All things considered Gen Con 2010 was a great time. It was the first time I took the wife and kids and everyone had a blast. Here are some of the highlights (and lowlights) of my time.
Best:
- Playing the Red Box D&D4 with my kids. It was awesome and it felt like "old D&D" to me. I know there is a lot of FUDing about this (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) about the new Essentials line, but I can tell you this it was fast and fun.
- My Ghosts of Albion games went great! Ran Obsession and I loved seeing how the different groups dealt with the same problems. Kurt Wiegel of Game Geeks fame played in one of my games and it was great time. Earlier in the same day Andrew Peregrine of Victoriana fame also played in my games. I always try to get in a game of Victoriana at Gen Con, but couldn't this year. So it was nice to get Andrew in a Ghosts game instead. By the way, Andrew got a silver for Best Writing for Victoriana at the Ennies this year!
Wanted to run some more games, but didn't have the time. Having the boys with me made the social and gaming dynamic very different.
- Playing our regular D&D 3 game in the hotel lobby with my boys. I wanted them to have the full Con experience. We only played for about an hour, but they managed to get pretty far.
If you have that Facebook thing on teh internets at home then you can see my photos.
Looking Forward to:
- Ravenloft board game. Saw it run at the Con and it looks fun as hell.
- D&D4 Red Box. I know this send hordes of people that like to read my blog scratching their heads in disbelief, but I played and it was fun.
- Ravenloft campaign setting. That was totally unexpected!
Sorta Bad: I bought nothing the entire con. I decided to pick up the books I want at my local game store instead. I am buying Advanced Player's Guide, Smallville, and DC Adventures. I might also pick up Icons, even though I have all of these on PDF already. So I'll head to Games Plus and buy my stuff.
What was up with the White Wolf booth anyway? Were they selling anything at all?
Kinda Bad/But also Good: Son and I tried to get into a D&D4 game but the line was longer than his stamina. We wanted to play but went down and had chili dogs and soda instead. Again, the full Con experience. I have to admit I was getting tired too and having a chili dog and a soda with my little guy was a fantastic way to spend the time.
Worse: Some guy fell asleep on I-65 back to Chicago and hit us doing 75 miles an hour. We went across 2 lanes of traffic and landed in a ditch on the side of the road.
Kids and wife are fine, no one was hurt. Had a lot of help from some really nice locals. Really killed the post-con high we had going. We will be back next year of course. But I might be taking back roads home.
Other News
The Ipad seemed to be to tool of choice this year. I can easily understand why. Once they have one big enough to hold all my PDFs then I am there.
Ghosts of Albion did not make it to print for Gen Con this year. But I understand that we are going to be seeing it in game stores in a couple of months. Frankly a Halloween release would be awesome. I'll write a new Halloween themed adventure for it to run when it is out.
Not Gen Con related
Amber Benson has some updated information about Drones on her blog. I support Amber. Mostly because I know her and I have known about Drones for a while. Long enough to support her claims.
http://amberbensonwrotethis.blogspot.com/2010/08/why-are-these-two-things-different.html
I made the OSR News! And not for any of my OSR support or my insane liking for the new Tomb of Horrors. ;) They liked my Dark Druid adventure! Thanks for the nod guys. It really made my day today when I saw that.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Gen Con, post note
Hey all.
You will get some updates from me tomorrow. I hope.
On our way home some dude fell asleep and came across our our lane of traffic and hit us, sent us flying across two lanes of 70+ mph traffic on I-65 and into a ditch.
Everyone is fine. The van is a little messed up though.
So, I am going to spending some time on the phone with the insurance guy instead of blogging.
You will get some updates from me tomorrow. I hope.
On our way home some dude fell asleep and came across our our lane of traffic and hit us, sent us flying across two lanes of 70+ mph traffic on I-65 and into a ditch.
Everyone is fine. The van is a little messed up though.
So, I am going to spending some time on the phone with the insurance guy instead of blogging.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Live, from Gen Con
Well sorta. It's almost 1:00am here.
