Difference between revisions of "Thus Spake Zaraborgstrom/Rebecca"

Revision as of 09:05, 3 April 2010

rebeccaborgstrom - 11/24/2003 05:34:26

Hi,

My work for White Wolf is free-lance/work-for-hire. I don't think I legally count as an employee. :)

I've done work for White Wolf, Gold Rush Games, and Steve Jackson Games. This includes the revised Via Diabolis for _The Cainite Heresy_; the freeform psi system for the _Trinity Player's Guide_; the first adventure in _Aberrant: Worldwide Phase I_; the demons in _Games of Divinity_; written but not-yet-released material in _Outcaste_ and _Mystery Project Working Title Unrevealed X_; and of course the Sidereal Charms. (Rich Dansky edited the Via Diabolis stuff a fair bit, and Andrew Bates and Geoff Grabowski provided strong conceptual direction for the freeform psi system and the Sidereal Charms, respectively.) Let's see. For other companies, _Denizens of San Angelo_ is mostly mine, along with the writeup of Archangel David in _Superiors 1_ and half the _Ethereal Player's Guide_ for In Nomine.

Plus, of course, I wrote the RPG _Nobilis_. It's pretty. It's in print. :)

I've been writing professionally for . . . it depends, I guess. I guess since . . . 1996? 1997? It's been my primary income-generating profession since around November 2001. I enjoy it a great deal.

< Cathak_Davion > Thank you for participating in the fourm so people can have a direct conversation with you (In a way),

While you're welcome, you don't need to thank me---I'm not here out of obligation or for public relations purposes, but 'cause I'm currently having fun. :)

< Cathak_Davion > and thank you for defending your righteous material even in the face of blatant criticism,

*laughs*

I don't think I have been, really. I'm trying to limit my work here to supporting the material by helping people understand things that they missed or help them resolve discomforts they may have; I try to avoid arguing the merits. :)

Rebecca

rebeccaborgstrom - 11/24/2003 14:34:43

Skipping ahead:

I omitted the Fair Folk book because it's not yet written. I only listed actual completed or 99%-completed projects.

Rebecca

rebeccaborgstrom - 11/24/2003 17:06:16

Understanding Nobilis is actually not that hard on the human mind---I believe, should you do so, you should be able to function with minimal impairment and only one or two overriding alien directives. I try to fit my work to the target audience, after all! That's the basic problem with Nyarlathotep and crew---they don't understand elementary public relations principles, and that's why *their* books get reviews like 'meep meep *drool*' and 'thirty-seven stars, all in unholy alignment! Mutated thumb-like appendages up!'

I'm currently in a game of 3e and a game of Exalted (Solar). Both run slightly less often than every other weekend. I keep meaning to run a Narnia / Utena or cyberpunk / In Nomine / Sailor Moon game, but time is hard to come by. Grk.

Schticks? I dunno. Do people have those in real life? My hair is very curly. The transcripts at rebecca.hitherby.com are reasonable monologue approximations of my conversational style, but I'm usually quiet in person. I have a small fuzzy stuffed wolf named Scratches who is very soft. I am told that 'elegant' is my appropriate look and 'flapper' the appropriate subgenre. I usually wear Hot Topic stuff, though, because elegant is a lot of work. _Nobilis_ is an accurate map to the inside of my head once you know how to interpret it. An annoying neurological thing leads me to spending about half my time in a nonfunctional state. I have tea every morning with my landlady. I have a doctorate in computer science. I dislike being tall, so I slouch. I'm bad at replying to email if I don't reply immediately. Milk is my primary nutritional staple, either 2% or skim depending on my body's transient need for fats; after about two days without, I suffer physical withdrawal symptoms. I suspect that I also need semi-regular meat protein, but have never tried going fully without. I'm a lyric soprano; I haven't been able to afford singing lessons after the first two, but I practice daily. My idol is Jack Vance, although Tori Amos is also pretty cool.

