Chatty’s 2nd Anniversary at Critical-Hits: The Enthusiastic Storyteller
Can you believe I have been with Critical-Hits for two years already? A lot has happened since July 2007 (when I started blogging) and January 10th 2009 (when I merged my blog with Critical-Hits). Yet, as I’ve discussed a few weeks ago, my passion and my drive to write content for the website has now collided with various other priorities. They range from my freelance assignments to reorganizing my life in the light of a recent separation and adjusting to the violently joyful upheavals of love found anew.
In that time, I’ve further thought about what gets my blood boiling and sends my brain in a creative frenzy. As I seek to find this feeling anew among all the clutter that accumulates in my existence, I realized what makes me tick as a writer. I found it while reading a book.
A while back, I was reading Wil Wheaton’s Just a Geek while I was waiting for Dr.C to finish work. I came upon his story about trading his Death Star playset vs a landspeeder and 10$ back in the 80′s and it just dawned on me:
Will was lousy at trades. Oh wait, that’s not it. 
Much like Wil realized that he was a born storyteller, I realized that was also one of the things I liked doing most: writing stories about what my experiences with RPGs. If you look over my previous 2 posts (here and here), my series on becoming a freelance writer (Parts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5) or all my posts about playing with my children, you can feel the energy being poured into these articles. Yet, as I recall, they required minimal effort to write. I enjoy sharing my experience through a (slightly) fictionalized account of what occurs in my geek life so much that it doesn’t feel like work to me… at all. [Read the rest of this article]
Chatty DM, Freelancer, Part 5: OMG! I Made it!
Oh yeah, This is getting real baby!
This is the last of my autobiographical series that describes my becoming a writer and a freelancer. You can follow the series by clicking: part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4.
Once the Plan was in place (see part 4), I started looking where I could send pitches. It was late in 2009; the economic crisis had hit the industry hard. Many struggling third-party publishers had few projects and the pay was too low for me (like 1 cent a word).
Rate aside: The rate per word (or per article) that you get paid is variable. It always starts low. I’ve worked from 3 cents a word (my first adventure) up to 20 cents for some of my most recent copywriting work. Game and adventure designs based on pitches usually pay between 4 to 6 cents a word. Rates increase when you are invited to join bigger projects with actual budget (like a WotC book or like the recently announced Marvel Super Heroes RPG).
Just don’t expect to ever become rich on this… that’s why I still have a (part time) day job.
So how did I start landing freelance jobs?
There’s no surefire secret. Were I to distill how I started to systematically land gigs, I’d bring it down to these points:
Networking with people.
I started going to Gen Con in 2008. At that time, I had had contacts with a few game designers through forums, emails and my then one-year old blog. For example, I was a regular on Monte Cook’s forums and had exchanged a few question-answers messages.
With a few, very rare exceptions, writers, designers and freelancers , if approached nicely, are easy to talk to and interact with. In my opinion, the BEST way to approach someone you admire is to go up to them, introduce yourself, and thank them for a specific product you liked. That will usually make them happy and more likely to talk to you. If you have a follow-up question that is simple enough, ask it. Engage them; make them talk about their stuff, their projects. By getting creative folks to talk about what they love, you’re establishing a great contact.
There is a chance you’ll notice they keep looking away from you, as if distracted by something. That’s because they have somewhere to be soon (or maybe you just don’t click). If they do, apologize and say you don’t want to be keeping them, and that you hope you get to talk more at a later time. It leaves a good expression and there’s a chance, if you do meet them later, that they’ll greet you as they recognize you.
Blogging also featured greatly in creating relationships with people of the industry. Late in 2007, I made a dumb post about Wolfgang Baur being the Storytelling Fluff Nemesis to my Crunchy Rules Overlord (links are broken, they come from my deleted Blogger blog). You should have seen my surprised face when, the next day, Wolfgang responded to a comment I left on one of his posts. I was delighted as I admired Wolfgang’s craft when it came to world building and setting flavour. I wanted to learn to become more like him and this “Crunch Overlord vs Fluff King” became a fun back and forth game which Wolfgang eventually won when I joined his team of freelancers on Kobold Quarterly.
Thus did I started seeing the potential of blogging, and more importantly, interacting with people from the industry.
Being nice to people always pays off.
Sending Queries
You won’t get invited into freelancing. You have to open the door and jam you foot in it with your skills and professionalism (i.e. write well, edit yourself, deliver on time and write what you were asked to write). Shortly after Gen Con 2009, I sent a query to WotC about making a D&D for kids adventure and I got a positive response to write a full outline. The idea never panned out as WotC later decided to tackle the idea in-house. But this first response gave me the positive boost I needed to keep at it. It told me that my ideas could be sold for money, provided I found myself at the right place and at the right conjecture in time.
How did I land my 1st magazine article? Very simple, I sent a “would you be interested in…” pitch to Wolfgang. He answered positively and that’s how I got to talk about mixing Skill Challenges in combat encounters back in the 2009 winter edition of Kobold Quarterly. Of course at that time, I had to learning a lesson that took me almost 2 years to fully grok:
Publishing in a magazine =/= blogging; edit your stuff, then do it again, and again. Get all the help you can.
Kobold Quarterly has high standards to get a piece published. Getting a query accepted does not mean your article will make it to print. You need to polevault over Wolfgang’s invisible quality line which keeps being raised with each passing issues. Your article is in competition with all others he gets for inclusion in the next issue. I was very lucky for my first piece to have the help of Ben Mcfarland, a veteran KQ contributor, who helped me morph my very conversationalist tone into a more neutral “magazine” voice.
Thanks Ben, I really owe you one.
Setting the Table for Success
I spent most of 2010 consolidating my non-RPG freelance projects. I spent countless hours building (and re-building) my training seminars, by far my highest paid part time gig. I also opened my own company in May and taught myself all the vagaries of billing, setting aside money for taxes, retirement, and other “fun” things like that. In the meantime, I got two more KQ queries accepted, one of which got published: an article on traps that become monsters and vice-versa in the Fall 2010 issue. The other was rejected.
