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Whill
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
Posts: 10402
Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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 Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2014 10:04 pm Post subject: |
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| Whill wrote: | I am a child of the early 70s... In 1977, my dad, brother and I all wanted to see Star Wars (what A New Hope was known as in those days)...
When Star Wars came to our local theater, the three of us guys went to see it... We were all completely enthralled with the opening sequence, and I remember hearing whoas, oohs and ahs from the surrounding audience showing how much we were all just blown away. When the droids walked through the blaster shoot-out unscathed, the entire audience erupted into laughter like it was the funniest thing we had ever seen. Then all sound from the audience was suddenly extinguished as Darth Vader came aboard the Rebel vessel. At that moment, I became completely oblivious to my dad, brother and the surrounding audience. The theater faded away and I was magically transported to this far away time and galaxy... ...As the Rebels begin to applause, suddenly I am transported back to the theater as my dad, brother and the entire audience is also standing up and applauding with the Rebels... When we got home, my brother and I started to be kids again, and commenced running around the house as if we were Han and Luke blasting stormtroopers back on the Death Star. I barely heard my mom complain that it was past our bedtime, and my dad said, "Honey, we're going to have to just let them run around for a while. We just had the greatest adventure of our lives."
...I have never had a cinematic experience anything like seeing the original Star Wars. Best climax and best overall film of all time! Still to this day, I can't even listen the end of "The Battle of Yavin" on the musical soundtrack without tearing up because it always takes me back the first magical time I saw Star Wars in the theater as a child.
We had some action figures, and some other Star Wars items/media. I remember live-action cops-and-robbers-type role playing Star Wars with my friends in the neighborhood in which we created our own Star Wars stories that were decidedly set in an alternate reality of the film(s). My dad took my brother and me to see the two sequel films in the theater in 80 and 83 (also only seeing them once each). After seeing RotJ, my D&D group and I created a makeshift Star Wars RPG based on the Basic D&D game system which we played several times over the summer, but eventually our RPG interests moved back to D&D and on to other games...
My best friend had the Star Wars trilogy on VHS and brought them over one day the summer of 87. We "trilogized" (watched all three SW films back-to-back in one sitting), and my childhood love of Star Wars was rekindled. I saved up and bought my own copies of the three Star Wars films... My love of Star Wars has remained active and only grown ever since. |
To continue from the above narrative...
I did most of my growing up in a small central Ohio town. At age 15, I got a part time job at the New Shop, a downtown store that had newspapers, magazines, books, occasion cards, tobacco, lottery, VHS video rentals, comic books, and roleplaying games. One Fall 87 night after school, I showed up for work and found two brand new RPG books...
 
Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game and The Star Wars Sourcebook! I hadn't heard anything about a Star Wars RPG in the works so I was very pleasantly surprised. Awesome!! I immediately bought them (wholesale pricing). That night I went home and chucked my original D&D game world I had been designing for a year and began instead dreaming about playing the new Star Wars RPG. My gaming group since junior high had fizzled apart due to various regulars moving, becoming athletes, discovering cruising and alcohol, etc, so I needed to get a new group together. My best friend Mark (who had gotten me back into Star Wars earlier that year) had never been into RPGs but wanted to play, so he was my first recruit. I re-watched the films, read the books and began planning my first campaign.
That Winter, tragedy struck. Mark was a passenger with a friend of his driving around trying to get a hold of Bruce Springsteen tickets when the car was struck by a train. Mark was instantly killed. Over the course of the next few months, I became a surrogate big brother to Mark's younger brother Jeff, who was the same age as my younger brother. I guess Jeff became a surrogate best friend to me.
