Showing posts with label On the Festival Circuit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label On the Festival Circuit. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 01, 2012
#BWIFF2012
Saturday, November 20, 2010
To Telepath Messages Through the Vast Unknown
Following up on my last post, I know there is no way I am going to hit 50,000 words on NaNoWriMo this year, nor am I even close; but I have had fun working on some writing again with Johnny Demonseed, and I have already done well in the Nerd Olympics this year.
For the third surprising year in a row I have met the challenge of reading 50 books in a year and this time I finished with a month to spare. I think I'm going with The Boy Detective Fails as my favorite book that I read in 2010, and that's not just because I happened to meet Joe Meno in a small, spooky town called New Harmony down in southern Indiana and got to ask him what the hell he was thinking during the writing of this strange, magical work.
I also liked The City and The City by China Mieville, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, The Keep by Jennifer Egan, Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby, Clans of the Alphane Moon by Philip K. Dick, Rule of the Bone by Russell Banks, and London Boulevard by Ken Bruen, to name a few.
On my second try I managed to visit six ballparks this summer, beating my old, inadvertent record of visiting five in one summer. When I concentrated last year I only hit four so I decided to zen it out again this year and ended up at six.
I went to my hometown Richmond Riverrats in Richmond, Indiana a few times; saw the Evansville Otters in the ballpark featured in A League of Their Own on a very hot summer day; saw the Dayton Dragons for a friend's birthday, probably now one of my favorite ballparks; went to see the Reds with my dad and got a Chris Sabo bobblehead but also got walloped in the eye either with a fist or a foul ball, I'm still not sure which; caught the Durham Bulls for the second time with friends and ate great Carolina barbecue; and, on the last day of the season, went to see the Indianapolis Indians with my wife and daughter, who surprised me by asking if I wanted to go and break my record at my other favorite ballpark, which they were happy to join me at if I would buy the beer.
But writing again must have put something in the karma bank because I have spent the weekend helping judge the United Kingdom's National Student Film Association's Screenwriting Competition. It was very flattering to be asked, but I felt sorry for these poor youths who obviously got turned down by every legitimate screenwriter on the European continent and thus were forced to forage in America's Heartland for another judge. But it was cool for once and probably for only to be mentioned in the same breath as BFI and BAFTA.
Until later I am at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.
For the third surprising year in a row I have met the challenge of reading 50 books in a year and this time I finished with a month to spare. I think I'm going with The Boy Detective Fails as my favorite book that I read in 2010, and that's not just because I happened to meet Joe Meno in a small, spooky town called New Harmony down in southern Indiana and got to ask him what the hell he was thinking during the writing of this strange, magical work.
I also liked The City and The City by China Mieville, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, The Keep by Jennifer Egan, Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby, Clans of the Alphane Moon by Philip K. Dick, Rule of the Bone by Russell Banks, and London Boulevard by Ken Bruen, to name a few.
On my second try I managed to visit six ballparks this summer, beating my old, inadvertent record of visiting five in one summer. When I concentrated last year I only hit four so I decided to zen it out again this year and ended up at six.
I went to my hometown Richmond Riverrats in Richmond, Indiana a few times; saw the Evansville Otters in the ballpark featured in A League of Their Own on a very hot summer day; saw the Dayton Dragons for a friend's birthday, probably now one of my favorite ballparks; went to see the Reds with my dad and got a Chris Sabo bobblehead but also got walloped in the eye either with a fist or a foul ball, I'm still not sure which; caught the Durham Bulls for the second time with friends and ate great Carolina barbecue; and, on the last day of the season, went to see the Indianapolis Indians with my wife and daughter, who surprised me by asking if I wanted to go and break my record at my other favorite ballpark, which they were happy to join me at if I would buy the beer.
But writing again must have put something in the karma bank because I have spent the weekend helping judge the United Kingdom's National Student Film Association's Screenwriting Competition. It was very flattering to be asked, but I felt sorry for these poor youths who obviously got turned down by every legitimate screenwriter on the European continent and thus were forced to forage in America's Heartland for another judge. But it was cool for once and probably for only to be mentioned in the same breath as BFI and BAFTA.
Until later I am at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Bright Lights, Small City
Live from the Traverse City Film Festival. We stood for an hour in a standby line outside this cool theater and just slipped in for a midnight showing of the crazy Norwegian zombie flick "Dead Snow." A soon-to-be cult classic. Had the added benefit of seeing Michael Moore and Jeff Garlin hanging around outside.Sunday, March 16, 2008
The Girl With The Faraway Eyes
Four out of the last five weekends I have been on the road, through ice storms, snow storms, hail storms, rain storms, and haven't updated my blog like I should.
First I went to Bloomington to check out the Indiana Festival of Independent Film and Video with my brother (reviewed earlier, just scroll down), then the following weekend I was off to Cincinatti visiting a media center in Over the Rhine for day job work, seeing the great effort those folks are leading their to empower residents with community media and cable access. A worthwhile trip though I got snowed over there and spent more time in the Queen City than I intended (though I had some really good Cincy BBQ, almost as good as Cincy chili).
Regular readers know I went to Pennsylvania the next week to pay my respects to the family of b-movie filmmaker John Polonia, who passed away suddenly. On the way back I hit a heavy snowstorm and ended up stranded with a lot of other folks at a hotel somewhere in Pennsylvania, a welcoming little town whose name escapes me at the moment.
Since I had an extra day of travel I stopped at the Small Press and Comics Expo on the way through Columbus Ohio the next day. I don't know if the inclement weather played a role, but the show didn't seem as well attended by visitors or vendors. However, I was glad to see fellow Hoosier Pam Bliss, as well as Matt Feazell, Tom Scioli, and Pat Lewis, whose work I enjoy. A group I hadn't seen there before was Sparkplug Comics, and I ended up buying a big stash of their stuff as they were carrying a lot of indy people I like. I am still chewing through my swag from the show, but I picked up the most recent pair of King Cat Comics from John Porcellino and the latest You Don't Get There From Here from Carrie McNinch, two of my favorite creators of independent comics. From people I was less familiar with I got Clutch McBastard's autobiographical Clutch 16 and Jeremy Massie's superhero adventure The Deadbeat, which I enjoyed.
Last night I got home from Athens Georgia, where my brother-in-law lives, and I got my first taste of actual sunshine in 2008, though a series of Georgia tornadoes damped our enthusiasm, so to speak, towards the end of the week. But I ate really good pizza at the Mellow Mushroom and got to visit Bizarro Wuxtry, a legendary independent record store/comic book store.
Though I do enjoy road tripping, I hope to be done for a bit. I'm going to update the blog soon with some changes, methinks. Until then, give me a shout at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.
First I went to Bloomington to check out the Indiana Festival of Independent Film and Video with my brother (reviewed earlier, just scroll down), then the following weekend I was off to Cincinatti visiting a media center in Over the Rhine for day job work, seeing the great effort those folks are leading their to empower residents with community media and cable access. A worthwhile trip though I got snowed over there and spent more time in the Queen City than I intended (though I had some really good Cincy BBQ, almost as good as Cincy chili).
Regular readers know I went to Pennsylvania the next week to pay my respects to the family of b-movie filmmaker John Polonia, who passed away suddenly. On the way back I hit a heavy snowstorm and ended up stranded with a lot of other folks at a hotel somewhere in Pennsylvania, a welcoming little town whose name escapes me at the moment.
Since I had an extra day of travel I stopped at the Small Press and Comics Expo on the way through Columbus Ohio the next day. I don't know if the inclement weather played a role, but the show didn't seem as well attended by visitors or vendors. However, I was glad to see fellow Hoosier Pam Bliss, as well as Matt Feazell, Tom Scioli, and Pat Lewis, whose work I enjoy. A group I hadn't seen there before was Sparkplug Comics, and I ended up buying a big stash of their stuff as they were carrying a lot of indy people I like. I am still chewing through my swag from the show, but I picked up the most recent pair of King Cat Comics from John Porcellino and the latest You Don't Get There From Here from Carrie McNinch, two of my favorite creators of independent comics. From people I was less familiar with I got Clutch McBastard's autobiographical Clutch 16 and Jeremy Massie's superhero adventure The Deadbeat, which I enjoyed.
