It's my second day home after PAX East. Post-con letdown aches in my bones, and this snowstorm doesn't help. Shoveling clears the head and raises the heart rate, but doesn't help with the fatigue.
Again I ask myself how to create lasting community outside of an expensive con that forces us to reserve hundreds of dollars and a weekend of time to hang with friends that live locally but we don't see as often as you want to. It should be easy to reach out and schedule something, but the mundane reality of parenthood and being a responsible adult with a job and a mortgage means that friendships slip down on the priority list far more often than they should. And that sucks.
Sometimes introversion sucks. Self-induced anxiety tends to suck all the time.
The next two weekends will be full of games. This Saturday is International Tabletop Day, and next weekend is PAX East. I'm thrilled to pieces to be doing something for both events. I created an RPG scenario designed to run from business cards at one or both events.
International Tabletop Day
It's an excuse to reach out to fellow gamers and invite them to play something. I'm organizing an event at my church in Shrewsbury, MA. Feel free to stop by between 10 AM and 5 PM if you're in the neighborhood and want to get your game on. We'll be playing games all afternoon, so bring a game you'd like to share.
I'm reminded of a quote that never actually happened:
Not every post needs to be profound.
- Me
I need to get a few things out of my head. Buckle up for Short Attention Span Theatre, and feel free to heckle.
The Bospor Incident
I'm almost done with prep for this Classic Traveller game. I've got 10 business cards with PCs, and another 10 with player props, info, and combat cheat sheets. I'm hoping I don't need the rulebooks at all during the run, and I think it'll be a fun time. Bonus: unused PCs can easily morph into NPCs, and I can add them in later as people walk up, especially when the feces hits the whirling blades. I'll be running at PAX East if not before, so hit me up if you want to play.
I've been rolling up characters for Classic Traveller in support of an adventure I'm prepping for PAX. It'll be similar to an adventure I ran way back in college, but I'm refining it and calling it The Bospor Incident. I'll have pregens, so let me know if you'll be at PAX East and want to play. Either comment here or bug me through the medium of your choice.
Those of you familiar with Alien Legion (a late '80s comic I still love) may recognize the name, but I stole it and slapped it on a planet. It seemed to fit in my head. The characters start the game still in service, but that should change by the end of the session, one way or another.
Things are proceeding apace. I just wanted to take a few minutes and give a generic update here at the end of February.
Editing The Whispering Road is coming along. The main book is in layout now, and I'm waiting to proof the PDF. I love the game - it's a fairly simple system of GMless collaborative storytelling, and I love the act structure and conflict system. If you missed the Kickstarter, keep an eye out for it later in March so you can grab a copy.
I was on a couple of panels at PAX East 2013 with my fellow Gamer Assembly members (join us in the webchat if you have any questions or comments). We filmed both panels and they're up on YouTube!
All of the games mentioned in this panel are linked in the video description on YouTube, but I thought I'd link to ways to purchase these games directly (Full Disclosure: These are affiliate links where possible - please consider kicking a few cents my way if you're going to purchase them anyway). And if you want a standard resource, I'm adding a link to that system's page on RPGGeek as well.
Worldbuilding 101
Filmed at PAX East 2013 in the Tabletop Theatre Friday 3/22/13 at 3:30PM.
So PAX East happened this past weekend. I wasn't around as much as I could have been, but I decided that discretion was the better part of health this year. I've been sick off and on since Christmas, and the latest cough/sinus thing has been with me for the past 4 weeks. I think it's finally clearing up, but I didn't want to push my luck by staying at PAX until all hours.
Abbreviated though my pilgrimage was, PAX never ceases to amaze me. The amount of things to see, panels to hear and participate in, and people to talk with creates an embarrassment of creative riches and collaboration opportunities for game players and game industry folk alike. For those who have never been, I made a few crappy cell phone vids to give you an idea of the scope. You can go see all three videos on YouTube, but I've embedded the top-of-the-escalator view of the Tabletop Area below because in my mind it's the most impressive: thousands of gamers in a single hall talking and playing tabletop games for 15 hours straight. In the words of Rob Donoghue, "This is not a fringe. This is a THING."
