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.

It’s not that I get bored easily. But when I do tire of something, I have to change it.

Mostly this means shaving my head or growing a ridiculous mustache but sometimes this means bigger things. I launched Operation: Awesome because I was tired of not being the writer I knew I could be.

Thing is, these years later, I’m still not.

I’m better, certainly. I’m more disciplined, have a much firmer grasp of the craft and of story, and have even achieved a position where I write for a living. But I’m not where I want to be yet.

When I was freelancing, I was also a stay-at-home dad which meant, if I wasn’t taking care of my kids, then I had to focus on writing that was paid for. If not upfront, then it had to be writing I could sell.

Even after landing some big gigs, I continued along that path. Only writing the stuff I could sell immediately. This is how Little Fears happened, how Streets of Bedlam happened.

“Writing what I can sell” meant, mostly, tabletop game material. Or short fiction for the occasional collection. It left no time for spec work such as screenplays or novels.

But now I have a (blessed blessed) day job that fills that gap. I write at work. What I write outside the office doesn’t have to be stuff I can sell right away. Course, now I have a backlog that needs written. Stuff I’ve promised, and even some stuff folks have already paid for.

I decided a few weeks ago, I was going to make a big change. I was going to finish all the stuff I needed to finish, take a break, and then do some spec writing. The type of writing I’ve wanted to do for a long time now.

I’m going to write a novel. One I’ve been mulling over for years. One that goes into a lot of new areas and challenges me like no work has in ages. I’m excited for it.

Before I can focus on it though, I have to clear my plate. Namely, I’m capping off my Little Fears work, finishing up what’s due for Streets of Bedlam, and then taking a break. After that break, I’m focusing my out-of-office efforts on my novel.

I hope to have a draft wrapped up four months after I start. So, say, maybe six months or so out from now. That’s my goal.

I need to focus on something new, try for something new. Whenever I stay put, nothing moves around me. Nothing moves for me. I can’t let the fact I have a dream job let me get soft. Time to reach a new level.

Starting a new job, working on two pen-and-paper game lines, selling a home, and moving out of the state are taking up a lot of space in my calendar so this isn’t the timeliest of updates but some pretty prestigious lights were shined on some fiction anthologies my work appears in.

First, acclaimed author and editor Ellen Datlow called out Alana Joli Abbott’s “Missing Molly” and Preston DuBose’s “The Angry Stick” as honorable mentions in the latest volume of Best Horror of the Year. Those two stories were published in Haunted: Eleven Tales of Ghostly Horror last year. I’m pleased that my own story, “It Happened in the Woods at Night” shares pages with both. Huge congrats to Alana and Preston!

Second, the wild western-wuxia fiction anthology Tales of the Far West, which includes my story “Local Legend,” has been nominated for Best RPG-Related Product in the 2012 ENnie Awards. Congratulations to Gareth, TS, and everyone else involved. It’s a great collection of stories. ENnie voting is public, if you’d like to check out all the nominees and voice your opinion.

Congrats again to everybody! If you’re a fan of new voices in fiction, I hope you’ll check out both of the books.

*breathe out*

I’ve been neck deep in my Savage Worlds project, Streets of Bedlam, since the turn of the year. I am very happy to announce that the game is out in PDF as of today! I’m going to allow for a couple weeks of intensive editing and index creation before this goes to print, but the hardcopy should be out next month.

If you’re interested in ultraviolent neo-noir tabletop gaming, check out Streets of Bedlam: A Savage World of Crime + Corruption. For more information, visit the official website.

The latest issue of Savage Insider saw release this past week and, in addition to a bunch of great Savage Worlds-related articles, I speak a bit with Vickey Beaver about the process of conceiving and designing my new game line Streets of Bedlam.

The magazine is free to grab from DriveThruRPG. My interview starts on page 20. Flip through the rest of the book to see the game’s first print ad as well!

I recently sat down with Jenn from the Jennisodes to discuss my latest project, Streets of Bedlam, as well as future plans for the Little Fears Nightmare Edition line and a short rant on stories in video games. Jenn is a wonderful host and runs a fantastic podcast. Be sure to check out the latest episode for me, and then dig into her backlist for some amazing guests and insights into all sorts of gaming-related topics.

Huge thanks to Jenn for having me on, and I’d love to drop in again sometime.

This one’s a knock out, folks. Last summer, my friend Gareth Skarka launched a Kickstarter for his Wild West/Wuxia adventure game setting Far West. Support flooded in, eventually netting Gareth and company almost $50,000 in backer pledges.

From its beginning though, Far West was intended as a transmedia property with the pen-and-paper game being just the beginning. While the Far West game is slated for release later this year, another piece of the transmedia pie has dropped with the release of the Tales of the Far West fiction anthology.

The line-up of talent is jaw-dropping with original stories from folks such as Matt Forbeck, Chuck Wendig, Ari Marmell, Scott Lynch, Tessa Gratton, and more. I was blown away that Gareth invited me to sit by their fire and spin a yarn but he did just that. I’m proud that my own story, “Local Legend,” sits among such company.

So, it’s out. Right now you can grab it from Amazon on Kindle. I’m sure it’ll hit other outlets soon. (I’ll let you all know when it does.)

Anyway, check it out. It’s an awesome set of tales in a fantastic and inspiring setting. Far West is primed to become something truly special, and I’m happy to have been involved.

(Artwork by Rick Hershey, blatantly stolen from IntoTheFarWest.com.)

I sat down with Josh Mannon from the Gamestarter podcast a couple weeks ago not once but twice! The first was a sit-down with Josh and fellow writer/designer Filamena Young to discuss various game projects currently seeking funding including Filamena’s own Flatpack: Fix the Future. The second time was an interview focused entirely on me, my upcoming neo-noir crime setting Streets of Bedlam, and the madness that is running a Kickstarter campaign.

Check out the panel with Josh and Filamena here.

You can hear me talk way too much about myself and Streets of Bedlam here.

Thanks to Josh for having me on and to Filamena for being a great co-guest.

When the Streets of Bedlam Kickstarter launched at the end of November, I had modest goals for it. I just wanted to cover the cost of illustrating and producing the first book. But now, thanks to your support, the Kickstarter blew past that goal and is on its way toward five figures!

As a last-minute push toward that number, I’ve decided to add a new milestone and with it a new incentive to back the project.

If the Streets of Bedlam Kickstarter reaches $10k, acclaimed composer and sound designer Ed Lima will create an original soundtrack for the game! Ed provided the amazing track featured on the promo trailer that launched earlier this week (which you can click below) but his work goes well beyond that. As an audio guy in the video games industry, Ed has worked on such projects as Doom 3, Prey, Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway, Borderlands, and he is currently head sound man at Respawn Entertainment.

When I first met Ed years ago, I was blown away by the work he was doing, and he just keeps getting better. I really enjoyed the track he did for the trailer and really want to see more of it. I hope you do too.

As an added incentive, every backer who pledges $45+ will get a free digital copy of the soundtrack as an extra-special thank you. Click below to hear what Ed’s already done. If we reach $10k, we’ll all get a lot more of this.

I’ll be sitting down this Thursday, December 22nd, with the folks from Beautiful Brains Books & Games to discuss Savage Worlds, my new tabletop game project Streets of Bedlam, and the game’s Kickstarter. The chat will be text-based, online, and run from 9p to 10p EST. Swing by, listen to me ramble, ask questions, and I’m sure Beautiful Brains and I can cook up something to make it worth your while.

See you then!

(I posted this over at StreetsOfBedlam.com but thought I’d drop it here as well since the discussion may dive into related topics. For the most part though, I reserve this sort of news for the game’s official site.)