Adventure title: Crisis on Cloud City
Author(s): Christopher Kubasik
Published: November 1989
The Pitch: The Rebels are framed for murder on Bespin and have 24 hours to clear their names before being arrested by Lando Calrissian and turned over to the Imperials.
Summary: Many of the adventures of this era steer clear of anything directly related to the movies. This one heads right for Bespin, wrapping up the players in a mystery that they need to solve to avoid Imperial justice. Also, the only appearance of a full deck of Sabacc cards, with rules to play!
In-depth review with SPOILERS after the jump!
The Rebels are tasked with accompanying Walex Blissex to Bespin where his friend is working on some sort of secret project. The message Dr. Len sends is desperate and the Rebels arrive just in time to hear Len get murdered through the door. They might have gotten there on time but they get jumped by droids twice on the way into Bespin, and the only suspect in Dr. Len's murder is a deactivated protocol droid lying in a pile of droid parts in the locked room. Lando shows up just in time to make everything seem suspicious. He lets the Rebels walk on the condition they find out whodunit.
The Rebels walk into the local droid manufacturer, who sends them to the casino. They play a few hands of sabacc with some locals, Lando in disguise (?!) and Lira Wessex, Walex's daughter who knows more about what's going on than she seems. A modified labor droid crashes the casino and the main plot really takes over - something is controlling the droids on Cloud City and trying to take over.
The Rebels get the skinny once they break into the droid manufacturer. Dr. Len was working on a master control droid called ExoOne to run Bespin more efficiently. His assistant, Dr. Vreen, contacted the Empire about giving them the droid and the Empire sent Lira to see things first hand. Except Exo doesn't want to run an efficient Bespin, it wants to turn everyone on Bespin into robots with a nanite virus that has already infected Dr. Vreen. The players dodge evil droids, Lira double-crosses and cyborg zombies until they get to the central computer core, where father and daughter hatch a crazy plan to kill Exo by turning Bespin off and on again...hopefully before Cloud City is crushed in Bespin's atmosphere.
The Rebels walk into the local droid manufacturer, who sends them to the casino. They play a few hands of sabacc with some locals, Lando in disguise (?!) and Lira Wessex, Walex's daughter who knows more about what's going on than she seems. A modified labor droid crashes the casino and the main plot really takes over - something is controlling the droids on Cloud City and trying to take over.
The Rebels get the skinny once they break into the droid manufacturer. Dr. Len was working on a master control droid called ExoOne to run Bespin more efficiently. His assistant, Dr. Vreen, contacted the Empire about giving them the droid and the Empire sent Lira to see things first hand. Except Exo doesn't want to run an efficient Bespin, it wants to turn everyone on Bespin into robots with a nanite virus that has already infected Dr. Vreen. The players dodge evil droids, Lira double-crosses and cyborg zombies until they get to the central computer core, where father and daughter hatch a crazy plan to kill Exo by turning Bespin off and on again...hopefully before Cloud City is crushed in Bespin's atmosphere.
The Design
This adventure is notable for a big reason. It is the origin point of the rules of sabacc, the infamous card game that Han and Lando played over the ownership of the Millennium Falcon. Instead of a fold out poster, the adventure comes with a set of punch-out cards and rules on how to play. Sabacc is a blend of blackjack and poker in these rules, where you want to lock your cards in when you think you have the value closet to the winning one.
The adventure suffers from some of the same overplotting as the others we've covered. The PCs get jumped twice on the way in, and yet are supposed to be told if they bring it up to the authorities they just shrug and go "Huh, killer droids, how weird." Things move in a fairly linear fashion, though that's not necessarily a bad thing in a mystery plot such as this. It's honestly less of a whodunnit than a whydunnit, and it opens up into stakes that are high that aren't necessarily saving the galaxy.
The central casino scene, while a fun way to introduce sabacc, runs into the double problem of being an exposition heavy scene with multiple NPCs talking to each other instead of the players. I wish there had been more guidance here about how to give the players what they need to know without the GM talking to him or herself for ten minutes.
