Wednesday, August 23, 2017

Terrorize Them With Quality

1. A Year Ago...


...after the last Gen Con I said D&D with Porn Stars will be throwing a party next Gen Con. It'll be big and it'll be loud and it'll be a year in the making and the paint will peel from the walls.

And then I said: If the DIY RPG scene wants to, in less than 5 years it can run this town.

2. The First Thing I Did...

...when I got to my room was stand and go "One" and then slide over two feet and go "Two" and then slide around the bed and go "Three" and I kept dong that all over the room, trying to count how many people could fit in it.

Probably maybe enough kinda--if they were all thin and careful and managed to make it 4 whole blocks from the convention center and the staff didn't notice them crowding through the lobby.

I mean really to be clear I was worried sick. Also I'd just realized there was a very big hole in the seat of my jeans and likely had been for several hours.

Stokely had been reading up on Indiana state sex crime laws. They are not generous: blowjobs, for example, are a crime, as is having an erection while outdoors.

And Green Ronin was up for more awards than us.

It's always good to make peace with the worst-case scenario. In this case: the party will suck, there'll be nothing to celebrate anyway, and we'll all be arrested for nudity and boners by the Indiana sex police.

3. And then I beheld two figures...

...striding boldly in the sickening heat. Jez Gordon and James Edward Raggi IV, arrived from distant lands. We found a place, I ordered something with rum and pineapple and, basically, for five days straight....everything was completely perfect in the world.

The Bastille really does await, and the guards really are drunk:
Left: False Patrick, Right: me, Center: some plush fuck.
This was Patrick's first time in America, his take here.

"Hello sir! Do you like roles? Do you like playing? Do you like games?
Do you like fantasy? Do you like horror? Do you like fantasy horror? Weird or normal fantasy?
Excellent, perfect! Step this way! Dead players you say? We can help. Here at LotFP we make the best modules
supplements in the business, buy 4 get a 5th free. Maze of the Blue Medusa? No sir it is sold out,
however may I offer you this fine, all-weather, hypo-allergenic cloth Maze of the Blue Medusa Map?"
L to R: Me, RPG connoisseur of brilliant taste, Raggi, Jacob Hurst whose Swordfish Islands sold
out, too, and Mike Hubris in profile.
Charlotte Stokely at the hotel incompletely censored by half a Sir Larkins sticker.
Previous (and even less SFW) attempt at OSR sticker-modeling here.





Me, Stokely, charming fan with excellent taste, Mike Mearls.
 They had a Marilyn Monroe vent at this bar which kept blowing Stokely's skirt up.
Mike and I talked about nuclear terror and making games for like 4 hours.
His jaw moved, too.

Raggi with Nicole Pate in Flame Princess cosplay


Indiana Museum of Art
Left: False Patrick, Right: me, Center: a sample of Vantablack, the blackest substance in the world--of course James wants to bind something in it
The True Spirit Of Gen Con

Vornheim in the Gen Con museum, next to Aaron Allston's Strike Force
Ela Darling, with part of her convention haul

Narrativist RPG Uberczar Ron Edwards (left) and OSR layout mastermind Jez Gordon (right) posing as Frost Giants for my upcoming Amazons book
Brendan Necropraxis' book sold out and also he's buff

Jacob Swordfish Islands Hurst, James Edward Fucking Metal Raggi, Patrick Embarassed Constantly Because British Stuart,
Stacy Contessa Dellorfano, Jez Feral Gordon, Contessa Volunteer Whose Name I Need To Find Out Emily, Ken Satyr Press Baumann, Matthew Incredibly Gracious Cramsie 

You might feel tempted to find symbolism in the fact that Patrick was uncomfortable
standing on a piece of glass held up by thousands of tiny anonymous doll people but you'd be
forgetting he's always uncomfortable.


