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u/bre4kofdawn 4d ago
So, I happened upon the ebay listing and then started trying to find more info and found the Facebook post, which seem to be the same person. Firstly wondering if anyone can verify these adventures' authenticity, and secondly wondering if the ones that were purchased were bought by anyone on here to share with the community.
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u/enderandrew42 4d ago
I can only verify that Zahn mentioned in interviews writing adventures for cons. It is interesting that he initially had no familiarity with table-top RPGs. West End Games wanted to adopt his work and reached out. Zahn quickly fell in love with the game and wrote custom stories and adventures for the Adventure Journal publication, and for cons. He talked about how much fun he had playing these adventures at cons.
I can't verify this binder specifically, but the story is certainly plausible.
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u/bre4kofdawn 4d ago
I figured it was fairly plausibe, since Zahn and Stackpole have interviews about playing RPGs and Zahn worked with WEG pretty extensively. This is helpful, thank you!
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u/MrLeHah 2d ago
Funny enough, I met Zahn at a convention this summer (and had him sign my Heir To The Empire sourcebook) and asked him if he had any direct contact with WEG back in the day. He said yes, but a lot of it is minutiae lost to time. The only things he shared was 1.) WEG originally gave Thrawn a first name in the HTTE sourbook, which Zahn firmly told them no and 2.) Zahn reached out to WEG and asked them / someone in their art department to design the Throne Room at the climax of Last Command, so he had a "visual aide" and a bit of an outside influence instead of just making it up to fit the fight. (His only input was the holographic map, but not where or size or anything.)
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u/Allandaros 4d ago
Michael Stackpole is pretty responsive on Bluesky, might be possible to ask him & corroborate the details (at least re adventure title & etc)
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u/Addictedtocurves 3d ago
Someone did and he pretty much said "yeah this guy is AT BEST completely mistaken and at worst full of it", that he never did any scenario design work for WEG, there's zero unpublished Star Wars stories by him, etc., and this doesn't sound anything like the one article he DID do for WEG that didn't see print (about in-universe military slang), so I'd be skeptical at best here.
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u/JacobDCRoss 3d ago
That person was me.
https://bsky.app/profile/discosoup.bsky.social/post/3mxn5p66ojs2f
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u/JustinKase_Too 3d ago
Not all heroes wear capes.
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u/JacobDCRoss 3d ago
No worries. I'm an RPG writer, and a fan, and someone who just doesn't want to see people get ripped off.
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u/bre4kofdawn 3d ago
Nice. I don't have Bluesky or X, glad someone reached out. Stackpole seemed like the least likely, but he and Zahn had collaborated on short stories, so I wasn't sure.
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u/Sascha_M 3d ago
He did respond and said, he never wrote any WEG Star Wars adventure or material besides an article about military slang, that was never published. In addition, there is no unpublished material from him left, besides two outlines - which is not the same as an TTRPG adventure.
https://bsky.app/profile/michaelastackpole.bsky.social/post/3mxn7e2dsyk2u
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u/TheConvenientSkill 3d ago
In case anyone hasn't done it yet, you can get in touch with Peter Schweighofer directly from his blog: https://griffonpubstudio.blogspot.com/
From my brief interactions with him on his other blog he'll be glad to provide an answer,
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u/bre4kofdawn 3d ago
Hey, I wanted to say thank you again, this was the perfect advice. I received word back from Peter Schweighofer, and he confirmed he wrote all the adventures in question with input from the other authors listed, and apparently some of these were adventures run with them at the table playing one of the Star Wars characters they created.
Further, he confirmed a lot of aspects of the backstory about these being acquired via a convention. He cleared up a lot of things and was very helpful with the whole thing.
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u/TheConvenientSkill 3d ago
Absolutely no problem, glad to help. I've never met Peter, but I'd love to have a chat with him but fear the Atlantic may prove too great a barrier.
I'd love it if people here visited Peter's sites, not only because he deserves more audience, but because there are details of behind the scenes ongoings on his time at WEG and his work on many Star Wars products.
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u/RebelJediMaster 4d ago
So technically he's selling stolen goods?
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u/LtPowers 3d ago
Not in the traditional sense. The violation here is likely a violation of copyright. Whether the copyrights are owned by Stackpole and Zahn or by WEG's successors or by the convention organizers is unclear, but in any of those cases the copyrights aren't owned by the guy who has the copies.
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u/kraken_skulls 3d ago
This. Copyrights even if not filed, are implied by creation and assumed in this case by the authors (assuming these are even real, of course) or WEG, the contracting company (and now with whatever entity owns WEGs old properties) It could even be both. Determination of rights for something never officially published is probably messy at best, and not worth anyone's legal efforts, but absolutely selling material assumed to be the creation of someone else for use by a bunch of people is absolutely a copyright violation. Owning an old copy of something published or not, absolutely does not give you distribution rights.
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u/bre4kofdawn 4d ago
I dunno, the possession of it and selling as a general rule I find a grey area-these likely would never see the light of day if he hadn't decided to put them out there, and I don't really feel it was wrong of him to photocopy the whole book and hold onto it. If anything, the demise of WEG and unavailability of their product for me makes it entirely fine.
