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42-506: Although the Firefly RPG is sometimes mistaken for a spin-off from Margaret Weis Production's earlier Serenity Role Playing Game , the two games were produced under separate licenses and utilize very different game systems. In an interview with BoardGameGeek TV, line developer and lead writer Monica Valentinelli described the differences between the two licenses this way: In 2005, Margaret Weis Productions put out another game called

84-462: A basic set of rules for the Firefly RPG "means that Firefly Echoes of War: Thrillin' Heroics is a standalone book that can be run using just the rules it contains, or it can be run with access to either version of the rulebook." The included adventures were written by Margaret Weis , Andrew Peregrine, Monica Valentinelli , and Nicole Wakelin. Featured artists included Ben Mund, Beth Sobel, Jennifer Rodgers , Kurt Komoda, and Melissa Gay. Bucking

126-588: A basic set of rules, statistics for all nine crew characters from the Firefly TV show, twelve new character archetypes, and basic ship rules. The adventures in this book all deal with themes of loss and renewal in the aftermath of the Unification War. Each adventure was illustrated with original artwork and presented in a five-to-six act structure. In its review of Echoes of War , the gaming site Reviews from R'lyeh noted that this title's inclusion of

168-599: A campaign, player characters get caught up in the mystery of a missing Alliance vessel called the Westlake . Firefly Role-Playing Game brand manager Monica Valintinelli described the Westlake as "a ghost ship from the Unification War—so there's this legendary battleship that's out there, somewhere, in the black—it's got all these rumors about it." In the course of the adventures, the player characters are able to collect enough of these rumours to set out in search of

210-467: A game editor at TSR, Inc. that she saw advertised in Publishers Weekly . TSR turned her down for that position, but hired her as a book editor. She stayed in the book division, leaving the company as an independent author in 1986. One of her first assignments at TSR was to help coordinate, in a chance meeting with TSR colleague Tracy Hickman , Project Overlord , which was to include

252-516: A license to produce the Firefly role-playing game. Monica Valentinelli explained the game systems' design process in an interview with Dungeon Crawlers Radio : Margaret's vision for the game was to make it really fun and easy to play. But we kind of had a really interesting situation because we have fans of Margaret Weis Productions that remember when the Serenity RPG came out and played

294-478: A new trilogy of Dragonlance novels by Weis and Hickman called War of Souls , beginning with Dragons of a Fallen Sun (2000). Wizards of the Coast licensed Dragonlance to Sovereign Press in 2002 to produce role-playing game materials for the setting; Weis and Perrin, with Jamie Chambers and Christopher Coyle, wrote Dragonlance Campaign Setting (2003) which Wizards of the Coast published. Sovereign Press

336-456: A novel and three AD&D modules. Weis and Hickman plotted the novel and hired an author to flesh out story ideas but who lacked grasp of the characters or plots. Having "lived with those characters for months" and threatened by deadline, the two saved the project. She said, "By that time, [Hickman] and I were so into the project that we felt we had to write it." Project Overlord soon became known as Dragonlance . With 4 million sales of

378-697: A professional writer strained those relationships. After publication of her first book and ten years of marriage, they divorced due to that stress and to different personalities. In 1983, she moved to the resort city of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin , to work for TSR, living in a house converted from a barn. She said she always avoided reading fantasy books since Tolkien to avoid influencing her work, but favored classics like Charles Dickens , Jane Austen , and Sherlock Holmes in any spare time. She often played games at her co-owned store, Game Guild. She cooked for relaxation, and collected cookbooks in her travels, such as recipes of drinks from Dickens books. In 1993, Weis

420-752: A treasure trove of secrets. 'Ghosts In the Black' gives you and your Crew the opportunity to conclude the Westlake saga, from a false glimmer that establishes its legend in your game, to the final revelation of its mysteries.' Robin Laws has said that he was approached about writing "a campaign of interlocking adventures" for the Firefly Role-Playing Game at Gen Con 2013, and that he accepted because his "wife would really love it" and "would gladly participate in that homework" if he had to watch all of

462-574: A writing team. According to the Kansas City Star profile of major local authors "transformed" by pioneering fantasy author J. R. R. Tolkien , the duo sought to recapture the reality-grounded and humanized experience of Tolkien literature but without copying or emulating it, so a reader could imagine meeting their original magical characters in a real place like a bus stop and conversing using pronounceable names. She attributed their writing partnership's longevity to specialization, where Hickman

