Jediphile

Amen! To push Mystara as entry-level is to misunderstand the setting - it's far more poltical and "grey" than FR will ever be, and to put the nations in a black/white light is dangerous to any player. Mystara fans hate most of the AD&D stuff because it's all directed at new players with adventures and supplements that are very basic in nature and clearly directed at new players. Attracting new players to Mystara is good, but what chance do they have to understand the setting if there is no introductory set? They should have done a Mystara campaign set with information similar to that of the D&D Cyclopedia (by in AD&D format) or the HW boxed set. We still suffer from the fact that they didn't, since nobody has ever written a general and comprehensive overview of Mystara - you can only get a feel for the setting by reading about each nation in turn, but that's difficult since they're all interconnected, and more so after the events of WotI. So new players never had a chance, and old players hated the basic/entry-level approach. They also hated the CDs, though I actually don't know why. They were very simple, but they were good fun to some extent IMHO. Actually 15 if you count the Dawn of the Emperors (DotE) boxed set covering the empires of Thyatis and Alphatia (though it was never given a number in the gazetteer series for some odd reason that defies explanation). Sorry, I'll stop splitting hairs now Well, the HW gazs were slim, since only three were ever published. Not enough to cover the HW, but then HW had its own box set for the whole setting, so it was not so necessary - those gaz just fill in more detail about the nations in question, so I consider them mostly valuable while the Known World gazs are essential role-playing tools. Not all the original gaz were equally good, however. Allston set the standard when he wrote gaz1 about Karameikos, but gaz2 about Ylaruam doesn't follow the format at all (it has no descriptions of NPCs, for example, which to this day has left Ylaruam as a boring and ill-described place). Gaz3 about Glantri was written by Heard, however, and very clearly followed in the footsteps of the gaz1 format, as did most of the subsequent gaz. Too bad they never got to do nations like Heldann, Essuria or Wendar in the gaz series, though... More detail on Alphatia would also have been nice - it's bleedin' huge! I mean, they barely even described the continent of Bellisaria in the D&D material, for example! Exactly. I love the info for all the kobold tribes. You can hunt them down or try to settle the matter peacefully or whatever - the background info is all there and just waiting for the PCs to try something and the GM to decide what he will allow. Nor do I. In fact, my players are reaching the end of events in PWA1 right now. One PC has the Black Eagle as his arch-enemy, so he's about to be very happy when the halflings kick out his sorry butt (I love that they let the halflings do that - they're not just couch-potatoes after all!) Oh, and the Almanacs are still being written to this day, though now they're being written by the fans. AC 1014-1018 are available free for download from the site I mentioned earlier, and AC 1019 is still being written. They tend to be fairly large, though - the AC 1017 almanac was 800+ pages, though most was info of the nations that is quite well known already.

