There are lots of rules involved with the D&D role-playing game. Not all of them are in the books…
By: Kelbek Avarice
Rule #1: The Game Master Is God.
What the Game Master says, goes! Period.
Rule #2: Never Split The Party!
The monsters have divine intuition, and know when the party is weakened.
Rule #3: The Dice Choose You.
They have a mind of their own…
Rule #4: The Bartender Knows Everything.
He is the prophet of the world, and has the knowledge of the universe.
Rule #5: Copper Is The Enemy.
One hundred copper equals one gold. You do the math.
Rule #6: Go With The Flow.
Unless the flow leads to a giant waterfall.
Rule #7: You Can Never Have Too Many Minions.
One hundred enemies? All I see is free experience!
Rule #8: Take Chances.
Just not reckless ones.
Rule #9: Don’t Act Reckless.
But take chances.
Rule #10: If the GM Forgets Something, Let Him/her Know.
You might get extra experience!
Rule #11: Don’t Expect The Unexpected, Become The Unexpected.
Make the GM improvise for your amusement.
Rule #12: Escape From Reality.
And enter a better one.
Rule #13: Train In Heal.
It’ll save your life.
Rule #14: There Are No Such Things As Friends, Only Allies.
It makes it easier to kill them.
Rule #15: Be Creative!
It’s half the game.
Rule #16: Don’t Trust The Sexy Lady Sitting At The Bar Alone.
There’s an extremely high chance that she’ll end up killing you.
Rule #17: The d20 Can Either Be Your Best Friend, Or Your Worst Enemy.
So treat them with kindness.
Rule #18: Leave Your Personal Problems Out Of The Game.
Nobody cares that you had a fight with your girlfriend. Be happy you have one.
Rule #19: Stay In Character.
It’s a lot easier and more fun for everyone.
Rule #20: Don’t Blindly Jump Into Dark Pits.
Especially without rope.
Rule #21: If The Reward Is Outrageously High, You Won’t Be Getting It.
Because you’re really going to get 2,000 gold for investigating a “rat infestation”.
Rule #22: Try Out Various Characters.
Just not bullywugs.
Rule #23: If You Aren’t Sure About Something, Ask The GM.
After all, the GM is God.
Rule #24: Try Your Best Not To Burn Down A Town.
Especially one full of little hobbits.
Rule #25: You Can’t Carry A Great Axe, Two Long Swords, And A Flail On Your Back.
They only thing you’ll accomplish is a broken back.
Rule #26: When Entering A Town, Go Immediately To The Alchemist Shop.
If you’re lucky enough to find one.
Rule #27: Everything Happens At The bar.
Rumor is that it has to do with the bartender.
Rule #28: You Can Never Have Too Much Gold.
But platinum is better.
Rule #29: Save Your Dailies.
Better safe then sorry.
Rule #30: The Final Boss Isn’t Always The Final Boss.
So save your dailies.
Rule #31: You Never Need To Go To The Bathroom.
Convenient, isn’t it?
Rule #32: If You Don’t Know What A Beholder Is, You’re Lucky.
And if you do know, then I sincerely apologize.
Rule #33: Check For Traps.
They can be in doors, chests, walls, almost anywhere.
Rule #34: Bring A Random Item.
You never know when you’ll need to kick out the ol’ dowsing rod.
Rule #35: Don’t Bang Pots And Pans Together To Attract Enemies.
Unless you’re into that sort of thing.
Rule #36: Don’t Trust Random NPC’s.
You shouldn’t even consider them allies.
Rule #37: You Can Never Have Too Many Magic Items.
Is there something wrong with having boots of speed, gauntlets of strength, a ring of teleportation, and a necklace of invisibility? I didn’t think so.
Rule #38: Contrary To The Name, You Aren’t Always In Dungeons, And You Don’t Always Fight Dragons.
Mind blowing, isn’t it?
Rule #39: Stay Away From Graveyards.
You’ll thank me later… if you still have a brain.
Rule #40: Learn To Improvise!
If needed, take classes.
Rule #41: You Always Wear The Same Clothes.
And never shower…
Rule #42: Play Smart.
Just don’t be smarter than the GM.
Rule #43: Stay Away From Giant Talking Skulls.
They cause nothing but trouble!
Rule #44: Always Carry A Thievery Kit.
You’d be surprised at how many things are locked nowadays.
Rule #45: Explore Every Corner Of The Dungeon.
You just might find something worthwhile.
Rule #46: Don’t Underestimate Fire.
So be sure to carry plenty of H2O.
Rule #47: Know Your Character Types.
I.e.: Controller, Striker, Leader, Defender.
Rule #48: Don’t Have Your Character Wear Big Hoop Earrings.
This isn’t a beauty contest.
Rule #49: There’s No Difference Between Diplomacy And Intimidation As Long As It Gets The Job Done.
But an axe to the head leaves a better impression.
Rule #50: Make Your Mark In History!
Let the world know your name!
Chatty just wrote an article, ending with the question, “What lessons from work and day jobs have given you good lessons for later career changes?” I was all set to answer as a comment on CH, but quickly realized I needed more room. I normally don’t write long posts, but would appreciate it if you stayed until the end. This ended up being kind of personal for me.
I am, today, right where I should be. All the choices I’ve made, and all the choices I could have made, have brought me to this place. And this is how I got here…
———–
Never piss off the valet…
Straight out of high school and into a valet parking job – is not always a good career choice. Sure, I got to drive all sorts of hot cars, and get all kinds of hot tips, but the hotel/casino industry can be a real bitch of a succubus.
“I’ll work for a year, then go to our community college for two.”
Two years later, I’m still parking cars for that damn casino (with only two classes under my belt). If you’ve ever been to Reno, NV, you may have seen the now defunct Fitzgerald’s Hotel/Casino. It sits right next to train tracks, has the SLOWEST elevators, and has a garage across the street (where we valets parked our customers’ cars). That was okay, until some downtown event closed the street, making it take up to an hour sometimes to get people their cars. On the plus side, the money I made parking cars was good for someone right out of high school – $6 bucks an hour, plus $30-$40 a day in tips.
Stupid tips.
So I tried to go to school again, and quickly dropped out of one of my classes (some ungodly macro/micro-economics class). The instructor did not know how to explain anything, even after we ALL asked him to try a different approach. What made it worse was that he thought he was a great comedian, and always paused after a joke – waiting for us to laugh. Let’s just say there was plenty of awkward.
Stupid class. I’m going back to making tips.