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504-463: Is a biography of the outlaws Frank and Jesse James , because Frank had been buried in a cemetery near her childhood school in Independence. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, she wrote children's books about computer graphics, robots, the history of Thanksgiving , and an adventure book at a second-grade reading level for prisoners with low literacy levels. In 1983, Weis applied for a job as

546-622: Is a new streamlined system that's been adapted for Firefly. Cortex Plus —unlike its predecessor, the Cortex System , which was used in the Serenity RPG —is a roll-and-keep system, in which players roll one die from each of several categories and keep the two highest dice in their dice pool . Cortex Plus uses polyhedral dice common to many role-playing games and uses standard dice notation , ranging from d4 (a 4-sided tetrahedral die) to d12 (a 12-sided dodecahedron die). The cubed d6

588-446: Is the "default" die used in the game. Cortex Plus uses dice pools ranging from d4 (terrible) to d12 (the best possible). Every die in the dice pool that rolls a natural 1 (called an 'Opportunity') not only doesn't count toward the total but also causes some form of negative consequence for the characters to overcome. Players may voluntarily reduce some of the dice in their pool to a d4, decreasing their likelihood of success and increasing

630-498: The Dragonlance role-playing game (RPG) world. She is founding CEO and owner of Sovereign Press, Inc and Margaret Weis Productions , licensing several popular television and movie franchises to make RPG series in addition to their own. In 1999, Pyramid magazine named Weis one of The Millennium's Most Influential Persons , saying she and Hickman are "basically responsible for the entire gaming fiction genre". In 2002, she

672-499: The Serenity RPG . ... [The Firefly RPG] is only based on the TV show—it's a completely different license. It's really kind of fascinating how that works because a lot of fans didn't realise that Universal put out the movie and Fox [put out the TV show]. ... From a business standpoint they're two separate things, but from a universe / continuity standpoint they're not. Margaret Weis , the game's publisher, expressed surprised about receiving

714-712: The Sovereign Stone role-playing game written by her husband Don Perrin with Lester Smith . To support the setting, Weis and Perrin wrote the short story "Shadamehr and the Old Wives Tale" that was published in Dragon #264 (October 1999). Perrin left Sovereign Press in 2004 and Weis founded Margaret Weis Productions . It published an RPG line based on several licenses, including Serenity and Battlestar Galactica , and Ed Greenwood 's new solo venture into roleplaying, Castlemourn . Weis has served on

756-913: The Cortex Plus system. It also includes new rules introducing scene Triggers, a random adventure generator, and two new adventures. Smuggler's Guide to the Rim is the third supplement. It presents several planetary systems in the Firefly game setting in gazetteer format and expands the game's rules. The Smuggler's Guide to the Rim provides expanded setting information for the Blue Sun and Kalidasa Systems, including secret trade routes, places for player characters to hide out, and new game rules for character reputation. It also includes twelve new player character archetypes and several new ship designs. The Smuggler's Guide also includes two new adventures, including one adventure written by Margaret Weis. Ghosts In

798-416: The Cortex System , and then for the past eight years we've also had the Cortex Plus system in its various iterations... So, what we did was went back to the drawing board, and our systems team developed a game based on Margaret's wish for this to be easy to play, but also give somewhat of a nod to our roots, without essentially shutting off everything that's been done in the last eight years. So, what we have

840-490: The Firefly television show, which provides the game's setting. Echoes of War: Thrillin' Heroics was the first supplement. It was awarded an ENnie Judges' Spotlight Award at Gen Con 2015. Echoes of War collected four digital adventures for the Firefly RPG (two of which had previously appeared in the Gaming in the 'Verse preview edition) and published them together under a single cover. Echoes of War also included

882-564: The Westlake themselves. Ghosts In the Black describes its own campaign premise as follows: Some folk think that the Westlake disappeared after the first battle of the war. Other travelers believe it happened later on, right before the Battle of Serenity Valley. Before it vanished, the Westlake, a luxury liner originally commandeered as an Alliance troopship, had been modified for prisoner transport. On its run from Hera to Londinium it up and vanished, along with its cargo of Independent POWs and

