Six Questions: Jeff LaSala

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I know a lot of interesting people. Some I’ve worked with, some I’ve met while traveling the world, some just owe me money. My name may be on the website, but it seems kind of boring if I’m the only person whose voice is heard here. So I’m bringing some of my friends to the site, as time permits. I’m not a podcasty kind of guy, so I’m just keeping things simple: one guest, six questions.

My guest this week is JEFF LASALA. Eberron fans may know Jeff from his many DDI articles or his novel The Darkwood Mask. Others may know him from short fiction or his work with Goodman Games. Over the years I’ve gotten to know Jeff while discussing his Eberron projects, and back in 2011 he invited me to be a part of a intriguing project he was putting together… a cyberpunk anthology called Foreshadows: Ghosts of Zero. Foreshadows brought together writers, authors, and musicians; each writer chose a track of music that had been created for the anthology and wrote a story inspired by it. Other contributors include Ed Greenwood, Ari Marmell, and former Questioneer Don Bassingthwaite. But why don’t I let Jeff speak for himself?  

Foreshadows: The Ghosts of Zero is a cyberpunk anthology which brings music, art, and fiction together to create a sense of a world. What inspired you to create Foreshadows?

The sheer desire to combine music and the written word—something my brother (a musician) and I (a writer) have talked about for ages. It had always seemed to us that it was something people should do. Why weren’t they doing it? Hey, we should do it! Like adding the Z-axis plane to X and Y, a third dimension of awesomeness manifests when you combine the right sort of media. How different would movies be if they had no music? Or vocals at all? For Foreshadows, we went and combined music, fiction, and illustration. Win-win-win.

Where did “The Ghosts of Zero” come from?

The answer is more or less in the prologue of the book, which is in itself odd. Anthologies don’t generally have a prologue, since they’re a bunch of stand-alone stories. But ours sets the stage for the shared setting: a cyberpunkish, dystopian near future. In the lexicon of the Foreshadows future, zero often means death, defeat, or neutralization. And as for ghosts, well, you’d have to read the prologue to find out!

It’s also a subtitle to uniquely identify this anthology. Should there come a sequel, we can keep the Foreshadows main title.

What brands The Darkwood Mask as an Eberron tale? How would it be different if you placed it in the Forgotten Realms? 

Karrnath, absolutely. It’s a unique culture that feels vaguely familiar—militant, cold, grim, proud—but has some dark elements no one in real life can actually relate to. In Karrnath, if you’re a patriot and you “support the troops” and love your country, it means you’ll let your sons and daughters march off to war, where they might die and become property of the government. They just might be reanimated to bolster the crown’s skeleton and zombie armies; if they’re truly exceptional soldiers, the Ministry of the Dead might make their remains into one of Karrnath’s elite undead. It’s a nation that survived famine and near annihilation during the Last War and now enjoys a fearsome reputation because its king made some tough choices and some dire sacrifices. The Darkwood Mask is an Eberron tale because Karrnath is an Eberron fixture and that’s where both the protagonist and the book’s plot spring from.

In the Forgotten Realms? Tough one. It wouldn’t be the same. There’s cold war, espionage, and a delicate diplomatic climate in The Darkwood Mask that makes the story work. It would feel quite different, but I could see transplanting the character of Tallis (a MacGuyveresque ex-soldier) into a puppet state controlled by the Zhentarim. Soneste (the psionic-using inquisitive) would probably hail from Waterdeep; she’d be a wannabe noble socialite who possesses too much courage and skill to be be satisfied with that life. Maybe she’d become a Harper. And as for the villain of the story? He or she would probably aim to supplant Manshoon in the Zhentarim but not for the obvious reasons.

What’s the most difficult challenge you’ve faced as a gamemaster, and how have you dealt with it?

Meeting all player expectations. I’m a story guy, so the games I run are set up for—I like to think—interesting roleplaying dynamics, moral choices, and character opportunities. But I know not all players get into that so much. Some really just want dungeoncrawling and combat and will only tolerant a certain amount of talkie-talk from the story-based players. And this is just a simplification; there’s a whole spectrum of roleplayers and they’ve been the subject of numerous articles. I simply do my best to make my games diverse. You’ll get to slay monsters in my dungeons, but you’ll also end up in some situations where you’ll have to think hard about your alignment. Oh, and your character’s backstory will come up and be part of the long term campaign.

What’s your dump stat?

Strength, certainly. If you’re even half-decent in everything else, you’re in good shape for the snakes and arrows of life. When I make characters, Charisma usually takes the hit, but not because I play socially inept fighter types. Ironically, while I love deeply complex characters, they’re not usually big on talking—which, it should be noted, is not the same as not acting. I myself am not a natural orator, though, so it works out.

What’s next?

Some solo projects, I think. I’m exhausted with collaboration, even though I love it and will never stop doing it. Also, an eventual fantasy series with sci-fi and horror elements. That’s totally coming out of me in the—I hope—near future. And oh yeah, more DDI articles, as long as they keep letting me write them.

For more about Foreshadows, along with samples of the music, check out this post at SF Signal!

Six Questions: Matt Forbeck

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I know a lot of interesting people. Some I’ve worked with, some I’ve met while traveling the world, some just owe me money. My name may be on the website, but it seems kind of boring if I’m the only person whose voice is heard here. So I’m bringing some of my friends to the site, as time permits. I’m not a podcasty kind of guy, so I’m just keeping things simple: one guest, six questions.

Today my guest is MATT FORBECK. I turned to Matt for advice when I was just getting started out as a freelancer, and his words of wisdom helped me get to where I am today. You might know Matt from his work with TSR, Pinnacle, AEG, Wizards of the Coast, Green Ronin, Games Workshop, White Wolf, Human Head, Reaper Miniatures, or an appalling number of other companies. Prior to 2012, Matt had written over a dozen novels, including The Lost Mark trilogy of Eberron novels. In 2012 he decided to up the ante and get Kickstarter support to write twelve novels in the course of the year. But let me speak for himself…

Hi Matt! So… what’s your story?

Which one? I got lots of ’em.

Oh, you mean this crazy project I’m working on in which I’m writing a dozen novels this year? I call it 12 for ’12 (a dozen books in 2012, see?), and it’s a way for me to get a whole lot of self-published books out fast. I’m a fast writer, and I’ve been wanting to do this for a while, but I didn’t know how I could take the time out of my schedule of writing books for regular publishers to do it. Then Kickstarter came along.

Kickstarter’s a crowdfunding platform on which you can post an idea for a project and ask people to back it with pledges of cash. If you hit your minimum goal for the project, you’re off and running. I decided to break 12 for ’12 up into four trilogies to make it a bit more manageable, and I ran a Kickstarter drive for each of them. They all went way past their goals, and I’m writing the books now as fast as I can.

