3 Non-Writing Influences to My Writing

In reading Jeff Vandermeer’s “Booklife,” (which is by far one of my favorite writing books and I shall write up a review when I finish it) he talks about identifying the non-writing influences on your writing. The goal is to find those people/artists that indirectly affect your writing by seeking out indirect methods of influence. Jeff is a big sports fan, so his influences are athletes, which is such a different perspective than my own that I had go through the same exercise.

For anyone who has known me or read this blog for any length of time, you know that music is very important. So clearly at least two of my influences would be musicians and most likely drummers. In fact, so much of my life is influenced by music I could easily say all these influences are musicians, but I wanted to push myself to look somewhere else. It didn’t work.

1. Neil Peart, drummer: As the greatest drummer of all time (and the lyricist for Rush), it’s easy to overstate Peart’s influence on both writing and drumming. And though many people find his lyrics overwrought and too thinky, it’s actually his drumming that has a huge influence on my writing. Here’s the thing about Peart’s drumming and how it got to be so good — he has a massive imagination and creativity in his parts, but he always makes sure those parts are interesting to him. And THEN, he has these massive chops to pull off just about anything. Talk about a combination that I would love as a writer: to have a one-of-a-kind imagination that I use to keep myself interested, buoyed by a strength to just make it happen. Actually, that sounds like my favorite writer Iain Banks. Hm.

2. Terry Chambers, drummer: We call Chambers the “meat and potatoes” drummer. As the original drummer for XTC, Chambers played on their three essential albums “Drums and Wires,” “Black Sea” and “English Settlement.” That weird backhanded rhythm on Making Plans for Nigel? That’s Chambers. He has an amazing strength that is usually reflected in his four-on-the-floor — that chugging rhythm when the bass drum is hitting all four beats in a measure — but he also has an amazing range of power that is best illustrated on the English Settlement album. This record is a bit of a mess. The first side (back when we had LP records) contains perhaps the greatest five songs in a row; a pop masterpiece that very few people have ever replicated. But from there, the record has another ten songs that vary in tempo and rhythms and don’t always work. However the drums are always very interesting and never miss their beats. See, when we talk about “meat and potatoes” we’re talking about how Chambers never misses the fundamentals. As the listener, you never worry about where the beat is and there is always a drum beat to guide you through the song, even if in some backhanded way (like on Nigel). Chambers understands that a drummer doesn’t have to be fancy (but can be creative) to do his job. I think that’s a great MO for a writer as well.

3. James Murphy, musician/record label owner/DJ: Murphy is best known for being the one-man band behind LCD Soundsystem, but he’s also known for running DFA Records and being a great DJ in his own right. So he’s a master of dance music and understands what works and what doesn’t — great. But here’s why he’s such a strong influence on me: when LCD was alive, Murphy would write and perform his own songs in the studio, and then take his own band (“the world’s best LCD Soundsystem cover band in the world” he would say) on the road, and they would translate all of his electronic music into music played by people’s hands. The implications of this musically are impressive, but let’s transplant that to writing and see what comes out. Imagine writing a novel, by yourself in your room, and publishing it. Great, nice work. Now go and hire six people to work as voice and Foley artists to perform your book with you on tour. The idea is staggering, imaginative and embodies true art — to create a unique experience that the reader/viewer will never forget. Damn.

This has been a very powerful and fun exercise (especially at 530 in the morning) to open my mind to all of my influences. Which non-writers influence your writing?

Delaying Next Kickstarter

I have made the decision to delay my next Kickstarter project, a 1920s Cthulhu Dark scenario titled “Sun Spots,” until the June-July time-frame. This decision originally came from not being able to get the two artists that I want to work with until then. But then real life got in the way of any more planning and it has turned out to be a good decision overall.

