Star Wars Heritage

I've been doing so many Star Wars posts that it has been (temporarily, at least) completely over-running my blog.  I'm thinking of coming up with a temporary banner that reflects it.  But, honestly... I probably won't.  Following my recent refocus, after all, Star Wars related posts are completely on-topic, along with DARK•HERITAGE posts; of which I don't have a lot of "new" material in the works anyway; it's more repackaging existing material.  So today is... more Star Wars.  More Old Republic specifically.

I haven't played it much lately, but I've watched a lot of a fairly detailed Smuggler play-through.  I'm starting to find the plotting, the writing, and the interminable stupid NPCs and their stupid quests to be tedious beyond belief.  It's almost impossible for me to believe, at this point, that I'd actually play this thing all the way through.  The game simply isn't very good.  What a shame; it's a great concept; and it's a great take on the setting (mostly.)  There's some great visual design associated with the game.  It looks pretty good (although it doesn't really look terribly better than over ten years old Knights of the Old Republic now that I mention it) but it's simply too tedious and cringe-worthy to justify playing it through.  The writing is worthy of the prequels, both in terms of roll-eyes plot holes and nonsense and in terms of face-palm bad dialogue.

As an aside, it apparently won Game of the Year by MSNBC back in 2011 or 2012 when it was newer.  That probably tells you quite a bit about it right there.  MSNBC.  Ugh.

But if I had Kathleen Kennedy or Tony To's job, what would I do to salvage the concept of the Old Republic?  Assuming that licensing rights allowed me to?

Create an animated ensemble cast TV show, probably!  Not unlike Star Wars: Rebels or the earlier Clone Wars show except with at least one big difference: I'd take an archetypal character from the game: one for each of the eight main character classes, actually: and kinda sorta rewrite their plots from the game, mingle them together somewhat, and spread them out over several seasons worth of action.  Some of the constraints of the game: most notably the need to keep players busy so they keep coming back, hence the inclusion of so many asinine and banal quests for completely unlikable and unsympathetic NPCs, will be eliminated.  In fact, all kinds of writing and pacing constraints can be replaced with some that actually work for the new medium.

You can't do anything about SJW except not hire them to write or supervise your product, I suppose.  In general, although they're not completely immune from it, the Marvel and LucasFilm divisions of Disney seem to have managed to avoid the worst of SJW excesses ruining their fun in their entertainment products, however.  I'm hopeful that they can still pull it off.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-11-26-star-wars-the-old-republic-re-review

My son has started a Bounty Hunter game, and I'm about to ditch my aged (to the point where I've forgotten most of what I've done) bounty hunter game (after coming within a hair's breadth of finishing the second planet, Dromund Kaas.)  I've watched about six hours now--in small chunks at a time--of a Smuggler play-through.  Although the recorder/player did include some flashpoints (Hammer Station, for instance) and space battles, it's a mostly heavily edited playthrough--much of the running around and fighting of respawning stock bad-guys and whatnot is not shown; it focuses much more on the dialogue, the quests, and the boss fights.  Although I'm itching to play the game a bit myself, I'm not at all blind to many of its faults.  The article linked right there, unfortunately, mentions one of the biggest ones--the free-to-play option is almost spitefully punitive compared to the subscriber option; to the point that it's occasionally frustrating to even bother with.  That said; it's still Star Wars, and it's still a reasonably fun game, or at least my past experience with it was fun.  But it's disappointing to see that it didn't live up to its potential.  The biggest problem, which is mentioned almost off-hand in the "re-review" above is that it wants to be an RPG, not an MMO, and it would be decent if it focused on being one, instead of tacking on MMO and pay-to-play options out the wazoo.

