May Miscellany (Patreon)

Tomorrow I get my second vaccine shot! I'm very excited about the idea of Seeing People In Person...At Places, Even! As a social monkey, the idea of reclaiming even a bit of an in-person social life is exhilarating.

Writing Update

I'm still chugging along with revisions of this science fiction novel. It's very hard to revise when the weather is not yet actually doing the thing where there is late Spring or Summer levels of sun all the time, and so my mood and energy levels have been on a rollercoaster to fairly disorienting results. 

Recently, a colleague suggested that maybe I split the 145K word monster into two novels and write the story as a duology. I haven't decided for sure whether that's what I want to do, but I'm exploring the option and trying to see if I can make a very strong short novel for the start of the duology and then push back the work of making the second part of the story fit together and do what I want. Having more space would give me some options in terms of unpacking a major subplot that I had been considering dropping. I could, instead, promote it and tie it into what I already have more thoroughly.

Genrenauts RPG Playtest Update

I'm now three sessions into the first short campaign playtest for the Genrenauts Forged in the Dark rpg. This most recent session was the first downtime, putting my still-embryonic downtime rules into practice. I'm working on a fairly distinct downtime vibe and ecosystem compared to games like Blades in the Dark or Beam Saber, trying to find the right mix of actions and elements that tie into mission play but also feel correct for what life as a Genrenaut is like. Genrenauts aren't desperate scoundrels or a scrappy crew of a freebooter spaceship. They're trained and well-paid dimensional travelers who aren't as worried about how big of a score they can land and more concerned with keeping the team in good shape and nurturing connections across several story worlds. 

We also had fun detailing the team's HQ and ready room space more as well as developing NPC friends/rivals and doing a hand-over/brief where the team took over a genre region from an existing team. It was...not without tension and also included a lot of fun extemporaneous worldbuilding/backstory creation to create the recent mission history of one of the story worlds. I may have to codify that process in the rules and/or give some suggestions.

I also realized that the GMing section for this book is going to be 100% a big craft essay on How Mike Thinks About Storytelling and I couldn't be more excited to step up to that challenge.

The solid results from this weekend's play make me feel like we're getting pretty close to the point where I will share an alpha playtest document with patrons here!

Kickstarters to check out

Once More Into the Void - A "getting the gang back together for one last desperate job" space opera game inspired by the Picard TV show and Mass Effect 2.

You Are The Dungeon - A solo/group game using Tarot cards for playing the story of a semi-sentient, ever-growing dungeon.

Court of Blades - Play as the daring retainers of one of the warring houses in a Renaissance Venice-inspired fantasy setting. Designed for longer/slow-burn play compared to other Forged in the Dark games.