Because here’s the thing — while the scenario I plan to publish is written, the planning required for a KS project is quite the task and I’m just not ready for it. I created my project plan for the overall project, and most of the work is up front with PR, marketing and all the other stuff that goes into making the crowd part of crowd-funding successful. Even with one successful project under my belt, there are still a lot of doors to ring to raise awareness and all that just takes time.

My biggest struggle as a writer is not content — I have dozens of stories, blog posts, novels and screenplays in my head that I could work on every day if given the opportunity. But my life with my family, job and friends is quite busy and I find it hard to carve out the time necessary to make it all work. I feel like I am trying hard, which just means that I’m not doing if you listen to Yoda.

This is the backside of the 21st century writer’s ability to do it all himself. Yes, the barrier to entry has fallen away, but there is so much more work to do, all in the name of progressing one’s career. It’s no longer enough to just type at one’s masterpiece, then send it off to your editor and wipe your hands to go work on the next project. The flexibility of the modern writer cuts both ways, certainly.

But we go and climb back on the horse and hit it again, like some sort of Don Quixote charging at the windmills of literary self-sufficiency. So, yeah, the Kickstarter’s delayed.

Regardless, the projects need to be written, if only to keep me sane, so look for more writing as the year progresses. Onward!

The Companion is Finally Live!

The Masks of Nyarlathotep, if you didn’t know, is often hailed as the greatest Call of Cthulhu campaign of all time, and even gets logged as one of the all time great RPG campaigns of any genre. But one of its problems is that there is a lot of room left in the story — there are so many details undocumented, questions unanswered. It’s a great campaign but could really be so much greater.

More than five years ago, Bret Kramer came up with the idea of building a companion for the campaign, and the Kickstarter for that companion is finally live. Back in 2009 I wrote a number of pieces for the book, one of which was about how to run and organize the massive game. Apparently I had some good stuff to say, because it’s one of the first pieces in the book, and my name ended up on the cover.

There is a lot of vaporware in the tabletop RPG world — material that people write that never sees the light of day. The Companion was definitely heading toward that and I am so excited and proud that it is finally going to be published. I distinctly remember writing my Companion pieces on my deck in Oregon, with my work laptop in front of me and a beer next to me and trying very hard to stay focused on completing what I had agreed to. I was so desperate to complete something, to be a part of a project, and I had no idea it would take so long for it to see print.

More importantly, I really wanted to write something that other people would read and understand and be thankful for. My key contribution for the Companion is the keeper introduction, wherein I try to help keepers wrap their heads around the enormous task of running Masks. I really enjoyed writing the piece because I felt like I had something to say and the writing came easily and naturally. You mean people want to hear what I have to say about how to run a better game? I was glad to step up and write all I could on the matter.

And with the Kickstarter now up to 20k pounds (~$30k), it’s clear my contribution is part of the greater whole that people are excited to support. The project is finally a success, and though my part in the overall book (which is bigger than Masks itself) is relatively small, it’s huge for me.

For me, 2015 is a year of “out with the old” as I not only take care of some health issues that have been dogging me for a while, but also try to clear my backlog of personal and writing projects. That the Masks Companion is finally done and going to print is very cathartic to me as it validates some efforts that have been sitting around for at least five years, and allows me to move onto other pastures.

The timing couldn’t be better.

4 Keys to Preparing for Successful Con Games

This weekend is one of my favorites for the whole year — Dundracon, the longest running gaming convention in the San Francisco Bay Area, is here! I have been attending DDC since seventh grade and, aside from some gaps in the mid-90s, I’ve been to most of them since. I love DDC for many reasons — it’s got all sorts of games, is run very well, and all my friends go there — and every year I run (at least) one official RPG that both keeps my GMing skills hot and gets me in the door for free.

Last year I ran HWLL twice and it was too much. When you’re running your own RPG, especially when it’s tied to an in-progress Kickstarter, there is a lot of pressure to do it right. Running two games last year was too much of that pressure and I promised myself I would run only one official game this year. Well, I may be running only one official game, but I have been pressured into (okay – volunteered, I’m an attention slut and I just love running games too much) running two more games, so now am running three games — one Trail of Cthulhu, one 5th edition D&D, and my own Cthulhu Dark scenario Sun Spots.

