Convergence 2013, part 2: Best RPGs You’ve Never Heard Of

Posted on by November 23, 2014

The second panel I was on, this one covered a lot of ground. Our purpose: to introduce a bunch of good, but obscure, RPGs.

We talked about so many games that I don’t have time to properly introduce all of them. But here they are, in the order we discussed them:

Other resources mentioned in the panel:

We certainly talked about a lot of games, but I occasionally felt a bit concerned that we were just telling people things they already knew. I occasionally checked how many people had heard of a given game; for the most part, it seems we managed to introduce games that were genuinely new to our audience. Whew!

Convergence 2013, part 1: LGBT Gaming

Posted on by July 14, 2013

This panel went pretty well, though we had a lot of ground to cover: the description included all of gaming (tabletop RPGs, consoles, boardgames and everything else), as well as at least implicitly including every part of the LGBT alphabet soup. We ended up addressing the recent transphobia incident at Penny Arcade, cross-gender roleplay, how to form inclusive groups and more topics.

A lot of the discussion was things that have been covered before in similar panels:

  • How do you create characters that are trans, lesbian or whatever else, without resorting to stereotypes? By making sure the character is well-rounded, with their own agency; and by making sure their gender identity or orientation are part of a fuller whole, not just stereotypes.
  • When should we educate people about transphobia, homophobia, etc., and when is it okay to walk away? When our energy level allows it, we should educate; but while it may be tactically smart, we don’t ‘owe’ anyone an education about us.
  • When is it appropriate to use slurs? When you’re part of the group named in the slur, it may be appropriate; otherwise, basically stay away from it.

So basically, a lot of Social Justice 101. And we got a little bogged down in that, and in Trans 101. It was time that would’ve been better spent on deeper investigations of how to find and form inclusive groups. But at these kinds of large, general purpose cons, we can’t take 101-level knowledge as a given, and sometimes we just have to start at the ground level. So it was probably a necessary and useful conversation, even if not a particularly groundbreaking one.

What’s a ‘campaign’?

Posted on by January 6, 2020

Watching a nifty video for the Roll20.net computer-moderated RPG system, I notice that the narrator uses “campaign” to refer to a single combat set-up: maps, counter placement, etc. For me, that’s not a campaign; it’s a scenario, or perhaps an adventure. As I learned it, a campaign must be a linked series of adventures or gaming sessions. But I’ve increasingly heard people use “campaign” to refer to a one-time instance of play.

This seems like a recent thing; I don’t remember people using ‘campaign’ that way before about a decade ago, at the earliest. What about you? Have you heard the term shifting?

Convergence 2013 schedule

Posted on by July 1, 2013

Convention season is truly here: Just finished writing up WisCon 37, but it’s already time to look forward to Convergence 2013. Convergence is the second-largest con in the Twin Cities, second only to Anime Detour. Convergence will probably pull in around 7000 people this year. It’s huge! If you can deal with a con that big and you’re in the area, you owe it yourself to go.

The schedule has a lot of good stuff. I’m going to be on five panels:

LGBT Gaming

Gay and a gamer? When real life drama from being gay gets to be too much, where do you turn? Gaming is a great outlet and there are plenty of like minded people. Which games are good to play for lgbt players, and where to start to look. Friday July 5, 2013 8:30pm – 9:30pm; Atrium 2

Should be a good discussion. It’s certainly an important one, especially given the recent blow-up with Penny Arcade and transphobia.

Best RPGs You’ve Never Heard Of

What are some of the more obscure role-playing games that are buried on the back shelves of the gaming store? Saturday July 6, 2013 11:00am – 12:00pm; Atrium 2

I hope we can get into some truly obscure ones here, though one person’s ‘obscure’ is another person’s ‘common knowledge’. Hopefully we’ll also talk largely about games we recommend. I’ll probably suggest all the games my weekly group uses as one-shots and quite a few more. But if you have any ideas, suggestions are welcome!

Civility in Fandom

How to remain objective and polite when discussing the relative merits of Star Wars vs. Star Trek. What are some of your favorite moments when an argument could have gone south but didn’t? What are some hilarious nerd resolutions to an argument? Saturday July 6, 2013 8:30pm – 9:30pm; Sofitel Bordeaux

Not directly related to gaming, but still important. I hope we can discuss how to take pleasure in other people’s fun, even when it’s very different from your own.

So You Want to be a Game Designer?

What goes into being a Game Designer? How do you successfully publish a game? What is Kickstarter and how can you run a successful kickstarter campaign to raise money for your project? We’ll explore these questions and more. Sunday July 7, 2013 11:00am – 12:00pm; Atrium 2

This will hopefully focus on smaller publishers and designers; last year’s iteration of this general topic was almost entirely focused on Fantasy Flight and their large-scale process.

