Lords of Nal Hutta

A few months after I started at Carbine, I received an email from FFG asking if I'd be interested in contributing to their new Star Wars RPG, Edge of the Empire. I jumped at the opportunity to do so, and I'm glad I did. That first project was relatively small in the grand scheme of things, but it started the freelance ball rolling for me after a couple years' worth of downtime.

That project, Lords of Nal Hutta, has just been announced, and it should be on store shelves sometime later this year. Though it's not the first FFG Star Wars product to be released with my name in the credits, it is the first one I ever worked on. This feels like some sort of milestone for me, and I'm so happy to have had the opportunity.

In other news, Cubicle 7's Lone Wolf Adventure Game Kickstarter has been funded, and I'll be doing my best to bring the world of Magnamund to life. As a kid, I enjoyed the heck out of the Lone Wolf books. They took the "Choose Your Own Adventure" formula and turned it into something dynamic and exciting. For a kid who didn't get to play RPGs very often, they were a godsend.

Keep an eye out for more Star Wars and Lone Wolf news, and I'll see you a little later!

Moving on to June

This year is just zipping by.

Yesterday, 38 Studios and Big Huge Games celebrated their one year anniversary. BHG flew up to Maynard, and it was a day of feasting, gaming, and revelry. Remind me to never again drink beer before noon. I'm too old and fat to partake of such extravagances so early in the morning.

On the gaming front, I've been wondering if I've completely lost my GMing muscles or not. I suppose I'm a little rusty. I need to jump back on the bike and pedal a little bit harder. It's been over three years since I've run a campaign of any length or depth. Right now, I'm committed to running two of them.

The first is that Star Wars (Saga Edition) game I'm sure I've mentioned here at one time or another. I've got a lot of work to do so that next session will be a fun-filled destructo-fest for the players.

The second is my New Untouchables Cyberpunk 2020 campaign, which I'm resurrecting for a group at work. I started the game in Virginia at Mythic, but it was cut short by the loss of a number of my players. I always regretted that; it had a lot of potential, I thought. I figure this is my chance to see if I was right or not.

I've also been delving into other games, at least insofar as reconnecting with them goes. One of those is Alternity. Man, what a great system that was! I can feel the tugging of GM ADHD coming on, and I ... must ... RESIST! Though I may run a one-shot for some folks at work, anyway, for old time's sake.

I also picked up a bunch of the new Talisman 4th Edition stuff, but haven't played it yet. I wish my son could read, because we'd be playing right this second if he was literate. As it is, he's getting the idea of written language. I wish there was a reading/writing boot camp I could send him to.

I've more or less given up on freelancing again. I keep coming back to the topic, mostly because I miss it so damn much. But just because I've resigned myself to not freelancing again doesn't mean I won't if the right people ask me to (hint hint).

I think that this (long holiday) weekend is going to be a nice one if my kids can keep their internecine strife to a minimum. There's a coffee shop here in Hudson that looks promising, and I'd like to head over there with my laptop and see if I can do some mental exercises (not to mention work on my campaigns). Plus, if I do end up getting some freelance work heading my way at some point, it'll be nice to know if the place is a good place to work on stuff.

That's about all, in a nutshell. Overall, I'm very positive about the future right now (as I usually am on presentation day). I've still got a couple of things I need to get done (enroll Stephen in kindergarten, which involves him having a physical exam and probably getting some shots), as well as register my car (which has been a comedy of errors, let me tell you). June is the month to do it, since my VA registration expires in July. Joy!

All for now...

Gaming Lately

So, two of my work friends moved to Austin, Texas, last month to take up jobs with BioWare (working on The Old Republic; how I hate them). They also happened to be two of my players here at work. Getting new players isn't so much of a problem, but I feel I have a right to complain, anyway.

No, the trouble stems from the fact that it's hard to get the momentum going again after such an upset. Don't get me wrong, I'm not weeping bloody tears over Brian and Bull, but I did enjoy playing with them. They're good guys, and they're missed.

There are also other things that go into the gaming funk, one being the fact that I don't want to plan anything out too far ahead right now. Change, that mysterious pet to Fate, may be a-coming. I'd just as soon avoid any other disappointments until I'm more certain of the future.

Many of the same issues plague non-work gaming, but they are always eclipsed by familial responsibilities and exaustion (in that order). However, I did run Stephen through a quick (15 minute) scenario where he rescued a baby from a group of hungry goblins. There wasn't much in the way of role-playing, but he rolled the old d20 and taught the goblins a lesson or two about the price of kidnapping.

