Well, November is packed with (writing/editing) work:
* Freelance editing project, at my day-job rate. * Starting DFRPG edit work Real Soon Now. [1] * Working on STotC at odd moments. [2] * UA PDF project progressing. [3] * Day-job editing of many, many 2 yr old DOCs. * Once again, pondering Hyperworld. [4]
I think that this weekend is the last anyone will see me in a social context until December.
NOTES: [1] That would be the Dresden Files RPG. [2] That would be the Strange Tales of the Century sourcebook. [3] That would be the Thin Black Line, the Order of Saint Cecil sourcebook. [4] That would be the revisiting of my "Hyperworld vs. the Invadroids" CiaB. . . and a backdoor new edition of T&J under the PDQ# rubric.
(That latter link will keep you reading for HOURS.)
ALSO, because I am a tres geeky fanboi, I was thinking today that if I saw a story where Harry Dresden and Vlad Taltos teamed-up, I'd probably plotz.
(Then, I thought about Vlad teaming up with Locke Lamora and Jean Tannen, and I DID plotz. Then, I thought about the Three Musketeers teaming up with Cyrano and Captain Alatriste, and plotzed halfway through the thought. We shall not speak of the Kirk and Sheridan team up, or the Matthew Gideon and Malcolm Reynolds team up.)
So, from doing not much of anything, I am suddenly editing two monster projects:
#1. The Dresden Files RPG. I've been pitching in a bit with the other editors for the past month/month and a half on the manuscript, editing what chapters I can in a piecemeal fashion, reshaping the text presentation (not the rules; that is left up to better system-heads than mine) in preparation for the full-on, chapter-by-chapter "tone and continuity pass" I'll be doing in November, before the book goes to layout.
I really dig that Fred and the team dug my idea that the DFRPG is Billy's attempt to write a new version of Dracula for the Dresdenverse. (That is, a handbook/Dummies Guide for whacking nastybads.) HOWEVER, this means that much of the text -- written over several years, by diverse hands -- needs to be restructured, so (since it's my fault) I'm trying to pitch in and smooth the process.
An interesting thing: the book is theoretically being written between Small Favor and Turn Coat. Mostly because SmF came out JUST as we were finalizing "canon issues." Then, in the fulness of time, TC came out -- and we're too far along in the process to add new stuff, since we're getting close to PUB.
Making sure that the game is back-compatible with the new stuff in TC, without actually going there, has been a fun and interesting challenge.
#2. Strange Tales of the Century. Let me just say that I love ratmmjess with a mighty man-love. So everything I say after this, take that into account. IT'S SAID WITH LOVE!
Jess dropped a manuscript 157% over projected wordcount, because he's a VERY NAUGHTY BOY.
And it's all awesome.
So, as editor, I am faced with a very, very CRAP position: I need to tighten the text up -- but every cut is a razorslice against my fanboy skin.
LISTEN UP, NON-GAMERS: Are you pissed you haven't been able to get a copy of The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana? Upset that The Encyclopedia of Pulp Heroes hasn't yet been published?
You needStrange Tales of the Century -- when we're done with it.
Sure, there will be gamey-stuff in the book, but the lion's share of text is collecting, analyzing, and reifying (pulp) fictional archetypes, with numerous examples, for the time period from (at least) 1850 to 1950.
I'm talking about HUNDREDS of pages that aren't specifically game-oriented. A casual non-gamer reader will still get a tremendous amount of value from this book.
When it's done. Which is what I'm working on.
Lastly, I sent in three pitches for the Unknown Armies call for ideas for 3 PDFs. Because, hey, It's UA, and I loves me some UA.
My three pitches (djinn, thin black line, and perchance) are substantially mostly stuff that's been sitting on my harddrive since the UA heyday.
In the wake of the multi-year "mostly dead" status of Pen & Paper, and the looming demise of Geocities (where my other publications credits are listed), I have begun to try and assemble a decent CV of my work in the gaming industry over the past few days.
It's harder than I thought it would be (especially for an egotist like me!)... apparently I did not keep adequate track of ALL of the work or award nominations I received.
Still, I can say, with some assurance that, since 1998, I have worked on...
20 RPG books
and wrote
50 articles or columns.
. . .
Whoa.
Still assembling data; will let you all know when the credits page on the ASMP site goes live.
Hey folks! We've had our heads down & nose to the grindstone for a while, trying to deal with the Dresden Files RPG Entropy Curse Effect (more on that in a later post) and watching the Burning Alpha play itself out.
That said, we wanted to call your attention to a series of podcasts over on Narrative Control. These guys were part of the Burning Alpha and give the game some good attention. (That said, a lot of our playtesters got caught up in city creation more than anticipated -- something we're working on in our current revisions -- so you'll be seeing a fair amount of that in this round, too.)
Here's a guide to the Dresden Files Burning Alpha episodes on Narrative Control:
Hi folks! Sorry about the lack of updates these last couple months -- the Summer convention season has had us swamped. While we're continuing to work on the RPG (despite a computer crash slowing down one of our writers), we've lacked that crucial extra chunk of time to update folks on this blog.
So what's new? Well, we recently kicked off the Burning Alpha Playtest. This is the second alpha round, with another 20 or so playtesting groups selected out of our pool of over (yikes!) 750 applicants. Stacey Chancellor, one of our Burning Alpha playtesters, has started collecting links to the various places you can see the Burning Alpha underway, over on the Dresden Files RPG Livejournal Community:
Evil Hat will be attending GenCon, as a part of the IPR / Forge Booth (#1939) -- and by that we mean lead developer Lenny Balsera, setting guru Chad Underkoffler, and Evil Hat owners Rob Donoghue and Fred Hicks will all be there, along with other members of our writing and editing staff. Come on by and pick our brains!
And while we're on the topic of GenCon, the Ennie Awards voting is underway, and Evil Hat's product Spirit of the Season is up for an award for Best Supplement. We'd love to get your support with just a couple minutes taken to vote (you don't have to vote on everything, just the stuff you're familiar with).
If you'd like to familiarize yourself with Spirit of the Season before casting a vote, please do! We have a completely free 40-page version (trimmed down from the 72+ page version that's for sale) available on DriveThruRPG:
Work Journal: * Transformed longhand notes on "Welcome to the Jungle" (comics) into electronic form (+543 words; total = 945). * Created 3 pages of longhand notes on "Backup" -- complete. * Transformed longhand notes on "Backup" into electronic form (+1032 words).
Work Journal: * Transformed longhand notes on "Welcome to the Jungle" (comics) into electronic form (+543 words; total = 945). * Created 3 pages of longhand notes on "Backup" -- complete. * Transformed longhand notes on "Backup" into electronic form (+1032 words).
downloading current versions of GB and WW for updating.
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