Done Dra Con

It's been a while since I've posted here.  Mostly because my mood was just whiney, and I didn't want to post whiney.  Problems I've spoken about in the past are still there, and it really doesn't look like it's going to get much better, though one improvement has been recently finding the soul of a character that hadn't had one for several years.  (Long story short - each session with him would be a 6-8 hour shallow joke, with no purpose to it, through no one's fault except how things worked.  Recent story I found what made him heroic in my eyes, and got to run with it.)

Anyway, the first big local convention is over.  As always, we had the Good Omens presence, though much smaller in size this year.  (Conversely, after some drama on the mailing list for that Convention, many of us walked around "flashing colors," so to speak.  Our way of saying "Got a problem?  Bring it on.")

I did suffer from big motivational problems with this Con, but an idea finally hit me, kicked my ass into shape, and led to a good Convention despite some unrelated bad things that happened.

Here we go:

Friday
For once in at least five years, Cil and I packed up the car, drove to Safeway for supplies (water, pencils, and soda), and made it to the hotel shortly after 4 PM.  And, oddly enough, we made it there BEFORE our standard roommate arrived.  That NEVER happens.  (Over the past five or so years, there have been odd emergencies, car trouble, or super late starts not getting us there until 6 or 7 PM.)

Cil went out with her friend Lisa, I hung around Mike, Sean, Justin, Paul, and a guy whose name I unfortunately can't remember.  (I guess I wasn't up to meeting new people yet.)  We talked about game ideas and gaming theory and what makes good games over pizza and other food, then they went off to drink and play a pick up game, while I went to finish my game that I was running the next evening.

While working out the game plot, I got hit with a great way to bring up a feeling of immediacy (I'll explain below), then another additional way to make things urgent, and soon the basic outline wrote itself.  (As I always do, I only have an outline, not a path.  I only ever detail out the opening scene for convention games, and then make a bunch of notes over what will lead to which so that as the players come up with their own ideas and directions, they have the freedom to explore.)

I started the write-up at around 8:30, and had the full idea completed by 11:30.  Part of that is that I did interrupt my planning with time out watching videos and listening intently to music on my laptop.  

I then stayed up until 4 AM because I wasn't tired.  This wasn't smart.

Saturday
Woke up with Cil around 8:45, and left the room about an hour later.  (Mostly, I was joke-bitching about being too tired to leave but wanting to spend time with her before she left.  Also, unlike most gamers, I never intentionally leave my hotel room without a shower.  Damn it - they're in there.  Why not use them?)  We had breakfast, wandered through the dealer's room, and then she left to go off with her friends (again) - should I be jealous?  (No.  Cil doesn't do much at Cons, and she has friends who live near this convention, so that doesn't bother me.)

I picked up a LOT of stuff in the Dealer's room, including a valentine's day gift for Cil (a steampunk stand from a company I had never heard of before had some decent jewelry, and Cil likes Steampunk jewelry, so you figure out how this ends.)  (I'll go more into my haul later.)

Went back to my room to try and nap - this proved harder than it should have been.  Finally, about 90 minutes before I needed to be at the game, I fell asleep, and woke up an hour later.  Grabbed my stuff, went to my room, and waited.

The game overall went okay.  I only had one no-show, who was quickly replaced, and then the game began.  There were some problems.  We had 'Loud Rude Guy who Interrupted me and the other players on a regular basis,' and 'Loud Rude Guy who was just kind of ultra-new and couldn't recall how the character sheet had been set up,' both of whom spoke over myself and the more quiet players - which is a big pet peeve of mine.  On the other hand, I had Mike P, who is a good, solid and creative player, and was knowledgeable enough about myself and how I do things that when I was trying to help one person, he could help out another.  Which is always appreciated.  (If I didn't say it before, "Thanks Mike.")

We also had a guy who chose the character I am always nervous about who takes that type, but he did an awesome job with it.  We had a friend of a friend who got annoyed at our digressions (which I don't blame her for - the less sleep I have, the more digressive I become) and at being interrupted all the time (which I was really on her side about, but how often can I tell the others to stop it before I wind up sounding like a broken record).  Oh, and we had a quiet player - who I think I've run games before.  She's not bad, and in fact when she did speak up and do stuff, she was excellent.  I just had to make sure I didn't ignore her because I know players like that tend to be keeping genius ideas within them.

But, I'll admit I felt a bit bad after the game.  I had rail-roaded the ending, just so they could wrap up by 2 AM or so.  My patience was frazzled, though the quiet girl's husband (the aforementioned loud by ultra-new guy) actually did something that let me bring in an energetic but kind of dumb NPC which helped me vent a lot.  They actually packed up and were gone by 1 AM, and then Sean N. stopped by and we talked gaming for a good three hours.  Not a great idea since we were both exhausted, but that's what happened.

