You see, my Dungeons and Dragons gaming group is an interesting mix of folks. We’ve got small business owners, health care professionals, a college professor, IT professionals, fast food workers, an electrician, housewives, and even someone in the printing business.

Oh, and then there’s me, but you all know what I do. I’m a writer.

We have single guys, engaged guys, married folks with kids, and married folks without kids.

At any rate, the stars were aligned in 2007 such that most of us either couldn’t afford Gen Con or couldn’t attend because of work or family commitments.

We realized, by July of 2007, that we were really going to miss Gen Con. So, we came up with a stopgap measure: Cabin Con.

What is Cabin Con? Well, we decided that one of the best parts about Gen Con was the gaming. Specifically, gaming with our friends. So, we rented two small cabins at nearby county park for two nights in late August last year. We spent the better part of three days gaming. We played Dungeons and Dragons, Three Dragon Ante, and even some board games.

We cooked our food over a campfire, and made jokes at night about who was sharing a sleeping bag with whom.

We did all of this on the cheap; with food and everything, I think we all got away for about $75 a person.

Cabin Con was such a damned good idea that we’re doing it again this October. This time, we’re renting a vacation home for 4 days to the tune of $600. Split between a dozen or so of us, we’ll still be under $100 apiece including food. Gen Con or not, I think Cabin Con is going to become a tradition.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because it would never have occurred to us to do something like this if we hadn’t missed Gen Con in 2007. Maybe it’s something your group could do, too.

So, if you want to organize your own convention, here’s what you need to do:

• Figure out how many people you have going. Get as firm a commitment as possible.
• Find a good location. Depending on your budget, you could have your Cabin Con in tents in the woods, or you could have it at the Hilton. For me, I think the vacation home or hunting lodge type rental is the best way to go.
• Divide your weekend up into time slots for games. These can be 4-hour slots, or they can be shorter or longer depending on your group’s preferences.
• Get your friends to commit to running games. If you’re like me and usually are the DM, GM, or StoryTeller, a Cabin Con can be a nice opportunity to play on the other side of the screen.
• Send out the list of games, and have everyone sign up for the games they want to play.
• Plan a menu and buy the food. You can live on sandwiches and cereal all weekend, or you can cook full-blown meals. Here again, it just depends on your group’s preferences.
• Set up a KP duty chart. Give everyone a chance to help out with the cooking, cleaning, and whatnot.

I’d love to hear from others. If you’ve done your own gaming weekend, what advice can you offer?

Fourth edition truly puts the nail in the coffin of Vancian magic. The wizard I ran in that game felt much more like a traditional fantasy wizard. I felt very Gandalf, at least in terms of combat, and rituals had my back when it came to other tasks. Very fun.

I suppose that’s one of the things, though, that some folks don’t like about 4E: the abandoning of the Vancian system.

I’m interested, though: What do you all think? Whether or not you like 4E, are there good reasons to go with a “fire and forget” spell system? Do you personally prefer Vancian magic to the alternatives?

You can imagine my chagrin when the infamous anti-Gen Con article appeared in the Indianapolis Monthly several years ago. What gamers failed to realize is that no one actually reads the Indianapolis Monthly except for bored, rich housewives in Carmel, IN. Still, it left the impression among many gamers that Indy hated them. (Strangely enough, that article isn’t available on the Indianapolis Monthly website any longer. Go figure.)

So, I thought it’d be interesting to see some of the news reports from Indy on Gen Con this year.

A couple things of note:  1)one article mentions that Gen Con is Indy’s biggest convention, now. 2) Several articles mention 85,000 attendees. If that’s true… HOLY CRAP. I know Gen Con was 35,000 the first year I went, when it was still in Milwaukee. That’s another 50,000 people in the last six years.

The one negative I could find was in the article from Anderson, I think, and it only talked about a conversation with one attendee who talked about gamer funk and the floor being “ripe” by the 4th day. Other than that, the article (and the rest) seemed pretty positive.