PAX East's Tabletop Area is the largest high school cafeteria you can think of, crammed with people playing games and a pile of retailers to buy from. The game library is impressive, if slow to use. I heard 30 minute wait times to sign out a game were common at peak times, and almost the entire con is one big peak time. For me it's about the tables: a blank canvas on which to paint the world of your chosen game.
"But Wombat," you ask, "what did you do at PAX East other than gawk at the Tabletop Area?" I'm glad you asked.
Friday
Thanks to crap traffic on the Pike, I ended up arriving around 11, about an hour later than I expected to. I parked in the Overflow Lot down by the drydock, and half-walked, half-shuttled up to the hall. I had a bag of food for the hotel room that I bummed a key to deliver even though I wasn't staying the night this year. I needed dice to choose which of the many bathrooms in the suite to use. I also got a picture of the BCEC from the Commodore Suite high atop the Seaport Hotel. Swanky.
PAX East lies within. Do you dare enter?
(Correct answer: YES.)
I headed back, bumped elbows with Storm of Paul & Storm, walked the expo hall (overwhelming!), and hung out in the Tabletop Area for a bit. Pro Tip: Plenty of tables are empty on Friday during the day while people are still at work, so stake your claim on a table early. I limited myself to playing a demo of Dino Dice at the Steve Jackson booth since I wanted to hit the 2 PM panel on the Future of RPGs (guaranteed wrongness: 90%). The Tabletop Theatre line was declared full about a half hour before seating happened, but I hung out and sleazed into one of the seats left over after the crowd settled. An excellent panel was heard by all, challenging the idea that basements and caffeinated sparkling beverages and threatening the PCs' lives are somehow integral to the "true" RPG experience.
We had our Worldbuilding 101 panel immediately afterward at 3:30 PM. It was "full" a half hour before, but we ended up with space for 5 more. We had a great time with a very responsive and appreciative audience, and we fielded a few questions. We also had it filmed by professional videographers with actual borrowed video industry high-end equipment (thank you Natalya!), so stay tuned for the edited video as it becomes available. I can't wait to see it myself.
After the panel we talked with panel attendees, then dispersed. I wandered through the expo hall again, and ended up picking up some PAX Merch. I found Dan in the Jamspace to return the room key. (Note to self: Spend time in Jamspace next year - that freestyler kicked ass rolling costumes and props into his rhymes.) I was tired, so I left and ended up getting home around 7.
Saturday
The Saturday morning commute held no slowdowns at all, and it delivered me around 10:45 because I started out later. Overflow parking became my friend, and the shuttle bus service didn't have me waiting at all on either end. Win!
I walked the hall briefly and stared at dice (the Chessex booth is the penny candy store for tabletop gamers), saw that the merch booth still had scarves, decided to take the aforementioned crappy cell phone vids, and wandered into the Tabletop Area, my default destination at PAX. I hooked up with both circles of friends, one group sitting down for a demo of the X-Wing mini game on the table directly next to the other group fighting through a game of Zombie Fluxx. Odd how convergence happens. I took over for a round or two at the end of the Zombie Fluxx game, and then we wandered over to the Tabletop Theatre for our Tabletop System Wars panel.
I prefaced the panel with a brief talk about the usenet newsgroup wpi.flame and the ritualization of flame wars in a safe space so nobody's feelings got hurt, which set the tone for the good-natured intra-panel disprespect which followed. After a rousing chorus of, "You're wrong, the correct system to use is..." from every panelist, we gave away Bob's bags of gaming loot that he was contractually obligated to part with if he wanted to remain married. Everyone who stuck around got something, I think. If you didn't, let me know or poke a head into the chat and we'll rectify that situation. And yes, I'll post the video of this panel as it's available.
