It’s November, which always brings a convention and often an end of the year project or two, and this year is no exception. There usually seems to be one or more previews of upcoming or soon to be released works, and that too is on schedule.
So, in semi-particular order:
Fantasy Flight Games website released a preview today of the upcoming Star Wars RPG Rise of the Separatists Era Sourcebook for the Clone Wars. This one covers armaments and vehicles, neither of which were my sections).
I usually can’t talk about upcoming products, but in this instance can mention that I’m still working on my own Dungeon Master’s Guild release related to the D&D Waterdeep: Dragon Heist adventure. I hope to see it out before the end of the year. No promises on that, though. Things tend to get busy.
Midwest GameFest was a couple of weeks ago, and a success with a record attendance this year. As usual, I loaded up my schedule and ran something almost every slot. I did play a D&D Adventurers League session (featuring a possible TPK for a short time), though. I ran a lot of Star Wars. Probably too much, given that most of my tables weren’t full this time around. I chalk that up to a few factors. First, the adventures I ran I’ve run at several cons over the past year or so. That means some of my usual players avoided them because they had played them already. Given that, I ran too many slots of one of adventures and should have pared it down to concentrate the likely players into fewer sessions. So, next time, I need to make sure I feature a newer adventure.
I actually had a newer one for this year, but it is set at the end of Star Wars Rebels. I discovered the hard way I need to let more time pass because a lot of people didn’t keep as up to date on the series as I can often assume. I want to avoid spoilers and that one hinged on a couple of big ones. I had a similar issue with my Solo based adventure…a lot of fans haven’t seen the movie. So, of course I highly encourage everyone to do so, especially RPG players since the movie IS Edge of the Empire.
I also hosted two seminars. They were a repeat/slight advancement of my Writing for RPGs and Creating Maps and Deckplans for Games and Stories seminars from Recruits Convention and GNCon (sort of) earlier this year. I had a better turn out than panels in previous years and the seminars did better in general this year. It’s always a bit iffy at small cons, due to the combination of lower attendance in general, and people focusing on games. For anyone checking for the list of resources, I still need to post them.
I always take the opportunity to run games at MWGF I don’t often get a chance to play. I ran my yearly Numenera game, which fortunately filled in with a few last minute players. I ran the new Savage Worlds Flash Gordon, which overfilled the table, but I had extra characters for that one. The game is one of the most colorful I’ve seen and looks great at the table. Finally, I ran the newest version of Paranoia, which was the first time I actually ran Paranoia. Everyone had a good time, though I didn’t go through enough clones.
Finally, I want to put a reminder out there for those who are familiar with Rodney Thompson from d20/Saga Edition. His latest Scratchpad Publishing kickstarter is the Spectaculars superhero RPG, where you create your own comic book universe as you play the game. I got his previous game Dusk City Outlaws, and the production value is top notch. The kickstarter has 5 days to go and is within $11,000 of its goal. You can check it out here. He is also doing a live stream on November 15, 8pm Central time for people to see it in action.