In Which The Warlock Ends His Convention Run...

This time of year is a really exhausting one for me, friends and neighbors.  With the academic year swinging into gear and the convention season wrapping up, I've been up to my eyeballs with places to go, things to do, and people to see!

The Warlock's swag shot from GenCon 2012!
Two products from The Laundry
Some Savage Worlds and Deadlands
Richelieu's Compendium for All for One: Regime Diabolique
and a new GameWick Games t-shirt!

This marks the third year I've made it out to GenCon, but only the second that I've been running games:  in this case, a Laundry adventure set in equatorial Africa entitled "The Scramble for Buranda".  Investigators trekked through Ghana in search of the fabled Blade of Kings, while avoiding Grand Leader Charles Umtali's  guards and chatting up Black Chamber zombie drones.

This year's adventure was significantly better-written than last year's adventure, which seemed to switch titles off-and-on through the various drafts we were sent!  The pre-generated characters, as well, were significantly more interesting, with tons more role-playing hooks than their predecessors.  All three of my games went off without a hitch, with my players having a blast sneaking through downtown Buranda City and   trolling through the jungles.  Plus, Cubicle 7's games this year were situated in the posh J.W. Marriott, which was a massive improvement over last year's overly-crowded Omni.

Great DC Cosplayers
at GenCon 2012!

I've got to say:  my GenCon experience overall was a massive improvement from last year's.  The construction that plagued the downtown Indianapolis area has finally been completed, with skywalks linking all the major hotels.  My schedule actually allowed me to enjoy the convention itself, with plenty of time to talk to the folks at Pinnacle Entertainment (and even go to their seminar!), schmooze with the gang at GameWick Games, and even check out EEE's booth:  the Mythic Eras of War Games (spell it out...MEoW!).

Cosplay, too, seems to be really taking off at GenCon.  In previous years, costumes have been somewhat of an afterthought in Indy.  This year, though, costumes were plentiful, varied, and of a genuinely high quality.  It's nice to see this part of the con really take off!

But, as the school year gets started, it's time to focus on the things to come.  The Witt Guild's first meeting is this Friday--come, if you can make it to Shouvlin 203 this Friday evening!--and there's a ton of editing left to be done on Cold Steel Wardens!   Time marches on, friends and neighbors.

In Which The Warlock Preps and Ponders...

Just a short entry this time, friends and neighbors, as I'm getting prepped for my final convention of the year:  GenCon Indy.

Like last year, I'll be running The Laundry for Cubicle 7 Entertainment.  This time around, our intrepid Laundry agents are set to trek off to exotic Buranda in search of a mysterious blade associated with a nefarious cult.  Will they survive, or is CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN right around the corner?  Come play this weekend and find out!

I also just wrapped up on a new project, which I had mentioned a few posts ago.  You see, with a much-abbreviated convention season this year, I felt somewhat left out of my usual ritual of scenario writing.  But, with the rules for Hell on Earth coming out so recently, I felt that it was time to make a tribute to my favorite  of the Hell on Earth Classic scenarios:

Killer Clowns!
a classic Hell on Earth adventure by John Goff

Yes, that's right, children!  It's time for another visit to Dempsey Islands!  Except, this time, you'll be visiting the West Coast islands.  Try your luck at Nevada Smith's Shootin' Gallery, ride the Iron Dragon and race your way through Junkyard Station, and enjoy a leisurely soak in The Maelstrom wave pool...just don't hope to leave the park alive!

I'm still playtesting this module with my Friday group, so I'm going to hang onto it for a little bit for the sake of revisions and the like.  But, expect to see "Killer Clowns 2:  Return to Dempsey Islands" in my "Bag of Holding" very soon.  And I've already decided that I'll be running this one next year at Origins' "Savage Saturday Night".

Oh, and one last thing!  If you haven't yet donated to Will's "Wild Card Creator" Kickstarter, you're missing out!  He's already up to his base funding goal and is already gunning hard on his first stretch goal:  a 150 piece art pack by noted Savage artist Storn Cook.  Give him your support, fellow gamers!  It's a fantastic, revolutionary product that's going to be well worth the sticker price.

