Oh, and since it appears I forgot in my meat dissertation: You're welcome.

Yup. You get to eat it sitting on a raised platform where everyone in that room of the restaurant can watch you. And it's a pretty big room.

Anyone know (Patrick?) what the price tag on that baby is if you cannot eat it in the allotted 60 Minutes?

The challenge dinner is currently $72. The economy and all....

Since I went through all the trouble of compiling metrics for when I wrote Montreal 2074, may as well share it. Now, Montreal is a PDF release, which means the author is paid less. You also get more leeway, especially in terms of deadlines, so this is just fine by me. All PDF only releases pay a flat fee, which in my case was 100$. Now, Montreal came out at around 16,500 words, but the more important metric is time. It took me 34 hours to write this. Now, in this time, I include research, writing, re-writing and self-proofreading, so Im not just talking about fingers-on keyboard time.

So, this comes out to a pay of about 3$ an hour. If instead of writing Montreal 2074 I'd worked overtime in my regular job, I would have had enough money to buy myself a 5 day stay in Cancun, including airfare.

So, yeah, didn't do it for the money. I, in fact, would gladly trade any vacation for the feeling I got when Montreal 2074 came out to great reviews.

You write fast

Speaking of beef, a cow costs two grand and gives 500+ pounds of beef so why is meat expensive in SR?

Depends how you look at it. Those 34 hours were spread over almost 8 months, as all I can manage is up to 2 hours a week. So, plenty of time to think about what I want to write in between the time of actually writing it.

I...huh. Okay. What would you consider average (or even slow)?

Given the context it's not as impressive.
Still that's 60+ pages with literary (and literal) worth in a work week. For someone that doesn't write, that seems like a lot.

Out of curiosity, how much of that 34 hours was research?

Couldn't say. Obviously, as a native, I already knew much of what I needed in this case. For things I wanted to look up, I would be writing a paragraph or something, and go "hmm..." and fire up Google or whatever other resource, so the research time is really knit into the writing time, I couldn't definitively separate the two.

Frank Trollman's suggestion was that every so often you get an awakened farm animal. Like a rooster that's a basilisk.... So it's dangerous to be a farmer and they charge well.

I'll jump in and offer to answer questions regarding Missions work or my writing for other products if anyone cares, at least as much as I can (THere's some info that I have access too as a developer that I probably can't share, but anything that involves my personal work I'd be willing to share).

Bull

@Patrick Goodman
How tight is coordination between the overall vision (whatever and however this is mapped out) and the authors? Do they get a rough guideline (do something with Bogotá, explosions and green-skinned elves on Wyverns) or is it more detailed (describe in your book how Puck escapes and how plots 2 through 7 and 11 in the plot bible play into this)?

@Bull
1) Will the Ork Underground sourcebook still happen? I had to ask, because I am really looking forward to it.
2) Where will the next season of missions be?

Also, roosters may become cockatrices, but not basilisks. Basilisks are awakened iguanas. I think, though, the expensiveness of real meat in Shadowrun is more linked to the fact that there is precious little meat farmed for the sake of soy, and because of militant animal-rights policlubs who kill people who farm meat unless they invest in ridiculous security.

Yeah, but that was Frank Trollman.

To be fair, my group just faced some Paracritters and found them not to be something to be taken lightly at all. They're loading up on Hollowpoints and Flechette ammo now, just in case. Although some Paracritters do have armor built-in.

And without knowing Frank said that, I've stated the very same thing to my group, and they agreed that it's a good reason for Drone Farms.

Yes. I just need to finish the damn thing. It was initially started by another author, who had to drop out of the project. That caused the initial delay. But since I'm determined to see this product come out, I picked it up, but it's one of those projects I work on in my free time. And at this point, sections that were done need to be redone a bit in wake of the Prop 23 stuff, since that will have a big effect on the OU.



Chicago. We announced this at Gen Con, and I hope to have something out later this month with more details about the story arc themes and when we hope Season 5 will start.

Bull

I will buy that supplement the second it comes out. Which reminds me, I still need to read up on the P23 resolution. Well, maybe after we've played it, to compare it ^^

So Bull is season 5 going to be 5th edition to give us something to try out the new edition?

