Mon - May 12, 2008

Starstruck? Moi?


I went to Emerald City ComiCon on Saturday. Not for work, but not exactly for play either. I took my sister-in-law (known henceforth as "Sis," though I never call her that), sort of as a mother's day gift for my mother-in-law, who hates going to these things. It was fun.

Comics are not my particular stripe of geekdom, but I know better than to look down on other geeks. These were close cousins, and I'm fairly sure I saw people at the show that I've also seen at GenCon. In addition to seeing several folks from my office (Bill Slavicsek, Michele Carter, Mike Mearls, Rodney Thompson, Logan Bonner). Oh, and the guy who used to be an assistant manager at the Starbucks where I used to write all the time, up by my old house.

Sis was there largely for the celebrities. First we talked to Gigi Edgley from Farscape, about whom more in a moment. Then we waited in a long line to see Wil Wheaton. We let Bill and Michele join us in line, partly because they brought 4e stuff (Keep on the Shadowfell and the new miniatures starter) to give to Wil. I sort of got lost in the shuffle and quickly dragged away, and didn't meet Wil, though, which I now regret. Not because I was ever a big Star Trek fan, but because I would have liked to have talked to him about playing D&D with our kids. Oh, well, I'm fairly confident there will be other opportunities.

Then we waited in line to get an autograph from the lovely Julie Benz, then another line for an autograph from the studly Jamie Bamber. I watched some Buffy (maybe 5 seasons on VHS) and really do think Julie Benz is lovely, but I didn't even know who Jamie Bamber was. And this was all about Sis, so I let her have her moment with the stars.

Then we waited in line and failed to get food from the glacially slow Subway, grabbed a quick bite from Tully's instead, and rushed Sis off to Wil Wheaton's reading from The Happiest Days of Our Lives. I should have stayed for that, but I had been promised two hours where I didn't have to stick to Sis like glue, so I dropped her off and took off. Chatted briefly with the folks from Penny Arcade and PVP (whom I had met earlier in the week), talked a bit to Brom (who did the cover for Defenders of the Faith), ran into Mearls and his buddy, grabbed my laptop and sat down for a few minutes. Did a little bit of writing while Sis was in Jamie Bamber's panel thing. Got food (at last) from Subway, where the line was much shorter but still glacially slow. Then a bit of last-minute shopping. Talked to Bill Willingham about his days at TSR.

Then we waited around outside the panel rooms waiting for the costume contest to end so that Gigi Edgley could take the stage and perform some songs from her CD. I confess that I went in there with pretty low expectations, but I didn't care, because between our interaction with her in the booth and our brief bit of interaction with her as she walked back and forth past us outside the panel rooms, she deeply impressed me as a nice, warm, friendly person. Despite being hoarse from eight hours in a crowded exhibit hall, ebulliently talking to fans, she lit up the stage and did a fine job soldiering through three songs from the CD. And they were good songs, too!

So I was left wishing I'd had some interaction with Wil Wheaton, with no real impression of Julie or Jamie, but really impressed by Gigi. (Note that I have no opinion of her as an actor, never having seen Farscape or anything else she's been in.) I hope I have the chance to meet her again.

This was probably the first convention I've been to in more than a decade that I just plain attended. Most of the time, I'm sitting behind tables talking to fans and occasionally even signing autographs. In the limited world of the conventions I go to, I'm a celebrity. I just hope I can do as well by my fans as Gigi did by hers this weekend. (Though, granted, I'll never be as cute or as effervescent.)

Posted at 08:44 PM    

Fri - April 18, 2008

Sobering realization


Some people actually read this.

I know what you're thinking: "Duh! I do!"

It just seems strange to me, is all. I keep having this experience where I'm trying to tell a story and the person I'm talking to says, "I know, I read that on your blog."

I can't decide whether that means I should stop blogging or blog more and forget about having actual conversations with people.

Which reminds me of another sobering realization I had recently. Stop me if you've heard this, 'cause I've told this story a couple of times recently. HA HA! You can't stop me!

Anyway, my big revelation recently was that I'm actually an extrovert. I've been saying for 12 years that a big part of why I left ministry was that I was just too introverted for the job. False. Big lie. I'm really an extrovert. Which probably explains why I'm talking about this on the internet, even knowing that some people are actually reading this.

So I was talking at lunch a couple of weeks ago about the Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory, because some folks in the group had just done a leadership training session discussing it and other ways of understanding the different personalities that interact on a team. And we're talking about the important distinction between being sociable, congenial, affable, friendly and all that, on the one hand, and being an extrovert on the other. The key thing being what recharges your batteries—extroverts get energy from being around other people, while introverts might do a great job of putting on a social face for a while but need to retreat and be alone to recharge. And we're talking about how we're all relatively good at the social face—we go to conventions and talk to fans and keep up the energy as long as we can, but then we go back to our hotel rooms and crash and need to be alone before getting up the next day to do it all over again.

