Corona's virus - Adventurers Guild Briefing Day 2 - Justice has dirty hands...

Morning Everyone

We’ve had some assistance offered from the Revelations, they’ve offered their entire core of Paladins for the duration of the virus, and our higher ups have taken them at their word.  They’ll be working mostly the poor quarter and ensuring that we get reliable intel without having to risk any of our people roaming in the streets.

And that brings me to the other problem we’re going to have.  They report to this station and they’ll be coming back in at the end of every shift to give us the details of what they have.  You all know that the Revelations have a god given immunity to diseases of all sorts and that includes this one, but if I’ve learned one thing in all my time dealing with people who are immune to something, it’s that they take that immunity for granted, so the chance of them following proper protocol and cleaning themselves up before coming back here is hovering around zero.  Most Paladins I know are dirty buggers at best, too busy dealing with injustice to wonder about the niceties like cleaning up after themselves, they figure they prove their worth with the amount of evil they’ve been wading in.

In summary, they’re immune, we’re not, so when they come in, we’re going to be waiting with the scouring team around the back.  They’re not going to like it, but I’ll be happier if they debrief when we’ve cleaned all the injustice off them.  I’m going to be drawing up a roster for who’s on hose duty each day, and if any of the Paladins get narky about it, you come and get me and I’ll minister to them about it.

In other news, we’ve got a convoy of Samca coming in from the east after Mit Tarmin closed all the bars between here and Desel, I don’t care how many arms they’ve got, they’re the best bartenders in the world and they get the same rights and safety that everyone else does.

That’s it for the morning, insects and injustice for everyone, just remember…

Let’s be careful out there…

Corona's Virus Adventurers Briefing Day 1: Gelatinous Cubes can't be used as Hand Sanitiser

Morning Everyone

We’ve all been having to wash our hands a lot more recently, and the number one item on everyone’s pack list after Iron Rations is now soap.  Of course, we all know there’s been a shortage of soap since the start of the disease, and we know that everyone is doing their best to make do with what they’ve got, and there’s been some reasonably inventive things going on in the adventuring community at large.

However….

We got word this morning of a merchant coming in from out of town with a fresh supply of soap bars, big load, plenty of soap for all concerned, seemed to be too good to be true, so we checked it out.

Turns out that free enterprise runs as far as casting Hold Monster on a gelatinous cube and then carving it up into chunks and wrapping it for selling so no one notices till you’re washing your hands with it…

All those laughing at the back can do one, nothing buggers up your day faster than realising that not only are your face and hands burning, but your soap is making a run for it…

So, take precautions people, any new soap you buy, leave it on the side for a day before you use it, if it’s still there, it’s probably good.  If it’s made a break for it, be cheerful you didn’t end up with a face like mine this morning.  The glass bowl on my desk contains a sample of the cube that we rounded up, don’t get too close, and remember…

Let’s be careful out there…

Daily Adventurers briefings in the time of Corona's Virus...

In the spirit of trying to brighten the day, for the next three weeks, I'm going to be doing a briefing for adventurers every day. What would happen in a fantasy world if an evil mage called Corona had engineered a magical virus that was resisting all attempts to take it down. Every day, I'm going to post the latest briefing from the guild, and if anyone's got any ideas on what would make a good brief for adventurers, get in touch.

Todays briefing: Gelatinous Cubes can't be used as Hand Sanitiser...

To the Memory of an Excellent Man

When you run conventions, you get the sense for those who are like you, who would love to play the games on offer, but know that someone has to be there to make sure it all works, or others can't have any fun.

Most of the volunteers I know fall into this category.

But there are some who literally never get to make it to a convention to enjoy it, and those people have an understanding, a bond between them that it's not about them, but their people.

Vince Kingston was such a man. When we came to run the Yavin open and asked for who people would recommend as Judges, there was no one more highly recommended.

When I met him, I knew that he and I had the same goals in what we did, and we talked often on the nature of what it was that we did, of that service to others that makes our lives better because everyone else being happy makes us happier.

I learned tonight that he passed away quietly at the age of 43, no details yet, but the world is a far poorer place for the loss of him.  We will not forget him or the fairness and calm that he stood for, we will go on making things better to honour our friend and all he did.

So say we all...

You don't notice that you're dying when all you're doing is surviving...

Well, I made the mistake of trying for something better, in a place that wasn't ready for what I was planning.

Nothing wrong with that, but I've done the same thing at this place two times previous, so when I took the new job back in June last year (notice the coinciding of my disappearance with the taking of that job), I told them that if the only thing that had changed in three months was that I was working twelve hours a day, five days a week, then I'd be going back to what I was doing before.

Three months came and gone, and there'd been opposition from people at work who didn't understand what it was we were doing, or how we were doing it, so against better council, I gave them three more months.

Twelve hours a day, five days a week.

You don't notice that you're dying when you're doing your best to survive, it's not how the human brain works, and trying to survive is what I've been doing for more than six months.

Well, that and help run Worldcon, organise Dragonmeet, help with Eastercon, and take up a supporting position for Contingency.

Normal stuff, y'know...?

