After some recent confusion, and some gentle ribbing by some new friends, it's dawned on me that I've done a piss-poor job showing the world who I am. I'm a little private about my life, but what the hell. Here it goes.

I'm a thirty-something, ex-McDonald's manager, bearded, pudgy, leftist, agnostic, vegetarian game designer, from a long line of ultra-Christian conservatives. I've been playing roleplaying games since 1st edition AD&D, and my first gaming experience was to take the guts of Rahasia by Tracy and Laura Hickman and design a roleplaying game from the nuts and bolts I found in that adventure. I was a nerd and outcast in middle school, I managed not to be a nerd and outcast in High School (sort of), and dropped out of college, was very stupid about what I did and how I partied from 91 to 95, met my wife at a Pink Floyd concert, got married to her 10 months after we started dating, went back to school and came out with a BA in English and Philosophy, and immediately sold flooring for two years. During that time I broke into the gaming business, worked as a freelancer for about 18 months or so, landed a job as d20 line developer with Green Ronin Publishing, and eventually took over the WFRP line developer position after Realms of Sorcery. I ran d20 and WFRP for a couple of years, and then left to return to freelancing, and now I work exclusively with Wizards of the Coast.

I live in Murfreesboro Tennessee (with some chagrin) with my wife of 12 years and four fat cats. I drive a beat up piece of shit (a 95 Dodge Neon with almost 150,000 miles) I drink beer at Liquid Smoke on Friday nights (a cigar and beer bar), and my gaming group consists of the same folks I've been gaming with (more or less) since 1991.

I'm very disciplined about work, getting up at 4:45 am every day and working until 6:00 pm (usually later), and I can (though I don't want to) generate upwards of 120,000 words a month (though, admittedly, they are not all good words, so I aim for 50k/month). I've worked for Green Ronin, Wizards', Paizo, AEG, Fantasy Flight, Black Industries, Goodman, Paradigm Concepts, Mongoose, and Kenzer.

Hilariously, someone, somewhere claimed I was goth. Well, I'm not. My passion is music, specifically black or death metal. While I'm happiest listening to Dissection, Dismember, Slayer, Mortuary Drape, among others, my musical tastes run the gamut and include everything from Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, to Faith No More, Amorphis, prog rock, prog metal, British heavy metal, doom metal, a little punk, and much, much more.

So there it is. Me in a handful of paragraphs... I think I'll swallow a shotgun now.

Here's a taste of my musical interests:

Current Music: Danzig

 
My meds are starting to kick in.  

That + actually telling people my brain is exploding = mucho relief.

God bless better living through chemistry.  Who knew there was a pill for not having imaginary knives constantly stabbed into your brain.

Yesterday, or maybe last week, Threats of the Galaxy arrived. As my first Star Wars, book, I'm pretty excited. Looks good and Rodney did a nice job on development. Today, three brand-spanking new 4E rulebooks showed up while I was extracting bermuda grass from the front flower bed (while silently vowing that I will sooner concrete the whole damn yard before I do this crap ever again). Wow. They look good and feel great. It's a new game, a different game, and it's a lot of fun. I loved 3.5 (and 3), and I still do, but I'm happy to kill monsters and take their stuff using 4E mechanics.

Soon, I'll tell you about my Blackthorn Campaign. Now, though, I'm going to collapse. One final bit: to the sadistic bastards who drive 36 inch metal stakes into the ground as a gardening tool, you should also be the ones to extract them. Next house I buy? It's a condition of signing the contract. I've pulled something like 20 so far...

Began the day in the screaming, foetal, keep-the-sharp-objects away state.

Ended it actually WRITING something and feeling generally not terrified.

Got there ALL BY MY FREAKING SELF.

Fuck you world.  I ain't done.

