Star Wars Adventure Review - The Game Chambers of Questal

This is an ongoing series of reviews of classic West End Games Star Wars RPG adventures. I've run a few, read a few more and not touched a few since I bought them over the past 30 years. I'll look at them for a few different angles, including what I would change to bring the adventure to my table.

Adventure title: The Game Chambers of Questal

Author(s): Richard Kern 

Published: June 1990

The Pitch: The Rebels come looking for an old friend on a planet run by a Moff who loves to play games with his adversaries.

Summary: An adventure that's part James Bond, part "A Most Dangerous Game", part dungeon crawl and, on the whole, less than the sum of its meager parts.

In-depth review with SPOILERS after the jump!

Star Wars Adventure Review - Otherspace

This is an ongoing series of reviews of classic West End Games Star Wars RPG adventures. I've run a few, read a few more and not touched a few since I bought them over the past 30 years. I'll look at them for a few different angles, including what I would change to bring the adventure to my table.

Adventure title: Otherspace

Author(s): Bill Slavicsek 

Published: 1989

The Pitch: The Rebels must journey into another dimension to locate a lost Rebel prison transport and come across the death-obsessed aliens who live there.

Summary: An adventure that attempts to bring the claustrophobic terror of the Alien franchise to the Star Wars universe. Instead, it shows that two great tastes don't always go together.

In-depth review with SPOILERS after the jump!

Star Wars Adventure Review - Tatooine Manhunt

This is an ongoing series of reviews of classic West End Games Star Wars RPG adventures. I've run a few, read a few more and not touched a few since I bought them over the past 30 years. I'll look at them for a few different angles, including what I would change to bring the adventure to my table.

Adventure title: Tatooine Manhunt

Author(s): Bill Slavicsek and Daniel Greenberg

Published: June 1988

The Pitch: The Rebels must find an Old Republic officer before bounty hunters collect a huge bounty to bring him in dead or alive.

Summary: An influential adventure on not just the RPG but Star Wars canon. It lives up to the hype and offers a fun adventure on the planet that seems to be in the middle of nowhere, yet everything happens there!

In-depth review with SPOILERS after the jump!

Star Wars Adventure Review - Crisis on Cloud City

This is an ongoing series of reviews of classic West End Games Star Wars RPG adventures. I've run a few, read a few more and not touched a few since I bought them over the past 30 years. I'll look at them for a few different angles, including what I would change to bring the adventure to my table.

Adventure title: Crisis on Cloud City

Author(s): Christopher Kubasik

Published: November 1989

The Pitch: The Rebels are framed for murder on Bespin and have 24 hours to clear their names before being arrested by Lando Calrissian and turned over to the Imperials.

Summary: Many of the adventures of this era steer clear of anything directly related to the movies. This one heads right for Bespin, wrapping up the players in a mystery that they need to solve to avoid Imperial justice. Also, the only appearance of a full deck of Sabacc cards, with rules to play!

In-depth review with SPOILERS after the jump!

Star Wars Adventure Review - Battle For The Golden Sun

Cover photo courtesy Wookieepedia 

This is an ongoing series of reviews of classic West End Games Star Wars RPG adventures. I've run a few, read a few more and not touched a few since I bought them over the past 30 years. I'll look at them for a few different angles, including what I would change to bring the adventure to my table.

Adventure title: Battle For The Golden Sun

Author(s): Doug Kaufman

Published: June 1988

The Pitch: The Rebels crash-land on a waterworld in search of a Rebel ambassador. Instead they find seatroopers, warring natives and a giant piece of Force-sensitive coral.

Summary: A decent adventure that throws the PCs in the battle between two factions of natives that, despite showing off an Imperial garrison poster and a seatrooper on the cover, puts the Galactic Civil War in the background for a session or two.

In-depth review with SPOILERS after the jump!

Star Wars Adventure Review - Scavenger Hunt

This is an ongoing series of reviews of classic West End Games Star Wars RPG adventures. I've run a few, read a few more and not touched a few since I bought them over the past 30 years. I'll look at them for a few different angles, including what I would change to bring the adventure to my table.

Adventure title: Scavenger Hunt

Author(s): Brad Freeman

Published: January 1989

The Pitch: The Rebels have to deal with the annoying Squib to set-up an ambush on an Imperial transport containing sensitive information that could seriously damage Rebel operations. The Rebels needs to visit an iconic location from the films and do the Sqiubs dirty work to get their cooperation.