Jeff loved Star Wars too and wanted to play the RPG in his brother's place. I had befriended the guy whose locker was beside mine at school due to us both being Def Leppard fans, and it came up that Brian liked Star Wars so he was interested in playing. He said his cousin Dan (also a student at our same high school) would like to play, so I had the basis of a group. The three of them came over to my home in the Spring to talk about the game and create the PCs, and we decided to begin playing the first adventure of the campaign on the night of the last day of school. Since I didn't think only three starting level PCs would be enough, they each made two characters: Bounty Hunter & Pirate (Jeff), Retired Imperial Captain & Brash Pilot (Brian), Alien Student of the Force & Outlaw Cyborg Engineer (Dan). On the night of kicking off the campaign, Brian showed up with his little brother Mike asking if he could play too, so we quickly made up a Gambler and the five of us played the first half of the first adventure (an original my own device). In my notes this campaign was code-named "S1" (Star Wars Campaign 1).
We had a blast! We played the adventures of Black Squad all summer and continued into the next school year. On Mondays at lunch, we would talk about our weekend adventures and some of our other friends became interested in playing too. I had five more players, but I thought a nine player group would be too unwieldy (and I also didn't want to mix starting-level PCs with experienced ones), so I started a second campaign ("S2") and the adventures of Green Squad began as I pretty much took turns playing with each group.
My original intention was that both campaigns would take place at the same time in the same universe. Even though the two Rebel groups were based in different parts of the galaxy, I thought maybe we could eventually have crossovers and intertwined continuity. But it soon became apparent that I couldn't keep up with designing enough original adventures for both groups so decided that S2 took place in a parallel universe to S1 so that I could adapt S1 adventures for reuse with S2. So the campaign designations of S1 and S2 became campaign world/universe designations.
All of these players and myself were in the brainy "nerd" clique, but that school year Jim, one of my S2 players (who had transferred in from another school), had semi-infiltrated a big group of "peace niks" which were the kids who listened to U2 and REM, basically hippies without drugs. Many of them were thespians in the school plays, and as it turns out, they also played RPGs, mostly D&D and Cthulhu. When they found out Jim knew me and played in my Star Wars campaigns, they asked him to invite me to one of their game weekends and to bring my Star Wars stuff. Some of them liked Star Wars and were very interested in seeing what all the hype for the SW RPG was about. My reputation as a gamemaster of two separate regular game groups actually impressed them! I ran an edited version of Tatooine Manhunt for a group of 12 players and it was a huge success. I decided to canonize the universe of the 1983 homebrew Star Wars RPG into my WEG multiverse and declared this adventure took place there (S0). This began a more loosely structured serial campaign for whomever out of this group showed up (usually 5-6 players), making that three simultaneous game groups. And somehow I managed this while having a part time job, getting decent grades, going to movies, dating, cruising and alcohol!
From 1988 to 1990, I truly was king of the nerds in my town. At various points those first three campaigns ended to be replaced by new ones, and a fourth distinct campaign universe (S3) was introduced for two of the new campaigns. Players were shifted around between groups. (I guess all of us formed a super-clique of Star Wars RPG players at my high school.) This first edition era gaming really was the Golden Age.
The rest, as they say, is history. In college, for my second edition era gaming I had a fifth distinct campaign world (S4) I ran for an always evolving group of my fraternity brothers, a 4-year serial campaign. After R&E was released, I've had one more distinct campaign world (S5) with several different player groups and campaigns.
I sold my 1E SW Sourcebook when I got the 2E version, but I still have my original copy of the core RPG book I bought new in 1987. It's seen better days, but it's like my original Ten Commandments tablets that Moses destroyed when he came down the mountain. 
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Zarm R'keeg
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| Posted: Fri Nov 14, 2014 11:41 am Post subject: |
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My introduction was fairly simple- for my 13th Birthday (albeit about a month late) my grandfather across the country sent me the Introductory Adventure Set (which remains my favorite and has been run about a dozen times). I immediately set to work on it with my two closest friends and neighbors (one of whom is Fallon Kell on these boards).
