[Critias]

Howdy!
All-Con -- http://www.all-con.org/ -- is a (relatively) young, relatively small, convention for all the DFW geeks and freaks to get together, hang out, browse a vendor hall, and enjoy sci-fi, comics, and anime, a costume contest, a few celebrity guests, and some of the local roller derby chicks.  A good friend of mine is also one of the founders and administrators, and Lance has been buggin' me for the last couple years to try and get some gaming going on.

In that spirit, and to celebrate living in Texas (instead of making the trip from Kentucky every year), I'm going to test the waters by hosting a small panel.  I managed to talk fellow freelancer and Texan Patrick Goodman to swing by and hang out for the weekend, too!  So that's two writers for the price of one, just chatting for a couple hours about how we got into freelancing, what the job is like, what various companies have been like (we've both worked for several different ones), and all that good stuff.

We'll be giving a pair of hour long panel presentations, and while there's nothing official planned yet, my magic eight ball tells me the odds are pretty darned good that one or both of us could pretty easily be talked into running a game or two, while we're at it. 

[Patrick Goodman]

You might be talked into running something...I just wanna play, dammit!

[Bull]

Critias DID just finish writing one of the CMP adventures, so...  Maybe he'll want to run his game at the con?

[Critias]

Critias DID just finish writing one of the CMP adventures, so...  Maybe he'll want to run his game at the con?

That's a plan so crazy it just might work!

[Critias]

Just a heads up/reminder for anyone that's in the general area -- All-Con is just a couple weeks away!

[nimrod_funk]

Are you officially running games out there. I might come out and play if there's some Shadowrun games going on?

-BG

[Critias]

I'm going to run at least one session, yeah.  I don't have a time or anything for it, though, because All-Con just isn't really a gaming con (yet) -- so it's gonna just happen when it happens, likely right after Patrick and I wrap up a seminar or something. 

For what it's worth, I can tell you that the adventure I'm likely to run would be, hypothetically, the same adventure I'm likely to run at Texicon.  Just a friendly head's up, if it'll save you a trip or something. 

[Critias]

Patrick Goodman and I are giving our seminar on freelancing at 10am and 4pm, and assuming I can scrape together a couple interested players (Patrick included, most likely) I'll try to find us a table or quiet room somewhere that I can steal to run a game or two with some pre-gens.

[nimrod_funk]

Blast. I've got a fail over test I've got to be available for on Saturday. I may make it out there I'm not 100% sure. If I don't make it out there I'll have to grab a beer with yeah at Texicon. Normally I could parlay this to the other DBA but he'll be 20,000 feet in the air heading the the far east to visit family.

I wonder if someone could find the original writer for the Dallas Fort Worth section (1990) in the Neo Anarchists Guide to North America. I use to hang with the author from time to time Richard Molpus but lost track of him after highschool and college. Here's his google profile: https://profiles.google.com/rgmolpus#rgmolpus/about I think he wrote an article in Challenge 66 if I remember correctly.

[Critias]

I'll have to see you at Texicon, then, for sure.

On the bright side, you're not missing out on any other games or anything.  All-Con is very much not a gaming convention, just yet.  It's more like a miniature (VERY miniature) Dragon*Con, in that it's focused on costuming, a few celebrity guests, sci-fi, anime, the 501st Star Wars costuming group, all that general geek stuff that doesn't involve dice. 

This is kind of an initial "dipping our toes into the water" to see how many AllCon goers will be potentially interested in more gaming stuff in the future.  With Texicon so close (geographically AND chronologically), I'm not sure how much it'll catch on...but if nothing else Patrick and I are getting free badges in exchange for standing around and talking about ourselves and our freelancing hobby for an hour.  That's not a bad deal, I figure. 

[Critias]

Patrick's somewhere on the road between Cleburne and home, I'm up from a nap to try and recovery a bit, and a good time was had by all.  My throat was shot after two seminars, a weekend of chatting, and running a game over the background noise of a hallway (since it wasn't an official game, we didn't have a room) -- everyone had a blast! 

I include, especially, the first-timer that drove her Land Rover 2068 through the front wall of a Humanis Policlub chapter house "to ambush them," and who later had the smartlink on her character's gun programmed to update her facebook status with kill-counter updates since the dice loved her and she kept finishing off the baddies the rest of the team roughed up (so she cackled as she got more kills than anyone else, including her real-life husband who was playing the Combat Mage, and Patrick who'd snagged the Street Samurai).

Good times, good times.   

[nimrod_funk]

Glad ya'll had fun. That was one of the reasons I didn't come out besides being at work Saturday morning. Thought about going up there but decided nahhh.

Sunday though I did take a good historical miniatures game out at casa ' de Lloyd's gaming group. A fun but rough game.

I talked to the owners about an "official" game room but they weren't really interested. The hotel has a good amount of space so it couldn't hurt. They just didn't see it as a reason to push for it as they're core audience was pretty geeky. Did they have any mini's games there? Ironically the folks owning All Con are in Crowley, TX (SW Fort Worth).

If there's interest maybe next we could see about organizing some official events and setting up a game room. Probably have to meet with them in person to discuss it. I think for the crowd though roleplaying and card games would go over well. Although I run a fun Doctor Who game it might go over equally well as there probably were alot of "Doctor's" there at the con. The only downside for the hotel is the lack of good bar's nearby. There's a new game store near the hotel I need to check out called the "Toy Soldier". One of the owners puts on Skirmish in Plano another good miniatures event but not really roleplaying friendly.

AKON and Animefest tend to be more roleplaying friendly.One idea I had for a roving Shadowrun game was to actually build some LED driven signs and stuff using PVC pipe to create a table atmosphere that's more mood inspired. Also having a Jambox or pc speakers playing music would help give it some extra "oomf".