No weekend entry this time, kids!  I'll see you in Indy!

In Which The Warlock Summons a Supplemental Elemental...

People often wonder how I come up with such weird things for my games.  I'm known for something of a twisted imagination--just take a look my contributions on "Flying Polyps" in my work on The Mythos Dossiers for "The Laundry".  When I pitched the idea of "sentient f***ing cancer!" to my fellow writers, I could almost hear the jaws hitting the floor. 

But, I readily admit:  like any other writer or GM, I look for inspirational material all of the time.  So, you want to see where my ideas come from?  Here's a sample!

Serene Knowledge

• This site's fantastic, and full of creepy ideas suitable for any modern and even most fantasy style of games.  When I was running "Shadows of the Cold War" at Wittenberg, I pulled a good deal of the Cthulhian themes from this site.  The series at the end, "The Holders of X" can make for a fantastic campaign on its own.

The SCP Foundation

• Another great site for horror links, this one is essentially Warehouse 23 cranked up to 11!  While the information in these links ranges from the absurdly humorous to the outright terrifying, this site makes for great fodder for any modern game.  Running "The Laundry", "Delta Green", or "Dark Matter"?  You need to visit this site NOW.

Unused Lovecraft Story Hooks

• Want to really build up the fear?  Why not work with the ideas of the master himself?  These ideas come from a recently (as of 2011) discovered chapbook of Lovecraft's.  While some of the ideas he's obviously used, the vast majority are fresh and ripe for the picking.  The "one line" elements like "For has not Nature, too, her grotesques—the rent rock, the distorting lights of evening on lonely roads, the unveiled structure of man in the embryo, or the skeleton?" provide for great bits of inspiration on their own, even for a non-Lovecraftian game!

Seventh Sanctum

• One of the things that trip me up constantly is the search for the right name.  It's something I've always struggled with, whether writing or GMing.  However, Seventh Sanctum provides tons of names at the mere click of a mouse.  Not happy with the selections so far?  Click again...and again...and again.  Then, a few hours later, you might get back to writing! 

Creative Writing Prompts

• Working on writing daily or journal-style writing?  I use this site with my students for 2-3 times weekly writing assignments.  With 340-odd prompts, ranging throughout fiction and non-fiction, this'll keep you busy for a while.  For an added challenge, try writing all of them from a single perspective--maybe a character you've been working with or arounds a single, central theme.

In Which The Warlock Has Too Much Plated...

Sorry, but it's a short entry this time, fellow gamers.

I've been staring at a computer screen all weekend, working on a pretty large segment on an upcoming book for The Laundry:  tentatively titled "Cultists Under the Bed". 

Because of this, I'll save the bigger details on what's been going on in The Flood, as well as what else I've been working on for the mid-week entry.  For now, you'll just have to be sated with my upcoming convention schedule for 2012!

In Which The Warlock Wishes Well!

Happy holidays, fellow gamers!

Just stopping into remind you that I'll be taking the next week or so off, enjoying my holiday break (and hopefully recovering from this respiratory infection while I'm at it!). 

But, before I go, some exciting news:  I've been pegged to work on a second book in The Laundry series for Cubicle 7!  I'll have more information on this one for you, as I'm allowed to divulge more details.

Cheers!

In Which The Warlock Ruminates Revision...

One of the things that any writer learns swiftly is that first drafts are usually a pile of crap. Put out quickly, in a fit of creative frenzy, first drafts almost always have massive flaws which only get fixed during the arduous, painful process of revision.

While working on WEGS products with El Willy, revision is the sum totality of my job. Not just for grammatical errors, mind you, but rather for content and context, to say nothing of the actual game mechanics themselves! I have something of a running joke with El Willy regarding the Dungeoneer from the "Ultimate Dungeon Party" due to the many versions of Hew and Jab we ran through.

When working with the other freelancers on "The Mythos Dossiers" for Cubicle 7, however, revision was a group effort. After completing a draft, we'd upload the document to a series of Google docs, which were then available for mark-up and changes as needed. Ideas and commentary ran freely, and I still have a whole series of e-mails, detailing commentary on ideas between writers.

