Wizards of the Coast recently asked me for an expanded bio to help them market The Secret of the Spiritkeeper, a new young adult novel I wrote for them that’s due out this August. I liked it better than what I had before, so I posted it here under my About Matt Forbeck link.
There’s also a picture of me and my kids. As I explained to Nina Hess, my editor on Secret, I hope to come up with a traditional head shot someday. In the meantime, this photo sums up my life better.
Adam Jury of Guardians of Order just sent me the final cover for The Authority Role-Playing Game. Click on it to see a much larger version. This is essentially the same as the first cover I showed with the exception of the names along the spine.
It’s common for authors to drop in and out of projects for various reasons. Not having been involved in the development of this book—that honor went to the ever-capable Jesse Scoble—I couldn’t tell you the individual stories behind the shuffle here. I can only say that I was thrilled to be able to work on this book, and I’m proud to have my name up there on the cover.
Don’t be fooled by the fact my name is toward the top of the book, as I only wrote the player’s chapter. I suspect the names are ordered by the amount each of the writers contributed, starting with Jesse, who’s at the bottom, and ending with me. Still, that’s fine company to find yourself in.
When Ryan Dancey set up the OGL and the d20 System license (which allows people to use the Dungeons & Dragons rules system for free), he relied on the idea that a game isn’t just a set of rules. It’s a network of people who know and play the game. When you buy a copy of a game, you’re buying into that network.
The larger the network, the more valuable it is. Dungeons & Dragons already had the largest roleplaying game network around, but the d20 System license cemented its position by letting any publisher or fan legally tap into the network (and, by doing so, growing the network too).
One perhaps unforeseen side-effect of this is that anyone who publishes OGL/d20 System material produces a commodity, defined in economic terms as “a physical substance which is interchangeable with another product of the same type.”
Read More
GameWyrd.com just opened voting on its Weird GameWyrd Awards. The Redhurst Academy of Magic has been nominated as “The RPG or Supplement Most Likely to Spark the Imagination.” Since I developed and wrote most of the book for my day job at Human Head Studios, I’m kinda partial to it, so please stop by and vote!
Van Helsing and Dracula Clash Again on a Bloody Trail of Mystery
San Diego, CA, January 30, 2004. Get ready for the appearance of some of the most well-known and feared characters of horror in IDW Publishing’s April release Dracula’s Revenge.
Someone is savagely butchering the prostitutes of Whitechapel. Sounds hauntingly familiar doesn’t it? Except it’s been a decade since Jack The Ripper used these streets as a killing ground, and Jack never drank his victim’s blood. Factor in that Dracula has been “dead” for eleven years—so why has Abraham Van Helsing been summoned to London?
Read More
I talk to lots of people in the adventure game industry. We chat about all sorts of things, but the conversation often turns to questions like, “How’s it going?” In this case, “it” usually means “sales.” The answer I hear most lately is, “Not so good.”
This is particularly true of d20 publishers, which most major RPG companies (with a few notable exceptions) are these days. The question then becomes, “Why?”
There are lots of theories. Some people figure this is the long-predicted shakedown from the “glut” of d20 product on the market. The market only needs so many different books on elves, the notion goes. Eventually, people stop buying them.
While that could be it, I think there’s a simpler (numeric, even) answer to why sales seemed to fall off the edge of a cliff this summer: 3.5.
Read More
Work is going well this week. I just turned in a revision of my outline for the first novel in my Eberron trilogy for Wizards of the Coast. The first draft is due in early May, so I’m eager to get rolling on it soon. I wrote the first chapter when I pitched the books, and it was a blast. This is a setting that’s going to turn heads.
For my day job at Human Head Studios, I’m plugging away at Dracula’s Revenge and our other upcoming games. I’m also working on revamping my division’s websites. In a sense, my work on Forbeck.com has been a dry run for that, so hopefully it will all go smoothly.
I had a great time on Mortality Radio last night. Many thanks to Adlon and Smaug for inviting me on, and even more thanks to those kind souls who showed up to listed and pepper me with questions. That’s a wonderful group of people there, doing something positive for the adventure gaming industry.
My favorite part of the show was when they commented on the length of my résumé by calling me “the Jimmy Stewart of gaming.” As a long-time Stewart fan, that’s a kind comparison. Fortunately, I wasn’t moved to haul out my Stewart impression: “Atta boy, Clarence!”
If you missed the show, you can either download it or stream it out of the Mortality Radio archives. Click here for the link to Show #49.
I’ll be on Mortality Radio this Friday, January 23. The show starts at 8 PM EST, and I should be on sometime around 9 PM. If you have the time, stop by and join in. The show takes questions both on the air and via IRC (Internet Relay Chat). If you can’t make it, visit the site the following week. They usually have an archive of the show posted within a few days of it airing. Hope to see/hear you there!