GTS Schedule

GAMA has asked me to deliver two seminars on freelancing in the adventure games industry at this year’s GAMA Trade Show. For those interested, they are:

Monday, March 13th, 2006, 10-11 a.m.
Seven Habits of Highly Effective Freelancers
With so much riding on every release, publishers need to choose wisely whenever they outsource projects. Learn the qualities a freelancer should make sure they embody, for themselves and their publishers, as well as qualities publishers should look for in the freelancers they hire.

Tuesday, March 14th, 2006, 10-11 a.m.
Advanced Freelancing
For the committed professional who now derives the majority of their income from freelancing in the game industry, there are whole new challenges to consider. Topics of discussion include: effective time and project management, tax planning for the self-employed, handling royalties, and legal recourses for the Freelancer.

Unlike in past years, in which a panel has presented these seminars, I’ve been asked to take on these topics solo this time around. I’m sure I’ll miss the help I had in the past–and not just in the evenings after the exhibit hall closes. I’ll do my best to fill in for those missing few, though, and if you’ll be at the show I hope you’ll attend and learn what you can.

National Games Week Begins

Today marks the start of the second annual National Games Week. If you haven’t signed up to take part in the week yet, don’t fret. You can find local events on the NGW website. Even if you can’t participate in something official, you can still get together with your friends and family to play games, and the NGW site has some good guidelines for how to set up your own event in your home.

So, Happy National Games Week! Play hard!

Tom Jane is Mitch Hunter

According to ICv2.com, Tom (The Punisher) Jane has just been cast in the lead role (Mitch Hunter, I presume) for the upcoming Mutant Chronicles movie. The Mutant Chronicles was a roleplaying game I worked on in the early and mid ’90s for Target Games, then the largest game publisher in Sweden.

The game’s been out of print for years, but I still remember it well. The setting provided the background for the Doomtrooper CCG and the Warzone miniatures games, each designed by former roommates of mine (Bryan Winter and William King, respectively), as well as a video game or two. The film has been in development hell since before the game fell out of print, and I’ve read a couple versions of the script. I’m looking forward to seeing the latest soon, as this is all being done under the auspices of my friends at Paradox Entertainment, who also run Conan Properties.

I met Tom Jane and his wife Patricia (Medium) Arquette at the IDW party at Comic-Con International in the summer of 2004. (Perhaps not coincidentally, I ran into Fred Malmberg of Conan Properties there too.) They were chasing after their young daughter, who’s about the age of my quadruplets, and I helped them corral her for a moment. They seemed like a happy couple and great parents.

Tom will be perfect in the Mitch Hunter role. He has the looks, the athleticism, and the wry humor for the part. I can’t wait to follow along as the movie develops.

HSD in GTM

The November 2005 issue of Game Trade Magazine has a High Stakes Drifter dude card bagged with it: Jesse Woodson James. While there’s nothing else about the game in the issue, the catalog portion shows details for my upcoming novels Dead Ball and The Road to Death, both of which arrive in stores in January.

Only 10 more days until the official HSD release date though. Be sure to hit your local store on November 23 and ask for it by name.

Games Quarterly Magazine #7 and National Games Week

My copies of Games Quarterly Magazine #7 showed up in the mail the other day. I wrote an article about gaming-related fiction for it, which appears on p. 70. It also features articles from James Ernest, Jeff Tidball, Ken Hite, and Mike Selinker, along with interviews of Kevin Siembieda (of Palladium) and Loren Greenwood (of Wizards of the Coast) and lots of other gaming goodness.

It also focuses on National Games Week, which is coming up soon: November 20—26. If you want to order a promotional package for your NGW event, they just extended the deadline to November 13, so there’s still time if you move fast. As an NGW member, you can get solid discounts on some great games, many in bundles set up just for National Games Week. Membership is free, and it’s a solid group of people working for a good cause: to promote gaming as great entertainment. Check it out soon.

WFC Highlights

A few days after the World Fantasy Convention, now, some things still stick in my head enough for me to have to share them.