Last night I got home from Athens Georgia, where my brother-in-law lives, and I got my first taste of actual sunshine in 2008, though a series of Georgia tornadoes damped our enthusiasm, so to speak, towards the end of the week. But I ate really good pizza at the Mellow Mushroom and got to visit Bizarro Wuxtry, a legendary independent record store/comic book store.
Though I do enjoy road tripping, I hope to be done for a bit. I'm going to update the blog soon with some changes, methinks. Until then, give me a shout at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Cine-Filed
Yesterday my brother and I attended the Third Annual Indiana Festival of Independent Film and Video in Bloomington, Indiana, put on by Cinephile Film Arts at the historic Buskirk-Chumley Theater.
But first we had to go have Burmese food (I had a great pork curry) and hit two of my favorite B-town shops, Vintage Phoenix and Boxcar Books, where I loaded up on zines and comics.
The opening speaker was Hoosiers scribe Angelo Pizzo, who talked about the new moviemaking incentives coming to Indiana (over the governor's veto, interestingly) but was asked, strangely enough, mostly about YouTube. I thought it was good that he answered, wisely, that YouTube and downloads and all that are all well and good, but dramatic three act structure has been around a couple thousand years and isn't going anywhere right away. He left before I got to wax nostalgic with him about my time as an extra on Hoosiers many years ago.
The first short was First They Came For by Kate Chaplin, basically a nice little adaptation of the Martin Niemoller poem, set in a near-future Orwellian setting.
Next was the darkly absurdist comedy short Human Resources by Brenan Campbell, a
Kafka-esque short speculating about who is on the other side of those "time and temperature" phone calls.
Zach Kahl then served up In Chicago: A Jazz Documentary about the long-lived scene in the Windy City. The short doc was a bit ragged around the edge production-wise, sometime leaving me unsure about whether Kahl was making style choices or technical mistakes, but the content was engaging.
Foxy Madonna vs. the Black Death was a Grindhouse-style short long on style and laughs (and longtime readers may recall I predicted this trend was coming, much as we ended up with a million Pulp Fiction-style projects a decade ago). Again I wondered whether Jakob Bilinski's rough-hewn style was entirely intentional, but he earns points for creativity. I especially liked mute, poker-faced minion "Chalkboard" who writes dire threats on a scrap of schoolhouse waste.
Next, Ben Williams' The Gingerbread Slums was a cute-ish 120 seconds of animation where a gingerbread man fights a couple of criminals. More an exercise than a real short but interesting to look at.
My pal Peter O'Keefe, who I taught a workshop with at Microcinema Fest a few years ago, logged in Infidel, where a hitman waiting to finish a contract strikes up a conversation with a street preacher at a diner, a meeting that holds dire portents for both. Very nicely shot, with good performances, and serious religious and social themes. When I added this to the other shorts I've seen of Peter's, I realized he still has a lot of Catholic guilt to work through, and I wish him well.
Little Sister Manipulator from 19th State Productions was a breezy slacker comedy where a twenty-something brother and sister pass a lazy afternoon in age-old rivalries. I thought this short had a nice energy in its production and presentation.
I thought Ben Williams' LesPsych was a little less sure-footed, set up as a "behind the scenes" documentary about the making of a z-grade horror movie, and how the lead actress begins to slowly unravel during the process. The horror movie scenes I'm sure were intentionally funny, but I was unclear whether the other aspects were intended to be, or whether the short was trying to find a higher plane. Uneven, and self-referential, but certainly interesting.
Mikel J. Wisler's Cellar Door was a lyrically shot, but thematically muddled, story about a young woman who begins to fray around the edges after the death of her father, and how she tries to put the pieces back together by visiting the family's remote cabin. The nonlinear storytelling is interesting but I thought the storytelling was a little soft in spots. However, Rachel Cottom basically carries the whole piece herself and shows a nice range as the troubled lead. Overall, nice solid work.
Brenan Campbell's The King of Pop was a raunchy sketch about the death of a popcorn magnate named Orville, and the wayward brother who is brought in to save the company. One of those "throw everything at the screen and see what sticks" comedies with a lot of smart-ass style and enough laughs for its short running time.
Semantics from Kathryn Gardner was a nice character sketch, with some stylish production riffs, about a socially stunted professor who is confronted by a friend about her actions. The twist at the end takes a moment to sink in and left me wondering what was going to happen next. Nicely done but left me wanted to see the short expanded, to see more of these characters.
Pearlessence from Rob Dietz and Phyllis Chen was a dreamy exercise in animation which surprised me by having a live score, performed by Chen silent movie-style. Chen's performance was excellent and the animation interesting. Probably the most curious work in the festival.
I enjoyed my day in Bloomington and will be seeking out Cinephile's next festival.
But first we had to go have Burmese food (I had a great pork curry) and hit two of my favorite B-town shops, Vintage Phoenix and Boxcar Books, where I loaded up on zines and comics.
The opening speaker was Hoosiers scribe Angelo Pizzo, who talked about the new moviemaking incentives coming to Indiana (over the governor's veto, interestingly) but was asked, strangely enough, mostly about YouTube. I thought it was good that he answered, wisely, that YouTube and downloads and all that are all well and good, but dramatic three act structure has been around a couple thousand years and isn't going anywhere right away. He left before I got to wax nostalgic with him about my time as an extra on Hoosiers many years ago.
The first short was First They Came For by Kate Chaplin, basically a nice little adaptation of the Martin Niemoller poem, set in a near-future Orwellian setting.
Next was the darkly absurdist comedy short Human Resources by Brenan Campbell, a
Kafka-esque short speculating about who is on the other side of those "time and temperature" phone calls.
Zach Kahl then served up In Chicago: A Jazz Documentary about the long-lived scene in the Windy City. The short doc was a bit ragged around the edge production-wise, sometime leaving me unsure about whether Kahl was making style choices or technical mistakes, but the content was engaging.
Foxy Madonna vs. the Black Death was a Grindhouse-style short long on style and laughs (and longtime readers may recall I predicted this trend was coming, much as we ended up with a million Pulp Fiction-style projects a decade ago). Again I wondered whether Jakob Bilinski's rough-hewn style was entirely intentional, but he earns points for creativity. I especially liked mute, poker-faced minion "Chalkboard" who writes dire threats on a scrap of schoolhouse waste.
Next, Ben Williams' The Gingerbread Slums was a cute-ish 120 seconds of animation where a gingerbread man fights a couple of criminals. More an exercise than a real short but interesting to look at.
My pal Peter O'Keefe, who I taught a workshop with at Microcinema Fest a few years ago, logged in Infidel, where a hitman waiting to finish a contract strikes up a conversation with a street preacher at a diner, a meeting that holds dire portents for both. Very nicely shot, with good performances, and serious religious and social themes. When I added this to the other shorts I've seen of Peter's, I realized he still has a lot of Catholic guilt to work through, and I wish him well.
Little Sister Manipulator from 19th State Productions was a breezy slacker comedy where a twenty-something brother and sister pass a lazy afternoon in age-old rivalries. I thought this short had a nice energy in its production and presentation.
I thought Ben Williams' LesPsych was a little less sure-footed, set up as a "behind the scenes" documentary about the making of a z-grade horror movie, and how the lead actress begins to slowly unravel during the process. The horror movie scenes I'm sure were intentionally funny, but I was unclear whether the other aspects were intended to be, or whether the short was trying to find a higher plane. Uneven, and self-referential, but certainly interesting.
Mikel J. Wisler's Cellar Door was a lyrically shot, but thematically muddled, story about a young woman who begins to fray around the edges after the death of her father, and how she tries to put the pieces back together by visiting the family's remote cabin. The nonlinear storytelling is interesting but I thought the storytelling was a little soft in spots. However, Rachel Cottom basically carries the whole piece herself and shows a nice range as the troubled lead. Overall, nice solid work.
Brenan Campbell's The King of Pop was a raunchy sketch about the death of a popcorn magnate named Orville, and the wayward brother who is brought in to save the company. One of those "throw everything at the screen and see what sticks" comedies with a lot of smart-ass style and enough laughs for its short running time.
