Once upon a time I had a Geocities Page, where upon I uploaded a lot of Star Wars artwork. Soon the plug will be pulled on Geocities, so a link there from here is a futile gesture. However, there are a bunch of drawings of my first ever Strikeforce Enteague campaign character for the Star Wars Roleplaying Game from back in 1989. The game started in 1989, but these drawings are from 2001 – 2002, by the way. I thought I’d upload them on here for posterity’s sake. (Note: this is not every player character of that era. Someday, I’ll get around to drawing everyone.) Players, you know who you are. Later additions to the pioneer team…
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25 Years of Star Wars RPG (2014)
Every tabletop RPG blog post ever written and published on this blog. Some RPG actual play reports, some RPG thoughts, some RPG artwork.
Note: All posts herein are arrayed latest first and earliest last.
A Bad Example Of A Group Portrait
Here is a picture of the crew of the Bad Example, the Star Wars RPG campaign I’ve been running sporadically with GOKL. Front: T’k’li a.k.a. Tickley, the Jawa Jedi. Back (L-R): Ssssawar the Trandoshan cook, Captain Hunter Maelstrom, Neh’Koh’Moo’Su’May a.k.a “Annie” the Trianii co-pilot, HK-78 a.k.a. “Weapon-X” and Aden the former Clone Trooper. Addendum (2010): Click here to download the paper miniatures of these Star Wars RPG characters!
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Hunting Pirates – Bad Example, Episode 2 Part 2
Episode 2: Crab Meat Beach Party IV Continued from Part 1 Ever the diplomat and unable to shoot from the back of the column, Hunter Maelstrom climbed up the nearest tree to get a clear shot as well and yelled, “Don’t shoot! It might be friendly.” Annie the Trianii brandished her talons and attempted to perform an acrobatic leap over the droid Weapon-X and the Trandoshan chef Ssssawar to get to Aden. Unfortunately, she slipped and fell face down in the dirt. Weapon-X was still trying to bear his blaster rifle on the creature, but Aden’s military skills prevailed. His DC-15 rifle was up and he fired, but the bolt slightly grazed the side of the creature’s head. Sharp, slimy teeth centimetres away from the clone’s throat, Ssssawar stepped in and swiftly punched the beast hard at the side of its head. It fell into a heap on the carpet […]
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Shooting Zebras – Bad Example, Episode 2 Part 1
I ran the second episode of Star Wars: A Bad Example In The Spacelanes last weekend with the GOKL crew. Without Adrian, Tickley the Jawa Jedi would be relegated to behind-the-scenes NPC while the rest of the crew did their thing. In Bad Example In The Spacelanes Episode 1: Pilot, Or Lack Thereof, some stuff happened which you can read here. Here follows the story of the game that was ran: Episode 2: Crab Meat Beach Party Long time ago in a galaxy far, far away… The shipping line to the mining community of Port Barrow on the planet Sriluur was under constant raid from pirates. Because Port Barrow was being developed and industrialized by the outlander human Tam Gromer, it was relatively shunned by the rest of the planet. However, after the arrival of the crew of the yacht Bad Example, three pirate YT-1760 freighters had been taken out […]
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A Bad Example In The Spacelanes, Part 2
Continuing the adventures of the crew of the Bad Example on Sriluur… III Meanwhile, Aden, Ssssawar and Annie crossed a bridge over the river that led to the waterfall only several metres due west. Their destination, Spacer’s Bistro, was on the other side of the river. Port Barrow had the expected large percentage of Weequay population in the streets, they saw. But there were also other species, including humans, several Rodians here, a few Duros over there. The Bistro was a domed building overlooking the cliff. There was a large window pane which allowed for spectacular view of the canyon and other mountains in the range. It was still early, so there were not many patrons in the Bistro. A green and black clad human was drinking alone in a table. There was a Weequay passed out, presumably drunk at another table. A Rodian was at a table near the […]
