Ever since joining the video game industry, I’ve wanted to attend two events: E3 and the Game Developers Conference. This year, not only am I attending the latter but I’m speaking on a panel there! I’m crazy excited to hang out with some peers, including long-time friend and supersmart guy Ed Lima, and talk shop in front of an audience of industry folks. I think about story in games a lot, especially the areas in which it fails, and I look forward to discussing that at length. The panel, Dialogue: When, Who, and Why, focuses on the the cheapest and easiest way to convey story—and we as an industry can do a lot better. But I won’t stand on my soapbox now; I’ll wait until next month.

You can read about the panel, and my fellow panelists, here. GDC 2013 runs March 27-29th in San Francisco, CA. If you’re able to make it out, swing by the panel or look me up at the convention!

Over the past couple weeks, three different game designers offered me a chance to contribute to their Kickstarter projects as a participant in possible stretch goals. As the first’s been active for a bit, and the second was just announced (the third isn’t slated to go live until next month), now seems like a good time to direct some traffic their way.

Hillfolk: DramaSystem

If you’re reading this, I suspect a high probability that you’re familiar with the work of tabletop game designer Robin D. Laws. I’ve been a fan of his stuff for twenty years, and I always look forward to seeing what he does next. He’s been teasing out his latest, DramaSystem, for a while and now folks will be able to get their hands on it.

As Robin’s excellent GUMSHOE (Esoterrorists, Mutant City Blues, Trail of Cthulhu) emulates procedural shows such as The X-Files, Law & Order, and CSI, his latest centers on the personal dynamics and relationships of more character-driven fare. The first product to use this, Hillfolk, is a game set in the Iron Age. Here’s the blurb from the pitch:

In an arid badlands, squeezed between mighty empires, your people hunger. Your neighbors have grain, cattle, gold. You have horses and spears, courage and ambition. Together with those you love and hate, you will remake history—or die.

The Kickstarter is already over 400% of its original goal and is well on its way through the slew of announced stretch goals. Chief among them are a variety of alternate premises using the DramaSystem. Not interest in Iron Age politics? Step into the shoes of time travelers stuck in the 1940s with Matt Forbeck’s WW2.1. Or play supervillians doing their best to stay reformed in Michelle Nephew’s Mad Scientists Anonymous. Or dip your toe in Cold War espionage with Kenneth Hite’s Moscow Station.

If the project hits $14k (and it looks like it will do that handily), I’ll contribute my own setting, the True Blood meets Being Human meets Vampire Diaries meets Twilight melodrama Inhuman Desires.

One Shot

Subtitled “a roleplaying game of murder and vengeance”, Tracy Barnett’s two-player One Shot focus on personal relationships of a specific sort: the kind that usually have a gun involved. Check out the premise:

One Shot is a tabletop roleplaying game about murder and vengeance. Two people work together to tell the story of the Shooter, a normal person wronged, and set for revenge. One player plays the Shooter, on their path to their one shot. The other plays the Forces, the world and people around and in the way of the Shooter.

Sounds great, and fits perfectly with the work I’m doing on the Kickstarter-funded project I ran last year, Streets of Bedlam.

With a month left to go, One Shot sits near the halfway mark to its goal. If the project meets its stretch goal, I’ll contribute short fiction to an anthology that explores the ideas presented by the game itself. Other authors include Jess Hartley, Will Hindmarch, Filamena Young, David Hill, and others.

So please check out the above and, if they interest you, pledge your support! Kickstarter is a fantastic way for creatives and customers to connect. I love seeing folks like Tracy and Robin putting new ideas out there in a way that doesn’t threaten their pocketbooks.

As for the third, I’ll let you all know when that goes live. I think you’ll really dig it.

I love Twitter. It allows me to shoot off a quick note about a news item, life event, professional anecdote, or wry observation without needing to find a way to turn that thought into a proper blog post (or, y’know, just keeping it to myself). Another benefit is sharing these thoughts with a bunch of folks of similar interest, meeting new people, and especially reading others’ anecdotes, observations, and news shares in return.