Semantics from Kathryn Gardner was a nice character sketch, with some stylish production riffs, about a socially stunted professor who is confronted by a friend about her actions. The twist at the end takes a moment to sink in and left me wondering what was going to happen next. Nicely done but left me wanted to see the short expanded, to see more of these characters.
Pearlessence from Rob Dietz and Phyllis Chen was a dreamy exercise in animation which surprised me by having a live score, performed by Chen silent movie-style. Chen's performance was excellent and the animation interesting. Probably the most curious work in the festival.
I enjoyed my day in Bloomington and will be seeking out Cinephile's next festival.
Monday, March 26, 2007
Real To Reel
Thanks to everybody who came out to the Phantoscope High School Film Festival in Richmond, Indiana Saturday night to hear me talk on a panel, and stayed for the fest. We had fifty-plus people crowded into the room and spilling out into the hallway for the talk and more than 100 for the screening of regional high school kids' short films. Afterwards a mother came up and thanked me for telling the kids not to do anything they weren't proud of. I'm sure she was picturing her son in my place in twenty-five years and was glad that I warned him off the path.
Working away at NJTTCOTE. Until then, give me a holler at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.
Working away at NJTTCOTE. Until then, give me a holler at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.
Monday, September 22, 2003
Con Weekend
I went to the Twisted Nightmare Con Saturday, in beautiful downtown Akron, Ohio.
It was uncanny meeting so many people I knew from the Internet there: Jason Santo, Sheri Carter, Wayne Harold, Bill Shotten, Eric Thornett, Jasi Lanier, Eric Spudic, Jeff Graham, and others, plus seeing a few I had met before, including JR Bookwalter and Mark Burchett. Some were exactly like I thought, a few were nothing like I expected: taller, shorter, older, younger, thinner, fatter, weirder, saner.
I have been to many Cons, including comic book Cons and role-playing Cons, and there is always some weird proportion of nerds to hot girls that does not exist anywhere else in nature. "American Nerd" Toby Radloff wasn't the nerdiest person at the Con, nor the nerdiest person I know, by some distance.
MEMORABLE MOMENTS:
Filmmaker Jason Santo telling me about how he spent Friday night getting business tips from Erin (BUCK ROGERS) Gray.
TOWNIES director Wayne Harold telling actor Jeff Dylan Graham that he had the "perfect" part for him in his next movie, involving an attempted rape at a party, then Jeff spanking off into a bed full of coats, and Jeff Graham asking "Why do people always want me to play rapists?"
Getting to chat with DAWN OF THE DEAD's Ken Foree, and talking about our mutual pal Ivan Rogers.
Getting to chat with Jeff Dylan Graham, and talking about how we both slept on the same couch at Mark Polonia's house.
BIGGEST HIGH:
Getting to meet nice new people, including most of the aforementioned as well as Jason Paul Collum and Ken Foree.
BIGGEST LOWS:
From Jason Santo, meeting me for the first time, "You're shorter than I thought!"
Two pierced, tattooed guys in the bathroom: "So are they having any good screenings?" "Microcinema stuff." "Oh, so nothing good."
Telling people, "I'm from Indiana," or "I just wrote the next Polonia Brothers movie," and having certain people look back at me like I just said "I have an inoperable brain tumor."
MY SWAG:
BAD MOVIE POLICE 1 and 2 from JR Bookwalter at Tempe; Jason Collum's JULIA WEPT; Jason Santo's MINDSCAPE PICTURES PRESENTS #1; and a kooky-looking robot movie called PROJECT: VALKYRIE (I was the only person they had sold one to at that point).
Overall it was a fun day, and worth the long drive to meet a lot of people I would like to work with some day.
Back to AMONG US tomorrow.
Give me a yell at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com
It was uncanny meeting so many people I knew from the Internet there: Jason Santo, Sheri Carter, Wayne Harold, Bill Shotten, Eric Thornett, Jasi Lanier, Eric Spudic, Jeff Graham, and others, plus seeing a few I had met before, including JR Bookwalter and Mark Burchett. Some were exactly like I thought, a few were nothing like I expected: taller, shorter, older, younger, thinner, fatter, weirder, saner.
I have been to many Cons, including comic book Cons and role-playing Cons, and there is always some weird proportion of nerds to hot girls that does not exist anywhere else in nature. "American Nerd" Toby Radloff wasn't the nerdiest person at the Con, nor the nerdiest person I know, by some distance.
MEMORABLE MOMENTS:
Filmmaker Jason Santo telling me about how he spent Friday night getting business tips from Erin (BUCK ROGERS) Gray.
TOWNIES director Wayne Harold telling actor Jeff Dylan Graham that he had the "perfect" part for him in his next movie, involving an attempted rape at a party, then Jeff spanking off into a bed full of coats, and Jeff Graham asking "Why do people always want me to play rapists?"
Getting to chat with DAWN OF THE DEAD's Ken Foree, and talking about our mutual pal Ivan Rogers.
Getting to chat with Jeff Dylan Graham, and talking about how we both slept on the same couch at Mark Polonia's house.
BIGGEST HIGH:
Getting to meet nice new people, including most of the aforementioned as well as Jason Paul Collum and Ken Foree.
BIGGEST LOWS:
From Jason Santo, meeting me for the first time, "You're shorter than I thought!"
Two pierced, tattooed guys in the bathroom: "So are they having any good screenings?" "Microcinema stuff." "Oh, so nothing good."
Telling people, "I'm from Indiana," or "I just wrote the next Polonia Brothers movie," and having certain people look back at me like I just said "I have an inoperable brain tumor."
MY SWAG:
BAD MOVIE POLICE 1 and 2 from JR Bookwalter at Tempe; Jason Collum's JULIA WEPT; Jason Santo's MINDSCAPE PICTURES PRESENTS #1; and a kooky-looking robot movie called PROJECT: VALKYRIE (I was the only person they had sold one to at that point).
Overall it was a fun day, and worth the long drive to meet a lot of people I would like to work with some day.
Back to AMONG US tomorrow.
Give me a yell at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com
Wednesday, September 17, 2003
Con'd
I'm thinking about going to a Horror Con in Akron, Ohio Saturday, and trying to network. It's hard to believe today, but in a few weeks I hope to be done with the two Polonia Brothers rewrites and will need to start thinking about doing something else. Maybe I can get some "face time" with some people and make a connection. It's all about the connections. I hope to spend some time at the Mindscape Pictures booth, where my pal Jason Santo will be selling his VHS and DVDs. He's the talented guy behind microcinemascene.com, a great place to visit if you haven't been (the link is to the right). If you can't get enough of my writing here, zip on over there and check out some of my reviews and interviews.
I'm going to take a break from AMONG US today and include a short article I wrote after visiting the "Flashback Con" in Chicago last summer.
SUMMER 2002:
With Apologies to Hunter S. Thompson...
I was 60 minutes outside Chicago when the Excedrin kicked in.
In the car seat beside me was a half-eaten roll of Tums, some
mint gum shaped like a dog's tooth, a printed sheet from MapQuest,
a bottle of warm chocolate milk, one Krispy Kreme with sprinkles,
and my Palm Pilot. My wallet held fifty bucks and a two-for-one
Blockbuster coupon. On the CD player Johnny Cash was singing live
from Folsom Prison and outside the window a horn was blaring and a
middle finger was sailing past. Five hours later I would be kicked
out of the Marriott for not having a wrist badge, even though honestly
I hadn't seen any place to pay money, nor had anyone stopped me, when I
first walked in. Two hours after that my car would leave me by the side of
the road in rural Indiana with a dead starter, but luckily three
enterprising young hill-jumpers would come along and push-start my
car for a small fee. But that would all be in the far future, and in
the now I see "Travesty" standing outside the Marriott,
an inposing but friendly dude whom I had previously known only as a
disembodied head on a web message board, so I know I am in the right place.
I go straight to the dealer room and walk past a sea of video sellers,
pushing Mexican wrestling, Hong Kong action, Italian sandal epics,
backyard horror, and all the other flotsam and jetsam of my misspent
youth. There were so many bootlegs floating around that everybody
was looking over their shoulders waiting for the click of the FBI's
steel-toed boots.