The TOC and D&D games are really just for friends, are not “official” games where I have to wonder at what sort of gamers I will get, and will start when I get my friends together, not at a specific time. They’re also written by other people, which is something I don’t normally do but realized that was the only way to run additional games and not lose my mind. But still, it takes effort to run a good game, whether official or not, and I want to cover the things that I do to prepare for running RPGs at conventions.

The feedback I get tells me I run a pretty good game, but not only am I always looking to improve my game, I also hold myself to pretty high standards. I also know some pretty awesome GMs who do many of the same things I do to prep for their games and I like to steal good ideas whenever I can. Here are some things I’ve found are key to running a great RPG at a convention:

  • Own It – First and foremost: be a goddam professional. You need to treat this like your job, and show up firing on all cylinders. To start, whatever it takes, show up 10-15 minutes early, all your materials in hand and ready to go. There is nothing that builds early player skepticism than having all the players sitting at the table 10 minutes early but the GM is 10 minutes late (this happened to me last year). Especially if you are fortunate enough to have people show up early because your game is overbooked, you want to show that this is your game. Then, start on time, unless you need to wait for pre-registered players. Even then, only wait ten minutes maximum. If a player can’t make it to your game by then, too bad. And again, if you’re lucky enough to have a full game and people are waiting to get in (what a compliment!), communicate directly with them on what they can and cannot expect. For me, I take players first-come, first-served, and will take the names of people like waiting for a table in a restaurant. Other GMs randomize. Regardless, communicate what your plan is, how many possible spots you have, and set expectations out the game. Own the game from the go and your players will quickly realize who is in charge.
  • Provide Everything They Need – I know it seems odd, but some GMs barely provide enough to get the game going. You, as a player, must provide dice, pencils, scrap paper, etc. Some GMs may even expect you to bring paper to use for your character sheet. Screw those guys (it’s unprofessional). You bring PC sheets, probably already filled out as pregenerated characters, but hey why not also bring snacks, chocolate or even bourbon. I like my players to use special dice, so I bring those too. If I’m playing in a game I’ll bring the rulebook and other supplements to share. Basically, bring everything your players need to play your game — everyone will love you.
  • Be the Ball, Billy – What does your game look like when it’s a total success? Can you see it in your mind? Athletes have been using visualization for years to win medals, so why can’t you? Days before the con, picture in your mind how the story will go, where the fun/quiet/exciting parts are, and how the whole thing will end. See yourself and the whole group having a great time, see everyone creating great memories and collaborating on an amazing game, one that people talk about for years. Spend some time thinking about your game well in advance and give yourself room to improve and grow. Sure, it may not go perfectly, but the preparation will help you create the best possible experience.
  • Go Big or Go Home – Finally, if you’re running a game at a con, you have all the permission in the world to make your game as memorable as possible (as you’re not restricted by an ongoing campaign or your friends’ pre-existing expectations), so why not make it as great as possible? Just as you’re going to own it and be a professional, don’t be afraid to put all your eggs in one basket (as it were), killing, maiming and driving PCs mad, all with the goal of creating (with the help of your players) the best game everyone had all convention. Nothing bugs me more than a tame con game — people pay good money to come to a con, and it’s your job to make it worth their while. Bring all your best ideas, craziest stories and wild inspirations for your players. Whether this is just from creating cool props and PC sheets (see above) or by killing everyone off in one big explosion in the end, leave nothing out. Give people something to talk about, and they will tell their friends (awesome) and come back for more (even more awesome).

My Tour with Sleater-Kinney

I’m so blissfully ignorant. I’m on tour with Sleater-Kinney, covering their return to rock as a music journalist and it seems so damn quaint. They all still share a bed and hotel room together, and we laugh and joke as we get ready for their first show on their tour in Olympia, their original hometown.