So I stepped down about a month back, went from 60-90 (that's the ETA in minutes for getting someone out to one of our jobs, not recommended hours to work a week.) down to less than thirty.  Finished off one novel in between writing a grand space opera that's going to end up larger than any of the other books I've written so far, and started to see that there's things I can do that don't involve me giving my health to a job that won't adapt with me.

Things are doing better than they were by an order of magnitude, and so last week, I took Jude to the Blackthorn windmill down in Oxford for valentines.  This is the way the world should be, good times, better people, and work that makes a difference, not just for me, but for all those around me as well.

For those who've inspired me always to do better.

Many people have a spirit animal, something that guides them and protects them in times of need.

I have a Jude...

And now there's a brighter morning, and a better world awaits.

I'll be around more often, promise, and for those wondering when the expo rpg submissions are opening, they're already open...

Games for the Dice Gods...

And here's the thing, I didn't feel that bad when I was working all those hours, I revelled in making the difference every day. Even when I couldn't see what it was doing to me, especially when I couldn't seen what it was doing to me.  We have friends and family for a reason, and when they tell you that things have gone bad, listen to them, there's every possibility that they can see something you can't...

Equally though, when they tell you that something is good, listen to that too, because all too often we can't see the things that are best for us till they've gone sailing past...

Volcon and Longcon

Volcon and Longcon

The announcements for Longcon haven’t gone out this year, and there’s a number of reasons for that, but I keep getting people asking, so I thought to tell people what’s going on with it.

Longcon, for those who don’t know, followed the idea of having a single game that ran across an entire weekend, as things used to when we were all younger and had the time and availability to be able to give up whole weekends just to spend with our friends.

It worked, and at the same time, it didn’t work, but I learned a lot from running it, and in some way, it will continue, but in a different form.

The first Longcon worked well, but was primarily composed of existing groups that wanted to run a longer game with a number of friends and still have the social aspect of a convention where everyone had a few drinks in the evening and just kicked back.  There was one group that decided to hold Longcon at their own house rather than coming to Longcon itself, and I can’t blame them for that, indeed, that for me was always the concern for Longcon.  If you have a group of people who want to play a game together, all you have to do is provide a room, and they can organise themselves.  They may not have recognised that they all wanted to play for the whole weekend, and if by starting Longcon I gave them the inclination, that’s good enough for me.

The problem for Longcon was always in the games being offered.  In a regular convention four hour slot, if you have a bad game session, you run the risk of having four hours lost.  At Longcon, you have a bad game session, and you’ve lost the whole weekend and ended up paying travel and accommodation for yourself for no reward.

Don’t get me wrong, when the games go right, they are the best in the world (Steve Ellis’s epic Dracula Dossier game in year two, Neil Gow’s massive Watch campaign over several years.), but the increasing risk that if the players didn’t know each other, there was more chance of something going wrong, and on the weekend, there would be nothing I could do to prevent that.

And it has been that, that played on my mind, and has been all this year.  It has been that, that prevented me from putting the announcements out.  Because there’s something about me that many don’t know, and in telling everyone, it’ll make a lot of what I do make a lot more sense.

I do conventions so that gamers, board gamers, war gamers, role players, all of us, can have a good time.  I don’t do it for the money, I do it because then there’s a place where other gamers can have a good time without worrying about anyone giving them a hard time, just for being gamers.

If there’s a chance that a convention I run will end in them not having a good time, then I get stressed about it, more than I let on, but this year, it’s been really playing on my mind.  Most of the games that have run at Longcon have done really well, but there have been two that ended in the players not entirely enjoying them.  The “Don’t pay if you didn’t like the game you were in” guarantee has only been taken up once, but still, it concerns me, and I’ve found that despite this being the one convention where I should have had no stress at all, I was looking forwards to it less and less.

Here’s where the change is going to be…

Longcon will continue, I’ll still be offering to run weekend long games and I’ll still accept submissions for day long, weekend long games if anyone wants to play them, but I want this to be something that people can enjoy, no matter what game they play.  I’ve long wanted to give something back to all the people who offer their time to conventions, some place where they can enjoy games with others like them, and know that the convention will run itself, it’s just a place for them all to come together and play games, drink, kick back and have a good time.

This is Volcon…

I’m still renting out the Garrison for the entire weekend of the 6^th and 7^th of July, I’m still offering weekend long and single day games, but more than that, I’m also bringing a stack of board games, and I’m making it open to everyone, with one particular caveat.

If you volunteer at any convention, any convention at all, this weekend is free. There will be no payment asked or taken for this space, this is my way of saying thank you to every person who does things so that others can have a good time.  It’s not sponsored by any other convention, it’s from me to everyone else out there.  If you want to turn up and bring games to play, that’s fine, if you want to turn up and just catch up with everyone without having to wonder about turning up on shift, that’s fine.  If you want to run games across the weekend, tell me what they are and I’ll put them on the website, submission before the end of June if you could please.

If you don’t volunteer at a convention (and there’s no distinction to which convention or in what you volunteer as, GM, volunteer, door troll, ambassador), then you can still book into games at the convention, same price as it always was, £10 for the one day, £20 for both.

