Gen Con Day 3
The Wick/Laws DM seminar team-up went smashingly well, I thought. To my amazement, we gathered a larger crowd than yesterday's 4E/WotC equivalent. We roasted each other only slightly and with great mutual admiration as we tackled issues such as avoiding obviously fudged retractions of too-difficult fight sequences, mental prep for the first-time GM, and the good and evil forms of GM fiat. In a heartwarming sequence, we introduced a masked Mexican wrestler (El Santo, if my eyes did not deceive me) to the joys of player narrative control. At least one person was videotaping it, but we failed to track him down. So if you got something netcastable, let John or I know and we'll see what can be done to preserve it for posterity.
Today's shout again goes to a fine item at the Design Matters both, Ribbon Drive, by fellow Canadian Joe McDonald. I always admire efforts to step outside the subculture's genre boundaries, so a road movie RPG is right up my alley. Gorgeously designed by Kevin (Sweet Agatha) Allen and packaged in a DVD case, this game of external and internal exploration easily grabs this year's indie production value prize. Mix CDs are as essential to play as they are to any actual road journey, so the game comes packaged with an audio disc containing tracks from Vancouver BC's indie music scene, including a contribution from Toren Atkinson of Darkest Of the Hillside Thickets fame. If you've ever yearned to run a game of Two-Lane Blacktop, Ribbon Drive is your muscle car.