Late last night The Wife mentioned she hadn’t seen a
Fragments blog post in a while. I’ve
been around the block enough times to know that if your wife points something
out to you, you pay attention to it. I resolved to making sure today did not go
by without an update to Fragments, so here we go.
I’ve been finding it harder and harder to find the time to
post to this blog, but it’s important to me that I at least try and continue to
do so. If I’m going to keep a link to
this blog on my various forum signatures around the web I really need to stay
on top here. What’s more important is
the content. I’m sure many of you are
interested in the mental workings of my mind, but let’s face it; according to
the statistics on my blog more of you are interested when I have something of
substance like my Edge of the Jedi rules or a build thread about a costume I’m
working on.
Let’s see what I can do with that.
GenCon Module
The GenCon Mod is coming along and growing. I’ve done quite a bit of re-working. I’ve realized that my long-winded writing
style doesn’t work very well when introducing a con-module. It was pointed out that my opening speeches
were too long and too verbose. I needed
to get the PCs into the action, or at least the interaction, a lot
quicker. So I trimmed off an entire page
of dialogue and replaced it with a paragraph.
Got rid of some useless bookkeeping, added in some ties to some of my
plot threads, and cleaned up the flow of the module. All this should allow the module to flow
better and fit into the time-frame I have set aside for the adventure.
I’ve got time set aside in my GenCon schedule to run the
module twice, and if I find myself with a few hours to kill I may do a bonus
run or two. We’ll have to see what time
allows, because I do want to do other things besides running the adventure.
This weekend I’m going to look at printing options for the
maps for the Huttball encounter and (thanks to Chris West at Maps of Mastery)
the final encounter to the module. The
Huttball map is an odd size, about 40”.
I need to talk to the folks at the print shop if I should print it as an
odd-sized poster or as a banner. I’m
worried the banner won’t be as good a print as the poster, but it allows for a
larger surface and a little more structurally sound.
NOTE: As an aside, Chris West is going to be starting his next Kickstarter soon, first one in over a year. Finally releasing his Space Station Maps, and pout a preview for it up on Facebook. It looks AWESOME.
The PCs and NPCs for the module are coming along
nicely. During one playtest one of my
PCs stated that “no one was playing huttball, everyone was just attacking each
other”. Now, the encounter is based on a
PVP Arena zone in Star Wars The Old Republic, but she’s right. The objective, and how you win Huttball, is
to score more points than the other team.
Attacking your opponents are simply a tactic to make scoring easier or
preventing them from scoring. Another
problem was a mistake I was making; I was basically setting up my NPCs as
opposition and not really playing them like they would to play Huttball. Everyone rushed the center, or attacked the
ball carrying PC. No one was going long
for a pass, or moving to prevent the PCs from getting the ball. So I went through all my NPCs who could
appear in the huttball match and gave them one-paragraph notes on how they will
act when playing the game. Some will be
all over the sport, some will enjoy the combat aspect, others will play a
tactical-reserve game, and some will just be in there to hurt people and if
they get the huttball they’re just as likely to toss it away because it throws
off their aim.
It’s gonna be fun…32 days and counting.
Inspirational Works
The Age of Rebellion core rulebook finally released last
week, and I picked up my copy from my Friendly Local Gaming Store (at a
discount; the benefits of membership!)
One thing I immediately focused on was how damn pretty the book is. The artwork in prior books in the companion
line (Edge of the Empire) was good, and even some of it was re-used in this
book, but my word the artists out-did themselves in this book. So many iconic characters, and not-so Iconic
ones. One artist did Rebel Battle Armor
from the old Star Wars Galaxies game, which made me long to see some updated
imagery for my old R.I.S. Battle Armor my Armorer had made back in the day.
One artist who has done some phenomenal backdrops in the various
FFG books is Mark Molnar. I really enjoy
his works, as they capture the high-tech yet desolate locales in the Star Wars
Galaxy, and in some cases the vast urbanization of entire worlds. His starships are majestic. It’s just…insane.
Another great artist I’ve enjoyed is Anthony Foti. His character portraits are incredible. Absolutely gorgeous and inspiring. Its artists like these that give me an urge
to find a Computer Painting class at a local college and really learn how to
get the most from some of these programs I have. I’d love to do art a quarter as good as these
guys. My only issue is time, and the
fact I don’t have much of it. But I
suppose if I really want to get something done I will set aside time for it.
Hosts with the Mosts
So that should do for now.
Once I’m “done” with my GenCon Mod I can start to focus on my impending
Star Wars campaign, Another Longshot. I
really want to have this game be an “in-person” game as much as possible, but I
may have to resign myself to the fact that I can never get everyone I want to
at the same place at the same time. I’ll
just be happy to get my Expatriate Gamer and former co-host Alex back from Georgia in October.
Speaking of co-hosts; I’m still the “Regular Guest Host” on the Order 66 podcast
for the immediate future. This week we’ll
be talking with Art Director Zoe Robinson from FFG about Rebellion Era
Campaigns.
Art Talk and Classic Star Wars with me, GM Chris, and a
gaming industry pro; yeah, this will be a short podcast…