Yes

Mostly it's rough guidelines. The project specification document says, "This sourcebook is going to address such-and-such an issue, and there are the plots that we anticipate it dealing with." Then it comes to the writers, and they say, "Okay, I'd like to deal with this, this, and this." And then things mutate. The last contract I got, which I can't talk about yet, I didn't even plan to pitch anything for because i didn't see how my interests fit into the project spec. Then one night in a chat, Jason asked me, "You going to do anything for this book? We really need some information on X." And I said, "Oh, really?" and tossed together what was probably my weakest proposal for a Shadowrun project in more than a decade, which was basically, "Two vampires walk into a room. Hilarity ensues."

I actually used "Hilarity ensues" in the proposal. Damned if he didn't go for it anyway. And damned if the piece didn't turn out to be one of my favorite things I've done for the game in the 13+ years I've been associated with it.

I digress. Sorry about that.

Anyway, the book is mutable to a point because different writers will interpret the spec in a certain way, and when they sell their idea, the book changes to accomodate the proposal. It still has to fit into the main theme of the book, but it doesn't have to slavishly adhere to something in the project spec if the proposed idea was cooler. We have a set destination, but the route we take to get there is up to us.

Most of us have our pet plots and such. Rusty's more diverse than I am, for instance, but if it's got to do with the Tir or urban brawl, we generally defer to him or, if he's not writing that chunk on the Tir, we at least try to consult him. People come to me (if they want to) when they include the Infected because, intentionally or not, I've become "the Infected guy" (no jokes).

So it's basically Jason herding cats, and the cats generally try to work together ... but at the end of the day, it's still a herd of cats. There's not a Plot Bible, per se, though we do keep a running tally, and every now and then we look at something and realize that we haven't touched something in a while.

Did that answer any of your questions? If I missed anything, or made things even cloudier, tell me and I'll try to clear it up. Maybe I'll even have the sense to do it during the day, with some caffeine in me.

You know I'm up to chip in on this one, if you need anything, amigo. Your plate's full and mine's kinda empty right now. Always happy to help.

As for the Thing, I've had the pleasure of looking over Patrick's next writing and rather quite enjoyed it. I bounced some stuff about Texas off him, and made some pretty large changes in some areas with his feedback. I bother James far more than is probably healthy to make sure certain things line up with estabished history. I hate changing things that came before, but I'm willing to grow 'em from established stuff. Retcons are the very last thing I want, but you can choose new directions as long as you honor the starting point. Cord Mutual Tower getting new ownership, for instance. Should there have been a five hundred story tower in Atlanta that housed an insurance firm and possibly an AI in 2051? Maybe, maybe not. But in 2074, it's there under new ownership and waiting for plot hooks.

Research is probably two hours for every hour spent writing in my case, maybe more as I write quickly. When you're paid on word count, research is on your own dime. On the plus side, a goodly chunk of research is in old Shadowrun books, so quite enjoyable.

Metric? Real? Hah! Come back to the real and better measurement system.

Not so much something I want to know, but I'd like you to know: I'd be honored to be used as a resource in this arena. I like to think that I've had an impression here on this board (people referring some of my guides and a quote of mine even making someone's signature make me feel accomplished - in the wide, crazy expanse of the internet there's a small corner that knows me, all Cheers-like) and I know that Ancient History at least had been influenced by some of my work (his expanded magic guide he was working on so many years ago [2010, really? Doesn't feel like so long ago] included a shout-out to my Ally spirit thread). I'd also like to think I have a good head for the Infected in particular, magic in general, the matrix to a degree, and the rest of the bits and pieces of the game as they lay.

And, since resources are not paid, it would be unthinkable for me to ask for any sort of gain other than feeling the satisfaction of improving something. I'd like to be able to point to something in a book and say "I helped create that," even if the creation process were informal.

Will more SR4 books come out, or are things pushed along so that they'll land in 5th?

I ... think I know which one. The one where bits and pieces are being released? Which brings me to the question of how NDAs work in that situation? Can you/could you talk about a text if it was released as a perk on a riddle site?


Despite the sort of strange idea that a smaller corp could maintain such a structure, I've always wanted to see the setting return to Atlanta. Maybe in a short-ish writeup, like Montreal 2074 and Lands of Promise? The CAS is massively neglected.

Geez, that's enough to feed a family... for a week.

Bye
Thanee

Color me interested!


I don't want you to think that I'm riding you, Patrick, but while this loosey-goosey style is a good way to allow some mutability into project deadlines and creativity, it can also feel like there's no direction in the line. That's something I've kind of felt these past few years, at least.

