I’ve written this paragraph a dozen times and deleted each one. Here’s the deal: I could go on and on about how excited I am to be on the design team, how this is a dream come true, and that sort of thing, but all that should be evident from my previous posts on D&D and my work on the game so far. Working with Monte Cook and Bruce Cordell (and everyone else involved in the game’s design and development) has been the best experience in my career and I’m excited beyond words about what we’re doing now and what will come in the months ahead.

As you have no doubt read, our primary goal is to produce a rules set that speaks to every incarnation of D&D. So if you are a diehard BECMI/Rules Cyclopedia enthusiast or have embraced 4th edition, loved 2nd edition, 3rd edition, or never moved on from 1st edition, we’re creating this game for you. Imagine a game where you can play the version of D&D you love best. And then imagine everyone plays at the same table, in the same adventure. We aim to make a universal game system that lets you play the game in whatever way, whatever style, with whatever focus you want, whether you want to kick down doors and kill monsters, engage in high intrigue, intense roleplaying, or simply to immerse yourself in a shared world. We’re creating a game where the mechanics can be as complex or as light as you want them. We’re creating the game you want to play.

We can’t do this without you, however. The open play test is crucial. You have a chance to contribute, to help us achieve our goals. So go over to www.wizards.com/dndnext and sign up. This is our game. So let’s make it the best ever, yeah?

We don’t. And here’s why. Story always trumps mechanics.  Have you every run a combat and adjusted the monster’s hit points? Have you ever fudged a monster’s attack roll when you know one more hit would kill the player character? Have you ever skipped fights or handed out treasure that didn’t quite fit in the “parcel?” Of course you have. So why do so many DMs have problems bending and twisting skill challenges to fit the story?

The problem, in my opinion, is that skill challenges look like scripts, feel like scripts, and play like scripts. The skill challenge provides several different routes to get the prize and by describing those routes, there is an implicit suggestion that they are the only routes available. A skill challenge that explains how Arcana, Athletics, History, and Thievery can all be used suggests the other skills on the character sheets are somehow not available for use and thus don’t come into play. And so, the game play adopts a curious characteristic—players either spend their time aiding the one PC who’s trained in the skill or sit quietly (or not quietly) and wait for the challenge to end so they can do something interesting. I can’t tell you how badly I want to shriek when I see players sitting on their hands because they don’t have anything to do in a skill challenge or feel they don’t because they’re not trained in the right skills.

The whole point of the skill challenge is to test characters beyond class features and powers. Thus, opting not to participate out of some fear of accumulating three failures defeats the entire purpose. A skill challenge is just a framework for how to resolve a complication that doesn’t necessarily require attack rolls and power expenditures. It is not a script, but a suggested process by which characters can overcome the problem. Players shouldn’t be guessing what skill checks they should make. Players should be thinking about how their characters will overcome the problem.

In the example I gave last week, I presented a rough skill challenge that offered a few ways players could find the secret door and thus bypass the clay golem in the hallway. The skill selection I whipped up represented the most likely choices the players might make during the challenge. However, they were by no means the only ones. Another player might have thought to inspect the walls around the painting, to see if there were any architectural clues. I might have called for a Perception check or a Dungeoneering check and if the player succeeded, then I would have gladly given out a success to reward the player for engaging the game in a way I didn’t expect. Thinking on my feet, the Dungeoneering check might have revealed a strange seem around the painting’s edge or the existence of extra structural supports or something else that might hint at the passage beyond.

In fact, if a player can come up with a good story for how a skill (or ability) might apply, odds are I’m going to let the player make the attempt. Even Streetwise, my most hated 4e skill, could come into play—maybe one of the characters remembers sitting at a tavern, sucking down ales with a veteran of the battle depicted in the painting and thus know some detail about the painting is wrong.

And, here’s something that might cause people to break out in hives: I would even skip the die roll entirely if the player describes an action in such a way as to almost guarantee success. Say an adventuring party stomps through the dungeon and finds an idol with gems for eyes. A cunning player wonders if there’s something special about the eyes and reaches up to push on one of the gems.

According to the skill challenge, the players shouldn’t even get this clue unless they first succeed on a moderate Perception check. Do I ask for a check? Or do I just have the depressed gem open the secret door? The latter of course! Why in the world would you make the players go through the process of earning four successes when they have already figured out the solution to the problem?

Likewise, say there’s a ledge 20 feet above the floor and on the chest is an iron box that holds a magic sword. A strong fighter in the party decides he want to climb up to the ledge and see what’s there. I could ask for an Athletics check, but what’s gained? I would just let the fighter climb up the wall and find the damned box. Why? Because the wall isn’t an interesting challenge. The player will just make checks until he succeeds. The player will locate the chest and get the magic sword. Yet lots and lots of DMs call for Athletics checks to climb the wall, Perception checks to find the chest, Perception checks to inspect the chest, Athletics/Thievery to unlock the chest, and so on. But why? WHY? If you put a chest on a ledge, you probably want to hide the chest from the PCs, but reward them for exploring their surroundings. The fact that they thought to climb up the wall in the first place is the only test the players have to pass. Now, you could be a dick and put a trap on the lock (perfectly acceptable in D&D-land), and that might require a check or two. But if not, why demand all the checks to give the player the carrot?

This is where many DMs have become system managers and stopped being storytellers.

Handing over the chest isn’t anything new to D&D. This is how the game has played since the start. The players describe what they want to do and the DM tells them what happens. Rinse and repeat. For some reason, both players and DMs have come to believe the game only unfolds within the mathematical construct and anything less is somehow cheating or not playing the game right. I’m certainly not saying that we should toss out the rules, but what I am saying is that the rules need to take a back seat to the story. I never want to hear in a D&D game from a player—did we reach a milestone or did we finish the minor quest or how many successes have we earned? To me, that’s jargon and it masks what is so fun and engaging about Dungeons & Dragons.

Hmm. I’m not answering the question am I? Let me try again, in brief. If the skill challenge falls apart for lack of player interest, you should just abandon the skill challenge. Your job is to excite the players, make them want to participate. A dry exercise of dice-rolling feels like work. If your skill challenge falls apart because the players can’t guess the skills to use, you’re using the SC as a script. Throw it out and ask the players what they want to do about the situation and let it unfold organically.  If the skill challenge doesn’t use Arcana and some player has come up with an interesting way where the skill might apply, don’t shut that player down. If you let the player make the attempt and the attempt winds up with a success, the player will feel awesome for coming up with an unexpected solution and the game’s story will become stronger because the player is engaged. Make sense?

