Unfortunately the gamemaster and I felt that the system was working against us this game. After our experiences with the Spirit of the Century rules, the d20 implementation of Star Wars felt even more clunky and cumbersome than when the game started. On the other hand the two other players really weren't interested in any possible conversions and were more comfortable with the d20 ruleset so we won't be converting this campaign.

Rules aside the session was a good break back into the campaign and the plot, although some of the details of the first session are a bit hazy. We opened with a combat defending the Praxium from invaders, which each PC having a few lower level NPCs around to lead into combat. As the final blow was struck, it was revealed it was all a training exercise - a fact our characters were aware of but was withheld from the players to make it a little more exciting. It was a nifty little trick and worked well for the most part, with the exception of the one player who was taking a while to decide his action each round.

After that there was a pretty lengthy session of roleplaying and information gathering within the Praxium My character spent most of his time decoding a document he had uncovered which I think turned out for the best - I tend to play the mouthpiece and this kept me back from the spotlight and got the others to do more interaction with the NPCs.

The last parts of the session included dealing with a peer's edging toward the dark side and trying to prevent/stop a burglary at a gas mining colony, which was a lot of fun. The only real problem came up again when one of the players was taking too long to decide his actions and was slowing down the action-movie pace we were trying to set through the encounters. I can't really blame the player since it was our first session back with d20 and there are a lot of rules for force powers and what not, but if it continues we might need to subtlety point out how he's affecting the game flow.

As the gamemaster, I typically can envision every scene in the games I run, from surroundings to mood to weather to supporting cast. However in my experience can be easy to fail to fully communicate this to my players. Maybe I skip over something that for me is a given based on my other descriptions but isn't for my players, or maybe I just get so wrapped up into detailing one aspect of the scene that I forget to describe another. It's never intentional, but sometimes it happens. Regardless, I can already see how I will be able to leverage this collaborative scene building technique in the future to help improve my own game.

First and foremost collaborative scene building will allow the players to fill in holes I left in my descriptions. Everyone's brain works differently, and everyone picks up on different senses or observations. I myself am a visual person - I get the most out of those types of elements in a scene. Thus when describing an alley in a modern or futuristic setting I might mention the long shadows between the buildings, the rusted dumpster surrounded by flies, or maybe the broken flower box on a windowsill. To a visual person such as myself, this is all that's needed to really get into the scene and normally I would turn the game over to the players and ask for actions.

However using collaborative scene building, I would instead pose the question of "what else is there?" to them. To which the aural person may make note of the noises of the busy street filtering down from the end of the alley. This is a great descriptive element, as it really says two things at once: not only that the main streets are busy but also just how quiet and still the alley is by contrast. It's certainly not something I would have thought of at the table, but now everyone's getting an even bigger a sense of foreboding than based on my description alone.

In addition to supplementing his own descriptions, an observant gamemaster can ensure his players are seeing the same setting as he has. What if a player doesn't fully get the foreboding I'm trying to build, and mentions a puppy walking up the alley, leading to some awwww's from various players. As the gamemaster, I know I don't want a cute cheerful puppy in my alley - this is supposed to be a dark and dreary alley where bad things will happen.

Removing the puppy would be contradictory and would be sending a message to the contributing player that he failed or somehow did a bad job. Instead, build on the description. Maybe the puppy is mangled and smelly and is looking around with a wild desperation in its eyes, growling at shadows. Now the players that thought this was just another alley should now be thinking, "well damn, this alley's not a happy place," which is exactly what I wanted them to be thinking. And it was done by guiding them back by addition, not contradiction.

Another benefit of collaborative scene building is that it keeps players involved. Even if a character isn't present at a scene, his player can contribute to setting the stage. It also builds an interest in not just the events taking place, but the environment itself.

The gamemaster can't just let the stage be set then not use it, however. If you don't tie in the aspects your players provide you, they're going to start feeling like they're not really contributing anything. That's not to say that you need to have every single descriptive element used, but be aware of the opportunities to do so. When the players in the alley are jumped, have the gunshot echo down the alley, ringing out above the din of the traffic. Maybe when the thugs rush forth from behind the buildings they step on the puppy. The aural player who described the quiet will hear the gunshot loud and clear, and the player who wanted the cute puppy is now shocked at how it was cruelly treated. Even if this is a random encounter with no other ties to your characters, you've just hooked a couple players simply on the scene and their ties to it.

Take care not to fall into the trap of having the opposition use the players' elements against them all the time. If all a player sees collaborate scene building as a way to give the gamemaster elements to use against them, they're going feel much less inclined to contribute. Let the players benefit from their provided elements as well even if it's as simple a having the puppy distract or trip a thug and an opportune moment.

Conversely don't be afraid to use your players' elements against them. If you have a player constantly providing cover for his gunman to hide behind, sometimes make it a hazard. The opposition doesn't have to be directly the cause of the hazard - maybe the cover is unstable and topples toward the player when he tries to hide behind it. Don't be malicious, but let the players know that it everything works both ways.

Players also need to be aware of their role in collaborative scene building. Adding fluff to add fluff is fine in that it will add to the setting, but you really need to be aware you're adding elements to be incorporated into the scene as a whole. If you want to add a purely decorative element, you need to be aware that the gamemaster may not be able to fully integrate it into the events of the scene. That's not to say decorative elements aren't as good - they can still add to the feel of the scene, they just might not get use once the scene picks up. Most of the time I'd suggest that players should try and give the gamemaster something he can work with and add to the encounter he has planned.

In addition, players should be on the look out to use the contributed elements themselves if the gamemaster hasn't immediately done so. If someone adds a pile of crates, dive behind it for cover! Don't forget your character's actions can draw an element's creator in just as well as an npc's, sometimes even more so. If my crates saved your character's bacon, I can take pride in that even though my character wasn't directly involved.