Do you think that flexibility is a good thing or bad?

Bunch of questions. I'll try to keep them tidy though;

1) What is CGL's standard pay rate?
2) What is the average size of a single project?
3) How long do you normally spend on say a 5,000 word project? How much of that is research, writing, and post-editor revision?
3.5) How much do editors change your work?
4) How much feedback do you get from the CGL staff? How much time do you spend on revisions?
5) How much time do you spend on your pitch document? How frequently are pitches accepted? What's the 'secret'?
6) How much actual cooperation do you get from other authors? Is it a quick email saying 'hey, I've got a ghoul virus in my story. Does this look okay?' Or is it a more involved back-and-forth?
7) Who is responsible for making sure your work doesn't violate previous canon? How frequently does that happen?
8) What is the normal turn-around time between making a submission and getting feedback from CGL?
9) If this whole process didn't pay at all, would you still do it?
10) Do any of you do it professionally (as your primary or sole source of income)?
11) Are any of you involved in other RPG processes like advertising, layout, art, etc.? (I know Bull does booth-babing.)
12) What's the one question you wish people asked/think people should ask?

There's one more big SR4 print plot book, Storm Front, coming out soonish. There are a couple of PDF-only things that are also coming up more-or-less imminently. I'm not really the guy to talk to about the scheduling, but with the focus going to SR5, I don't anticipate a lot more SR4-centric books. I could be wrong; I don't run things, I just work here.

Yeah, "Sleeping With the Enemy" is mine. I can't really talk about anything but the leaked content, and so I'd rather just stop at acknowledging that I wrote that bit and leave it at that, lest I get myself in trouble.

I always thought that was kind of silly myself. That said, I'd love to see a Montreal 2074-style piece done on Atlanta.

To be fair, it was much the same way under Rob and Peter, in my experience. Not so much under Mike, but then I was just getting started back then and wasn't as bold as I am now when I made my pitches. If I had come up with anything really cool back then, I imagine Mike would have made more allowances for me.

I think Jason has a direction for the line, though he's not as hide-bound or overt about it as some would probably like. He and I have had more than a few discussions about where things are going, and there has been give and take on both sides in our discussions. There have been a lot of things building and bubbling under the surface in the game world for a while now that have been Jason's doing, for instance. He's guiding things, but he's not doing it in an iron-fisted fashion.

I think the flexibility is a good thing, personally. It makes it a lot more fun to write this stuff, and that's a big part of the reward. For me, at least; as I said, I don't speak for Catalyst or any of the other freelancers when I say any of this. It's all my impressions. Unlike, say, Rusty, who can crank out a remarkably functional 3000 word piece in an appallingly short amount of time, I'm slow. It takes a lot of my time to put out something like Another Rainy Night because I'm also dealing with getting my kids fed, spending time with my wife and the aforementioned kids, doing my day job, and trying to maintain a social life with friends. I have other avocations as well that get neglected. This doesn't work out well for all concerned sometimes; I don't remember the last time I picked up my camera for more than just some quick shots of the kids, for instance, so one of my arts is sacrificing itself for another.

Writing is a lonely, time-consuming business. ARN, for instance, was written on a laptop, in my truck, with drive-thru food, on a lot of lunch breaks. I try to do 1000 words a day; on a good day, that can be done in an hour. Bad days, it takes longer. That's just fingers-on-keyboard time; research is something else again. I didn't have to do a lot for ARN, but there was some (I'm not that familiar with Denver, and I'm afraid that it shows in places in that story). But for, say, Martin de Vries in Street Legends, there was a lot more (and I still managed to bollix it up in places), and research time is time spent away from my wife and my kids and my friends. You do this, you better have family and friends that love and understand you, because you're likely to be alienating them a lot of the time when you're actively pursuing a story.

Take a look at the dedication to Rusty's novella, Neat. (If you haven't read it, by the way, you owe it to yourself to correct that situation. I don't push that because Rusty's my friend, or because it's SR and I should push SR; I push it because it's really damn good.) That last line, "To my wife, for letting me write," are phenomenally true; in the case of most writers, it should read, "To my wife, for letting me write and staying married to me anyway."

So yeah, the thing had better be fun, or it's not worth doing. I don't get paid enough for me to just write if I'm not enjoying things. That's one of the reasons my output is so sparse; it's not worth it to me to pitch something if it's not something I really care about.

