Hello. My name is Steven Ratkovich, better known as Bull online and in the tabletop community. And if you’re reading this, thank you for taking the time to read my little slice of wonkiness. I’m getting to be an old ork, and I’ve been involved with roleplaying games as a playtester, writer, and even developer for over two decades now, mostly for the Shadowrun RPG. And while I’ve written some short fiction before, the bulk of my writing has been rules and adventures. So this is the first time I’m really diving into long form writing, even though writing a novel or three has been a dream of mine since before I graduated high school. So a few months ago I needed to break out of a rut and decided to start writing a little bit each day. And the work you’ve hopefully just read was born. And if you haven’t read it, I humbly ask you to go do so.

Apoch’s Twilight as a concept is over 15 years old now. I first conceived of it back when we were playing Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition, and I was considering GMing a campaign for a bit. I wanted to come up with a unique world, and conceived of the idea of a world like the Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance where the gods had come to all-out warfare on each other, and destroyed each other as well as most of the world. Mages created a haven underneath a magical dome, and after a couple of generation the players were sent to explore the world outside the dome. I had the base concept right there, and it hasn’t changed. It didn’t have a title at this time though.

I never did run that as a D&D campaign, but a few years later I was trying to stretch my design chops a bit and I’d gotten frustrated with D&D 3.X. It was too number crunchy and everyone I knew who played it was too focused on what the best combinations of multiclasses and feats and whatever else there was, and weren’t focused on the actual game itself. So I decided to design my own fantasy RPG from scratch, giving the players the freedom to take their characters in any direction they chose without the limits of levels or class. I also asked them what they were interested in playing, and designed skills and powers and such specifically to fit their concepts.

We played that version for a half–dozen or so sessions before we got sidetracked. We were all burnt out on fantasy overall, and we were doing a lot more board gaming at the time, so the game got shelved in favor of other things. However this time it had a name: Apoch’s Twilight. Apoch was the name of the world, but was also a portmanteau of two words: Apocalypse and Epoch. It seemed appropriate, and I liked the way it sounded.

I didn’t come back to it again until three years ago. This time around, I’d been watching a lot of anime as well as reading a tone of light novels and manga, and some of my favorites were Isekai, especially the “Playing in and/or trapped in an MMO” ones. Of which there are a LOT. Sword Art Online and Log Horizon were my two primary inspirations, but there are a ton of others as well, not to mention how many Isekai shows have “game mechanics” as a side thing as well.

I was running a Patreon by this time for some fans of my Shadowrun work, and I was trying to run a semi-monthly game for some of my higher-tiered patrons. I decided to try doing a “trapped in a VRMMO” tabletop game for them, as most of them had played MMOs pretty extensively over the years and were fans. So I set out to write an TTRPG that would capture the feeling of playing an MMO. I sat down and completely reworked the game system op to bottom. About the only thing I kept was the base dice mechanic, which was 2d12 + Stat + Skill.

I ran this online for about six months, but once again the game got derailed, this time by life. Convention season rolled around, and I usually do both the Origins Game Fair and Gen Con, so summer gets busy fast. Plus everyone else’s schedules got harder and harder to mesh up, especially since we had a couple folks on the West Coast and a few of us on the East Coast, and all of us were at least in our early to mid-30’s, with a couple of us in our 40;s or older. Jobs, families, local game groups, and other commitments all make scheduling a cast-iron pain in the ass.

Once again, Apoch’s Twilight got shelved, though this time I had rules base written out, had mapped out a small chunk of the game world, had ideas for a bunch more, and a whole host of other bits and pieces written, and I had every plan to come back to it one of these days.

I made a small attempt at the beginning of 2018, starting a short story that maintained the original Patreon games premise: One of the games more powerful AI gains sentience and manages to wrest control of the System from the developers and locked the initial 1,000 game testers into the game world in order to learn from and study humanity, while they tried to find a way to free themselves. I only managed to get a couple chapters written before dropping the project. I liked the idea of it, but wasn’t sold on writing out the whole Evil Ai plot, and the MC I had created for that version didn’t appeal to me.

Then at the beginning of September, I needed to get back into the habit of writing again, as I hadn’t done any in a while and was having some issues with it. So I decided to just ”word vomit”, aka just start writing and not worry about editing or flow or whatever, and just get the idea out and on paper (so to speak). And I decided to do so by revisiting Apoch’s Twilight yet again. This time, rather than an MC that I was unclear on who he was and what his real motivations and stuff would be, I decided to think simple, if a bit stupid (and a little narcissistic). Since inevitably the MC of an Isekai story (which is what I was aiming for) was called a Mary Sue, I decided to really lean into that idea, and wrote myself as the main character.

