And so it begins…

Posted by Keith Baker in UncategorizedJul 26th, 2009 | 10 responses

I’m a storyteller. I write novels and create games, and what I enjoy most about tabletop roleplaying is the sense of evolutionary storytelling – that even though I’ve written the script for the piece, I don’t know exactly where it’s going to go, or what surprises the plaeyrs will come up with. In 2002 my proposal was chosen in the Fantasy Setting Search, ultimately becoming the world of Eberron. Today, there are people playing in Eberron across the world. At the start of this year, I wondered if it would be possible to meet some of them – to be a bard of the modern age, traveling around the world and telling my stories to earn a roof over my head. I posted about this idea on various message boards, and was pleasantly surprised when I received 260 invitations spread across six continents. My goal is to play games in every state in the USA, and in as many other countries as time and my finances will allow. There’s many different reasons for this. I am a novelist, and seeing new places and meeting inter interesting people is a valuable source of information for stories still to come. Beyond this, I’m curious to meet gamers around the world. I wanted to see how far the hobby has spread, and if there are cultural differences or interesting stories waiting to be revealed.

So far it’s been a fascinating experience. I’ve been from Washington State and Wyoming to Croatia and Bulgaria. I’ve run a game of my own design 28 times so far, and it’s been a different experience everytime. I’ve meant intriguing people and heard amazing stories. In days to come, I’ll be writing about my experiences on this journey. Time permitting, I’ll also be posting a few small gaming articles. However, it’s going to be a week or so before I have the time; in addition to traveling, I need to lock myself to my desk and work on my third Thorn of Breland novel. But watch this space; I have many stories to tell.

Sofia!



10 Responses to “And so it begins…”

  1. JMcL63 says:
    July 27, 2009 at 2:55 pm

    Hey, a launch! All the best with the blog and the rest of your travels Keith. I know more about blogging than travelling, and I can tell you that it can be quite time consuming. I can’t imagine how much time and energy I’d have for blogging if I had to write for living, but I expect that it’d be less than I’ve spent keeping “Roll dice and kick ass!” up and running these years past. ;)

  2. Billy Nation (ChronosCrow) says:
    July 27, 2009 at 3:01 pm

    Hey Keith. Great Site, I look forward to hearing about your worldly travels. Where’s the giant d20 at? That looks great!

    If you haven’t had an offer from Memphis, TN I’d love to put you up for a night here to help achieve your goal. Be careful out on the road & good gaming!

  3. Daniel M. Perez, The Gamer Traveler says:
    July 27, 2009 at 5:41 pm

    Yay, awesome. Fan #1 right here, dude. I’ll be sure to plug it as well on The Gamer Traveler.

    We’re gonna have to get you a TGT patch or something. :-)

  4. Tom Cadorette says:
    July 27, 2009 at 5:52 pm

    Oh, most excellent! I was hoping you were going to be chronicling your adventures around the world — here’s hoping we’ll see you in the DC metro area later in the year!

  5. C.A. Suleiman says:
    July 27, 2009 at 10:34 pm

    Most excellent, Keith. I’m so excited for you, and can’t wait to see you at GenCon. Hopefully, you’ll have time to let me run for you again — I’m happy to do Eberron again, but I have something else in mind, if you’re up for it and will have time. :)

    Btw, where is that in the pic? Wally World?

  6. admin says:
    July 28, 2009 at 1:40 am

    The picture above is in the city of Sofia in Bulgaria; it’s a memorial to all of those who donated their bones to be carved into polyhedral dice.

    … OK, actually it’s just some sort of corporate symbol, but it SHOULD be a memorial.

  7. Carl-Niclas says:
    July 28, 2009 at 8:24 am

    Excellent that you’ve got this up and running. I’ll keep reading about your further exploits!

    And thank you for your visit to Uppsala – it was a pleasure having you as a guest!

  8. Rifter says:
    July 28, 2009 at 12:23 pm

    Yea! On to the blog posting! :-) It is fun reading about your travels. I am glad you will be doing it in full blog form, now!

  9. Stefan Kanev says:
    July 28, 2009 at 10:16 pm

    In Soviet Bulgaria, big die rolls you.

    Great too see you blogging! Looking forward to more :)

  10. Ezav says:
    July 29, 2009 at 4:38 am

    Nice to see that you still have fun :D … ppl here in Croatia miss you much … even my sis is still tells about you and the trip to Plitivce and believe me that to live good impression on her is magic :D

Leave a Reply