Badges of Geekness

There are certain things that gaming geeks know; like that GenCon is one of the biggest geek conventions held in the United States. True geeks know that the convention's title is short for "Geneva Convention", so titled for the fact that the first GenCon was held in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin (1968). As a miniature wargame convention, the title also paid homage to those same historical conventions of Geneva, Switzerland. I wonder how obscure this reference is to the folks who now attend GenCon, as it no longer has strong ties to its historical miniatures foundations? Sure there are still tried and true wargamers heading to GenCon, but these are only a small fraction of the attendee population. The con's primary purpose is not wargames.

And so it was that from those hex-based wargames of yore came Chainmail, the small booklet that was one of the first to outline sword-n-sorcery wargaming. Then Chainmail begot Dungeons & Dragons. And D&D begot the whole pen-n-paper rpg craze. And then all this morphed into online rpgs and tactical warfare games. Now, this is a big, bruising summary of the industry and history of GenCon, which has not been held in any town called Geneva for many, many years.

My initial point was that there are badges of geekness.

Knowing that GenCon is short for Geneva Convention is one of them.

Wisconsin, not Switzerland.

200

Shortly after the last post and the comment about having a bean bag chair made of dice, I got a shipment of 200 dice delivered to my doorstep. This summer we're releasing the next wave of the WEGS Kreator Kit, which will include 5 dice per set. Dice are all stamped "Fabulous Las Vegas", appropriate for a night of WEGS-ing it up! The new Kreator Kit is pretty slick with an upgraded carrying case and heavier poker chips. It contains everything we use for our con games (pawns, markers) and will instantly let folks start playing along at home! It's everything a Kreator needs to get the game started in a jiff (and it's pretty handy for use with any adventure game). Folks might even just use the kit for their home poker games...

Play WEGS!

Dice Included...

At Wittcon this year, I ran a seminar on game design and publishing entitled Dice Included. The basic premise of the piece was how each and every little thing you do along the way of taking your game from an idea to a published product is as much of an adventure as a business venture. Once you turn that page and say that you're serious about publishing and selling, you've got to watch every single copper piece carefully (thus the title of the seminar).

To include a set of dice (2d6 and 2d10 for WEGS) would be an awesome addition to the Old Skool bag, but doing so would add about $1 more to the cost it took me to put the package together. While that's only .25 a die, it's also 25% of the retail price. Taking just a buck off the margin is a dicey thing to do for a small press endeavor. Sure I could get the dice much cheaper, if I ordered a thousand of each type, but I'm not ready to add two big dice-filled bean bag chairs to my tv room right now...

I read earlier this week on the Grognardia blog that when the D&D box set was sold over in the UK, the fact that the books came with dice caused the product to be taxable; adding dice established it as a game and not a set of books (books are not taxable). Supposedly stores removed the dice to increase sales. I say supposedly because this was only mentioned in a reply to a post and I can't verify it.

While adding dice would strongly establish the Old Skool bag as a game, I think the inclusion of the card deck has similar results (as does the beefy barbarian warrior chucking dice at you).

Dice Rule!

This month has flown by (and with very little posting). This due mostly to the summer con preparations and getting everything in place for the booths and promotional side of things (like advertising). This stuff sneaks up on me every year and though I might be smarter about these things, I don't know if I'm better at it.

The other thing that has been consuming most of my time is the writing of the next WEGS 101 installment: Dice Rule! (or How To Run A Wicked Game). Pre-Vegas it was 8 chapters big and 88 pages long (or 8/88 in WEGS lingo). Since then, I've added 4 more chapters and about 44 pages (4/44). So, this is becoming a healthy sized tome. It should be ready for a Gen Con release.

I'm obsessed with finishing the first draft of the book by the end of this month, just as I turn the page on another mortal year.

One week to go!

Tips For Freelancers

One of the GTS seminars I attended was run my Mike Stackpole, who is "a science fiction and fantasy author best known for his Star Wars and Battletech books" (according to the opening line of his wikipedia bio). You can find out more about him via his personal site; he's done a lot more in the industry than that, being one of the early champions of D&D during its commercial demonization.

