Tales From the Hydian Way

How do you make Force Powers epic? From the simple powers, such as enhance, to those that are iconic, we find interesting ways of approaching them and how they can move the story along that isn’t just the focus to an entire session. You can find us on Twitter at @DeuteriumIce and @Xphile101361 You can find us and much more at TheHydianWay.com Please rate and review us. Or you can sit down as we watch Coruscant fade into the back monitor and listen to us below.

We talk about the Force and Destiny Core book. The book is finally out, and we have a few things to say, and to praise. We go from motivation to morality, from the GM section to the specializations, and we don’t just have a little fun with it. You can find us on Twitter at @DeuteriumIce and @Xphile101361 You can find us and much more at TheHydianWay.com Please rate and review us. Or you can center your force presence as we watch the stars on Tython and listen as we tell more tales *note Ben’s audio is skipping a little, we’re working on this and it should be better for the next episode.

Ben and Cam have a few ideas on how to grow your community, add flavor to your one shots, and bring in more people to your games faster when using pre-generated characters. You can find us on Twitter at @DeuteriumIce and @Xphile101361 You can find us and much more at TheHydianWay.com Please rate and review us. Or you can sit back and watch the beautiful dance of Wookiee and Trandoshan diplomacy work out.

This week Cam can’t join us, so we pull in two guests. We talk about specialists and how they can be very difficult to deal with on the fly. We also come up with a few ways to keep your specialists feeling special, and how to engage them without punishing them for specializing. You can find us on Twitter at @DeuteriumIce and @Xphile101361 You can find us and much more at TheHydianWay.com Please rate and review us. Or pull up a chair as we listen to  Rakghoul Rob get started as we follow the late white hoojib.

This week we start a look at how you can deal with holes in the party and how, as a GM, you can challenge players without making it punishment for choosing the ‘wrong party’. We also give a few ideas for party concepts and how they can be made into really amazing adventures or campaigns. You can find us on Twitter at @DeuteriumIce and @Xphile101361 You can find us and much more at TheHydianWay.com Please rate and review us. Or you can load your weapons and check your combat webbing as we get ready to head on out into another episode.

Ben and Cam take a deep look at the careers and species in the new career supplement for Age of Rebellion. They cover some of the ways that it’s evocative for new and old players alike. Styles of play and odd ideas are tossed about with great relish. You can find us on Twitter at @DeuteriumIce and @Xphile101361 You can find us and much more at TheHydianWay.com Please rate and review us. Or sit with us as we watch the rubble collide in the Graveyard of Alderaan and tell more Tales from the Hydian Way.

Today we talk about a much requested topic, campaigns in the Empire. We take a look at many of the different things that come up when working with Stormtroopers in the shadows of the Clone Wars. You can find us on Twitter at @DeuteriumIce and @Xphile101361 You can find us and much more at TheHydianWay.com Please rate and review us. Or you can sit down with us as we drink some lum and talk about the demonstrations that were put on for this recent Empire Day.

Getting players to engage with a setting is never easy, and getting players to use the setting to their advantage is even harder. This time we talk about setting tone, suspense, using fear, where to glean some useful feedback, and many other things. You can find us on Twitter at @DeuteriumIce and @Xphile101361 You can find us and much more at TheHydianWay.com Please rate and review us. Have fun with seeing a huge Rancor rend their way through a column of stormtroopers as we sit on the cafes porch and sip our hot chocolate.

With an explorer you never know what you’re going to find. Whether you’re driving through a mountain pass trying to catch an imperial squad that stole your crystal skull, or finding the next rancor that your benefactor has paid you to take down. We talk about the many facets of the explorer and also delve a little into ways to illicit skill rolls that aren’t asked for by the GM. You can find us on Twitter at @DeuteriumIce and @Xphile101361 You can find us and much more at TheHydianWay.com Please rate and review us. Or sit on that log over there as we talk in the wonderful forests of Cholgana about the adventures we have away from civilization.

We talk this week with Dan Clark about writing the Beginner Box games and why some of the choices are made to go the way they have. From why the starting characters are the way they are, to how the adventures grow from “this is a skill check” to stealing a ship. You can find us on Twitter at @DeuteriumIce and @Xphile101361 You can find us and much more at TheHydianWay.com Please rate and review us. Or you can sit here, pull up a chair as we look out over the frozen forests and talk to Dan Clark.

We were asked by a listener (@brometheus) about how to use Cantinas effectively. We finally got around to looking at the question. Why do we use them in a game?  What are we doing within them? And, how we can change the concept of a cantina to fit a few other situations? You can find us on Twitter at @DeuteriumIce and @Xphile101361 You can find us and much more at TheHydianWay.com Please rate and review us. Or you can sit here and listen to the warm jatz as we talk about social hubs and how they can be used.

This week we talk about the five social skills and how they can be used and characterized by the NPCs and the players. It isn’t just choosing from the list, it’s part of the character and how the character is perceived throughout the entire adventure. You can find us on Twitter at @DeuteriumIce and @Xphile101361 You can find us and much more at TheHydianWay.com Please rate and review us. Or sit down here at the bar as we have Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes start up so we can tell tales and listen to some good tunes.

Ben and Cam talk about things in the Star Wars system that we find irritating or clumsy and how we deal with bringing them to the table as a good way of expanding the story. We give advice on how to be prepared for a session, how to use your players characters as a guide for what problems will come up,  and how to let them happen without breaking the game. You can find us on Twitter at @DeuteriumIce and @Xphile101361 You can find us and much more at TheHydianWay.com Please rate and review us. You could also pull up the repulsor skiff and listen as we talk about being prepared for anything players can throw at you.

We bring in a very experienced GM and player to talk with us about Session 0, what goes into it and how we can use it to propel our game session, and group, forward. We also talk about one way to deal with that character concept that just doesn’t want to get along with everyone else at the table. You can find us on Twitter at @DeuteriumIce and @Xphile101361 You can find us and much more at TheHydianWay.com Please rate and review us. Or  you can join us as we find ways of finding interesting things in anything around and bringing it to the table below.

Hired Guns are a huge pillar of Edge of the Empire. One of the six careers. But, the basis behind how you can make the most of them is not quite as easy as it sounds. We dive into the career and find some people who help bring the nasty pain to their opponents and how you can make an even better one. You can find us on Twitter at @DeuteriumIce and @Xphile101361 You can find us and much more at TheHydianWay.com Please rate and review us. You an also sit with us as we talk to the First Sun Mobile Infantry about life as a Hired Gun