The day is ending on Gen Con Day 2.
I just finished running a marathon day of Ghosts of Albion: Obsession today.
Both groups were fantastic and I had a lot of fun. Both group also managed to save a few of the NPCs before the demonic janitor did them in.
So my purchases have been non-existent. I stopped by many booths today to say. Talked to George, Derrik and Alex at Eden. The new Hack/Slash game looks like it could be fun. Got to say hi Matt McElroy from DriveThruRPG. Stopped by to see the guys at Cubicle 7. Andrew was in a my afternoon Ghosts game so that was awesome. Nice parity since I was in one his early Victoriana games.
Said hi to Cam Banks at the Margret Weis Game booth. Love to write a new magic system for Cortex, something awesome and cool and something people will want to buy and enjoy playing.
Kurt Wiegel of Game Geeks was in my night Ghosts game. That was a blast.
Tomorrow is costume day and Day 3 of Gen Con; AKA the busiest of the whole con. I have no major plans. I had considered running some Ghosts games, but I am hoping to get some emails back on that.
Need to come up with a new Ghosts of Albion adventure I think. Blight and Obsession were an absolute blast, but I don't think I can talk about Miriam White anymore.
The day is ending on Gen Con Day 2.
I just finished running a marathon day of Ghosts of Albion: Obsession today.
Both groups were fantastic and I had a lot of fun. Both group also managed to save a few of the NPCs before the demonic janitor did them in.
So my purchases have been non-existent. I stopped by many booths today to say. Talked to George, Derrik and Alex at Eden. The new Hack/Slash game looks like it could be fun. Got to say hi Matt McElroy from DriveThruRPG. Stopped by to see the guys at Cubicle 7. Andrew was in a my afternoon Ghosts game so that was awesome. Nice parity since I was in one his early Victoriana games.
Said hi to Cam Banks at the Margret Weis Game booth. Love to write a new magic system for Cortex, something awesome and cool and something people will want to buy and enjoy playing.
Kurt Wiegel of Game Geeks was in my night Ghosts game. That was a blast.
Tomorrow is costume day and Day 3 of Gen Con; AKA the busiest of the whole con. I have no major plans. I had considered running some Ghosts games, but I am hoping to get some emails back on that.
Need to come up with a new Ghosts of Albion adventure I think. Blight and Obsession were an absolute blast, but I don't think I can talk about Miriam White anymore.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
The Dragon and the Phoenix: The Dark Druid
A Gen Con treat for those of you who can't make it to the "Best Four Days in Gaming".
The Dark Druid: The Director's Cut
A bit of history. Back in 2002 Eden was getting ready to release their newest game, The Buffy the Vampire Slayer game. As you know, I had already been playing a Willow/Tara focused WitchCraft game for about a year, so I was pretty excited by this. Well I got asked by Eden to write the first Buffy adventure that would appear in "Games Unplugged" along with an interview with C.J. Carella talking about the game.
I took an idea I had been working on for my other game (tentatively called "All Soul's Night") and thus the Dark Druid was born.
The original featured, rather prominently, Willow and Tara, as to be expected. I had to make some changes to make it playable for others and to make it an "intro" or season opener type episode. The plot dealt with an enemy from the Cast's past as a portent to greater evil in the future. It was designed to be a opening episode of the season, but one that may or may not be directly related to the seasonal arc. We were going to use this i n part of the great "Djinn" story, but that never happened.
Fast forward a few years and I was finishing up work on Ghosts of Albion and another adventure that sprang from "All Soul's Night" called "Blight" (which I have played at Gen Con before). I felt it was time to bring back the Dark Druid and restore it to the mythology that I had created in my games. Now you can have it too.
I updated it not only to fit better with my world-myths, and with some of the work I did on Ghosts of Albion and the adventure Blight. In fact you can run Blight and The Dark Druid as co-adventures, separated by time.
The story is rather direct and linear. This was partly due to the nature of the story and what is was supposed to do (introduce new players to the game) and part of just me writing for the Buffy game for the first time. I have opted not to change that here, despite nearly 8 years of Cinematic Unisystem adventure writing since then. It is supposed to be a quick, fun little adventure dealing with past lives.
