Smart Heroes vs Strong Heroes

 Hail and well met, you Terrifically Avid Subscribers!

I don't know about you, but I like Heroic Heroes having hard times while horrible things happen...  I like death-defying daredevils who dare to do their daring-do despite indomitable doom!  I like plucky protagonists who make a practice of protecting princesses from preposterous perils and disreputable profligates!

I like good, old-fashioned, two-fisted, blood pumping, awe-inspiring, swashbuckling, fun-to-read, fun-to-watch, escapist adventure fiction. 

Of course, an adventure needs a Hero, and speaking in wide generalities, there seem to be two types:  Smart Heroes and Strong Heroes.  

As a member of the audience (the reader, the watcher), I must admit that I enjoy the Smart Hero.  He or she is usually the smartest person in the room, and they know it.  They are often unsurprised by twists throughout the story, and know all the details of everything involved in the story.  The first two characters that fit in this trope who immediately spring to mind are Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Who... by some strange coincidence, both are English creations.

And they have several similarities.  They are both kind of pompous, require sidekicks that we--the audience--can better identify with (and also so the Smart Hero can explain things to Us by talking to Them).  They often seem to resent having to do all that explanation in a "how can you be so dense" tone of voice.  Also, they are to some degree socially awkward, being unable to properly relate with people of such lesser intellect, to the point that they are condescending, off-putting, and often tedious to be around.  

But they can solve puzzles and riddles in mere seconds once they have collected all the pertinent information relating to it.  They rarely resort to distasteful physical confrontation, although they may have a sidekick for that sort of thing.  Instead, they usually overcome the villain with superior intellect, outmaneuvering and overcoming their fiendish plan.  Sometimes these manipulations cause the villain's death, but sometimes the villain--thoroughly outsmarted and humiliated--merely concedes defeat.

On the flip side, we have the Strong Hero.  The Strong Hero may or may not be smart, but more importantly the Strong Hero has physical endurance and stamina, capable of devastating fight scenes with multiple opponents.  Typically, the cliche that comes to mind is a barrel-chested barbarian or streetwise brawler.  

This type of hero takes a lickin' but keeps on tickin'!  Too dumb to know when he's beaten, he just keeps going, like a stubborn juggernaut.  Not all members of this trope are dumb, Conan, for instance, is actually quite learned in the stories.  So was Tarzan.  

Smart or not, the Strong Hero usually overcomes a problem by hitting it until it stops moving.  Any "clever" maneuvers or circumstances that occur for this Hero are not planned out, but usually the development of dumb luck.

I recall reading somewhere (but I don't remember where, so please don't ask) that Robert E. Howard himself once said that he preferred to write Strong Heroes instead of Smart Heroes.  His reasoning was that for the Smart Hero to come up with some incredibly clever plan, the writer had to come up with it, too.  Whereas the Strong Hero was easier to write, because he just hits the problem until it stops moving.  

I'm paraphrasing of course.

I've written both types of Heroes, and while I do enjoy both types, I have to agree that the Strong ones are easier to write!  I try to have heroes that are a little bit of both, and sometimes it even works.

Which kind of heroes to do prefer?  Leave a comment below to share with everyone!  We're all looking for to it!  I guess that's all for now, but we'll be back later to talk about something else, and don't forget there's a new, exciting chapter coming up on the next Serial Saturday!  Don't miss it!

Until then, I wish you all...

Good Adventuring!
Timothy A. Sayell

A Brilliant Idea!

 Howdy you Tempestuously Avid Spectators!

Got a question for ya:  Are you a writer?  If so, where do you get your ideas?  ...Ok, I got two questions for ya.  Do you get people ask you that?  THREE!  I got three questions for ya!  Bet ya didn't expect that!  Because NO ONE expects the Spanish Inquisition!  Hey, if you're gonna steal, might as well steal from the best, right?  Four!  I got four questions...ah, never mind.

One of the most common questions writer-types get asked is "How do you get your ideas?"  It doesn't seem to matter whether you write short stories, novels, comic books, sitcoms, plays, movies, or RPG adventures...chances are you've been asked this at least once.  I know I have.  This has spawned this little essay which I like to call:

A BRILLIANT IDEA!

(That's What I Need, A Brilliant Idea!)

Well, I don't know about you, but I can't get away from ideas!  

I get ideas from the books I read, the shows and movies I watch, the games I play...the list goes on and on.

Sometimes, I'll watch a movie and wonder how the story would be different if the hero had made the OTHER choice a half-hour in (or an hour, or whatever).  Suddenly, it's a different story.  

