I cleared two pretty big deadlines yesterday, both for RPG-related projects.
One of them I don't think I can talk about, but involved a fair amount of writing. It was one of the most enjoyable creative experiences of my life, and it excited and inspired me to pick one of the ideas in my notebook and transform it from notes into an actual story; it turns out this making-things-up-and-writing-them-down thing is a whole lot of fun. I'm not sure when this particular thing will be released, but you can be sure that I'll blagh and blagh and blagh about it when it is.
The other I can speak more freely about. My friend Will Hindmarch (who does all design and layout work for my books) asked me a few months ago if I would record some audio for a Trail of Cthulhu campaign he created with Jeff Tidball called Eternal Lies. I thought it was such a nifty idea to include an original score - I love the soundtracks that Flying Frog includes with their games - I jumped at the opportunity to provide some dialog to go with it. The way we did it was pretty cool, and appealed to the technology geek in me as much as the RPG geek: Will sent me the script, and I recorded a few rough passes in Garageband which I put into a shared Dropbox folder for him to listen to. He was able to give me nearly-instant feedback until we were on the same page, at which time I switched to uncompressed audio and Serious Business.
Some of the things I read for the game were quotes from Lovecraft. During one take I realized that, whenever I read a particular type of quote, I hear it in Fawkes' voice. Thanks for that, Felicia. (By the way, Felicia is working on a Secret Project™ that I'm lucky enough to know about ... holy frakking shit balls on fire, you guys. When you know what it is, your mind will be blown right out of your skull so hard it will bounce off the wall and land on the ground next to your socks, which were also knocked right off your feet and through your shoes.)
The last few months were insanely busy, and I just didn't have much time or energy to do anything extra beyond a few Very Important Tasks. Now that I'm getting caught up on my deadlines, and I have more Me Time, I've been able to read more books, play more video games, and feed my inner geek, who it turns out was beginning to starve.
Since playing Cal & D, though, I have really felt the Gaming Monkey's claws digging into my neck, and working on these two RPG projects has made me realize just how much I've missed gaming. I really hate it that I can't go to PAX East this year; I didn't know how much I really wanted needed to go until I accepted that I couldn't.
I'm going to try to make it to OrcCon with some friends next weekend, because I'm starting to get the gaming shakes, man, and I've just got to get straight, you know? You know what I mean, Bubbles? Come on, man, just let me roll 3d6 and add my combat bonus ... just once, man. I'm going crazy over here!
