Are you that hard up for cash? Seriously?

So yeah…I’ve got Star Wars burnout.

I’ve mentioned this before of course…and it’s the contributing factor as to why Raptorsquad.Net hasn’t enjoyed the number of updates as it has in the past. I don’t know….maybe it’s the years and years spent playing the RPG, or the hundreds of thousands of words I’ve written chronicling our teams adventures in fiction, or hell, maybe it’s the hundreds, possibly thousands of hours spent building and updating the website. Who knows?

Or it could be that I’m a little sick of what the Star Wars franchise has become.

See...I’m old enough to remember what I’ll call “the good old days”. I remember when you had the movies, a handful of paperbacks and well, that was pretty much it. Then, back in the 90’s a guy named Tim Zahn came along and wrote a fine little trilogy that picked up and shed light on what had happened to our heroes after the Battle of Endor.

Cool.

The Zahn Trilogy was really something special…for the first time in like, a decade we got to see the adventures of the Star Wars characters continue…and it ended great…everyone was happy, just like a nice space opera should end.

Then the floodgates opened.

Quick as you please the comics started rolling…then more books…then talks of the prequels. And suddenly this nice little story that had a solid beginning middle and end became…well…sh*t.

I’m sorry it did.

I don’t really care if folks agree with me, and don’t get me wrong, there are certainly some bright points to the material that followed (albeit few). But as with anything, you go to the well too often, it tends to dry up. And the Star Wars well was repeatedly accosted by so-called “writers” who decided instead of telling a good story in the Star Wars fashion they would “leave their mark” on the legacy by taking a nice steaming dump all over the characters and history.

They freaking killed Chewie for God’s sake.

And when that wasn’t good enough, it turned to “Hey! Let’s knock off some of the Solo kids…or hell, turn them darksiders! Because, you know, that makes us ‘edgy and cool’ and takes the story into uncharted waters not explored before yadda blah blah frrrppppt”

Frell you, you useless hacks. I hope that nice juicy paycheck went a long way towards buying you some sort of conscience, since you didn’t seem to have much of one before. And heads up, killing off characters doesn’t make you a good writer, it makes you a desperate writer who lacks enough imagination to produce real drama and intrigue. It’s cheap, and no different than when comic book writers do it, especially since all you are trying to do is make another buck because you don’t have enough confidence in your own abilities to think you can sell books without some cheap-ass plot device.

But you know who I blame most? Lucas.

I know he doesn’t give sh*t one about the franchise anymore, and it’s just a way to fuel his “future projects” and all of that crap. Hey George! Maybe we’ll get Howard the Duck 2 now huh? But still…he steers the ship, he calls the shots. And the fact that his greed has allowed him to let these not talent ass clowns systematically rape and defecate all over these beloved characters makes me sick.

But anything for a buck apparently.

Heads up Georgie Boy, just because YOU don’t give a crap about these characters any more doesn’t mean other folks don’t.

And yeah, I hear all of the clueless Fanbois out there chomping their teeth and hammering their mom’s dining room table with their meaty fists proclaiming “But it’s his creation! He can do what he wants with it!”

And yeah, that may be true. And in the end the only thing I can do is ignore these freaking “Officially Licensed Lucasfilm” abominations that come out and stick to what I like and ignore the rest.

But that still doesn’t mean I have to like it. And it sure as hell doesn’t mean I have to keep quiet about it.

What bothers me is the lack of responsibility for his creations, the lack of “ownership”. It’s not just a problem with Georgie and the Star Wars franchise either- it’s a freaking refelction on our society as well. I won’t go too deep into all of this, as this blog sure as hell isn’t going to turn into something political- suffice to say, I think that folks need to learn to take some damn responsibility for their actions and stop blaming the government, society, religion, the ice cream man down the street, etc. Stand up! Be freaking accountable you losers! Stop trying to hang your phobias and hang ups on crap that happened to you twenty or thirty years ago or some politician you never met because you don’t have the stones to stand up and say “Yeah! I did this, it was my choice and now I’m ready to face the consequences!”