We wandered back into the Tabletop Area, and Brent convinced Daniel Solis to demo a few of his card games for us.
Belle of the Ball has come a long way in the past year.
Suspense (I think?) is an evil little game with a 13-card deck which plays in about 2 minutes and breaks your head along the way. Part logic puzzle, part playing to achieve an unknown victory condition, it packs a lot of analysis-paralysis angst into a tiny deck. Belle of the Ball has become a complex game of matching guests and using Belles to change the game, and it'll take a few times through for me to really feel some of the subtler strategies for the Belles. The good news is it'll be Kickstarted in August, so stay tuned for that.
My mother calls me around quarter of seven, just about halfway through the game of Belle, about an hour after she should have delivered my daughter back home. If you've ever tried taking a call during PAX, you'll know that tens of thousands of smartphone users tend to stress the cell network a bit, and the roar of the hall doesn't make phone communication exactly easy. Suffice to say that monkey wrenches were introduced and I had to leave slightly before I wanted to.
Overall
I spent a total of 15 hours in or near PAX. That seems like so little for a 3-day event, but it felt so full.
Playing games with their creators just can't be beat. Thanks, +Daniel Solis!
On Sunday, I learned that I missed a free ninja gig by +Molly Lewis and +The Doubleclicks on Saturday afternoon. Also various other folk I've talked with online were trolling the hall and active on Twitter. Note to self: Next year look at Twitter, you knob.
The Editing Gig
...is going swimmingly. I'm focusing on smaller projects, which fits better with the scraps of time I have available and coincidentally works out to a higher pay rate. I also find myself having more fun in tackling a wider diversity of content.
Bicycling in the ionosphere. Yeah, it's kinda like that for me.
The numbers: I edited 7 projects last year, 2 of which were quite sizable. By March 1st of this year I'll have 5 projects done. For the list of projects I've worked on, head over to my editing CV. Yes, I'll update that project list in the next week or two as the products become publicly available. I may need to split off an archive page to keep load times reasonable.
The trend? This year will be busy, but so far it's been a great ride. I like the quicker turnaround, but the downside of smaller projects is the endless quest to fill the pipeline. As of now, I have only vague promises of more projects after March 1. If you've got a project you need a second set of eyes on, it's a great time to give me a shout.
Random Disasters: The Parsonage
I became the chair (chairdude? chairperson?) of my church's Buildings & Grounds committee (B&G) as of 2 weeks ago. We have a new senior minister that started work this past Monday. 2 weeks prior to that, the parsonage (maintained as living quarters for the senior minister) was cleaned out by a team of volunteers and ready for move-in day. Two days after the cleaning was done, the previous head of B&G went over to install fresh batteries in the smoke detector and discovered water damage down two stories worth of interior walls.
Needless to say, our minister is currently couch surfing, and we're scrambling to get the damage repaired as quickly as possible.
Y'know when you roll a random event in your game that will totally screw the players and you look over the screen weighing the impact of making it happen, and your players see the look in your eye and say, "Don't you dare do whatever you're about to do to us! We just fixed all this crap and just barely survived!" and you feel bad? Fuck it. Do it anyway. Trust your dice and your random tables and let the chips fall where they may. Give your players too much to do. Grant them a break occasionally, but make those breaks sweeter for the random real-world crap that falls out of the sky and totally hoses them.
There's a real-world precedent for it, and it keeps life interesting in your game.
Tool.
The Right Tool for the Job
This morning was the first time this year my car door latch stuck open when leaving home on my commute. Normally it takes 5-10 minutes of blasting the heater before it lets go and allows my door to stay shut on its own. This morning I broke out the can of ice melt that I've been carrying around in my backpack for the past few months and I was off within 30 seconds.
Reward planning ahead, no matter how obscure or inconvenient.
