By Sunday it was clear the Wicked Dead On Fire Booth was the place to be. We were the hub, Special Guest Central. That’s probably because Luke and Jared were there. 🙂
DRIVING IN
Took me four hours to drive to Orange County from Santa Monica. Mapquest claimed forty minutes. Took me an hour to get just two miles down the freeway. I love LA, but sometimes she treats me wrong.
When I got in, I realized my leather jacket was missing. I remembered picking it up, throwing it over my shoulder, carrying my bags and…
… leaving it on the top of my car while I packed the bags inside. Oh well. My leather jacket is gone. I needed a new one anyway. 🙁
GAME DESIGN
On Friday, we three talked about game design to a group of people. It was a smaller group than at Indy, but then again, everything at this show was smaller… except the booth price, of course. At each of these things, there’s always people who show up to ask questions. They rarely go further than that. They have their game system that they’ve been playtesting for twenty years and they want vindication that those twenty years haven’t been wasted. That’s not the reason to come to our game design seminar. The folks who found that out quickly left, leaving behind those who were earnestly interested in publishing something different than D&D.
STILTS
There was a guy on stilts. I don’t know if anybody got a picture of him, but he was a riot. One of the best things at the show. He showed up on Friday as “Longer John Silver,” then showed up on Saturday as a Croacian basketball player, then on Sunday as a waiter. He was witty, clever, and had obviously practiced for the roles. He played basketball with little kids and made them laugh. Anyone who entertains kids at a show like this gets a copy of my game. In his waiter disguise, I got him a copy of Discordia. I hope he enjoys it. I sure as hell enjoyed him.
LUKE CRANE
Hanging out with Luke Crane was a joy. I’ve never spent an extended period of time in Luke’s company. I reccommend it to everyone. I’m gonna run a Burning Wheel game soon. If you haven’t, you should check out Luke’s game. It rocks on toast. You can also hear Luke talking about game design and other matters at The Sons of Kryos podcast.
MATT!
My buddy Matt Colville showed up. He left me a letter. It got me all emotional and stuff. More on that later.
But, a big hug and thanks to Matt for reminding me of important things.
OTHER STUFF
I didn’t get to play any games. That was sad. On the other hand, we sold a lot of books. On Sunday, I made it my priority to sell other people’s books. I found the pitch for Burning Wheel and sold the hell out of it.
There was Disneyland on Saturday night. A quick run through the park to get on as many rides in four hours as possible. We picked a bad night and only made four.
No LARP for me. I wasn’t in the mood and didn’t have a good character idea.
CTHULHU! CTHULHU!!!
Although there was no Cthulhu rant (and I missed seeing the guys from Chaosium), I picked up a copy of THE CALL OF CTHULHU from the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. It’s a silent movie adaption of the classic HPL short story. If you know nothing about Lovecraft or Cthulhu, I HIGHLY reccommend it.
POST SHOW
The drive home was just as hellish as the drive to the show. I got turned around three times and had to find my way off the freeway and find my way back again.
But when I got home, I discovered I was wrong about my leather jacket. It was at the house waiting for me when I got back.
BIG THANKS
To Jared, my brother.
To Becca for listening.
To Luke for The Burning.
To Annie for giving me a break.
To Matt, my friend.
To Stan! for his smile. (He’s the Santa of the game industry. Tell him that.)
To JD for respect.
To Ken Hite for conversation. (That was fun, Ken.)
To Dro for the Pol.
To the fans who gave us cash (and called us cool).
To the UD guys who shook my hand. (Buy something next time, you bastards! I know how much money you make!)
And to Gen Con So Cal. Indy’s little brother. Still going through growing pains, but getting a little bigger each year.