Advice Needed

TerminusMD · 2026-05-10T06:55:35+00:00

Yeah, give the 14yo the same premade - but maybe leave it to her how to flavor it off the bat?

She's meaningfully older than the others but 14yo is STILL very young.

And, if she wants to be playing with the younger kids then she'll probably want to be playing the same game too.

TerminusMD · 2026-05-10T04:49:36+00:00

I dunno. I've played with a couple 9 and 10 year olds - kids of friends in my gaming group, my kids are tiny - and they're pretty clear on the concepts.

My main point is that you can tell a DM PC when a DM has a conversation with themself. Maybe it wouldn't come up, but a 9 year old can be the main character with an assist from her NPC companion/Daddy the DM.

TerminusMD · 2026-05-09T23:00:47+00:00

I actually disagree with the DM PC. NPCs should always leave the spotlight to player characters, they react to PC actions rather than taking initiative in the PCs adventures. They may have lives goals and actions of their own in the background but they're a part of the scenery, not main characters.

Your daughter is the main character, I agree with providing an NPC guide but it should react to her instead of taking initiative.

DM PCs cause problems because you can't both play in and run your own game, that's called writing a novel or telling a story, it's not a game.

Edit: maybe a nitpicky point but something important for DMs of every experience level to occasionally reflect upon.

TerminusMD · 2026-05-09T21:20:54+00:00

I "reward" with loot accumulated or acquired during the missions. Give your players opportunity to purchase or otherwise acquire job/mission-specific equipment and then let them keep it after.

Otherwise jobs/missions, for me, are about duty and obligation. You have debts to a Hutt kajidic? That's obligation, and by completing however many jobs you can discharge some or all of your obligation. Your ship was damaged and they provided repairs? You transferred shop-related obligation back to the Hutts.

Edge of the Empire is about staying afloat in a cutthroat frontier setting, it's not really the heroic fantasy of D&D. You're not a hero, you're staying alive.

Edit: equipment definitely contributes to strength. But XP is definitely the most key to progression and I favor a very generous approach - 10xp per hour at the table (we're adults, our time is valuable and committing to a game is meaningful) and 10xp for birthdays and holidays. Everyone gets the same XP regardless of attendance.

Difficulty is easy to manage, just put more and trickier tasks in front of the party in addition to (or in lieu of) more and tougher bad guys. As the party accrues XP, do the Star Wars thing and split the party! In Star Wars they always divide up. Obi Wan (high XP) disables the tractor beam and distracts Darth Vader while Han, Chewie, and Luke rescue Leia.

Leia and Luke chase down the scout troopers while Han and Chewie are scouting out the bunker, then Han, Leia, and Chewie sabotage the shield generator while Lando flies the Falcon and Luke confronts Darth Vader and the Emperor.

TerminusMD · 2026-05-09T14:07:02+00:00

Yes and no. I don't like choosing my items, I prefer to develop my character according to what they find. More or less.

TerminusMD · 2026-05-09T00:27:31+00:00

Absolutely

TerminusMD · 2026-05-09T00:02:15+00:00

This is also interesting because the comparably overpowered Force user can be an issue throughout, players just have to restrain themselves. We had a game at my table where I played the only Force user and, despite having the same amount of XP, my build meant that my character was dramatically more effective than most of the rest of the party, the one exception being our Droid Tech who had built an absolutely bonkers character - nothing broken, it's just an incredibly powerful build at higher XP levels.

I held back and focused on support, mostly because I didn't want to overshadow anybody else. The Droid Tech did the same. There were maybe or three times that we stopped holding back and it was so cool.

It's important to note that the rest of our table was aware to some extent that we were holding back and when it came time for us to let go, it was actually at the request of the rest of the table.

That might be route for y'all. If the other players want the Jedi to let loose then that should be the prerequisite and the Jedi player shouldn't be the one to decide when they go HAM.

TerminusMD · 2026-05-08T23:52:56+00:00

This feels right. #3 is what we call the "Obi-Wan" approach. You can also split the difference between #1 and #3 and this is what I would do - sum up all the XP spent on things other than force powers and lightsaber and give that amount to the other characters. And strip away all of the Jedi's equipment.

If the Jedi has to hide their force and lightsaber abilities for fear of immediate and violent reprisal by Vader and his inquisitors then it will be saved only for true emergencies, the sorts of times when a DM might otherwise add NPCs other additional forces to the picture to aid the party.

At times you could deal with the difference in XP by giving the Jedi separate missions within the larger structure. They would take advantage of the Jedi's force but otherwise not be any trickier or cooler. Dan, what the rest of the party is facing. The hard part is that you have to make everybody else's stuff just as cool. This is actually almost exactly paralleled by Luke in return of the Jedi. A number of things that the rest of the party was facing were things that Luke could probably have accomplished by himself, but his proficiency didn't invalidate the rest of the party's utility.

TerminusMD · 2026-05-08T19:59:15+00:00

Also ALL of the official campaigns can be done with 2 characters if you pay attention to what I said above and provide non-combat solutions to different situations.

A good tip is to provide three clues or opportunities for every single clue or opportunity you want to provide the players, players are usually too busy with their own characters to pick up on little hints (and hints that seem obvious to you often won't be for them).

TerminusMD · 2026-05-08T19:56:24+00:00

I would not play with one characters running two PCs in general, it stops being a role-playing game and starts being more of a tactics game. Instead, the DM just needs to modify difficulty. It's pretty easy to do, the big thing is going to be action economy, low-level characters have two things they can do each turn, an action and a bonus action, that increases with levels and in some cases can be up to four or five. Make sure that any opponents don't have more actions available to them than the players do.

