Mistborn House War - Two Player Variant?

Within just a few days after GenCon, my Kickstarter copy of Mistborn: House War arrived on my porch. While I didn't get a chance to play it this year, I did demo it at last year's GenCon, and its promise hasn't lessened in my mind since then. The game's only problem, however, is that it requires at least three people to play. Which means I'm still waiting for the opportunity in the midst of a very busy schedule to get together with my game group and try it out.

In the mean time though, I've been thinking about how the game might be adapted for only 2 players (or possibly even just one). Having played a lot of Scythe recently, I was intrigued by the Automata feature of that game, which essentially uses a deck of cards to substitute for the actions of a human player. While I wasn't ready to develop something quite that complex, I was curious if I could come up with a simple set of rules to govern a "dummy" player who the two human players would be competing against.

You see, at its heart Mistborn: House War is a social, semi-cooperative resource management game. Everyone's working for the same end, and you work together to solve Problems before they "erupt" and make the overall situation worse. You do this by contributing your own resources and agreeing with everyone else how much Favor you'll receive for your aid out of the total available. But at the same time, you're all individually competing to earn the most Favor, which is awarded for each Problem solved before it "erupts." You can read my review here for more details.

My design strategy looked something like this:

• Make the "dummy" player always act out a simple script. In this case, it always plays a card during a deal, always gets any Favor that won't divide evenly from any deal it participates in, and only solves Problems during its turn if it can do so without any help. 
• The human players have to agree on any actions that the dummy takes; if they can't agree, determine the result randomly. Furthermore, they can never decide to target the dummy player with negative consequences unless those consequences are equally applied among all three players.
• Finally, to incentivize the players to deal with the dummy more often, any time a Problem "erupts," it increases the Unrest track by one. And should that track reach 8, the players lose. This is in addition to whatever the normal consequences printed on the card when it "erupts," even if that includes additional Unrest.

I'll be testing this with my wife over the next few weeks. It's been a fun diversion and let me enjoy playing the game without having to wait for a full group of friends to come together to play.

GenCon 2017

As I mentioned earlier this week, this past weekend was GenCon here in Indianapolis, Indiana. In case you are unfamiliar with it (and I am always amazed at the people who live in the Indy area and yet have no idea what it is), GenCon is the largest gaming convention in the world. Their motto is, "The Best Four Days in Gaming," and as far as I'm concerned, they live up to that claim 100%. This year was their biggest attendance yet, with well over 200,000 people in attendance over the four days. In fact, for the first time in their history, they sold out of admission badges the week before the event began. This convention is so large that it not only encompasses the entire Indianapolis Convention Center, but spills over into event areas of seven other nearby hotels as well as Lucas Oil Stadium, home of the Indianapolis Colts.

I got the chance to play several great games, including:

• Scythe, a 7 player asymmetrical civilization and warfare strategy game
• Clank, a deck-building adventure game (by the same company that makes the CCG Eternal)
• Ex Libris, a card drafting and set collection game that feels like something from the Harry Potter universe
• 7-Wonders Duel, a 2 player variant on the popular 7 Wonders civilization strategy game
• Yamatai, an Asian mythology themed route/network building strategy game that is highly reminiscent of 5 Tribes
• Imperial Settlers, a asymmetrical civilization card strategy game 

I also have to mention attending the fantastic Writer's Symposium, which is an entire mini-seminar within the conference itself that brings in the top authors in the science fiction and fantasy genre to host topical panels for aspiring and beginning authors. Just like in previous years, my wife and I got sit in on the live recorded sessions of Writing Excuses, which is highly recommended. And for once, they had the whole cast there, which has not happened in previous years.

But the highlight of the weekend was the special panels I got to attend with Patrick Rothfuss, Brandon Sanderson, and the cast of Critical Role. Rothfuss is absolutely hilarious in person; listening to him reading his Princess book is not to be missed. I also managed to get a special promo card from Sanderson for the Mistborn: House Wars board game that just arrived on my doorstep straight from its Kickstarter fulfillment. And last but not least, seeing the amazing cast of Critical Role is an experience that should not be missed.