How do you top it in 2013? Or do you just keep going with 24 for 24?

I think I’m going to top it with something entirely different. In addition to writing novels, I also design tabletop games, create toys, work on video games, and write comics. After a year of mostly focusing on novels, I may just go back to mixing it all up again.

Or I’ll do 13 for ’13 and work my way up to 24 to ’24. That gives me a dozen years, right?

What was the inspiration for the different trilogies? Did you sit down and brainstorm them all at once, or does each one have its own history?

Each has their own history. Like most writers, I have more ideas than I can possibly tackle. I always find it funny when people ask me where I get my ideas? I wonder how come they don’t have them, or what did they do to make them stop?

Let me run through the trilogies in order.

Matt Forbeck’s Brave New World. I created a tabletop roleplaying game back in 1999 called Brave New World, which has been out of print for a while, although you can now get PDFs and even the core rulebook in print through DriveThruRPG.com. I hadn’t worked much in that world — a dystopian USA In which superheroes have been outlawed unless the works for the government — for years, with the exception of a script for a feature film that’s currently searching for funding. I wanted to get back to it and tell the stories it demanded.

Shotguns & Sorcery. This was originally a setting for the d20 RPG that I’d licensed to Mongoose Publishing back in 2001. My wife got pregnant with quadruplets in 2002, and that threw the plans for that out the window. I decided I want to return to it in novels and explore this fantasy noir setting in which the Dragon Emperor has set up a walled city that he protects from the hordes of zombies that scratch at its walls, all in exchange for his subjects’ fealty. It’s been a load of fun.

Dangerous Games. I made my living as a freelance game designer for many years, and I still go to Gen Con — the largest tabletop gaming convention in America — every August. As writers often do, I’d often wondered what would happen if things went horribly, terribly wrong there. That’s what Dangerous Games is: a trilogy of thrillers set at Gen Con, my favorite event of the year.

Monster Academy. I created the first YA series of novels for Dungeons & Dragons back in 2004 or so. As that wound down Wizards asked me to pitch them some ideas for new series. I came up with this one about a reform school for young monsters based in the center of a kingdom in which good has triumphed over evil. I decided to keep it for myself and pitch it around to other publishers, but I never got around to actually writing any of the books. Now I finally get to do that.

You’ve written in many, many shared universes. Which one was the greatest challenge for you?

The Guild Wars universe, I think. I had a wonderful time working on Guild Wars: Ghosts of Ascalon, but when I was writing it, the game wasn’t even close to finished. Things seemed to change on a daily basis. I’ve often said it wasn’t like trying to hit a moving target so much as an exploding target.

Fortunately, my pal Jeff Grubb was one of the main lore creators at ArenaNet, which develops the Guild Wars games. They brought him in as a co-author to help with the details I didn’t have a prayer of getting right, and it’s a much better book for all his efforts.

You’ve managed multiple successful Kickstarter campaigns. What challenges have you faced? Do you have any advice for people who want to dive into the Kickstarter pond?

The real trick is guessing how much you can line up in the way of pledges before you start. This helps define everything about the drive, from the kinds of rewards you can offer to your stretch goals to the length of the drive. It’s almost impossible to get exactly right, but some basic research and comparisons with other projects in the same category that are similar to yours can shed a lot of light.

As for advice, I have metric tons of it, and I get asked to share it all the time. I’m happy to do so, but I could hold forth about it for several chapters of a book. In fact, the final stretch goal for my last 12 for ’12 drive was to get me to write such a book about writing those books and running the Kickstarter, so look for that in 2013, after I’m done with the novels.

Finally, given the season… what are you thankful for?

I have a lot to be thankful for, not least of which is the fact I get to entertain people for a living, but in the end I always come back to my wife and kids. Ann and I struggled for years to have kids at all, and when they came, they were a bit more challenging than we could have expected — especially since four of them arrived at the same time as quadruplets.

Even in the hardest moments, though, I focused on the fact of how lucky we were to have them at all. While raising them has been the greatest challenge in my life, it’s also been by far the most rewarding and has given me a sense of purpose that nothing else ever has. I’m more thankful for that than I could ever express in words, so I spend a good part of my day trying to show them that instead.

Now look. I’ve gone and got something in my eye.

I’m Backing… Boss Monster

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It’s tough being the boss. The kobolds are on strike, the bottomless pit isn’t deep enough, and that bum King Croak just got a new princess in his dungeon… and you know those gallant knights can’t resist the ol’ princess in peril gag. Your stomach’s growling – how are you going to lure some tasty adventurers to your lair?
As a kid, I used to pump quarters into Ghosts’n Goblins. I slaughtered my way ever further into the dungeon, splattering minions in the quest to reach the next big boss. Boss Monster is a non-collectible card game that recaptures those eight-bit adventures… from the other side of the screen. As a boss monster, you need to build a dungeon that is dangerous enough to slay the most epic hero. But it won’t matter how deadly your dungeon is if you can’t lure heroes to your door… so you need to balance your firepower with the right combination of loot.

Boss Monster is a dungeon-building game. Every turn, a few heroes show up in town. You win the game by killing ten points worth of heroes; you lose if too many get through your defenses and wound you. Every hero can take a certain amount of damage and desires a certain type of loot; they will go to the dungeon of the player with the greatest amount of the loot they are looking for. So in the example above, the Thief wants gold (as shown in the upper right corner of the hero card); Gorgona’s dungeon has three bags of gold. She’s got a pair of holy relics for luring clerics. However, if fighters or wizards show up, she’s currently got nothing to offer. Meanwhile, her dungeon can inflict 5 points of damage… which means she doesn’t actually WANT that epic thief in the picture coming to visit, because she can’t kill it.

The basic action of the game is simple; each round, you have the opportunity to add a room to your dungeon. Heroes are drawn to the dungeon based on treasure, and then you see if those heroes can survive a dungeon and wound the boss or if they die in the process. The fun of the game comes in dungeon design. First there is the basic challenge of competing with your opponents to have a dungeon that can lure the heroes that are out there. But beyond that, there’s a lot of strategic options to room placement. Some rooms provide bonuses to adjacent rooms of a specific type; the Dizzygas Hallway bumps up the room that comes after it, if that room is a trap. Other rooms provide special benefits if a hero dies in that room. Setting up a effective dungeon the same fundamental thrill you get from putting together a killer combo in a deck-building game, but that combo is on the table and continues to evolve over time. In addition, spell cards and certain rooms (such as the Jackpot Stash in the image above) are one-shot resources that provide an instant effect, allowing additional strategic choices and twists in the action.

