Another April, another bit of fun. I decided to join in rather later this year, on April 1. I might have done it sooner, but frankly, it sort of snuck up on me, and I didn't get a good idea until the day of. So, it's probably less polished than it might have been, but with limited time, I went with what worked.
Read Mored6 sw
Star Wars Wendsday-ish - SWRPG Old School Renaissance!
Forgive the unusual timing, but this news couldn't quite wait until my regular Wednesday post. Star Wars roleplaying is about to enter the Old School Renaissance!
Read MoreStar Wars Wednesday - Planet Comicon & Blockade Nebulon-B
KC's local major comic book convention was this past weekend. Planet Comicon is a growing show, and they've continued to get good Star Wars related guests over the years. I skipped last year, due to job hunting. I almost skipped this year due to other obligations, but my wife prodded me into going anyway.
Read MoreStar Wars Wednesday - Gemini Assault Lander
Way back in August 2011, I started to stat out Christopher West's Mass Transit III map starships and vehicles. Well, I finally got back to them tonight. Hopefully, the next won't take nearly as long to get to, but no promises. So, here's the Gemini-class Tandem Assault Lander, from the back of Mass Transit III. Enjoy.
Read MoreStar Wars Wednesday - Ralph McQuarrie
Last week marked the passing of Ralph McQuarrie, the visionary artist behind a huge percentage of the works that established the visual style of Star Wars. Given that I've looked at his work since the 70s, I wanted to share some thoughts.
Read MoreStar Wars Wednesday - Clone Wars and Sidecars
So, being tired from a lot of stuff happening lately, I took some time tonight to catch up on the Clone Wars episodes piling up on the DVR. Watching several at a time, especially those that are linked story arcs, actually makes it easier to follow along. This is especially true for story arcs resurface weeks after they left off.
So, you know, spoiler alert for those who haven't seen up to the most recent episodes (or some of the less recent episodes, like I said, they were stacked up and some were missed the first time they were broadcast).
Star Wars Wednesday - KOTOR is Back
The Old Republic is everywhere lately. In this case, is the Knights of the Old Republic making its return to comic book store shelves. This week marks the release of that to the Knights of the Old Republic: War, by John Jackson Miller.
Read MoreStar Wars Wednesday - Twitter, Star Wars & More
Star Wars Wednesday - Sketch Cards & the RPG
So, I started this post last week, then deleted it because it became too much like an earlier post, and I decided to go the starwars.com route anyway. This week I'm returning to the subject because:
Read MoreStar Wars Wednesday - Longarm of the West
So, I finally have a little more time this week to follow up on something handed to me at GenCon: Chris West's latest Maps of Mastery map. As with Chris' earlier maps, the Mass Transit III map works with Star Wars Minis, the RPG and most any sci-fi RPG out there.
Read MoreStar Wars Wednesday - ComicCon & Related News
Last week was San Diego ComicCon, which is always a hotbed for Star Wars related news and activity. Here are some of the items that caught my attention (some from the show, others just had similar timing):
Read MoreStar Wars Wednesday - Milk Run
So, last week I thought this was a good idea, but it's turned out less interesting than I thought it would be. So, don't be surprised if it's a bit on the short side.
Read MoreStar Wars Wednesday - Convention Games
This past weekend, I attended KantCon, in the Kansas City area. I wasn't sure of my schedule beforehand, so I went as a player, not a gamemaster. I carted along a couple of games in case I needed to run a pick up game of something, but my goal was to play more than run this time around. I've talked a lot about creating adventures for cons the past few weeks. This time I want to talk a bit about the logistics of playing and running in an event, with this fresh in my mind.
Read MoreStarwars.com - Battle of Turak IV map
in Cartography
I should have realized this sooner, but with the elimination of the Hyperspace fan club, now anyone can read most if not all of the old Hyperspace content. That means the tactical maps I did for the Battle of Turak IV article are now open for all to see. And, for those who don't recall, Turak IV originally appeared in WEG's Imperial Sourcebook. Some of the logos/graphics in the article later appeared in WEG's mini's book, Imperial Entanglements.