The seminar, titled the same as this blog entry, focused on how to find work as a freelancer in the gaming industry from a writer's standpoint (and a bit for artists, too). I don't have any plans nor the time for freelancing, but from a game company standpoint, it gave me some insight on how to navigate working relationships for future projects. Lots of good points and laughs throughout the seminar; two quotes I wrote down:

"When you enter the game industry, you take a vow of poverty; game companies will help you keep that vow every step of the way."

"Sufficiently advanced stupidity can sometimes be mistaken for malice."

Both are paraphrased, but the first quote illustrated that the game industry is notoriously impoverished (unless you create the next Magic The Gathering) and no one should delve there with prospects of getting rich quick (or at all). The second quote was just advice to not sweat the small stuff (like publishers who edit the heck out of your piece and strip it of all the cool stuff).

So much for my get rich scheme...

Beer and Peanut

Ever since I saw the news story on the NJ hit man who hid one of his victims under a hotel room bed (and the body wasn't discovered for a couple of weeks), I take a quick peek under the bed of any hotel room I stay in. Quirky precaution, but it reveals a world of info on just how thorough the rooms are sanitized (or not). So, imagine my horror when checking under my Vegas bed and finding an empty bottle of beer and a solitary peanut. It's not so much that they former tenant left the empty beer bottle, but what were they thinking about by leaving only one peanut?!? That's not even worth cracking the shell for...

At least it wasn't a pair of eyes looking back...

What's GTS, El Willy?

Glad you asked, man!

GTS is Gama Trade Show, a game industry convention that is a mix of seminars and exhibitors that spans four days in Las Vegas. Basically, game companies set-up their product lines in booths and attendees (mostly retail store owners looking to see game offerings from said companies) wander about and look at all the cool stuff. GameWick Games does not have a booth; with a single product (called WEGS 101 Old Skool for those of you who don't know) and no distribution, there's really no point in me shelling out all that cash (yet). This is the same reason I'm not even a member of GAMA (the Game Manufacturer's Association). I attend in my professional capacity as GameWick's Chief Gaming Officer and network the best I can with fellow CGOs and the ilk. Between industry seminars and exhibit hall introductions, I keep busy during the daylight hours in Vegas. The more time I spend at the con, the less time I have for the tables.

A win/win situation in my book.

Casino ala Kubrick

This is the second year that the GTS (Gama Trade Show) was held at Ballys, which has the strangest entry portal of all casinos. Like something out of Kubrick's 2001, this neon swirled entrance tube sucks people up from the Strip and eventually deposits them inside the belly of the casino. The first leg of the journey is via conveyor belt that ends abruptly at an escalator up. The second leg is via said escalator, up and over the main hotel and casino entrance (driveway/valet) to a sales pitch arena where you are effronted with the oft said lure line "Are you folks in town tonight and looking to see a free show?". Navigating this trap, you find another escalator down and into the casino lobby. The three-part journey takes about five minutes as the conveyor moves just slow enough to make you wish you walked.

Most folks don't realize that there are gardens to the left and right of the entrance tube with a secret sidewalk that leads directly to the front of the casino itself. The catch is that you have to walk the entire way (gasp!) instead of being mechanically casino-herded. The walk through the Bally gardens passes like warp drive compared to the conveyor belt attraction. The gardens themselves are a bizzarre shamble of poorly manicured hedge animals (think Kubrick's The Shining gardens that have gone to pot). There's just enough left of the plant to discern that it is in an animal shape; the only reason you are drawn to this conclusion is that there has to be some purpose to the chicken wire wrapped around the plant itself. I think Ballys had much grander hopes for the gardens, but as almost everyone uses the futuristic (for the 1970s) tube, no one ever sees these little topiary beasts. I saw plenty of them each day as I bypassed the tube.