Boss Monster can be played by two to four players; it’s strongest with three or four, but works as a two player game. Once people know how to play, it’s reasonably fast; an average game takes about 20 minutes. The 8-bit art is entertaining and fits the theme. The wide range of options makes it very replayable, and it’s the sort of game where even when I lose, I just want to play again.

Boss Monster currently has a week left in its Kickstarter campaign. Backers at the $25 level get a host of extra cards and bonus goodies; at higher levels you can playtest future expansions and even get a copy of the playtest deck (which is what I’ve been using) right away. All I’ll say is that it’s quick, fun, and I’ve been playing it whenever I’ve been able to drum up opponents; I actually played a few rounds on Election Night, as we waited to see who would end up as our next boss monster. So check out the Kickstarter, and tell ’em Hellcow sent you!

 

 

Cthulhu Gloom: Unpleasant Dreams

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“The Silver Key” and “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath” are two of my favorite stories by H.P. Lovecraft. I love the bizarre fantasy of the Dreamlands, where an army of cats clashes with hungry zoogs and divine secrets are hidden on the distant face of Mount Ngranek. However, “The Dream-Quest” is a very different sort of story from “The Dunwich Horror” or “The Shadow Over Innsmouth.” When I designed Cthulhu Gloom I decided to focus on stories set in the waking world, in part for the benefit of people with less familiarity with the Mythos. It’s hard enough getting a handle on doom-shrouded Innsmouth, mi-go, and shoggoths without having to figure out what Celephais is supposed to be. But I always knew that I wanted to created an expansion devoted to the Dreamlands… and the result is Unpleasant Dreams, which hits shelves this week!

WHAT’S NEW?

Unpleasant Dreams is a 55-card expansion. It includes a new family of Dreamland natives, which includes a few familiar faces – such as your ghoul Friday, Richard Pickman – a few new characters, like Zoobee the Zoog (pictured above). It adds three new stories, which I’ll discuss in more detail later this week. New transformation modifiers give you the opportunity to Saddle a Shantak, to be Grabbed by (Night)Gaunts, and more… can you control your shantak, or will it carry you off to another family? While many of the cards relate to the Dreamlands, “Dreams in the Witch-House” also has a strong showing, and Herbert West finally has a chance to Cut Down on Classwork and Collect Corpses.

While Unpleasant Dreams doesn’t add any entirely new mechanics, there are a few twists on old cards. Typically, an Untimely Death provides you with additional negative points if you have the story icon that fits the death. In Unpleasant Dreams, many deaths provide special ongoing benefits if you can make the stories line up. Dying in bed is normally a bad thing… but if you have the Dream icon you may go on to become a king in the Dreamlands, and as a result your draw limit is increased by one. Unpleasant Dreams also brings in one of my favorite expansion rules: Guests.

GUEST STARS

The Gloom expansion Unwelcome Guests introduced a new type of card: the Guest. When Guests are used, one or two are placed in the center of the table at the start of the game. While they are alive, they move between families whenever certain conditions are met. As long as a guest is in front of you, it is considered a member of your family and you gain any benefits it may provide. Unpleasant Dreams includes two Guests: Brown Jenkin and Ephraim Waite.

Brown Jenkin appears in the story “Dreams in the Witch-House.” The one-time familiar of the eponymous witch, he is a murderous little creature that can be encountered both in dreams and reality. In Unpleasant Dreams he follows the new Dream icon; whenever someone has a dream, Brown Jenkin shows up to haunt them. He carries an additional power: while he is part of your family, you may play an Untimely Death on a character with the Magic icon as the second play of your turn. It’s dangerous to dabble in the dark arts when Brown Jenkin is around!

Ephraim Waite appears in “The Thing on the Doorstep.” A sorcerer with a talent for transferring his mind into other peoples’ bodies, he is difficult to kill. In Unpleasant Dreams he follows Deaths; meanwhile, he himself cannot be killed unless he has a Magic icon showing. Just when you think you’ve gotten away with a clean kill, you find Ephraim is still hanging around… and finishing him off will take some work!

While I’m discussing guests, I’d like to clarify one thing. The special powers of a Guest – including following deaths or dreams – are persistent effects. If a Transformation is placed on a Guest, it will override its previous persistent effects. So if Ephraim Waite Triumphs In Tenure, he’ll stop following deaths and can be killed even if he lacks Magic.

Later in the week I’ll discuss the new stories in Unpleasant Dreams. If you have additional questions about Unpleasant Dreams or Gloom in general, ask away!

Six Questions: C.A. Suleiman

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I know a lot of interesting people. Some I’ve worked with, some I’ve met while traveling the world, some just owe me money. My name may be on the website, but it seems kind of boring if I’m the only person whose voice is heard here. So I’m bringing some of my friends to the site, as time permits. I’m not a podcasty kind of guy, so I’m just keeping things simple: one guest, six questions.

My next guest is C.A. SULEIMAN. I had the privilege of working with him on the Eberron sourcebooks Dragonmarked and City of Stormreach, and he cowrote Faiths of Eberron with Ari Marmell. You may know C.A. from the many products he’s created for White Wolf, for his Egyptian Adventures: Hamunaptra setting, or perhaps you’ve heard his band, Toll Carom. But let me let the man speak for himself!

What’s your story?

I may not be that old, but I’d like to think my story can’t be told effectively in a couple hundred words. In the spirit of the question, though, I suppose my story is that I’m a musician, writer, and game designer who’s worked for most of the top companies in the RPG field. I’ve been a developer for White Wolf for over a decade, and I shepherded Dave Arneson’s Blackmoor property until his death in 2009.

You worked on City of Stormreach, Dragonmarked, and Faiths of Eberron. What’s your favorite thing that you’ve added to the Eberron canon?

I was lucky enough to get to work on a couple of the really seminal sourcebooks for Eberron, and I still feel a fond attachment to the setting and to its fresh vitality. My absolute favorite additions to Eberron never made it into the print canon, actually. One of the things I got to do was take the first crack at developing the Lords of Dust, and not just the cult, but its specific demonic overlords. Canon says there are almost 30 of the buggers, so it’s not like I got to articulate the entire pantheon, but I did create what I thought of as a ‘core group’ of about half a dozen of these rajas — the equivalent of the Lovecraftian big names (Cthulhu, Hastur, Nyarlathotep, etc.) — along with a detailed write-up of each one’s prakhutu (“speaker”) on Eberron. That whole chapter ended up getting cut from the book, and while I did get to sneak one of my rajas into a later book (City of Stormreach), the bulk of that material never saw the light of day. But I’m still most proud of it, I think, and I definitely had a blast coming up with it all. Of the work that ended up appearing in the books, I’d say my favorite stuff is probably my development of the Dark Six pantheon and the Blood of Vol religion. They say I’m good with the Bad Guys™, and I guess it’s true.

