Freelance Writing/Editing/More

Links to my profiles on Fiverr & People Per Hour (these will be expanded as I add services):

Fiverr

People Per Hour

Direct services:

Currently, my 2017 plate is clear (from April) and free for freelancing and consultancy. I’m pretty reliable and can offer reasonably fast turnaround. I can, perhaps uniquely, provide detail and grounding to scenarios – even dungeons – to humanise them and give them a bit of depth. Give me a try, see what I can do for your games.

I am a 17+ year veteran of the tabletop game publishing world with lots of experience in freelancing and self-publishing.

I’ve worked for Wizards of the Coast, Steve Jackson Games, Nightfall, Cubicle Seven Entertainment and more. I have also written fiction and worked on social media computer games, packing a lot of meaning into short pieces of text.

As a self-publisher, I have overseen every step of the publication process from concept through to publication including writing, editing, layout and modification. I also produce Youtube material and have begun producing audiobooks. If you need some narration for a video project or an audiobook reading, I can help.

Here’s some of the services I can offer, and the minimum prices offered – though anything is negotiable up or down depending on the client. I will work pseudonymously if that is a concern for you.

• New writing (raw text): $0.03c/word (minimum)
• Proofreading/Light Editing/Commentary: $0.01c/word (second and third deeper passes are possible).
• ePublishing/RPG Publishing consultation. Skype/Hangout/Call: $20/hour.
• Consultation on your game project: $20/hour.
• Layout (InDesign): $11 an hour.
• Stock Art Shopfront: Postmortem studios have a huge stock art catalogue from multiple artists and we’d love to add you to that storefront. If you’re an artist who wants to sell your stock art but doesn’t want to deal with the accounts and uploads etc with your own storefront (which would be my first recommendation) then I can do that for you for 50% (I round up your payouts). Even if you don’t want to do this through me I recommend doing it anyway for all artists and can consult on best practice if you need advice.
• Voice Work: If you find my dulcet tones to your liking, I’m available for voice over work and narration, recording audiobooks and more. Rates negotiable, starting at $11 per hour.
• Promotion/Interview: Free. If you have a product you want to pimp out or would like to just talk game design and culture you’re welcome to talk to me and appear on my Youtube channel.

#RPG Fistful of Modern: 1 – RELEASED

BUY IT HERE

From the author of the ‘100’ series of Adventure Seeds books, a new, shorter form source of inspiration for Games Masters. They might be adventures, non-player-characters, monsters, places… all ready to be dropped into your campaign, regardless of system.

In this booklet:

Drive, He Said: A pair of ‘fast and furious’, car-oriented gangsters to drop into your modern or crime games.

Flirty Fishing: Sex sells and can even be used to sell religion. Cults know this and will use this most obvious human failing to their advantage.

Fat on Bread: The cops are just another gang to the people on the street, but who is really running the show amongst the bent cops?

Meth Hunters: The days of driving really fast in an old muscle car to escape the law are gone. So are the days of moonshine. These days its meth and guns – and rednecks know guns better’n Cooter knows engines.

Hero Cop: Hero, vigilante, gun-wielding psychopath, all three? The hero cop can be an ally or an enemy – or both.

Misery Loves Company? Kickstarter Project

So a couple of guys have decided to create what should – in theory – be an Indie Darling. This is a set of one-shot story-game type scenarios that are each centred on difficult and controversial topics from rape and abuse to views of welfare claimants and all things in between. There’s shades of the ‘New Style’ games of old there as well as various other games that try to address controversial topics. My own Little Grey Book would seem to be the type of thing they’re angling for here, but with more structured play.

These kind of one-shot ideas aren’t really the kind of thing that I like to play myself, though it might be fun to write one-shot, hyper-specific game scenarios, but it was brought to my attention in a blatant attempt to use my controversial reputation to aid the project. It’s controversial topics that interest me, more than the controversy itself, but there does seem to be an interesting level of hypocrisy and panic going on here.

People associated with the project have been bullied because of their association and threatened with loss of work. The predictable and usual suspects have gotten their panties in a bunch. At this point it’s a familiar dance. What makes this odd is that these games are not, even remotely, interpretable as glorifying any of these topics (though a fictional setting that did could be interesting to explore). They’re Indie games – which are usually given more latitude – and, though I hesitate to mention it, one of the chaps involved is a Person of Colour.

