Tag Archives: star wars

Life in Fast Forward

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It’s been a while since I’ve done a news post instead of an after action report. The last few months have been a little nuts and so I’ve let some stuff pass without notice. So, in no particular order:

  • “Snowflake’s Chance in Hell,” the tale of a sentient panda versus evil tstchotchkes appeared in Cobalt City Dark Carnival.
  • “A Necessity of the Present,” my tale of high fantasy noir was republished in Future Imperfict: Best of Wily Writers, Volume 2.
  • “Kiss of Death,” the incredible story of two necromancers in love came out in Arcane. 
  • I’ve handed off the first draft of my book, Kensei, to the folks at Timid Pirate Publishing. This is a young adult piece set in the superhero shared universe created by Nathan Crowder. It’s part of the series of YA books that they are producing called “Cobalt City Rookies.”
  • I’ve opened up to submissions for my experimental e-zine, Mad Scientist  Journal. Here’s to hoping I get enough people to get it off the ground.
In less publishing and more gaming related news, it turns out I may be running another kids game. This time it’s because a friend has been vocally hoping a few times that I’d run another game so that his fourteen year old daughter can play. I finally figured out where I might have room to do it and have a few other kids that may be interested in playing, so now it’s just a matter of logistics.
Of the things I’ve tossed out, Star Wars seems like the strongest option mostly because it’s a better known intellectual property. Sadly, there’s not currently any Star Wars game in print. My favorite to date, Star Wars Saga Edition, is out of print. Used copies of the core rules are selling for $60+ on Amazon. I don’t need the rules, but it’s always helpful if players have copies of them. Granted, the kids in the previous game didn’t take the initiative to read game rules until they were much older.
I had also started the first group off on Star Wars. They’re all in their early 20s now. I asked them what advice they’d give to a new band of kids playing Star Wars with me. Here’s what I’ve gotten so far:
  • Don’t drive vehicles when you don’t have the driving skill.
  • Don’t go back in time and kill the main antagonist when they were a baby. Breaks the universe.
  • Don’t kill everything in sight. It’s not GTA.

And, in reference to a completely different game:

  • Don’t let Jeremy make up your backstory for you.

I feel like I’ve traumatized the last batch of kids. And I’m kind of proud of that.

 

Gaming Ennui

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I’ve been feeling kinda blah about gaming again lately. A big chunk of this is likely due to the fact that we haven’t been able to game much. Our attendance at games (or our ability to run our games) have been kaiboshed by our other social activities and travel. It’s really hard to maintain enthusiasm for a game you don’t play in for a month or two. Or three. It’s why I prefer “every other week” for a gaming cycle, as opposed to “monthly when we can manage it.” But when you are gone most weekends in a given month… well, that just screws everything up. =P

Beyond that, I’ve been pondering what it is I want out of a game. Part of this came from my renewed desire to play in a Star Wars game, but realizing I don’t have anyone I’d want to ask to run said game. And, really, I want to play. I’ve tried to think about what it was that was missing from my current gaming experience that I had in the past. Which came up with a more bizarre realization: More often than not, my favorite gaming experiences as a player have come from games where I thought the GM was awful. This isn’t to say there haven’t been exceptions. I’ve had great games with GMs I love. I’ve had soul killing gaming experiences with GMs I hated. But I’ve had a ridiculous amount of fun with games where the GM just wasn’t doing it for me.

The things that were fun was that everyone loved their characters and people were really engaged. It’s what I loved about “Dragon Lines,” which I hadn’t really had a lot of in other games I’ve run. I have a delicate ego that feeds off of other people’s enthusiasm. Part of me wonders if the players developed such rich interactions with each other because they had nowhere else to turn to. Not having a plot they could (or wanted to) interact with, they turned all their energy into having fun with the other players. Not all the players did that, but enough so that it was fun and rewarding.

Now I just need to figure out how to pull that off with a GM who is good… ;)

One Hit Wonders: Star Wars

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I’m crazy behind on these. It wasn’t much more than a couple months ago that I did my last one, and we’ve had three installments since then. Yikes. My life has gotten busy with work and a new girlfriend and starting a new campaign, so I’ve neglected typing this information up. But now I’ve got a post-con report for AmberCon to write, and I figure if I don’t get these done before I get the con recap done, then these will never get done. Since our next One Hit Wonders is in just over a week, the heat is kinda on.

As mentioned before, this was game used the revised 2nd edition rules of the old d6 Star Wars system. This OHW covered two different things: Taking the old d6 system for a spin and seeing if I could play a roleplaying game without actually being able to communciate.

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