Post-Origins or Pre Gen Con?

Hello All!

Recovering from the past con was not as difficult as in ages past, thanks, in part, to plenty of taking plenty of Vitamin C. (I swear by dosing up on Emergen-C during the shows and diligent use of Purel.) Nope. I’m not sponsored, but just sharing some wisdom that comes from experience (of both myself and others.) For example, Stan!, yes, that Stan!, told me at GenCon SoCal ’04 that Purel was one of the most important things a designer should have. You may laugh, but he’s right. You meet a lot of people. You shake a lot of hands. You encounter a bunch of germs from all over the country you’re not normally exposed to. Couple that with long days and short nights and you’ve got a recipe for a post-con cold. Wow. That sounds upbeat. Doesn’t it?

Oh well. Get over it.

Origins was great. Through a casual remark to Shane Hensley, I found myself playing poker the first night of Origins (or attempting to play). I don’t take my poker game as seriously as others. Now, if it’s a pool game, that’s another matter. The next day, we ran a number of RunePunk games that went swimmingly well, and then the nights ran long with more gaming. Friday was a highlight as I got to see my madness through the lense of others. Norm Hensley and Dave McGuire conspired to contact a fabulous RunePunk Showdown complete with the streets of ScatterPoint nestled up against a toxic factory. I played the Sequitor and Stacy managed the Whitecloaks. It was a great time and I paused a few times to look at the tableau and comment, “What madness have I wrought?” It was a cool feeling that makes the solitude of writing less solitary. That’s the whole weirdness of a writer’s life is that, ultimately, we’re solitary creatures who get thrust out into highly social situations on a sporadic basis. Sunday night, I got to wrap up the convention after a nice dinner at Martini’s, by running a laidback session of RunePunk complete with moral and ethical dilemmas. Shane Hensley, the mysterious Teller, Ed Wetterman, Jerry Blakemore, Jodi Black, and Clint Black all got a sneak peak at DarkSummer, the latest offering for RunePunk and, by all indications, they had as great a time as I did.

So, all in all, despite some scheduling snafus on the part of Origins, the convention went well. Stacy ran a lot of Iron Dynasty demos and showed off his minis, and I played a lot of RunePunk, got to play in some Solomon Kane with some cool folks, and ran a pick up game of True20 Agents of Oblivion for Ed Wetterman, Neal Hyde, Stacy Young, and Jerry Blakemore. Everyone had fun and we had guest appearances by Trey Gordon and Clint Black (who was held hostage as he was waiting on us to eat.)

Hope to see some of you guys at the next show. We’ll be at GenCon and then at Con on the Cob before calling it a year.

Later,

Sean