The Tempe table was doing a solid stream of business. Better looking
in real life than in the movies (female winner): Tanya Dempsey.
Better looking in real life than in the movies (male winner): J.R.
Bookwalter, based on his "Lance Randas" cameo in "Shandra the Jungle
Girl." All the people at Tempe seemed high-energy, driven, talented.
Jeff Sisson was very friendly and helpful, despite the fact that he
looks like someone you don't want to see coming towards you in a mosh
pit. Don Adams and Harry Picardi brought a low-riding Cheesehead
posse that would have put P. Diddy to shame (the Milwaukee version of
J. Lo must have stayed back at the crib). Right across the aisle,
Mark Burchett and I struck up a long conversation, not the least of
which concerned our shared misery over the Cincinnati Reds. I wanted
to buy his cool-looking "Deadly Dreamgirls" DVD but then remembered
how it felt the last time my wife made me sleep on the couch.
Later I went to a Tempe Q&A session in which enough good advice was
dispensed to give me the will to go on in this volatile industry. I
wanted to go back and buy some videos, but got the bum's rush from
security instead. Just as well, as I needed the money to pay for some
backwoods auto advice a short time later. Everything happens for a
reason.
There's my ten cents; my two cents are free.
--John
I'm going to take a break from AMONG US today and include a short article I wrote after visiting the "Flashback Con" in Chicago last summer.
SUMMER 2002:
With Apologies to Hunter S. Thompson...
I was 60 minutes outside Chicago when the Excedrin kicked in.
In the car seat beside me was a half-eaten roll of Tums, some
mint gum shaped like a dog's tooth, a printed sheet from MapQuest,
a bottle of warm chocolate milk, one Krispy Kreme with sprinkles,
and my Palm Pilot. My wallet held fifty bucks and a two-for-one
Blockbuster coupon. On the CD player Johnny Cash was singing live
from Folsom Prison and outside the window a horn was blaring and a
middle finger was sailing past. Five hours later I would be kicked
out of the Marriott for not having a wrist badge, even though honestly
I hadn't seen any place to pay money, nor had anyone stopped me, when I
first walked in. Two hours after that my car would leave me by the side of
the road in rural Indiana with a dead starter, but luckily three
enterprising young hill-jumpers would come along and push-start my
car for a small fee. But that would all be in the far future, and in
the now I see "Travesty" standing outside the Marriott,
an inposing but friendly dude whom I had previously known only as a
disembodied head on a web message board, so I know I am in the right place.
I go straight to the dealer room and walk past a sea of video sellers,
pushing Mexican wrestling, Hong Kong action, Italian sandal epics,
backyard horror, and all the other flotsam and jetsam of my misspent
youth. There were so many bootlegs floating around that everybody
was looking over their shoulders waiting for the click of the FBI's
steel-toed boots.
The Tempe table was doing a solid stream of business. Better looking
in real life than in the movies (female winner): Tanya Dempsey.
Better looking in real life than in the movies (male winner): J.R.
Bookwalter, based on his "Lance Randas" cameo in "Shandra the Jungle
Girl." All the people at Tempe seemed high-energy, driven, talented.
Jeff Sisson was very friendly and helpful, despite the fact that he
looks like someone you don't want to see coming towards you in a mosh
pit. Don Adams and Harry Picardi brought a low-riding Cheesehead
posse that would have put P. Diddy to shame (the Milwaukee version of
J. Lo must have stayed back at the crib). Right across the aisle,
Mark Burchett and I struck up a long conversation, not the least of
which concerned our shared misery over the Cincinnati Reds. I wanted
to buy his cool-looking "Deadly Dreamgirls" DVD but then remembered
how it felt the last time my wife made me sleep on the couch.
Later I went to a Tempe Q&A session in which enough good advice was
dispensed to give me the will to go on in this volatile industry. I
wanted to go back and buy some videos, but got the bum's rush from
security instead. Just as well, as I needed the money to pay for some
backwoods auto advice a short time later. Everything happens for a
reason.
There's my ten cents; my two cents are free.
--John
Friday, August 22, 2003
Earlier this week I posted my thoughts on this year's GenCon. As I'm pretty busy today, and will be off-line all weekend, I thought I would share some lengthy thoughts from two previsous GenCons today, that will hold you over all weekend.
JOHN'S GENCON WAR JOURNAL 1997:
DATELINE: MILWAUKEE
WEDNESDAY: Twas me and me three droogs--my brother Eric, Troy "the Caveman" Holaday and Bart "Barticus Rex" Amburn on the road to GenCon, the biggest gaming convention in the entire multiverse. After a long day's journey into night we arrive at the University of Milwaukee at Wisconsin in Sandburgh Hall, the cheapest digs but surprisingly pleasant. We had an upper story lake front dorm with lots of conveniences including a private bath, for around 20 bucks a night. To warm up for several intense days of gaming we played a few quick modules of D and D from an old Dungeon magazine and a round of a new card game called Legend of the Five Rings, quite enjoyable, which I was beaten soundly by the Caveman.
THURSDAY: An early call for the first gaming session at 8 a.m.--the sessions run a rigorous 8-12, 12-4, 4-8, 8-12, and you can play any or all a day. I started with a solid D and D adventure run by Louis Arenas, who had a good DMing style which was a lot of fun. At the end, to my surprise, the 8 players in the session were supposed to vote on who the best player was to win a $5 gift certificate, and I was selected. My calls of "For Dwarven Honor!" must have paid off. Next at noon was the highlight of the trip--the chance to play a celebrity slot with Richard Baker, the co-creator of the new Alternity game from TSR. I won a chance to play from answering a sci-fi quiz in the pre-registration book. Alternity is an interesting sci-fi universe with an excellent dice system. It has a lot of potential and I feel it will be the next hot thing, although not to eclipse D and D. He ran "Assault on Bug Central", which had a real Starship Troopers feel to it, but the game can be adapted to any universe. I played with some really good experienced gamers and enjoyed it immensely. A jolly old guy stood and watched for a while, chatting with us, and when I casually glanced at his nametag I saw it was Gary Gygax. Gulp! I guess that made my next session, a 4 p.m. D and D game, a little disappointing. It featured some of the dreaded gaming caricatures, the smart-a DM, the rules lawyer, and a nihilistic "Vampire Kid". Important safety tip--never play 12 hours straight! I was, to say the least, slightly woozy by that evening.
FRIDAY: Missed a chance to get into a Call of Cthulhu game when I got to talking to another dude named John Dalton who was running a game that ended up not making. To my great misfortune it gave me the chance to go the exhibit hall,a place of dark yearnings and drooling excess. A shrine to the pagan god of impulse buying keeps the eternal flame at the entrance to the teeming-to-the-gills floor, where literally everything your shriveled heart desires is available. The night before, I had laughed at the Caveman, who appeared glassy-eyed and white-knuckled with armloads of booty from the exhibit hall, and soon I was choking on that bitter laughter. The death toll: I bought 52 miniatures, a Legends of the Five Rings starter deck, a series of "Pulp Dungeons" adventures, an old "Gamma World" boxed game system, a special GenCon-only Alternity rulesbook, several back issues of Dungeon magazine, and a stack of old Phantom Stranger and Gold Key Turok comics.But what I got in free stuff was tenfold; starter decks for Monumental Overpower, X-Files, a neat new Cthulhu game called Mythos, given away for playtesting, free comics and magazines, boosters for Mythos and Legends of the Five Rings, all kinds of dice, and more. The hot items were Shadowrun starter decks (free for the playtesting) and Legends of the Five Rings (slightly stingier with free booster packs). The exhibit hall is interesting--it's where you see the weirdest people, the fringe people, the ones dressed in vampire garb or chain-mail bras, and the like. Wise hard-core gamers shun the place as the Place Where Time Stands Still. In fact, the next thing I knew it was six p.m., and time to grab a bite to eat before playing the 8 p.m. slot with the Caveman. I played "Gamma World", a classic post-apocalyptic TSR game from the 80s. The DM, Kris Reeves, had a good adventure and we had a lot of fun. This game really should have never died. I tied for best gamer honors, diced for the $5, and lost.
