Let me preface this by saying if you hated the Prequels or Sequels I don't care and I don't want to hear from you about it. Kindly scroll on past. If your comments are anti-prequel or anti-sequel, I WILL delete your comments without responding. They won't even be approved to show up on the blog. Now, that being said... I will NEVER forget how excited I was when the fanfare kicked up on December 18, 2015, at around 7:30 PM as I sat in the theater with my good friend Erika after a 24-hour marathon of all 6 prior Star Wars films, and that title: "EPISODE VII: THE FORCE AWAKENS" scrolled up the screen.  I'm not exaggerating when I say that moment was one of the greatest, most exciting times in my life. Now, my wedding day notwithstanding (which naturally stands head and shoulders above all others) the only other time I felt anything matching that level of anticipation was when the lights went down for  The Rise of Skywalker. But we'll get to that in a moment....

So I'm on record as never having been a huge fan of the old Star Wars Expanded Universe. I also dearly love the new canon of films. That being said, there are a lot of things about the EU that are certainly worthwhile and worth bringing back. Thrawn was not among them. But I digress. I have always loved the Dark Horse Star Wars: Legacy comics, which are set 138 years after Return of the Jedi and deal with the descendents of Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Han Solo, as well as the rise of a benevolent offshoot of Palpatine's empire under the Fel Dynasty, as well as the rise of the New Sith Order. It's a complex setting that just feels Star Wars to its core, and offers some great expansion to the mythos--in particular, the Imperial Knights; light side Force Users who take a more martial approach to the Force than do the Jedi. If you aren't familiar with Legacy, I highly recommend checking it out. Marvel has, I believe, re-printed the enitre line. With the new ca...

So for many years, the Arduin books have been on the periphery of my awareness. I knew they were out there, knew they comprised significant expansion and modification to the OD&D rules, knew they eventually became their own system of sorts, and knew that there was some controversy regarding Dave Hargrave, but that was about it. I've seen more and more discussion about them recently, so finally I decided that I would take the plunge. I acquired copies of the "Trilogy" on eBay. My copy of The Arduin Grimoire Volume 1 is a 4th printing; the Volume 2 and Volume 3 books are first printings. Replica box I made to store the trilogy in.   So I guess I'll start a running commentary here as I work through. Again, bear with me as I don't read fast to begin with, and combined with the piles of writing work on my desk and the fact that I can only read a few pages of this tiny text without getting a splitting headache and, well...it's going to take awhile...

Please note that the following is entirely fan speculation on my part. You can disagree or agree as you like. It's just a neat idea I came up with given the new canon established for lightsaber colors in the Star Wars Universe. Now, note also that I'm sticking with the canon as established, but still tying the Star Wars: Legacy comics by Dark Horse into the mythology, as they take place over 100 years after the current films, and 135 years after Return of the Jedi. In the end, what I'm saying is, I don't care about orange and rainbow lightsabers from the old Expanded Universe, and how whether you were a Jedi Guardian meant green. I'm exploring the idea of the white lightsabers that first debuted with the Imperial Knights in Star Wars: Legacy  and how they might have come to be, based on how Ahsoka got hers in the canon novel Ahsoka.  Also note that all images here are linked directly from Wookieepedia. I don't own them. Now that I've got all that ramb...

I'd like to take a couple blog entries to explore the concept of psionics in the early editions of D&D--specifically, original D&D and AD&D first edition. Psionics, traditionally, have been a much-reviled part of the D&D opus, and those who do not include them in their game are certainly far more common than those who do include them. It's no secret that even Gary Gygax lamented and regretted their inclusion, and didn't use them himself. As with any aspect of the game, ask 100 players why they don't like psionics, and you'll get at least 50 different answers (if not more). The vast majority, however, will come down to one of two major points: They are science-fiction feeling and simply don't have a place in a fantasy game They are overcomplicated, confusing, and simply arcane and unworkable.  I can't really address point one. If you simply don't like the idea of psionics, if you feel like they're not fantasy-feeling, and y...

So a discussion arose on the ODD74 message forums awhile back, about how difficult it would be to run a Star Wars  game using the OD&D rules. The general consensus was that it shouldn't be difficult to do, but there was some disagreement on how to handle the Force--most people assumed Clerical magic would be the best approach. My own thought was that psionics, as presented in Supplement III: Eldritch Wizardry  are a better, and near-perfect, approach to modeling the Force in a Star Wars game. This of course led to some disagreement, as psionics in Dungeons & Dragons, at least prior to third edition, have a reputation for being confusing, arcane, and complex. The truth is, however, that like much of the older editions of D&D, psionics aren't all that difficult--they're just poorly organized. After one goes through the rules and gets a handle on them, they are actually quite straightforward. I, thus, took it as something of a challenge to do up a full sourceb...

THE ONGOING CAMPAIGN There's a lot to dig into, in this section, which encompasses only about 2.5 pages of text, but is crammed with information. It begins with a discussion of how to keep excitement in your game when it becomes rote. This is something, I think, most long-term DMs can empathize with. There comes a point where you realize you're recycling ideas and there are only so many city murder mysteries, political intrigue stories, and standard dungeon crawls your characters can handle, and you want to kick it up a notch. The section discusses the delicate balance of keeping the game challenging and dangerous, but not so deadly as to be un-survivable. It notes that there always has to be a balance between gain, loss, and risk, and that in a long campaign there needs to be an overarching story--what in modern terms is called a "big bad." It says that this big bad doesn't have to feature in every game, and indeed probably shouldn't feature until the mid...