And between this Longcon and next year, just volunteer at any convention and it becomes free to you as well, any of the Garrison cons, Airecon, Concrete Cow, Stabcon, any convention at all, so spread the word, this is for those that have already put their time in.  Feel free to share this everywhere.

Any Questions, just ask, if you see a game you want to play in, send me a mail and I’ll put you on the list.

For more details, find us at

https://www.thedodd.com/

Convention Announcements - Dragonmeet

Worldcon, Volcon, Longcon, Dragonmeet

That sounds a little like a John Le Carre novel title, but it’s what’s occupying me right at this moment.  As some of you know, I run a few conventions, I help at a few more…

Well, maybe more than a few…

So, I thought about doing one massive update, but there’s just too many things to go through, so we’re going to start with Dragonmeet, all the others will be following shortly.

First things first, Dragonmeet trade bookings are going live next week, we’ve worked out the trade areas, moved a few things around, and put everything in place to get moving on it.  It’s now over four floors, so we’ve had to do a lot of remodelling to get it all in place. Ground floor for a lot of the trade and the Bring and Buy.  Change from the previous year where the Bring and Buy was upstairs, because the space that we’ve been using for the Bring and Buy has been acceptable, but rapidly becomes nothing but a scrum that blocks access.  We put it at the back of the Trade hall and we can spread it out wide to give people the space they need to get a good look in.

Mezzanine level (that bit in the middle that everyone keeps asking why we’re not using it) will be Press rooms, RPGs in the two north rooms, and seminars in the Bourg suite, which is not only larger and has better acoustics, but also frees up space in the first floor.

First floor will still be demonstrations, Best of Essen, Playtest UK, and the larger games that people have come to love over the years, and with the increased interest from traders, we will be moving some stands upstairs as the demand requires. 

Second floor:  In previous years, we’ve had three rooms at the south end of the first floor that have been dedicated to RPGs, and as the convention grows, I don’t want to be taking away the very thing that for me makes Dragonmeet, Dragonmeet.  We’re allocating two rooms on the Mezzanine for more RPGs, and two more rooms on the second floor so that the entire North Wing is going to be allocated to RPGs.  We considered using all the smaller rooms down the side, but if I’m honest, the several hundred pounds that it would have taken to get all those rooms is better spent on larger rooms rather than adding five more games per slot, especially when we’ll be adding more than fifteen games per slot with the extra rooms.

And on the subject of RPGs

There has been a number of issues in recent years with the scrum of games and the sheer number of people who all sign up for them at the same time, so we’re instigating prebooking for games across the weekend.  I know that’s a controversial move because it means that a lot of games over the weekend will already be signed up before people arrive on the day, but if I’ve learned one thing about conventions, it’s that you can’t please everyone.  This way we won’t have a crush on the day, and if people want to be prepared for the business of the convention, they can do that well in advance.

Trade bookings go live next week, and games will be accepted from the end of next week.

Next is Longcon, which hasn’t seen much movement this year, and there’s a good reason for that, although not the one that many might be considering

On inappropriate content in games and where we as a community need to be going next...

So, my week has been completely mullered by the events that took place over Expo this year, we normally get some problems over Expo, some you can deal with easily, some are the sort of thing that you hope to only ever have to deal with once.  This is my personal thoughts (I do not speak for Expo in this) and resolutions from what happened.  Just for the record, I’d like to say that there hasn’t been a single waking hour that I’ve had in the last five days where something about this hasn’t come up, so I’m putting this out in the hope that it will stop some of the questions

On Friday evening, I was advised by a good friend (Thanks Anthony) that there had been a situation in one of the afternoon games whereby a GM went completely off the reservation and subjected the entire groups characters to gang rape and other things that shall not be mentioned.  In the seconds following reading the advisory, my immediate thoughts were both that I know the gm in question, and that it couldn’t have been true.

My investigation was swift and through, as I have always promised it would be, the GM in question did not dispute the charges and was summarily removed from the Expo so that no more harm could be done.  In the two days that followed, I spoke to all but one of the people who played in that game, and the general consensus was that they were all having an excellent time, when about two and a half hours in (the game finished at three hours), the GM made a shift in tone that none of them (or anyone who ever knew that GM) could have predicted, resulting in the horrible situation that all of them found themselves in.

I have to give every credit to the Expo Directors and the support team that we have in place to deal with anything like this, I was allowed to investigate and report back my findings and recommendations, and then they make the decision based on that and their own investigations.  The GM in question was removed from the Expo roster, the game he was running at the time was halted, all future games were pulled, and he was expelled from Expo.  Given that I am also RPG manager for Airecon, Dragonmeet, and Longcon, he will also be pulled from those conventions for the foreseeable future, a question many have been asking.

What I need to address, in the aftermath of what happened and the resultant hysteria, is the truth of what happened, and what we as a community need to be doing, going forwards.

And we do need to go forwards.

I’ll start by saying that I have known this GM for more than a decade, he’s now been identified by someone who was seeking to use these events for their own publicity, whose name I won’t give out because it will give him the publicity he wants. Prior to that, the GM wasn’t named by Expo and he wasn’t going to be.  He always turns up to events on time, always runs his games, and until now, has never (at any event I’ve been running) had a complaint levelled at him or his style of gaming.  He’s worked for almost every games company out there, he’s done demo’s at nearly every shop out there, and he’s absolutely worked at every convention at one time or another, and up until now, never an issue.