The rejection was a bit painful, but not as bad as I thought, the piece was too gimicky for the magazine, maybe I should post it here.
I recall that during the fall of 2010, my wife Alex came to me and remarked that I wasn’t getting a lot of freelancing gigs vs the amount of time I had freed from my day job. She was right. At that point my other contracts and seminars were mostly set so I told her I’d initiate the final phase of “The Plan: Get (more) Freelance Contracts”. I sent about 10 pitches to Wizards of the Coast, none of them panned out. But I concentrated on getting my business up and running and stopped thinking about Wizards so much.
In all honesty, I was upset and discouraged that I couldn’t get a feet through the proverbial door. But D&D grand guru, James Wyatt, told me to hang in there… saying that he had been rejected a LOT before making it into Dungeon magazine.
Opening the Floodgates
It’s actually funny how things tumbled from there. First, I started hanging out with cool local Web 2.0 people: social media representatives for local media, tech bloggers, Tweeterati, TV show hosts, freelancers and others of that ilk. At one party, I met the host of a geek TV show and we hit it off talking about video games and RPGs. As it happens, he mentioned me in his weekly podcast; the week after I got a call from someone that offered me a regular copy-writing gig for a local workshop that manufactures realistic looking foam weapons for LARPs.
I still work for them; you can see some of my best work here and here.
Things really took off this year. I got a 3rd, very exciting query accepted for Kobold Quarterly which was just published in the Summer 2011 issue, a 4e article about playing character flaws and being rewarded for them. As my interest in small press games grew, especially with the Leverage game by Margaret Weis Production, I was invited by my friend Cam (MWP’s producer and lead designer/writer) to submit a 2000 word hack that allowed to play with Leverage‘s rules in a different genre.
I created a fantasy hack inspired by what I liked most of old school dungeon crawl… except I delivered 8000 words instead of 2000 
Cam also sent out a request for letters of interest to join the writing team of MWP’s newest RPG: Dragon Brigade based on Weis’ last novel: Shadow Raiders. After getting my response, he gave all contenders a writing test. I was asked to write, in an Alexandre Dumas voice, how to set scenes for a Swashbuckling game. I had a blast writing it. I think he liked it because I ended up writing more than 16 000 words for the game.
Of course, this was just a preview of the jackpot I would hit just a few weeks later. First, at the time I thought my chances if writing for Wizards of the Coast had evaporated, I got an email from the D&D Insider editorial inviting me (along several other bloggers and freelancers) to join their team of writers. This landed me 4 gigs: 2 Dungeon adventures and 2 Dragon magazine articles. If everything goes as planned you should see a combined Dragon/Dungeon set of article appear in the September issues and the next ones in early 2012.
After nearly 30 years of having started playing D&D, getting to officially contribute to it is such a honor. I hope I do the game justice.
Yet the biggest thing had yet to happen.
Cam (on IM): So what are your thoughts on Super Heroes gaming?
Phil: I have very fond memories of busting open TSR’s Marvel Super Heroes yellow box and making Wolverine fight Spiderman!
That discussion, initiated at an undisclosed date, eventually led me to be invited on the new Marvel Super Hero RPG design and writing team…
Brain… Blown.
The Journey Barely Begins
It took me nearly 25 years to realize I was a writer. It took me another 4 and a ton of effort, writing about a million words online, to become a better one. I made friends along the way that ultimately helped me make it in the RPG industry. Yes, I finally made it. And for a lot of this, I have you all to thank for it, through your supportive comments and helpful feedback.
Now I just have to keep on delivering. The road is not easier ahead, just more intense!
I hope you’ll get to derive the same kind of fun from what I will help create as I have with what the giants before me created.
Thanks for reading.
Chatty DM, Freelancer, Part 3: RPG Blogging, The Revelation
The is next part of my autobiographical series on how I came to terms with the fact that I was I writer and how I then became a freelancer. It also marks my 4th anniversary as a blogger!
See part 1 here and part 2 here.
On July 24 2007, about 8 months after being hired as the Quality Manager for the Montreal Heart Institute Pharmacogenomics Centre, I opened up a Blogger account. I had all these fields to fill before I could get to the cool writing I wanted done. I spent nary a minute and settled on “Musings of the Chatty DM” as the blog’s title.
A choice I never regretted.
My first post was telling in terms of not quite knowing where things would go with the website (and my dubious grasp of written English):
I’ve been thinking for a long time about starting a Blog, I got an account at Live Journal (Unfinished 1st Post) and another one at Microsoft (3 Posts, hate the interface).
Since I have recently gone completely Googlely, I decided I might as well give Blogger a shot.
Anyway, I think I have always been blogging ever since I was given a email account. The only difference is that my readers (read: my D&D player’s mailboxes) were more or less captive of my musings. I think out of respect for them I should move away from that form of expression and do it on a Bona Fide blog. Of course, I can’t expect to have as many readers…. lol.
Sigh…
I’m currently reading Wil Wheaton’s Just a Geek and I can’t help seeing a few similarities with his first posts, mine and those I see from talented new bloggers all over. First, we all look a bit like losers, seeking validation by using self-deprecation from the get go. Second, we all seem to struggle learning proper blogging English use. I mean, did I really say “lol” in a blog post? That’s like Wil’s overuse of the word “Lame” in his first few articles.
What’s “proper Blogging English” you ask? I touched it in the past:
While spelling and grammar are not hyper-critical (and can be helped by online tools), writing clear sentences, short paragraphs and ordering your thoughts in a comprehensive way is very important.
My first posts were short (yeah… pffff!) and very very numerous. I wrote about 860 posts in 4 years; each on average 1000 words each. At that time, I was looking for my voice yet still growing very fond of the act of writing just for the pleasure of doing so. What really got me going was getting comments from friends on some posts. From that point forward, I felt a great rush whenever I received a comment-notification email. I still love getting comments and read them all as soon as I can manage.
In August 2007, from the lofty height of my 30 days as a blogger, I cooked up my “Golden Rule of Modern Blogging“:
Write your Blog by assuming your boss, your wife/significant other/mom and your worst enemy will read it.