I’m fitting in well for the first day. I call them “guys,” get to sleep in bed with them, and have started asking those probing questions that a serious rock journalist asks in order to build rapport in a short time. My question is “what is the fictionalized version of you like?” (Not a very good question, I admit.) Carrie answers, “just me but not real.” Corin wants to answer me later. Janet’s in the shower.

Then someone lights up a joint, which kicks off the fire alarm and everyone is heading out to the first show. Fred Armisen is with us, dressed in drag, and Corin shows me the tweet of mine she’s kept — in it, I declare my undying love to her as a rock goddess. She smiles and I wonder if I will end up kissing this woman.

Then my cousin shows  up outside the hotel with a gun in his bag, which he fires into the air, and things turn weird and I shift and suddenly… I’m awake, it’s 3am, and it was all a dream. Oh, but for a moment what a beautiful dream.

Clearly Sleater-Kinney is on my mind. They’ve just released their eighth album, No Cities to Love, after an eight year hiatus, and it was well worth the wait. But I’m not going to provide a straight-up review of their album. With a score of 90 over at Metacritic, their new album clearly has all the positive reviews it needs. No — I want to talk about why Sleater-Kinney is so damn important to rock music.

See, the thing about the new record isn’t just that it’s great, that it sounds amazing, that Sleater-Kinney is back in full form, or that everyone agrees how amazing it is. Fact is, it may be the most important rock record of the decade. Because it’s not that easy to make an Important Rock Record these days, and those who attempt it face an uphill battle against every Important Rock Record that has been recorded before. But I’m pretty sure No Cities to Love is pretty fucking important.

First and most important, the album has momentum, is momentum. Right out of the gate with the first song, the album propels itself with an immediacy most bands would die for. This isn’t just about up-tempo songs — it’s about keeping the listener engaged with back-to-back energy that keeps you hooked, won’t let your attention slip. Song after song goes by, the longest still clocking in just four minutes, and each and every one means something. From the existential and practical crisis of opener “Price Tag” to the rock anthem guitar hook of the closer “Fade,” Sleater-Kinney knows how to construct song after song of immediate, focused rock. This band knows how to rock better than just about any band out there today and this album is the proof.

The band’s secret weapon in all this is Janet Weiss, perhaps the most underrated drummer in all of rock history. Much is continually said of Carrie and Corin, and people rarely take the time to understand how critical Janet is to the band, but good God this woman can drum. It’s not enough that Janet has rock-solid tempo and seems to find all the interesting spots between the dual guitar attack from the front of the stage. For such a straight-forward rock band, there is nothing straight-forward about Weiss and her drumming. Sure, she can provide the pounding and thumping needed to propel the rocker “Surface Envy” forward. But “Fangless” has a off-center funk that most drummers could not pull off, while “Gimme Love” has a mid-phrase hiccup that many drummers would not even know what to do with. With every song Weiss brings a wealth and wide spectrum of creativity and agility that is extremely rare in today’s music. There are very few touring bands with such an amazing backbeat and yet she gets no glory — she is truly a secret weapon.

All this leads me to Sleater-Kinney themselves — the real secret weapon. Sure, those in touch with indie rock know and worship the band appropriately. But they will never have the surprise Grammy win of The Arcade Fire, my parents will never like them, and most people won’t get past the howling vocals. Which is perhaps the biggest reason why they’re so important — part of rock music needs to go against the grain, to be counter-culture, to show what’s wrong with the status quo. Sleater-Kinney does just this. The ten songs on the new album clock in at under 40 minutes — again the immediacy is palpable — and they say things about our world that no one else says. This record shows how three women can make their own way in a world dominated from top to bottom by men and sacrifice nothing along the way. Finally, the band demonstrates how to pull of a come-back, returning to recording and touring on their own terms, all while refusing to compromise their songs, their sound, or their souls.

This all comes together in this Important Rock Album. And, really, it’s the true mark of a great rock band.