Which is why it was such a shock.

I’ve been hearing a lot in the last few days about #Notinmygame and #Notatthiscon, and it’s missing the whole point of what happened here.  Someone who had a previously spotless record went completely off the board and betrayed the trust of everyone who’d ever known him, this behaviour was so far out of context that many refused to believe it was him. When we confirmed that it was him, we dealt with it immediately and without any consideration to the years of service that he’d put in for the roleplaying community.

Because when you do something like this, you have to be taken to task, the world has to see that we do not tolerate this sort of behaviour, not from a newbie running a first game, not from a person who’s put in decades of service, no one gets a free pass.  We have a duty to our players and to our community, and that cannot ever be forsaken.

But here’s the other thing, because social media is a wildfire, and I’ve seen so much unsubstantiated nonsense in the last few days that it beggars belief, so here’s the truth of it.

The reason why the Room Captain didn’t step in on the game when it went sideways is because the GM in question was the Room Captain, he’d earned that position with years of good work and trust.

The scenario as listed did not include anything about Gang Rape, and given that the setting deals with teenagers, would have been rejected had anything of a sexual nature been suggested by the scenario listings.  There are those who say that BBFC age rating guidelines should be used to assess the nature and content of games, and to those I would say that while it’s fine as a general guideline, there’s a massive difference between the content of Stir Crazy (Rated R) and Hostel (Rated R), and in this particular case, the description was deliberately vague.  This is not uncommon in game submissions, but going forwards, the description will have to match the scenario to try and head this sort of thing off.  As anyone who’s ever organised a convention will be able to tell the world, that will add a massive amount of work to the preparation of a good games schedule and even then, isn’t a guarantee that someone won’t go off the board.

The system and setting used for the game bear no responsibility for the scenario that was run using them.  There have been a number of people saying that certain game settings should be censored so that things like this can’t happen.  Roleplaying games occur in the boundless world of human imagination, anything can be done with any setting, Rule 34 really does exist, it’s not the setting that makes the scenario, it’s the person running the scenario.  If it wasn’t, Call of Cthulhu could never be run at a convention.

The reason it took Expo as long as it did to make a resolution on the situation was because the problem was reported over social media and not to Expo directly.  Nothing was reported to the Expo front desk, the Hilton Manager, or any of the roving staff.  There was an email sent to me directly, but that was sent more than half an hour after I’d been made aware of the situation and by then, I was already investigating. 

And that brings us to where we are now, a community still in shock about what’s been done, some people trying to profiteer off the controversy, and everyone looking around to see what we need to do next. 

What we need to do is act in a rational manner.

We need to vet games more carefully, the descriptions can’t be what they have been previously.

We need to ensure that everyone is familiar with what to do if there’s a problem (several cons I know already do this).

We need for people to know that we don’t stand for this, and I think that Expo’s response has gone a long way to letting people know that, but it needs to be everywhere.

What we don’t need is people spreading wild rumour and supposition, consider that I’ve had more than twenty people contact me, both at the show and afterwards, saying that they’d splashed the name of the GM out there, so as to make sure that they could never do it again…

Twelve of those people had the wrong name…

Now if you’re talking about someone cheating at a board game and getting caught, or storming off from a game because they didn’t like the ruling against them, that carries little weight in the non-gaming world.  An accusation like this one can have real and serious impact on that persons life, particularly when they aren’t the one that did it.

We need facts before we act on them…

The initial complaint wasn’t put in to the Expo team, it found its way to us half an hour later, after several people had pointed out that getting me involved in something like this was probably going to be a good idea.  I’m glad that someone pointed it out to me, because I’m not normally on twitter (and after this week, I’m turning it off again), so I didn’t see what had happened, and most of the Expo team work the whole weekend, so we don’t get chance to look for things like this. 

People need to let us know that a problem has occurred…

Please, if there’s a team at the convention, you take it to them, they’re the people most likely to know what to do in the situation and they’re absolutely the best people to talk to about it, because not a one of us does this for the pay, we do this because we want other gamers to have a great time, and when someone pulls something like this, it puts into jeopardy all the works that we’ve done before.  In my particular case, I offered my resignation when this came out because it happened on my watch.  Everyone in the world has told me that there was nothing I could have done with this, no way I could have seen, but it still happened on my watch and I feel responsible for it.

We are all responsible, these are our shows, our people, we are all responsible…

We do not stand for behaviour like this, and I’m glad it made the national news, because anyone looking can see that not only did it happen, but that it was stamped on hard and that the community does not stand for it.  A short while back, I did an interview with ENworld, the content of which can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMKilVWLdtQ with my comments on Harrassment policies being found around the 1:13 mark.  This was how things were back then, they are still my comments now, we did what I said we would, and we did it fast.

And that’s it for now, if anyone’s got any questions, please let me know, but if I don’t respond immediately, forgive me that, it’s been a very long week and there’s been a lot of questions.

