As expected, San Diego ComicCon had a lot of Star Wars announcements. Perhaps less expected on my part was the overall number of Star Wars related panels and the detail coming out of some of them. It seemed to be a never ending stream of news and material on my Twitter feed, and not just because I follow several Star Wars related accounts. This week also brought on new previews from FFG for the RPGs and X-Wing.
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Star Wars Wednesday - Far Horizons
Switching things up a bit this week, with the FFG announcement and, of course, George Lucas' birthday today...
Read MoreStar Wars Wednesday - Unlearn what you have learned
Lucasfilm finally broke the news about the Expanded Universe going forward this wee....EPISODE 7 CAST ANNOUNCEMENT!
Read MoreStar Wars Wednesday - Old and New RPG Sources
Game masters are (or should) always be on the lookout for inspiration for new material, or, rather more often, using ideas directly from other stories, movies, and more. For players, their characters may not-so-subtly replicate a favorite hero. Inspiration has to come from somewhere, so this week, there are a few suggestions.
Read MoreStar Wars Wednesday - A Lot of Insiders
Sometime in the past couple of weeks, I received the latest Star Wars Insider. I've commented before that I think the recent issues have packed a lot of different Star Wars articles. It seems more diverse than past issues. Since that could just be me overlooking what came before, I pulled down a couple of the first issues I have...
Read MoreStar Wars Wednesday - Music Universes
Back from another KC Game Fair. I had a good time. I intend to post some of the adventure information and possibly the characters I used for The Sabacc Incident, but given that it is more of an outline than fleshed out, ready to run adventure, it will likely take awhile to get it better organized.
This week, the music of and in Star Wars has appeared in a couple of places. I've heard the music of the movies, Clone Wars and Shadows of the Empire over and over for years. As I've said before, for me, the original Star Wars soundtrack was a stand-in for the movie itself in the days before VCRs and video.
Star Wars Wednesday - Looking Behind the Scenes
Become a big enough fan of something - book, movie, TV series and so on - and eventually, you'll want to know more about how it came to be. Behind the scenes stories become a form of entertainment all their own, both part of and separate from the actual thing they produce. With a big enough property, like Star Wars, behind the scenes info from original or secondary sources becomes extremely useful and even vital to those working on various stories and products.
Read MoreStar Wars Wednesday - Influence in Many Forms
Today's post at first appears to be a somewhat random assortment of items. However, they are all timely in their own way...
Read MoreStar Wars Wednesday - May the 4th and More
Saturday is May the 4th, and if you haven't run across a ton of May the 4th be with You references, you probably haven't been anywhere near a Star Wars site for the past week or so. There appears to be a lot going on, and seems like there might be some surprises in store...but who knows for sure. Anyway, last week was pretty light in the blog, so I thought I'd make for it this week with a wide range of stuff...
Read MoreStar Wars Wednesday - Musings, by others
Another busy time, so, Ready! Set! Go!.
Read MoreStar Wars Wednesday - Wired Week
Some business travel did in Star Wars Wednesday this week. Fortunately, Wired is there to take up the slack.
Read MoreStar Wars Wednesday - 2012 End of the Year Grab Bag Blog Post
Well, 2012 was an exceptionally interesting and unexpected year for Star Wars and Star Wars gaming. The design and release of the new Star Wars RPG from FFG. Lucasfilm going to Disney. Celebration VI. New movies on the way, and Clone Wars moving right along. I could go on, but most fans know it, and there are far better sources out there.
Instead, this end of the year grab bag blog post is going to feature links to Star Wars RPG related sites - new, old and still active.
Star Wars Wednesday - One of Those Weeks
Travel can really throw you off schedule. This is one of those kinds of weeks. The sort where you go "it's Wednesday, wasn't there some thing else I needed to do besides collapse at the hotel?" Right. That blog post....from a phone. There's an app for that...it just won't actually post any thing but a draft for some reason. No problem, that is what copy paste is for.
Next issue...I don't have all that handy Star Wars info with me.
