OLD News

It’s so easy to think "Well, I’ve cut ties, that’s enough." But it really isn’t. As these last few weeks have demonstrated, time and again, it’s necessary–and well past time–to speak up about each and every incident.

So this is me, speaking my part.

I’ve been focused primarily on fiction for a long time now, but I still keep a toe in the RPG waters. I’m currently working on The Lost Citadel RPG for Green Ronin (a company about which I cannot say enough good things). I’ve done several articles for ENWorld’s EN5ider, with whom I would happily work again.

And, within the last couple of years, I spearheaded a book of adventures for Frog God/Necromancer.

I didn’t know better at the time. Most of us didn’t.

Many of you already know the story of what happened at PaizoCon this past May. If you don’t, Google PaizoCon and Bill Webb.

In addition to what’s been stated publicly, I’m also aware of other incidents involving Bill and other people. Those incidents are not public knowledge, and I’m not at liberty to discuss them or the people involved, but they’re pretty awful.

I stopped communicating with Bill back in May, and I certainly haven’t sought (and wouldn’t have accepted) any more work from Frog God, even though we’d been talking about doing a 5E conversion of The Doom of Listonshire. But as I said above, cutting ties privately isn’t enough.

I am, therefore, formally and publicly announcing that I will have nothing more to do with Frog God–as a creator or a customer–so long as Bill Webb remains associated with the company.

It’s not much since, as I said, I’m only doing small amounts of RPG work these days anyway. But it’s what I can do.

Do any of you ever find yourself realizing that you’re a fan of something conceptually, but not practically?

What I mean is, for instance, a conversation about horror movies at ArmadilloCon eventually turned to Pinhead and the Hellraiser movies. And I found myself putting into words something I’d thought about but hadn’t seriously considered, which is this:

I’m a big fan of the CONCEPT of Pinhead and the Cenobites (particularly in their original conception, before they just became run-of-the-mill demons in a Judeo-Christian hell). I think there’s an enormous amount of cool story and mood potential behind them, and I’d love to see it explored.

Yet I’m not actually a fan of any of their appearances. I didn’t much care for THE HELLBOUND HEART novella, and while I’ve enjoyed many aspects of the Hellraiser movies (especially scenes and segments and ideas from the first two), I’ve never actually enjoyed a single Hellraiser movie AS a complete movie.

The same is true of Lovecraft. I love Lovecraftian horror. I’ve used it in some of my work, and I sometimes go out looking for it. But I’m not really fond of Lovecraft’s own work. I find him a mediocre writer, and although I’ve read almost his entire library, I can only remember a handful of stories well enough to talk about them.

Or, for a different sort of example, exploration-based sandbox D&D campaigns. I find the potential stories and ideas enticing in the abstract, but I’ve never played in such a campaign that didn’t bore me, and I’ve had to quit every time I’ve tried to run one because I was very much not enjoying it.

Is this just me? Or do any of you guys–I’m especially, but not exclusively, curious about other creatives–find yourselves in the same sort of boat?

Okay, folks. The Dungeon Master’s Guild market/license for D&D stuff is a great opportunity and a lot of fun. I get why so many of you are eager to get material up there ASAP. But I hope you’ll accept a bit of free advice from someone who’s both a fan and a professional.

EDITING MATTERS.

You need to know how to put a sentence together, and you need to have your work read over by other people who know how to put a sentence together. I promise you–promise–that if you have obvious typos or overtly poor grammar in your product description, a lot of people are never going to even look at the product itself, let alone spend any money on it. There are many people who have already lost me as a potential customer based on a single sentence of their product entry, because it was so poorly written that I don’t trust them to be able to deliver a usable product.

Take your time and do it right.