So tonight I got to see an X rated film

This comes as a bit of a revelation to me, particularly as I've seen this film hundreds of times before, from the original cut, to the directors, to the extended directors with added commentary, to the outtakes, to everything else.

However, I have never seen the film I saw tonight

Those who know the film, know the film, so I'm not reviewing the content of the film, I'm reviewing the experience of going to see the original 70mm print of the film, not remastered, not digitally enhanced, kept in a locked box for 40 years and brought out to view tonight.

Literally...

Every time a new edition comes out, you look for what's new in the version, the added bits, the extras, the new scenes.  What's the one thing you don't ask?

What they took out...

And it turns out, the 70mm edition has a lot of things in it that every version I've ever seen doesn't have, from little side clips of the actors moving about, to reframed shots that you've never seen from that angle, to sounds that you've never heard before.

Because it's being shown with 6 track magnetic sound, exactly as it was 40 years ago.

So me, Mark, and my excellent friends Cory and Joel went to see a film that we've all seen loads of times, and came away with wonder that there was a whole film that we'd never even thought about.

If you get the chance, go see this in 70mm, it's worth it just for the atmosphere.

One thing though, just after the iconic moment of the film, watching the actors all stood there, knowing what we know now, knowing the rotten trick that was pulled on them, there was a moment of silence...

And a ripple of laughter ran around the theatre...

Pretty sure that didn't happen 40 years ago...

Dragonmeet changes for this year

Sometimes the hardest thing about conventions is in the organising of the following year, I recently did a podcast on the building and running of conventions.  The main thing about conventions is to tell people what they can expect at the next convention, what you've improved, and what you're looking at doing to make it better.

Today is Dragonmeet's turn

Last year at Dragonmeet was the largest Dragonmeet ever, and with it, we found that we needed more space again, and so the last three months have been spent negotiating with the Novotel.

Did I say Negotiating...?

The words used may need to be a little stronger than that.

Here's a swift lesson about hotels and convention centres, they don't care about your convention or you, they're strictly in it for the money, and that's how it should be.  This means that you're never going to get a freebie unless it's year one and they're trying to get you in the door so you'll pay them.  It also means that if you want something from them, you have to give them something in return, or be able to point out that they can make something from you.

In our case, thanks to everyone at the convention last year, we could point out that even with slow tills and bad service, they still sold out of food and drink by mid to late afternoon, and that, by itself, is reason enough to want us back. It's also reason enough to get more food and drink in, and to put more tills and better service in, all of which we have agreement on.  What we're now working on is getting the prices to somewhere near reasonable, which is forever a problem with hotels, just ask anyone who's been to the Hilton at Expo.

In terms of extra space, we've got the entire of the mezzanine this year, we've also got the big rooms on the top floor, because the boardrooms were only any good for single games, and when it becomes the equivalent of paying another three hundred quid per extra game you can host, it becomes counter productive.  This means we've got enough space to move more than the entire gaming roster into the rooms on the upper floor and the mezzanine, which frees up more space for open gaming and demonstration games, together with tournaments and a number of other things that we're still finalising.  Don't want to tease, but at the same time, I really don't want to get everyone all excited and then have to let you down, so more on that in months to come.

But one thing I mentioned in the podcast was that we listen, and we're still listening, so I want to know what people want to see at Dragonmeet going forwards.  We've held Larps before, and they did fairly well, so I'm looking to put those on again in the future.  We've had a Podcastzone, and it worked better last year than the year before, so they're coming back.  We've had seminars forever, but the question there is if we need the same seminars, different ones, or just more of either.

We listened about the advance bookings for games, and we have something that's going to help there. We listened about bring and buy times, and as soon as we've negotiated, we should have something that will make it better there as well.

Bookings for traders are going to be going soon, and bookings for games being offered on the day are going to be opened at the same time.  What I'm hoping to do is have a clear list of games and traders on the day, some time before the convention opens, so in a change from previous years, I'm not leaving the bookings open till last minute.  When they close, it's a hard close, no more changes. Harsh, but it'll save us the problems that we've had every year prior with last minute alterations.

All that aside, very excited to show everyone what we're bringing to the Novotel this year, and we've been in discussion with Olympia, so when we outgrow Novotel, Dragonmeet will still have a home in London to go to.

But get those suggestions in, we can't make it the best convention without knowing what everyone wants to see there.

And if anyone wants to know my thoughts on conventions, they're to be found here.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?6134-Podcast-39-Secrets-of-Running-a-Convention-with-John-Dodd

Convention round up and support requests

So I've been away a while again, last year was not good, and I mean that in a way where not good isn't an exaggeration, but I'm working on it.

Today sees three announcements for conventions, the first for Tabletop Scotland, the second for Longcon, and the third for Concrete Cow.  Taking on the directors reins at Dragonmeet ate more of my time than I had hoped it might, and this has had a knock on effect with other conventions that I run.