I have to add that sometimes, I wish I lived a bit closer to Sean & Co., if only because I like to have people to help me troubleshoot and brainstorm ideas.  I have one person I can rely on to at least help me brainstorm, even if he doesn't like the idea initially.  Most others just say "No, you can't do that."  Which I find disappointing and sad.  I believe that we actually CAN do something, we just need to find a way to make it more enjoyable for the players.

I finally crawled into bed around 4:30 AM, because I remembered I had promised to run the game again at 10 AM for people who wanted to crash but who didn't get to.

Sunday
I woke up at 9:15 or so, later than I wanted, and told Cil (who had been asleep) that I was running my game again, so we needed to get going.  Which we did - showered, dressed, out of the hotel for food, and back by 10:10.  I had run into the three people who I knew wanted to drop into my game, and told them they needed to find a couple more players.  I had contacted a long time friend, Cil volunteered to play (yay), and the others got another Good Omens GM to play.  All was good.

That game had another bad case of "distraction-itis," and I'll admit that mentally I was burnt.  But this game went much better.  Granted, there was some investigation routes the first group took that the second didn't, but the reverse was also true.  (And the players the second time around had a higher familiarity ratio than the first night.)  They bypassed one important plot, but by resolving the overall plot, taking care of this other one would be pretty easy, so I counted that as a win.  (I had also worried that the plot I had made was too convoluted and too abstract - fortunately, both Mike P and Cil told me that it wasn't.  I sometimes do that.)

After that, we had the Good Omens meeting, then I went to play in the only game I registered for - Mike P's Geist game.

I LOOOVE playing in the World of Darkness, because I NEVER get to do so.  Plus, I've wanted to play Geist for a while, and I've wanted to play in one of Mike P's games for a few years (and weird things always get in the way.)  The group included Eric L, Kevin W, and this woman Tracy P (I like playing with Eric and Kevin, and I like running games for Tracy -  I think this might have been one of the first times in years we were both players.)

Mike's game was fun, but I missed the middle of it due to some kind of stomach issues that kept sending me off to the bathroom and up to my hotel room for pepto-bismol.  Still, I caught the end, and he let one of my more bizarre plans work, plus we had a good ending point for the game.  (I think Mike sets up Con games a little bit like I do - here's the set up, here's the facts, go ahead and explore, I have no set way to resolve this.) 

I went straight to bed afterwards.  Brain no longer worked.

Monday
We woke up, packed up, checked out, and then Cil, Mike B and I went out to (br) lunch.  I don't stay long on Mondays.

Overall, Con was good.  Saw some people, even if I didn't get to play with them or spend much time with them.  Did get to have good, long, helpful talks with some people. 

UnkyRich's Dealer's Room Haul:
1.  Newest Arkham Horror Expansion (Innsmouth)
2.  Little Fears newest edition.
3.  Seattle 2072 for Shadowrun (and already got ideas just paging through it)
4.  Primal Power for D&D 4th Ed (since Mike B runs a 4th Ed game, and I'm a druid)
5.  the newest expansion for Graverobbers from Outerspace (for Cil)
6.  The Dr. Who RPG (and I got a great idea of how to resolve one of my problems with the game)
7.  The Adventurer's Box for the new Warhammer FRP
8.  Burning Empires (broke down after several years of self-debate) [1]
9.  a new dice set for both myself and for a friend for D&D 4th.
10. Two new character sketches from a good artist who (gasp) managed to get both commissions to me within 5 hours of me placing the orders.  One was a simple pencil sketch for a character I play once a month, and one was a water-color sketch for a character I play once a week. And both pictures cost me a combined total of $50. 

I feel I'm forgetting something.

Anyway, now it's ONWARD to KUBLACON.  Hopefully this is just as fun.

Rich

[1] I hate giving money to Luke Crane, because I remember reading Burning Wheel and thinking "What an asshole" just from the tone of his work.  I don't like giving money to assholes, no matter how interesting or well done their games are [2].  The night before I purchased this, I heard a personal story from someone I trust that led me to even more strongly believe Mr. Crane is not just an asshole, but a self-absorbed prick who needs to be hit about the head with socks filled with bars of soap until he cries and promises to at least show some respect to the people who like his work.  But I still bought Burning Empires, because the same source as that story pointed out how parts of it could help me with games I run and making them better.  Damn it.

[2] This might sound like it goes against my general principle of separating an artist from their art - for example, I don't agree with heroin use, but that's when Iggy Pop did some of his best stuff.  With game designers, it's different - it's a small clique of geeks, so to have a geek actually open up and say "I like your work and this is what it inspired me to do" is actually a big thing.  It may as well be part of your art.  Crapping all over that person would be like if I saw Johnny Cash use his guitar to wipe his ass.  I hope that makes sense.