You’re the developer for White Wolf’s Mummy: The Curse. What can you tell us about it?

Yep, Mummy: The Curse is my World of Darkness baby. Like the other “relaunch” games (Requiem, Forsaken, et al), it’s a return to the Gothic form of the archetype. The starting point for the design philosophy is the classic mummy figure evoked in the tales of Bram Stoker and the exhibits of Howard Carter and his ilk. The characters’ context is wholly new and unique to my interpretation for the World of Darkness, but the game builds in plenty of opportunities to shamble, plot revenge, choke the life out of hapless tomb robbers, and all the other fun accoutrements we’ve come to associate with mummies.

Stephenie Meyer taught us that vampires sparkle and werewolves never wear shirts. What do you think she’d do with mummies?
What do I think Mrs. Meyer would do to mummies if she got a hold of them? Probably the same thing she did to the vampire and werewolf archetypes: “Borrow” the name of the archetype, and then not just promptly ignore everything that makes the archetype what it is, but to actually design a being that embodies the exact opposite themes. I’d have no problem with the supernatural creatures with which Meyer has populated her world; I simply object to them being called “vampires” and “werewolves,” when it’s pretty clear that they’re not. It’s one thing to offer a new twist or spin on a classic archetype; that’s a time-honored tradition. It’s another thing to effectively redefine an archetype as its own polar opposite.

How do you afford your rock and roll lifestyle? Tell us about Toll Carom.

Toll Carom is my band, though I gave up long ago trying to find a sub-genre/category/niche/thing into which we can feat neatly. Some folks call us alternative rock, and that’s as good a descriptor as any. I grew up an American kid who loved his rock n’ roll, but who was also steeped in the traditional music of his cultural heritage (Palestinian). So, most of my songs incorporate elements of both, with guitars, drums, and English lyrics, but also with traditional folk instruments, like doumbeks and ouds. Our last album, Night in the Sun, received positive notices in places like The Washington Post and Relix magazine, and we think the concept album we’re recording now is going to blow Night out of the water.  Folks can find us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/tollcarom

What’s next?

These days, I’m excited mostly about my music, my World of Darkness line (the core set for which should be out any day now), and my novels, the latest of which I’m finishing up as we speak. The new Toll Carom album, The Word, should be out early next year, and our intent is to jump right back into the studio to record its follow-up after the usual round of local support gigs. (My muse is persistently vocal, so I’ve gotten way ahead of myself when it comes to songwriting over the last couple years.)

I’m also excited to be part of the new era in White Wolf publishing, with the launch of Onyx Path Publishing (http://theonyxpath.com/). Moving forward, fans will get to see all kinds of goodies from OPP, with an aggressive publishing schedule over the next year and change, including not just Mummy, but Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition and the return of the much-loved Trinity Universe.

 

Dragonmarks 11/1: Sports, Holidays, and More!

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Time for more Eberron questions!

Are there any Khorvairian analogs to real world holidays or festivals, say if we wanted a Christmas themed game?

It depends what you mean by “direct” analogs. There’s no Santa Claus or Easter Bunny in canon Eberron. With that said, there are some holidays that could be used to give a game a similar favor. A few examples:

  • Wildnight (18-19 Sypheros). The festival of the Fury, a time when passions run high and people cast aside inhibitions. Blend Mardi Gras with a divinely inspired bacchanal and you’re on the right track.
  • Long Shadows (26-28 Vult). Three nights when the Shadow reigns supreme. Most stay indoors by the fire, but it is a time for minions of darkness to take to the streets and celebrate. If you want a Halloweenish tradition, you could say that some people choose to dress as monsters to frighten their friends… though that’s a dangerous game on a night when true monsters are abroad.
  • Boldrei’s Feast (9 Rhaan). A time for a community to come together and strengthen its ties. Certainly a time in which people give thanks, if you take my meaning. Also a traditional day for elections and government appointments.
  • The Ascension (1 Sypheros). The most important celebration in the calendar of the Church of the Silver Flame, the Ascension commemorates Tira’s sacrifice and transformation into the Voice of the Flame.

All of these are described on pages 30-32 of Sharn: City of Towers, along with ten other holidays and festivals.

We rarely hear of “sports” in fantasy. Are bloodless sports a big Eberron thing? Breland Monarchs vs Karrnath Bats” style?  

Funny you should ask, as some sports are covered on pages 32-33 of Sharn. The sport that’s received the most coverage is The Race of Eight Winds, an annual aerial race that involves eight different species of flying creatures. Combat is allowed in the Race, so it’s not entirely bloodless. However, combat isn’t the focus, and many riders will do their best to avoid it; it’s simply the case that if you’re the Griffon, you’ve got a better chance of beating the Pegasus by literally beating the pegasus than you do outflying it. There are certainly bloodless races – pegasus versus pegasus, for example – as well; the Ro8W is simply the biggest sporting event of the year.

As for team events, the only one that’s been mentioned by name is hrazhak (Sharn, page 32), a team sport with its roots among the Eldeen shifters. Again, this is a full-contact sport, but the goal of the game isn’t the elimination of the opposition and only natural weapons are allowed; it’s a rough game, but I wouldn’t define it as a bloodsport. Because of the nature of the game, human players will be at a disadvantage; however, it could still be something that could gain popularity and become a national sport.

There could easily be other organized sports, but none have been mentioned in canon that I’m aware of.

I was wondering, can a half-elf born of elf and human in Eberron develop either half-elf dragonmark, if any at all?

Well, anyone can develop any Dragonmark, if the Prophecy turns that way. However, per canon and tradition, the only way to manifest a dragonmark is if the person with the mark is part of a bloodline that already carries the mark. So the question here is whether the union of a human and half-elf has the potential to produce a human child, or if all the children will be Khoravar. If a human-Khoravar union can produce a human child, then this simply means that the human parent of your half-elf character has a connection to the house in question somewhere down the line.

Note that if a half-elf/human union can produce a human child, this wouldn’t allow a human to develop the mark of Storm, any more than a Tharashk orc can develop the mark of Finding; it’s just latent in his bloodline.

Also, do half-drow have a place in Eberron?

Sure. In my novel The Shattered Land, the protagonists employ a half-drow guide named Gerrion in Stormreach. It’s simply the case that because there is so little interaction between drow and other species there aren’t very many half-drow, and thus they aren’t a cultural force the way the Khoravar are.