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A Bad Example In The Spacelanes, Part 1
Last Sunday I ran my first face-to-face, over-the-table Star Wars RPG game since 1999, with the GoKL crew. It was a tramp freighter campaign, set in the Rebellion Era, using classic D6 rules. I was quite anxious about it seeing it’s been a while since I was in practice – discounting the IRC chat-based Sabredart and Chronicles of the Wild Gundark campaigns I had several years ago. There were seven of us. I was gamemaster and there were six players. We rolled 6-sided dice to determine the outcome of our actions, and the players decided what to do based on the scenarios and encounters I described to them over the game. It was fantastic collaborative storytelling. Ultimately, this was the story that came out at the end of the game: Episode 1: Pilot, or Lack Thereof Long time ago in a galaxy far, far away… the galaxy is in turmoil. […]
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Teaching Kids to Roleplay is Only Natural
I have been GMing some very simple scenarios with Irfan. Mostly it’s been dungeon crawls through caves with traps and obstacles, trying to find his way out. Today I read this article from Geekdad written by Daniel Donaho, which has some ideas in how to make things more interesting when playing with children. Here’s an excerpt: The Early Years (4 – 7 years) Is four-years-old too young to play an RPG? Not if you have a couple of older children (say 6 or 7) play with. Of course, if you want children to abide by all the rules exactly and have a detailed knowledge of movement and encumbrance rates and initiative then you are setting yourself and the kids up for failure and a pretty uninspiring time. The focus at this age should be on the “role-playing”, rather than “roll-playing”. You need a game that will take anywhere from 20 […]
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I Want To Play In This Campaign
PVP Online‘s latest comic regales us with a description of one of the greatest ideas for an RPG campaign. I believe I’d very much like to play Jesse Mach of Street Hawk in that campaign. Anyone else willing to be Stringfellow Hawke, B.J McKay, Sheriff Lobo and Colt Seavers travelling the country to thwart the evil plans of an evil Mr. Belvedere? We’d have the Street Hawk, Airwolf and Sheriff Lobo’s police cruiser positioned inside B.J. McKay’s 18-wheeler, ready to be deployed at a moment’s notice, like The Highwayman series. We’ll be fighting wave after wave of Melmackian troops led by Gordon “ALF” Shumway, under the direct command of Mr. Belvedere’s lieutenant Arnold of Diff’rent Strokes. “Whatchoo talkin’ about, ALF?” You know you want to play this.
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Arakyd Diamondback Droid Stats
It was during the Enteague Sector campaign for the Star Wars Roleplaying Game which I GMed perhaps fifteen years ago. A new team of the Strikeforce Enteague, consisting of younger members, had to investigate the Malc Toldreyn Library on the planet Neeuderni to solve the campaign mystery arc of why an Imperial Admiral (no names here, cause in retrospect the NPC naming convention I used at around this time sucked) wanted Ham Slacker the tongue-tied engineer dead. Naturally, the Imperials attacked during the investigation. Radio communications on and around the planet was jammed. It turned out that the Imps had deployed a Diamondback droid which is designed to jam planetary and interplanetary communications. The group borrowed the local defence forces’ CloakShape fighters to attack the droid, which had its own defences in the form of anti-fighter cannons. I’ve rewritten down the D6 stats slightly modified from my original pencil notes […]
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So what IS a Role-playing Game Anyway?
