April 23rd, 2008 by jess
Sal Monaco of the Oracle of Enlightment interviewed me at UBCon in Buffalo, NY. I think this was my first published video interview, and it was a lot of fun. My thanks to Sal and Cameraman Tom for the interview.
I’ll be giving a full con report on UBCon as soon as I can find the download cord for my camera. 
April 7th, 2008 by jess
Barely got time for an update at the moment - I just came back from LA and am heading to Buffalo, NY on Thursday morning.
Why Buffalo, you ask?
For my return to UBCon, one of the best NY gaming conventions I’ve ever attended. Seriously, the folks at UBSARPA (the University of Buffalo’s gaming group) know how to throw a con. LARP, board games, tabletop games, card games, vendors, karaoke, Sunday morning NERF extravaganzas… it’s all there. Not to mention, the ubiquitous Buffalo Wings and Beef on Weck!
Last year’s UBCon was a blast, and I know this year will be even more awesome. I’ll be running a panel on “So, you want to work for White Wolf” as well as doing the world premiere reading from White Wolf’s next upcoming game - Hunter: The Vigil. So, if you’re in the Buffalo area (or can get there) come and get your first taste of the next cool game White Wolf is putting out!
March 19th, 2008 by jess
My most hearty apologies for the past few (um… okay 6?) weeks of idleness in regards to updating here. Several factors have contributed to this, but the negative ones have all been resolved now and the positive ones leashed to utilize their energy for more productive endeavours. In short, “Life, she is good!”
A few things I wanted to mention right away. Rites of Spring, a Changeling: The Lost supplement I worked on is now out. It’s chock-full of new and interesting tidbits for Changeling fans - alternate pledge rules, tons of Merits, some Lost-specific Flaws (for those of you who use them), new Contracts covering time, fate, madness and a whole slew of new Goblin Contracts. There’s also tons of new information on things like Iron, Clarity and of course Hedgespun items and beings. It’s just a plethora of new “stuff” to play with, and I think it will be fun for anyone playing Lost to check out.
Also, Midnight Roads has hit the stands. For those of you who haven’t heard about it, this is a World of Darkness supplement covering all those creepy, scary, dangerous things that happen on the highways and byways between towns and cities in the WoD. From haunted motels to devilish crossroads, and car crashes/chases to supernatural motorcycle gangs, if your game ever takes you beyond the “safety” of the city, you’re going to want this book.
Pimping aside, I am relieved to say that I’ve now finished the last of my contracted work for White Wolf (for the moment) and am merrily enjoying the first day of a 3-month (or so) sabbatical from game writing. For the first time in the last 3-4 years, I don’t have something (or in many cases, 5 or 6 somethings) hanging over my head to write. What am I going to do with my break?
Well, write, of course! I’ve been speaking with an editor about La Serenissima, my novel set in Venice, and she’s given me some great ideas on how to make it a stronger story, so I’m looking forward to deconstructing my baby and putting her back together to make (hopefully) a greater whole.
Beyond that, I’m going to be doing a lot of travel (check out my events calendar to see if I’ll be in your area) both for pleasure and for work.
And, I’m going to paint my house! (I’m taking an entirely inappropriate amount of glee at this idea!) So, if you’re in the SE Arizona area and are handy with a paintbrush, drop me a comment and we’ll talk!
One of the very positive things I’ve been doing rather than updating my website (see how I worked that in there?) is becoming more active with the non-rpg gaming community here in the SW. This has included attending a couple of really fun game-days set up on a regular basis.
The first, held in Sierra Vista, AZ, is Family Game Night. Family Game Night is just what it sounds like - a free night to come out and learn/play board and card games. Ran by the Sierra Vista Gamer’s Association and sponsored by Pulp Gamer and the Southern Arizona Gamer’s Association, Family Game Night is the perfect opportunity to bring your kids (if you have them) and/or spouse/partner and spend an evening doing something fun, free and interactive. It’s so hard, these days, to find things that interest the whole family, and I assure you that this is one of them. They have games suitable for ages from 8 to adult (so it probably isn’t a great idea for kids under 
and folks who know how to play all of them and are more than happy to teach. It’s really a fun evening, so y’all should definitely try it out if you’re within driving distance of Sierra Vista, like me.
