September 18, 2015
Here's a blog post that I've been looking to write for a while; I've wanted to set forth the games I'm currently playing and running. I think this is useful to see where my "head is at" regarding games--what systems I'm practicing, whether I'm having immediate familiarity with high-level play, and so on. So here is my current schedule, as of this month:
Alternate Mondays: GM, Kingmaker adventure path (we are at the beginning of chapter 3 of 6)
Alternate Mondays: Scheduled Pathfinder Society Card Game, in chapter 1 of Wrath of the Righteous (we play a LOT of PACG on an ad-hoc basis, but this is a scheduled evening with a set group)
Alternate Tuesdays: Player, Supernatural universe with The Strange rules (we just switched from Supernatural's Cortex system rules to The Strange rules a few sessions ago, but the characters and overall plot arcs are the same)
Alternate Tuesdays: DM, Paizo's "Legacy of Fire" adventure path, using 5E D&D rules (we'll soon start chapter 3 of 6)
Every Wednesday: DM, D&D Encounters at my local game store (we recently finished the Princes of the Apocalypse mini-campaign and just started Out of the Abyss)
Alternate Thursdays: GM, Shattered Star (uses gestalt rules; we are at the very end of chapter 5 of 6)
Irregular Weekend Evenings, about two weekends a month: Player, Reign of Winter (we're near the end of chapter 4 of 6)
Some of this is slated to change out (the Supernatural game is ending around Halloween, and the game store where I'm running D&D Encounters is closing in October sometime, and we're nearly done with Shattered Star), so perhaps I'll provide a new list in a couple of months. Game on!
Posted by Ron Lundeen.
September 12, 2015
Paizo's latest big release is
Inner Sea Races, a product that I wrote a lot for (in fact, I had my initial assignment, which I completed--and they gave me another, which I completed--and they gave me a third, which I also completed; by the end of that, I felt like I'd written half the book!). It was exciting to see a recent blog post on their site about it, showcasing "10 Secrets from
Inner Sea Races." One of these is about halflings:
7.
Halflings consider unexpected greetings to be an unlucky... Continue reading...
Posted by Ron Lundeen. Posted In : Work with Other Publishers
September 9, 2015
I've been running the D&D Encounters at my local game store for the past 6 months or so, up to the dramatic conclusion of the Princes of the Apocalypse mini-campaign last Wednesday night. Tonight, we begin the Out of the Abyss adventure, which I expect to go for several months. We've got quite a crowd--three tables of six or so players each--and all of us are starting up Out of the Abyss tonight.
The name is evocative, and actually quite true: at the start, the PCs are all prisoners of the dro...
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Posted by Ron Lundeen. Posted In : Wizards of the Coast
August 25, 2015
Paizo's Occult Bestiary is out, and I just received my contributor copies yesterday (which may be the earliest I've received my contributor copies for a product--it's still more than a week until the release date). For the curious, I contributed:
* the alter ego template
* the chyzaedu (there was very little canon existing on these, so I was very glad to be able to invent the culture, religion, etc. here)
* the feargaunt (originally called the lucid nightmare, but I see why it had to be changed ...
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Posted by Ron Lundeen. Posted In : Work with Other Publishers
August 13, 2015
Well, it had to happen someday! I spotted my first one-star review for a Run Amok Games product on the Paizo boards (the review was actually left a couple of weeks ago, but I just recently noticed it). I've had some one-star reviews of my writing in the past--particularly from people angry about how my Pathfinder Society adventures played--but this is the first one-star review Run Amok Games has had. It's for the intro-level horror adventure,
Teeth of the Storm.
The person that left it has no ...
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Posted by Ron Lundeen. Posted In : Announcements
August 11, 2015
This isn't the only place I'm blogging any more! I was asked to prepare a guest blog post for Paizo due to my extensive labors (of love) on the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. You can see my guest blog post
here. I'm excited to get this exposure!
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Posted by Ron Lundeen. Posted In : Work with Other Publishers
August 5, 2015
I'm still recovering from GenCon, but I wanted to announce that the hardworking reviewer Endzeitgeist has just reviewed
Kingdom of Toads: Mythic Edition, and given it four stars. That's a one-star step down from the non-mythic version of the adventure, due primarily--it seems--to a "vanilla" application of the base mythic rules. I think that's fair--I didn't familiarize myself with some of the other great third-party publisher mythic options and stuck to the core mythic rules alone. So there ...
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Posted by Ron Lundeen. Posted In : Announcements
July 28, 2015
In less than 24 hours, I'll be off to GenCon with several friends and family members. We've got a fairly light docket, but it includes the All-Access D&D game running cross several slots, as well as a muppet-inspired Meep on the Borderlands event and, I think, a Dr. Who event. I also hope to get in some of the Season of the Righteous games for the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. I'll provide a full download once I'm back!
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Posted by Ron Lundeen.
July 26, 2015
I've gotten my 5th edition writing project turned in, a guest post for another blog drafted, and Bloodlust Corsairs released. I feel like I've been able to get a lot of smaller or near-final projects finalized and out the door in the last few days, allowing me to focus on the large Paizo project I've got (which I've only been able to do in scattered bits here and there so far). It's been a bit more tiring than I'd like, but it pays off in stages--immediate response on the immediately publishe...