Being 13, my logic and grasp of the game mechanics wasn't superb. The ambush in Fortuna City was resolved with the throwing of a thermal detonator, which the PCs simply ran away from- I reasoned that was sufficient to escape the blast radius. *eye roll* Once the adventure ended and I started writing my own, it got even worse. Several adventures were written specifically to utilize every stat provided... resulting in one massive 'creature feature' battle featuring every species in the rulebook... just a parcel of Gamoreans, Tuskens, Sullustans, etc., 2 to 3 each, which had been abducted by the Empire, ambushing the PCs in a battle that took us a solid month to finish roleplaying. The NPC Viv from the Introductory Adventures (he, along with every NPC and vehicle from that adventure, just joined the PCs at the conclusion of the adventure, giving them a miniature fleet and army) became practically a running joke- repeatedly killed in combat with his 2D Strength, but brought back by Heroic+ rolls. There was an assassin droid built and synth-skinned to appear as a Hutt. The absurdity even climaxed with my own superweapon-of-the-week, the Red Death- an Imperial weapon whose duplicator beam could create an exact duplicate of any starship it targeted, only with an opposite morality. (Shades of Star Trek's mirror universe; shoot it at the Rebel ship, get a duplicate ship of evil imperial versions of the PCs). The solution was, of course, to get it to shoot a mirror and duplicate itself, and leave the two superweapons to destroy each-other.
The RPG eventually petered out shortly after Endor, and for a few years, we went along doing 'casual' RPGs- games based on such franchises as James Bond and Pokemon in which the GM basically arbitrarily decided the results of each action, no dice involved.
Eventually, however, I got the Isis Coordinates for Christmas (my second module, and still traditionally the second one I play- it makes a great follow-up to the Introductory Adventure Set if the gunship is full of supplies for the entrenched Rebels trying to free Edan II), and that re-ignited interest in the RPG. The nearest store that sold the RPG modules was about an hour away, and my family wasn't doing much with online ordering at the time, so acquisition was slow... but after several classic adventures collections, I relaunched the RPG for a new wave (kicking off with a failed Introductory Adventure Set that led into No Disintegrations instead, with the PCs captured and pressed into service by Bounty Hunters)- one which, through occasional purposes and a good 5 years or more of consistent play, eventually covered the entire WEG cannon minus DarkStryder, and about 5 modules (Black Ice, Crying Dawn Singer, Mission to Liana, Planet of the Mists, Crisis on Cloud City). That's from memory, after a decade- the WEG books I have yet to acquire are impressed on my consciousness for all time. 
Since moving across the country, getting married, and establishing myself elsewhere, I've launched 2 more groups- one of in-laws, and the other of close friends which is only a few months old- every time going back to that Introductory Adventure Set that started it all. I like to think that each round through improves the 'realism' and attention to detail for the groups, and tames the flagrant errors in RAW application and glossed-over characterization. Each one gets more immersive... though also shorter-lived as life gets busier.
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griff
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Location: Tacoma, WA
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| Posted: Fri Nov 14, 2014 11:09 pm Post subject: |
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It was by accident that I was in a book store with my mom when I was twelve. I came across the first edition rule book and source book. The next day the family took a road trip from Seattle to Sacramento. I read the books all the way down the whole time there and the way back (we are at the cantina now)((see "how did you get into Star Wars" thread for context)). My first character was an ewok. Ewoks were always my favorite from Return of the Jedi, to the two ewok movies and cartoon. Me and my friends from Jr. High played it most of summer vacation. I started growing my collection of books to the point we measured the amount of material by the pound not by items.
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DougRed4
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Joined: 18 Jan 2013
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| Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2014 6:41 pm Post subject: |
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For those who know me, my relationship with this game doesn't make sense, really. You see, two of my biggest passions in life are RPGs and Star Wars. So it was a given that I would jump in with both feet when WEG put out an RPG for the game in 1987, right?
Strangely, no. 
