It was 1989 and I was looking for distractions. I had just finished my second year at NYU and I was in a bit of a haze. The first great love affair of my life had ended badly and I was messed up about it. I decided I need to do something different and it had to be fun. It so happened that my roommate in Hayden Hall was from Milwaukee and earlier in ( Read more... )

With GenCon coming up and the deadline past, it was time to pick a winner in the Make My Character contest. Thanks to everyone who participated. The winner is Bryan Smart, who Minotaur barbarian with the vicious executioners axe +5 pushed the right buttons. When will I rage? Later this week, thanks. Congrats to Bryan. I'll contact you privately ( Read more... )

Months ago I agreed to be on a panel at Norwescon called Game Publishing Goes Digital. With the events of last week in the game industry, it was quite timely. I ended up moderating the panel, which included Jeff Combos from Exile Game Studio, Erik Mona from Paizo, Donna Prior from Flying Lab, and David Stansel-Garner from Catalyst Game Labs. I  ( Read more... )

I am a guest at Norwescon this weekend. If you are in the Seattle area, come on down, play some games, and have fun. Here are the panels I'm on. So little has happened recently in the game industry, I don't know what we're going to talk about...

Saturday

I’m not dead yet…..sticking with 3.5                       3:00 PM          Evergreen 2

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This weekend I've been at my third convention this August. Thankfully, the Penny Arcade Expo is in Seattle, so I didn't have to travel to get there. While PAX has some tabletop gaming, it's mostly a video game show. In just  a few years it's gone from humble beginnings to a huge show that may top 40,000 attendees this year. Craziness.

Friday I ( Read more... )

At the ENnie Awards on Friday night Peter Adkison assured the crowed that there would be a GenCon next year. This was a relief to me, as it'll be my 20th in a row and I'd hate to miss it because the con itself was canceled. It sounds like the success of this year's show ensured GenCon will get out of its financial difficulties and that is good news ( Read more... )

Nicole and I got back from Finland this afternoon after 21 hours of traveling. I was a guest of honor at Ropecon, the largest game con in Finland, so we got to spend the past week in the Helsinki area. We had been looking forward to this trip all year and I'm happy to say that it did not disappoint. We had an absolute blast and would go back in a ( Read more... )

I've been slack about updating the ole blog lately because July has been crazy busy. Nicole and I are leaving for Finland on Monday and we have to tie up all loose ends and make sure everything is on track for Gen Con before we go. In the midst of that Nik and I went to the Portland area over the weekend for her high school reunion and various ( Read more... )

I got home from England about 11 pm last night and went to work as usual today. I am totally wiped out but I have to pack again. Tomorrow I work at FLS and then leave for Gen Con ( Read more... )

I'm leaving for the airport in an hour and jetting off to England. I'm the gaming guest of honor at a convention in Cambridge called Recombination. Today I've been trying to take care of dozens of small tasks so I can leave knowing that everything is well in hand. I'm taking a redeye and I got up at 6 am so there'd be a chance of me being tired on ( Read more... )