Posts Tagged ‘work’
January 22nd, 2012
I can now officially announce that I’ve joined ZeniMax Online Studios in Baltimore, as a content designer on their unannounced MMO. ZOS is a corporate sibling to Bethesda, makers of The Elder Scrolls, and id Software, creators of Doom and Quake.
To that end, I’ve now relocated to Baltimore, and just moved in to what seems like a very nice new apartment. I’m excited to get started!
December 20th, 2011
Since I was let go from CCP, my efforts have been focused on getting another job. Being unemployed takes up a surprising amount of one’s time. Fortunately, I’ve found a place at another MMO studio. Hopefully I’ll be able to say which one in the next week or so.
I haven’t followed through with the announced Cavaliers of Mars updates, but I think I’ve got a pretty good reason.
Cavaliers of Mars is being considered by a publisher. That’s another name I can’t say right now, but I will say that working with this particular publisher lets me work with some valued friends. We’re discussing plans for the book and potential accompanying line right now. When there’s a firm commitment, I’ll post here.
In the meantime, please enjoy an extremely un-Christmas-y installment of “The Apprentice’s Tale.”
October 26th, 2011
And he was alright. The band was all together.
A week ago, I was laid off by CCP, along with about 120 other employees. I’m very sorry to leave — the White Wolf crew have been my friends and family for four years now. But it seems it’s finally time for us to go our separate ways.
As far as White Wolf itself is concerned, Rich Thomas and Eddy Webb remain with the company. I’m expecting to continue developing Vampire: The Requiem as a freelancer. The World of Darkness will go on.
As for my own future, I’m not sure what comes next. I’m already interviewing with other video game companies. I’m also lining up some freelance RPG work outside of White Wolf. And I’m working on a deal to publish some of my short fiction.
However, if any of you have any leads, whether for salaried or freelance game design work, I’d be interested in hearing about them. My e-mail address is russell at saberpunk dot net.
“The Apprentice’s Tale” from Cavaliers of Mars resumes next week, with a piece on Martian warfare. And a little bit after that, I’ll be showing the next piece of art from the book with an article on the Lost Places.
September 13th, 2011
I’ll be attending White Wolf’s Grand Masquerade in New Orleans this week. I’m planning to devote a lot of my time to talking to players, so, please, come and find me. I’ll be the guy with bright red hair talking about vampires as horrible lizard-brain boyfriends.
When I get back, I’ll be releasing the third part of “The Apprentice’s Tale” for Cavaliers of Mars.
July 8th, 2011
Ennie Award Nominee
The Danse Macabre has been nominated for an Ennie award, and also received two honorable mentions. Congratulations to co-developer Chuck Wendig and the writing team of Benjamin Baugh, David Brookshaw, Christopher Cowger, Bethany Culp, Matthew McFarland, and Greg Stolze. Congratulations also to cover artist Michael Komarck and art director Craig S Grant.
Thanks to everyone who made this book such a success. I couldn’t be prouder.
May 20th, 2011
Never has a man said the word "fuck" so many times, and so well
If you’re a writer who travels in my circles, you probably know that Chuck Wendig is not only one of the best and hardest working writers I know, but also one of the best and most entertaining writers about the craft. His new book, Confessions of a Freelance Penmonkey, is everything you love about Chuck’s blog, but in a book.
And really, isn’t the transition from blog to book what separates us from the lower animals?1
May 10th, 2011
Vampire the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition
One of the reasons I’ve been quiet the last couple of weeks is my work on Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition. As part of that, I did a v20 interview with Eddy Webb.
April 13th, 2011
We’re still young,
but we are getting older.
Our hearts are still warm,
but they are getting colder.
–The Sounds, “The Best of Me”
A game of modern gothic storytelling. A game about you.
You work long enough with the vampires, people ask you what they’re about. And, you know, the dead, they’re about as many different things as any other group of people. And they’re people, don’t get that wrong. They couldn’t be so bad if they weren’t human.
But what’s Vampire: The Requiem about? Easier answer, there. One I’ve devoted a lot of time to answering. Thought it might be nice (is anything “nice” about the Kindred?) to get some blood pumping and spill it out there for you all to see. This, from the outline to The Danse Macabre, is what Vampire is all about.1 What I give our writers to write our books. What our books give you to tell your stories.
Lemme know what you think.
***
What are you going to do to make it through tonight? What about tomorrow night?
And after the deeds are done and your belly’s full, how are you going to live with yourself? What are you going to do with your damnation that makes it work all the sins along the way? That’s the Requiem.
Only half the question, though. Mortals are dinner but they’re also what you’ve got for dates. No matter how callous you become, you’ll need to move among them. How will you keep your connection to Humanity, even as a sham? That’s the Masquerade.
