Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale update

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Amazon updated the Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale entry, adding the cover art. Assuming it survived the editing/development process, a couple of my contributions are illustrated here.

Wizards of the Coast official product page.

The monsters and villains contained within are appropriate challenges for heroic- and paragon-tier characters and fit easily into any home campaign, as well as other Dungeons & Dragons published campaign settings. In addition to a 128-page book of ready-to-play monsters and villains, this product includes 8 die-cut sheets of card stock monster and villain tokens and a double-sided battle map featuring four different encounter locations you can use when running encounters.


 

Star Wars Wednesday - Assault on Intran

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As many of you probably know, I wrote a ton of official scenarios for the Star Wars Miniatures game during its run. Scenarios are a different way of playing the game, and creating them demands a lot of attention to play and squad balance. Large scale scenrios were difficult to do, as they required a lot more time to test and many more pieces than the casual fan might have. Some were successful as multiple scenarios at built on each other. As such, I wasn't ever able to create and test a large scale battle. With the KC Game Fair approaching, I decided to finally run a big battle.
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Star Wars Wednesday - Delusions of Grandeur No. 200

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This is post number 200 for my blog at starwars.com, Delusions of Grandeur. I first started blogging on starwars.com back in 2005, and in the intervening time, I've covered a lot of ground. When I first started, it was early in the Star Wars Miniatures game run, and I was producing scenarios for the Wizards of the Coast Star Wars website. Many of my early posts covered Star Wars in a broad, general sense. Posts about the music, Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, and so on.
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Star Wars Wednesday - Starship & Vehicle Sheets

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One of the design philosophies behind the Star Wars RPG Saga Edition products is to make them useful at the table during game play, rather than books that are only used between sessions to build characters, adventures, and so forth. To that end, one of the early decisions by the design team was to build vehicle and ship stat blocks as though they were operated by the crew most likely to use the vehicle. This makes the ships and vehicles instantly usable to gamemasters, without any preparation time, so long as they are satisfied with the skill level and CL predetermined by the designer. This is analogous to using an enemy character or creature straight from the book, with no modifications.
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Star Wars Wednesday - Stat Pack - Maps of Mastery I

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This marks the first of what I will strive to make a weekly feature: Star Wars Wednesday. Most weeks it will likely cover some aspect of the Star Wars roleplaying or miniatures games, but some will also feature comments on most anything related to the Star Wars universe. Entry length will vary. Some will be copied in full to Delusions of Granduer, my starwars.com blog, but any that feature gaming freebies (like today) will still require a trip over here to actually download it. Some weeks, I'll be posting other items to the blog, so if you want to just see the Star Wars items, simply click on the Star Wars Wed. category (below the post). Today, I'm featuring Stat Pack - Maps of Mastery I.
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SW Minis - Assault on Intran

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Among the games I'll be running at this year's KC Game Fair / Shauncon is a large scale Star Wars Minis battle. However, you don't have to attend to participate - you can play one of the skirmishes leading up to the battle, and send me the results, which will impact aspects of the convention game. Click here for details.

Star Wars Celebration V Wrap Up

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The Freelancer Strikes BackI had a great time attending my first Star Wars Celebration. I met a lot of people I'd previously only had professional or online contact with, made many new acquaintances and ran into the occasional old friend. I took full advantage of the panels. I often skipped some of the major ones that I knew I'd see clips from online and went to some that wouldn't be seen elsewhere. Among the event related highlights (of which there were many):

  • The Force.net party, which was a big success attended by many Star Wars celebrity guests (artists, authors, directors, creators, etc.) and fans.
  • Briefly meeting Clone Wars Supervising Director Dave Filoni, and having him comment on the end of the RPG line.
  • Panels covering Del Rey, Dark Horse, Essential Guides, Blueprints, Knight Errant, Atlas and Star Wars Insider.
  • Panels with Ben Burtt (sound), ILM model makers, SW and TESB producer Gary Kurtz and Lucas Licensing.
  • Writing panels with Troy Denning and Aaron Allston (I couldn't make the third).
  • Continuity-heavy discussion panel with Dave Filoni and Pablo Hidalgo on the Clone Wars.
  • Storytelling panel and Clone Wars Season 3 panel, both with Dave Filoni. 
  • Roaming the dealers hall, seeing the various sets and multitude of collectibles, toys, books and artists.
  • And many other displays, events, etc.

It was a very fun show and a great time. I also managed to see the last half of the Main Event from one of the overflow rooms and...and...and....there was too much to do even in 4 days, though I covered a lot of it.

GenCon 2010 Wrap up

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The Return of the D&D Red BoxGenCon 2010 flew by quickly. I had a good time (aside from my wife falling an injuring herself).

Our Star Wars Saga Edition Retrospective was full, with about 50 attendees. It was entertaining. We had a lot of good questions, though not really any rules questions, which was somewhat surprising. The panel was also large, with myself, Owen KC Stephens, Gary Sarli, Christopher West, Gary Astleford, Patrick Stutzman, and T Rob Brown. Rodney Thompson and Chris Perkins were interested, but other commitments prevented them from coming (or arriving in time).