So I head over to the huge and lush Reno Hilton, formerly Bally’s, formerly-formerly the MGM, and now the Grand Sierra, soon to be Humperdink’s Can’t-Make-A-Buck Hotel. As a bellhop, I made minimum wage, but pulled in $90-$100 dollars almost every day. As one who helps people with their luggage, I got to meet Scott Glenn, Jennifer Tilly, and even Tommy Chong (no Cheech, though). Unfortunately, I had to work part time, couldn’t drive the limo, and if I wanted to work full time, I’d have to work graveyard, and I ain’t workin’ graveyard.
Stupid graveyard.
So I went back to school… I dropped out so fast I couldn’t even tell you what classes I took.
Stupid School.
From there, I went to work at the Flamingo Hilton, right next door to the Fitzgeralds. It was cool because they had an underground garage for valet parking… an underground garage with no cameras… LESSON TO ALL OF YOU WHO VALET PARK YOUR CARS: If you go somewhere and have your car valet parked, make sure they don’t take it underground.
The day before my first day working there, a valet took a Mitsubishi 3000GT into the garage and got it going so fast that he didn’t have room to stop. He totaled the car, but somehow moved it into a parking spot. Left the keys in it and never said a word. Yup.
All but the pintos and ford escorts routinely went 50mph+ in that garage.
If you pissed off the valet, he might drive your car to its parking spot in 5th gear, the entire way.
If you pissed off the valet, he might e-brake your car into the parking spot after going 50mph+.
If you pissed off the valet, he might not use the brake at all, opting instead to throw it in park. That’s a gnarrrrrrrly sound.
Gum…? Gone. Weed…? Gone. Money…? Half of it gone. Six-pack of beer…? Now it’s a 5-pack. Dent in the door…? Wasn’t me.
Yeah, so I didn’t do any of those things to your car, I only watched it happen, mostly. But I had to get out of there, and was looking for a way out. I was just so done with the downtown scene. So when my supervisor, in front of many customers, started a fight by headbutting me, I felt it was time. He got fired, and I got suspended. When I came back three days later, I walked off the job. On the plus side, I was making $50-$70 a day in tips, so I was able to buy my first dirt bike – a Honda XR650L. Man that bike was big. We got into many fights, and it usually won.
Unfortunately, I was now out of work, so I had no cheddar to pay for those hospital bills – for me and the bike. Hospital, rent, food, credit cards, food, bills, movies, and food needed to be paid for. I had no career, no job, no degree, and no money. Why didn’t I stay at home with my folks, and just go to school? Now, to live I need an easy job that doesn’t require experience, and one that pays well. Well, tips pay well.
Stupid tips.
So I go to work at the Peppermill Hotel/Casino, by far the job with the best memories. This place was cool and classy – but I had to work graveyard. – sigh –
It was nice because almost every day I would come to work (working by myself as the only bellhop/limo driver on graveyard) and be told to pick up one or more customers in the limo, and limo customers usually tip very well. I’d have money given to me like it was candy, had it shoved down my pants (by ladies, mind you), and even made $1,000 in a single night for driving some hot-shot gambler around for my entire shift. It’s kind of a weird feeling when some guy hands you a tall stack of bills totaling $135,000, and says, “Let’s go back to the hotel, I owe them $75,000.”
I certainly have plenty of stories from that place, the Peppermill. I’ve never been to so many strip clubs on the company dime, seen so many strange things in hotel rooms, and made as much money as I did while working there. Also, never before had three coworkers vied for my attention at the same time – must have been the suit, or because I was the new guy, or because I was finally making the cheddar. I eventually took one of those three little ladies as my wife – so yeah, that place was good.
However, it was a hotel/casino, and I was making tips. That’s not a career. Not for me, anyway. It was at this point that I started to get that what-are-you-going-to-do-with-your-life thorn. And mind you, I was still working graveyard… right up until I got fired for extending my lunch by two hours while I slept in the manager’s office. Stupid surveillance – no more tips.
Stupid tips.
I know, I know. Hang in there, I do have a point.
From there I go to Boomtown, a not-so-nice alternative to the Peppermill. Parking cars and delivering luggage… it was the same old thing, but this time for more stingy customers. They demoted our Valet Supervisor so I could take his position (poor bastard), and now I was making enough money to pay a mortgage. I had a bigger paycheck, still made tips, drove buses for golf groups, and even occasionally drove the limo.
Never go near a black widow…
So, even though I was a supervisor, I was still making really good tips. And thus began the final, gradual slide into my breaking point. During my seven years there, this job put me in a rut, made me depressed, and hurt my marriage. I was so unsatisfied in it. Half the time, I was sitting in my office just trying to get away. The other half of the time I was becoming friends with an attractive employee. She was completely different from me, and yet her attention was a convenient fix. I’ve never cheated on my wife, though with this dangerous person, I almost could have. It was dark times.
At some point, I realized that I was just looking for something to happen – something to change in my life. I felt directionless, and I felt like a loser. I felt like a loser for a long time. My wife loved me. I don’t know why, but she did. And though I’ve definitely appreciated her love, I sure as hell didn’t show it.
When my son was born – that was the start. That was the start of something changing. It felt good to have him grab my finger, and to fall asleep next to me on the couch, or in my arms. This was my boy. He was to be my buddy, my best buddy.
Some days I felt good, and wanted to do things that made me feel good. So, in that little Valet supervisor closet office, I watched all 10 seasons of Stargate SG-1. God it felt so good watching that. I watched all 10 seasons, twice. That show simply gave me so much. Sure, it was an outlet for me to get away, but from that I just started getting inspired. It was the genre, the fun, the danger, the sci-fi, and the characters.
During this time, and for many months after, Boomtown started paying me to work on my RPG (we all have one, right?). Ok, so they didn’t realize they were paying me to do that, but whatever. I easily put hundreds of hours into that RPG, Nighthaven – a modern day Underworld-meets-Buffy-meets-Blade kind of game. I’ve gone through three editions, and even had it printed in full book form. Tips be damned. I had given up many tip-earning duties in favor of working on my RPG, or for our Friday night game. Tips be damned. I was enjoying myself, really. It felt good to work on that stuff, to write, to plot, to devise, and to invent. Writing that game was an outlet, a creative outlet. It let me be myself, exploring my creative energy, and I really took to the challenge.
Also, because of some fancy luck, I was able to drop over $20,000 on jaw surgery and braces, something I’ve wanted to do for almost two decades, but wasn’t able to. Best money spent e-v-e-r. My smile (or lack thereof) has always held me back. I’m completely serious when I say that in the first year of wearing braces, I smiled more in that year than in my entire adult life. One stressful part of my life, gone!