And sometimes, well so far just this once, something I tweet inspires someone in a way I never would have predicted. At least, that’s what happened the other day when the folks at Improvised Live turned one of my tweets into an improv comedy sketch. Craziness.

You can check it out below, and click on the link to check out their other videos as well.

Preditors & Editors rolled out its yearly Reader Polls a couple months back and readers chose HAUNTED: 11 Tales of Ghostly Horror as the Best Horror Anthology of 2011!

HAUNTED really is a great book. My story “It Happened in the Woods at Night” sits alongside original tales by Alex Bledsoe, Richard Dansky, Chuck Wendig, Monica Valentinelli, and more. I highly recommend the book—and not just because I’m in it.

This is the second anthology I’m in to receive the honor, with 12 to Midnight’s Buried Tales of Pinebox, Texas being the first. I’m proud to be involved in both collections as they feature some great stories by amazing talent and doubly honored readers bestowed this award on both of them.

If you haven’t checked out HAUNTED, you can pick it up in print and pdf through DriveThruRPG.

Well, having a book that contains your work be nominated for an award isn’t a bad way to kick off the year.

HAUNTED: 11 Tales of Ghostly Horror is up for a Reader’s Choice Award over at Preditors & Editors! The book features a lot of great authors, including Jess Hartley, Georgia Beaverson, Chuck Wendig, and Richard Dansky. I’m honored that my story, “It Happened in the Woods at Night”, is included in such illustrious company.

Voting ends soon (January 10th) so please, if you’re a fan of the book, head over to the site and place your vote. (And don’t forget to verify your vote afterwards.) If you haven’t picked up a copy yet, you can grab it in digital or hard copy from DriveThruFiction.

Top adventure gaming website AdventureGamers.com has launched a thirty-year retrospective of the Top 100 Adventure Games. Jack Allin, the editor, had the enviable* task of compiling feedback from the staff and herding us cats as we wrote up our reasons for including certain games. I was honored to be assigned some of my all-time favorites to praise, and I look forward to reading what other writers had to say about their faves. As with any Top X list, I’m sure it will inspire plenty of debate as to why one game was ranked higher than another, why someone’s favorite wasn’t included, and why another was put on the list at all. For me, that’s part of the fun.

The countdown will be rolled out over the next couple weeks, starting today with the first batch, numbers 100 through 91. I encourage you to check out the list, read up on some classics, and maybe even find a couple (dozen) new games to try. Keep checking back from now until the new year to see more games revealed on our way to the top ten.

*I kid, Jack. I kid.

I posted this over at the official Streets Of Bedlam site but wanted to drop a note here as well:

Streets of Bedlam is fully funded!
Wow! Less than three days since the Kickstarter launched and Streets of Bedlam is fully funded! I am humbled and amazed. But there are still six weeks to go and plenty of reasons to jump on-board.

First: Kickstarter exclusives. Every backer gets credit in the book and folks who pledge $5 or more get turned into NPCs. Backers at higher levels get to influence future supplements, get immortalized as a major character in the Streets of Bedlam corebook, get archetypes only available through this Kickstarter, and more!

Second: New goals unlock new perks. I’m in talks with folks to bring even more freebies and exclusives to Kickstarter pledges. I’ll have more details as we get closer but I’m looking at unlocking new content at $5k, $8k, and beyond. Your support could benefit everybody!

Third: More money means more products. I would love to launch the Streets of Bedlam line in style and the more capital behind it, the quicker I can move on it. I’m looking to release district books, character packs, more scenarios for your group, fiction anthologies, and a graphic novel.

THANK YOU TO EVERYBODY WHO HAS SUPPORTED STREETS OF BEDLAM SO FAR AND TO EVERYONE WHO DOES SO IN THE FUTURE.

You are all awesome.

