GameHole Con Wind Down

Sigh. Still having issues getting photos to upload to Blogger. Using a workaround, but it's far from perfect.

In any case, GameHole Con was an amazing time yet again. Ran two sessions of Swords & Wizardry Light, worked the Frog God booth and ate well, drank well and was damn near merry all the time.

Huge thanks to my players, my friends, my fellow Frogs, our customers and all those that stopped by to say hello. Oh, and especially Alex. Another well-done convention.

More pics when I get home ;)

Announcing Camp Con 2017 - North East PA - 6/30 through 7/1

June 30th kicks of the second annual CampCon in northeast Pennsylvania. I didn't make last year's but it looks like Rach and I should be able to make it for July 1st of this year. June 30th is a Friday and Rach has to work but the weekend belongs to us!

For those staying overnight, it is literally camping on Keegan's acre of land. Bring a tent, sleeping bags and plenty of cold ones. I do believe there is access to a nearby stream, so nature's cooler is there to help you :)

You can find out more at facebook.com/KCCORPGEXCHANGE

No MEPA Con for Me and Other Weekend Updates

So, the plan all along was to go MEPA Con this weekend. It's held in Scranton PA, and the idea was Rach and I would head to my folks' place in the Poconos on Thursday night and hit the con on Saturday (maybe even Friday night too) and avoid a hotel stay.

Great plan until Rach couldn't get off Friday. No biggie, I'd pick her up from work and head up Friday evening - still plenty of time to get gaming in on Saturday. Then I was notified I had the late coverage for Friday night - I'll be at work until 930 or so tonight. Yeah, ain't happening.

So, instead I'll be writing up the rewrite of my piece of a project I owe someone. Undead dwarves and goblins, a magic gem and the possibility for the players to upset a delicate balance. Rach will be packing the 2 $50 Patreon boxes for the month of April.

I guess not going to the con has some benefits.

We will, however, be at NTRPG Con in June. Hotel room is reserved (and we got the discount this year - woot!), games are registered for and airline tickets will be researched this weekend.

Damn You Vince! Looks Like I'll be Going to MEPACon in November

I'd like to give a big FU to +Vincent Florio . He mentioned MEPA to me, and I mentioned it to my wife, and it looks like we are going in November.

MEPACon is the Mid Eastern Pennsylvania Con, held in the Scranton area. Apparently the hotel has a pool AND is pet friendly. Sigh. I never had a chance.

Any of my blog readers plan on attending? Maybe we can do a Tavern Gathering :)

Mark November 14-16 on your calendar. I may need to run something.

Fantasy Grounds 4 Con (May 8th thru May 11th)

Fantasy Grounds was my portal back to active role playing (as a player in a Dark Heresy game none the less).

From my admittedly limited experience compared to others, there is very little learning curve with FG as a player and it has some amazing bells and whistles. (the learning curve is mostly on the GM side)

With all that being said, there is an online Fantasy Grounds Con coming up in May, 2014. Here's the press release:

FG Con 4 is here! 

FG Con is back for our 4th event. This time around FG Con will span 100 hours from the evening of Thursday May 8th (AUS/NZ time) to late night Sunday May 11th (US/CA Time).

We've got 43 sessions available for registration right now and several more close to being published. Visit the site here: http://www.fg-con.com/events and get started.
We've got the following rulesets being played: 

Lots of Pathfinder Society
Savage Worlds
Castles&Crusades
D&D 3.5E
A playtest of the new Fantasy Grounds Champions ruleset
Serenity/Firefly using BRP
FATE
Extiction Event (totally new ruleset)
GUMSHOE (another new ruleset)
Star Wars: Edge of the Empire 

All players play free! Of course you still need to have installed a copy of Fantasy Grounds and TeamSpeak but you can still play even with a demo/free license. There is no cost to play at all. 

GMs - there is still time to get your game listed - but don't leave it too late as it will get harder to fill your game. All Full Licenses will be bumped to Ultimate licenses for the duration of the Con so you can get those friends involved who dont have a license.
If you need any help - either as a player or a GM please contact the FG Con team by email: team@fg-con.com All feedback is welcome. Suggestions regarding the site, regarding recruitment, regarding emails - whatever - the FG Con team want to hear from you. 

Regards,
Damian | damian@fg-con.com

Not sure I'll have the time to pop in myself, but it looks to be a good time.

When at a Con - Scheduled Games or Open Gaming?

I expect I'll do a bit of both at NTRPG Con, but I'm wondering if folks organize last minute games via social media.

My last con was GenCon in 93, and I don't recall any open gaming. Then again, that might be because I had stuff scheduled from 8 am to 12 am the first 3 days ;)

In any case, when you go to a con, how much gaming do you plan for in advance?

If You Have a Con and No One Shows, Did it Happen?

In case you haven't heard, Contessa is an online gaming con. It's run by women, with only female GMs, although men can play. It seems to be having recruitment issues this year.

Part of it may be the idea that is is aimed (mostly) at female gamers. Maybe it's just me, but not allowing men to run games seems just a tad discriminatory. But then you can't discriminate against the majority (i think that's in the definition of discrimination somewhere) and men are definitely in the majority when it comes to playing RPGs.

I think the bigger thing that is holding it back is that all of the sessions are Hangouts "On Air". Sorry, I'm not going to play in a session with a bunch of strangers and have it up on Youtube until the end of time. Apparently the reason for the "On Air" part is so disruptive male gamers can be booted (which they can't be in a regular hangout apparently). It looks like male gamers have a bad reputation. I can see why one would want to restrict our access to running the sessions, as who would be there to boot us then?

Before it's even said, I have no problem with female gamers. I like to see them as an active part of the hobby, as it needs all sources for it to thrive and grow. Heck, one of the best DMs I ever played under was a woman back at GenCon in the mid 90s. She was certainly the best I played with at the con, and I was in way too many gaming sessions that year ;)

I just don't think excluding either gender from the organizing of a con and running the game sessions is the best way to encourage gaming with either sex. Segregation was a failure when it came to race and I don't think it fares any better when it comes to gender.

I'd actually like to see Contessa succeed despite the self imposed handicaps. We do need more organized play online and it is a well organized convention from what I can tell. I won't be participating though. The assumption that male players are bound to include their share of "creepy guys" and "that's why we have to record everything" creeps me out...

For those interested, here's the link to the games being run on Contessa. Looks like the OSR has made a showing :)