VengerCon 2022: Running the Blockades

 So to my mother, dog, and clowns, I went to VengerCon. Apparently I not only supported it, I became a sponsor. Sadly, there were no goosestepping parades and burning of books by Tranny authors for me to wring my hands over and clutch my pearls. JerryTel, one of my token conservative friends, showed up as we like to do micro-cons every now and then. I had a great time.

 
On Friday, I was a little drunk by the time I started hanging out. This was more from doing pre-gen Characters for my scheduled events than needing liquid courage-- still, it was helpful. After a dinner with Venger Satanis (Darrick Dishaw) and Jerry, we jumped into the host's Friday night session of Cha'alt. I recognized the setup from the first book, I think, as we were inside a giant worm. For all the players that were there (like 11 or 12), it wasn't hard to jump in and participate in the action. I found myself sitting next to a fellow that struck me as awfully familiar. I just couldn't say where.
Afterwards, I stuck around to imbibe more drink and partake in my once-a-week-smoke with company. I met fellow gamers named Greg, Phillip, Collin, and Matt. We had a rollicking debate party, I couldn't tell you the details but it was fun.



As there were only like thirty participants, on Saturday there was no one to play in my Gangbusters scenario. Yes, the one where I worked so hard to create PCs the day before. So Jerry and I brainstormed on his unnamed game (J.U.G.) for a bit before we jumped into Ivan Richmond's Dream of the Dragon scenario. Greg and Phillip, buds from the night before, joined in. I really enjoyed how Ivan's (Eye-Man for fun) game had classic fairy-tale elements while being a hardcore dungeon crawl. As an added benefit, I loved watching the traditional D&D players, including Jerry, get frustrated over Charm spells that broke the rules so to speak.

At dinner, I invited Oakes Spalding, a fellow I'd been chatting with on Friday night as well, to jump in my Crawlspace premier of "Florida Man" . That means test run from incomplete notes by the way. JerryTel and Ivan showed up as well and we did a quick take. Worked nicely and the players felt the roleplaying drug hit their bloodstreams, my game generally does. Though it only lasted about three hours, I had a chance to sit back as a GM and watch the players move things along for almost twenty minutes. GM popcorn time, as I call these instances. I do need to work on the transitions, ties, and clues of the scenario though.

Sunday, at breakfast I finally figured out that the fellow I kept thinking I knew was James Jeffers, whom I had gamed with at North Texas Con in 2021. Our breakfasting area would turn into a gaggle of folks attending VengerCon and the restaurant staff would have to lecture us about putting chairs in their aisles. It was a fun brunch. I left early as no one was going to attending my T&T session. JerryTel left around the same time. There were though sixteen people staying to play up until the six PM closing time to the convention. It was a good time overall.

To my mother, dog, and clowns... that means to all gay, commie-ish, tranny, Christian, BLM-identifying, feministic, and pinko players that I have gamed with for years, I am especially tired of watching the RPG market just get juvenile. I am sick of gamers ostracizing people that they don't like. I am tired of the corporate type of folks doing dickish things to the creatives they work with politics being the excuse.  This does not mean that I am turning conservative the older I get. I still want single-pay healthcare, less police authority, and a decent USMNT in the World Cup one day.

I noticed, by being the open-minded liberal that I am, that Dishaw does work that is worth reading, even if it might offend you. His game-mastering is practiced. He is something of a GMs' GM. He's funny when he's being a gadfly with his "social commentary" scenarios provoking One Bookshelf. His personal politics as with a lot of his gaming colleagues which get a little delusional about some sort of day of retribution on the Cultural Marxists that tried to ban their games, gets kind of scary. Hey, though, I've watched the cottage industry veer from one pointless controversy to another, and they're actually never the same. The day of reckoning of Right V. Left isn't going to happen, sorry to both sides of the schism here. Nope no civil war, just a changing market. I am for more indy games, so I don't people who think they know better than me, telling me who to game with and who not to.

To paraphrase myself (the original quote is, "If you don't watch Santa Claus Versus the Martians the Communists win"), if I didn't support Venger, the corporates win.

Memphis For a Bit

Outside of the vendors' area, it was a typical trip to the South. Great food, dismal accommodations, all served up with exaggerated manners. But that was not the case when dealing with the Joe Bob Brigg's 2022 Jamboree managing team, Humble Enterprises. Peryton had sent me a link in late May to this TV show fans get-together. We hadn't had a date in a while and she had just released Crawlspace: 21 and Over, so I suggested we do a booth. She tried to play hard to get for about fifteen minutes. Next thing I know she was purchasing tee-shirts, baseball caps, and carry bags all with TerrorHog plastered all over them. We were able to get Charlie Flemming's film producer friend Daniel to send us a couple DVDs of Blood Freak and another movie, which I haven't watched yet so its name slips my mind, to sell. Tee-shirts and cheesy movies, we were all set up to sell roleplaying games at convention for horror movie fans.