Or, I wonder how the story would be different if the main guy was this OTHER character from this other story.  

Sometimes you get silly fan-boy fantasies like...what if Fafhrd and Grey Mouser met Elric?  Or...what if Conan was let loose on Middle Earth?  Or...what if you put James Bond and Jason Bourne (hey!  They have the same initials!) in the same story?  Would they be working together, or on opposing sides?

Sometimes you get an idea for a situation, not a whole story.  Sometimes you just get an idea for a character, or at least the start of an idea for a character.  Like I said when I was talking about Mutant World, I saw the pictures of those characters and used that as the starting point of who they were and what they were about.

I get a lot of ideas from different RPG supplements.  But then, that's what they are for.  Little adventure scenarios, weird and sometimes cursed magic items, mysterious locations, the barest seeds to spark an inspiration and grow your own adventure.  And they can be re-used and re-interpreted in different ways, even different genres!

Check it out:

A runaway princess learned the secret to undoing the terrible secret power of the evil wizard-king.

This could totally be the premise of a thrilling sword-n-sorcery tale starring Conan, or a sprawling high fantasy epic like Lord of the Rings.  Then again, it could be the set-up for Star Wars.

Sometimes you're forced to be creative.  Some time back in...I guess the 90's, TSR published a gameworld for the Dungeons and Dragons game...the boxed set was titled "Red Steel".  The short version (and probably not the fairest description) is that it was D&D in the wild west.  The land was suffering from a curse (three, if ya want to get technical) that get everyone magic powers...or mutations depending of your POV.  

This sword-n-sorcery in the wild west premise intrigued me...to this day I'm not sure why (I was never really into westerns).  But suddenly I wanted to write a fantasy/western.  Due to copyright reasons, I couldn't use their geography, so I made my own world by doing a sort of alternate-history thing.  I came up with a town called Sovereign, in the Nevada territory, and I came up with a witch named Persephone Bliss to explore it.  It came out pretty well, I think, and it did receive some positive responses from slush readers, but positive enough to make a sale.  Now, the first and (so far) only story, Persephone Bliss and the Journal of Emerson Thrarn, is currently available only in The Adventure Sampler, a free gift given to those who sign up for my mailing list.

So where do you get ideas from?  EVERYWHERE!  The media you consume, the experiences you've had, the places you visit...  Everything and anything can spark a flash of inspiration, and usually pounce upon you when you least expect it.  The best you can do is try to figure out which ones are the Good Ones and try to put them together into a reasonably passable and enjoyable story.  

It ain't always easy.  But that's the goal, and I'd better get back to it or these stories will never get done!

Until then, I wish you all...

Good Adventuring!
Timothy A. Sayell

Interlude...

Greetings all you Trackers And Scouts!

I'm going to be perfectly honest with you, I don't really know what to talk about today.  I was going to talk about those old Saturday Matinee Cliffhanger Serials, but I'm not really in the mood, so I think I'll save that for another time.

I have been working on the Aurivyn stories about Darg and Maxalla...but not as much as I ought to be.

I think I'm going to blame this on the Coronavirus.  I am one of the many people who ended up losing their day job due to lockdowns, and with the limited re-openings, and now new shutdowns slowly being instituted...I'm a little worried about finances.  This is a terrible distraction for me at a time when I should be getting all sorts of writing work done.

A more pleasant distraction was the recent visit of my niece and nephew.  They wanted to play some Dungeons and Dragons, and so I rattled off a quick adventure mostly on the fly.  I have designed another adventure that we have not played yet, but I think it came out really well.  I am contemplating writing it up with the OGL Labyrinth Lord rules and offering it for sale on DriveThru RPG.

Well, I've got plenty of things I ought to be working on, so I'd better sign off.  Hopefully, I'll have more news to share next time!


Until then, I wish you all...

Good Adventuring!
Timothy A. Sayell

Heroes of Aurivyn

Hail and well met, you Truly Adventurous Souls!

In our last exciting episode, you remember that I shared with you the dubious beginnings of the Aurivyn line.  So today I thought it would be nice to start telling you about some of the heroes who live in that world!

First of all, there's Darg Demandrov.  He's a human, he's a warrior.  Pretty healthy, pretty strong, not too bright.  He lives in the Kingdom of Kordania, but comes a the native Vogadaran family.  When our story begins, he lives in the village of Ramalov in the easter side of the kingdom, and is a guard at the local Keep.  

