Origins 2011

Last night I got back from Origins - this year, unfortunately, I was only able to be there for a single day.  I chose Saturday for obvious reasons - if you're just going to be there for one day, that's the one.  I didn't get a chance to do any actual gaming - I only really had the time to go through the exhibitor hall, talk to some people I needed to talk to (more on that later), go to the art room and a couple other things.  Still, I feel like I did a lot, and had a good time.  The convention seemed more subdued than last year, and it was also about 10 degrees cooler (though still warm).

At the very first booth we visited, my wife found something that I just had to buy: the original, out of print boxed set for the Lord of the Rings Adventure Game by Iron Crown Enterprises, circa 1991.  Here's a pic of the find:

I only had a chance to glance through the box, which is in decent condition for something 20 years old.  Inside are all of the books, character sheets, and un-punched cardboard cutouts of the characters and enemies that come up in the included adventure "Dawn Comes Early".  It is a rules-lite version of the Middle-Earth Roleplaying (MERP) system, but using d6s instead of percentile dice.

My wife promised she would play a one-shot with me, which is awesome.  That'll have to happen.

The rest of the dealer room felt very busy, but not packed or claustrophobic.  The room was dominated by a huge Mayfair Games area, including a dozen or so round tables, all of which were filled with players the whole time I was there. As usual, there was no Wizards of the Coast Presence, nor a White Wolf presence to speak of, and if Indie Press Revolution was there this  year, I did not see them, nor HERO Games, which is too bad.

Once again, business brought me to the Jolly Roger Games table.  I finally got to meet the artist for Parsec in person, which was cool, and the three of us got a chance to sit down and iron out the last details of what needs to happen before Parsec goes up on Kickstarter.  Overall, I'm very happy, and whatever happens with Kickstarter, I feel like I'm doing all I can.  I got to go through the contract I'll have with JRG, and speaking without a lot of experience, it seemed like a great contract to me, so that's a good thing as well.

It was cool to see the cover art out on the JRG table - one small step closer to A Real Thing.

I'll be posting about other things I saw at and around Origins this year, but one thing that somehow I hadn't heard about before is Cubicle 7's new LotR game, The One Ring.  (Is it the Chosen One at last, or do I need to keep designing Servants of the Secret Fire?)  I've looked around for more information on the game itself, and there isn't that much, from Cubicle 7 or otherwise.  Here is a site where they are promoting the game by posting characters who will be in it.

From what I've read, a few people are comparing The One Ring to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd Edition - a big boxed set that contains all the things you need to run the game, like dice, character sheets, the rulebooks and that kind of stuff.  I personally am both excited and unhappy - excited because I think WFR is an awesome game design, but unhappy because I hope that The One Ring won't have a price point anywhere near $100 (there's a reason I really like WFR but don't own it - I can't afford to).

The model for the game is clearly it's own supplement treadmill, which is also unfortunate.  The first game will focus on Wilderland, Mirkwood and the Lonely Mountain in the wake of the destruction of Smaug.  Future releases will expand that focus to other parts of Middle-Earth.  One review that I found stated that the game's storyline assumes that the heroes of the Lord of the Rings do not exist, and explores the storyline in their absence (or, at the least, they are not brought together, etc.).  I think that idea is awesome, and is a game I would love to play, I just hope it isn't too expensive - and that it's, you know, a good game.

In August, almost certainly with a GenCon release, we'll find out.

That's enough for now - next time, some more from Origins, as well as other Columbus stuff.

#h2o4all

Well, it's the 24th of the month, which means I need to post about water issues.  The idea, you see, is that on the 24th of each month, a bunch of people will write blogs and post to facebook and tweet about water issues, and that if we get enough people doing this, we will make a significant ::ahem:: "splash" and possibly foster greater awareness and even action.

It is very early, but I want to briefly talk about Advent Conspiracy.  Advent Conspiracy is a group of people of faith who actually think that the Christmas season should be about helping people who are poor, vulnerable and dying from preventable causes instead of a hysterical orgy of consumerism.  400+ billion dollars are spent each holiday season on...stuff.  What if we took 10% of that and spent it on living, breathing human beings who need access to clean water in order to go on living and breathing?

How many people can be provided with clean water for 40 billion dollars a year?  Damn, I bet it's a lot.  Why don't we find out together?

