A new law.

Every punk album is required to have at least one song that has the drummer screaming out the count like this:

OneTwoTHREEFOUR!!

So mote it be.

DunDraCon

This was the first gaming con I've attended in years, and even though I was only there for a short time, I had a blast.

The day started way too early with Kirsten and I heading over to The Convention Hotel Doubletree where she's attending Pantheacon. After dropping her off, I headed up 680 to San Ramon.

The hills were this odd color, sort of a vibrant green. Upon further research I've learned that this is caused by something called "living foliage." Strange. I'll be happy when the hills are back to their normal flammable brown. The drive took about 45 minutes, and luckily there was no rain.

Get to the con, register, and look around. Lots of overweight guys.. big shock. But a good number of kids (defined as anyone under 25) playing games in all corners. Ran into a few friends, cruised the dealers room. I found one shirt I must have, but it's not on Pegasus Publishing's website. Black metal-band t-shirt, with AC/HP at the top, a flame-wreathed d20 in the middle, surrounded by the words For Those About To Roll, We Salute You. They had some other great designs, but I was on a tight budget. I even managed to avoid buying dice!

My main reason for going was to attend some seminars. The first of these was "What's New from Hero" at 1030. Wow, do they have a full publishing schedule! 16 books through the rest of the year, 15 on the list for 2006, with a possible Champions 25th Anniversary special edition. I like the fact that the folks who bought the company are both fans, writers, and good businessmen. That's a triple threat rarely seen in this industry. I made inquiries about freelance work; and was directed to the website and their online 'zine. Have to grab the scratch to subscribe.

After that, came "In Defense of Orcs" and I got to meet the Freaking Lunatic himself, Ken Hite (aka princeofcairo). Nice guy, no one would think for a minute that he's the font of supreme weirdness that is Suppressed Transmission.. anyway, the panel. We explored the concept of an evil race (and a good race), discussed how to make black and white choices a bit more gray, and moral choices in RPGs. One thing everyone agreed on is that the game morality needs to be clear to all before hand. If the game is going to accept that orcs are inherently evil, and deserve to be killed, it is not fair to suddenly turn the tables on the players by making the orcs noble savages.

After that, I needed food, so I dodged out of one of the world building seminars and hit the buffet line. DunDraCon could learn from BayCon in this department. One hamburger later, and I was ready to assault the Dealer's Room!

Where I scored. I scored so big. I went to the Hero booth, and looked over the books. Since I really like Hero for superhero stuff, I grabbed Conquerors, Killers, and Crooks and Champions Universe. With that purchase, I also was able to buy the UNTIL Superpowers Database without a front cover for only five bucks! That's a $25 book!

Back to the panel room for another Ken Hite talk. This one on fantasy cities, focusing on the plausibility of Thieves Guilds and the like. Another great discussion, with lots of good information about how law enforcement worked in the pre-industrial era. (Hang the first stranger you see, declare the crime solved. Split up his stuff.)

After that, I checked the open gaming schedule to see if there were any sessions I was interested in. The only one that piqued my interest started at 2000 and showed an eight-hour running time. Um, I have to work tomorrow. That, and the rain was starting to really come down, and I had a long drive on a highway that I wasn't too familiar with... I bowed out and headed home.

Now I just need to hoard pennies for the VIPER Sourcebook and the Hero Designer v2.0 software.

A good day. It was so bloody nice to get out of the house for once!

One more note on DunDraCon

Mr. Hite autographed my copies of Suppressed Transmission 1 and 2. What'd he write?

ST1: "Look to the Skies!!"

ST2: "Kill All Orcs!"

Additionally, on the title page of ST2, he drew a thought balloon from a picture of Thomas Edison. "Curse you, Nikola Tesla!!"