Here's my (not necessarily exhaustive) list of things that it should have done better, or not done at all:

• Options for character creation are extremely limited.  I still remember playing the demo with all of the race options.  Cutting it back to basically human, cyborg and zabrak feels like a slap in the face.  If it were an off-line RPG, a "super-RPG" if you will (it's really almost like 8 RPGs in one; one for each character class, which each have a story of equivalent size and magnitude to the earlier Knights of the Old Republic game) with all of the options available up front, I'd be a lot happier with the result.
• Along those lines, I'm not quite sure what in the world they were thinking with offering four body types and only making one of them (maybe two if you're generous) an attractive one to pick.  Who wants to be the scrawny little runt, or Tubby the Jedi Knight?  It's great to offer options, but if realistically you don't have good options, then what's the point?  All of the fat people in the Old Republic galaxy is a really odd choice.  I suspect weird SJW "inclusiveness" being a factor there; the designers wanted to allow fat people to feel heroic, or something equally banal and inane.  For male characters, the big beefy option isn't terrible, but I can't really see ever picking anything other than option 2 for body type.  Ever.
• Among the MMO specific (and necessary) items that's really kind of bloody annoying is the fact that enemies respawn fairly quickly so that they can be there available for the next guy to come along.  Occasionally this isn't a bad thing; you can count on respawning bad guys to be a source of potentially unlimited (albeit tedious) XP, for instance, and when you don't feel like fighting them, you can hang back and ride on the coat tails of someone else who just cleared the area for you, I suppose.  Mostly, though--I'd just kind of prefer that I could kill the enemies and then they stay dead so I can count on the area being cleared again when I pass through a second time.
• Another one is the multi-player missions, flashpoints, and the like.  Now, I like the idea of side quests, but I'm supremely annoyed, honestly, about having to recruit someone else to go along with me, and then hope that that works out.  What I'd rather do is be able to bring along two companions (as in Knights) and have the difficulty geared so that they could be won in single-player with two companions along.  I find all of the endless "run around killing tons of bad guys so you can fetch something" quests very tedious after a while, and it's nice that they're optional (to a point) but they could easily be less tedious if we could just do them in solo player mode offline.
• Speaking of which, I know that the personal side-quests are part and parcel of the genre and they give players something to do without having to always be focused on the main task and all, but this actively dilutes from the Star Wars feel, frankly.  Not only that, many of the side treks are silly and petty.  From relatively early on in the smuggler story, for instance, you've got that poor nautolan guy on Coruscant who's looking for his girl friend or wife or whatever, who left him to go join a dancing troupe.  The whole thing is just awkward and embarrassing.  I can't believe anyone thought that was a good idea to write.  The brother and sister guys on Taris who are yelling at a soldier because their farm was under attack by rakghouls, and yet the soldier explaining to them over and over again that the area wasn't cleared for settlement yet, came across as extremely whiny and entitled.  We're supposed to sympathize with these guys?  I was more inclined to let them rot.  On the plus side, it is a great object lesson on some of the details of r/K-selection theory.  The writers clearly literally can't understand a scenario in which resources are too limited to allow everyone to have everything that they want.  There's actually a lot of whiny, entitled dialogue.  It's really tedious listening to the sob story of every stupid schmuck in the galaxy.  Most of whom, quite literally, are extremely stupid.
• That said, another non-Star Wars feeling detail--the Republic aren't really the good guys.  I'm not quite sure what they were going for, but constantly showing Republic officials as either inept or corrupt (often both at once) might be realistic when it comes to real federalized government bureaucracies, but it sure doesn't feel very much like Star Wars.  It'd be a lot better if the Republic weren't portrayed as a bunch of flawed and therefore angsty do-gooders, but were instead a very light government presence who was more about ensuring freedom rather than providing a bunch of other odd and unexpected services to a gaggle of whiny, demanding, spoiled brats who claim citizenship.  The Rebellion in the original Star Wars saga wasn't a big bureaucracy, it was a flat meritocracy of can-do independent types; not unlike the settlers of the Old West or the patriots of the American revolution (which no doubt was done to some degree on purpose.)  BioWare has lost track of what Star Wars means, and that's a bad thing.  Then again, BioWare is a bit notorious for becoming a sink of SJW political correctness, so in retrospect, maybe that shouldn't be too surprising.  Sigh.  And for that matter, George Lucas himself these days sounds an awful lot like an SJW, so I think that's a battle that's been lost, for whatever it's worth.  It's not like ownership by Disney is likely to return it to anything else.