I've cut back hard on the freelancing (though I'm not sure I had much of a choice in the matter). If interesting opportunities arise in the future, we'll see if I feel I have time to squeeze them in. Not having a looming deadline as of late has been interesting, though I am the masochistic sort of person who trades in one stress for another. Gods help me. This last GenCon marked the first time I'd attended the show where I wasn't trying to drum up freelance work. It was somewhat liberating.

Back to gaming, I did manage to get a game in at GenCon. GM Chris from d20 Radio did a test run of the SW Saga edition adventure Murder on the Executor, and I got to play (along with Sterling Hershey and a bunch of other swell guys).

All for now. Back to the grind.

Not Quite Numb

I'm not entirely sure what I'm feeling now. As the dog days of June pass me by, and the hot stickiness of July in Virginia approaches (accompanied by the alien buzz of the cicadas) I find myself feeling not quite numb. I don't know what the future holds, either for myself or for my family. It's like I'm waiting for something, but I'm not entirely sure what it is yet.

I'd been working on WAR's Land of the Dead Live Expansion non-stop from late last year until just about a month ago. As the only writer on the project, I had a lot of work to do (which was also iterated on in a near-continuous process of revision). These days, I'm the writer on another project which I am as of yet unable to talk about in any kind of detail. I enjoy the work immensely, and there's a lot of it that needs to be done.

I've considered throwing the towel in on freelancing, which is more or less the case at the moment (pending another project offer, of course, which I may consider; it really depends on the circumstances). This is mostly due to time constraints, but I also realize it's due to my limited supplies of energy (creative or otherwise). I throw my heart into my work in the office, and by the time I get home there's very little left for me to tap in to. It's hard enough deciding what to cook for dinner some nights.

Vacation approaches, though. We're shutting down for a week (next week, in fact), and though I have few specific plans I'm sure I'll be busy.

Maybe this is what it's like when everything is more or less okay. Maybe my problem is that I'm waiting for a proverbial hammer to fall. It's the pessimist in me, I suppose. Semi-sleep deprivation is probably to blame, as well. Nothing a nap won't cure, I'll wager.

Land of the Dead has been released, and WAR players can travel to Zandri now. It's an awesome expansion, doubly so because it's free to our subscribers. I'm very proud of the work I did for LotD; there's not a part that wasn't touched by me in some way, from the initial concepts of the zone to the quests to the related entries in the Tome of Knowledge. It's humbling to think that I was allowed to have such an influence on even the smallest of things.

I didn't work in a vacuum, though. Everyone on the Encounters team, from artists to developers and designers, worked their butts off to make LotD the best it can be. Hopefully the players who actually read the quests and dialogues will appreciate them, but when it comes down to it they'll be wowed by the art, the landscape, and the mechanics more than anything else.

I really need a nap, but I will survive. Somehow.

Lost in Thought

It's hard to say that success is not always the key to happiness. It certainly helps, I'll grant you that.

For years, back in the 1990's, even before I'd realized my hopes and dreams, I knew that I wanted to write. I wasn't much of a student in school. Hell, I was a terrible one, in fact. Chronic underachiever is probably a good description. Some folks said I was "too smart," that the work bored me. Maybe it did, maybe it didn't, but I seem to remember most of my trouble had to do with homework. I hated homework. I'd generally ace my tests, but if homework was half my grade then it didn't matter what I knew and what I didn't.

I got jobs, supported myself. Moved out of the homestead and moved in with my sweetheart. Got married. Through that period, I tried to get my foot in that publishing door. Sent in articles to Dragon, mostly, when Alternity was still supported. Moved on to Star Wars Gamer when it seemed to be a good shot. I never did make it, then SW Gamer got canned, too.

It's not like I got reams of rejection letters. It's not like I submitted reams of material, either. I think I probably sent in one article for review, and dickered with editors about ideas and proposals for half a dozen more.

Lightning struck with Dungeon Magazine, which is really the last place I expected to see my name pop up in print. Erik Mona was to blame, and when I asked him why he picked my proposal for Ord Vaxal, he replied, "I liked your Star Wars mojo." Is that mojo still here, somewhere, buried under all the adult responsibilities that I've taken on, or inherited, or been given?