Rebecca

rebeccaborgstrom - 11/24/2003 17:35:15

< Stranger > didn't think it was possible for you to get higher in my esteem but you just did mentionning Tori Amos

)

I like her music a lot, or at least _Little Earthquakes_ and _Under the Pink_. Dar Williams and Suzanne Vega entertain me equally well, though; what makes Ms. Amos stand out in my estimation is her courage. I can't even imagine what it must take to sing _Me and a Gun_ onstage; that's bloody numinous. I mean, really; it shakes the boundaries of the world. And it's not the only badge of her character, although, hm, it's the most glaring.

Plus, well, she wrote _Mother_, which is my theme song despite the irrelevant title.

Rebecca

rebeccaborgstrom - 11/24/2003 17:44:17

< Stephenls > "cyberpunk / In Nomine / Sailor Moon" Ow ow ow, and also I demand details.

Okay. As everyone knows, the In Nomine and Tri-Stat systems are essentially compatible. And Tri-Stat Sailor Moon is pretty good, really, for Sailor Moon games. So mechanically, you're all good.

Basically, the premise is simple: a group of ordinary angels discover that they are, in fact, reincarnations of a group of celestial princes and princesses from a previous version of the universe. (If you're up on _Fiat Justitia_, Ms. Cogman's wonderful online campaign from long ago, which you can probably find working links to via google, you can check out an old take on this at http://www.cs.jhu.edu/~rsean/gaming/SMIN/session1.html --- I hijacked some of her PCs for an experiment.) Then they oppose the forces of the Negaverse!

I suspect that some of my potential players may browse here, so I will summarize the cyberpunk elements rather than going into them in depth. Basically, I figure that some humans are getting into the game, trying to drive out Heaven and Hell using Negaforce-powered 'ware and a VR that bridges into the celestial and ethereal realms.

Rebecca

rebeccaborgstrom - 11/25/2003 04:19:19

< Cathak_Davion > First, how *old* are you, no exact age, just an approximation will do.

I think the government thinks I'm 31. Why?

< Cathak_Davion > Why you ask? Well, something seems.....out of place, would probably be the best way to describe it.

You are free to consider me eccentric. Alternately, you may proclaim my ways of being as the new standard for people of my age. It really doesn't matter much. :)

< Cathak_Davion > Second, why do you have tea with your landlady? Are you really that lonely :p

My landlady's among the cool people. Honest. :)

Just think of it as a morning slumber party. We hassle the cat; talk to the parrot; complain about stupid boys; watch cartoons; chat about movies, bands, myths, memories, and games; drink wonderful Chinese black tea; and on rare occasions hit one another with pillows. (This is frustrating because she always wins; but sometimes, you just have to hit someone with a pillow. She's very snide.)

< Cathak_Davion > Lastly, you play with the tri-Stat rules, have you ever played HKAT?

I have not.

< Cathak_Davion > Thanks Rebecca, your so cool for awnserin de' questions!

You're welcome.

< Cathak_Davion > Hobbies, Languages you speak, and what kinda car do you drive :)

You pretty much know all my hobbies. :) I mean, honestly, if I'm not online and/or writing, I'm doing music or visiting a random friend.

I did pour my first candle a couple weeks back---a unicorn-shaped mold, with crumbled chunks of red and salmon wax in the mold and then a light translucent autumn orange wax poured over the whole. I'm not sure if I liked it enough to do it regularly. And I'm planning to learn to knit.

I mostly just speak English. My first-semester college French teacher dampened my enthusiasm for other languages a fair bit. I have a private language that I use for data storage in my head, but I haven't done much development on it in the past couple of decades.

I'm not really much for cars. :)

Rebecca

rebeccaborgstrom - 11/25/2003 04:22:29

< TheMouse > This explains the whole interacting a whole bunch in regards to being invited to that con and then sort of stopping, eh? (:

Yes. Yes, it does. :)

Rebecca

< Sunny_Delight > Out of the three Unico films, which one rocked the most?