Indianapolis radio and TV coverage:

http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=8852885

http://www.wibc.com/News/Story.aspx?ID=97710

From the Star News, Indy’s newspaper:

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080816/LOCAL/808160486

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080814/BUSINESS/808140430/1003/BUSINESS

A blogger from the Star News had several Gen Con reports. Here’s one cool one about dice:

http://blogs.indystar.com/geek/2008/08/rolling_bones.html

From indy.com, a feature of the Star News:

http://www.indy.com/posts/10627

From the paper in Muncie, about 30 minutes north of Indy:

http://www.thestarpress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080821/ENTERTAINMENT/808210336

From the paper in Anderson, about 20 minutes north of Indy:

http://www.theheraldbulletin.com/peopleandplaces/local_story_225223410.html?keyword=topstory

What’s my point here? Well, simply that Indianapolis doesn’t hate Gen Con attendees, by any means. They might thing we’re a bit odd (lots of folks do) but they like having us, and they’re treating us fairly in their media coverage.

Are there some jerks in Indy that treat con attendees poorly? Sure. There were in Milwaukee, and there would be in Chicago or anywhere else Gen Con might go. But as a city, Indy recognizes that it’s lucky to have us.

photo credit: disavian | Got Links?

Just a few quick links for you all today. After last week, I figured I’d take it easy on you!

Coop at Pen and Paper Portal offers a balanced review of Dungeons and Dragons 4E. He was a bit harder than I thought necessary on the Dungeon Master’s Guide, with that book being the best of the three core IMHO.

Enter the Octopus has a review of a new book called The Elfish Gene. Give it a look-see. It raises some interesting questions about gamers and the gamer lifestyle. Maybe we’ll delve into that a bit later in the week right here.

Would it be a Sunday Link Smashup without a link to Chatty? Check out his latest endeavor. He’s starting his new Chatty Studios with something called Project Kobold Love. Give it a look-see.

I mentioned my writing blog (The Writing Journey) here last week, but I thought it would be worth mentioning again. It seems Michael Steltzer wants to know What’s Your Favorite Writing Blog? Give my post a visit, and then link over to Michael’s blog and give The Writing Journey some voting love, won’t you?

ANY spell is useful. You just have to use your imagination and get creative. Just because DMs only know to to do adventures that involve killing the orc for the pie doesn’t make spells useless. A real DM knows how to tailor a game for multiple scenarios, only 30% of which should involve actual combat.

All the useful spells you picked were spells that involved simple-minded “dungeon bashing”. Just the type of dumb mentality that created stupid 4th Edition. Thanks you 4rons

I deleted the comment, of course, as I don’t particularly like to be randomly insulted on my blog.

Now, insults and creative punctuation aside, this comment got me thinking about something:

What makes a spell or power useful in Dungeons and Dragons?

There are, in my mind, a few possible criteria:

• It should have opportunity for frequent use. Decipher script is limited in its use, Charm Person is not.
• It should be useful to overcome a challenge. That challenge doesn’t have to be combat; it can be social, or it can be plot-related.
• It should be something that can’t be done with mundane means. Light isn’t nearly as useful when you have a lantern around.

I’m sure there are other things that can make a spell or power useful in Dungeons and Dragons. What do you think? What makes an ability useful, and what makes it worth choosing over another spell or ability in your roleplaying game?

I think that perception may be a bit overblown. Let’s face it: most D&D players aren’t switching to Pathfinder (or anything else). They play D&D. That’s what they’ve always played, and unless it says “Dungeons and Dragons” on the cover, they’re not going to buy it.

On top of that, there are other choices. If you don’t like 4E, there are plenty of gaming systems out there. Pathfinder is one of the youngest, and it’s not the best-selling. Even without insider information, I guarantee that there are still more RIFTS players than Pathfinder players. That can, and probably will, change. But, my point is that it’s not a “D&D or Pathfinder” decision - it’s a “D&D or Non-D&D” decision.

So, why am I looking at another system instead of switching to Pathfinder? Several reasons.

Pathfinder isn’t yet a proven product

Here’s the fact: Pathfinder still sells less than most non-D&D RPGs, and it will for a long time. They’re only in Beta, and the full game isn’t due out for a year. Could the final product be better than 4E and wind up atop the market? Sure, it’s possible. But it’s not happening any time soon.

I’m not especially interested in playtesting someone’s game, and I’m certainly not interested in playtesting it for a year or more. Come talk to me when Pathfinder’s been in the game for a decade, and then we’ll talk about a long-term commitment. In the meantime, it’s a novelty worth exploring, but still a novelty.