SATURDAY: Hit a TSR "Pinnacle Event" at 8 a.m. with my brother--"Rumble in Mecca", a 60 person dungeon adventure. It was chaotic but a lot of fun. I unwisely left my brother unattended at the exhibit hall and went to play another D and D game, which I left halfway though because half of the players started getting a side game up that excluded several of us. It was the only bad experience I had gaming, and the worst of it was it left me free to wander the exhibit hall and auction area some more. But at 8 p.m. I came to my senses and joined a session of another classic game, "Champions", with my brother and Barticus Rex. We were all a bit punchy by this time but my character "Explodo" was well received and I split gaming honors with Bart. He had won four prizes, I had won or tied three, and the Caveman finished second three times. Not a bad showing for the Muncie crowd!
SUNDAY: Sunday was hard; after several days on three hours of sleep and sixteen to twenty hour days of gaming, I needed an IV drip.I was flat out of steam. But my brother, younger and more hearty, got in a few good sessions, giving high marks to the new horror-western game Deadlands and the new Babylon 5 RPG. Tired but happy, we headed for America's heartland once more.
THE REAL SKINNY: GenCon has something for everyone. I stayed with RPGs, but people into card games could go that route, or playing military/miniature battles, like our pal Caveman did. Or, if you haven't maxed out your credit cards, you could do the exhibit floor the whole time and just playtest stuff. We are all planning to go next year, and will probably drag some more compatriots along. We're even threatening to DM some games, so be warned! And to its real credit, I wasn't even burned out--I came home and played about 12 hours of D and D with my son and his friend Ted. Already we're dreaming about next year....
GENCON WAR JOURNAL, 1998:
Although not fully recuperated from Chicago, the Back Issue crew was at it again, on their way to GenCon 1998. The lineup this year consisted of last year's veterans John, John's brother Eric, Troy "The Caveman" Holaday, and relative gaming rookie, Doug. Barticus Rex was serving this great nation of ours in the reserves, and could not attend this year's festivities. Hopefully, they made him put on his pants! A seven hour preparation lecture on the way to Milwaukee still could not prepare Doug for the sights, smells, and tastes of the world's largest Gaming Convention.
Wednesday: After a hasty 7 hour jaunt North, the boys made it to the convention center just ahead of the 10:00 pm cutoff for early registration. Troy, Eric, and John were furious to find out that combined they had gotten the same number of events as Doug who cashed in at a whopping ten pre-registration tickets. Biggest disappointment for John: didn't get into one Alternity event! For The Caveman: where are the miniatures? Nevertheless, it was back to the University of Wisconsin Dorms to rest up and prepare for the day ahead.
Thursday: The Boys managed to find their way back to the convention center early Thursday Morning, just in time to make their 8:00 am events. Doug found himself at the mercy of an even bigger comics fan than himself, as he played the Red Bee in an all Golden Age version of the old DC Heroes RPG. Alongside other Golden Age stalwarts Airwave, The Whip, Captain Triumph, and others, Doug was voted the best gamer of the round. Doug started off the Indiana contingency that won a whopping number of gaming awards last year. John and The Caveman sat in on a sequel to last year's Gamma World adventure, where the mutated creatures had to escort a ship across the remains of Lake Michigan. This was run by Kris Reeves, a great GM who ran the Gamma World event the gang played last year. Later in the day the crew found themselves trapped in the black hole known as the Exhibition Hall, where The Caveman reverted to the miniature hound of last year, Eric purchased the new Marvel RPG by TSR, and John playtested several new games from Legends, TSR, and Wizards of the Coast. His efforts garnered him a free Battletech Starter Deck which he flaunted to the others, daring them to playtest and then spin the Wizard's Wheel on the Exhibition Floor. This was a dare he would later regret. But there were no regrets on the dance floor, as They Might Be Giants braved the Milwaukee deluges and put on a strong free GENCON-only concert that night. Then it was back to the room, and of course, a round of Marvel RPG. It was The Thing (Caveman), Nick Fury (Doug, of course) and Power Man (John, of course) taking on Rhino and SuperSkrull (Eric). Villians win!
Friday: Learning from the mistakes of last year, John and the others decided not to game straight through from dusk till dawn. Arriving at the convention center at 10:00 am, John and The Caveman played a miniatures chariot race game called Circus Maximus, while Doug hurried off to play an officially sanctioned introduction of the Marvel Superheroes RPG by TSR. John also tried out a fun Deadlands module run by Pinnacle Games, and won a "Best Gamer" award that round. Unfortunately, the prizes weren't what they were last year; instead of a $5 certificate to spend anywhere, it was a $5 Deadlands certificate. C'est la vie--but still better than the "Thanks for Playing" certificate Doug got for his stellar turn as the Red Bee! When John and Doug met again on the exhibition floor, fate intervened.
Both playtesting on the WoTC floor, Doug chose to take his five stamps and get in line to spin. John decided to take a crack at one other game, so he was a good dozen people behind Doug when he got in line. Upon Doug's arrival on the stage, his goal, with five spins, was to match John and land either a free starter deck or a ten dollar gift certificate. After four spins, the best he had hit was a five dollar certificate, and he was tempted to walk with it, for fear a final spin would land him a booby prize. John egged him on however, telling him to go for the glory, ad a final spin landed Doug on the jackpot--a five hundred dollar chest of virtually everything WoTC, TSR and L5R make.
The challenge had not yet ended, however, as two of three trivia questions had to be answered. Doug, being the novice gamer that he was, begged the host to have mercy and got Comic Book trivia instead of Dungeons and Dragons, and eventually won the chest. His three questions: What character disappeared for a long time in the 70s because of copyright issues, and recently resurfaced with his family; what was Perry White's catchphrase in the comics; and what character's secret origin involved eating a radioactive carrot. After that insanity had subsided, John finally approached the wheel himself. Fending off jeers and insults from the crowd after passing on a ten dollar certificate, John miraculously hit the jackpot as well. The host was unkind however, and refused to allow two chests to go to home in the same van, making John's trivia extremely difficult. His questions: What game was played instead of poker on The New Odd Couple with an all-female cast; what was Kirk and Spock's secret code that referred to 3D chess; and what game did Bart Simpson shoplift on The Simpsons. This resulted in chaos unbounded on the stage, as John nearly had to be hauled off by security guards that rivaled Jerry Springer's!
Saturday: Another 8:00 am start for the crew, as John, Doug, and Troy headed once again for the miniatures floor to play another chariot race game called Circus Imperium, where 5 teams piled in the same chariot, with The Caveman and his gladiator coming out on top to edge out Doug and some other cheating schmuck and win the race. Later in the day the guys met for another round of Marvel Superheroes, this one played out with Toy Biz action figures. John was Dragon Man, Doug was The Leader, Eric The Black Cat, The Caveman was Rhino. The boys would have had more fun, except for a pain-in-the-butt "rules lawyer" who almost drove Doug and John to homicide. Troy came close to winning, but the real victory was knocking out the weasel-guy's Mandarin. That evening, a variant of Axis and Allies was playtested by all where the Russians and Iraqis take on the Saudis, Iranians, and Turks. Two genial high school kids from Milwaukee dealt out the whup-a to A&A vets Doug, Eric, and John. Still a great variant of a great game. With cries of "Pour it on!" the boys went back to UWM and cranked up a Battletech free-for-all to cap their last night, until Doug dropped over unconscious.
Sunday: With Caveman's immortal words, "If we eat less food, we can buy more miniatures!" echoing in their ears, the boys went to GENCON to take one last look around the convention floor. As Battletech was the hit of the year, John looked for some rules and a used Axis and Allies game, but had no luck. Eric went wild on Dragon Dice. Doug, John's co-dependent, convinced him to split an incredibly cheap box of Wildstorms CCG booster packs. The Caveman, literally down to about $2.50, looked forlornly on. The booty call: John and Doug bought so many 3 for a dollar comics, that they guy quit selling them after one day (His picture is on the GENCON web page, looking a little dismayed, probably after we pillaged all of his Defenders and Dr. Strange comics). John really liked the Battletech CCG and the Cheapass Games company, especially Kill Dr. Lucky. He also bought Deep Space Nine, Star Wars and Babylon 5 cards and lots of miniatures. John wanted to buy Legend of the Burning Sands but realized nobody would ever play it with him. Doug loaded up on more CCGs than he should of, icluding two expansions of the Echelons WWII comabt game, some choice OverPower and WildStorms tidbits, and a ton of dirt-cheap Sim City cards (plus the aforementioned 3/$1.00 comics). Eric grooved on Dragon Dice and Star Wars cards. The Caveman drooled over miniatures and the dice game Chaos Progenitus. The gang loaded up on a lot of different things this year, really showing the breadth and depth of gaming. Reviews of the first year of GENCON under Wizards of the Coast, the Bill Gates of gaming? More corporate, for better or worse. Less independents and more companies running their own games, for better and worse. Some confusion, and it was harder to get into big events this year. More hubba hubba with Jeri Ryan and Claudia Christian hanging around. Overall, we'll give it another chance.
