Highmoon’s Ponderings

I saw Mira Nair’s film adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake on Saturday night and I thought it was a fantastic film. The story, centering on this Bengali family that moves to America, and the trials and tribulations of the search and struggle for identity–from the Bengali parents looking to fit into American society, and from the first-generation Indian-American children looking to find where exactly they belong–was powerful in its realistic simplicity and extremely resonant with me, even though I am not Indian. Any immigrant, or child of an immigrant, can empathize with the Gangulis, for their struggle is our own.

Yesterday, Mother’s Day, I woke up in a pensive mood. I missed my mom, as she is in Puerto Rico, but more than that, the film had left me thinking about identity, my identity, and there were heavy toughts coursing through the back of my mind, unseen if I had wanted to share them with others, but certainly present in the weight they cast over my mood that morning. I stopped reading The Incredible Adventures of Kavalier and Klay by Michael Chabon, bumping it down to #2, and started to read The Namesake, at my wife’s behest (she did read the novel before seeing the film, so though in her opinion it was indeed a great adaptation, inevitably the novel offers a lot more nuance and depth that makes the story so much more enjoyable, as I am already finding out). The topic has been ignited in my mind, and there is no other recourse for me but to explore it and follow it to its conclusion; I just know myself.

This isn’t new for me. I have discussed issues of identity before, though perhaps not as well as I should have. My entire life has been defined by a battle between clashing identities: I am Puerto Rican, I am American, and I am Jewish as well, but I am a convert, so that brings in a whole other host of issues. To that add being 33, already too old for being “a kid,” but not exactly middle aged either (at least not chronologically speaking, as I hope to live to 120!). In short, I am an identity mess.

I have no idea what I’m gonna do with all this information, all these thoughts and self-reflections, except that lately I have had the yearning to go back to writing stories, something I haven’t done in years at this point. I’ve had some ideas of short vignettes I could write to explore various aspects of what I have been thinking about, so perhaps that’s where I’ll start. I don’t know if they solve my mess or at least be publishable, but perhaps simply the act of writing will help me sort some things out in my head.

Meanwhile I keep reading The Namesake, and greatly enjoying Jhumpa Lahiri’s subdued writing style.

What about you? Even white-bred Americans came from somewhere. Where are you caught? What sides are pulling at you?

My name is Daniel M. Perez, owner of Highmoon Media Productions, and producer/host of The Gamer Traveler and The Digital Front podcasts. I have been a freelance author since 2001 and an e-publisher since 2004, and I am offering all the various skills I have gained during this time on a freelance basis to fellow gamers, authors and publishers.

Services I can provide include:

• Proofreading and Copyediting - I have a BA in English and previous editorial work during my academic years, as well as being the editor for all material published through HMP.
• Translating - I am fully bilingual English/Spanish and have college-level writing training in both languages.
• Development - I have experience developing gaming products and/or lines, taking them from concept to final form, handling freelance contracting and art direction, helping authors get the most out of their work.
• Graphic Design - I can do graphic design for web and print, including logos, banners, business cards, postcards, electronic and print layout, image correction and other graphic solutions. I will always tell you if a particular job is within or beyond my skill.
• Web Design - I can create basic websites that highlight elegant simplicity over flash, whether in HTML or via a CMS. I can also manage existing sites as well as social network sites and/or help you make the most of your current web presence.
• Podcasting - I have two years of experience producing podcasts and I can help you with information or with the creation of a show suited to your needs.
• Consulting: Judaism for the Game Designer - I can provide assistance in getting the details right whenever you include Judaism (in any facet) in your project. I specialize in Orthodox Practices and in Jewish History, but I can help out with other areas of Jewish knowledge as well.

With any of these services, please feel free to ask for references and/or samples. You may view my recommendations at LinkedIn, and you may see some of my work online already at www.highmoonmedia.com, www.thegamertraveler.com, www.thedigitalfront.com, or www.chabadnorthbayvillage.org.

Rates are negotiable on a client-by-client basis and decrease when combining multiple services.

Please feel free to email me at daniel@highmoonmedia.com for more information. I’m looking forward to helping you make the product you want.

Originally posted to Master Mines. 

Even though I rarely make an appereance here I keep up with the Master Mines feed, so I’m aware of how you’re all doing, and even more aware of how much I am not participating, either with posts or comments. This (and some other stuff) has led me to ponder why I have not been participating, why I haven’t really been working on the designs I said I would work on, which in turn led me to ponder about the type of designer that I am.

The truth is that I don’t know that I’m the kind of designer that would really have a place here at Master Mines, at least not most of the time, certainly not now. Why? Because as a general rule, I’m not the kind of designer setting out to create a whole game, whether original or patched/hacked from an existing ruleset. It’s not that I wouldn’t mind doing it, it’s just that it’s not my natural inclination. I am a system hacker: I love adding fidly bits to D&D/d20, creating quick scenarios, coming up with alternate rules for one subsystem. For example, I wouldn’t necessarily create 1st Quest as Judd Karlman did, but I would totally put together an article-type product with a whole bunch of new keys and secrets for The Shadow of Yesterday, or grab a bunch of keys and secrets and translate them to d20, whether as feats or as a whole new subsystem for story goals and rewards. That is the designer that I am.

