Thinking out loud...

A month has passed since my last blog entry. Way too long, considering my initial intentions. I can identify several causes for the delay, in particular the fact that I have been busy going to conventions and promoting the publication of The One Ring rpg. Essen Spiel in Germany and Lucca Comics and Games in Italy have been very exciting, but also time-consuming and energy-draining.
Lucca wrapped almost a month ago, you say? Well, it's true, but when I got back I was tired, and in no time I got sucked into a frenzy of deadlines and urgent projects that really have plunged me in a kind of perpetual twilight, where I enter my studio in the morning and resurface only when it's dark already. It's probably an experience shared by many western-world workers, and it's certainly not the worst...
Especially for one reason: I am basically doing something I like. I read and reference books, I look at pictures, I write and I play and I rewrite what I wrote, I discuss and brainstorm and argue with fellow game designers. In time I see something take form, and eventually be physically created. Every time it happens I marvel at the beauty of having played a part in the birth of that something, a new set of dice, a boxed game, miniatures, pieces of artwork that I didn't draw myself but that recreate something I described...

Prototype Feat die and final one compared

My map of Wilderland, after my daughter Anita

started using it as a pirate treasure map...

Someone might argue that I am not making a lot of money out of what I do (and I know some of those someones...!); especially since it seems I reinvest a lot of that money into books and games that someone else designed! But wouldn't I do that anyway, as any self-respecting gamer out there? I think so. 

So, no, I am not complaining, just thinking out loud. And it's very easy to feel comforted in my persuasion: all I need is to take a look around the studio here, and see all the prototypes of maps, and dice and counters I have lying around in heaps, or laid out on the table, and then look at the shelves where the final things sit, in all their production glory. Almost everyone I described my job to has commented what I do in the same way, even if with differing intentions: "You just never stopped playing games since you were a kid! Do you call that a job?" Well, yes, I do. But I do see what they mean... :)