Hey again, folks! It’s your exhausted, still jet lagged a week later friend, recovering from what can only be convention plague a week after coming back from Norway. I will shortly have up my recap of the amazing time I had at Knutepunkt 2013 in Norway and at the Different Games conference at NYU Poly this weekend, but first I have exciting news. My convention schedule for this upcoming con season has blossomed into a lot of travel and I’m excited to talk about some places where I’ll be attending, running events, and sitting on panels. Heck, between this and attending Dystopia Rising games in New Jersey, Massechussets and soon potentially in Pennsylvania, I doubt I’ll have a free weekend until the end of the year.
Regardless, here’s the schedule, and it’s robust to say the least!
Camp Nerdly – Ever want to go Nerd camping? Go out to summer camp with tabletop RPGs and more dice than you can shake a marshmallow on a stick at? Well, that’s Camp Nerdly folks. Outside of Washington DC the weekend of May 17th-19th, I’ll be attending just for the heck of playing some fun RPGs with some great people (my present to myself for surviving a tough semester). I’ll admit to coming into this event blind, but anything that looks like nerd camp sounds like fun!
KristaCon – If you’re not familiar, KristaCon is a tabletop extravaganza held by Krista White and Brennan Taylor (of Galileo Games fame). Organized originally as an intense weekend of tabletop at their home, it has now blossomed into a tradition of two days of intense RPG madness that’s expanding to be held in New York City weekend of May 24th-26th. I attending a KristaCon where I got to play two days of intense Marvel Heroic RPG as my favorite character, Jean Grey, and wouldn’t miss this one for the world.
DexCon – All right, no more fun and games… well, that sounds wrong when talking about a convention. But what I mean is, no more just going to a convention to have fun! I’ll be rolling into one of my favorite conventions, DexCon 2013 in Morristown New Jersey with my Phoenix Outlaw crew to run two amazing LARPs. The first is a brand new signature event based on the Battlestar Galactica universe called ‘Straight On ‘Til Morning: Tales of the Rising Star’ with Last Second Productions, headed by my old friend Michael Maleki. The second event we’ll be running is my favorite, the Dresden Files LARP. This will be the chronicle closer for our last four games and it’s entitled “Final Frost.” There might be some other Phoenix Outlaw surprises going on that weekend, so stay tuned…
GenCon– This is the big road trip, folks! I will be strapping into a vehicle for a nice long road trip out to Indianapolis, Indiana to play like a rockstar at GenCon 2013. Along with celebrating the good work done by folks in the industry, I’m waiting to hear back about possibly doing a couple of panels there, including one on representation of religion and religious ideas in game culture and another on mental health in game culture. More information will be coming up about these as they appear. Mostly I’m excited about the epic road trip that always precedes GenCon. This year I’ll be doing it with John Adamus, a writer and an editor trapped in a car for ten hours of driving. This should be fun!
PaxPrime– PaxEast a while back saw me, Iris Explosion, Stella Chu, Anja Keister and Susana Polo of the Mary Sue light up the stage with ‘You Game Like A Girl’ (which can now be seen in its entirety on YouTube sans the horrid trolling). It was such an intense experience but apparently a successful one, because we’re doing it again! This time we’re heading to Seattle for PaxPrime and I’m expecting it to be a heck of a trip. I’ve never been to Seattle so I’m looking forward to seeing the city, as well as kicking back at the convention to take in the atmosphere. Now I just have to figure out funding for this one too and we’re set.
WyrdCon – This is a huge one for me and team Phoenix Outlaw, folks. John Adamus and I will be flying out to Los Angeles for WyrdCon 2013 where we have bid to run a session of the Dresden Files LARP. I’m excited to be taking the Dresden LARP across the country for a whirl and look forward to seeing folks like Aaron Vanick of Seekers Unlimited, who I had the pleasure of meeting at InterCon this year in Massachusetts.
GeekGirlCon – It’s my pleasure to say that I’ve been invited to come out and participate in GeekGirlCon 2013. I’ve been a huge fan of this convention since I first heard of it and the great work they’re doing in creating a space for women to talk about women in geek culture. When they reached out to me after PaxEast, I was ecstatic and I’m working hard to gather up funding for a second trip to Seattle this year to make being at this convention a reality. Who knows what kind of women in game design shenanigans I can contribute? Stay tuned as to whether this will be happening!
Metatopia – You know that I wouldn’t miss this one for the world. For those that aren’t familiar with Metatopia, it’s a game designers convention held by the folks who do DexCon and Dreamation in Morristown NJ. I feel like every time I attend Metatopia, amazing things happen and I learn so much. I expect this year to be no exception! That’s way out in November, but generally Metatopia puts a cap on the convention season for me in the most positive way and I always look forward to it. I’m looking forward to potentially bidding the women in game design panel once more, and even a discussion on game scholarship and it’s relations to indie game design. This is another ‘stay tuned’.
But wouldn’t you know, that might not be the close of the con season for me. A document recently made the rounds by Klaus Raasted, a professional larper and designer from the Nordic LARP scene. It seems he wants to run a pro larp convention in November too, maybe the week after Metatopia. Heh, can we say another trip across the pond? Let’s see what happens, but I’d be down.
This schedule also doesn’t take into account conferences like Practice at NYU and other academic events. I’m also trying to put together the funds to attempt to get to Vancouver the first week in June for the Feminists in Games conference to present a paper on the evolution of the Tomb Raider franchise and theories on women’s discourse in game design. But wouldn’t you know, the West Coast is far away and I just need to learn to spontaneously teleport.
In all seriousness, I feel really blessed and happy that folks want me and mine to come out and do awesome events at their conferences and conventions. Being a part of the nerd community has been such a central part of my life for the last ten years or so, and being able to contribute to events has been fantastic. I’m looking forward to more such events (including a special one I’ll be announcing in it’s own post soon) in 2014 as well.