At the time I was big into Villains & Vigilantes (a supers game I've played regularly since 1982) and around that period I was also running a Warhammer Fantasy RPG game. I remember seeing the game, but not so much the rules themselves, I don't think. I believe my first exposure to the game was via supplements or adventures. I picked up some stuff and was very much put-off by the poor artwork. I'm a very visual person, and the game didn't 'sell me' at all, even though I was an obvious fan of the franchise (it was clearly art that I reacted to; I don't recall seeing a lot of images from the movies, which leads me to believe it was supplements rather than the rules).
So I never picked it up. Instead I continued with other RPGs.
Omega Group Campaign (2005-2006)
It wasn't until the mid-2000s, when a new friend, Rich, raved about the D6 game. Some time in 2005 he started up a game for a group of us (most of my group of gaming buddies), and it was a lot of fun. I played a Sarkan PC, part of a group of mercenaries in the Rebellion era. We ended up meeting some of the famous characters from the films (Han, Leia, etc.) in the course of our adventures, as even though we were playing mercenaries we still aided the Rebellion.
Starfall Campaign (2007-2008)
Early in 2007, I started up a campaign with each of my five kids. My oldest at that time was 16, and my youngest was not quite 8 (he played a Wookiee). I ran them through the entire "Starfall" adventure, which went great, but on their second adventure ("The Argovia Strike" from "Instant Adventures") things fell apart when the PCs split into two groups. The campaign never really recovered, as it was three versus two and I couldn't get them to resolve it peacefully.
I ran the game (doing the "Heavy Lifting" adventure from "Instant Adventures") at a local convention (that I and my friends put on annually) that summer as well, and it was a big hit. Everybody had a great time and there was a lot of interest in me putting a game together.
Rebel Recruits Campaign (2008)
So sometime in 2008 I started up a new campaign. There was a lot of interest, but for whatever reason (probably because we were trying to play too many games), it never really worked out. I don't even think we ever finished the only adventure we started ("New Recruits and Rebel Guns" from "Instant Adventures").
Bandit Squadron (2008-2012)
During that annual convention, one friend, Thad, decided to start up a mega campaign, where we each took a character (often with their own ship) and played them once a year. Bandit Squadron was a group that never got the recognition it deserved, even though they often did just as important missions as Rogue Squadron (though ours were more covert). They got all the acclaim, while Bandit Squadron took on the truly nasty missions that needed doing. My PC was a Duros commander of a modified Corellian Corvette. At times there were a dozen players, many with their own ships, droids, or crew. Thad was brilliant at managing so many players and ships (huge fleet battles!), but the games were really long (sometimes 8-9 hours). The first adventure featured a battle at Dantooine, and then each successive year we'd have a major battle simultaneous with events from the movies. When the OT ones were finished, he moved into the Thrawn years. Five great years with great memories of the same characters.
Death of Liberty Campaign (2012-present)
I finally bit the bullet (around the end of Thad's annual game) and decided to run a game for my group. It's been a lot of fun, and we play regularly about once a month. We started out 2 BBY, and have progressed about a year in the campaign (there's a separate thread under 'Adventures' with all of the details).
@Whill: Great story on your games! FWIW, Def Leppard is one of my all-time favorite bands still. 8)
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Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green |
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
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Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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| Posted: Tue Nov 25, 2014 1:47 am Post subject: |
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| DougRed4 wrote: | | @Whill: Great story on your games! FWIW, Def Leppard is one of my all-time favorite bands still. 8) |
I saw Def Leppard in concert in '88 (the summer of "Pour Some Sugar On Me"), something my friend Brian (the brash pilot) was very jealous of. After a wave of nostalgia, I got back into them in recent years, well, the 80s stuff anyway. My son loves them.
I'm not really an audiophile, but Doug you may appreciate that I still own a record player and I still actually play records on occasion!
| DougRed4 wrote: | Starfall Campaign (2007-2008)
Early in 2007, I started up a campaign with each of my five kids. My oldest at that time was 16, and my youngest was not quite 8 (he played a Wookiee). I ran them through the entire "Starfall" adventure, which went great |
That brought a tear to me eye. 5 kids, wow. I have no doubt you are an awesome dad!