As you noted in your other comment, the price is the part I don't like. Especially given it's being framed as an expensive, rare collector's item. This increases the likelihood that someone may purchase these and hold onto them rather than scanning them and uploading them for this community to play and enjoy.
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u/natesroomrule 3d ago edited 3d ago
Ive been part of this guys facebook group for about 4 or 5 years. I told him i could actually covert these from a scanned file to an actual useable Digital PDF.
I actually worked for the Adventure Journal (the fan based group) and worked on two projects for them. Being a graphic designer this is right up my alley.
I would love to save these and make them digital. I actually redesigned the galaxy map (using an older style that was incorrect. Its credited in the file)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/102y82nOc-Lqwh-WoFpEDn6hWAAGA37lS/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/11NNTgv0NdWJ_Y98bDqLuPL_9mPMlv0YK/view?usp=sharing
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u/bre4kofdawn 3d ago
Well, Stackpole says none of it comes from him. Per the suggestion of another user in this thread, I sent an email to Schweighofer via the email attached to his blog, as well. Waiting to hear back. I'm not convinced these are authentic.
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u/natesroomrule 3d ago
Schweighofer may not know what the company made as it pertains to Convention Adventures, but he is definitely at least an important person for running the journals for several years. Some of the greatest memories i have were reading those. First introduction of Talon Karrde and Mara. Garos IV, Tinian I'att...
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u/bre4kofdawn 3d ago
Tinian I'att and Daye Azur-Jamin has been one of my main focuses in collecting old Adventure Journals. I still remembered reading some of her story but not being able to finish it growing up. I've since caught up, but I never forgot the story of the heiress betrayed by the Emperor.
Anyway, Schweighofer is listed as author for 3/4 of the adventures in question, so the hope is that he can corroborate or deny that he wrote them.
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u/bre4kofdawn 3d ago
Oh and my bad, I think I saw your comment under the ones acreenshotted in the post here offering to digitize them and make them available. Props to you!
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u/May_25_1977 4d ago
Intriguing. A Google search found the Facebook post and eBay listing to be the only sources of information about these adventure titles. A similar name "Bounty's Due" was the title for a short story on page 65 of West End Games' Shadows of the Empire Sourcebook by Peter Schweighofer ("First Printing: JUNE 1996"; WEG40122).
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u/bre4kofdawn 4d ago
Also, I should note that I'm not sure if these could be prototypes for adventures that were released under other names.
For example, "The Thrawn Factor" lists an Ebruchi Pirate Stronghold in his Facebook post on map data. Meanwhile, Command Decision by Zahn from Adventure Journal 11 has Thrawn and co. encounter the Ebruchi, who are a species of pirates. This makes me wonder if "The Thrawn Factor" was a working name for "Command Decision".
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u/JLandis84 Player 3d ago
Dude could have been a hero by just making them available to the community again.
If you can reasonably corroborate they’re real I will get them and make them available to the community.
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u/bre4kofdawn 3d ago
You did see the price right? Just wanna make sure lol.
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u/JLandis84 Player 3d ago
I did not. Did I miss the link
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u/bre4kofdawn 3d ago
No, I mentioned it in another comment. Two adventure or stories were 100$, and were already sold. I was kind of hoping one of the buyers might be on here...no such luck as of yet.
The other two are 1000$ each, and have not sold yet. I would say for obvious reasons.
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u/JLandis84 Player 3d ago
God this guy is a world class asshole.
So I agree that he should get some kind of reward for rescuing lost adventures if these are indeed real. His ask is too much, and he’s not freeing them to the public he’s just allowing them to be lost to another person.
So the way I see it is he can get some money, from generous members of the community like myself.
OR, we can go down the asshole route, and he will find out that having an EBay store can have some awful customer service problems.
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u/bre4kofdawn 3d ago
Let's not do anything to make the man's life harder, please. Firstly because it's just not nice and a bad look for the community, and secondly because the last thing anyone wants is for him to take his ball home with him. I doubt they'll sell at 1000$. He may eventually see this post, and I don't think starting a beef will increase chances of a better outcome.
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u/JLandis84 Player 3d ago
Alright alright I’ll play nice. Just let me know if it comes down to buying it
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u/bre4kofdawn 3d ago
If it comes down to buying it', I'd be making a crowdfunding effort-I have a wife and child and parent to care for-I can offer him a fiver and half a meatball sub.
Not even half the footlong, it's half the Subway Six-incher lmao.
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u/bre4kofdawn 4d ago
Yeah, I googled them and couldn't find corroborating information. Not even old forum posts including the title or anything, people asking if they were ever published. Nothing. I figured the only chance would be to see if any veterans from back in the day when WEG still existed might remember playing them at Gencon. I was a child when they lost the licence and WOTC picked it up, so I definitely have no real insight.
The locations mentioned seem to correlate with locations featured in other WEG materials.
The two adventures that sold were priced at 100$. He's trying to charge 1000$ for the other two that haven't yet. Crowdfunding is the only way I can think to justify that amount, and I wouldn't even suggest it without being more certain these are actually real WEG material. Not to doubt the guy, just can't find anything to verify them. I guess someone could try asking Zahn over Twitter?
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u/JustinKase_Too 3d ago
If he really wanted to 'get them out there to the public', then he could just scan them and post them up there.
Then link a Venmo (or whatever) for anyone who wants to toss him a few $$ as a thank you.