And now, two sessions out from the end of my alpha testing for Cold Steel Wardens, I'm finding myself wondering how to go about revising this mess.  While I have quite a few notes of my own, I'm finding the lack of conversation a little frustrating.  While my players have been good about providing feedback, and I seem to be asking important questions, my time with them is limited and the "Q&A" portion of our sessions often comes at 10:30 at night, as we're heading out the door.   That doesn't exactly make for great discussion, particularly if I've been up (as usual) since 6:30 for teaching.

I've thought about contacting a freelance editor--I have a few names that I'd go to, primarily contacts I've made through running games or talking with industry people--though I can't say that I have the cash to pay someone in that position.  So, I'm figuring that my revisions will be a solo effort...

...which is fine.  Really.  Most of the drafting for CSW was done in July, meaning I'll be coming back at it with a fresh head, ready to tear it apart.  In fact, that's just what's happening with my other ongoing writing project:  The Pendulum Method.  Yup!  Pendulum!  Remember that one?  Yeah, I've been taking a look at that once again, with my eyes on expansion. 

And, at the top of the list for that?  A defense of "adverserial game-mastery"...

In Which The Warlock Muses on the Future...

Last night was Wittenberg's first game night, which is always exciting for us.  It's spectacular to be able to meet a whole legion of incoming gamers and share with them all of the exciting events that the Guild puts forward, all of the events and systems that we run, and the cameraderie of slinging dice with your fellow man.

There's really nothing like the first time that you sit down to experience a game.  The 'first impression' that one gets just can't be replicated.  The first time I slung out the d10s and d6s in WEGS, for example, was a game unto itself.  The first time we broke out Arkham Horror, while frustratingly long, got us immediately hooked.  The first time we watched someone's dice 'ace' two and three times at a clip in Savage Worlds...it caught the eye like none other. 

What to write, what to write?!

But keeping that newness?  It's hard!  The longer one plays a game, the more apparent the flaws are in the system and the more 'rote' things become.  The Journeyman GM and I discussed this tendency on our way home from GenCon this year.  By this point, he had run his Blackbeard-based Doctor Who game nearly 12 separate times for various groups across the Miami Valley.  I'd been pinging my "WEGSthulhu" adventure and "Westbound on the San Juan Express" just as often.

As such, with the close of the convention season, it comes time for us gamers to think about what comes next:  what one-shots are on deck for the coming 2012 season, for the Friday Night One-Shot series at Witt, and what we're excited about.  But, that leaves me with a major question:  with so many options, what do I write?!

Obviously, my first and biggest option (and my biggest priority!) is my campaign of Cold Steel Wardens.  I'm running my alpha test--a campaign that I'm calling "Hard Rain"--at Witt this year, with my tentative players' Heroes making their way into the (ideally forthcoming) book as sample characters.  But, one-shots?  I have no issue running them at Wittenberg, but I'm not sure if the rules-set is ready for the convention circuit yet.

Last year, I built a series of Deadlands characters specifically for the purpose of using them on the convention circuit.  As such, I'm very tempted to bring back those characters for another go.  However, I'm at somewhat of a loss of what I'd like that adventure to look like.  I'm loathe to put forward another "train-based" adventure, and would like to lean towards something a little more investigative.  However, that's the furthest I've managed to think this one out.

The Laundry, similarly, is an appealing option.  While I'm more than proficient in the BRP Call of Cthulhu game, The Laundry has its own unique style that makes for a strange balance between absurdist comedy and deadly serious spy-drama.  But, that same balance makes it particularly difficult to GM appropriately.  Even for a skilled GM, it becomes difficult to shift gears so quickly between tones.  I'd been also thinking up a basic Call of Cthulhu adventure based around Shakespeare's "Scottish Play", but that's still in development.

Coming to a game convention
near you in 2012?

I'd also been thinking about potentially revisiting one of my all-time favorite heroes:  the Masters of the Universe in the role-playing arena.  However, I'm really not sure what system I'd use.  While I'd be tempted towards picking up Cartoon Action Hour, I actually think that ICONS would work really well for emulating the over-the-top action.  But, again, I haven't really thought out what the adventure would entail, or any plot ideas beyond the simple "He-Man and crew have to team up with Skeletor to take out a greater threat". 