At that time, I was writing most of my blog post from work (guilty!) and I realized that I needed to start playing it safer. But, as I said in part 2, I was kept nowhere near busy enough to prevent me from knocking professional balls out of the park AND blog once a day at the same time. Of course… I didn’t edit my posts at all back then… so it was easier to just write and send while drinking the morning’s first Diet Coke (I don’t drink coffee).
I attribute 2 elements to my early success as a blogger (beyond my natural, if then unrefined talent as a writer):
The Linking Game (or the Birth of a Community)
First, I stumbled on the trick of linking to other blogs. At one point, I realized that I could write blog posts instead of leaving them comments on other blogs. When I did this, I instantly noticed how fast the blogger would come to check what the linked article said. This often started discussions and inspired blog posts between sites. In the late summer of 2007, I became close to a group of bloggers who had started at around the same time I did, namely the cast at Stupid Ranger (Dante, Stupid Ranger herself and Vanir who eventually joined us) and Zax a Montreal-born, Hawaii-based blogger who created and used to run Dungeonmastering.com. We exchanged links and emails a lot.
I also forged links with the guys that made me want to blog about RPGs: Dave and Danny over at Critical-Hits.com. They gave me advice and started dropping by the blog with witty comments and good feedback.
“Wait what?” aside: I merged with Critical-Hits in January of 2010, that’s why I refer to them as seperate here.
From this group grew a tight-knit community of what I would later call “The Second Generation RPG bloggers” (I then considered Jeff Rients and Berin Kinsmen to be among the 1st gen). We shared readers, links, reviews and news. This contributed to kickstart my readership but more importantly, it forged deep friendships that last to this day. Every time we can afford it, we meet at cons, game and organize events.
In fact, our annual Gen Con Drunken D&D, which now sports 4 DMs and 20 players, started in a hotel room in 2008 with 7 of those blogger friends sitting around a way too small table, having way too much fun.
Tropes!
I found my first (of many) voices as a blogger (and hit proverbial jackpot) when I started tackling tropes as playing aids for making RPG adventures. To this day, my Rule of Cool posts remains one of my favorite, most to-the-point post I have written (warts and all):
To transpose to RPG terms: Your players will put up with almost any illogical or “wobbly” plot devices or encounter you throw at them as long as things get cool enough. Which basically makes me think that my efforts as a DM should not so much be on far-reaching World Building and tight nitpicking-proof plot lines and such.
I should go all out for encounters and role playing that will swamp my players in coolness. Think combat on ice Bridges, negotiating the release of prisoners in a flooding underground prison, hopping from floating island to pieces of flying ruins in order to catch the thieves of the Star jewel of Radnia…
I had a blast writing about tropes. It fed my inspiration and growth as a blogger from the fall of 2007 way into 2009.
The Addiction Sets In
The blog’s success turned the endavour into an obsession. I was addicted to the sheer validation I got from the readers. So much so than my job of the time. The story they shared and the discussions they sparked were astounding. I was amazed that while people were battling trolls on their websites, I was surrounded by sane, polite (if passionate) people who really cared about the hobby. Oh I got a few rowdy guests (less than a handful in 4 years actually), but they were either convinced to behave and became lively, constructive participants (one even became a successful blogger) or were ignored.
Here’s a quick comment-management tip I think I got from Shamus Young (from Twenty-Sided) which I’ll paraphrase here:
A blog is not a public forum, it’s like your porch. People are welcome on it and everyone can discuss more or less freely according to your rules. Yet, when it’s all said and done, it is YOUR porch, and YOUR house. If people misbehave, or say things you don’t tolerate, you are free to ask them to leave. You can even kick them out and clean their messes.
At this point in my blogger experience, I found myself stuck in a pattern where I started to write for the readers. I wanted to generate responses, I wanted my inbox constantly flooded with comments. I was a slave to my blog and it started to show. Edition Wars posts, rants, contest posts, all these were plenty and easy to write… but I took less and less satisfaction from it I hit a few slumps and started looking for new voices on the blog. That’s when I started re-focusing on doing the blog for myself and consider its readership as a side-effect of the enthusiasm I pored into my prose.
Eureka, I’m mad!
While coming back from Gen Con 2008, in the grips of what would later be diagnosed as hypomania, I finally came to terms with what I was. I wrote this on the plane ride home:
I’m a Writer, because I blog and write Standard Operating Procedures for a living.
I’m a Writer, because I write adventures for my friends.
At Gen Con, I met many awesome people from the RPG industry as well as others, like myself, sitting at the edge of it all; many of them are Writers.
I don’t know why they are Writers. I’m a Writer because, given the opportunity to write about the things I love, I would do it 12 hours a day.Hell, I’d rather write than sleep!
Along with spending time with my family and gaming with my friends, writing makes me satisfied and happy. It brings me in the Flow: Time just stops existing while I spew stuff my mind makes up on the spot, my fingers flying on the keyboard at a speed that nearly matches my excited geek diatribes.
I’m a Writer, and I post my stuff on the Internet because I chose to ignore my doubts and stopped listening to my Inner Demons. I knew I had talent and I’ve managed to get a lot better since I started writing online 12 months ago.
I would love to become a published author of RPG material. I’d go absolutely geek-crazy to see my name on a Dungeon/Dragon/Kobolds Quarterly article.
If there was a way to make a decent living out of it, I’d quit my job in 5 minutes and never look back. Thing is, in the RPG industry, gamers won’t pay 400$ for a printed game system. While some would spend such a sum for getting a graphics cards just to play this “One computer Game”, you won’t see this happening in the RPG industry. Writers are paid like crap and amateur writer/fans often give out their work for free.
(I’m sure the same thing occurs in other writing fields.)
That’s not freaking fair but that’s life. I understand why it’s like that and thank God that the people in the industry are so nice. Quite often, just having a quick chat (or better yet a game) with a designer you admire makes up for all the work you poured into that adventure you wrote to run for your friends.