Enjoy!
The Dark Druid: The Director's Cut
A bit of history. Back in 2002 Eden was getting ready to release their newest game, The Buffy the Vampire Slayer game. As you know, I had already been playing a Willow/Tara focused WitchCraft game for about a year, so I was pretty excited by this. Well I got asked by Eden to write the first Buffy adventure that would appear in "Games Unplugged" along with an interview with C.J. Carella talking about the game.
I took an idea I had been working on for my other game (tentatively called "All Soul's Night") and thus the Dark Druid was born.
The original featured, rather prominently, Willow and Tara, as to be expected. I had to make some changes to make it playable for others and to make it an "intro" or season opener type episode. The plot dealt with an enemy from the Cast's past as a portent to greater evil in the future. It was designed to be a opening episode of the season, but one that may or may not be directly related to the seasonal arc. We were going to use this i n part of the great "Djinn" story, but that never happened.
Fast forward a few years and I was finishing up work on Ghosts of Albion and another adventure that sprang from "All Soul's Night" called "Blight" (which I have played at Gen Con before). I felt it was time to bring back the Dark Druid and restore it to the mythology that I had created in my games. Now you can have it too.
I updated it not only to fit better with my world-myths, and with some of the work I did on Ghosts of Albion and the adventure Blight. In fact you can run Blight and The Dark Druid as co-adventures, separated by time.
The story is rather direct and linear. This was partly due to the nature of the story and what is was supposed to do (introduce new players to the game) and part of just me writing for the Buffy game for the first time. I have opted not to change that here, despite nearly 8 years of Cinematic Unisystem adventure writing since then. It is supposed to be a quick, fun little adventure dealing with past lives.
Enjoy!
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Coming Attractions
So what is on tap here at the Other Side post-Gen Con? Well I'll do some blogging about Gen Con, especially if I buy something. But here are my big plans.
Cortex
I like this little system ad want to do some more with it. I especially want to look at Supernatural, Demon Hunters and Smallville. I have already seen some really cool posts on somethings people are doing with Smallville.
Super Hero RPGs
I also want to spend some quality time with some of the new super hero RPGs I have or will have bought. As a quick rundown I want to look at DC Adventures, ICONS, BASH, Villains and Vigilantes 2.1, and Smallville.
Since my goal will be similar in each I might spend one day each week covering the game in question, instead of a week to look at one game in depth.
Horror Games
Every so often I feel like I am neglecting my RPGs of choice; Horror. So I want to also spend some quality time with Slasher Flick and Little Fears.
Cortex
I like this little system ad want to do some more with it. I especially want to look at Supernatural, Demon Hunters and Smallville. I have already seen some really cool posts on somethings people are doing with Smallville.
Super Hero RPGs
I also want to spend some quality time with some of the new super hero RPGs I have or will have bought. As a quick rundown I want to look at DC Adventures, ICONS, BASH, Villains and Vigilantes 2.1, and Smallville.
Since my goal will be similar in each I might spend one day each week covering the game in question, instead of a week to look at one game in depth.
Horror Games
Every so often I feel like I am neglecting my RPGs of choice; Horror. So I want to also spend some quality time with Slasher Flick and Little Fears.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Putting my money where my mouth is...
So I spent a lot of time and text ripping into Outlaw Press, James Shipman and his art stealing ways.
See:
So I have decided to put my money where my mouth is.
I am going to buy a copy of Tunnels and Trolls directly from Flying Buffalo this week at Gen Con.
I have no idea what edition, what book or anything. But I want to show my support this way. It looks like 7 (or 7.5) is the most up-to-date edition. But maybe an older edition would be cool to have too.
If you are going to Gen Con and want to support one of the true pioneers of our hobby, then I suggest you do the same.
- http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2009/12/outlaw-press-uses-stolen-art-and.html
- http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2010/01/more-from-outlaw-press.html
- http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2010/06/outlaw-press-is-back-and-still-stealing.html
So I have decided to put my money where my mouth is.