If you're a gamer of any sort, you should come to GenCon. It's well worth whatever it takes to get you there.

Writer's Symposium at Gencon

The official sign up for events at GenCon 2017 finally went live this past Sunday. Although the con itself isn't until the middle of August, the sign-up for events is always a bit crazy, as thousands of registrants compete for seminars and events that can only hold dozens of people at most.

Like in the past few years, GenCon is also hosting its annual Writer's Symposium, where successful authors in the science fiction and fantasy genres give panel discussions on a variety of topics. Some of the major authors featured this year include Brandon Sanderson, Mercedes Lackey, Patrick Rothfuss, and Larry Correia, each of whom are doing special Q&A and book signings in addition to their panel discussions. If you're curious, you can see all of the Writer's Symposium events here.

Here are a few panels that I am particularly looking forward to:

• Medieval Cooking and Fantasy Foods
• Believable Fictional Languages
• Real Animals in a Fantasy World
• War Magic — When Magic Goes to War
• Can a Hero be Too Powerful?

It's going to be another great year at GenCon. If any of my readers are planning on attending, let me know. I'd love to come say hello and meet you in person.

Isle of Skye

One of the great new games I got to playtest this year at GenCon is a board game called Isle of Skye: From Chieftain to King. In this game, you take on the role of one of five chieftains seeking to grow your kingdom and accumulate the most victory points at the end of the game. You do this by placing tiles that you either randomly select or purchase from the other players and arranging those tiles to maximize your score based upon four victory conditions randomly selected for each game.

The most interesting part of the game isn't placing your tiles though. Rather, each round you randomly draw three tiles from the bag.  Then, each player secretly decides to discard one tile and set a price on the other two. Once every one has made their choices, you all reveal them, and starting with the player whose turn it is, you can choose to buy one of the tiles from another player at the price he or she has selected. And here's where things get interesting.

Price your tile too low, and your opponent gets a valuable tile that they may be able to score with over multiple rounds. But price your tile too high, and not only do you not get any income when no one buys it, but you also have to pay that money to keep the tile for yourself. Furthermore, based on the way the buying works, it's possible that all of your tiles get purchased, leaving you with just one new one, while your opponent each place two tiles that round. Of course, most of the time the quality of your tiles is much more important than the quantity - but still, that's not typically a winning strategy.

The game is played over five rounds, with only one or two of the victory conditions actually scoring for that round. If you find yourself falling behind in points, after round two you do earn some additional funds to help you catch up. While these funds can be converted into points at the end of the game, ultimately they are a pretty poor source of points, so in practice this doesn't always balance the scales as much as you might think.

The components of the game are beautifully illustrated and solid craftsmanship. The markings on the tiles are easy to identify, and the different victory conditions do a solid job of demonstrating exactly what counts for points for that condition without making you consult the rulebook to read how they work. Speaking of which, the rulebook is short and sweet, and you probably won't need more than 15 minutes or so to teach a new player how to play.

Overall I enjoyed this game very much. This is a great example of a game that is simple to learn and play, but has a surprisingly level of depth as you get into it. The game comes with a good selection of different win conditions and a huge bag of tiles, so there's a lot of replay value. Additionally, from my experience, the game plays quite well with anywhere from 2-5 players. If you like tile-placement games or are looking for a simple but also subtly complex game, definitely give Isle of Skye a try!

Mistborn: House War

Like I mentioned in my GenCon posts, one of the games I got to playtest this year at the convention was this awesome new game called Mistborn: House War. Based on the characters and events of the series by Brandon Sanderson of the same name, in this semi-cooperative game you take the role of one of the nobles houses of the Final Empire, seeking to work together to solve the myriad social and political problems facing the empire while competing to become the most powerful and most loyal of the nobles houses.

At its heart is a fairly simple mechanic. Each turn you collect resources based on your house and other resources. These resources can then be used to solve one of the problems that besets the empire, each of which requires a certain combination of resources. If you solve the problem, you receive favor with the Lord Ruler. If you and your fellow players fail to solve the problem, someone will have to suffer the consequences - though that may not necessarily be you!

