Gaining One Dark Side Point At A Time

This weekend, was our first game, post-GenCon, and it was Sargon’s Star Wars SAGA game.  We are playing the published, Dawn of Defiance story arc, and have entered the third act, Wretched Hive.  It was during this adventure, that I earned my first Dark Side point.  Here is a summary of how it happened:  We we told, by some of the NPC’s that our Padawans (myself and Thom) would have to keep a low profile on more Imperial aligned worlds.  Because of that, I recently invested in Weapon Proficiency Pistol and got myself a blaster pistol, so that I did not always have to break out the lightsaber.  Thom’s character did not.  So while walking down the street, in a Nemodian town, we got jumped by a group of swoop bikers, Thom’s character breaks out the lightsaber and cuts a swoop in half and then takes the rider prisoner.  My character, Kizul, who is having doubts about the validity of the Jedi Code, post Order 66, uses his force powers to put the riders blaster into his hand, which in turn, causes the party to gun him down. There was no way we could take a prisoner, and no way we could let him go. That earned me the first Dark Side point of the campaign.

So yes, it was an evil act, but it was a defining moment for my character, and has given me a lot of ideas about where to take Kizul.   No…he will not becoming a Sith, but now I am starting to wonder if becoming a Jedi Knight, during these trying times, is in his best interest.  He does not believe that the Jedi Code will work anymore.  I am feeling that it may be time for Kizul to forge his own path through the Force.  More on that as I do some studying of my SAGA book, and what character classes and options are available.

All in all, Sargon’s SW game is excellent, and the party has really come together, in a way that is making the game a lot of fun.

As for this week, well I have an article that will be published on Wednesday morning over at Gnome Stew.  I will put a link for it here, after it launches tomorrow. The article is about tips for organizing a large GenCon trip, and came about when Martin, the Head Gnome, had asked me by email on tips for organizing large groups, because he and his friends are thinking about it for next year.  Rather than just reply by email, I put the tips into an article.

On the Spycraft front,  I have read through the character generation chapter.  Wow…this game is not your father’s d20.  I have not reached the mechanics sections yet, but there are a lot of terms being used that are unique to this game.  So far, I am fully enjoying what I am reading.  There is a lot of crunch in there, and I have to say, coming out of Iron Heroes, I am going to want to play a game with more crunch than less.

This weekend, is a family function for me, so no gaming…grrrr.  I will be using what free time I have this weekend, to read both Breaking the Ice and Dogs In the Vineyard.  Both indie games have been on my radar for a while, and I am looking forward to cracking the covers and finding out how they tick.  I will likely post some kind of review after I have finished my readings.

I am working on some ideas about what I have learned from my long running Iron Heroes campaign.  I am 3 sessions away from the end of my campaign, and over the nearly 3 years running this game, I have learned quite a few things about my own GMing style, and a number of things about keeping a long game running.  I am going to start to put those down in written form in the next few weeks, so keep an eye out for those.

So enjoy your week, and keep an eye out for my Gnome Stew article that will be up tomorrow.  And keep on rolling.

Hello.  Another busy week as GenCon nears.  This weekend I ran the 5th to last session of my Iron Heroes campaign.  The session contained a big reveal for the players, and set them up for their final 4 sessions of the campaign.  This campaign has reach the Epic status, as the heroes are on a direct course to save the world from a DemiGod.

The game turned out to be shorter than I had expected, with my combat encounter, much lighter than I had planned.  In a way it was good.  In most of my recent high level (16th) sessions, the combats are taking 3 out of the 4 hours.  My fear was that if the combat went too long, that I would have to rush through the reveal, and thus diminish the dramatic effect of the reveal.  So the session was shorter than longer, and I am fine with that.

In addition the adventure is also linked to the Iron Heroes session I am going to run at GenCon.  It’s not an event, but rather, starting last year, I ran an IH session for some of my friends who are not in my group.  The session was directly linked to my campaign, and had some profound effects on my main campaign.  I am doing it again this year, and the adventure I am going to run on Sunday will tie right into the session I ran last night, and with all my main IH players at GenCon, they are going to sit in as NPC’s for the game.  Should be a lot of fun.

Once again there will not be any posts this week, I am just about ready to leave for GenCon.  I may try to post while I am down there, but no promises.  GenCon gets to be pretty intense, and writing may be the last thing I have time to do.

For those of you going to GenCon, look for me.  There are a few pictures of me on my About page, including the bottom one, with my in my GreenShirt.  Also a sure fire way to find me is to go to the Starbucks on the first floor of the Westin, from 7am to 9am.  I will be there with an iced coffee playing Lunch Money, Ninja Burger, or Let’s Kill.

If you are not going to GenCon, I will post some of my experiences when I get back home, as well as plenty of pictures.

In any case I will talk to you next week.

I am back from my family vacation, and just 8 days from GenCon.  It has been really crazy around here, with all the vacation logistics and then having to come back to work for one week, and then start my GenCon prep.  On top of that, I am running Iron Heroes this week, and am in the middle of writing my session notes.

