Passion to Play

Wow, where does all the time go in a day?  I know that I have not been posting as much as I normally do, but to be fair I never really do much posting in the December/January period just because it is a time to be with family and a time to relax.  All the things that I have not been doing this holiday period!  And I do miss this so here I am, waking up early on a Sunday, getting to work an hour and a half early to say that this break has all been about my passion to play!

Sure, there has been something to do with a store too BUT in reality I have been playing, hard.  Three campaigns I now run in store.  One D&D, one Pathfinder and the final a FATE game.  The good news is that in this particular part of the world it seems they have been absolutely starved by it all too!  It is daily that I get comments about how they have not played in years and they would love to get back into it.  I have GM’s now asking to run games in store to which I give a big hell yes to!  Gaming is alive and well and it is great to see my tables being utilised by the RPG’s.

Of course my store is not just a role playing store though.  In fact I carry a lot of board games and I have recently garnered an addiction to one in particular called X-Wing.  You may have heard of it.  The thing is though that this game has opened up my mind to a different possibility.  Sure, it is a fun game that can be pretty quick but it is still a tabletop wargame which normally is not much my cup of tea.  But I see in this game an opportunity to create something that I have not seen since I played Battletech.  And that thing is an opportunity to expand an RPG.

I do not think it is much of a secret that I like Star Wars and have always wanted to start a semi-regular RPG of it.  I have practically all of the d20 version, recently got Lulu to send me a print copy in full color on quality paper of the reup and also, because of an accident in store I have inherited a stock damaged copy of Age of Rebellion.  So I am pretty much equipped to take on the role playing side.  But X-Wing has broadened my horizons.  What if the players in my campaign were a squadron of X-Wing pilots in the Rebellion?  How about the crew on the Lambda Shuttle or even a group of Ace Tie Fighter pilots?

X-Wing the game gives me the opportunity to expand onto the tabletop the interactions within the game.  It helps break up the pace and feel of the RPG and allows for some great visuals and combat play.  Tie in the characters skills and abilities to give them some of the skills common to X-Wing and you have a game.  This is an awesome opportunity too because the games in store just turn into battles.  No real missions are played here.  They set a point value and bash the hell out of one another.  If it were tied to a game each and every opportunity to hit the play mat is going to have a background to it.  A mission that is real and can be interchanged with personal scenes in the RPG only to leap in the ship and fly away again.  I am really looking forward to doing something similar to this.

I know the idea is not rocket science but I would be interested to hear if there are any of you that are already doing this in your games?  Maybe you use Armada which I would also like to hear about – or perhaps you have even taken it to the ground in the form of Imperial Assault.  All of these things I would love to hear about – even if it is a game that was non Star Wars I would still be interested to find out what you did and how well it went.  Keep rolling!