If you lack the necessary resources to solve any of the problems, you can also ask your fellow players for help. And that's where the game gets most interesting, as almost anything goes when it comes to negotiation. One player might ask for part of the rewards you'll receive, or a promise not to target them with an upcoming negative event, or even just make you go get them something out of the fridge! The only catch is that whatever terms you agree to, you must keep up your side of the bargain.

In addition to the normal resources, you also receive Personality Cards that can provide additional resources, redirect a negative effect, cancel another player's card, or secretly award you favor at the end of the game. These cards provide one of the best ways to interfere with your fellow players, keeping them from getting too far ahead.

So what happens if everyone decided to gang up on you, or you simply are too far behind to have any hope of winning? Simple - you join the rebellion! Rather than trying to solve the problems, you instead try to push as many of them through as possible, allowing the unrest to grow to the point where it ends the game prematurely. And should that happen, the player with the least favor, rather than the most, wins the game.

The game successful Kickstarted about a month ago, but you can still get in as a late backer.

Intrigued? Watch the video below, then go support this great game! I can't wait until next April to start playing this with my game group...

My GenCon Report

Hard to believe it's already been almost two weeks since GenCon. In case you missed my previous post on the subject, I had a chance to once again take in one of the largest, best-attended gaming conventions in the world on August 5-7. It was an amazing three days (I had to skip Sunday due to other commitments). My wife and I demoed a bunch of new games, played in two different roleplaying adventures, attended lots of different seminars, and hung out with a lot of great people. Here are the highlights:

1. Although my wife and I attended lots of great seminars put on by the GenCon Writer's Symposium, my two favorite seminars were a fantasy cooking class and one on mental health. In the fantasy cooking class, the presenter took us through an exercise designed to allow you to create a custom cuisine for any setting, based on the climate, the technology, the fauna and flora, and other cultural considerations. In the mental health seminar, we heard from several prominent authors who have struggled with mental illnesses, including best-selling author Patrick Rothfuss. The panel was very transparent about their own struggles and discussed some unique challenges associated with mental illness and the art of writing.
   
2. As I mentioned above, my wife and I played in two different RPG sessions. The first was a Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition Adventure's League session, where we came to the aid of a city besieged by modrons and helped reestablish order in the city. We both played 1st level characters in a party with mostly 3rd and 4th level characters, so we spent far too much time hiding in the back and getting 'one-shotted' by the monsters, but it was still quite fun. The other session we played in was the Planet Mercenary RPG, where we joined a crack team of mercenaries to locate and bag a weapons-dealer who, as it turns out, had put out a major bounty of her own head hoping to fake her own death with a gigantic explosion. We managed to beat the other teams to the punch, ambush the weapons dealer, and collect the bounty without causing massive destruction in the process. Needless to say, that was also very fun.
   
3. I also demoed lots of different games, including Tyrants of the Underdark, Mistborn House War, and Isle of Skye. Tyrants was a cool combination of Risk and Dominion, with some very interesting and thematic elements associated with dark elves. Mistborn was an absolute gem, with all sorts of conniving and bargaining between the players as well as the opportunity to try and totally change the win condition of the game and hose the rest of the players. Isle of Skye is a relatively simple tile-placement game, with lots of replay value thanks to the sheer number of tiles and the changing win conditions. All three are excellent games, and expect me to write fuller reviews of each once I get my hands on them.
   
4. My wife and I also had the opportunity to hangout with Dan Wells and Howard Taylor, two of the four hosts of the Writing Excuses podcast, and we even got to go to dinner later with Dan and talk books, games, pop culture, and all sorts of hilarity. Once these episodes of Writing Excuses goes live, anyone with a discerning ear could easily pick out the sound of my wife laughing during some of the more funny bits. 

There is so much more to write about, so much more that I saw and experienced, but this post is already long enough. It was an amazing experience, and I can't wait to go back next year!