Tomorrow (or the next day) Healing Surges.

I have a theory about why DMs have such a hard time running skill challenges. DMs want to run the game in the “right” way. Both 3e and 4e leave very little room for DM interpretation. If you have a question about how something works, there’s probably a rule for it somewhere. I want to climb a ladder? Well, bub, that’s a DC 5 Climb/Athletics check. I want to remember common knowledge about magic. Make a DC 10 Knowledge (arcana)/Arcana check. Combat, overland travel, and almost all the other moving parts of the game have been designed to the point that the game can more or less run itself. The “Dungeon Master” has always been something of a referee, but the role also expected the DM to be a storyteller, to bend the rules to fit the story as needed. In my experience, the more rules we have, the more “complete” the game, the less freedom the DM feels he or she has, and thus we have an army of DM engineers who exist, to some degree, to make sure the game runs as the rulebooks say it should. DMs present the information, tighten the screws, and make sure the monsters and traps behave as described.

With the DM being relegated to something akin to a game manager, it follows that DMs see a skill challenge in the same way they see anything else presented in rules jargon. The skill challenge is a mechanical procedure, some necessary hoop to jump through while chasing whatever quest they’re after. Why wouldn’t you, as a game manager, explain the rules? Why wouldn’t you just tell the players how many successes they need, what skills to use, and so on?

Because it kills the mood.  It’s a bit like going on a date only to receive a script for the entire evening, learning what your date plans to do, step by step, to get you in the sack. Not only is that creepy, but it pretty much guarantees that your date’s desired outcome will not happen. Revealing all the juicy bits of the skill challenge before the players begin has a similar effect. There’s no romance, no improvisation, nothing exciting about the experience at all. And what might have been an interesting exchange that culminates in a satisfying experience for everyone involved winds up being artificial and mechanical.

Just because game material present skill challenges as a mechanical construct doesn’t mean you have to run them this way. As a DM, reclaim your place in the game. Be the storyteller you’re expected to be and properly seduce your audience, win them over and immerse them in the narrative.  Let me give you an example.

Find the Secret Door

The skill challenge’s goal is to find the secret door. The door opens onto a passage that leads to the Evil Bad Guy’s secret lair, where he performs unspeakable experiments. If the PCs find the secret door, they can bypass the clay golem guarding the main approach to the lair. If they fail, they’re going to have to deal with the construct . This isn’t an ideal skill challenge, but it works for this example.

The secret door is a magical painting and the PCs have to activate the painting to move through it. I want to keep this simple, so the PCs need 4 successes before 3 failures. I also want to make sure there are a couple of strategies for dealing with the painting. Arcana and Perception seem to be obvious choices. I’ll throw History into the mix (the painting is a historical scene with a significant error). Thievery might be good (to sabotage the painting). As is Athletics (to break through the wall).

Five skills seem to be enough. I’ll set the Athletics DC at hard and all the other ones at moderate.

I want to structure this a bit.

Identification (Arcana, History, or Perception)

A successful check using one of these skills reveals something funny about the painting. Arcana reveals a magical aura, History some weird inaccuracy, Perception a faint breeze blowing out near the bottom. Success by 5 or more grants a +2 on all future checks related to the challenge.

Discovery (Arcana, History, Perception)

Characters examining the painting discover it covers up a passage. Arcana reveals the image can be manipulated to allow access to whatever lies beyond. History recalls a similar secret door from legend. Perception reveals a faint outline. Success by 5 or more grants an extra success.

Open (Arcana, Athletics, Thievery)

Characters can open the door. Arcana bends the magic. Athletics breaks the door down. Thievery sabotages the magic. A success by 5 or more grants an extra success.

Failures

The first time the PCs fail a check, the golem hears them. The second time, the golem moves its speed toward the PCs. The third time, the golem pulls a Kool-aid man and attacks.

Success

The PCs find and open the door.

Running the Challenge (A not-so-good way)

DM: You enter a 10-foot wide passage that extends well beyond the range of your light source. On the right-hand wall, you see a large mural depicting two armies fighting. All is quiet. All is still.

Bobby: I want to check out the painting.

DM: OK. You’ve triggered a skill challenge.  You’re going to need 4 successes and you can use Arcana, Athletics, History, Perception, and Thievery.

Dan: Uh. Okay. I’m trained in Athletics. I want to make a check.

DM: What are you doing?

Dan: Flexing?

Running the Challenge (A better way)

DM: You enter a 10-foot wide passage that extends well beyond the range of your light source. On the right-hand wall, you see a large mural depicting two armies fighting. All is quiet. All is still.

Bobby: I want to check out the painting.

DM: Sure. The painting covers about 10 feet of wall and it depicts a battle between small furred humanoids and gnomes. There’s a jagged mountain in the background.

Tom: Sounds interesting. Do I know what battle this was?

DM: You might. History check?

Tom: Sure. (Tom rolls and succeeds. The DM ticks off 1 success).

DM: This looks like the Battle of Howling Horde. You can tell because of the Stone Tooth, the mountain in the background. It’s not an accurate depiction though. The Horde attacked halflings, not gnomes.

Bobby: Gnomes. Halflings. Is there a difference? Seems strange though. I want to search the painting.

DM: Sure. Give me a Perception check.

Bobby: Gotcha (Rolls and gets a success by 5; the DM marks down two more successes).

DM: You notice a faint breeze coming from the painting. It’s weird. You think there might be an open space behind the painting.

Dan: Out of the way. I’m going to kick it down.

DM: Make an Athletics check.

Dan: Damn. Rolled a 1. (The DM notes the failure and that the golem is now aware of the adventurers).

Bobby: Good job. Let me see if I can get this open. I’d like to try open this bad boy up the old fashioned way with my thieves’ tools. Thievery?

DM: Okay.

Bobby: Ah crap. I got a 9.

DM: (The DM notes the second failure. The golem is moving toward the party. The DM checks the passive Perception scores for the entire party. Accounting for distance, the only once who hears the golem’s approach is Bobby). You fail to open the compartment, but you hear heavy footfalls and scraping coming from down the passage. What do you guys want to do?

Dan: I draw my sword and take up a defensive position.

Bobby: I draw my crossbow and load it.

Tom: This painting might be magical. I’d like to detect magic.

DM: Arcana please?

