Greetings! Thanks for stopping by. Not much new to report in book sales, but something pretty cool is coming up soon for my day job as a writer for Elder Scrolls Online: our new Gold Road chapter, which will be released next month. I did a lot of work in the zone story for Gold …
50 Years of D&D: Feats
Hello again! Hope you're doing well. I'll begin with a personal update or two. Back on Easter weekend, I drove down to Bethesda MD to participate in ScrumCon, a local convention with both RPGs and miniatures games. I ran a session of my Primeval Thule campaign (that’ll be a topic of a blog later in …
50 Years of D&D: The Sorcerer
Hello again! Continuing on my "reading more of the classics" swing, I moved on from Jack Vance to Michael Moorcock, diving into the latest of the new Elric novels to come out: The Citadel of Forgotten Myths. I’m only about halfway through, and I admit I’m just lukewarm on this one. I’ve read the “original …
50 Years of D&D: Player’s Option
Hello there! I’m back with a new installment of my blog series focusing on my particular contributions to D&D over the years. Not much new to report in my day job or my fiction writing, so let me tell you what I’ve been reading lately: The Blue World, by Jack Vance. In recent years, I’ve …
50 Years of D&D: Birthright
Hello! Yes, I’ve been delinquent in keeping up with my blogging. I spent most of 2023 juggling my day job with finishing a novel in my off-time. I’m still working for Zenimax Online Studios as a writer on the Elder Scrolls Online game. I did a lot of work for the main story of ESO’s …
Design Rule: Deliberate Asymmetry
Welcome back! Still not much new to report on my personal projects, other than I’m now 50,000 words into my next book instead of 25,000. I feel like it should be going faster, but that darned day job has to take priority! Anyway, this post’s design rule is an odd one: Every game should have …
The OGL and Sasquatch, Current Interests
Hello! No writing news to report, other than I’m picking up a historical fiction/science horror project I set aside after 25,000 words and seeing if I can get that going again. One of my New Year’s resolutions is to bang out a first draft of something new regardless of what happens with the manuscripts I’ve …
A Roomful of Ogres
Hello there, and season’s greetings! I find myself sort of “between books” at the moment. I’m waiting for Ulisses North America to begin publishing the TORG novels I wrote for them. My agent is shopping around a new alt-history novel for me, but I’ve got no news to report yet. And I’ve got two or …
Design Rule: Complexity Budget
Hi there! This week I’m returning to game design principles I picked up over the course of my career. The topic of the day is complexity budget. I first heard this principle clearly stated by Wizards of the Coast veteran Skaff Elias. He was part of a gang of Magic designers who played the heck …
Fixing the Perception Skill
Hello! Spring is well on its way here in southern PA, the baseball lockout is over, and it looks like the Phillies are putting together a lineup that might just be the best in baseball. And, yeah, there’s lots going on in the world, but I’m returning to game design thoughts today. I think we …
Richard Baker 