It wasn't until a couple of days later that I realized that wasn't true for me. When I'm at conventions, I dread going back to my hotel room and being alone. I'd stay out all night if I didn't have to sleep. I write my novels in Starbucks, for crying out loud, because I feed on the energy of the people crowding the place (and the free-floating caffeine in the air). I need face time. Extrovert.

I left ministry, in large part, because I hate conflict. And when I do feel, even now, that I don't like people and I want to be alone, it's usually because there's some kind of conflict situation I want to avoid.

I can be shy sometimes, and it's not always easy for me to keep conversations going. But the inescapable reality is that I'm a total extrovert. So that pretty well rules out going whole-hog on the blog and giving up on face-to-face interaction.

Speaking of faces, let's talk about Facebook. I joined Facebook because an old friend from Ithaca invited me, and then I had about four friends, all good friends from Ithaca. Then I did the address book thing and found lots more friends, and increasingly, people are finding me. I find it interesting that a lot of the people I'm connected to on Facebook are professional extroverts—people in brand and marketing, for example, for whom networking is a professional requirement as well as something they do naturally in their personal lives. I've never thought of myself as someone like that, but with this new-found realization that I'm actually an extrovert, it begins to make sense that I'm connected to these people.

But now Facebook is a source of guilt for me. I have 26 requests of various kinds that I don't know how to respond to. Some of my friends are really close friends, some are old college friends, some are people that I worked with years ago and knew kind of in passing. (I love you all!) I don't know what to do with Facebook. It's out of control. I'm considering quitting it entirely, rather than feeling guilty about the people I feel I'm slighting in some way by not responding to their invitations.

Speaking of beholders, did you see the one that's in Seattle?

Hey, I call it Random Musings for a reason.

It turns out I do not, in fact, know anyone in Chicago. But I did talk with Joe from ENWorld and Shawn from The Analog Gamer. Lucky Bill Slavicsek, though—he's on G4 TV!

Speaking of Bill Slavicsek, another great session in his game last night. We're a hair away from 5th level (this is Baredd, my paladin who died a few weeks ago) and getting started on Thunderspire Labyrinth. I also had a great time in Mike Mearls's lunchtime game yesterday—a really fun encounter with a trap and some skeletons. (I put a thing on my Gleemax blog about the character I'm playing in Mike's game.) It reminded me of something I told folks when I sat them down to run one of the adventures at D&D Experience in February: "This is still D&D. You can still try anything you can imagine." It's that whole flexibility thing again.

Speaking of flexibility, I need dinner.

Posted at 07:07 PM    

Sat - April 12, 2008

My son the game designer


I've been playing a lot of World of Warcraft with my son the last few months. He's getting really into it—so into it that it's beginning to frustrate him. See, he's my son, and therefore he's got some natural inclination, it seems, to be a game designer. He's always designing new classes, talking about new races, and lately getting frustrated that he can't build the exact character he wants to play. He wanted his rogue to be able to dual-wield engineering wrenches, and gave up playing the character when that turned out to be impractical. Then he decided that what he really wanted to play was a combination of rogue and paladin. "We should play D&D," became my refrain.

Finally he took me up on that, and we sat down on Thursday night to make characters and play some encounters. He had moved on past the rogue-paladin idea and wanted to play something like a shaman in WoW—a totemic, he said. So we designed the class from the ground up, as sort of a cleric-wizard hybrid. I think he might be a bit broken-good, but not too much. Over and over as we played—that night, Friday night, and much of the day today—he kept saying, "I love this game! It's so much better than WoW!" With the key selling point, of course, being the flexibility.

Did I mention the fire archon character I made for him, just by re-flavoring rogue powers into fiery things?

Speaking of selling points, I went to San Francisco last week to talk to some press, including cnet and Maximum PC. Tomorrow, I fly to Chicago to do more of the same. Do I know anyone in Chicago?

Posted at 03:49 PM    

Fri - March 7, 2008

Anyway, back to me...


Fantasybookspot.com posted a review (a "rising 6" out of 10) of Storm Dragon.

Check out the index of videos from D&D Experience. And in particular, hear me talk about the DMG:


I did a few interviews at D&D XP as well, so I'll try to keep an eye out for when they're posted and let y'all know.

Oh, and thanks to the guy at the show who, in reference to the Slashdot thing, pointed me to this crystal-clear explanation (language warning).

Posted at 07:24 AM    

Wed - February 27, 2008

Heading to the District of Calamity


Actually, Arlington, Virginia, for D&D Experience. I get to play a lot of D&D!

As at GenCon last year, I'll have a place on the D&D message boards where I post updates. I'll post that link when I put something there.

Here's the link!

See you there! (Either at D&D XP or on the message boards...)

Posted at 09:20 AM    

Lest my ego grow too large...

Fearlessly dead

I feel better now...

Poo on Slashdot

Dragon Forge cover on Amazon

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