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GenCon started yesterday. I am once more not there. Nor do I particularly want to, truth be told.
I was never a huge fan of gaming cons. I used to go to DunDraCon largely for the flea market, auction, and/or dealer's room. That was in the early to mid '90s. You can see from the locus of purchasing activity that I had more dollars than sense at the time. But, I purchased some fine things at those cons that I still treasure. I found [i]White Dwarf #1-10[/i] in a box at the Pacificon flea market one year, and paid $2 or $5 each for them. Another year I got issues #1-8 of [i]The Traveller's Digest[/i] at the Pacificon auction for $15 total, or something else ridiculously silly. But I also got plenty of stuff that's since gone, such as a collection of [i]Man, Myth & Magic[/i] books.
Then I started working for Chaosium in 1995. Cons--never a huge draw for me in the first place--became work. I learned pretty quickly that standing on your feet for 8 hours straight is tiring, and for me at least, talking to people and being friendly for that same period of time is entirely exhausting.
In many ways, I think the worst thing you can do for your hobby is make it a job. Though my experiences at Chaosium were generally good and though I was never overworked, after two years there I was entirely burned out on cons and it took me a few years to get my roleplaying mojo back.
(I think I have a much happier medium now. Though I run the RPGnet community and am constantly dealing with board games, my main focus is programming in both cases, and that hasn't led to burnout on either front.)
So, GenCon.
One of the things that I love about working on the RPG History book is that it increases my interest in roleplaying generally. I wait on tenterhooks to see what Mongoose's new fantasy offering is going to be, whether White Wolf will reverse the last year of disappointing RPG abandonment, and what the next campaign setting will be for WoTC. Usually, it'd all sort of interest me, but the history book keeps it to the forefront as something to keep track of. So, though I may not be at GenCon, I eagerly await its results.
There's also going to relief when it's over, however. For myself I'll feel more able to attack parts of the history book concerning companies still in business, with the likelihood that they'll make major changes or announcements before my deadline notable decreased. For Skotos, it'll suddenly become easier to contact folks in the industry who have gone increasingly off line over recent weeks.
And that's what GenCon means for me, this year.
I was never a huge fan of gaming cons. I used to go to DunDraCon largely for the flea market, auction, and/or dealer's room. That was in the early to mid '90s. You can see from the locus of purchasing activity that I had more dollars than sense at the time. But, I purchased some fine things at those cons that I still treasure. I found [i]White Dwarf #1-10[/i] in a box at the Pacificon flea market one year, and paid $2 or $5 each for them. Another year I got issues #1-8 of [i]The Traveller's Digest[/i] at the Pacificon auction for $15 total, or something else ridiculously silly. But I also got plenty of stuff that's since gone, such as a collection of [i]Man, Myth & Magic[/i] books.
Then I started working for Chaosium in 1995. Cons--never a huge draw for me in the first place--became work. I learned pretty quickly that standing on your feet for 8 hours straight is tiring, and for me at least, talking to people and being friendly for that same period of time is entirely exhausting.
In many ways, I think the worst thing you can do for your hobby is make it a job. Though my experiences at Chaosium were generally good and though I was never overworked, after two years there I was entirely burned out on cons and it took me a few years to get my roleplaying mojo back.
(I think I have a much happier medium now. Though I run the RPGnet community and am constantly dealing with board games, my main focus is programming in both cases, and that hasn't led to burnout on either front.)
So, GenCon.
One of the things that I love about working on the RPG History book is that it increases my interest in roleplaying generally. I wait on tenterhooks to see what Mongoose's new fantasy offering is going to be, whether White Wolf will reverse the last year of disappointing RPG abandonment, and what the next campaign setting will be for WoTC. Usually, it'd all sort of interest me, but the history book keeps it to the forefront as something to keep track of. So, though I may not be at GenCon, I eagerly await its results.
There's also going to relief when it's over, however. For myself I'll feel more able to attack parts of the history book concerning companies still in business, with the likelihood that they'll make major changes or announcements before my deadline notable decreased. For Skotos, it'll suddenly become easier to contact folks in the industry who have gone increasingly off line over recent weeks.
And that's what GenCon means for me, this year.