Ultimately, nothing compares to the open-ness of an actual face-to-face pen and paper RPG, such as my Star Wars m20 system, or the Edge of the Empire game by Fantasy Flight (or d20 Star Wars by Wizards of the Coast, or d6 Star Wars by West End Games, or whatever other home-brew you've come up with using GURPS, or Unisystem, or Savage Worlds or whatever in the world you use.)

Of course, this doesn't compare with the sensory experience of Star Wars, which--in spite of George Lucas' dissatisfaction with it in later years--was a huge part of the draw from the very beginning; the special effects of the Star Destroyer filling the screen for the better part of thirty seconds, the screaming of the TIE fighters overhead, the snapping and crackling of the lightsabers as they clash, the surprisingly emotive sound effects of characters like R2-D2 or Chewbacca; no matter how much one tries to describe them (and I've read a lot of Star Wars novels where writers have tried) it's an unsatisfying substitute.

I hope, still, to get the Star Wars gaming experience that I really want someday, but I don't necessarily expect it.  My expectations are rather finicky, and unlikely to be met by anyone.

EDIT: And as I go through more of the Smuggler storyline details on Youtube, I'm amazed and amused (although not in a good way) that the "Smuggler" character has a moral objection to the smuggling operation of Tyrodall.  Just idiotic.  The smuggler who dislikes smuggling.  That particular plot hole, while not monumental (it's really just kind of a side-quest type thing) is worse than any in the movies.  Then again, maybe it was the choices that the player made that you don't necessarily have to make... although you do if you want to get light side points.  Ridiculous.

EDIT 2: I should give credit where credit is due, however, to the brilliant visual design and soundtrack for the game, as well as the setting set-up, at least.  Absolutely no complaints there.  I've been listening to the soundtrack for quite a long time, actually.  The original 17 tracks are available on a CD that is... well, mostly unavailable nowadays, although I snagged a copy when they were still on sale at a reasonable price on Amazon.  And then, BioWare released most of the rest of the tracks as free mp3s which are still available on their website.  The best stuff borrows themes and cues from the original score of the movies, of course, but there's good stuff all around.  I find many of the the various cantina songs to be remarkably and surprisingly charming.  "Average Brown Wookie" is probably my favorite of these (in part because of the name) and "Run Kessel Run" has the most iconic musical references to the Cantina Band song of the first movie.

Here's a youtube playlist of the entire 45 track collection.  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC06B7C9CF80A3731 which includes the original soundtrack plus all of the extras.  Get yourself a good youtube to mp3 converter if you can't find the original CD anymore, and you could be listening to the entire Old Republic music during your own Star Wars RPG sessions.

EDIT 3: I should point out that the game itself uses not only its own original music, but also re-uses a lot of music from Knights of the Old Republic, which is also a BioWare game.  If you really want your own gaming session to sound like you're playing Old Republic then you probably need to find that soundtrack somewhere too... if you're really particular.  In my experience, the KotOR soundtrack isn't really all that memorable, or even listenable except as innocuous background music, but that's OK.  One might ask, why not go straight to the source; the movie soundtracks are readily enough available, and are... well, are the original?  My answer there is that individual tracks in the movies tend to change mood and tone quite a bit, often in ways that might be jarring during a game session.  Also, the music is so familiar to fans of the movies (at least to me) that I can often picture in my mind exactly what's happening at any point in the movie just by hearing the music.  This is, needless to say, a bit distracting.  The Old Republic music, on the other hand, avoids this by sounding like Star Wars without sounding like a specific Star Wars moment from the motion picture soundtracks.  To give one example: the opening cues of the track "Deception, the Sith Warrior" uses the musical cues of the Emperor from Return of the Jedi, but gives them a powerful, fast-tempo march feel that, in effect, makes it sound like "The Imperial March"; otherwise known as Vader's Theme.  This concept of taking one musical cue but making it sound like it belongs in a totally different Star Wars song gives the track resonance; it certainly sounds like it belongs with Star Wars; just not from any particular movie exactly.