He has only lived in Ramalov a few months, though.  His hometown was a village on the western side of the kingdom, which has been razed to the ground by a warband of hobgoblins less than a year ago.  Darg was actually found wandering the countryside, obviously the victim of some harrowing ordeal and suffering from a bout of amnesia.

Vlad Ludeski, Lord of Ramalov, treats him like an interesting brain teaser, and tries to help him peice together who he is, where he is from, and how he came to be in his current circumstances.  

Darg does not make this easy.  He is understandably frustrated, impatient, and has a strong abhorrence for the Trycadian immigrants and wizardry in almost any form.  

Secondly, there is Maxalla Trigostian.  She, too, is human.  With a Trycadian father and Vogaradan mother she is one of the "New Kordanians", a new generation uniting two disparate cultures into one.  She is a priestess devoted to the Holy Troika of the Church of Vogadara.  

She has lived in Ramalov her entire life, and has endured several attacks on her village by a pack of gnolls who wish to reclaim tribal lands which were once theirs eons ago before humans ever arrived.

Her Vogadaran mother was once under the thrall of a vampire, who induced her to deliver her own daughter to members of the Cult of Zolgon.  The Cultists planned to sacrifice the baby to their demon lord.  The mother-daughter duo was saved when they inadvertently led a band of priests and guardsmen to the Cultists' shrine.  Maxalla was only months old and has no memory of this, but this incident renewed her mother's faith, and she, in turn, pushed Maxalla into her service to the Church.

A dutiful young woman, she strives to live up to all that is expected of her.  Secretly, she harbors a doubt about her worthiness to serve the Church.  Is it the natural trepidation that plagues us all, or some residual taint placed upon her by the Cultists?  She does not know, but she fears what damage can be done to her loved ones and her neighbors if...or when...she fails.

These two, together, discover a wrinkle in reality caused by some Evil Entity that tried to free itself from the pocket dimension it was locked it long ago, and escape back into an unsuspecting world.

Can this unlikely pair stand fast or fall beneath the attack of some unspeakable Evil?  Follow their adventures and see if they can face "The Wrath of the Ancient Prisoner"!

Until then, I wish you all...

Good Adventuring!

Timothy A. Sayell

The Creation of Aurivyn

Greetings to you Tremendously Astute Spirits!

So, I'm gonna tell you straight up:  I'm taking a little break from Mutant World.  Now, now, calm down.  Yes, there WILL be more Mutant World coming in the future.  But I'm taking a little break to write up a few episodes of another series called...

I won't lie about it, Aurivyn grew out of Dungeons and Dragons.  

I don't really remember when or how I first learned about Dungeons and Dragons, but I remember being completely enthralled with it once the concept was explained to me.  My sister had the Basic Set, and I got to look through it and formulate impressions that have pretty much lasted my lifetime.

Played a few one-shot adventures, and collected books, adventure modules and the BECMI boxed sets.  Of course, I moved up to Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, and 2nd Edition is the version that I played the most.  

  

Over the years, I created a fair few continents...not really complete worlds...but definitely big enough to house several campaigns.  Never really got to play them though.

Eventually I found the world of Mystara, and it quickly became one of my favorite published campaign worlds.   I collected as many products related to it as I could.

Someplace along the line we had moved to another state and I lost my gaming group.  Being socially awkward and the demented loner type in my younger years, I rarely tried to hook up with new players.  Eventually I grew out of the habit of playing, and looked at the material as inspiration for writing and drawing.

That's the preamble, now for the beginning of the actual story!

I was taking care of my Poor Old Mother (TM) and somehow it was decided that my oldest brother's two boys should get to visit Grandma on weekends.  We decided to take one at a time.

The younger of the two boys, my nephew Jason, came to visit for the weekend.  I'm afraid he probably spent most of that weekend fairly bored.  But he popped into my study to see what I was doing, and spotted my collection of D&D stuff, so he asked about it.  I told him it was a game and that there was no board, you use your imagination instead.  I told him some stuff about it and he decided he wanted to play.

So, I drew up a quick five-minute dungeon, we pulled out a sample character and a map from one the box sets and we played.  I don't really remember why, but I figured he would dislike it and never want to play again.

Boy was I wrong!

So when I took him home, it was all he talked about.  So of course his older brother--Richard--wanted to play, and I mus admit that I wondered how he would have handled the adventure.  So he picked out a sample character and I sent him on the same adventure.