I don't know. :) Sadly, my knowledge of kawaii anime unicorns is limited to Unicorn Jelly.

< jester7789 > RSB....You rock, and you rock hard!

[...]

< Alabrax > Rebecca, I really like your writting and you sound like a most interesting person. Rock on.

) Thank you both for your kind words.

< GoldenH > But how can this thread exist? that first poster used Avoidance Kata, shouldn't we not be able to have this conversation?

The mental effects of Avoidance Kata don't affect creatures outside of fate, such as forum posters. Er, I mean, you *are* a Primordial, right?

Rebecca

rebeccaborgstrom - 11/25/2003 14:53:34

< Gorol > Here, here! I know I am, and I must agree whole-heartedly with you! I never even heard of Nobilis before--aside from the random reference--but now I'm seriously being drawn to spending my dwindling supplies of cash on it, just to see what its like...

It's expensive, but I'm told it's worth it. Plus, it keeps me in cheeseburgers. Or, well, food, anyway. :)

< JasonK > More, though, let me pimp Erin McKeown to you, Rebecca. (Check her out at http://www.erinmckeown.com)

I'll have to do that.

< Clebo > 1. Have you ever thought of pursuing an academic career?

Yes.

Originally, I'd decided to wait until I had a few years' experience in industry and a few in a research lab. I felt I'd have more to offer students then---ivory tower feeding ivory tower isn't the healthiest of things.

The economy's recent issues interrupted that plan a year into the industry part. It may be just as well; I'm not sure health issues would permit.

< Clebo > Surely, this pursuit would more easily pay for some more singing lessons, no?

Probably true. Poverty sucks. :)

< Clebo > 2. Why do you dislike being tall?

It's something my bones did entirely without my consent, and I feel that I ought have been consulted. :)

< Cathak_Davion > I would rather we NOT scare of Miss Rebecca from the forums.....

To be honest, I'm not bothered by fans wanting to know about me as a person. The only exception is romantic interest; it's flattering *until* people start prying into my life on that basis rather than general curiosity. Then it's creepy. That aspect of things aside, I like to think that my personhood in general adds value to my work. :)

< Cathak_Davion > You must have been a hoot back in High-School :p

Nope! I skipped it. Never really been sure whether that was a good idea or not, but hey.

Rebecca

rebeccaborgstrom - 11/25/2003 15:16:23

< Cathak_Davion > I myself do not see my social standing as a benefit, so I have lost. But it is up to Rebecca to see if her life is a win or a lose, if she is happy with the way her life is run......pillow fights and all, then by far she won.

I'm vaguely confused. :)

I'm in fact reasonably happy with the way my life is run. I'd like to accomplish more, but the things I do accomplish are good things.

< sabis > ... what? Your own language? isin't that kinda a pain, or at least odd?

)

It's hard to change data storage formats. :/ I really only have so much time for translating stuff into English or sensory movies for restorage. I suppose it is odd.

< sabis > do you find urself using words from it in a standard conversation, and then correcting yourself when you realize they are looking at you like ur insaine? =)

That'd be silly!

It's not really a spoken language, although it does have associations with sounds. So the usual default response to switching languages unexpectedly is unplanned silence. I only go into pidgin glossolalia if I really have to say something immediately and my English center actively crashes.

< Alabrax > I just worry about someone getting alittle to worked up about things, where they might do or say things that would scare the writers away.

*laughs*

I try to just not respond to things that would bug me. But it's possible that I'd flense someone or go away if the wrong buttons were pushed, yes.

Rebecca

< taleswapper > I chose not to skip high school. I think it was the better option for me. When I represent to myself the me I would have become had I skipped high school, I tend to prefer the me I became having attended high school.

There are pretty clear advantages. But people also say high school is hell. And I wouldn't have been able to attend school from ages 18-25 or so. It was useful on a financial level that I already had my bachelor's when things cleared up.

Rebecca

< testman > Rebecca, I declare you to be cool.

Yay! Thanks.