And then...there are other options.  While I'm swearing off D&D for a while, my gaming stack's still full-up.  I'm planning on picking up All For One: Regime Diabolique in the near future, and I just found a copy of Wild Talents at Half Price Books for $5.  Also, The Journeyman GM still has my copies of Hell on Earth, while my regular Friday night group is chomping at the bit for some post-apocalyptic action.  Oh, and there's always WEGS, particularly with the Ultimate Dungeon Party out now, and the official printing of Dingbitt's Dunge-O'-Doom on the horizon. 

So many options, so little time, fellow gamers!  What should I run?  What would you like to see at WittCon, FOPCon, and all the rest in the next year?!

In Which The Warlock Muses on GenCon...

With my British overlords at Cubicle 7 needing GMs for their games at this year's GenCon, I couldn't help but volunteer my services to run The Laundry.  In addition to being able to make good with the muckitty-mucks of C7, I wanted to be able to get a crack at GenCon!  Plus, Will the ManMan (also known as the Journeyman GM) joined me out there, running some sessions of Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space.

A glimpse of the dealer hall at
GenCon Indy 2011

While it's true I'd been to the "best 4 days in gaming" before, you could hardly call my visit to GenCon last year a true representation of the convention itself.  While gaming with Keith Baker was a massive treat, I only managed to spend about an hour in the Dealer Hall or surveying the convention itself.  This time, while I was still busy, I got a much better handle on the convention itself!

One of the biggest things that struck me was the sheer size of the Dealer Hall.  The hall itself was about half again the size of Origins' hall, with a massive amount of vendors, authors, and publishers.  The crowds were incredibly dense, but I didn't feel that they were that much larger than any I'd already seen at the Big O. 



Pieces for Fantasy Flight's upcoming
"X-Wing" miniatures game.

One of the neatest things that The Journeyman GM and I got to take part in was a demo of X-Wing--a forthcoming by the new owners of the Star Wars license, Fantasy Flight Games.  While still in development, X-Wing was a neat little miniatures game, built to be playable without the need for a map or measuring tape.  I'm not too heavily into miniatures games, per se, but the game was quick, enjoyable, and easy enough for newbies to pick up.  I'd like to see the ships deal a little more damage, but this was an early prototype, with many changes on the horizon.

But that wasn't why I was there!  Rather, I had some Laundry agents to drive mad!  I ran three sessions of "Case Goblin Willow" (or, was it Case Goblin Winter?  It kept changing with each draft of the adventure I received...), with some great moments of role-play at the table.  I was really shocked at the amount of fans for Charles Stross' series--I'm not exactly up on the sci-fi/fantasy scene anymore, but still--wow! 



Laundry Agents make their way through
Quarae House, in CASE GOBLIN WILLOW

My favorite session of the three had to be my second session, which got ambushed by two zombies...who promptly managed to nearly kill off two of the agents (with shovels, no less!), and send the others into a fighting retreat.  As the police arrived to investigate the gunshots, the agents realized quickly that they still had a corpse lying in the middle of their home-base!  With two of the agents hospitalized and three more incarcerated, none stood in the way of the adventure's villain from summoning STAIRCASE DWELLER (read: Yog-Sothoth!) and causing an early occurance of Case Nightmare Green...

One thing that did frustrated me was the layout of the convention center, and the fact that numerous games--RPGs, board games, and many others--weren't even in the convention center proper!  Rather, they were in the adjoining hotels, which could be up to 3 blocks away!  That makes for a ton of travel time, which makes the whole process much less convenient.  Plus, with many of the streets near the convention center under intense repair, it only became much more difficult to get around!

Overall, though, I was really pleased with GenCon.  With Origins moving their dates forward, it's looking more and more likely that GenCon will soon become my "con of choice" for a weeklong game-a-thon.  All in good time, no?

(See my whole album from GenCon 2011 on Facebook!)

In Which The Warlock Reveals the Fruits of His (and other's) Labor!

