My Major Works
Designers & Dragons 2e
Evil Hat: 2014

The second and definitive edition of my history of the RPG industry. This one has been expanded to 535,000 words and covers about 100 companies. It's also been divided into four books that cover companies that began work in the industry in the '70s, '80s, '90s, and '00s.

A new Advanced Designers & Dragons Column continues to complement the book after publication.

Also see: Advanced Designers & Dragons Column; Facebook Page; Evil Hat Product Page; RPGnet Index Entry. You can buy it at: Amazon (Paperback); Evil Hat (Digital); DriveThruRPG (Digital or Hardcover POD).
Designers & Dragons 1e
Mongoose Publishing: 2011

My original history of the roleplaying industry, covering 60 different companies. This book was in process for somewhere in excess of 5 years and it took obsessive work over two different time periods to get it done. The book kicks off in 1974, with the printing of Dungeons & Dragons, but also traces wargaming, PBM, and other trends backward. It continues on to the modern day (circa spring of 2011) with the downfall of 4e and the continued influence of indy games on the hobby. My biggest book ever at about 360,000 words.

An RPGnet column complemented the published book and eventually led into the second edition.

Also see: Designers & Dragons: The Column; Interview about the Book; RPGnet Index Entry.
iPhone in Action
Manning Publishing: 2009

My only technical book published to date, co-authored with Christopher Allen. This was a guide to developing for iPhones, using both the web and iOS. It's since been rereleased twice, each time with another author adding to and revising the book. The second edition (which removed the web development) was iPhone and iPad in Action (2011) and the third was iOS4 in Action (2011). Unfortunately, the timing of the release of each was poor, and that's kept me from signing on for an iOS6 update. Before Designers & Dragons, this book was my biggest project ever.

You can buy it at: Amazon.
Elfs: A Guide to the Aldryami
Mongoose Publishing: 2007

I worked on and off for a decade writing short bits about the Aldryami in Glorantha, with the intention of ultimately writing an ElfPak. For reasons that I'll get to in a second, this is my second iteration of the book, covering the topic for Mongoose's RuneQuest. I begged Mongoose to let me write it once I found out they were producing racial books for Glorantha, mainly because I didn't want all of my work to date to be suddenly contradicted. I did my best to differentiate it from the first book by covering different forests and different aspects of life for the Aldryami.

After I wrote it, I regularly contributed supplementary articles to Signs & Portents. Some were fluff, but there were also some great articles on black and red elfs that I hoped would make it back into a second edition of the book ... but it was not to be.

Also see: Listing of The Aldryami Addendum in Signs & Portents; Signs & Portents Archive; RPGnet Index Entry. You can buy it at: Amazon; DriveThruRPG (PDF).
HeroQuest Elf Book
Unpublished: 2006

This is my opus on the elves of Glorantha, written with lots of feedback from Greg Stafford, going back to when I worked for him at Chaosium. It was completed under contract for Issaries, but by the time it was finished, Issaries has ceased publication. The core ideas of the book helped me to write Elves for Mongoose pretty quickly, but the original HeroQuest book, which is almost twice as long — and which covers different topics as much as I was able — has never been printed. It's got overviews of myth and history, character creation for all the sorts of Aldryami, and overviews of almost every elf forest in Glorantha. As it's laid out, things are meant to fit into one or two-page spreads, so my hope is that'd it'd be a nice book ... someday.

Around 2009, I thought the book was finally going to get printed and so I wrote a few supplementary articles, describing some of the same smaller elf forests in the same format as the HeroQuest Elf Book and offering up some designer notes (see Hearts in Glorantha #2-4 and Tradetalk #15-16).
Taint of Madness
Chaosium: 1995

This was my first work for Chaosium, which I co-authored with Eric Rowe (who I worked with closely) and Michael Tice (who I didn't), all under the editorial eye of Lynn Willis. We got the job, I'm pretty sure, because of the connections we made running RQ-Con II, which is pretty much how a small industry like roleplaying works. I wrote the 'Insanity, Society & the Law' section, which took some heavy research at the UC Berkeley libraries. Eric and I together wrote the three asylums (Bethlem, Arkham, Bellevue), though I can't remember who wrote what any more. Many of our gaming friends show up in the asylums.

Also see: RPGnet Index Entry. You can buy it at: Amazon.
The Broken Council Guidebook
Self-published: 1995, 1997

After attending RQ-Con I, my friend Eric Rowe and I decided to run the second incarnation of the convention, here in the San Francisco Bay Area. At the time, the Convulsion cons in Britain had already taught us that each RuneQuest convention must have a LARP. So, besides running the convention (really, Eric mostly ran it), we also decided to create a LARP (alongside another friend, Stephen Martin). By the by, this was all very, very stupid from a time-management viewpoint.

This Guidebook was the background for the LARP, detailing First Age Glorantha in pretty extensive detail, with lots of help from Greg Stafford. Within the Guidebook I coauthored the History of the First Age with Stephen and wrote about 14 pages detailing all the lands of First Age Genertela. The LARP was sorta OK, but I'm still quite happy with the book, which is unfortunately pretty rare.

Following the con I put together the RQ-Con 2 Compendium, which has about 50 pages of stories about the people in the LARP, though that's of course even less canon than our Guidebook. A second edition of the Guidebook was produced for Glorantha-Con IV, though the LARP ended up not being run due to the con underperforming. The second edition is corrected and slightly expanded. I was really jazzed on the First Age for a time, and thought about starting a First Age fanzine. A few years later, though, I decided I was the Elf Guy instead of the First Age Guy.

