In a recent Kickstarter project e-mail update a man named Stan! Brown was just announced as writing a sourcebook. His biography blurb states:
“Stan! is the award-winning author of 2 novels, 15 short stories, more than 60 gaming products, and innumerable cartoons and comics.”
This isn’t a surprise to me:
Mike Pondsmith: I first read his work on the Tunnels and Trolls RPG. He wrote short stories with his character Revenant, then longer, book-length tales. He also writes for games still.
Aaron Allston: He wrote – and still does – some of the most entertaining game adventures and sourcebooks. He began writing novels for the Top Secret / S.I. game, then a series of Doc Shae novels at Baen Books.
E. Gary Gygax: (RIP) The late creator of the hobby via Dungeons and Dragons , he also wrote novels for his Bionic Commando game, as well as a non-fiction guide on RPG Mastery. I own all of those books.
We don’t hop from RPGs to prose and back for money; neither work pays a lot (although novels do pay more). We write both because we love them, and because they use similar writing muscles.
Though I haven’t yet had published fiction (that will change in 2013), I’m also with my feet wet in both camps.
Related articles
- Wandering Monster’s Best and Worst RPGs of 2012: Part 1 (wanderingmonsterstudios.wordpress.com)
- Way to grow the Hobby: Kickstart a Pre-Hobbit Movie Ad from Inkwell Ideas (inkwellideas.com)
- Cyberpunk 2077 – Mike Pondsmith discusses the creation of Cyberpunk in this trailer (vg247.com)
