Lonesome Robot Press :: Jack Graham

El Destino Verde, part one of an Eclipse Phase novelette

Stuff I’ve done the last few months…

• Ran some games at TempleCon, including Eclipse Phase and the AD&D 1st Edition module White Plume Mountain (one of my all time favorites).
• Spoke/discussed/brawled in panels at PAX (which we shall now call Prime rather than East, because it is bigger) and Total Confusion.
• Played Minecraft until it warped my perceptions of the real world. (But I’m better now. I swear.)
• Headed out to Seattle with my girlfriend to experience the novelty of a gaming con (PaizoCon) where I don’t do any work. Well, minimal work. Before heading back to Bahston, we spent a day in Seattle visiting friends & a few of my Clarion West haunts.
• Built a giant bug (actually, it was a mammoth, but… long story… anyway) out of forest deadfall & burned it whilst a bunch of hippies danced semi-clad around it with fire.
• The usual feverish writing in my off hours, including Eclipse Phase: Rimward.
• My first piece of Eclipse Phase fiction, “El Destino Verde” came out in e-book. It’s the opening fiction for Eclipse Phase: The Panopticon, as well as first of a three part novelette. You can get it from both DriveThru RPG and the Amazon Kindle store.).

Stuff I’ll be up to…

• Gen Con! I’m rather excited about it. I actually get to GM Eclipse Phase this year (as opposed to being in the booth the whole con). And I’ve even convinced a few people to observe the ancient Gen Con tradition of playing Dawn Patrol (aka, Fight in the Skies) on Saturday morning. Other than that, I’ll be in the Posthuman Studios booth much of the time.
• Broken Time Blues, the anthology containing my story “Der Graue Engle” will be coming out soon. I’ll devote a post to it once I know the release date.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get Eclipse Phase onto the schedule for TotalConfusion this year, but I was asked to sit on a few of their panels on Saturday, 2/26. So I’m going to be placed at a table with other RPG writers, where we will hold forth on the following topics…

Making Great Adventures, Saturday 11:00-Noon

Our panel of esteemed guests will discuss adventure design. Listen in as we discuss the success and pitfalls of adventure design and learn what it takes to make epic adventures. We will cover everything from the one-shot to the epic campaign. Don’t miss this opportunity to get access to some of the greats. Audience participation is highly encouraged, so bring along some questions for our panel.

Gaming and the Media, Saturday 3:00-4:00pm

Game design is only the beginning of any company’s efforts to be successful. Once the product is out, it needs to be promoted and supported. This has changed vastly over the years from primarily print to primarily electronic. Join our panelists as they discuss how the process has changed over the years. Come to enjoy the “war stories” from the trenches of gaming media and get great insight on what works best for promoting your own product. We’ll be discussing print magazines, the evolution of the pdf model, webzines, podcasts, and more. Audience participation is highly encouraged, so bring along some questions for our panel.

Overcoming Gamer/Geek Stereotypes (with Ethan Gilsdorf, author of Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks)

What does it mean to be a geek? This seminar tackles that question with strength and dexterity. . . . part personal odyssey, part medieval mid-life crisis, and part wide-ranging survey of all things freaky and geeky … playful … funny and poignant … It’s a fun ride and it poses a question that goes to the very heart of fantasy, namely: What does the urge to become someone else tell us about ourselves?”

I’m especially excited about this last one. I haven’t gotten to read Ethan’s book yet, but it sounds like part Napoleon Dynamite autobiography, part journalism, part soul searching.

Hope to see some folks at TotalCon!

Gaming is not taking what you’re given, but instead demanding something more interesting. Gaming is not an escape; it’s a way to comment on our experiences. Gaming is cerebral, it’s tactical, but it’s also emotional. Gaming is killing the monsters and getting the treasure, but then, so is real life, right? Gaming is stepping outside yourself to understand other points of view, and knowing yourself better when you get back. Gaming is alchemy, and it’s something I’ll always do.

Just found out today I’ll be teaming up with Luke Crane (of Burning Wheel fame) and Joshua AC Newman (designer of Shock: Social Science Fiction) on a panel at PAX East. Our topic is the collaboration between GMs and players in role-playing games, how everyone can get what they want out of the experience, and how different game designs foster different types of collaboration. Come check it out!

Panel details…

Getting What You Want Out Of Your Gamemaster

Time: Sunday, March 13, 2011, 4:30 pm,  at PAX East in Boston, Massachusetts
Description: Gaming books are full of sage advice for GMs on why players play and how to keep them happy, but what do GMs want? Why do they spend so much time preparing games for us? And most importantly, how can players use this to get what they want out of their RPG campaign? Award winning game designers Luke Crane, Jack Graham, and Joshua AC Newman talk about why we play games, why we run games, and how we design them to make them engaging for everyone involved.
Panelists:

• Luke Crane [Writer/Game Designer, Burning Wheel]
• Jack Graham [Writer/Game Designer, Posthuman Studios/Eclipse Phase]
• Joshua Newman [Writer/Game Designer, Glyph Press/Shock: Social Science Fiction]

Over the weekend, Posthuman reported they’ve released Marc Huete’s Continuity, the fourth published scenario for Eclipse Phase, as a PDF. I watched a few tables at Gen Con playing this one, and it looks like a ton of fun. In convention play, the players stepped into the roles of multiple forks of the same person, then worked together to unravel the circumstances of their original’s demise. The PDF release includes the set-up for putting PCs from your own campaign into the same situation.

This comes right on the heels of the next major Eclipse Phase book, Gatecrashing, going to the printer. Gatecrashing explores the alien worlds on the other side of the Pandora Gates. It includes lots of setting material and many new character build options, including new gear, morphs, and augmentations.

I didn’t work on either of these projects, but having read the manuscripts for both, I highly recommend them to EP fans. Continuity is available through DriveThru RPG now. We don’t have a street date on Gatecrashing yet.

Wikipedia doesn’t ask for donations very often, so when they do, I take notice. Consider supporting the Wikimedia Foundation. I use it every day, and I’m sure a lot of you do, too.

After months of Posthuman Studios wrangling with Amazon about a Catalyst-related ISBN mix-up, Eclipse Phase: Sunward is available on Amazon… But check your FLGS first!

I’m not sure who created this, but whoever they are, I’d like to shake their hand.

Nothing in this post ain’t been said before. Steampunk is hot because, like paranormal romance, people’re buying it. Tor & io9 aren’t “foisting” anything. They’re responding to the market. Still, a good summary of all that’s problematic in steampunk.

Schedule of Eclipse Phase events at PAX West. I won’t be making it, but developer Brian Cross will be there. I highly recommend checking it out if you’ll be there. Not sure if he’ll be running my scenario from Gen Con, Doctrine, but I hope so!