,500 Credits: over 100,000, plus 100 tons of precious metal ores cargo for the ship fund.