Man, that was long-winded. Did I answer your questions?

Bit of a greenhorn question, people refer to you having your way with the infected, what exactly would that be?
and how much do you think you'd be able to realistically have it be like that?

Okay. I just wanted to know how much in detail NDAs handle such things. I suppose, not very. Thanks.


Well, I'd certainly be helpful for me. Filling in the blanks about UCAS and CAS may be easy for Americans, it's not for me, for me that's a distant and somewhat strange country. I am quite happy about any guide that gives me an idea of an American city's layout, feel, special areas ect because I just have little to no idea about many of them. Like Montreal - I knew it existed, but that's about it. Hence, I'd welcome such a short PDF on some more places - Miami, for instance, has never been covered save in a questionable novel. Philadelphia. How about Memphis? Richmond? Cleveland? Ottawa? Spokane? Cheyenne? Or an update on Detroit, Boston, Vancouver, or an expanded New-York-New-Jersey-Sprawl book that covers everything BUT Manhattan? For now, there's only ancient 2E material there, and for NYNJ, most of it has to be pried from Nyx Smyth novels (and is woefully incomplete).

God, I'm glad I can do this in a text editor and paste it in later. This one deserved to be set off on its own, I think.

I'm not super comfortable talking about the money, and I can't speak for anybody else. I'm only doing this because it's a legitimate question and if people are contemplating getting into this, they should have some idea of what the compensation looks like.

I don't know about "CGL's standard pay rate," just what they pay me. For print projects, I've been getting 3.5 cents/word and a couple of hard copies of the book once it's released. The PDF-only products are a flat fee; my last one got me $100 and the final PDF. For proofing, I get store credit at battleshop; this is usally a credit equal to the cover price of the particular piece. It's enabled me to buy a couple of books that I didn't have hard copies of before, so that works out for me.

Okay, this one is a lot harder. Most of the print books are in the 120K words range; I think that's where, for example, Street Legends clocked in. What each writer contributes varies wildly; for SL, for instance, I contributed about 4K of those 120K words. Some writers did multiple characters in there and had many more words.

My average contribution to a book is probably in the 4-6K range. I kind of stick to my niche for the time being; look above to my response to ravensmuse for some explanation of why that is.

Normally, if the stars are right and the kids aren't sick, I can put out a 5K piece in about a week, depending on the research. If research time gets in the way of keyboard time, it can take longer.

As far as editorial goes, everything gets changed, mostly for grammar. I don't always agree with them; sometimes it's because I use a different style guide and others it's because I deliberately broke a rule for effect. I personally don't get edited for game-world reasons a lot because I do tend to do my own research and I've been playing the game since 1989 and have a pretty good grasp on the game world. Sometimes I slip, though.

In general, I've been pretty lucky in that most of my stuff has been largely untouched in terms of the story I was trying to tell. Almost all the edits I've gotten have been for the better. For instance, there's a short scene in a hotel lobby just before the climax of Another Rainy Night that was made substantially better because of editorial changes.

I'm in frequent contact with Jason Hardy during a project, but it's often pretty spare because he has to herd a lot of cats in his role as line developer. I interact occasionally with Brent and Matt, the art director and layout guy respectively, though my interaction with them is much more limited because I don't have much say in what they do. Mostly I comment on a piece of art that's bound for my piece of a book and tell Brent how well it works in terms of storytelling, but I don't have anything approaching the pull to approve or disapprove a piece of art ... and I wouldn't want it, really. Art direction is hard; I did a little of that on my own time for ARN and I think I'll leave that to the professionals.

I don't tend to spend a lot of time on revisions because of the lack of editorial suggestions (see above; I repeat, I'm lucky so far). I try to write really clean copy, proofread it a couple of times, and get my facts straight before it goes out the door, so that I don't have to do a lot of suggested revisions. Self-imposed revisions I count as part of the writing process, so I haven't really timed them as their own thing.

Writing a proposal ... depends on the pitch. The pitch for "The Infected" in Running Wild was a long-gestating monster that started out as a proposal for a whole new critter book back in SR3. It's probably not a good example, but it took forever. Martin de Vries in Street Legends took me a couple of hours. "Sleeping With the Enemy" probably took about 10 minutes. Pitches are pretty easy, though "Sleeping" was a really sloppy proposal and probably should have taken longer.

