Conclusion of Variety

In the past few weeks I participated in two new events I’ve never done before. The first that Stephanie did with me was the Bootcamp Challenge 5k which is a race at the Marine Training Center where you run through an obstacle course while drill sergeants yell at you. It was a lot of fun if not exhausting. The first third we just had to run up and over a few hay barrels but we eventually hit these logs you had to jump over (about 4 ft high) or crawl under.  I hit these with gusto but when I finished I suddenly felt exhausted I realized I had more than half the race left. The next third was other obstacles that included push-ups and crawling over and under things.

Happy to say I finished the event jogging and not crying from the drill instructors.

Second event was BigBadCon and I had a great time. I flew up from San Diego to Oakland which was surprisingly convenient with 8 flights a day and an easy shuttle ride to the hotel. It was also great meeting up with my friends Jonathan and Oscar who had moved away from San Diego.

This con was well run  with registering being no problem and then the big surprise of the con, my schedule was printed on the back of my badge. There was also cloth dividers separating all the tables. While they didn’t cut down on the noise much they gave a sense of privacy that I appreciated and helped enhance the game.

Friday night I played a fairy tale version of “Penny for my Thoughts” which was awesome and we came up with some great, twisted tales. This is my first time playing Penny though I’ve owned the game since its release and now I want to play more.

Saturday morning was BigBadGM with four GMs given random ingredients that they must have the players create characters and run the game while being judged (and harassed by Lenny Balsara). Ingredients in this case were genre:cyberpunk, setting: the moon, antagonist: fairy tale creatures. All four games seemed to be having tons of fun but in the end it was Morgan Ellis who took the crown. Favorite moment in my game was an aspect created called “Happy Ending Virus.”

I later jumped into a Godlike Aerial game with some of the best prep I’ve ever seen. It had 6 or 7 maps, nice framed pictures of all the characters, 8 page characters sheets in dividers and miniatures. I got to play the engineer of an experimental plane among a group of fighter jocks. Lots of fun roleplaying at the beginning though the game bogged down for me once we got to the fighter combat as the only thing I could do was change my aircraft and I was guaranteed success. So, by the fourth round it was getting difficult to find something interesting to do.

Saturday night was Heroquest with plenty of Glorantha goodness as the characters get caught up in tribal politics. Game took a little bit to get going but once the players grasped the system and the GM settled into the adventure things really took off.

Sunday morning was Deleria where all the players were fairy tale creatures. In this case Cinderella, The Big Bad Wolf (how fitting) and I was Wood Building Little Pig. Again it took awhile for the players and GM to get moving but once we did it was a lot of fun as the characters had to battle with the idea and the reality of the real and fae worlds mixing.

Final game was Lacuna Part 1 which was my favorite game of the con. I’m not sure what the GM did but I rarely actually feel the same emotional response that my character would feel. This game did it as I actually become paranoid and freaked out.

A great con and though it was similar to the Strategicons it was also unique and the focus on rpgs really brought out some great player and GMs. I’m looking forward to next year.

A few weeks ago I went up to Gencon. This is my third Gencon Indianapolis and as usual it was a great time. A lot of people have said it has been there best Gencon. I would say this was my second best Gencon.

It started Wednesday morning with our flight leaving at 7. I got some gin & gingerail courtesy of my friend Andy and his drink tickets making the plane trip relaxing. We landed around 5 and got a taxi to our room at the Hilton Garden Inn in downtown Indianapolis (our usual spot). We went down to the convention center to pick up some badges then met up at Buca di Beppo for dinner where all my friends showed up. After we went to the bar for a whiskey flight and hung out.

On Thursday I spent most of the day walking around the dealers room which is always fun. Grabbed some lunch with friends then played in Airship Pirates, a new steampunk rpg that I had a ton of fun playing. I talked to the GM after the game and he agreed to send me the characters so I could run the adventure at other cons and meetups. After that was dinner and more bar.

On Friday I had a friend pick up Airship Pirates for me (they only had 50 copies available at noon) while I was playing the new Lord of the Rings rpg called One Ring. This game did not impress me and I think would be better named, Random Encounter the RPG because that is what took about about 85% of our time. My friend Sam and I played in that game so afterward we had a beer and  split a burger at the Ram, a popular restaurant during Gencon that we usually avoid because it is packed with people. Since we went around 4pm it wasn’t too bad. The inside and outside were decorated with geek gaming stuff and the beers and menu were changed to reflect Iron Kingdoms/WarMachine world. They also played geek movies (Bladerunner, Aliens, etc) on the TVs instead of sports. It was a fun place and I can see why it got packed. I then went and played Burning Wheel at Game-on-Demand (a place you can play small press games and you don’t have to register like most games) and later… the bar.

