Are you in the Hannover area and waffling over your possible attendance at this weekend’s Hannover Spielt! gaming convention? (If you keep reading, you’ll see what I just did there.) Surely a peek at my events schedule, as excerpted from the program book, will tip you over into attending. Robin's Laws of Good Gamemastering
Saturday 11:00
This is a seminar no GM should miss: Our Guest of Honor Robin D. Laws introduces us to the techniques and principles of his celebrated guidebook Robin's Laws of Good Gamemastering. Afterwards you will be able to ask Robin for invaluable advice how to solve your unique or everyday GM hassles. The book Robin's Laws of Good Gamemastering will be available at the Pegasus booth.
Hillfolk Seminar
Saturday 14:00
Robin D. Laws presents his newest creation: Hillfolk - A game of Iron Age drama. With its innovative DramaSystem Engine it might become a new milestone for our hobby. This unique system allows players, with a little help from the GM, to include not only procedural action into the gameplay, like fighting enemies and investigate mysteries, but also dramatic scenes where characters have to confront their internal obstacles and seek emotional reward from people they deeply care about for good or bad, like other players. The result is a dialogue-driven game without a lot of of boring flailing about and arguing over what to do next.A Bier with Robin
Saturday 20:00
Late but not long ago Robin D. Laws discovered his fondness for beer. Shame on us if we would miss this great opportunity to familiarize Robin with the most valued treasure of our Vaterland: Bier. Mind you Robin will have to pick and sample as many brands as he needs to find a favorite. Of course we will take care of the rest. Apart from that you have the chance to chat with Robin in a casual atmosphere about everything you or rather he feels like. We would bet on games and movies.
Waffles with Robin & John
Sunday 11:00
Our Guests of Honor and fast friends Robin D. Laws and John Kovalic invite you to a breakfast brunch. While we make fresh waffles they will waffle about the hobby gaming industry, their Kickstarter projects, the state of the gaming hobby and the part roleplaying games played to help making gaming an universal, popular and ever present, almost inescapable cultural phenomenon. Do not forget to bring your curiosity and your Hspielt!20-mugs for free coffee.
Story by Accident?
Sunday 14:00
If you are familiar with the work of Robin D. Laws you can not help but recognize his interest in the narrative structure of films and games. Even before his analysis of film classics to find clues and elements for storytelling in games, published as Hamlet’s Hit Points, he was looking for ways to make the byproduct story an integral part of the gaming experience. He succeeds in designing rules and game elements that enable even gamers and gamemasters without strong storytelling skills to experiences fascinating games stories. A seminar that no enlightened roleplayer should miss.
Yes, folks, beer and waffles and John Kovalic too. I shall struggle manfully (personfully?) to meet the rigors of the above agenda.
I’ve had a lost of requests for an actual play series to introduce people to Hillfolk and DramaSystem and have kicked around various ways of making this happen. Turns out all I had to was to wait for the NYERD Podcast to take care of it for me. And they found a great twist, too—rounding up a player group made up of experienced actors who have never roleplayed before. The series kicks off with a fab character creation session that really captures the creative process that emerges as a group finds their concepts and builds a web of relationships. The group’s actorly training kicks in as they zero in on strong choices providing plenty of grist for drama. 
In 
Attention, Germans and germophiles: I’ll be doing the guest thing at Hannover Spielt!, on April 20th and 21st. 
an bring to life in DramaSystem. So you’ll see a much greater visual variety in these books than any one RPG project would normally accommodate, from line drawing to digital manipulation to painted work to photo collage. At right appears Aaron Acevedo’s evocative illustration for Lester Smith’s ghostly series pitch, “The Spirit Is Willing.”
Attention francophones and francophiles: my game Pantheon and Other Roleplaying Games, originally published by Hogshead as part of its New Style line, has returned in a new Gallic incarnation, from the fine folks at Les XII Singes. Retitled, revamped and glitzed up, it’s now Hollywood Party, which also happens to be the name of one of the new scenarios created for this version. In addition to the submarine horror, gangland betrayals, soap opera, kaiju battle and divine creation myth of the original, the new version adds zombies to the mix as well. Adaptation and translation is by Claude Guéant. For more, check out 