The Land of Showgirls & Buffets

Well, I'm back from Las Vegas and happily return with some cash in my wallet. It is not my cash though, that disappeared somewhere past 1am last Saturday at a craps table at the Imperial Palace. No, the money that is in my wallet is my wife's, who managed to stay comfortably ahead of the house edge via her penny slots (disastrous when a table player has to concede victory to a slots player)! But I wasn't out there for the gambling or the craps or the pool or the drinks... I was there for the GAMA Trade Show (Game Manufacturers Association), the fine folks that bring the world the Origins Game Fair in Columbus. And I have a ton of restrospective posts coming all based on this strange Wegziotic adventure in paradise!

NDE & Taxes

Two things that can't be avoided in life, and thankfully, I'm only dealing with the latter of the two. Once a year, just about this time, I get to revisit all my prior year expenses for the game company and get it all down on the tax form. It's almost as much fun as rolling the dread NDE. Can't wait to get filed and back to the game table!

March Madness!

March was a hectic month and I was scattered all over the place on the WEGS map. The early part of the month I was wrapping up the summer convention schedule and also began work on the next Minion of the Month, The Blind Dead. The Prof and I went back and forth on the skills in a mad attempt to make these bloodsuckers worthy of zombie-dom, and it took a full month to get 'em out the door. Mid-month was Wittcon, a good, little con hosted by the Wittenberg University Role Playing Guild where I ran games and gave a brief seminar on game publishing (appropriately entitled Dice Included). The trip to WU ended on a high note as the Platinum Warlock and crew took me to an awesome gaming store in Fairborn (Ohio) Bookery Fantasty. The store is now a WEGS retailer! On top of all this, I've been focused on the content for House Rules! and trying to get the first pass done; at this point I find myself with at least two chapters to go before the first read-thru.

April is going to be another mad month!

The Gen Con Cut Off!

Today, the first day of spring, is the cut off for event submission for Gen Con. In the past, I was always excited by getting the WEGS schedule submitted early. This year, I waited until the last possible moment. Priorities have changed since we now run a booth there, and we pour all our energy into our convention floor demos. Last year we ran 10 events and had a total of 63 players jump into the fray; we also ran two after-hours games for inner circle 'shogs and 'shogettes. This year, sad to say, I've submitted just 3 events (Weds, Thurs and Fri, 9pm - midnite) and left Saturday night open for another invite only event (probably WEGS Sucks!).



Here's the three events:

• The Tale of the Trojan Pig


• Keep on the Badderlands: Minotaur Meat!


• Dwarf Walks Into A Bar

It's with regret that I've pulled Dingbitt's Dunge O' Doom off the schedule; I could only run one repeat event given the abbreviated schedule, and just love running Dwarf Walks. Always have a blast with that one; never, never, never plays the same way twice!


And that's why Turdschmeer is featured in today's post!

B1 Hobgobble's Eve

Are you ready for wicked adventure?

After four months of rigorous playtesting, the first adventure module is launched: Hobgobble's Eve! As this is an intro to the WEGS Badderlands series, it's also lovingly called B1. This module is jam-packed with some great Old Skool art and tons of hobgoblins (like every intro adventure should be). To call it an intro is a little misleading though; it's going to be quite challenging for new players to "beat". There are only three chapters in the adventure, each one gets progressively harder. The module also contains its fair share of wacky WEGS lingo, and I'm hoping the casual reader will have their curiousity peaked by how different the Wickedly Errant Game System is from other sword-n-sorcery game systems.

Dreamation Aftermath!

Dreamation was like getting my own stimulus package for WEGS: the energy of the con and all the great games we ran got the creative juices flowing just in time for spring. After a long winter of limited play, it was fantastic to sit back and play one game after another after another. With The Prof as Minion Master, I was able to take the overlord position and sit on high watching the action go down. Mucho gracias to The Prof! From running through the final test of Hobgobble's Eve to throwing down the initial pass at Minotaur Meat, we were able to gather gamers for every WEGS offering on the schedule (with the exception of our Sunday Pirates of Penzantium demo).

We took some chances with new rules, like allowing folks to burn 6% Rank for a Phew! at the Spante*; this made the end game go on forever! This, though, is part of the fun of going full throttle at a con; for the House, it keeps the game interesting and also allows us to test out and tinker with enhancements. I'm all about trying to break the system, giving it too much gas and flooding the engines. The downside of this is that players may get caught in the crossfire and walk away with a different view of what the game is about. One big thing learned: keep the intro games intro (no tweaking rules one jot).