Keith, I’ve been enjoying your take on 4e Eberron (which I’m calling Eberron 4.K) but I’m trying to deal with the cost of rituals. Magewrights can learn one or two rituals but how do they handle component costs? I’ve been thinking of the lamplighters, walking around Sharn with Continual Light rituals and re-casting every 24 hours but the ritual is 20 gold or a healing surge. Adventurers can pay that but that’s something like the annual income of the average laborer to power one lamp.

That’s a case of the ritual being poorly designed for Eberron. You’re right; there’s no way people are paying 20 gp/day to keep a streetlight going. I think the answer lies in the streetlamp itself. The ritual allows you to place a continual light on ANYTHING. I can make my boot glow… but it only lasts for an hour. Now think of it as oil. I can pour oil on my boot and set it on fire, and it will provide light for a little while until it burns up the boot. However, if I use that same amount of oil in an oil lantern, it’s going to last far longer, because it’s a tool designed for that purpose.

So, in the case of Continual Light, what I’d say is that the streetlights are designed with dragonshard “wicks” that hold and channel the power of the ritual for an extended period of time. You pay the base cost to start it up the first time; from that point forward, you have a mini-version of the ritual that simply uses a pinch of residuum to keep it going. So the typical lamplighter is going around recharging, but only spending a small amount – which would come from municipal taxes. The “recharge” ritual isn’t a full ritual in its own right, it’s something anyone who knows Continual Light can perform.

As for the general costs of rituals (like arcane lock), the Magewright would simply have to charge enough for her services to cover the cost of the components and generate a profit.

What if dragonmarks started popping in the real world?

I don’t think there’d be a vast immediate impact. Bear in mind that much of what gives the dragonmarks their power is the tools that are designed to focus and channel that power. On its own, the Least Mark of Making lets you cast Mending once per day. That’s handy to be sure, but it’s the ability to use things like the creation forges that makes the mark a true force to be reckoned with. The marks have been around in Eberron for over a thousand years, but their influence has grown considerably over the last few centuries as the houses have developed superior tools and techniques; I’d expect the same if they appeared here.

Kickstarter Round-Up!

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I’ll write about some of these in more detail in the future, but I wanted to take a moment to let you know about a few Kickstarter projects that are worth a look!

BOSS MONSTER

BOSS MONSTER casts you as the beast at the end of an 8-bit side-scrolling dungeon. Your goal? To build a dungeon appealing enough to lure foolish adventurers and deadly enough to destroy them. Of course, all of the other players are monsters with dungeons of their own! As someone who played a lot of Ghosts & Goblins as a kid and who likes games about unhappy endings, I’ve been having a lot of fun with my review copy of Boss Monster, and I look forward to playing the final game. Check it out!

SENTINELS OF THE MULTIVERSE: SHATTERED TIMELINES

Sentinels of the Multiverse is an excellent cooperative game in which players take on the roles of superheroes teaming up to foil the plans of a nefarious villain. The game’s a lot of fun, and as a comic geek I love the degree to which the designers have developed the universe behind the game; cards include quotes from different issues of fictional comics, and if you lay them all out you can piece together the long-term arcs behind them. Shattered Timelines is the latest expansion for the game, but the Kickstarter also offers you an opportunity to pick up the basic game and various promo cards.

HILLFOLK: DRAMASYSTEM ROLEPLAYING

Hillfolk: DramaSystem Roleplaying is a must for anyone who enjoys compound words. Having said that, this is the latest project from RPG legend Robin D. Laws. You can hear a little more about the project from Robin himself in his Six Questions from last week. Thanks to the miracle of stretch goals, the main book will include a DramaSystem series pitch from me: Dreamspace, which I’ll describe as Stargate meets “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath.” There’s only three days left in the Kickstarter, so if you’re interested get on board now!

CARNIVALE: THE MORGRAUR-RASHAAR

With only twelves hours left as of this writing, you may be too late to catch this one. However, if you enjoy miniatures wargaming, definitely check this out. Les Miserables meets Lovecraft in the canals of Venice! Mad scientists pit brain-transplanted rhinos against arrogant Patricians and the ancient Rashaar! For more information, check out the website here!  

 

 

Six Questions: Lee Moyer

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I know a lot of interesting people. Some I’ve worked with, some I’ve met while traveling the world, some just owe me money. My name may be on the website, but it seems kind of boring if I’m the only person whose voice is heard here. So I’m bringing some of my friends to the site, as time permits. I’m not a podcasty kind of guy, so I’m just keeping things simple: one guest, six questions.

My next guest is Chesley Award winning illustrator, designer and art director LEE MOYER. You may have encountered his work in any one of the numerous RPG sourcebooks or card games he’s worked on, or in such diverse places as the National Zoo and the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum. You’ve probably seen some of his posters or book covers; one of my personal favorites is the poster/cover he created for the silent movie of Call of Cthulhu. Lee and I have collaborated on a wide range of projects over the years; thanks to him, I’m on collectible trading cards in Mythos and On The Edge. Recently he just finished work on Check These Out 2013, a literary pin-up calender (his second) created in coordination with author Patrick Rothfuss’s Worldbuilders charity.

We’ve collaborated on many projects over the last twenty years. What’s your personal favorite?

At Your ServiceAt Your Service – A sourcebook for the brilliant Over the Edge RPG.

This compendium of Mediterranean madness is not entirely our work of course (the redoubtable Doc Cross, Joughin & Spey, Neil Laughlin, and the Nephews joined in), but still holds a place of pride for me. As happy as I am with the wraparound cover design, illustrations, map, and logo I designed therein, our collaborations are what I most enjoy. Some highlights? It’s all highlights! The Midwich Family inside the Rose Hotel with their appropriate homage to John Wyndham and anagrams; the Lakshmis and the surprising appearance of an angry Lo Pan; the secrets of Marzipan and Morphine and its Painter of Light and Darkness ™; Gernsbach and Malloy who haven’t both been good guys since The Mask of Dimitrios, The Old Sods Club transporting the Junior Ganymede to Al Amarja: a voodoo-infused gang of nadsat malchicks too cool for skolliwoll; the mysterious shrieking prayer wheels of the Wind Farm; and the possible romance between a fallen angel and an accidentally incarnadine Golem: that adorable little girl from Venus; A macaroni factory that never made macaroni; and a restaurant that serves only fortune cookies.

Any similarities I might bear to Rose Hotel resident Dr. James Harris is a case of life imitating art, not the other way around.

What’s the story behind Check These Out? Why Literary Pin-Ups?