Be that as it may, I do not currently have the courage to leave my current job and jeopardize my family’s security to pursue the dream of writing full time. I do it in my free time and I make plans…Writers deserve better. That’s why I buy copies of new Role Playing Games I like. I want to support the creators like I hope others will support me some day…
Madness had finally struck me head on …
But with it finally came the Truth…
I was a Writer, I always have been and god willing, I always will be.
Chatty’s 800th: Missed Opportunities and Future Projects
Although this is my 800th post, I’m not going to focus on this.
(Well, okay, just a bit. Yay!)
Obligatory Background
As many of you know, late in 2008, I sent a query to Dungeon Magazine about making an adventure called “Where’s Francis” for preteen players. It was to feature a bunch of young adventurers trying to find the missing badger minion of the well-known gnome from the D&D 4e Web Spots. About 7-8 months later, I got a reply from our very own Chris Sims who expressed interest about the idea and asked me to provide an extended outline of the adventure.
A few weeks later, I sent an adventure plan such that all my friends reading it told me “I’d totally play that!”, a clear sign that I was onto something good. Long story short, Chris eventually lost his job and I never heard about the adventure again. D&D for kids was not going to be something I’d work on for Dungeon nor as a stand-alone adventure/product for Wizards of the Coast.
Wait! They What?
A few weeks ago, I repacked my proposal and sent it to Wizard’s Mirrorstone novel imprint, selling the idea as a picture-book-story-RPG with a primer for parents. It was turned down with a polite and firm “We do not accept unsolicited game proposals” response.
Ooookay . . . .
At the time my friend Math, who works in a patent office, told me that this was standard practice should Wizards come out with a D&D for kids project. Thus they’d avoid being sued by people like me. Dave also told me that stuff like kids RPGs were a common office subject in RPG companies, and Chris chimed in to calm me down too.
All right, all right, I did.
Of course, just a few days later, I stumbled upon a Twitter post by Forgotten Realms novel editor Susan Morris that announced Wizards was going to release a D&D adventure for kids she wrote, roughly 1 year after I was asked to provide an outline for my adventure proposal.
I was annoyed and hurt. However, I started asking around, letting my emotions settle down and trying to see more sides to the issue. I congratulated Susan. I try hard to be a good sport, and she might not have known about my initial proposal. Oh, and being whiny hardly ever achieves anything. In retrospect, I actually was happy that such a project had been greenlighted, regardless of who ended up doing it.
A Marketing Initiative?
Susan rapidly mentioned back to me that the adventure was a marketing initiative to garner interest in the latest Mirrorstone novel, Monster Slayers.
Wha? A marketing initiative for a novel? Seriously?
Yes, it is “a promo bit” she said.
Oh, god, no! That’s like taking an awesome idea such as near-frictionless bearings and using them as toilet seat hinges first.
That’s not what I wanted the first official D&D for kids product to be. That’s not what I seek as a parent-customer who wants to play D&D 4e with his kids. Nor is it what I want as a writer dying to write an awesome D&D adventure game that would make groups of preteens feel like they were playing in a movie like Labyrinth and The Goonies combined.
Still, I calmed down and stayed silent on the subject. I was way too busy to obsess about it anyway.
So when Heroes of Hesiod came out last week, I kept a low profile and focused on my seminars. When the buzz around it built up on the blog-sphere, I took a quick look at it, found the illustrations cute and the simplified PC mechanics nifty. I Twittered that it was a nice product.
Boot-to-the-Head Microreview
That’s what I thought until a good friend of mine more or less kicked my butt and said, “Dude, have you actually read the whole thing?”
So I set my seminar work aside and read the 14 pages PDF from start to finish.
Heroes of Hesiod is a microgame featuring highly simplified D&D combat mechanics reminiscent of Milton Bradley’s/Games Workshop Heroquest games from the late 80s. Mind you, I don’t have much to say against the mechanics. They are simplistically clever, and I like how they adapted 4e’s “special powers” to such an easy to grok level. Susan did a good job. The whole product is well written and has a certain whimsical potential that screams to be exploited.
Sadly, I strongly feel that this potential lies neglected. Although the game engine showed some promise (except the part of using 3d6 instead of a d20), I’m very disappointed with the adventure itself.
The story is about a group of kids living in the village of Hesiod, a hamlet constantly threatened by monsters. The adventure’s heroes, all young kids, are sent into a house to be trained to kill monsters, as all citizens must do on a yearly basis. That’s it. No more story, no roleplaying, no significant choices, no tapping of the sheer power of the child’s creative mind. Just chuck some dice and use your special powers.
The whole adventure is just one combat with limited or no info to help parents deal with young gamers, such learning to say “Yes!” and roll with it. Believe me, it’s quite a challenge.
Here’s one quote that resumes the whole adventure (emphasis mine):
Before you can protest, Loomis pulls free a pin from the cage door. The reaction is immediate. The door flies open, slamming against the side of the cage with a loud clang, and the [monster name] rushes out.
Now, I have been a huge 4e advocate these last 2 years. I’ve been arguing that 4e was more than just fighting. Some of the published adventures seem to disprove my view. Still I prevail, arguing that those adventures target an audience that is more “into that” than I am. Yet, here is the very first D&D adventure targeted specifically at kids, and the only option is to fight.
I don’t want to use D&D to teach math to my kids. They do that all day long at school. An incentive for doing maths will come later when they expect more complexity from the game. I want to introduce them to an experience, beyond how to beat up a monster, in which they get true control of something (possibly for the first time in their lives) like the story or their character’s faith. Let’s have something that gives kids choices that drive the game session in directions that require parents to nurture improvisations skills.
What if the 6-year-old Sally, playing the wizard, wants to befriend the bulette? What if the Russ, the 10-year-old thief, wants to use a mirror to scare the beholder?
