Gen Con 2012 report, part 2

Following from Part 1.

We continued to wander the Exhibit Hall for a while, pausing to eat some of the snacks we brought along with us instead of taking time for a sit-down lunch. Eventually we made our way to the block of rooms on the second floor of the convention where the Writers' Symposium events take place. Mrs. Kaiju was scheduled for Mike Stackpole's "21 Days to Writing a Novel" seminar.

I went out to navigate the maze of rooms and low-ceiling hallways that is the Crowne Plaza Hotel, looking for the room for the RPG Blog Allance meetup. Jeff from RPGBA and The Bone Scroll was the moderator, although there wasn't a large unruly crowd to moderate -- myself, Nate from d20 Pirates, and Riley from Roll20.net. Jeff discussed the origins of the RPGBA, site maintenance, and we spoke pretty generally about the state of RPG blogs. We hoped that there might be a better turnout the next time.

I returned to the con center to pick up Mrs. Kaiju, and toured part of the hall one last time. I had my Red Box Basic D&D books with me so I could get Frank Mentzer's autograph, although he wasn't at the OSR booth any of the times we walked by.  He probably spent most of his time at the auction area. Later we met up with some of our local gaming group friends at the Ram. We all had a great time and the food was decent.

After dinner, the Mrs. decided to crash, while I met up with another of my good local gaming friends, D., at the bar in the Marriott. He was playing Descent 2e with R. and J., two of his long-time gaming friends we meet at the con each year. I got in on the last game of the evening and then went back to the hotel.

Next: The third and final part, Saturday and Sunday

South Bend Games Day

If you are in the Northern Indiana/Southwest Lower Michigan area, check out the activities planned so far for South Bend Games Day on October 13th. There are still a few open slots for GMs to run games. Games will open for players to sign up soon.

Neil Armstrong, RIP

43 years ago, humans first set foot on the Moon. Even though we haven't been back in 40 years, the dream of walking on another world still lives on -- most recently with Curiosity, the latest Mars rover.

Today is the official day of mourning for Neil Armstrong, with flags flown at half-staff until sunset, and also the day of the private memorial service. This article has a great image gallery of his career, and details on tributes. As the article suggests,

...the family has made one other suggestion for honoring Armstrong. Remember? "Honor his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink."

Friday's moon is a good one to wink at: It's the second full moon in a calendar month, which is known as a "blue moon." The moon won't actually be blue, but if the skies are clear, it should be big and bright and shining all night.

If it's cloudy where you are on the planet, you can click over to the online viewing party where remote-controlled telescopes worldwide will be focused on Tranquility Base and beyond.

Gen Con 2012 report, part 1

Thursday: Mrs. Kaiju and I arrive downtown around 6pm and get checked in at the hotel right away. This was important, as our usual procedure is to arrive Friday morning. Last year, a fraternity reunion helped to sell out the hotel, and we had a long wait before a room was ready. When you are tired and sick from travelling, hanging out in the lobby for hours is no fun.

We decided to brave the light rain and walk over to Scotty's Brewhouse for dinner. We were met by a contingent of Stormtroopers and Jedi at the door and immediately seated. A later dinner time and farther away from the ICC helps with quick seating. While the overhead TVs played the DVD of Wrath of the Titans, we had a really nice dinner in a fairly quiet corner. Two managers stopped by to talk with us and I was able to get the special con d6 for Thursday.

Following dinner, I went to the convention center to pick up my badge and tickets, along with a con program that I could study that evening. I walked right up to the Will Call booth easily. All of the programs put out for the day were gone. We ran into some of our local gaming friends who were also staying at the hotel.


Friday: Got ready and went downstairs to the hotel restaurant for their breakfast buffet. Met up with our friend G. there, and then went out to the show.

After getting Mrs. Kaiju's badge and program books, we hit the Exhibit Hall. First stop: the Crystal Caste booth, each with coupon books in hand, for our Gen Con d6.You might sense a theme here -- I like collecting dice. I was sad that many of the swag bags from Gen Con 2010 were missing the commemorative dice.

Next, picking up my pre-ordered copy of Night's Black Agents from the Pelgrane Press booth. To make up for the shipping charge, we could add it to their "4 for 3" con special.