The second game day I’ve been attending is Ides of Gaming. Held at Espresso Art near the university in Tucson, Ides is held the third Saturday of each month, and features a wide variety of card and board games (and teachers for the same). There’s a lot of overlap between the two groups, since Ides is also sponsored and organized by SAGA. It’s a little further for me (Tucson being about 2 hours from here) but is likely more convenient to a lot of folks (and the Saturday scheduling may make travel easier for folks.) It’s really a great time, and I hope that I’ll run into some of you coming to check it out.
January 15th, 2008 by jess
Folks have asked which books I’ve worked on (for the purposes of bringing them to have signed at the Phoenix FGOTM). While they’re all listed here on the website on my resume page, for ease I’ve compiled a quick list:
Published Works (* denotes not yet released) In Northern Twilight (Exalted Novel) Predators (Werewolf) Compass of Celestial Directions 1: The Blessed Isle (Exalted) Skinchangers (WoD) Reliquary (WoD) Midnight Roads* (WoD) Innocents* (WoD) Pandora’s Book (Promethean) Strange Alchemies (Promethean) Magnum Opus (Promethean) Saturnine Nights (Promethean) The Free Council (Mage) Mysterium (Mage) Silver Ladder* (Mage) Changeling: The Lost Autumn Nightmares (Changeling) Rites of Spring* (Changeling) Lords of Summer* (Changeling) Hunter: The Vigil* Scion: Demigod Scion: God*
January 14th, 2008 by jess
I’ll be there on Saturday afternoon and evening, playing Changeling and signing books, so if you’re in the area, feel free to stop by!
January 12th, 2008 by jess
January 11th, 2008 by jess
There were a lot of tidbits of new information in today’s White Wolf LiveJournal, including some newly available information about some of the projects I’ve been working on in the last year. I know not all of you read the WW LJ, so I thought I’d share some of the snippets that pertain directly to projects I’ve been working on here. (All quotes are from Rich Thomas, Head of Development for White Wolf.)
Let’s start off with Midnight Roads”Developed by the always frightening Black Hat Matt McFarland, this book explores the terrors that can be encountered traveling the haunted highways and blood-splattered byways of the World of Darkness.”
Okay, not a lot new there, but that leads us directly to our next project:
“We considered letting Matt rest his ebon chapeau’d head after Roads, but instead asked him to handle a book uniquely well suited to his talents and interests- WoD: Innocents. This is a bit of a different sort of game for us and really came out of the question of “why are so many of the denizens of the WoD so screwed up?” What must it be like to be a child in a world where the monster in the closet and under the bed is real? Matt has not only studied the subject (the real world equivalent at least) but is also a deeply committed parent and so we knew he’d approach the subject in a way guaranteed to provide plenty of seriously terrifying moments but without exploitation. It’s a hard balance to keep and Matt and his writers did it very well indeed. WoD: Innocents is a stand-alone, single volume game where you play children in the WoD- it is not written for children, although it is written broadly enough that a lot of different Chronicles are possible, including ones you could share with your kids.”
Now, there’s some new meat! Innocents was an /awesome/ project to be a part of. Every writer Matt put on the book was a parent, which (in my opinion) really lead to the end result being much more realistic (or at least not defaulting to fictionalized tropes about what children are really like, especially under stress) than it might have otherwise. I can’t wait for this one to hit the shelves.
A couple of other projects I worked on get a nod, but not much more, including Silver Ladder and Scion: God, but that brings us to the big reveal (Well, at least the big info reveal…)
“And so, that brings us at last to the 6th Game, which we like to call Hunter the Vigil. What happens when a human being realizes that there truly are things in the shadows that prey on him, his friends and his family? What does it mean for that modern day person and what did it mean to humans throughout history? Some hid, some pretended that nothing was wrong- and others watched, and learned, and waited for their chance to strike back. And some looked for help in all the wrong places, as desperate people often do. The core rulebook for Hunter the Vigil will be released in August, with the five books of its Limited Series coming out one a month for five months. Three of them will be crossover books that focus on the Hunters that deal with a particular one of the Big Three: VtR, WtF and MtA. Another will be a book called Slasher and the last one falls into 2009 so I’m not going to reference it here. Without giving anything away beyond what I already have, Hunter the Vigil breaks a lot of the molds and will shatter a lot of expectations as to what a Hunter game can be while at the same time satisfying those same expectations. How? You’ll see. As helmed by Cheerful Chuck Wendig (o) and as fine a group of writers as we’ve ever had on a project, these books are great reads as well as an amazing game line. In addition, we’ll be publishing a Hunter the Vigil board game in late 2008, and there will be a raft of support products like Quickstarts and SASs.”