So for those wondering, yeah, the fact the MC is named Bull and that I sign my name “Steven “Bull” Ratkovich means that the MC is very much a version of me. He’s not an exact copy of me, but pretty close. Makes writing him pretty easy, since all his reactions are genuine. They’re exactly what I would do in his situation.

I also thought it gave the story a fun and unique hook, killing off and trapping the MC inside his own creation.

Weirdly enough, I only very recently discovered American LitRPG, shortly after I began writing Apoch’s Twilight, not realizing that was the very term for the genre I was writing. A couple of friends pointed me towards a couple sites, like Royal Road, where there are hundreds of LitRPG. That was pretty cool, and gave me a whole new slush pile of interesting things to read.

My goal for these novels is basically to tell Bull’s story as he tried to figure out why and how he ended up inside a VRMMO of a game he wrote. I’m writing about 90% off the cuff, so I don’t always know where the immediate story will take me. Especially once I get into book 2, as a lot of book 1 is based on stuff my Patreon group played out. But I do know the underlying concept, and I do know the why and how of what is going on. I think at least a couple of you have already got a slight guess as to what’s what, which is cool. I’m trying to keep things pretty vague for now, but it will become more clear around the end of Book 3, or possibly Book 4 (depending on how things pan out).

Now, I’ve had a few comments and questions so far, both in the Royal Road comments section and elsewhere, so I’ll address them as I can. I don’t plan to argue with anyone who dislikes the book or what I’m doing overall, because people like what they like. Most of my friends love Game of Thrones, for example, but I just can’t get into it. Doesn’t make them wrong for liking it, or me wrong for disliking, just means we are looking for different things in a work. So if you’re looking for a fight, I won’t give you wrong. I’ll simply say thank you for reading what you did, and wish you luck finding work you like.

On to comments!

“This needs an editor/rewrite!”

Yes, yes it does. I’ve tried to snag as many basic typos as I can, but frankly I am absolute shite when it comes to self-editing. And as mentioned above, my first draft is very much a “word vomit” where I’m just trying to write without being nitpicky about grammar and stuff. I do go back and do a quick edit before I post the individual scenes to Patreon, and I do an actual second draft and heavier edit when I post to Royal Road a month+ later. But there’s still a lot of story left when I do post, and things sometimes change as I write. So eventually I need to go back through and do a really solid third draft, preferably with the help of a professional editor (or at least semi-pro editor).

If I decide to try publishing these as an ebook for sale, I’ll look into that then. But if and when I do that, I want to be able to pay for an editor, because they’re VERY much worth it, and right now I’m nowhere near being able to afford that.

Anyway, yes. I need an editor and I need to rewrite sections of things. I’m very much aware, but I do appreciate it greatly when you point out my errors, because that lets me immediately fix the minor stuff, and it gives me notes to look at when I go to do a deeper dive later one. So thank you!

“How overpowered will your MC get since he’s your personal Mary Sue?”

Not very. He starts out with a little bit of an edge, since he knows the starting area and a few of the starting dungeons. And he has Aibee, his little AI helper, who will be a boon going forward. But otherwise, he’s just an average gamer. Heck, even with his knowledge, he still isn’t the highest level character or the most powerful character by the end of Book 1, and that doesn’t change in Book 2. I plan to keep Bull and his merry band of friends as “front line” players, pushing the edge of content, and few of them will get some neat powers and toys (like Zed does with the guitar and the unique quest he finds), but I plan to keep Bull himself fairly grounded. Mostly.

I don’t mind stories where the MC has some massive cheat power and is totally OP. I really like the light novels for both “Isekai Smartphone” and “How not to summon a Demon Lord” (Smartphone’s anime got butchered beyond belief, but the other was decent enough), and the MCs for both are crazy stupid powerful. But for Apoch’s Twilight, I wanted to have just a nice, normal MC. No crazy cheat powers, no harems.

I’d make a terrible Light Novel writer.

“Why don’t you update more often?”

Frankly, because this is currently a part time hobby for me. If I can get my Patreon backers up high enough and start making some real money, I can dedicate more time to writing. But for now, I’m not the fastest writer, and I only get a couple hours a night to write, at best, and that’s not every night.