But I don’t expect that to happen. Our society is lazy, goofy and has no little direction, and until people start getting a foot dead up their ass, it isn’t going to change.

But back to more trivial matters….

So, I hope George has enough money now to keep him in plaid shirts and nose hair trimmers, and hell, it only cost him some integrity, right? Nice work man.

Meh.

See, this is why I keep Raptor Squad running. Because at the end of the day, I can play in the Star Wars sandbox, with MY characters and not have to ask for permission from anyone. MY characters, MY story, My adventures. The way I want to tell them. And if a character dies in the story, it’s not so I can sell a few more books.

So…that’s that. End of my rant. What was going to be a nice little post about how I lost the drive to update my site turned into this. I do so love me some stream-of-consciousness.

As always, feel free to sound off, agree, disagree, whatever you want. Just keep it civil fanboi, Vic doesn’t suffer disrespect lightly.

Iron Man and the Big Green Goof

Not really RPG related, but….

I gotta say, Iron Man looks pretty sweet. I have NO interest in The Hulk. I thought the first one sucked ass. Made me want to scream “GIVE ME FERRIGNO!” in the middle of it…couldn’t even bring myself to finish it in fact. I think that some comic book heroes simply don’t translate well to the big screen, be it because their characters simply aren’t that deep or their physical representation doesn’t lend itself well to “real world” interpretation. And I’m sorry, the grunts and snorts of The Hulk simply fails to convey the…emotion…necessary to draw in viewers. Add in the fact all of the “Hulk” acting was done by a CGI character and you have an even MORE impossible task. Fact is, CGI hasn’t gotten to the point yet where a grossly mutated computer generated character can convey a realistic emotional range, especially when he’s stripped of dialogue.

So, yeah…The Hulk sucked. And I realize Edward Norton is in the new one, but the last good thing he was in was Fight Club and unless they paint him green and juice his skinny ass up on ‘roids, the moment he “Hulks Up” I’ll loose interest.

But now, Iron Man? Iron Man looks badass.

Oh, and I saw some screenshots of The Watchmen.

I’m torn on this one. I read the book a decade ago and even then its ideas and presentation was a bit dated. Rolling a film out NOW, like, 20+ years since the graphic novel came out just smacks of desperation. Plus it’s cast by a bunch of relative unknowns…which usually makes or breaks a flick. Likely it will wind up on the Netflix list.

But hey, all this takes a back seat to seeing my man Indiana Jones kick the piss out of some f*cking Ruskies.

Hell yeah.

Cheating Bastard!

Meh. I’ve been sick as a dog the last few weeks, so you’ll excuse the lack of posts. Or maybe you won’t. Doesn’t matter, not like you’ve got a pair to come and do anything about it. Huzzah!

Anywho…

I’ve been lurking on various message boards and forums and pondering certain topics. Here’s one I’ve seen come up fairly frequently that I just don’t get:

What the hell is the point of cheating in a roleplaying game?

See, I understand cheating in a poker game or a craps game (don’t agree with it, but I certainly understand it). You’re going up against another person, money is on the line…sure, I could see the logic behind wanting to cheat. A brother needs a new pair of shoes, right?

But a roleplaying game?

WTF man?

A roleplaying game is an entirely different beast. There are no “winners or losers”…well, there may be losers but that’s a different post altogether. But you get my meaning. There is generally no money on the line, no one walks home with a trophy at the end. So why? Why cheat? Especially, since, in the games I’ve been involved with, you are working together with others to not only tell a story but to have a good time and some laughs. What is the desire/need to cheat?

I’ve played with two cheaters I know of around the table in the last few years. One guy we’ll call Baltic J, the other, Black Cat. Both had their own little methods of cheating at the game, yet different.

