It’s your first chance to see what SO YOU WANT TO BE A GAME MASTER will look like on your shelf this fall! It’s the book that every GM, whether they’re taking their first step or just looking to take their game to the next level, will want to own.

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As many of you know, but some of you perhaps do not, I have a book coming out!

So You Want To Be a Game Master will be released October 31st from Macmillan and Page Street Publishing. In this Twitch stream we took a deep dive into the book, exploring the full Table of Contents and chatting about some of the hidden treasures you’ll find within.

You can find the video here if the embedded player doesn’t work for you.

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WRITTEN BY
Bill Heron & Justin Alexander

This is the book that lead to me becoming the co-creator of the Infinity roleplaying game. And now, by a very long and very strange road, you can finally add it your own collection!

Back in 2015 I was shopping around for a publisher who would let me develop and publish a node-based campaign. I eventually reached out to Modiphius, spoke with Chris Birch (who owns the company), and was assigned to the Mutant Chronicles RPG. I started reading the existing material for Mutant Chronicles, but a few weeks later, Chris reached out and said, “Actually, we’ve got this new RPG we’re developing called Infinity, based on Corvus Belli’s tabletop miniatures game. We need a really cool campaign for it, would you like to work on that instead?”

When I took a peek at the Infinity universe, I loved what I saw, so I jumped at the opportunity.

Over the next couple months I started developing the material for, first, Acheron Cascade and also a second campaign. I’m not entirely clear on the sequence of events here, but by the summer of 2015 Infinity no longer has a Lead Developer. At Gen Con that year, I had a few meetings with Chris Birch and others about the campaigns I was working and these evolved into a broader discussion of how I thought the Infinity product line should be organized.

If I recall correctly, on Sunday, as I was packing up my suitcase to head home, I got a call from Chris offering me the job as Infinity‘s new Lead Developer. Which was simply amazing.

Within days we were launching a Kickstarter that was revamped to match the blueprint for the product line I’d proposed, and we went on to have the largest Kickstarter ever for a first edition RPG. (This record has since been blown out of the water multiple times over.)

But now that I was focused on developing the core game, Acheron Cascade needed to be laid aside for a bit.

It got laid aside for a long time.

I eventually left Modiphius, in part because I really wanted to focus on my campaign. I spent a few months fleshing out the first few adventures and beginning to playtest them, but, ironically, I wasn’t able to finish the campaign because a few months later I was hired by Atlas Games to become their RPG Developer.

Benn Graybeaton, who had taken over for me as the Line Developer for Infinity, brought in Bill Heron. I was able to pass my development notes and playtest drafts over to him, and he managed to somehow turn them into a finished book. Bill’s a hero and I’m so grateful to him for using what I’d begun and bringing a book that I thought I would never see to life.

Hope you enjoy it!

INFINITY – ACHERON CASCADE
Modiphius Entertainment – 2022
(Co-Author)
Print Edition – PDF Edition

We’ve got a video taking a deeper dive into what you’ll find inside SO YOU WANT TO BE A GAME MASTER? and why it’s a book that every GM, whether they’re taking their first step or just looking to take their game to the next level, will want to own.

Preorder Now! – Subscribe Now!

I have an article printed in Bayt Al Azif #5: “The Three Clue Rule!”

“Now wait a minute,” you say. “I’m familiar with the Three Clue Rule. In fact, I can read that article right here on the Alexandrian!”

That’s true!

But this particular version of “The Three Clue Rule” has been revised and rewritten. The original version of the essay was written in 2008. In fact, today is the 15th Anniversary of the Three Clue Rule! There are people reading this today who weren’t even born when the Three Clue Rule was published.  I’ve learned a lot in the last fifteen years and I wanted to bring the “Three Clue Rule” into accord with that. (For example, the terms “node-based scenario design” and “scenario structure” didn’t even exist yet in 2008.)

Now, to be perfectly honest, if you’re already a long-time fan of the Alexandrian, this new-and-improved version of “The Three Clue Rule” probably isn’t a good enough reason to grab a copy of Bayt Al Azif #5 all by itself. The new tools I’ve incorporated into the article are things you can also find lurking around on the site.

But Bayt Al Azif is just a fantastic magazine for Cthulhu roleplaying, so it’s worth checking out regardless! Issue #5, for example, includes:

• Interviews with John Tynes, Shanna Germain, and Sean K. Reynolds
• “Die Not Gloriously,” a Trojan War scenario by Rina Haenze
• “The Human Element,” a look at good starter scenarios by Lisa Padol
• “Dead Man’s Chest,” a Golden Age of Piracy scenario by Stefan Droste
• Shannon Appelcline’s “Designs & Dragons Next: Arc Dream Publishing 2007-Present”

And more!