“The heroes go on a dangerous quest and are fundamentally changed by the challenges they face.” That sentence could be describing either the plot of a novel or a synopsis of a roleplaying game campaign. That’s because they’re both built using the same fundamental ingredients of story—characters, goals, and obstacles. In both cases, the audience wants to find out what happens next, and players and authors alike must decide how the story will unfold. As it turns out, the tricks for crafting a good novel can be applied to roleplaying game campaigns, and...
Today marks the release of Winter’s Embrace, a winter court adventure I wrote for the 5th Edition of the Legend of the Five Rings Roleplaying Game. It’s one of writing projects I’m most proud of and the one I had the most fun writing (besides the development work on core rulebook itself). If you noticed me gushing about my progress on #ProjectDatingSim on Twitter, then you saw how much excitement Winter’s Embrace inspired as it took shape. For me, the concept of the winter court has always been one of the biggest draws the L5R RPG had to offer. The endless...
2018 was a whirlwind of a year for me. I wrapped up my development work on the Legend of the Five Rings Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook before leaving my full-time position at Fantasy Flight Games to work at a textbook publisher. I was glad to continue to freelance for FFG, editing all of the L5R web fictions that were published last year plus Across the Burning Sands, writing the “Wedding at Kyotei Castle” adventure that was run at GenCon, and more. I attended AcadeCon as a special guest and put a face to a name for a ton of awesome podcasters I know and catch up...
You don’t need to be familiar with James D’Amato’s One Shot podcast in order to have a blast with the The Ultimate RPG Character Backstory Guide, released this month from Adams Media. Ability Scores Title: The Ultimate RPG Character Backstory Guide Author: James D’Amato Page count: 272 Price: $14.99 Softcover, $10.99 Kindle edition Dimensions: 5.5” x 8.4” ISBN-13: 978-1507208373 Publisher: Adams Media Publication Date: October 2, 2018 Ramp up your role-playing game and make your character your own with this fun, interactive workbook—an essential addition to any RPG...
Last week, as part of the continuing +1 to Writing series, I asked Robert Denton III (@ohnospooky on Twitter) about how he went from being a fan of a franchise to one of the people who works on it. We talked about what it’s like to write tie-in fiction, and what are some of the challenges writers face. If you missed it, you can catch up on Part 1 of our conversation here! +1 to Writing is an ongoing series of interviews with writers at different stages in their writing career, from veteran wordsmiths to emerging authors. It looks at the RPG, tie-in media, and...
How do you go from being a fan of a franchise to one of the people who gets to work on it? What is it like to write tie-in fiction, and what are some of the challenges these writers face? +1 to Writing is an ongoing series of interviews with writers at different stages in their writing career, from veteran wordsmiths to emerging authors. It looks at the RPG, tie-in media, and sci-fi and fantasy fiction industries in particular, and what those authors did to break in and keep growing their professional writing business. By the end of the interview, we hope readers...
The game master wears a lot of hats—that of group leader to storyteller to rules adjudicator, and so on—but it surprised even me how much overlap there was running a game and teaching a class. When I was prepping to run my “Agency and Narrative in Games” workshop with Bree Kaiser-Powers for the Glitch Immersion Program, I wanted to learn more about being a teacher and connecting with students. Though I’m no certified educator, I found the recommendations in Dave Brugess’s Teach Like a Pirate book to be invaluable, not only for teaching workshops, but also for...
What does the path to becoming an RPG freelancer look like? How does that path differ if you want to write tie-in stories for your favorite IP, or if you have an idea for an original story? What does it actually take to go professional in the business, and what are the writing habits and creative mindsets you need to cultivate along the way? +1 to Writing is an ongoing series of interviews with writers at different stages in their writing career, from veteran wordsmiths to emerging authors. It looks at the RPG, tie-in media, and sci-fi and fantasy fiction industries...