< ArcherWolfe > I know this feeling well. I mainly speak bad English. I was deaf the first three years of my life, and I store and think in a language that is not English.

Wow! Cool. You're only the 2.5th other person I know with this kind of thing. :)

That makes perfect sense, of course, but I'd never even thought about the fact that the once-deaf might share this experience. What kind of structure does it have?

< jpcardier > "....that I'd flense someone..." Fabulous! My friend Eric is the only other person I know that uses "flensing" in conversation.

*laughs* I picked it up from the Other Gretchen.

< fifth_child > Actually, my first reaction to that sentence was "Hey, I bet she's read Snow Crash!"

A long time ago, but yes. :)

< Fifth > Rebecca: I'm in CS right now (eventually going for a Doctorate) and i was wondering if you tell more about your private data-storage language? That's one of the coolest things I've ever heard; I've got to get me one. :)

Sure.

The basic principles derive from imagery: geometry, transition, and color. Color serves primarily as a carrier for emotional connotation. For instance: Red is active. Blue is defensive. Yellow is aware. Orange is unpleasant. Brown is withdrawn. Green is internal. (It's more complex like that for active thinking, but that's the level I use for translation and data recovery.) Location and transition convey intention. Geometry contains actual data. For example: "I picked it up from the Other Gretchen." Directly translated, that's sort of a saddle curve, neutrally placed, with the dip angling slightly away from me. The color scheme is lightly red and brown, which I assume is because it's an active statement that's referring to events so old they're only barely active. Applying a focus on actively learning it, there's a spherical intrusion on the right-hand side of the image. Focusing on the actual comment, it's a curve spiking leftwards, mostly flaring white (in this context, a carrier signal for external data) with blue and yellow. The blue is from being wary of people, even old friends, I suspect. Gretchen herself has her own symbol, of course. :)

I fell out of the habit of actual lingustic thought in it maybe 15 years ago, so the symbol set is somewhat decayed; these days, I primarily use it in situations where words don't suffice---it's still useful for processing no one taught me how to do in English, like isolating enough about why I was recommending chard to someone for google to tell me "selenium", or for deep analysis of emotional states, etc.

Rebecca

rebeccaborgstrom - 11/25/2003 21:28:17

*laughs*

Due to some book or other I read in childhood, jaundice leaps to mind for "very sick, but not necessarily displaying other specific symptoms." What might have been "Jaundice and Sores Style" if it were celestial-level became the high-falutin' Citrine Poxes of Contagion.

Rebecca

rebeccaborgstrom - 11/25/2003 21:44:37

More to the point, I generally can't afford to draw on my internal code for colors and shapes in outside writing. The worst monsters would move through landscapes painted in blue, and people would think I was strange. :)

The small distance between myself and words is mildly handy---it lets me manipulate them with more dispassion. But that's about it.

Rebecca

rebeccaborgstrom - 11/26/2003 00:40:52

< Nephilpal > Interesting. Sounds kind of like a much more interesting form of synesthesia.

Possibly! I have very rare synesthetic states.

< Nephilpal > I have a strong and inexplicable association of green with the number three and yellow with both the number four and a strong feeling of discomfort. I always avoided yellow crayons when I could, and I feel vaguely uneasy under direct, unobscured sunlight.

Interesting. I suspect it's not uncommon to store at least some data in a similar fashion---I know some people who get flashes of odd geometry that seems sort of like mine when they're accessing really complex concepts or old memories, but it doesn't directly translate.

< Kasumi > Normally this would be sensible enough, but I'd think with Malfeas and the Fae in particular, strangeness would be a prerequisite ;)

Oh, yah. The Primordials are embarrassingly like me. :) I dunno about the fae yet.

< Gorol > I feel like I've just witnessed in Ancient extraterrestrial AI discuss profound thoughts with some equally transcendental being. I am highly confused and thouroughly awed, and wish I had my own data storage language ^_^

*laughs*

/ Kindwordsappreciationgratitudesmugegotismwavethanks /.