Being in a better mood, I began wondering about where I was going to be in five years. I knew that I didn’t want to work at Boomtown, or any hotel or casino, anymore. I didn’t care how many tips I made, I didn’t want to do it. For me, I’ve grown to find absolutely no satisfaction in that industry – there were simply too many negative things about working in a casino (most of which I haven’t mentioned) that made me realize I needed to do something different. Of course, my wife standing behind me nudging me forward was a good help, too.
But, I had no degree, only a handful of credits, and no experience outside of the hotel industry. There was nothing “I wanted to be.” So, after getting the drive to improve myself, I started to feel helpless again.
Stupid tips – you did this to me. I fell into your trap, and admit I’ve done little to escape. I should never have embraced you.
That’s when my gaming buddy said he was applying for the Sheriff’s Office. He mentioned a few things about it, then I prodded him for more information, and then I applied. We went through the police academy together, graduated, and went to work in the jail as deputies. I found out something crucial in both my training and working the job – two things: (1) I found more confidence in myself than I’d ever had before, and (2) I knew that I couldn’t do the job. After only three months as a deputy, I stepped down. I know, right? Only three months? Let me tell you – those were the three hardest months of my life. Being a cop is simply not in my nature. Sure, I could fake it, but that would ruin me unlike anything else, and put other deputies in harm’s way. I don’t know what else to say, other than I simply couldn’t do that job. On the plus side, I found out that I’m really good with a pistol.
Not wanting to waste all that money spent on my background check and training, the Sheriff’s Office was kind enough to offer me a civilian position. I still work with the deputies and oversee inmates, but it is sooooo much less stress. It’s great. I have a good-paying job, a career if I want, and definite retirement. I absolutely do not think about not having a future, because I can easily see myself at the Sheriff’s Office for quite some time. I’m happy here, and I have been for over four years. This helps me live a low-stress lifestyle, where I continue to write about gaming (whether I’m working on my RPG, or putting up posts on this silly little website).
I leave work at work, and come home to a family. I’ve had a few jobs over these past 18 years, and it wasn’t until I really started letting go of those paycheck worries that I began to let loose and write. I have to be happy, we all do. Only then can we ever really enjoy. I enjoy my being creative, but I can’t be creative if I’m worrying about my family’s future. For me, low stress is the key. I found a way to get that creative energy out, which is a big avenue toward my feeling happy, content, and challenged. My job makes me feel content, my writing makes me feel satisfied, my wife makes me feel loved, and my boy makes me feel infinite, indescribable emotions.
I sometimes think that I should never have taken all those jobs making tips. That kind of money, with no real college education or worthwhile experience, can be a horrible trap – if you’re not careful. I was not careful, and I fell into the trap. It was a quick fix at the time, but then came back to bite me in the ass. It took a long time, but I tamed that beast, and am right where I need to be. I love myself, my family, and my job – but I’ve learned that letting loose my creative side is an absolute fundamental necessity – necessary for everything else to work. I know what makes me happy, and what it took to get here.
And if I had to, I’d do it all over again, because my path, traps and all, have finally brought me home.
Thank you Saren, for being my rock. And thank you Nathan, for being my absolute best buddy, ever.
As a sci-fi chick, girl gamer, and all-around nerd-bird, you could say that I’ve been there / done that. I’ve played five editions of D&D, three editions of Star Wars, three editions of ShadowRun, a bunch of Gurps, too much of the various incarnations of the Palladium ‘Verse, Toons, Top Secret, Cyberpunk, Elfquest, Super Babes, Conventions, festivals, and even some good old-fashioned vampiric LARP. Oh, and I’m not yet 30 years young. But I didn’t spend the time writing this paragraph for nostalgia or bragging purposes, I just want it to be clear that I’ve been around the block and seen a thing or two.
One of the great things about role-playing games is the ability to jump into the role of someone else – Or, at least the ability to play a beefed-up, more sexy version of yourself. That’s just the way it is: we all play larger-than-life heroes and heroines, battling bad guys and saving the day (whatever that means). Sometimes, we get out of our shell and play a character that is so not like our real selves, but most of the time we all play some version of our self ‘ala bells and whistles.
It’s quite unusual for us to play the downtrodden, weak, under-skilled, and underpowered character. After all, we want to play the hero, we want to play the cliche. And that’s totally cool, so long as we don’t embrace one cliche and outcast others.
What am I talking about?
Well, ask yourself this: How many times have you wanted to play the scrawny guy? Hardly ever. You usually want to play the guy that excels in his field. You want to play the guy that looks cool with his ripped muscles, shiny armor, and big huge axe. Us girls don’t want that. After all, we can’t wield the big huge axe, or march in that heavy plate mail (and good luck trying to mount a horse with that gear). Sure, mechanically we could do all that, but that’s just cheesy. Which leads me to the point…
I’m a chick. My heroines are naturally going to be sleek, slim and sexy. If I’m going to play a character with any sort of natural strength, I’ll be wielding weapons and wearing armor more suitable to my stature. I don’t want to play a fighter that is 6’2, 220 lbs. That’s cool for a guy, but not a girl. Put him in any kind of bulky armor and he looks cool. He looks good. Put a woman in that armor and she looks like a… man.
Well, I’m playing a woman, I want to look like a woman. I want to look sexy and sleek. I’m not a feminist; I’m a realist. Men are from Mars, women are from Venus. Men are brawny, women are sexy. That’s why it’s ok that my character looks sexy. That’s why it’s ok that any female character looks sexy. I know you guys out there like to look at sexy female characters, that’s part of what makes the image / art cool to look at. Same with male characters – testosterone simply makes male characters look sexy.
Think about all of the fantasy, sci-fi, and comic book images of characters. The guys look tough and the girls look sexy. That’s how it is, and that’s how it should be. I mean, look at She-Hulk. She’s the female version of THE HULK, and she’s drop-dead sexy. Same goes for Batgirl, Supergirl, Storm, She-Ra, Red Sonja, Psi-Lock, and on and on and on.
What I’m trying to say, after all this writing, is that we gamers (especially those of us who cry foul over some scantily-clad female caricature) need to relax. Females are sexy, and female characters simply take that theme and run with it. That’s just how it is. The tendency to draw / paint women warriors in the trend of sexy isn’t going away. Actually, we need to see more of it.
A while back, I ran 2nd edition of my RPG (we all have one, right), when my buddy, Sam (of the former RoleplayingPro.com) pulled out a pun that stopped me in my tracks.
Let me explain…
The PCs are fighting vampires in modern day New York, atop a skyscraper. Sam goes out onto a ledge, baiting a vampire to follow him. The slightest mistep means a long, torturous fall to their death.
So, there they are, facing off along this ledge/beam, when Sam uses up his entire turn to ask the vampire, “What season is it?”