The adventure suffers from some of the same overplotting as the others we've covered. The PCs get jumped twice on the way in, and yet are supposed to be told if they bring it up to the authorities they just shrug and go "Huh, killer droids, how weird." Things move in a fairly linear fashion, though that's not necessarily a bad thing in a mystery plot such as this. It's honestly less of a whodunnit than a whydunnit, and it opens up into stakes that are high that aren't necessarily saving the galaxy.
The central casino scene, while a fun way to introduce sabacc, runs into the double problem of being an exposition heavy scene with multiple NPCs talking to each other instead of the players. I wish there had been more guidance here about how to give the players what they need to know without the GM talking to him or herself for ten minutes.
There's also the Edroids, who are nanites that slowly turn infected humans into droids. Exo's plot to turn droids against humanity is already nice and operatic. Nanites seem like a bit of a stretch even for Star Wars's casual flirtation with how science works, but they could work if maybe they just rewrote a brain rather than literally made flesh steel.
Canon Compatibility
The text throws ExoOne as an amazing leap in science, but a droid controlling other droids doesn't seem like that big of a deal after a war where droids fought all over the galaxy.
Being on Bespin, there is some visitation of some local hotspots, like the freezing chamber scene where the players have to fight off evil droids until Walex and Dr. Vreen can climb out of the apparatus. Lando also shows up three times in the adventure, which I think may be the only appearance of a major movie character in these adventures.
Being on Bespin, there is some visitation of some local hotspots, like the freezing chamber scene where the players have to fight off evil droids until Walex and Dr. Vreen can climb out of the apparatus. Lando also shows up three times in the adventure, which I think may be the only appearance of a major movie character in these adventures.
Special Modifications
Most of what I would change is streamlining. I would probably cut the droid virus thing to leave for a sequel and focus on ExoOne turning Bespin into a home for free droids or something like that. Dr. Vreen can have something else installed in him that makes him act erratically, like a brain bomb that ExoOne can trigger at any time. There;s a neat Frankenstein and his Monster vibe to Vreen and ExoOne's relationship I think I would play up, too.
I would combine Lando's appearance from the opening and the casino and remove the disguise bit. It seems like a reference to a storyline in the old Marvel comics, but it also smacks of one of the weaknesses of licensed games. WEG always seemed afraid that players would use and abuse the canon characters, so they tended to overpower these characters, stat-wise. Lando isn't written up that way here, but the disguise encounter doesn't really do anything for the story. It makes more sense to encounter Lando in his natural element at a sabacc table. That's a cameo that fits the flow of the story.
I would also do my best to keep that ending set-piece where the Rebels have to stop Could City from falling into Bespin. Most of the groups I play with seem like they would try to outlogic ExoOne rather than blow up the core, so having the droid shut down after being defeated seems logical. Then, Cloud City starts to fall, and the players have to scramble to reboot the control core because ExoOne inadvertently turned everything else off when it went quiet.
The Walex/Lira dynamic is fun, but probably only really necessary if your group played Starfall.
I would combine Lando's appearance from the opening and the casino and remove the disguise bit. It seems like a reference to a storyline in the old Marvel comics, but it also smacks of one of the weaknesses of licensed games. WEG always seemed afraid that players would use and abuse the canon characters, so they tended to overpower these characters, stat-wise. Lando isn't written up that way here, but the disguise encounter doesn't really do anything for the story. It makes more sense to encounter Lando in his natural element at a sabacc table. That's a cameo that fits the flow of the story.
I would also do my best to keep that ending set-piece where the Rebels have to stop Could City from falling into Bespin. Most of the groups I play with seem like they would try to outlogic ExoOne rather than blow up the core, so having the droid shut down after being defeated seems logical. Then, Cloud City starts to fall, and the players have to scramble to reboot the control core because ExoOne inadvertently turned everything else off when it went quiet.
The Walex/Lira dynamic is fun, but probably only really necessary if your group played Starfall.
Final Thoughts
I remember this adventure being cooler than it was, possibly because of the sabacc rules and the Lando cameo. There's a lot of time doing the same thing over and over in repelling droid attacks. Still, it's another adventure that focuses away from Rebels vs. Imperials, and uses Cloud City as a fun location.
Though seriously, Lucasfilm, where is my real sabacc deck?
Though seriously, Lucasfilm, where is my real sabacc deck?
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