Suffering Ken Hite withdrawal after Gen Con? Jennisodes podcast is here to help.
Writer (and Shotguns v. Cthulhu contributor) Nick Mamatas examines Heinlein as the granddaddy of contemporary libertarianism.
Can't stand 3D but unable to catch a flat screening? Whip out your 2D glasses!
At Gen Con I spilled details on up to three secret projects to those bold enough to ask. As the 2011 show fades into a whirl of memory and packing tape, I’m ready to start teasing them here.
First up: my upcoming foray into the brave new business model of ebook self-publishing. I’ve written a short story cycle entitled New Tales of the Yellow Sign. These eight weird tales, set in the past and present, in realities familiar and alternate, explore the rippling madness of Robert W. Chambers’ King in Yellow mythos.
(For another Chambers riff already at an estore near you, check out The Repairer of Reputations, my adaptation of his signature weird-slash-speculative story as a Trail of Cthulhu scenario.)
I’ll be selling this through Kindle and competing ebook channels, educating myself along the way on the realities of this burgeoning distribution method. For those who wish to keep their dollars within the hobby game family (a salutary aim) it will also be sold at the Pelgrane Press estore.
I’m excited to report that Jerome Huguenin, brilliant illustrator and graphic designer for the Trail of Cthulhu line, has agreed to provide the cover. I’ve seen the rough and it is full-stop gorgeous. By which I mean creepy. Creepygorgeous, if you will. I’ll give you a peek later.
I am equally delighted to say that Kenneth Hite, tastemaker of all things tentacular, has kindly stepped forward to place his imprimatur on it in the form of an introduction.
So far we’ve learned that the ebook market works for some writers and not for others. New Tales of the Yellow Sign represents my first explorative bid to find out which category I fall into. The opportunity to devote a regular block of my freelancing time to a client named Robin D. Laws holds enormous creative promise. Its success will depend on your clicks, likes, shares, and e-purchases. Accordingly, I’ll be sure to keep you updated on its progress in the weeks and months to come.
For the last year or so I’ve been running an exercise in group world-building as a regular feature on the blog. We’ve now defined all but one of the regions of a fantasy empire called Korad.
Although this newly adopted Blogspot platform outshines LiveJournal in almost every way, its poll feature does lack versatility compared to LJ’s. So please hop on over to the former mothership one last time to vote on the defining traits of the final province, the arid and depopulated land of Palth.
Matt Staggs presents Maundbury, an open-sourced gothic horror setting with a Dark Shadows/ Hammer vibe.
Cthulhu makes a hilariously soft-spoken appearance on this episode of “This Just In From Gen Con.” Note the moment in which the dread elder god makes a squamous stealth bid for victory in the buzzword contest.
Another Gen Con has steamrollered by. Now we the legions of gamers and game designers straggle our way home, heads full of ideas and colons full of chain restaurant food. I'm happy to have seen my various homies and comrades and already looking forward to our next grand convocation.
Sales went smashingly at the Pelgrane booth. The beautiful blue shiny tome that is Ashen Stars flew off the shelves like a crew of freelance interplanetary troubleshooters fleeing a swarm of Class-K entities. We ran out of Mutant City Blues, Skulduggery, and Bookhounds of London. Trail of Cthulhu sold out multiple times, sending chief Pelgranista Simon Rogers scrounging through the hall to round up additional copies from retail partners. A stack of Graham Walmsley’s Stealing Cthulhu also vanished amid the onslaught of the book-snaffling hordes. I'll let Simon crow as loudly as his British reserve will allow him, over on the Pelgrane blog, but let's just say it was a big leap over last year, which itself was hardly chopped liver.
In addition to signing tons of Ashen Stars, I was asked to deface a good many copies of The Worldwound Gambit and Hamlet's Hit Points. With the latter book out for a year, I got to hear readers' responses to it, and found them immensely gratifying.
But enough with the residual glow. It's time to buckle down to the elevation of a victor and the lamentation of the also-rans. I speak of course of the buzzword competition. In previous years judges required self-reporting to occur at the show. Given how busy Gen Con has become, and thus how hard it is to buttonhole any specific person, the judges have now generously ruled that post-convention accounts of one's statusing efforts will be considered before a winner is declared. So please tell your story of buzzword use, preferably in the comments here at the newly inaugurated blogspot HQ.