How long ago was that? It was the December issue in 2003, though I'm pretty sure the article was done and submitted at least five months prior. That said, we're looking at five years plus change, going on six. Since then, every writing credit but one ("Hazards of Dark Sun") I've had has been for a book. They're game books, of course. I've constantly steered my ship towards the gaming star. I'm a gamer, after all, and I was a gamer even before I first dipped my proverbial quill in its companion inkwell.

Now I sit at a desk and I write content and material for a computer game. I get paid, and I keep my kids fed (as much as they'll eat, anyway). I'm not wealthy, but I get by. The freelance work, well, I've always enjoyed it. Some projects were more fun than others, sure, but they were all well worth the time I spent on them. It's tough to make the time anymore. I write so much at work, spending so much creative energy there, that it makes it hard to keep up any momentum at home. Pair that with my kids, as demanding as they are at their ages, and it sometimes seems like a fool's errand.

I was thinking about all the books I've worked on, and I was thinking about all those titles and where they'll be in five, ten, or twenty years. Given the way that new editions are released in the tabletop industry, will my name still pop up on Amazon.com searches after all that time has passed? I don't know. I tend to doubt it, unless I can keep the ball rolling. I've already got credit on books that represent outdated or dead systems.

Writing for roleplaying games isn't like penning fiction or, dare I say, literature. For one, the audience is much smaller. For two, even crappy novels still end up on used books store shelves. So I wonder, what's the life expectancy of the work I do? How long does it stay fresh and new? And does anyone really know my name?

I'm not sure what's next, to be honest. I'll continue with the day job, enjoying the work (because I really do enjoy it, more than I've enjoyed any other job I've ever had) and thanking whatever gods orchestrate this massive cosmic freak show for the chance to do so. I think I'm going to have to take it easy on the contract work for a while. This doesn't preclude more contract work, mind you (you hear that, people? You know who you are!), but I need a pause to take a breath.

It seems so cliched, but I guess I might like to try my hand at fiction. Short stories, essays, a book, maybe. Not sure where to start. I've been writing "to order" for so long, it's hard to imagine relying on myself for the whole enchilada. I don't know how to get started; I don't know where to turn. And one question that aches to be answered is, does the work I've done up until now count for anything in that vast pool of writing talent? Or will the attempt be akin to "breaking in" all over again?

It's not a question for the now. It's a question for the future. Right now I'm too busy and too tired to even consider writing an original short story, much less a book. I think the pause will do me good, so long as it refreshes. I'll wrestle with the details another time, and I'll keep you all informed (if you'd like to remain so).

Bedtime.

A Reckoning of Wraiths

The latest chapter in Wizards of the Coast's Dawn of Defiance campaign, A Reckoning of Wraiths, has been posted on WotC's Star Wars web site.

The cool part? I wrote it!

So go ahead and check it out!

Still Alive

I'm still breathing, though some days I feel like I'm on life support. It's hard to keep up with work (which is demanding in a lot of ways), my freelance projects (which are just as demanding as I've come to expect), and my family obligations (which make the day job and the freelance writing look like child's play by comparison).

So, yeah. I'm here, I'm just busy busy busy. There are never enough hours in the day.

In the news:

D&D 4E is in the house. I haven't had a chance to play it, and I don't know when I will. I've got the core books and I've breezed through them. Overall, I'm not sure how I feel about it. I'm sure the game plays well, but I'm not sure that it's got the sorts of character options I've come to expect.

To me, RPGs are about character options. In a class-based system, especially, character options are king. They are what differentiate Fighter A from Fighter B. This is why I enjoyed kits in AD&D 2nd Edition, and what made feats (and to some extent, Prestige Classes) so valuable in D&D 3.X.

On the surface, D&D 4th Edition looks to me like characters are even more codified. Multiclassing is out, for the most part. Abilities are chosen from a very limited pool (though I'm sure that, with enough time and enough expansions, this will change). This means that one character will be very much like the next of his class. And, of course, there's the 4E/MMO parallel that everyone seems to be drawing. I can see why, and I'm sure it's entirely intentional. As it is, I'm on the fence.

Will I run D&D 4E? Maybe. I need to try it out at least once to make a final determination. As it is, I still like 3.X quite a bit.

My first D&D 4E article will be up on D&D Insider pretty soon. Look for Hazards of Dark Sun to appear very soon in Dragon Magazine.

In other news, I'm probably going to miss GenCon this year. However, I will be at Origins (for the first time) this coming weekend. I'm going with EA Mythic, and we'll be showing our game off. Drop on by and say hello!

The Day Job

So I was playing WoW last night ...

