{"id":3347,"date":"2021-09-02T20:40:11","date_gmt":"2021-09-02T19:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/?p=3347"},"modified":"2022-05-08T15:06:52","modified_gmt":"2022-05-08T14:06:52","slug":"gen-con-online-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/?p=3347","title":{"rendered":"Gen Con (Online) 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>For obvious reasons, I&#8217;m not going to be attending Gen Con in person this year; I&#8217;ll be doing the online variant instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Last year they did an online version because there could be no in-person convention, this year they&#8217;re doing both, though the in-person one is reduced in number of people, number of events, and indeed hours of the day. ( they&#8217;re closing at midnight to allow for proper cleaning time; normally that sort of happens&nbsp;<em>around&nbsp;<\/em>the events? )<br>For last year, I just stayed in my flat\/apartment, because there really wasn&#8217;t any other option, but this year the travel restrictions are fewer, so I&#8217;m heading up to Edinburgh, to stay a few nights in a surprisingly affordable apartment hotel I know there, and to, as it were, get my nerd on.<br>And also be somewhere other than this place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here&#8217;s what the schedule looks like when you&#8217;re not in the EDT zone; There are some late nights in there, but the hotel has a TV visible from the bed, so as long as it\u00a0<strong>also\u00a0<\/strong>has an accessible HDMI port, I can merrily fall asleep to the seminar of my choice.<br>It&#8217;s what happened last time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized is-style-default\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Screenshot2021-08-30184745-614x1024.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3345\" width=\"614\" height=\"1024\" srcset=\"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Screenshot2021-08-30184745-614x1024.png 614w, https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Screenshot2021-08-30184745-180x300.png 180w, https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Screenshot2021-08-30184745-90x150.png 90w, https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Screenshot2021-08-30184745-768x1281.png 768w, https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Screenshot2021-08-30184745-300x500.png 300w, https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Screenshot2021-08-30184745.png 775w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 614px) 100vw, 614px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>Most of these are seminar events.<br>I decided not to try to play in any RPGs; Those are hard enough to play online at the best of times, at least for me, so when you add in &#8216;a group of random strangers&#8217; and &#8216;significant time zone difference&#8217;, it just makes it a non-starter for me.<br>On the plus side, I don&#8217;t have to feel guilty about falling asleep if that&#8217;s what happens, or simply wandering away if the event isn&#8217;t holding my attention, and the convention part is costing me nothing but my time. Unlike the hotel and the train up and back, which is costing actual money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My selection criteria for this are pretty much &#8220;does that sound interesting?&#8221; and &#8220;what the hell is that?&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>&#8220;The Aliens are Invading, and my Dad&#8217;s Going to Miss the School Talent Show!&#8221; attracted my attention with the title, and locked it in with the phrase &#8220;Squid on the Mantelpiece&#8221;<\/li><li>&#8220;Playing with Deaf and Hard of Hearing Board Gamers&#8221; is of personal interest anyway, but the fact that it&#8217;s an event presented in sign &amp; interpreted in voice sealed the deal, because I&#8217;ve never done a thing like that<\/li><li>&#8220;Integrating Consent Culture into RPG\u2019s and LARPing&#8221; is there because, to be blunt, that shit&#8217;s important and I don&#8217;t know enough about it<br><em>( I&#8217;ve seen the X-Card used once in a game, and that was in a &#8216;can we please not?&#8217; way because the particular piece of imagery had come up in three games in a row for that player and they were just plain getting creeped out by it )<\/em><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<!--more for anyone bored enough to read down this far, here are the event descriptions. also, seek help.-->\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Mysterium: The RPG<br><\/strong>Join Meghan Caves and a cast of fantastic irregulars as they solve a mystery. Based off the Mysterium board game and using Savage Worlds RPG rules!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>How to be a RPG Publisher!<br><\/strong>Join Adriel Wilson and Brian Petkash from DriveThruRPG and DriveThruCards with a few publisher friends as they discuss tips, tricks, and how to get started on getting your game out to the public!