WHAT HAPPENED
I am writing this on Monday, July 25th, 2023. Sorry for getting it out so late.
The big, bad convention is over and done with, and I made it out alive! God I am so tired. The first day was bigger than I expected, the second saw me sitting on my hands for 4 hours at a time because I didn’t have any players. Saturday was a blur, but it felt kind of like that. I honestly can’t remember. Sunday was short, with just 2 two-hour games. No one was signed up for the first one, so I called one of the organizers to check. When he confirmed that it was empty, I asked if I could just show up for my 2:00 PM game instead, and he said he understood and that it would be okay.
So when I arrived, I was actually a bit better rested, and a girl who played with me twice before showed up for my final hurrah. The first time she was alone. The second game she brought her dad. The third game they brought her mom, too. 😀 I was told that she didn’t like gaming, but I did what I could to show her a good time anyway, and I think she really enjoyed herself. I was asked to drop in to a “How to DM” session at the next table, but it was right on top of my only game of the day, so I missed the majority of it. However, I wandered in just as they were wrapping up and they asked if I had any advice for new DMs. After what looked like a moment’s thought (it wasn’t… I was totally fried and ready to nap), I said that when you’re running a game, you’re putting on a show. Never forget that. They’ve come to see YOU. Give them a show and give it your best. Have fun if you can, but remember what you’re there for. And if your best is to say something like “Okay… uh… I dunno… roll some dice and… meh…”, cancel the game. You know you’re fried before a game ever starts. If you can’t do it, don’t try. Don’t ruin your reputation as a GM and insult your friends with a bad game that never should’ve happened. No game at all is always better than a bad game.”
I think it went well. I was weary.
At some point after this, I was summoned into the grand gaming hall and I wondered what I’d done this time. As it turned out, I’d won an award for the most time donated to the event at 40 hours. The only ones who donated more were the people putting on the show. I got a little trophy and a leather keychain and everything. 😀 I sold the last beta copy of the player’s guide this event, but no new ones.
After the convention wrapped and the money was counted, we brought in over $9,000 for the Craighead County Library, which everyone considered a success. We then headed out to Lost Crust Pizza (against my meager protestations), and scarfed food. Then I came home and positively died. I didn’t get up until 5:00 this afternoon.
EVENT, EVENTS
During the final day of the convention, I was handed a postcard-sized …card… regarding Arkansas Indie Fest down in Magnolia, Arkansas this October 21st. It’s a one-day event and I’m going to look into it and hopefully put it on my calendar. It’s a town about halfway between El Dorado and Texarkana for those who don’t know, and about a 4-hour trip for me. I’m already making plans for hotel reservations, because I am NOT day tripping this.
I also really need to get the calendar section of the website working so you guys know what I’m going to be doing.
BOOKS
I’ve got my proofs in! Unfortunately they’re not right. Most of this was all my fault with bad formatting and alignment and such. However, I am going to get hold of the print shop over an ISBN issue. In short, they didn’t use the one I gave them. I even went to the trouble to put it on the cover myself, along with a compatible bar code. They gave me what they thought I should have. Which is to say it doesn’t match up with the one on the inside of the book. I paid for a bar code and registered it. They gave me some random crap. I’ll be contacting them as soon as my Internet is back up – for some reason I have no connection at the time of this writing, and assume it’s server maintenance or something.
MASS-IV
Yeah, I spelled that right. 😀 This is the character generator I wrote for Chronicles of Ember. Frankly it’s amazing, but it always needs improvement. I get new feature suggestions all the time and I try to incorporate them as time allows. Tonight I hit a major milestone with version 1.27! It now tabulates all the extra skills that come with selected backgrounds and puts those on the sheet – It even formats them correctly! 😀 I’m happy with that. Also, a curious corner-case bug with specified weapons for individual characters wasn’t tabulating right and they weren’t showing up in the character’s skill lists… SOMETIMES. God that was a shitty bug to hunt down, and Dan and I pulled our hair out chasing it. But it’s skooshed!
CONCLUSION
The Internet is great when it works. Salads are okay. You can’t win ’em all. Me want Honey Comb.
I love my job.
-Alan