< ArcherWolfe > My data storage is unconscious recall only. Meaning I can’t consciously recall any real amount of information. Ok, I can recall a little, but not much. I have to trust my unconscious mind to know what it is doing. Most of the time I allow myself to be a passenger in my own body.

Huh. How do you structure your sense of 'I'?

Rebecca

rebeccaborgstrom - 11/26/2003 22:51:24

< GoldenH > I was going to run a sailor moon game but one of my players had a fit because I wouldn't let him be a negaverse villian in a game of goodie two shoes, and we couldn't agree on how the powers worked, so it fizzled. Do you have anything in your hypothetized super-technological sailor moon game that would avoid these problems?

Generally, I don't run for people unwilling to play in the game I'm running. The gamers I know are usually pretty good about telling me when something doesn't interest them. This occasionally means that I don't get to run games, or have to modify the base concept---sniff, nobody likes Lunar Exalted Rainbow Brite---but at least I won't have a bad experience running it!

For the last SM/IN game I ran, I pretty much made up how the powers worked and let the players discover them in play. It's in genre, or something. I think I used the Sailor Moon RPG rules as the basis. In practice, I find myself wanting to define the basic situation and metaphysics in an authoritarian fashion and then let the players run ramshod over everything else. :)

< Cathak_Davion > How about your Social Life Rebecca, how is that?

Decent. Crowds over 5 people tend to put me into sensory overload unless I'm task-focused at the time or have an excuse to screen most of them out. So I don't typically do parties or clubbing. However, I have a fair number of individuals in my life whose company I enjoy. Mostly, I like miscellaneous conversation and having friends nearby. Gaming is a decent secondary activity. Scrabble is also fun, though I'm not fond of the competitive aspects of it.

< Nephilpal > It could be that I've been creeped out before by overattention to my personal life, so I'm oversensitive.

I appreciate the defense, Neph (and others). :) It's good to know that if someone does manage to offend, I won't have to crush them and gnash teeth at them myself. If you've had it happen, you know why---responding to it, even to cut off the nose inserted too far, is inherently unpleasant.

Right now, things are okay. And I feel like I should stay out of the general debate on propriety. But I wanted to let you know that the thought, on the whole, was appreciated. :)

< Max_Raven > Neph's description of association seems a bit odd to me, but I think it's general fare amongst most people to have the "odd" association here or there. I _try_ to stay free of those,

. . . why?

< Cathak_Davion > I am not interested in the finest details of her life, or even an indepth description, but, how do you really know the motivation behind how some writes, unless, of course, you know that person.

Hm.

I'm not sure! For example, certain of the scriptures of the Maidens summarize events in my life. When you go to play Sidereals, does it really matter which ones?

< Cathak_Davion > As with Rebecca, she does indepth, complex, and very detailed work, although how she describes herself, is simple, nothing too complex, and very very patternistic. Perhaps she seeks to emulate something, she is not?

*laughs*

When I was really young, my adoptive father took me for a walk in "Hidden Valley", in Santa Barbara. It was near our house. I don't really know if that's its real name. We walked for hours. There were meadows there I'd never seen, with grass as tall as my shoulders, streams, and mud flats. Strange hills. Odd nooks and crannies. Dust-covered heights. Once, for a few minutes, rain fell everywhere around us but in the two or three yards around him. He told me stories as we wandered that made this seem even stranger than it was. It was frustrating for me, because when I went there later, I never found or saw most of those places again.

The complexity in my life isn't the big picture, really. It's the nuances.

Rebecca

rebeccaborgstrom - 11/27/2003 01:11:41

< fifth_child > Hmm ... I find image-based recall and association somewhat confusing. I myself have an exceptionally literary mind ... I don't even so much 'picture' things in my head as I 'narrate' them.

Both approaches have their points. :)

The problem with internal narration of the world is that it makes it both harder and more profound to play with the language.