Check This Out: GaimanMy pin-up style poster for Moby Dick! The Musical proved the most popular piece I’d ever painted. I was surprised by the overwhelmingly positive reaction, especially among women, who were if anything more effusive than men. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to bring old-school pin-ups back in the service of something well worth advertising: Literacy! I wanted to honor the old, but freak the system from within if I could. The strictures placed on the early greats (George Petty, Gil Elvgren, Joyce Ballantyne, et al) could be ignored. I hope that what I’ve done with books, tattoos, ethnicities, muscles, humanity and even underarm hair pushes the stale old envelope in interesting ways.

Representing authors living and dead is a great challenge and honor (Ray Bradbury was my hero growing up, and his inclusion here still feels miraculous to me).

And it’s all for the amazing charity Heifer International!

You can pre-order them here!

Which pin-up was the most challenging, and which was the easiest for you?

Most Challenging: Neil Gaiman  

Why? Having a model before having a concept is unusual. Knowing that Amanda Palmer was the model, who among Neil’s roster of splendid characters, would we cast her as? Yvaine?  Coraline? Door? Delirium? Death warmed over? No. Amanda had been saying (and showing) for years that she WAS Media and who was I to disagree? And how does one show the fractal omnipresence of Media – with a very complicated and recursive image. And how would we arrange to get the reference shots we needed in a timely fashion? Happily I was invited to Readercon in Boston this year, and so was my friend, photographer extraordinaire Kyle Cassidy who’d already scheduled a shoot with his old chum Amanda in the window of time we’d need. But she didn’t have the time or costume for the second costume reference we needed. So I shot Venetia Charles in a Busytown costume that we borrowed from my friends and clients The Northwest Childrens Theatre. And to create the comic strip that fills most of the first week of June, I had to get more hints from Neil about what Shadow himself should look like. And then do the comic strip!

It was complicated. But as with most complicated projects, also deeply rewarding. Going in, I would never have even imagined doing an American Gods comic…. Easiest: Terry Pratchett

If I told you we’d shot Seth Green’s wife, that wouldn’t sound so good, would it?

But it’s true.

We went to LA and had the talented Allan Amato shoot reference photos of the Team Unicorn’s own Clare Grant. She was not only talented, but maybe the only model who comes with a large selection of wands to choose from (in addition to the big fluffy old bath robe I’d requested). The reference shoot was surreally short and the painting was very straightforward, in part because Terry Pratchett hadn’t asked for a specific character. So, as with Ray Bradbury and all the classic authors of the 2012 calendar, I had the leeway to paint an old-school pin-up in the Gil Elvgren tradition.

If you were trapped on a remote asteroid with only three pieces of your artwork for company, which would you choose?

1. 2013 Check These Out – Literary Pin-Up Calendar (See the previous questions)

2. Starstruck – I spent more than a year painting over the sublime inkwork of Michael Wm. Kaluta

3. 13th Age – the RPG I’ve just completed with Rob Heinsoo and Jonathan Tweet and Aaron McConnell.

Oh, you just mean artwork?

Given a choice, I would much rather be trapped with three pieces of someone else’s artwork – like the Paul Komoda sculptures, Stephen Hickman painting and all those Mucha prints that grace my living space. But if it absolutely has to be my artwork, the clearest choice is Theora. This good luck charm was created by the quixotic urging of photographer Kyle Cassidy with the help of model and costumer Megan Skye Hale. Art Director (and Hugo-winning Author) Mary Robinette Kowal placed it on the cover of Weird Tales, which in turn won me the 2012 Chesley Award for best magazine cover. My Art Nouveau poster for Smashing Pumpkins and Hole bassist Melissa Auf de Mar would probably come next – not least because we signed it with Sandman artist Michael Zulli’s accidentally-purloined (and clearly magical) pencil. And then, there’s the tall thin mural call Past Go which features lots of great games (from Dark Omens to Cosmic Wimpout) in one comparatively small space. It was commissioned for Looney Labs World Headquarters, and the gala at its premiere is one I’ll always remember. 

You’ve designed many of the most iconic symbols in Eberron, from the mask of the Undying Court to the symbol of the Silver Flame. You created the most important symbols of all: the thirteen dragonmarks. How did you come up with the look and feel of the Dragonmarks?

Art Director Robert Rapier had some very clear notions about what he wanted, and the colors and tones outside the designs were all him. But the biggest influence of the designs themselves came from Katherine Hanna. She and I had lived together for many years in Virginia and I was deeply familiar with a style of drawing she used wherein the shapes were indicated with short curvilinear line segments. While the lines I used were generally longer, more contiguous, and arguably more Nouveau-inspired, it was her example that stayed with me.

Can I stray for a moment here and talk about how happy I was to finally be able to map Eberron properly in the 4th edition books? What’s next?

A couple book covers for Pyr and Subterranean Press.

A painting for the wondrous Kennedy School. I don’t yet know exactly where it will be placed, but it cant be much more than 50 paces from where you (that is, Keith) got married!

Lots of travel. Two splendid Art Guest of Honor gigs: One at Norwescon (Seattle in March), the other at Keycon (Winnipeg in May); a seminar or two in Roanoke Virginia next summer; a trip to Brighton in a year’s time for World Fantasy Con; and the yearly choice twixt Readercon and the almighty San Diego Comic Con.

A Kickstarter more peculiar than any yet. It bears the tentative title of “There and Back Again” and promises excitement and adventure and really wild things! More details soon (I hope).

And lest I forget, a holiday card that I hope will answer all those difficult questions about Santa, temporality and causality.

A Few Of My Favorite Things: Novels

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For the last few months I’ve been doing my best to post a weekly Eberron Q&A. I’m going to continue to write these Dragonmarks, but as I am developing a new fantasy setting, I’m going to mix Eberron posts up with discussion of the new world and more general topics. This question seems like a good bridge, as it applies both to Eberron and the work I’ll be doing in the future.

What are your all-time favorite novels, and have they significantly influenced your work?

I read a great deal as a kid. J.R.R. Tolkien and Edgar Rice Burroughs; Oz, Wonderland, and Narnia; Douglas Adams and Robert Anton Wilson; I loved them all. Narrowing it down to favorites is very difficult, because there’s so many stories that I love. It helps that you say “novels”, but I’ll note that something that has definitely influenced my work is mythology and folklore. As a child I read all the myths I could find. When other kids wanted to play Cops & Robbers, I convinced them to play Egyptian vs Greek Gods. From stories of Baba Yaga and the Brothers Grimm to The One Thousand and One Nights, I loved reading the stories that shaped beliefs and cultures, and I definitely think that this has affected my work. So I’m going to focus on novels—mostly—but if you don’t know your folklore, give it a try.

