Still not feeling well ... the best fit is a hiatal hernia, but doctors would give me anxiety meds instead. Rather than listening or thinking. So, new doctor on Friday. Some barium and a chest x-ray could clear it all up, but this massive system is in place to prevent solutions. So it seems.
Skip all that. I've been a role-playing gamer for over 20 years now. May seem odd, since I may only sit in on a game a few afternoons each year. But that methodical way of creating places and characters has stuck with me, with the comical side effect that I have pieces and drafts of a bunch of alternate worlds nobody has ever seen. Just last week I sat down to make a quick fantasy town full of gags and clichees (for Risus), only to find that I had built a whole web of strange people, and I can walk the imaginary streets of the town when I close my eyes. I will probably dive in and write some of the stories someday.
Finding markets for the actual gaming material is tricky. Sure, just like for fiction, there are lots of little publishers building collections of short works. The main issue is choosing a game system, but then if the market rejects the work, the whole piece may have to be rewritten using some other game system, which may lead to more markets that don't want it. It's like switching languages, a strange process. And the most popular game systems are so overbearingly complicated, the players must sit around a argue over numbers instead of enjoying a story. The simpler systems are mostly free, therefore there's no budget there, and I can't spend a lot of hours on something only to give it away.
So many worlds, so little time. ;-)
2024 note: this was the intro to my newsletter Dark Windows #22, but since that since has been gone for years, I have added it to the flow of this blog.
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