Wow. I can’t even start to talk about Hunter’s awesome-ocity. But… it rocks. I was proud to be one small part of “as fine a group of writers as we’ve ever had on a project,” and I look forward to continuing to work on the supplements as 2008 progresses.
January 8th, 2008 by jess
I’ve just been invited to serve as a Guest of Honor at my first Southwest convention - Phoenix ConGames - in June of 2008. At this point, we’ve got a variety of activities planned, including the possibility of a “Drinks with Jess” session for schmoozing and question answering (a great chance to tell me about your character!) as well as several autograph/question and answer sessions, a “learn how to play Dark Influences” tutorial, as well as participating in a LARP and several tabletop sessions. Our schedule’s very flexible at this point, however, so if you are in the Phoenix area and plan on attending ConGames, let us know what /you/ would like to see, White-Wolf-wise, at the event, and we’ll see about getting it on the schedule!
As an added bonus, for those of you hoping to get an early peek at Hunter: The Vigil, there will be a demo ran by Dave Martin of the Wrecking Crew at PCG that weekend. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait for a sneak peek at the new game line (and I helped write it!)
So, check out Phoenix ConGames. It promises to be a huge event, and tons of fun! See You All There!
January 5th, 2008 by jess
After a quick trip out to San Diego (*Waves to the nice folks at Game Empire!*) I’m back and working harder than ever on some exciting products for White Wolf. Now that Hunter: The Vigil has been “outed” and is causing a great deal of talk on various internet forums, I can actually say that I worked on Hunter: The Vigil last year and am working on several of the supplements between now and the end of the winter. Can’t say anything else yet (such is the nature of working under NDA), but I’m very excited about Hunter and think it’s going to really be loved by a lot of WW players.
At the end of the winter (first of March), I’m taking a three month sabbatical from working on White Wolf projects. I’ve written pretty much back to back game projects for WW since early 2006 when Black Hat Matt hired me on to work on the four Promethean supplements… And, while it’s been a blast, and I will definitely be doing more WW work in the future, I’ve got some projects that I’ve been putting off since 2006 that I really want to get written. Among them, the sequel to La Serenissima, my original fiction novel. This three-month gap won’t mean anything to readers - the nature of game publishing is such that when I’m actually writing projects has nothing to do with when they come out and you can expect a near-constant stream of projects I’ve worked on to continue - Midnight Roads, Innocents, Rites of Spring, Lords of Summer, Silver Ladder, Hunter: The Vigil and it’s supplements, plus some other stuff I can’t even mention yet, will all be coming out in 2008 or early 2009… But I really need to take a little time and recharge by working on some “me” projects. So - hopefully you’ll be hearing more about the yet-untitled next book in the Venezia series soon.
This doesn’t mean I won’t be doing any game-oriented projects during my sabbatical, however… In early April I’ll be traveling out to Buffalo to Guest at the University of Buffalo’s gaming convention - UBCon. Last year was a blast and I totally expect this year to exceed the fun we had last year, so if you’re in the Buffalo area, start making plans now to come on out.
In other gaming related news, I just discovered some really fun reviews on YouTube! Check out Game Geeks #40 which reviews White Wolf’s New World of Darkness (With a cameo of Reliquary). And, speaking of Reliquary, Halo’s Review did a review of it (Although he never did quite figure out how to pronounce it) here. Halo also reviewed Skinchangers as well as a two part review of the basic New World of Darkness (Part One, Part Two)
December 21st, 2007 by jess
I just received my contract from the gracious folks at the University of Buffalo. UBSARPA has invited me out to their gaming convention to serve as their guest at UBCon for the second year in a row.
For those of you who missed my con report from last year’s UBCon, you can check it out here. For those of you who were at UBCon last year - Watch out, I’m coming back!
Suffice it to say that the folks in Buffalo are all FANTASTIC and I had a wonderful time. I am so excited about attending this year!
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