The Optomized GM in me wanted to take advantage of Sam’s “wasted” action, but the Story GM in me prevailed. So, I spent the vampire’s entire action by replying, “Uh… what???”
Sam responded by saying, “Fall,” and then shot the Vampire. I was so stunned as the GM that, of course, the vampire fell to his death. For that session, Sam was the gaming bad ass.
I have to apologize to Sam – I stole that pun and used it in a later game that he wasn’t a part of.
Anyway…
I was sitting at work in the jail, NOT surfing the web on county time, when I DIDN’T come across an article about puns in your game. I don’t usually reference other websites (other than the Site of the Month), but I got a kick out of it, so I thought I would pass it on…
If you think you’d be interested in Pun Attack Actions, then check out ThatRobedGuy Presents.
In Chris’s articles, he describes the path our group is currently on. We’ve been playing in Eberron using 4th edition D&D. Although our game has started well, and everyone has been relatively happy with the experience, there are enough of us that think Fate can give us more. I was a big proponent for this change until it hit me, “Oh crap, I have to DM this for everyone!!!”
Classically, I have taken the stance that the DM should know the game the best. He has to make rulings. He should be able to answer rules questions as they come up. He should be in a position to help players get the characters they want to play. I picked up the Strands of Fate book and did what I always do – I started reading from cover to cover. Now that I have a wife, a 9-year old, a 1-year old, pets, and a mortgage, it’s a bit harder to find the time to do that…
In order to hide my shortcomings, I made a deception roll against my group – 4 plusses!! (That’s right; in Fate, you roll a different set of dice than the traditional polys or 6-siders. The “dF” (as it’s known) is a d6, but instead of 1-6, you have 2 blanks, 2 ‘+’s, and 2 ‘-’s.)
I used the character creation method suggested by Strands. We all sat down as a group and went around the table describing the characters with their Defining Aspect. With everyone in the group chipping in and helping each other flesh out their aspects, everyone ended up with beautiful Defining Aspects that fit their character. For example:
Amearus – Resurrected Valenar Warlord of Legend
Malic – Mercurial Tiefling Scoundrel
Ashen – Savage Shifter Shaman
Ulgarzi Bearsoul – Dragonmarked Gatekeeper Druid of House Tharashk
Shalondra – Eladrin Warrior Guided by Fate
This is the start of our 4E conversion, and thanks to the group doing the heavy lifting, my DM tension is at an all-time low. So far, so good. The rest of aspect generation went smoothly and we spent the rest of our first session making some of the best looking / sounding characters I’ve had the pleasure to share a table with. We then entered into the transition adventure.
I kept the encounter mapping as simple as possible so we could focus more on aspects and the abstractions of the game. Going into the first area, Ashen’s player makes a declaration by throwing a fate point and shouting, “It’s a trap!!” Perfect; the unadorned, unfilled, undecided 3-chamber crypt that was going to be full of horrid to-be-decided aberrations became instead a trap gauntlet that I was able to on-the-fly adjudicate by using the PC’s aspects against them. The players enjoyed it immensely, and not a lot of prep work was needed by me – fantastic!!
I plan on going into the next adventure fairly free-form and leave more openings for my players to make more declarations and assessments and grow the scenes as we describe them to make the game a little more theirs, and the burden a little less mine. That’s what makes the game so fun to run, everyone at the table is involved in the rewarding and enjoyable endeavor.
This series is an extremely subjective report about gaming conventions. Despite the temptation to be second person dictatorial (“You must, you should, you shall”), I’m going to keep this first person apologetic (“I did, I think, I was”), because I really can’t tell you what your convention time will or should be. In part 3, I consider running games at conventions.
I’ve never been particularly confident running games, and as zero hour approaches, I turn into a total shuddery basketcase – skipping meals, missing sleep, and forgoing personal hygiene. Conventions probably appear to be the worst place for a Nervous Nelly or Anxious Andy like me, but I’ve found them to be an excellent fit, mostly because the players have quite literally invested in having a good time. They want this four to six hour block to be fun, and that translates into a fair amount of forgiveness at the gaming table.
I’ve never signed on to run a convention game with the expectation of tit-for-tat, regardless of how much I like… um… remuneration. Don’t misunderstand, there’s nothing wrong with a free pass for a day of GMing, but it doesn’t work for me, since I get all caught up thinking I have to justify my game, since I’m getting something out of this session. I’m better off just running for the love of the game, and if someone constructively comments that my game was completely awful, I can say with a clear conscience, “Well, I didn’t get anything for it,” and then punch him in the face.
Bring the Bling
Of course, that doesn’t mean I’m completely off the hook. Just as the players bring excitement and engagement, I have to push myself to bring the best game I can, a real brain-blaster that’ll leave the players thrilled and awed and wanting more. This is no time for coasting. I should devote myself to running out the best game these players have ever seen, with all the crazy fancy doodads and geegaws that I’ve long since given up on in my home game, since, “They just take me for granted.”
I’m talking about pictures and presents, tea-stained letters with charred edges and fully featured battle maps with 3D elements (whatever you can get through airport security), jewelry and music and costumes and Broadway actors to voice all the NPCs. I need to go completely over-the-top to guarantee a fine time had by all, and players who walk away thinking about the scenes instead of the dice.
Road Testing
Given the player investment, I have found this to be a perfect time to roll out new features of my games. For example, I was able to practice and commit to the Rule of Yes, as I was faced with mostly strangers, which meant there were no lasting consequences to giving every bit of latitude to the fun-for-fun’s-sake players. It can’t impact my Saturday night game, it won’t set any uncomfortable precedents, it won’t open the power-gamer Pandora’s Box. It’ll just be me saying Yes as often as I can, and maybe start to learn how to incorporate it into my home games too.
Also, I tried rolling in the open for the first time, and it was a truly beautiful thing. Either this is a game with random elements or not, and if it’s not going to be, then I should do away with dice altogether. So I simply let the dice fall where they may, and allowed the game mechanics to do their work. Yes, characters fell and one even died, but everyone knew these outcomes were objective. I received no angry glares or silent judgment, and the player with the dead character even comforted me, saying, “Hey, it happens. I still had a great time.”
Everyone is Welcome
I was amazed at how many people jumped in on my games when they had never played before. This is a pretty big thing, and it’s something I already talked about as a player. People are going to be coming to these games as newbies, with no preconceptions or prejudices about how the game can run, and I need to be able to accommodate that lack of familiarity. To this end, I brought two flavors of pregenerated characters to one game (simple and complex), and built in time to create the characters in another game. It was a learning process, and it worked extremely well.