My GenCon Schedule

So I'm writing this Wednesday night, preparing for my trip to GenCon over the next three days, which takes place right here in Indiana, about 45 minutes from my home. In case you somehow don't know, GenCon is "the original, longest-running, best-attended, gaming convention in the world." Last year's attendance was over 65,000, and they are expecting to easily break that number this year. With so much to see and so much to do, you'd best have a plan to prioritize what's most important. So today I thought I would share mine:

1. Most of my scheduled time are classes through the GenCon Writer's Symposium, which is a series of lectures and workshops given by some of the most successful genre artists in the business. This year's guest of honor is Robin Hobb, but many other notable authors will be there as well. I'm signed up for sixteen different classes (although I probably won't attend them all), which cover such diverse topics as short story markets, how magic affects worldbuilding, how to break characters down, and medieval fantasy cuisine.

2. I will also be attending at least two Q&A sessions: one by guest of honor Robin Hobb, the other by Critical Role.

3. My wife and I will be participating in two RPG sessions: one is a Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition Adventure's League session, while the other is playtesting Howard Taylor's Planet Mercenary RPG.

4. I am also planning on playing two specific board games: Tyrants of the Underdark, which I signed up for a guaranteed spot, and Mistborn House War, which I hope to demo in the exhibitor's hall.

5. Finally, my wife and I will also be present for 2 hours worth of Writing Excuses, the podcast about writing put on by Brandson Sanderson, Howard Taylor, Dan Wells, and Mary Robinette Kowal.

And of course, in addition to all of that, I plan to play a bunch of other board games, wander the exhibit hall, gawk at all the cosplayers, and generally have as much fun as possible. Maybe I'll even come home with a new game or two.

If you're reading this and will be at GenCon this weekend, let me know in the comments below. I'd love to meet you!

GenCon 2016 Preregistration

This past weekend preregistration opened for GenCon, which is the largest gaming convention in the world, and is held right here in my own state of Indiana. Although the event itself isn't until the first week of August, tickets for the huge variety of special events and seminars were finally available this past Sunday. And while there's a ton to see and do without having to participate in any of these events, in past years these have definitely been some of the highlights of my experience at this convention.

My wife and I will be spending a great deal of time at the Writer's Symposium, which is nearly a convention within the convention. It is a professional symposium for writers of speculative fiction. This year's Guest of Honor is none other than Robin Hobb, author of the Realms of Elderlings series of books, which are definitely among my favorite fantasy series. Any panel she is speaking on, I plan on attending.

Other events that I signed up for include playtesting Howard Taylor's new Planet Mercenary RPG, participating in the D&D 5th edition Adventure Leagues games, attending the Writing Excuses podcast recording, and getting a chance to play the newly released Tyrants of the Underdark board game.

If you're reading this and are planning on attending GenCon, I'd enjoy the chance to say hello. Let me know in the comments below. I can't wait for August!

Why You Should Play D&D 5th Edition

As I mentioned in my summary of GenCon 2015, I had a blast participating in some D&D Adventure League sessions. In fact, I have been playing in a longterm Dungeon and Dragons 5th edition campaign since the beginning of summer, and I can honestly say it's the most fun I've ever had with a pen and paper roleplaying game. So today I wanted to share with you my top 5 reasons why you should be playing D&D 5th edition.

5. It's the quintessential D&D experience, done in a way that is fast and easy to play for GMs and players alike. One of the clear design goals of this edition was to make the game more streamlined, and it shows. Everything from character creation to combat to skill checks is simplified and moves quickly while still retaining the look and feel that most people associate with the D&D franchise.

4. It's surprisingly compatible with much of the "old school" D&D content. For the first time in its history, you can seek out some of the old first edition modules, swap out the monsters with their 5th edition counterparts, and run them with very little effort at conversion. Given that many people still remember these old adventurers as some of the greatest modules of all time, and that many of them are even available online for free, this is a very nice feature.

3. There's not a ton of content to master. At least to me, D&D 3.5 and its stepchild Pathfinder are absolutely bloated with new rules, new spells, new races, new classes, and what feels like an endless succession of options. For someone just coming back to roleplaying, that amount of content can be overwhelming. But at least thus far, Wizards has been slow to release much in the way of new rules, and those that exist are generally available for free as part of their seasonal Adventure Leagues.

