... And That's A Wrap

I ended up not going to any panels today. Instead, we discovered that the battery in the car was dead. Or dying.  It started okay after a jump, but I still need to take it in tomorrow to get it looked at.

Instead, I sat and people-watched for a bit. Or, rather, I did until a mob formed in my vicinity. By then, we'd already checked out of the hotel, so my choices were ... none.  Sit and wait and hope they'd go away.

Ah, well.

All in all, it was a lot of fun.

One of my friends the other day asked me why I go to so many writing and combat panels when I'm neither a writer nor a martial artist.

I am a writer.  I'm a blogger.  You're reading my words right now.

As to the combat panels? They give me ideas that I can use later in games. Or ideas how to respond to players who say, "Yes, but realistically ... " -- responses that are better than "Because the rules say so," which - realistically - should be enough, even though it's nearly always an unsatisfying.

And, of course, I've always got something going in the back of my mind ...

Day Two: Underway

Today is one of the big days for panels.  It is now 3pm, and I've been in panels pretty much solidly since 10:00 this morning.

My first panel of the day was "One-on-One Combat for Writers" - it was a very informal panel, where the experts broke into groups and writers could ask them to demonstrate something. There were armored-fighting experts, unarmed experts, martial artists, firearms people, and all manner of other experts there.

It was a good panel, but was not the sort of panel where you expect to take notes.  The best part for me was the question, "What keywords would you recommend we Google later to learn more."

Fiore. German longsword. Italian longsword. Half-Swording.

The next panel was "Universal Rules of the Fight" - it was some rules of thumb for combat. Not as useful from a writerly or gaming perspective as I'd hoped, but I still got some good notes that I can probably translate mechanically into a game with some effort.

The next panel was Worldbuilding 101.  I've been to several hundred worldbuilding panels at various conventions over the years, and they have never been bad.  Well, not quite right. The only times they were bad were those times the moderator was unwilling to cut people off when necessary.

It was a good panel, I got some good notes.

The next panel for me was a "Game Design Workshop" that ... wasn't really a workshop. I managed to get a page of notes, but they're really thin notes that are things I pretty much knew anyhow. Not a complete bomb, but not a full success for me, either.

I followed that with "Believable Magic," which is - much like Worldbuilding 101 - a panel I've been to dozens of times. The difference is that the magic panels have been so very hit-or-miss over the years. This one was good.

I'm triple-booked in the Guidebook app for my 4:00 panel. And I don't know if I'll be attending any of them, to be honest. I'm starting to feel a bit peopled-out.

We'll see.

Done For The Day

My second panel of the night was ... less good than the first one. That's not to say it was bad - it just wasn't As Expected.

The title of the panel was "Urban Fantasy's Hard-Boiled Detective Roots."

That's right - another non-gaming panel.

I can't say it veered wildly off-topic, because it would have had to start out on-topic for that to be a thing.  It started out off-topic and then occasionally steered towards being on-topic, but mostly stayed away from its stated goal.

I did fill a bit more than half a page, but more than half of my notes were book recommendations.

We spent more time talking about magic and magic systems and realism than we did mysteries or noir. Which is a bit disappointing, but it's not a deal-breaker by any means for me (even though there are panels on good magic systems that I will likely be attending).

One good idea that one panelist had was talking about speculative fiction (SF/F) was not a structure, it was a texture.  Mystery is a structure. Adventure is a structure. Romance is a structure. Fantasy is trappings. It's a paint job. It's wallpaper. Treating it like it's a structure on its own is a recipe for disappointment.

And, near the end, one of the panelists pointed out that spec-fic and hard-boiled mysteries share a common origin - the pulps. Which is something I'd never considered before.

So it was a good panel. It just wasn't what I would have expected given its title.

One Panel Down

So now I've been to my first panel of the year.  A couple of thoughts:

1) It used to be Thursdays were slow.  Mostly-empty panels. This one wasn't. Not even close.  This means that Saturday especially will be a total zoo. I suspect it's because the Guest of Honor is George RR Martin.

2) Because I go to panels to learn, the more notes I take, the more successful I consider the panel to have been. A full page of notes is a good panel. Two pages is an exceptional panel. Half a page is an average panel.

This was a good panel. Not the best ever, but good.  Solid.  Assuming my social anxiety doesn't kick in, leaving me in the room for the entire weekend, this should be a pretty good Norwescon.

Also of note: the moderator in this panel ("Warrior vs Soldier") was good - he kept the discussion flowing in both directions (to and from the audience), and everyone who felt the need to say something had that opportunity.