So, as I mentioned a few months ago, I'd been picked up by Cubicle 7 to work on an upcoming book for The Laundry--C7's rpg based on the novels and short stories of Charles Stross, which is something of a mash-up of traditional Call of Cthulhu, James Bond-style espionage, with just a touch of The Office for good measure.  I've been holding off on talking about my work there, because I wasn't sure when (or if!) the product would actually hit shelves. 

But then, one of my co-conspirators on the project revealed this:  newly installed at the Cubicle 7 store for pre-order!

The Laundry RPG--The Mythos Dossiers
the PlatinumWarlock's first-ever real RPG writing gig!

As I'd mentioned earlier, I was alerted to an open call for writers by C7 through Dread Pirate Tim, who dropped me a link on Facebook.  The 'audition' material was to write an in-character document, describing one of the "Great Race of Yith"--the conical beings from H.P. Lovecraft's The Shadow out of Time.  A few days after submitting, I received word from Gareth--the project lead and staffer from C7--that I was on board.

The Mythos Dossiers is a really unique sort of book.  While one could call it the "Monster Manual" of the Laundry-verse, it's...not quite that simple.  Rather, all of the material in TMD is written up as a series of files sent to the head of the Laundry organization, compiled by various field agents.  As such, instead of just a series of stats or a generic description, the files include first-person sightings, autopsy reports, interviews, scientific reports and more.

Each of the authors--there were about 8 of us, all told!--were in charge of a specific monster (called Primaries), and would submit secondary documents for others' primaries.  Yours truly was made Primary for a classic Lovecraftian monster--the burrowing Cthonian!  I also submitted secondaries on serpent-people, ghouls, and shoggoths.  But, I managed to finish out my personal work early, and was even afforded the chance to work in an additional Primary:  Flying Polyps!

While I can't divulge too much about the book itself, outside of what I already have, it'll definitely be exciting to see it hit print!  Some of the ideas that made it in really take some of the Lovecraftian classics and turn them on their head.  I'm especially proud of the Flying Polyps...the mad scientist Dr. Juurian Groeningen will make for a fantastic NPC adversary for an entire campaign of his own!

Have a nice weekend, cats and kittens!  :D

The PlatinumWarlock's Origins 2011 Live Blog--Sunday!

Exhaustion really does catch up with you, after a while.  After day after day of hot gaming action, and night after night of no sleep, I was set to drive ChaoticKarl to the airport at 4:30 this morning for his 6am flight.  Unfortunately, I passed out and he forgot to set his alarm, which meant that at 5:20, we were desperately rushing towards Dayton International, trying to get him on to the flight on time!  We made it, luckily, but it just goes to show what happens when you're running on empty!

The PlatinumChick and Rogue Rod
conspire in "Severed Seas"

Sunday was the one true day of Origins where I had no real responsibilities.  The PlatinumChick and I had one game--a Rogue Cthulhu game called "Severed Seas".  The big plus on this one was that we got to play with two of our favorite Rogues, Justine and Rod; we've never managed to get all four of us into one game before, so this was a real treat!  Playing high-society Brits (or, in my case, a Russian engineer), we were set to investigate the mysterious crash of the Russian ship Antonov.  And, as is the case with all good Cthulhu adventures, horrible things ensue...

While I loved the role-play between characters--though, admittedly, there were probably 2 more seats at the table than really necessary or comfortable--this was maybe the first Rogue game I wasn't particularly enamored of.  For the first half of the adventure, tension was high as we began exploring the Antonov and the atoll it had crashed on.  Something big had created a huge hole in the hull, and not a single crewmember was to be found.  However, as we made our way through the adventure, the GM unwittingly took the horror right out of his own adventure.  When a hideous beastie made an appearance, the initial reaction was fear...until he let it slip that they were simple Deep Ones.  At that point, the guns came out and bullets flew...and the horror went down the drain.  And, for the record, why did everyone have a gun?  Surely the physicist and the archaelogist shouldn't randomly be carrying a revolver and a double-barreled shotgun, respectively!

BoardGameKaren and L-Train in
front of the dealer hall...