Also see: Broken Council Guidebook Index Entry; RQ-Con 2 Compendium Index Entry.
Tribunals of Hermes: Rome
White Wolf: 1993

This was my first published book. It's background for the Roman Tribunal in Ars Magica's Mythic Europe, coauthored by myself and friend Chris Frerking. We were both then playing in a long-running Ars Magica session set in the Roman Tribunal, and that provided much of the setting and other ideas for the book. At the time, White Wolf had just taken over Ars Magica and they were 'darkening' it. Thus, when editor Ken Cliffe received the book, he sent it back with a note saying (essentially) 'add more demons'. I did. Reviewers then said it had too many demons. After the book was released I followed it up with a pair of complementary articles in Ars Magica fanzines, Redcap and Mythic Perspectives.

Also see: RPGnet Index Entry. You can buy it at: Amazon.
My Comics
Lovecraft Country #1
Return to Arkham

Skotos Tech: 2005

This is one of two comics that I wrote for Skotos Tech. The primary goal was to draw attention to Skotos' text-based online RPG, Lovecraft Country. However, I also wanted (of course) to tell a great story. So this standalone comic tells the story of a young man who comes to Arkham and Miskatonic University to search for his lost brother ... and what he finds there.

Though it was intended to be standalone, I later sketched out a complete first arc for the comic and have written two more scripts — for issues #2 and #3. They play with the various Mythos writers: #1 focused on Lovecraft; #2 on Chambers; and #3 on Dunsany. #4 would be a Robert Howard focus, but I've never gotten to it. At this point, #2 has been partially (and gorgeously) drawn, so maybe we'll see that some day.

Also see: The Comic Online; Lovecraft Lives Article.
Castle Marrach #1
Awakenings

Skotos Tech: 2005

This is the other Skotos comic that I wrote, based on the rich fantasy background of the online game. Unlike Lovecraft Country, I set out to design a six-issue arc for Castle Marrach from the start. As with Lovecraft Country, we only published the first issue, but that's still (hopefully) an interesting story. I have a script for a second issue and notes for the rest of the arc. For a time, this was my favorite comic-book writing, but since I've decided it's a little caption-heavy in a way clearly influenced by Neil Gaiman. I still like it though, especially the first five pages, depicting the deep backstory of the game.

Also see: The Comic Online.
My Major Editorial Work
Tales of Chivalry & Romance
Tales of Magic & Miracles

Green Knight Publishing: 1999

I edited a weekly online fanzine for all Chaosium products for several years. It was called the Chaosium Digest. Along the way, I met lots of talented RPG writers and saw lots of material that I thought deserved wider publication. These two books of Pendragon adventures came out of that. They were originally planned as one book called Tales of Valor, to be published by Chaosium, but then Chaosium lost the rights to the game. Unlike when HeroQuest changed hands, this turned out to be good for my book. Where it had been sitting for years at Chaosium, it got published almost immediately by Green Knight as their first two RPG books. (I just had to do some quick editing work, slightly changing the organization to divide things up.)

As a Chaosium Digest influenced book, these have adventures from lots of people (including my friends Bill Filios and Eric Rowe). Besides contributing my initial vision and my editing, I also wrote numerous short adventure ideas, some topical sidebars, and three full adventures: 'The Deceitful Faerie' and 'The Holy Sword' (for Magic & Miracles) and 'The Golden Rose' (for Chivalry & Romance). I liked 'The Holy Sword' the best because it drove my players to distraction when I ran it for them

Also see: Chivalry & Romance Index Entry; Magic & Miracles Index Entry. You can buy it at: Chivalry & Romance (Amazon); Chivalry & Romance (PDF); Magic & Miracles (Amazon); Magic & Miracles (PDF).
Nephlim Gamemaster's Companion
Chaosium: 1996

This was another Chaosium book that I edited based largely on content from Chaosium Digest writers (plus a few Chaosium regulars). It contains a pretty scattered collection of material, but I suppose that wasn't too unusual for Chaosium's 'Companions' -- which were more common in earlier years. I mostly wrote in this book to fill in the gaps, including outlining a setup for a Nephilim campaign with my friend Eric Rowe. Sadly, the product line was already doomed, because this sort of material hadn't been out there at release. This was also the book that put me off editing. I did so much work in the redevelopment of one rule system and in the serious editing of other sections that I felt like I could have written the material myself (which would have been more personally fulfilling). That's why I stopped editing books following this and the Pendragon adventures, at least in my freelance time.

Also see: RPGnet Index Entry. You can buy it at: Amazon.
The Chaosium Digest
Self-published: 1993-1998+

The three above books ultimately originated in an email 'zine that I created in 1993 and edited through 1998: the Chaosium Digest. Every week I sent out email with game material for Call of Cthulhu, Elric!, Pendragon, Nephilim, and more. I wrote lots of it myself, but I also had great contributions from many readers. By the time I passed on the newsletter to a second editor in 1998, there were 1,500 people listening. The linked archive includes my original digests, plus the later ones produced by John Thompson. These text files are meant to be viewed with a fixed-width font, like Courier. They're called digests because of old email protocols that let you explode a digest into individual messages, for your convenience.

Also see: Chaosium Digest Archives; Modern Chaosium Digest; Modern Chaosium Forums.