Black Cat was the most subtle. See, Black Cat would sit there and when it was time to make a skill check would roll, like ten times. Now, the GM was usually involved in a dozen other things…so he would tell Cat to just roll it and let him know what he got when he got back to him. So while other things happened around the table, and other players pursued angles and drama, Cat would simply sit there, quietly rolling his dice, a half dozen times or more until he got a total he liked. When he did he would sit back, smile and wait. When the GM wrapped up with the other gamers, he would ask Cat what he rolled and Cat would proudly gesture at his dice and the GM would nod, describe the success and we would go on with the game, In the rare occasions the GM would catch Cat in the midst of his roll-a-thon, Cat would simply tell him he was “warming up his dice” or “throwing around some practice rolls”. The GM bought it and Cat would make an actual roll.

The thing is, the roll was RARELY that important! It would be one thing if it was some life or death moment and the whole game was hanging in the balance, but it wasn’t! It was some lame, mundane skill check to see if his character could operate a freaking subway token machine or some nonsense. The roll in question rarely affected the outcome of the game in any meaningful way, yet it seemed that he simply did it just to see if he could get away with it.

Baltic J on the other hand did like to pick his spots. Not content to cheat when it meant nothing, Baltic J would try to slide one past the GM when he wanted to do something and simply questioned his character’s ability to pull it off. Baltic J was especially bad when it came to play by posts. He would outright change his D codes when rolling, or would roll using a dice roller and conveniently fail to mention that he rolled a “1” on his wild die (a critical roll in the D6 System). At first when I was running the play by post and I did a lot of the GM’ing from work (and was unable to access my e-mail) I relied on the honor system for players to tell me what they rolled, checking their results when I got home in the evening. Well, after being burned by Baltic J several times I had to end that habit completely.
The fact that Baltic J was an uber-munchkin didn’t help. His characters were downright silly in some cases…he brought munchkin creationism to a whole new level. I attribute the only reason that he didn’t play a ninja to the fact we were playing Star Wars. Still, I can even forgive that, if only he had even remotely pretended to give half a crap about what was going on with the rest of the group. But he didn’t. It was said many times that Baltic J was a solo player in a group RPG game, and the rest of us simply got in his way when it came time to play his game.

But, solo player or not, Baltic J did love to cheat when he could- and when he didn’t he tended to bitch. He especially got upset and angry when someone created house rules for the group to play by. Reason being? Because any time there are questions or grey areas that come up with house rules the responsibility to clarify the fuzzy areas falls to the GM. Baltic J hated that. He hated the fact that he didn’t have a rulebook he could point to that would support his opinion or a set of rules that he could manipulate to do what he wanted.

Case in point?

Baltic J was once playing a Jedi. He and the other Jedi in our group (yeah we had two- don’t get me started on how our group seemed to have a revolving-f*cking door for wayward Jedi. We were like a travelling halfway house or something), anyway, he and the other Jedi had come in possession on a holocron. Being mature adults playing in an RPG game, it was only natural that jealousy and pissyness would rear its ugly head. So what did Baltic J decide to do to make sure no other Jedi surpassed his uber-munchkin Jedi badass? He hid the holocron, preventing any further teachings.

Now…lets clarify something. In our game, Jedi being Jedi it was almost impossible to “lose” a holocron, seeing as long as Baltic J’s Jedi knew where it was his rival would be able to pick his brain and find out the location.

So what did Baltic J decide to do?

Well, see there is this neat little DARKSIDE power that can basically erase a persons memory.

You see where this is going?

So Baltic J decides he’s going to go, dump the holocron on some remote-ass planet, then mind wipe HIMSELF so he couldn’t remember where he stuck the holocron, and by extension, no one could pick his brain and find it either.

Yeah…mature.

So, he uses this power. “But wait!” you cry! Didn’t he get a darkside point for using this DARKSIDE power?

Of course not! Because Baltic J reasoned with the GM that since he was using the power on HIMSELF and not another person he really wasn’t hurting anyone but himself.

Right.

Ignore the fact that the point he used a darkside power to begin with should have landed his lame ass a DSP. Also ignore the fact that he should have AT LEAST gotten one for the action itself- jealousy, greed, fear all of that other crap contributing to the hiding of the holocron and preventing other Jedi from gaining insight and knowledge. Ignore the various reasons the GM should have slapped him down for being a childish munchkin ass…

What happened?