I’m Getting Too Old to Find Time to Game

As you get older, life gets busier. How can you have a life and still squeeze in gaming. Sunday July 7, 2013 2:00pm – 3:00pm; Atrium 2

An important topic for all of us! We’re probably going to give a lot of practical advice, as well as looking at the causes of this ever-present problem.

In addition to being on panels, I’ll also have Blade & Crown for sale. I won’t be running any scenarios, as they’re too hard to schedule at Convergence, but I’d be happy to do a pick-up demo. Look me up!

WisCon 37, part VI: Wrap-up

Posted on by June 27, 2013

Squeevolution!WisCon was again great. WisCon’s level of discussion is uniformly very high and much more clueful than at a lot of other cons. I don’t do much gaming there, but it entertains through mind-expansion. And this year’s WisCon had a great deal of gaming-related programming; I think it’s second only to Convergence, for me, in opportunities to talk about gaming.

One particular topic I want to highlight: This year’s WisCon had a lot of panels and discussions where thoughts of nerd self-loathing was kind of roiling under the surface. Dealing with imposter syndrome; people feeling they need to apologize for not being published prose authors ‘yet’; a worldbuilding panel that seemed almost entirely focused on making sure the world was ‘productive’ and not ‘wasteful’; feeling like we need to apologize for wholeheartedly and un-ironically enjoying things; arguing for the value of hobbies in terms of their ‘productivity’ value; being ashamed to admit that one is a gamer; etc. This overarching topic keeps coming up, and I hope that WisCon manages to address it more head-on in years to come. I will certainly continue to talk about it here. Forward the Squeevolution!

WisCon 37, part V: Actual gaming

Posted on by June 27, 2013

WisCon isn’t a gaming-heavy con; it’s primarily about programming and conversations. Still, I managed to get in a bit of gaming, all of it on Sunday:

  • Dominion. We played one nice session of this. As usual, this was a combination of cards I’ve never played with; I haven’t played it enough to start seeing the same cards come up much. I think there were one or two player-interactive cards, which made it nice. I’m not a fan of high-powered attacks in Dominion, but some interaction is good; otherwise, it feels too much like synchronized solitaire. The mystery victory point count is definitely a big feature; it keeps everyone guessing as to what’s going on, makes people feel like they’re still in the game even when they objectively might not be, and adds that little extra bit of interactivity.
  • Charades. Does that count? Well, it was fun anyway, shouting out guesses. A friend of mine got an amazingly fast time on one of the clues; he did nothing more than hold up his fingers to indicate “three words” and the audience got it! Turns out a kid in the front row had been waiting for the right combination of three words all night. Still, everyone in the audience was stunned when it happened.
  • Zar. Popular among a certain segment of Twin Cities gamers, and spread to WisCon. Zar is, as we so often call it, Uno for Jerks. Fast-paced, entirely and viciously PvP, totally meaningless… but it manages to be fun and addictive. I’m still not entirely sure why, but I think it’s probably because a) the hands are so fast that it’s hard to feel like you’re really behind, and b) it is addictive, so you keep playing in spite of better judgment. Still, a terrible game to meet new people over. 🙂

No RPGs in there, you may note. A lot of people at WisCon play RPGs, but scheduling is always a hassle at cons where the focus isn’t primarily on gaming. But maybe some year.

WisCon 37, part IV: Feminism in Gaming 2013

Posted on by June 21, 2013

QR code for WisCon Feminism in Gaming 2013 handoutThis panel went quite well. In pre-discussion, we created a handout with tons of resources and information, and we also printed up a bunch of copies of the Feminist Gamer Bingo sheet. Yes, a panel with not just one but two handouts!

The discussion ranged far and wide, including important developments in the past year or so, recommendations for games that get it right, video games, tabletop games, the social contract and more. Here were some of the specific points that stuck with me:

  • How if we buy problematic stuff, we’re complicit; but if we don’t, we’re not considered a market. That’s putting it very starkly — there’s clearly a lot of middle ground there — but this “buy bad stuff or don’t exist” situation is a problem for a lot of gamers, especially where the dominant companies are still doing such a poor job of being inclusive.
  • We want acceptable $60 games, not just indie games (said about so-called AAA video games, but this kinda applies to tabletop RPGs, too!). There are a lot of small-scale games out there that are very inclusive, but it’d be nice if inclusivity wasn’t restricted so much.
  • Ways of finding and forming good gaming groups. We didn’t talk about this a great deal, but it’s a topic I care a lot about, so the discussion got me going. I still plan to discuss how to find gaming groups and how to craft a good social contract here — eventually.
  • How misogyny can influence kids really young, but how young kids also seem to be getting less misogynist. Signs of danger, signs of hope.

All that, plus I managed to sell three copies of Blade & Crown! A great panel.