... you want me to come onto your podcast, all you have to do is ask. But baseless accusations about plagiarism for a section of a book that I didn't even write and publicizing this on the internet before doing any sort of research or even submitting a private query (I'm not hard to find) considerably reduces the chance I will ever appear on the show without a public retraction and sincere apology from the accusers. Friends, until now, I had no idea your podcast existed and even if I did, it's not likely I would have listened since I find the soothing tunes of black metal far more inspiring than the noise of pundits. In short, I will be happy to appear on your program just as soon as you withdraw your accusations and make an apology for smearing my name.

Until then, I thank you to stop the slander and get your facts straight.

Robert J. Schwalb

If every day is a battle - and it is, blood-soaked and brutal - than dear sweet God, let every night be an armistice, every laugh a cessation, every moment of peace and confidence be a perfect victory, if nothing else, dear sweet God, grant me that.

And that's all the wisdom I have today.

Forgot to mention a while back: the latest and greatest PTGPTB is up, 

http://ptgptb.org/0029/index.html

including my article on how to make your characters more playable:

http://ptgptb.org/0029/summing-it-up.html

And here it is in French!

http://ptgptb.free.fr/0029/summing.htm
 

The problem with the Dr Who RPG is NOT "who plays the Doctor".

Because the Doctor is not more awesome because he has more screen time.  In fact, in some episodes, he has substantially less screen time than the companions.

Nor is the Doctor more awesome than the others because he has more skills or more powers.  He does have some wonderful toys, but in many cases his companions can use them as easily as he can, and in other cases they have their own skills.  The Doctor does tend to Know What's Going On more often, but there are examples of Companions who have eclipsed him here also.  Captain Jack, pour example, not only knows the score but he could potentially kick the Doctor's ass if it was brawn vs brawn.  Plus he's immortal.  In any point based system, it would be a close call (particularly if you count Torchwood as Captain Jack's resources).

What sets the Doctor apart isn't any of this.  What sets him apart is that he's the Doctor.

He has in him the characteristics of deific glory, that which inspires and raises up all those who simply come into contact with it.  He's beyond cool, he is cool.  He doesn't just save the day, he makes the day worth saving.

To put it another way: you don't watch Doctor Who because you want to be the Doctor, or because you think the Doctor is cool.  You watch it because you love the doctor.  You adore him.  You worship him.  Because you want to be close to him when he works.

And that makes for a difficult RPG session.  If the GM controls the Doctor, he's got to be that freaking awesome.  Same problem if a player does.  Even if someone can pull it off, it creates an unusual session, to say the least.  If nobody's the Doctor, then, well...what's the point?

That said, from first glance, the Doctor Who RPG is looking pretty damn sweet.

Crap, this read a lot better before I started watching SVU while typing it. :(

GRADUATE YOUR GAME

With LEISURE GAMES & WHITE WOLF

Closing Date: Friday 16^th May

White Wolf is giving away free copies of the award-winning Exalted Second Edition! We’re offering you an opportunity to break out of the Dungeons & Dragons cycle, and graduate to a new kind of fantasy game. We’re confident that once you step up and experience Exalted’s world of epic fantasy and larger-than-life heroes, you won’t ever want to search another 10 x 10 room again.

Why play a rehash of the same old game, when you could be exploring Epic Fantasy Re-Imagined all summer?

WHEN DOES IT TAKE PLACE?

Fans who want to graduate from D&D have until 16th May to sign up to receive their free Exalted book. Supplies are limited, though, and once all 2500 books have been ordered, that’s it.

The free Exalted core books will be available for pickup at your local store during Graduation Week (June 2^nd -7th).

WHERE IS IT HELD?

Exalted: Graduate Your Game is being held at Leisure Games, 100 Ballards Lane, Finchley, London, N3 2DN. Email: shop@leisuregames.com Telephone: 020 8346 2327.

HOW DO I PARTICIPATE?

In order to become one of the 2500 graduates to receive a free copy of Exalted, you need to bring in a copy of your old Dungeons & Dragons Revised Third Edition (3.5) Players Guide for a one-for-one exchange, fill out a form with you contact details and then come back and collect your new Exalted book during Graduation Week!