PAX East Is Coming We've got 2 panels to run and we're waiting for the final schedule before publicizing our faces off. I've got a few prizes to give away lined up personally, in addition to the other swag we'll dig up. I'm psyched. And it's 29 days away now. I'll be busy between now and then. I have games to gather and an idea that I'm not sure I can prep in time...
Games I'll Have With Me
Now to print Stinger vehicle sheets and fit an arena map in the box.
I bought a first edition pocket box version of Car Wars. I'll also have Car Wars the Card Game. Zombie Dice should be on my person, and probably Cosmic Wimpout if anyone wants a slightly longer classic dice game. I'll be prepping an intro adventure for Classic Traveller, which shouldn't take terribly long as I'm revamping the adventure I ran years ago in college. I'm on the fence about bringing Nuclear War, or anything else in a box larger than the Traveller LBB box set. We'll see what else I can fit into my kit.
The D&D Edition Wars Gauntlet
Here's my crazy idea. Prep a simple encounter in an ogre's cave, then run variations of it back-to-back in OD&D, Moldvay Basic, AD&D, 2e, 3.5e, and 4e. It'll probably be a 4-hour run to play the full Gauntlet, and all the pre-gens and pertinent rules will fit on index cards for quick start-up. Just add players and dice, and you can taste 6 editions of D&D in one sitting to get a sense of the evolution of the game.
Just play the damn game.
I don't have any 2e books, so I may skip that version for the initial run. I'm weak in 4e development, and I haven't looked at AD&D in years. Time will be a factor here, but I'll do my best to make it happen.
What do you think about the Gauntlet? Good idea? Is running the Gauntlet an interesting experiment or a waste of time? I'm interesting in hearing your feedback, especially if you're interested in playing.
I think this will be my last post directly related to this year's PAX East. There's so much packed into three (or in my case, two) short days that it takes a week to decompress. I wrote up a reaction to the Gamer Assembly Panel, which I wanted to mention here. Other than that, I've been collecting cool stories and reactions this week and I wanted to share them with you. So without further ado, have some links.
We all want to play, write, or be a part of great games. We all have some internal list of dos and don'ts to help us find great gaming experiences. But there's one ingredient consistent across all great gaming experiences that I've ever heard of.
It's the People, Stupid.
Playing with friends or like-minded strangers who will soon be friends makes for a far richer gaming experience than playing solo. I'm not going to get into gaming with people who hold definitions of fun which conflict with your definition of fun - that's a different post.
When you play a game, the real world melts away and every player ends up on an even playing field in the world of the game. There's no starstruck awkwardness, no entitlement issues, nothing else that has any useful definition in the world of the game. You play your part, whether a faction, a member of a team, or a set of colored tokens, and all that matters is that you play your role to the best of your ability.
At the Game Table, We're All Equals
What does this have to do with PAX? PAX East has the highest rate of Cool People per square meter that I know about. I have never met anyone at PAX that I have disliked.
It goes beyond that. PAX's environment encourages people to drift in and get involved with each other. We're all there to enjoy gaming in all its forms, and it pays to strike up a conversation or start a game with someone next to you in line or at a table looking bored. We all take responsibility for each other at PAX because every last person there shares a passion for gaming.
That passion trumps everything else at PAX. Gamers are the Us instead of the Them at PAX. You're allowed to be awesome in the geekiest way you can imagine. Nobody even flinches when you laugh maniacally holding a pawn above your head with that look of joy on your face. Everybody shares in the experience around the table, even if they're not playing. And that, my friends, that is magic, pure and simple.
If there's something magical about the environment, then I have to ask...
How Do We Clone PAX?
How do we create the environment of gaming inclusion? How do we get over ourselves, over the parts of us afraid of rejection, over the discomfort of reaching out to another human being and finding out if they're a member of our tribe or not? How do we generate a bubble of PAXness reliably in public without mistakenly scooping up trolls intent on controlling the situation to their exclusive advantage?