Given that hysteria about game content has reached such stupid heights that the inclusion of a succubus-like monster in Numenara is enough to set RPGnet off, maybe I shouldn’t be quite so surprised that they’re now eating their own.

Anyway, it’s not tempting enough for me to back as I’d get no use out of it whatsoever, but I admire the attempt, the goals of the project and the attempt to stay reasonable with critics. Unflinchingly tackling difficult concepts is a worthy thing to try to do.

LINK

Taboos in Gaming: The Overlooked

In the fuss about me, the remainder of the panels and events Indie+ haven’t gotten the profile and attention that they should have. People who claim to care about their voices and concerns instead chose to fixate on me, to the cost of the other events.

Let’s do something to fix that a bit:

Examining Games

Computer games are big business and because they’re big business they attract serious study without anyone feeling that they’re being silly for doing do. Tabletop RPGs attract less money and attention but they’re no less worthy of study in their own way and the same revelations and improvements in craft that computer games have gained in this way can – perhaps – be applied to roleplaying games.

Computer games studies such as this are a good starting point, though there’s a lot about computer games that simply doesn’t apply or that is made more complicated by the fact that between the producer and consumer there is the additional filter of the Games Master.

Matters are further complicated by the fact that RPGs run the gamut from tightly focussed games that target a single experience and mode of play to toolkits that are virtually devoid of narrative or worldbuilding content.

We have had GNS Theory, which has been the only theory to really gain any traction, despite being superseded by The Big Model. The problem with most of these approaches is that they are conspicuously ideological and, tellingly have not produced any knock-out, successful games as of yet. At least not commercially successful. Artistically successful is always arguable but the two need not be mutually exclusive. In the computer gaming world many of the most successful and impactful games are also those that have treated the audience as having intelligence and desire for good story alongside the game aspect.

I think we need a more objective, non-partisan, examination of RPG theory and practice and I’m not sure I’m the best person to do it, but somehow around work I’ll give it a try. Can anyone reference me to some more design models and approaches covered on a teaching/academic basis in computer games so that I can piggyback on their studies a little?

Is Tabletop Gaming Good for You? (Yes)

Nobody with that much afro can possibly be having a bad time.

Why Tabletop Roleplaying Games Are Good For You

Berin Kinsman is a writer and game designer. He’s the boss at Asparagus Jumpsuit, and blogs about creativity in its various forms at Berinkinsman.com.
There is a perception among non-gamers that tabletop roleplaying is merely another form of escapism. It’s something geeks do to avoid reality, like going to the movies, becoming obsessed with television shows, living inside of novels, or getting sucked into video games. There are marked difference between roleplaying games and other forms of escapism, though. Here are four reasons why roleplaying is actually good for you.

Tabletop is social
While some people now play online via Skype, Google Hangouts, and dedicated “virtual tabletops”, the majority of roleplayers still meet face-to-face to play. That means putting down the electronics, getting off the internet, and interacting with live people. The game is played largely through conversation, with periodic pauses to roll dice, flip cards, or move counters. Players don’t only have to know the rules of the game; they need to possess some level of interpersonal skills, and for young people it is a way to develop them. There is a greater level of positive social interaction than in many non-geek activities.

Tabletop is literate
Roleplaying is reliant upon the written word. From thick core books to short PDF documents, everything from the rules to the details of the setting requires you to read. It leads to other reading, too, from fantasy, science fiction, or horror novels to history, biography, and all sorts of topics directly or indirectly related to your preferred genre. Anything that gets people to read is a good thing. It also requires some level of writing, whether it’s filling out a character sheet, writing a background story for your character, or creating your own game material.

Tabletop is creative
Roleplaying requires problem-solving and decision making. You aren’t given a limited set of options to choose from, as in a video game, and the choices you’re able to make for your character are wide open. You get to affect the fictional setting in ways that reading and watching don’t allow. Many people paint miniatures or draw pictures of their characters, but even if they don’t, they’re collaborating with other players on shaping a story and building a world. You don’t just get to imagine possibilities, you get to shape them and act upon them by exercising your imagination.

Tabletop is active
Other forms of escapism involve sitting still while entertainment is presented to you. Roleplaying, as shown above, involves active engagement on several levels. In my high school it was used as an effective tool for special education students to help them develop social skills, get enthusiastic about reading, and express themselves constructively. It’s my preferred form of escapism, because I’d much rather sit around talking with friends and collaborating on something than drinking, watching football, or playing a video game where my choices and options have already been defined for me.