Running the Hunt

The Bounty Hunter's Code is the fiction; this is the toolkit. Running a bounty at the table needs no new subsystem — SWURPG already gives you the Bounty Hunter class, the capture weapons and tracking gear in the equipment catalog, and an underworld full of patrons and rivals in the bestiary. What follows is how to bolt those pieces into an actual hunt: a mark, a contract, a chase, and a choice at the end of it.

A hunt is a heist run backwards. A heist ends when the crew gets out with the thing; a hunt ends when the crew gets back with the person. Everything in between — the intel, the approach, the grab, the getaway with a struggling payload — is the adventure.

The bounty, classified

Price the mark first; everything else follows from what they're worth. The banking clan's registry sorts bounties into rough tiers, and the tier tells you who's chasing and how hard:

Payout scales the danger, the competition, and the temptation to sell the mark to a different buyer. Set the tier to the level of the party: a Local skip is a fine one-session job for a low-level crew; a Most Wanted name is a campaign.

Writing a bounty — the puck

A Bounty Puck holds five things, and each one is a lever you can pull for story:

• The mark — who they are, and the one detail that makes them a person rather than a payday.
• The terms — dead or alive (the hunter chooses), alive only (worthless dead — the whole job changes), or "no disintegrations" (the client wants a body as proof, so no vaporizing the evidence). The terms decide which of the party's tools are even legal to use.
• The patron — the Empire wants a dissident silenced; a Hutt wants a debt collected with a message; a corporation wants a thief and their data, quietly. The patron is who betrays or re-hires the party later.
• The last-known — where the trail starts.
• The catch — the complication that isn't on the puck. The mark is innocent. The mark is a child. The patron is lying. There's a bigger bounty on the party.

The contract lifecycle

Run a hunt in five beats, and let the party's gear carry each one:

1. The posting. The party takes the job — from a broker, a Guild House, or a puck slid across a cantina table. Establish the terms and the clock.
2. The track. Turn the last-known into a location. This is Survival and legwork, sped by a Tracking Fob and a planted Homing Beacon, or a Seeker Droid when the trail goes cold. Let failed rolls cost time, not the hunt — the mark moves, but the chase continues.
3. The approach. Getting close without spooking the mark: Stealth, Deception, a Holographic Disguise Matrix, or Holoshroud Armor for the two seconds that matter. A blown approach turns the grab into a firefight — which is a feature, not a failure.
4. The grab. The capture itself, and where alive-only terms make the party earn their fee: a Net Gun or Whipcord to Restrain, a Carbonite Projector to finish a beaten mark, the class's Mark for Capture to press the advantage. Killing a mark posted alive forfeits the payout — the mechanics reward doing it right.
5. The payout — and the double-cross. Getting back with a struggling, valuable payload is the second half of the job. The patron shorts the fee, a rival ambushes the handoff, or the mark offers more to be let go than the bounty pays. End the hunt on a choice, not a transaction.

Playing hunters at the table

• The party as hunters. The default: a crew takes contracts, and the campaign is a string of marks that slowly reveals a bigger web (the patron behind the patrons). Escalate the tiers as they level.
• Rival hunters. A Galactic or Most Wanted bounty draws competition. Field rivals from the bestiary — a lone underworld assassin, a Death Watch wing, a hunter built on the Bounty Hunter class — racing the party for the same mark. The mark becomes a prize three ways, and the party has to decide whether to fight, outrun, or deal.
• The party is the bounty. Flip it. Someone posts a puck with the party's faces on it, and every hunter in the sector is suddenly a threat. The best way to teach players how a hunt feels is to make them the mark for a session.

Build a bounty hunter

SWURPG has no bounty-hunter subclasses, so the archetypes are builds — the Bounty Hunter class plus the gear that expresses the concept:

• The Skiptracer leans on Survival, the Tracking Fob, and a Seeker Droid — finds anyone, fights only when cornered.
• The Manhunter is the capture specialist: net gun, whipcord, Carbonite Projector, and Mark for Capture, built to bring them back breathing.
• The Mandalorian wears beskar, flies a jetpack (see the equipment rules), and answers a blade with a flamethrower — see The Mandalorian Way.
• The Assassin-for-hire takes the dead-or-alive contracts with a sniper's patience and the Amban rifle or a disruptor.

Load any of them into the Character Builder, post a puck, and let the galaxy do the rest.