JOHN'S GENCON WAR JOURNAL 1997:
DATELINE: MILWAUKEE
WEDNESDAY: Twas me and me three droogs--my brother Eric, Troy "the Caveman" Holaday and Bart "Barticus Rex" Amburn on the road to GenCon, the biggest gaming convention in the entire multiverse. After a long day's journey into night we arrive at the University of Milwaukee at Wisconsin in Sandburgh Hall, the cheapest digs but surprisingly pleasant. We had an upper story lake front dorm with lots of conveniences including a private bath, for around 20 bucks a night. To warm up for several intense days of gaming we played a few quick modules of D and D from an old Dungeon magazine and a round of a new card game called Legend of the Five Rings, quite enjoyable, which I was beaten soundly by the Caveman.
THURSDAY: An early call for the first gaming session at 8 a.m.--the sessions run a rigorous 8-12, 12-4, 4-8, 8-12, and you can play any or all a day. I started with a solid D and D adventure run by Louis Arenas, who had a good DMing style which was a lot of fun. At the end, to my surprise, the 8 players in the session were supposed to vote on who the best player was to win a $5 gift certificate, and I was selected. My calls of "For Dwarven Honor!" must have paid off. Next at noon was the highlight of the trip--the chance to play a celebrity slot with Richard Baker, the co-creator of the new Alternity game from TSR. I won a chance to play from answering a sci-fi quiz in the pre-registration book. Alternity is an interesting sci-fi universe with an excellent dice system. It has a lot of potential and I feel it will be the next hot thing, although not to eclipse D and D. He ran "Assault on Bug Central", which had a real Starship Troopers feel to it, but the game can be adapted to any universe. I played with some really good experienced gamers and enjoyed it immensely. A jolly old guy stood and watched for a while, chatting with us, and when I casually glanced at his nametag I saw it was Gary Gygax. Gulp! I guess that made my next session, a 4 p.m. D and D game, a little disappointing. It featured some of the dreaded gaming caricatures, the smart-a DM, the rules lawyer, and a nihilistic "Vampire Kid". Important safety tip--never play 12 hours straight! I was, to say the least, slightly woozy by that evening.
FRIDAY: Missed a chance to get into a Call of Cthulhu game when I got to talking to another dude named John Dalton who was running a game that ended up not making. To my great misfortune it gave me the chance to go the exhibit hall,a place of dark yearnings and drooling excess. A shrine to the pagan god of impulse buying keeps the eternal flame at the entrance to the teeming-to-the-gills floor, where literally everything your shriveled heart desires is available. The night before, I had laughed at the Caveman, who appeared glassy-eyed and white-knuckled with armloads of booty from the exhibit hall, and soon I was choking on that bitter laughter. The death toll: I bought 52 miniatures, a Legends of the Five Rings starter deck, a series of "Pulp Dungeons" adventures, an old "Gamma World" boxed game system, a special GenCon-only Alternity rulesbook, several back issues of Dungeon magazine, and a stack of old Phantom Stranger and Gold Key Turok comics.But what I got in free stuff was tenfold; starter decks for Monumental Overpower, X-Files, a neat new Cthulhu game called Mythos, given away for playtesting, free comics and magazines, boosters for Mythos and Legends of the Five Rings, all kinds of dice, and more. The hot items were Shadowrun starter decks (free for the playtesting) and Legends of the Five Rings (slightly stingier with free booster packs). The exhibit hall is interesting--it's where you see the weirdest people, the fringe people, the ones dressed in vampire garb or chain-mail bras, and the like. Wise hard-core gamers shun the place as the Place Where Time Stands Still. In fact, the next thing I knew it was six p.m., and time to grab a bite to eat before playing the 8 p.m. slot with the Caveman. I played "Gamma World", a classic post-apocalyptic TSR game from the 80s. The DM, Kris Reeves, had a good adventure and we had a lot of fun. This game really should have never died. I tied for best gamer honors, diced for the $5, and lost.
SATURDAY: Hit a TSR "Pinnacle Event" at 8 a.m. with my brother--"Rumble in Mecca", a 60 person dungeon adventure. It was chaotic but a lot of fun. I unwisely left my brother unattended at the exhibit hall and went to play another D and D game, which I left halfway though because half of the players started getting a side game up that excluded several of us. It was the only bad experience I had gaming, and the worst of it was it left me free to wander the exhibit hall and auction area some more. But at 8 p.m. I came to my senses and joined a session of another classic game, "Champions", with my brother and Barticus Rex. We were all a bit punchy by this time but my character "Explodo" was well received and I split gaming honors with Bart. He had won four prizes, I had won or tied three, and the Caveman finished second three times. Not a bad showing for the Muncie crowd!
SUNDAY: Sunday was hard; after several days on three hours of sleep and sixteen to twenty hour days of gaming, I needed an IV drip.I was flat out of steam. But my brother, younger and more hearty, got in a few good sessions, giving high marks to the new horror-western game Deadlands and the new Babylon 5 RPG. Tired but happy, we headed for America's heartland once more.
THE REAL SKINNY: GenCon has something for everyone. I stayed with RPGs, but people into card games could go that route, or playing military/miniature battles, like our pal Caveman did. Or, if you haven't maxed out your credit cards, you could do the exhibit floor the whole time and just playtest stuff. We are all planning to go next year, and will probably drag some more compatriots along. We're even threatening to DM some games, so be warned! And to its real credit, I wasn't even burned out--I came home and played about 12 hours of D and D with my son and his friend Ted. Already we're dreaming about next year....
GENCON WAR JOURNAL, 1998:
Although not fully recuperated from Chicago, the Back Issue crew was at it again, on their way to GenCon 1998. The lineup this year consisted of last year's veterans John, John's brother Eric, Troy "The Caveman" Holaday, and relative gaming rookie, Doug. Barticus Rex was serving this great nation of ours in the reserves, and could not attend this year's festivities. Hopefully, they made him put on his pants! A seven hour preparation lecture on the way to Milwaukee still could not prepare Doug for the sights, smells, and tastes of the world's largest Gaming Convention.
Wednesday: After a hasty 7 hour jaunt North, the boys made it to the convention center just ahead of the 10:00 pm cutoff for early registration. Troy, Eric, and John were furious to find out that combined they had gotten the same number of events as Doug who cashed in at a whopping ten pre-registration tickets. Biggest disappointment for John: didn't get into one Alternity event! For The Caveman: where are the miniatures? Nevertheless, it was back to the University of Wisconsin Dorms to rest up and prepare for the day ahead.
Thursday: The Boys managed to find their way back to the convention center early Thursday Morning, just in time to make their 8:00 am events. Doug found himself at the mercy of an even bigger comics fan than himself, as he played the Red Bee in an all Golden Age version of the old DC Heroes RPG. Alongside other Golden Age stalwarts Airwave, The Whip, Captain Triumph, and others, Doug was voted the best gamer of the round. Doug started off the Indiana contingency that won a whopping number of gaming awards last year. John and The Caveman sat in on a sequel to last year's Gamma World adventure, where the mutated creatures had to escort a ship across the remains of Lake Michigan. This was run by Kris Reeves, a great GM who ran the Gamma World event the gang played last year. Later in the day the crew found themselves trapped in the black hole known as the Exhibition Hall, where The Caveman reverted to the miniature hound of last year, Eric purchased the new Marvel RPG by TSR, and John playtested several new games from Legends, TSR, and Wizards of the Coast. His efforts garnered him a free Battletech Starter Deck which he flaunted to the others, daring them to playtest and then spin the Wizard's Wheel on the Exhibition Floor. This was a dare he would later regret. But there were no regrets on the dance floor, as They Might Be Giants braved the Milwaukee deluges and put on a strong free GENCON-only concert that night. Then it was back to the room, and of course, a round of Marvel RPG. It was The Thing (Caveman), Nick Fury (Doug, of course) and Power Man (John, of course) taking on Rhino and SuperSkrull (Eric). Villians win!