I don't have a reliable answer. But I do have friends. And I have enough space at home for 3 game tables to run simultaneously, albeit barely. So I will have Potluck Game Nights, and I will invite people over who I know will enjoy games in the company of others, and I will do my best to weed out the trolls.
It's imperfect, but it's what I have available to me, so I'll use it until we can figure out a way to reliably recreate PAX at the drop of a hat.
I had a few goals for PAX East. Nothing major, but I had a mental checklist of stuff I wanted to do. I didn't want to hold myself to much more than one scheduled event per day, and a major part of congoing is meeting people.
In the spirit of geekiness, I decided to score myself on how well I met my goals at PAX East this year.
Seriously, don't you consider this art?
Getting Books Signed: 100%
I brought exactly two game books for signatures, and I took care of both. I nabbed Jeremy Keller on Saturday and he signed my Kickstarter copy of Technoir for me. And I had to leave Fred Hicks alone for a few minutes with Don't Rest Your Head, but I have now witnessed how to sign a book with creativity and intent. I may have brought something for Steve Jackson to sign had he been in attendance this year. Other than that, I'm totally satisfied with how the fanboy portion of my con went.
View from the panel stage.
Speaking at the Panel: 100%
I had to limit myself to only 100% here, since this experience kicked ass. We had 7 people on stage, most of whom had never met in person before. We had a few points where we talked over each other, but by and large we took turns and continually added to everyone else's comments. I think the audience got a great deal of useful advice and information, and I met some very cool people both on and off stage. I'm already planning pitches for panels next year.
Playing Games: 80%
I didn't play as much as I wanted to play. Part of that came from leaving so early. I wanted to break out Car Wars: The Card Game and I never ended up doing that, so I docked myself some points there. I did play a game that I had never heard of before (Cards Against Humanity) and a game that I wanted to try out (Lords of Waterdeep), so a few bonus points there. I didn't win, but winning isn't the point. Playing with friends old and new is.
Lords of Waterdeep.
Brent's game of OD&D entertained the heck out of me. The first encounter against 5 stirges ended in a TPK. We couldn't roll to save our lives. With the second party we owned the rest of the dungeon. Looting the fallen bodies of the first party helped, as did the assistance of Trapfinder, our hireling. And rolling a cask of oil down the stairs and lighting up the huge spider below totally made the game for me. Win.
Meeting People and Networking: 90%
I had a few people to catch up with, including the Gamer Assembly folk and several people I've met on Google Plus. I missed exactly 2 people out of a list of roughly 20, so there's the rationale for the score. I had no expectations of handing out piles of business cards, as I tend to want deeper communication than the speed dating of traditional networking events. But I am thrilled to have put a few cards in the hands of independent game designers. We'll see if anything tangible comes of those contacts in the months to come.
Everyone pictured has a love of gaming in common.
Hanging With Friends: 100%
Here's where PAX scored big. With all the kids and work and day-to-day responsibilities of life, we need a weekend to tell the world exactly where to go. I've got the best friends on the planet. We stayed up talking until 2AM while the cutthroat game of Dominion unraveled at the table behind us. Being invited into games when you've never met before, or only met once or twice, can't be beat. I felt a sense of instant belonging. I could have stayed in the Tabletop area all weekend, drifting from table to table and just making new friends who all share the strong desire to play games. Just hanging out at PAX brings out the magic in the community.
AGGREGATED TOTAL: 94% PAX East kicks it. Hard. I made some friends, shook hands with some potential business contacts, played some games, experienced new things, talked until my throat was raw, had some books signed, and left with the sadness that endings always cause. It was huge and loud and tiring, but I always felt at home.
Saturday was my last day of PAX East, sad to say. Family trumps con, and sickness trumps family. More on that later.
A view across the expo hall.
It was early, so the crowd was thin.
I got rolling for 10AM and dropped my bag in the car, then hit the hall. I floated around the expo hall for a bit. I realized that the Chessex booth is the penny candy store for gamers - so many small shiny treasures for short money, and you can't possibly eat just one.
