Star Crossed Musing

 I am home from Gen Con 2018! *falls over* *sleeps* *writes this post* Okay, so Gen Con was a thing that happened last week. It was huge, pushing 70k unique attendees in a 4 block radius, roughly. Some weirdness happened, which I'm not really going to touch on since a Google search can reveal it, but suffice it to say that Ms. Sarkeesian's presence touched off a wave of fetid attendees who felt their right to be politically icky was being threatened. Overall, though, the con and its attendees were fantastic, and I am thrilled we were able to be there and join together in fun and imagination. So, let's talk about what happened on my trip! First, the swag: The pic above shows the RPGs we bought. Cypher System , Unmasked , and Predation : At Origins we got to play Numenera for the first time, which yes, I know, I'm late to the Monte Cook Games party. I really enjoyed it, and as a result, when I found myself in the Monte Cook booth at Gen Con, we walked away ...

So there's a game I've been working on (or rather, it's been simmering on the back burner) for *mumble* years now. It's a cyberpunk game called Daedalus. You see, I wrote a setting way back in the 2000s for a company called Guardians of Order, which was published in their Ex Machina book -- there were four cyberpunk settings and mechanics for their system. My setting, the aforementioned Daedalus, was pretty kindly regarded, and I was pretty proud of it. When GoO folded, I got the rights back in lieu of payment for other debts, and we called it good. Cue Life. (Life enters, pursued by a bear.) Time passes, as it does, and in the interim I lived in Seattle and did a whole bunch of work for various other people and finished my bachelors degree. Then I moved to Cleveland, went to grad school, got married, and finished my doctorate. Gosh, it sounds so simple when I say it like that. Anyway, in the midst of all that, my husband Matthew and I started our own game compa...

Lo, I have returned! Arise from the dead, blog! Arise and stretch forth your reach into the Internets! *maniacal laugh* Well, not really all that maniacal. Mostly just normal and slightly relieved. You see, dear reader, I have finished my doctorate! I am tired and still somewhat braindead from the effort, but still recovering. I am also employed for the next school year, which is really all I wanted from my degree. Alas, the doggie pictured above, my dear sweet dim Leo, has left this earthly sphere at the ripe old age of 12-13, which is no small achievement when you're a purebred lab with bad hips. I have his picture to keep me company, at least. Wherever he might be in the cosmos, Leo will always be as pictured above: happy to see you. With that in mind, I am returning to blogging, finally. Likely topics to come will include game design, knitting, my research in 18th-century lit, my dogs, my house, my family, political opinion, and possible media reviews. I will also be ...

Here, it's a picture of a cute pig from the Internet. Enjoy. So, Dear Reader, the last we saw of each other was when I got that amazing survey back and could not figure out what the heck I was going to do with it. (I am much closer to doing something with it, btw, but that'll take another few months.) I had every intent of posting again, and soon, but then... well, my dissertation ramped up and ate my life. I've been making good progress, but I'm on something of a deadline at the moment, so I'm forced to ignore pretty much everything that isn't it, including this blog. I still love you all, though. Truly. Would Little Piglet lie to you? No, it would not. Oink. In life updates though, in the past five months: Both my sons are graduating high school I've finished drafts of three and a half chapters I've been a guest at a convention (Breakout Con in Toronto, ON!) I've been elected president of a game developers trade organization (IDGN!) I...

Last week I thought to myself, "Self, you need to do a blog post." In trying to think of what this blog post would be about, I thought that maybe covering stuff that had happened in gaming last year from and by women would be a good topic. The problem, of course, was that I didn't have any data. I made a Facebook post querying about interest in the topic and whether people would help with information, and someone on my list suggested asking what women had been playing last year. I pondered this and decided that a "year in review" survey might be a good idea. I then took a few days of messing with Google Forms and ended up with the survey you see a portion of above. I thought I might get as many as a couple of hundred responses, assuming people were interested. Oh, what a sweet summer child past Me was. On Monday, January 9th, I started sending out the links to it. I posted it on Facebook, G+, and Twitter -- once each. It went live at 4:30 PM EST that day...

So, I really meant to post more in December, truly I did, but then the end of the semester happened, and then I fell and broke my thumb, which put a damper on my typing overall. I just got my cast off yesterday, and it's a glorious feeling. (See pic of my son cosplaying John Bender from The Breakfast Club to embody that emotion. :) ) It's sore, and I can't ask it to do too much, and I have a splint to wear at night for support, but it's so much better than it was. So I have more about game design to post, but I'm going to take a bit to do the obligatory end-of-year post. 2016 seemed like a year of huge upheaval for just about everyone I know. Some good, some bad, but lots of it regardless. My eldest son moved in with us and started his senior year again, for example. He's doing well, but it was an adjustment. My dad had health issues but is doing okay. My car got wrecked (by my son) and replaced with my parents' old minivan.  I had a chapter approved fo...

From the app game Monument Valley So I've been bitten by the fantasy bug, probably at least part in reaction to the whole election stuff. This isn't unusual, really -- look at Tolkien -- but it's unusual for me, because working at WotC and on d20 stuff for so long had seemingly inoculated me against fantasy stuff. I still can't play D&D or Pathfinder. It's like a mental contact allergy, except it involves ranting and a reaction to classes and levels. However, I've started putting thought into a fantasy game, and I think it a) actually has some legs and b) would be fun to play and c) does enough that's different to be worthwhile and not just another heartbreaker. So I figured I'd post about it as I go along and see what people think. So, first of all, I've figured out I have rules for game design overall, and even fantasy games have to fit within them. Here are my rules. 1) There has to be a goal of play.  I have nothing against sandbox...