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Posted by Ron Lundeen. Posted In : Work with Other Publishers
July 17, 2015
It's been a whirlwind past few weeks, but I wanted to take a breath to report on all that I've had going on.
First, I talked with one of the Paizo developers at PaizoCon about a large writing project. I expressed strong interest in that, and was waiting to get an outline and some further direction. I certainly had enough work to keep my busy--I'm writing a Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition adventure for their organized play program, and that's required fine-tuning my writing to the new system, ...
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Posted by Ron Lundeen. Posted In : Work with Other Publishers
June 19, 2015
So I'm back from my family reunion, and we ended up getting in much more gaming than I planned. I did get a chance to playtest the 5th edition adventure that I'm writing, and I learned that rust monsters aren't nearly so frightening in the new edition (although when your PCs snipe from range and don't risk their precious melee weapons, they have less to fear!).
I also ran a session of Mythender, which is a fantastic one-shot game that really lets creativity (and awesome metal imagery) soar. M...
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Posted by Ron Lundeen.
June 7, 2015
I'm off to a family reunion over the next week or so, and it's always a decision as to which games to bring (or prepare, when the family is here in Chicago). I'm fortunate to have a lot of gamers in my family. Two years ago, I ran an early playtest version of Perils of the Broken Road for my brother-in-law and nieces and nephews; that was the only playtest the adventure got, actually, and the final version is quite a bit different (including the addition of Pathfinder Beginner Box materials)....
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Posted by Ron Lundeen.
May 30, 2015
I'm back from PaizoCon, and I had a great time. Although there were tons of fun memories--taking the new Wrath of the Righteous Pathfinder Adventure Card Game for a spin, putting the hurt on Rovagug in John Compton's Golarionender game, and seeing the monastery of Tar Kuata I wrote for Osirion: Legacy of Pharaohs from the player side in the Pathfinder Society adventure "Test of Tar Kuata"--one of the highlights was running a slightly condensed version of
Perils of the Broken Road in a premier...
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Posted by Ron Lundeen. Posted In : Announcements
May 21, 2015
Later today, I'm flying out to my second-ever PaizoCon in Seattle. I've got a neat slate of games planned--including play of the new Pathfinder Adventure Card Game set (Wrath of the Righteous), some Pathfinder Society games (although I've played only one or two PFS games in the last year), and some events I was able to get into by lottery. One of these is Necromancer of the Northwest's "Iron Adventurer" game, where you bring your own character and hope to survive the rigors thrown at you. I t...
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Posted by Ron Lundeen.
May 20, 2015
A few months back, I heard that Wizards of the Coast had announced an open call to be a writer for the Dungeons and Dragons Adventurers League adventures. I thought that sounded pretty neat; I play and run a bit of fifth edition, but I'm pretty much committed to writing for Pathfinder. But I thought it might not hurt to look into it; I regret passing on Green Ronin's open call for monster authors near the end of last year; I had a few neat ideas for that I didn't pull together in time. Anywa...
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Posted by Ron Lundeen. Posted In : Wizards of the Coast
May 12, 2015
So, I've not only turned in my AP chapter, but I've also turned in a few additional writing assignments Paizo has been good enough to send my way (in particular, some monster writing for the
Occult Bestiary and some additional racial writeups for
Inner Sea Races). I couldn't really unwind after turning in my AP chapter, because I had those other deadlines, but now I feel like I'm caught up. I can't help but turn back to Run Amok matters, though: working through some monster writing for Paizo ...
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Posted by Ron Lundeen. Posted In : Hints and Teasers
April 28, 2015
So I haven't yet been able to dig through my latest Paizo publications and compare them on a close basis with my turnovers. I did notice that each of the three tombs I submitted for
Tombs of Golarion included a 300-word sidebar detailing the burial customs of each of the three cultures I touched on (Kellids, Yamasans, and Rahadoumi), but these sidebars didn't make the final cut. I hope they show up somewhere else, although I suppose a
Burial Customs of Golarion book is not likely.
I had an int...
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Posted by Ron Lundeen. Posted In : Work with Other Publishers
April 27, 2015
So, today is my turnover date for my latest AP chapter. I was told I could have another week or so if I needed it,, but I wanted to get it done and out the door. I've got yet another freelance gig that's due on the 11th, and I wanted to be able to turn to that.
What were the last few days like? Pretty hectic.
I took a look at my saved files for
The Choking Tower, and that adventure had a lot more still outstanding words on the Friday before my turnover was due--I remember that weekend being a p...
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Posted by Ron Lundeen. Posted In : Work with Other Publishers
April 15, 2015
Although I write products for the Pathfinder RPG on the assumption that people are using the standard rules, I almost never use the standard rules in the campaigns I run. I'm constantly tinkering with variant rules and inflicting them on my players. Mostly, that's good; I like ramping up the power of the enemies and the characters both. For example, in the Shattered Star adventure path I'm running, I'm using allowing my players to use some lightly modified gestalt rules--each character gets t...