One last thing on Dreamation... awesome location. GameWick Games was given three tables at the hotel entrance in front of a cascading waterfall; it was like being poolside at the Flamingo. Word is that we're in same location for the summer con. It will be awesome.

*"burn 6% Rank for a Phew! at the Spante"... A line that only a Wegshog could comprehend!

All work and no play...

Feb's been a busy work month for me, thus the first posting happening mid-month. There was some headway on the WEGS front in the fact that I was able to launch the first Master Minion, Mushpot the Great! The first WEGS module, B1 Hobgobble's Eve, will arrive on the wegsite later this month. And speaking of work... The Origins and GenCon event schedules are due this month, too. Hard to believe that it's that time of the year already! I always forget that Feb is a big push month for getting everything lined up for the spring and summer cons (this stuff just sneaks up on you). On the game front, the first convention of the year is hitting this week: Dreamation. Looking forward to throwing down some WEGS this weekend; it's the first chance I'm going to get to sit back and have fun in some time (and hopefully sell some product, too)!

Hobgobble Cover Art!

For all twelve of you who read this blog, there's some exciting news for our first adventure module: Jim Holloway is the cover artist! Jim was one of the original artists for TSR (the publishers of Dungeons & Dragons for those of you who aren't geeks). Check out his site and all his contributions to the hobby. His art has filled the pages of the early D&D modules (the B series) to AD&D covers for the Desert of Desolation, Oriental Adventures, Spelljammer and lots of interior stuff for everything in between. Outside of D&D-land, he's illustrated Boot Hill, Gama World, Star Frontiers and Gangbusters, too. If you spent any time perusing the shelves of a game store in the 80s, you know his artistic mettle! Hobgobble's Eve drew a lot of inspiration from the early TSR modules that shaped how most of us think of the sword-n-sorcery adventure game; having an Old Skool Master like Jim involved has really made this inaugural launch of the WEGS Module B1 very exciting!

And the cover is just amazing!

The Hobgobble Update

So, about two months ago I started working on Hobgobble's Eve, the first official WEGS 101 adventure. It went through numerous playtests and revisions, and then some more playtest. While all this was going on, I began contacting artists to illustrate the adventure. Three of the artists are from Three Headed Troll Art Wurks; guys who specialize in the old skool art form which is perfect for this module (check out the 3HT site). I came across their art while attending Con on the Cob, a con with a very heavy artist attendance. Tony Steele, who did some illustrations for Pirates of Penzantium and who also attended COTC, jumped into the Hobgobble fray as well. All the art is complete (with the exception of the cover which will be the topic of next post). I'm really thrilled with each artist's work; this module is jam-packed with cool art!

So, after two months, the first pass at the concept/playtest/art/layout/design is done. In my humble opinion, the end result is gonna be pretty fantastic. I've had a bunch of fun with the design on this, and the layout is inevitably for landscape, three-hole punch format (so you can throw it in a binder after you print it at home); the landscape design also takes up less table space during the game.

One more pass at text revisions and layout and this sucker is done.

This module is gonna ooze the old skool spirit that WEGS 101 is all about!

Playtesting: Hobgobble's, Chapter 3

We concluded the Hobgobble's Eve playtest with the good folk of the Garden State Gaming Society last night; the final chapter of the soon-to-be-released adventure is going to be a brutal one for players! I jumped in as a player, letting the Professor run the newly revised minions for this encounter. We had four players to face-off against his eight minions; with no Warriors in the mix for us, the odds were stacked against us. It was a struggle all the way to the final inning (14 innings!), but we managed to survive. We missed hitting the eigth inning "sweet spot", but my thoughts are the chapter could have concluded sooner if we had one more player on our side of the table. We're officially sticking a fork in this module, 'cause it's done (from a playtest standpoint)! We ran this adventure twice, as did the Platinum Warlock (thanks for the notes, A!). Time to start layout and design on the pdf. Hoping to publish this sucker before the end of the month for the whole darn Wegsworld to enjoy!

