A little late this week...it's just been that kind of busy week. Anyway, I was going to post a lot of this last week, but didn't because of the comics and story time news. So, today it's an array of gaming and drawing, with a bit of other random commentary.
One bonus to being late this week is that I can pick up on news that is inevitably released on Thursday. This week, it is the announcement of the Star Wars Rebellion Beginner Game RPG. It appears to be much like the Edge of the Empire version, with the focus obviously shifted to the Rebel Alliance.
I tend to use the tokens from Edge a lot, so it will be nice to have some new ones to add to the mix. I'm not against using the WotC miniatures in my games (for rather obvious reasons), but I don't tend to take them to cons and gamedays. Early on, it was because I didn't want to confuse anyone about exactly what FFG was producing for the game. That was especially true for the GenCon games.
Speaking of games, there are two groups playing through Beyond the Rim on Youtube. I haven't had a chance to watch them much, your mileage may vary. The first episode of each is below. The Dice Stormers one has their spiffy custom intro to the adventure that I posted awhile back.
Sticking with the Youtube thing for a moment, I discovered that Joe Johnston of Star Wars fame had a video of him sketching a Y-wing (below). Having been a big fan of his storyboard work, it was really fun to watch. You always pick up on some technique or find out just how someone draws some specific bit by watching these. After that, I finally noticed that he has been doing an entire series. I will likely watch every single one eventually.
In other news, the canon discussion that exploded online last week generated a lot of reactions, some good, some bad, some annoying, and some tiresome. It reminded me of the discussion about what would happen with the original Heir to the Empire novels. How did they fit in? When West End Games printed the Heir to the Empire sourcebook, they included the following inside the front cover page:
Blue was used extensively in the early days of the RPG.
So, we were warned 20+ years ago about the potential fate of the material. At the time, I think that initially WEG treated it like this thing that could go away. After all, the novels were still new. They were doing well, but no one knew how they would take off, thanks in no small part to Zahn's trilogy.
WEG also started a new masthead called The New Republic, of which the Heir sourcebook was the first. Originally, if I remember correctly, line enabled them to wall off some of the game material in case it did go away. However, this note disappeared from later New Republic products, though it is present in all three of the Heir to the Empire trilogy sourcebooks.
So, we're in another uncertain time. It will be interesting to see where it all ends up. Of course, as an EU author, I hope they keep at least some of it. If not, well, we still have the books. From a game master's point of view, if the EU is substantially supplanted, it basically becomes a campaign setting in the RPG.
One other thing that came out of the online canon blow up was that Pablo Hidalgo*, one of the LFL story group members, called for this:
And of course, the first 50 are now online via Club Jade tumblr.
One final note. Jason Fry's Essential Guide to Warfare author's cut material has made another appearance on the Starwars.com blog.
* I just noticed that Pablo's twitter info lists his qualities in d6 game stats.