2. Characters are created with distinct backgrounds and archetypes within a particular class, creating diversity even among characters of the same class. With 12 different character classes, all of which come with multiple archetypes, paired with 13 different backgrounds and 9 races, you end up with a lot of variety among different characters. Even better, much of this diversity is more background driven and less about power-leveling.

1. It's a whole lot of fun. Is there any better reason to play anything? This edition of Dungeons and Dragons has proven to be so much fun for me and several others that I've introduced back to the game. And excellent shows like Critical Role only add to the enjoyment I've had with this game.

So what are you waiting for? Order a copy of the Player's Handbook, find a group, and get playing!

GenCon 2015, Part Three

Living local to Indianapolis, I had the opportunity most of last week to travel to GenCon, self-described as "the original, longest-running, best-attended, gaming convention in the world!" Over the course of three days, I played a variety of different tabletop games, attended some writing seminars, and got to participate in several sessions of the Dungeon and Dragons Adventurers League. So all this week, I'll be blogging about my experience at GenCon this year. Today, I'll finish off with some thoughts about all the gaming I did this year.

It should go without saying that if you're going to GenCon, you should probably play some games. So that's what I did this year. I played more than my fair share of board games in the main hall, and even watched other people play games that were so popular that I never could get a seat at the table to play them. But my big discovery this year came at MayFair Games (publisher of the hit game Settlers of Catan), where I learned that they have a deal in place that you can earn different colored ribbons for demoing different games within their section of the exhibit hall, and once you have a set of all five, you can redeem them for a one-time 50% discount off any one game sold at the convention. So I spent Friday afternoon and Saturday morning not only earned my five ribbons, but also helping my wife and friends earn theirs as well.

And with this achievement unlocked, I proceeded to buy what turned out to be the most expensive game in Mayfair's lineup of games - a game that debuted last year called Caverna: The Cave Farmers (which I will be sure to review soon). Caverna retails for nearly $100, so my 50% off discount was quite nice. I also ended up purchasing a fun game called Evolution, which I will also be reviewing soon. As they say, to the victor goes the spoils:

Overall it was a great experience, and one that I can't wait to repeat next year. If you've never been to GenCon, believe me you're missing out. It truly was the best four days in gaming!

GenCon 2015, Part Two

Living local to Indianapolis, I had the opportunity most of last week to travel to GenCon, self-described as "the original, longest-running, best-attended, gaming convention in the world!" Over the course of three days, I played a variety of different tabletop games, attended some writing seminars, and got to participate in several sessions of the Dungeon and Dragons Adventurers League. So all this week, I'll be blogging about my experience at GenCon this year. Today, I want to discuss my experience with the GenCon Writer's Symposium.

For over 20 years, the GenCon Writer's Symposium has offered attendees at this event the opportunity to attend seminars hosted by some of the best speculative fiction authors of our time, favoring practical topics designed to help new and aspiring writers the opportunity to grow and hone their craft. This year, the Symposium offered over 140 hours of programming, with more than 75% offered free of charge with admission to GenCon. They featured more than 70 fantastic authors and experts, including 2015 Author Guest of Honor Terry Brooks, Special Guest Chuck Wendig, Bill Willingham, Kameron Hurley, Patrick Rothfuss, and Cat Rambo.

Unfortunately, one of the luminaries who was not in attendance was Mary Robinette Kowal, who was scheduled to teach a seminar on short story writing which I had paid to attend. She ended up having to cancel her appearance for personal reasons, which was quite disappointing, as that seminar was probably what I was looking forward to the most. But between my wife and I, we attended well over 20 hours of lectures over the course of the weekend, and while the quality varied somewhat, a great deal of the material was absolutely fantastic.

The highlight for me, however, was actually getting to attend the live-recording of one of the best writing podcasts ever called Writing Excuses, which I blogged about several years back after my wife was awarded a scholarship to their first ever Writing Excuses Retreat. While neither Mary nor Brandon Sanderson were in attendance, our live audience had a blast listening and even interacting with Howard Taylor and Dan Wells. It will probably be quite some time before those episodes go live, but once they do, I have no doubt you'll be able to hear my wife laughing at several points in at least two of the episodes. In any case, I'll certainly let you know when those episodes are available.

