CM Simpson: Writer & Gamer

Babes in London had a mind of its own from the start. What I had thought of as a single scenario grew into an arc which spawned more ideas along the way so, in a desperate effort to get the monster under control, I wrote a 'Plan'. The plan consisted of turning the arc into bite-sized chunks, each of which would fit into a single session of play. This worked fine and I soon had three Acts outlined and ready for fleshing out. The only problem was, that I still had no one to play it with. So I kept writing, and thought that maybe I would submit it to Fantasy Flight Games after playtesting the completed product. These plans died shortly after spawning when, just as the first Act was completed, Fireborn went away, and Fantasy Flight Games moved into a whole new phase of publishing. Still liking the game, I decided I would share that enjoyment as a convention game, giving people something different to savour, but then my life moved into a whole new phase and Fireborn and its r...

In late 2004, I discovered a roleplaying game called Fireborn, and immediately fell in love with the setting. I bought both books, and downloaded the supporting PDFs that used to be on Fantasy Flight Games' website. As I read, I found the system was very different to the d20-based games I had been playing. It had curly bits! Now curly bits were not a problem and, after a couple of weeks of reading, I managed to wrap my head as around them as you can get without actually playing, and that was where the problem lay. Everyone I knew was busy playing something else. Living Arcanis and Living Greyhawk were pretty big in my area at that time, and then there was the Camarilla, Magic the Gathering, Warhammer, and real life. Short story - no one had spare playing time, and I struck out on all fronts. That left me with only one avenue for exploration: writing a campaign, and I had just the idea... While the Fireborn setting revolved around the concept of adult PCs as reincarnated dra...

It is. Partly because I'm still kicking my FB habit, partly because my youngest is still, well, young, and partly because I'm trying to cram way too much into each and every day. Call that the habit of a lifetime. I am torn between a couple of projects. I'm almost too scared to start one, in case the market isn't there when I finish it, or in case I'm just not good enough - yes that would be a young adult novel. This means that as long I only think about what I want to write I'm fine, but as soon as I sit down to actually write it, I go to pieces and every word in my head vanishes. And the other is some fear about not being able to market what I write, and some not knowing if it'll fit, and some just not being able to choose. So that would be the roleplaying. I do have a third. Again, it's a plethora of choice, but it's also that I really need to think about the approach for these. They'll have to wait. As for the rest, I think I'm ju...