Not a damn thing.

He hid the holocron, mind wiped himself and went on down the road with his silliness.

Now, I think there is a fair amount of blame to be put on the line for this. The GM, for whateverf*ckreason seemed to allow this kind of shit to go on like, ALL the time with Baltic J. I don’t know why, but it was almost like he was scared to piss off this uber-munchkin for fear Baltic J would stop playing (which wound up happening anyway eventually but again-another story). So it wasn’t entirely Baltic J’s fault for getting away with all of his childish crap. The GM was as much at fault in some- hell most-instances.

Personally? In addition to two DSP’s I would have had Baltic J’s Jedi mind wipe work so well he would have pissed himself and forget the last twenty years of his life- reducing him to a drooling moron who couldn’t scratch his ass without help.

But that’s me. That’s how I roll.

Still, between Baltic J and Black Cat, I sat and watched cheating go on, pretty much saying nothing and minding my own business. I still can’t figure out the mentality behind cheating in an RPG, but of the group I gamed with, it really didn’t surprise me that these two players were the ones to do it.

I guess the pathetic this is, that in the end it didn’t even matter. Cat’s character never wound up to being more than background noise in most games while Baltic J burned through several more characters- each one a pale reflection of the last.

In the end, for all the cheating and fudged rolls they spent more time trying to beat the system than just playing the game and having a good time.

Roll It Up!

So, the Raptor Squad game has effectively been dead for, oh, going on about three years now. In that time I’ve run several games for the gradually shrinking group of roleplayers. The first actual game was a play-by-post I ran during the Raptor Squad years called “Freelancer”. I was a fun game with some cool characters, but was sidelined by a selfish, self-centered gamer who was more interested in showing he could “outsmart” or “outwit” the Gamemaster than he was in playing a game with friends. A trait that would eventually lead to him being told he wasn’t welcome in the gaming group any longer. The Freelancer game lasted a few months but really didn’t go very far (thanks in part to the aforementioned player and the fact the Raptor Squad game was winding down and I was asked to GM a new game) The new game was “Boiling Point” a cross between the Star Wars RPG and Shadowrun. Boiling Point went well…I was able to do a lot of exciting things with the characters and able to create some original storylines and settings. The game took place on a planet called “Blue Xenith”, and quite a bit or work went into fleshing it out.
Boiling Point lasted from January 2006 until mid 2007. A few of my gamers left or simply disappeared (the reasons are varied, though that little tale is an entire blog entry unto itself). When it became obvious folks were having a hard time showing up, I started a play-by-post game called “OCW”.
Outlaw Championship Wrestling lasted for all of a few months. The work that went into it actually surpassed the amount of time we played the game- a piss-poor statement if there ever was one. There were a few reasons why this game failed to take off and endure. Again, I won’t go into the details…suffice to say, that I learned one VERY important rule about my gamers that day:

Do not, EVER, pit them against one another. EVER.

See, when facing insurmountable evil across the galaxy, or taking on a crimelord or cutthroat band of pirates as a TEAM, the gamers worked well together, and each loss was shared as a loss by the team. But, when pitted against one another, as the OCW did…placing player-created wrestlers against other player created wrestlers…well, lets just say that some players can’t handle “losing” in the imaginary world of roleplaying. Which was a damn shame and sad as piss really…over half of the group had a blast with it, while just a few either couldn’t summon the ambition to participate (which allowed storylines and angles to stagnate) or would get outright pissed off when their grapplers would lose (keep in mind we were only three weeks into the matches when the complaining started). It was sad that it had to end the way it did…but it did end. And looking back at all of the work, time and money spent on creating it, I can honestly say that I’m proud of what I was able to create and accomplish with it, even if it didn’t last very long, while disappointed in the players and “friends” who felt that losing in an imaginary game somehow demeaned them as human beings or something. I guess they didn’t see having a group of people who care about you and consider you a good friend counted as “winning”, but maybe that kind of insight only comes with maturity-something these folks tended to lack.

