Posts Tagged ‘gen con’

This was probably my best Gen Con to date. I’m not going to go into huge detail, as I’m still recovering, but I wanted to share some of those moments with you.

First of all, if you haven’t seen it yet, check out the One Cool Thing video that Jason Morningstar did (as is his way):

Of course, the ENnies were a big deal to us at Evil Hat. Here are a couple photos that say what words right now fail to:

Fred Hicks, Ryan Macklin, Clark Valentine, Amanda Valentine

The result of years of effort and the power of genius friends.

I released a new game that seemed to be a hit at the show. I was approached constantly about it by Friday. Some people said, in earnest, that it was their breakout hit of Gen Con. To that I say: wow. And sure, I’ll write the Advanced Players Guide.

I was on This Just In…From Gen Con! 2011, the Saturday 11am show. Thank you to Cthulhu for sponsoring and showing up to that episode. My mind will never be the same. I’m also on the TJI Wrap-up episode, which I’m sure will be out sometime in the next few days.

The Ancient Masters of Sagefight returned this year. Master Daniel Solis posted up those videos. And I give a bow to Master Daniel Perez, for being the first to best me in Masters Without Swords.

I met some amazing people this weekend. And I’d like to thank Steve Segedy for arranging a fantastic dinner group Thursday night, and Logan Bonner for bringing me to another fantastic dinner Saturday night. With you two, my win condition for Gen Con — time with brilliant and passionate people — was met.

A huge thank-you to Nora Last for the gift of a flask cozy. It matched my tux! :D

My outfit for the ENnies, and my flask in a cozy made by Nora Last.

I’ll probably keep in the conversations on Twitter, but I’m gonna take a few days off my blog. See y’all Friday or Monday.

Rock on. As they say: Next year in Jerusalem.

- Ryan

Are you going to be at Gen Con next week? If so, let’s play a game of buzzword bingo! To get your card, click on the link below:
RPG Buzzword Bingo for Gen Con 2011
This card is generated from around 70 terms and 20 quotes for the center. Playing is simple, and the instructions are on the card:

The rules: Print this out before Gen Con. At Gen Con, mark your bingo card when someone else in normal conversaion says the term. The center square is a quote or partial quote. The other squares are terms & subjects.

Once you have a row crossed off, tweet @RyanMacklin with a picture of your board, or show him in person to win the admiration of countless dozens. He may blog about these later.

The cards are generated based on your IP address, for two reasons: one, I don’t want people refreshing until they get a card they like. Bingo is about being handed your fate, not mulliganing it! Two, if you want to find out all the various terms used, you’ll have to talk with other people playing. Of course, plenty of people know how to circumvent this, which is why I’m declaring why I did up front.

So come and play. My default location, if you don’t have a smart phone & Twitter, will be the Games on Demand area (which you should check out anyway).

If you find typos or whatever, feel free to comment. I hope to see some of you playing there!

- Ryan

P.S. This is not the same as the buzzword game Robin Laws’ does, though a prior year’s buzzword made it on this list.

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. ;)

Hey! This Just In…From GenCon, the live podcast show that Paul Tevis & I did twice daily at GenCon last year, has just launched the first pre-GenCon episode for 2009!

Check it out at: http://thisjustinfromgencon.com/

From the kick-off episode:

Ryan kicks off this second year of This Just In with his co-host from last year, Paul Tevis. But this year, we’re changing it up! Since Paul will be working at the IPR booth this year, Ryan will be grabbing co-hosts from all across gaming podcasting for each show. A bevy of hosts indeed!

They talk a bit about this year’s show and about some plans they have, from Ryan’s yearly pilgrimage to the Fantasy Flight Games booth to the podcasting & media track set up by Don Dehm of Pulp Gamer (including the Podcaster Meet & Greet and Inside the Game Designer’s Studio). They’re also going to be at The ENnie Awards this year, as another show of theirs, The Voice of the Revolution, was nominated for Best Podcast!

Ryan will be back in a couple weeks alongside another guest host to bring you a second GenCon preview episode.

- Ryan