We can pitch PDF products any time we want; I'm in the process of putting together the formal pitch for Sail Away Sweet Sister, the sequel to Another Rainy Night, though the story itself is moving along pretty solidly at the moment. I could get away with not giving a formal pitch for SASS since I've been asked about a sequel to ARN, but I'm doing one anyway to keep myself in practice.

There isn't a "secret" per se. If you pitch something, be concise, make the point about why the product you're pitching is a good thing, and make it sound cool. If you're new, be prepared to offer some samples of your writing. If your words are precious snowflakes that would be destroyed by editorial changes, don't bother applying. I know that last one sounds harsh, but the fact is that there will be changes, and if this offends your sensibilities, then you need another hobby.

The writer Gene Wolfe reputedly had these words above his writing desk: "I'm going to tell you something cool." That's something I say to myself every time I start a piece. If I ever get my chops together to the point where I can write a good piece in first person, I might even actually use it to start a story someday.

I had to split this one; more in a tick.

Here's the rest.


It's a little of both, depending on the project. I'll email the freelancers at large and say, "I'm about to do this and this and this in such and such a place; is this going to jack with anything you guys have got going on?" If there's something specific that I know someone else is dealing with, I'll touch base with them one-on-one. Most of the time it comes back, "No, you're cool," but occasionally we have a more involved discussion so that we don't screw each other over.

Again, considering I've mostly stuck with my little niche lately, I've been pretty lucky and stuck to other people's shadows, so to speak.

I am. Okay, technically that's Jason's job, but I hold myself to a pretty high standard on that sort of thing. I'm not the walking encyclopedia of SR knowledge that Bobby Derie was or James Meiers is, but I know my way around pretty well, and I know mostly where to look for specifics on a subject. I can generally hold my own.

Barring that, I also have several freelancers that I use as alpha readers to catch glaring errors. And then all the freelancers on a particular project get a chance to look it over. We tend to police ourselves, or at least we try.

Depends. As I said elsewhere, Jason herds a lot of cats. A LOT of cats, in a number of herds. Depending on the project, it can be anywhere from 14 minutes (I think that's my personal record) to 14 days. Patience is not my strong suit, so I tend to ping him (or Peter Andrew, if it's a PDF project) a lot sooner that 14 days.

Not for the public. I'd do some things for my own gaming group, but if it didn't pay at all, I couldn't justify the time away from my kids to do it for anyone but myself. I don't do it just for the money, but I wouldn't make as much of an effort just for the satisfaction of it. It would just be fanfic at that point, and no offense to the guys who do that, but I just don't get fanfic and have no urge to write it. Even some of my own fanfic started out as something I tried to get paid for ("Meet the New Boss," I'm looking at you).

Nope. I only speak for me, of course, but none of the freelancers I normally associate with do it full-time. I can only think of a small number in the entire industry that make their living at it.

I'm not. I mean, I proofread a lot of projects, but I don't do art or any of that sort of thing.

I'll have to get back to you on that one. It's rather broad. Can you be more specific?

Here's another one: Do you guys ever look back at the older sourcebooks, notice a plot hook that's not been used, and go "Hey, how about if..." and submit a proposal? Or has the SR 'verse just changed too much for them to even be viable anymore?

Hell, I'll take a stab at these, too.

Flat rates for Missions and e-books (and it's best not to go back afterward and look at the "per word" on those), $0.035 a word for most hardcopy sourcebook stuff (which is a bit above industry standard, in my experience). Neat's on a different pay scale, pretty sure I'm not allowed to say.

Hard to say, since they vary so much in size. Most Missions adventures tend to clock in between 25k-30k words total, in my experience, and with like six of those under my belt it tends to be what I default to as an average project. But then there's also stuff you'll see like the sub-chapters of a bigger sourcebook where we're each contributing 1,500 word blocks (that add up to a chapter, and chapters that add up fast)...and that's without getting into the e-book line, where a single project from me might be the whole book (which is normally the case) or me and one other person might be tackling it together, but with work all shuffled together (so that we're writing every other archetype or something), and then the line gets blurry.

Straight-up fiction pieces? An hour or two. Sourcebook/crunch? Triple-ish that. Honestly, the thing that slows me down the most when it's actual fingers-on-keyboard time is formatting NPC stats and stuff. I tend to pitch for stuff I don't need to research very much (in that I pitch for things I already know about and love), and I tend to get very little to do by way of post-editor revision, though.