Time To Start Rolling!

With Christmas, New Years and all those other sweet gatherings in the past, it's time for GameWick to start looking at what's in store for '09; the clock is ticking away already! By the end of this month, the con schedules for GenCon and Origins will need to be in place, as will the schedules for any cons we plan on hitting before then. Even more important than that is getting a couple of new products out the door before the summer cons hit (that WEGS 101 book is getting awfully lonely all by itself). Our goal for 2009 is to get three new products out the door:

1. House Rules! The Kreators Guide for how to run WEGS.
2. WEGS 202 Pirates of Penzantium (yar!)
3. Dingbitt's Dunge O' Doom (mini wegsventure for 101)

Plus, we're hoping to post a monthly freebie wegsventure, the first of which will be Hobgobble's Eve! toward the end of January. Details on all this stuff will be blogged about in my next posts.

Health and Happy Gaming to all of you for the New Year!

Playtesting: Hobgobble's Eve, Chap 2.

Me and The Professor threw down Chapter 2 for the Garden State Gaming Society this week. Unlike the first session where we had 2 players, this round we had 7 players (the perfect number of WEGS players in my book). This allowed me to step out of the game as a player and into the role of Kreator (judge). The Prof was fully in charge of the minions and innings. All players were new to the game with the exception of the 2 who returned from Chapter 1. Arkreation took about a half hour, then we plunged into the game. The Arks were:

3 Gnobbit Tricksters
2 Warriors (1 Humnz, 1 Goblin)
1 Elf Mage
1 Elf Ranger

Chapter 2 starts the Arks off in a cave prison, the entrance to which is guarded by 7 Hobgoblins and a Giant Rat. The chapter took about 2 hours to finish, and was wicked fun from the start. The players were a great mix of solid board gamers and rpg veterans; all had plenty of game experience under their belts and took to the game system far too well, far too quick; making the game that much more challenging for the Minion Master. The players were having a rollicking time of it, and the only thing that slowed the game down was the deliberation by the players as to what course of action was best (and that was a blast to watch).

From a playtesting standpoint, I'm considering this one Santa's gift to me! With a table full of new players, a couple who now own book-n-card sets, this was a great way to end the year.

Playtesting: Hobgobble's Eve

Last week, me and The Professor threw down a Hobgobble's Eve playtest for the good folk of the Garden State Gaming Society. We only had two players, so I jumped in on their side as a Sage (imagine that!). The Prof had the job of Kreator/Minion Master and did a great job of beating us down in the first encounter with a trio of fowl turdragons (turkey-dragons). I did my best as the team's Sage, but by encounter's end found myself quite low on spoints; alack, the problems of liberal spell-tossing! All said and done, I had a blast jumping in on the player side, which I don't get to do very often. There's something to be said for this from a playtesting standpoint: it's easy to run the game and be in control, but it's critical to see the game from a player's view. You gotta know how the dice feel on that side of the table, too!

Hobgobble's Eve

Spent the last couple weeks cranking out a mini-venture for WEGS called Hobgobble's Eve; basically a "turkey hunt-in-the-swamp-gone-bad-real bad" scenario. It's been sent around to a couple of the royal Wegshogs to run for their friends (you know who you are), plus I'm running it tonight for a local group. Should be a blast (literally, as there's a weapon in it called the Blunderboomer)! The hope is that I can get the adventure on the site in pdf, so folks all around the globe can download a little bit o' wegs for their year-end enjoyment.

Have a great Thanksgiving folks!

The Wegziotic Triangle

"Had you stepped on board the Pequod at a certain juncture of the post-mortemizing of the whale; and had you strolled forward nigh the windlass, pretty sure am I that you would have scanned with no small curiousity a very strange enigmatical object..." I'm blathering, of course, about the Wegziotic Triangle...

As I was pondering this year's WEGS tour, I've come to realize that we've established a triangular playing zone; from Stony Brook NY to Indianapolis IN to Greensboro NC. The center of this triangle is somewhere in the middle West Virginia*. It's my hope that many gamers start getting sucked into this zone, mysteriously disappearing off the radar of conventional game systems, only to reappear shouting "Spante!". If nothing else, the Wegshogs now know our field of battle and can start conquering the gaming world one geek at a time.