Anyone else? How did you get into WEG Star Wars?
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cheshire
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| Posted: Tue Nov 25, 2014 12:13 pm Post subject: |
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I was a child of the 80's, and not all of it in a good way. I was "that guy" to your roleplaying group. Granted, I didn't know a lot of what roleplaying was, but I'd seen and heard enough from Patricia Pulling (founder of Bothered about Dungeons and Dragons) and other concern groups to know that I needed to stay well enough away. Of course, D&D was the only game I'd ever really known about, but I knew well enough to stay well away from that section of the bookstore. That section of Waldenbooks was the place that bent you toward suicide.
In the 1990's during the Star Wars Renaissance I was hooked, of course. Well... hooked to Star Wars. I'd loved the movies growing up. I had the action figures, the playsets, the toy blaster and lightsaber, you name it! I'd lost a bit of interest in the late 80's, but something stirred in my in the early 90's and I wanted to get back on board. Lucky for me, I found that there was a new Star Wars book published, and I raced to go get it. I devoured it. Star Wars was back.
I noticed a few other things popping up in "that section" of Waldenbooks. It didn't have anything to do with demons, witchcraft, and all the stuff that gave me the willies just looking at the cover. I flipped through a few pages and found it interesting... but still... "that section." And it was guilt by association. I had to move along.
A friend of mine had the 2nd edition book, and he talked about a few interesting ideas. But still... guilt by association. I was going to move along.
Then I went to college, and I got to talk to a few roleplayers. I had some other interests, and I never got into it. Of course, I was starting to do some questioning of some of the ideas that never seemed completely substantiated by those who were concerned about D&D. What they had to say didn't seem to quite add up. But, even if that activity wasn't guilty of anything, I still had other things to do. I was going to move along.
When I did my seminary studies I found a small group of friends that enjoyed weird games. One of them had GMed several times before, and had played the Star Wars RPG before. He was going to get a game together, and he asked me if I wanted to play. It took us a few tries to get a stable group together, but we had a group of four players and a steady GM. By this time I'd come to see where the concerned crowd had come from, and decided that it wasn't a concern of mine. I was going to move right on in.
We had weekly adventures with my friends and my fiance' (who wasn't all that much into sci-fi or Star Wars at the time, but she knew a good time when she saw one, and was going to give it a try). With only our best guesses as to what happened between Senator Palpatine's rise in the Republic and the end of the Jedi Order, we played a band of Jedi who were fleeing the beginning of the Empire's New Order. It was a fantastic time, and something we looked forward to every Saturday.
When we graduated, we sort of all left Kansas City and went our own ways. I went to a small town outside of Wichita to take a job. I'd had a bit of an RPG dry spot, but I still kept picking up more of the books on eBay, just hoping that I could get back into the game. As luck would have it, I was able to find players now and again and keep up the old habit. The fun time that I started in school was able to take root during my early career. And it's been a fantastic journey ever since.
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DougRed4
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Joined: 18 Jan 2013
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| Posted: Tue Nov 25, 2014 6:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Whill wrote: | | DougRed4 wrote: | | @Whill: Great story on your games! FWIW, Def Leppard is one of my all-time favorite bands still. 8) |
I saw Def Leppard in concert in '88 (the summer of "Pour Some Sugar On Me"), something my friend Brian (the brash pilot) was very jealous of. After a wave of nostalgia, I got back into them in recent years, well, the 80s stuff anyway. My son loves them.
I'm not really an audiophile, but Doug you may appreciate that I still own a record player and I still actually play records on occasion!
| DougRed4 wrote: | Starfall Campaign (2007-2008)
Early in 2007, I started up a campaign with each of my five kids. My oldest at that time was 16, and my youngest was not quite 8 (he played a Wookiee). I ran them through the entire "Starfall" adventure, which went great |
That brought a tear to me eye. 5 kids, wow. I have no doubt you are an awesome dad! |
Thanks, Whill! 