Tom: Sure. (Tom rolls well and succeeds by 5; the DM notes two successes. That brings the party’s successes up to 5, more than enough to complete the challenge).

DM: The painting is magical and while examining it you see threads of power you can  manipulate that should cause the door to open. What now? You hear the footsteps growing closer.

Tom: I’ll tug the magical threads!

DM: Perfect. The painting shimmers and fades before your eyes, revealing a long, dark tunnel.

The DM didn’t ask for the last check. The party succeeded and so there was no more need for additional checks. Of course, the players may want to deal with the approaching monster.

If you read yesterday’s post, this skill challenge might be an unnecessary one. Just because it’s in the adventure doesn’t mean I need to run it. If one of the players decided to search the painting, the DM might have just skipped the entire challenge and let the player find and open the secret door with a single successful check. Or, if the players had an easy time, the DM might just ignore the secret door and let the player characters face down the golem, which likely alerts the Evil Bad Guy and starts a larger combat encounter. Regardless, the skill challenge example shows how such a scene might unfold, with a mixture of player initiative and DM guidance.

OK. I’m done talking skill challenges for a while.

The first mistake we made with skill challenge design is to make more of them than they actually are. You can find their genesis in 3rd edition’s Unearthed Arcana as complex skill checks. A skill challenge is nothing more that a group of checks utilizing the various access points by which player characters interact with the game world and abide by an organizational structure that ought to promote tension, drama, and excitement. Thus, one should only use skill challenges in situations where the problem to overcome is more than roleplaying or a single check can solve and also stands at the narrative fork, where success leads to one outcome and failure leads to another. Of course, a skill challenge might lead to several different paths, but most have a binary outcome. Success means the adventurers achieve some narrative victory and the story progresses. Failure means the adventurers suffer a narrative setback and must find some other way to progress the story.

That’s it. That’s what a skill challenge should do in almost every situation. But this isn’t the case is it? Many traps can only be disarmed after 4 successful Thievery checks before 3 failures, when really one check should suffice. Many NPC encounters pile up required skill checks to overcome the challenge when simple roleplaying ought to resolve the situation. How many overland journeys involve skill challenges when clearly all a DM really wants is to get the heroes from point A to point B. I’m guilty of these terrible skill challenges. Hell, most people who have worked on 4th edition have put out a few stinkers. Why? Because I’m not entirely convinced we knew what skill challenges were supposed to do in the first place.

The solution? Ignore them or simplify them.

A DM should always assess all skill challenges in any published adventure he or she would run and the best criteria for judging a good skill challenge are the stakes. What happens if the PCs fail? Is there an interesting or compelling result? If not, you should either create one or just skip the challenge. For example, consider any of the “journey skill challenges.” Often, these operate only as resource drains, existing solely to tax healing surges from PCs, healing surges PCs will simply get back when they take their next extended rest. Even if the PCs have a fight or two after the challenge, most groups will hole up and rest before pushing on with the adventure. In the end, nothing interesting happens and the entire process is nothing more than an exercise in dice rolling.

Let me pick on myself.  “Siege of Bordrin’s Watch” was one of my first 4e adventures and I committed a grave sin with a few of the skill challenges. In particular, there’s the Monastery of the Sundered Chain skill challenge. My intent was to recall the wandering monster tables from the old days within the skill challenge framework. The PCs make a series of skill checks. With victory, they reach the monastery or get back to Overlook without trouble. With failure, they have to fight a randomly determined group of monsters. At the time, I thought this was a cool way to deal with overland travel. Now, I’m not so convinced.

Here’s why. Each time the group travels, the DM feels obligated to run them through the skill challenge. There’s nothing dramatic about this sequence and the consequences of failure are nothing more than simply draining away resources. A far better solution would have been to build an optional table with some roleplaying, exploration, and combat encounters. Then I should have offered basic instructions for dealing with these encounters (conflict, avoid, parlay, and so on) in broad terms. I might have a brief section on sneaking past the orc raiders, chatting up the gnoll marauders, taming the hippogriffs, and include suggested skills for dealing with each.

Or, if I wanted to preserve the skill challenge element, I should have woven the challenge into the story. Rather than make this a drain, I could have built actual stakes. For example, if the PCs succeed on the skill challenge to reach the monastery, they find Kalad the Paladin alive. If they fail, they become delayed and find his body amongst the other dead dwarves. Since time becomes a component, I would have built this as a staged challenge, where the PCs must find ways to overcome certain obstacles encountered en route. The first obstacle might have been orc scouts, the second a terrain feature, and the third a roleplaying encounter that would alert the PCs to what lies ahead and maybe foreshadow Kalad a bit—perhaps a fleeing survivor reports on what happened at the monastery.

If I were running this adventure today, I would make these changes using the material in the adventure without a doubt. Or, I would just cut the challenge altogether and instead slip in a combat encounter or maybe just describe the PCs’ journey to the monastery, skipping the challenge entirely. In this adventure or any adventure, don’t ever feel obligated to run skill challenges. If the challenge has no significant consequences, you best serve your players by cutting it, letting them get through the challenge with fewer successes or, best of all, strengthen the challenge by giving it teeth, with real consequences that shape how the adventure unfolds.

Image comes from Heath_Bar

For an introductory product to be successful, a potential customer has to be aware of the product in the first place. The customer has to notice the product on the shelf, have heard about it from someone or somewhere, and, most important, have an interest in the pen & paper style roleplaying game instead of some other activity. That’s a fairly specific group of people and one I’m not sure exists in significant numbers.

For starts, the big-box bookstores are vanishing. Yes, you can still find a Barnes & Noble here and there, along with a few smaller regional chains, but few of these stores put introductory roleplaying materials in the paths of potential buyers. The place for these products is not tucked behind the graphic novels or buried in the science fiction & fantasy section. The product needs to sit where potential buyers are likely to go: by the teen fiction, children’s books, on a display in the center aisle, visible en route to the science fiction & fantasy sections. Rare is the employee who knows anything about roleplaying games and rarer still is the employee who plays and actively works to grow the hobby.

So the burden falls to the hobby stores, but here the problem is even worse. For starts, few hobby stores, in my experience, make their money selling RPGs. Game products gather on the shelves for the occasional buyer who does not get all of his or her materials from Amazon.com. Most profits come from CCGs, comics, collectibles and so on. A hobby store is far less likely to get people off the street to wander the aisles and more likely to get people who already shop there for their own specialty item. Even the clerks with the best intentions and sales experience know to focus their expertise on the items that will sell and so most focus their “research” on the items their existing customers want. Learning and mastering RPGs takes time and interest, and, more often than not, clerks who know RPGs push the games they themselves play. If a clerk loves the One Ring, he or she’s not going to push Rifts. So no matter how good your introductory product is, no matter how sexy it looks, the products simply won’t sell if it gets lost amidst the countless other game products sitting on the shelves.