Depends on the editor, and I'll just leave it at that. Normally very little.

See 3.5.

For me? The pitch tends to sometimes take almost as long as writing the actual document. The pitch is when I do the hard mental work, whatever research is needed, and then I have to try and sell it to someone; that's harder for me than just sitting and writing something fun. That said, so far I've had one piece not get used, and...uhh...22, if I'm counting pitches right...go through. So I'm 22/23 which I guess ain't too shabby.

A little more involved, but again that depends on the project and the author. I, personally, tend to write for a very small corner of the universe and stay away from big ground-shaking metaplot stuff, so I'm not often worried about stepping on someone's toes or whatever...so I can afford to (generally) just share my stuff with three or four core guys, get feedback, and then submit it to Jason. Or, uhh, sometimes submit it to Jason and THEN think "Holy crap, I never heard what the fellas thought about this," and send them an email after the fact, because I'm so smart.

Ultimately? I'm the one who's responsible, because it's my work and it's my job. Practically, there's "the pitch" (which puts the ball in Jason or Peter or Bull's court, depending), and hopefully canon issues come up then and there. After that, once it's submitted and folks take a peek at it, hopefully someone will speak up if they notice an inconsistency.

Inasmuch as there is a "normal" in this business, I'd say I average to about two or three days (if I get feedback at all, instead of it just getting shunted along and me seeing a final, laid out, copy, out of the blue). Other times, it's been much longer. Much, much, longer. It depends on what the project is (and if it's a back-burner sort of thing, or something CGL asked me for), and how busy everyone is. But, yeah, we'll go with "normally very very quick, sometimes frustratingly long" and leave it at that before this turns into a rant.

Of the apparently-23ish products I've pitched (and apparently-22ish I've had published), I would say...probably half of them, I'd have done for free and just out of love of the setting. Bull doesn't entice me into churning out Missions adventures by waving a big paycheck at me and shooting me a saucy wink. He does it by saying "Hey, you want to write an adventure about Urban Brawl? Or the Ancients? Or four adventures all about the Tir?" I pitched and wrote Land of Promise because I felt like the setting deserved an update, not because I really needed like $90. Ditto, Way of the Adept, because I felt like they adepts needed some love, y'know? The paycheck is a secondary (or tertiary) concern, but keep in mind (a) my wife and I both have day jobs and do okay, and (b) we're not talking about multi-million dollar paychecks, here, just as a reminder.

Freelancing? No, and I'm not sure how anyone really could. Writing in general, sure, I can see folks making a living of it...but actual freelancing, playing with someone else's toys in someone else's sandbox, at someone else's pay-rate? I don't see that happening very easily.

That depends on how much "brainstorming" counts as "involved," and even then it still varies from project to project. On some of my gigs, I've been the guy who scoured old books for cool artwork (adept, Tir stuff, etc), to go along with what I was writing. On others, I've been one voice (of several) giving a thumbs up or a thumbs down on drawn-to-order artwork to go with a chapter. There's been times I've helped throw something together to help kill some whitespace once something is in layout (Chase: Errant Knight! is a canon trid show because they needed some whitespace filled and I had an idea for a sidebar). And yeah, there's lots of us that can be found at the CGL booth, come GenCon, or running games at cons and stuff (but only Bull does it in that outfit).

"How are you so awesome?"

Well, how?

Not quite. When I went in there they had one of those steaks in a chilled glass case on display, and while big, it isn't really obscene. It's just not a steak, really. It's a fragging roast.

Ouch... Thanks Patrick.

$72 for 2kg of sirloin? That's cheap. I paid 50€ (~65$) for a 1kg T-Bone.

I have two questions: one serious, the other not so much.

1) Is there actually a standard format and list of required information for what goes into a stat block? I've seen quite a lot of variance over the lifetime of SR4 and have always wondered why that is; especially for things like Street Legends where the stat blocks varied within the book itself. Also, do you guys have an editor who specializes in that kind of thing?

2) As "the Infected Guy," have you (or really anyone else for that matter) been tempted to create a glittery thrill-kill gang of vampires or ghouls to make fun of the whole Twilight craze?

Also, thanks for taking the time to answer our questions.

It's Texas!

If you finish it in the time limit, it's free though.

But is the gastrosuction you most likely need free?