The song and the dance don’t always play well. Devote yourself to redeeming human sinners and you may discover they’re the only creatures you understand. Spend your nights in a vault perfecting your monstrosity and you may find yourself trapped, unable to flee through the masses when the hunters bash down the gates.
Established 1856. That’s what the firm’s sign says. The owner was established 1856, too, even though his sharp-cut suit was made tomorrow. He’s one of your guys. One of the sharks you swim with.
The Kindred are the real predators of the modern age. They’re hip to our tricks but they’ve got a hundred years of history behind them. You’re one of them. So, congratulations: you are the child-stealer, the plague-bearer and the faceless corporate titan sucking the life out of your own home town.
How did you get to be what you are? Were you a good girl, dragged kicking and screaming from heaven? Or a bad boy, brought back from the grave ’cause hell didn’t deserve you? Little of both, probably.
Somebody cheated death to bring you back, and now you’ve got to make up the debt. You can devote yourself to faith and good works. Play philanthropist. Play superhero. Or you can accept that you’re damned and get the party started, already. Piss on the cross. Get some head.
Little of both, probably.
February 25th, 2011
Got our advance copies of The Danse Macabre today. This book’s been a long time coming, and I was pretty much bouncing off the walls at having it in print at last. Thought it would be fun to tape the team and me opening the box and getting our first look.
I’ll probably do a post or two about the making of the book, but I wanted to share this now. Sheer joy.
February 21st, 2011
Edition War
Yesterday, Mike Mearls made a plea for Dungeons & Dragons players to make peace in our edition wars:
Whether you play the original game published in 1974, AD&D in any of its forms, 3rd Edition and its descendents, or 4th Edition, at the end of the day you’re playing D&D. D&D is what we make of it, and by “we” I mean the DMs, the players, the readers, the bloggers—everyone who has picked up a d20 and ventured into a dungeon…
When we look to the past, we learn that there are far more things that tie us together than tear us apart.
Needless to say, I agree. As far apart as any two things called “Dungeons & Dragons” might be, we, the players, are a single community. We share a soul. A network, as Ryan Dancey might say, with balls-to-the-wall externalities.
There are, however, those who doubt Mike’s sincerity. He’s just making nice for the Pathfinder players, they say, in order to lure them insidiously into his brand-new gingerbread house D&D products. The ones that look like candy, but are soaked in cyanide. And WoWcraft.
That last paragraph was my initial response to the skepticism. “You must be crazy to doubt this guy,” I was thinking. But, you know, you don’t have to be crazy at all. It’s one of those things that looks different when you’re working in the industry.
‘Cause, here’s the thing: you don’t get to have the proud but exceedingly unromantic title “Dungeons & Dragons R&D Group Manager” without being a huge fucking fan of Dungeons & Dragons. How do I know? Because I’ve been there. I am here. When you are asked to take charge of designing new stuff for a beloved-yet-still-valuable intellectual property, it is not because you were the person who thought all eight previous versions sucked, and you can do better.
Those people, by and large? They take other career paths.
When you’re put in charge, you’re the last fan standing. You’re the one who loves the game enough to keep working on it when the entire market is alternately shrinking and filling with pus. You’re the one willing to put up with the corporate bullshit. And don’t kid yourself: once you’re in charge, there is corporate bullshit, no matter how wise or well-run the organization. By the time you get to be in charge of ruining the franchise for a whole new generation of fans, you’ve been through a lot, and still love the game so fucking much that you’re willing to step into the line of fire.
From now on, everything that goes wrong will be laid at your feet. At best, your mistakes will get chalked up to the interference of “suits.” At worst, your successes will become dividing lines in new conflicts between the fans. You will go to bed every night knowing that the future, if not the fate, of the world you love more than anything rests on your shoulders.
In those late, hard hours, when you’re trying to wring every drop of cool out of the twisted rag your employer’s property has become, do you hate the rag? Do you hate those who came before you, with their brown books and their red boxes?
No. You love them even more. You look at your predecessors, and do you see men? No. You see giants. Not the kind that eat people. The kind that are Ultraman. You love the work that came before yours all the more because now, just a little, you see what those greats were up against. You know what it’s like to face a fraction of what they faced.
And so you love them with the fury of a thousand suns. When the fans of your work pile up on the message boards and talk about how great your stuff is and how much the old stuff sucked, you want to jump in and start smiting. Just as much as you want to defend your own work against those who call it a debasement, a soulless corporate abomination that has seized a once-great name.
You see the big picture. Because you can no longer see anything else.
Yes, I’m projecting. But I think I’m right.
You go, mearls.