Product placement and effective selling techniques are all well and good, and I’m sure some folks manage to push these products out the door. Hell, if publishers didn’t sell these products, they wouldn’t make them right? But I doubt they sell to 9-year old Johnny with $35 burning a hole in his pocket. I’m far more likely to believe these products sell to existing customers who A) express an interest in a different game system, B) want to complete their collection, or C) want to get someone else into the hobby and believe the introductory product will do what just sitting down with the potential player and playing the game can’t.

I’m not sure the intro product serves customer A at all. While the intro product often provides a stripped down, simplified version, it misleads the customer into believing he or she has a complete product and that the product is somehow representative of the game system on the whole. If the intro product has to simplify the actual game for easy digestion, would it not just be simpler to bypass the simplification process and create a game that is just easy to learn and play? It seems strange to me to create a game with limited appeal due to excessive complexity and then go back and strip out the excessive complexity in the hopes one will lure the customer to buy into the excessive complexity later. Sure, complexity may come in the form of expanded options that could create decision paralysis for the reader, but if this an actual concern, perhaps embracing the “less is more” approach could bypass the need for the intro product in the first place.

There’s not much to say about customer B. This customer, the best kind of customer, buys whatever the publisher produces.

And last, there’s customer C, the evangelist. He or she has the best intentions, doing the grunt work of spreading the word about the game and helping create new players and fans. The introductory product, in my opinion, may be an impediment to growing the hobby. Simply giving an intro product to a kid removes the obligation to teach that kid how to play. Some folks do open up the box and guide the new player through the process, but the intro product is designed to eliminate this exchange of information since it needs to carry all the weight itself.

I think back to when I started playing RPGs and I remember very well the first books and boxes I picked up. The red box was one of my first products and I remember it felt like a game I could play for a while—three whole levels in fact. I fooled around with it a bit, but I didn’t “learn” the game until I actually sat down and played. After that initial experience, I acquired a wide range of roleplaying products, and even played some. Twilight 2000, all the Palladium stuff, Autoduel, MERP, Rolemaster, Mechwarrior, Traveller, Shadowrun, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Star Trek, Star Wars, and even the obscure Hidden Kingdom. I didn’t need introductory products to learn and play these games. I got the book, read the rules, and tried to play. If I couldn’t understand the rules, the fault lay not with the product but with me. I had to study more, try harder, and experiment with the game until I got it. The difference was that I rose to the challenge of mastering the game rather than depending on some hand-holding material to help me along. Looking back, I played through the Basic, Expert, and Companion sets before I “graduated” to the Advanced books and once I did, I never played plain old D&D again. And now, I kind of wish I had skipped over the boxed sets and went straight into the Gygaxian madness that was 1st edition.

I understand what intro sets are supposed to do. I know why we designers and publishers feel we have to produce them, but I really feel the best way to expand the hobby is through the evangelists. We should not expect some potential gamer will opt to buy the intro product on his or her own initiative, not when there are so many other ways to spend entertainment dollars. For me, the ideal product is one that teaches established gamers how to “sell” the game to new players. Rather than a simplified rules engine, my ideal intro product would present practical advice about introducing RPGs to the uninitiated, to explain what they are, offer helpful tips for creating pregenerated characters, advice for helping players create their first characters, and a basic adventure designed to show off different parts of the system. And you know what? This intro product wouldn’t even need to be system-specific. You could just construct a couple of broad adventures—dungeon delve, mystery, and so on, with guidelines for the experienced reader to adapt those adventures to whatever system he or she is teaching. This one product could be a handy tool for any gamer, regardless of game system to spread the word about the game he or she loves.

So tell me. How did you get into gaming? What was your gateway “drug?” Did someone teach you to play or did you buy an intro product, learn to play, and teach others? What intro products have you purchased? Do you still use them?  Did they help you learn to play?

Title: Dungeons & Dragons – Wizards of the Coast
Time: Fri 01:00 pm Location: Grand Salon B – Hilton (Length: 1)
Description: A panel about the current edition of Dungeons and Dragons, featuring a major designer and contributor to Wizards of the Coast.

Title: Designing an Adventure
Time: Sat 05:30 pm Location: Grand Salon B – Hilton (Length: 1)
Description: Talk to two masters of game design for a roundtable discussion of creating your own adventure for personal use or publication.

Title: Breaking into the Table Top RPG Industry
Time: Sat 08:30 pm Location: Grand Salon B – Hilton (Length: 1)
Description: Ever dream the dream? Ever want to know how to publish in the role-playing game industry? Talk to three people who did it and are doing it now.

Title: Dungeon Design 101
Time: Sun 10:00 am Location: Grand Salon B – Hilton (Length: 1)
Description: Our most popular panel of last year is back! Join our two award-winning designers and discuss the designs of your dungeon.

This was the book I wanted to write more than anything else during my early days as a freelancer. I was still hoofing it, begging for work, and had pitched a couple of books to Chris Pramas at Green Ronin Publishing, both of which he jumped on. Not long after, I came on board as the d20 line developer and The Black Company Campaign Setting had swallowed my life. Those projects I had hoped to write, finish, and see the light of day languished until it was simply too late to do them. The d20 system was already an unprofitable option at that point and I was hip-deep in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. 

Lord of the Fiends was to be the Rob Schwalb take on Aaron Loeb’s Book of the Righteous. In it, I would detail scads of archdevils and lesser figures, demon princes and demon lords, provide rules for cultists, unholy warriors, and more. The stat-blocks were to be for epic level opponents, with support in the form of new fiends, NPCs, and a variety of spells and magic items. The problem, however, was that each entry was about 3,000 words long and if I detailed 100 figures, the book would easily weigh 300,000 words not including all the planar information I hoped to include. It was insane and ambitious and ultimately fruitless since we wound up canceling it. I have some 50,000 words of material sitting in a folder and it will never see the light of day, sadly. However, I’d like to share a little of the work since it’s a dead idea now, so you can see the madness that afflicted me.

