Episode 70: Bill Smith and Star Wars

Dice in Mind

This week we bring you RPG royalty! Seriously. We have the good fortune of sharing our fascinating conversation with Bill Smith, writer and editor of the much hailed Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game (2nd ed.) core rulebook, Game Master Handbook, and more from West End Games. Bill's work on the mechanics and storytelling of Star Wars roleplaying should not be underestimated. His influences subtle and significant remain manifest throughout the science-fiction and fantasy RPG zeitgeist to this day. It also turns out that Bill is also a really neat person.

Please check out Bill's oeuvre old and new:

Website
Outlaw Galaxy
Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game (2nd ed.)

Bill Smith's books have sold nearly half a million copies. He has written for leading publishers such as Del Rey Books, Little Brown, Lucasfilm, Topps, West End Games, TSR Inc., and Wizard Press. From 1991 to 1997, he served as the Star Wars roleplaying game line editor for West End Games. In 1995, he was voted "Favorite Designer" by the RPGA, the world's largest organization for role-playing game enthusiasts. He has also written for Hershey Foods, the WIT Agency, and has been involved in motorsports promotion, marketing and journalism for nearly three decades. Bill works a day job to support his writing habit and continues to publish Outlaw Galaxy stories. He hopes you enjoy them.

Welcome to Dice in Mind, a weekly podcast in which we explore the meaning of life through the lens of RPGs! In each episode, we will consider everyday stuff like science, religion, philosophy, and economics…through the lens of a specific roleplaying game and its dice mechanic.

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Music by Kevin McCloud courtesy of Creative Commons by Attribution 3.0 license (https://www.youtube.com/c/kmmusic/featured).