Update on 2011-07-06 03:04 by Sterling Hershey
As was pointed out in the comments, it's not open to eveyone. Looks like I was still signed in from an earlier session and didn't notice. Sorry about that.
Star Wars Wednesday - Designing Stats
Last week, I discussed the pitfalls of stat block creation for public use/publication(mostly for Star Wars Saga Edition, but applicable to other systems as well). Keith "Nar" Kappel of www.fandomcomics.com followed up with a good question I wanted to address here.
Read MoreStar Wars Wednesday - Dealing with Stat Blocks
A few hours ago, I finished recording/co-hosting an episode of the Order 66 podcast. I'm writing this on Sunday, because I'm traveling this week. If all goes well, this will auto-post at the right day and time. If you never listen to the Order 66 podcast, it is dedicated to the Saga Edition of the RPG, and you can find it at d20 Radio.
In the episode, we talk about creating modules for public use/publication and how that is different from creating an adventure for a home game. Hopefully, some of my more rambling comments still provide some help. It occurred to me, however, that one aspect we didn't address was stat blocks, so I wanted to touch on that a bit this week. I'll be addressing Saga Edition specifically, but most of the following applies to any system.
Star Wars Wendesday - How long did that take?
Action scenes in roleplaying games are major highlights in the game. In Star Wars, more often than not, they should be THE highlight of the session, or the campaign. Creating good cinematic sequences is key.
Remember that action doesn't always mean combat. There doesn't even need to be a direct physical threat, if there is enough drama in the scene. The results of failure can manifest itself in other ways - the characters didn't get there in time to prevent x from happening, for instance.
Creating a good action sequence can be difficult.
Star Wars Wednesday - Newsnets
So, it's still Wednesday, right? Sorry for the delay, things got considerably busier at the end of the day than I expected...
Today, or what's left of it, I want to talk a bit about distributing information within the game, for those RPG fans out there. I'm talking mainly about clues and backstory - information that the gamemaster wants the players and their characters to learn about, but may not want to spend a lot of session time playing it out. Sure, the GM can read it out, or play it out with GM characters, but this runs the risk of halting play for a lot of exposition. Handing over a sheaf of campaign notes aren't likely to be read either, no matter how interested the players may be.
Star Wars Wednesday - Superweapon...of the week!
Superweapons. They're a staple of Star Wars. Sure, they were over used in the early books, novels and comics, but they also provided a highly defined and specific target and goal for the story. Eventually, the stories moved beyond the superweapon of the week into other topics, but....
Have you used a superweapon in your Star Wars RPG game?
Why not?
Star Wars Wed - Trandoshan Hunting Pod
I hope everyone enjoyed last week's April Fools day posts. The "obviously omitted" rules from Wednesday were a lot of fun to do, and those who checked back on April 1st itself got some RPG and minis stats for Simon the Killer Ewok. A couple of notes: the rules were far more popular than Simon, and I actually did send a previous version of those midi-chlorian rules to Rodney Thompson (Wizards Saga line developer) back in 2008 for April 1st. Last week's version was much improved, and a few people noted what I thought of as a joke within the joke - you could eventually use them in play, after some more development and tweaking.
I don't report a lot of Star Wars non-gaming news, but for those who missed it, the official forums at starwars.com are shutting down at the end of the month. They'll be read only until June or so, but then they will be removed. No word on the blogs, and I'll keep posting there while I can. I've suspected for a long time the blogs would go away with the end of the Hyperspace online fan club, given the lack of upgrades. Didn't expect the forums to also go away. There was an announcement last year that another company was coming in to help run the Lucas sites, so I gather this is all part of that process.
On to this week. Since it's the end of the current Clone Wars season, I wanted to follow up on the final episodes, without major spoilers.