In fact, the game where we created the characters was a huge hit, and the players were able to really take ownership, though this did require a fair amount of preparation beforehand, as I brought the character sheets and printed creation steps for everyone there. The result, as you can imagine, is a table of players who all wanted to rush downstairs to the vendor booths and buy the game. I’d call that a success.
Smaller is Better
Ah, curse my expansive nature! I have gotten better, but it’s to my shame that I admit I’ve run games at conventions that would have needed, at minimum, 37 hours to play, and that would just be to get through the introduction. I’d spend all my time developing this massive, sweeping game world, with rules and laws and backgrounds and settings, with governments and motivations and in-fighting and intrigue, and dump the poor characters into the middle of all this, and then become frustrated when they barely touched the first encounter before time was up.
This wasn’t their fault. I was a great big storytelling moron. I had lost sight of the idea that conventions are all about short stories; not novels. Recently, I did better but still not perfect, and that means that I still have some work to do, but at least I’m aware of it. I know to build a tight, balanced game and realize that it would be perfectly fine for that game to end a little early, giving these poor, happy players a few moments to decompress and move on to their next game, instead of missing lunch and having to sprint up three flights of stairs to their next session.
Conclusion
Running games at conventions is a unique privilege, and not one to be taken lightly. At my last con, I had a massively wonderful time, and learned a ton (as is evident from at that text above), and unlike previous unsuccessful experiences, it left me wanting to run (don’t walk) to my next convention, with dice in hand, story in heart, and a ton of props in my bag. I want to tell a story, and I want it to be fun. Wanna play?
This series is an extremely subjective report about gaming conventions. Despite the temptation to be second person dictatorial (“You must, you should, you shall”), I’m going to keep this first person apologetic (“I did, I think, I was”), because I really can’t tell you what your convention time will or should be. In part 2, I explore playing at conventions.
If anyone makes the mistake of mentioning conventions in my immediate vicinity (close burst 5), I will blather on endlessly about signing up for games you’ve never played before. There isn’t a better time to try the new and unfamiliar, since the convention GM will almost certainly have experience, and the players will come with bulging Bags of Enthusiasm. There is a greater sense of “we’re all in this together,” a greater degree of patience and willingness to handhold, attributable to the very real money that was spent to come to this convention and play these games.
Contrast this attitude with Meetup.com or jump-in games, where the participants are more likely to want to get this game going, to reach the destination, or to continue the ongoing series without distractions like, “How do I pilot the spaceship?” or “Which one’s the 12-sided die?” Inside the convention, people are excited to show off the game they love, the thrills, the wonder, the purest joys. Outside the convention, people are focused on stealing away a few hours from their crazy-busy week to reach a goal, defeat the enemies, improve their characters, and revel in successes and rewards.
When planning for the games I would play, I took this all to heart, signing up for as many brand new games as I could, with the expectation that I would soak up as much glittery shininess that the convention had to offer. I did manage to forget a small bit of knowledge that’s extremely important to my sanity: they call it a comfort zone for a reason. Jumping from new game to new game to new game, surrounded by strangers and bursting with questions, can be damaging to the ego.
I get sick of never knowing what the heck is going on, never knowing what to do or how to do it, constantly asking the same fundamental questions. This had nothing to do with the reactions from other players, who were always helpful and easygoing and frequently as ignorant as I was. It was a quintessential “It’s not you, it’s me” situation. I don’t like feeling persistently stupid. Call it a character flaw.
From the games I actually attended, here are some mini-reviews and titanically important take-aways, which I must remember for future conventions.
Change Happens
The Elms Boardroom
A month before the convention, the DM and players in my not-so-regular local game gave me the rundown of World of Darkness, and it sounded like something I’d really enjoy. So, after check-in, I hurried up to an extravagantly fancy boardroom called The Elms and enjoyed some quality alone time. It can be pretty tense, sitting by yourself when you should be playing, wondering if you’re in the wrong room, or on the wrong floor, or maybe even at the wrong hotel. I didn’t want to go out investigating, understanding the sitcom trope of everyone showing up the moment I left.
After some time, Jason and Sarah came in, both of them looking forward to the game but showing little hope in it happening, as the registration line downstairs was still long, messy, and not moving. Chances were excellent that the GM (or Storyteller) was still standing in that line, realizing that his game was done and gone, and acknowledging that he’d just have to move on with his life. After some time chatting, Jason stormed downstairs to express his outrage, Sarah laid her aching head down on the table, and I reluctantly snuck away. As it happened, the game had been canceled, but nobody bothered to tell me.
Given that conventions are constructed from people of all ages and maturities, they are extremely fluid, and can change instantaneously. Yes, I’m entitled to Super-Adorable points for hanging with a game that had clearly gone toes up, but I wind up losing just as many Efficiency points for sitting foolishly in a mostly empty room. After the first lonely fifteen or twenty minutes, I could have (and should have) walked the halls and poked into rooms, looking to worm my way into another game that had started at noon.
Scary Roleplaying
I had previously played Call of Cthulhu exactly once, and remember being mostly lost and acting off the cuff: “I’ll toss my Blackberry to the solider and shout, ‘If I die, get this to my newspaper!’ Then I’ll run off after my brother… um… can I do that?” It’s a game that’s all about roleplaying, since combat often ends with character deaths and player tears. I guess you’re not really expected to draw your .38 and engage the Nameless Horror.
In this game, we players were given multi-page, tiny-font backgrounds, and our histories, goals, and motivations were drawn in opposition to each other, making us as much of the antagonists as the tentacled monstrosity tearing through the rift in reality. I found it to be entirely overwhelming, and more than a little daunting to play this fully realized character that I just laid my hands and eyes on. I’m not denying that my roleplaying muscles have atrophied quite a bit, which left me shaken and silent for much of the game. I had a few moments of thrilling action, but mostly I was an audience to the other players being heroic and brilliant.
Going forward, I’m going to have to carefully consider my game choices, since tactical roll playing fits more with my sensibilities these days. I can thrill at the successful hits, the high damage, the amazing leaps, but I may need to work on those acting muscles before taking on true roleplaying again.
Not Every Game
From 10 PM to midnight-and-then-some, I played a demo of a game called Eclipse Phase, masterfully run by writer/designer Jack Graham, who was smart, articulate, clever, and had amazing hair. For this hard science fiction game, we found ourselves in one of the hotel suites with low lights, droopy eyelids, and a cast of thousands, clutching laminated character sheets and trying to figure out why something or other happened.
The story was immensely complicated but not nearly as complicated as the game, which plays like Call of Cthulhu designed by an acid-dropping Stephen Hawking and transcribed by a crazy person. The character sheet had 8 million tiny numbers written all over it, dark print on a dark background in a dark room, and I spent most of the game with no real idea what was going on. When the action really got going, I was completely lost.
