Uncategorized – Page 843 – The Designer Monologues

October 8, 2003

Things Piratical

The folks over at No Quarter Given, the Golden Age of Piracy enthusiast and re-enactor magazine, have opened up an online forum for things piratical, The Pyracy Pub. Discussions abound of films, literature, history, games and pirate-themed living history events and such. If you’re a buccaneer at heart, go on in and check out the Pub. I’ll be the one seated by the fire, bellowing for more rum while pounding the table with my cutlass.

Oh…and for the musically-minded pirate, here’s a link to The Jolly Rogers, a fine group of lads (one of whom I went to high school with) who sing shanties and such at various festivals in the midwestern US. The site has full mp3s of some of their songs, so check them out (and, if I can make a recommendation, PIRATE’S GOLD, a CD which collects the best of their old recordings, is an excellent purchase).

Anyway–that’s it for today. I’m working on stuff for BUCCANEERS & BOKOR, so my mind is filled with salt spray and cannon-fire.

Yarr, etc.,

GMS

October 6, 2003

Work Update

It used to be that I was worried that I talked about work too much on this thing, and not enough of about my life. However, today I noticed that I haven’t talked about work in a while, so here’s an update on what’s going on in full-time-freelancer-land:

I got my comp copies of Skull & Bones from Green Ronin. After a journey of more than two years, the book is out, and it is SUH-WEET. I’m really proud of this one. The GR folks did a bang-up job on production–the book looks wonderful. Reviews have started to drift in as well (read a couple of them here and here), and are all excellent so far.

Three linked adventures for Non-Disclosure-Agreement-covered Licensed Product are proceeding. Things have been moved around a bit, and my stuff is due in to the Line Developer by the 20th of October. Once the product announcements have been made, I’ll spill what these are.

A couple of big assignments for White Wolf are coming along nicely as well, but again, I can’t spill details due to NDAs. Suffice to say that I’m really excited about both of them, and look forward to the possibility of more work in the future. Deadlines on those right now are floating around November and February, and I’m actually a bit ahead of the curve right now.

Design work on APOLLYON NOIR, the Napoleonic dark-fantasy alt history game for Thyrsus Games, is going on in earnest now. Jason Roberts and I have brought on another designer, and his work is absolutely brilliant. The rules end of things are starting to come together, and looking like this is going to be a great game…and we’ve been in talks with a Napoleonic history journal for the use of some of their materials (articles, cartography and artwork), so this game will be as packed with historical material as we can possibly make it. Right now, it’s looking like AN will be a June 2004 release.

In Adamant news, I’ve had to push the release of the FVLMINATA D20 back to the 15th of October–I’m having it gone over checking for 3.5 compatability and compliance with the latest versions of the licenses, and it’s taking a bit longer than anticipated.

Design work on Heroes of the New Wave took a break for a bit, but my latest installment of the design column will be back up this Wednesday. Not sure where this is going, but the journey is at least interesting….

Lastly, we come back full-circle to SKULL & BONES, as I’m currently putting together both a free adventure for the Green Ronin website and the first issue of Adamant’s bi-monthly support e-zine, BUCCANEERS AND BOKOR. Yarr! Avast! Etc. The adventure will be going off to GR this week, and they’ll decide when it goes online. The first issue of B&B will be released through RPG Now around Halloween.

So that’s the work situation right now. It looks like a lot, but it isn’t really–the deadlines are spread out between here and February, so I’m actually still actively farming for more freelance work, as well as still plugging away at the novel.

Back to work,

GMS

October 2, 2003

Off Again, On Again

Yeah, I’m back. Sorry that I scared some of you. I very much appreciated the emails that you sent.

The past week or so was productive, which was my main goal, and also in the process I learned that there are other, much nicer places to spend my time online.

I don’t think I’ll be going back to RPGnet. As the Administrator told me, my image over there is fairly firmly imbedded in the group psyche as the “default villain” of the place, and it’s pretty obvious that no amount of changed behavior on my part will make a dent in that. He told me that he felt that sucked, but that he really didn’t know any way to get around it. He felt that even his moderators act based on that image, which pretty much guarantees that I’m never going to get a fair shake.

Basically, I just have to deal with the fact that my presence there will mean that I will have do a lot of what Warren Ellis once called “retard farming.” I don’t have the energy for that, so fuck it. That’s the way that 8 years of participation and contribution come to an end….with a shrug.

So…since going on my week-long break, it was announced by the BBC that Doctor Who is coming back to television, which makes me giddy with a combination of nostalgia and happiness. A nice bit of synchronicity, given, as I stated below, Fall always turns my mind towards Who.

I’ll wrap this up with a bit of blog-meme that I’m swiping from Elissa Carey:

Here are the rules. She had a list of authors. I removed any that weren’t on my shelves, and added authors that were until I had a list of ten again. You do the same, and post both lists.

Her list:

Neal Stephenson

Iain M. Banks

J.R.R. Tolkien

Robert A. Heinlein

H.P. Lovecraft

Tad Williams

Neil Gaiman

William Gibson

Mary Stewart

Stephen King

My List

Bernard Cornwell

Edgar Rice Burroughs

J.R.R. Tolkien

C.S. Forester

H.P. Lovecraft

Michael Moorcock

Neil Gaiman

Dudley Pope

Robert E. Howard

Stephen King