Milwaukee Record - Star Wars

With The Force Awakens a week away, my editor decided it was a good time to have me discuss Star Wars on their podcast. I think it went well.

Gamehole Con - Classic Report

High light: The guest of honor get together at The Free House pub on Thursday night. It was everything you want in a Bar Con while everyone was still fresh faced and energetic about being at the show. I got a chance to catch up with old friends, meet new people and fan out a little bit over some of the people I admire as a designer.

Low light: Being forced outside the lovely heated walkway from the hotel to show on Saturday because of a tween dance team meet blocking the route. If that had happened on Thursday, when it was still 70 degrees out, that would have one thing, but it mean hauling a coat to my games that I didn't need.

Best experience: The organizers set up a chance to explore and buy items from the ACD warehouse located in Madison. This is likely the closest I will ever be to wandering the warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Worst experience: We were told that some items in the warehouse might be unavailable due to game store order that had not been picked yet. They say there were between 20-30 items in the warehouse that would be unavailable for purchase. I picked two. 

Best bargain (had to buy it, no freebies): I picked up a book I wrote where I'm still waiting on an authors copy years after the book came out. I confirmed at Bar Con that company is notorious on both the retail and production side for being completely unreliable.

Best Freebie: John Kovalic designed an adorable owlbear plushie that went from my suitcase directly into Batkid's crib.

Most welcome surprise: After my Firefly RPG session, the three VIG gamers at the table told me they upgraded to VIG specifically to make sure they got a space at my table.

Most unwelcome surprise: Despite sharing a room, I barely got to see much of Mighty Matt Forbeck. At least we were able to talk about the highs and lows of being a geek dad at Bar Con on Thursday.

Best game: Heebie Jeebies is a casual party game where you have to guess which of four selected cards squicks out the Judge for that round. It's a killer party icebreaker and got a table of strangers talking after less than a full round.

Most interesting game concept: Three Pillars is a Mille Bornes style game of supernatural investigation put out by a crew of actual supernatural investigators.

Sleeper game:  I am super excited to bring Star Wars Catchphrase to Nerds at Heart events.

Coolest booth: The Half-Price Books booth actually had good games for half price, rather than their usual selection of collector-priced options.

Strangest moment: Realizing I already knew one of the other guests of honor because she was one of Sarah Babe's Ingress buddies from Gen Con.

Played: 
Heebie Jeebies
Three Pillars
Fate Ghostbusters
Firefly RPG
Save Game
Atomic Robo RPG

Purchased:
Mysterium
Firefly Kalidasa Expansion
Stars Without Number
D&D5e: Out of the Abyss
D&D5e: Princes of the Apocalypse
D&D5e: Screen
Murder in Baldur's Gate
Force and Destiny: Chronicles of the Gatekeeper
Age of Rebellion: Desperate Allies
Age of Rebellion: Strongholds of Resistance
Eldritch Horror: Mountains of Madness
Eldritch Horror: Strange Remnants

Swag:
Hotel room
Bar Con tab
Guest of Honor shirt
Guest of Honor badge
Owlbear plushie
Heebie Jeebies
Marriage Material
Cash'n' Guns 2nd Edition + Expansion
Winds of Fortune
Pathfinder flip-mats

Gamehole Con - Schedule

I'll be in Madison the first weekend in November as a Guest of Honor at Gamehole Con. It looks like all my events are full, but you never know when people will drop out and you can just walk up to a game. You should also be able to find me just wandering around the show. Check out my schedule after the jump.

New York Comic Con 2015 - Classic Report

High light: Sharing the weekend with my mom. We've had a rough couple of years, but we spent  lot of time together at the show and just wandering New York.

Low light: Missing the one panel I wanted to attend because the subway entrance I wanted to take was closed.

Best experience: BBQ films held an event modeled on the blood rave from the opening sequence to Blade. I even brought out my Malkavian T-shirt out of retirement for one last epic LARP.

Worst experience: The only time I suffered a bad traffic jam was in Times Square. People, not cars, were jammed to a standstill on the sidewalk.

Best bargain (had to buy it, no freebies):  This was the best use of a ReedPop pro pass yet.

Best Freebie: The foam chainsaw hand promoting Ash Vs. Evil Dead.

Most welcome surprise: I don't know if it was the con, the good weather or what but I didn't run into any stereotypically rude New Yorkers. I met so many folks that were friendly, funny and awesome.

Most unwelcome surprise: My mom only made it out to one day of the show. She still wants to go-go-go, but she's also still recovering from two cancer diagnoses in two years.

Best costume: The 9 foot tall Hulkbuster Iron Man armor stoop head and shoulders above the rest. Sorry. (not sorry)

Most amusing costume: I'll let Troy McClure speak for himself:

Best costume where my picture didn't turn out: Two kids dressed up as Daniel-san and Johnny from The Karate Kid, with the mom dressed up as the referee from the karate tournament.

Coolest booth and why: The MegaBloks Star Trek booth had a Captain's Chair build out of  

Strangest moment: Watching a pair of fellow Midwesterners wander into a sketchy garage just to take a picture of the Lamborghini up on blocks inside.

Favorite item available in the Exhibit Hall: there was a booth selling cardboard replicas of water towers and billboards you could paint over for your desk. They brought in well-known graffiti artists to replicate their more famous works.

Purchases:
Sidekicked
The First Law of Mad Science
Ms. Marvel
Astro City
Scam
The Red Ten

Free Stuff:
Foam Chainsaw
Lanyard
Jessica Jones Photo

Couldn't Find It:
Neocomicon

Best Quote: "I don't remember you asking me if I wanted to go to the blood rave." -Mom

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

Milwaukee Record - Cosplay Rave

My good friends at 42 Lounge are hosting one of their big cosplay parties this weekend. I wrote up a short article calling back to rave culture in the 90's which was kind of a big deal around Milwaukee