Posts Tagged ‘conventions’

[Edit: Thanks to the power of my accidental SEO fu, if you're looking for the panels & seminars at DunDraCon, go here.]

I’m pretty damned excited to announce some stuff I’ll be doing at DunDraCon 2011, February 18th-21st in San Ramon, CA. I’ll be hanging out with the redoubtable Jennifer Brozek, drinking at the hotel bar, or, well, both. For the events that don’t involve a bar tab, here’s what I’m doing:

How GMs can Bring their ‘A’ Game to the Table

Saturday 9:00 AM-10:00 AM, room 156

Having problems with your GMing? Or maybe it’s perfect…except for that one kink? Ryan Macklin and Jennifer Brozek have the solution for you! They’ll roll up their sleeves and show you how to use various techniques they’ve learned over the years to help you find your ‘A’ game. Get and keep your players hooked on your game while making your GMing easier.

Stealing From Indie Games: Borrowing systems, themes, and settings to enhance your RPG campaign

Saturday 10:00 AM-11:00 AM, room 156

There’s a lot of very interesting “gaming technology” out there for role-playing games. Systems such as FATE are really opening up story telling and leading to some very interesting gaming experiences. This seminar will talk about some of the cool stuff that’s out there and how to use it in more traditional RPGs such as D&D or CHAMPIONS.

[Note: This is a late addition, and my name’s not on the schedule. But I’m totally going to be there, rocking with Bruce Harlick & the rest of the crew.)

Learn From Our Mistakes

Sunday 5:00 PM-6:00 PM, room 156

Jennifer Brozek and Ryan Macklin, award winning veterans of the RPG industry talk about what it is like to write RPGs and for each other. Combined, these two Swiss Army Knives of publishing have authored, edited, and managed more than 30 RPG products. Learn from our mistakes. Reap the benefit of our experience and discover some of the secrets of what really goes on in the back halls of the RPG industry.

Random Pick-Up Gaming

I’m otherwise a free agent at the con. @ me on the Twitters if you’re at the con, and we could meet up! I’m happy to drink with folks and play games. I can run a crapton, and will probably have some secret and not-so-secret playtests on me. Look forward to seeing you there!

- Ryan

Hey! NeonCon starts tomorrow! I’ll be there!

Loads of my friends will be at NeonCon. I’m looking forward to it. If you’re going, you might have noticed how many panel & seminar tracks there are for CreativeU. I’ll be doing two, but I encourage you to look at the whole damned list. It’s filled with awesome!

Here’re mine:

Lessons From Dresden

Friday, November 5th, 2010
Noon-1pm
Room: Montecristo 3

Leonard Balsera and Ryan Macklin discuss the lessons they learned from designing the breakout hit “The Dresden Files RPG” based on the novels by Jim Butcher.

Note: Lenny might not make it. I’m intending on making this more of a Q&A. It’s hard to distill years of lessons down into an hour.

Your ‘A’ Game: Techniques for Better GMing

Saturday, November 6th, 2010
6:30pm-8:30pm
Room: Montecristo 2

If you want to learn how to engage players at a table, whether friends at home or strangers at a convention, you want in on this workshop. Ryan Macklin will roll up his sleeves and show you how to use various techniques that he’s learned over the last decade of convention GMing–by doing them with you! Ryan will show you these techiques for gauging interest, creating buy-in, and responding to the sort of input players don’t even realize they’re giving. He’ll do this by turning you into play groups and showing you how you respond to these tricks, then turn you loose to try it for yourself. Looking to level up as a GM? Don’t miss this workshop!

I’m really looking forward to this one.

And when I’m not there, I’ll be floating around Games on Demand, running Dresden Files RPG (or, if you’re really luckily, Mythender or Emerging Threats Unit). Follow me on Twitter and you’ll know when I’ll be running stuff.

I might even have some swag on me.

Finally, if Night Macklin is gentle on Friday, I’ll be on This Just In…From NeonCon Saturday morning.

- Ryan

Hey! So, I one of the guests at the upcoming RinCon in Tucson, AZ[1] from October 8-10. I am doing stuffs! If you’re going, these might be of interest to you:

Friday 6p-or-whenever: Macklin-Tevis Mindmeld

Paul Tevis and Ryan Macklin want to talk about something, but we also want to have beer. So we’re going to do a thing that’s off the con books. We’re going to gather at some place, sit down, possibly record the conversation, and talk about pacing in GMless games. It’s something we’ve wanted to brainstorm about for a bit…though for what, we’re not going to say just yet. :)

I’m going to be using Twitter to organize this, so if you want in then follow me on Twitter.

Saturday 10a-2p: Playtesting Mythender (RPG Playtesting Extravaganza)

Come and experience the latest indie RPGs before they are published! Special guest Ryan Macklin (Dresden Files) joins Jerry Tidwell, Eric Boyd and Colin Mulkerin to demonstrate their latest creations. Do you want to stab Odin in his good eye and make the world around you tremble with change and power? Then you want to try Mythender, an upcoming Evil Hat/Ryan Macklin game about epic power and consequence. Eric Boyd brings a high-flying heist game, “House of Cards”. Atelier is “Touched by an Angel” meets Mage: The Ascention, in an alternate apocalyptic 1930s America. You play a mojo-enhanced emotional troubleshooter who helps people reconnect with each other in the midst of a magical dust storm bent on driving humanity into estrangement and extinction – brought to you by Jerry Tidwell. And Colin Mulkerin brings his local favorite “Trilogy”, a card-based fantasy short story game! You won’t just get to play, you’ll also get to give much needed feedback and be a part of the design process up close and personal!