Pathfinder isn’t D&D

Pathfinder is a fine product. It’s a good-looking game, from what I can tell. It’s certainly an offshoot of D&D. Most of the designers have professional experience designing D&D.

However, Pathfinder is not D&D.

What do I mean, exactly? I’m not writing esoterically. I simply mean this: Pathfinder is owned by Paizo. Paizo doesn’t hold the intellectual rights to Dungeons and Dragons. I’ve heard people say “4E is OK, but it’s not D&D.” They’re wrong. 4E, like it or not, is D&D. Pathfinder is not D&D.

If folks want to suggest that Pathfinder is somehow the “spiritual descendant” of D&D, that’s OK by me. But for me, the name on the box defines the product. Maybe I like the new D&D, maybe I don’t. No matter. It’s D&D.

For a long time, I’ve been a D&D player. If I’m going to switch to something else, I’m going to consider all possibilities, plain and simple. Pathfinder is one, Vampire is another.

You’ll carefully notice that I don’t hate Pathfinder or think Paizo is the devil. I hope the product does well alongside D&D. More good games make for a deeper industry, which means better product all around.

Pathfinder doesn’t solve any problems

I need a new set of rules. I’ve complained for a long time that I just can’t keep up with the sheer number of rules available for third edition. 4E solves that problem; so does Vampire. Heck, Toon: The RPG solves that problem. Pathfinder is the one product that doesn’t offer me a rules reset.

Add to that the fact that our gaming group has certain dynamics that center around D&D rules. That’s a nice way of saying I’ve got a couple of power gamers at my table. Power gaming is fine, but I’d like to see something new at the table. A rules reset is one way around that. For a while, at least, my power gamers will be on equal footing with one another (and with me as their GM).

What do you think? Are you going Pathfinder? If so, how do you see it?

photo credit: disavian | Got Links?

Lots of amazing links for you today, in the wake of Gen Con. Let’s get started, shall we?

I want to take a moment to welcome Mike Mearls to the D&D blogosphere. Mike is one a handful of truly GREAT game designers, IMHO. Check out his inaugural post entitled In Praise of Wandering Monsters.

Speaking of designers, another favorite of mine is Jim Wyatt. Check out the podcast interview that the boys from Critical Hits scored with Jim: Critical Hits Podcast #7: Interview with James Wyatt.

I have to link to this post:YA5WKEPACLB*: What Gen Con 2008 meant for me from Chatty DM, only if it proves he can actually write a post with less than 200 words. He just doesn’t usually want to

James at Capturing Fantasy offers us an excellent post on Letting Go of You When You Play. James tells us how to become immersed in our characters, and truly stretch our roleplaying muscles.

I got a link back from the Wired.com blog earlier this week when I pontificated on the McCain staffer’s comments on D&D. Check it out! I’m in the big time

It occurred to me that maybe not all of my readers here are familiar with my writing blog, The Writing Journey. I mention it here for those of you who may have attended the RPG blogger seminar at Gen Con, or if you listened to the podcast of that event.

Back in July, Dante over at Stupid Ranger had an excellent piece on The Silmarillion. If you haven’t read that particular Tolkien classic, give Dante’s insights a look and see if he can convince you. I personally think it should be required reading for all game masters.

In light of my recent discussion on trying to rediscover my gaming identity, I offer you Yax’s thougts on My golden rule is more golden than yours - which describes, essentially, why Yax keeps coming back to D&D over other RPGs.

Finally, check out Gnome Stew’s First Contest: Win Custom Sound Effects for Your Game and, well, win custom sound effects for your game.

Make sure an visit these folks, and tell ‘em Bob sent you!

Back in March, I wrote about The 4E Malaise, and how things have changed for our group, gaming-wise, over the last year or two. I also wrote about my Thoughts on D&D 4E, and offered some thoughts from our group’s other DM on the topic, as well.

I’ve been at a crossroads, for a while, in terms of my game, and what my next campaign would be. That’s been due, in part, to the 4E announcement. Or so I thought.

My assumption going into Gen Con was that I’d come out with a clearer picture of where I wanted to go, in terms of our group’s game. Would I stay with D&D, or would I go backwards to 3.5? Would I cave to peer pressure and go with Pathfinder?