Back up. Rewind. Let's start this over, give it a little bit of perspective.

My wife is a member of the Straight Dope Message Boards. The SDMB formed a guild in World of Warcraft on a new server named Cairne. Now, I'd been playing on a PvP server where my co-workers go, and I'd gotten a rogue to 40th there and was actually enjoying the PvP experience.

Thing is, Amy wasn't. Not really. Not with Tarren Mill being the gankfest it is; not with an inordinate amount of 70's running around killing anything ten levels or more below them. She'd been griefed and ganked and was fed up. I guess I can't blame her, since it's not what she's into. I'm not really into it, either, but sometimes it's nice to have a fair, one-on-one with one of those Alliance pansies.

I digress.

So she goes and creates a character on Cairne, and I figure I'll do it, too. Maybe we can quest together. Being on a new server is interesting in a number of ways. The economy is all wonky, so making gold in the usual fashion (farming for copper, leather, whatever) doesn't really pull in the same amount of coin I'm used to. It's a struggle just to have enough to train, much less keep your equipment current.

I'm chatty with the guildies, too. They're all pretty good folks. It's a good guild experience, folks helping folks and hanging out and chatting. They're all mature, too, so there's no l33t to speak of.

One of the guild folks I've spoken to logged on, and I greeted him in guild chat. He asked how I was, and I told him that work was "sucking my brains out of my nostrils." Which is just my way of saying, "I'm writing all damn day, and when I get home I feel empty and somewhat used."

He asked, "What do you do?"

Being a game developer, especially one that works for a competing company, I'm somewhat leery of admitting what I do. My wife chimes in from down the hall, "Just be honest!"

So I said, "I'm a content developer for a computer game company." End of story. But just to be on the safe side, I added, "And it isn't Blizzard, either."

I expected some more questions, but these folks are pretty savvy, and they don't pry, which is nice. Hell, I'm not all that private. I tend to let most of everything hang out here (though I don't like talking politics or religion on my blogs; there's a time and a place for that sort of thing, and this isn't it).

So, what's my point? Heck, I don't know anymore. I'm sure I had something lined up when I began this post, but it's been lost in the shuffle.

I suppose it had to do with writing in general, and in making a buck or two off of my desire to use my talents. How many people get that chance? Here I am, mid-30's, and I'm writing in my day job, writing on freelance projects (for the Star Wars RPG, no less), and getting paid for it.

It's not easy. I guess it's easier for me than for most people, but what I'm saying is that it's work, what I do. I don't mind doing it, but it tires me out just as much as any other job I've had. Maybe more, because I'm really pouring myself out, tapping the creative well. I hope it doesn't dry up, because now (more than ever) is when it really matters the most.

Back to work now. I'll be in this weekend for a few hours, too, so I can get a head start on Monday's chores.

Influential Game Designers

JD Wiker has gone and made a list of the top ten folks in the industry who influenced him. I'm not sure I can reel off a list of ten names, but I can always try. It's tough to put them in any kind of order, but here goes.

#10 - Kevin Dockery: One of the first games I ever played, back in 8th grade, was The Morrow Project. Now, as I understood it, The Morrow Project was written by Kevin Dockery (a real-life "civilian contractor," or mercenary) as a college thesis. It was a game of the post-apocalypse, firmly rooted in movies like Damnation Alley. The combat system was deadly (to put it mildly), which only added an edge to the game that hadn't existed anywhere else for me up until that point.

#’s 8 & 9 - Troy Denning & Timothy B. Brown: I gotta give these guys equal time because they're the minds behind the campaign setting that taught me that fantasy gaming wasn't all about elves singing in the trees. Give me cannibalistic halflings any day of the week, I say. I'm talking about Dark Sun, of course. I can only describe my initial attraction to Dark Sun as a disease, because once I picked up the boxed set, I couldn't stop. This was a first, for I was a constant critic of AD&D, of level- and class-based game play, and of anything even remotely related to fantasy and magic. Dark Sun was gritty, it was mean, it was nasty, and it ultimately changed my perception of gaming in a number of ways. Lucky for you, I don't have time to go into them all right now.