I like both, though not nearly as much as the Known World part. I never played in the Red Steel area (though I have all the material), and I only ever played in the HW (that's short for Hollow World) when my players went through the events of WotI (which is short of Wrath of the Immortals - a huge adventure of large wars that cover six years of conflict in the Known World and completely alter the power structure - a few nations even disappear!). HW is a fun idea, though, and I've considered doing many things with it. It was fun to play a campaign where two characters (and naturally their players) knew that the Hollow World existed (because they'd been there in WotI), while the two other PCs knew nothing and didn't have a clue, since the first two PCs were prohibited from telling them about it by a Geas spell that the Alphatians had placed on them to prevent the existence of the HW to become common knowledge. Naturally this caused a lot of wonder and suspicion in the group, when the book revealing the truth of HW was published (by Claransa, as per Poor Wizard's Almanac 1), and the two other characters realized that their friends had known this for years (in game and outside) without ever telling them anything - yes, I'm that evil as a GM So the HW has lots of potential. It's basically a museum of extinct cultures in the outer world set by the Immortals (no gods on Mystara, but it's the same thing). Red Steel also has potential, though I was never so attracted to the red curse and the odd abilities it bestowed on people. Red Steel was really Bruce Heard's baby from the "Voyage of the Princess Ark" column in Dragon - it's about an Alphatian skyship (a flying, magical ship - though his *was* rather ununusal) boldly going where no man... eh, I mean exploring Mystara, while being in the occasional conflict with the evil Kling... er, I mean expansionist Heldannic Knights, who pursue them in their flying warbirds.... It was actually far more fun that it may sound like :D Aaron Allston (yes, that's the same Allston that wrote several of the X-Wing novels) was never involved with Red Steel, and I think it shows a little. To the uninitiated, I consider Bruce Heard and Aaron Allston to be the founding fathers of Mystara, since at least one of them has always been involved in the core works that defined the setting (B10 being a notable exception). Allston became central to role-playing when he wrote Gazetteer 1 about Karameikos and so defined the format of the gazetteer series that remains a high standard for other role-playing products to aspire to. Still, as you can probably tell, I always found myself more attracted to the political landscape of the Known World region. WotI is hated by many, but I loved the potential it gave me to cause massive changes in the world and let the players see their world fall apart around them. We're still dealing with the fallout of that war.

That's no disagreement, and certainly no inconsistency. Most likely using Vima was just associated with too much trouble, so they pushed the whole thing a few decades, which is a time of Star Wars not covered anywhere in canon or EU. It was simple easier and gave Bioware more freedom to tell whatever story they wanted, since it would cause no trouble with the Sunriders. If I had been a storyteller, I probably would have made the same choice, since you really don't need Vima in KotOR1. Even if she did inspire the character of Bastila, this still gave Bioware far more freedom to develop the character. Bastila's fascination with the dark side would and yet complete lack of knowledge of it have been far more difficult explain for Vima, since she has more insight having been trained by Ulic himself. What's the big problem, Mentaldigifool?

Ah, okay. I was wondering, and didn't remember if the original idea was for Vima or Nomi herself. We don't know much about Vima's life as a jedi, but Nomi did indeed have the jedi ability for Battle Meditation. So when I heard of the original intent for Bastila, I thought they might have meant her, but be denied the use of her and then decided to push the plot 50 years into the future, so that they wouldn't have to deal with "Tales of the Jedi" characters that they weren't allowed to use anyway. Hmm, there might even be some truth to that assumption, since Vima would have been 50 to 60 years in KotOR1 otherwise... Not much of romance that will sell games there, I think...

Ooo, touchy! I was making a general comment on the state of the continuity of the EU, as it is handled by GL. Every time he makes a new film, he completely ignores any continuity restrictions in order to expediently deliver the new revisionist view of SW that appeals to him at the moment. And the continuity is consistent because ...? Wher are the missing Sunriders? I put it to you that the only reason GL hasn't contradicted the continuity of this period is because he hasn't made any significant contribution to it, yet. What's wrong, "Jediphile" ( ), don't like anyone criticising "The Gospel according to St George"? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Not at all, "Mentaldigital", I'll criticize Lucas whenever I think he does something wrong. By the time of the movies the Sunriders are 4000 years into the past - why should they have any significance at that time, much less be remembered at all? As I said, we have plenty of ammunition to use against Lucas already, but here is actually an area where there is no inconsistency, so what's the problem? You'd have far more ammunition if you accused Lucas for allowing Zahn to place the events leading to the devastation of the Noghri (sp?) homeworld more than 40 years into the past with references to the civil war between the Empire and the Rebellion, when Lucas then later sets the fall of the old republic later than that. But the point you have chosen to blame Lucas for here is unfair, since there is actually no inconsistency.