Collaborative scene building definitely isn't something you'll necessarily be able to institute flawlessly right away. My own group started with mixed results, but I'm sure this is going to lead to a much more descriptive, immersive game and I can't wait to continue its use in the future.

The original T20 version of the Conviction rules allowed Conviction to be accumulated and built up from day to day. In our game in an effort to encourage players to do things to earn Conviction instead of hording it each character's Conviction pool resets to 1 at the beginning of each Standard day. In addition, Conviction are awarded for the following:

1. A Conviction Point can be awarded by the GM when a character performs an act of dramatic heroism.
2. A Conviction Point can be awarded by another player when a character performs an action that is particularly cool, awesome, or funny and at the same time promotes the story or character development.

Once gained, Conviction points can be spent as follows:

1. Re-roll any d20 roll. This is done after the initial roll is made. If the result of the re-roll is 1-10, add 10 to that roll (e.g. you spend a Conviction Point and roll a 4 which is promoted to a 14). You must use the second roll as your result.
2. Automatically stabilize when dying.
3. Reduce your Wounds to -9 immediately after having taken enough damage to die.

From my standpoint, I think that the Conviction awards really helped reward interesting actions and allowed more difficult but cinematic actions to succeed. It was basically a license to try those dangerous yet dramatic actions we may have been reluctant to do in other less cinematic games. Since Conviction resets every day, players are encouraged to spend it and spend it freely. Players can become more daring with their characters since they know they have the safety net the Conviction points provide.

I definitely think the Conviction system was a success for me, and I'm sure that as the game continues, the players will begin utilizing it more and more.

With any luck I'll be able to follow each session with a blargpost discussing an aspect of the game - either setting, system, or meta - that came up in that session. At some point I'd like to take some time to discuss the d20 system and it's fit for the game as a whole, but for my first topic I've chosen to talk about the variation of the flashback technique with which we started the campaign.

After we had given our characters to the gamemaster, he took our character sheets and applied a template to convert the characters into 0-level younglings. We were handed these characters as soon as the game stared and were thrown into a situation where we had to deal with a fire that had broken out in our dormitory in the Praxeum. Throughout the first session we switched back and forth between the two timelines for a total of three youngling phases and two adult phases.

I liked this setup for the game for a number of reasons. The first is how it helped character development. I'll be honest - making a character for this game was unexpectedly difficult for me this time around. I'm not sure why it was so difficult for this campaign in particulr, but since musing on possible answers would fill up a blarg of its own I'm not going to do so here. But what I had when I had finished character creation was an idea of the primary events in his background that shaped his perspective and his general personality.

By going back and starting the game playing as a younger version of the character, I was able to explore additional childhood events that foreshadow or lead to the adult character's personality without having to adjust for years of having the Jedi Code embedded within his moral fiber. In particular, I had envisioned my character to be one that was somewhat less than brave. Playing the child version of my character allowed me to play up on his cowardice before the "fear leads to anger..." Jedi mantra was deeply ingrained in him. I really got to get into head of a child who at first wakes up to find his home is on fire, and then a child that barely made it out and had time to reflect on just what happened.

The fire wasn't the only youngling scene we played through, though. And each scene let us build upon our younger selves' personalities. There were acts of rebellion against our teachers where we misbehaved to satisfy our curiosity. There were acts of delusion where one could cling to a donned training blast helmet as if it would provide protection from the roaring flames. There were acts of fear where a child character could be consumed with the horrors of just how close to death he had come. There were acts of quixotism where a thankful smile from "the cute girl" could embolden a character more than any amount of hit points and saving throw bonuses could.

It was definitely a rewarding experience, and let me set up further character development down the road. We now know that the fire had terrified and really affected my character, and that wasn't something I had added to his backstory before hand.

Unfortunately there were a few pitfalls to this technique, most notably the blurring of the line between the youngling and the adult characters. It was important to keep in mind that the youngling characters couldn't draw any conclusions based on information that would later be gained as adults. So if the adults were to uncover a possible clue as to what was going on when they were younglings, the players had to remember not to use this knowledge when they were playing their youngling characters.

Obviously the reverse of this isn't as obvious but also holds just as true. It was important to remember that the adult scenes didn't take place directly following the youngling scenes from the characters' perspective. So anything that was experienced, conclusions that were drawn, or opinions that were formed during the youngling timeline had to be tempered by the roughly eighteen years of experience that happened between the two.

Some of you may be saying that this is all a given and should be assumed, but sometimes it's easy for someone to get too into the story and forget to separate the two. In reality this is just another example of metagaming - letting out-of-game knowledge affect in-game play. And metagaming can have a negative impact on the game.

I should note here that I'm a firm believer that metagaming isn't always evil. Certainly if you take advantage of knowledge your character wouldn't have to solve a puzzle he normally wouldn't be able to solve then there is a problem. But take for example my character. I knew the adult version would wind up spending years training as a negotiator and diplomat, so when the opportunity presented itself I tried to foreshadow this development. In this campaign the foreshadowing occurred by trying to negotiate (and ultimately try to bluff) an instructor who had caught us out after curfew. As a 0-level character with no skills, my failure to smooth-talk the instructor was never really in doubt. But I was able to display my character's preference for negotiating even when other options - such as running and hiding - may have had more success.

In all likelihood we won't be returning to our youngling characters in The Twilight Path campaign - the story proper is set to take place in the adult timeline. Still, I was glad I had the opportunity to try this method for starting a campaign out. I'll definitely have to keep how much I enjoyed it in mind when planning how to start my own campaigns in the future.