Gen Con Day 1

Few moments in the professional life of a roleplaying designer outshine having a new core game book make its world premiere on the Thursday morning of Gen Con. Better still to have the book show up looking gorgeous. Best of all is to see people pick it up, perhaps inviting a pitch, and plunking down their hard-earned cash or credit. I could not have asked for a stronger response to Ashen Stars. Nor a more receptive mood—it seems like something out there in the gamerverse has folks hankering for a new space opera game. Writing for a living, whether we're talking games or fiction, can seem unreal and disconnected. The work seems real but the eventual end product can be hard to envision. Gen Con offers many bounties, but for me the emotional reward that comes when a book seems to be making an ideal landing brings all of the months of writing, rewriting, playtesting, fixing, replaytesting, and polishing come into focus. Creators in other fields don't necessarily get to experience this final stage of the process first-hand. This is why I am grateful to work in this very special scene of ours, with its “I've got a barn, I've got a resolution mechanism, let's put on a roleplaying book” ethos. This is the sound of blessings being counted.

Today was all about doing the booth thing. Trade at the Pelgrane booth proved brisk in general. Simon's ingenious 4-for-3 deal encourages gamers to pitch each other on the merits of the books, as they try to assemble the ideal group buy. I even heard several perfect renditions of the Ashen Stars elevator pitch! I guess Internet outreach works or something.

I refined my signing signature over the course of 400ish Ashen Stars bookplates for the Stellar Nursery and Limited Editions. (My legal signature is an illegible scrawl and no fun as an autograph.) Perhaps soon I will be Walt Disney, with a hallmark signature so ornate that I am unable to draw it myself.

Dinner kept me among the Pelgranistas, where we discovered that a St. Elmo's bread pudding stands momentously athwart its plate, providing enough delicious dessert for 5 or more stunned non-Americans. We repaired to a quiet bar to moot various future projects. Among issues mulled: balancing the ideal commercial presentation for the Gaean Reach game with what I might design in a universe unfettered from practical constraint.

Tomorrow (Friday) attendees can catch me at the 10am Hamlet's Hit Points seminar, the 3pm GUMSHOE seminar, or a 5pm book signing at the Paizo booth.

Gen Con Day 0

Last night at the Diana Jones Awards party, the clawed hand of the shadowy cabal, ably spokespersoned by Matt Forbeck, pointed its index finger at Jason Morningstar’s Fiasco, deeming it the year’s exemplar of excellence in gaming. This earns Jason the honor of being the first repeat winner of the DJA. And rightfully so—Fiasco fulfills the promise of Grey Ranks. Its excellence can be seen in its impact on the RPG scene: in the number of people excitedly playing it, and participating in its scenario generation culture. As such it earns its award not only for design but for community-building.

Some quarters have quibbled that no surprises lurked among this year’s nominees. However, it’s hard to say that it was a weak slate. And when we look back over the list of winners from a future vantage point, it’s hard to argue that Fiasco should have been set aside in favor of some quirkier choice.

Speaking of vast vistas of time, a curious but delightful apparition manifested at the party. Steve Jackson is back at Gen Con, for the first time in something like a decade. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him in more ebullient form.

Another devoutly wished-for arrival: the print gods have smiled on Pelgrane. Ashen Stars (my new GUMSHOE game of freelance troubleshooting in a gritty space opera universe) made it to the show in its thick and full-color glory. Other books hot off the presses: Dead Rock Seven, a collection of four ready-to-play scenarios for Ashen Stars, and Out of Time, a collection of non-1930s Trail of Cthulhu adventures appearing for the first time in paper format.

So I’m off to the new exhibit hall to hold Ashen Stars in my hands for the first time, and to warm up my signing hand for 400+ Stellar Nursery Edition signatures. If you’re here at the show, be sure to stop by.

The Birds

Link Round-Up: Skulduggery F-Word, Ghoul Misnomer

Skulduggery review resorts to the F-word. No, not that F-word.

This is not a nightmare for the ghouls. They seem pretty into it.