 

I added the NBA adventure book The Zalozhniy Quartet, Bookhounds of London, and The Book of the Smoke. Mrs. Kaiju spent more time talking to Paula Dempsey than I did. We continued on our wandering of the hall. I never did get back to the Pelgrane booth during the show to check out the tables along the other side, where The New Hero and the other Stone Skin Press fiction titles were located. This will be a theme of the convention this year.

Update: As shown in the photo, I also found one lone copy of Open Game Table, Vol. 2 at the Studio 2/Pinnacle booth.

Continued in Part Two...

Three RPG-related items to watch

I have not even opened and emptied my gaming bag since returning from Gen Con -- except to pull out the giant tennis-ball-sized d20 that Mrs. Kaiju purchased to use for her Composition I class next week. She's going old-school with a random writing prompt table. Therefore, my after-the-con notes will need to wait until Monday. Instead, I wanted to mention three other RPG events to watch.

Trey is looking for adventure seeds for Weird Adventures at From the Sorcerer's Skull. Check out all of the details at the contest page.

Reaper's Kickstarter project for expanding their unpainted plastic minis line will be closing 56 hours from the time of this post. I'm sure I will be kicking myself later for not getting in on the Vampire pledge level. If only this ended a month after Gen Con, and not the week after. Maybe the $15 Dungeon Attack set...

Secret Santicore is gearing up soon. Jez is looking for elves to help Santicore with the art and layout on the book. If you have such skills, let him know.

Bonus item:  The Lost Pages of Tsojcanth also has a open call for submissions on life in the Middle Ages for an RPG project titled Burgs & Bailiffs. The deadline for proposals was yesterday, however, I think I'll still send something tonight.

Gen Con report soon

Post-Gen Con report soon, probably Wednesday or Thursday. Lots of homework to grade first...

This year at Gen Con

I have been neglectful at keeping up with new game releases and events happening at Gen Con this year. I only have a handful of events and products that are on my radar for this year.

In the past few years, we've been catching up with some of my friend D.'s childhood friends at the con. This has included some memorable Saturday night gaming sessions:

• Playing Munchkin inside Champions Sports Bar. This was made more memorable by the cheers of the crowd that night watching Michael Phelps win gold in the Beijing Olympic Games.
• Playing Descent in the bar at McCormick & Schmick's
• Playing D&D Miniatures at the hotel, with Mrs. Kaiju bringing in more role-playing to the minis game, asking J. for more details about the world and what brings the party into this particular dungeon

Last year before everyone left town, the group discussed playing the module B2: Keep on the Borderlands this year. I'm assuming that this will happen, as D. recently picked up the Moldvay Basic and Expert books, B2 and X2: The Isle of Dread from the used section of our FLGS.

If schedules permit, I hope to meet some of the gamers I've chatted with online through blogs and G+. A panel discussion about the RPG Blog Alliance is scheduled on Friday. There may be other informal meetups.

The podcast This Just In from Gen Con will be recording two shows daily throughout the convention.

I have two main goals for shopping in the Hall this year. First, receiving my pre-order print copy of Ken Hite's "Jason Bourne vs. the vampire conspiracy" RPG Night's Black Agents. Although one loses out on the shipping charge, it does count for their con special 4-for-3 sale. Second, a copy of Barbarians of Lemuria from Cubicle 7. It has received great reviews, and it's one of a group of rules that I'm looking at for running pulp-inspired sword-and-sorcery.

I have a small list of some other items that I will look for while there, particularly some OSR products such as Carcosa, Stonehell, The Dungeon Alphabet, and the like. I just found out about a 10mm sci-fi miniatures game titled Dropzone Commander. Some friends have been playing it already and the minis look neat. That reminds me that I've been wanting to check out Uncharted Seas, a fantasy naval combat minis game, as well.

Games on Demand/Indie Games Explosion gets a larger dedicated space this year, and I hope to find a couple of hours to try some of the indie/story games that we don't normally get a chance to play. I'm very curious about Fiasco, Dungeon World, and Swords Without Master in particular.

EDIT: I forgot to mention two board games: Star Trek Catan and Relic, the 40K version of Talisman.

If you are going to Gen Con, have a safe and fun trip! If not, check out the online activities for CONcurrent, also running at the same time.

A quick update and Games Day link

Work has kept me super-busy yet again this week, so I've not had the chance to think about or write up some notes on the WaRP system as I had hoped.

