Not writing a clunky version of the 12 gifts of Christmas this time. Suffice it to say, today is the tenth day and after blogging seven days consecutively, I am not doing a '12 Blog Posts of December' next year if I need to blog nine days straight in order to blog 12 times!
2018 marks a milestone in the table-top role-playing games. It's a milestone in Star Wars circles too. Why? This is year is the 30th Anniversary of West End Games Star Wars the Role-Playing Game. In the process, much of what would become known as the Star Wars Expanded Universe had its genesis with this project. In many ways, the WEG SWRPG was the Star Wars bible as it compiled and defined aspects of Star Wars lore that hadn't been defined before. If I recall correctly, Timothy Zahn was given Star Wars RPG books while researching his now famous Thrawn Trilogy.
I have fond memories sitting in a now-defunct book store flipping through the pages of the orginal, i.e. 1st edition, Star Wars RPG Main Book and Source Book. Since the Star Wars Expanded Universe was in its infancy, Dark Force Rising hadn't yet hit stands, the Star Wars fan was excited to hold these tomes of Star Wars lore. More importantly, I had just started playing Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition regularly. As new gamer, I was excited at the prospect of playing the Star Wars equivalent of Dungeons & Dragons! Just didn't have the money to buy them...
However, as fate would have it, the Second Edition came out as my birthday neared. I was struck by the newness and glossiness of the book as well as the screenshot of Darth Vader upon the cover. Remember, how I said I was playing AD&D 2E? Well, clearly a second edition is better than a first edition, right? Unlike the defunct book store, this particularly copy I found at my local comic book store. You can kind of guess how this story ends, right?
Still, some part of me always wondered what if I had acquired copies of those two first edition WEG books. Eventually, time eroded my edition snobbery. Playing a revised 2nd ed WEG Star Wars and two or three different versions of Star Wars RPG published by WotC helped too.
Then, I discovered Fantasy Flight Games was releasing a slipcase replica of those two original books. I was excited. A must buy! While browsing through my FLGCS and seeing they had a couple copies, the 30th anniversary edition was on my radar. When only one copy remained, I pounced!
It, uh, sat shrink-wrapped until day... The thought struck me, why not do an 'unboxing via pictures' on my blog as part of my 12 Blog Posts of December! After all, this is the season for unwrapping! Today just so happened to be the day
Here it is shrink-wrapped:
Oh look, the outer layer was just packaging or a dust cover!
Back side of slipcase:
Really like how they reproduced the cover here!
Front covers from both replicas of the core book and the sourcebook.
Back covers. Pretty confident the '40' wasn't located in the upper-right corner...
Okay, the 40 years is a shout out to forty years of Star Wars: A New Hope.
Hmm, Fantasy Flight Games didn't exist back then!
Yep, a cheap plug for the newest iteration of Star Wars Table-Top Role-Playing Games produced by Fantasy Flight Games.
FFG's insert with the main book:
A Dedication along with all the usual business info on the left and a Foreword explain the project on the right.
I will admit I bought this for nostalgia's sake; and the aesthetics of a slipcase sitting in a bookcase. So maybe someday, I will review the first two books of WEGs SWRPG. A review, what, 30 years after the books were published? I mean why not. Even if it is another 30 years...
Got two more days of blogging to go!
Next time.
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