Well, August was my last progress report, and there’s a really darn good reason for that. It’s a word that begins with “F” and ends in “y.”

Of course, I’m talkin’ about Firefly. Since March, we have fulfilled every promise thus far and believe me when I say: “Yes, it’s a LOT of work.” GenCon was really exciting for us, and the limited debut of Gaming in the ‘Verse: a GenCon Exclusive was a smash hit. Though the GenCon Exclusive is no longer available, the stand-alone versions of Wedding Planners Plus, Shooting Fish, Serenity Crew, Wedding Planners Classic Bundle, and a new Episode I wrote called Friends in Low Places, are all available now through DriveThruRPG.com with more on the way.

On the Margaret Weis Productions website, we have also released the Firefly RPG pre-order, which is scheduled to debut in February. We have also published several previews including an article written by myself and Mark Diaz Truman for Game Trade Magazine Issue #166. (The design was provided by Daniel Solis and the article was edited by Amanda Valentine.)

Where we stand right now is that we have a:

• corebook that is over 150,000 words (over 100,000 words of brand, new material compared to the GenCon Exclusive) in various stages of editing and layout
• new supplement about antagonists called Things Don’t Go Smooth that’s already half done
• new Echoes of War adventure called Freedom Flyer that’s done and being sent for approvals
• …and other (unannounced) adventures and supplements in various stages of completion.

Have I been living, breathing this game line? Yes. I did go to England for two weeks (more on that later) but honestly… this is how I am normally. I am this intense all the time, because I believe that as a creative professional, my invisible employer are the fans. It doesn’t matter if it’s my own work or someone else’s property, I always keep fans in mind because I started out as one myself. If I don’t love what I do, then you won’t either.

I didn’t do all this work alone, though, and I want to be very clear on that point. There have been many people on my team, including both past and present freelancers, who have buckled down to get these products done on time in the quality that fans expect. I can’t thank them enough.

Overall, being the brand manager and lead writer for the Firefly RPG, doing all that I do, has been a really rewarding position and I’m happy Margaret had enough faith in me to give me a shot. But, the best part about this job is hearing how excited Fox TV is about all this and how happy many of the fans are already. That, to me, makes even the crazy days worthwhile. Sure, it’s true I can’t please everybody, especially with a property as visible as Firefly, but I’m very realistic about that. I take comfort in the fact that we’ve all done our damnedest to make this game as awesome as possible. Hopefully, with a little luck, you’ll think it’s fun, too.

SHINY!

🙂