4 Things I Will Do Differently in My Next Kickstarter

As I gear up for my next Kickstarter project (March 2015!), I wanted to reflect on the lessons I learned over the past year as project creator. But then spending time thinking of the things I didn’t do well seemed the wrong way to go about it. Instead I want to talk about the things I will do better this time around.

Running and publishing the He Who Laughs Last was one of the greatest experiences of my life, mostly because it allowed me to truly engage with my community when I had just been an observer before. Many of my friends and associates are writers, artists and designers in the RPG space, and now I am too. Writing and publishing a book is hard, but with the help of all the great people out there, you really get the feeling of being a part of something. That was definitely my favorite part of the experience.

And certainly, publishing my scenario, having people run it and getting feedback on the book (both good and bad) was enlightening and validating. And while it’s great to get positive feedback, you really haven’t made it until you’ve had someone complain that they “expected more from this project…”

So that’s all goodness — but what am I going to do differently?

1. Prepare Stretch Goals Ahead of Time: I love the idea of engaging with your backers and getting their help in figuring out aspects of your project, but damn, stretch goals can kill you. And while my project had nowhere near the stretch goal over-commitment of some projects, I still found myself a bit over my head when it came time to finish everything up. (Actually, I haven’t finished everything for my project, as I’ve still to write up a fictionalization of the HWLL story for my backers.) This is mostly because, in the heat of battle (aka during the project), I just came up with stretch goals on the fly, without really planning how I would go about finishing them (and all the various efforts I would need to enlist others in, which is a bigger challenge). Furthermore, stretch goals should be about continuing momentum and not just a given — there’s no reason to add stretch goals in the first few days if people are still backing. Instead, wait until the momentum slows and THEN add stretch goals. This time I will plan all of my stretch goals ahead of time, some big, some small, and only publish them once momentum slows.

2. Be Very Clear About Int’l Shipping: Ah yes, international shipping, the scourge of all Kickstarter projects. I had been warned about how expensive it was to ship internationally, but holy shit! Basically it costs $25 to ship a book from the USA to pretty much anywhere else in the world (Canada is cheaper at $20), which is just a lot of money to ship a book that only costs $7 to print. Oh, sure, you can skimp and pay $10, have it take 3-4 weeks and have no guarantee that it will arrive, or you can pay the higher cost and provide better service. I think it just means you need to be very, very clear up front how you’re handling shipping, and hopefully not turn away people with the high cost. Until I can deal in high enough quantities to justify working with overseas printers and distributors, it’s all POD and hand-shipping for me. That means higher cost for my customers, unfortunately. We’ll see if this impacts my overall project…

3. Find Collaborators Ahead of Time: I did a lot of preparation for my campaign, and it showed when I funded within 36 hours. Great — now what? As I floundered around on my first project, trying to figure out what to do next, I stumbled upon something amazing: other KS project owners. During my project I had three key collaborators help me: Oscar Rios of Golden Goblin Press, Kevin Kulp of Pelgrane Press, and Shane Ivey of Arc Dream Publishing. Each of these folks helped me by spreading the word during the project, which drove noticeable traffic to my project. You can see the bumps in the Kicktraq data, there at those bumps at the end of February and beginning of March. But all of these connections were made during my campaign (except Oscar, whom I knew before), and without any preparation at all. Really, the time for getting in touch with people is right now, just about a month or so before my project starts. I already have a number of people I can reach out to, but putting those people into the plan ahead of time just reduces risk and increases the chances of success.

4. Shorten the Project Length: After all was said and done, I’m not really sure my project needed all 31 days to fund at $9k. Looking again at the Kicktraq data, the only mid-stream bumps came from other campaigns (see above) and not from general momentum. And while Wednesday is the best day to get backers, I started on a Sunday and finished on a Friday, which isn’t the best time-frame overall. This time I’m going to try just 3 weeks, starting and finishing on a Sunday, and just nip the whole thing in the bud. If I have all my reviews and collaborators setup ahead of time, then there shouldn’t be any scramble mid-project to get them in line. I should hit my funding in the first few days and then use momentum to grab a few, key stretch goals. Then I rope in the remaining folks in the final 48 hours and, BAM, done.