Next week is Gen Con, and I will have some thoughts about that posted here on Monday. I haven't keep up with the new releases for the show. One RPG item that I intend to get is Barbarians of Lemuria, and that might inform some of my ideas concerning WaRP. I really need to pick up one of the flavors of FATE eventually, either Spirit of the Century or Strands of FATE.

In the meantime... if you live in the Northern Indiana/Southwest Lower Michigan area, the official announcement and call for GMs has gone out for South Bend Games Day in October. More information on the SBGD blog.

And did I mention that it's Kaijuville's 7th anniversary this month?

WaRP OGL rules, reformatted

Mrs. Kaiju and I were going out of town for part of last weekend, which I thought would give me an opportunity to read through Atlas Games' released-as-OGL WaRP System in one sitting. Until now I had only given it a glance. Friday evening I printed the PDF and put it inside a binder folder for easy reading.

Later that same evening... I saw Rob Donoghue's blog posting about reformatting the SRD for his own use and making the PDF available for all. Still later, I saw a post from Jonathan Tweet about another reformatting by Avram Grumer, this time in landscape format (looks good on a laptop screen). If I had only waited an hour...

I have yet to read either of these two versions, although they do look sharp. I had planned to do my own layout of the SRD with tweaks --which I may still work on -- and these will be handy for checking various options.

Next week I'll post more about the system in detail.

23 days to Gen Con

Less than a month until the big show. Are you going to Gen Con? If so, what are you most excited about?

A disappointing mid-year blog review

It's the mid-point of the year, and a time to look back over the past six months.

 

Work and other real-life issues took up much of my time this year and prevented me from posting as much as I had intended; for example, an emergency -- and unexpected -- dog-sitting escapade this week (with the 90+ degree heat). We seem to fall into these kinds of misadventures regularly.

 

These responsibilities took precedence, and understandably so, although they also made it difficult to either get in the right frame of mind for writing or find the time to do the proper research for certain posts. I had several new ideas for regular blog features here this year that I have not yet been able to develop, such as game reviews, a look back at Fantastic Four comics, and my Cult Classic of the Week movie spotlights.

 

However, no need to cue the sad trombone sounds. I remain optimistic that I can juggle my schedule such that I have time for fun projects, because they are also important to me and this blog is one of my strongest creative outlets. Gen Con is approaching, as is the 7th anniversary of Kaijuville. Thank you for reading and for your support!

More Hammer Horror on Blu-ray next week

I have been neglectful in posting details about upcoming DVD and Blu-ray releases lately. Next week sees the release of the long-awaited final installment of Hammer's "Karnstein Trilogy", Twins of Evil, in a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack.

Extras include a new feature-length documentary on the Karnstein Trilogy, a featurette on what appears to be Hammer historian Wayne Kinsey's prop collection, stills, a deleted scene, and an isolated music and effects track.

Vampire Circus, the first of Synapse Films' Hammer Blu-ray series, was released near the end of last year. Two more are expected in the near future: Hands of the Ripper and Countess Dracula.

Free RPG Day 2012 downloads

Many of the publishers involved with Free RPG Day release PDF copies of their giveaway products during and in the week after the event. Here are the ones that I've found:

• Fantasy Flight Games: Warhammer 40K Roleplay Only War Adventure, "Eleventh Hour", additional characters
• Goodman Games: Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG Quickstart & Adventure, pregenerated characters
• Jon Brazer Enterprises: Pathfinder, "Shadowsfall: Temple of Orcus" (download on Monday)
• Paizo Publishing: Pathfinder module, "Dawn of the Scarlet Sun" (download on Monday at 12am)

Other freebies:

• Timeless Adventures: Pathfinder module "The Tribute" (free this weekend only)
• Postmortem Studios: Irrepressible!, full game (today only)

I'll update this page as I find more.

Free RPG Day 2011 links here.

Free RPG Day is tomorrow!

The annual celebration of Free RPG Day is tomorrow. Based on the highly successful Free Comic Book Day, it's a chance for the gaming industry to show off new products, give away free quickstart rules or accessories, and get more people involved in our hobby.

See if one of your local game stores is participating with giveaways or game demonstrations. Many publishers also have free downloads for the occasion at their sites or RPGNow/DriveThruRPG.

Some of the publishers involved (and others) make Free RPG Day products available on PDF over the weekend or on the Monday following. My list from last year continues to be one of the most popular pages on this blog, so look for it again this year -- watch this space later tonight or tomorrow morning.