EDIT 4: The absolutely crazy apologetics for rakghouls and nexu is just bizarre, not to mention the "space PETA" group that you have to deal with to get Drooga the Hutt interested in dealing with you again.  The "morality" of the game is becoming a major hindrance for my enjoyment, quite frankly.  That said; I think the storylines have elements that are worth raiding for my own potential games, mostly by completely ignoring the completely imbecilic side quests and focusing on the main stuff to use as raw building blocks with which to construct the framework of a game for me to run on my own.

EDIT 5: And now with both Alderaan and Cademimu, we're getting tons of appeasement as the "good" choice.  Neville Chamberlain would be proud of this narrative.

Star Wars m20 v. 1.1

As threatened in my last post, I made some updates to the Star Wars m20 setting document and character sheet.  For some reason, I don't have the small character sheet original source file, so it's not updated for the time being (although if I can get to it this evening, I'll do it at home where I have the ability to easily modify the pdf file directly.  Plus, I think I have the original source file stored there anyway.)

Anyway, here is the modified rules file:  http://jdyal.webs.com/StarWarsM20.pdf

And here is the modified character sheet:  http://jdyal.webs.com/StarWarsCS.pdf

The character sheet is best used if printed "duplex" style with the character information on one side of the sheet, and the starship/vehicle information on the other side.  The small character sheet includes both on one side of one page, but since it includes outdated information about classes, you'll have to fudge it just a little bit to make it work, until I can get around to fixing it.

Old Republic classes as m20 Star Wars archetypes: The Smuggler

After dropping out near the end of the second planet on my bounty hunter playthrough, I've been motivated to try it again (haven't had time, but I've had motivation.  Looking to figure that out soon...)

However, I've completely lost my place with my bounty hunter.  I'm thinking of starting all over again, as a male human smuggler, I think (to be turning into a Gunslinger.)  Back in the day before The Old Republic became free to play, I played 15 levels (the demo maximum) with a female human smuggler character, and thought it was fun--and in many ways very comparable to the bounty hunter slash powertech anyway.  I've also been watching an edited playthrough with the smuggler class (mostly just the conversations and cut scenes, but with some "boss fights".  It's long--156 linked 15 minute youtube videos--but about four hours in, I'm not tired of it yet.  The same guy who posted this did one of each of the eight classes, it looks like.  I can't imagine I won't feel Old Republic youtube fatigue long before I get there, but at least in the meantime, I'm enjoying it.

With my own m20 Star Wars game (including the seeds of a 1,000 years post-Jedi setting), I have four classes, soldier, scoundrel, expert and knight.  This doesn't map exactly to the totally different type of system that Star Wars: The Old Republic uses, but rather, I see the Old Republic classes as archetypes that can be created using m20 classes in a variety of ways.  They're really more role-playing hooks rather than mechanics hooks, but I still see them as interesting interpretations of Star Warsiana that can be useful to me in my own m20 Star Wars game.

Let's start with the Smuggler, since I'm watching a playthrough of that class right now.  The Smuggler is, of course, the Han Solo archetype--heroic, but kind of reluctantly, with a patina of bad-boy attitude and Alpha male cockiness.  I see him also as a combination of the good-guy swashbuckler; a kind of British privateer like Captain Peter Blood combined with the Old West gunfighter thrown in.  A small amount of political French Résistance or American Revolutionary War partisan fighters, although they're not overly concerned with politics for the most part.

