[Misc] July Miscellanea (mostly game stuff)
Star Wars:
The "Edge of Empire" campaign continues, and now a couple of players have picked up the "Age of Rebellion" book ... but I don't think the group is quite ready to rush off to become white-hat Rebels fighting a black-hat Empire. If anything, the group established itself as fairly grey when they got involved in a huge podracing competition in Hutt Space ... primarily by blasting and sabotaging anyone they hadn't bet on. It wasn't as if they were alone in this endeavor by any means, but it was pretty ruthless -- and when I'd periodically check on things such as, "Are you trying to snipe the POD, or are you sniping the DRIVER?" it was invariable that they'd go for the driver. (The driver is a squishier target, after all....)
It's not as if the group were total villains. They ended up rescuing a few slaves while on Boonta, but it would be a gruesome exercise to figure out the body-count they were directly or indirectly responsible for in the process. One bit of fallout, however, is that the PCs came out AWFULLY well. A lot of cheating is tolerated at these games -- after all, everyone who's anyone is doing it -- but for so much in the way of winnings to be focused in the hands of so few ... well, it increases the odds that a sore loser might focus his ire upon our heroes rather than having his anger more generally dispersed among the general mayhem going on.
In other words, too much success has CONSEQUENCES. And the PCs definitely overdid it. (Out of 52 racers, only 3 made it to the finish line. Two of those, the PCs put bets on; the third one, they extorted into throwing her position.) Now, to figure out how to play out those consequences in an entertaining way....
X-Wing Miniatures Seasonal Obsession:
But first, starship combat! I've been experimenting with using the X-Wing Miniatures combat rules (also from Fantasy Flight Games), because I HATE the abstract starfighter combat used in the "Edge of Empire" rules. It's abstract to a degree, but NOT ABSTRACT ENOUGH for me to reap any of the benefits. (In other words, it's just complex enough to give me headaches, but abstract enough to deny me the use of minis to keep track of things in any meaningful way.) My first experiment with the X-Wing Minis rules was clunky, to say the least. I'm giving it another go, and we'll see if we do any better.
I confess that I've gotten a bit obsessed with digging out old Star Wars toys, or even grabbing a few cheap ones off Ebay that I thought might be useful as 1:270 scale models (or parts for kitbashing same) to add to those provided by Digital_Rampage -- or those I just happened to have (a few Micro Machines that by dumb luck fell in that scale range). To the extreme, I've even used some plasticard and putty to make a freighter from scratch. I tend to get obsessed about something random every few months, and this seems to be what's struck my fancy. I suppose it'll die out after a while, so I'll try not to go TOO overboard with the expenses. Also, this isn't the sort of game that I'm likely to run at Necronomicon or do store demos of. (The dice and playing pieces are expensive; I'm always a bit wary of things "walking off," but even more so here.) Still, it ties in with my decades-old Star Wars obsession, and it's been a LONG time since I've run a Star Wars campaign.
Now I find myself looking at plastic containers, wondering if they might be turned into part of a nacelle for an Imperial Light Cruiser, or whether a piece of plastic might work in lieu of some expensive plasticard, or whether some odd toy, with a new paint job, might pass for a Star Wars ship....
Scratch-Built YV-666 Light Freighter -- Rough Paint WIP
Starship Wreckage Markers (made with Instant Mold and putty, using impressions from FFG starships)
I'm still wading my way through the Clone Wars series on Netflix, incidentally -- an episode or two every now and again. I'm not much of one for binge-watching. I love the dose of Star Wars, but there are a few things about the series that still bug me.
1) Jar-Jar. I didn't hate Jar-Jar from the movies. But in his appearances in the Clone Wars, he gets people DEAD, and he does the stupidest, life-threatening things, but everyone forgives him and still lets him tag along. Just ... just ... ARGH. I can't help it. I don't know whether I can honestly say I "hate Jar-Jar," but I sure dislike his presence in any story he shows up in.