I didn't know that! How near do you have to be Mandalore's "office" till they stop respawning??? Do you have to stay near the sparring pit, or can you go to the other side ? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I'd give it about as wide a berth as possible, since you don't need to get really close at all for the last group to spawn. Keeping distance isn't the problem, though. No, the problem is that your companions tend to rush into battle and get them to spawn. And yes, they'll do so even if set them to ranged or jedi support, since they'll hunt down enemies when the current opposition goes down, and that invariably brings them too close to Mandalore's office. My advice is to drop any and all companions and let the Exile fight the battle alone. Power levels shouldn't be a huge problem, since they'll be based off your own level, and in any event, you can always stay close to the Mandalorian soldiers or even turn and run to them if things turn against you. That said, I did play a high level (15 or so) sentinel when I did that part, so I'm sure about lower levels, but since it's based off your level, I doubt it'll be a huge problem. Funny thing, btw, since I was so high level, the final group was a push-over compared to the spawning Sith... If you're playing lightside, I advice the spawning Sith on Dxun to the Hsiss on Korriban, since your force power doesn't regenerate right on Korriban (something to do with the area's connection to the dark side), and you'll want to heal your wounds, since Hsiss pack quite a punch - even with a powerful Exile that can finish off two Hsiss in a few attacks, you'll still take a lot of damage, so keep that in mind.

What on Earth are you babbling about?!? We can flame GL all we want and for many reasons, but what has been said here that deserves that? This part of Star Wars continuity actually seems fairly consistent.

Actually, that's pretty much the conclusion Monte Cook reached when reviewing D&D 3.5, and he was one of the designers of 3e. According to him, 3.5 was released for the potential of profit and not because there was something wrong with the system. He knew that because an update was proposed by WotC while he was still designing 3e with Jonathan Tweet and Skip Williams. The designers tried to fight the idea that an 'update' should come after a few years, but after leaving WotC, Monte Cook describes in his review that apparently WotC forced the update even earlier than orginally planned. No, he didn't flame the whole thing and hate it all - he did like a lot of the changes - but he also said that 3.5 caused a lot of problems because it came too soon and left players in confusion as to which edition of D&D they were really playing. Maybe it's just me, but I found it damn funny that he criticized 3.5, when he was one of the original designers of 3e. If we follow that strategy, then D&D 3.7 or 4.0 or whatever can't be far away now...

Yes. Especially when it actually turned out to be way more complex than 'advanced' D&D... I mean, the old Gazetteer series had new skills and alternate classes almost every time. That's way more complex than the crappy kits of AD&D. It was annoying for the same reason, though. For example, every gazetteer also had a tendency to redefine the skills so that important skills suddenly worked differently and were based on different stats in each nation. I prefer to have one standard to sort all that out and then stick with that. That's why I played OD&D Known World with AD&D rules long before the AD&D Mystara setting was declared - AD&D gave me one standard proficiency base to operate from, so I stuck with that. And some of all those new classes were pretty silly IMHO (taken the "Master" class for the halflings, for example... That could have been done a lot better - speaks volumes that that gaz was written by Ed 'Forgotten Realms' Greenwood...). I see the same thing happening in d20 D&D today (for the classes I mean), which is another reason why I don't like the system - every new rulebook or supplement introduces "new cool classes and feats that you just must have in your campaign because they're more powerful than ever before, but certainly don't unbalance your game, and definitely are not released because WotC wants more $$..."

Thanks, that's praise indeed. I do pride myself on having been able to keep my players' interest for ten years running and counting, but it would have been difficult with a campaign that just wasn't very interesting. In case anyone is interested in Mystara, WotC declared a number of official sites for the "dead" worlds, and Mystara's is here.

