As for the license holders, he says he hasn't had many problems. "I've pretty much managed to dodge the bullet on that front." However, some of his success has come down to good timing. "License holders go through phases," he says, citing Paramount as an example: They had a reputation for being very tough on people working in the Star Trek universe, but during his time on the RPG, they "were very laid back and extremely helpful. More often, the problem is simply one of schedule: Roleplaying material is very dense, and an approvals person used to taking a few minutes to give a thumbs-up or down to a Spock keychain or Tribble plush toy suddenly finds himself confronted with tens of thousands of words full of numbers and rules and stuff. The newer and hotter the property, the harder it is for the approvals person to plough through [his] workload and get back to you with change requests."
Working with a license seems like thankless work. Knowing something like the Star Trek RPG would probably be more popular than something he'd sunk his heart and soul into developing struck me as demoralizing. "If you find a way to both express the ethos of the IP and to bring something of yourself to the work, you bridge that fulfillment hurdle," he said. "Working on an established property can put your name in front of a very wide audience. Only a tiny fraction of those people will follow you to other projects, but being read is much better than the alternative." He admits "it's easy to find ways to make yourself nuts, which I try to steer clear of by [maintaining] both a positive attitude and a sense of detachment. I can't imagine spending my days thinking bitter thoughts because Star Trek is more popular than I am. Life is too short to devote yourself to absurd regrets. Better to try to live it as best you can, and keep struggling to produce your best work, whatever the circumstances."
When it comes to picking projects, he says he loves writing fiction - "which is much harder to get right than roleplaying design" - and cites the Dying Earth RPG as one of his favorite projects, though, "my favorite project is whatever I'm working on at the moment you ask me, plus whatever's coming next. Part of the job is finding a way to love what you're working on," which is the secret to success in any field.
Shannon Drake is a Contributing Editor for The Escapist and changed his name when he became a citizen. It used to be Merkwurdigeliebe.