I discovered, however, that there are no easy answers. I was looking for something that I’ll never find. I was looking for an experience to define who I am as a gamer these days. Gen Con can’t do that for me.

In fact, no one else can do that for me.

You see, I’m having a gamer mid-life crisis. I haven’t run a regular campaign in a year and a half. And many of our local gaming group are in the same funk. Not all of it can be blamed on 4E, either. We’ve had folks move away, we’ve had career changes, we’ve had all sorts of lifestyle disruptions. Whatever the reasons, it’s happening to all of us.

I want to play an RPG, to be sure. I want to play something that is more than hack-and-slash. I wan an immersive game where my players get majorly geeked about playing. I want something that’s role-play intensive, with rich character histories and plenty of intrigue.

I’m not sure if that can happen in D&D anymore.

Now, I’m not blaming the system. I’ve always said that rules can do very little to encourage roleplaying, and I still believe that. But our group dynamic has gone all screwy. One of my players is so anti-4E that he actually told the guys at Paizo “I hope Pathfinder puts WotC out of business.” That’s hatred, plain and simple. And, while he’s entitled to his opinion, it creates this cloud over any discussion of a 4E game.

Even if I were to stay with the outdated 3.5 system, there are problems. We are all creatures of habit. I believe a 3.5 game would lead us into old patterns, where players are min-maxing and finding infinte combos, and I’m struggling to keep up and find anything that’s a real challenge.

Add this to the mix: I asked a couple of my local guys who were at the con this question: “What game would you play if it were up to you?” One answered, “probably something by White Wolf.” The other said, “I don’t know. Maybe Vampire.”

• So, what to do? I’ve had to ask myself the tough questions. Here are some of them, in no particular order:
• Am I willing to give up gaming altogether?
• Am I willing to run another system?
• Is there a better game than D&D?
• Can I pull off something big, like a new Mind’s Eye Theater troupe?
• Am I better off sticking with some flavor of D&D, because it’s comfortable to me and to my players?

Gen Con answered a couple of those questions for me. I’m not willing to give up gaming, I know that for certain now. I’m also willing to run something other than D&D. Based on my interest level and that of my players, it sounds like Vampire would be the way to go. I do have at least one player who won’t play anything that’s not D&D, but there’s no game right now that I can get everyone to agree to. I’m going to lose someone no matter what.

So, I guess the only question I really have left is this: do I do live action or do I do tabletop?

The more I think about it, it probably makes sense to start with a tabletop game. If that goes well over time, maybe we could expand it into a live action game. I’d say there’s about an 80% chance that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

Does this mean I’m giving up on D&D? Hell no.

Does this mean I’ll write less about D&D? Some, I’m sure. But part of the reason for the name change a few months back was just that - to open up possibilities.

I’m still very interested in D&D and what happens to the game. My suspicion is that, after a couple of years, the dust will settle. These violent emotional responses to 4E will wane, and our group might actually consider playing the thing.

I’m sure I’ll continue to buy D&D books. I want to be ready for when we come back. On top of that, I just enjoy reading them.

Will it be too late? Maybe. It could be that edition wars have splintered our group so severely as to put us off D&D forever. I hope not. The fact of the matter is that D&D is likely to be around for a long time, and I’m not ready to give it up forever.

Heck, I’m not entirely sure that the next game will be Vampire.

Ask me again in 2 weeks

2 posts in one day? Must be something in the water…

Anyway,I offer to you the latest from Michael Goldfarb at the John McCain for President website (emphasis mine):

“In the least credible and most vicious corner of the internet, liberal bloggers at the Daily Kos are accusing John McCain of plagiarizing from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The story Solzhenitsyn told was of a prisoner who drew a cross in the dirt in a Soviet Gulag. McCain’s story is of a guard who drew a cross in the dirt in a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp.

The only similarity between the two stories is a cross in the dirt, but it is hardly an unlikely coincidence that there were practicing Christians in both Russia and Vietnam, or that in the prisons of those two Communist countries the only crosses to be found were etched in the dirt, as easily disappeared as the Christians who drew them.

But those desperate to discredit Senator McCain’s record will have to impugn his fellow prisoners as well. Orson Swindle, who was held as a prisoner of war along with McCain, tells the McCain Report that he heard this particular story from McCain “when we first moved in together.” That was in the summer of 1971, Swindle said, though “time blurred” and he couldn’t be sure. He said it was some time around then that the Vietnamese moved all “36 troublemakers” into the same quarters, where they “talked about everything under the sun.”