Tabletop Scotland is looking for new GMs to run games at their convention, it runs in Perth, between the 24th and 25th of August 2019.  They already have a strong D&D Adventurers league set of offerings, so what they're after is more in other systems than D&D.  Rewards for the convention include a GM T shirt and free entry for running a single game, with free entry for the whole con and a GM T shirt for running more than one game.  All enquiries or offers for games should be sent to david @ tabletop scotland .co .uk (no spaces for those wondering)

Longcon, the all weekend single game convention, is now open for submissions.  Running 6th and 7th of July at the Garrison in Sheffield, games can either run for one day or both days, but Longcon doesn't take normal four hour slots. The website is www.thedodd.com, please get in touch with me if you're wanting to offer a game.  Bookings for Longcon will be going live in May.

Finally, Concrete Cow is running all day tomorrow down in Milton Keynes.  An RPG heavy convention with a small trade hall and an excellent atmosphere, details can be found at https://www.mk-rpg.org.uk/Concrete_Cow

I'm going to be keeping up with convention news going forwards, whole bunch of new things coming up.

Let me know if there's any questions.

A Writer, Reading - Review of The Space between the Stars

When you write, you have to read.

That's what everyone says, but a lot of writers I know don't read all that much, they settle for watching the latest TV series or skimming over the top of the latest best sellers.  The truth is, you have to read, and read thoroughly, because every once in a while, you come across a book that makes a difference in how you look at your own writing.

The Space between the Stars is such a book.

The human race is over and no one won.  A killer virus came along that wiped out everyone except a very scant few, amounting to around Nought point nought nought nought one percent of the population.  The virus mutates with every single victim, so even if you escaped it when you caught it the first time, stay around the virus long enough and it'll get you the second or third time.  The virus leaves nothing behind, breaking down the structure of the body till only dust remains.

The idea that there's nothing left behind is central to the story, what remains when there's nothing to look for, no bodies left behind, nothing at all?  It begins with Jamie Allenby, a vet on a backwater world, waking to find that she's survived, and that her troubles are only just beginning.  She sets out in search of Daniel, the man she had shared life and death with, who she'd left behind, and the forlorn hope that he might be one of the Nought point nought nought nought one who survived like her, as if love could be a defence against such a plague.

There are, of course, others that have survived the plague, and each tries to make sense of the new world in their own way.  Civilisation is still there, all the good and bad parts of it, and mention of a class system still being in place resonated to my English sensibilities.  But what made this book for me is the character of Jamie, a straight talking woman with all the complexities of a real person, who finds that not every she'd hoped for was in fact all she wanted.  The places they go are only touched upon, but the characters shine in every scene and I wanted them to succeed, to learn what they really want and then to get it.

That, and I didn't see the twist at the end, and I love it when any story catches me like that.

From a writers point of view, what I got most from this was that characters can hold a story far more than a scene, and that if you write your characters with their own intents and purposes, they become so much more alive.

Recommended, really good book, I'm looking forwards to seeing what comes next from Anne Corlett

Alright, so what happened?

Because with the exception of a few posts in February, I've pretty much dropped off the planet with regards to social media presence.  Well, there is a simple explanation.

Mum died.

Five years of beating cancer and it coming back, and then beating it again, only for it to come back again, and in the end, not beating it.  I don't think I've fully processed what it meant to lose mum, I haven't taken any time away from work except for the funeral, and I've continued working at full pace on everything, including taking on a whole bunch of new responsibilities for conventions that aren't anything to do with games.

There's a part of me that thinks that I should have taken some time to stop and howl at the sky at the unfairness of everything, but there's a part greater than that, that says that what I should be doing is working harder to prove that all the effort Mum put in wasn't wasted on me.

I'm not sure, but I'm thinking the hard work option is where it's at, life isn't fair, and Mum never got to see the things I've been most proud of (Expo, Quest, Dragonmeet), and without Mum, it's unlikely Dad will ever come down to see them. But I'm going to continue, because this was when mum was most happy, when I came home from doing something epic, not depressed at what I have to do to pay the bills, but when I came from something I wanted to do, something I put my heart into, and won.

So I'm onwards, still here, still working.

and hopefully I'll be around a bit more...

Quest Kickstarter now live

What if an army from another world attacked a planet where magic not only existed, but was central to their way of life...?  Where the invaders were met not with Ironclads and Maxim guns but Lightning Bolts and Magical Weapons.

Quest is a fantasy roleplaying game where the characters are survivors of a war that lasted for centuries, only to find that others, watching from beyond their world, have been waiting for the war to finish, so they could finish off a weakened and demoralised people.  But those who were left were not the ragged remnants of once proud civilisations, they were the chosen of Alenis, Goddess of the Viahem, and they would not yield their hard won lands to the invaders.


https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1395218924/adventure-on-the-edge-of-extinction-in-a-war-betwe


Just made it live, thanks to everyone who helped get me here

New Kickstarter coming soon

And this time, it's mine...

Last minute prep underway, if anyone watching wants to take a look at this

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1395218924/1852333784?ref=5z0odg&token=21a98b8f

and let me know if there's anything that might be done to improve things, it would be appreciated.

Modern Calligraphy Book Review

I don't do Calligraphy for the most part, always considered it to be too extravagant for the amount that I write.  That said, I do enjoy the act of writing, taking the time to put the words on the page neatly and well spaced, is always a calming activity to be engaged in.  With this in mind, I agreed to take a look at the latest book on how to do Calligraphy, and see if things have changed from when I started writing so many years ago.

