HellHound
ENnies winner and NOT Scrappy Doo
Sorry for not posting here for a long time. I've been pretty burned out since this spring.
We were playing an Eberron game at a friend's house when I got a phone call that one of our best friends had committed suicide. The game packed up and I swear I teleported home - I have no memory of the 120 km drive... The next day it was confirmed, Tony, one of the founding team of Ambient Inc's d20 development team had hung himself. Tony was the artist that did a bunch of the illos in our first releases, including the awesome work in Necromancer's Legacy. He's also the guy that got me interested in publishing at all, through his work with the deadEarth RPG that he illustrated from cover to cover. We had been hanging out together for years - he was a core part of my "crew" from the age of 20 until this spring, 15 years.
But the game industry treated him pretty poorly in the end. He moved on to CCG art, and did about 1/6th of the art for a CCG and 1/4 of the art for the first expansion set. He only got paid a fraction of the money owed on the original set, and never saw a penny for the six months he worked on the expansion set. We started losing track of each other... and then he was diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic shortly thereafter... and then he was dead. I don't blame gaming and the industry CONSCIOUSLY for his suicide, but I know there is a link in my subconscious at least.
Well, I backed off on publishing and gaming after the suicide, and generally felt lost for a chunk of it. I got a new job, ditched my old job, and started looking at games again. But the prep started being too much. I figured it was d20 burnout, so I moved to playing games with simpler rule sets - and it didn't help. I just couldn't sit down to prep a game anymore. The prep is brutalizing me. Finally, I stopped prepping at all for my sessions, and the sessions started all falling flat. Horrendous, mis-managed, chaotic games with no sense of motivation, timing or anything.
And no more fun.
And I started REALLY dodging Russ and Ryan and the rest of the ENPublishing crew, because I couldn't face looking at a new product. I tried getting back into production with a few short pieces by Alzrius, but I couldn't even keep that up.
Finally, I realized that if I want to get over the whole thing REALLY, it's time to stop worrying about it. And to do that means stepping away from it. I'm handing over just about all of ENP to Russ (although I remain a full partner in ownership, I'm no longer going to be involved in management, production and so on). This already makes me feel less stressed, because I really dig working with and being friends with Russ and Ryan who are awesome guys, and it was a bummer to 'have' to constantly dodge them because I was neglecting ENP.
And I'm giving up RPGs. I have four RPGs at some point in completion at this time - five if you count a revision of AssassinX (Junk Dreams; AssassinX The Killing Game Edition; Rats on the Island; Gunboy Loves Gungirl; Uncle F***er). I'm puting them away for another year or so, maybe forever. It would be fun to finish them, but It will be better to stop worrying about them.
And I'm giving up on running RPGs. I'm burned out. My last few dozen games have SUCKED at a deep and unforgiving level. It's time to settle down, and play some board games and make gaming fun again for me. And that means not worrying about prepping games anymore. (for those of you who don't know, I'm the only GM in my two play groups, so I don't have the option to play games instead of GM them).
And I figured I should post this here finally to explain to everyone why I've been away (I consider a lot of you my friends, I really enjoy the ENWorld community) and why I will be away for some time to come. I won't stop gaming completely, I've got a nice collection of board games and card games that I enjoy cracking out - games that require no prep time at all except the time it takes to clear the dining room table.
I'll see you all when I get back in the groove. Or you can hunt me down on Circvs Maximvs where I pretend to be one of the three administrators there.
Take care everyone.
(and that is my 5,500 post here - like I said in another thread about "retiring from gaming" threads - I feel that explaining why you are leaving a community is a service to the community, to the friends and acquaintances you have made in the community, instead of just disappearing)
We were playing an Eberron game at a friend's house when I got a phone call that one of our best friends had committed suicide. The game packed up and I swear I teleported home - I have no memory of the 120 km drive... The next day it was confirmed, Tony, one of the founding team of Ambient Inc's d20 development team had hung himself. Tony was the artist that did a bunch of the illos in our first releases, including the awesome work in Necromancer's Legacy. He's also the guy that got me interested in publishing at all, through his work with the deadEarth RPG that he illustrated from cover to cover. We had been hanging out together for years - he was a core part of my "crew" from the age of 20 until this spring, 15 years.
But the game industry treated him pretty poorly in the end. He moved on to CCG art, and did about 1/6th of the art for a CCG and 1/4 of the art for the first expansion set. He only got paid a fraction of the money owed on the original set, and never saw a penny for the six months he worked on the expansion set. We started losing track of each other... and then he was diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic shortly thereafter... and then he was dead. I don't blame gaming and the industry CONSCIOUSLY for his suicide, but I know there is a link in my subconscious at least.
Well, I backed off on publishing and gaming after the suicide, and generally felt lost for a chunk of it. I got a new job, ditched my old job, and started looking at games again. But the prep started being too much. I figured it was d20 burnout, so I moved to playing games with simpler rule sets - and it didn't help. I just couldn't sit down to prep a game anymore. The prep is brutalizing me. Finally, I stopped prepping at all for my sessions, and the sessions started all falling flat. Horrendous, mis-managed, chaotic games with no sense of motivation, timing or anything.
And no more fun.
And I started REALLY dodging Russ and Ryan and the rest of the ENPublishing crew, because I couldn't face looking at a new product. I tried getting back into production with a few short pieces by Alzrius, but I couldn't even keep that up.
Finally, I realized that if I want to get over the whole thing REALLY, it's time to stop worrying about it. And to do that means stepping away from it. I'm handing over just about all of ENP to Russ (although I remain a full partner in ownership, I'm no longer going to be involved in management, production and so on). This already makes me feel less stressed, because I really dig working with and being friends with Russ and Ryan who are awesome guys, and it was a bummer to 'have' to constantly dodge them because I was neglecting ENP.
And I'm giving up RPGs. I have four RPGs at some point in completion at this time - five if you count a revision of AssassinX (Junk Dreams; AssassinX The Killing Game Edition; Rats on the Island; Gunboy Loves Gungirl; Uncle F***er). I'm puting them away for another year or so, maybe forever. It would be fun to finish them, but It will be better to stop worrying about them.
And I'm giving up on running RPGs. I'm burned out. My last few dozen games have SUCKED at a deep and unforgiving level. It's time to settle down, and play some board games and make gaming fun again for me. And that means not worrying about prepping games anymore. (for those of you who don't know, I'm the only GM in my two play groups, so I don't have the option to play games instead of GM them).
And I figured I should post this here finally to explain to everyone why I've been away (I consider a lot of you my friends, I really enjoy the ENWorld community) and why I will be away for some time to come. I won't stop gaming completely, I've got a nice collection of board games and card games that I enjoy cracking out - games that require no prep time at all except the time it takes to clear the dining room table.
I'll see you all when I get back in the groove. Or you can hunt me down on Circvs Maximvs where I pretend to be one of the three administrators there.
Take care everyone.
(and that is my 5,500 post here - like I said in another thread about "retiring from gaming" threads - I feel that explaining why you are leaving a community is a service to the community, to the friends and acquaintances you have made in the community, instead of just disappearing)
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