After the game, the PlatinumChick and I made our way through the dealer hall one last time, to make some final purchases and to day goodbye to the mighty WEGSHogz.  On the plus side, I actually got to introduce the PlatinumChick to Angus Abranson, one of the head honchos at Cubicle 7.  We had spent quite a bit of time talking earlier about the plans for The Laundry RPG and the demo games at GenCon 2011, but I figured that if I'm going to be writing/running games for them for any extended amount of time, it's a great time to meet and greet! 

As I mentioned earlier, I'll post a little more about what I picked up from C7 and the other booths during my Wednesday entry: my swag report and post-con wrap-up.  Till then, I'm going to just relax!  It's sleepy-time, fellow gamers!

In the meantime, enjoy my pictures from Saturday and Sunday at my my Origins Facebook album!

In Which The Warlock Makes a List and Checks it Twice...

Man, I just can't seem to stick to my schedule in recent days!  Yesterday, the PlatinumChick joined Lion-O, EEE, and Will the ManMan for a summer excursion to go see Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.  As such, the weekend blog entry was relegated to today. 

You see, in amongst all of the chaos of the school year ending, I've been compiling exactly what I have to do this summer.  All in one place, it's a little frightening, children!  Take a look:

June:

• Revision for SunnyVale Acres
• Begin work on [EXPURGATED RESULT] for Cubicle 7.
• Finalize ICONS scenario:  "The Near-Orbit Mass-Driver Blues"
• Character Sheets
• Table Tents
• Revised Outline and Villain Stats
• Revisions of Origins Scenarios:
• Deadlands--"Westward on the San Juan Express"
• WEGS--"...WEGSthulhu"
• CoC--"Chrysalis"
• D&D--"Lawfully Blonde"
• Prepare game supplies for Origins
• Minis
• Scenarios
• Character Sheets/Table Tents
• Pack for Origins
• Buy gamer chow and other necessaries
• Pack suitcases
• Origins 2011
• Run 6 games
• Play in various events.
• Live-blog notes for seminar--"Dirty Secrets of Game Design"
• Handle donations for Sauer family.
• Buy swag!
• Live-blog (with photos!) each night.
• Contact Slugfest Games, re: SunnyVale Acres

July:

• Mail out donations to Sauer family.
• Continued work on [EXPURGATED RESULT].
• Outline and write manual for Lumberjack Wars
• Begin revisions on "The Yawlamoo"--2-3 passes.
• Process game feedback forms from Origins.
• 5 day weekend in Reading, PA for wedding.

August:

• Organize day-trip to GenCon Indy.
• Revise and rebuild Dungeon Slam
• Finalize drafts for [EXPURGATED RESULT].
• Submit SunnyVale Acres to interested parties.
• Prep for next school year
• Shopping
• Syllabus and lesson plan organization.

As you can see, friends and neighbors...this is going to be a busy, busy summer!  If I thought I wrote a lot earlier, I've got even more on my plate now!

In Which The Warlock Contemplates...Nothing.

So, the saying goes that "absence makes the heart grow fonder".  Yeah...something like that.

Friends and neighbors, I'm going through gaming withdrawl.  "Heresy!" you probably cry, "Warlock, you run a gaming blog, are in two weekly campaigns, and run demos on the Ohio convention circuit.  How can you possibly be going through withdrawl?"

Simple, my lovelies.  Much of my gaming seems to be coming to an end for a while.

My upcoming gaming schedule...?

Deadlands is just about over for us.  While I'm going to save up what's happened for a later post, after our final session, we have just that left:  one session.  The campaign had gone fairly well, all told.  I have some regrets about it, dealing specifically with certain choices I made as a GM, but overall I was pleased with the result.  I think the players had fun, which is what matters.  Some continuity in amongst the players would have been nice, though...losing DigitalKat halfway through sucked, and while LuckyDee and KungFuJake wake were welcome additions, they only joined after two other players had dropped out.

Similarly, our Dark Sun game is heading towards its conclusion.  ChaoticFrederick received an opportunity to work at a government jet-propulsion laboratory in California for three months, so we're trying to wrap up our adventures in Athas before then.  Unfortunately, this game's provided me quite a bit of consternation recently...we haven't actually had a session in nearly a month!  Actorios' story has been sitting on idle since then! 

FOPCon 3!  Return to the Scene of the Con!