It seemed like everyone else in the room knew what to do and how to do it, and this was after we’d all established that nobody had ever played it before. Every time the GM turned his attention back to me with a mildly judgmental, “Okay, what do you do?”, I stared at my character, looked around the dim room helplessly, and made soft gulping noises until he moved on.
The simple truth is, I’m not going to love every game I play. It’s a hard fact for me to accept, since I’m paying to be here, and I want to get my money’s worth. Still, I can’t know a game isn’t for me unless I play it, and at least it was only a 2-hour session that I lost. Maybe it was the setting, or maybe it was the hour, or maybe it was the game, or maybe it was just me, but this game simply didn’t ring my bells, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Conclusion
Hopefully, I’ll be better equipped to take on my next convention, with the correct degree of expectation and a clear understanding of what I love and what I… don’t love so much. Hate seems like such an ugly word. If I spend the interim exercising my roleplaying muscles and taking other games around the block, I’ll be in good shape to have a good time, and that’s why I go to conventions.
This series is an extremely subjective report about gaming conventions. Despite the temptation to be second person dictatorial (“You must, you should, you shall”), I’m going to keep this first person apologetic (“I did, I think, I was”), because I really can’t tell you what your convention time will or should be. In part 1, I examine registering for conventions.
One of my biggest flaws (and trust me, there are many) is the inability to simply hang loose and let things happen, reacting to events as they occur. To put it another way, I’m a planner. No, that’s not quite right. I’m an OVER-planner. I will book dinners, shows, and flights a hundred years in advance, and then leave for those activities shortly after I book them. I can get a little squirrelly about life improvisation, when the world takes an unexpected left turn and normal people roll with the change and I stand dithering in the middle of the road and get run over by a truck.
I signed up for my recent convention many months in advance, just days after the pre-registration window opened, and I only waited that long because I wanted confirmation from a friend of mine that he was going too. After registration, I had to wait anxiously and impatiently for the con organizers to post their RPG schedule, just barely resisting the urge to fire off “Well? WELL?” e-mails to them.
Finally, their games went up, and I fussed over the listings for an entire week before booking my weekend roster. The schedule I settled on was–oh, what’s the word?–ambitious. Driven by lunacy and stupidity, I filled in every available minute of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, mourning several games I wanted to jump in on but simply couldn’t because of that appalling federal prohibition on cloning.
My plan was:
FRIDAY
10 AM: Arrive and collect badge
12 PM – 4 PM: World of Darkness
4 PM – 8 PM: Call of Cthulhu
10 PM – 12 AM: Eclipse Phase
SATURDAY
9 AM – 1 PM: D&D 4E (I was running this one)
2 PM – 6 PM: D&D 4E
6 PM – 8 PM: Unhallowed Metropolis
8 PM – 12 AM: Shadowrun
SUNDAY
10 AM – 2 PM: Gamma World (Again, running this one)
2 PM – 6 PM: Gamma World
Because of the timing of my own games, smack dab in the hot zone on Saturday and Sunday, I missed out on a lot of gaming opportunities, but figured I might sneak about looking for open slots or pick-up games if at all possible. I didn’t build in a ton of time for meals, sleep, breaks, or socialization recovery, since I am a terminally introverted person and all this interaction with humanity could have a debilitating effect on me.
Needless to say, my carefully constructed schedule exploded and fell to pieces almost immediately, and part of that was a raucous chaos of any gaming convention and the rest of it was my own tender system rebelling around Saturday afternoon, forcing me to hide inside my room and miss several games. But I get ahead of myself.
Badge Collection
You might think that because I pre-registered (and received confirmation), and this was a convention that has been running several years, and the start date wasn’t a secret to anyone, that it would have simply been a matter of showing up at the right place, checking my name against a list, and then grabbing my badge. You would be wrong. The processing line was long, angry, inefficient, and immobile, despite several organizers walking up and down the line shouting at us. What should have been a 5-minute inconvenience transformed into an hour’s infuriation, and I actually missed the worst of it. Other registrants wound up standing in that line for up to three hours, missing their games entirely.
Is there a take-away here? I’m not sure, except for a feeling of smug justification for showing up absurdly early. I couldn’t predict and shouldn’t really plan for such a total cluster-mess, but these things do happen, so I think I’ll go on arriving early, expecting the worst and hoping for the best.
Game Schedule
For those of you young’uns (young, dumb, and full of… energy) out there, my schedule might seem like a stroll, but for me, it rapidly spun out of control, and I started hating the idiot who put it together. That would be me, of course. This was me from several months earlier, who took the position of the arrogant playoff pitcher who says, “I’ll sleep in November.” So I’ll be going to bed late and getting up early, so what? So I’ll be missing meals and running on adrenaline and Mountain Dew, who cares? This is a great chance to play in new games with interesting people for an entire weekend, so I’ll push myself to the absolute limits and the heck with my rest, food, and sanity. That me from several months earlier really was an idiot.
For my next convention, I am going to schedule less and build in more breaks, along the lines of SESSION-[BREAK]-SESSION, even if it means fitting in half as many games. One thing that rapidly came into focus for me was how freeform many of the gaming sessions were, allowing (and even encouraging) walk-ins, since the people who had registered had gone mysteriously missing (probably because they were still standing downstairs in that registration line).
Repercussions
I am, by nature, and insufferable contrarian, and if you tell me that I have to color the sky blue and the grass green, I might choose purple and yellow instead, and then throw my crayons at you. This is pretty much what happened to me on Saturday, as I examined at my string of back-to-back-to-back games, and muttered an angry, “No.” After running that first game and then scampering around snorking food, I started feeling the pressure of the rest of the day and reacted badly, blowing off my 2 o’clock, and then my 6 o’clock, and then, since I was on such a roll, my 8 o’clock.
No, this wasn’t fair to the GMs, and it reflects poorly on me, but it was a good opportunity for learning, since I now know that I don’t have it in me to be so straightjacketed by a schedule. If I had it to do over again, I would have left that 6 PM – 8 PM block empty, and maybe even the 8 PM – 12 AM one empty too. I could have swung by those rooms, poked my head in and said, “Room for one more?” And you know what? There would have been.
Conclusion
Ultimately, I’m going to have to get better at reacting instead of proacting, since it fits better with my convention abilities. I need to schedule less and wander more, see what’s available and let the world take the turns it’s going to take. I’m going to have to get better at improvisation, since this life doesn’t stick to a script or a schedule. I’m going to have to get better at hanging loose and letting things happen.