So, yeah, I have some work to do.

Five Short Stories

So I went and posted all my short fiction over here for you to read. Going back and reading through it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, mostly because I seem to actually have a vision for the style I was trying to develop at the time, and I more or less still like that style. It’s definitely me writing, and some of the decisions I made are very clearly made from a place of total defiance to all of the external pressures and expectations of what short fiction should be like.

Is my short fiction that much different from other short fiction? I’m not really sure, but I know that I never knew where exactly it fit. I tried, at the outset at least, to fit in with all the literary journals and styles that a young writer is supposed to. In college I took a course from Ehud Havazelet and learned two things — I still had a lot of work to do before I had control of my writing (very true) and that the writing I enjoyed did not fit in with the writing all my other classmates seemed to enjoy writing (even more true).

At the same time, I would read short Cthulhu Mythos fiction and not really care about that either. Most of it seemed so derivative and poorly written that I just had no interest in trying to be a part of that movement either. I think my story Independent Coordination, as my one attempt to write in the horror genre, shows me wanting to do something drastically different.

And I think that’s really the crux. I’ve wanted to “be a writer” since I was ten, but that was ultimately because I my head is filled with all these goddamned stories that I really have no other option. I’ve tried to keep them at bay, or even just walk away from them, but my sanity won’t let me. There is just too much to write about, too much to get onto paper.

So looking back on stories I wrote 15 years ago isn’t so bad. Yes, they need editing and I made a specific choice not to touch them in any way before posting them here. But they also show me defiant and confused and just working really hard to figure out how to get the images in my head down on paper. And that’s a pretty good way for a writer to spend his 20s.

I hope you like them.

Do you have any art you created earlier in your life that you still like?

D&D Comes Full Circle

Sometime in the winter of 1980-81, I played Dungeons and Dragons for the first time. I was in fourth grade and Ronald Reagan had just been elected to president. My friend Greg has an older brother who had started playing this crazy fantasy game, and we sat down and tried to figure out what all the Roman numerals meant in the adventure scenario as we fought monsters and collected treasure. It was so easy back then to just jump in and game — you had your character, some basic stats, a couple pieces of equipment, and you just played. Yes, there were a couple charts, but overall it was just easy and fun and you could really play with just the game book, some pencils, paper, dice, and, of course, your friends.

I was hooked for life.

My parents bought me the red dragon boxed set (the one with chits instead of dice – lame), and over the next few years I began collecting RPGs: first the AD&D books and modules, then other games (including Star Frontiers and Marvel Super Heroes), and I even wrote my first RPG: TimeLords. For these first ten years or so (including heading off to college), I played D&D off and on. I ran a short campaign in college, played the Warhammer RPG briefly there as well, and even ran a 2ed AD&D game for kids when I worked as a summer camp counselor in the early 90s.

Eventually, though, I just stopped caring about D&D. I would play it every couple of years at a convention (usually with 1st ed stalwarts), but other RPGs and genres became far more interesting. Superheroes, science fiction and of course the Cthulhu mythos all became much more intriguing worlds to game in — at some point I even hacked together a time travel campaign for GURPS using multiple sourcebooks, which I would never try these days. (Using GURPS, that is; clearly I still have a thing for time travel games.)

The last game of D&D I played was around four years ago when our high school gaming group reunited to play 4th edition. My entire experience with that trainwreck of a game system can be summed up with me attempting to read the flavor text from the spell card and being told in no uncertain terms from my fellow gamers to “shut the fuck up and just tell us what you’re doing.” The complexities and time it takes to move through 4th ed combat inspired, it seems, impatience with the actual role-playing part of the game.