Considerable panache will be required to topple the clear front-runner, Kevin Kulp, who uttered the dread phrase with utter straightfacedness in his opening speech at the ENnies. Only a nigh imperceptible puff of vapor rising up behind him indicated that a portion of his soul had detached from the rest of him, died, and evaporated.
Can anyone top this chilling act of linguistic vandalism?
First things first: word has it that my public display of the vapors the other day has some of you worried for me. Do not fear! Yesterday I kicked off the morning with some stretches. Throughout the day I questioned whether certain pieces of furniture were friends or frenemies. Soon I found myself back in regular Gen Con fighting trim, such as it is.
Saturday presented me with a classic dramatic arc. Though thrilled by the crazy-busyness of the show so far, I found myself feeling a tad wistful for the old days when an occasional lull visited itself on the dealer’s hall. It used to be possible to pop around to other booths and catch up with colleagues. Or for that matter to patrol the aisles for the new cool game. Now the constant and delightful crush of people makes any expedition outside the booth requires the summoned fortitude of Miskatonic explorers prepping for an Antarctic foray. If you do make it to a booth the folks you hope to chat with are as slammed as you were before you snuck away from your own.
I feel a little guilty about my zero-item shout-out pile. But then with the rise of new social platforms and the communications efforts accompanying the crowdfunding surge, the need for word of mouth from me has decreased.
Just as I was thinking this, I bumped into one of the people I hoped to catch up with, and had a lovely walk-and-talk from the Marriott to the hall. Throughout the day a wave of serendipity either blessed me or told me to quit my damn whining, presenting me with the chance encounters I needed to alleviate the social deficit. The night ended with a flash mob of beer-hoisting colleagues at an undisclosed location. The old Gen Con was back, disguised amid the hustle and bustle of the new.
One day left. Time to make the most of it. After another bout of stretching, that is.
At last year’s Hamlet’s Hit Points seminar, I was surprised to discover that most of the attendees hadn’t heard of the book. They’d come either on the strength of the snappy title, or because they knew my name. This time around, the audience included a few newbies but mostly consisted of people conversant with beat analysis. After I supplied a rundown for the uninitiated, I supplied As for the participant’s Qs, focusing on such issues as charging expository scenes with emotional weight (as seen for example in the opening of Casablanca), and how to ease players anxious for constant success into a dramatic rhythm where occasional defeats make victories all the sweeter*.
A like phenomenon occurred at the later GUMSHOE seminar with Kenneth Hite and Simon Rogers. We’re used to describing the system to prospective players and GMs who are concerned about potential issues without having put the game through its paces. Here we had an impressive turnout of folks who have been playing GUMSHOE for a long time were looking for fine pointers. We talked about what to do if the players solve the mystery too quickly (answer: increase the challenge of antagonist reactions and other non-investigative sequences, rather than punishing the players for being too good at what the game asks them to do), embracing players’ choices to hold onto ability points in the early going, and how to calibrate your degree of improvisation to a given group’s expectations. Talk of Lorefinder, the upcoming GUMSHOE bolt-on for Pathfinder, aroused much interest.
Speaking of matters Golarion, later I headed over to the Paizo booth to hang out with fellow Pathfinder Tales authors Dave Gross and Howard Andrew Jones, signing copies of The Worldwound Gambit. Paizo fiction impresario James Sutter says that the novel is selling quite nicely at the show, which is gratifying to hear. If you picked up a copy and would like it scrawled on, I’ll be signing again tomorrow (Saturday) from 4-5. Or grab me after the Pathfinder Tales panel at 2 (also tomorrow.) Or swing by the Pelgrane booth, which is where I’ll be the rest of the time.
Trade remained brisk over in Pelgrane territory, where the company has already exceeded its entire impressive take from last year. Other vendors report results as least as encouraging. There may be a stock market plunge and a possible double-dip recession outside the convention hall, but it’s an upbeat year in our little universe.