Anyway, a few months passed, and with a smaller group of roleplayers now totaling four, I figured I would go back to the Star Wars well and start up a new game. The premise? Bounty Hunters (an old, but popular, standby), out in the galaxy trying to make a buck. The players agreed and in January we rolled up characters and February we ran through our first game with the new characters.

There was only one problem- I was totally burned out on Star Wars.

See, this March marked my 9th year of doing NOTHING but Star Wars roleplaying (around the table at least). It wasn’t until time to run the new game that I realized I was just burned out. The hobby I had grown to love had become a burden. I was tired of cookie cutter Jedi, evil Hutt crimelords, starships that all looked the same save for a new ion thruster or some other such nonsense. The D6 SWRPG community is all but dead, so that helped matters little. Bottom line, if you don’t know SWRPG D20/SAGA don’t even bother going on a message board or forum looking for inspiration- it’s pretty much a waste of time. In the past, when creating a new game for my players I was driven by unrestrained enthusiasm that drove me to create some truly unique and interesting adventures and settings.

Not this time.

This time, out of respect for my players (who can only meet once a month to game) I phoned it in. I did something I’ve never done before- run an adventure out of a module.

And it sucked. Harder than a F5 blowing through a Hoover factory.

The players knew it, though God Bless Em’ they tried to be positive about the suckage, but the damage was done. I was finished. I couldn’t bring myself to shove my group under the bus again for the sake of simply running such a sucky game. At first I blamed myself, but hey, I’m all about placing blame where it is due…and the adventure module didn’t help a bit. The adventure was convoluted, confusing and in the end, made little real sense. I should have tried something else, but the fact is that I didn’t have the time to come up with something on my own, so I put my trust in this ass-tastic adventure module and got burned for it. Now, I understand the problem with adventure modules- those that work are ones that generally pigeonhole players into pre-made characters or sets limits or requirements on what kind of characters the players can run…then there are the ones that tank- and tank hard. The problem? The writers of the modules have no clue what kind of characters, or, more importantly, what kind of Players you will be running through the adventure. So, they tend to make very generic generalizations and plots that try to accommodate most games…and the end result is either a game that works and is enjoyed by everyone or a game that doesn’t work.

Well, this one didn’t work-no, this one signed up for welfare, grabbed a sign and found a cozy spot beneath a highway underpass to panhandle for loose change.

Deflated, I was ready to pack up the Gm’ing tools and call it a day. But, it’s not that easy- not for me at least. See, I don’t have tons of kids screaming for my attention every day to pull me away from gaming. I don’t have a job that keeps me occupied till 10pm slaving away for that almighty dollar. I don’t have a wife who nags and bitches at me any time she sees a gaming book lying out in the open (quite the opposite in fact- I’ve got the most wonderful wife in the world who would respond “Hey! Cool! A new sourcebook for our game!”- yes, lick your lips with envy fanboys).
So, I’ve got the time to put on a good game…heck, a GREAT game- but I’ve got to be enthusiastic. I’ve got to feel the drive to create. I didn’t have it with Star Wars anymore…but what about other genres? Now there’s an idea…an idea that had been hovering in the back of my mind for some time really.
So, I went back to my crew and presented it as such:

“There is a D6 Fantasy game, using the D6 system but instead of Star Wars/Space it's fantasy/Sword & Sorcery...it's like D&D but with the D6 rules (which I like better).Would you guys be interested in trying it out? Maybe rolling up some new fantasy characters and giving it a whirl?"