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924-647: The space opera Star of the Guardians novels, which she calls her favorite series that she has written. She published a game based on Mag Force 7 from 1994 to 1996. In the late 1990s, Larry Elmore brought his fantasy world of Loerem to Weis and Hickman, which they wrote as the Sovereign Stone novel trilogy, published by Del Rey . From 2003 to 2005, Weis completed the Dragonvarld trilogy for Tor . In 1999, Pyramid magazine named Weis one of The Millennium's Most Influential Persons "at least in

966-584: The 'Verse was a preview of the Firefly Role-Playing Game which included a beta edition of the rules, a quick-start character generation system, and two complete adventures: "Wedding Planners" and "Shooting Fish." Both of these adventures were later reprinted in the Echoes of War: Thrillin Heroics supplement. The core rulebook, Firefly Role-Playing Game begins with an episode summary of

1008-450: The Black was the fourth supplement. Robin Laws described his concept for the adventures contained in this supplement as "a pastiche of a property which itself has a heavy element of pastiche in it, because it's a space opera which is actually a tribute to the classic Westerns." The campaign is presented in five interconnected adventures which can either be run consecutively in a single story arc, or as individual adventures. When played as

1050-586: The Coast for breaching a license for a new Dragonlance novel trilogy. Boing Boing reported that "according to the lawsuit, Weis and Hickman agreed with Wizards of the Coast to produce the new novels in 2017, capping off the series and giving fans a final sendoff. But the company pulled the plug in August 2020". The authors see the new trilogy as "the capstone to their life's work". In December 2020, Weis and Hickman filed to voluntarily dismiss without prejudice their lawsuit, and "the filing noted that Wizards of

1092-443: The Coast had not formally answered their lawsuit, nor had they filed for a summary judgement". Weis and Hickman's publishing agent affirmed a few weeks later that a new trilogy of Dragonlance novels was again in development. The first novel of the new series, Dragonlance: Dragons of Deceit , was released on August 2, 2022. Weis met her future husband in high school, married after college, and had two children. The mentality of

1134-556: The Tiger is a full-length adventure for the Firefly Role-Playing Game which has only been published in a digital format. It was available for download at the DriveThruRPG web site. Things Don't Go Smooth is the second supplement. It utilizes the Cortex Plus system. Things Don't Go Smooth introduces four new types of non-player characters for Firefly campaigns, and offers advice on how to handle Reaver encounters using

1176-569: The Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.236 via cp1112 cp1112, Varnish XID 974297433 Upstream caches: cp1112 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 28 Nov 2024 10:47:31 GMT Margaret Weis Margaret Edith Weis ( / w aɪ s / ; born March 16, 1948) is an American fantasy and science fiction author of dozens of novels and short stories. At TSR, Inc. , she teamed with Tracy Hickman to create

1218-463: The board of directors of Mag Force 7 , Inc., the developer of the Star of the Guardians and Wing Commander Collectible Trading Card Game (CCGs). Weis and Hickman returned to Dragonlance in 1995 with Dragons of Summer Flame . Her next project was a solo novel called The Soulforge , based on her favorite character from the trilogy, the dark wizard Raistlin . Wizards of the Coast published

1260-543: The first book in the US and UK, it grew into a trilogy of novels, called the Dragonlance Chronicles , and 15 linked modules . Jean Black , managing editor of TSR's book department, selected Weis and Hickman to write the series. She said, "To my mind, what made the project so successful was that everyone was involved in it, excited about it, and believed in it." After two years of development, TSR released

1302-577: The game module Dragons of Despair in March 1984 and the novel Dragons of Autumn Twilight in November 1984. TSR had doubts about the finished novel's sales potential, and attempted to order 30,000 copies before ordering the minimum print run of 50,000. The novel's success prompted TSR to publish more copies to meet demand. The novel was written after the completion of the first Dragonlance game modules. Weis and Hickman found this constraining and made

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1344-463: The likelihood of a negative consequence, in exchange for "Plot Points" which may be spent in several ways to influence the game's plot. As of 2016, Margaret Weis Productions has published six titles in the Firefly Role-Playing Game line: a beta preview of the rules, the core rules, and four printed supplements. The publisher has also released a digital adventure for the game which hasn't as yet been collected in any of its print materials. Gaming in