Saturday I spent six hours at Games-on-Demand playing DungeonWorld, Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple and Bulldogs all with the creator of the games. All these games were great except Do wasn’t really my kind of game. After I met up with Andy and we went to a minor league baseball game that was fun. After the game I went to the bar and later met up with the Games-on-Demand crowd at the Embassy Sweets.

To wrap it up on Sunday was a quick trip through the dealers room, and then Games-on-Demand where someone wanted to play Fiasco. I offered to run and we quickly grew to a five player game. I had ran Fiasco three times before but now playing it with a bunch of people who had played with the developer I realized I was doing some things wrong. It was still the best Fiasco game I had played. Afterwards we head back to the Ram (it was slow again) and got lunch. Finally, we headed home.

Like I said it was a great con. What made last years better was the White Wolf party which was crazy, and gaming with the Fear the Boot crowd who I followed through texting. This year I followed their tweets which were really slow (last year it seemed like I got a tweet for a game every few hours).

I did get on One Cool Thing I Saw at Gencon.

On Tuesday July 19, a day after returning from Italy started Gam3r-con and six days of sleep deprived gaming and fandom. Gam3r-con is a new game convention (2nd year) in San Diego that occurs at the same time as Comic-con trying to get attendance from both Comic-con attendees and locals (many who wanted Comic-con badges but were unable to get them).  I volunteered to help with the con back in February and was put in charge of tabletop gaming and helped with their website. Gam3r-con also had rooftop parties, three videogame rooms (old school video games, LAN group and  a room with all the current game system) a theater that showed production of Dr. Horribles Sing Along Blog and Gam3rs the Play and a few panels.

Gam3r-con started Tuesday and I was there at 6:00 and stayed until a little before 12. Not much was going on so I taught some other volunteers Munchkin so that they might be able to teach it later on. I also caught a production of Dr. Horrible which was a lot of fun and well done. Zack Whedon would later see it and loved it (apparently this was the final production of Dr. Horrible because previous production were not done well). The rest of the Whedons were not able to see it but requested a recording so they could watch it later on.

On Wednesday I picked up my Comic-con badge and then headed back to Gam3r-con which was busier and had four tables of gaming going on. I ran a game of Fiasco that was a lot of fun and had some kids teach me Yu-Gi-Oh.

Thursday I walked Comic-Con, picked up a few graphic novels and caught panels on Writing for Novels vs Comics (Jim Butcher, Christopher Moore, Amber Benson) and Writing Epics in Graphic Novels (Jeff Smith). I later returned to Gam3r-con which was slow but still got in a little Primetime Adventures and Bang.

Friday I picked up a friend of mine and some swag to hand out at the con. We got downtown around 9:00 and I headed to Comic-con to watch a panel on Locke-n-Key which was showing the Pilot of the TV show even though there would not be further episodes. Headed back to Gam3r-con and the gaming area had been put on the room due to a mix up with a Rooftop party. The rooftop party featured a band but due to noise violations they were too loud to play on the roof. So, they moved the band into the gaming area and the games onto a section of the roof. The non-band part of the party was also on the room creating an interesting mix of gaming of DJ mix party. I left around 5 to catch a panel on the Art of Dungeonmastering (Chris Perkins) and got back to a packed gaming area with everyone having lot of fun.

Saturday I briefly stopped by Comic-con to pick up my badge next year but found out they were limiting the sales of those and as a result I wasn’t able to pick one up. I got to Gam3r-con in time to see my friend Mike in a panel about creating your own game. I then watched my friend, Albert, perform in Gam3rs the Play. Rest of the day was spent in the game area.

When I got home around midnight and there was a loud party at my apartment building and I couldn’t get to sleep until around 4:30. My friend Scott showed up at 8:30 because I promised him my badge for the day and as a result I was exhausted. Sunday was steady with four games going through most of the afternoon. I spent most of the day wondering around and making sure everyone was good. At 7:00 was the Gam3r-con rooftop party with live geek music and meet the cast of Dr Horrible (previous roof parties had different themes) and I had a good time staying there until 1 in the morning.

Monday was spent recovering.

Tuesday I went and say the band, A Perfect Circle with my friend Scott. Opening for them was a crazy all girl, Japanese, punk thrasher band called Red Bacteria Vacuum. A Perfect Circle was amazing.