My current goal for writing is 5000 words per week, which is about a full chapter’s worth, give or take. I post shorter “scenes”, 2-3 of which make up a full chapter usually, and those go up to my Patreon backers as soon as they’re done, so they usually get several small updates each week.

For Royal Road, I compile these scenes into a full chapter to post once a week. As mentioned above, I do a clean up and second draft pass on the material, and then go through and clean up the formatting in RR’s editor to fix double spacing issues and table issues.

Right now that’s the limit of what I have time for. I’ve got my day job, I do taxi work for the local community, sort of an Uber thing, and that keeps me running, On top of that, I do some freelance writing for Shadowrun still, and that’s a higher priority for me right now. One of these days I’d love to be able to write full time, but that’s a far off dream for the moment.

“Maybe you should dial down the game details and/or not explain game mechanics so much.”

This is a very valid point. There’s a fine line I’m trying to tread in both instances, and it’s one I haven’t entirely found my balance with. This will be one of the heavier issues I deal with when I eventually do another draft of AT.

For game details, we’re talking things like actually plotting out how much damage characters take during combat, tracking cooldowns, using potions, etc. For many of the combat scenes in here, I actually keep track of the MC’s skill use and damage intake/output throughout the fight. I fudge the other characters most of the time though, because keeping track of 5-6 characters, plus all the mobs during a fight sequence is a nightmare. Trust me, I tried it once.

But, I feel having this detail in is important. This is a game (well, for everyone but the MC), and they’re going to play it like one. So they’re going to call out taunts, call for healing, track cooldowns, etc. But the trick is to find the right balance between enough details that it still feels game-ish, but not so much detail that it makes the scenes no fun to read. And like I said, I’m still working on the right balance. I think I overdid it a lot in Book 1, so I’m trying to dial things back in Book 2.

As for explaining the game terms and game mechanics, I realize that the majority of people going into a LitRPG will be well aware of most of what I’m talking about with little to no explanation. But at the same time, there’s always a chance that someone will pick it up and not be familiar with a lot of gaming terminology or how an MMO works. Plus, every game is a bit different, and since I’m writing this as a real game and trying not to just handwave the underlying game mechanics to suit the story, knowing how this specific game works can be important.

For the explanations though, by Book 2 they largely go away because I’ve covered most of it. It does make the opening couple chapters a bit of a slog, because there’s a lot to get through, so it’ll be something I look at for the next draft (I use that as an excuse a lot, don’t I?)

“You’ll need to change a lot of your references to other games and pop culture.”

This will be an aspect I’ll look into further if I decide to try selling the book, but honestly? I don’t think I will need to edit much, if any, of the references.

For one, I want to keep them because I think they’re important. They make the story a bit more “real” because we as gamers and nerds and geeks and lovers of this stuff use all these movies and games and books we read as a touchstone and a reference for almost everything we do. And since I’m writing myself as the MC, this is how I think. About 25% of my brain is nothing but movie quotes, pop culture references, and snippets of song lyrics.

And two, as far as I can tell you can reference popular works relatively freely. If I was quoting sections of a published work, or using copywritten characters it would be one thing, but mentioning a book or game title, or a character from a movie in passing is perfectly legal. I can say “Bull watches Star Wars and wishes he had an X-Wing.” If I have Luke Skywalker show up flying an X-Wing, then I’m in trouble.

Also game mechanics are not something that can generally be copywritten. And even then, I’m not directly using any direct mechanic from any of the games I mention in Book 1. There are some similarities and I take inspiration from a bunch of sources, but I know I could publish my rules for the Apoch’s Twilight RPG and not run afoul of any other game companies.

I think the only “iffy” bit I have in the entire thing is Torrie referring to herself as a Kender. And even then, because she’s NOT actually a Kender, just modeled after one, I think it’s ok.

But still, if and when I do publish, all of this will get explored and checked out to make sure it’s above board. Hell, half the things I reference I know people involved with writing or publishing it, so I can just pester them about it. Ultimately, I'm not a lawyer, so I could be wrong on all of this. If so, well, we'll change what we have to.

And that’s about it!

Ok, there weren’t really too many comments to deal with, even if I can be a bit long winded!

Thank you to everyone who has read Apoch’s Twilight so far. And a Special thanks to all my Patreon Backers and my Alpha Readers for getting me this far and for making this possible in the first place. I really appreciate it, and hopefully will see you around at the end of Book 2 for more Adventurers in Afterwords!