War Game stuff.
That’s where I’ve been the last 2+ years; playing with toy soldiers.
Four tabletop rule sets, six supplements, numerous one-shots. Add to that the current slate of WIP: another stand-alone game for Osprey Wargames, two new five-part adventures, and a full-length second edition/variation of an existing game.
I run both weekly and monthly war game/RPG sessions these days, and now have a hobby-related FB Group with roughly 1.8K people from a dozen or so countries.
I’ve even managed to hammer out a novella at some point: Soul Cache. Which is included in the print collection of short stories, Fits and Orisons. Currently on my office computer is third Exclusion Zone short story, the first draft of a dungeon crawl novella, as well as the mountain of notes, drafts, and research for the four-part post-apocalyptic fantasy series , Shattered Worlds. (link to part 1, Broken Moon) And let’s not talk about all the other, previous projects languishing in digital limbo.
So yeah, I’ve doing word stuff the last three years. Just not here. *
By this point however, it’s glaringly obvious my war game/RPG work draws several orders of magnitude more attention than my fiction ever did. (oh well…) Which brings me to the question of merging HSSJ with Stalker7. Seems to me what I need is a central hub, a single site that highlights both my games and my stories. I need to not only work smarter, but respect the support I’ve received over the years by offering consistent content and engagement to anyone interested in either facet.
That said, in the coming weeks I’ll investigate the procedure, time, and expense required to merge the sites without losing connections and content. For now though, both HSSJ and S7 will stay as is. Updates as the situation develops.
Thank you. Have an excellent day.
- there was a legal FUBAR in there too – a spurious shakedown for cash by a B-List SF writer and his gaggle of out-of-state lawyers over the use of the word ‘hardwired’. TL:DR – I got had, trapped on a technicality. I was reliably informed by attorneys that I would have won any case brought against me, but would have had to underwrite the time and expense of defending myself from 2/3rd of the way across the country. Cheaper to take the hit and pay them off. Live and learn. My brush-pass with the big time, I guess.
Hot Space Station Justice 
I guess it’s too late for this “hardwired” case but next time contact the Electronic Frontier Foundation. We (I say we becauase I donate to them each year) thrive on taking on nuisance lawsuits like this. They would have probably have defended you without cost. Remember when GW tried to copyright “space marine”? That was EFF (and others) who got that nipped in the bud. And EFF was built by gamers (Steve Jackson was a founding member) so they would have enjoyed helping a fellow gamer. You know — it might not be too late to see if you could get that money back… https://www.eff.org/
2. My wife’s 2-woman company could help you with web design for reasonable rates.
3. I didn’t know about the FB group!
4. I LOVE your writing and I hope you don’t stop. And I also hope you don’t stop making games although I’m a little envous you’ve gotten so many done while mine sits in late stage playtesting. Cheers!
Hi Nicholas,
Thanks for the kind words.
Damn, I wish I’d known about EFF. I’d have greatly appreciated someone giving that nitwittery a smack upside the head. EFF site now bookmarked. Hopefully, there won’t be a next time.
Regarding fiction: I have no intention of stopping. Unfortunately it comes down to ‘paying jobs v. personal projects’. Plan is to save up enough money from war game work to buy the time to finish the stories. (A literary agent would help too. Light a fire under my disorganized butt.)
If you’re on FB, apply to join the Stalker7 group, answer the membership questions, and I’ll approve your request.
Send me the link to your wife’s company. I’ll certainly take a look.
Tell me about your rule set. (genre/period? mechanics? scale?) Do tell.
Talk soon. Have a good one.
FB group request sent! My wife’s friend owns the company — it’s here: https://torresmason.com/ Julianna does the website design piece and is the owner – my wife is Alexandra Lundahl and deals more with company’s needing blog posts written and things like that. But I’m recommending them because I honestly think Julianna does good work for a fair price.
My rules are a solo it’s-legally-distinct-from-XCom game where you lead 6 agents through missions in the 50s, 70s, and 90s against an alien invasion of Earth. Each agent has a pool of dice based on their experience, there’s leveling up and a small tech tree. And each alien has a table that controls their actions so that different alien races behave differently from each other. It’s called Invasion UFO and you can get the current playtest here: https://colony13.blogspot.com/p/invasion-ufo.html
You can also pick up my game Snowball Alley here – your gaming group might enjoy it for your next Christmas game: https://colony13.blogspot.com/2022/12/snowball-alley-whimsical-winter-wargame.html
Hey Patrick, keep it up. It makes sense to consolidate, max out the traffic and streamline. I didn’t even know you wrote fiction, that’s cool I’ll try grab a copy of them! I really enjoy your group on fb too. Cheers, Ryan
Hey Ryan.
Good to hear from you. Thanks for dropping by.
Yes, I make up stories and write them down. Try my more recent stuff, the short form novellas and such. (live-n-learn) Several of them are available as audio-books as well.
Glad you like the FB group. Me too. Overall, they’re a good bunch.
Have a good one.
– patrick t.