Another example: recently, my attention has been grabbed by three big projects I have going. One is a d20 Modern/Spirit of the Century setting that I am contributing to/lead developing along with a freelancer, the second is the official True20 versions of the ancient world Mythic Vistas settings (Testament, Trojan War, Eternal Rome) for Green Ronin, and the third is the 4C system. My attention shifts between these three during the day, and some days I am totally all about one of them to the exclusion of the others for a short while (thus why I have freelancers working on two of the projects). Right now I am enjoying immensely playing around with the 4C System, the open emulator of the Marvel Super Heroes/FASERIP system; the system was released last year, everyone apparently forgot about it, and now my friend/co-developer Mark Gedak and I are making support for it and finding out there indeed is a market for it.

Now, there is obvious design work going on here all over the place. Story is being crafted and revised on all projects, and mechanics are being converted, created, brainstormed all the time. But these stages happen haphazardly, in the sense that while we work on one main part, things are thrown back and forth for later use. I could come here and talk to you about the issues of meshing Anime, Pulp and Horror in order to create a slightly campy/slightly action-packed/slightly horrific setting that can support all three aspects in varying levels of concentration, but not exclusively, because I might be working on that today, and tomorrow I might be writing about how to effectively model a system of Piety in True20, or laundry-listing a group of cool villains for the next 3000-word-max 4C product we put out.

It may be that one day I will be able to put aside everything else to focus on one game, but the thing is that more than a designer, I am a publisher and a developer. I enjoy the process of taking an idea and directing its evolution as a conductor directs an orchestra. I love designing my own stuff, but just as well I love taking a manuscript submitted and tightening it, fleshing it out, slimming it down, rounding it out to a level where I can say, “I would/can publish this.” I enjoy discussing an idea on Monday, having Mark work on it on Tuesday, getting a manuscript on Wednesday, editing/finalizing/laying it out on Thursday, and publishing it on Friday. Even more, I enjoy the idea that I could be of help to any and all of you to get your games in front of a bunch of people using the connections, deals and lessons I have learned after 4+ years of self-publishing.

Satisfaying as this all is, it leaves me with the same question: do I, then, belong in Master Mines, a place created to support fellow game designers during the process of creating a game? As a commenter, yeah, sure. But as one of the main members of the group? I don’t think so. Not because I don’t like it, or like being a part of it, but because I’m not doing what the site, what the group, was created to support.

I will one day get back to work on Grand Tour, and I will quite likely create that generational mechanic to plug it into the True20 Ancients line, but the truth is I don’t know when. Whenever I do I’ll be happy to share it with all of you, but I can’t promise that it will happen in a way that meshes with the rules of this group, mainly because my design is scattered and based in great part on what I find awesome at the moment and/or what I can get ready for publication to start making money for the next project.

So as of now I am withdrawing from Master Mines, hopefully to make space for someone who will make the most out of this fantastic group we have here. I won’t be a stranger, at all, and I am rooting for every single one of you and your games.

So I check my Google Reader, and I find that I make a guest appereance in not one, but two different blogs!

1. Mark Gedak utters a phrase that any player would both love and fear to hear his GM say: “Curse that Daniel!“ 
2. Fred Hicks posts a teaser of the updated Spirit of the Season, coming soon. If you wanted to know what I was working on a few weeks back, this is it. I mean, check out this image!

I have something in the works for this year that references (to what extent we’ll see) the Cthulhu Mythos. I am aware, after years in gaming, that Chaosium has some sort of overriding right to the Great Old One as far as gaming, but no actual knowledge of what the legal issue is and how it affects someone else using the names/concepts. So I sent an email to Chaosium to find out what the real deal is and how I can work with it for the benefit of my product.

I got a very nice reply today explaining the situation and what the status of rights is (which I greatly appreciate as I realize this could fall under Legal Counseling and I could have been told to consult a lawyer). Wow. I mean, it seems to be pretty straightforward, but there are a lot of possible implications about how to/not to use the terms and concepts. I sent in my reply with what I think is the gist of it so I now await a confirmation. Based on that reply, I will decide how to proceed with my project.

I do think I need to make a Sanity check…

Today I sent it my material to Fred and Chad at Evil Hat, the other freelance project I was working on. The one from last week was for Paradigm Concepts, Inc. I think you can pretty much surmise for what lines I was writing material for based on what I’ve blogged about in the last few weeks. 

I also sent in two queries to Kobold Quarterly to see if they get approved. AND (big AND) I sent in a proposal to a larger game publisher for a possible project that, if okayed, would have me peeing my pants with joy. I also have another proposal that I need to put together now that I have some confirmed stuff to support it.

Again, it feels good to be doing this. Bring on the next project!

Today I did something I haven’t really done in the four years since I began Highmoon Media Productions: I sent in a freelance submission to another company for consideration. Not just that, this weekend I have another deadline for another such project.