I was able to get some gaming done during my vacation, despite the very poor internet connection i was connected to, via a neighbors house.  The first week of my vacation was spent getting the GenCon workbook sections finished, which I did.  I spent the second week answering questions from Vicki, who was editing the whole workbook, and doing our layout.

I was able to write all the notes for my Iron Heroes game that I am running at GenCon.  This is a private game, for some friends, and is a part of my ongoing campaign.  Last year I wrote the notes in Confluence, but this year, I did them in MS One Note.  I will in a future post rave about all the things I love about One Note, but time is quite limited.  The only thing I have left to do for this game, is print some map tiles and counters, but I will do that over the weekend.

I also got to run a few encounters of 4e for my two Brother’s In Law, as well as my 9yr Nephew.  All had a good time, and I have to say that my Nephew had no problem understanding the power system, and loved the flavor text for the various moves.  He was able to use the flavor text in his descriptions of his strikes, which was great.  I am sure the 4e haters will consider that another feather in their cap, about how 4e is too watered down, but as I remember it, I was about 9yr old when I learned D&D, and the game was not that easy to learn.  So any game that is enjoyable to experienced players (like myself) and easy to get into for younger players, is a good system for me.

That is about it for me.  I don’t think there will be any posts this week, as I am swamped with IH writing and GenCon prep.

Hello all.  I am on a little vacation, but had some time to get a weekend update together.  Last night, we played Star Wars SAGA, and had a great time.  I nearly lost my Padwan to a gernade and some Stormtroopers, but we managed to pull out a hard fought victory.  The game is a blast, and I am fully enjoying my character and the SAGA mechanics.  Having played all the d20 versions of SW, I have to say that the SAGA ones are by far the easiest to use, and give the most SW feel during the game.

While on vacation, I have also been writing my Iron Heroes game that I am gonig to run for my friends, on Sunday afternoon at GenCon.  I did this last year, for some friends, and it was great.  I created a one-shot adventure, that was part of my main IH campaign.  The outcome of the one-shot plays right into my main campaign story line.

At last years game, one of the players captured a Fiend, rather than killing, leading to some very unexpected, but very cool consquences in my main campaign.  With my main IH game down to its last 4 sessions, the outcome of this session will not as may long lasting effects, but will help to kick off the final 4 sessions that will end my campaign.

I am also brainstorming the IH session that I need to run, the Sunday before GenCon.  Normally I would have waived off a game this close to GenCon, but it will be part of the One-Shot, so I wanted to get it run.  I will be writing it all next week, after my vacation is done.

As for the GM-Fu workshop, all the writing is done and our editor Vicki, is putting all the text together, and doing the layout.  The book will go to press (at Kinko’s) next week.  We are working out a few more details for another surprise.  This has the makings of being quite an interesting workshop.

I will not be writing again this week, I am going to be on holiday for the rest of the week, and will be taking full advantage of it.  I will talk to you again next week.

I have all but fallen off the grid this month.

Things are really crazy right now, with the return of my Iron Heroes game, and starting up playing in Spenser’s D&D 4e game, and Sargon’s Star Wars SAGA game.  Top that off with the writing I am doing for the GenCon talk, as well as preparing an Iron Heroes adventure for some friends at GenCon, and blog writing is taking a beating.

The good news is, that unlike the last time I was not writing, I am actually full of energy and charged up about gaming.  The downside is, I am so crunched for time, it is not funny.  That aside, I will do what I can to keep some posts out here.  I have some great ideas for some Gnome Stew articles as well, but those are on the back burner for now.

On Sunday, Sargon kicked off his Start Wars SAGA game.  He is using the WoTC published adventure arc.  I am playing a Zabrak Padawan, who has been master-less since Order 66 came down.  All in all, the SAGA system is a lot of fun to play.  The session went great, and the party is a nice balance, and clicked right away.  It was a great start, to what I hope is going to be a long campaign.

As I am down to my last 5 sessions of Iron Heroes, I am thinking more about what games I want to run next.  My current interest has drifted to Spycraft 2.0.  I am feeling like I have run enough fantasy for a while, and would like to get back to running something more modern.  I have been talking to Spenser and Sargon about it, and both of them like the idea.  So I am adding Spycraft to my shopping list for GenCon.

I would like to promise some articles this week, but I am not going to make any promises, while I am under such a crunch.  So check your feeds, I may just have something out there.

This past Sunday was the return of my Iron Heroes campaign.  The characters have fast-forwarded in time, gaining 4 levels (from 12 to 16), and on the verge of capturing the capital city of Arion’s home land.  In all the session went OK, but he had a lot of challenges.  The first was that I did not eat before the session, so by 9:30pm, in the middle of a huge combat, my blood sugar reached rock bottom, and I became quite irritable.  Sargon, had hurt his neck and was taking some Rx for it, leaving him a bit off.  That left J and Spenser to hold up the other half of the table.  Add to this, that my NPC’s that I designed were getting housed, bad, it was a rough session.

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