Some gaming-related updates

So the past couple days have been fairly interesting gaming-wise for me.

Friday night, I wound up running a Force and Destiny game after finding out the person I thought was running thought somebody else was running.  I managed to pull a pretty decent adventure together with only 5 minutes of total prep time (and most of that was getting stats together for the initial encounter, a star ship battle).  There were a couple instances where I should have assigned Conflict, but I was a bit run-down mentally.  Still, the group had fun, so that counts as a Triumph in my book.

Also related to Friday after my FaD session wrapped, discussed with the players that were also part of the Mutants and Masterminds game that I was in.  Sadly, we concluded that one player, who was problematic in a couple different ways, had to go, but we are going to move ahead with playing, hopefully starting next month.  Not sure if we're doing the proposed "cosmic" mini-campaign or if we're going back to Emerald City Knights, but that can be hammered out over the coming weeks.

As for Saturday, the afternoon was spent playing in our EotE/AoR/FaD mixed group, and that session took a very unexpected direction.  Short version: our group of Rebel operatives got lured into an Imperial trap aboard a hovertrain, with the Imperials lead by an ISB Agent and most notably an Imperial Inquisitor.  For those that have read the Inquisitor creation rules in the back of the Force and Destiny Beta, you know how brutal an opponent an Inquisitor is.  Let's just say that my Minor Jedi character got a harsh lesson in just how far he has to go before being able to truthfully call himself a Jedi Knight after that particular duel, which did have underpinnings of the Luke vs. Vader fight in ESB.  Half the group's characters are dead, one was taken prisoner by the Imps and is probably not in for a happy fate, while my PC and our Chiss Commander were the only two to escape (albeit with significant injuries) by stealing a small 2-person scout ship (A-24 Sleuth) since the group's modified YT-1300 was under heavy Imperial guard.  From what we discussed after that session wrapped, it looks like we're doing a reboot of sorts, and going to switch over to an EotE-themed game with the party being a group of "independent spacers" rather than agents of the Rebellion.  They also didn't want to create new characters with the absurd (300+) XP required to put them roughly on par with the two escapees, so that means I'll be setting Valin aside for a little while.  Thinking I might actually try out a Colonist/Marshal for this relaunched campaign, as I've been wanting to give that specialization a spin given it's an interesting mix of social acumen and combat prowess.  Still, gonna feel odd not playing Valin, at least for a while.  But then again, the GM did say that once the group got within a reasonable XP range of him, I would be allowed to resume playing my Smuggler/Scoundrel/Force Emergent/Ataru Striker (who has earned 450 XP by this point).  I don't know how much XP the GM is going to hand out, and since we play bi-weekly (give or take), by the time I get to resume playing Valin, the actual core rulebook for Force and Destiny could be on the shelves.  Given that the EotE and AoR core rulebooks were released in July, I'm hoping it's not that long, but we'll see.

Saturday night was a Skype chat with a couple friends, discussing ideas for a Halloween-themed adventure to be run on either the 31st or the 1st.  I think Eric's got a really cool idea for a session, and my suggestion of using Fate Accelerated Edition seemed to really click for him.  So that will be something cool to look forward to.

For the Friday Skype group, I did get the various details (including settling on a name) for my replacement PC in the Age of Rebellion game.  I hadn't posted it here, but my PC in said AoR game, a Human Commander/Tactician, had died during an impromptu mission to free a bunch of resistance cell leaders and a teenage Force adept from an Imperial garrison.  He died from a vibro-knife to the heart wielded by an ISB Agent, keeping the guy from shooting at the rest of the team or prisoners before they all got aboard the Imperial transport we were stealing.  While I had planned/discussed with the GM the exit of my character well in advance, I find that I am going to miss Jacen, at least a bit.  But then, I'm not always comfortable with playing the party leader in an RPG, particularly if I've had a rough day at work beforehand; there were a few times where I honestly felt I was being overly bossy/pushy to the rest of the group (and to the GM a bit) to keep things on-track and moving towards our objectives even when not in combat.

So yeah, an interesting weekend in terms of gaming.