A Roleplaying Exercise, In Which You Enter a Tavern

This will be my first Gen Con since discovering that I like beer. Over the past months I have explored various local craft and and international beers here in the fine province of Ontario. While in Madison I enjoyed, thanks to John Kovalic, a quaffing flight of Wisconsin’s finest. Now keens the annual siren call of Indianapolis, with its pungent streets and monolithic chain restaurants. At this point in my beverage journey I have reached various conclusions, such as:

• Mill Street can do no wrong.
• Hockley isn’t chopped liver, either.
• Likewise Blanche de Chambly.
• German beers just aren’t doing it for me. Germany, you will perhaps be granted a later opportunity to defend this sacred cornerstone of your national identity.
• Kingfisher tastes like soap.

On a macro level, it transpires that I like or dislike beers regardless of their category. From lagers to stouts, from cream ales to wheat beers, I dig some and am unimpressed by others.

Okay, a roleplaying exercise. The two of us are in an Indianapolis bar. We might or might not be waiting for a guy in a funny hat to tell us where the dungeon is; that’s immaterial. I am about to buy myself a beer.

Wait, let’s be realistic here.

You are about to buy me a beer, as but partial tribute for my many contributions to the roleplaying form. As either a proud Indianapolan, or a frequent visitor already well acquainted with its finest beers, you wish to impress me with your purchasing prowess.

What beer do you buy me?

Link Round-Up: Dog Cologne, MCB goes SF

Dogs roll in carrion in pursuit of social status. Just like the rest of us.

Paul Weimer introduces the SF Signal audience to Mutant City Blues and GUMSHOE.

See P. XX

The pre-Gen Con edition of Pelgrane Press’ webzine bursts open like a veritable seedpod of roleplaying bounty.

My eponymous column shows you how to structure a GUMSHOE scenario around the characters’ defining investigative abilities. An Ashen Stars scenario serves as its illustrative example, also giving you a preview of that game. You'll also get a glimpse at the main cast of my in-house playtest.

But that’s not all! Kenneth Hite and Will Hindmarch present their afore-linked Fiasco / Trail of Cthulhu crossover. Ken reappears with a preview of vampire building from his upcoming game of blood-draining espionage, Night’s Black Agents. Simon Rogers rounds up current and upcoming Pelgrane releases. And Beth Lewis gives you the time-sensitive scoop on Pelgranic activities at the big show. Plus, you get to help name a rootin’-tootin’ western orc.

It all starts here!

The Repairer of Reputations

 

New York, 1920. A new day dawns. America celebrates peace and victory after repelling the German invasion of New Jersey. The cityscape has been rejuvenated and cleansed of foreign influence. And finally, in accordance with popular demand, the government unveils its first public suicide machine. Yet beneath this placid surface hums a sinister conspiracy... one only you, along with your fine circle of upper-crust chums, can thwart.

The Repairer of Reputations is a Trail of Cthulhu scenario by yours truly, based on the classic story by Robert W. Chambers, from his King in Yellow cycle.

Designed for one-shot play, it features a new wrinkle for GUMSHOE: on-the-fly, cooperative character generation.
Available in PDF only.

Link Round-Up: Skull Dice, Gallery Pee Wee

It's a good thing Lou Zocchi is still with us, or he'd be rolling in his grave.

Gallery of creepy/groovy Pee Wee Herman tribute art from L.A. group show.

Ashen Stars Limited Edition: A Few Copies Remain

After setting aside copies for dibs-holders from the Stellar Nursery Edition, and for a retail promotion, a few copies of the shiny blue Ashen Stars Limited Edition remain. These are now on sale to the general public at the Pelgrane Press store.

Where To Find Me at Gen Con

If you’re looking for me at Gen Con, here’s my event schedule:

Friday 10 AM Hamlet's Hit Points seminar (Marriott – Santa Fe)

Friday 3 PM GUMSHOE seminar (Indiana Ballroom F)

Friday 5 PM Book Signing @ the Paizo booth

Sat 2 PM Pathfinder Tales panel (Marriott – Santa Fe)

Sat 4 PM Book Signing @ the Paizo booth

Otherwise, unless I am grabbing a bite, standing in line for espresso, or doing the impromptu meeting/interview thing, I’ll endeavor to make myself available for greeting, chatting and interacting at the Pelgrane Press booth.

If you say the right secret words, you might get me to spill the beans on up to three unannounced upcoming projects:

• plans to, in tandem with esteemed colleague, conquer another medium

• a book you should read about a book you shouldn’t

• the rules set called DramaSystem, its first game, Hillfolk, and how they change the roleplaying experience

Link Roundup: Tekumel Archived, Brooks Predix, Fiasco Trails

Readying M.A.R. Barker's Tekumel documents and props for archiving.

