42 Ale House - September Schedule

It's been a busy time for me. I'm working a full-time corporate contract, freelancing as I am able and developing some new games with some cool people. On top of that, I'm doing some exciting things over the next few months. Let's see where I'll be in September.

Trivia Tuesday

The fine folks at 42 Ale House have hired me on to run their trivia program. Each evening focuses on a single nerdy subject, with the top two teams facing off in a tense showdown for trivia supremacy. This month's subjects are up on their events page.

Nerds at Heart

The long-running singles event strikes an anniversary this month. Play board games, including some fresh from Gen Con stuff, with other nerdy singles looking for a partner in crime

New To You Game Night

They are also encouraging people to come out and learn to play games. I'm running the RPG component of the events. This month will be a chance to make both a character and a world for a Dungeons and Dragons 5e game. 

Nerd Night Milwaukee

I'm one of three speakers for this event. I'm doing an overview of RPGs, plus there's an Ingress expert and someone talking about building playgrounds.

Classic Con Report - Gen Con 2015

High light: I met a lot of people that influenced my career choices at this show. Joe Dever, in particular, wrote the first fantasy books I ever read and he was fantastically charming and gracious. I'm going to be a dad next year and I can't wait to bust out the boxed set for the baby when he or she is old enough.

Low light: Not enough time. I feel like I missed seeing so many people at the show.

Best experience: Sunday night dinner at St. Elmo's continues to be a highlight of the con. That first bite of the Filet Mignon is like a vacation within a vacation.

Worst experience: Finding out some bad family health news on the way home. Nothing like crying in a Steak and Shake parking lot to kill off your big post-Gen Con buzz.

Best bargain (had to buy it, no freebies): 4 D6 Star Wars books I didn't have for $18.

Best Freebie: Gene Ha, the artist for the award-winning Top 40 comics series, handed out some sketches of audience members he did at the comics panels at the show. I was one of the lucky ones, which is the rough equivalent of a reknowned chef wandering by your table at dinner and asking if you want a free steak.

Most welcome surprise: Our usual Friday night room game didn;t go off, but I still had fun just hanging out and talking with folks I usually only see at cons.

Most unwelcome surprise: Despite having most of my time back to myself, I didn't really get a chance to play a lot of games until Sunday.

Best game: Flick Em Up is a Wild West dexterity game where you have a shootout in a little meeple town. It is painfully adorable and a blast to play a few drinks deep.

Most interesting game concept: Flick Em Up, a wild west shoot'em up meeple game, was a ton of fun throughout the con.

Sleeper game:  Yashima, a wuxia kung-fu deckbuilder, did just enough cool things in the demo to get me to buy it.

Coolest booth: The Flick 'Em Up booth had a Texas-sized version of the game to demo, complete with a duel area for quick illustrations of how the game worked.

Strangest moment: Watching my roommates hack the hotel TV so that we could watch Netflix as we wound down on a few nights.

Played: 
Monarch
Nefarious
Flick 'Em Up
Superstar Smackdown
Firefly RPG
Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn

Purchased:
Flick 'Em Up
Yashima
Seventh Hero
Star Wars books
Cthulhu Apocalypse
Mythos Expeditions
Lone Wolf Adventure Game
Ravenloft books
Street Legends expansion

Swag:
Leverage Companions
Sixth Gun RPG
Deadlands Kickstarter
Chill 3rd Ed
Feng Shui 2
Pathfinder map packs
Legendary Encounter organizer
Revelations of Mars
Ravenloft boxed set
Gene Ha sketch
Cypher System bag

Things to pick up after the con:
Mysterium
Urban Shadows
Serpent's Skull Adventure Path
Ashes Rise of the Phoenixborn