Among the new items announced at the Dungeons and Dragons Preview seminar was my first D&D 4e print product, Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale. Can't say much yet other than it's a box set with a book, tokens and poster maps. Also met my fellow authors in person for the first time (Matt James, Brian James and Steven Townshend). Click here for a picture of the cover.

The Rebellion Era Campaign Guide did not win an ENnie for Best Supplement, but the awards show was entertaining. Congratulations to the winners.

I found some time to run a Star Wars Saga Edition game for a few friends and introduce it to them. They ended up hunting down the books in the dealer's hall before the show was over. I've had this sort of reaction most of the time when I run a Saga Editon game at a con, which is a lot of fun. 

For those who have asked if the Saga Edition books are more or less expensive now that the line is over, I will have to say....both. Depends on the book. I've seen Force Unleashed for as cheap as $10, others at cover price or up to $20 more. Kotor and Starships of the Galaxy remain impossible to find. I saw really good prices on the minis and maps, though.

I played in Savage Saturday Night, Pinnacle Entertainment Group's Savage Worlds RPG open gaming night. Ended up in a Ravaged Earth setting game (by Savage Worlds licensee Reality Blurs) with its creator, Eric Avedissian. They had well over 100 people, and twice what they expected to show. I think most everyone got into a game, however. It was interesting to see huge variety of settings now available for one system being played in a single room.

As usual, I also attended several seminars and meetings, among which was one on the new Gamma World RPG from Wizards. As an old-time Gamma World fan, I'm looking forward to this one. It's humoursly presented and though it's 4e compatible, it has a lot of its own unique design elements. 

I also pursued new freelancing opportunities in writing and cartography, caught up with old friends and met a few new ones along the way.

Next, prepping for Star Wars Celebration V...

The Rebellion Era Campaign Guide End Notes

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With a recent 2010 ENnie award nomination for Best Supplement, I thought it was a good time to talk a bit about the Rebellion Era Campaign Guide, released July 2009. The design team for this book also included Rodney Thompson (Saga Edition line developer), Owen KC Stephens (Saga Edition and freelance author), JD Wiker (d20 Star Wars author/developer) and Britt Frey (freelance author).
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Nominated for an Ennie Award

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My Star Wars RPG book the Rebellion Era Campaign Guide has been nominated for an Ennie award for Best Supplement! My fellow authors on the project were Owen KC Stephens, JD Wiker, Rodney Thompson and Britt Frey. Online voting will start soon.

The Unknown Regions received an Honorable Mention for Best Cover Art.

Additionally, Star Wars Minis and RPG fans of Christopher West's works will be glad to hear he was nominated for his Swamp Map, produced by his own company and fully compatible with those products.

You can find the complete list of nominations here.

GenCon: Star Wars Saga Edition Retrospective

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For those Star Wars Saga Edition (and Minis) fans attending GenCon this year: I'll be participating in an unofficial (i.e., non-Wizards of the Coast) seminar focusing on those games, along with Saga Edition editor/developer Gary Sarli and likely others involved in the game system. Attendees can sign up on the GenCon site. The seminar itself is free.

Game ID:  SEM1013330
Gaming Group/Company: GMSarli Games
Title: Star Wars Saga Edition Retrospective
Description: Game professionals who worked on the Star Wars Roleplaying Game: Saga Edition take a look back at the product line, sharing their experiences and what they learned from their work.
Start Date & Time:  08/05/2010 02:00:00 PM
Duration: 2 hours
Location: Marriott : Indiana Blrm B 

Minis Mayham 42 - Life, the Universe, and Scenarios!

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Last week, I was a guest on Minis Mayham #42 podcast, where we discussed 8 scenarios entered into their first scenario contest, and they announced the winner. With one exception, I played through all of the scenarios multiple times. They were very creative and fun. On the podcast we discuss their strengths and weaknesses, presentation and balance. Good stuff for scenario designers to consider. At some point, I think they will post the scenarios to their forums.

Each used Christopher West's excellent Maps of Mastery maps, available at his website. This was the first time I'd used Chris' maps in play, and they are equal to his official Star Wars minis maps. For those who don't know, Chris was the artist on all except one of the official maps over the years. His Maps of Mastery releases are just as easy to use, but lack any official Star Wars images. They're good for both minis and any sci-fi RPG.

WotC Star Wars Site is gone...

It's the end of a long era: the Wizards of the Coast official Star Wars site is now gone, as the license reaches its end. Some articles and content will reappear on their forums, which will remain active. Follow this link for more info. 

Personally, I've been a regular contributor to the site since I started creating scenarios for the Star Wars Miniatures game in 2004. However, my first work actually appeared before then, when Wizards updated my Star Wars RPG adventure Talnar's Rescue from the original core rules to the revised core rules and posted for free. The adventure originally appeared in the short lived Star Wars Gamer magazine.

With the site shutdown, you may see a number of broken links here on my site - most notably those in the Star Wars Minis scenarios list. It may be awhile before I attend to all of those.

The Unknown Regions End Notes

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Earlier this month, Wizards of the Coast released The Unknown Regions, the last book of the Star Wars RPG Saga Edition line. This was my 6th book in this line, coauthored by Rodney Thompson (Saga Edition line developer), Daniel Wallace (veteran Star Wars source material author) along with previous Saga product designers Jonathan Stevens, Patrick Stutzman and Robert Wieland.
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