This is Modern Calligraphy by Lucy Edmonds

The first thing to note is that it's a practical book, both in the instructions given, and the nature of the book as presented.  It doesn't just tell you to hold the pen a certain way, it shows you the correct way of doing it.  Whilst some will argue about the proper way to hold an oblique nib versus a straight nib, for those beginning on the journey, it's good to have the pointers laid out clearly for you to start with.

The second thing is that the book is designed to be used for the exercises that it asks you to complete, here are lots of spare pages and practise areas to work with.  This might not seem a bad thing, but there are some who might be concerned that of the 168 pages in the book, 45 of them are blank, 80 are examples of how the Calligraphy should look, and the remaining 43 actually contain instructions on how to make that Calligraphy happen.

As an example, a page of what to do, then four pages to practise

In a lot of ways, I'd have preferred a more concise book that had nothing but instructions in it, leaving me to use my own paper to practise on, rather than writing in the book itself.  The paper the book is printed on is good quality, but it doesn't react like the normal paper I write on, so the exercises were usually repeated on my paper of choice after doing them in the book.

How it should be, how a pro does it, how an amateur does it.

The instructions on how to hold the pen and how to place the nib were mostly superflous (Take pen, take nib, insert thus), but the instructions on technique and the understanding of how you use a dip pen, over how you would normally write, were excellent, and a real revelation to someone who'd never really given it much thought.

Advanced techniques

The book covered basic and more advanced techniques, not enough to give you mastery of the art, but easily enough to start you down the path.

Which may be something I spend far more time with...

In all, it's an interesting book, retails for around £12.99 and contains more than enough to get you started on the practise of Calligraphy.  I do think that there's a lot of padding in the way its been presented, and that a single page of practise paper would have been enough rather than four sides of blank in every instruction, but I understand that charging thirteen quid means that you would probably be expecting more than a forty page book.

Either way, it's well presented and easy to follow, I'd recommend it as a beginners guide.

As always, I didn't pay for the book, and nor did I receive any incentive for my opinion.

Cleo Skribent Classic Review

I'm not much for pens above a certain value, worked in too many places where they go missing, get broken, or generally just aren't safe to take there.  With this in mind, when I review pens above a certain value, I have several criteria to consider when I'm making my judgement on them.

Does it stack up against the cheaper pens I use?
Does it offer anything that those pens don't?
I'm from Yorkshire, is it worth the money they're asking for it...?

It's the last one that's usually a sticking point...

This is the Cleo Skribent Classic.

In advance, as always, I didn't pay for the pen, I'm just reviewing it, no incentives have been received in return for my opinion.  The Classic retails in the £70-£110 range depending on where you shop and the nib combination that you choose to go with it.  Now, to put that in perspective, my every day carry contains a Pilot MR with a custom Nib, a TWSBI 580, and a Kaweco sport, the cost of all three of which would be about the same.

It's a screw cap, resin for the threads, but there's no sticking to it, unlike other pens with a similar screwset that I've tried.  It's not heavy, but it's well constructed, the parts fit together seamlessly, and the finish is superb.

I chose to review the fine steel nib, which is a very rigid nib, almost no give in it at all, which is something that I tend towards when picking out things to write with. 

The version I tested came with a convertor, but they have both piston filling options and regular cartridge options to work to the individual taste.  In writing with it, it's comfortable, it's comparable in weight and feel to the Pilot MR, but the feel of it is closer to the TWSBI.  The nib is absolutely rigid, which allows for very easy writing, even when you're working as small as I do.  In the interests of seeing how well it works for others, my lovely wife was kind enough to do a little writing as well.

It's a comfortable pen that works well, the flow on it is excellent, it starts up without having to prime it, and the flow is fast enough for larger writing whilst not blobbing when working slower.  It's not ergonomically designed, but it feels agile in the hand, one of those pens that you find yourself turning over in your hand while you're waiting for the next works to materialise.

Overall:

It easily stacks up against the cheaper pens I use.
It is more robustly constructed than the cheaper pens, and the nib is a work of art.
Is it worth the money they're asking...?

Now here's the thing, it is a lovely pen, but it's not cheap, and while I've enjoyed writing with it immensely, the price point is a little high for my tastes.  At the lower end, I'd certainly consider it (I just might not take it anywhere...), at the higher end, it might be too much expenditure.

But it'd be a very long thought before I could decide against it...

Manchester Stationery Show - Thoughts

So last week I went to the Inaugural Manchester Stationery Show, the northern counterpart to the London Stationery Show that was put in place a few years ago.  I volunteered to go along as part of United Inkdom to see if there was anything of interest.  It was being held at the Victoria Quays in Manchester, so if nothing else, the building was going to be interesting.

First Impressions?

Dark...

Not Mood Lighting

Very Dark

But at least you can see where the demo stalls are

There were a reasonable number of stands there, many of them from the larger manufacturers rather than small independents, and given that it's a new show, that's understandable.  I went around the stalls in no particular order, caught up with Penny from Manuscript and had a good long conversation about how the show had been going.