I got in line for the Campaign Doctors panel and schmoozed for a bit. IRCing and talking to Tresi who was right next to me in line was surreal and laughably sad in a film-noir-mime sort of way. But then again, living in the future is awesome.
And of course E tweets that she's giving away Think Geek freebies as soon as the panel opens up. I drop my stuff and run over to grab something for my daughter and sneak back in just after the panel intros. For the record, it was a China Sackboy, which she immediately categorized somewhere between Lego and Polly Pocket.
Generic Advice #11:
"Secure that shit, Hudson."
The panel rocked. I re-met a few audience members who went to our panel the previous night. This panel was shorter than ours, but the questions and answers were very similar so I guess we all know a little something about this RPG thing. Or at least we've learned the same lessons even though they were born of very different experiences. Universal truths in RPGs will resurface in another article over here, I'm sure.
I chatted up the panelists and handed out a few cards. Luke says he's always looking for editors, so here's hoping he didn't lose my card. I'll be sending out electronic thank yous in the next day or two to follow up. Once again, the same crew of Enforcers was working in Merman. It was good to have a second chance to hang out with those guys.
After that, I hit the expo hall for a bit. I met up with Ben and Rob, but Becky was working too hard for me to introduce myself. Margaret Weis just came back to her booth, so I seized the lull and had a fanboy moment with Jeremy Keller when he signed my copy of Technoir. Win!
After that, I could feel the fatigue building so I decided to find a table. Only problem was there were no tables in the Tabletop Free Play areas. So I did the next best thing. I watched a demo of Race To Adventure (a very cool game based on the Spirit of the Century RPG which will be kickstarting next month), then hit up Fred Hicks to sign the copy of Don't Rest Your Head that he gave me last year.
Sign your books like
you MEAN it, people!
If you have the chance to have Fred sign a copy of Don't Rest Your Head, do so. It is the creative yardstick against which I will hold against all future signings.
Fred and Rob Donoghue (both co-Presidents of Evil Hat Productions) invited me to play Lords of Waterdeep. It was on my "strong maybe" list to demo, so I stuck around. And in a true knife-twist, Rob screwed me out of 20 victory points just before my last move. Nicely played. It wouldn't have made a difference in the final tally as I was still fairly far behind from figuring out where to focus my efforts in the game, but it would have possibly gotten me up to third instead of fourth. Fun game, and a great discussion afterward. Rob, I'd love to see the Building Upgrade tweak, as I think that'll tighten things up.
I found this sign on the wall
in the Kickstarter room.
That's class, pure & simple.
I walked up to the Kickstarter room, but it was half-empty. Only the electronic games folk were there. And Cards Against Humanity was sold out, much to Dan's chagrin.
I hit my wall. The exhaustion caught up with me, and I decided to head home around 6, far earlier than I wanted to. Had I the energy there would have been games aplenty, including Car Wars: The Card Game that I had promised to a few people. Sorry about the early bail everyone, but my body had had enough.
And it turns out, what I thought was allergies turned out to be a cold. On Sunday I cracked my way through The Hallelujah Chorus once and skipped he second service. My mother bailed on brunch for the same reason, and nobody wanted to get my grandparents sick, so I crashed in the afternoon.
The cold explains the exhaustion, and I'm still recovering after having it for a week. I apologize if I infected anyone. Extra apologies to Tresi - that'll learn you to hand me your new iPad and explain FreeMarket to me. Next year I'm thinking of making a T-Shirt saying "PAX Pox: Patient Zero" and if I'm not sick I'll fake sneeze my way through the con. And then I thought why not turn it into a viral con game? I'll check with Charley and Mark to see if there's anything written down about the Zombie viral game from that long-past Intercon.
I thought I would tack on a list of con goals here, but I think I'll separate it out into another post to make it easier to keep score. And I've got a more philosophical PAX post coming after that. Stay tuned.