2) Widespread Clone death. While Jar-Jar's presence might suggest this is a kids' show, the body count for the poor Clone Troopers would suggest otherwise. It's a rather tense thing to take any interest in the survival of a given Clone Trooper in the show. With the exception of a few I know will be around for a while, simply because I've seen the very last episodes of the series, it's all up for grabs whether a trooper -- even a "named" one -- is going to make it through an episode ... and even making it through one and then showing up in a later one is no guarantee. Of course, this is a war -- we should expect casualties. But I get the feeling that at some stage in the process, someone thought, "Well, it's no big deal if it's a clone. After all, they're just CLONES. And when they're wearing helmets, we can't see their faces, so that makes it all right." That bothers me. But then, on the other hand, when a story focuses on Clone characters, I have no doubt that the risks are "real" -- I have to grant the writers THAT much, to be sure.
But it still has its really cool moments, and it's the only place for me to go for my periodic dose of Star Wars. I want to look forward to the upcoming Disney XD "Rebels" series, but I have a feeling of dread that it's going to be full of the sorts of things I haven't liked about "Expanded Universe" Star Wars material. I saw a line-up of the characters, and the expressions were, from left to right, "Smirk, smirk, smirk, smirk, robot, scowl." Like, a concentrated dose of 1990s "'tude," a couple of decades late.
Want me to sympathize with our heroes? Don't make them all COCKY, blowing up Imperials left and right, without even a hint of risk involved. Make it feel like there's something at STAKE here. Sure, they're the heroes, so we expect them to win, but at least PRETEND there's some question about it, and that they might still be able to lose the battle now and again, if not the war. The appeal of a Rebellion vs. evil Empire is the idea that the Empire actually poses a threat. If it's all incompetent Imperials and Ewok celebration roasts, and no Empire Strikes Back, it doesn't have the same punch. Star Wars started off with it looking like the Empire had the upper hand; it was something to be resisted. If we have a TV series where, again and again, every single episode, the heroes come out on top, it's going to be hard to feel like there's much value to any victory.
But, hey, I'll give it a try. After all, it's Star Wars.
Savage Worlds in Limbo:
I haven't really done much with Savage Worlds for a while. That may possibly change, as I have an opportunity to do some superhero figure flats for Daring Entertainment (maybe, depending upon the success/failure of a Kickstarter project), and KJA has finally indicated interest in moving forward with something new for Wonderland No More (though this iron is about 4-6 years cold, so take it as you may). I'm digging through some of the material left unused for the WNM book and related adventures, and seeing what can be cobbled together into a deliverable form without TOO much trouble. Some cover art and filler will be required, however -- so it's not like we've got a complete product just ready to go out the door. Triple Ace Games isn't interested in WNM, and hasn't been for a long time, so KJA is moving this forward on his own dime (and I won't see so much as a dime unless it actually sells). I have a few thoughts about how to make something that might have a decent amount of value, but we'll see. It's a very, VERY niche market, or so it seems.
Necronomicon is of course coming up. For that, I'm planning on running a couple of silly fantasy games, using Savage Worlds rules just because that's what I'm most comfortable with for quick one-shots like this. One will be a tongue-in-cheek fantasy game using 2" PVC pony models. The other will be a tongue-in-cheek fantasy game using Super Dungeon Explore minis, and Digital_Rampage's 3D SDE boards. Why the double-dose of fantasy? Because I've got enough material for LOTS of fantasy adventures, a couple of people have asked for ponies again, and Digital_Rampage has talked about SDE fantasy off-and-on for a long time. I have yet to decide what I'll run on the THIRD day of gaming -- probably another fantasy scenario, if I want to keep the packing light, but I think I'll try running something relatively serious, rather than doing gags all weekend.
I'm not really doing any new crafts or projects on this, though I might revisit a few terrain pieces and do some touch-up work to fix some dings and dents and breaks. I'll use what I have already. I've generated quite a backlog of props already.
Minecraft:
Minecraft still eats up way too much of my time, but I've accomplished so much of my initial to-do list. Interest in the multiplayer server has died down considerably. I could put some more work into Ruins structures, but I'm not sure if anyone aside from myself and Gwendel would see the fruits of it anytime soon. I've toyed with the idea of packing together a few of my Ruins into ZIP files and having them as downloads off greywolf.critter.net, but the Hexxit ruins need a little more playtesting, and the 1.7.* ruins need a little more UPDATING to fit the latest Minecraft build. (And then, I suppose version 1.8.* might be coming out any time now, rendering them obsolete.)