Yesterday, Today, This Weekend

I realized this morning that I had not only failed to have a post go live yesterday, but I also failed to warn anyone.

Yesterday was the victim of a confluence of events.

Wrestlemania was on Sunday.
Stephanie's Birthday was on Monday
NorWesCon is going on now.

It's not because I haven't managed to get anything written, however. I've managed to discard a couple of half-written (but not very good) posts about GenCon's response to the RFRA in Indiana - and I may try to re-write them sometime. Maybe.

Instead, though, I'll be writing about Norwescon (which is this weekend) and how that goes.  Much like my GenCon posts, I'll be mostly posting in the evenings after the bulk of the day has passed.

I've been attending Norwes off and on for about twenty years, now. In fact, it was the first convention I ever attended, and the first convention I dragged Steph to.

It's not usually a huge con, but it sells out its hotel and several of the neighboring hotels, too.

I don't work at Norwescon. I'm an attendee. I go to panels and listen to experts. Sometimes I know more than the experts on one thing or another, but very rarely have I walked out of a panel not having learned something.

At this point, I've already been through registration. This year, they e-mailed bar codes to folks who had pre-registered. It was supposed to speed things up. It didn't. Those of us who had prepared in advance stood in a long line to get to one of the two badge printers they had for us. Pre-registered folks who hadn't printed their barcodes went to a line that let them print their barcodes and then go to one of six stations that were printing badges.

Net result? It was faster to have been unprepared. It was a shorter faster-moving line.

Not a promising start, but I also haven't been to any panels, yet (they don't technically start until 2:00 today).

In terms of panels, I found a bunch more panels that interested me than I have for a while (lack of good panels is one reason Steph and I took a couple of years off). So we'll see how it goes.

Conventions

I don't go to as many conventions these days as I used to.  It's not a lack of interest - it's a lack of time off from my Day Job combined with my sticking to my stated priorities.  But I'm working on it - only four more years until I get another week off.

I'm (as I write this) at OryCon in Portland, OR.  It's bigger than I'd expected, but still pretty small as conventions go.  And many of the faces here are faces I recognize from NorWesCon in Seattle, which is much larger.

I've had a good time at the show, and I do intend to return in the future - but I didn't interact much with the show this year.  In fact, I only went to a small handful of panels, and, in most of those, I was oddly disappointed.

For example, the "Crowdfund Your Book" panel covered nearly all common-sense items that I'd learned from the Kicksnarker community on Google Plus.

I keep saying this, but maybe I should look into being a panelist at a convention sometime.  It seems that more and more, I'm disappointed by the actual panelists.

In 2013, I attended the North American Discworld Con, GenCon, and OryCon.  In 2014, I'll be attending NorWesCon, and GenCon for sure.  OryCon and GameStorm are maybes.  BGG.con is wishlisted.

But I only have two weeks of vacation, and I only spend one week on me.  The other week of vacation is reserved for Stephanie. It looks like there is a lot of vacation spent up there, but NorWesCon is two days spent. OryCon was one day.  GameStorm is one day.  North American Discworld Con was for Steph (as was OryCon).  And yes, I do take occasional unpaid days off for conventions.

I'm learning that I actually prefer bigger shows, too.  OryCon is - as I said - larger than expected, but it's still small enough that many (most?) of the regulars know one another (or, at a minimum, recognize one another).  As a first-time attendee, I feel like a bit of an outsider. This is, by the way, not a criticism of the show itself. Or of the people attending, for that matter. SCARAB was much the same way a few years ago - the difference is that I knew someone at SCARAB other than Steph.  And, by the way, I do intend to return to SCARAB at some point.

At a larger show, people expect to be surrounded by strangers, and so work extra-hard to get to know them.  When you go to a small show, people are often there to see their friends and so don't make as much of an effort to reach out to strangers.

Smaller shows also have fewer panels.  I realize that this is essentially common-sense, but it should still be said.  At NorWesCon, their program book doesn't have any gaps in any of the rooms until late at night.  Here at OryCon, there are rooms that are only in use for a few hours every day.  But fewer panels doesn't mean they're lower in quality by any means - the Crowdfunding panel that was disappointing for me?  Did have good information.  It was just good information that I already had.  Someone who wasn't active in the Kicksnarker community might have found it very useful and/or informative.  I honestly don't know.

One of the real highlights of the show - for me, at least - was introducing my wife to Shogi, using this set.  I'm still learning to use this camera, so it's not quite what I'd expected - but I'll get better.  And there are few things as awesome as a good time-lapse board game video, amirite?

... and that's about all I have to say for now.  Next week, I'll have more words to throw at my screen.  I promise.