Improvised team vs team dungeon--Patrick kept rolling up 1 hit point
characters and died 3 times in one game. They say he writes well.
Halfway through the game one night before the awarda I got a text from Trollsmyth saying he'd
fallen ass-backwards into the Presidential Suite at the Marriott, did I still need a place
to have the party?...
A bunch of people that are in these other pictures (and Zzarchov, hiding) but most important and dead-
center is Chris H, who gets special mention because I ran into jussssst when I was trying to haul the liquor
over to Trollsmyth's suite on Ennie-morning and volunteered to help. Note his
home-made Flail snail patch.
But would the party have any raison d'etre? We approached the vast hall with trepidation....


The Ennie hall was wayyyy more packed than last year and the room was a George Perez cover of slavering foes


Stacy kicked it off...
Broodmother SkyFortress winning a judge award was a foregone conclusion
Go to 1:17:59 to see the crowd yelling "We love you Jeff!" 
Reading Jeff's Speech--the best Patrick and Zak picture.
Mike wins for Hubris, flips off the entire audience (50:43

...and
tells me he's gonna publish Demon City
Patrick winces his way through the Ennies, visibly cringing every time
someone says something American and banal, on his way to
winning two Ennies for Veins of the Earth.
Best Writing (40:33)--where he's the only person nominated who
wrote a book solo--and (along with Scrap Princess
Best Monster/Adversary (1:37:27)
Patrick and Raggi at peak embarrassment as people (and me) yell The King In The North!
as Raggi goes up to collect Kiel Chenier's Best Adventure Gold Ennie for Blood In The Chocolate,
overcoming massive, organized online harassment, openly supported by
the Atlas Games reps sitting right in front of the stage
Jez, Mike, me, Raggi......Patrick

John Wick (the 7th Sea one not the gun one), me hugging Mark Diaz Truman
Mike Evans, Raggi
Mike Curry (7th Sea systems guy)
(Not pictured because they won nothing) the Green Ronin team

OSR party storming the Marriott--Ela Darling in the lead.
Patrick saw how big the party was and left immediately.
Trying to tell the crowd to quiet down because we have 4 floors complaining about us.
There's video of me yelling at the crowd and being interrupted by a guy in
a Captain America shirt who told us to party harder:
You can see Wick in the front at one point--his team came, half the Monte Cook crew came, the ABCs of Roleplaying crew came (who said they'd been inspired to do it by this project on the blog), Greg Stafford said he was going to bed, which means: we threw the biggest party.
The home group ably adapting to local nerd culture

So of course we got kicked out of the suite and relocated to the bar downstairs. Left: Jon Peterson, curator of the Gen Con Museum and author of PlayingAt The World Ken Hite of Trail of Cthulhu and Vampire 5e


Here is Ken Hite doing the Cabbage Patch, Michael Pfaff drops a glass, Jez massages his wrist, I tell a story and Ken Baumann stands completely still

Raggi had fled by this point so he didn't
see Ken had the greatest shirt in the history of metal

So many people BYOB'd we had a fridgeworth of liquor left over. I gave Rein-Hagen a beer along with copies of Red & Pleasant and Death Frost Doom and gave the rest to anyone who looked thirsty, especially if they were running Dungeon Crawl Classics. (p.s. Whoever brought that really nice bottle of Silver Cross--Stokely has it.)

Meanwhile, online in fake-life the jackals were out in force harassing the OSR post Ennies:
They harassed Kiel because Blood in the Chocolate was bodpositive, they harassed Mike
for flipping off the Ennie audience, they harassed me for swearing at the ceremony, they
harassed Raggi for being ok with sex and they harassed Jeff for pointing out they were lying...
...it's been very difficult.

Interview the next morning--
Raggi (ranty):
I WANT them to be ASHAMED of themselves when they LOOK at these weird independent adventures from a company with ONE employee and have to explain why they can't DO BETTER!???!!
Patrick (urbane):
So you want to terrorize them with quality?

I introduced Raggi to the Monte and the Monte Cook team at the airport, and James of course took the opportunity to start up some hip-hop-beef marketing.

