As a boy, I always felt a little out of step with the 20th Century, principally because I had such romantic ideals of older times. I used to wish I’d been born in Medieval times, living by the standards of chivalry, and doing great deeds in the name of some goodly king or lord. As I grew up and learned more, however, I realized how unlikely this was. Things like the Black Death, lack of modern plumbing, and the incredible unlikelihood of social mobility made the Medieval period kind of…well…shitty. And chivalry? Invented largely by later periods who wanted to romanticize the Middle Ages as much as I did.

Despite this, however, there are some things I feel an actual longing towards, many of which went out of fashion long before I was born or only hung around a short time after. Happily, some of these things are slowly coming back, compelled, no doubt, by nostalgic people like myself.

That’s why I spurn movie megaplexes for the old refurbished movie palaces in my neck of the woods. I would pay double for my ticket, if it meant getting things like newsreels and cartoons…remnants from a day when going to the movies was a big deal and not just a “I dunno…what do you wanna do?” sort of thing. I want to support the good nostalgic returns.

Here then are some things I feel nostalgia for, even though I barely remember some of them and I’m too young to have ever experienced others, that’re making a come back.

Boardwalks

You know about them, even if only as a space on a monopoly board. But what am I talking about exactly?

Well, Atlantic City is probably the quintessential one. The lavish hotels didn’t want beachgoers to track sand directly from the beaches into their lobbies, so a wooden boardwalk was created…a pedestrian buffer between the hotels and the beach. As time went on, piers were added to it, with amusements, restaurants, shops, and more.

By the time I finally visited Atlantic City, around age 7-8, it had gotten nice and seedy, but I was still fascinated by the bright lights and lurid posters, some of which still advertized amusement rides and freak shows that were long gone. There’s been a lot of renovation in recent years, but the old Boardwalk will likely never be the same.

I think my longing for boardwalks, especially the Atlantic City boardwalk, is really a longing for the days when tourism was a somewhat different animal. We live in a time of such over-stimulation that the idea of a vacation where you just go and spend a week at the beach seems a bit quaint. But not to me. Most of my favorite vacations during my childhood were just camping with my family, and one of the best that sticks in my mind is half of a vacation I took when I was 13.

My Dad and I went to Maine for two weeks. The first week was spent on a tiny, isolated island called Spirit Island in the Richardson Lakes region. The island was big enough for our tent, a porta-potty, a picnic table…and that’s pretty much it. I spent my time reading, writing notes for a D&D game (yes, even then), listening to the 1982 Summer Olympics, and swimming. Lots and lots of swimming. Usually skinny dipping, since no one was around to see, and my Dad didn’t care.

The second week was spent at a busy, hot KOA on a very different lake. They had an arcade, movies for kids every night (I saw an edited version of Caddyshack for the first time there), a snack bar, etc. It also had a gazillion people, and skinny dipping was right out. Later on, I asked my Dad why we hadn’t just stayed at Spirit Island, since we were both so unhappy at the KOA. He was abashed and admitted that he’d thought I’d be bored at Spirit Island, so he’d done it for me. He didn’t believe I could be so happy with so little. And I think that’s a problem with tourism in general.

Strange attitude for someone in the travel industry? Maybe. But nostalgia knows little in the way of logic.

Drive-Ins

I saw some great movies at drive-in movie theaters for the first time, usually as double-features. My first exposure to James Bond was seeing The Man with the Golden Gun and The Spy Who Loved Me back to back during a campaign trip with my Dad. And I saw Aliens the same way later on, during another camping trip.

I don’t exactly know why drive-ins have gone into decline. Maybe it’s just a lot of space to keep when land developers are offering such good prices? Maybe the need for absolute darkness to get a good image, and the bad sound equipment? I don’t know.

What I do know is that I’m blessed to still have a drive-in theater. The Mendon Drive-In (http://mendondrivein.com/) shows great movies at a great price and has one amazing snack-bar. Complete with a great color scheme (pink and turquoise) and a vintage car crashing into the side of it. They have great sound systems that send sound wirelessly to your car radio, so the crappy speakers that hang on your car are a thing of the past.

I can only hope that other drive-ins are returning around the country, but I haven’t seen too much evidence of it. Almost every one I pass has either been repurposed into something like a flea market, or simply lies fallow and crumbling.

Saturday Morning Cartoons/Holiday Specials

When I was a kid, I looked forward to Saturday Morning Cartoons all week. I would get up early, grab a bowl of cereal, and hang out in my PJs, watching tons of shows. The Smurfs, the Kroft Super-Show, Bigfoot and Wildboy, the Banana Splits, the Super-Friends in all their permutations, Pac-Man, Looney Tunes. It didn’t matter that many of them were terribly animated and had insipid storylines; I loved them, because they belonged to us kids. I actually *liked* Aquaman, because I thought it would be cool to swim underwater all the time and call my “fishy friends”.

And, of course, I remember tons of PSAs. Like most people my age, I learned so much from Schoolhouse Rock that I still remember the words to the Preamble by singing it. But there was also the Bod Squad, Time for Timer segments (and I saw both afterschool specials that he starred in, thank you very much), The Most Important Person, and so on.

Every year, in the fall, there would be actual preview shows on the Friday night before the new fall line-up would begin. I actually really looked forward to these, to get a look at what new shows were coming, and which old favorites were returning.

Nowadays, I still love cartoons, but they tend to be on week-nights instead of Saturday mornings. I love Adventure Time, the Amazing World of Gumball, The Clone Wars, Young Justice, Batman: The Brave & the Bold, and others. Now if only an educational short on par with Schoolhouse Rock would come along, we’d really be in business.

