Threat Detected podcast interview

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Recently, I was a guest on the actual-play Star Wars Saga Edition podcast Threat Detected. They're running through the entire Dawn of Defiance campaign, recording the sessions and posting them. They also post pictures of their sessions to their website, mainly of the map and terrain layouts during play. Part 1 of the interview runs in Episode 9, from the 1hr 29m to the 1 hr 53m mark. We discuss Star Wars and a bit of D&D 4e.

Star Wars Wednesday - Convention Games

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This past weekend, I attended KantCon, in the Kansas City area. I wasn't sure of my schedule beforehand, so I went as a player, not a gamemaster. I carted along a couple of games in case I needed to run a pick up game of something, but my goal was to play more than run this time around. I've talked a lot about creating adventures for cons the past few weeks. This time I want to talk a bit about the logistics of playing and running in an event, with this fresh in my mind.
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Starwars.com - Battle of Turak IV map

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I should have realized this sooner, but with the elimination of the Hyperspace fan club, now anyone can read most if not all of the old Hyperspace content. That means the tactical maps I did for the Battle of Turak IV article are now open for all to see. And, for those who don't recall, Turak IV originally appeared in WEG's Imperial Sourcebook. Some of the logos/graphics in the article later appeared in WEG's mini's book, Imperial Entanglements.

Star Wars Wednesday - Nonheroics

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Continuing with the stat block creation discussion of the past two weeks, this time I want delve into the use of the nonheroic class in Star Wars RPG Saga Edition.

In a minute. First, I want to cover one important point on last week's notes on stat blocks for canon characters.

When creating canon characters, you're usually dealing with known character histories. That means the characters must have certain abilities available at certain times in their career. While Saga normally just printed the stats for a character as it was best known, the stats were built with their histories in mind so they could be deconstructed to a logical lower level if needed. So, this means building the character like you would a player character is pretty important. You must pay attention to the order of levels, ability score advancement and potentially the pickup of extra skills and languages if their Intelligence score increases along the way. Sometimes, you have to get pretty creative to fit it all in, and tricks like that can help.

So, nonheroics - what the heck is that class?

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D&D Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale Releases

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Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale is now available in a lot of places, a bit ahead of schedule. You'll find all kinds of great monsters and organizations ready to throw into your Nentir Vale campaign, or any locale of your own devising. My co-authors are Brian James, Matt James and Steven Townshend.

Along with many of the monsters, I designed the swamp map contained inside (though I didn't do the art). The black dragon and the lizardfolk on the cover are also mine, story and stat-wise. They would be Shadowmire and his Witchlight lizardfolk underlings. If you're a D&D Insider subscriber, check out my tie-in adventure, Battle of the Witchlight Hermitage, just released TODAY, to see these guys in action. It uses the the swamp map as well. 

Star Wars Wednesday - Dealing with Stat Blocks

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A few hours ago, I finished recording/co-hosting an episode of the Order 66 podcast. I'm writing this on Sunday, because I'm traveling this week. If all goes well, this will auto-post at the right day and time. If you never listen to the Order 66 podcast, it is dedicated to the Saga Edition of the RPG, and you can find it at d20 Radio.

In the episode, we talk about creating modules for public use/publication and how that is different from creating an adventure for a home game. Hopefully, some of my more rambling comments still provide some help. It occurred to me, however, that one aspect we didn't address was stat blocks, so I wanted to touch on that a bit this week. I'll be addressing Saga Edition specifically, but most of the following applies to any system.

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Star Wars Wednesday - More SW Minis Resources

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While it's been over a year since the end of the Star Wars game lines (and no new rumors I'm aware of, for those who have been asking), fans of the Minis game are working hard to keep it going. If you know where to look, there are new maps to be found, new scenarios, podcasts and even new virtual sets. I've posted some links before, but became aware of some I'd missed so I wanted to pass them along. Plus there are some GenCon and pre GenCon items some might find useful before the show in August. 
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Battle of the Witchlight Hermitage Coming to DDI

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My next D&D adventure for Dungeon magazine issue #191 / D&D Insider is due out later this month:

Battle of the Witchlight Hermitage
Shadowmire, the black wyrm of the Witchlight Fens, doesn’t like his neighbors. Can you protect a poorly defended hermitage from the dragon’s wrath? A D&D adventure for characters of levels 3–5, designed to support Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale.
As you might guess, it builds on some of my sections of Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale, to be released June 21.Check out the issue's cover art on the for a hint to the adventure...(though for some reason, I can't see it in firefox...may be a setting here, since it works in IE and android)