Another great con but Comic-con has gotten too big. I’ll go if I can but with tickets selling out in a half day and now people lining up early in the morning to buy tickets at the con I can barely take it. I’ve gotten use to the crowds but now avoid the large panels as I’m not willing to wait 2+ hours to get into them. However, I can understand why it has gotten so big as there is something about Comic-con (and Gencon) that becomes addictive. You also have Comic-con everywhere including TV (G4) and magazines such as Wired and Entertainment. I was joking with my friend Scott that we might have to travel to get to a smaller comic book convention because we can’t get into the local one.

Gam3r-con was a great experience. I was a volunteer working 6+ hours a day and I really got the feeling that I helped put something together. It was by no means that size of a strong gaming convention like Strategicon in LA and didn’t have the gaming space and focus of Kingdom-con here in San Diego. However, it was unique and was not a gaming convention in the traditional since but more a celebration of gaming. It did have the largest video game area I have seen at a local con with the three rooms of video games. I was in charge of the Gaming Lounge which had tabletop games. I spent most of my time trying to find people games. We had five tables and a few times we filled up. I’m hoping next year we’ll have more room and people.

Stephanie and I went to Italy for a week. We got up Saturday morning at 2:45am to catch our van at 3:30… at it was early. It dropped us off 15 minutes later at the check-in counters weren’t open yet. For the next 15 hours Stephanie and I found ways to entertain ourselves and eventually landed in Rome. We took a 30 minute train ride to the city and got to our hotel. Being  jet-lagged and on edge we check-in to our hotel but can’t go to our room for a few hours so we walked around the streets for awhile and I got some coffee and a snack. We went back to our room, took a nap and then woke and had a nice dinner… pizza and pasta which would be our dinner and lunch everyday while we were there. It was actually difficult to find a non-Italian place to eat.

Next day we went to the Spanish Steps (lame) and a large park called the Villa Borghese because all the museums are closed on Monday. It was hot but the park was nice. At 5pm we hopped on a train and took a 1 1/2 hour ride to Florence. We then met up with my parents and my aunt and uncle and had a nice dinner then walked around for awhile.

Next day we went on a tour of the medevil town of Sienna. The guide took us all around the town which was amazing but it was over 100 degrees that day so by the time we got back to our bus we were exhausted. They then took us to another medevil town, Gimignano, which had lot of little shops and a torture museum with air conditioning.

Next day my family left for Rome but Stephanie and I checked out the rest of Florence. We went up the top of the Duomo, checked out an art museum that held the original David and the Medici palace gardens.

Back to Rome on Thursday. Once again we had to wait for our room so we walked around and did some shopping. When we came back we found out that the room they had for us had a broken toilet and they would be moving us to their Sister Hotel. The Sister Hotel was a total dump and Stephanie and I couldn’t believe. The room did not have a phone making it difficult to contact my parents. So, we walked to their hotel and ran into them. We bought some computer time and I researched the two hotels. Our original hotel, Hotel Marco Polo was a 3 star hotel for 110 euro, the place they put us was a 1 star hotel for 65. Stephanie called the travel website and I called the hotel. We than left and got some drinks then celebrated my moms b-day.

We had to stay one night in the hotel and got to go back to our original one as they figured things out and I complained a lot. On Friday we visited the Colosseum and a few other places.  Saturday we spent most of our time at the Castel Sant’ Angelo which is a fortress outside the Vatican. It was my favorite location because it had a great view of the city, lots of things to look at and it wasn’t crowded.

Sunday we headed home but found out our flight would be delayed for 5 hours causing us to miss our flight in Charlotte. We didn’t get back home until Monday and were exhausted but had lot of fun.

However, there was not time to recover because the next day Gam3r-con would start.

A few weeks ago I headed out to Ocotilla Wells/Anza Borrego Desert National Park for camping and activities. The desert isn’t really my idea of a good time but my friend Andy had invited me and I had been reluctant to participate in events he has suggested before (Las Vegas) which proved to be a great time.

I decided to go and head up on Saturday. I arrived around 1:30pm only to find out I was suppose to be there at 10am. On my way Andy called and told me to call him when I arrived. When I arrived at the general area I tried calling him but due to bad reception all I good do was send a text and hope for the best. I ended up at a bar called the Iron Door enjoying the local color. Turns out that Ocotilla Wells is a huge off-road park/community and those who partake in activities really like the Iron Door.

