The Latest

Heroes of the Feywild is out in game stores. 

I picked up a copy. Very pleased to see that so much of my prose remains intact, since I put so much time into it. By and large I'm very pleased with the book. I wrote the first chapter and several of the bard tales (The Unruly Girl, The Ugly Satyr, The Three Fair Beauties, and The Lady of the Wood), as well as the hamadryad, pixie, tuathan, witch, "mundane" items, and some magic items. The witch text is of my design, the mechanics only somewhat; that's probably the most different part of the book from what I turned in. However, as a player sourcebook--and I'm talking both mechanics and theme--I think the book is very strong and it provides lots of fun options. I'm going to stand by the prose I set down in this book; it works to ground you in the land of Faerie as a player (and as a DM). I think it's one of the more evocative books for D&D... but I say that about every product I work on. Not because I'm some egomaniac... it's because that's my goal when I'm writing something. I want to bring you there. I want you to experience the world through a second skin. Hopefully it works for you. I'm happy with it.

Dogs in the Vineyard is over, Apocalypse World begins tonight

The indie RPG group I play with begins Apocalypse World tonight. They're all extremely excited for various reasons. Some are huge Vincent D. Baker (the designer of this game and of Dogs in the Vineyard) fans, and all of them have played, and enjoyed the game previously. I'm coming in fresh so I don't know what to expect. I'm sure I'll have a good time. We hit a snag in our second-to-last session of Dogs. One of our players moved to Germany, the group dynamic was skewed, we weren't on the same page, and there was something about the game's mechanics that drove our story in weird directions. Nevertheless, we reconnected for the last session and made it work out well. I'm very much looking forward to Apocalypse World and the new player we're bringing in. There's talk of an apocalyptic movie day where we'll do 12 Monkeys and Delicatessen. I'd like to include The Blood of Heroes, but a) I'm not sure I can find it, and b) what if it's not as good as I remember?

Finished the 5-session arc of our D&D game
I probably didn't post about this much at all, apart from the mention of combat going too slowly in the first session. I'm pushing the campaign forward in small, concentrated plot arcs when I can get the players together. Every arc is designed to push the story forward and move the campaign toward a conclusion. Said conclusion is still a long way off, but I think the days of wandering around the map are through. At least for this game. We need to bring these characters some sort of resolution or they'll linger in limbo forever (like so many other D&D characters we know). I highly recommend the 5-session arc. It was just enough time for the players to sink their teeth into the meat of the story, accomplish some incredible heroics, learn tons about the world, and have a resolution. This took a single month. I think that going forward (in D&D) I'm going to focus on doing this... at least so far as our 18-year-old campaign is concerned.


Working on bits and bobs
I have a Dragon article to work on. The theme's a bit more adult than most of the stuff that gets printed in Dragon, however, so I'm anxious: the thought of committing several hours/days/weeks to an article and then seeing it in print but aggressively edited, depresses me. So I feel a bit stuck in that regard. If I were to write it "lukewarm," I'm not sure it would encapsulate its subject--I wouldn't be happy with it. If I were to write it "general," I wouldn't be happy with it. I'm still working on a strategy here. Also generating ideas for a short piece for a friend's game.

Starting Star Frontiers, learning Star Frontiers

I'm starting Star Frontiers on Tuesday. Now I have to learn how to run Star Frontiers (hopefully before Tuesday). The characters are wonderful so far, though. The players and I have developed the world, the races, and the general starting scenario so it's been a wholly organic process,  a complete collaboration. I'm looking to experiment wildly with Star Frontiers, trying all different kinds of storytelling forms and innovations. The rules may be old, but they're light and customizable, and I mean to take full advantage of that.