A guy called Sean ...
When you are in high school, that magical time when you know everything and have not managed to make any truly life-affecting mistakes, it is easy to make fun of those who have. They always seem stupid, and if they were only as smart as you were, well they would not have any problems. In some cliques it becomes a sport to mock the failures and shortcomings of others. Some people go through their entire lives mocking the mistakes of others, some times even while their own lives are burning down around them.
When I was younger I recall my Mother telling me to skip all of the high school reunions until the 25th, “by then everyone has gotten over it”, she said. “They have all failed and all succeeded in their own way, and most of the time they aren’t complete assholes.” My Mom is a wise woman, so while I went to some gathering of old classmates when I was in my twenties, I have skipped all of them until now. My 25th is coming up in 2009. Maybe I will go, maybe I won’t. No matter either way, I’ll still be me, warts and all.
About the time I went to the little shindig in question I was going to a lot of cons. A lot of cons. Did I say a lot of cons? I was going to six or eight shows a year. We would jump in the car and drive somewhere in Florida or Georgia and game for 72 hours without sleep. Well, not always completely without sleep, but usually. It was at one of these shows that I first met a guy called Sean.
Sean was a kind of big guy just like I was, he was vaguely charismatic with other geeks like I was, and he was running very good games like I was. I felt some kind of war between grudging respect, alpha-male challenge, and a genuine like for the guy that I couldn’t reconcile with my obvious superiority. Like I said, it was a long time ago. I doubt even he remembers our first meeting. If I recall it was some ugly underground hotel/mall thing in Jacksonville, Florida, and it stank. Still, I am getting older and my memory fades. I could be mashing up the past. A few years passed.
I ran into this guy in the oddest places, usually separated by some years. Sometime in the mid to late 1990s we began to move in the same circles. I was writing, and so was he. We had some very good conversations, and I began to know that he was going somewhere. It became fun to watch. Then it was not fun for some time. When you write, even as poorly as I do, you see the validity of things. You see how hard it is, how much it means, and for all of the intellectual carnage you desperately want to do it as well. He has had some tough times, and some good times, and he has gradually become a respected person in gaming, and a creative force in my world. He is Sean Patrick Fannon, the guy who writes, wrote, and will write Shaintar: Immortal Legends.
If you think I am gushing on, I rather apologize. I do not mean to offend or appear to be false in my praise. Knowing Sean and watching him struggle with his creative challenges, and getting to see him really succeed is just fantastic. Just doing the exact opposite of what those idiots did in high school; reveling in a friend’s success, and not sniping at failure.
A guy called Shane ...
So there’s this other guy, Shane, who also writes games. He wrote a hella’ cool game called Deadlands some years ago and I just loved it. The whole idea of the weird wild west has always intrigued this Midwestern boy. I was raised in Kansas and Nebraska and according to family history am a great grand nephew of Wyatt Earp. Dodge City was somewhere I visited as a child, and from real guys like the Earps, to fictional guys like Shane, the west was very literally in my blood.
I very much enjoyed Deadlands and so did many other people. It was a breakout success and spawned several sequel games, even a collectible card game. He went on to write other games as well. Most notably some MMOs. Not my thing really, but he is universally respected, and a very successful guy. He’s also genuinely nice, even if he doesn’t care for me very much.
When I first heard he was developing Deadlands Reloaded I emailed him immediately. I was excited, almost as much as I was by the whole Traveller resurgence. We corresponded a few times in the long development process. He was always very nice. Once the project was actually released I contacted him again. He pushed me off to the publisher, and then when the publisher wouldn’t answer my emails I sent Shane another message. He replied simply that he didn’t want me to review his game. It seems that I had expressed some opinions in various forums that lead him to believe I was an ass. Well, I am an ass, but I am also incredibly glad he gave Sean a license to make Shaintar a Savage Worlds game. Savage Worlds games have usually been excellent, and this one is no exception. I would also like to take this public opportunity to apologize if I offended Shane. I am an opinionated ass, but it’s part of my charm.
The Fourth Edition SRD ... Not.
As this column is going to press the Fourth Edition D&D SRD and development kit has been made available to publishers for the low, low price of $5,000.00. Not only is this insulting, it is ludicrous for two reasons.
One, margins in the OGL market are razor thin as it is. Publishers in the game industry generally cannot even pay writers or artists a living wage. This expense will doubtless put more pressure on many publishers to pay even less.
Two, it is not an SRD, not really. Hasbro has taken all of the restrictions in the old D20 license and placed them in the SRD, effectively ending the OGL as we know it. Welcome to the party, it looks like it’s going to suck.
Dreamation 2008
One final note, I will be attending Dreamation 2008 in a few weeks, and I hope to have lots of indie goodness to talk about. See you next month.