Next time, I'll talk about my experience playing the amazing variety of games.

GenCon 2015, Part One

Living local to Indianapolis, I had the opportunity most of last week to travel to GenCon, self-described as "the original, longest-running, best-attended, gaming convention in the world!" Over the course of three days, I played a variety of different tabletop games, attended some writing seminars, and got to participate in several sessions of the Dungeon and Dragons Adventurers League. So all this week, I'll be blogging about my experience at GenCon this year. Today, I want to discuss my experience with the D&D Adventurers League.

Participating in the league at GenCon is fairly straightforward. You sign up for whichever sessions you are interested, pay a small fee, and roll up your character according to their guidelines, which are very close to the standard character creation rules for 5th edition. These sessions are actually run for dozens of people at a time, broken down into individual tables run by gamemasters who are paid for their time. They are also restricted to characters within certain level guidelines, and to play a character higher than level one, you need to have completed previous sessions with the wider Adventurers League organized play (although not necessary at GenCon). 

I ended up creating a Human Monk specializing in fire magic (thanks to the Human Variant that lets you take a feat at level one), and for my first session was paired with a party that was the maximum for that particular module. I basically hid in the back and used my marginal ranged abilities, especially when we found ourselves facing off against hook horrors and xorns who were part of an attempt by an elemental cult to retrieve an artifact stolen by a dwarf who we were hired to protect. In the end we defeated all the attackers, allied with the band of dwarves sent to retrieve the artifact, and closed the elemental node that the artifact opened. 

Over the next two sessions, I helped defend a village against marauding beasts, was captured by a group of racist mercenaries, and was conscripted as a gladiator to satisfy the whims of a local city. I actually ended up dead in the arena, thanks to failing my death save four times in a row (which essentially required me to lose a coin flip four times). Even worse, this was my last session of the convention, and after four hours of play, I ended up forfeiting everything I had earned in that session (although at least I did retain my now level three character).

Overall, I had a very positive experience. The organizers did a great job assigning me to a table, the gamemasters were friendly, knowledgeable, and kept the games running smoothly, and on the whole the modules were varied and interesting. Despite the fact that I ended up dead, I had a great time in the process, and I definitely intend to play more at next year's convention. I only wish my schedule allowed me to travel down to some of the game stores in my area to participate in other Adventurers League games, but sadly they only play on evenings that I am otherwise engaged.

Next time, I'll talk about my experience at the writing seminars.

More Game Updates, Part Two

Like I mentioned early last week, between a work trip and GenCon, my content schedule was running way behind. Later this week I'll be posting more about my awesome GenCon experience. But with all that going on, I not only failed to get my Standard Pauper article finished up for today, but also never posted the second half of my post from Thursday about the updates to some of the great indie games I've been playing. But better late than never, as the old saying goes!

Since I first wrote about Lethis Path of Progress, there have been not one but two content patches! This has quickly become my number one choice to play in my scant free time over the past month or so. It's a strange and quirky game, and at times can certainly seem a little rough around the edges (particularly where the translation from French is less than perfect), but the small team of developers have done an excellent job keeping the updates coming. The latest patch brought cheat codes, a long awaited trade system for the sandbox game, a bunch of new decor items, and some small tweaks to the happiness system, which recently made its debut. If you haven't tried this game yet, definitely check out some of the Let's Plays on YouTube to see if it's right for you. Personally, I'm having a blast!

And that's it for today. Now, back to work on my other neglected content...

More Game Updates, Part One

While generally I don't recommend jumping into games while they are in beta or on Steam Early Access, I have had a fairly decent track record with a few such games over the past few months. And one of the best things about participating in such games is that there is often a fairly quick cycle of new updates, breathing new life into the game in a way that rarely happens once it has been released.