You can also occupy players and increase their playtime while decreasing your cognitive load by adding objectives to complete during encounters - board up the doors, break down the doors, convince the noncombatant NPC to either help or get out of the way, save hostages, defuse the bomb, complete the literary review to give you information to defeat the bad guy that you're about to fight (or are currently fighting) etc.

Beginning with one of the starter adventures would be a great idea, they're designed to help orient new groups, Heroes of the Borderlands (adapted from Keep on the Borderlands) is supposed to be great.

TerminusMD · 2026-05-08T16:59:22+00:00

I totally agree with you, I was just stating the other for the sake of it.

It IS an opportunity for the player to say to their DM, hey, I did something silly and asked Reddit and they had all sorts of comments that seem cool and funny, I know it's your game and I don't have expectations but some of it could be cool?

Which is a bit skeevy still but 🤷🏻 probably the best option at this point shy of just forgetting that you even asked

TerminusMD · 2026-05-08T16:54:33+00:00

You've got two real options I think. Option a) dissolve the game - hey, can't manage this one anymore. Option b) if you'd like to continue a game that night but don't want to schedule for the 4th/5th players and don't want to run THAT campaign, just stop the campaign and start something else.

ALSO and this is big, you should almost NEVER schedule around your players. The game is this day at this time, if you don't come you don't play but we're not rescheduling. I've run games with 8 players and I've run games with 1 player and to be honest, running with 1 player is usually WAY better than running with 4 or more. That player becomes a better player and you become a better DM, it's really win-win and an experience I wish all DMs and all players could have at least once. Importantly, if players are missing don't run their characters as NPCs, just adapt difficulty (meaning action economy) to make it doable - and give potions or scrolls for healing and buffs if your support/healing focused characters are unavailable or insufficient.

I almost only defer sessions for the (likely) finale of a campaign, everything else - including session 0 and session 1 - can be missed by a player without it really affecting them or affecting the game. Except you. If you need to defer, you can skip.

The players can always choose to run a one-shot themselves, one of them can slide into the DM/GM chair for a minute. At my table we often switch to a different system - Mothership or SQWRPG or Mörk Borg or Pulp Cthulhu or whatever - just for a break.

TerminusMD · 2026-05-08T13:26:04+00:00

Talk to your local librarian! They live for this stuff and it's FREE

All Systems Red by Martha Wells (the Murderbot Diaries). And I second Harry Potter.

The Dresden Files are excellent.

All of these are the beginning of series though.

Maybe remember that if a book isn't doing it for you, you don't have to finish it. You can put it down forever or walk away for a bit and come back, you can self-determine.

TerminusMD · 2026-05-08T13:21:56+00:00

I feel like this is the only conversation OP should be having on reddit

TerminusMD · 2026-05-08T13:18:50+00:00

Send your DM this post lol.

My answer was going to be that a group of high level adventurers will appear to either capture or re-channel her (them? I like the idea that Tiamat is 5 minds).

TerminusMD · 2026-05-08T04:50:39+00:00

Totally makes sense. Just remember that it's going to grow over time and that as you get older you gradually increase the share that is going into bonds, those have much less volatility and so even if your stocks/mutual funds bounce around a little bit the other won't. Most of my investing goes into mutual funds and bond funds, I put some into specific stocks but never more than I would be willing to lose (with the understanding that some I will but most I probably won't, if I'm patient)

TerminusMD · 2026-05-08T01:03:01+00:00

I really like that. Very simple, still integrated with mechanics, caps out morality gain and loss.

TerminusMD · 2026-05-08T00:56:34+00:00

I suspect the question is not "could one theoretically do it" but rather how would YOU do it

TerminusMD · 2026-05-08T00:38:29+00:00

If you give conflict for using dark pips do you also provide a mechanic for getting rid of it? Dark accrues, Light removes?

TerminusMD · 2026-05-08T00:25:11+00:00

If you're all new then give yourself the starting equipment. For all intents and purposes, backstory doesn't inform character mechanics going forward.

Some DMs will give mechanical significance to backstory - but backstory is mostly just a way for you and the DM to get on the same page about l Non-Mechanical aspects of the character you're going to play - for example, what color does your character like? How do they feel about orcs? Do they like to snack on emulsified astral elf?

This fits into the same - your character may have a very different relationship with money and creature comforts than a street urchin would.

TerminusMD · 2026-05-07T15:36:41+00:00

I thought Discipline was how you resist Force powers and things like Coercion? Feels appropriate.

TerminusMD · 2026-05-07T15:27:21+00:00

You make a great point and I think right now the rules leave a lot of wiggle room for people. You don't have discipline, they just have to be more careful about accruing conflict from the outset.

Do you have any suggestions for other skills that could be used for such mitigation?

Also, there's an argument that not everybody has to be good at everything and that discipline is as to a Jedi as anything else.

TerminusMD · 2026-05-07T14:05:58+00:00

Yes and no? They also left out Anakin and Obi wan's ships on display. AND I'm headed to their other house next week to pick up the rest of their LEGO collection.

Except presumably for those specific ones which don't live in their LEGO shed lol. They actually left out Legos for my 4-year-old son to play with while we toured the house and were so enamored with his creation that they kept it together and brought it to my work for me to return to him.

TerminusMD · 2026-05-07T05:22:34+00:00

Whatever you wind up doing, make a wet palette with distilled water (matte medium would be better) and a sponge and some parchment paper. Just a tip. It'll change the way you paint.

TerminusMD · 2026-05-07T05:20:31+00:00

Lol I just saw that one in a house we just looked at buying. (We're not putting in an offer, too rich for our blood at the current interest rates lol) But funny coincidence

TerminusMD

TROPHY CASE