They agreed, having been weaned on old school D&D (Back in the days where you found bare breasted succubus gracing the pages of the sourcebooks). Knowing that the interest existed, I began rolling through my mind the various ideas/plots/personalities I could create and use to populate this new world. Inspiration poured from the likes of John Howe, Tolkien and even the Elder Scrolls video game (which is the world our game will eventually be set in). And gradually, but with increasing speed, the enthusiasm began to build. With every page I read in the new rulebook, with every spell I converted over from D&D, with every piece of parchment paper that rolled out of my printer sporting a new list of potions or some other bit of arcane goodness, I could hear the roleplaying muse calling to me, her sweet song drawing my fingers across the keyboard as I worked on 3d models of the new player characters or customized character sheets for the players.
We sat down this past Saturday night and rolled up new characters, and the trio of adventurers are now poised to sally forth into the fantasy world of Tamriel, where goblins, wizards and dragons await. I don’t know how long my enthusiasm will last (or that of my players for that matter) but I can’t worry about that. You don’t go through life worrying about what might happen or what will happen, you can only worry about the here and now, and make decisions and actions that will hopefully bear fruit for future endeavors. Advice as relevant to real life as it is to a pastime spent rolling dice and eating junk food with friends.
So here I am ready to run a different game set in a different world. No Jedi, no Sith, no starships. Just swords, sorcery and a group of great roleplayers willing to give it all a go and go back to their roots (and mine) as gamers.
I’ll let you know how it goes.

Screw Fame

So, I love WEG (OR West End Games to you non-RPG losers)…now, I don’t love them in flaming way, just a strong heterosexual man-to-company way (like I love Fredericks of Hollywood or Apple). They produced the original D6 SWRPG game, which is of course near and dear to my heart, along with some other quality games.
Well, apparently they were slated to release a new D6 space game called Septimus. It was penned by Bill Coffin and was, in some peoples mind, going to revitalize the struggling game company. It appeared to be an ambitious undertaking- a massive full color book covering the entire Septimus game system.

Then the bottom fell out.

Just a few days ago WEG announced that they wouldn’t be able to publish the book due to low estimated sales figures and a high production cost. A discussion began on the RPG.Net boards involving the WEG publisher and even the writer Bill Coffin. This began amicably enough, with fans trying to gently persuade both parties (who parted with NO hard feeling son either side) to come to some resolution to make the Septuimus RPG a reality.

Then the retards started to chime in.

What began as a respectable discussion about how this game could be revived and how things could have been done differently to make sure this doesn’t happen to future games spiraled into a name calling affair. For some reason, people think it’s acceptable to mouth off and lay into people with slurs and negative comments.

Heads up. It’s not.

I realize that people have extraordinarily huge nads when typing on a computer, parked behind a bag of Fritos and a two liter of Fresca. I realize that if they actually had to confront these people face to face their disposition would be something else entirely. But that still doesn’t make it alright. In fact, one of the posters who chimed in after some of this pathetic display had this to say:

“If folks ever sometimes wonder why their favorite creator may be absent from public forums...well, it's because of the way “X” and a few others acted here. It's a regrettable fact of life that one angry vicious ranter can and does feel weightier than a dozen friendly interested supporters. We're a messed up species in some ways, and that's one of them. It's not fair to the good-natured people, but, y'know, if you've ever been screamed at by strangers in public, you know from experience how it can spoil an otherwise good day. There are a variety of coping things one can do, but after a while it's easy to think, "Why do I need to keep coping with this? I can remove the stress in the first place." And people do, and then the rest of us lose out on the chance to talk with them.”

And this is exactly why I don’t envy professional writers, actors or folks in any manner of like proffessions. Granted, these people get the money and fame- and that’s great. But they also get all of this crap that goes along with it. A long time ago I considered writing professionally…I felt I had the talents and certainly the drive…and heck, I’m working at a job that not only pays me a crazy amount of money for doing little work- I could actually WRITE where I work at throughout the day. So win-win right?
But then I realized something, something important. I can write for myself, for my website and write exactly what I want, when I want, with no regards for length or trimming content or compromising my story based on what a publisher wants me to leave in or leave out- and still be happy.
More importantly, I can call my own shots, do things “my way” (thanks Frank!) and not have to answer to anyone. The tradeoff? Maybe not quite as much money and certainly nowhere near the fame that some writers and RPG creators receive. But you know, the more time I spend on the web, the more forums I visit and the more threads I encounter like the one above- I can do without the fame. I can live happily, writing what I want and how I want with just a handful of people enjoying it, rather than diving headfirst into the muck or, like some writers, shielding myself entirely from the outside world due to all of the freaks and geeks that inhabit it.