#7 - Jeff Barber: For Blue Planet and Midnight. I tend to doubt that Jeff remembers me, but back in '97, I stopped by the Biohazard Games booth on the last day of Gen Con and picked up the only copy they had left of Blue Planet 1st Edition. I joked, "Can I get it signed?" and Jeff was nice enough to do so for me. Reading that game on the flight home gave me the desire to write for it, and I made a couple of attempts to get my foot in that door (esp. in regards to Undercurrents, which was an ezine that Biohazard was posting on their site). I never made any progress, but Jeff was always very encouraging. Plus, he's one of the minds behind the Midnight campaign setting, which is probably one of the top three products that made me want to write for RPGs.

#6 - Mark Rein-Hagen: I'll admit, when Vampire: The Masquerade came out, I had some reservations. I played it initially, but I quickly grew tired of it. Besides the real-life politics within the gaming group I was a part of, there were plot issues; the campaign we played was very much tied into Anne Rice's books, and it seemed like everyone had read them, lived them, loved them, and applied them to their characters. I quickly grew tired of the drama, and left for a time, but I did end up coming back to Vampire (and its many off-shoots) eventually. Despite the apparent pretentiousness of the line, it was one of the best products out there, with an elegant rules set, innovative layout and graphic design, and a lot of very interesting background material. It also taught me that game books didn't have to be stuffy and chock full of rules, nor did said rules have to be written like a physics thesis.

#5 - Rose Estes: Though I guess she's not technically a game designer, she did write the Dungeon of Doom Endless Quest book. Dungeon of Doom was the first taste I had of what gaming was. I bought it at an elementary school book fair, probably in the 4th or 5th grade. I wasn't terribly intellectual at the time, though I was incredibly imaginative. Reading about the monsters and encounters in Dungeon of Doom (as well as the other Endless Quest books I ended up buying) got me interested enough to buy the first edition of the Monster Manual just so I could learn more about the critters that kept leading me to such famous endings as, "...your life, and your quest, end here."

#4 Greg Costikyan: After I got the gaming bug, back in those sweaty, adolescent days, I came across a title in the Waldenbooks at the local mall that combined gaming with one of my all-time favorite films: Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game. There was little question that I had to have it, and shortly thereafter it was mine. I think I begged my mother for the money, and ended up with both the first edition rules as well as the Star Wars Sourcebook. Even at that age, my knowledge of Star Wars was pretty vast (at least compared to my player base), and I ran countless Star Wars games (many of them via email). Now, I don't know Greg, but I do know that, because of the Star Wars RPG, his contribution to my life as a GM, a player, and a writer has been astronomical.

#3 - Lynn Abbey: I consider Lynn Abbey a good friend, and I made her acquaintance in a relatively innocuous manner: by sending in a fan letter. I don't remember the details, but I don't think the email gushed praise. It was more along the lines of, "I love what you did with The Brazen Gambit! Can you give me some clues on what the city-state of Urik is like?" From there, we ended up emailing back and forth for a number of years, until we finally got to meet in person when I was asked to write for Green Ronin's adaptation of the Thieves' World setting. If Lynn taught me anything, it was about world and character design, and that you need to consider the minute details that make up the larger whole.

#2 - Mike Pondsmith: For Cyberpunk. I've known Mike for many years, but I can't say I know him very well. If I didn't give him props for Cyberpunk, I'd be a liar of the worst sort. Cyberpunk was one of the first games I played (and eventually bought) that got me running and playing on a regular basis. After a time, it was the first game I really made an effort to tinker with, rules-wise, and it was also the first game I tried very hard to write for professionally (I wasn't successful, but I did learn a lot).

#1 JD Wiker: Yeah, yeah. Blame JD. When Alternity was at its height (which is a somewhat relative indication of altitude, given that I was the only person in Southern California who was buying its products on a regular basis), I made a couple of submissions to Dragon Magazine in support of Alternity. Somehow, I managed to open up a dialog with JD, which eventually led to a long-lasting friendship. JD taught me what Wizards of the Coast expected of freelancers, sure, but he also gave me an insight into the fact that what you write has to be more than just cool; it has to be balanced and it has to make sense. I'm not sure I would've gotten anywhere in publishing if it hadn't been for JD's insight and encouragement.

There are a number of runners-up, and it's a tough stretch to say I can list them all. There's Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax (for forging the way), Ray Winninger (for his work on the Chill Companion), Steve Jackson (for GURPS, gods bless him), Charles Ryan (for Millennium's End), Erick Wujcik (for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles RPG), Ken St. Andre (for the original Stormbringer RPG), Kevin Siembieda (for the Robotech RPG), and Rob Schwalb (for being evil incarnate, and for teaching what dedication really means).

