What's Up With Ichabod
In one way, much of my life is turning around. A while back getting a game printed seemed hopeless. So much that I started putting up free games on my web page. Now I have two companies expressing interest in Mad Scientist. I refuse to get my hopes up. After the way some companies in this industry have treated me, I don't see any reason to.
So I am still working on my roleplaying game, assuming that will be the only way I'get published. Early playtesting has shown some serious problems, especially long combats and weak magic. However, I take this as a good sign. The basics work, I think it's just that the numbers need to be tweaked so that the game is balanced. This is something that not only can be done, I can do it. It's just a matter of time.
On the setting side, I have the basics of both a fantasy and a science-fiction setting finished. I have started working on the foundational material, and within a week or two I hope to be writing the actual manuscripts for the two settings. If I can get a game published, and get in the position to get more games published, I'll put the game and both settings up on this site. Hell, publishing a roleplaying game is a last resort. With the market glutted the way it is, an RPG isn't the best product.
Other things seem to be going well, and by the time I write another one of these, I hope to be able to reveal a secret that I've held back for some time.
Not everything is well. I play a lot of games. More than one person has told me recently that I'm a poor sport. Last Friday I felt like I was being a poor sport. What's more, I wasn't even having fun. Why play games if I'm not having fun, and I'm getting in the way of other people having fun? So I am swearing off games for an indeterminate time period, perhaps a month. We'll see how it works out. I sure hope I'm not burned out on games at this point, when I've sunk so much of my life into them. I'd begun to think that after seven or eight years I couldn't get burned out on them.
I could be wrong. I've even had one person tell me I'm definately not a poor sport. Tonight was a perfect illustration. I've been going to a discussion group called Quakerism 101, a sort of introductory group for Quakers. I've been talking a lot at these meetings, and I began to feel that I was taking something away from the others by talking so much. So I restrained myself tonight and said very little. Afterwards, I was asked why I was so quiet, and one lady remarked that she missed my contributions. So there I was, thinking I was giving, when I was actually taking away.
Score: 134 - 87 - 4.
Last Updated 11/9/1999
Created 11/9/99