Mysterious Friday, adventurer!

Today I'm here to tell you a story.

The story of a person who changed role-playing games forever.

And who continues to change them to this day.

How that person and I met.

And the changes it brought about inside me.

Are you familiar with the term XP?

The name Lawrence Schick probably doesn't ring a bell.

If I told you that he wrote the adventure The White Plume Mountain for Dungeons & Dragons, you may still have trouble placing him.

But this adventure marked a turning point in role-playing games.

If I asked you now what you might find inside a dungeon, you would say something like: monsters, treasures, riddles...

But this last element, riddles, which we now take for granted... were hardly ever present!

Lawrence Schick turned everything upside down by creating puzzles that required the creativity of the players to advance, rather than charging against waves of monsters.

But he wasn't satisfied with that.

Because he included something else that appears in almost every role-playing game you find.

That's right, you read it above.

The term XP. That thing you get in all video games to level up or spend on powers. Yeah, that originated here.

As if that weren't enough, he was the first person to work side by side as a designer with the original creator of D&D, Gary Gygax.

The man was in his twenties at the time.

Now he's 70...

What has he been doing in between?

(Apart from meeting me, of course.)

Paving the way in role-playing games

After developing different games at different companies, Lawrence Shick wanted to try his hand at the digital world.

First, he worked on a beloved RPG from when EA still made good games, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.

Then he spent ten long years working on The Elder Scrolls: Online. The MMORPG from the creators of Skyrim.

But nothing, absolutely nothing could prepare him for what was to come next.

Over 15 million copies

Yes.

Lawrence Schick is the Narrative Director of the Third Act of Baldur's Gate 3.

If you liked missions like The House of Hope or Disable the Steel Watch, this is one of the minds that made it all come together.

In his own words, they developers themselves were unable to believe the success the game was achieving.

I guess having one of the most influential people in the origin of role-playing games had something to do with it.

The gathering

As I told you, Lawrence Schick and I met a month ago.

It was at the Celsius 232 literature festival in Asturias.

He signed my D&D Master's Guide...

And I signed...

Well.

I can't believe it myself.

I

signed him

ONE OF MY DM SCREENS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

So yeah, one of the fathers of role-playing games and directors of Baldur's Gate 3 has one of my DM screens in his home.

As you can imagine, this has given me a huge boost of motivation.

And it's gotten out of hand.

What have you done to me, Lawrence?

There's a quote by Lawrence Schick that I love:

I want to help you tell stories too.

I want you and your friends to feel like real professional storytellers.

So I've added something to my DM screens.

Something new that will make stories spring from your imagination with such a speed you’d become the envy of any bard.

For the eyes of the game master only.

But to the delight of all players.

If you want to know what it is, reply to this email.

Bountiful quests and successful rolls!

🦉 Irene the Wizard

🦃 Saul the Bard

P.S: In addition to everything I've told you, Lawrence Shick writes musketeer novels and is a highly respected authority on literature studies related to Alexandre Dumas. I think he's actually an Archmage.

P.P.S: If you want to become a better narrator, remember to reply to this email.