As I mentioned last year, I always have good intentions about volunteering to run a game demo at a local store, although schedules seldom seem to work out. I'll be grading papers and final exams this weekend.

A thought about using WaRP for pulp sword-and-sorcery

The upcoming end of the semester is freeing up my mind to think about gaming (and posting here) again. Trey's recent post about using bits of Atlas Games' newly-OGL WaRP system in D&D got me thinking about how I could use it for running Conan/pulp fantasy/sword-and-sorcery.

I have a list of possibilities that I've been kicking around for far too long now, and I'll just add WaRP to the list. Traits in WaRP remind me of Aspects in FATE, which I've already considered incorporating for their method of building pulp storytelling right into the game mechanics. Maybe hybridize WaRP traits with the best part of D&D Next, Backgrounds and Themes.

Birthdays of horror legends

I have been so wrapped up in work and school lately, I completely forgot about the anniversaries of Peter Cushing's birthday (May 26th) and Vincent Price's birthday (May 27th), along with Christopher Lee's 90th birthday (May 27th). Mrs. Kaiju and I hold these gentlemen in very high regard as masters of the horror genre, with legacies that extend throughout film making, popular culture and gaming.

I have posted tributes to them here in the past on these occasions. The video below is a clip that was added to the end of part 2 of Flesh and Blood: The Hammer Heritage of Horror when it aired on BBC1.

D&D Next Public Playtest starts on Thursday

The day is almost here -- those folks who have signed up should get their announcement emails that the D&D Next public playtest materials are available. Being very curious about how the rules will be shaped, I signed on for the notification when it was first announced.

 

The only real contact anyone has had with the new rules so far (to my knowledge) was a playtest using only character sheets at the D&D Experience event in January, a playtest at PAX East, some closed groups, and several gamers well-known in the online community giving feedback as consultants for the project. This public test will give the rest of us a glimpse at what the design team has been working on.

 

Much of the speculation about D&D Next on the internet has been over what small bits and pieces have been revealed from these closed playtests and the public articles on the Wizards website from Mike Mearls and company. The departure of Monte Cook from the project has also fueled the chatter.

 

My thoughts on the speculation? We've see these kinds of high-profile product releases before, and I don't think we can really draw any conclusions from any of the rumors or the articles yet, at least until we see the playtest material. I take anything mentioned in the designers' articles or the choices in associated user polls with a huge grain of salt. Topics in the articles have included the core classes, the role of the magic-user, what's important for paladins, hit points and "healing surges", just to name a few contentious areas. If I were Mearls, I'd throw all sorts of crazy ideas out there into the wild and see what sticks, or what the public shoots down. It's free advice and feedback. Why not use that?

 

This public playtest is not the same as the beta tests for Pathfinder or the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG, where fairly complete PDFs of the rules were given out freely for trial. The D&D Next playtest materials are said to be a short adventure, pre-generated characters, and enough of the rules to use the adventure -- I assume it would be similar to the quickstart adventures for Dragon Age or Castles & Crusades. There may be a playtest agreement required, keeping any discussion and feedback to official WotC channels.

 

I want to give the playtest rules a try. I don't know if I will be playing D&D Next as a regular thing. Our group has multiple other rule sets that we work with: homebrews, Pathfinder, Unisystem, BRP, FATE.... the list goes on. We as a local group of gamers are not that dependent on it. Having said that, I still think we want the 900-pound gorilla of the gaming world to be successful.

 

 

Favorite Music Friday: Beastie Boys

A much-delayed tribute to Adam Yauch. Thanks for all the great music, MCA... and thanks to Nathanial Hörnblowér for the excellent videos.

Giving Forgotten RPGs Another Chance

What RPG in your collection that you haven't played in years (or ever!) do you have the urge to pull off the shelf and try again? Do you want to see if it still plays the same way you remember? Have you just not found the right group of players to try it yet?

 

I can name three titles right away:

• James Bond 007 (Victory Games)
• Indiana Jones (TSR)
• Star Frontiers (TSR)

What would be on your list?

The Blogging will Continue Until Morale Improves

Work and other real life issues have kept me from posting anything since the beginning of last week. My hope is that things will ease up some beginning next week and I will have more gaming related posts here then.

It's not like there's anything else happening in the gaming world now, right?

I would also like to get back to the woefully neglected Cult Classic of the Week movie reviews and some of the other series posts I had in mind at the beginning of the year. And I have some ideas for a new blog layout that I need to test.