Lucien Soulban, being the great Canadian he is, brought two spirits made from maple syrup: a cream liqueur and a whisky. Both were delicious and would either make great toppings for an ice cream drink or for a wicked wake-me-up stack of pancakes. Not so coincidentally, I first met Lucien when he made me my best-ever swag offer at a game convention: a six-pack of excellent Canadian beers for a copy of my Brave New World RPG.

Rich Dansky wove an incredible tale of his days at White Wolf that covered the evolution of the Trinity RPG. It was born from the ashes of near-disaster, and although I knew good chunks of the story from before, I enjoyed hearing it from a fresh and perceptive perspective.

Mike Stackpole kindly asked me to record a few tags for his Science Fiction Podcast Network and Gaming Podcast Network. If you’re into either topic and enjoy listening to podcasts, you’ll find some true gems there. And you might even hear me putting on my best radio announcer voice to say, “You’re listening to the Gaming Podcast Network!”

World Fantasy Con Report

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 or (if it wasn’t night yet) the bar.

I saw some old friends and made lots of new ones. I ran into Mike Stackpole almost immediately and bounced into Rich Dansky and his brand-new wife Melinda Thielbar soon after. When Lucien Soulban showed up, that completed the “faces I know” collection.

On Friday night, I joined the other authors in the mass autographing session and even managed to sell a few books with my scribbling in them. While there, I ran into some more gaming industry professionals–Jean Rabe and Don Bingle–who were just down the table from me. Also, Drew Bittner–the man who designed the WildStorms CCG with me–hunted me down to catch up with me and show off his wife Katherine.

On Saturday night, I moderated a panel about gaming and fiction. My fellow panelists–Rich Dansky, Lucien Soulban, and Walter Jon Williams–did a wonderful job. They were informed, eloquent, and willing to share not only their experiences but their microphones.

In the course of the show, I talked with Ginjer Buchanan (who edits the Conan books with me for Ace Books), Nancy Holder (a fellow IATMW member), Michael Reaves, Marc Zicree, Maria Alexander, John Helfers (another fellow IATMW member), Martin Greenberg, Jeff Easley, Clyde Caldwell, Alice Henderson, Martin Greenberg, John C. Hay, Joe and Gay Haldeman, Robert Vardeman, Maurice Broaddus, David D. Levine, Kelly McCullough, Jack Byrne, William O’Connor, Jim Pavelec, Christopher Golden, Dave Smeds, Richard Chwedyk, Matthew Stover, Scott Bakker, Julie and Scott Wright, David Willoughby, Lisa Frietag, Jerome Epps, Naomi Kritzer, Gary Wassner, and lots of others I’m too sleep-deprived to recall at the moment. One and all, these are delightful people, and I’m looking forward to seeing more of them and (in many cases) reading their books.

For an old, gaming-convention guy, the WFC struck me as strange. Most gaming cons scream for people to join them. The WFC caps its “memberships” at 850, plus about 50 staffers. Everyone I met was either a published professional or aspired to be one.

The show had panels but they didn’t seem to be the main draw. Instead, it was a chance for people to meet their favorite authors and to network like crazy. I enjoy doing both of these, and if I can make it down to Austin next year, I’d love to do it again.

High Stakes Drifter Promo Card

I got my copy of InQuest Gamer yesterday, and it included a promo card for High Stakes Drifter: none other than George Armstrong Custer. If you’re interested in High Stakes Drifter promos, hunt this down. Custer is one valuable dude. (Appropriately, though, he has only average Smarts and poor Luck.)

Prophecy of the Dragons Announced

Random House has posted the title of my next novel in the Knights of the Silver Dragon series: Prophecy of the Dragons. This is the 13th book in the young adult series I created for Wizards of the Coast, starting with Secret of the Spiritkeeper. According to Random House, it will be on shelves on June 13, 2006, nearly two years after Secret debuted.

This is the first of a two-book story arc set in the series. I just sent in the revisions for Prophecy of the Dragons this week, and I’m in the middle of the next book right now. This story will give the setting a good shake, setting up all sorts of new story possibilities for the future. Despite the fact I’ve only written a few books in the line (other authors wrote books 2 through 12), Wizards has been wonderful about letting me follow my instincts with my installments in the series, setting up few if any roadblocks. I can’t wait to be able to tell you more.