1386-657: The novel too episodic, so they reversed the process for the next books and completed the novels before the related modules were written. Weis and Hickman also authored the Dragonlance Legends trilogy, published in 1986. Their Dragonlance products included novels, game supplements, short stories, art books, and calendars. The two started moonlighting as book authors, for four hours each evening and through every weekend. Several successful books afforded them to quit TSR and begin writing full-time in 1986. Having left TSR in 1986, Weis and Hickman continued as

1428-593: The previous day, and then thinking about the book through the afternoon. She wrote plot ideas and dialogue scraps upon napkins and envelopes until she got a portable computer, and got nervous if unable to work. She said, "I'd love to do mysteries but I don't have the head for them". She mentally, happily, inhabited her own fictional worlds; and upon completion, suffered "a real depression" due to abandoning characters that seemed realer than most people. Her only vacations consisted of hosting fantasy and science fiction conventions worldwide and befriending her fans. Weis wrote

1470-502: The realm of adventure gaming", and said she and Hickman are "basically responsible for the entire gaming fiction genre". Weis was inducted into the Origins Hall of Fame in 2002, recognized in part for "one game line turned literary sensation: Dragonlance ". In addition to her writing career, Weis was the owner and chief officer of two publishing companies. She formed the company Sovereign Press , with herself as CEO, to publish

1512-711: The shows from the original series again. Although ICv2 initially reported that Ghosts In the Black would be released in April 2015, the supplement wasn't officially announced on the Margaret Weis Productions, Ltd website until 5 May 2015. Retailer Amazon.com, Inc. provides an actual release date of 22 July 2015. "Ghosts in the Black" was one of the prizes offered in the Lone Wolf Challenge at Gen Con 2015. Serenity Role Playing Game Too Many Requests If you report this error to

1554-707: Was a fifteen-year hiatus between novels about the Companions before Dragons of the Dwarven Depths was released. After the original Chronicles novels were completed in 1991, the co-authors had a lot of material about them remaining, but moved on to writing about new characters. In 2004, Weis told Hickman she wanted to return to the main protagonists of the Dragonlance world. When the pair contacted their editors, they enthusiastically agreed. In October 2020, Weis and Tracy Hickman filed suit against Wizards of

1596-659: Was going to starve with such a worthless degree", so her mother got her a job as a proofreader at a small publishing company in neighboring Kansas City, Missouri . There, she ascended to editor, learned all about the book industry, and found an agent—crediting the job as an unusually good start for an author. She started writing for the low-paying juvenile book market by appealing to librarians with her high-quality, well-researched books. From 1972 to 1983 she worked for Herald Publishing House as advertising director and subsequently as director of Independence Press , Herald Publishing's trade division from 1981 to 1983. Weis's first book

1638-542: Was in summer school at MU. I literally couldn't put them down! I never found any other fantasy I liked, and just never read any fantasy after Tolkien." She conscientiously avoided buying unauthorized publications of his work, and she related the wars in his fictional world to those in the real world of the 1960s. She graduated from the University of Missouri in 1970 with a Bachelor of Arts in creative writing and literature. Weis recalled, "Of course, my mother knew I

1680-469: Was inducted into the Origins Hall of Fame in part for Dragonlance . Margaret Weis was born on March 16, 1948, in Independence, Missouri , where she was raised. She discovered heroic fantasy fiction while studying at the University of Missouri (MU). She said, "I read Tolkien when it made its first big sweep in the colleges back in 1966. A girlfriend of mine gave me a copy of the books while I

1722-547: Was the world builder and storyteller who defines "when the moon rises and which way the winds blow", and she brought characters and substance. He then untangled her unsolvable situations. Weis and Hickman wrote the Darksword trilogy (1986–87) and the seven-book Deathgate Cycle (1988–94) for Bantam Books . Weis's daily workflow consisted of five hours of writing on the computer, starting at 7:30 a.m. , even on holidays, often rewriting anything that had surpassed five hours

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1764-484: Was then able to supplement that book additional using material produced under the d20 license. The license expired in 2007. Between 2004 and 2008, Weis wrote a solo novel trilogy titled The Dark Disciple ; the first novel, Amber and Ashes , was published in August 2004. During this period, Weis also co-authored with Hickman The Lost Chronicles trilogy starting with Dragons of the Dwarven Depths in July 2006. There

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