Quoting The Old Republic gaming material, the smuggler is meant to be cunning.  Smooth-talking, sneaky, and outside of the formal authority structure, they move easily through either the legitimate or underground worlds--although keep in mind that the legitimate world, as shown on places like Coruscant, is pretty Underworld-like.  Although the bounty hunter is meant to be a "bad guy" class allied (at least nominally) with the Sith Empire, the smuggler is his counterpart in most respects, and a smuggler could actually be a bounty hunter (lower case) by trade.

The Smuggler divides into two advanced classes, either the Gunslinger of the Scoundrel.  The Gunslinger focuses even more on becoming a cowboy in a space western, and adds to that demolitions, sharpshooting and dirty tricks, while the scoundrel focuses on dirty tricks, his scattergun, and--oddly--some healing abilities.  That last is almost certainly a feature required for MMO "balanced party" play and it seems curiously out of place with regards to the archetype itself.  Since I don't have advanced classes, they can be collapsed down into some firearms specialties, demolitions, and dirty tricks.

Because the Smuggler class in SW:ToR and the Scoundrel class of m20 Star Wars are both loosely based on the same archetypical character, Han Solo and his "ilk", it seems that the Smuggler archetype would best be represented by a character with the Scoundrel class with some cool guns, some customized light armor, and--of course--a hot rod space ship.  However, a character who focuses more on being a gunslinger than a scoundrel could credibly recreate this archetype with the Soldier class as well.  If your GM allows a little house-ruling, you could hybridize the two classes to get a nearly perfect Gunslinger; a soldier who, instead of a +3 to Physical takes it to his Subterfuge as the Scoundrel does.  Another option would be to take neither and take an affinity as an Expert; that way you can Demolitions or Vehicle Piloting.

Heck, it just occurs to me that I don't have Demolitions listed as an affinity, and each of the three non-Knight classes have two abilities; I can officially modify the document (version 1.1?) to allow these "hybrid" classes.  Maybe I'll even name them!  I like the concept of making a la carte classes the way I've already done with races.  Until I get the files updated, here's the skinny on this concept:

Class special abilities:

• Combat bonus: +1 to Damage and attack at 1^st level.  +2 at 4^th, and +3 at 8^th.

• +3 to a skill

•  Sneak attack: add Subterfuge modifier to damage roll when sneak attacking.  May require successful subterfuge + Dex check to sneak up on the character in the first place.

• An Affinity: the ability to reroll a check if desired if it falls within the spectrum of a specialized area.  This includes (but may not necessarily be limited to): Vehicle Piloting, Vehicle Repair, Droid Repair, Computers, Medicine, Investigation, Nobility, Deception, Stealth, Wilderness Survival, Acrobatics, and Demolitions.

• Lightsaber Training: can use combat bonus, but only when using a lightsaber (the ability grants the use of the weapon as well, including the ability to make a new one during downtime if the original is ever lost.)  Also, any unarmored character with this ability can add ½ his character level (rounded down) to AC, and can, instead of attacking, deflect missed blaster fire back at anyone shooting at him (rolls as if making a blaster attack, can only apply to missed shots; hits still do damage as normal and cannot be deflected.)  If the character doesn’t move or take any other action, he can use his lightsaber to “fight defensively) by adding +4 to his AC against blaster attacks.  Missed attacks when “fighting defensively” can be deflected.

