Checking In, Autumn 2013

Hi. It's been a while, but I thought I'd check in. This summer has been busy. Unnecessarily so, since I managed to volunteer at church and walk into the middle of a firestorm of competing opinions. I'm disentangling myself from that soon, and I hope to finish an article on toxic groups which relates my experience over the past year to dealing with unhealthy gaming groups.

Coming in December.

As for gaming work, I haven't put in the effort to drum up new business lately. I had a handful of small projects that hit all at once, and I've dabbled with flash fiction and fictional ads to keep from going totally off the deep end, but mostly I coasted through this summer and fall. A few things happened this week that brought me back to my senses.

1) Covert Ops
I'm editing Covert Ops for DwD Studios. I edited BareBones Fantasy for them last year. I had fun doing it, and I like the system. Bill emailed me out of the blue to ask if I had the bandwidth to work on Covert Ops, and a few hours later I had the manuscript in hand and an agreement in place. I love it when good things happen at the speed of the Internet.

I'm still getting into it, but I like what I see so far. The playtest document already has artwork and layout, which rocks. I'll be posting more about this in the next few weeks, but for now check out the briefest taste of the excellent artwork from Khairul Hisham:

Snipers Rock.

2) You Need an Editor
I've got a guest post up at Troll in the Corner entitled Three Reasons You Need an Editor for Your Game. Yes, it's a list article to GRAB YOUR EYEBALLS, and it weighs in at over a thousand words, but I think it's worth forwarding to your game designer and author friends who refuse to hire an editor. Then again, I'm totally biased.

I'd love to hear what you think about it. What feels right to you? What did I miss?

3) Kobolds Rock
I was updating my RPG editor CV when I discovered that Dark Fey had been released. That means I currently have no projects in the hopper from Kobold Press, and I find I miss that structure and the challenge of proofing and formatting Pathfinder stat blocks. I didn't push it over the summer because it sounded like the Deep Magic Kickstarter ate all the kobold brains it could find, which is totally understandable. I'll see if I can get back on Wolfgang's "editors looking for work" list before the end of the year.

4) RailSchroding as Extra Reading
I totally tripped across a link to Schrödinger's Gun GMing over at The Warehouse of Trinkets. The article's main idea involves giving your players enough rope to create and then hang themselves on the main arc of the campaign. I like that idea, and it's one of the things I love to do. Letting the world grow in response to the PC's actions makes a game come alive more than a series of canned dungeon crawls. Sometimes the GM needs to provide a push, but most gamers get themselves in trouble no matter what the GM does.

In Closing: Thank You!
I am extremely thankful that clients are starting to find me instead of me finding them. It feels really good to have unexpected work to do, and it tells me that I'm on the right track. I'd love to support myself and my family through writing and editing one day, but that'll only happen if good gigs keep finding me. After 2 years of editing professionally, we're off to a great start.

If you've been reading what I write either here or on Google+, thank you. It's all well and good to write, but writing is only half of the communication equation. If you read something I wrote and want to engage, feel free to comment or ask questions; I'll be happy to answer. Feel free to track me down using any of these methods.

As always, thanks for reading!