And Now For Something Completely Different...Mostly...Sorta...

I write a lot of Star Wars games...

...I mean, A LOT of Star Wars games...

I think I technically have three games going right now; both Another Longshot campaigns (same story, 2 teams) and I'll be starting up a new Wednesday night game shortly tentatively called Star Wars: Relics.  I've got six campaigns with the words "Star Wars" on my Obsidian Portal campaign list. Relics will be my first foray in mainstream, Rebellion-Era storytelling since 2007. Before that, I've run games going back to 1992, when I discovered West End Games and their Star Wars 2nd Edition rules set. I'm trying to think of a time when I didn't have at least one Star Wars game going; maybe in College, in the Earthdawn days and early D&D 3rd edition timeframe, but still...

I've run a lot of Star Wars. It's what I know. It's what I'm passionate about. I can, in my egocentric opinion, run a damn good game. It may not be a Machiavellian tale or a Best-Seller-List-quality plotline, but if you're in my game you can be sure that I'm going to try to show you a good time, present a story worthy of at least a comic book series, and give you a good fight or two every session.

But every now and then, every once in a great while, I want to try something new. Something different. Right now, I'm not solid on what that is. I find myself latching on to various aspects, and trying to put them together. Think of it like taking a blank canvass, some paint, and just sort of painting what comes to mind at that particular moment. Or maybe it's more like Legos; yeah, that's a better analogy. I've got all these Lego sets that I like aspects of, and sort of want to take the bits and pieces I like and put them together and see if what I can make from them is interesting enough to invest real time and effort into refining. A little Fallout 4, a little Starcraft 2, some Dresden Files, some Earthdawn (or Shadowrun, whichever), some half-cooked ideas from campaigns past, a baseplate in the shape of my old Twin Worlds D&D campaign...

And yeah, even a little Star Wars.

Who knows what system I'll use for it; that comes later. That's just a mechanism to drive the story. First I want to figure out how to put the pieces together; build the world, build the opposition, build the story, then we see how the players fit in. Figure out where the story goes.

A while ago I made a campaign world that I submitted for consideration of a new campaign. I lost, never even made the qualifiers, but I liked it. I put energy and effort into it. I think it's time to give World Building another try.

And if I win the lottery on Saturday, maybe I can do it full-time, hire a staff, and publish a new campaign world for you all to use. And if Wishes were Wings...well, hopefully mine would be an "X".

Next week I'm going to give a "retort" on an article blogged by writer Max Gladstone where he explains key scenes in The Force Awakens as a D6 WEG-era Star Wars RPG. It would be improper of me not to do the same as a Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars RPG (especially after @FFGames "liked" my Tweet about it). It should make for a nice warm-up piece for our next Order 66 Podcast episode...

May the dice be with you.