What was the adventure?  Well, they lived in a rural town populated by a superstitious medieval people.  A small statuette was positioned on the edge of town as a ward against evil spirits, and one day it was missing.  Each of my nephews was sent off--separately and alone--to retrieve it.  The search led them to a secret dungeon in the nearby forest, where they faced monsters and traps, rescued the statuette and found the person that stole it.

They both loved the game and wanted to play some more.  So the next weekend, both came for a visit.  They decided to keep the same characters and I sent them on a brief published adventure.  Their third adventure was a watered-down version of yet another published adventure.  

But for their fourth adventure, they were returning to the village where the first adventure took place and suddenly I had a problem: which one of them retrieved the statuette?  They didn't go together.  Some villagers would swear that Jason returned the statuette, while others would insist it was Richard.  How could I fix this?

Suddenly it hit me:  I had two alternate realities overlapping!  The rest of the campaign was about them trying to fix this.

I've always wanted to write up these adventures, so I'm going to!  I'm adding in some other elements from some of the other homebrew worlds, partly for plot purposes, partly for legal reasons--to differentiate my story-world from the published game setting.

I have written a couple of stories that take place in what would eventually become Aurivyn.  The Saturday Serial story "The Crystal Cage" takes places there.  So does the story "Buy the Sword" currently available in "The Adventure Sampler", which is a free gift received by the folks who sign up for my newsletter.  But these were minor experiments while I was trying to hammer out the plot for the series.

I have the details worked out now, and I'm pleased to announce that I am working on the first installments of an Aurivyn story arc called "The Wrath of the Ancient Prisoner", and it all started on that weekend when my nephew wanted to play a fighter!  Little did we know what that began...

Well, I'd better get to work, so until next time I wish you...

Good Adventuring!

Timothy A. Sayell

Still In Business!

Howdy you Truly Adventurous Souls!

How is everybody doing?  It's been a weird few months, what with the pandemic and the lockdown and all. The Real World has thrown a monkey wrench into the works, and it's kept me away from this blog for a while, but I am dilligently striving to get back to it!

I am proud to remind you all that the first three Mutant World stories are up and available on Amazon RIGHT NOW!   But that's not all!  You can buy all three stories in one convenient collection on DriveThru Fiction!  This great deal comes as an epub, a mobi, and a pdf all in one package!  

I've got a new feature coming to the blog: Serial Saturdays!

I know, right now you're asking:  What are Serial Saturdays?  Well, I'll tell you.

Just like those old Saturday Matinee Serials of the past, I am going to start sharing stories right here on the blog, cut up into episodes!  That's right, an incredible anthology of pulse-pounding adventure stories about pulp heroes, jungle safaris, dungeon expeditions and more!  And its absolutely FREE!

Excited now, aren't you?  Terribly Anxious to Start? Of course you are, and who could blame you?  

You don't have long to wait, the fun begins next month!  That's right, beginning in June we will feature an exciting episode every other Saturday!   

So mark your calendars and tune in for your dose of danger and daring-do!

Until then, I wish you all...

Good Adventuring!
Timothy A. Sayell

Ideas At Large

Hello to one and all!  I offer you Toasts And Salutations!

So, when you're making idle chitchat with someone, and they find out you write stories, that's when the usual list of questions comes at you.  What kind of stuff do you write?  Have you been published?  Where?  

And then there's the mother of all questions:  Where do you get your ideas?

This is kind of a silly question, because ideas and inspirations are absolutely everywhere!  Sometimes I think they lay in wait to ambush you as you wander by.  You get ideas from everywhere and everything, usually when you're not actually looking for them.

I've gotten ideas from books, comic books, radio shows, and movies, video games, role playing games, pictures, songs, and toys.  Sometimes you get an idea from some random throw-away comment someone made during a conversation.  

As for stories, it could be as easy as this:  You watch a movie and at some pivotal point in the plot you wonder what the story have turned into if THIS had happened instead of THAT.  And this could drastically change the outcome of the story, perhaps the whole thing if this pivotal point occurs very early in the story.

What if Conan's tribe had defeated Thulsa Doom's thugs?  Conan the Barbarian would've been a very different film.  What if Aunt May had died instead of Uncle Ben?  What sort of a man would Peter Parker have grown into?  They actually had an issue of What If? that explored this possibility.  What if the Darth JarJar theory actually happened in the movies?

All of these stories would have been very different.

Sometimes you only get ideas for moments, or characters, and keep them on file until you find an appropriate story to use them in.  