Er, no. Sorry, but you're mistaking the age of KotOR with the age of Naga Sadow. It's true that some of the Tales of the Jedi comic books (the "Golden Age of the Sith" and "Fall of the Sith Empire" series) do take place around 5000 before the Battle of Yavin, but the other Tales of the Jedi stories (the original five issues and the "Freedon Nadd Uprising", "Dark Lords of the Sith", "Sith War", and "Redemption" series) all take place about a thousand years after around 4000 before the Battle of Yavin (bBY). The earliest of these (the original five issues about Ulic and Nomi) take place 4000 bBY, while the last ("Redemption") takes place place around 3986 bBY. The "Sith War" was set around 3996 bBY, and since KotOR1 takes place about 50 years later, it probably takes place around 3956 bBY and KotOR2 around 3951 bBY. I'd say Nomi was still in her 20s during the Sith War, which would put her in her 70s or 80s at the time of the KotOR games. She might have died of old age by then, but she also might still be alive. Even if we discount the timeline speculation, it's still clear that Nomi could not have lived a thousand years before, since the only time we hear of her in KotOR1 is when Jolee remembers her, which would be impossible unless he is a thousand years old himself...

Atton: "We've arrived at Malachor V. Jeeze, look at that thing. How in the blazes do you people expect me to land the ship in that god-forsaken nest of sharp, pointy rocks, much less take off again?" Exile: "Don't worry - the programmers will have long since run out of time by then..." :D

I vote Bastile, but only among the choices available. Otherwise I would have voted Kreia and the mouth of my blaster

All I can say is that common wisdom seems to indicate otherwise, and my own experience tends to support that idea. A friend of mine played the Exile as a Guardian turned Sith Lord and said it was the ultimate combination. I played Exile as a Sentinal turned Weapon Master, however, and cannot complain about the results in any way. Your mileage may wary...

Well, there is little question that the OD&D (or Basic D&D) material is far better than the AD&D rubbish they publised. The Explorer's Guide in the Karameikos set was good, especially with all the illustrations (which had been lacking before), but the rest was utter garbage. Heck, the Grimoire in the Glantri set wasn't even updated to reflect all of the changes of Wrath of the Immortals, and so the description of the Nucleus of the Spheres was just the same as in gaz3 despite being reprogrammed at the end of the war... Of course, they never finished the AD&D project, because it died. The problem was that they tried to push Mystara as an entry-level AD&D world, which indicates major misunderstanding of the setting and consequent flaws in the strategy given how politically complex and "grey" the nations of that campaign really are. It's what makes Mystara great, though - no all black or white heroes or villains. Even good King Stefan has to stab his own in the back from time to time, which makes for much better role-playing that the endless "good vs. evil" and "chosen of the gods" stuff in FR. Mystara is inhabited by people instead of all heroes and villains. So yes, the original OD&D stuff - particulary the early adventuring modules and the gazetteer series is some of the best D&D stuff around. Heck, some of it is even among the best role-playing material in general - I count B10: Night's Dark Terror among the best adventures ever made for any RPG. You can't play it outside Mystara, however, since it is so closely tied to gods, races, and places that exist only Mystara. It's what makes it great, though - it really uses the setting's detail to create depth that is very compelling. Er, sorry about the Mystara rant, everybody... :">

Well, I don't know. I was just speculating because I know they couldn't use Nomi in KotOR1, but it may just as well be that Lucasarts just didn't want to commit those characters to a computer game. After all, Nomi would come with a lot of history that gamers might know nothing about, while fans of the comic books would suddenly wonder about later references to her association with Revan, if more comic books were made about her after the events of KotOR1 in the timeline. If Lucasfilm's policy is that anything published as Star Wars becomes their property, then it's unlikely Veitch would own anything, and neither would Dark Horse. It doesn't seem that Zahn owns much, either - he created Mara Jade, yet I doubt anyone asked him about how she has subsequently been used in both comic books and, particularly, the novels (not that I'm implying dislike for them - I know some people hate those novels and Mara Jade's role in them, but I'm not one of them).