There are more, far too many to include for every contribution that they've made to me in regards to the hobby, but I'll try to be graceful and leave it like this. It's four am, after all, and I've got to be at work in five hours.

Coffee Shop: Found

And so, almost five months after coming to Virginia, I've found a suitable coffee shop. I'm not sure how long it's been there, this coffee shop, but it's got a decent atmosphere, it's spacious, and -- best of all -- the wifi is blessedly free.

It's called Java Dave's, and it's part of a franchise (details here). The prices are pretty standard coffee shop prices, which is fine with me. The quality of the drink I ordered (a standard, ordinary, run of the mill latte) was about what I'd expect it to be anywhere else (including Starbuck's).

Best of all is its location: it's about two or three doors down from the local game shop, Game Parlor, in Chantilly. This makes it about a five minute drive away from my apartment, which is great.

Back home, I used to go to It's A Grind, which was a great shop. The people were awesome, and they never cared when I came in and sat for several hours at a stretch. Not sure if I've ever mentioned it, but they went out of business a couple weeks before I moved to VA.

In other news ... Thanks to Neil (Spicer), I'm dickering around with the idea of going to a couple of conventions in South Carolina next year. More on that when I've made up my mind.

I also hear that the Grimm RPG has been released. I didn't know that. I guess I'll be getting my copies eventually, which is always exciting!

Starships of the Galaxy News

I have been a bad boy. Not a single post during the month of October. Let's just say it wasn't a particularly exciting month (which isn't to say that it was a bad month, I just wasn't compelled to post about anything).

Anyway...

Wizards of the Coast has posted a page for the forthcoming Starships of the Galaxy, and you can check it out here. I'm quite excited about it, because working with Owen and Rodney was (and continues to be) a thrill. I really think that Starships will please the SW gamers out there.

Back to your regularly scheduled surfing. I'm going back to work!

Meetings and Milestones

For the past three years, I've been one of a privileged number of folks that gets to see what the future holds for RPGs, well ahead of time. Last Friday afternoon, I was sitting in a room filled with other freelance writers, many of their names well-known to you, listening to secrets that I am not at liberty to discuss.

At some point during this seminar (if you can call it that), it occurred to me quite succinctly where I was, who I was with, and what we were talking about. I reflected on how I'd gotten there, as compared to where I'd been four years previous. I'd gone from approaching these people on convention floors with stars in my eyes, to mingling with them like I bloody well belonged.

On Saturday, there was a smaller meeting. It was no less important. Many other things were talked about. Looking at the assembled crew, it was obvious that I was standing on the shoulders of industry giants.

I think that it's important that I occasionally dwell on these things. I need to keep my own role in this funny little business in some kind of perspective. It's not unlike the Great Oz's schtick: there is a man behind the curtain. The vast majority of the Emerald City's residents don't know that he is there. A smaller percentage do as they are told, and they ignore him. The few that remain are either in league with him, or they resist his machinations.

Who am I, exactly? How do I fit in? I'm still not sure, sometimes. I went to Gen Con this year, unsure if I really wanted to keep plugging away or not. I was without current business cards, and I promised myself that I wouldn't try to pimp myself out to publishers. Damn the ENnies, and damn the multitude of good opportunities that came my way, because there's no getting out alive between now and August of 2008.

This is what getting up to feed the baby at 5am gets me. I'm going back to bed for an hour or so, then I'll get up and go to work. Will I sleep? Probably. Probably not.

About That "Free" Wi-Fi

Sneaky..!

Well, I actually think it's pretty clever.

So, upon logging in the first time, you get an hour of access at Caribou Coffee. Now, after that hour expires, you need to get a new access code, which requires a minimum purchase of $1.50. So, in other words, you have to get off your butt and buy something so as not to loiter.

So, technically, it's not free wi-fi. I'm going to need to do the math here. How much does internet access at another coffee place cost? Say, $30 a month. Now, if I'm coming in here and paying $1.50/hour for internet twice a week for 5 hours a shot, that's $15/week.

Of course, coffee costs more than $1.50 per cup. It's not like you get an access code for every $1.50 you spend, either. Something tells me that this could get expensive. Technically, I don't need internet access when I write, but it's nice to have the option to research what I need to research (or bitch on my blog about this, that, or the other thing).

So...my next stop is Panera Bread, probably tomorrow. They offer free wi-fi (or so I'm told) in a progressive restaurant atmosphere. Grab a sandwich and some iced tea and tap at the keys. Caribou is nice, but I'm a poor white boy who has been spoiled by the generosity of my last coffee house.