Now, before you 3rd edition grognards get all sweaty, I was writing this stuff for very early 3.5. It’s not developed nor is it edited really. I’m far enough removed from 3ethat sifting through the tech makes me break out into a cold sweat. So be nice. And if you can use this, all the better.

Here’s Abaddon.

(Image comes from SasaSi)

You see, I’m a pleaser. I want people to like me. And the only way lots of folks know me is through the work I do. Generally, the best feedback you can get in the game design business is silence from the folks who handle your words once you’ve turned them over. If you hear from a developer or producer, it’s not to get a pat on the back. It’s to tell you this element doesn’t work and needs to be changed or that concept no longer fits the product’s needs and you need to redo anywhere from 500 to 10,000 words. By Friday. That’s just the way it is.

Getting love from your “dark masters,” whether they’re a small press company or a giant corporation comes in the form of more contracts, more work, and the very occasional “good job” when you have a bit of face-to-face time.

For this reason, it makes sense why some folks drift into message boards to see what people are saying about their work. Who doesn’t love it when a fan gushes about a class they designed or a spell they created? In the first couple years, I followed nearly every major message board, looking for affirmation and criticism so I could feel good or correct a misstep. I had the best intentions, but I didn’t realize something important about human nature. It’s easier to pound out a few words when you’re pissed off and upset. You’re just not likely to throw up praise when you’re satisfied or even more or less pleased. It is far harder to earn positive feedback than it is to get criticism. And so, the more I read message boards, the worse I felt. My dear friend Steve Kenson would regularly smack me (by email or in person) and tell me to stay the hell away from the internet and I would dutifully delete all my bookmarks. A few weeks later, I was back and reading once more.

I had to burn my hand a dozen times or more before I figured out that touching the stove was a bad idea. I eventually learned there were a few websites that I just needed to avoid, certain places so poisonous just reading a few posts could fill me with rage and bile. So I stopped. See, the freelancer who fights back only makes it worse. A pissing contest with a fan on a message boards is yet another sin a freelancer can commit to sabotage his or her career. The only thing to do is push the back button, pop in a little death metal, and let it go. Some designers have a knack for publicity and engage the fan base in such a way as to insulate themselves against criticism. They don’t have to fight back. They have a legion of supporters to do that for them.

For the rest of us, we just have to take it and keep on going. That’s how it is. That’s the price. So, would-be game designers, here’s my advice for the week. When you get a few publications under your belt, go ahead and delete all the bookmarks to any public forum where your work might be discussed. Yeah, you might get ten positive comments, but it only takes one nasty post to ruin your day.

(Image comes from Beige Alert)

There’s Always Someone Behind You

A while back, I was getting ready for a business meeting when someone important turned to me and said, “Remember, there’s always someone behind you ready to take your place.” That was not what I wanted to hear. Stung, I stammered something and stumbled off to the meeting colored by the realization that I was, truly, a replaceable cog in the engine of game design. As much as I thought of myself (and by that point, my confidence was somewhat high; I had won some awards, landed some high profile projects, and was on my way to somewhere), one phrase shattered it all. I might be important, but I was not irreplaceable. There’s always someone lurking over your shoulder waiting for you to stumble, to fall flat. Slip up and before you have a chance to dust off your hands, they have your job and you’re back to shoveling meat into buns at your favorite fast-food restaurant.

There’s Always Someone In Front of You

You’re never actually in charge. You can be the lead designer on a book and still have to answer to someone. No matter how high you climb, there’s still someone over you who makes the bigger and more important decisions. I’ve led several books and while I had visions for those projects, the producers, developers, and editors sometimes did not agree with my vision and so we took a different direction. And you know what, this is good. We’re all fallible. We all screw up from time to time. What you might think is brilliant could be crap. The people who control your destiny can make or break you and it’s crucial to remember this. If they push back against your idea and they will, think hard about whether or not it’s worth fighting for. You might be surprised and find out they were right all along.

Do What You’re Told to Do

Most times, the lead hands out your assignment and that assignment tells you what you’re supposed to do and how soon you need to get it done. By the time the assignment comes to you, discussion is over. The assignment has already been picked apart, approved, and vetted. Your job is to write your assignment and give your employers what they ask for. And if you come across something that looks weird or doesn’t work, check with your lead. Or, if you’re the lead, check with your producer/developer to sort out the problem. What I’m saying is that don’t just change it without consulting the folks in charge of you. That’s a good way never to work again.

Diplomacy vs. Intimidate

I remember when we were working on A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying and we had a design meeting to establish the tone and core mechanical concepts. We went round and round about how the game should work, its accessibility and complexity, and so on. My vision of the game was quite different from the game that my coworkers saw and though I argued my points, I lost more than I won. In a collaborative process, you’re going to get viewpoints and ideas from a wide range of minds and talents. The people involved are usually there for a reason and their opinions and insights are as valuable or more valuable than are your own. Remember, you’re probably not the smartest person in the room. In fact, always expect there’s someone smarter than you and you’ll do fine.

To put this in D&D terms, the only skill you get to use is Diplomacy. Intimidate just makes you into a dick and Bluff, well, Bluff doesn’t apply here. When it’s your time to talk, make your point, back it up with evidence, and quietly celebrate if the team digs it and find a way to let it go when and if the team shoots it down. Revisiting your argument again and again just makes people less inclined to listen to you since you aren’t, really, saying anything new. Now if you later find more evidence to back up your point and the other direction doesn’t work, there’s no reason not to make your case again. You just have to make sure you present your idea as a viable alternative and have the information to prove your point. If the alternative is not viable and you lack concrete evidence, then there’s no point in going down that road again.

Choose Your Battles

I don’t care if you’re the most brilliant designer in the world, you can’t fight every battle all the time and expect to get anywhere in this business. You’re going to have disagreements. You’re going to feel your fellow designers just aren’t seeing your brilliant point and if they would just listen they’d understand. But you know what, odds are, if you’re facing near-universal resistance to your idea, you’re probably wrong and should just let it go.

It’s clichéd as hell, but choose the battles that are important to you. This isn’t about winning; it’s about doing what’s best for the product you’re working on. When tackling several problems at once, choose the elements that are most important . Solve them on your time and then present your case to the rest of your team. The stronger you make your case, the more likely your idea will stick.

