Rough Week

I've been trying to make sure I post something at least once a week, but I've been too busy this past week to come up with much that I felt was worthwhile, so I'll just post a few odd bits that might be of interest.

Between increased obligations at work (which happens every year at this time) and the usual holiday obligations anyone has, it's a wonder I have five minutes to myself right now. I'm not a fan of the holidays, as it always seems to me to be six to eight weeks of people making each other miserable in a (usually failed) attempt to have a single great day. At least the retailers are happy...

The conceptual work on "A Slice of Blackwoods" is essentially done, and all that's left is the process of writing up all of the information for the players and quantifying a few of the NPCs. Some aspects of the player information can be interesting, though. The character sheets themselves are a snore, but the descriptions of what the characters are like and why can be fun to do, and sometimes inspire me to go back to the main story and change things. I also plan to do a one page summary of Yrth background information that people new to the setting would need to understand the situation, which is going to take some time to do properly without telegraphing every plot twist along the way. These are the things I work on at home right now when I have the time to really focus.

When I have some downtime (standing in line at stores, etc.), I'm working on some concepts for "Dance of Pairs", which still needs some serious fleshing out. Sorcerer tends to be about coming up with some interesting characters and a tense situation to set them in, rather than anticipating what the players might choose to do with that situation. If you construct the situation well in the first place, the excitement usually takes care of itself.

I just finished reading "Urban Shaman" by C. E. Murphy. The plot wasn't overwhelmingly exciting or original, but the writer did a nice job of making interesting characters and writing them in such a way that you come to care about what happens to them. I probably wouldn't read it again, but I liked it enough that I'd consider picking up her next book if the description of it is even vaguely interesting. Next up, Thomas Ligotti's "My Work is Not Yet Done", which is corporate workplace horror.

Here's hoping I have something more positive to say next week...