Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Michael Morris" data-source="post: 83199" data-attributes="member: 87">If it is not reasonable to expect anything else than I fear that much that is regarded great literature should have never been written.  But you are right in that I have taken the wrong tact and worked for the wrong reasons.Dusk launched in August 1996 to become a networld.  That is what I looked forward to when I brought the setting online, and that has never come to be although I will admit that many folks have consulted with me on this or that aspect of the setting.  There are some materials of the setting written or at least heavily influenced by others.  While Dusk was largely my creation, it has never been wholly my creation - and in favor of this latter option I'm going to move on.Should the forumns be taken down?  No, I don't think so.  They at least should remain as a channel by which the once in a blue moon question gets asked.  I will answer.As to other projects, I have two I'm pondering.  One is a completely new world, but unlike any you'll see online or in print.  A long time ago I wrote a novel set in the Forgotten Realms - and I've always found it odd that my one novel was outside my own setting.  Obviously I can't publish a Realms novel, so it must be rewritten.  Along the way I have decided to build a new stage upon which to set this story that is very dear to my heart and complete it.I should say that if a setting's creator calls it "Yet Another Generic Fantasy Setting," as I have once called Dusk, then time has come for it to be set aside.I feel like a stair builder who, having gotten near to the end of his grand project, has found that he placed some foundational beams horibbly out of place.  There is no cure but to destroy the flight and build anew from the experience.These last two weeks I have been doing just this in my head - drafting out the plans of a stronger structure upon which I can avoid the mistakes of old.And I have stories to tell, mind you, stories that will become novels to endear this land to the hearts of others on their own terms so that this place will be more than the sum of its parts.  This, more than any other reason, is why the Realms thrive.  Monte Cook pointed this out himself - the Realms has many, many stories within it, but it also avoids the problem of the grand quest that plagues Dragonlance or would plague any campaign based on The Lord of the Rings - the great deed having been done to save the world, what more need is there of heroes?  Not so in the Realms, so it thrives.  So too do its novels, for they are the key - not campaign sourcebooks.For two weeks have I worked on this and found it a happier time than all the two years spent on the third edition of Dusk.  So do not mourn for me, and do not pity me either.  Nor is Dusk fated to be wholly dead.  Some of her characters will return in different guises.As far as marketability is concerned - I do care about this because I want as many folk as possible to be entertained by my stories.  Such is my nature.  And when the time comes I shall, if necessary, fund its publication myself.I say only this.  This world is not medieval.  Nor is it something downright weird like techno-fantasy.  I say only that it will be wonderful.  A world of stories, heroes and legends first - a "campaign setting" second.As to the second project - on this I shall speak more free.  Throughout the history of Dusk I've dropped in hints and the likes on how to improve one's roleplay.  My second project, and the one that will give rise to my next published product, deals solely will roleplaying itself.  I intend to take what I have learned from theatre and adapt it for the use of gamers - particularly those interested in improving their ability to portray their characters and make them seem alive.  The working title is "A Roleplayer's Handbook."  I intend to contact Russ to see if Natural d20 is interested when I have a first draft.  It will probably not be a long book - I don't expect more than 30 pages - but I hope that it will prove useful, at least more useful than the much maligned Hero Builder's Guidebook.Well that is all for now.  As I've said before, I only see a computer now once ever one or two weeks.  That said, I will reply in due time.</blockquote>

Verification