Summary: This adventure has a lot of harsh design decisions through out as well as weird encounters with Star Wars elements and new elements that don't quite gel. There's some stuff in here that might be useful, but much like the setting, you've got to sort through a lot of trash to get there.

In-depth review with SPOILERS after the jump!

Star Wars Adventure Review - Riders of the Maelstrom

Cover courtesy of Wookieepedia

This is an ongoing series of reviews of classic West End Games Star Wars RPG adventures. I've run a few, read a few more and not touched a few since I bought them over the past 30 years. I'll look at them for a few different angles, including what I would change to bring the adventure to my table.

Adventure title: Riders of the Maelstrom

Author(s): Ray Winninger

Published: July 1989

The Pitch: Another big ship based adventure, this one based on a Mon Calamari luxury cruiser. The Rebels stumble across a plot that involves pirates, other pirates that are also Rebels, and rival Moffs looking to put everyone out of business.

Summary: There's a lot going on in this adventure which depends a bit too much on coincidence  and has problems projecting a straight plotline. But there's a lot of neat NPCs, factions vying with each other and a big location that's dying to be explored.

In-depth review with SPOILERS after the jump!

Star Wars Adventure Review - Starfall

Cover courtesy of Wookieepedia

This is an ongoing series of reviews of classic West End Games Star Wars RPG adventures. I've run a few, read a few more and not touched a few since I bought them over the past 30 years. I'll look at them for a few different angles, including what I would change to bring the adventure to my table.

Adventure title: Starfall

Author(s): Rob Jenkins and Michael Stern

Published: May 1989

The Pitch: Depending on how old you are, this is either Die Hard on a Star Destroyer or The Poseidon Adventure on a Star Destroyer. The Rebels are trapped inside a Victory-class Star Destroyer that's been wrecked by a surprise Rebel ambush. While they make their way through collapsing corridors, they also find out the captain of the Star Destroyer plans to take the Rebel fleet with him when the ship explodes. Can the Rebels save themselves AND the Rebel fleet?

Summary: This is my favorite Star Wars RPG adventure of all time. It still holds up after all these years, even if, as written, it's pretty linear. I've run it with every official Star Wars system and it's been a ton of fun every time.

In-depth review with SPOILERS after the jump!

Geek and Sundry - Star Wars Canon

Today's article is about the influence the Star Wars RPG has over the Star Wars canon. Yes, even the new one.

Milwaukee Record - Star Wars

With The Force Awakens a week away, my editor decided it was a good time to have me discuss Star Wars on their podcast. I think it went well.

Appearance - International Tabletop Weekend

Come play some games with me at my favorite bar in Milwaukee!

42 Lounge hosts International Tabletop Weekend, which expand Tabletop Day over Saturday and Sunday. I'll be there both days, running two of my favorite board games (and playing a few more).

On Saturday, at 4:00, I'll be running Fortune and Glory, which team up players to race around the globe and keep priceless artifacts out the hands of an Evil Organization.

On Sunday, at 4:00, I'll be running Star Wars: Imperial Assault. I'll be looking to crush up to four Rebels as the Imperial player in this campaign style board game.

Geek Kon 2013 - Schedule

No rest for the wicked. This Saturday, I'll be a guest of honor at Geek Kon. I'm on a bunch of panels involving the various games I write for, including Firefly, Star Wars and Shadowrun. My schedule is after the jump.

Geek Kon - Guest of Honor

I'm happy to announce I'll be at Geek Kon Saturday, August 24th in Madison. I'll be talking Star Wars Saga Edition, Shadowrun, Firefly RPG, Fate, CAMELOT Trigger and more!

Mania - Things George Hopefully Learned From the Prequels

My second Star Wars article is up. It's not a video review of Revenge of the Sith, but it covers most of the issues I had with the prequels.

Mania - 6 Star Wars Ideas We Want Instead of 3D

My newest bit of media critique for Mania is up. I feel the same way about 3D that I did about the Special Editions - I'm more excited to see Star Wars in the theatre than whatever bells and whistles they use to justify it.

The Zahn books are a no brainer - they opened up the EU and are still influential on a lot of writers. And I really hope the guys who did that Han Solo short got a call from LucasFilm with a job offer.