Missions

Focused stories built around an objective, assignment, investigation, expedition, conflict, or problem.

Missions give characters something concrete to respond to without deciding in advance how the story must unfold. A mission might begin with formal orders, a private contract, a distress call, an investigation, a criminal opportunity, a request for assistance, or simply a problem that someone decides cannot be ignored.

Some missions are small enough to involve only a few characters and a single session. Others may develop across several locations or pieces of roleplay, involve multiple groups, or become important parts of a larger campaign.

Success is never required for a mission to matter. Plans can fail. Objectives can change. Information may prove incomplete. Characters may disagree over what should be done, discover that the original problem was misunderstood, or create consequences more significant than the assignment itself.

The mission provides the situation. Roleplay determines what happens.

Missions that have been established but have not yet begun.

Planned missions are useful places to look for upcoming roleplay, especially when participation is still open. A listing should provide enough information to understand the basic premise, likely setting, relevant affiliations or skills, and how a character might reasonably become involved without revealing information intended to be discovered through play.

An active mission may still accept additional characters when the story provides a believable opportunity for them to become involved. Check the participation information on the individual mission record rather than assuming that an active story is automatically closed.

Missions that have ended remain part of the StarForgeRP archive when their events, participants, or consequences are useful to later stories.

A mission does not need to end in success to be considered concluded. The objective may have been completed, failed, abandoned, superseded, rendered impossible, or transformed into an entirely different problem.

Completed mission records can be revisited through the Story Archive alongside concluded campaigns, events, and other roleplay.

• Open — Additional characters are currently welcome.

• Limited — Additional participation may be possible depending on the character, story, or available space.

• Closed — The mission is not currently accepting additional participants.
  
  

Participation labels are practical information for players rather than in-character restrictions. An apparently secret or exclusive operation can still be marked Open if its organizers are actively looking for players whose characters have a believable way to become involved.

A mission is a focused piece of roleplay built around something the participating characters are trying to accomplish, investigate, prevent, recover, protect, discover, resolve, or survive.

The objective does not need to come from a military commander or formal organization. Missions can arise anywhere characters have a reason to act.

They might involve investigating a disappearance, negotiating for the release of a prisoner, escorting a vulnerable traveler, recovering stolen property, surveying an archaeological site, smuggling restricted cargo, tracking a fugitive, responding to a disaster, repairing a damaged facility, gathering intelligence, providing medical relief, sabotaging an installation, resolving a local dispute, or extracting someone from a dangerous situation.

A mission can be military, criminal, political, diplomatic, commercial, humanitarian, scholarly, exploratory, personal, or something that does not fit neatly into any category.

What makes it a mission is not combat or scale. It is the presence of a meaningful objective or problem around which the roleplay is organized.

A hook presents a possibility: a rumor, problem, request, opportunity, connection, or unresolved circumstance that could become roleplay.

A mission begins when characters have a more definite situation or objective to act upon.

A missing shipment might begin as a Roleplay Hook. Once characters agree to locate it, determine what happened, or recover the cargo, that developing story may be recorded as a Mission.

A campaign connects a broader story that develops across multiple pieces of roleplay.

A mission may stand alone or form one part of a campaign. Several missions might investigate different parts of the same conspiracy, support opposing sides of a conflict, respond to consequences created by earlier operations, or gradually reveal a problem larger than any single assignment.

Not every mission needs to become part of a campaign.

An event brings characters together because something is happening at a particular place and time. Participants do not necessarily share an objective.

A diplomatic reception, tournament, ceremony, political gathering, festival, public auction, or emergency assembly may therefore work better as an Event.

If characters attending that event become responsible for investigating an assassination attempt, locating a missing delegate, or preventing a developing crisis, that situation may create a Mission of its own.

A character does not need to belong to the mission organizer's faction or organization to have a believable reason to become involved.

Before joining, look at the mission's location, objective, participants, organizations, circumstances, and participation status. Consider what connection your character already has—or could reasonably develop—to the situation.

Employment, military orders, professional expertise, personal relationships, debts, favors, shared enemies, local ties, investigation, curiosity, ideology, financial interest, criminal opportunity, emergency circumstances, or simply being in the wrong place at the right time can all provide believable points of entry.

Do not worry about finding the character who is objectively “best” for the mission. Different backgrounds create different approaches.

A soldier, slicer, diplomat, medic, investigator, scholar, smuggler, technician, mercenary, Jedi, Sith, civilian specialist, local resident, or criminal contact may each see the same problem differently.

Those differences are often where the roleplay begins.

When joining an established mission, use the information on the page as player context rather than assuming that your character automatically knows everything recorded there.

Your character should enter the situation with whatever information, contacts, authority, suspicions, or misunderstandings make sense for them.

A useful mission does not require an elaborate plot or predetermined sequence of encounters.

Start by establishing a situation that gives characters a reason to act.

A mission premise should usually make the following clear:

• Situation — What is happening?

• Objective — What are the characters currently trying to accomplish?

• Reason for involvement — Why would someone reasonably care or be asked to participate?

• Location — Where does the mission begin or primarily take place?

• Known context — What can participants reasonably know at the beginning?

• Participation — Is the mission open, limited, or closed to additional characters?

• Connections — Does it relate to an existing character, organization, location, hook, campaign, or earlier event?

The mission does not need to establish how those questions will ultimately be resolved.

Avoid designing the objective so narrowly that only one character, ability, or predetermined decision can move the story forward. Participants should have room to investigate, negotiate, improvise, disagree, retreat, change plans, make mistakes, and create solutions that were not anticipated when the mission began.

Preparation should establish circumstances and possibilities—not script the players' choices.

Mission pages serve both active roleplay and the long-term archive.

While a mission is underway, its record should provide enough information for players to understand the situation, participants, relevant locations, and connections to the wider setting. As the story develops, significant discoveries, changes, and consequences can be added without turning the page into a transcript of every scene.

A useful mission record may include:

• mission status and participation

• date or chronological placement

• primary location or locations

• originating character, organization, contract, or circumstance

• objective or initial briefing

• participating characters

• involved organizations or factions

• related campaign or roleplay hook

• major developments

• final outcome

• unresolved consequences or follow-up opportunities

• links to affected Characters, Lore, Galaxy, Timeline, or other Roleplay entries

When a mission concludes, record what actually happened rather than what was originally expected to happen.

Failure, withdrawal, compromise, incomplete information, unexpected alliances, collateral consequences, or an unresolved problem are all valid outcomes. The archive should preserve the circumstances that later stories inherit.

Not every completed mission needs its own Timeline entry. Routine or self-contained stories can remain within the Roleplay archive and relevant character histories. A Timeline entry becomes useful when the mission creates a development that the wider continuity needs to remember—for example, a change in leadership, the destruction or discovery of an important location, a lasting political or organizational development, or another consequence that affects later stories.

The Roleplay record preserves the story.

The rest of StarForgeRP records what that story changed.