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Posted by Ron Lundeen.
March 18, 2015
With
Kingdom of Toads: Mythic Edition, I've now produced 10 products for Run Amok Games. That's actually a pretty good number for a one-man shop run by a busy guy; I'm really proud to have made it this far. The schedule I'd set for myself is one product every quarter, which would have had me at 14 products by now. I can't say that I'm too upset about falling short of that, considering so much other freelancing I've done in the meantime (mostly
The Choking Tower, but also a lot of satisfying w...
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Posted by Ron Lundeen. Posted In : Announcements
March 14, 2015
So, my "milestone" day for the new adventure path chapter I'm writing is just about upon me--that's the date I have to turn over whatever I have so far and show that I'm on the right track and about halfway done. I'll be powering through a lot of writing this weekend for that. I'm already at half my word count, so I'm not worried about being behind, but I note that much of my word count so far is already taken up with stat blocks. The adventure I'm writing is high-level, so the stat blocks of...
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Posted by Ron Lundeen. Posted In : Work with Other Publishers
February 27, 2015
Here on the edge of releasing Kingdom of Toads: Mythic Edition, I thought I'd share another one of the creatures that I worked up with mythic abilities for the new version. Omox demons are powerful and disgusting slime-demons; mythic omox demons are even worse! Here they are:
Demons of the Sap (3) CR 17/MR 6
XP 102,400 each
Advanced mythic omox demon rogue 2
CE Medium outsider (aquatic, chaotic, demon, evil, extraplanar, mythic)
Init +19M; Senses blindsight 120 ft.; Perception
+31
Defe...
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Posted by Ron Lundeen. Posted In : Hints and Teasers
February 24, 2015
Just a note to say that Kingdom of Toads: Mythic Edition is going to be available soon, very likely on Saturday, from the usual outlets in .pdf and print. Get mythic!
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Posted by Ron Lundeen. Posted In : Announcements
February 19, 2015
So, as an update, I submitted a 6,000-word outline last Monday, and it took only three days or so to get feedback--feedback that a lot of what I'd done was really good, but that the second part (of four parts) needed reworking. I didn't yet have any clear ideas on how to address that part, but there was plenty of other sections for me to dig into. I actually started writing the article at the back of the AP, too, but only just found out yesterday that I was cleared to write that--good thing, ...
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Posted by Ron Lundeen. Posted In : Work with Other Publishers
February 13, 2015
Just a quick update:
Kingdom of Toads Mythic Edition is on track for release at the end of this month. We then dial back from mythic rules to beginner rules, as
Perils of the Broken Road, with its alternate stats to run under the Beginner Box rules as well as the normal Pathfinder RPG rules, lands in (I suspect) early April.
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Posted by Ron Lundeen. Posted In : Announcements
February 9, 2015
So, I've got some very exciting news--last week, I agreed to write another adventure path chapter for Paizo. That's all I can say right now--the name and subject of this adventure path hasn't been announced. I do want to talk in broad strokes about the process, though, since people might find that interesting.
Last Monday night, I got an email from Paizo's senior developer asking if I was interested in writing another adventure path chapter. This is the email I've been waiting for ever since I...
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Posted by Ron Lundeen. Posted In : Work with Other Publishers
February 2, 2015
I don't generally provide click-through links on this blog, but there's a
valuable conversation going on over at ENWorld about freelance writing generally. It's an interesting read about how little folks actually get paid in this industry.
Very few of my projects have ever made any money (yet; there is an incremental uptick when I release a new product in sales of old products). I pay commissions for art and map, rarely using any stock art: this increases my costs, but lets them exactly match ...
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Posted by Ron Lundeen.
January 25, 2015
I'm working alongside some friends to orchestrate a big group of us going to GenCon this year. Although the convention seems quite a ways out, housing registration was today--although I got to it only 6 hours after housing registration opened, I'm still stuck in a hotel several miles away. At least it will be with some great friends--looking forward to the convention!
Run Amok Games isn't going to have any sort of formal presence at the show, but I look forward to catching up with the folks I ...
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Posted by Ron Lundeen. Posted In : Announcements
January 20, 2015
Authors of Paizo's adventure path volumes usually write more than the adventure itself. We also write up the statistics for the two or three NPCs featured in the back of the adventure, the new magic items, and even sometimes the new monsters (in
The Choking Tower, the thought harvester and the thorgothrel are both mine).
Here's one of the items that I submitted that didn't make the final cut to be included in the adventure. Partly that's because the
smoke furnace needed to be included among th...
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Posted by Ron Lundeen. Posted In : Work with Other Publishers
January 10, 2015
After some whirlwind travel over the turn of the year, followed by jumping back into three straight nights of great gaming (my Fifth Edition game based on the Legacy of Fire adventure path, a new Pathfinder game I've joined starting the Rise of the Runelords adventure path, and my longstanding Pathfinder campaign using the Shattered Star adventure path), I'm finally able to take a look back over 2014. I started, as might be appropriate, with looking back at New Years 2014.
I remember resolvin...
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Posted by Ron Lundeen. Posted In : Hints and Teasers