Plus, this place is way too cold. Turn down the A/C!

Back In the Saddle...Again?

Oh, have I got work to do.

At lunch yesterday, out with the Content Development posse at Mythic, we dropped into a local coffee joint, Caribou Coffee. "Free Wi-Fi" the sign said. "See you tomorrow," I answered quietly.

And here I am, ready to put digital pen to digital paper.

Back home, in California, my off-site office was It's A Grind in Vista. It was the only place I'd managed to find with free wi-fi, and it rocked. Not only was the place comfy, but the people who ran it were awesome.

Unfortunately, It's A Grind went out of business about a week or two before we hit the road for Virginia. I still miss the place and the people that made it special.

I'm not sure what sort of strings are attached to the free internet access at Caribou, though the server mentioned I had an hour of time remaining after I logged in. I wonder, does this mean I have to re-log in every hour? Or is there a more nefarious motive? As in, the first hour is free...anything else will cost me my soul (or, at least, a functioning credit card). Should that be the case, I guess I'm back to square one. We'll have to see just how devious these people are.

So, now I work.

Twilight 2013

I'm helping with some design on the latest edition of Twilight 2000, and I thought I'd post a few links for anyone who is interested. The work I'm doing is fairly minimal at the moment, but it might expand (depending, in large part, on what happens in the next week or two; more on that particular can of worms when I'm able to say more about it).

On the off chance you've never heard of Twilight, let me tell you a little bit about the premise. The first edition was released by Games Designers Workshop (GDW) back in 1984. The plotline revolved around the collapse of society following a detailed account of World War III involving the US and the Soviet Union. Player characters were (ostensibly) allied soldiers who remained in Europe at the time of the collapse.

Things go so poorly that the war machine on both sides of the lines breaks down completely, and society is so damaged by the ravages of the conflict that you end up with a situation similar to what was seen in the oft-maligned Costner flick The Postman. While there remain some coherent elements of NATO and the Warsaw Pact remaining, they are islands in a sea of chaos that spans the entire European continent.

Enter the players, whose sole goal is to make it home, wherever that might be. Starting near Kalisz, Poland, the players must face their Warsaw Pact enemies, as well as local warlords, roaming marauders, and the threats posed by starvation, disease, and lingering radiation. Given that the PCs come from surviving units, they can be of almost any specialty, rank, or nationality, allowing for a great deal of character diversity in parties.

I bought the first edition to T2k many, many years ago, based solely on the box graphics. At the time, I was pretty young (fourteen?), and the game mechanics that were used eluded me somewhat. I guess they were more advanced than what I was used to. Re-reading them, I'm reminded of the level of detail involved. I'm still not real keen on the way that ammunition was represented, but it was (overall) a solid mechanical basis for a game of that scope. I was more interested in the human and historical information presented, so much so that I wrote a "history" report about the conflict for extra credit in high school.

Later on, in 1990, GDW re-released T2k with different rules (using the GDW house system) and an updated timeline. The line received a lot of support. I bought heavily into the game, picking up whatever I could, but I never did manage to run a campaign for one reason or another. Military-style games aren't for all players, after all. GDW eventually released a supplement for T2k, titled Merc 2000, which traded global warfare for scattered brushfire conflicts. Anyone who wants to play The Wild Geese should probably check out Merc 2000.

93 Games Studio is producing the latest edition of Twilight: 2000. Like the two previous editions of the game, this one will use a completely different set of system mechanics. The timeline is also different, though I can't say much about it.

Lately, 93 Games has been posting teasers and the like in order to generate some buzz about their upcoming release. So far, they've posted a background fiction piece titled Shall Not Perish in PDF format, and you can read and/or download it here. I've also been informated that a podcast has been posted on the 93 Games Developer's Blog, here. If you enjoyed the original T2k, or have an interest in the post-apocalypse genre, you might want to check it out.

More Complete Champion Goodness

Wizards has posted a lot of other previews for Complete Champion, including an art gallery! One of the things that I've always loved about writing is seeing my words transformed into art. I'm one of those guys who has trouble making sure the sticks are straight when I draw stick men, so I've always been awed by artists.

I'm sure I've talked about this before, but let me refresh those of you who might not know about a little thing called an art order. I never knew about art orders, back when I was writing my own game stuff and using it to make my players miserable. Since I've been fortunate enough to delve into the freelancer's lifestyle, I've probably done scores of art order entries. Maybe more.

