Musings and wonderings

I firmly believe that variety is the spice of life, and try to apply this to every level of my life. I currently take classes in archaeology, history, writing, along with technical programs on new Visual Studio methods, Scrum methodology, and cloud technologies. As you all know, I am always evaluating and looking into the world of gaming and organized play in particular, seeking to make my own play experience better, more exciting. I play the following games more-less regularly: Arcanis, D&D 5e, Legend of the Five Rings, Pathfinder, Savage Worlds (Space 1889), Shadowrun, and WitchHunter. I GM Pathfinder mostly.

What I take away from this is the firm belief that playing more than one system makes me a better GM, and more importantly, a better writer. Just as playing in various games system makes me understand the RP-gaming industry better because I not only get in touch with more and different styles of play. It allows me to think of the products I write in a different light.

I'm not talking about knowing the rules perfectly for all of these system. To be honest, I am terrible at knowing the rules for Shadowrun, in spite of having played the same character for over 6 years... How magic works for summoning is still somewhat nebulous to me. So I don't do too much of it.

This post was prompted by my running of Arcanis adventures at Origins. When I received them, I waited a few days to read them (life and all). When I did, I was surprised and could not stop laughing. You will remember this post where I posted how not to write adventures... Well Henry transgressed a few of the points I made. Not to say that he's wrong but it made me think back on my own evaluations and my points.

First off, Henry is much more successful than I am (based on the number of players playing Arcanis vs. Tyrants of Saggakar). Next he has much more experience than I (as a writer). So... how can I make myself more successful using the lessons learned from Arcanis? I have a lot of soul-searching to do to make my products better and reaching out to more people. Lucky for me, I do have a number of friends I can reach out to, including Henry, LPJ, Steve, and the guys who work with me on FOE (James, Randy and JD) to pick their brains. But also to my players whose minds I constantly raid for ideas.

Yeah, I have a lot to think about.

Improve my product. Improve my writing. Improve myself. That's my 2016 goal...

JP