Offer limited to one copy per person.

Here's what's happened since 05/01:

I watched the Mists (big thumbs up), Cloverfield (thumbs up), Sweeney Todd (thumbs sideways).

I played in a 3.5 game. My LN dwarven cleric of Hextor got nudged out of the group after discovering the villain was a cleric of Hextor. So, I have a paladin of Heironeous who's hunting my previous character.

Watched Iron Man (double thumbs up + big smile; stay through credits, though you know this I'm sure)

Got Drunk

Watched Doctor Who (thumbs up) & Sarah Jane (thumbs up)

Went to a baby shower (yeah, it's unlikely, but it happened), got drunk, listened to Jazz at the town square.

Watched Battlestar (thumbs confused).

Ran a fantastic 4E game.

Worked on some 4E conversions of monsters and on some 4E adventures for personal use.

Stressed about upcoming projects that start 6/1

Got Drunk

Posted on livejournal while buzzed.

Yay.

What's ahead?

Taking Sausage (cat) to vet. Taking Hotpie (cat) to vet. Cutting the monkey grass. Yard work. Drinking. Beach for four days. Drinking.

Current Music: Sepultura--Against

Advisory Board Nominations Begin

This morning we are opening the nomination process for the user-representative positions on the LiveJournal Advisory Board. A full description of the process can be found here.

To get you started, here are the basic things you should know:

- You may only nominate yourself
- Each nominee will need 100 motions of support in order to be eligible to be a candidate
- We ask that you keep your comments on the nomination posts to "I support this nomination" or something to that effect; be kind to those who will need to count the "supports", please.
- Although the nominations and election poll will take place in lj_election_en, you do not need to watch the community in order to keep up with the election; we'll announce everything here as well.

Everyone here at LiveJournal is looking forward to this first-ever User-Representative election! We'd like to thank everyone who is participating. Some words from our current Advisory Board members:

danah boyd: “LiveJournal is filled with very passionate users. These users have helped shaped LJ's various communities over the last decade and it gives me great joy that LJ is recognizing and incorporating users' voices into the decision-making processes. Having user representatives from different parts of LJ on the Advisory Board will help make sure that the company is meeting the needs of its diverse constituents.”

Esther Dyson: "I'm sure we'll learn a lot from the process, and later on from the two users selected as well. Especially, I hope that the discussions before the voting will be more meaningful and more focused on policy than those in some offline campaigns."

Brad Fitzpatrick: "It's cool that SUP is getting users involved with the LiveJournal decision-making process. I look forward to seeing who the community elects and the results of our efforts working together."

Professor Lawrence Lessig: “The user elections will provide a critical check on LJ's process of maintaining a valuable and trustworthy environment for the LJ community. The mandate of the elections will give the user representatives pride of place among the members of the Advisory Board. Each of us will look to them to guide us in our judgment about how best to make LJ the community we all aspire that it will be. I look forward to welcoming the user representatives, and learning a great deal from them.”


chasethestars has also made some banners for you to use, if you'd like to show your support for the candidate of your choice!

( Banners + code for you to use! )

Current Mood: chipper

" Now he's so angry that moments of levity actually cause him pain; give him headaches. Happiness, for that gentleman, hurts"

- Garland Greene (Steve Buscemi), Con Air 

So often, that's where I am.

But today, I got up and got back into the fight.

Depression is kind of like writer's block except for life: it paralyses and destroys everything.  And the only cure to writers block is writing.  The only cure to depression is doing everything that depression makes hurt - being active, working, living, talking, moving forward, not being paralysed.  Imagine if the only cure to being a paraplegic was to walk.  Or if the cure for burns was to put your hand on a stove and hold it there.

But I got up today and I walked back into the ring.  I put my hand on the stove.

And now I hurt like I've gone fifteen rounds.

But it's better than the alternative.

I'm gonna go cry now.