*I’m afraid this wasn’t my smoothest opening in seminar history. For most of this year I’ve been struggling with ergonomic issues in the home office. In an effort to stop this from becoming the most boring blog on earth, I haven’t talked about this pins and needly saga here. Long story short: I finally have a properly adjustable chair at home and have it properly adjusted. But I’ve not yet fully returned to total shipshape, meaning that if I sit in a less than perfect chair for too long, I can mess myself up, often the day after an extended bout of wrong sitting. Both the exhibit hall chair I perched on yesterday while signing Ashen Stars bookplates and the chair/desk combo in the hotel room have shown themselves to be way less than optimal. I probably also need to swap out my many-pocketed manbag for something that isn’t constantly giving me the Vulcan nerve pinch. The upshot was that a spate of wooziness struck me during my intro to the seminar. Embarrassingly, I had to step outside to shake off my discombobulation, leaving Gameplaywright honchos Will Hindmarch and Jeff Tidball to vamp in my momentary absence. I mention this only to reassure those present that I am fine and have not been stricken with Venusian pleurisy or anything like that. For the rest of the show I’ll be much more vigilant against the malign intent of Indianapolis furniture.
Few moments in the professional life of a roleplaying designer outshine having a new core game book make its world premiere on the Thursday morning of Gen Con. Better still to have the book show up looking gorgeous. Best of all is to see people pick it up, perhaps inviting a pitch, and plunking down their hard-earned cash or credit. I could not have asked for a stronger response to Ashen Stars. Nor a more receptive mood—it seems like something out there in the gamerverse has folks hankering for a new space opera game. Writing for a living, whether we're talking games or fiction, can seem unreal and disconnected. The work seems real but the eventual end product can be hard to envision. Gen Con offers many bounties, but for me the emotional reward that comes when a book seems to be making an ideal landing brings all of the months of writing, rewriting, playtesting, fixing, replaytesting, and polishing come into focus. Creators in other fields don't necessarily get to experience this final stage of the process first-hand. This is why I am grateful to work in this very special scene of ours, with its “I've got a barn, I've got a resolution mechanism, let's put on a roleplaying book” ethos. This is the sound of blessings being counted.
Today was all about doing the booth thing. Trade at the Pelgrane booth proved brisk in general. Simon's ingenious 4-for-3 deal encourages gamers to pitch each other on the merits of the books, as they try to assemble the ideal group buy. I even heard several perfect renditions of the Ashen Stars elevator pitch! I guess Internet outreach works or something.
I refined my signing signature over the course of 400ish Ashen Stars bookplates for the Stellar Nursery and Limited Editions. (My legal signature is an illegible scrawl and no fun as an autograph.) Perhaps soon I will be Walt Disney, with a hallmark signature so ornate that I am unable to draw it myself.
Dinner kept me among the Pelgranistas, where we discovered that a St. Elmo's bread pudding stands momentously athwart its plate, providing enough delicious dessert for 5 or more stunned non-Americans. We repaired to a quiet bar to moot various future projects. Among issues mulled: balancing the ideal commercial presentation for the Gaean Reach game with what I might design in a universe unfettered from practical constraint.
Tomorrow (Friday) attendees can catch me at the 10am Hamlet's Hit Points seminar, the 3pm GUMSHOE seminar, or a 5pm book signing at the Paizo booth.
Last night at the Diana Jones Awards party, the clawed hand of the shadowy cabal, ably spokespersoned by Matt Forbeck, pointed its index finger at Jason Morningstar’s Fiasco, deeming it the year’s exemplar of excellence in gaming. This earns Jason the honor of being the first repeat winner of the DJA. And rightfully so—Fiasco fulfills the promise of Grey Ranks. Its excellence can be seen in its impact on the RPG scene: in the number of people excitedly playing it, and participating in its scenario generation culture. As such it earns its award not only for design but for community-building.
Some quarters have quibbled that no surprises lurked among this year’s nominees. However, it’s hard to say that it was a weak slate. And when we look back over the list of winners from a future vantage point, it’s hard to argue that Fiasco should have been set aside in favor of some quirkier choice.
Speaking of vast vistas of time, a curious but delightful apparition manifested at the party. Steve Jackson is back at Gen Con, for the first time in something like a decade. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him in more ebullient form.
Another devoutly wished-for arrival: the print gods have smiled on Pelgrane. Ashen Stars (my new GUMSHOE game of freelance troubleshooting in a gritty space opera universe) made it to the show in its thick and full-color glory. Other books hot off the presses: Dead Rock Seven, a collection of four ready-to-play scenarios for Ashen Stars, and Out of Time, a collection of non-1930s Trail of Cthulhu adventures appearing for the first time in paper format.