Then there's another possibility:  suppose you insert a different character in the protagonist's place.  In theory, THIS character would act and react differently than THAT character, and these two characters should react differently when stuck in the same situation; so the story would come out differently.

The story would read much differently whether the hero was a greedy knight or a sentimental archer.  

This, of course, is the most elementary of examples.  The more little changes you make, the more differences there are from story to story.  

But the real point I'm trying to make is that ideas come from everywhere!  And I do mean EVERYWHERE!  It doesn't seem to matter where you go or what you do, inspirations are just lying in wait, ready to pounce upon the unwary creative mind.

They're on All Sides!

All you have to do is be in the right place at the right time to find them.  And then you have to be perceptive enough to know the good ones from the bad ones.  And then to use them when ya need them.  But getting ideas in the first place?  That's the easy part!

There's a good chance we'll talk about this some more in the future.  But that's all for now!  I've got some writing to do!

Good adventuring!

Yours Truly,
Timothy A. Sayell

We're having an adventure--just like in "The Goonies"!

Greetings Fellow Adventurers!

You may (or may not) have noticed that the title of today's post is a quote by the inimitable Crow T. Robot of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (I only quote from the best!).  

So, people seem to have certain questions that they always ask when they converse with people in various jobs.  How'd you get into it?  What did you specialize in this instead of that?  What inspired you to do this?  What gave you the idea for that? 

For a writer, people usually ask "what do you write?"  If you say you write instruction manuals for electric toothbrushes, their eyes glass over and they lose interest.  But when you say you write fiction, they perk up and ask, "What kind?"

They expect you to say "Fantasy" or "Sci-Fi" or "Mystery" or "Thrillers" or something like that.  And if it's a genre they're interested in, they press for further details.

I like to say "I write adventure stuff!"  That kinda throws them off.  They ask what that means and I explain that sometimes I write fantasy, sometimes sci-fi, pulp hero, weird western...but its ALL adventure! 

So, what exactly IS "adventure"?  This is what it says on Wikipedia:  

In the Introduction to the Encyclopedia of Adventure Fiction, Critic Don D'Ammassa defines the genre as follows:

.. An adventure is an event or series of events that happens outside the course of the protagonist's ordinary life, usually accompanied by danger, often by physical action. Adventure stories almost always move quickly, and the pace of the plot is at least as important as characterization, setting and other elements of a creative work.

But hey, what does Wikipedia know, right?   No, I'm kidding, that's a very succinct definition.  The great thing about adventure is that it can be dressed up in so many ways.  

Do you like stories where the lone barbarian fights his way through the goblin horde to kill the evil wizard?  Read the one about the disgraced archaeologist who accidentally finds the lost city in the jungle and has to stop the demented chieftain from declaring war upon the outside world?  Or the one about the cloaked vigilante who stalks the city's criminal underworld and uncovers a plot by a local kingpin to swipe the prototype laser cannon from the local secret government lab?  How about stories where the planetary colonist fights his way past the martian armies to save his girlfriend from the alien warlord?    That's Adventure, Son!  

Of course, there's no question that guys like Conan, Luke Skywalker, and Indiana Jones are in adventure stories.  However, it seems like adventure IS their normal life!  This isn't always the case, of course.  There are tons of stories that show the ONE adventure this person/these people had.

There are countless Disney family films...like "The Million Dollar Duck" or "The Cat From Outer Space" or dozens of others that are stand-alone stories.  There were the kids in "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial", or the ones in "The Goonies".  Frodo had one long series of smaller adventures, but after "Lord of the Rings" never went out to find more adventures like Bilbo did.  They all seem to have had one single adventure, then went back to their normal lives.  Well, of course, this didn't work too well for Frodo.

Now, this is a little more realistic.  People mostly seem to lead dull, boring lives.  If they're lucky...or perhaps its more appropriate to say UNlucky...their lives could be touched by a small piece of adventure.  Like being at the public event when the bomb goes off, or at the bank when the masked robbers burst in.  Of course, these are traumatizing events, and "the adventure" ends for most people with the end of the incident itself.

Of course, for entertainment purposes, this is harder to market.  That's why you have A hero, or perhaps A TEAM of heroes that have adventure after adventure after adventure.  Then you have to wonder about the Hero's uncanny luck, he never seems to sustain a great deal of damage...but then, he can't!  Cuz if he did, he wouldn't be able to come back next week/month for the next exciting adventure!  But this never slowed down the Shadow, or Beretta, or Napoleon Solo.