To address this, I would have added just one paragraph to the document:
If a player wants to try something unexpected that isn’t covered by these rules, listen attentively to what he or she wants to achieve and how he or she plans to do it. Then ask the player to roll a d20. If the idea is really cool, give the player a +2 bonus (or more) to the roll. The action is a success on a roll of 10 or more. Describe the action as colorfully as possible. If the roll fails, describe the failure as something funny and wacky that still makes the character look cool. Don’t be afraid to break the adventure’s mold and explore where the players ideas lead.
So that’s why I think that Heroes of Hesiod, while not a bad implementation of a simple D&D-themed game, is a missed opportunity. It fails to do something new and awesome while a market hungry for RPG material for children awaits. It wastes this first attempt by making it a mere tool for the promotion of a product line that’s only arguably related to the actual adventure. As far as I can tell, Monster Slayers is not a children’s book for those who might require the simple rules of Heroes of Hesiod. Lastly it feels more like a marketing ploy than an actual first step into an unknown and largely untapped new market.
Dear Wizards, I wanted you to share my vision of what I know many parents expect to see from the world’s leading roleplaying game publisher. The third generation of roleplayers is here, being reared by 80s RPG gamers. As geek parents, we want tools to teach it to our kids and enhance the experience we lived 25 years ago tenfold. Can you feel the wave passing by? Indie designers are already well ahead of you.
So, Whachu Gonna Do About It Phil?
When I’m bothered or unhappy about an issue, I prefer to act on it. Since I believe I can do better than Heroes of Hesiod, here’s me putting my money where my mouth is. I’m announcing, with this 800th post, that I shall go forward with my original RPG for kids proposal. I plan to write and self-publish a physical 4e-derived book that will contain:
- Rich and whimsical art, along with notes and sidebars for the kids
- A simplified character generation
- A game master’s primer
- Basic rules for skills and checks, as well as combat
- Emphasis on shared narrative control and making failure fun
- Options for playing with or without miniatures and battle maps
- A ready-to-play adventure, with notes on adventure creation
- A short, bestiary for making new adventures.
The adventure is based on my original Dungeon magazine pitch, tweaked to remove the use of Wizards’ IP:
Curse of the Ogre-King (Working title)
As the final test of their training, a group of teen adventurers must set out into the wilderness to seek out and challenge the ogre Grumbar the Chained. The teens track the ogre’s minions from the cursed village of Dusk, their home, through a dark forest. With exploration and teamwork, the young explorers overcome challenges and piece together the truth–Dusk’s fate is tied to Grumbar’s. When they finally reach Grumbar’s lair in Faerie, the young heroes have a chance not only to free Dusk but to also to redeem the ogre.
I plan to tap many of the contacts and friends I made in the last three years to help make this project a reality. Many questions remain unanswered, and all that I posted up there may be subject to change, but this is where I’m going for the next year. I hope you’ll follow along . I might also call on your help . . .
. . . but one thing at a time.
In the meantime, see you at 900! Thanks for being here!
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish!
(No I’m not retiring from RPG blogging, no worries)
As I stand here by the seaside of Florida, I reflect on the upcoming blog merge with Critical Hits, planned to happen sometime during Sunday Jan 24th. Not so much because I’m having second thoughts about merging with Critical Hits and play the role of Prima Donna (It was my idea after all), it’s just that in a few days, we’re going to close something I built with my friend Graham (well he did the building, I furnished it and brought guests). Something that I’ve been doing mostly solo, and proudly so, since August 2007.
(A HUGE thank you to my many guest bloggers by the way, many of which were nominated in the Open Game Table anthologies 2009 and 2010)
I’m excited about the merge, make no mistake. If things go as planned, minimal changes will be inflicted on readers (our top priority). The original URL and RSS feed will autodirect to the new digs and my blog will start existing in its own corner of the Critical Hits super site. I’ll be like the grumpy old bachelor with his own separate entrance to the big family house (with full access to the kitchen, of course).
Still, I want to give this old place one last tribute.
Thank you dear website, you taught me so, so much.
I now leave you with enough knowledge of WordPress to know what I want to do and leave the rest in the capable hands of friends I trust.
I know more about my strengths and limitations than I did 2 years ago when I moved there. I love to write, I’ve got great crazy cool ideas but I so need an editor.
You helped me prove to myself that I had the skills and the charisma to capture the interest of more than one thousand readers and create a community that cares about what we build and share together.
You allowed me to meet many of my gaming heroes, most of which made me feel like I was just like them, a geek with a passion for RPGs. (Others I scared away… but at least I know why.)
I started and finished some great series over here, chief among those my Robin Laws revisited (thankfully with his blessings), my Dungeon Reality Show series, and my RPG Blog primer series. My campaign sessions remain my longest standing feature and will remain. My Friday Chat feature will also remain as it has been very popular.
So thanks little WordPress install. I’ll miss you, make no mistake. This is a breakup of the brain, not of the heart.
And thanks to Graham. I may never be able to afford all those Xboxes I owe you, but I appreciate your help beyond belief. I hope I helped you get your current job in some small way.
Now about the merger. Not everything will be quite ‘prefect’ for the first few days. I have a new banner in the works that won’t show up for some time. My old one will remain for the time being but will likely clash with Critical Hits’ new color scheme. Also, sometime during Sunday, comments will be closed while my site is integrated to the Critical Hits database. So there’s a slight chance that Sunday comments get eaten up during the move, please be comprehensive.
I plan to offer the same sidebars I had before the merge, i.e. archives, best of, blogroll and such. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to run my own “recent comments’ sub-routine (hey! another prima donna demand) but I’ll try to have a chattydm specific comment RSS feed.
As for what I’ll write once I join them… Well pretty much the same thing. I plan to do what I’ve always done, just in a different venue. Dave and I spoke of making theme weeks where multiple writers of the site tackle the same subject in their own ways and I’m all for that. We could also riff off each other’s campaigns and build posts on them.
Also, I have new ideas. By moving in a wider geek website, I plan to start writing for a wider audience, including the DMs who haven’t been doing this for 10+ years like I have. Chief among my ideas for new features is a “Pimp the Dungeon” feature where I’ll tackle a well known 4e published adventure and show how to hack it to your preferences.