Andy picked up about an hour later and got me set up at the campsite. We then headed to enjoy the off-roading driving up sand-dunes and bumpy roads. We also looked at a hill with fossils and a natural spring. After that we returned to the campsite for good food and drink. I ended up having trouble sleeping and stay up about 2 hours after everyone went to bed but eventually went to sleep.

The next day it was windy but we all got some breakfast and packed up. We headed out to The Mud Caves which fit there description. I ended up scraping my arm and bonking my head not realizing I still had my sunglasses on when exploring the caves. We had lunch after and then head back to camp. However, we decided to take the hard off-road way. We took Diablo Drop-off which is a steep road that takes us from a mesa into an arroyo.  We then to proceed to drive through the arroyo over large rocks.

It has been a fun filled holiday. Starting with Thanksgiving Stephanie and I drove up to LA and spent some time with her dad. We then went and had Thanksgiving dinner with her aunt and hung out talking and playing games.

The next day we went and had some veggie burgers that were really good (I couldn’t taste the difference between the veggie burger and a real one) and then drove out to Temecula were we got a villa at SouthCoast Wineries for two nights. We got there around 3 but the villa wasn’t ready until 4 so we walked around and did some wine tasting. The room was amazing with a fireplace, jacuzzi bath and other extravagance (such as two shower heads, what up with that).

The next morning we headed to downtown Temecula and walked around the farmers market like we did almost a year ago. After that we stopped to get Stephanie’s favorite gas station coffee. From there we made our way back to the villa for some quiet reading until our tour of the winery.

The tour was great and as we walked around our guide was giving us full pours straight from the barrels. The end of the tour was a wine pairing with cheese, crackers and fruit. Stephanie and I got drunk and then went to get lunch at the winery restaurant and then passed out at the villa.

Christmas was a little different as Stephanie and I packed for Las Cruces. We left on her birthday which I gave her a coupon book with things like “Quiet Time” and “Foot rubs.”

Once in Las Cruces we got dinner at La Posta, a popular Mexican restaurant. The rest of the vacation consisted of lots of eating, then more eating. Maybe we would find time to see a movie (True Grit), visit Caos Bookstore, make tamales or play tennis in-between the eating.

Not a whole lot has been going on. Everything has been pretty steady and dull. At my job we took over the office building next door and they moved all the Tech Support staff over including myself. I’m really shy at this job and don’t know many people but for some reason feel more comfortable around the tech support team than I did with engineering.

Gaming has been steady and I finished a game called “Colony” where the players take on members of the first people to ever colonize another planet. I describe it as “Lost” but in space, but not “Lost in Space.” It went really well and I plan on doing a follow up next year. We are now playing Dresden Files and up next is Dark Sun 4e.

D&D at the Library still goes strong and as chaotic as it can be things remain steady. I introduced a new mechanic in which I give the players poker chips if they are paying attention at the beginning of their turn. They can than spend the chips on extra actions, bonuses to their rolls or experience points. It has worked wonderfully.

A few months ago was Gateway 2010 up in LA and I got to play in games of Lady Blackbird, Unknown Armies and Apocalypse World. I also ran Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies. Stephanie picked me up early from the con and we headed up to a party some friends had.

I also got to see some fun plays including one a friend was in. One of the plays, “Gam3rs” I saw a few weeks ago. It is a play about a tech support guy who is obsessed with World of Warcraft. Me and some friends went to an October fest then the play so I was pretty drunk when we arrived. The play was great with lots of inside geek jokes including references to Star Wars and Homestarrunner. They also had a talk back with food and more booze.

First weekend in August I went with a few friends up to Indianapolis for the giant gaming convention, Gencon. We left early Wednesday morning with our flight taking off at 6:30. During the flight one of my friends passed out and had to be taken to the hospital during our layover in Denver. Luckily, he was ok and joined up with us the next day.

We arrived in Indianapolis around 3pm and another friend say we could take the economy shuttle. Not knowing what we were doing we hopped on the first shuttle which ended up taking us to long term parking. After a wonderful trip around the parking lot we hopped on the correct shuttle which took us down town.

We checked-in and then headed out and grabbed some food at the Steak-n-Shake; a staple of Gencon cuisine which I missed the year before. I had a burger, shake and fries. After we had some beers, later we had played some munchkin and had more beers.

On Thursday I grabbed some breakfast and headed to the convention center to walk around the dealers room. I picked up Hamlet’s Hitpoints, Blowback, Reign (lite), Smallville and Icons. I met up with my friends and had lunch at Buca Di Beppo. I then played in a 6 hour Amber Diceless game which was fun up until the GM had everyone second guessing each other and arguing. After that we grabbed some beer to finish the night.