As for novels… in the interests of not having an infinite list, I’m picking ten. These are books I definitely want to have in whatever the media of the day is for the rest of my life.

Night’s Master by Tanith Lee

Take the lyrical style and interwoven stories of The Thousand and One Nights and set it in a world we’ve never seen. I don’t know if I can point to a specific place where the Tales from the Flat Earth have affected my work, but I love the flavor of her world; there’s certainly a touch of the demons of the Underearth in my portrayal of Quori and Daelkyr.

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

Honestly, I prefer the movie version of The Maltese Falcon to the book, but there’s no comparison when it comes to The Big Sleep. Looking for inspiration for a story set in Sharn? Make Eddie Mars a Boromar halfling, Phillip Marlowe a Tharashk excoriate, and you’re halfway there.

Last Call by Tim Powers

Tarot and the legend of the Fisher King meets Bugsy Siegel and the story of Las Vegas. As someone who loves both magic and games, I enjoy the way this story weaves poker and tarot together. Declare—a cold war espionage novel that deals with radio telegraphy and djinni—comes as a close second.

A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin

I love the way that Martin creates a world that feels as though it could be real, and the degree to which most of his characters—albeit not all—feel human. Heroes have flaws, and villains at least have motivations we can understand. My interest has dropped a little over the last few books, and I wish Martin would take a page from Eddings or Tepper—end this story arc in a satisfying way, and then tell OTHER stories set in the world as opposed to having the single story that just refuses to come to any real conclusion. Nonetheless, it’s a fantastic series, and taken alone I love the first novel. If I were to point to an impact on Eberron, I suppose I’d say that it’s a world full of intrigues and one where good and evil aren’t always clear cut.

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas.

It’s a classic and surprisingly fun and easy to read. If you like Stephen Brust’s Phoenix Guards stories, you really should read the original. And setting aside the fact that it’s a classic pulp adventure, change the Musketeers to the Knights of Thrane and Richelieu to Krozen and you have another Eberron campaign ready to go!

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

I mentioned that I love mythology, right? Thus, it’s no surprise that I love Neil Gaiman’s exploration of gods lingering in the modern world. I don’t think there’s a particular impact from this in Eberron, but there are a few threads that are relevant to the new world I’m working on.

The Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavic

This is a story written in the form of not one, but three dictionaries whose entries describe a particular event. Aside from the novelty of the format, I love the flavor of the tales themselves—from Princess Ateh with her mirror that runs slow, to the chicken that laid a Tuesday. Again, not much impact on Eberron, really, but you’ll certainly see some of its influence in the new world.

The Tain, translated by Thomas Kinsella

The epic tale of Cuchulainn. The style is archaic, and you may find it awkward. Personally, I love the way that style captures the flavor of the culture; as one reviewer says, you can imagine a bard telling the tale in a smoky hall. If you enjoyed, say, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, you might be surprised by the martial exploits of Cuchulainn and his Celtic comrades; the warriors of the tales can leap atop an opponent’s thrown javelin, or catch it midflight and fling it back at the enemy. Certainly if you’re looking for inspiration for using, say, The Book of Nine Swords, The Tain will give you a host of ideas.

Phillip K. Dick

While the question was “novels”, the fact of the matter is that Phillip K. Dick is one of my favorite authors of all time, yet I prefer his short stories to his novels. His ideas are brilliant, and I love the way he questions memory and identity, but often an idea can be captured perfectly well in a short piece. I also appreciate the fact that he’s not afraid to have a story end poorly for the protagonist—something the movies based on his work often forget. “Second Variety”, “Minority Report”, “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale”, and “Imposter” are great places to start (in part to contrast them to the movies that they’ve spawned), but it’s hard to go wrong with his short stories. Lei, Thorn, and Pierce are perhaps characters that are especially influenced by Dick, but his fingerprints are all over my brain.

H.P. Lovecraft

Likewise, it’s not a novel, but if I’m talking about literary influences it would be ridiculous to leave Lovecraft off of it. Lovecraft is scattered throughout Eberron, from the cosmic threat of the Overlords and the decaying families of the Shadow Marches and the horrors of the Daelkyr. And “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath” surely played some role in my love of dream adventuring and the appearance of the Quori. Other favorite stories include “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” and “The Whisperer in Darkness”… but again, it’s hard to go wrong here.

As I said, those are ten things I know I will read again tomorrow, and that I want to make sure stay on my shelf. But there’s so many other authors and stories that I’ve loved. Just for the swift honorable mention:

  • Michael Moorcock. As a latchkey kid, I grew up with Elric and Corum. I loved the stories of cursed swords and doomed heroes, and the battle between all-to-often distant order and sardonic chaos. If this affected my work in some way, I think it set in my mind that things don’t always have to end well for the heroes; even if they save the world, all too often there is a terrible price for power or victory.
  • Jack Vance. If you’ve heard the term “Vancian Magic” and don’t know what it means, you should read Jack Vance’s Dying Earth books just for that. Beyond that, though, I love the untraditional approach of Vance’s fantasy. His Cugel isn’t a fighter or a wizard, and the challenges he faces and the ways he overcomes them are as clever as they are often bizarre. The Cugel stories have a unique cadence and style, and if you don’t enjoy it they probably aren’t going to be good books for you—but you should definitely give them a try. While you’re at it, check out Robin D. Law’s Dying Earth RPG!
  • William Gibson. While his latest books haven’t really grabbed me, Neuromancer kicked off my love affair with the cyberpunk genre, and it still holds up for me today.
  • Neal Stephenson. I started with Snow Crash, and that’s still an awesome read. However, anything he writes is sure to be interesting.
  • Sherri S. Tepper. The True Game books have flaws. However, they are quick and easy to read, and I like the flavor and culture that she builds around the talents. It’s something that could easily go farther and deeper, but as a quick read, I enjoy it.
  • Stephen Brust. As with Tepper, I wouldn’t put Brust’s books on my all-time classics list. But they’re fun. What I also enjoy is the way that he shows the impact of magic on a civilization over time – with the Khaavren books showing a society where magic is just beginning to play a role, and the Taltos books taking things to a place where teleportation and resurrection are everyday things. Again, not the best books out there, but quick reading and fun to explore.
  • Fritz Lieber. I give you this line from Swords Against Death: “In the Cold Waste they sought for Fafhrd’s Snow Clan, only to discover that it had been last year overwhelmed by a lemming horde of Ice Gnomes, and according to best rumor, massacred to the last person…”
  • P.G. Wodehouse. I don’t think he’s had any impact on any of my work except possibly Gloom, but I love me some Bertie and Jeeves.