Friday: Learning from the mistakes of last year, John and the others decided not to game straight through from dusk till dawn. Arriving at the convention center at 10:00 am, John and The Caveman played a miniatures chariot race game called Circus Maximus, while Doug hurried off to play an officially sanctioned introduction of the Marvel Superheroes RPG by TSR. John also tried out a fun Deadlands module run by Pinnacle Games, and won a "Best Gamer" award that round. Unfortunately, the prizes weren't what they were last year; instead of a $5 certificate to spend anywhere, it was a $5 Deadlands certificate. C'est la vie--but still better than the "Thanks for Playing" certificate Doug got for his stellar turn as the Red Bee! When John and Doug met again on the exhibition floor, fate intervened.
Both playtesting on the WoTC floor, Doug chose to take his five stamps and get in line to spin. John decided to take a crack at one other game, so he was a good dozen people behind Doug when he got in line. Upon Doug's arrival on the stage, his goal, with five spins, was to match John and land either a free starter deck or a ten dollar gift certificate. After four spins, the best he had hit was a five dollar certificate, and he was tempted to walk with it, for fear a final spin would land him a booby prize. John egged him on however, telling him to go for the glory, ad a final spin landed Doug on the jackpot--a five hundred dollar chest of virtually everything WoTC, TSR and L5R make.
The challenge had not yet ended, however, as two of three trivia questions had to be answered. Doug, being the novice gamer that he was, begged the host to have mercy and got Comic Book trivia instead of Dungeons and Dragons, and eventually won the chest. His three questions: What character disappeared for a long time in the 70s because of copyright issues, and recently resurfaced with his family; what was Perry White's catchphrase in the comics; and what character's secret origin involved eating a radioactive carrot. After that insanity had subsided, John finally approached the wheel himself. Fending off jeers and insults from the crowd after passing on a ten dollar certificate, John miraculously hit the jackpot as well. The host was unkind however, and refused to allow two chests to go to home in the same van, making John's trivia extremely difficult. His questions: What game was played instead of poker on The New Odd Couple with an all-female cast; what was Kirk and Spock's secret code that referred to 3D chess; and what game did Bart Simpson shoplift on The Simpsons. This resulted in chaos unbounded on the stage, as John nearly had to be hauled off by security guards that rivaled Jerry Springer's!
Saturday: Another 8:00 am start for the crew, as John, Doug, and Troy headed once again for the miniatures floor to play another chariot race game called Circus Imperium, where 5 teams piled in the same chariot, with The Caveman and his gladiator coming out on top to edge out Doug and some other cheating schmuck and win the race. Later in the day the guys met for another round of Marvel Superheroes, this one played out with Toy Biz action figures. John was Dragon Man, Doug was The Leader, Eric The Black Cat, The Caveman was Rhino. The boys would have had more fun, except for a pain-in-the-butt "rules lawyer" who almost drove Doug and John to homicide. Troy came close to winning, but the real victory was knocking out the weasel-guy's Mandarin. That evening, a variant of Axis and Allies was playtested by all where the Russians and Iraqis take on the Saudis, Iranians, and Turks. Two genial high school kids from Milwaukee dealt out the whup-a to A&A vets Doug, Eric, and John. Still a great variant of a great game. With cries of "Pour it on!" the boys went back to UWM and cranked up a Battletech free-for-all to cap their last night, until Doug dropped over unconscious.
Sunday: With Caveman's immortal words, "If we eat less food, we can buy more miniatures!" echoing in their ears, the boys went to GENCON to take one last look around the convention floor. As Battletech was the hit of the year, John looked for some rules and a used Axis and Allies game, but had no luck. Eric went wild on Dragon Dice. Doug, John's co-dependent, convinced him to split an incredibly cheap box of Wildstorms CCG booster packs. The Caveman, literally down to about $2.50, looked forlornly on. The booty call: John and Doug bought so many 3 for a dollar comics, that they guy quit selling them after one day (His picture is on the GENCON web page, looking a little dismayed, probably after we pillaged all of his Defenders and Dr. Strange comics). John really liked the Battletech CCG and the Cheapass Games company, especially Kill Dr. Lucky. He also bought Deep Space Nine, Star Wars and Babylon 5 cards and lots of miniatures. John wanted to buy Legend of the Burning Sands but realized nobody would ever play it with him. Doug loaded up on more CCGs than he should of, icluding two expansions of the Echelons WWII comabt game, some choice OverPower and WildStorms tidbits, and a ton of dirt-cheap Sim City cards (plus the aforementioned 3/$1.00 comics). Eric grooved on Dragon Dice and Star Wars cards. The Caveman drooled over miniatures and the dice game Chaos Progenitus. The gang loaded up on a lot of different things this year, really showing the breadth and depth of gaming. Reviews of the first year of GENCON under Wizards of the Coast, the Bill Gates of gaming? More corporate, for better or worse. Less independents and more companies running their own games, for better and worse. Some confusion, and it was harder to get into big events this year. More hubba hubba with Jeri Ryan and Claudia Christian hanging around. Overall, we'll give it another chance.
Tuesday, August 19, 2003
I have been told for a while that I should start a blog, and now that I'm looking at this blank screen I'm not sure what to start with.
So here's a little bit from GenCon 2003 in Indianapolis, Indiana, a few short weeks ago:
THURSDAY JULY 24
I drove by the convention center at around 10 a.m. and was stunned to see lines snaking down the block and beyond. I kept thinking, “Don’t let that be the ‘will call’ window!” and thankfully it wasn’t. In fact I waited just a few seconds to pick up my badge and tickets. Later I learned the line for day passes and site events was two to four hours.
I made a beeline for the sales floor, and the first people I saw were Troll Lords Games. They made a nice D&D module I liked called “Lion in the Ropes” and I was shocked to see their very nice products going out the door for $1 a module. They reported that the shift to D&D 3.5 was killing off their distribution. I was commiserating on the one hand while shoveling their modules into my bag with the other.
For better or worse this was not the case throughout the whole sales floor, though many vendors complained that they felt they had been abandoned by the d20 Open License people when they moved to 3.5 so quickly. I mean, there was what, a decade or so between D&D, AD&D, and 3.0? It seems a bit sinister.
I bought a used minigame called “Invasion of the Air Eaters” and a beat-up copy of the Star Wars d20 module “Invasion of Threed” and a pair of AEG pocket modules that were half off as well as another half-off d20 module and a recent issue of “Dugeon” that I had missed. I’m most happy with a photocopied ‘zine-style module I bought off a couple of kids, a guy with long hair and a girl with a shaved head with about 30 piercings between them. I read their module Thursday night and, ya know, I can hardly wait to play it.
FRIDAY JULY 25
My brother Eric and I rolled in around 10 a.m. and I took him on a whirlwind tour of the sales floor, and a few things he might be interested in, including the new HeroClix stuff, the “Spycraft” AEG books, Cheapass Games’ “Ogre” paper dice game, and Atlas Games’ “Nyambe” sourcebook for African d20 adventures.
I played “7th Sea” later in the morning. It’s a cinematic-style swashbuckling game that has a bit of buzz around it. It has a clunky mechanic but was fun enough. I will say this about the d20 empire, they are making a lot of these other mechanics seem redundant.
The day before I had breezed into the “paint and take” miniatures area and slicked up a quick soldier figure. Alarmingly, by the second day of the Con the line for this was about an hour. And several hours’ worth of lines curved back and forth outside to get in. Great for vendors, not so good for attendees.
Later on I played a Con favorite of mine, “Circus Imperium.” It’s a chariot race game that focuses on the, shall we say, more dramatic elements of chariot racing. The bad thing was they combined two tables of people to one larger, more sluggish, race. Bigger is never better at a Con, especially when teaching rules to newbies.