All right, enough sentimentality and promises. This is it, my last few lines as a solo blogger. Thank you all for following me so far. I don’t know how most of you learned about me (but I’m curious) or what exactly made you want to stick around, but know that I value your attention and comments very highly.
I hope I’ll see you all on the flipside.
Talk to you on Monday morning from my new digs.
Peace out!
Blog Merge: Gut Reaction and Expectations
(Boy am I glad not to post this on April 1st)
During my scientific training I was thought never to keep a punch till the end if I wasn’t writing a story. So here it is, I’m seriously considering merging Musings of the Chatty DM into the structure of my friend Dave’s Critical Hits* while keeping a clear, recognizable spot on their website. I’ll go into details below, but at least the cat is out of the bag.
Like many nerd projects, one often feels the need to move on once things have been mastered. And while I LOVE writing Musings of the Chatty DM, I’ve grown weary of managing its infrastructure. That’s why I haven’t changed themes in 2 years, that I don’t try to fix my Feedburner issue, that I hardly ever think of changing the speech in the bubble up there.
Oh and don’t ask me about hacking attempts!
As The Plan unfolds (i.e. my 2009-2010 career reorientation), I realize that I want to write, not learn css or how to secure SQL databases. While I’m surrounded by people who have done it for me for free, I’d rather work with someone who’s more into it than I am. As a writer and a teacher, 30 months of blogging taught me that writing and answering comment is what I want to do most.
The idea to merge with Critical Hits came to me while I was answering one of Dave’s recent emails. He was observing that CH’s original crew (a group of pre-college friends) was re-focusing on real-life issues and that keeping the original schedule was going to be harder. He was asking us for ideas on addressing this.
I then proposed the merge as a huge ‘what if’. I no longer post 5 days a week and neither could Dave. I was weary of managing the behind the scene stuff of a WordPress blog while Dave wasn’t. What if we merged? A Win/Win seemed possible.
Of course, when we started talking about it more seriously, I shared my main expectations on this.
- The chattydm.net/com domains would need to be maintained and link to a specific area of Critical Hits where my stuff could be found and well laid out.
- A chattydm-specific RSS feed so readers could keep following my stuff.
- I get to keep full editorial control of my posts, Dave offered some proof-reading and grammar-checking (yeah, I would need that).
- A dedicated space on the site’s front page where readers can find my stuff like it was a feature on those ‘Magazine’ WordPress themes. (i.e. the site would be redesigned)
- Give readers who would prefer the ’ChattyDM’ experience to come in directly, read/comment and leave (actually that one is from Dave, how’s that for service?)
- I keep full publication rights to my posts for possible future blog anthology books.
- The old ChattyDM blog would be closed (there are security reasons behind this)
- A written agreement would be put in place.
None of these seem to be a deal breaker so Dave and I will explore this further. In essence, I would become part of the Critical Hits team, while at the same time having my own ‘section’ of the website doing my Chatty DM stuff.
Heck, I could write about Video Games and movies more often!
But before we do this, I want to ask you what you think!
Given that I will likely go forward with this (barring no technical or contractual obstacles), I’d like to know what your gut reactions tosuch a move would be? As Chatty DM readers (and potential CH readers too), I would also like to know what your expectations would be to keep you as contented readers during and after the move?
While I’ve always said I write for myself first and foremost but now that we’re about 2000 here, you also get to say your piece. We’ll pay attention I promise.
So fire away!
*Critical Hits is an Ennies-nominated blog that talks about RPGs, Boardgame, game designs, gaming news, movies and all things geek. It’s the first geek blog I started reading 3 years ago before I launched Chatty DM.
Chatty's Goals for 2010
Happy new year people! New year, new ‘decade’ (hush, pedants) and possibly new pants!
As is becoming a tradition on Musings, this is when I look over last year’s goals and set new ones. I say goals and not resolutions because resolutions are all about ‘have to, and should, and ought to” and I have zero tolerance for that passive aggressive guilt-ridden crap. 
Objectives are things you strive for, resolutions are things you hope to achieve, like maybe, if I feel like it.
So onwards to the objectives.
RPG Writing and Online Presence
Looking over the 2009 list and given the state I was in when I wrote it, I’m impressed to see just how much was achieved. Without rehashing yesterday’s post, I was able to recapture the fun of blogging and put Musings back on track.
It’s not as meaty as it used to be, I post less often but it sits exactly where I want it to be. It remains my little corner of this digital gamestore where I talk about my campaign, debate ideas, flirt with Indie games and describe my quest to become a better GM.
In 2009, I targeted a few up and coming writers and tried to give them a nudge here and there to get them to consider taking it to the next level (Submitting ideas for publication). It might be weird for a guy who hasn’t actually published anything in 2009 to do that, but you have to understand I’m as much a teacher as a writer.
More specifically, my talent-senses have zeroed in on the guys who hide behind the aliases of Wyatt Salazar, Gamefiend and NewbieDM. These guys ooze potential, quite possibly more than I do. I like to think that I helped them a bit over the last year and will continue doing so over the next one. Be on the lookout for them.
I also did go to Gen Con but I never got around to publishing an e-book. Missing just one Online objective isn’t bad.
I also officially started writing for RPG publishers, with one 4e adventure and 2 gaming magazine articles written, I overshoot last year’s objective. Yay! The adventure and one article will see publication for sure. Let’s hope the other one does too.
For 2010 things are going to be the logical progression of what was started in 2009.
- Maintain the blog , tackle and complete cool series like the ongoing one on creativity.
- Go to PAX east and Gen Con with the primary mission of playing and having fun (less working and schmoozing. Well… Some schmoozing)
- Build myself a name in the RPG industry outside of the online community (more gaming articles and pitches for magazines like Kobold Quarterly, Level Up and Dungeon).
- Make a pitch for one major D&D 4e product (like a 32+ page adventure or a guide)
- Publish at least 2 e-books of material based on my Blog.
Other Objectives
I’ve discussed my personal life too much in 2009 so I’ll spare you the review. Suffice it to say that re-achieving balance and serenity was only the first part.