Friday I started with a Maid game borrowing a ticket off a friend. It had too many players and the GM did not know the rules well enough. After that my friends and I did a D&D Delve where we all died in 30 minutes. I later played in an equally bad Eclipse Phase game with too many players and an uninterested GM. I grabbed some dinner with friends and as we finished up I got a message from the Fear the Boot community which sent out texts to anyone who signed up. I had been getting texts throughout the con and decided to try one out. I ended up playing in a Dread game based off the movie Inception which was a lot of fun and made up for the two bad games.

On Saturday I headed to the Games-on-Demand section and met up with Bill White who created Ganakagok and did a quick demo of his game. After that we met up with another guy who ran us in his game called Steampunk Crescendo and then InSpecters.

We then grabbed some dinner and after I sent out a text to get games of Dresden Files and Weird War II (for my friend) to the Fear the Boot network. We ran our game until midnight. We planned on grabbing some beers but some other friends wanted to go to the White Wolf party.

The White Wolf party has been a staple of Gencon for many years. I company called White Wolf creates game about Vampire and Werewolves. You have to get an invitation early. My friends and I left for the party but only had three invitations out of five people. A $20 bribe later and we were all in. The party was a techno-gothic dance floor with cages and techno-remixed music of popular rock/industrial songs. It was open bar and a lot of fun in a serial gothic way.

Sunday we slowed down and walked through artist alley and the dealers-room. We finished things up by learning how to play the boardgame Dominion and then heading back to catch our flight.

A few weeks ago I attended Comic Con. Wednesday I picked up my badge which was efficient this year as I was able to walk right up and get my badge without waiting in a line. Given that two years ago I waited over an hour this was a huge improvement.

I then went to the dealers-room and headed straight to a gaming booth that is always there. I had actually mesmerized their location since I have been to this con so many times. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any great deals like they have in the past but I did pick up the Leverage Quick Start rules (RPG based off the TV show Leverage). I walked through a little more of the dealers room, picked up a gaming mat for minis and left.

Next day I didn’t attend because we were releasing a major part of our website at work. I did get to have dinner with Jonathan, Michelle plus Tom who I hadn’t seen in years.

On Friday I left work around 12pm and headed down to the con. I walked around the dealers-room and picked up a few comics. I didn’t have any panels and couldn’t find anyone so left to hang out with my friends who decided to skip the con and hang out in PB.

On Saturday I was down there around 10am. In the past I have always planned on spending time at the big media events at the ballrooms but in the last three years there has been an hour plus wait (last year it was almost two hours) just to get in. I didn’t want to do that this year and went to smaller panels. Around 10:30 I headed up and saw Gabriel Ba and Gerard Way talk about Umbrella Academy and rock-n-roll. Later Brian Michael Bendis talked comics. Both great panels and that pumped me up for the rest of the con.

I met up with some friends and we started to walk the hall. We ended up by the gaming booth I started at on Wednesday and I ran into Aldis Hodge who plays Alec Hardison in Leverage. I pulled out my copy of the Leverage Quick Start rules and had him sign his picture in the book and then got my picture with him. Finished up by walking around a little more and heading over to the Tilted Kilt to drink some beers.

The strange thing about this Comic Con is it stopped being special and is now something I just do every year. I still love it but it has lost that overwhelming affect of pure awesome it once had. That spot is now held by Gencon.

Not a lot going on right now especially when you compare it to Japan. I did make it out to GameX in LA for some roleplaying fun for memorial day weekend. Having had bad luck with running games there before (no one showed up) I decided to just play and had a good time. I got to play “In a Wicked Age”, “Dresden Files RPG”, “Icons”, “World of Darkness WWII”, and “Warhammer 3rd ed.”

One of the groups running games at GameX decided to have a rpg day at a gamestore in LA so a friend and I drove up and played some “Savage World: Aliens” and “Serenity.”

I usually run a single session rpg for a meetup group once a month. I’ve recently started doing these at Gamers Torch which is a great new gaming store in Pacific Beach. He has the best selection of Indy games I’ve seen south of San Francisco and is supportive of the gaming community. They donated a bunch of prizes for hyphen-con and give us drinks during the game.

Other than gaming Stephanie and I have been following the Padres closer than we ever have before. I might know the name of 6 or 7 players and now have a bobble head on my desk.