This book starts off, and I do mean STARTS, with a picture that I really like…on the front cover. It’s a collection of images, done up by an artist, from the events of Empire Strikes Back. My words couldn’t do it justice, so I won’t try to detail what it looks like. Suffice to say that I think it’s a very good picture. This picture was probably about 40% of the reason why I purchased this book…the other 60% being that I’m always trying to become a better GM.
So on to the meat and potatoes of the book. There are nine chapters to this book, as well as a brief introduction and an adventure (titled Tales of the Smoking Blaster). The starting chapter is about Beginning Adventures; or in other words, how to come up with story ideas and plots. This chapter is best for the beginner GM, or for any GM that is really suffering from GM Block. It gives a brief overview of how to run things like chases, preparing for the game, gamemaster characters, and generally what to expect on your first few runs of a the game.
The next chapter details more of the bulk of what makes an adventure. There’s information on what to keep in mind when running a game…the scope, the heroes, humor, character development, and so on. It mentions in here about creating a “realistic universe”, something that ALL gamemasters need to keep in mind when running their games. The chapter has a section where it breaks down the facets of the heroes, giving the GM an idea of what to expect, or what to offer, to various character types. All in all, this chapter is still mostly geared towards the newer GM, though an experienced GM might be able to glean a lesson here or there.
Chapter Three deals with Settings. Whether they are familiar (from the movies) exotic, original…whatever, it talks about them here and puts the GM’s mind to thinking of location. At the end of this chapter, there’s a Location Form that can be used by a GM to write down any pertinent information regarding a new location that he/she creates. It could be quite a useful tool, especially if the GM keeps a catalog of these newly created places and can reference them at a later date.
The fourth chapter is about Gamemaster Characters…or in other words, NPCs. This is where, I believe, the book becomes useful to GMs other than the newest type. Even experienced GMs can benefit from this section of the book. I’ve been GMing for over 18 years now, and I STILL can read through this section and catch myself going “Ooooh, that’s how I should do this.” There’s a section here on character conception, the difference between “extras”, “supporting characters”, and “lead characters”. There are all kinds of information regarding NPCs in this area, from personality to goals. At the tail end of the chapter, there is a form for creating character logs. These could be useful if you like to keep track of this type of stuff. On the back of that, there’s a form for more major NPCs, with personality information, objective information, and so on.
The fifth chapter involves the formation of encounters. It details plotting, difficulty levels of encounters, opponents, and believability. All in all, this is a hefty chapter with quite a bit of information. This chapter is another one that can be beneficial to both new and experienced GMs, especially those that are suffering from lack of ideas.
Chapter six deals with equipments and artifacts, giving GMs the ins and outs of what to do and what NOT to do when creating new equipment. I believe that many GMs probably need to read through this in order to get a good grasp on their game, making sure that they won’t accidentally ruin a campaign by providing too much gear or something too powerful.
Chapter seven deals with props, which would probably be beneficial for anyone that uses these in their games. I don’t use them, so I’ve pretty much glossed over this chapter when I read through the book. It mentions scripts, handouts, maps, use of miniatures, and several other possible things that could be used to increase the “feel” of Star Wars in your games.
The eighth chapter gives some good insight into improvisation. This is something that many new GMs don’t know how to do. The information is worthwhile for new GMs, and even some of the “slightly experienced” GMs can benefit from the knowledge provided here.
The final chapter describes campaigns. It provides a general idea of a campaign outline, how to keep the plot going, how to maintain consistency, and how to generally keep your players wanting more. Following this chapter is the adventure “Tales of the Smoking Blaster”. It’s not a bad adventure in that it provides a couple of maps to use, gives new GMs an idea of how a real adventure would work, and the adventure could probably be played easily in one night worth of gaming.
Two other things of note that I want to make about this book: First, dotted throughout the whole book are a plethora of pictures that can be used to provide that little spark of inventiveness that every GM needs. I know that I’ve personally thumbed through this book a couple of times, just looking at the pictures until one tickled my mind and created a new adventure. It works! I once created a whole campaign based on the picture that I saw on page 92…with absolutely ZERO forethought on the campaign. The picture alone provided the beginning, and from there I ran with it. The second thing worth mentioning is that there’s a very small section in the back of the book that explains some of those nagging 2nd edition questions people had. This page isn’t much, but it clarifies that the Lightsaber skill is used in both attack and parry with the weapon, as well as other things.
All in all, this is a book that I find beneficial, not simply because of the text in it, but also because of the pictures in it. It’s most worthwhile for newer GMs, but it isn’t entirely worthless for the more experienced ones either. If you really want to make sure that you’re on the top of your GM game, then you might want to at least take a look at this book.
My rating:
© 2000 [email protected]