•  Soldier: Combat Bonus and +3 to Physical skill

• Scoundrel: Sneak Attack and +3 to Subterfuge skill

• Expert: One affinity and +3 to Knowledge Skill

• Knight: Lightsaber Training and +3 to Force skill

However, since all classes as a combination of two abilities, you could conceivably create other classes as well.  Here’s some alternate class configurations:

• Gunslinger: Combat bonus and affinity Demolitions

• Bounty Hunter: Combat bonus and Sneak Attack

• Agent: Sneak attack and affinity Stealth

• Sith Witch: +3 Force and Force affinity

The “standard” classes are as follows:
If you don’t take the +3 to Force skill at character creation (normally only available to Knights) then you can’t use the Force skill at all, except occasionally defensively, on the occasions when you make an opposed Force skill, as in to resist a Jedi mind trick.
There isn’t really any way to create any type of Knight other than using the Knight class, since the lightsaber and Force use take up the two class abilities, leaving no room for anything else.  Tough.  Knights are supposed to be rare and unusual, not commonplace with a variety of styles.  This, of course, is contrary to the class selection in Old Republic, which has no fewer than half of the options as varieties of Knights.

New m20 Iconics: Ottvar Aeldstan

Ottvar is a hard man, and a very large one as well.  Unless drunk, he's a man of fairly few words and a sour demeanor.  Ottvar served as a young man with the Variagoi Guard in Terassa itself, but after making a fair bit of money, he tired of the regimented life, and struck out on his own.  He returned to his homeland in the north, where he found himself increasingly in conflict with bandits of Terassan stock and wandering Untash tribesmen, so he tired again, and headed back into more settled Terassan lands, where there were fewer of his race, but many semi-Terassanized people who saw him as a long-lost kindred spirit.

Although he dislikes violence, he is good at it, and has usually found work as a hired guard, soldier, mercenary or other field in which the potential for violence was paramount.  But what he really ached for was more settled work, and he used his savings from his time as a Variagoi to buy a farm, settle down, get married, and work in a small village.  He enjoyed this work for only a short time, however.

A wandering clan of Tarushan gypsies passed through.  It's not clear if they were traveling with an incognito vampire or ghoul cult, or if they simply had a vicious bokor among them, but Ottvar's wife--and many others of the village--were kidnapped, and most were killed.  Ottvar led the villagers, mostly hardy farmers of scramasaex and nordero heritage, in an effort to recover them.  Ottvar's own wife, turned into a rather nasty zombie, was put down by his own hand.

After this, his heart was no longer in farming.  He gave custody of his plot of land to a good local friend and went to Porto Liure.  Falling in with the group those who hunt supernatural threats and protect innocents from their depredations has given him some meaning, and he takes pride in what he does and what he has become.

Ottvar is large and extremely strong.  With barbarically styled blond hair, piercing pale eyes, a fabulous moustache, and deeply tanned and freckled skin, he's easy to spot among the mostly olive-skinned and dark-haired ethnic Terassans who make up the majority of the folks of Porto Liure, and his name and a pale shadow of what he actually does is known to many in the city.  Few, even among the criminals, are willing to get in his way--not only because he is very large, strong, potentially violent and intimidating, but because his service to the city is known and respected by most.

Character sheet:
Name: Ottvar Aeldstan
Class/Level: Fighter 3
Race: Human (scramasaex)
Sex: Male
Height: 6'2"
Weight: 240 lbs.
Hair Color: Blond
Eye Color: Gray
Skin Color: Tanned
STR: 18 (+4)
DEX: 12 (+1)
MND: 12 (+1)
Hit Points: 33
Armor Class: 18 (medium armor)
Athletics: +7
Communication: +4
Knowledge: +4
Subterfuge: +4
Survival: +4
Melee To Hit: +8
Ranged To Hit: +5
Magic To Hit: +5
Wealth on Hand: 24 gp, 16 sp, 57 cp
Weapons: Claymore 1d10 + 5 damage
Rifle 2d8 + 1 damage 300 ft.
Other Equipment: Chain shirt (medium), backpack, bedroll, winter blanket, traveler's outfit, fish hook, flint and steel, lamp, waterskin, pack horse, saddlebags
Spells: None
Notes:

Gaming in the new year

One might notice my general lack of gaming topics lately (which in turn, has caused this blog to slow down considerably, since gaming topics is its primary raison d'être, while other topics of which I'm a fan and occasionally like to blog have largely been removed to other blogs of mine.