Saturday 2p-6p: Dresden Files

The Dresden Files novel series has excited fantasy and mystery fans for years, and now the Dresden Files RPG is lighting a fire in the roleplaying community! Come and experience the fantastical mysteries in a modern setting – wizards, faeries and psychics contend with crooked cops, backstabbing femme (or homme!) fatales, and strange crimes. Game creator Ryan Macklin will show you how to play this exciting new roleplaying game – no prior experience necessary!

Saturday 6p-10pm: Houses of the Blooded LARP

Last year’s Houses of the Blooded LARP was the event everyone was talking about. John Wick brings the unique world of the Ven back to RinCon with the Houses of the Blooded LARP. Houses of the Blooded is a fantastic RPG of a decadent culture of ambition, romance, revenge, art and politics, in which the players take on the roles of nobility engaging in a deadly game of espionage, sabotage and assassination. In the LARP, all the major players gather together…secrets will be exposed and grudges will be carried out. No prior experience is needed to play and characters will be provided.

(I’m merely going to be attending this. But holy crap this was fun last year.)

Sunday 10am-noon: GM Conference

The Southern Arizona Gamemaster’s Conference has offered ideas, training and discussion for over a year, and it returns to RinCon for a second session. Our presentations this year include many special RPG Guests: John Wick, a returning favorite of the SAGC, will present “Play Dirty: The Con Man”. This will be a revved up and revamped version of what he presented at the first Gamemaster’s Conference, so long-time attendees will have a special treat, and first-time attendees will be blown away (we already know.) Ryan Macklin will be our keynote speaker, and he will talk about “Creating Context Quickly and Collaboratively”, turning the first 30 minutes of a session into a rich setting for play. Since his Dresden Files RPG has a much-celebrated setting creation system, he is sure to have some exciting insights. Paul Tevis, another special RPG guest and creator of the innovative Penny For My Thoughts, will talk about “What Improv Taught Me About GMing”, a topic which many at previous conferences have expressed interest in.

Also, I’ll be a guest at NeonCon! When my schedule for that’s firmed up, I’ll have a post on that.

- Ryan

[1] I lived in Tucson when I was five years old. While I have very little memory of it (though one vague memory of my first schoolboy crush still exists).

Another Gen Con has passed, and now we ring in the new gaming year the way we ring in the new true year — by talking about antics we participated in and antics we missed during the New Year’s Party that is Gen Con.

The lovely and badass Jen Dixon of The Walking Eye Podcast did a great job filling in for our traditional One Cool Thing video:

(Look at that handsome bastard.)

Of course, you can get your fix by going over the shows we did as part of This Just In From Gen Con 2010! The post-show wrap-up, a.k.a. Ken Hite’s traditional unpacking of the Gen Con we all just experienced, will be up in the next day or so. (Some news about me will drop on that episode as well.)

But I just did a couple shows every day. There was amazing live coverage this year, thanks to the good folks at NeonCon. If you know me, you know I’ve raved about NeonCon since I was one of their GamesU (now rebranded CreativeU) guests last year. (With all or most of their GamesU seminars up online, you can see me make an ass of myself.) The team there — with folks like Doug and Jules being the faceman/woman for the broadcast — were a joy to work with and to watch produce what was essentially hours of Gen Con for those at home.

You can check out archives of the live stream, like the filming of the ENnie Awards, at http://www.livestream.com/neoncon/

I was really happy to accept on behalf of Jason & Steve at Bully Pulpit the ENnie Fiasco got. Of course, I also feel like a touch of a heel, because that was a moment that I wished I could have admired from the audience, like I got to with Ken Hite & Hal Mangold accepting their gold ENnies for Cthulhu 101 & Day After Ragnarok. But, the point of accepting an award is less for the person accepting and more for the crowd watching. When you’re up there on stage, your job is to say (using completely different language) “Thank you for putting the effort into this award and giving me this opportunity. I will not belittle those efforts.”[1]

In other words, it’s okay to fuck up my own award speech, but I take accepting for someone else seriously, because it’s their moment and the crowd’s moment, and I’m just a stand-in. A stunt-Morningstar or -Segedy, if you will.

Speaking of Fiasco, this was fun:

(Thanks to Travis & Kira Scott for the bourbon pictured in the photo.[2])

Anyway, that’s all right now. Thanks for indulging this non-post. :)

- Ryan

[1] A non-zero number of you are reading between the lines. Good.

[2] If your comment is “but there’s no bourbon in that picture!” I assure you there is. See those smiles. Yeah. ;)

The two talks that I did at Neoncon‘s GamesU are available for your viewing pleasure!

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