Admit It When You’re Wrong

Finally, there are going to be times when your team goes with your idea and then later finds out through further design certain elements don’t work or the entire idea is riddled with flaws. Be a champ. Take the hit. Admitting you were wrong takes humility and that’s something that keeps you grounded and grateful to be in the position you’re in. A mistake doesn’t have to be a disaster. Just because you go down the wrong road doesn’t mean you can’t learn something from the experience. You might find that your mechanical nugget that gets tossed out could be useful for something else or reveal another hole in the product. A big part of game design is exploring what is possible within the bounds of the mechanical system in which you’re operating and exploration sometimes requires a flashlight and a willingness to look at the dark corners to see if you can find something new.

Before I dive into this particular quagmire, I want to say that no one in the RPG business gets the recognition they deserve. I’m going to be focusing on design since that’s what I do for a living. However, editors, producers, developers, art directors, artists, layout, and every other person involved in shepherding the product from conception to the book shelf deserve recognition. In some alternate universe, I imagine there are no book covers. There are just lists of the names of those hardworking people who made the book happen. We do not, sadly, live in this universe and more often than not it is the game designer who gets to live on the outside cover. So let’s focus on that for now.

I have written, developed, or contributed to something like 198 different products (including material adapted for other products; that’s cheating but tough tits). For WFRP, not once did my name hit the cover. In fact, no one’s did. My name didn’t appear on the cover of Trouble at Durbenford, Svimohzia, any of the Mongoose books, and probably a pile of others. Then, my name showed up on a slew of Green Ronin, Paradigm Concepts, Wizards of the Coast books (sometimes when I didn’t eve  write the book!) Of all the work I’ve done, I’m always partial to the ones where the publisher gave proper credit. Why? Well, in the early days, it sort of made up for the fact that I was earning crap. It also helped build a brand, the brand of Robert J Schwalb.

Brand? BRAND? Yes. You bet your ass brand. Think for a few seconds. What names come up first when you reflect on the gaming industry? Think about the folks who are guests at Gen Con, Origins, Dragon*Con, and elsewhere. These people live in your head space because in some way their name indicates quality. The names are brands. And as brands, they have value. How much value is a big question and one I’m not sure I can answer. Does putting Robin Laws on the cover of a book translate into more books sold? I should hope so. He is Robin Laws after all. Does putting Joe Freelancer on a cover sell more books? No. Probably not.

Let’s step back. When I cruise the physical or virtual shelves of any bookstore, there are certain authors whose names carry weight enough for me to buy regardless of the book’s plot or subject matter. George R.R. Martin puts out a book about unicorn farts and I’m there at the counter, slapping my congealed bits of metalabor on the counter. The same goes for Tad Williams, Terry Pratchett, and that China Meiville dude (I’m not looking up the spelling, not out of disrespect, but because I’m lazy and don’t have much time).

The same applies to music. I will buy any album put out by Opeth, Paradise Lost, Katatonia, Sepultura, Dark Fortress, Behemoth, Iron Maiden, and on and on. I’ll buy them even if the reviews say it sucks. Even if I know, without a doubt they’ll be a bit, well, crap.

Why? Why do I do this? Because the artist spoke to me at one point. The first time I listened to Operation Mindcrime by Queensryche, I was a fan for life. The album changed my life. It spoke to me, it moved me, and dammit, the music was great. When I read Game of Thrones (timely, eh?), I felt the same way. This also goes for Tad Williams, Glen Cook, and numerous others. I’m moved to support them not just because they are entertaining me, but also to reward them for affecting my life in an emotional and, dare I say it, spiritual way.

What’s weirder is that I have the same loyalty to game designers. I can hear you saying, “Oh come on Schwalb. The Complete Book of Kobolds moved you?” It’s true. Let me gush for a moment. Return to the Tomb of Horrors is still my all-time favorite adventure for D&D across all the editions. And you know who wrote it? Bruce Cordell. And you know what, I bought just about anything Bruce wrote from that point forward. Why? Bruce, for lack of a better way to put it, turned me on. He sparked my imagination. He created something that spoke to my interests, my style, and my love for the game.

Since then, I’ve worked with Bruce. I’ve had beer with Bruce. And I’ve swapped emails. Yet, deep down, I’m still as much a fanboy for Cordell as that fat guy in the Sailor Moon costume is for, well, Sailor Moon.

All right. Now that I’ve confessed my man-crush on Bruce to the world, we’ll move on. The point I’m trying to make is that for some people, names DO have value. And the fact that many designers choose to ignore this facet of the business or have to do all the promotion themselves annoys me. See, publishers have a golden opportunity with their designers. Sure, one could look at designers as an expendable, replaceable resource. There are, after all, thousands of ambitious folk who would gladly take their places. However, how can a book suffer when a “rock star’s” name sits on the cover? Maybe some guy with a few credits to his or her name might not make much difference, adding maybe a dozen more copies sold thanks to his/her name value. In time, with promotion, interviews, spotlights, a bio, links to websites, giving the author a platform to address the fans, that author’s name ought to sell more than a few extra books. Am I wrong?

I might be. It may be the case that only a small set of game designers can move products with their names alone. It may be that the rest are nothing more than disposable technical writers willing to toil for a pittance and that a publisher is wel within its rights to discard designers without a second thought. Could be.

And let me be clear before I go, this discussion today has nothing to do with me. Wizards does a fine job showing me off. Green Ronin was the same. I honestly have no idea if my name means anything when slapped on a cover or not. I also have no real idea if folks think my involvement adds value to a product. And I’m also not fishing for complements, support, or other outpourings of a similar bent. I’m just thinking about the relationship game designers have with the fans of the games designed. Am I making sense?

So what I really want to know is this: does the game designer matter to you?

The panel was something about getting involved in freelancing. Mike Lee (of World of Darkness and Warhammer Fantasy/40k fame), Melissa Gay (artist extraordinaire), and myself sat at the table in front of some 15 or so people and one baby. We hit all the high points. Stuff like: don’t be a dick, be on time, write what your assigned to write, whore yourself at shows. The usual advice I give to folks that ask. But one thing stuck out in my head while we were talking. One horrible, soul-crushing realization. We were supposed to give insights into getting started, but what we really did was poke holes in the balloons of their dreams. It was like we showed them ice cream and then said they couldn’t have any. And were we wrong to do this? Hell no. Why? Because, well, making a living writing or illustrating for RPGs is about as hard as it is to play in a professional sport these days. The most many people can hope for is a spot on the “farm team” and a shot at maybe a book before the work goes away. For good.

