Four Worlds, One Imagination
One of the questions I get asked from time to time is, "What are you running these days?"
The answer is simple: the games I always wanted to run.
After taking some time away, I'm back behind the screen, and I couldn't be happier. Between writing novels and running tabletop role-playing games, I spend most of my days doing what I've loved since I was a kid—building worlds, telling stories, and watching other people breathe life into them.
This year I'm running four very different games, each of them scratching a different creative itch.
Star Trek: Writing the Episodes I Always Wanted to See
I've loved Star Trek for as long as I can remember.
Like so many fans, I grew up wishing I could write my own episodes. Back then, it seemed like an impossible dream. Television writing was something that happened somewhere else, by people with careers in Hollywood.
Years later, during the Enterprise era, I even managed to contact Paramount and had the opportunity—briefly—to speak with Rick Berman. It wasn't a long conversation, but for someone who had dreamed about Star Trek since childhood, it was memorable.
Today, I realize something.
I don't need a television studio.
I don't need a production budget.
I don't need permission.
Around the gaming table, I get to write Star Trek stories every week. Every mission becomes another episode. Every player brings something unexpected. The crew solves problems I never anticipated, creates friendships I never planned, and occasionally leaves me scrambling to keep up with their ingenuity.
There are no executive producers telling me that a battle is too expensive to film.
No visual effects budget.
No studio deadlines.
If I imagine a Dyson sphere, an impossible nebula, an ancient civilization, or a battle involving a dozen starships, then that's exactly what happens.
It's an incredibly liberating way to tell Star Trek stories.
Traveller: Building the Universe I've Dreamed About for Years
For years I've carried around an absurdly ambitious dream.
To create a complete space opera setting.
Not just a handful of planets.
Not just a sector map.
An entire civilization stretching across known space.
Thousands upon thousands of inhabited systems.
Dozens of competing governments.
Histories spanning centuries.
Cultures, economies, religions, trade routes, wars, exploration, and mysteries still waiting to be discovered.
It's the sort of project that sensible people probably wouldn't attempt.
Which is probably why I find it so exciting.
I've recently decided to approach it in a more practical way.
Instead of trying to build every corner of the setting at once, I'm concentrating on the place where almost everything important happens: the Aurin Cluster.
The Aurin Cluster is the heart of my Traveller campaign.
It's also where approximately ninety-five percent of my novels take place.
That realization was surprisingly freeing.
I don't need to build an entire galaxy before telling stories.
I need to build the part of it where people actually live.
Where history matters.
Where characters struggle.
Where explorers push outward into the unknown.
The rest of the setting will come in time.
The Aurin Cluster comes first.
It's the beating heart of everything else.
Dune: Returning to Frank Herbert
Few novels affected me as deeply as Frank Herbert's Dune.
I first read it as a teenager.
Like many younger readers, I understood the adventure.
The politics.
The sandworms.
The Fremen.
The vastness of Arrakis.
Only decades later did I realize how much had gone over my head.
Reading Dune as an adult is almost like reading a different novel.
Frank Herbert wasn't simply writing science fiction.
He was writing about ecology.
Religion.
Power.
History.
Human evolution.
Political manipulation.
The dangers of certainty.
Every time I return to those books, I find something new.
Running a Dune role-playing campaign lets me explore those same themes from a different angle.
Instead of watching history unfold, the players become part of it.
Every political decision has consequences.
Every alliance matters.
Every word spoken in court can be more dangerous than drawing a knife.
It creates a kind of storytelling unlike anything else.
Conan: Back to the Hyborian Age
In a few weeks I'll also be returning to the Hyborian Age.
I've run Conan before, both using Mongoose Publishing's excellent Atlantean Edition and earlier systems over the years.
Now I'm looking forward to Modiphius' 2d20 version.
It captures something I really enjoy.
Conan isn't about saving the world.
It isn't about chosen ones.
It's about surviving another day.
Treasure.
Ancient ruins.
Lost kingdoms.
Treachery.
Sorcery that is dangerous rather than convenient.
Heroes who succeed because they're clever, determined, and just stubborn enough to keep getting back up.
It's sword-and-sorcery in its purest form.
After spending time among starships and interstellar politics, it's refreshing to pick up a sword and step into forgotten temples once again.
Why I Keep Coming Back
People sometimes ask why I spend so much time running role-playing games when I'm also trying to write novels.
The answer is that they feed each other.
Running games makes me a better writer.
Writing novels makes me a better Game Master.
Every session introduces unexpected ideas.
Every player asks questions I hadn't considered.
Every campaign becomes another laboratory for storytelling.
Some ideas remain in the games.
Others eventually find their way into my novels.
At sixty years old, I finally feel like I've stopped worrying about what I'm "supposed" to create.
Instead, I'm simply creating the stories that excite me.
Whether they're told around a gaming table, written into a novel, or shared here on this blog, they're all part of the same lifelong journey.
And honestly...
I can't imagine spending my time any other way.
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