I’m also building myself a teaching, translating and non-RPG writing business. I seriously doubt that it is viable to make a living as a freelance RPG writer and I want to expand my writing horizon further out. I will remain a Hobby-lancer because RPGs are one of my passions. Just don’t be surprised when you see my name pop in other types of blog.
(If you write such a blog, I’d love a guest post invite).
And who knows, maybe I’ll find a way to support my family without needing the ‘day job’ anymore?
So there you have it. 2010 will be about building a name outside of the Blog/online arena and implementing the changes that started in 2009.
What about your goals? Any armchair designers getting ready to swim with the sharks yet?
Chatty's Year 2009 and the Importance of the Tribe
Yes, Yet another Year End Post. I’m sure the RPGbloggers network‘s first page must crumble under that Echo Chamber effect.
But I don’t quite care about that.
The Year in Review
Oh man what a year. Last year you could taste the the first signs of the rapid unraveling of my mind in my Dec 31st post. To say that the first half of 2009 was anything less than hard and painful would be a lie. Not that my life or job were bad. My family was spared from all the unpleasantness of the financial crisis. As I’ve discussed before, like many creative minds out there, I found myself touched with Bipolar Disorder as I went through my 2nd severe depression in 6 years.
Instead of bearing this moniker as a mark of shame, I decided to openly profess what I suffered from and fully accept that I would likely take medication to treat this for the rest of my life (baring a scientific/spiritual breakthrough to explain it). Had I been a more famous person, I’d likely have written a book about it.
Maybe I will someday.
Fortunately, the medications not only left my creative mind intact (it’s not always the case), it has helped me lower the volume of noise in my overactive mind and helped me focus my ideas more. So much so that during the first half of 2009, while feeling miserable for myself and overly anxious all the time, I was able to actually start and complete multiple projects:
- I wrote a short D&D 4e adventure for Goodman Games entitled ‘When Madness Seeps through…‘ (yeah, how ’bout that, eh?) to appear in the From Here to There anthology to be published in February 2009.
- I met the inimitable Chgowiz, we ran the The One Page Dungeon contest and published the One Page Dungeon Codex
- I tackled an unfinished project and wrote a Primer for the Dungeon Reality Show.
- Following a positive response by Wizards of the Coast for a D&D for Kids adventure proposal made in late 2008, I wrote an extensive outline for a Feywild-based Goonies-like adventure. I’m still waiting for their official feedback (but it got me to learn how to write an official submission)
- I wrote a gaming article for a well-known gaming magazine. To be published in early 2010.
- I started creating my own D&D 4e adventures for our campaigns with the highly successful Primal/Within arc.
I went back to work in June of 2009 with The Plan (Get better, Get projects, Go part time, Freelancer) the hell out of it) and everything went up from there. Incredibly so!
At Gen Con, surrounded by friends I trusted, my impression that I could be a successful RPG writer was confirmed. Slapping hands and giving bro hugs to guys whose adventures/book I had purchased the year before (or whose websites were so much bigger than mine) gave me back the confidence that had eroded while my mind rotted in the grips of depression.
Getting invited by Chris Sims to have a few beers with him, a few other WotC freelancers (Hi Miranda!) and some WotC designers and mad geniuses was one of the high non-gaming points of the con.
After Gen Con, the focus was on stabilizing my full time job while I explored other possibilities. My anxieties slowly abated as did my depressive moods. I sent out resumes to colleges and universities (for continuing education job and training seminars).
I also sent a pitch for a Kobold Quarterly article that was accepted. In fact, I just finished writing it yesterday.
Then, by a near-freakish series of coincidences, I scored a dream part-time (about 12-20 days a year) training seminar gig that pay near 4 figures per day. I just happened to contact the center’s director the week before he completed his winter course catalog. I sent him pitches for 3 courses and he really wanted to add them to his list! Then, he lost a teacher one week before a course and I accepted to take over it and the students loved it, scoring me another new course in the aftermath.
At the same time, at the behest of Chris at WotC, I launched myself into a 6 week project of brainstorming for crazy cool adventure ideas for inclusion in Dungeon magazine. It culminated in what I hope are killer pitches sent in early December. Whatever comes out of this, I’ll have learned to write enticing RPG pitches this year. If it does works, it will be part of my 2010 portfolio of projects.
Right after that, I asked my day job if they’d consider dropping me to 3 days a week… and they said yes, with no conditions! Letting me understand they’d rather keep me part time than lose me outright.
Wha? Okay!
So starting next week, I’ll be working 3 days a week as a Quality Assurance Project Manager in my Pharmacogenomics Center and spend 2 working on my courses, blog and writing projects. This is so cool. And that’s not all, a local vocational college called me to schedule an interview in January to teach pharmaceutical manufacturing classes.
Wow! On January 1st of 2009, I would never have believed how my life would turn for the better in such a short time.
The dream is back and I have an ongoing plan for 2010!
The Tribe
Throughout this year, one element ties my recovery to the way things have been turning up lately. My Tribe.
I define the Tribe as the post-modern family. It combines the elements of those in your family you hold dear, your close friends and all those you’ve let into your circle of trust. In my case, that includes my wife and kids, my mother, my gaming group, some online friends, etc. People, I’d drop everything to help and those who have done the same for me this year.
People I care for and trust have told me to drop everything and write, others have helped me build The Plan, others did simple things like kicking me into gear and getting me to register for Gen Con when I was convinced I didn’t deserve it! The Tribe supported me in my doubts and nudged me to get better. People from my Tribe have called contacts to give me leads for teaching gigs.
But best of all, most of my Tribe has been repeating this near-Mantra to me on a nearly weekly basis
“Are you still taking your meds?”
They all know that my biggest threat now is myself. I’m better now, better than I have been in years! In such cases, people with my condition often stop taking medication, thinking they no longer are ‘in danger”. Few people understand that Mood Stabilizers act to prevent manic phases (the ‘fun’ part of bipolar disorder) and that depression are, in part, triggered by the biochemical ‘cost’ of such manic phases.