The con circuit, while not quiet, has abated for me momentarily.  Next on the docket is FOPCon, in Huber Heights, which is always a blast.  FOPCon's run by Doug and his friends, who really pour their heart and soul into showing people a good time.  The F.O.P. hall where FOPCon is held is comfortable and spacious, but the best part of FOPCon is the food!  There's a ton of house-made food sold at FOPCon, but as a GM...the food is free!  Yes, free!  Om nom nom, indeed!

But, with that, my gaming options slowly die off.  There's been some interest in me running a short campaign of The Laundry, which seems appealing, especially as I work my way through reading "Black Bag Jobs", a series of Laundry adventures.  (Oh, you say, it's not out yet?  There are advantages to being a freelancer...)  However, I've had an itch to run some sandbox-style, no frills D&D.  With several of the WittKids staying on campus over the summer, I may just get my wish...

Oh, and speaking of Witt:  we have a new banner!  Take a look at this hotness:

Awesome, no?  Just wait till you see it hanging up at this year's Origins Game Fair!

In Which The Warlock Muses on Thread Necromancy and Group Building...

For those of you that aren't frequenters of rpg-forums and the like, "thread necromancy" refers to the act of bringing back a "dead" thread, months or even years after its last response.  I was somewhat shocked, recently, to find that a thread that I'd started over at RPG.net had been necro-ed, dealing specifically with the idea of "allowing" items in a campaign.

If you're interested, the thread still exists--just poke around and you'll find it under "Allowing Things in a Campaign", but that's not what I'd like to talk about today.  Rather, I'd like to focus on one of my responses.

Has no business in a pirate game...

One of the biggest problems that I had in starting the first "Pirates of the Underdark" game was that...well, no one wanted to be a pirate!  In the wild and chaotic days of 3.5e, I ended up with almost every combination you could think of, but not one was even remotely piratical or linked to the Underdark.  I ended up with an anime-style sorcerer girl, a modron swordmage, and a "gelatinous orc", but nary a pirate in sight!  Needless to say, this campaign imploded nearly from the start.

You see, friends and neighbors, I've become a bigger and bigger fan of "group" character building, the longer that I've been gaming.  This isn't to say that people shouldn't generate characters as individuals--that's half the fun!--but rather that some degree of communication has to occur when a group sits down to plan an extended campaign. 

Our current Dark Sun group suffered from that, as half of the group were planning on playing amoral desert survivors, while others planned on being active agents of the Veiled Alliance.  As you might have seen in previous entries, such did not turn out well.  Had we managed to be honest with one another at the start, expressing what we wanted out of character development and plot points, a compromise could have been reached, but we just didn't think that far ahead.

Equally, has no business
in a Call of Cthulhu game...

Honestly, this is also one of the issues that I have with Call of Cthulhu.  Don't get me wrong:  I love CoC in all its various incarnations.  But, the disparity that exists when you bring together a history professor, a private detective, a teppanyaki chef, a college student, and a half-crazed journalist makes for a group that is ultimately unskilled in necessary areas, while are masters at items that may only come up in one session or as a group-joke.  That takes the inherent horror of CoC and degenerates it into slapstick comedy.  It's a fine line to walk, believe it or not...

For extended campaigns of all sorts, I've taken to spending an entire session for group-building and, as ChaoticFrederick calls it, "theorycrafting".  While this has met with mixed results--particularly in the "Tear of Ioun" game last year (heavy on the 'theory', light on the actual 'crafting')--it's helped to explain how the group got together in the first place, as well as what tactics they use when in combat or in investigations.

Madness encouraged!

But, on the other end of the spectrum, there's The Laundry...which takes the exact opposite approach, and hits it out of the park.  The Laundry encourages offbeat, especially nerdy professionals, with totally disparate skill sets.  However, it rectifies this by providing each character with a baseline of "Laundry Basic Training" as well as a set of skills that come as part of their directory assignment.  While characters are free to individualize their skills based on their own former profession and their preference, it becomes almost impossible to create an "ineffective" character or, for that matter, a character that overlaps or does not fit within the group as a whole.

Have you encountered another system that rewards diversity or group character-building?  Or, do you have your own methodology that works?  By all means, do tell!