*sigh*

I hate information theory, sometimes. There are insuperable difficulties with any complete understanding and manipulation of one's own underlying symbol set. It sucks---even doing a back-and-forth involving two different representations doesn't really work.

< fifth_child > The only other thing that I personally find mirrors concepts as well as words is music.

:)

Yes, it does, doesn't it?

< Cathak_Davion > You wrote the Scriptures of the Maidens yourself? Thats amazing.

Yup. I drew on other sources for the student's sutras, but the basic scripture set is mine. I'm surprised that it's amazing, though. :)

Once, there was a Maiden . . .\\ . . . who stood alone in a barren sky\\ Regarding a sundered world.\\ She spat a truth into her hand,\\ And used it to gum the world together.\\ "It's all in what the words are for," she said.

A lot of what defines the scriptures is that the fictional author's sense of precision doesn't rely on convincing anyone of anything. Regardless of how much free will messes things up, fate doesn't argue or express; fate dictates.

The scriptures, in other words, are optimized for their ability to contain the concepts they hold, rather than their ability to convey them. From the authorial perspective of the hand that wrote them on fate's looms, that's what's important. From *my* authorial perspective, I just needed them to inspire ideas, rather than convey them, so that works too. :)

I suspect this is a common characteristic in mystic and esoteric texts, and may lend insight into the TimeCube, HYBRID, and so on.

< Cathak_Davion > Thats it for my questions, lest I lose my head here.

Okay!

< Cathak_Davion > Thank you Rebecca you have given me more information than I possibly could have hoped for.

You're welcome.

< Nephilpal > (Just think of me as your very own monkey of war to be loosed at your leisure. After all, everyone has dogs of war. Not everyone has a monkey.)

Yay! Now I am special! Nyah, nyah, fifth child. :)

Rebecca

rebeccaborgstrom - 11/27/2003 03:36:51

< DeuceTrick2 > I like R. Sean Borgstrom's work. I liked Sailor Moon (especially the S season when things got really cool). Mixing the two into a thread topic is a terrible, terrible idea.

I suspect you're right. Somehow, I don't think I'd fit in very well as a Sailor Scout.

< rebeccaborgstrom > The problem with internal narration of the world is that it makes it both harder and more profound to play with the language.

< fifth_child > I'm not so sure this is true. I tend to play with language quite a bit, and even entertain fanciful notions of one day becoming a Writer (of one sort or another). I tend to view it more like the Norse runes being the building-blocks of reality, or like a programming language underlying everything we perceive. What I say becomes truth -- what I imagine I create. ;)

I could easily be wrong, yah. :) Language does contain the capacity to reflect upon itself---English includes the word 'English'. So.

Rebecca

rebeccaborgstrom - 12/02/2003 05:58:34

< GoldenH > How would you reccomend I go about motivating myself to develop a data storage language?

*laughs*

Wow.

If that's a serious request for advice, then I have two suggestions. One is logical; the other is practical.

If you look at a typical object in an OO programming language, it has properties and methods. The methods are active: they define what it does. The properties are passive: they're traits. It sounds like you have trouble remembering "properties"---you'd remember if a clock was running backwards, but not the time it showed when you looked at it, right?

My logical suggestion is, if there's a datum you want to remember, reprocess it as a method. It's not 3:30; it's 3:30ing. The car's not red; it's redding. She's not named Alice; she's Alice-ing. (I'd actually expect names to be hardest with this technique, and you might have to build secondary symbolic associations---which is, I take it, what you already do with nonsense rhymes and such?)

My practical suggestion: sit down. Quiet your mind and body. Try to become aware of the feel of your mind. Then think about what you'd need to do to motivate yourself to have a data processing language, and wait. Feel around for it. If you get the vague piece of an idea, say it out loud. If it's fuzzy, state that it's fuzzy and say what you can anyway. Having someone to listen and occasionally ask questions may help. If you find yourself completely blank, think about what it means and why you don't have one and how you think it works for other people.