Yes, it's morning. Yes, I had far too little sleep on a pillow that disappeared into nothingness when pressure was applied. Yes, I'll be a little rough around the edges, but nowhere near as bad as the Steve Jackson booth crew who suffered through multiple fire alarms at 4AM. Best of luck to them today.
Yesterday I drove in and parked at the convention center. I overpacked a bit, but it worked out after dumping stuff at the hotel. I hung out during the day and played Cards Against Humanity, which is Apples To Apples with cards that are just wrong.
PAX East is bigger than last year. They changed the layout from last year. The expo hall expanded by 50%, giving much more roomy aisles. The tabletop area is wider than last year, and apparently Wizards of the Coast got double the tables they got last year. The free play area got split across 3 sections, and one of the sides closed off for some reason so the traffic pattern is a little screwy - the west side of the hall felt sort of like a backwater eddy pool, but that actually worked well to make the free play area a little quieter and easier to deal with than last year.
We had the panel at 7. We set our bar very low - we were thrilled when we had more audience members than panelists. We had about 40 people, and the schedule let us go long so we answered every question. Great questions, and we had a great time. We spent time chatting with folk afterward, and the Gamer Assembly business cards flew off the table. I'm already thinking about panels to pitch for next year.
We played a celebratory game of OD&D, where our second party looted the remains of the first party and we could retire at first level with the treasure we recovered. Awesome.
I had to move the car before retiring to the hotel since they tow at 2AM. I found a freebie spot and walked back to the hotel. We stayed up until 2 talking while the endless Dominion game ran over at the table.
And now to shower and score bagels and hard boiled eggs. I'll be in my Gamer Assembly shirt today, and I'll be schmoozing. Ben, Becky, and Rob, you're on my list to see, plus the Campaign Doctor panel. Then I'll be driving home sometime this evening. So far, so good. Let's see what awesomeness will happen today.
I'm packed. I'm spending tonight at home and then the next 40 hours will be spent steeping in PAXness.
I'll be onsite by 10ish tomorrow morning, traffic willing. As for schedule, I'm on the Gamer Assembly panel in Merman at 7 so come heckle for a chance to win the door prize!
If you're looking for me, I'll probably be in the tabletop area for most of the remaining time. I look approximately like the attached photo. (This is also a test post from the Blogger app on my phone, complete with photos. Woo!)
Anyway, if you want to chat or play something, give me a shout. Easiest way to get my attention is in person, followed closely by mentioning me on Twitter (@twwombat). I'll be schmoozing and handing out business cards too, so please bug me if you're looking for an editor for your game products.
On a related note, I overhauled my other site and turned it into a resume site for RPG editing gigs. Take a look for other ways to track me down: http://www.twwombat.com
If you're going to PAX, hopefully I'll see you there. And I'll post sporadically, I'm sure.
Peace.
My wife has been to many a weekend conference, so she busted her hump to make sure our hotel room had enough food. Ten thousand thank yous, my love! I ended up bringing a cooler bag and 2 other bags filled with food, paper towels, and utensils.
The Stuff That Worked:
Breakfast things worked well. Each morning we feasted on hard boiled eggs, bananas, and bagels with cream cheese. Bagels and bananas both make an ideal "It's 3AM and I'm a little peckish" food as well.
Snackables. We made a big batch of gorp and divvied it out into sandwich bags so anyone could grab one to eat during the day. Add a granola bar and an apple and I had lunch on Saturday.
Bottled water. I brought a case and I ended up with 2 bottles left over on Sunday.
Brownies. I brought a pan's worth with me, and ended up taking half home. The container seemed a little big to bring in and give away, so I packed a sandwich bag with a few which provided zero protection from crushing. Ah, well - the crumbs tasted just as good. I gave brownies to Enforcers on the swing shift, so yay for well-fed con workers. They also make a great breakfast food when you come right down to it. I'd have taken more into the con space, but I didn't want to compete with Cookie Girl taking donations for Child's Play.