Kenneth Hite and Will Hindmarch team up for a bookish Trail of Cthulhu / Fiasco crossover, gratis at Scribd. 

Prediction: Rebekah Brooks will make history as first Briton banished to Australia since 1868.

Lashing Together a Digital Life Raft

 

When I first started blogging in March of 2004, I chose LiveJournal for three reasons.

One, its very short learning curve allowed me to jump in and go without burning precious writing time on career maintenance.

Two, its social networking element allowed me to build quickly readership.

Three, it was cheap. Also important to a working freelancer, who must watch expenses carefully.

It wasn’t the shiniest or coolest looking platform on the block. In recognition of this, I stuck for many years with the most brutalist of the available templates.

Over the years of creeping uncoolness, I’ve kept it up, even as the network started to fade. In recent months I’ve maintained its once-reliable hit rate by driving people to LJ from Facebook and Twitter. Google+ has, in a few short weeks, already shown itself to be a powerful feeder as well.

With this week’s crippling denial of service attacks, the tipping point has been reached, the rats are leaving the sinking ship, and, man, the week before Gen Con is the exact wrong time for this to happen.

I won’t be shutting down the account, for those who still use it as a regular platform. It’s the number one item you get when you Google “Robin Laws”, and there’s a big value in that. But it’s high time I deprecated it in favor of another virtual headquarters on the web.

It will be annoying to spread comments across yet another platform. That was another factor keeping me on LJ all this ti me. But now comments already fragment between LJ, FB, Twitter and G+, so I might as well embrace that reality. Maybe someone brilliant will come up with a grant comment unification tool and make a zillion bucks off it.

So, here I am over on the Blogger. I’ll chip away at it in the months ahead and see if I can get it to do everything I want. If not I’ll pursue a more customized, costlier solution with a longer learning curve.

As you can see, I’m still tipping the hat to LJ, manually replicating the themed user icon thing I had going on over there.

So the question I have for you is: what do I need that I don’t know I need?

Status Me On That

I was thinking this might be one of those Gen Cons where the annual buzzword is allowed to arise spontaneously over the course of the event. Not every year brings us a wheelhouse, after all. And the most praiseworthy four days in gaming are nothing if not about creation in the moment.

However, I have been informed that this laissez-faire attitude will not fly. In this era of social media 3.0 and HTML5, advance notice must be given.

After much deliberation, in which such candidates as toasty and curated were weighed and rejected, I have arrived at a choice. As per the rules of the game, it presses the boundaries of douchy business-speak while maintaining a scintilla of plausibility.

Status (when used as a verb) meaning to update, inform, or establish communications with:

As in:

“Status me on the dinner situation.”

“Text Hal and status him in on this.”

“This will require ongoing statusing.”

“It is crucial to reach out and status our fan base.”

As always, the object is to work the term into conversation, as if this a thing people of good sense actually say. Full points awarded for each straightfaced use of this meaningless pseudo entertainment business jargon as if it actually means something. Points deducted for visible irony.

Extra points will be granted for slipping it into podcasts, public announcements, and the like.

In past years bonus points have been awarded for causing the usage to catch on beyond the game. As that would be awful in this instance, consider this incentive suspended for 2011.

Finessing Expository Dialogue

A number of pitfalls attend the writing of dialogue that conveys information, whether in fiction or drama.

It can undermine character credibility, when one person tells another what he already knows.

It can sound flat, when the language slips from the loose and conversational into the persuasive mode of the essay or editorial.

Even when you finesse your way past these issues, the chunk of exposition may signal its purpose too heavily to the reader. As readers we crave information, but only to answer questions that we’ve already been made to feel a sense of curiosity about.

Mitigate this whenever possible by making the speaker a reluctant provider of information, who gives it up only after offering resistance. If you can turn the dialogue exchange into a victory for the scene’s viewpoint character, the emotional charge we get from that distracts from your turning of the structural gears.

Alternately, find another double purpose for the exchange. It might establish character, evoke a sense of place, or change the mood. The extra layer disguises your intent.

Or you can simply ensure that the information is riveting by presenting it in the form of a story or anecdote with a beginning, middle and end.