... I feel weird offering either kind of advice here, but there you go. I picked up mine in circumstances you would not want to repeat. :)

< Gorol > I have a question for Ms. Borgstrom: what is the first thing that you wrote that got published?

A technical paper, probably. Followed by . . . hm. Nobilis, I think. Cainite Heresy came out first, but I think I'd finished *writing* Nobilis 1st edition before I wrote the revised Via Diabolis.

< jester7789 > I was wondering how, exactly, did you get chosen to write for Exalted Rebecca?

I was in the tall grass just minding my own business when suddenly Geoff Grabowski ran up. "Deadguy, I choose you!" he said, flinging onto the ground the small ball in which he kept Richard Dansky. I understood instantly that this would be the most important fight of my career.

Now I live in a freelanceball and my life is very sad.

< jester7789 > Did you show the right Charm / Idea at the right time, did you know someone, or was GCG just looking for someone he knew was creative and he found you?

To be honest, I've known Geoff for maybe six and a half years. In a social capacity, but also a professional one---a lot of bouncing material and theories off of one another. So he assigns me to jobs where he thinks my perspective is the right one for the material. I suppose that if I showed him anything that caused it, it was the Nobilis manuscript, back when he had a smallish rep and I had none at all. :)

Rebecca

rebeccaborgstrom - 12/02/2003 17:16:47

< Gorol > Wait--Nobilis is the first/one of the first things you got published? That's like, a major undertaking! I'm very interested ... do you think you might share the story with us? I.e., how you got the idea for Nobilis, what made you decide to write it, how it came about to be published, you know, things like that?

Hm.

In a dream, I looked at a supplement for this game that had kind of a Sandman/Lord of Light vibe. When I woke up, I wanted to figure out how that kind of gaming would *work*.

It was published through the agency of 'non-writing friends', bless their hearts. Pretty much, they knew both me and people like Geoff, Bruce, and David Bolack of Pharos Press. Having read the early draft, they said to those people, "You should read this."

REBECCA RANDOMLY DIGRESSES\\ ------------------------------------------

Aspiring writers take note: if you're willing to write without a guarantee of income, it may be easier to put an independent game out there than to get your foot in the door at an established company like White Wolf, WotC, or whatever. Even a well-reviewed downloadable PDF that doesn't sell much of anything will give people like Geoff a reason to look at you. Plus, it *could* become popular and lead to a real edition. Also check out Guardians of Order's Magnum Opus thingie, which seems like it could be a good way for new talent to enter the field. And I think some other companies are doing similar things. In other words, seek out an opportunity to do something and have people notice, rather than opportunities that involve someone noticing you and then you doing something.

(Incidentally, posting lots of good fan material *can* help. I know of cases where it has. But I get the impression that it's rarer to get noticed that way. For me, for instance, reading Martial Arts Charms for balance and interestingness is too much like my *job*; thus, my eyes kind of blurred when I tried to read the tons of new MAs people started posting after Sidereals. For Geoff, everything in the forums probably looks like 'work'.)

Rebecca

rebeccaborgstrom - 12/02/2003 19:45:19

Hey, feel free to fill up rsean@cs.jhu.edu's paypal. My car's gone away and I can't afford health insurance. :) But paying me for reading and posting's probably not that efficient, as it'll mean you get slices of work time, not playtime, and while I think better during work time, more work time is already committed to other projects.

Solar meta-MA Charms seem like an interesting way to go, to me. I'd happily believe in them as a way of making the different imperatives of the world make sense. :)

Rebecca

rebeccaborgstrom - 12/02/2003 20:35:34

Random observation: if you boil Exalted in water, you can get a high-powered kung fu tea. It's like drinking wuxia!

Rebecca

rebeccaborgstrom - 12/02/2003 21:15:14

Or you could just read http://rebecca.hitherby.com. It's free!

Rebecca

rebeccaborgstrom - 12/02/2003 21:20:46

Okay, admittedly, that was gratuitous.

Rebecca