I felt it was my job to provision the room and get food to whoever needed it in the con. Every time I left the room my bag contained at least 4 bottles of water, a bag or two of gorp, a granola bar, and a couple of apples. I offered food and water when I remembered I had it. I noticed the demand for water outpaced the consumption of gorp. I'd like to take more water with me next PAX, but I'm not sure my shoulders would take the weight for long.
The Stuff That Didn't Work:
Lunchables. I brought pita bread, carrot sticks, potato chips, hummus, and tuna salad. I snuck back to the room for a sandwich on Friday and dipped into the hummus before the playtest that night, but other than that the lunch foods remained untouched.
Notes For Next Year:
Take more snack foods. Leave the lunch foods at home.
Bring more water to the tabletop area if possible. Gamers don't think to stop and find more to drink, and kidney stones suck rocks (pardon my pun).
See about donating brownies to the people collecting for Child's Play.
Take more food to give away, and let more people know that snacks are available. Nobody should go hungry or broke on non-game purchases during PAX.
I'm struck by how thin the walls are between us gamers. We game. We game in a big honkin' room at PAX. We talk smack to each other, but we know we'll shake hands and be ready to ally with our former competitors in the next game. The game ends, the slate clears, life begins anew every time the pieces come out for a new game.
You'd think this odd if you came from any other tradition. PAX has very few dicks, which is surprising given the tens of thousands of people attending. There's the occasional bad apple, but for the most part, gamers shoot straight with each other. We point out faults, we help teach strategy, we work together to make the rules flow for everyone at the table.
Tonight, we fleshed out the rules to Loot, a card game from Gamewright. It's a fun card game about pirates looting merchant ships, but some of the order of operations were completely unclear. We identified a situation where the rules didn't seem to work. We worked out new rules that worked for everyone at the table, and we got past it. Done. No fuss, no ongoing bitterness, just a problem and a solution in five minutes.
That's the wonder of gamer culture. We work together because if we don't we won't survive. This was the law of the playground, when bullies ruled and ridiculed us because they didn't understand.
Can we organize? Can we apply this unspoken understanding to society and government? Can we help each other change the world? Can we weed out the idiocy inherent in bureaucracy within our lifetimes?
And now I'm off to sleep, and then to head home early to deal with sick family. Sad I'll miss some things tomorrow, but family trumps gaming.
Traffic on the Pike sucks. I knew that, but I ended up getting to the hall around 10:30.
... Holy crap, that hall is friggin' huge.
I did a quick walk through and drooled on the custom gamer tables - I really like the Valet model and I think I can make it fit in the office - and broke through to the other side. I followed the big banner for Tabletop Gaming and came around the wall.
... Holy crap, =this= hall is friggin' huge.
And it's filled with empty tables and a few stalls hawking games. Great place to set up shop and meet people. I gamed with Quinn, Lucas, Ben, Dan, Keith, Todd, Jeremy, and Joe. Zombie Dice, Car Wars the card game, Small World, and Ascension are all really cool.
Poked around and saw the huge lines upstairs for the panels. Might try that today, but having more fun just gaming.
Today I'll shoot for a game of Beans. That should be happy in a con setting. I'm just having fun surfing the crowd and putting faces with twitter IDs. I feel a little weird about finding people and introducing myself - online peripheral conversations don't provide much to hang a real-life conversation off of... But the coolness of the people I've seen makes the awkwardness worth it.
Still need to shower and head over to the hall. I'm not stressing over being in lines - it's too much fun letting the situation drive what I end up doing.
, a card game from Gamewright. It's a fun card game about pirates looting merchant ships, but some of the order of operations were completely unclear. We identified a situation where the rules didn't seem to work. We worked out new rules that worked for everyone at the table, and we got past it. Done. No fuss, no ongoing bitterness, just a problem and a solution in five minutes.