So it was with slight trepidation when, 2.5 years ago (has it really been that long?) my gaming group at the time playtested D&D 5th edition (which was called D&D Prime at the time, I believe). Sure, of course I’ll play, nothing to lose here. We played through B1, the original scenario, and I sat down at the table to be handed a dwarven cleric and a beer.

I was immediately overwhelmed by how simple the game had become. It was like I had been transported 30 years into the past and suddenly I could just play. It’s like the game had circled back around and found me at 9 years old, except that now I have much higher standards to what constitutes a good and fun role-playing game. And yet, this game was good. This game was fun.

Flash forward to just a couple weeks ago and my 9 year old daughter was harassing me to play D&D. Last summer, when she had seen this video on girls playing D&D with boys, she shouted “I want to play D&D!” Since then, every couple of months she had asked to play, and I had continually put her off. Finally, realizing that a) WotC has posted the D&D rules online for free, and b) what the hell was I waiting for?, I got us playing D&D for the first time just two weeks ago.

The results could not be more amazing. Fifth edition is so easy to learn and run that I really have to give it up for WotC, who has done an amazing job at fully rebooting the game. Firstly, giving away a streamlined version of the rules online for free shows they understand how to market games and interact with their customers in the 21st century. Basically, anyone who wants to play D&D just needs the requisite pencil, paper, dice and friends (plus the free rules) to get started. This is a gateway game, folks, and they’re treating it that way.

Second, the rules have *finally* been streamlined to remove so much of the chart-referring, page number memorizing days of old that you sense a full understanding of how RPGs have changed in the last decade. All high rolls are good, all low rolls are bad (not the case with 1st-4th eds); a monster’s armor class is the number you need to roll higher than to hit them (goodbye THAC0!) — these are a couple examples of how much easier the game is to play.

And finally, and perhaps most importantly, the game has really made it easy for the old-school gamers (like myself), to feel right at home with a game world that can be fleshed out as you play. For starters, during character generation, the game helps build out PC backgrounds that not only provide context and history in categories such as Ideals and Flaws, but also tacks on game-world applications to these: character bonuses, special equipment and world-building opportunities (which guild do you belong to?) all help create verisimilitude out of the gate. But the game is also incredibly fun once you get into it. The ease of gameplay lets both players and DM focus on doing cool stuff and not having to refer back to the gamebook all the time.

This is incredibly important for first timers like my 9 year old, (and eventually her friends) who has never played RPGs before. If we tried to play 4th edition or some other new RPG that is more complex or awkward than it needs to be (Star Wars: Edge of the Empire, I’m looking at you), her first interaction with RPGs would just result in confusion and frustration. But with such an easy method for creating fleshed-out characters, with a fun and easy to understand game system, and with some excitement and passion for having a good time, my daughter was hooked.

Just like I was 33 years ago.

It seems far easier for a company with intellectual property, especially something as iconic and old as D&D, to lose sight of what originally made that IP special (*cough* George Lucas *cough*). Greed, ego and laziness can all get in the way of doing the hard work it takes to continually keep the IP fresh and evolving. This is what happened with 4th edition — changing the game system to hook in the “video game kids” is a good concept on paper (and I’m sure was a great pitch to the executives), but it lost sight of what the game really was about. Instead of making the game an easy way for kids to enter a world of fantasy role-playing, they made it about leveling-up your powers and reading really small text from cards.

With this new edition, though, they finally got it right. You should check it out.

Thanks to my Kickstarter Backers!

As part of my Kickstarter project for He Who Laughs Last, I promised to put a list online of all my backers, which you can now find here.

Nearly a year later, I still look back in amazement at my 385 backers who took a leap of faith in me and my project. Yes, I knew a few of them personally, but most I didn’t know and had not even encountered in the greater online community. Furthermore, I had folks like Shane Ivey and Kevin Kulp, as well as the amazing Oscar Rios, share my project with their own backers, which was a huge boon to our project. All of this help came during the project from people I’ve never met in person.