I have a Role-playing Games category right over there at the left sidebar on the front page of the site. I’m sure there’s a lot of visitors to this site that will probably shrug and say, “I dunno”, or half-heartedly answer, “Something like Dungeons and Dragons?” Well, Dungeons and Dragons is a role-playing game (RPG is the popular acronym attributed to it), true. But it’s more than just D&D and we’ll get to that later. If you ask ten gamers, you’d probably get ten different answers on the description of an RPG. So this is a description of a role-playing game as what it means to me. What Do You Do? A role-playing game (RPG) is a collaborative game where players take roles of characters in an interactive story which is planned out and refereed by a game master (GM). There needs to be at least two people in the […]
Continue readingStarships of the Galaxy by Uncle Gary
Another one of Irfan’s Uncle Gary’s writing project has been officially been announced by Wizards of the Coast, which is Starships of the Galaxy for Star Wars Roleplaying Game – Saga Edition Core Rulebook the third edition of the d20 gaming rules. The book was a collaborative effort between Gary, Owen Stephens and Rodney Thompson. I’ve seen the Saga Edition Core Rulebook on display at Kinokuniya the other day, but I haven’t bought it yet. I’ve heard good reviews about it and maybe someday I’ll get a crew together to sit down and play it. Heck, I’ve only played the d20 revised core rule book version via a Play-By-E-Mail game that didn’t really finish. Maybe I’ll start a new crew beginning with this little guy beside me not really quietly playing with the N-1 fighter I got 8 years ago free with a Happy Meal. But the real question about […]
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And On The 501st Post, Shane Meets Apollo
Yes, really. Awesome wikked. Take it away, Shane: Today was the Winnipeg Comic Con. Richard Hatch was the big reason I wanted to go. JUST to get a pic of him and I together and an autograph. I did that very early on in the day, think I was third in line. I knew later he had this acting/improv/rpg character creation session. I went, thinkin that there was gonna be a million people and I’d get stuck in the back and not even get to interact with him. The room turned out to be very small, and there were only about 50 people. Me, sitting up front. He starts asking why people are here. I raise my hand. Suddenly, I’m talking to Apollo. One on one….I’m mentioning about being a GM and wanting to crerate better stories. He then talks about how RPGing and being a GM is harder than […]
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Fragments From The Rim
All my life I’ve loved the idea of the Star Wars universe. When I discovered that there was a Star Wars Roleplaying Game published by West End Games back in 1987 I was excited. But this won’t be about how I got into RPGs, but the review of one of the best SWRPG supplements ever: Galaxy Guide 9: Fragments From The Rim Here is a list of why this supplement by Simon Smith and Eric Trautmann rocks: It’s a well-written book. It has tragedy and humour all packaged up in the entries and the vignettes in the book. The characters to be used as Non-Player Characters (NPCs) have fantastic backgrounds. Parts of the book are designed to actually make you chuckle, not in a non sequitur humour kind of way, but well within the context of its universe. It’s diverse. It shows you a dozen aspects of life in the […]
Continue readingThe Return of SWAG
[[image:swaglogo01.gif:SWAG banner:left:0]]Five years ago today, a bunch of tabletop roleplayers and artists and web programmers who met by chance on SWRPGNetwork’s Holonet Forums and shared a common dream (well, two really) finally launched the Star Wars Artists’ Guild after months of planning. One of the founding members was me. The Guild was created in order to create Star Wars artwork for the RPG, whether it be D6 or d20 or even if you made GURPS or Wushu or Fate games out of the setting. Today, in the hands of Kris Vanderwater, SWAG is relaunched (using Drupal replacing the old pMachine as its content management system) and all that’s old is new again. Thanks for your effort in relaunching the site, Kris, and Happy 5th SWAGDay. And also thanks to everyone from Bob Rogers, Chris Curtis, Derek Jones, Daniel Falconer and all the others who helped conceive and ran it initially […]
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Gary’s Book Nominated for 3 Ennies
Congratulations to Gary Astleford for getting the book he co-wrote for Black Industries, Children of the Horned Rat nominated for 3 Ennie awards. The nominations are for Best Interior Art, Best Writing and Product of the Year. Product of the Year is a hell of a big deal, of course, but I am very proud of him for the nomination for Best Writing. I seem to remember a conversation with Gary a long time ago. It was on how gaming products nowadays focus too much on rules, or intersperse rules with fluff on the campaign world… as opposed to try not breaking the fourth wall and write the book as if it was genuinely from that campaign universe. Then finally have all the custom rules for the book and such be an afterthought but easily accessible and indexed when required. Now, going by the subtext of the Best Writing award, […]
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You Rolled Poorly
Some weeks ago I wrote an entry on role-playing game motivational posters. Last night I discovered a website that allows you create your own by uploading your own pictures and entering your own lines of text. (Doesn’t even have to be about RPGs, even.) So here we are with my own RPG motivational poster.
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