I am back from Dragonmeet!
“Wait,” I hear you ask. “I didn’t even know you were going to Dragonmeet!” And that’s true. Even though I bought my ticket back in June, I kept reasonably quiet about it, because my original plan was just to attend as a fan and maybe do a tiny bit of networking or whatever. And yet, things changed.
First, some backstory. This is my second Dragonmeet. My first was when I was living in Ireland (or, more accurately, in the process of moving out of Ireland), and I went there mainly to game. I was barely on the convention floor at all, aside from roaming the Trade Hall. It was a load of fun, though. My plan, then, was really to just use this as a way to get a feel for the London RPG scene. Show up, play a game, maybe hit a few panels, buy a couple of things, and then sneak back into the night.
However, everything changed due to train strikes.
Long story short, a lot of train workers planned to go on strike the weekend of Dragonmeet. None of them were Tube workers, so I was unaffected, but it meant basically anyone who wasn’t already in London or flying into London might not make it. A couple days before the show started most of the strikes were called off, but it meant things were a bit chaotic for people getting to the show. This impacted me in two ways:
The first was that an associate of mine was desperate for GMs for a game of DIE. I had planned in a game and was familiar with the comic, and figured I could probably learn it soon enough, so I applied to be a backup GM, just in case. Which I was then asked to step up and do. (More on that in a moment.)
The second was that the GM for the morning game I signed up for was at least twenty minutes late. They were deeply sorry, and the con staff did track them down and let us know, but by that point my social anxiety kicked in hard and I couldn’t wait anymore.
So I had several hours to kill in the morning before a game I had to run. It gave me time to slowly check out the trade hall — once as an overview, and once to hand out business cards to people that looked like they might need freelancers. I also picked up a couple of CY_BORG supplements, because I might be running a game of that soon.
The DIE RPG went really well. No spoilers, but Kieron Gillian (the author of the game and the comic it’s based on) was there as a kind of meta-GM to our six separate-yet-connected games all happening in the same room. It was about 50% tabletop gaming, and 50% a LARP about a terrible convention experience. While it was still “work” in that I was being compensated for my efforts, it was also nice to professionally run a game I didn’t have a hand in creating. (Plus, I was able to get my roommate’s trade of DIE autographed.)
After that, I was just exhausted, so I headed home. It wasn’t at all the Dragonmeet I had planned, but it was a lot of fun, and I think as long as I live in London I’ll likely make it a part of my schedule. And maybe I’ll be there professionally next time!
News Roundup
Once again I was a guest on the RPG R&D podcast! This is my… fourth, I think?… appearance on the show, and it’s always a fun time. On this episode we talked about fixing big mistakes as both a GM and as a designer.
Speaking of podcasts, we hit 100 episodes of the Genreless podcast! For those that don’t know, I co-host it with Chris Spivey, and we talk about all sorts of TV shows and comics. This specific episode was one where we interviewed each other, so it might be particularly interesting to readers of this newsletter.
Recently DriveThruRPG had a sale called “Teach Your Kids to Game.” The sale is now over, but during that I wrote a blog post about my experiences running Pugmire for kids.
This one isn’t for my, but my good friend Anna Megill (Control, Fable, Guild Wars 2, Zelda, and many more) has a book out! The Pocket Mentor for Video Game Writers is a fantastic resource if you’re thinking about writing professionally for video games. It’s a great gift idea for the budding narrative designer in your life! (Even if it’s you. Treat yo self.)
My Media
Yes, there’s new Doctor Who right now. Yes, I want to talk about it. But honestly, I’ll probably do that anyway. So instead, let me talk about something else that’s taken up months of my life lately: Marvel Move.
Marvel Move is an “interactive fitness adventure for smartphones,” according to the press release. But really it’s an audio drama that’s timed in a way to help encourage you to run. It’s built on the same app technology as Zombies, Run! (which is now branded ZRX), acting as a secondary subscription inside the app.
And it’s great.
See, the rest of my family found running as a fitness activity during the pandemic. I walked. I did a couple of 5k walking virtual marathons during the time, but I never quite mustered up the capability to start running.
Earlier this year I noticed that I was having to walk 90 minutes or more just to get my heartrate up, and it wasn’t wearing me out as it used to. Which is good, but I couldn’t easily carve two hours out of my day just to walk. I tried yoga for a while, but again I struggled to keep it engaging.
Marvel Move had an eight week 5k training course, and I figured I’d give it a try. I like audio drama, and I like Marvel comics, so I thought it would be a good fit. So I started up “Thor and Loki’s 5k Training” and gave it a shot.
I finished the last (of 24) episodes last week. I didn’t run through the entire 5k, but I ran more than I walked. And it was surprising how much the app helped. Whenever I’d feel like I couldn’t be bothered, I realized I wanted to see where the story (such at it is) was going. When I felt like I couldn’t run any more, a character would impress on me how vitally important it was that I keep running for the sake of the multiverse, and I found I had a little extra in the tank to keep running.
To be clear, it’s all a little silly. From a purely narrative standpoint, it was 24 episodes of finding increasingly implausible reasons why I had to run (or, occasionally, stretch or do exercises). Ultimately it’s just a series of audio files that play either at certain times for the program, or at certain distance markers. But it’s something that understands it’s ultimately a way to get nerds like me to run, and it doesn’t take itself too seriously. To bring it back around, it’s got a bit of the “silly yet dramatic” vibe of Doctor Who, and Rhys Jennings’s Loki has a fair amount of David Tennant’s Doctor in their performance.
Yes, you can collect things on your run, but you can’t do anything except look at them in the app. Yes, you get an email from one of the characters of the drama after each run, but I found that surprisingly uplifting and rewarding. I have worked in spaces very similar to this one, and I have a reasonable understanding of how all this sausage was probably made, but it still worked. I got out and I ran for eight weeks (well, closer to ten, between taking a week off due to a sore ankle and bailing on a couple of runs when I wasn’t feeling well).
The main downside is that episodes drop at a very slow pace — about one or two a month — so after a few months I’ll have to either replay some or move into the Zombies, Run! catalog. Regardless, even though I’ve taken a few days off after my completion, tomorrow I’m going to start the X-Men adventures.
That’s it for me this month. I’m going to take my usual “birthday to New Year’s” time off this year, so if I don’t talk to you before then, have a happy holiday season, and I’ll see you in 2024!