I looked at his wife and was like "I understand your pain" and, in her lovely Finnish accent,
she was just like "He loves the controversy" and went back to knitting socks





Popularity contests aren't important unless you're not supposed to win them. We did it.

Kids:

Show.
Up.
Next.
Year.


23 comments:

Anonymous said...

Awesome! And congratulations, I've loved the stuff you put out this year. Missed this year but I'm already planning for 2018.

Patrick Mallah said...

Yes sir.

Revenant said...

Rock on. :)

c. said...

Very cool all round. "Terrorize them with quality" is my new mantra. \m/,

Eldrad Wolfsbane said...

Well well it seems the peasants are uprising and taking over the kingdom come!

shanepatrickward said...

Sounds like it was a great time! I had a laugh at the literally trying to figure out how many people you could fit in the room (I've done that once or twice myself). Glad you all made out well, and everyone got home safe & sound.

trollsmyth said...

Thrilled to have been a part of the GenCon shenanigans.

Who was the interview with?

Zak Sabbath said...

gaming podcast called "Just One Fix" or something like that

we also did others. i'll let youknow when they remind me they did them

Unknown said...

I missed the fucking party because I had an 8am game. Great group of guys! Thanks for all the books (and shirt). Next year I'll get the rest AND make the party!!!!! Congratulations on the ennies.

Meandering Shade said...

Many congratulations to all of you. Awesome photos, looks like it was a great time throughout.

Random Wookie said...

It was a great awards show and better after party (until I bailed like Raggi and Patrick). I ran Blood in the chocolate for the other Goodman Games volunteers and wicked fun was had. Let's keep beating them at their own game.

Dan D. said...

How did you like the art museum?

Zak Sabbath said...

It was great! I wish we'd had more time there, but it's a reason to go back next year.

SamwiseSevenRPG said...

Damn, that sounds like one Hell of a good time. :D

SC78 said...

Missing that party was the low point for me but I felt like I'd been eaten by a wolf and shot over a cliff. Not wanting to be patient zero I crashed early.

Jim Yoder said...

Like I told Raagi,you are all performing a valuable service. You are providing a refreshing alternative to the staid corporate repetition being handed to us.

Like the art movements that came from artists wanting to do their own thing, to not follow some governmental guidelines saying what is acceptable. Sometimes boundaries need to be pushed. Just saying.

FM Geist said...

Fucking congrats!
I almost regret having been required at Necronomicon (which couldn't even get a decent controversy) but sent some friend of a friend in wolf furry garb to snag me a copy of Maze.

See you next year!

Adamantyr said...

Fun stuff! And congratulations!

(Annoyed at my work proxy for blocking your blog)

Pedro Obliziner said...

the adventures of Zak and the embarrassed Patrick would make a terrific tv series

Godzilla Geek said...

Ha! Glad to see Stokely liked the Silver Cross I picked out! Ken Baumann actually asked me to pick out some nice whisky to donate to the party on his behalf, and he paid me for it once he hit the party, so he should get the credit for it!

As I said before, I really enjoyed the party, and am glad you all met with some success. If you decide to hold another party next year, feel free to reach out to me again a bit earlier and we'll find you some digs that won't freak out at the noise a good party seems to require. It was still a fun first for me getting booted from that room, though!

Zak Sabbath said...

how will i find you, Godzilla?

Godzilla Geek said...

Ah yes. My secret identity is John McCollum. Should have just reacted to you on Google +. You can find me there as you did before.

I must be honest, I have a vested interest doing any such OSR DIY party up right. Raggi has an adventure of mine in development, so maybe I will have a nomination of my own to celebrate some day.

David Larkins said...

I think one of my favorite mini-moments of the Con was seeing the skull-faced dude trying to discreetly talk on his phone, jaw clacking away.

And thanks for the sticker stress test! You and Stokely do yeoman's work.