So I’m off to the new exhibit hall to hold Ashen Stars in my hands for the first time, and to warm up my signing hand for 400+ Stellar Nursery Edition signatures. If you’re here at the show, be sure to stop by.
Skulduggery review resorts to the F-word. No, not that F-word.
This is not a nightmare for the ghouls. They seem pretty into it.
This will be my first Gen Con since discovering that I like beer. Over the past months I have explored various local craft and and international beers here in the fine province of Ontario. While in Madison I enjoyed, thanks to John Kovalic, a quaffing flight of Wisconsin’s finest. Now keens the annual siren call of Indianapolis, with its pungent streets and monolithic chain restaurants. At this point in my beverage journey I have reached various conclusions, such as: On a macro level, it transpires that I like or dislike beers regardless of their category. From lagers to stouts, from cream ales to wheat beers, I dig some and am unimpressed by others.
Okay, a roleplaying exercise. The two of us are in an Indianapolis bar. We might or might not be waiting for a guy in a funny hat to tell us where the dungeon is; that’s immaterial. I am about to buy myself a beer.
Wait, let’s be realistic here.
You are about to buy me a beer, as but partial tribute for my many contributions to the roleplaying form. As either a proud Indianapolan, or a frequent visitor already well acquainted with its finest beers, you wish to impress me with your purchasing prowess.
What beer do you buy me?
The pre-Gen Con edition of Pelgrane Press’ webzine bursts open like a veritable seedpod of roleplaying bounty.
My eponymous column shows you how to structure a GUMSHOE scenario around the characters’ defining investigative abilities. An Ashen Stars scenario serves as its illustrative example, also giving you a preview of that game. You'll also get a glimpse at the main cast of my in-house playtest.
But that’s not all! Kenneth Hite and Will Hindmarch present their afore-linked Fiasco / Trail of Cthulhu crossover. Ken reappears with a preview of vampire building from his upcoming game of blood-draining espionage, Night’s Black Agents. Simon Rogers rounds up current and upcoming Pelgrane releases. And Beth Lewis gives you the time-sensitive scoop on Pelgranic activities at the big show. Plus, you get to help name a rootin’-tootin’ western orc.
The Repairer of ReputationsNew York, 1920. A new day dawns. America celebrates peace and victory after repelling the German invasion of New Jersey. The cityscape has been rejuvenated and cleansed of foreign influence. And finally,
in accordance with popular demand, the government unveils its first public suicide machine. Yet beneath this placid surface hums a sinister conspiracy... one only you, along with your fine circle of upper-crust chums, can thwart.
Designed for one-shot play, it features a new wrinkle for GUMSHOE: on-the-fly, cooperative character generation.
Available in PDF only.
After setting aside copies for dibs-holders from the Stellar Nursery Edition, and for a retail promotion, a few copies of the shiny blue Ashen Stars Limited Edition remain. These are now on sale to the general public at the Pelgrane Press store.
If you’re looking for me at Gen Con, here’s my event schedule:
Friday 10 AM Hamlet's Hit Points seminar (Marriott – Santa Fe)
Friday 3 PM GUMSHOE seminar (Indiana Ballroom F)
Friday 5 PM Book Signing @ the Paizo booth
Sat 2 PM Pathfinder Tales panel (Marriott – Santa Fe)
Sat 4 PM Book Signing @ the Paizo booth
Otherwise, unless I am grabbing a bite, standing in line for espresso, or doing the impromptu meeting/interview thing, I’ll endeavor to make myself available for greeting, chatting and interacting at the Pelgrane Press booth.
If you say the right secret words, you might get me to spill the beans on up to three unannounced upcoming projects:
plans to, in tandem with esteemed colleague, conquer another medium
a book you should read about a book you shouldn’t
the rules set called DramaSystem, its first game, Hillfolk, and how they change the roleplaying experience
Readying M.A.R. Barker's Tekumel documents and props for archiving.
Kenneth Hite and Will Hindmarch team up for a bookish Trail of Cthulhu / Fiasco crossover, gratis at Scribd.
Prediction: Rebekah Brooks will make history as first Briton banished to Australia since 1868.