At the risk of repeating myself, it is likely to be Tom Veitch, since he wrote the original Tales of the Jedi and so created those characters. Or it could be Dark Horse, since they published them. Correction: Kevin J. Andersen probably has no rights on the Sunrider name, since he was not involved in the early comics - he wasn't involved until the "Dark Lords of the Sith" series, when both the original five issues of Tales (two issues of "Ulic Qel-Droma and the Beastrider of Onderon" and three issues of "The Saga of Nomi Sunrider", all later collected under the title "Knights of the Old Republic") and the two-issue "Freedon Nadd Uprising" had all already been written by Tom Veitch. I believe there is also a reference to Vima in the six-issue "Dark Empire" series, also written by Tom Veitch, before that.

Well, I don't like FR either, so that is a non-issue to me. 3e might be okay for a simplistic and very black-and-white setting like FR, so for monster-slashing RPG and dungeon-crawls, it's just fine. But it's not suitable for complex RPG with deep characterization, because the archetypes of the fixed classes are forced much to harshly. Even an official D&D world like Mystara (where I play) does not fit well into 3e IMHO.

An author who writes a passage in a novel where an orc swings a sword at the hero and doesn't describe it as dangerous is a bad author doing bad fiction. We've seen plenty of that, of course, but it's still terrible quality. I don't care if it's a hero or a common man - if someone swings a sharp object at the protagonist, then it's dangerous and should be described as such. What RPG is designed to be played without intervention by the DM (or GM, Narrator, Storyteller, Keeper, etc.)? There is nothing unusual about D&D or d20 in general that would make a difference here to any other RPG, yet most others are better designed and better written than d20 for the reasons I have mentioned before. The need for the GM to toss out the rules now and then is present in any RPG. If I found that a rule is bad in an RPG, then I'm going to call it a design flaw, since there is no reason why it should have been there in the first place, and D&D/d20 is no different than any other RPG in this regard, so I'll measure it by the same standards. I said that because I will not be able to play certain games (like Star Wars) in a few years without having d20 forced on me, and WotC plans to take over more of the market and reduce the "danger" of diversity. I'm not saying d20 should go away, just that its bad design means that it should be about the last system to be considered for an industry-wide standard for all RPGs. I do, for the reasons I have stated before. d20 is fine for entry-level games, like D&D has been reduced to, but it's not suitable for more complex or deep role-playing like Cthulhu. I also hate it for Star Wars, since it cannot represent the franchise properly within its own rules.

Star Wars is patently beyond all logic. Therefore, it's impossible to establish a fixed ruleset that can be used to explain every instance of the movies coherently. " <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Oh, I don't know. I haven't played WEG's d6 Star Wars, but I've read the rules and they look pretty solid. And the game probably has a fanbase for a reason.

If I understand it correctly, it has do with Nomi and certain other characters being the intellectual property of Tom Veitch and Kevin J. Anderson since they wrote the original Tales of the Jedi comic books, where these charcters were introduced. Or maybe it belongs to Dark Horse, because they published those books. That probably doesn't mean that using those characters are impossible to use, but Lucasarts and the developer would most likel have to pay royalties or whatever to the people involved, and we know what that means... " Still, I admit that I'm not certain about this and could be quite mistaken - I just seem to recall something to that effect being said at some point.

My sentiment exactly. That said, I have played D&D (OD&D and 2e), and those are very difficult to convert into a better system like GURPS.

Oh, I don't - I tried d20/3e long before I played KotOR1, so I know that. The KotOR system *is* close to d20, though. I know because I've played both KotOR games and many sessions of d20 Star Wars RPG. Hmm, yes. But frankly, isn't that really an admission on their part that their system is flawed and cannot represent the events of the films to anyone's satisfaction? They do give d20 stats for all the main movie characters in the d20 core rules, after all.

This should have been addressed in the story. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Really? I tend not to think so. For all we know, Carth already did this in KotOR1, or maybe hair doesn't gray with age if subjected to certain treatments in the Star Wars universe. I mean, the technology is likely to be there... I'd count this amont the details that are so small that they can just be ignored in the plot. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> My deadpan humor can get me into trouble. Just joking with you. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> :">

OH, my eyes! MY EYES!!! :D