Star Wars Wednesday - Gen Con 2012
in Conventions
It is time for GenCon once again. As far as Star Wars is concerned, this means checking out the new X Wing Minis game from Fantasy Flight. I also hear there is a group running a Wizard's Star Wars Minis tournament, with new maps from Christopher West. Saga and d6 RPGs continue to show up on the schedule, as well as in pick up games.
It is also ineresting to see where people with interest or influence on the games show up. This year, the Order 66 podcasters have turned into a full on game company, complete with a booth and product to sell - their kickstarter success, the Edition Wars card game. Chris West will also be around with new maps on offer. Rodney Thompson continues to help develop the new version of D&D. I expect others will also reappear along the way.
Star Wars Wednesday - Kickstar-Wars
Those who follow me on twitter or my facebook fan page, know that I've gotten into Kickstarter projects. Maybe that's not surprising, given the rise of crowdfunding over the past few years from sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. For various reasons, I wasn't in a position to jump in to some of the earliest projects that caught my interest, which was disappointing since I knew the people involved.
Instead, I tried to promote some of them here, especially those that were somewhat Star Wars related, either by game or by a past freelancer. Christopher West's maps that were Star Wars minis compatible, and Gary Sarli's e20 project come to mind, and even d20 Radio's Edition Wars. Well, in that vein, I've backed a new project that I think may appeal to fans of West End Games' d6 system.
Star Wars Wednesday - Brak Sector MUSH/MUX & SW-X
Back in the '90s, playing RPGs online were a text-only affair. Pre-internet, starting sometime in the '80s, someone figured out how to create a multi-user game using modems, telnet clients and bulletin board systems and frankly functioned in way I'm not totally familiar with. They were text based, not unlike Zork, but with real people playing. These were originally called Multi-User Dungeons (MUD). As computer based systems commonly do, they evolved in a variety of ways. Later versions became MUSH (multi-user shared hallucination, if wikipedia is to be believed), MUX and a variety of other acronyms.
Sometime in the mid '90s, after my first WEG Star Wars product Flashpoint! Brak Sector was released, I discovered a "Brak Sector MUSH/MUX." It used my book as the basis for their online Star Wars d6 campaign.
Star Wars Wednesday - 35th Anniversary and other things
This past weekend marked the 35th anniversary of the original release of Star Wars. I wasn't really thinking about it, until I saw Wired's many related articles and finally clued in. A few other things have come to light lately, so this post will be a bit like what I used to call grab bag posts on the old Delusions of Grandeur blog. Speaking of, if you're finally making the switch to reading this site, instead of over at starwars.com, welcome. Seeing as I was unable to post over there since last year, there are a lot of posts to catch up on.
Read MoreStar Wars Wednesday - d6 Magazine
I'm juggling a bunch of stuff this week, so this one will be short and sweet - a quick look at d6 Magazine.
Read MoreStar Wars Wednesday - Nova Eclipse
This week, we take a look at the Nova Eclipse - the highly customized AR-37 Paragon-class light transport from Christopher West's maps and, and his personal game.
But first, a brief note that I was sorry to hear that Lucasfilm laid off Bonnie Burton (aka @bonniegrrl) this week, their long-time social network liason (and likely other duties I know nothing about). I only had brief contact with Bonnie, several years ago when she interviewed me for an article on my blog at starwars.com. Starwars.com announced that it was revamping the official blog, with their ongoing reworking of all things starwars.com that has been underway for awhile. The latest blog post is looking for feedback on what people want to see on the site, so now is the time to comment, if you want to see particular types of content, etc.
Now, on with the Nova Eclipse. We'll start once again with Chris' description, followed by my stats for Saga and d6 systems, as usual.
Star Wars Wednesday - AR-37 Paragon Light Transport
This week, I finally return to the RPG stats for Christopher's West's Mass Transit III/Boarding Action map. It's time to take on the AR-37 Paragon-Class Light Transport...but there's a bit of a wrinkle. The stock version of the AR-37 doesn't actually appear on this map, it's on Christopher West's successful Kickstarter Offworld Docking Port map. The one on Boarding Action? It's the Nova Eclipse, Chris' ship in his home game, which I'll tackle next week. The second level of the AR-37 appears on the Kickstarter Nova Eclipse map.
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