For more information on h2o4all, check out the website for Unco-nditional.  It'll explain from whence the idea came.  If you tweet, blog or post to Facebook regularly, consider being part of h2o4all.  Check us out on Twitter with the hashtag #h2o4all (but you knew that already, didn't you?  Smarty.)

Hard Reset

Current goings-on in my corner of the world, combined with a question posed by Margaret Weis this morning in Facebook, have combined to get me thinking about the idea of the hard reset.  Holding down the power button and counting slowly to ten and then powering back on.  The technological nuclear option.

I think about the need, sometimes, to hard-reset a creative project.  Margaret Weis's question this morning was about writer's block - when does it happen, what do you do about it, etc.  I realized that writer's block happens for me sometimes (often?) because I am avoiding the fact that what I'm doing is going nowhere and a big chunk of work has to be tossed.  On a few projects, this has meant completely re-writing the whole thing, starting over essentially from scratch (Epic is definitely one of those, and continues to be).  Other times, a project dies on the vine because I am not willing, or ready, to prune as drastically as is required.

Ironically, I have just recently had to hard reset this very blog.  It was hacked, and had was registering with Google as spyware.  My RSS was spamming and soon.  So I migrated, brought my posts over with me, and restarted.  I have no idea if this will work out - we'll see.

I'm part of a number of institutions, one of which is the Presbyterian Church (USA).  I honestly believe that this institution, if it is to return to functionality and meaning, is going to have to hard reset.  One good example - of the students who graduate from seminary (which is graduate school for ministers), only 20% of them have any hope of getting a job in the thing for which they just spent tens of thousands of dollars and 4+ years training.  There are only jobs accepting first-time pastors for 20% of the people looking for those jobs each year.

Life is kind of a roller-coaster sometimes.  Imagine if a roller-coaster cost $40,000, not counting cost of living (you still had to pay rent and get groceries while in line), and the line lasted 4 years, and then once you got on, there was a 80% chance the ride would break down.

We would rightly shut down that roller-coaster, fire everyone involved in building it, and apologize to everyone who has ever ridden on that disaster.

For those following along at home, the roller-coaster is the PC(USA) ordination system, and among other things in the denomination, it is time for a hard reboot.

GenCon 2011 Vampire the Masquerade LARP "The Forgotten"

I've been asked to help with the writing and preparation for a VtM LARP, The Forgotten, which friends will be running at GenCon 2011.

The LARP will be held in the Hyatt Regency Ballrooms A and B Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 6pm to 1am.  I can definitely recommend playing - it looks like an excellent concept with a lot of interesting characters.  It's an official LARP, so you can sign up for it when you register for the con.  And no, I'm not just saying this because I am writing some of them.

But the most interesting ones are mine.

I've also tweeted back and forth with one of the developers for V20, and hopefully some of them will get a chance to come by the LARP and see how it is going.

Not for the last time, like Bilbo missing his Hobbit-hole, I am wishing I could be at GenCon this year.

The Theme is Burial

So much has been going on lately - a possible book deal with Chalice Press; three or four other book ideas with my collaborators over at Two Friars and a Fool; helping friends with a Vampire the Masquerade LARP for GenCon this year; a rough draft of the character sheet for Parsec; continuing work on a rough draft of Reckoning; and that on top of everything else.

Hence the longer-than-usual languishing of this blog.

There's a lot of writing inside me, and it is coming out like one of those old-school lawn sprinklers - in multiple streams and all over the freaking place.  That being said, if I didn't enjoy it, it would be the easiest thing in the world to just...stop.

But that won't happen.

I'll be at Origins this year for at least two days - Friday and Saturday.  I want to make sure I get a good look at the dealer floor, maybe try to awkwardly schmooze with people, and also check out the art room, since that was awesome last year.  Also, you know, Columbus is no slouch as cities go.  I wish I had more time to prep and run a game, but honestly we need a final character sheet for both Parsec and Reckoning before I want to do a full-on convention demo.  I feel like, especially for a convention game where people are paying to play, there should be a baseline of quality, and we're not quite there yet.  It's one thing to hand friends something you laid out yourself in Microsoft Word three years ago.  It's quite another thing to do that with strangers who you want to turn into fans, you know?