One con down, one to go. GamerNation Con, run by GamerNation Studios and the Order 66 podcast, was a great success and a lot of fun last weekend. Next weekend is Planet Comicon in KC, where I'll be running Star WarsRPGs and Savage WorldsThe Last ParsecRPG. Plus, new Star Wars news keeps rolling out...
It's been quite a week so far, and it's only Wednesday, and there is much more to come. It's one of those times when the stars align and bunch of stuff is announced at once. Also, I'm really glad I didn't get a chance to write this last night, given that one of the announcements is today. So what's up? A released adventure, a new announced title, and I'll be at a convention this weekend and next. Fun times.
Picking up where I left off last week, I'm pushing ahead with Star Wars RPG character creation for the upcoming conventions. Plus a few other random bits of news.
So, it seems to be a week of Star Wars game announcements. It's been a pretty steady stream of new games, old games, award nominations and releases. I even have a couple of my own to throw into the mix, plus some progress on the convention adventures.
Today, Fantasy Flight Games announced the upcoming release of the third Star Wars RPG core rulebook, Star Wars Force and Destiny RPG. As with the other core rulebook, this is a standalone book that doesn't require either of the previous books to use. As usual, it is completely compatible with the earlier works for those who want to mix and match.
Force users are rather obviously the central focus of the book. Perhaps not so obvious for those who haven't tried out the Beta from last year is that it isn't a Jedi sourcebook per se. Existing in the same time frame as Edge of the Empire and Age of Rebellion, Force users are mostly on their own when it comes to training and survival.
I was one of the writers on this book. All I can say for now is that I worked on the GM chapter, as small part of it appeared in the Beta.
The book is due to be released in the third quarter of this year.
With game days and other events coming up in the next few months, it's time for me to wrangle a few Star Wars convention adventures together. Rather, it's time for me to start pulling things together in order to hopefully avoid the last-minute rush putting characters or other items together. This and other upcoming posts will include a variety of thoughts about how I assemble, adapt, and hopefully improve on previous events. They'll include some combination of convention adventure design thoughts, how the game looks and works at the table, and how I often prepare my own gamemaster notes. Some posts will be longer than others, depending on how much time I've been able to spend in a particular week.
The release of the first new Marvel Star Wars comic is today. To say this is a highly anticipated event is an understatement, given that it has already sold 1 million copies.
With the holidays, and New Years Eve falling on Wednesday, I didn't get around to a last grab bag post of the year this time. I am trying to kick off 2015 on schedule, though. We'll see how long that lasts. 2014 was a great year for Star Wars, and 2015 appears to be even better. It got off to a great start with the return of Star Wars Rebels, and one of the best episodes yet. Even better, it opens up some new ideas for the RPG. Spoiler warning for the episode on this one - but I'm putting those observations at the very end of this entry with a wide gap in between so those that don't want to see it can read the rest of the post. Things like a few comments on Stay on Target. Happy New Year!
You would think that the week new Star Wars The Force Awakens teaser released that it would be enough material for one or more weeks of posts. While true, it is also a fact that Star WarsRPG announcements and previews also appeared abruptly after the holiday. Not at all coincidentally around the time people got back to work, I'm sure. On top of this, Rebels also finished off its mid-season episode.
Sorry about yet another short hiatus. Travel, deadlines, cons, work...more or less the usual culprits. Last week was KC Game Fair, which I while I did get out some news about what I'd be running, I didn't get it posted here. Unlike past years, I had very little to do with convention planning this time, but I did sign up to run games almost every slot. Just one of those years I didn't want to leave anything out.
And....I'm back. Baseball fans already figured out what happened the past two weeks - the Royals made the World Series. With games each of the past two Wednesdays, and all the ones in between, and several days of travel, and not quite enough writing, something had to give, and it was updating the blog. Sure, I could have tried to put something together last week after the final game...but really, who wants to read whatever it would have been after the final loss, with the tying run stranded at third?
Exciting times around town. The Kansas City Royals are on a fantastic, incredible, and fun streak through the postseason....and as of tonight are American League Champions. Still getting used to that, it's been a long time (as those who watched any part of any of the playoff series would know because it seemed the broadcasters said it about every three minutes). Between that and some writing, I've fallen a bit behind on the Stars Wars front this week...but I have a couple of things.
I've been on something of a gaming accessories kick lately. Not exactly sure why, but I think it's due to a combination of various Kickstarters, new games being released, and the fun of improving the tactile experience in tabletop gaming. Most of them are just cool and/or fun to have around.
This week's excuse for a late post is pretty good...my local MLB team, the Kansas City Royals, made the postseason for the first time in 29 years. Its more than a bit distracting at the moment - and they are winning so far, and had a weird but awesome game to start it all off. I thought about skipping the post at this point, but it's the debut of Star Wars Rebels tonight, and as you may have guessed, I am already a big fan of the show. So here are another quick few items that I would have normally expanded on.
I'm on the road this week, with a work trip to Arizona. Flying over the southwest landscape does wonders for new terrain setting ideas. Trips also tend to keep the blog posts short. This is partly due to typing on a phone, and partly due to the blog interface and the host's inadequate android app and web-phone interface battles.
This Saturday is Rebellion Day,for the Age of Rebellion RPG, hopefully at a store near you. I'm very excited and looking forward to it. Here are a few spoiler free tips to help GMs and players plan ahead, plus a few more personal observations about the day.
The Rebel Alliance continues to dominate releases this month and next. From games to TV, the fight against the Empire is once again center stage in the Star Wars universe.
Last week was GenCon 2014. As usual, I didn't have time to post, or even the time to prepare a post beforehand. It was a fantastic convention, and record setting at 56,614 attendees, up from last year's 49,000 or so. The dealer hall was even bigger than past years, and I had the least amount of time to see it this year. I had few things going on, and a few things were announced...
Today, Fantasy Flight Games announced Keeping the Peace, a Guardian sourcebook for Star Wars Force and Destiny RPG. I'm one of the writers.
One con down, one to go. GamerNation Con, run by GamerNation Studios and the Order 66 podcast, was a great success and a lot of fun last weekend. Next weekend is Planet Comicon in KC, where I'll be running Star Wars RPGs and Savage Worlds The Last Parsec RPG. Plus, new Star Wars news keeps rolling out...
It's been quite a week so far, and it's only Wednesday, and there is much more to come. It's one of those times when the stars align and bunch of stuff is announced at once. Also, I'm really glad I didn't get a chance to write this last night, given that one of the announcements is today. So what's up? A released adventure, a new announced title, and I'll be at a convention this weekend and next. Fun times. 
Today, Fantasy Flight Games announced the upcoming release of the third Star Wars RPG core rulebook, Star Wars Force and Destiny RPG. As with the other core rulebook, this is a standalone book that doesn't require either of the previous books to use. As usual, it is completely compatible with the earlier works for those who want to mix and match. 
This Saturday is Rebellion Day, for the Age of Rebellion RPG, hopefully at a store near you. I'm very excited and looking forward to it. Here are a few spoiler free tips to help GMs and players plan ahead, plus a few more personal observations about the day.