In fact, there have been four such major updates to some of my favorite games. Today, I'll take a look at two of them:

1. Offworld Trading Company recently updated to Beta 5, bringing with it a host of new changes. These include new units, new music, some new campaign features, new art assets, and some balancing tweaks to some of the black market activities. While still very much in Early Access, the game is already very playable, and definitely comes highly recommended.

2. Another fantastic indie game is Darkest Dungeon, which recently released their Corpse and Hound update. The focus, not surprisingly, is on the Houndmaster, which is a new hero class, and the presence of monster corpses, that now linger once a foul denizen has been slain, complicating your ability to deal with the remaining foes. This update also includes lots of combat tweaks and balance, some changes to the way that madness and character quirks function, and some smaller changes to some of the other hero classes. With the final release slated for October, this game is quickly nearly completion.

Anyway, I am away at GenCon most of this week, and still trying to finish up Part 2 of my Standard Pauper review of Magic Origins. So that's it for today. See you next time.

My Writing Plans for the Near Future

Last time, I talked about the state of this blog and looked back at my original intentions for starting it. I noted that while my readership has grown beyond my expectations, I have neglected to hone my writing craft over the past year or so. Given how powerful stories are, and given my own undeveloped gifts in the area of writing, today I want to briefly highlight my plans moving forward:

1. One of the highlights of living in the Indianapolis area is how easy it is to attend GenCon every year. This year, I have signed up to take a short story writing class from Mary Robinette Kowal, who has been nominated for multiple Hugos for both her short and long form fiction.

2. Last year, my friend and I worked on short fiction pieces each week, shared them with each other, and critiqued them. Then life got busy, and we more or less drifted away from this endeavor. This week I plan on discussing with him starting this back up again. And even if he is not able or willing, I plan to start writing short pieces each week, if for no other reason than to get back into the practice.

3. I would like to devote at least one blog post every week to the topic of fantasy writing or related topics. While I understand that this is probably the area that the least number of my readers are interested in, having that as a requirement will help me redevelop the disciple of writing. But, don't worry, I've still got lots of Standard Pauper to cover, sprinkled with a dash of gaming and other random musings.

Thanks for indulging me in this introspective look at this blog and my purpose for it. As always, comments are appreciated. In particular, this week I want to personally thank Aaron Brassard for his thoughtful email of encouragement. It's always great to hear from my readers!

Brief Gencon Report

The past four days I have been attending Gen Con, the largest gaming convention in the United States and probably among the largest such events of the year. I am still planning on the second part of post on the Kuldotha Hawk Deck Flashback, but that will have to wait until Tuesday. Today I want to briefly talk about my own experience at the conference and share a photo gallery that captures much of the spirit of the event.

As my regular readers might be aware, my wife and I are both aspiring fantasy authors, so we spent much of the conference attending the Writers Symposium, which is a series of panels and presentations by various successful authors in the speculative fiction market. I also took an entire day to play in a couple different Pathfinder modules through the Pathfinder Society. The rest of my time was spent crawling about the Exhibit Hall, playtesting games, gawking at all the 'geek-tastic' merchandise, and nearly being trampled by the sheer press of numbers that engulfed the hall. My wife and I purchased a couple new games which I will be reviewing in future posts. I did browse through some of the Magic the Gathering booths and tables, but since I have no experience playing in any sanctioned events in person, I never actually picked up a single Magic card the whole weekend.

Overall it was a lot of fun. Gen Con is an event like none other, and the sheer volume of games and resources at your fingertips is mind-boggling. Equally inspiring was sitting among at least several hundred roleplayers all playing the same game (although different modules) at the same time. And, of course, the sheer volume of cosplayers was staggering, ranging from the excellent to the funny to the vulgar. If you enjoy that sort of thing, our local newspaper already posted a fantastic photo gallery that I recommend you check out.

I am also exhausted, feeling under-the-weather, and behind on several projects, having gotten up for the last three mornings well before sunrise and going to bed way past my normal time. My kids haven't seen their parents except for brief snatches over that same span of time. Which means I need to finish off this post and get back to the tatters of the life I have been neglecting for Gen Con. It was a ton of fun, and I'm already looking forward to next year.