
Star Wars Wednesday - Spirited Games

Wizards of the Coast announced the new Dungeon Masters Guild today. It's an online store selling D&D 5e PDF works. Here are a few of basic highlights:
The new open gaming license SDK is also now available, and there are differences between publishing thru the GMs Guild and on your own using the license.
My Adventurers League Expeditions Tyranny of Dragons adventure DDEX1-07 Drums in the Marsh is available right now for purchase and download.
I've also updated my Store page for my other titles available on DriveThruRPG.
I have additional content I hope to post soon (the site went live a bit earlier than I expected).
Fantasy Flight Games announced Savage Spirits today, a sourcebook for Seekers in the Star Wars Force and Destiny RPG. I'm one of the writers. It's coming in the second quarter of this year.
Also, one of my other Force and Destiny products, Nexus of Power, is said to releasing in the relatively near future.
Yesterday, I got out to see The Force Awakens again, so I - and everyone who saw it - contributed to today's announcement that it is now number one for the domestic box office. Amazing.
Beyond that, this is another one of those wide ranging posts...
Fantasy Flight Games announced the upcoming (Q1) release of Star Wars Edge of the Empire Special Modifications today. It's a Technicians sourcebook. I'm one of the writers on it. That's about all I can say for now, but there is more in FFG's announcement.
Midwest GameFest opened its event registration to Kickstarter backers, and should be open to all in the near future. I'll be running Star Wars, Savage Worlds The Last Parsec, D&D Adventurers League, and Numenera. The D&D AL events aren't posted yet. There will also be panels on Saturday afternoon.
Events will continue to be posted until the con, so check back for more or to see if space has opened up on a full event.
AetherCon is a free online game convention, complete with games and panels. I've been invited to participate in a panel called One Small Step: Giants of Space. My fellow panelists are Katrina Ostlander of Fantasy Flight Games (and one of the developers I've worked with) and Jason Walters of IndiePress Revolution and Hero Games. d20 Radio's GM Chris is the moderator.
AetherCon happens to fall the same weekend as Midwest GameFest, so this panel will be my only chance to join in this time around.
You can find more information about participating on the Aethercon site, but here's a brief rundown:
AetherCon is a free to attend, free to partake, non-profit initiative. Thoughout the weekend there will be a plethora of tabletop RPGs on offer for all to play in. Among those will be three, three part tournaments taking place over the three days of the event with final tables to be played on Sunday.
All games will be run on the free, browser-based virtual table top Roll20. This program will allow GMs and players alike to simply click on a link and enter the playing area as opposed to needing to download and install the software to participate.
In addition to the collection of independent RPG playing opportunities and those run by RPG publishers, there will also be Q&As and themed panels as well as speedpainting duels using the free, browser based conferencing program Anymeeting.
Maps are great tools for RPGs, both in play and as sources of inspiration. Following on from last week's Maps of Mastery Stats post, here are a few ways to use those maps in RPGs. As it happens, Fantasy Flight Games posted a new preview of Star Wars Age of Rebellion Strongholds of Resistance, highlighting Rebel bases in the book. I had a great time with that section.
Deck plans and bases are among the more common map types in Star Wars games, so both make good starting points for map based adventures or encounters. Maps can be great sources of inspiration.