New Year's Activities

This is the lovely time of year I can be heard uttering phrases such as: "Oh great, we're celebrating the calendar again" or "Another year closer to death." I find the New Year's celebration to be absolutely stupid. Like people need yet another day/reason to take off work and drink themselves into a stupor. I mean, if we're going to shut down the everything for a day, can't we do it sometime in August when there aren't other holidays around it?

Normally I stay home on this evening but tonight we're having an all-night Spycraft session. I guess spending the "holiday" gaming would be a good tradition to get into. :)

However you spend the next 24 hours, enjoy yourself.

Shatter

BtS: Shatter is up at RPGNow here: http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=6138

I really like the way this edition turned out. The crunch is fun and the backstory doesn't include a standard humanoid race as the creator. In other blog news (see links to right), Axel and Scot are having computer woes and Brad has posted the first of his weekly NPCs: an elven supremacist assassin! My blog doesn't feel so lonely now. :)

Next!

I knocked out BtS: Shatter over the last 24 hours and have handed it in to Phil. He also mentioned starting a subscription for the series that will start Jan 2006 and likely cost $10 for 13 issues. Pretty cool! Now, I am moving on to really try and get a good chuck of Invasion: Freeport completed. Daniel has given me an update for A Matter of Faith: still in layout and should be out for sale by Feb. 1.

Now Look What I've Done

Hot on the heels of Brad's blog is another person from my roleplaying group: my brother Scot. Studying Information Systems at Drexel University, Scot has been an integral member of the group ever since I let him play D&D. His dedication to roleplaying tells me know that I'll never be able to retire from this game as long as he's around to play. :) Here's his new home on the web: http://zoomquick.blogspot.com/

Wish

Now up for sale is Behind the Spells: Wish & Limited Wish: http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=6124

Apologies for the delay but you're bound to have this around the holidays. I'm working on this week's issue now--BtS: Shatter. With any luck, I'll have it done and off to Phil by day's end.

Merry Christmas!

Today is the day so everyone have a safe and happy holiday. For presents, I snagged $750 (between family and work bonus), a gift card for my favorite gas/snack place, and the coveted Atari Flashback 2. Not a lot of items but definitely all good. So what did everyone else get?

Today will be Christmas dinner of prime rib and shrimp, tomorrow a shortened 3-hour work day and then my normal day off. Ah, life is good. In the meantime I'll have to decide which spell to do next for the series and tinker a bit with Invasion: Freeport.

It is Finished!

After a few days of intense thought and work, Behind the Spells: Expanded "Wish" Edition is now complete and sent off to Phil Reed. Is it the best yet in the series? I don't know. One thing's for sure, there's only so much tinkering you can do with a project before it all starts to look wrong. I figured it was time to hand it in before I really screwed it up. ;) I do think the pdf answers the "whys" in regards to the limits wish has imposed on it. And it was rather difficult coming up with a reason for anyone to create limited wish. I hope some purchasers agree with my thoughts.

Chilled Monkey Brains

No, this isn't a review of Temple of Doom (although I can give you one if you'd like). It is, in fact, a link to the new blog on the street: http://badmojo74.blogspot.com/

These are the thoughts of my best friend Brad who I've known since....well, I'd have to say birth. :) Twice as witty as I and with dynamite character-making prowess, Brad's first entry indicates he'll be offering characters once a week for reader's use. Stop by and see if that tree yields any fruit.

And here's my BtS update: not done yet. However, I've started and am about halfway through. Wish is really tough to get a handle on but I think I've found a story which answers many questions. Find out soon.

Busy Busy

Our Christmas module get-together over the weekend went off without a hitch. The extraplanar tears in the Realms are being closed, the largest of which the PCs were asked to help guard. Oh, and then two githyanki assault forts sailed through the tear flanked by numerous red dragons! The PCs were able to fly up to the fort after slaying three dragons and penetrate the structure. They are on the hunt for a glowing illithid skull which controls the flight of the Astral fortress. Unfortunately, the adventure was running long and two players had to leave before we finished. We'll see what happens next time but the word "withdrawal" was used more than once by the PCs. In any case, a good time was had by all.

With that out of the way, it's time to concentrate on Behind the Spells: Expanded "Wish" Edition. It likely won't be ready until later in the week but hopefully will be worth the wait. Next week I might skip the series in favor of concentrating on the two adventures that require my attention. We'll see.

And I was asked yesterday to choose a cover artist for Temporality. Given three choices, I went with this artist (although all were quite excellent) as I thought he fit my expectations the best: http://emptyroomstudios.com/artist.php?artist_id=5

Another *sigh* Review

Well, it had to happen eventually. This just goes to show that you can't please everyone: http://www.rpgnow.com/product_reviews_info.php?products_id=5862&reviews_id=11281

I'm not sure what else people are looking for at a $1 cost. And not creative enough? I have to disagree (as do all the other reviews before it). But everyone's entitled to their opinions. Even this guy.

Module Prep

After last weekend's successful crossover module, I'm looking forward to the high-level companion this weekend. Stuffed full with githyanki and red dragons, this is one holiday gift the PCs may not want to open. ;) It will likely turn into a big dungeon crawl (albeit in a fortress) but that should still be fun. I've got some time yet to plan everything so we'll see how it turns out.

In RPG news, just released is Highmoon Media's "No Other Gods" adventure for Green Ronin's Testament setting. With this adventure out, I'm hoping that my own GR/Mythic Vistas adventure "A Matter of Faith" is up next for release by Highmoon. As always, I'll keep you up to date.