This is most easily fixed with A TEAM of heroes.  This adventure primarily features Team Member A, though some of the others are present as secondary characters.  Next book/movie/episode uses Team Member B as the primary character, again with some of the other team members playing back up.  This could be a good set-up for a group like G. I. Joe.

So what's the point to this rambling drivel?  Did I even have one when I started?  I'm starting to wonder that, myself!

The basic point I'm trying to make is that adventure comes in all shapes and sizes.   Adventure stories can be about knights, or pirates, or spies, or cowboys, or cops.  These can all be intriguing and exciting, I like them all and see no reason to choose one over the other.  

So I dabble in all these genres...or sub-genres.  And that's why I--ever so humbly--call myself a Terrific Adventure Scribe!

And if YOU like adventure in any of its forms, you're invited to come along for the ride!  You're sure to find something you like!

Good Adventuring!

Yours Truly,
Timothy A. Sayell

Hello and Welcome!

Hey-ho and what-do-ya-know!

I see you've found your way here to my Home Base, my Head-Quarters, my Secret Lair, my Sanctum Santorum!  Which means that you must have found the clues, solved the riddles, and followed the trail less traveled; in short, you answered the Call To Adventure!

Yes, I know, right now you're saying "What is this idiot talking about?  All I did was click a link!"

And that link led you straight here, to The Adventure Site, the official online HQ of neo-pulp adventure fictioneer:  Timothy A. Sayell!  (cue kazoo fanfare)

What does all that mean?  The short version is that I'm an author.  What do I write?  Well, I write adventure stories in various genres.  I write Sword and Sorcery, Sword and Planet, High Fantasy, Space Opera, Pulp Hero, and a few weird cross-genre things that are a little harder to classify.

Yeah, but have you actually been published?  Sure I have!  I've had stories appear in webzines like Raygun Revival, Flashing Swords, and Abandoned Towers.  Some of my stories appeared in Big Pulp Magazine, and a few anthologies.  Sadly, these ezines are now defunct, but the physical magazines and anthologies are still available at Amazon and a few other places online.

So I bet you're wondering what sorts of things influence my writing.  And even if you're not, I'll tell ya anyway!  Well, to start with, there are the normal things from TV and Movies:  Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century,  Conan the Barbarian, Land of the Lost, Thundarr the Barbarian and various works by George Pal, Roger Corman, and films derived from the works of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne.   These somehow lead me backwards to the old Saturday afternoon chapter serials that used to accompany a movie and a cartoon at the local theater back in, like, the 1940's.  I'm talking things like Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, The Phantom Empire, Undersea Kingdom, and King of the Rocketmen!

But those are movies, you're supposed to be a writer!  What are your literary influences?!  My list starts off sounding like most other genre writers, I suspect.  Because it starts off with J.R.R. Tolkien, Fritz Lieber, Robert E. Howard, Leigh Brackett, Edmond Hamilton, C.L. Moore, Henry Kuttner.  I learned that most of these folks first published their stories in old Pulp Magazines, and I started learning about and collecting stories from other great authors from the Pulps.  Folks like Norvell Page, Lester Dent, Emile Tepperman, Wayne Rogers, and many, many others.

So, how did you get into writing?  I think I'll place a lot of blame and credit on role-playing games.  In my opinion, a role-playing game is sort of like a group storytelling session.  Each player controls the actions of one character in the story, the game master tells us what happens in the story as the result of the various players' actions.  I was fascinated with the prospect of Dungeons and Dragons, but for a long time I had no one willing to play it with me.  So, I studied it, made up my own situations, and eventually started to write them down.  I learned of other games, like Gamma World and Star Frontiers, but I had never even seen physical copies of these games.

Of course, I eventually did play Dungeons and Dragon...a LOT.  And it did inspire some of the stories I've written, and some I'm still working on.  Other games have sparked other ideas, and so have pulp magazines, old radio shows, and movies.

So I write the kind of stuff I like.  And what I like is fun escapist adventure!  Sometimes that means storming the castle, sometimes it means trekking across the ruined city of a post-apocalyptic earth.  Sometimes it means seeking a lost treasure in a hidden temple in the jungle, or following a masked vigilante as he tracks down the mad bomber that wants to level the city, or even zooming my starfighter past planets to engage in the epic space battle!

That's Amazing Stuff!

Ya think so?  Well so do I!  What are we waiting for?  Let's assemble the expedition, and get this safari started!  If you're after adventure, excitement, and pure pulp fun join me on the journey and together we'll answer the Call To Adventure!

Yours Truly,
Timothy A. Sayell