So yes Tribe, thank you for asking, I’m still taking them. I’ll take them as long as a better treatment isn’t discovered.
More specifically, I want to thank the following members of the Tribe for this year.
My wife Alex: She was under no obligation to stick around through a second depression, heaven knows she didn’t deserve this. Still she did and I am eternally grateful.
My children Nico and Rory: They are the light of my days. I spent hours with them during my at-home recovery and we forged strong bonds that I hope will long remain.
My mother: She believes in me and doesn’t care about money and status. She’d rather see me starved and happy than rich and miserable. She planted the seed of The Plan in my mind.
Mathieu: Long time friend, playing RPGs with me since we’ve been 13. He’s my reality check guy. Helped me write The Plan and checks on my mental health periodically. Thanks bro.
Dave the Game: Nudged me when I faltered and strong believer in my talents. Collaborator and partner in many of my upcoming projects. I think we teach each other stuff about being writers by working together. Expect to see both our names to appear near each other in coming months.
PM: Always ready to provide an oasis of Geek when things became too dark to face, PM has stoked the fires of my creativity and is everything an overlord would expect of a potentially backstabbing loyal lieutenant.
To those and many others, I thank you.
And to you dear readers. You stuck around when things were gloomier. Yet I see your numbers grow daily (near 2000 now) and am amazed that so many drop by to have a quick read or a quick chat. Stick around, the fun is only starting.
Tomorrow: Chatty’s RPG goals for 2010!
Merry Chirstmas and Happy Holidays
It’s X-mas morning and my family is doing geeky things.
My daughter asked to play on the CBC kids website right after watching the Disney Parade.
My son and wife are playing Wii Sports Resort and I’m just checking a few things online before joining back the fun.
I just thought I’d take a few minutes and wish you all a Merry Christmas (if it means anything to you) and a happy holiday period.
Posting on Musings will be a little more scarce because I have a magazine article deadline looming (as well as a new 4e campaign to jump start).
I’ll be around, but not to write a 5 parts, 6000 words epic about the piece of lint I found under my game table.
In other news, I’ve obtained another official Game Design achievement! I was one of the winners of Wizards of the Coast’s Winter Holiday Encounter contest (along with my buddy Dave: the Game). You can see our entries here and we should see how each entry was played in the Staff blogs next week over at the Wizbook website.
(I’m real curious to see who at Wizards played our encounters)
Anyway, see you all after the break!
Image credit: Wizards of the Coast and Graham Poole
Chasing the Dream: Chatty Moves One Step Closer…
A few weeks ago I wrote a very personal post about the state of me and what I wanted to do with my still nascent writing life.
In that article, I posted a list of what I wanted to do in the short to mid term to achieve my ultimate goal: becoming a writer that can help his wife sustain a family of 4 without having trouble making ends meet.
Sounds simple huh? Well it’s a hell of a lofty goal. I’ve spent months following the antics and struggles of far better writers than I like James of Men with Pens, Bob of The Writing Journey and E of Geeks’ Dream Girl. It became apparent that the life of a successful freelance writer, while possible, requires the same 4 ingredients of success found in all other endeavors: Talent, Luck, Work and Attitude (and some more work).
I know I have all of those… heck, I’ve a D&D adventure and an article in an Ennies-winning magazine coming up this winter. That’s why I’ve started believing I could turn my life around a writer’s career.
However, I also talked with many members of the RPG industry, mostly writers, editors and designers that have been doing it for some time. I came to realize that unless I move to Seattle and convince Wizards of the Coast or Paizo to hire me, writing for RPGs is not a job I want to do full time if I plan to fulfill my part of the family’s financial responsibilities.
Please understand that as a professional slowly creeping up to 40, I’ll never take a 25k$ job as a game designer nor work as a 1 cent per word freelancer, I’m 10-15 years too old for that. My responsibilities, skill set and experience dictate that I either go for the big fish now or change industry. After 30 months blogging, I consider my industry internship over.
So that’s why I’m being very careful about the whole things and being very methodical. Thus, in order to become a self-sustained writer, and succeed in doing it, I came up with a plan with my wife and my friend Math.
The plan is
- Get Better before taking any life changing decisions
- Explore how I could work part time to feed my family and get more time to teach/write
- Pitch writing ideas/projects to create a predictable revenue pipeline
Well project 2 came true over the weekend. I was able to convince my company’s HR to grant me part-time status (3 days a week, full schedule flexibility) as of January 4th. This means I’ll free up some days to prepare the five 2-day seminars I’m going to give a few times a year. I’ve also been contacted for an interview about a technical college part-time teaching gig in pharmaceutical sciences. More importantly, I’ll have actual writing time!
I’ve also tackled project 3. That’s why those following me on Twitter have seen me going on and on about preparing pitches for Dungeon and Dragon magazines. I wrote 4 in hopes of getting one or two approved to work on next spring (the approval process can be long). I’ll write more pitches, to both Wizards of the Coast and Kobold Quarterly early next year.
I want to build a bigger RPG name for myself so that I’ll be able to sell more than 15 copies of D&D adventures if and when I decide to start my own imprint.
My eventual model for a part-time RPG business is Monte Cook‘s. While I don’t think I’ll put my name on a Dungeon Master Guide in the next decade, I admire how he combined his spotless geek cred with a very high quality product line (his wife Sue is likely an Editor Goddess) and his growing loyal fan-base to create a solid enterprise that supported him (and maybe still does).
I also plan to branch outside of RPGs (remember, kids to feed). I’ve a good head for scientific writing, psychology and management and I know my conversational style is tailor-made for coaching in these fields, so I’ll look into that.
In the mean time, I’m also building myself a teaching/seminar catalog to make ends meet. Teaching is (surprise, surprise) second nature to me and I absolutely love doing it. Except now, unlike 12 years ago, I can do it on my terms and with an adult population.
Anyway, I just thought I’d share the good news, I recall when online personalities I followed like Scott Kurtz made moves to get the lives they wanted for themselves. I’m happy to see that I too can now do it.
It’s going to be a great journey, I can feel it.
