Lit The Great River - The problem with the "the new EU"... A haven for Legends fans.

Well he has mentioned he has played some P&P so who knows if he actually ever played the D6 system.

 

Ugh...don't make me have to buy WEGs.

Those stories available anywhere else?

 

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Even if he did why would that be a prerequisite for an author who wanted to use information from the role playing game in a book?

It would be easy for someone to use that info without needing to understand the dynamics of game play in a particular game.

Do understand when I say short fiction I do mean short Often times they are just a few paragraphs. Pellaeon meeting Zahn for instance is nine paragraphs, maybe three times as many sentences - and it is one of the longer ones.

I'd imagine they're online somewhere.

 

Background Fluff alone makes them wortwhile Also some of them have full multi page short stories in them.

Of course, my post was just meant as random Trivia.

 

So, like I said...nuggets. Maybe I'll get around to tracking down story nuggets after I'm finish raising my kids....

...or I will somehow get by without knowing what exactly happened during the very first encounter between the Death Star mouse droid and TK-421.

 

I don't have them all myself by any stretch of the imagination.

But I do think you would find the content, by and large, very enjoyable. Especially the source books that tie directly to the novels, like the Thrawn Trilogy ones.

 

Well, be warned: this whole thing started because Ender Sai objected to the idea that a non-RPGer would buy and read an RPG book.

You forgot to mention the FarStar. Tsk, tsk.

Of course, what's great about both is that each one is a narrative-based campaign that one could read, if they were so inclined, like a story. They even have funny little snippets of actual story, like Robimus mentioned (Zahn himself wrote the setup story for the Kathol campaign).

 

Denning was all too familiar with RPG and look what that got us. Of course, the other side of that coin is Jeff Grub who adapted his adventure Tempest Feud into his novel Scourge and did a fine job. WEG became so irrevocably tied to Star Wars, that to say non-RPG people shouldn't experience WEG is a disservice to them as fans.

 

Ok, but instead of being disingenuous knowing full well these WEG buying, non-RPG'ing types want to hear you say that - why don't you disclose precisely why those stories were in the Sourcebooks?

That is, are they there so people who don't play RPGs but have silly obsessions with stats also have a few paragraphs of fiction? Or are they there because the sole purpose of the book is to provide players of the game with sufficient context to run a campaign in that setting?

We both know the answer is the latter. I don't see the point in convincing the non-RPGers they matter to the game companies when they don't. It's a lie.

As soon as 2nd Ed R&E landed the focus was running NR games, not fringer games, so the entire framework supported that. If you were running a Thrawn trilogy era game, it was assumed you'd weave your campaign into the events of the novel. That's it. Not so people could give up their Saturday nights to read about ships and 2 paragraphs of fiction and put the book away confident it was written just for them.

 

Well, when concepts like the safe world and drop point are basically only mentioned in RPG material, it gives non-RPG people plenty of reason to be interested in RPG material.

 

Incorrect.

I clearly stated that the issue with non-RPGers getting those books is that they interpret information produced for the sole purpose of informing an RPG without the correct context. The information is designed to support campaigns and nothing more. If you wish to use it you need to understand it. Again, the gamers weren't the ones having nerd tantrums over the Executor's length, it was the non-RPGers.

And why? Because the stats can be used however the GM wants. GMs can fudge rolls, increase or decrease shield or weapons die, etc etc. The stats are there as a baseline and can be used as such but are not immutable because of the nature of an RPG.

That's all it's ever been - if you don't RP, you tend to not fully appreciate the context of the information and you kid yourself if you assume WEG, WOTC or FFG give a **** about your whims, wants and wishes as a non-gamer. They're happy you buy their books but if you want information that would cover AoR, EotE and FoD in one hit they'll politely forward your request to their colleagues for a good giggle and then delete it.

Nothing I've said is controversial nor inconsistent with the approach articulated by FFG. It just upsets people who think they shouldn't be disadvantaged when they disadvantage themselves.

 

They were quite clearly marketing the books at a wide audience. The entire introduction in the Heir to the Empire Source Book makes that very clear.

No one has ever made a claim that those books were being written "just for them".

 

This is a strange tangent. And I don't see it as either/or. The stories were written for the games but also, I would guess, for story consumers. It's really joint marketing for both. A non-gamer may very well pick up a WEG with a Zahn story. And that way entice the Zahn fan to play the game/buy more games. Likewise, a gamer might read a story and want to read the larger context Zahn books.

 

The Adventure Journal completely blurred the lines between RPG and stories, by offering both.

 

Did you buy them as they were coming out?

 

What does it matter if I have any of them or not? Do they not offer both RPG and stories?

 

I have them. Every last one of them. Yes, they did offer both of these things, and in abundance.

And I bought them as they were coming out, Ender. In fact, bought every last RPG supplement for Star Wars that I could get; I kept them all when I gave away many of the post-ROTJ novels after decanonization; and you know what? I don't role play. EVER. I got those sourcebooks, those adventure journals, because of what I was going to learn about the world this adventure takes place in; I wasn't interested in role playing and still am not; I was under no illusions that the makers of these things made them with my perspective in mind - in fact, they'd have been unwise to consider my point of view if they wanted to make an RPG tool for role players. I bought them for the reasons I bought them; they sold them for the reasons they sold them; the twain do not meet, but both are happy nevertheless.

 

Which is a nonsensical statement for WOTC and WEG's material, as anyone who's cracked open an Essential Guide can tell you. Since the days of the Thrawn Trilogy SB, they've been intertwined with the novels, the comics, the video games, in one continuity.
The best you can say is with FFG, that their status is unknown, because StoryGroup doesn't know. But their setting - the setting, not the rules or game-only stats - is undeniably built on the foundation that their RPG predecessors constructed. And I don't know how often I have to say this - a well-constructed, consistent, detailed universe is the hallmark of a good roleplaying game. If they didn't give a damn about the setting, didn't try to keep it consistent, I wouldn't bother buying them, and I doubt others would either.

And here's the thing - I may be an avid RPGer, but I bought my first WEG books as background material for the Star Wars universe. It was about a decade before I even ran a single Star Wars game.

 

Does anyone know if the Atlas is worth getting? I flipped through it at a store the other day and was impressed with all the content.

 

Absolutely! Fry and Wallace created a masterpiece there (and you can still go to the main Star Wars site and get updates such as maps of the various regions and an updated appendix that was current to June of last year).

 

Awesome. I'll be sure to get it.

BTW I thought it was so cool that Dooku's droid army was attacking Dantoonie in the micro-series to look for Rakata artifacts. Are there other tie-ins like that in the book?

 

The Atlas is a massive reference to everything, to the point that the name is deceptive - it covers pretty much the entirety of Legends.

I would probably recommend the Essential Guide to Warfare as being a companion guide to the Atlas (as it covers some of the material glossed over there, like the thousand-year theocracy that took the place of the Republic at one point).

 

So the Legends fans who spam SW Books' Facebook regularly are apparently banned. Took them long enough.

 

Which effectively puts a period on the end of the sentence that was "The Great Disney-BBL War." It was all whimper and no bang.

 

I'm a few weeks late, but that RPG conversation was really interesting. I do think there's something to the idea that people tried too hard to translate WEG into (what was then) canon. Even most die-hards are willing to ignore video game mechanics--they'll concede that, say, Kyle Katarn wasn't actually carrying around an entire arsenal on every mission--but no one ever applies that level of handwavey thinking to tabletop game mechanics. It's certainly instructive now considering all the questions about FFG (and even TOR).