I had a great time at the World Fantasy Convention held in Madison, Wisconsin, this weekend. Since it was local, I only showed up on Friday and Saturday. I wandered around the dealer’s hall and the art exhibit for a bit, but my razor-keen writer’s senses quickly told me that the best places to be were either the nightly parties …
Keith Parkinson Dies
Keith Parkinson died of complications from leukemia on October 26, four days after his 47th birthday. A service for friends and family will be held on November 1 near his home in southern California. Keith was one of the greatest fantasy artists of our time. In the five years he spent at TSR, he created dozens of amazing covers for …
My World Fantasy Convention Schedule
The World Fantasy Convention is coming up November 3—6, the weekend after Halloween. I’ll be there, along with several hundred other devotees of fantastic tales. This will be my first time at this traveling convention, but since it’s in Madison, Wisconsin, this year, I couldn’t pass up the chance to check it out. I’ll wander about the place most of …
Hard Times for Gaming? Yes and No
Yesterday, the AEG website noted that they were laying off a number of people. Word has it that other companies have also let a few employees go in recent days. Still other publishers, like Decipher and Guardians of Order have had troubles this past year too. This naturally led some people to wonder if the entire RPG industry–or perhaps the …
Translations
Once upon a time, I tried to keep track of every thing I could about my publishing career. This long since proved impossible, but I still do what I can. Sometimes, though, it’s difficult to answer questions about what I’ve done. For instance, I have no idea how many languages my work has been translated into. Lots of times, games …
Beyond the Storm in Print–and a Preview for You
Beyond the Storm: Shadows in the Big Easy is now available in softcover as well as a PDF. You can order either or both versions from Lulu.com. All proceeds from the book go to support Katrina disaster relief. I’m going to order one for myself right now, and you should too. Not only is it a great book full of …
D&D Designer Answers
Wizards of the Coast has posted the answers to the D&D developer’s test I mentioned earlier. Best of all, the answers are those that recent-hire Mike Mearls gave when he took the test, and they feature comments from Jesse Decker, who explains how well Mike did. I’m not surprised Mike did so well. He’s one of the best designers to …
Back to Middle-Earth
Decipher just announced that it’s going to release some new books for its Lord of the Rings and Star Trek Roleplaying Games as PDFs through DriveThruRPG.com. This may include some books in which I had a hand back when I worked as Decipher’s Lord of the Rings RPG developer. Or not. Honestly, it’s been more than three years since I …
Katrina Charity PDF Ready Now
Beyond the Storm: Shadows of the Big Easy is now available as a PDF download through Lulu.com. This is the big, RPG-industry charity jam book I mentioned before. It came out fantastic and on time, both of which should amaze anyone who’s worked on a project like this. It features RPGs, RPG adventures, short stories, and essays–all with a Big …
Become a D&D Designer
Wizards of the Coast is on the prowl for new talent for their Dungeons & Dragons staff. I chatted with Bill Slaviscek about this at Gen Con, and he said that for the first time they don’t care if you have previous publication credits or not. They just want great designers. If you’re interested and think you have the chops …