A few more honorable mentions: The Black Company by Glenn Cook; Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco; Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card; The Princess Bride by William Goldman; Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons. I just started rereading Good Omens at lunch, and I recently finished Redshirts. I’m sure I’ll think of another dozen books in an hour, but I think this will do for now.

How about all of you? What are some of your favorite novels, and what’s influenced your stories or adventures?

Six Questions: Robin D. Laws

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I know a lot of interesting people. Some I’ve worked with, some I’ve met while traveling the world, some just owe me money. My name may be on the website, but it seems kind of boring if I’m the only person whose voice is heard here. So I’m bringing some of my friends to the site, as time permits. I’m not a podcasty kind of guy, so I’m just keeping things simple: one guest, six questions.

My next guest is ROBIN D. LAWS. One of the great RPG designers of our time, Robin has been an inspiration to me throughout my career. You may know him from Feng Shui, the GUMSHOE investigative roleplaying system, Heroquest, the Dying Earth RPG, or one of the other systems he’s designed. You may be familiar with his fiction or his podcast. You may have heard of his Kickstarter, Hillfolk. Or you may say “Robin Laws? Who’s that?” Let’s find out!

Your favorite director knocks on your door and says that he’s got a multi-million dollar budget to create a movie based on one of your games. Which would you want to see? Why?

I would recoil in dismay to see Howard Hawks, supposedly dead since 1977, standing before me in what would surely have to be undead glory. After returning the beloved director to the eternal rest some wretched nosferatu cruelly wrenched him from, with a jaunty, “I love your work, here’s a wooden stake to the heart,” I would retire, shaken, and perhaps drink a quantity of port.

To further reframe your question, because it would take me the next two weeks to pick a single favorite living director, I’ll instead up its grandiosity several notches and imagine than an entire gaggle of auteurs shows up at my door demanding to immortalize my games on celluloid. I would assign them as follows:

Feng Shui: John Woo (duh)

The Dying Earth: Michael Winterbottom

Rune: Michel Gondry

HeroQuest: Steven Soderbergh

The Esoterrorists: Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Pulse)

Fear Itself: David Cronenberg

Mutant City Blues: Juan J. Campanella (an Argentinean who made a great movie called The Secret in Their Eyes plus many episodes of Law & Order)

Ashen Stars: Duncan Jones

Hillfolk: Nicolas Winding Refn

You’re currently running a Kickstarter for Hillfolk, a game using the DramaSystem rules engine. What’s the story of Hillfolk, and what inspired you to create it?

Hillfolk was inspired by an observation that arose while creating the beat analysis system for understanding narrative rhythm, as seen in Hamlet’s Hit Points. The basic building blocks of story mostly divide into two main types of scene: the procedural, in which the characters face external, practical obstacles, and the dramatic, in which they seek emotional responses from others they care about. In roleplaying we’ve always done the first really well—knocking down doors, fighting monsters, piloting starships. The second, not so much. And when we have, we haven’t gone back to look at the simple basic structure underlying all such scenes and applied it to our form. So that’s what DramaSystem does—as it says on the tin, it keeps the spotlight squarely on drama, using a simple yet powerful dynamic to ensure story flow.

Tell me about the DramaSystem engine itself. What are its strengths? What’s your favorite aspect of the system? And are you a wolf or a lion?

The core of the game is a simple token economy that encourages you, in an emotional confrontation, to give in about half the time and to stand your ground the other half of the time. In a dramatic scene, you have a petitioner and a granter—someone who wants something from the other, and the other, who either grants the petition or refuses it. If you grant me what I want emotionally, you get a drama token as a reward. If you refuse me, I get a drama token as a consolation. Tokens grant additional narrative power—I can use them to force a concession from you, to block you when you try to force a concession from me, to jump or evade a scene, and so on.

This like not only drama, but life, which drama is based on. We have to accommodate the people we love and care about some of the time, because we are emotionally compelled to do so by our ties to them, for good or ill. This dynamic contrasts with the usual roleplaying tendency to see a character as extreme but one-dimensional, never giving in to any proposal that might conceivably contradict that portrayal. DramaSystem PCs are created as contradictions, torn between two Dramatic Poles, so that you can always plausibly pivot from one stance to another without feeling that you’re breaking character.

My favorite element of the system lies in the play it engenders—longform group storymaking with characters you remember and care about long after the series has ended. I care much more about the people populating my in-house Hillfolk playtest, or the later Greasepaint series, than any other group of characters the same group of characters have ever generated.

As for the clan question, I would never take sides in a… who am I kidding? Lion.

What’s the story behind The Birds?

 I was looking for a staple feature for my blog, and started doodling with a green marker, and before I knew it, these queasy verdant avians flew, guns in hand, into bleakly funny comic strip form. It’s a pure personal expression, and I’m as delighted to have those two collections in print as anything else I’ve done.

You’ve provided a wealth of advice to gamemasters over the years, which has been collected in places like Robin’s Laws of Good Gamemastering. If you were stranded on a desert island with only three pieces of system-neutral gaming advice, what would they be?

One, observe your players and gauge their reactions. (This principle would warn me against marauding pirates.)

Two, react to those observations to find the sweet spot of mutual creative gratification. (This would help me in negotiating with the pirates if I failed to evade them.)

Three, always be ready to jettison what you thought would happen in favor of what the players are making happen. (This would aid me in suddenly betraying the pirates and emerging as their new savage warlord.)

What’s next?

The Gaean Reach is a GUMSHOE/Skulduggery hybrid based on Jack Vance’s classic SF setting, as seen in the Demon Princes series and many other novels. The players seek interstellar vengeance against Quandos Vorn—a galactic supervillain whose abilities and crimes they collectively design themselves at the outset of play.

That’s in layout.

In the writing stage is Dreamhounds of Paris, a Trail of Cthulhu campaign sourcebook in collaboration with Kenneth Hite and Steve Dempsey. It is both our Paris book and our dreamlands book. You play the major figures of the surrealist movement after they discover that their dream-haunted, subversive art allows them to directly manipulate the people, places, and landscape of the dreamlands. Goodbye crystal cities, hello melting watches.

Also check out my recently-released fiction projects: the short horror story collection New Tales of the Yellow Sign, and my Pathfinder Tales novel, Blood of the City.

 

That’s all for this week! However, since Robin and I talked, I’ve jumped on board to write a series pitch for the DramaSystem engine. If the stretch goal is met, I’ll be contributing a scenario I’m calling Dreamspace to the book. “In the future, the only way to reach other worlds is through the underspace of the collective unconscious. You and your fellow oneironauts are the best of the best, but what will you find in the dreams of alien worlds?” Want to see more? Then check out the kickstarter!