I am very excited to announce my next project: Streets of Bedlam: A Savage World of Crime + Corruption.

Streets of Bedlam: A Savage World of Crime + Corruption is equal parts neo-noir, pulp detective fiction, and a bit of the ol’ ultraviolence thrown into a cement mixer and poured on top a heap of nameless bodies no one will ever miss.

It’s a modern urban setting full of despicable people doing awful things in the name of God, money, politics, or to pay off old debts. The stories shine light on the dark places of the human heart but it’s about finding diamonds in the rough, about good people in bad situations. The heroes may have questionable means but they have good intentions.

Of course, you know what they say about good intentions.

To help get this new game on its feet, I’ve launched a Kickstarter where folks can help support the game, guarantee a lot of great artwork for the book, secure an early copy of the game, and even help direct the flow of supplements. If you have any interest in ultraviolent crime roleplaying, visit the Kickstarter page to learn more and pledge your support. Check out the video below to hear about the game directly from me.

If you can, please help spread the word! Kickstarters live and die by word-of-mouth and your help means the world to me. Thank you!

I’m happy to announce that I will contributing to Clint and Cassie Krause‘s upcoming colonial America folklore RPG Don’t Walk in Winter Wood.

The official description:

Are you ready for a walk in the woods?

Don’t Walk in Winter Wood is a storytelling game of folkloric fear. Players take on the roles of hapless villagers who must enter a legend-haunted forest and uncover its sinister secrets. The game uses simple rules and a unique narrative style to help you create spooky stories with your friends. It includes:

Legends of Winter Wood: The dark folklore surrounding Winter Wood and its neighboring village.

Game Rules: Easy-to-learn rules designed to be playable around a campfire. Recommended for 2-6 players in search of the willies. Playing time averages about 2 hours.

Advice: Tips on running games of folkloric horror, building your own scenarios, and creating a memorable, spooky atmosphere.

Scenarios: Three ready-to-run scenarios set in Winter Wood. Desperate villagers strive to save a girl hexed by a long-dead witch in The Curse. A mischievous children’s dare leads to an encounter with The Strangers. Rumors of a skinchanging beast haunt the village in The Witchery Way.

This is the revised and expanded second edition of the game featuring all new layout and artwork by George Cotronis, new legends, new rules clarifications, and new adventures. It is the definitive edition to add to your game library.

Originally released in 2004, the second edition of the game expands on the old ruleset and includes folk tales/story hooks from Jason Morningstar (Fiasco), Daniel Bayn (Wushu), Jeremy Keller (Technoir), Rafael Chandler (Dread), Daniel Moler (Red Mass), and me!

A Kickstarter for the project is still running for six more days. You can get in on the new edition early and secure yourself a shirt, a poster, and your name in the book. Check out the video below to see if this is something you might be interested in.

I hope you consider throwing some support behind the game. From what I’ve read, this is going to be a great game. I look forward to seeing the final product.

I’ve been pretty silent on here. Initially, I was busy putting the final touches on Among the Missing for Little Fears Nightmare Edition and then jumping right into the tenth anniversary edition of the original Little Fears (which will be out soon). On top of all that, I had an absolutely fantastic opportunity come my way that has me really excited and reunites me with a great team on an amazing project (and I’m not just spouting hyperbole).

I’m very happy to announce I’ve rejoined Human Head Studios as the Writing Production Coordinator for the upcoming open-world first-person shooter PREY 2. I’m in charge of wrangling the narrative and working with the team to deliver a consistent, engaging experience. I worked at Human Head previously, and I was there for the last eighteen months of their developing the first PREY. Already knowing the studio and fiction, as well as being part of the revision team on the first title’s script, made sliding into this role very smooth.

The job is an absolute blast. I can’t wait for you all to see what this game has in store.

You can check out the PREY 2 portion of the Human Head Studios website here. I posted some official images and the launch trailer below (language and violence warning on the video).

(Linked from GiantBomb.com.)