(* It's my suspician that there's some kind of eerie, glowing, multi-sided monolith here... )

Yar?

With the final con of the year hitting this weekend (MACE, North Carolina), it'll be time to get back into the swing of things with the 2009 product offerings. As most of ya know, WEGS 202 Pirates of Penzantium was shelved over the summer due to the sheer bulk of con-hopping we did; there just wasn't enough time to get it all together for a GenCon release. So, that's something to look forward to next year! Also in the works is WEGS 101 House Rules!; a sequel to Old Skool that's gonna include all the tips/tricks/traps that the Wegshogs having been throwing down at conventions these last phew years... Rumor has it that it's gonna include the rules for Dingbitt's Dunge O' Doom, too (insert the sound of a dozen or so WEGS players going wild over this news...). In the meantime, here's some POP art to keep you occupoddo...

Ubercon Aftermath!

Despite pre-convention ominious portent, Ubercon was an uber-blast! Worries that (a) our events were only publically posted the day that player registration closed (two days before the con) and (b) our events were not included in the on-site program, had me concerned that this con was going to be disastrous for us; if no one knew we were going to be there, would there be any players for our games?!? Merrily, the answer was "yes"; if you build it, they will come... It wasn't all "phantom all-stars to cornfield baseball diamond" magic for us; players just didn't materialize out of thin air. Pre-game and post-game, Jason (The Professor) was in full scouting mode for extra players and betwixt-game stragglers to fill in the ranks of the Arks.

We had four games on the sched: one on Friday night and three on Saturday. The Friday night game, Tomb of Horrors, had six players (2 noobs and 4 prior Uber players). This game was so enjoyable that we all agreed to continue the game into the Saturday morning time slot. During this transition, we lost one player but picked up two, bringing the player count to seven. The Saturday afternoon slot, Minotaur Meat!, had a solitary player, but then three players from Tomb of Horrors returned for even more WEGS-ing. This four-player game gave The Professor and El Willy some much needed respite from the prior seven person game. It also gave these players more WEGS action! The day concluded with From Dusk Til Dead, another seven-player game (4 returnees and 3 noobs). All in all, the games were a great mix of new players and experienced Wegshogs. We sold a couple of WEGS 101 sets and a bunch of skill decks.

We played... We sold... We conquered... Actually, the players were the conquerers. We got our butts kicked pretty bad in each game. The dice gods were not favoring our side of the table this time 'round!

Ubercon and Us...

Spent Friday night and Saturday at Ubercon, the "home" con of the mighty, mighty Wegshogs! Considered our home con because (a) it's in our backyard (not literally, just in NJ) and (b) was the con that we officially unveiled WEGS at many a-many year ago. That was in October 2005 (or Ubercon VI), a scant three years ago. We've hit every Ubercon NJ since. Despite this consistancy, I can't say we have a rabid following at Ubercon; we always have strong carry-over from the prior attendance (so folks that played at the last con generally show up to play some more at the next), but there's a big drop-off two cons out. I attribute this to the normal turnover from attendees. I just don't see the same players from two/three years ago at the cons. Ubercon has a tendency to jump around a bit in its location and scheduling; sometimes they've held a fall and a winter con, sometimes they've moved it out to the Great Lakes, and they seem to jump to new hotels every other con. Still, it's a persistant little con with a great home feel. It's small enough to feel like a high school graduating class; you could get to know everybody. That's a good-sized con for our merry WEGS-ish endeavors. (Aftermath notes will follow in next post!)