I wish I still had a record player some days. I still own a few records, and while I may not be keen on pulling out my old Bill Cosby records anymore, there's still a few I'd enjoy listening to.
I wish I'd have seen Def Leppard back in the 80s, but I did catch them (with my wife) just a few years ago. Joe Elliot's voice isn't what it once was, but it was still a great show!
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DougRed4
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| Posted: Tue Nov 25, 2014 7:09 pm Post subject: |
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Much of your story resonated, cheshire. My mom had some issues with D&D when I first played in 1979, and over the years I'm sure many of us have heard or been exposed to some of the concerns people have about the hobby.
Nowadays I have a pastor that plays D&D, and I'm a member of the Christian Gamers Guild, a great group of Christians that enjoy games (mostly RPGs).
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Barrataria
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Joined: 28 Dec 2005
Posts: 295
Location: Republic of California
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| Posted: Tue Nov 25, 2014 10:28 pm Post subject: |
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| DougRed4 wrote: | For those who know me, my relationship with this game doesn't make sense, really. You see, two of my biggest passions in life are RPGs and Star Wars. So it was a given that I would jump in with both feet when WEG put out an RPG for the game in 1987, right?
Strangely, no.
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Actually, that more or less describes me too. I got into D&D as a freshman in HS and ran that extensively, and exclusively, throughout HS. When I moved to Berkeley, I had easy access to a game store for the first time in my life and managed to pick up Gangbusters, Traveller, and Top Secret, all of which we ran on and off. I think that was the first time I even saw the SWRPG. I don't think I ever even heard of it.
I always thought movie/TV licensed RPGs were weak. Why would you want to replay a movie when you know the ending? Dragonlance and such were getting more and more popular then, so I avoided railroad plots whenever possible.
When I moved to NY for grad school, by that time 2E SWRPG came out and I ran across it at the Compleat Strategist. In fact I think by the time I discovered the CS that R&E came out and therefore the awesomesauce 2E book was marked down. I loved d6 and everything about the game, especially all the templates which made me want to game immediately. And I loved all the splatbooks and add-ins that fleshed out the game and the SWU.
I know I'm preaching to the choir but I think the SWRPG is the single best RPG ever. I love D&D and Traveller and other games too, but I have to concede that objectively d6 SWRPG is fun and easy to manage as well as fitting the universe perfectly. It's too bad WEG more or less melted without the SW license.
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cheshire
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| Posted: Tue Nov 25, 2014 10:51 pm Post subject: |
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| DougRed4 wrote: |
Nowadays I have a pastor that plays D&D, and I'm a member of the Christian Gamers Guild, a great group of Christians that enjoy games (mostly RPGs). |
I'm a member of the CGG, though I'll admit I don't read there much right now.
A few years ago we used to have "staff meetings" every other week at our church. What it really meant was that all of the clergy on staff got together for a Star Wars D6 session. It was rather glorious.
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
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Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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| Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2014 12:37 am Post subject: |
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| DougRed4 wrote: | Thanks, Whill!
I wish I still had a record player some days. I still own a few records |
I own about 100 LPs and a stack of 45s. But one of favorite albums is the original Star Wars double-LP soundtrack. What makes it even more valuable to me is how I got it. An ex-girlfriend's mom found it at a yard sale for only 25 cents, thought of me and bought it for me.
| Whill wrote: | | After seeing RotJ, my D&D group and I created a makeshift Star Wars RPG based on the Basic D&D game system which we played several times over the summer, but eventually our RPG interests moved back to D&D and on to other games... |
| cheshire wrote: | When I did my seminary studies I found a small group of friends that enjoyed weird games. One of them had GMed several times before, and had played the Star Wars RPG before. He was going to get a game together, and he asked me if I wanted to play. It took us a few tries to get a stable group together, but we had a group of four players and a steady GM. By this time I'd come to see where the concerned crowd had come from, and decided that it wasn't a concern of mine. I was going to move right on in.
