Hello, everyone!

If you want to get alerts each Monday when a blog post goes out, there’s an email signup somewhere around here. Should be on the left after you scroll down a little bit if you are on a laptop. As for phones, I have no clue—very top or very bottom, probably. The same signup will also give you an alert when new writing goes up, event alerts, etc… Such as forewarning when Inner Demon gets self-published later this year!

(Can you tell just how tech-savvy of a guy put together this website?)

Speaking of which… the prologue and first chapter of Inner Demon are now live! You can find them here, or in my usual storage area—the Stuff to Read tab.

Here’s a question for y’all—do you like reading rough drafts? I’m tempted to share sections of Hazel Halfwhisker over in Stuff to Read, but I’m curious if it would be worth the effort. I don’t go and read rough drafts of other authors’ works (save for my writing group), but I’ve met other people who really enjoy seeing the rough, ugly beginnings of a story and piecing together the journey toward a final, polished, complete novel. Let me know!

Bloggyness Review—Shadowdark RPG

Over a decade ago, I was invited over to my friend’s house to play Dungeons and Dragons for the first time ever. I was a little confused about what was going on—just like many people at the time, I had heard of DnD, but most of what I heard wasn’t positive. It also seemed a little strange to me, given the game’s diabolic reputation (leakage from the 80s), that my Catholic best friend was introducing me to it, with his very Catholic parents running the game. So be it, I guessed at the time. I’d only heard echoes of things and had no opinions on the game myself.

I sat down with my friend’s dad in his at-home office. His old PC with a brick monitor was running a program called HeroForge. He asked me what I wanted to play and I gave him a blank stare.

“Huh?” I asked with a discerning level of preteen brevity.

“What do you want to play? Elf, dwarf, human, half-orc.”

Already very familiar with the fantasy genre—and World of Warcraft—a few assumptions quickly clicked. Still, I wanted to keep it simple, since I hadn’t played before. “Human, I guess.”

“Did my son tell you about any of the classes?”

“… Huh?”

“How about we make you a Paladin. A human Paladin. That’s a good, easy way to start, and the party needs a meatshield anyway.”

“Ok. Paladins wear lots of armor, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I have lots of spikes and cool designs on mine?”

“Whatever you want.”

“And a big axe?”

“Sure!”

Within minutes, he was printing out my very first character sheet for my very first character. Then, half an hour later, I was sitting around a kitchen table with a bunch of other preteen boys, all wiggling in our seats and goofing around as my friend’s dad finished prepping to run the game.

Then we started, and I was immediately transported to another world. It was an experience comparable to only a very small selection of vivid books that I had read—but I was making the decisions, rather than experiencing an adventure “on rails.” I ended up hating my character, but I loved the experience.

The rest, as they say, is history.

I’ve already talked a bit about my early history with TTRPGs, and some of the many I’ve tried since Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 served as my gateway drug—I quickly fell in love with the genre. I had games, and gameplay styles, that I liked more than others, but in general I just loved playing TTRPGs. It was fun. It was imaginative. Math became cool. And, as a socially awkward boy with Asperger’s trying to figure out what seemed to come naturally to everyone else, I thrived in the structure of the game, the clear rules and expectations that put everyone on a level playing field.

It was one of those heady childhood rushes that you’re lucky to ever get a taste of again.

Well, I retasted those days while playing Shadowdark RPG (creator: Kelsey Dionne of the Arcane Library) for the first time. And it was glorious.

It was just a little taste. Nothing is ever the same, or as good, twice—and, as a significantly streamlined approach to classic TTRPGs (and, especially, dungeon crawling), the feel of Shadowdark is notably different from games with more rules crunch. (As a big fan of character building, I did have moments where I wished I could dig through a chapter of feats and select two from the crowd.) But, as an adult with much less time and a much greater desire to just get to it, the speed and simplicity of Shadowdark works perfectly for me right now. Despite playing online—I hate playing TTRPGs online—despite internet issues, despite taking care of a sick baby while playing, I had fun, and I found myself genuinely excited for the next game.

Honestly, I think that’s a big part of what impressed me most about the game: in the face of all these distractions, I had a good time, and I wanted to play more. We didn’t even do that much—my party entered the dungeon, immediately almost got killed, then ran out with the loot we had stolen and leveled up. And yet, it was a blast.

Also, as an amateur game designer, I am extremely jealous of how incredible simple Shadowdark‘s rulebook is. I’m not just talking about the free quickstart rulebooks, but the whole, base book. Not a single word is wasted, and almost every set of associated rules can easily be found on a single page or, at most, a two-page spread. Picking up and playing this game was extremely easy, and making a character swift.

I highly recommend Shadowdark RPG. The (free!) QuickStart Ruleset is all you need to play a genuinely engaging game—it’s all that me and my friends used! You can pick up the game at the ArcaneLibrary or DriveThruRPG. I am not sponsored in any way for this; I’m just sharing something that I think is really cool.

Writing Updates

I am blazing this week: Hazel Halfwhisker is at 143,000 words. That’s over a 10,000-word jump from last week! I squeezed in more writing time than I usually do, but I also finally reached some scenes that I’ve been building up to for a while. Excitement to finally be writing them really made my fingers smoke as I typed up a storm.

If I can keep this pace up, I am very confident that I will be finished with Part 2 by the end of next week.

Send-Off

Would you be interested in more rough drafts being posted to the website?

Have you played Shadowdark? What were your thoughts?