Quiet...

Very Quiet...

Now the thing here is that all those present said similar, but there wasn't a sense of despair about it, everyone got the notion that it's a new beginning, so they weren't expecting it to be loaded to the gunwales with people.  A few more wouldn't have gone amiss, but there was enough to recommend the idea of coming back the following year.

There wasn't much for the casual buyer, the show is mostly geared towards those in the trade, and I'll come to that in a moment.  What I did find is that those exhibiting had very different perspectives, from the independant shops

This is with the Camera flash on...

Lucy Hart (www.stationery-geek.co.uk) produces a variety of her own artworks and adds them to notebooks, postcards, and the like.  A small operation, but with intentions on increasing her customer base, she was more looking to expand the interest in her range, but hadn't found many contacts that could help with that.

Still with the Flash on, range of less than two metres

Zebra was the next stand, and it was apparent from those present that they were only interested in increasing market share.  Nothing wrong with that from a business point of view, but as I'll come to in a moment.  They were only interested in things that would move a hundred thousand units at a time, they weren't interested in looking at the japanese markets or the less immediately marketable things, and they had no interest in the community beyond selling mass volume. Worse, they didn't know their whole range, and had no idea if there were other products in the pipeline.  It might have been because it's a small show and they weren't expecting much from those attending, but it didn't make a good impression.

 

But bring your own lights, and it looks like this

Lime Stationery and Art were next, www.limestationery.co.uk, and I spent a while talking to Michael Owen, one of their team, about how he saw the future of pens and stationery.  While it was obvious that he needed to make a profit on things, he was stocking the entire range of writing implements, from individual pencils to £1000 fountain pens.  His interest was more in seeing how to keep what is essentially a dying industry from going under.

I know that it's heresy to discuss the nature of handwriting being a dying art, but lets address it momentarily.  There aren't the classes for it anymore, and the focus on how we teach children is in how to make it using computers, rather than learning how to write properly.  Michael's thought was that if you give people the joy of writing at an early age, they may carry it forwards, bring their creativity up, and that in turn will keep them around till they consider buying other pens, different papers, and all the things that keep the industry alive.

Polaroid, and as bright as you might expect

On to Polaroid, and the idea of three dimensional drawing, which was fascinating, but took a degree of artistry (and money) that I don't possess.  Loved the idea of being able to draw in three dimensions, but when you consider that the bus in the picture above would have cost the best part of £30 just in materials (if you were sparing with the pen), it's an idea too rich for me.

Draw, or build with your pens...

That brings me to Magnetips, a new series of coloured fibretips that have the additional use of being magnetic, allowing you to make sculptures of the pens.  Full review of the product to follow, but I spoke to Noam Yohai, the man behind the product, and this is just the first of many different things that he's intending on putting out there.

You cna even hang the pens up when you're done.

It's an interesting idea, and well presented, I'm not sure it has any place in the every day market, but Zebra are already there for that, so I suspect he's positioned well for those who can appreciate the pens.

Be proud that you're getting people to write.

And that brings me on to Stabilo, and the most enthusiastic of the larger resellers present.  Where Zebra were only interested if you were wanting an order for a Hundred thousand, the Stabilo team were happily talking about the programs they're running to get kids writing in schools, how they're trying to keep the prices of the handwriting pens down, how they're supplying free equipment for schools, and most of all, how they want to get others into writing.

Might well have been a spiel, but it didn't feel like one, and when you've got people on your stall that are clearly passionate about writing, that are cheerful that they're doing things to get kids to write, and know their products inside and out, it's going to leave a good impression.

My second to last meeting was with Penny Parkin from Manuscript, an excellent and lively debate on the way the world of pens is, we ended up swapping stories of inks and pens, and we'll be in touch with her in the new year to see all the new things they're planning going forwards.

Aside from the traders and storefronts that I spoke with at the show, there was an interesting encounter with Christina Strange, a Graphologist who had volunteered her time offering free examinations of peoples handwriting.  She'll be going along to the next shows, and I'd strongly recommend getting an appointment with her while she's there, fascinating to see how your handwriting matches up to your personality (certainly was for me), and excellent to see that there's a correlation to how we choose to write and who were are.  Those who are interested can find her at www.christina-strang.com

My final meeting of the show was with the organisers of the show. As most know, I do organise a number of conventions and across a variety of disciplines, so found myself discussing what was good about the show (range of different stands and activities) and bad (lighting mostly...), with a view to how things could be improved.  The thing that struck me was that most of the stands didn't have a demonstration section where people could check out the wares first hand, and as most of writing is understanding what you like and wanting more of it, having a place to test the merchandise before deciding to buy it might well be a golden opportunity.  We talked about the layout of the show, the possibility of opening it to more traders who would be interested in engaging with the general public rather than keeping it primarily trade with nothing to engage with the people on the ground, and I've arranged to catch up with them in the new year to see if there's anything we can do to improve things all around.

It's been a good first show, little more light wouldn't have gone amiss, but the interest is there, not to the same level as London, but that was to be expected.  The next show is the same time next year, and I'll be going along to it.