I had good gamers at both sessions but lackluster or indifferent GMs. I wondered again if a lot of these people sign up to run games to get in free, then put in the minimal effort. Overall at the Con, about half the time the GMs weren’t that great. However, in a stroke of great luck, I had no bad players—the legendary Rules Lawyer, the Angst-Ridden Teen, and so on and so forth.
SATURDAY JULY 26
Friday night overlapped into Saturday morning when my son Daniel cracked a radiator on 465. I didn’t get home from trying to bail him out until 4 a.m. and by the time I headed back to Indy to meet a tow truck and a mechanic the next day it would be 4 p.m before I would get back to the Con. Unfortunately I missed a “GURPS Supers” game I wanted to play as well as a “Silver Age Superheroes d20” I was signed up for. But my brother Eric played the Silver Age game, and must have liked it well enough to buy the “Stingy Player’s Guide,” a reduced-size player’s guide. I thought it was a little bold to call the book “Stingy Players” since the regular book clocks in around $40! A “Reasonable Players” or “Budget Players” guide may have been a bit more friendly.
Eric convinced me to stay for a “Real d20” game we had signed up for, even though I was butt-tired. I was glad we did. These guys have done real-world d20 game scenarios for Columbia, Afghanistan, and Somalia, and they all looked pretty cool. I asked them when Iraq, Liberia, and North Korea were coming out. If the Democrats win the next election, these guys are going out of business. We played, and Eric bought, a Columbia game. A good DM and great gamers made this one fun.
SUNDAY JULY 27
Stayed home and read all my stuff, dreaming of worlds to be conquered.
THOUGHTS:
The homebrewed DM with the handmade module has been dying a slow death over the years I’ve gone to GenCon, slowly nudged out by companies running giant clots of their own printed modules, and appeared to be totally dead this year with the absence of the guy who used to run the Gamma World “Silver Star Adventurers” all the time.
Not too many “stars” worth seeing, and all the Star Wars ones were sequestered in a corner, behind curtains.
I think the general atmosphere, parking and dining situations at Indy were much improved, and seemed to be echoed by a lot of people. The down side is that it’s so much bigger, it didn’t look like there were 25,000 people there at any time.
Usually the ratio of nerds to hot girls in chainmail handing out free stuff is more balanced. This year the hot girls, and the free stuff, was an unacceptable smaller ratio to the nerd contingent.
Some things I would have bought if I had the money were that “Somalia” and “Afghanistan” sourcebook, some of the Goodman Games old-school modules, Atlas Games’ “Nymabe” sourcebook, an Oriental Adventures handbook (but I never found one!), and some Spycraft and Modern d20 stuff (but my brother bought me an early birthday present!).
On Saturday I saw groups of people playing their own games off to the sides in hallways and empty rooms, and my heart soared to the sky.
--John
So here's a little bit from GenCon 2003 in Indianapolis, Indiana, a few short weeks ago:
THURSDAY JULY 24
I drove by the convention center at around 10 a.m. and was stunned to see lines snaking down the block and beyond. I kept thinking, “Don’t let that be the ‘will call’ window!” and thankfully it wasn’t. In fact I waited just a few seconds to pick up my badge and tickets. Later I learned the line for day passes and site events was two to four hours.
I made a beeline for the sales floor, and the first people I saw were Troll Lords Games. They made a nice D&D module I liked called “Lion in the Ropes” and I was shocked to see their very nice products going out the door for $1 a module. They reported that the shift to D&D 3.5 was killing off their distribution. I was commiserating on the one hand while shoveling their modules into my bag with the other.
For better or worse this was not the case throughout the whole sales floor, though many vendors complained that they felt they had been abandoned by the d20 Open License people when they moved to 3.5 so quickly. I mean, there was what, a decade or so between D&D, AD&D, and 3.0? It seems a bit sinister.
I bought a used minigame called “Invasion of the Air Eaters” and a beat-up copy of the Star Wars d20 module “Invasion of Threed” and a pair of AEG pocket modules that were half off as well as another half-off d20 module and a recent issue of “Dugeon” that I had missed. I’m most happy with a photocopied ‘zine-style module I bought off a couple of kids, a guy with long hair and a girl with a shaved head with about 30 piercings between them. I read their module Thursday night and, ya know, I can hardly wait to play it.
FRIDAY JULY 25
My brother Eric and I rolled in around 10 a.m. and I took him on a whirlwind tour of the sales floor, and a few things he might be interested in, including the new HeroClix stuff, the “Spycraft” AEG books, Cheapass Games’ “Ogre” paper dice game, and Atlas Games’ “Nyambe” sourcebook for African d20 adventures.
I played “7th Sea” later in the morning. It’s a cinematic-style swashbuckling game that has a bit of buzz around it. It has a clunky mechanic but was fun enough. I will say this about the d20 empire, they are making a lot of these other mechanics seem redundant.
The day before I had breezed into the “paint and take” miniatures area and slicked up a quick soldier figure. Alarmingly, by the second day of the Con the line for this was about an hour. And several hours’ worth of lines curved back and forth outside to get in. Great for vendors, not so good for attendees.
Later on I played a Con favorite of mine, “Circus Imperium.” It’s a chariot race game that focuses on the, shall we say, more dramatic elements of chariot racing. The bad thing was they combined two tables of people to one larger, more sluggish, race. Bigger is never better at a Con, especially when teaching rules to newbies.
I had good gamers at both sessions but lackluster or indifferent GMs. I wondered again if a lot of these people sign up to run games to get in free, then put in the minimal effort. Overall at the Con, about half the time the GMs weren’t that great. However, in a stroke of great luck, I had no bad players—the legendary Rules Lawyer, the Angst-Ridden Teen, and so on and so forth.
SATURDAY JULY 26
Friday night overlapped into Saturday morning when my son Daniel cracked a radiator on 465. I didn’t get home from trying to bail him out until 4 a.m. and by the time I headed back to Indy to meet a tow truck and a mechanic the next day it would be 4 p.m before I would get back to the Con. Unfortunately I missed a “GURPS Supers” game I wanted to play as well as a “Silver Age Superheroes d20” I was signed up for. But my brother Eric played the Silver Age game, and must have liked it well enough to buy the “Stingy Player’s Guide,” a reduced-size player’s guide. I thought it was a little bold to call the book “Stingy Players” since the regular book clocks in around $40! A “Reasonable Players” or “Budget Players” guide may have been a bit more friendly.
Eric convinced me to stay for a “Real d20” game we had signed up for, even though I was butt-tired. I was glad we did. These guys have done real-world d20 game scenarios for Columbia, Afghanistan, and Somalia, and they all looked pretty cool. I asked them when Iraq, Liberia, and North Korea were coming out. If the Democrats win the next election, these guys are going out of business. We played, and Eric bought, a Columbia game. A good DM and great gamers made this one fun.
SUNDAY JULY 27
Stayed home and read all my stuff, dreaming of worlds to be conquered.
THOUGHTS:
The homebrewed DM with the handmade module has been dying a slow death over the years I’ve gone to GenCon, slowly nudged out by companies running giant clots of their own printed modules, and appeared to be totally dead this year with the absence of the guy who used to run the Gamma World “Silver Star Adventurers” all the time.
Not too many “stars” worth seeing, and all the Star Wars ones were sequestered in a corner, behind curtains.
I think the general atmosphere, parking and dining situations at Indy were much improved, and seemed to be echoed by a lot of people. The down side is that it’s so much bigger, it didn’t look like there were 25,000 people there at any time.
Usually the ratio of nerds to hot girls in chainmail handing out free stuff is more balanced. This year the hot girls, and the free stuff, was an unacceptable smaller ratio to the nerd contingent.
Some things I would have bought if I had the money were that “Somalia” and “Afghanistan” sourcebook, some of the Goodman Games old-school modules, Atlas Games’ “Nymabe” sourcebook, an Oriental Adventures handbook (but I never found one!), and some Spycraft and Modern d20 stuff (but my brother bought me an early birthday present!).
On Saturday I saw groups of people playing their own games off to the sides in hallways and empty rooms, and my heart soared to the sky.
--John
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