Which are also moving slowly, I might add.  Part of this is simple; I've just been really busy, and I feel little intellectual capital remains to blog about things.  This can also be seen by anyone who's noticed that the books I'm reading haven't been updated in a long time either.  But with regards to this particular blog, and it's particular niche, I thought maybe a little more was in order.

Our gaming group has gone largely fallow lately.  We're at the point where we play, if we're lucky, once every two or three months or so.  And even then, I haven't been to the last two sessions that we've had, because they ended up falling on days where I had a conflict, but since everyone else was available, they decided it wasn't worth it to hold up the session on my account (a determination that I completely agree with, by the way, for what it's worth, etc.)  This means that gaming has kind of fallen into a state of disrepair when it comes to hobbies that are getting active attention and interest from me.  I've also been feeling that, while it needs a brusque restructuring and reorganization, my own DARK•HERITAGE setting is largely pretty complete--it doesn't really need a lot of new material in order to be useful to me.  Rather, it needs a project to put it to use.  This could be a game I run, although clearly I don't have anything in the hopper that's likely to happen in the near future.

Because I'm busy (and tired) when blogging, I'm not able to get excited about blogging about a hobby that I'm doing very little with, currently.  So, in a nutshell, that's why it's slowed way down and gotten very quiet.

What do I intend to do, then?  A few things:

• Probably mothball some of my esoteric setting development exercises, specifically SOLNOR, ODD D&D, REALMS TRAVELER, AD ASTRA, and HYBRID DREAMLANDS.  I'm not cancelling them exactly, but they are going into "development hell" as they say in the movie biz, to be pulled off the shelf and discussed maybe some more when conditions are more favorable again.
• Continue (or start, really) the restructuring and reorganizing of the flagship DARK•HERITAGE setting that was precipitated by the dying of free wikispaces wikis, and migration to Google Sites.  One thing that I've been very interested in doing for a long time is literally redrawing the map, renaming a few sites, and having it all established as a digital file that I can link to.  Discussing my setting in the abstract without showing a map has been difficult for me, as I'm a bit of a cartographic kinda guy; I've always loved a good fantasy setting map.  Give updates here as this progresses, including cutting and pasting some of the content that I think is interesting enough to warrant it here.
• Continue with my development of a 1,000-years Post Jedi Star Wars setting.  Maybe even attempt to run something in this space for my younger boys.
• Continue to update my other blogs, including my hiking and backpacking blog in particular (my paleontology, electronic music fan-dom and fighting game blogs don't have much going on, and probably will remain so for the foreseeable future.)
• Figure out some way to jump-start my long lingering fiction attempts in my flagship DARK•HERITAGE setting.  Finding time and mental energy to devote to to writing fiction has proven difficult at the end of long and busy days, but I'm going to come up with something, because if I don't, I'll be extremely disappointed.

More Star Wars potential spoilers (or at least rumors)

In fact, these are quite extensive, in many ways.  Read at your own risk.

http://www.reddit.com/r/StarWars/comments/2nyd64/rumor_potential_4chan_episode_vii_leak_possible/

Some Star Wars potential spoilers

Don't read this if you're averse to spoilers.  Although these are more truthfully claimed as rumors, not spoilers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89A3wxJGOp4

The Rule of Two was bypassed with the foundation of the Inquisitors.  Viewers of Star Wars: Rebels are not surprised.  No New Republic, though?  Cool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8SoBcq9ZdI

Didn't he see the International Trailer?  Rumors: new series on the way for TV; presumably not to replace Rebels, but to run alongside it.  Cool.

New Star Wars trailers

Yeah, yeah... you've already seen it.  And what's the deal with my lack of activity?  Well, the second is harder to answer, so I'll leave it for now and just link up to the two new trailers.  Two? Sure, you saw the international version too, right?  It's totally different than the US trailer.