I am not a huge fan of the trend in SR4 to have the Infected as playable characters, and the notion of "Infected rights" just flew in the face of logic for me. So I started talking to the Powers That Be about it, and how I'd go about changing things to make vampires et al scary again. For reasons surpassing understanding, they let me go on about it. They've shot a few of my ideas down, so as to how much I think I'd be able to realistically have it my way? More than I thought but less than I want.


It hasn't happened to me much, but it does happen. Rusty Zimmerman wrote an awesome adventure called "Ancient Pawns" based on the ending of an old 1st edition adventure, Elven Fire. So yeah, it happens. Not as often as you'd think, given the longevity some of the guys have playing the game, but it does happen.


I think I saw something like that once, but it was a long time ago. In theory, yes there is, but sadly it doesn't get followed like it should, and I'm probably one of the guilty parties for sowing the confusion.

Which reminds me, I need to beg Jason to write such a thing for SR5 so I don't screw things up again when I write the stat blocks for Sail Away Sweet Sister, since there's no way that'll make it out in time to be an SR4 product....


No.

Not that I don't have vampire and ghoul gangs, because I do, but I don't feel like giving the Twilight craze enough attention to satirize it. It would take away time from vampire serial killers and all the other shiny, happy stuff I write about.


You're quite welcome.

Personally Im intrigued by the idea of some ghoul communities trying to go against the hunger and actively work to be accepted in society. I mean Dunk thought they were human enough to get a shot at life, at the end of the day HMHVV is a disease and should be treated as such. There will be a large portion that succumb but there will always be that small portion that keeps fighting despite having no chance of recovery.

I was actually thinking of having a ghoul research and support group in my game. They would be just like a support group for terminally illl, fundraising and spreading awareness.
Their goals:
• Ultimately find a cure for Kriegerstrain
• help fund research to find methods to restore the intellect of feral ghouls
• help fund research to achieve the goal put forth in dunkies will (ghoul edible synthetic flesh)
• Actively work against non reformed ghouls.
• Bring safe harbor for ghouls who want to fight the disease
- protection from groups that would see them dead
- procuring food that was either willfully donated at natural death or bought from morgues and the like
- Help ghouls deal with their disease

A couple notes on this.
This is a fringe group! they're not representing the majority of the ghoul population, most are still cannibalistic savages.
This is only for ghouls, they don't feed on the essence of other beings and thus is only driven to act out of hunger or because their brains molded, Wendigos, nosferatu and vampires are still soul drinking monsters and they should be!
Bloody sick of nice vamps.

I actually have a template I send to Missions Writers that has, among other things, blank NPC, Drone, Critter, and Matrix Node stat blocks.

Unfortunately, it's not always used, or used properly, by my writers. I usually spend 3-4 hours going over the final draft of a Mission just doing things like editing and fixing formatting (including the stat blocks). Unfortunately, I don't catch everything.

And no, we don't have a dedicated editor who handles that. Each of the developers (Jason on the print line, Peter on the eBooks, and me on Missions) does that on top of everything else we have to do (Which is a LOT more than just editing, let me tell you. Especially since me and Peter both have day jobs, and Jason does non-CGL writing as well). When things don't always jive, that's why, in a nutshell.

Bull

Yes, but there's actually more than one (which is part of the problem). Working up an epic dude for Street Legends and working up a random ganger NPC for a Missions adventure aren't the same, GMs don't need the same things from that character sheet, and the amount of page-space you can dedicate to a random ganger isn't the same as the amount of page-space you dedicate do a mamajama like Lofwyr or something. Just one small example (that recently came up for me) was that for Missions they want us to post die pools instead of skill ranks, for instance (which led to some complaints when some of my NPC statblocks got pulled out of Missions and put into a "regular" ebook, but no one thought to reformat the stats).

So there ARE standard formats, but they're different for different lines (which occasionally causes confusion or irritation, take your pick).

Thank you for the answers! I know some of them are a little nosey (but you offered!)



How many freelance hours are in a week?

Regarding the proposal documents, do you have a standard format you use? I found one for submitting pitches to Fan Pro back with SR3. (I have a word doc now, but I can't find the link to share easily.)



I really like that. I'll have to remember it.



It's kind of a catch-all. You're doing something most people wish they could be involved with, and work with some remarkable people. Are there little nuggets of knowledge nesting in your noggin you'd love to share, or crazy stories you never have the opportunity to tell?

Thank you again for your time. I know it's a bit of a data dump, so I appreciate your giving thorough answers like you did.