And that’s that catch- I’m happy.

I look at some of these RPG creators who pour their life and soul into creating supplements and game systems, only to have them ripped apart and rebuilt by a publisher- or, even worse, ripped apart by “fans” who have no investment in the product other than the thirty bucks they dropped on a rulebook. And because they dropped a few bucks, that gives them the right to rip and dismantle YEARS worth of someone’s work. To nitpick it to death and shred it because they don’t have a girlfriend/social life or because the latest re-run of Voyager has been preempted due to a tornado warning and they have time to kill.
Do these people have a right to gripe? A right to bitch and moan? Of course they do. They do because they dropped the money on the product. And that’s all the creator’s blood, sweat and tears becomes at the end of the day- a product.

Granted, it works for some folks, heck, a LOT of folks. And lets be honest, the drive for fame and ability to puff one’s chest out at Gencon might be worth the sacrifice and crap you have to swim through to get there…but not to me. I would rather continue to do things MY way, writing what I want, when I want, without having to kiss ass and suck up to either a publisher who would cut me lose at the sign of hard times or a legion of fanboys who get off on ragging on peoples hard work because they don’t have the drive or ambition to get out of their parent’s basement, much less create something worthwhile and useful.

I guess I’d just rather kick back do my thing and keep my sanity. What’s left of it at least.

As always comments are welcome, hell, even criticism…just be respectful about it-your momma might not expect you to be, but I sure as hell do.

April Fools

Well, I finally got the latest update posted. Took long enough. The Inner Demons novella itself was started way back in December of 2006, when my wife Tracy and I were brainstorming ideas (and of course after watching the film Aliens). Needless to say, the fiction pays some serious homage to that classic. Still, over a year is a long time to work on something…add in the new characters, various re-writes of the fiction and of course the artwork produced for it and you’ve got a lot of work that went in to the latest update.

I rarely get much good solid feedback on the updates these days. I attribute it to a lot of factors, including, but not limited to:

The decline of interest in the D6 Star Wars system.
The shrinking online D6 community
The shift in Roleplaying to more “stats-heavy” systems.

Of course I realize that these reasons tend to tie in to one another, still, it’s certainly not like it used to be back in “the day.” I won’t go on an “I remember when” rant here…it’s not like you are that interested and it’s not like I really have the time to waste. Suffice to say, things were a bit more friendly and supportive a few years back. Back before most home brewed campaign sites died off. Back before everyone you talked to on a message board seemed to have a chip on their shoulder and an axe to grind (heads up partner, sporting this kind of attitude doesn’t impress anyone, and only goes to make you look like a spineless punk). Back before…well, back when folks actually seemed to give a damn about the work other folks put into sites for the community by the community.

But those days are gone. Now, “Megasites” exist to either pimp products or are nothing more than soulless stats archives, void of any real creativity and nothing more than page after page of crunched numbers that amount to little more than a variation of stats someone else has already drummed up and posted elsewhere.

In short…the online RPG community these days, especially the Star Wars RPG community has no Soul. Nothing that makes it live and breathe. The home brewed campaign sites used to be a staple of the community, sites that excited and impressed visitors with original campaign settings and heroic tals of larger than life heroes who threw caution to the wind and carved out their own distinct niche in the Galaxy Lucas Built…but now, now we are a dying breed, shadows that skirt the outside of the community like some Roleplaying equivalent of The Flying Dutchman…it’s crew forever posting to message boards just to let others know that we still exist…that we are still out there…creating and building. Not for us, no, but for others who might one day decide to pull themselves away from pages and pages of soulless stats and boring, monochromatic message boards where people are as quick to railroad you as they are to offer a kind word, and come looking for something different…something original. And simply something you won’t find in most other places-creativity that doesn’t come with a pricetag attached.