What follows is a dissertation that not only proves the existence of Convention Gods, but that said Gods are both Chaotic Neutral and all-powerful. I will present my argument as a series of battles, with the final battle concluding the war. By the end of this reading you will understand that you simply cannot fight Convention Gods and expect to win.
Battle 1: Desire – Victory!
The war begins with my desire to experience my first convention. It’s a simple volley, and the Convention Gods quickly cede the victory to me, as they know that I’ve been wanting to experience my first convention for about three years. I felt strong going into this battle, and came out the confident victor. Of course, this victory gives me a false sense of hope, as I simply have no idea of what I’m really getting myself into.
Battle 2: Planning – Victory!
For this trip I wanted to bring my wife and kid with me. It was quite understood that I wouldn’t really have any time for them (except for the occasional meal), but they understood that. My wife’s parents would also be accompanying us, to keep my wife and kid occupied with touristy-type activities. This ensured that my family wouldn’t be bored for the duration of the weekend, and in fact, got to take their own mini-vacation. The plan was for me to drive down with some friends Friday morning, and my family would drive down later in the day (after their commitments were taken care of).
It was the perfect plan. My whole family got to take a mini-vacation, and we were expecting the whole trip to cost very little.
Battle 3: Execution of Travel – Defeat
Of course, all great plans are doomed to fail. Months of anticipation were almost crushed when the Convention Gods threatened to close the pass with a heavy snow-storm. Also, I got sick this week, further threatening the possibility of going. So the whole week prior to the event was filled with stress, as I didn’t know if we’d get to go or not.
Thursday comes, and the parents-in-law have to drop out. This means that if we still get to go, the wife and kid will have less to do. Also, the wife doesn’t want to drive by herself in a snowstorm, so I’m going to have to drive her. That means that I don’t get to leave in the morning, having to wait until she is ready to go in the afternoon. This would practically ensure that I wouldn’t get into the game that I wanted to on Friday, the game that I wanted to play over all others.
After our late start on Friday, we head over the mountain (and of course it’s snowing). Right off the bat we are forced by the Department of Transportation (DOT) to pull over and put on cable-chains, cable-chains that my wife bought a month ago. Of course, they don’t fit, so I have to buy another set right there. After that we head back out onto the freeway, and DOT has left the area. Sweet! I can take the cables off. So I drive about ten miles and then take off the cables.
Nope. DOT simply moved further up the mountain. So I have to pull over again to put them back on. Ok, now after another twenty miles I’m allowed to pull over and take them off. I get out, open the driver’s side door of our van to get my jacket, and an 18-wheeler charges unnecessarily close at 50 miles an hour, throwing ice-cold slush up my entire backside – from head to heel. So much slush got thrown up that it drenched the inside of my van, and even got all over my wife (who’s sitting in the passenger seat on the other side of the van!). -sigh-
So, a three-hour trip ended up taking six hours… six miserable hours.
The Convention Gods laugh at me.
Battle 4: My Target Game – Defeat
But all is not lost! I get to the hotel and get checked in. The staff are nice and professional, and there’s not a single person in line to register for the convention, so I get my badge in what must be record time.
And, I get there just in time to sign up for my target game, the one game that I really wanted to play. The one game that if I didn’t get to play in any of my other preferred games, I would still be happy.
Annnnnd it was canceled. This was the only game that I was really looking forward to, and not being able to play it really soured the rest of the weekend. In defiance, I spent most of my time that Friday in my room with my wife and kid.
The Convention Gods laugh at me.
Battle 5: Paying for my Trip – Defeat
I took a bunch of gaming stuff with me, with the intention of selling it at the convention. There was a market/swap meet on Saturday morning, and I was fully expecting to clean house. In fact, my buddies also gave me their stuff to sell, since they’d be playing games. I would miss out on any games for the first half of the day, but that would be ok because I was going to pay for our entire trip with my sales.
Well, not only did I not make very much money, but my kid bought a bunch of junk, thereby spending everything that I made. Of course, I made my friends a bunch of money while they were busy having fun, so it wasn’t a total loss in that respect. It’s just unfortunate that I thought my trip was going to pay for itself, and am instead a few hundred dollars in the hole. I would have been fine with the cost, had I been expecting it.
The Convention Gods laugh at me.
Battle 6: Hotel Food – Defeat
I’m from Reno, and I’ve worked in hotel/casinos for 13 years. So I’m used to a huge variety of restaurants, from diners to cafes to buffets to steak houses. Our hotel tried, but their food set-up just failed. The variety, the price, the service, it was all just wrong.
I’m not going to go into heavy specifics, because I’m sure we’ve all received bad service, been over-charged, and had lousy selection of poor food. But I will ask: who ever decided to combine a steak house with a buffet? Those are culinary polar opposites.
And come on waitress, when our crappy food / lousy service / over-priced bill is $30 and we give you a $50, do you really think that coming back with a $20 bill as change is going to get you a $20 tip? I think not.
The Convention Gods laugh at me.
Battle 7: My First (and only) Convention Game – Defeat
My first and only convention game could have gone better:
I go to the room of my first convention game – a game I haven’t played in over 15 years – and am immediately hit with a “humid gamer aroma,” to put it nicely. Ok, I can get used to it, I guess.
On a good note, a father/son duo was playing in this game, so that was cool.
So, the GM hands out some half-filled out character sheets. We then spend the next hour finishing our characters – an hour well-wasted.
The game (a game that is supposedly about style over substance) was instead all about substance, and combat. The first death of the game happened within the first half-hour, and it was a player character.
With all the secret notes being passed around the table by the GM and the fixer, many of us were left out of the game’s story, and were left wondering if we were ever going to work as a team.
I haven’t played this game a lot, and it’s been well over 15 years since I’ve played it, but I had a better grasp of the rules than the GM did.
At one point, my character took an action that directly affected another PC (I felt the PC was trying to screw us, so I tried to stop it). My character had good reason to interfere with the other PC, but that player didn’t like it. He proceeded to berate me with questions as to the validity of my actions, then said I had no reason for taking such an action, and shouldn’t do that – yadda yadda yadda. This dude was all over me, acting like a complete ass and cry-baby. I was this close to calling him a god-damned bitch, and telling him to shut the fuck up, but I guess I took the high road. I said that if he wanted to play my character, I’d hand him the sheet. That shut him up, and play continued. I hate freaking cry-babies.
With my wife’s parents not here, my wife and kid are stuck to themselves. Halfway through the game my wife calls me to say that our 6-year old kid left the room in a fit, and that she went after him, only to lock herself out of the hotel room. So (of course), I have to leave the game to go let her back into the room, and listen to her tell me that our kid has been a raging Godzilla, and that she’s thinking of leaving on Sunday instead of Monday. Awesome.