Oh, Rob, must you perpetuate the doom and gloom? You bet. Why just last night, I chatted with some friends about their own efforts to get into the business. I tried to be supportive. I tried to offer advice about how they might wedge their foot in the  closing door, but eventually my cynicism came out swinging.

Here’s the thing. There are far fewer print publishers now than there were three years ago, and there are even fewer publishers than there were five or even ten years ago. Who’s left? Well, there’s Wizards of the Coast, Paizo, Green Ronin, Fantasy Flight, Goodman, Mongoose, Paradigm, Open Design, and a smattering of others. With the exception of a very few, most publishers already have full stables of freelancers willing to work for the current rates, which, in case you didn’t know, is about .02 to .03 a word. Think about that for a second. Skipping over all the felatio you will likely have to perform to even get a paying gig in the first, once you get it, and by it lets say you get a 10,000 word job, you’re look at a whopping $200 for your time. How long do you think it will take you to write 10,000 words? I’ve been doing this long enough to hammer out and polish those words in about three days, at ten hours a day, so about 30 hours total. That’s about 6.67 bucks an hour. McDonalds! For someone new to the business, you’re looking at probably two-three weeks, for a three hours a day, plus say four to six hours on weekends. Lets call it 45 hours, plus all the time you sweat and worry. After three weeks work, you might get the two hundred bucks on turnover or, more likely, after the product hits the shelves, which could be over a year later. And all for the princely sum of LESS THAN MINIMUM WAGE!

And that’s ONE book. Try stringing together five books in a row. Good luck. There isn’t that much work out there right now.

But what about you Rob? You manage. Yes. And you know what, I’ve been working myself to death for about ten years to earn an actual living in the business. And if I lost my job at Wizards, I’m not exactly sure what I would do. In fact, this is the thing that terrifies me the most. Yeah, I could probably piece together enough work over the year to get by, but not at my current rates. Not by a longshot.

During the d20 boom, there was hope. There was more work than there were freelancers. Once that bubble burst, lots and lots of good designers left the field. People who were, at least at the time, household names in the gaming industry just up and left. Why? Because you can’t pay your rent/mortgage on the standard rates an unless you can generate 500,000 words at .03 a word, you’re not going to make 15,000 a year. And that’s not including Uncle Sam’s cut. Self-employed, you get to pay double!

The counter that galls me the most is when a would-be game designer says “Well, I only want to do game design to rack up some publications so I can get into fiction.” You know what? I said the EXACT same thing a decade ago. And it took me ten years to get my first novel, and one written under anything but ideal circumstances. And what’s worse? Fiction can actually pay WORSE than game design. Think about that.

A talented, reliable freelancer can usually get about .05 a word in game design. I spoke with an author friend and I found established writers were making about the same. The same! If you wrote 500,000 words in a year at .05 a word, congrats, you’ve just earned 25,000 a year (less with Uncle Sam’s cut of course). Want to know what 500,000 words means? Five novels. FIVE NOVELS. In a year!

But what about Stephen King? JK Rowling? All those other millionaires? Look at the top ten earners in 2010. Most of those lucky bastards made their bank from royalties and licensing. Hell, at least two didn’t even get a book published that year.

And here’s another wrinkle. Kindle, nooks, and all those electronic devices seem super cool right now. And boy are they. Why lug around all those novels when you can just open them up in your reader? But you know what I haven’t heard folks talk about is how ebooks throw open the floodgates to backlist books. An ebook costs almost nothing to make, store, and sell. A published book requires warehousing, distribution, printing and all that stuff. How many books have been written so far? In a few years, everything that’s been published and out of print is suddenly available again. And you know what? I’d be willing to bet there are more books you haven’t read that are currently out of print that are just waiting to see the light of day. What this means is that a new author has to not just compete with the current releases on the shelves, but s/he also has to compete with every book, ever written, all just a click and a credit card away. If I were a publisher, I’d be doing my damnedest to gobble up rights to every out of print novel I could get, load them into a sexy website and sit back and rake in the cash. If you have 50,000 titles and sell them for a dollar each, you’d only have to sell one copy of each title a year to make the same kind of money you’d make writing a million damn words at standard rates in the game design business.

And every time some new crop of rotten kids come screaming out of the womb, there’s a whole new batch of customers just waiting to get ripe enough to buy these OOP titles all over again.

Don’t believe me? Amazon has killed Borders. Barnes & Nobles looks like it’s next. We’re not far from a time when the only vendor for books are virtual stores. And we’re not that far off from a time when print books are so expensive thanks to shorter print runs, folks will be forced to buy electronic media or not read at all.

Oh. I’m no expert on this field. I probably have no idea what the hell I’m talking about. But I’m seeing the signs. We’re seeing it in the music industry. We’re seeing it in film, television, and in almost every other aspect of entertainment. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m full of crap. But I can tell you this: If you want to get rich writing, you’d better start shopping for refrigerator boxes. You’ll need them when the bank takes your house.

So after this nasty, nasty blog post, you’re probably wondering why I’m in the business at all. I was stupid. I didn’t know enough before I got started to realize trying to make a living designing games and writing fiction was not far off from tilting at windmills. I also came into the business at a time when there were so many publishers you couldn’t walk down the aisle at Origins and not run into some d20 product or other. I got work by shaking hands, buying dinners, begging, pleading, and taking on so many projects I nearly drowned in words. I was lucky. I’ve made a career. And it’s a career that can go away at any time, without warning, and send me back, hat in hand, to McDonaldland shoveling meat and asking if I can take your order.

Should you get into the game design business? Should you chase your dreams? Should you strive to be the next Hemmingway and write that perfect novel that will change the world? Should you take injections of Monte Cook or Mike Mearls DNA to become the next gods in gaming? Don’t let me stop you. But go in with your eyes wide open. Take your illusions to the finishing stump behind the shed and put them out of their misery. And if you don’t believe me, I challenge you to sort through your game books. Take a look at the designers who worked in the eighties, the nineties, even in the last decade. Then, see how many of those folks are still working in the RPG business now. Yep. There will be a few survivors. A few folks managed to make it work. But most did their time and moved on to something else. Game design is not a career unless you are very, very, very lucky. It’s a moment. A glorious, exciting, stressful, awesome moment. And then it ends.

What happened? Well, life happened. Complications in personal life, changing job responsibilities, new commitment to getting healthy, and on and on all made the D&D campaigns seem unimportant at best (an albatross at worst). Now that I’ve regained some normalcy and stability, I am almost ready to engage the game I’ve loved once more.