In Store Demo: Brothers Grim, NY

On GenCon Sunday, a guy named Gil came up to the booth and introduced himself as one of the owners of Brothers Grim Games and Collectibles on Long Island, NY. He had heard about WEGS from the local NJ/NY cons and was interested in having me demo in his store. I actually heard about the store, too, from one of the Jersey Hogs who frequented their booth at Dexcon (and who told them they need to stock WEGS). Thanks, Jason! As fate would have it, I had a wedding to attend on Long Island this month and so coordinated the demo for the day after. I arrived and set-up on a huge game table in the front of the store. The store had many game tables, there was a-plenty of space to play (huge asset to the store). The back of the store was jammed with Yu-Gi-Oh players from the time I got there until I left. The game tables around me were jammed with miniature guys painting their armies and getting ready for a huge throw-down tournament in a couple of weeks. It was great to see a store jammed with gamers all day long, and to hear the banter of a bunch of folks who all are part of the store's energy. As for the demo... I ran one demo that lasted about three hours. Had a total of five players who kicked the butt of everything I threw at 'em. There was nothing I could do to get them on the run! It was hard to show them the system had some bite to it, as they all handily dispatched everything that came their way. I had a great time - just frustrating for the guy who created the game!!! Arrggghh! As I left, I promised to return with more minions...

Con on the Cob Aftermath!

Games, Art, Freaks and Fun! That's how the con is billed on the COTC website, and it had plenty of each (me adding to the freak factor). GameWick Games set our banner up in the corner of the large gaming hall and then hunkered down for some WEGS-ing. The gaming hall was a big hotel banquet room that had about 20 tables set up for rpgs, boardgames, cards, etc. Relatively small, but tabletop gaming is not the primary purpose of the con; there's a whole music, movie, art blend, too. A very eclectic little con.

We had scheduled two demo slots and three full length games (5 events total). We had players for both demos, but only one game ran (Friday night's Dwarf Walks Into A Bar) . When no one showed for one of the games, I hung around the table a bit and managed to round up some players for another demo. Actually, the players rounded themselves up: a lady who played a demo at Origins saw me standing there, asked if I was doing anything and then summoned a couple of friends to see what WEGS was all about. Sad to say, we only sold a single book; but on the bright side, that's one more book sold at this con than we did last year (this being the first year we've attended)... The Cob is a good con to geek-out at, especially for local gamers. There's a good chance we'd do it again next year.

Got Hot?

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the cucina... A bounty of hot peppers from the gardens of El Willy. Assortment of habaneros, cayenne, peanut chiles, hinkelhatz (chicken hearts) and Czech black (which are actually red). This is what I do when I'm not rolling bones. Speaking of which, the fall con season begins. Three cons on the hit list: Con on the Cob (Akron), Ubercon (NJ) and MACE (North Carolina).

GenCon08: Signage at Origins

This is a photo of the Origins booth, the test-run booth as it were (or was...). Not that we weren't prepared for Origins, but it was our first logistical con; we never did this before. You can prepare all you want up front, but until you hit the ground running at the actual convention site, you have no idea what to expect. Heck, yeah, we were nervous about Origins, but it was the same type of nervous actors/directors get the week before opening night. One thing you can notice between this pic and the one below is that, aside from one more Wegshog on our side of the demo table, the WEGS sign in the background is rippled. This was due to the fact that the sign was hung on hooks from the curtain rods at the back of the booth. Not the optimal way to hang a sign, but lots of folks do it. The ripple effect was remedied at GenCon as the pvc standing unit was added and fixed the problem completely. Small, but exciting, victories...

GenCon 08: Signage

Once you commit to getting a booth, you gotta get a sign that let's folks know who you are. Pre-Origins, we only had small 2x4 foot WEGS signs which would not fill the 10x10 booth area very effectively. So, $200 later, I went to print with a 4x6 banner (shown here). And once you have a banner, you have to figure out a way to hang it. Many vendors use pvc pipe for this purpose. I followed suit; it took me the better part of a weekend to cut/assemble/spray paint the frame (about $50 in materials). I designed it so it is free standing, with the use of two picnic table umbrella stands (the ones that anchor the umbrella pole under the table). Found the perfect type at Sports Authority ($15 each), but the stands are flippin' heavy! Sue topped off the whole assembly with two burning braziers (using tissue paper for the fire effect). We framed the signage with copper pots and WEGS 101 Book-n-Card combos. (Yeah, that's me and Fwill running a demo.)