A benefit of working in the game industry . . .

[philreed]

Besides hearing from people that use your work in a game, sometimes (thank you to the OGL!) you get to watch other designers incorporate some of your work into their own projects.

Such as the possessors finding their way into Bad Axe Games' Grim Tales. I mean, that's pretty neat.

But the big one lately has been Ed over at SkeletonKey Games creating tile sets based on some of the new hazards in A Dozen Dungeon Hazards. I can't begin to put into words how cool it is to see hazards that I wrote -- like winter slime and coffin mold -- put into a form so that they can be easily used with miniatures.

It's the little things like this that make this job so much fun.

 

[Vascant]

Kind of interesting. We have kind of the same view but I think because of the different nature in the products we produce we get that "special moment" from other sources. Since I develop software, not books, mine comes when people tell me they have used it and how much time it saved them or the "wow" I get at how the stat blocks are presented and the level of detail provided. Then I learned the joy of watching people create new scripts for NPC Designer or push the engines even further then originally designed.

 

[francisca]

And us outsiders hate you for cool stuff like that, Phil!!!

Just kidding. Very cool indeed.

 

[philreed]

And us outsiders hate you for cool stuff like that, Phil!!!

You probably don't want to hear about the really great perk -- saving receipts of RPG products for tax time in order to write them off.

 

[DaveMage]

You probably don't want to hear about the really great perk -- saving receipts of RPG products for tax time in order to write them off.

If there was an "envy" emoticon, it would be used right now.

 

[francisca]

You probably don't want to hear about the really great perk -- saving receipts of RPG products for tax time in order to write them off.

You're right. I didn't need to hear that.

Do you get to write off the beer at GenCon if you forge a publishing deal over drinks?

 

[diaglo]

You probably don't want to hear about the really great perk -- saving receipts of RPG products for tax time in order to write them off.

D'oh.

diaglo "who needs a tax break" Ooi

 

[philreed]

You're right. I didn't need to hear that.

Do you get to write off the beer at GenCon if you forge a publishing deal over drinks?

I don't drink (alcohol) but I could easily do that with a business lunch. _If_ I was going to GenCon, that is.

 

[der_kluge]

You probably don't want to hear about the really great perk -- saving receipts of RPG products for tax time in order to write them off.

I tried doing that when I freelanced, but unfortunately, the amount of income from gaming was such an insignificant amount compared to my income, I couldn't claim tax writeoffs from it. Drat!

 

[JoeGKushner]

I tried doing that when I freelanced, but unfortunately, the amount of income from gaming was such an insignificant amount compared to my income, I couldn't claim tax writeoffs from it. Drat!

When I was doing paid reviews for Shadis and Pyramid, along with some minor freelance work, I had the same problem. A few bones here and there, but as gaming books in and of themselves are so expensive, not a cost savings.