I am not going to lie and say I have no reservations. I found it easy to leave gaming because I was frustrated. And by going back to the hobby, I wonder if I’m just going back into the lion’ den once more.

What’s the problem with me? Why can’t I just go to a game, sit down, roll dice, and have a good time? The difficulty, I think, stems from the fact that this thing I do, this hobby I love, now puts food on my table. It’s a job. Oh, I love the work. I love tinkering with the rules. I love arguing with other designers about which knob to turn, which dial to adjust. But it’s also a stressor. I haven’t been without a deadline in almost ten years. And since I do this for living, I’m also hyperaware about how things *ought* to work. Nothing frustrates me more than when a player finds a mechanical nugget and exploits the shit out of it. See, there’s a disconnect between how I expect the game to operate and how the game really plays. Most times, it’s fine. Sometimes, however, it’s not and when it’s not I want to fix it. Now. Right this minute. Why? I know it’s not supposed to work that way and if I came across some busted mechanic during a development pass, I can promise you I would cut the mechanic or redesign it so it didn’t wreak havoc at the table. And the very last thing I want to do is waste an hour or more arguing my point at or away from the gaming table when doing so kills the fun for everyone else.

This is all why I have burned countless words talking about immediate action powers, dungeon design, weapon breakage, and various other mechanical nuggets that crawl into my ass and lay eggs. When these things don’t get fixed (either because my well-reasoned argument falls on deaf ears or because I opt to shut my damn mouth since Rule 0 in RPGS is don’t be a dick), the irritation festers until I eventually walk away. People shouldn’t have to accommodate my weird game designer expectations. I should be able to show up, play the character, and go home feeling happy that I had spent four hours with my friends.

So I’m going to try. And I’m going to try very, very hard to approach these games sans designer hat. I’m going to do my damnedest to just embrace the experience as best I can. And maybe sometime soon, I’ll be ready to run again.

This free event is open to everyone that would like to learn how to be a better Dungeon Master! Learn some basic tactics or some advanced techniques to WOW your players at the gametable!

All Materials will be provided! Participants will act as players in a game and learn Dungeon Master tricks from Robert. This highly interactive event will be one to remember!

I am a workaholic. I am career-minded, driven, and focused on what I do. I long thought my zeal was the cornerstone to my success, and if I could just put in a few more hours each day, I could claw my way to the top. When I started in the business, there were few homes for my words. I focused on the smaller publishers, not even daring to put my name in Wizards of the Coasts’ hat. Smaller publishers meant smaller checks, which in turn required lots of projects to justify the effort. I was fresh out of college, peddling flooring by day, liquor at night, and pounding out the words in the time between. Furthermore, I had just purchased a house, which brought its own responsibilities. So I was spread pretty thin.

As I’ve discussed elsewhere, fear of failure drove me forward, through countless nights and days. See, it was a huge risk quitting my jobs, not searching for reasonable employment, not working 9 to 5 (or whatever) five days a week. And I knew one misstep would not only disappoint my publisher (whoever it might be), but it would also drive the first nail in my fledgling career’s coffin. So I sacrificed. I sacrificed vacations, time with the people most important to me, my health, and pretty much everything else to grab success by the horns and make it mine.

It didn’t take long for me to grab Green Ronin Publishing’s attention. I worked hard, I hit my deadlines, and Chris and I got along. As Green Ronin geared up to take on Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, they needed someone to handle the d20 system stuff and to my surprise Chris asked me. There were tons of better known and better-qualified folks out there, and though I knew the rules and how to design, I had never done anything like development before. So I threw myself into my job, doubling my efforts to make sure I never let my friends at the company down. Chris, Nicole, and Hal are not taskmasters, they never drove me to work as hard as I did. At no point did Chris ever say to me, “Hey, I need you to pick up the slack.” In fact, everyone at the company asked me to slow down. I, of course, took their concern as some sort of weird praise and just worked harder to prove I deserved the job.

And then I started freelancing outside the company. I didn’t do much at the beginning, but opportunities for freelance work at Wizards of the Coast started coming in. The pay was far better than anything I had encountered thus far and it was a chance to work on the game I loved and grew up playing. Of course I took almost everything offered and the one project I passed up, Fiendish Codex I, I’ve regretted not doing ever since (though, Ed, Erik, and James did an awesome job). There was so much freelance at that point, I effectively doubled my workload. I was pulling in serious money by then and though I was exhausted and had the physique of a guy parked in front of a computer 16 hours a day, I found ways to work even harder.

When I left Green Ronin, I promised to myself I would dial it back a bit. I would work hard and then take every seventh month off. And I did this for a little while, but I found I was so programmed to work, I still worked even on my off months, tinkering with other projects or picking up extra words. I stopped taking those months off and have been working non-stop for about two years. Just like it was when I was a developer, my friends at Wizards of the Coast are not taskmasters, nor do they crack the whip. If anything, I think they’d be delighted if I put on the brakes every now and then. Ah, but “I’ve made it” I think to myself. Now, I have to hang on, because what would I do if I didn’t have this job?

Before anyone gets weird ideas, I’m not writing this as a roundabout way of saying I’m done. No. I love what I do and I aim to keep doing it for as long as I can. I’ve found success. I make a comfortable living. But success and livelihood have come with a steep price and one I wish I had foreseen ten years ago. Knowing what I know now, would I have done things differently? Probably. I would have taken more time off. I would have compartmentalized my job and prevented it from spilling into every other part of my life. I would have recognized that as fun, exciting, and terrifying writing can be, it is still just a job and no one should be defined by how they earn their livings.

Perhaps the most striking moment for me was when I was heading off to dinner with James Wyatt and others, and as we were walking to the restaurant James asked me what sorts of things I do when I’m not working. And you know what? I didn’t have much of an answer. I came up with something, but that question and my lack of answer stayed with me. There has to be more than work. Otherwise, I’ll die alone, used up, and with only piles of out-of-print books as evidence I was ever here at all.

Time to wrap this up. I’m standing at a personal crossroads and it’s time for me to make important decisions about which way I’m going to go. I realize now I can do my job and still lead an interesting and rich life. I realize my job doesn’t have to eclipse everything else for me to be successful and, in fact, I might find even greater success by stepping away from it every now and then. I’ve made tons of mistakes over the last decade and I could look back on them with regret, but what will that get me? The only thing to do is make sure I don’t repeat these mistakes while traveling on the road ahead. Thanks for reading.