We had weekly adventures with my friends and my fiance' (who wasn't all that much into sci-fi or Star Wars at the time, but she knew a good time when she saw one, and was going to give it a try). With only our best guesses as to what happened between Senator Palpatine's rise in the Republic and the end of the Jedi Order, we played a band of Jedi who were fleeing the beginning of the Empire's New Order. It was a fantastic time, and something we looked forward to every Saturday.
...And it's been a fantastic journey ever since.
...A few years ago we used to have "staff meetings" every other week at our church. What it really meant was that all of the clergy on staff got together for a Star Wars D6 session. It was rather glorious. |
That's all awesome, Chesire! And you got into roleplaying through WEG Star Wars. Awesome!
| DougRed4 wrote: | | Much of your story resonated, cheshire. My mom had some issues with D&D when I first played in 1979, and over the years I'm sure many of us have heard or been exposed to some of the concerns people have about the hobby. |
D&D was my first RPG. I got into D&D around the same time but for me it was elementary school. I had this friend who was the same age as me but a genius with a college reading level. He used to read adult fantasy novels to me, and he introduced me to D&D, which introduced me to mythology, ancient history and comparative religion which still fascinate me to this day. This was before Patricia Pulling's son committed suicide and the formation of BADD, however some adults did have concerns about D&D back then because at one point it became officially banned at my elementary school. I never played it at school but some kid must have brought a book or those evil-looking non-cubic dice. In response to the ban, a bunch of us gathered at the monkey bars and chanted, "We want D&D!" over and over again at recess one day, to no avail. True story.
My parents, and the parents of the friends I gamed with into and through the height of the BADD movement in the 80s didn't have any concerns whatsoever about us playing D&D (or any RPGs). One year I even received several AD&D books from my mom for Christmas. We were lucky enough to have parents who knew their children well enough to know that we were not being negatively affected by the game in any way. And then future Star Wars author Michael A. Stackpole pointed out all the BS in the BAAD movement, but I was already on to WEG Star Wars.
| Whill wrote: | | That night I went home and chucked my original D&D game world I had been designing for a year and began instead dreaming about playing the new Star Wars RPG... In my notes this campaign was code-named "S1" (Star Wars Campaign 1). We had a blast! |
| Barrataria wrote: | | I know I'm preaching to the choir but I think the SWRPG is the single best RPG ever. I love D&D and Traveller and other games too, but I have to concede that objectively d6 SWRPG is fun and easy to manage as well as fitting the universe perfectly. |
Testify, brother! Once I began running my first Star Wars campaign in 1988, I immediately lost interest in running any other games. Years later in college I tried to run Cthulhu for my college roommates but I turned it into Indiana-Jones-style pulp adventure and utterly failed to capture the right mood, so went back to what I do well and love, Star Wars D6. I think I enjoy creating original Star Wars stories through roleplaying as much as I enjoy watching Star Wars films and reading Star Wars novels. It's such a big, huge galaxy full of potential for adventure.
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DougRed4
Rear Admiral
Joined: 18 Jan 2013
Posts: 2272
Location: Seattle, WA
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| Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2014 5:55 pm Post subject: |
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| Whill wrote: | | DougRed4 wrote: | | I wish I still had a record player some days. I still own a few records |
I own about 100 LPs and a stack of 45s. But one of favorite albums is the original Star Wars double-LP soundtrack. What makes it even more valuable to me is how I got it. An ex-girlfriend's mom found it at a yard sale for only 25 cents, thought of me and bought it for me. |
That's a cool story. Probably the first LP I ever owned was that double record set. That theme song was a big deal in '77! I remember sitting and listening to the radio (before I had the records), hoping to hear it played. My brother's elementary school teacher found out that I had the record and asked to borrow it. Unfortunately, being a kid, I didn't know better, and stored it with the slits/openings for the inner sleeves facing the same way/direction as the outer case (instead of up, like you're supposed to). So I sent it with him to school, but they (of course) slipped out and broke! She replaced them kindly, but with the message on how to put them in properly (to avoid that happening).