Blade Barrier

BtS: Blade Barrier is now available at the usual venues. Not only that, but series reviewer Kajamba Lion posted a review for it already! Check it out here: http://www.enworld.org/reviews.php?do=review&reviewid=2785092

New Reviews

While I finish up my work on BtS: Blade Barrier, here's the link to a couple more 5-star reviews over at ENWorld: http://www.enworld.org/reviews.php

One is the very first review of Dancing Lights and the other is Jeremy Reaban's review (slightly altered) from rpg.net--both 5 stars!

Spontaneous Pregnancy

I keep forgetting to post this little factoid. Last week my sister told me that her friend went to the doctor. I don't remember why she was there in the first place, but I guess after a scan of some kind, they discovered (yes, the girl as well) that she was 8 months pregnant!!! The girl is heavy-set to begin with but to not know that you've been lugging around an extra body just floors me. So she had to call her mom because they wanted to deliver the baby ASAP. What was that call like?
"Uh, mom, can you meet me at the hospital?"
"Oh my God, what's wrong?"
"Uh, I'm pregnant."
"What?"
"And, uh, I'll be delivering the baby shortly."
"What?!"

In other news, I've added a new link over at the side (which for some reason appears on my screen at the side's bottom!) called Wanderman's Realm. This is K. Axel Carlsson's ramblings, a newbie freelancer to the d20 arena. At least I think he's new (correct me if I'm wrong!). Axel is a frequent commenter on this blog and wrote the follow-up to my undead book for Adamant: The Dread Codex. Watch for his stuff!

Good Weekend

It was pretty busy at first, but my weekend turned out to be a good one. We had the drug store's annual Christmas dinner and gift exchange. Turned out my sister had my name for our "secret santa" gift exchange and she nabbed me a sweet Matt Stawicki artwork shirt.

Today was the first of a campaign crossover event. The low-level planar campaign PCs dealt with an aftereffect of the meteor strike from the epic FR finale (which I've mentioned previously). Next week, the high-level PCs from the finale are back to pick up the pieces and stop yet another threat to the Realms since their actions caused it. Tears in the planar envelope of Faerun itself are forming and next week the phenomena must be stopped at their source!

And what would a blog entry be without a Behind the Spells review? ;) This one for dancing lights: http://www.enworld.org/reviews.php?do=review&reviewid=2780041

Dancing Lights

Now up for sale is BtS: Dancing Lights. I didn't think I could find much to say about this spell at first but it probably turned out to be the longest word count yet. Let me know if your PCs try out the Dancing Lights Game.

Free Sunday

As much as I like participating in some RPG or other on Sundays, it's nice to have a day totally free--no work, no nothing--once in a while. It's true that I'll likely gather together my thoughts on Behind the Spells: Dancing Lights (yeah, a bit different than what I thought I'd be doing) but it's not something that has to be done today. Here in eastern PA, we received an inch or two or wet snow. Coffee is brewing, the 80s are flowing from my iTunes and life is good.

It's these days inside, with unsavory elements outside, that I feel like curling up with one of the many many books (RPG and otherwise) I've never touched. Why is it that I'm always new stuff when I've got half a library that is untouched? Must be an 80s mentality. And speaking of the 80s, how about the new ATARI Flashback 2.0: http://www.classicgaming.com/features/articles/flashback2/

I tell you, if I don't get this for Christmas, then I'll be buying it myself soon after! Let the old times roll!

Also, I've removed my Most Recent Work link on the side here and simply dropped in a Behind the Spells link to magic missile. From there, I'm sure folk can navigate themselves to the other releases in the series. As non-BtS releases appear, I'll mention them and provide links in the main log entries. But for the moment, BtS is getting my primary focus. Thanks to everyone for your support!

Review Quartet

Someone at RPGNow has reveiwed all four of the Behind the Spells now available. You can click my Most Recent Work link or use this link to access the most recent reviews on that site: http://www.rpgnow.com/reviews.php?

How About Another Review?

First review is up for BtS: Animate Dead: http://www.enworld.org/reviews.php?do=review&reviewid=2761190

BtS: Magic Missile review

The review by Jeremy which I mentioned a few days ago is now up at rpg.net: http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/11/11783.phtml

Adventure Writing for the Masses

Since I started DMing full time back in the early 1990's, I've written over 130 adventures for my home group. Each is crafted lovingly from scratch, written out long hand using the same mechanical pencil I used in high school. Do I shortcut sometimes? Sure, especially in the stat-happy 3rd edition I've been forced to use NPCs and especially maps (I hate making maps) from published products. And why not? That's why they're there. From brainstorming to the finished product, I take about a week to fashion a module for my group (yeah, OK, sometimes I don't get quite finished writing it). What I'm getting at is that I have a system for my modules--and it works.

Now, when you're writing for adventures for people you don't know, it's a whole different ballgame. Instead of a tight week of work, I take approximately a month. "Why," you ask? I think it has to do with needing to tweak my work to the widest possible audience. There's also a healthy helping of second guessing myself. I know what my group would likely do in a given situation but I have no clue how other groups will react. I find myself listing the options but, in the end, you can't guess every possible scenario for a given situation.

For example, in brainstorming for Invasion: Freeport, I'm looking to make one area extremely spooky. How do you write that for the masses? What's scary for some isn't or others. If I write something really disgusting, I risk alienating people from buying future stuff I write (assuming they check authors before they buy). So instead of pegging down an exact description, I'm leaning towards giving examples of what the DM can do in his gaming environment (lights, smells, sounds, props) to make the section more creepy. There will be gross-out "read aloud" text to be sure, but perhaps it's what you're not read that matters most. RPGs, after all, are exercises in imagination.

I guess my advice for today's blog is that if you do find yourself writing adventures for publication...don't sweat it. Write whatever comes naturally, drawing from your own game experiences. In the end, a group will make the module it's own anyway.