But that’s what the RPG community is about — we’re all geeks of varying degrees, and our support for everyone here cannot be overstated.

I think that, ultimately, the community is why my project (and others like it) was so successful. I’ve received amazing amounts of support and feedback (both good and bad) for this project, both on Kickstarter and when I’ve run the game at conventions. It makes such a difference to know that people enjoy the game and book, and that they look forward to more work from me and my team.

My next Kickstarter project is already being planned and I hope it is even crazier than the last. I look forward to working with my team again, and interacting with my backers. Thanks to you all.

Delta Green Conversion Notes for He Who Laughs Last

MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR HE WHO LAUGHS LAST FOLLOW

REALLY, YOU SHOULDN’T

 

 

The following are notes on converting HWLL to the Delta Green RPG setting…

As a contemporary horror story, He Who Laughs Last can easily be integrated into Delta Green, Pagan Publishing’s modern day RPG setting of conspiracy and terror. The scenario needs very little to be inserted into any DG game, but there are two key components that require discussion: the scenario introduction and the use of a green box to distribute clues.

For the scenario introduction, there are a few different ways to bring a group of Delta Green investigators into the story:

  • The most straightforward option is to transform Becca’s father, Dale Kingsley, into a DG friendly who reaches out to the party for help, knowing they are capable in these sorts of investigations. Dale can be a doctor/surgeon who has helped DG in the past but now has nowhere else to turn. A simple phone call from Dale outlines the problem – his daughter has died mysteriously and he is desperate for their help. Or this call could come through “proper channels” to have the PCs reach out to Dale, again, as a DG friendly who is in trouble.
  • Perhaps Dale is a friend of one of the agents. Dale contacts his PC friend (they were college roommates or served together in the same branch of military), distraught and overcome with despair. This is just a slight change from the above suggestion – Dale still reaches out to the PCs, panicked and desperate for help.
  • Another option is to have one or more of the PCs be friends with Becca (through family or work) who are directly impacted by her “suicide.” Becca is in her mid-20s, and if any of the party is generally her age, they could have been friends with her either during or after college. Pulling the party together for this might seem like a challenge (to find a justification for all the agents to travel to LA for a funeral of someone they don’t know), but given the size and scale of the larger LA area, it shouldn’t be too hard to justify a handful of agents taking a vacation for a week to help their friend.
  • One last option would is to have Cell A (or whatever infrastructure your campaign uses) assign the DG agents directly to investigate the mystery.  Just Becca’s suicide alone could be enough to get the party involved, or the investigation could be bootstrapped by having a DG friendly point out some of the irregularities coming out of the coroner’s office.

With the introduction covered, there are still a couple of considerations to make this scenario work smoothly in the DG universe. First is that the PCs probably won’t be from the LA area and so won’t have the Hollywood connections that make it a bit easier to navigate the story (as mentioned in The Industry, pg. 12). They can, of course, play up their law enforcement credentials, or just play it straight as they try to uncover the mystery. The PCs will just have to be a bit more thoughtful and creative as they work to make connections with the various NPCs.

Finally, one easy way to get the PCs the information from David Lee (Package from the Coroner, pg. 29) is to provide it in a green box. While there is no specific need to deviate from the narrative, if the PCs ask about a green box or the party doesn’t end up meeting with Lee, send the PCs a key from a small green box located in a Burbank industrial park. You are free to put any additional information there for the PCs, but otherwise you can just substitute the green box for the the package from Lee as the mechanism to deliver the clues. Instead of receiving the package at the front desk, inside the green box they find a number of boxes, smelly and old from the 60s, 70s, and 80s, stacked in the corner, ready to divulge their secrets.

Those are all the elements that should be necessary to convert HWLL to a Delta Green scenario. Please let me know if you have any further questions on this, and I would love to hear if you successfully convert it to DG.

You can buy the scenario at DTRPG.com here.