Dwarf Cleric, At Your Service

Like many of us who love SF, I play games. Hearthstone on my iPad, and Mass Effect and Assassin’s Creed on my PS3/4 and Xbox are a few recent favorites. But I don’t just play video games. I also play board games (Puerto Rico), card games (Munchkin)... and RPGs.

For the past year, I’ve spent every other Wednesday night as a young Dwarf cleric, serving her goddess and searching for her place in the world. She’s settled in with a ragtag bunch of adventurers, none of whom entirely trust the others. It makes for some interesting encounters.

So far, there aren’t any romantic storylines going on in our game, but I can see one developing on the horizon. Our warden has been eyeing one of the NPCs, a rather brave young monk, with some serious admiration.

The romance obviously won’t be our primary storyline but—as with so many fantasy stories—it will likely be a subplot that feeds threads into our main adventure. Some of my favorite fantasy stories use romance as a critical subplot, like Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson series.

Do any of your favorite stories use romance as a subplot rather than the primary storyline?

Until next time,

--Dianne Fox

A Fantastic 2014

It’s the beginning of a brand new year. And with a new year comes new paranormal movies, TV shows, and games to watch and play. Hooray!

Here’s what we’re looking forward to in 2014:

TV

Believe is about a little girl with supernatural powers and the death row inmate charged with protecting her. The fantastic, twisty conflict potential of a death row inmate doing good things makes us pretty hopeful this could be good.

Black Sails and Crossbones — pirates! And more pirates! John Malkovich as Blackbeard! Yes please.

And from pirates to monsters, with Penny Dreadful. Just the title makes Dianne’s little horror-fantasy loving heart go pitter patter. Those old dramatic horror serials were fast-paced, creative, and super fun. We’re hoping the TV show lives up to the name.

Salem is set during the witch trials. We’re looking forward to seeing what the show runners do with it.

Returning shows Agents of SHIELD, Arrow, Being Human, Game of Thrones, Lost Girl, and Sleepy Hollow are all happy-making too! It’s with both anticipation and trepidation that we’re awaiting the release date for season two of Hemlock Grove, which is in production now. 

Movies

300: Rise of an Empire is supposed to be a “sidequel” to the first 300 movie. We loved the live-action-comic book feel of 300 and we’re looking forward to more of the same from 300: Rise of an Empire.

X-Men: Days of Future Past is pretty high on our “to watch” lists. We’re excited to see what the moviemakers can do with the comic book story lines by the same name. Now Dianne just needs to get herself caught up on all the awesome X-Men universe movies that have come out in the past couple years!

Maleficent. Who doesn’t want to see a movie focused on the evil witch queen from Sleeping Beauty? Really!

Guardians of the Galaxy is another comic book movie, yes. But we love comic books. It’s what brought us together in the first place. :)

Dracula Untold could be fun. Or it could be awful. We’re hopeful.

Into the Woods isn’t a comic book movie. It’s a movie based on a musical. As a former (but not reformed!) theater geek, Dianne is excited as all get-out!

I, Frankenstein could be, like Dracula Untold, a complete disaster. Or it could be really, really fun. We’re hoping for the latter. There’s also Vampire Academy, which looks marvellously campy. We’re thrilled to see that vampires are back in style—though did they ever really leave?

The Hobbit: There and Back Again will be out (we hope) in time for Christmas. The release date was pushed back from midsummer so here’s hoping it sticks. 

Finally, the surreal and magical Winter’s Tale, based on the well-received Mark Helprin novel of the same name, will be out in 2014. Really looking forward to this one. We hope it does the book justice. There’s so many beautiful visuals that we can’t wait to see transferred to the screen. 

Games

We’ve loved the previous Dragon Age games, so we’re really looking forward to Dragon Age: Inquisition.

Fable Legends isn’t, from the description, quite what we’ve come to expect from the Fable series, but we’re excited to revisit the world anyway.

What are you looking forward to in media this year?

Gamers/writers/readers at Origins 2013!

The hubby and I just returned from the Origins 2013 Game Fair in Columbus, Ohio and I'm writing this while still recuperating from five days of frantic fun gaming and being on various writing panels. We go there every year for our wedding anniversary and have a grand old time – leading me to make some observations about the wonderful gaming community and how a gamer is more of a writer and reader than many might think.

If you've ever played a role-playing game you know the man who runs the game, or the GM, is following a pre-designed set of instructions created to run the characters through a scenario. Most of the time these are designed by a company but many GM's take the time to create their own campaign scenario – which is a heck of a lot of writing! They must create the conflict, guide the characters and have a resolution at the end, be it good or bad. And during all this there's a good chance that the characters will literally take charge of the story (played by other people in the group) and take the story elsewhere.

To writers: Sound familiar? *laughs*

A good GM knows how to nudge the characters back onto the chosen path and to resolve the dilemma with a minimum of problems but just enough to give the players a good game. If your players walk away with a good feeling you've done a great job as a GM.

Or an author. 

On the other side of the coin – as a player you don't want to be dragged down a path that you don't want to go, as many readers might feel when an author skips a logical step in order to get you to a certain resolution or setting without reason. A good GM will allow you to wander off the beaten path at times but will gently guide you back onto the well-trod path in order to get you to where he/she needs you to be – finishing the adventure and resolving the conflict.

That isn't to say that some characters/players won't be lost along the way. Take too many risks, go too far off the trail and you might end up sitting on the sidelines. But if you play your cards right, follow the bread crumbs and have a wee bit o'luck with the dice you can have a wonderful adventure and walk away from the table feeling much better for the time spent.

Sound familiar? *grins*

 

It was also the first week after "Family Pride" released and helped me deal with new release jitters - mostly checking my Amazon ranking every hour. As well I got to hand out postcards advertising not only the "Blood of the Pride" series but also Carina Press! Some fans who discovered my writing last year came back to visit and it was great to see them again along with making some new ones.

 All in all it was a great convention and I got to meet some other faboo authors along with some wonderful budding writers who I hoped I encouraged to keep on writing and working towards their goals. I always come away from these conventions feeling reinvigorated and encouraged when I see the wonderful imaginations at work creating new worlds and new realities along with fresh minds seeking not only to entertain but to have a darned good amount of fun along the way.

And for those of you who have never considered taking up gaming, be it board or role-playing – why not check it out?