The end of the game reveals that the Fixer PC was indeed pulling a fast one on us. I was right. Yay.
The Convention Gods laugh at me.
Battle 8: The Last Stand – UtterDefeat
I trod my way back to the hotel room, a room that is littered with junk, clothes, gaming crap, and a sour wife. I tell her about my night, and say that I hope Sunday and Monday are better, and that if she wants to leave on Sunday, I’ll catch a ride with a friend on Monday. She says that there’s no way she’s staying past Sunday morning, and hopes that it doesn’t snow while she’s going over the pass (because she hates driving in the snow, not to mention over a snowy mountain).
That was it. That was the moment I knew the Convention Gods had won. There was no way that I would let her go over the mountain with the possibility of it snowing, her getting stuck for hours, or worse. I knew I was defeated, utterly defeated, and I drove us home the next day with my tail between my legs.
The Convention Gods laugh at me, hysterically.
Final Score:
Convention Gods: 6 – Winner!
Chris: 2 – Loozah!
I apologize to you, Convention Gods. You are all-powerful, and I am defeated. I promise that if I ever try to go to another convention, I’ll play by your rules.
What I’ve Learned:
For my next convention, I will make plans, but I understand that such things are subject to change.
I will leave all family members home, so that I can devote more time to the Convention Gods.
I promise to devote all of my time to you, to make sure that I’m at your worship from Friday afternoon to Monday morning.
I will bring better, healthier snacks. I will drink more water, instead of soda. I will not eat in a steak house, and I will not complain about the food.
I will make an effort to look forward to more games, instead of placing all hope into only one game.
I will run a decent game for my fellow gamers, because they deserve it.
I will not try to pay for my trip by selling gaming junk. I will instead go to the gaming convention with the intent to game.
PAXEast is coming! PAXEast is almost here! If I wasn’t excited before (and I was, mind you) I’m totally geeking out now that the schedule is out. You know it’s a good thing when thinking about it makes you smile like there may be something wrong with you.
But Brian, what is PAXEast?
PAXEast is a festival celebrating the best of tabletop, video and PC games. Developers come and host panels showcasing new games and expansions, and talk about how to get into the industry. Companies host games, previews and often give you hands-on time with new technology and titles. There’s a large show floor, stores to sell your stuff, places to meet new people, concerts and free play rooms including PCs, old arcade games and every console you can think of. You get all this for the price of admission. A three-day pass is $55, and as of this writing there are less than 1000 200 left. . . nevermind. There are no more three-day passes. Individual one-day passes (EDIT: Except Saturday) are still available.
Last year I was mostly there for Dungeons & Dragons. I played Dark Sun before it was out, played a number of console games I do not own, played D&D on the MS Surface Table, and met a ton of cool people.
That last note is what I really think PAX is about. PAX is about people, gamers and geeks especially, but really they embrace anyone with a passion. Lines are always entertaining because the person next to you wants to talk to you. They also want to hear what you have to say.
This year I’m still most excited about D&D. I don’t spend a lot of time playing video games anymore, so I’m less excited about the console and free play rooms this time around. This year’s venue is much larger than last year’s, so I expect there to be more stores, and a larger show floor. That sounds pretty great.
So what if I want to find Brian at PAX?
Well normally that would be weird, but at PAX it’s not! PAX is all about meeting people, and if you see me, my all means say ‘hi’ and tell me what I should be doing better. Or talk about whatever you want really.
I’ll definitely be checking out Jane McGonigal’s Keynote this year. If you don’t know Jane McGonigal, check out her video from TED on her website. Basically she’s convinced herself that playing video games can save the world, and wants your help to achieve that goal. It’s kind of awesome.
Also on Friday, from 2 to 3 in the Merman Theatre, is a panel called D&D Edition Wars. It’s where you get to hear Alexander Macris, Keith Baker, Zeb Cook, and Mike Mearls rip apart the different editions of our favorite game. Later that night, from 7-11, Wizards is hosting a Heroes of Shadow Preview. I’ll be in line about an hour early for that. I need to figure out when to eat that day. . .
On Saturday, I’m going to try to hit Pitch Your Game Idea with my brother, James. You get 45 seconds to pitch your game to industry professionals. The best 3 ideas win prizes!
Then on Sunday, from 4:30 to 5:30, there’s a panel called Getting What You Want Out of Your Gamemaster. It should prove insightful about designing games that are engaging for players and GMs.
Wizards of the Coast announced their schedule as well. Only they did it all sneaky on the PAX Forums. I’ve submitted my name for The Dungeon Masters Challenge and to judge a couple of sessions of D&D Learn to Play. There’ll be another PAX Post before the event so I’ll be sure to let you know exactly which official events I end up being a part of.
I should have a smart phone with me that weekend, so you’ll be able to track my movements via twitter, @BrianLiberge.
Anything else you want from this year’s PAX?
I want to DM two different 4e games. I hope one of them will be the previously mentioned Dungeon Master’s Challenge, but I also want to do something smaller in the TableTop Freeplay area.
I also want to play two games that aren’t 4e D&D. So I’ll be looking for people who are hosting open tabletop stuff. Some games I’m interested in are Mutants & Masterminds, MouseGuard, Dragon Age, Leverage, GammaWorld, Fate and Pathfinder. Obviously these things take time, I’m already positive at least one of the panels I want is likely getting cut. If people are planning to run something in a nearby hotel, either Saturday Morning, Sunday Morning, or Sunday Evening, let me know!
Because of the bigger location, I really hope there are more vendors. I’d love to pick up some stuff I don’t normally have the opportunity to buy.
How can I find out more about PAX?
Well I’ve already linked to the PAX Schedule and Forums. Check out their FAQ. Also, check out the Hitchhiker’s Guide to PAXEast.
One last note/plug. The Westin is right next to the Boston Convention Center. Attached to the Westin is M.J. O’Connors, Irish Pub with fine dining fair. I really like it, but I’m biased, my brother’s one of the Chefs. Because they’re literally the closest food to the convention center, I’m trying to get them to do some game-themed menu items and drinks. Who doesn’t want to have some Pac Man & Cheese?
Give them a try, and tell them Brian from Stuffer Shack sent you! If you want to support my menu idea, hit their contact page and send them an email! You’ll thank yourself later when sipping your Legend of Zambuca at the bar and sending down those Princess Peach Margarita’s to the Frag Dolls at the other end.
So are you going to PAXEast? Anything you looking forward to or want to see? If you’re not going, what do you want to hear about from those who are going?
Rule #1: The Game Master Is God.
Rule #27: Everything Happens At The bar.