Because of brush fires along Interstate 40, from Little Rock to Memphis, we showed up about fifteen minutes before the hordes of fandom were allowed to rush into the venue. I set up stuff in a very organized fashion, but didn't put much creativity into it-- I had been driving since 10pm EST the night before from Indianapolis with only a nap between Northwest Arkansas and Mississippi Valley. Things were a little slow but Peryton and I had some catching up to do. Sales, though, weren't bad.

Throughout the rest of the weekend, we made friends and sold product.  Peryton spent a good bit of Saturday being a fan girl and getting photos and autographs. Chants of "Hogzilla! Hogzilla! Hogzilla!" would tend to break out when she was in an area. The movies and merchandise were there to attract the non-roleplayers, I mean the ones that play with dice. A common joke at the table all weekend went like this,

Me: Do you roleplay?
(Customer, dressed like Vampira/Spike, raises an eyebrow)
Me: I mean on a table.
(Customer raises both eyebrows)
Me: ...with pencils and dice.
Customer: Oh that kind...
Me: (Leering) Well, we don't use dice.
Still plenty of RPG buffs showed up for demonstrations of Crawlspace. Plenty just walked up and asked which books should they buy. Sales were good. Both the lady and I were surprised at how helpful the people running the event were.

This was one of the few conventions where I stayed longer than I should've on Sunday. Chatting up neighboring vendors and a couple celebrities, I was sad to leave a couple of hours early to start the six hour drive back to the abode. Showing up at work Monday morning, I had to admit I was refreshed despite the long drives and the work of selling product.
Next year, I am going to try and set up a couple Crawlspace events though. I'll call them "Improvs". Get my real game on.

As Time Goes By, July 2 2022

 The T&T campaign for Wizards is still ongoing
It's at the halfway point according to my paperwork. Not that that means anything in terms of the tabletopping. After being attacked by yet again another gug and then a batch of what can only be described as dream goblins and a pumpkin-head beast, I have been able to start dropping clues as to the great mystery of the scenario. The PCs Max Kitch, Zel (short for zomething or anozer), and Jazon have started to climb the Starry Tower and have discovered eleven Stargazer adepts trapped within the walls of their living areas.
Looking at my notes, once again, I down with the normal stuff. Not that much of what has happened has been very typical.

The Spacers games might be alternating with Wobble
I always have a lot of notes that I make that I can apply to the Wobble settings. Ben was not able to make it to the last Sci-Fi Saturday session, so Iron Curtis and Peryton agreed to jump back into the Tau Verse with their Characters, Professor Rudy and Daisy Adair. Their albatross-class wobble-boat was attacked by pirates but saved by Banana-boat fighters patrolling the area that they were in.
The Spacers is still going on, but spacefaring sci-fi and gonzo sci-fi just makes life so much richer to me.

Venger Satanists Defeats Abortion for OSR Gamers
To be flip, I've watched the GM/Author Darrick Dishaw do Provocateur Publishing with some adeptness over the last month, maybe six weeks-- my real counting is focused elsewhere on matters of money concerning me. 

Talks about Family-Values after mass shootings, but a GM/Author that understands working

He's taken the advice from many of self-assumed betters in the OSR telling him to not be so... well, topical and said "fuck off." Venger, as he's colloquially known, has taken events from the headlines of the real world and produced scenarios pretty much to meant to be stricken down by the main provider of roleplaying PDFs, One Bookshelf (often called OBS(WTF?) ). True to Kortthalis Publishing standards, Christian values, as pedaled by a guy with the name Satan in his nickname, were referenced in two works. And guess what? They were taken down. The controversy continued along its manufactured vector with a bag-gas collection of commentators calling themselves OSR complaining about OBS's "editorial policies".
The folks at OBS, much easier to type than One Bookshelf P (Publishing, PDF-providing, Productions... et al), err onebookshelf.com, went into reactionary mode and came up with contributing authors' guidelines about not doing what Venger is doing. They called it "Hostile Marketing." They also went on to include author's blog posts and other media presence to be a basis for exclusion from their sales outlet. Which gave more voice to many more artists of the RPG field to raise their voice, and rekindle their media presence, to the controversy. As it stands to date, Venger's second inflammatory work, something about Gay Pride month, was accepted, as long as there were some edits. I can't wait to read print copies of both works. I'm not downloading that sort of shit onto my PC though.
For the cottage industry of RPG what does it all mean?
Hell, it's sales. But does it sell?

Meanwhile, this happened

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/401229/Crawlspace-21-and-Over

Robin, that's Peryton, has worked with Beckett, Beckett Warren, to take a lot of material and make the sexiest version of the Crawlspace game to date. A lot of that a lot has been by me. This stuss has built up for the years of Crawlspacing at tabletops with me as the Producer/Director of many of the gigs. I think that is why she included me as a coauthor. You all should buy about 20 print copies each.

Remember this Independence Day folks, that you have nine more fingers after too much alcohol and access to gunpowder has led to a slight malfunction. Don't be a wuss, but this time have someone hold your beer.