I am going to buy a copy of Tunnels and Trolls directly from Flying Buffalo this week at Gen Con.
I have no idea what edition, what book or anything. But I want to show my support this way. It looks like 7 (or 7.5) is the most up-to-date edition. But maybe an older edition would be cool to have too.
If you are going to Gen Con and want to support one of the true pioneers of our hobby, then I suggest you do the same.
SyFy stealing Amber Benson's "Drones"?
Non-game post today. Just something that has me all irritated.
Syfy (formerly "The SciFi Channel") has always been on the verge of falling into complete suck to me for a long time.
I used to love watching their shows a few years back. "Farscape" was one of the coolest "space" shows ever and "Lexx", well I am still not sure what Lexx was all about, but it was fun to watch.
Well now SyFy (and I do hate that new name) has a new show coming out called Human Relations. Here is their blurb for it released last week:
Here is the blurb for Amber Benson and Adam Busch's movie Drones,
This does not look like one of cases.
I would love it if you could all shoot SyFy an email to let them know that stealing ideas from indie film producers, while it may happen all the time, is still not cool.
Shoot them an email at feedback@syfy.com.(though their email seems to be clogged now).
If there is one thing I can't stand is when someone steals an idea (esp to make money) and pass it off as their own. So regardless of how you feel about SyFy, Amber Benson, TV or indie movies, this is obviously wrong.
Links
Amber's Facebook Page, http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=1235011957&ref=ts
Her Blog post, http://amberbensonwrotethis.blogspot.com/2010/07/drones-tv-show.html
Drones Website, http://dronesmovie.com/
Some reports from others:
http://airlockalpha.com/node/7676/is-syfy-original-series-not-so-original.html
http://www.fangirltastic.com/content/did-syfy-rip-amber-bensons-new-film-drones-you-decide
http://angrygreekdyke.blogspot.com/2010/07/oh-fuck-no-we-are-boycotting-syfy.html
http://community.livejournal.com/ohnotheydidnt/49514754.html?page=2
I used to love watching their shows a few years back. "Farscape" was one of the coolest "space" shows ever and "Lexx", well I am still not sure what Lexx was all about, but it was fun to watch.
Well now SyFy (and I do hate that new name) has a new show coming out called Human Relations. Here is their blurb for it released last week:
"The Office meets Men In Black in this project featuring an office Temp who slowly discovers that his off-kilter and odd-ball bosses at the strange hi-tech "ad agency" where he works are really aliens working on plan to destroy the Earth."Sound familiar? I thought so.
Here is the blurb for Amber Benson and Adam Busch's movie Drones,
"The Office meets The Day The Earth Stood Still...is about a guy who works in an office with a kooky, off-kilter boss/co-workers, who then discovers that he's really working with aliens who are plotting to blow-up the Earth."I know stuff like this happens all the time, and sometimes it even is innocent enough.
This does not look like one of cases.
I would love it if you could all shoot SyFy an email to let them know that stealing ideas from indie film producers, while it may happen all the time, is still not cool.
Shoot them an email at feedback@syfy.com.(though their email seems to be clogged now).
If there is one thing I can't stand is when someone steals an idea (esp to make money) and pass it off as their own. So regardless of how you feel about SyFy, Amber Benson, TV or indie movies, this is obviously wrong.
Links
Amber's Facebook Page, http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=1235011957&ref=ts
Her Blog post, http://amberbensonwrotethis.blogspot.com/2010/07/drones-tv-show.html
Drones Website, http://dronesmovie.com/
Some reports from others:
http://airlockalpha.com/node/7676/is-syfy-original-series-not-so-original.html
http://www.fangirltastic.com/content/did-syfy-rip-amber-bensons-new-film-drones-you-decide
http://angrygreekdyke.blogspot.com/2010/07/oh-fuck-no-we-are-boycotting-syfy.html
http://community.livejournal.com/ohnotheydidnt/49514754.html?page=2
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