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Live Art Creation Streaming With Amy L. Ashbaugh<br><\/strong>Watch Amy L. Ashbaugh create art live! Amy is a fine artist and illustrator based out of Atlanta, Georgia. Her vision is a representation of the fantastic from literature, folklore, and imagination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>How to Host a Drop-In RPG Meetup<br><\/strong>One-Shot Saturday is a weekly RPG meetup in Hong Kong that has run for several years. In this panel, we&#8217;ll talk about how we organize games, the problems we&#8217;ve encountered and how we solved them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Low-to-No Cost Self-Publishing<br><\/strong>Tips and tricks for self-publishing without breaking the bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>No Prep GMing: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Random Tables<br><\/strong>Advice and ideas on how to cut down gamemaster prep time.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Swords, Spies &amp; Shoggoths: The Pelgrane Press Panel<br><\/strong>Join Simon Rogers, Cat Tobin and others from the Pelgrane team for a behind-the-scenes look at what the award-winning UK publisher&#8217;s been up to this year, and what they&#8217;ve planned for the coming year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Producing Livestreamed RPG Actual Plays<br><\/strong>Join Dom Zook, executive producer at long-running channel Saving Throw Show to learn what it takes to assemble and run a livestreamed RPG session!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Shadowrun: Takedown<br><\/strong>The crew at Six Sides of Gaming, sponsored by Catalyst Game Labs and Lynnvander Studios are bringing you a Shadowrun Sixth World campaign live!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Dice Making for Community Building and Artistic Expression<br><\/strong>Join Dr. Rowena Winkler as she facilitates a discussion with Erika Boltz of Mercury Dice about the supportive nature of the dice making community. In particular, Erika will describe her experiences entering a space that allows dice makers to grow not only as artists, but also as people. They will then chat about their latest partnership to create dice as a means of helping women find their unique voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Playing with Deaf and Hard of Hearing Board Gamers<br><\/strong>We&#8217;ll take an in-depth look at: &#8211; What makes a game accessible &#8211; What makes a game NOT accessible &#8211; Why accessibility is sometimes a &#8220;spectrum&#8221; &#8211; Accessibility best practices for board game designers &#8211; How to play with Deaf, hard of hearing and late-deafened board gamers and how to navigate social and language barriers &#8211; Board game suggestions for successful game nights &#8211; What it means to have an truly &#8220;inclusive&#8221; board game group.<br><em>This event will be presented in American Sign Language by Deaf native signers and voice interpreted.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Aliens are Invading, and my Dad&#8217;s Going to Miss the School Talent Show!<br><\/strong>The Turkey City Lexicon identified &#8220;<em>Squid on the Mantelpiece<\/em>&#8221; as the &#8220;mismatch between the conventional dramatic proprieties and SF\u2019s extreme, grotesque, or visionary&#8221; elements. How do you balance the more everyday and mundane aspects of a story&#8211; often the ones that make characters worth reading about&#8211; with alien invasions, world-changing technology, and city-levelling giant cephalopods? This panel of authors discusses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>From Novel to Module<br><\/strong>The challenge of converting a novel into a module tips and tricks from Stephen B. Pearl author of Horn of the Kraken and coauthor of Dead Mans Blade and The Horn of the Kraken Adventure modules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>DIY 101: How to Self Publish<br><\/strong>You want to make your own game? We&#8217;ll talk you through the basics of planning, crowd-funding, advertising, and fulfillment. Avoid the common pitfalls and make your dreams come true!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Integrating Consent Culture into RPG\u2019s and LARPing<br><\/strong>Come learn how to practice consent with other roleplayers, how to create consent-focused environments as a GM, how to accommodate nervous players, &amp; how to set boundaries as a new RP gamer!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Things You Can&#8217;t Avoid in TTRPGs<br><\/strong>A seminar covering major topics in TTRPGs from Class\/Alignment systems, GM-Player hierarchies, and why races matter in tabletop rpgs (and the two games that did it best).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For obvious reasons, I&#8217;m not going to be attending Gen Con in person this year; I&#8217;ll be doing the online variant instead. Last year they did an online version because there could be no in-person convention, this year they&#8217;re doing both, though the in-person one is reduced in number of people, number of events, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[29,28],"class_list":["post-3347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gencon","tag-covid","tag-gen-con"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3O6N9-RZ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3347"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3348,"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3347\/revisions\/3348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}