In Which The Warlock Goes Up to 11...

...and we're not just talking about Actorios, who's finally hit Paragon tier and become an Avernian Knight.

Rather, it's my writing.

The Warlock's keyboard, for the past 6 nights...

With WittCon VIII coming up fast on the horizon, I really had to kick it into gear this week, in order to get finished.  While having everything done will make things much easier on me during the actual convention season, it doesn't make life much easier while putting it all together!

Let's run down a brief list of what I've written since last Saturday:

"Westbound..."

• 6 Character Backgrounds, formatted into table-tents  (1,300 words)
• 7 Statted NPCs (850 words, but very time-consuming)
• Westbound... Adventure Outline (6,500 words)

"Splitting Heirs"

• 8 Character Backgrounds, formatted into table-tents (1,500 words)
• Splitting Heirs Adventure Outline (3,600 words)

"Lawfully Blonde"

• 6 Character Backgrounds, formatted into table-tents (1,000 words)
• Lawfully Blonde Adventure Outline (1,800 words)

"Chrysalis"

• 6 Character Backgrounds, formatted into table-tents (1,600 words)
• 6 PCs statted up (no word count available--done via HeroForge)
• Chrysalis Adventure Outline (4,900 words)

That's...*checks calculator* SWEET ZOMBIE GHANDI!  23,050 WORDS!

Let it be known, I have never, not in my most creative, most productive, and most-sleep deprived days, done this much writing at once.  What's more (and this is me putting aside my usual arrogance), they're good.  Seriously.  Westbound... has a spectacular parallel plotline structure that'll make it a blast to run.  Chrysalis and Splitting Heirs are both Pendulum-style adventures, which adds to the difficulty in writing/running them, but the adventures themselves are creative and inspired.  Lawfully Blonde...well, it'll just be hilarious to play.

Now, two provisions have to be added to this. 

1) I'm not done.  My responsibilities for The Laundry have me pumping out an additional series of documents on the various beasties of the Laundry-verse, which I'm about halfway through, on top of everything I've written for WittCon/FOPCon/DenCon/Origins.  I've written something in the neighborhood of an additional 4,000 words just in rough drafting, with plenty more to go!

50k words?  Feh...

2) There's a little contest that you might have heard of, called NaNoWriMo.  Each November, budding writers from all over the world do their best to assemble a novel in 30 days.  I've never done NaNo, though I've been tempted in the past, and both DigitalKat and PhillyLaura have given it a go.  The goal for NaNoWriMo is 50,000 words--about 175 pages, all told.

I've done over half of that challenge...in 6 days.

Madness!  Insanity!  Obsession-compulsion on the level of Howard Hughes or Rain Man! 

Yeah, probably.  But I'm riding a high right now that's unfathomable.  I'm going to surf this wave till I come into shore, and even then...I'm going to be up on the beach, wondering where the wave went!

As a last bit, there'll be no entry this Saturday.  Why, devoted readers?  Because it's WittCon VIII!  Get your skinny keisters to Springfield, and throw down with us!  See you there!

WittCon VIII!  Be there!

In Which The Warlock Begins Living the Dream...

This is a short one, but with some really exciting news.

Back when I was still a student at Witt, I became acquainted with Dread Pirate Tim--a comics/game shop owner in Springfield.  Dread Pirate Tim had some pretty serious health issues, which contributed to his store closing, but he's an avid gamer and occasionally makes appearance at WittGuild meetings.  I hadn't talked to him in quite a while, when he messaged me out of the blue.

Apparently, Cubicle 7--the company that produces the Doctor Who rpg, among several others--was taking an open call for freelance writers, to work on their new rpg The Laundry.  Deadline was March 1st.  Hurriedly, I worked up a submission to their specifications and sent it off.

Just yesterday, I received an e-mail from Cubicle 7--they want me on board for a new product release!

I'm not sure how much I'm able to say at this point on the new product, but I'm beyond excited to be working with them. 

Ever since I began gaming, back in 7th grade, this has been my dream--to actually write for a real, published RPG product.  And now, years later, that dream is really coming true...it's unbelievable!  :D