WEG Memoirs: Galaxywide NewsNets

 “The speed of communications is wondrous to behold. It is also true that speed can multiply the distribution of information that we know to be untrue.”

— Edward R. Murrow

West End Games Star Wars Adventure Journal offered many opportunities to publish new material exploring and expanding the wider Star Wars galaxy. New short fiction featured new characters and beloved standards. Source material provided fresh setting elements to enhance games. And adventures offered ready-made action to drop into a game night or mine for inspiration. I’ll be the first to admit that — as a quarterly periodical with deadlines and a limited pool of approved authors — not every article provided stellar-quality material. All passed Lucasfilm standards at the time, but a few really stood out. “Galaxywide NewsNets” was an early example, one that established a previously unexplored aspect of the setting that continued providing inspiration in subsequent Journal issues...and even well into the new era of continuity.

WEG Memoirs: The SWAJ Dinner

Memories of my West End Games days some 25 years ago are gradually fading into mushy nostalgia...so I’d better tell the tale of the Star Wars Adventure Journal dinner I hosted at GenCon 1996 before it dissolves further into my foggy sense of the past. It came at what seems like the high point of my time at West End, when the Star Wars Roleplaying Game enjoyed great popularity, especially with special editions of the original trilogy and <gasp> even talk of new movies on the horizon. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Like many events in our lives, it’s a confluence of numerous factors leading to a single, memorable point....

WEG Memoirs: Hosting Uncommon Visitors

Some odd coincidences recently reminded me of a few, rare visitors we hosted at West End Games’ headquarters in the remote wilderness north of Honesdale, PA. (And it seemed appropriate after my recent post about behind-the-scenes revelations of game companies.) A friend sent me a photo when he discovered a pack of bratwurst from the Alpine Wurst & Meat House in his local grocery store. My son and I watched A Bridge Too Far to commemorate Operation Market-Garden Sept. 17-25, 1944. Both incidents – however odd and seemingly unrelated – stirred my foggy memories of three rare yet notable occasions I entertained illustrious visitors at West End’s offices.

Some gamers might aspire to visit their favorite game company’s headquarters, but it’s quite disappointing to discover it’s primarily a business – offices, warehouses, shipping facilities – with only minimalist trappings that betray the game product’s inspiration. They’re usually little more than offices and warehouses with a few geeky mementos on desks and perhaps a display with some distinctive product or awards. (Though I fondly recall a Phil and Dixie comic strip in Dragon Magazine that pictured TSR’s headquarters as a giant six-sided die....)