So what's an art order? Simply put, it's a description for an artist to use a springboard for a piece of art that will appear in a product. It should be relevant, and it needs to be highly detailed without being overdone -- you've got to give the artist some leeway, after all.

Now, having done a lot of art orders, I can say that it's not often that I see a piece of art in a product I've worked on that I can look at and say, "Hey, I wrote that!" With Complete Champion, though, I can honestly look at these pictures and say, "Wow, that's my art order! And that one! And that one, too!" It's awesome to see these pieces of art and know that I contributed to them in my own limited fashion.

As for the previews of the product itself, you can check them out here. The spell lists and new feats are especially interesting to me, as I helped design some of the entries. So go and check them out!

I've got a good feeling about this book. A lot of folks tend to poo poo the Complete line of sourcebooks. To me, each one provides a toolbox for players and DMs. I don't think they can be all things to everyone, nor should they be. I'll always get more use out of some than I will out of others, but that doesn't bother me. Then again, maybe I'm biased.

Brief Update

I'm punching along on one of two projects at the moment. The size of the project isn't precisely huge, but it's for a product line I'm very keen on. So there. More about that later.

As for the home-front, having two children is definitely a sure-fire way to get behind on just about everything you want and/or need to do. God bless 'em.

I updated Sideshow In Barovia last night with detailed descriptions of the game's NPCs. This is mostly for my players' information, but it was fun doing the little character capsules nonetheless. Thanks goes to Wizards for their PC Portraits, which provided the yummy pictures. Now, if only I could draw...

I'm off to JD and Keri's place tonight to play in the Liberty game. I missed the last session, which ended with a fight. As it is, I'm running late tonight, as 3/4ths of the household is asleep. I should be out of here in a few minutes, but they're all so damn cute that I don't want to wake them..!

Workplace D&D should be running this Thursday. We have yet to nail down the venue, but I'm thinking it will be Jeff's new digs. We shall see...

Of Zombies & Malt Beer

Your mileage may vary, but I have determined that Steel Reserve and D&D do not mix. Last night marked the second session of workplace D&D, with all three players present.

Roya and her puppy hosted, providing a plethora of tasty things for us to eat. Rolled tacos, gourmet pizzas, sausage, chips & salsa. I would expect no less of a menu at one of NikChick’s Ars Magica games.

Jeff brought the beer, the aforementioned Steel Reserve. I was polite enough to drink one can, but I made sure to savor it (if "savor" is even a word used to describe what one does when they choke down the stuff). The two things to understand about Steel Reserve are the price (cheap) and the alcohol content (high). This is the sort of stuff that winos drink out of dirty paper bags on dark inner city streets. It is not the sort of thing I would expect to see making the rounds at a game of Dungeons & Dragons.

We needed to bring Ms. Roya up to speed, so we didn’t accomplish as much as I might have liked. The presence of the rotgut, not to mention its effects on the players, contributed somewhat to the languid nature of the game. There were also a number of very bad dice rolls.

Even though I needed to leave on time, the game went on half and hour longer than I’d anticipated. There were two encounters (one with a nasty dart trap which Deana’s rogue disarmed, and the other with a zombie bugbear). The undead bugbear is a tough critter (which I kept looking at and thinking, "Man! This thing is only CR2?"), and the between the bad dice rolls and the fact that nothing they did seemed to slow it down, I think everyone was getting somewhat frustrated.

We ended somewhat abruptly at 8 o’clock. I allowed the PCs to pull back to the relative safety of a nearby chamber to regroup, with the bugbear in as hot a pursuit as a zombie can be in. Next time (if there is a next time), we’ll see if they can manage to lay the beast low.

Any veteran D&D player would know how to fight a zombie, even one this tough, effectively: what weapons to use, how to move tactically so as to use the zombie’s plodding pace to their advantage. These guys are rookies, so it’s going to be trial and error for them. I suppose I can give them some hints, and I probably will.

The next game is not scheduled yet. I’m thinking two weeks from now may be a little bit optimistic, considering I’ve got a new baby arriving this coming Monday. We shall see.

On the writing front, it’s starting to heat up a little bit. My current project is near to wrapping up, but it’s followed by at least two others (one of which I’m very excited about; mum being the word, you’ll have to guess).

As to Saam’s Tale, for those of you who are curious, that’s about as far as I’d gotten on it. I have one more section which is about half done, but I’m not sure when I’ll get around to finishing it off.

Until next time.