Back from Gen Con and it was amazing. I’ve been to the show a few times before, mainly as a way to network — which is nearly impossible at the show for people new to the industry — and as part of a company. Now that I have several works published (and was there as a part of a company’s booth staff), network is so much easier.
#RPGaDAY 2017, Day 4: The Game Most Played Last Year
Today’s #RPGaDAY question: which RPG have I played the most this past year? Well, that’s Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. We’ve been playing through the Princes of the Apocalypse campaign setting most weeks, a few hours at a time for over a year now, but the cracks are starting to show in the product (and game system) and, well, I’m just hoping we’ll finish soon and move onto something else.
Before the new edition of D&D came out, I was done with the fantasy genre. I hated the complexity of third edition D&D (and 3.5 and Pathfinder) and fourth edition just wasn’t anything that I would have considered “fun”. The only option I was looking at for fantasy role-playing was the Dragon Age RPG, which seemed to take forever to publish set 3, the upper-level ruleset, but I know that was a significant delay due to licensing approvals. We would have been playing that if the licensor would have approved the game in a more speedy fashion. I am confident in thinking the delays in the approval process was what prompted Green Ronin to develop the IP-stripped Fantasy AGE game. However, 5th Edition came out before Dragon Age‘s last book was released and, unlike the previous iterations of the game, 5e played quickly and was actually good for what it tried to do!
#RPGaDAY 2016, Day 4: Future Convention Plans
In the past #RPGaDAY events, the four days of Gen Con had questions that revolved around game conventions. This year, there aren’t any. So for the next four days, I’ll be covering topics about gaming conventions. The one “official” prompt I’m interested in pursuing from this time frame will show up on the 8th.
Today, in question form: What are your plans for conventions in the future?
While I enjoy Gen Con, I don’t see me attending again unless I’m there as part of a company. It’s grown too large for me to handle. Last year on Day 14, where the topic was “Should I attend Gen Con?”, I wrote a bit about an episode of Ken Hite and Robin Laws’ podcast discussing that convention. The takeaway line from that was Ken saying, “I hate to say it, because Gen Con used to be great one-stop shopping for freelancers… I would find it amazing if a freelancer was able to get two words of quality time, edgewise, with a busy booth owner.â€