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Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green |
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Bobmalooga
Commander
Joined: 13 Sep 2010
Posts: 367
Location: The south...
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| Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2014 12:56 am Post subject: |
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I was playing Dungeons and Dragons and had bought an issue of Dragon Magazine that had a large, something like 2 page article on the Star wars RPG coming out, but mentioned that it had been delayed for some reason. So me being me, I called information and got the number of WEG and called to speak to someone about this Star Wars game. I have no idea who it was (this is after all almost 30 years ago...) and after a 5-10 minute conversation where I was assured it was already out I said my goodbyes and got my mom to drive me over to 'Boardwalk Games' in Mt. Lookout (a suburb of Cincinnati) where she gave me the 20 dollars to buy the RPG and source book.
Now the funny part is that I didn't have a solid gaming group for Star Wars until about '95....and I've been running it off and on since then.
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Last edited by Bobmalooga on Sun Dec 07, 2014 5:28 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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RyanDarkstar
Commander
Joined: 04 Dec 2014
Posts: 351
Location: Chambersburg, PA, USA, Earth
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| Posted: Sun Dec 07, 2014 1:40 pm Post subject: |
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I got into Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game thanks to Waldenbooks (may it rest in peace).
While scanning over some books in the Sci-Fi section, I chanced upon Galaxy Guide 6: Tramp Freighters. Smitten with interior art by Allen Nunis, and of course the intriguingly mirrored image of the Millennium Falcon on the cover, I forked over a measly $13.00 and hurried home. It never dawned on me to read the back cover, where I later learned *face palm* it's part of an RPG.
I enjoyed the strangeness of this new Star Wars experience separate from the main cast and was hooked. I vowed I must have the essential core book and sourcebook to play this Minos Cluster campaign.
It snowballed from there. Soon, I had many of the 1st edition supplements. I phoned West End Games and purchased Crisis on Cloud City straight from their warehouse. I drooled over the paper catalog they sent with it. I began buying miniatures at the same time, greedily scooping up every blister pack of three miniatures I could find.
Eventually, my savings were gone, and I could no longer afford buying anything. I looked longingly at the 2nd edition reprints of books I already owned, as well as the growing collection of sourcebooks based off of the growing library of novels. I scraped together enough money for the core book and sourcebook, but had to agonizingly wait for overtime to afford the sourcebooks.
Little by little, my collection continued until I lost my job.
I was further crushed by the news that West End Games had lost the license for Star Wars. Suddenly, the books I longed for disappeared, and I thought I'd never see those mythical 1st edition adventures again.
Fortune smiled eventually. I got a nice, steady job and discovered eBay. With a few clicks on the computer, my collection was complete (minus those irritatingly hard-to-find, expensive Adventure Journals). The priciest book was Pirates and Privateers. I think that one set me back $120 + shipping.
Since the beginning of my collecting, I ran "Rebel Breakout" and many of the adventure ideas in the core book, and of course, the Minos Campaign. With some 2'x3' graph paper from Staples', I made maps of the YT-1300 and many of the rooms from the Death Star Technical Companion and carted them and some miniatures to work with me (I was working 2nd shift at Wendy's when I first started playing). My friends and I had a blast. Sadly, as everyone got jobs elsewhere, we lost touch, and the Minos Cluster was never freed from Imperial oppression.
My brothers and I tried to play, but one went into the Navy, and the other started a family and couldn't find time.
Luckily, I found my wife, who is an awesome roleplayer and has friends who roleplay as well. I dusted off my books and began reading. As challenging as it may be, I plan to use my entire collection in one massive campaign. I'll probably have to tweak some of the adventures to use the same characters. I'd also like to incorporate some of the material from the video games, comics, and novels. I have an outline started, but I still have about 20 WEG books to get through.
At the very least, I want to complete the Minos Campaign. It's my goal for 2015. |
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