It feels good. I mean, I obviously will continue to develop for my own company, but it’s cool to go back to select freelancing gigs, especially because these are for games I really enjoy. We’ll see what happens with those.

After a dismal start with only 278 words in Days 1 and 2, today my wife and I buckled down and caught up on our word count goal for Day 3. For me, that means I am at 2138 words, which is not too shabby.

Of course, that means I need to explain that our word count goals are very different from those of most people doing NaNo, who would be expected to be at somewhere near 5000 words. Because we both pretty much missed the first two days, we decided to divide 50,000 words by the remaining days of the month. In addition we also have to take out all Fridays in Nov. because with preparations for Shabbat taking precedence, we rarely have time to write on Fridays during the day, and after sundown it’s Shabbat, so no writing at all. That always puts us in a bit of a disadvantage when doing NaNo, since we have to up our daily word count to make up for the days we cannot write.

This year it’s even worse, since Nov. 30 is on a Friday, which means we have to have our 50,000 words done and tallied by the NaNo website that same Friday, Nov. 30, no later than 5:12 pm, when Shabbat officially begins. Yes, we are a bit crazy to attempt this, but here we go!

Inspired by Fred Hicks‘ many posts on the behind-the-scenes of running Evil Hat Productions, I’m gonna be taking a shot at “thinking out loud” about Highmoon Media Productions, at least from time to time. Starting now. 

Earlier this year, Bret Boyd queried me on an idea for a new series of products. These would be interesting, and sometimes quirky, locations in a world-neutral format and usable for a variety of games. I liked the idea so I told him to send me a small number of location blurbs, just to get a better grasp of what he had in mind, and what he sent totally sold me. When it came time to settle on the format of the series, we instinctively went with d20 because that’s just what we both do most. At some point, one of us mentioned the idea of going systemless, just having the products be all narrative (fluff, if you will) and letting the GM provide the stats. The reason was that, even though this conversation was taking place early this year, the scent of D&D 4th Edition could be felt in the air, even if we didn’t know what the smell was for sure. Green Ronin had already announced that their new Freeport book would be systemless with optional rules companions sold separately, admittedly in order to safeguard against a new edition announcement, and this gave us both a confirmation that the idea had merit and was worth pursuing.

Fast forward to yesterday, Nov. 1st (through no fault of Bret, for he sent all his work in months ago): the Domains of Adventure series from HMP launches with the first release, The Museum of Infamous Heroism. The main ebook release is 100% narrative elements, a series of descriptions of the location inside and out, with no stats whatsoever. In addition, we released the Rules Appendix - d20 for the Museum, which includes an area-by-area rundown of relevant stats for d20 wherever the main release alluded to a possible game mechanic (for example, adding stats for the building, describing a magical item, and the stats for the main NPC). My desire and hope is that we will be able to put out Rules Appendix for other open rules systems for each release in the series, thus widening the appeal of the product. Recently, Adamant Entertainment also launched Star System, a systemless series to support space opera-type sci-fi games, citing very much the same reasoning for the decision (though they aren’t doing rules companions of any kind, last I checked).

I’m no stranger to risky products; my “flagship” line is Targum Magazine, a periodical targetting the ancient world and supporting three campaign settings by Green Ronin, probably the epitome of a niche-within-a-niche product. I also envisioned and commissioned DaVinci Labs, a d20 Modern/Future series that was supposed to be grand and vast, and has barely done well enough to warrant the prep time that was put into it, let alone the production time, money and effort. This is all fine and dandy to me, because these are products I would have liked to buy myself, which is why I went for them and continue to support them. Domains of Adventure falls in the same category: it is a risky product, but one I would have liked to see as a consumer. Domains, however, is the biggest experiment we have done so far, and has both the potential to be the most labor-intensive one, though the most successful line we do as well.

I mean, let’s be honest here, if it fails, all we’re out is a few hours of work; there has been just a minor financial investment in the product (for the map), so it’s not like I’ll be out on the street. It’s all about the idea, though. I’m really hoping that it takes off, that customers see the benefit of a systemless product that they can adapt to their own needs, and that, to boot, comes with free rules addendum that they can use if they are using a particular system (which is why d20 will always be the default and always be available immediately upon release of a new product in the line). I’m also hoping that I can get people involved and have a fan do a Rules Appendix for a rules system I do not have yet available, like RuneQuest or True20 (even though I can’t use the trademarked brand), or even some of the indie systems, like The Shadow of Yesterday’s Solar System (fully available for free online) or FATE (though this is a bit harder since although there is a FATE 3.0 SRD taken from Spirit of the Century, there is no FATE 3.0 Core System yet to standarize how to use FATE in a fantasy setting, though it is coming). I’m a bit realistic (pessimistic?) and I know this level of fan involvement is unlikely, at the very best, though once can always find that one person who is really passionate and wants to help (very much like I found Mark Gedak).

So, here’s hoping that Domains of Adventure does well enough to warrant more releases in the series. I really would like to see that happen, not only as the publisher, but also as a fan. I hope to see fans embracing the concept and sending in Rules Appendixes for their favorite systems, including some of the indie ones, so that we can foster cross-pollination and unity.

50,000 words, here I come!