It may be typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd to disparage a fellow countryman’s memory of war from the comfort of mom’s basement, but most Americans have the humility and gratitude to respect and learn from the memories of men who suffered on behalf of others. John McCain has often said he witnessed a thousand acts of bravery while he was imprisoned, and though not every one has been submitted into the public record, they are remembered by the men who were there (one such only recently reported by Karl Rove though it escaped mention in any of Senator McCain’s books). But as Swindle said, this is a “desperate group of people trying to make something out of nothing.”

I’m not liberal. I won’t go into politics here, but let’s just say I’m to the right of John McCain at least. I also don’t live in my mom’s basement, and I certainly respect the sacrifice of others, including Senator McCain.

But I won’t be voting for McCain in November. Not as long as Mr. Goldfarb remains on staff. Here was the reply I sent to the McCain for President website:

I am thoroughly disgusted with the comments of Mr. Goldfarb at http://www.johnmccain.com/McCainReport/Read.aspx?guid=181471d0-5456-4434-9f78-2f30ffc39459

I am further to the right, politically, than John McCain. I’m also a Dungeons and Dragons player. I don’t know why Mr. Goldfarb felt the need to connect liberals with D&D, but his comments were ill-informed. Most of the D&D players I know aren’t liberals. In fact, most of them don’t live in their mothers’ basements, either.

There are more than 1 million gamers in the United States. I’m glad to know that Mr. McCain’s lead is so pronounced that he can alienate this segment of the population.

As for me, I won’t be voting for John McCain in November, certainly not as long as Mr. Goldfarb remains on staff.

Here’s the Contact Form for McCain for President, if you need it.

Forget politics for a minute. I’m amazed that this stereotype still exists of gamers in their mom’s basement. What do we have to do to prove it?

Goldfarb is a moron who needs to be fired, plain and simple.

I want to share some of my Gen Con thoughts over the next few days. I know the D&D blogosphere has been hopping with Gen Con posts, and that makes me slightly late to the dance. I’m OK with that; I leave the cutting edge to folks like The Game and Bartoneous at Critical Hits, leaving me to sort of hang back and give more of a hindsight view.

So, what did I get out of Gen Con this year?

I really miss playing Magic: The Gathering.

I haven’t played regularly in a couple of years, and so I jumped in to a sealed tournament on Friday. It was a blast. I was eliminated in the second round to a kid half my age, as is usually the story, but it was still fun. I won a booster, which had cards in it that I sold for $16 - enough to pay for the draft. All in all, a good deal.

While I was playing, some friends played a round or two of the World of Warcraft TCG. That’s not a bad game either, and I’m hoping that the bug will really hit the guys back home. A TCG is one of the best group games in that you only need 2 of you to play and they’re extremely portable. We’ll see if it sticks.

You can make a killing at the Gen Con auction.

I sat in line on Thursday morning with a bunch of guys waiting to check in their auction goods. While my auctions made me a mere $200, there were folks there making $10,000 or more, all from games they collected at garage sales over the past year. Very cool.

The Chatty DM is, well, Chatty.

I had the privelege to meet several other RPG bloggers at a seminar on Saturday. I was humbled to be there, honestly. I felt a little bit out of place. I was like the dopey little geek that the cool kids let hang around because they feel sorry for him.

At any rate, I want to take a minute to send you all away from here with some great links from my fellow RPG bloggers from the Gen Con panel:

The Gen Con 2008 Rambling (Semi-Live blog) from Phil at the Chatty DM. It was very cool to meet Chatty, mainly because we’ve talked so much online about not just gaming, but writing, as well. Check out his
post for a play-by-play of his Gen Con 2008 experience.

The aforementioned boys at Critical Hits have all sorts of GenCon 2008 Coverage. Checkout Dave and Bart’s exclusive interviews and astute observations.

It’s not live yet, but Stupid Ranger and crew will have a full  Gen Con round-up on Tuesday or after.

A special congrats to Yax at DungeonMastering.com, as he won an Ennie this past weekend.

Next time, I’ll offer some thoughts on my gaming experience at Gen Con 2008, and how things look going forward from here.