The other half of this nostalgia is missing the holiday specials that shows used to have, back in the day. Like He-Man * She-Ra, Christmas in Eternia, or what have you. It’s nice to see this slowly coming back. Kung Fu Panda made a charming and heartwarming holiday special, to say nothing of the Venture Brothers Christmas Sepcial. And there are both Halloween and Christmas episodes of Adventure Time coming up this year. Very excited for those.

Gaming Stores

I could go on and on about things I’m nostalgic for, but I think I’ll wrap-up with one you might think odd. I really miss the pre-internet days of gaming stores.

Allow me to explain.

When the RPG hobby had pretty-much just started, or at least my late-70s participation in it, the internet wasn’t around to get me connected with the gaming scene. There was no website to look at for info about what games were coming, no eBay to buy hard to find gaming goods at, and so on. So every store I found that sold D&D stuff was a treasure, and every one of them was different.

When you go into a gaming store now, you can pretty much guess what you’ll find. A selection of the popular games, many some minis, some dice, and so on. Maybe your store will vary by what third party D&D products they carry, but that’s about it.

In the old days, however, every store was like a wizard’s lab. They were all different, carrying bizarre small press games, modules you’d never heard of, Dragon Magazine back issues, minis, paints, and so on. In one store, you might find a trove of Judges Guild products. In another one, a Thieves World setting from Chaosium. In a third, that treasured boxed set of Grenadier minis. You had to make the rounds to get everything you wanted. And you could always look at the bulletin boards to see what people were looking for in terms of games to join or games needing players.

I remember many of those stores. Hobby Center and Eric Fuchs Hobbies (where I later worked) in the Burlington Mall; the Spare Time Hobby Shop in Marlborough; Hobby Town in Framingham; Excalibur Hobbies, at first in Arlington and later in Malden; the Game Master in Arlington, where I befriended Ford Ivey and joined NERO, my first LARP, and on a rare trip into Boston, the Compleat Strategist, which also had a branch in New York and was able to afford to advertise in Dragon Magazine! Woo!

Of those, only a handful survive…Spare Time is still there, as is Hobby Town, but both barely carry anything for RPGs, or at least so it was last time I was there. The Compleat Strategist is still in Boston, but it has moved, and I haven’t been to the new store yet. Excalibur Hobbies is now Hobby Bunker and still near where it once was. But the others are gone. Long gone.

Now don’t get me wrong…I love me some internet, and I love me the way the internet has made it possible for me to know what’s out there and connect with the gaming community as a whole. But I also acknowledge that the internet has helped to kill the Friendly Local Gaming Store. Why go someplace when you can get it cheap online? I think part of it is the community, and part of it will always be the crazy small press products that vary from store to store, or the plan bizarre stuff that you might find there.

Many stores that remind me of those stores of my youth linger in my area. Pandemonium Books & Games, which has been around a long time now, and where I also worked, is in Central Square rather than Harvard Square these days, is still my go-to store for gaming stuff. When I’m in other areas, however, I have to give it up for Hobby Bunker (usually for minis, terrain, or bonkers items, since their selection is pretty huge and not just RPGs), That’s Entertainment in Worcester and Modern Myths in Northampton, MA are both great, but they’re more comics/collectibles than RPGs.

I fear the internet has done too much damage to the FLGS for it to recover, but I hold out hope.

Your Turn

Well, I’ve rambled on for far longer than needed. What about you? Is there something nostalgic that you’re pleased for the return of? Something that you hold out a secret hope will come back? Tell us about it.

Who will prove to be the better GM - C or this cat? Stay tuned!

In the past several months, I’ve openly declared my intentions to sit on the other side of the screen and run a game. It was one of my geeky resolutions in my column here, I’ve stated it at my game club, and I really made it official by saying something on Facebook. My declaration has been met with a lot of excitement from my friends, with some of them even trying to call dibs on seats at my future game table. Their enthusiasm has served to make me simultaneously pumped up and scared as hell. Suddenly there is a lot of pressure on me to come up with something amazing.

Why would I put myself in a position with such high expectations? Why would anyone, really? Somebody has to be the GM, of course, but there are many more players than there are gamemasters. What makes someone decide that they’re going to take the helm?

I know a number of GMs have found themselves behind the screen for the first time by default: no one else has the skills, materials, or drive to run the game. This is certainly not the case for me, as I’ve never been left wanting for a GM to run a game for me to play in. When I have so many willing GMs at my disposal, what gives me the bravado to want to step up to the plate? Well, bravado, it ain’t. But there are several things motivating me – none of them especially deep or profound, but they’re driving me nonetheless.

I have stories to tell.

Since I was just a wee little geek, I’ve been making up characters and adventures for them. (When you’re little, it’s called “make-believe” instead of “roleplaying”.) While I’ve been lucky enough to put some of those stories into print as flavor text for our books, I’ve yet to present any of my grand ideas to a group of my friends to let them help me flesh out the tale with their own characters and actions. I can’t say I’m not nervous about getting a poor reaction (what if they think my story sucks?) but it’s a risk I’m willing to take.

Granted, I’m going to start out small, with a published module or two, but if I end up liking being the GM, I’ve got some campaign ideas that are fabulous, if I do say so myself.

I want a chance to drive.

I’m not a control freak. I have no desire to be the boss or supervisor of anything, and for the most part am very content to be a follower rather than a leader. Yet, as all the times I’ve had to take a leadership role in the past have proven, I have it in me to be a master and commander. The opportunity to be the one in control of the game (at least until the players go in a completely different direction than I’d planned) is appealing, even to a follower like me.

I want to see if I’ve got the chops.

My entire life has been about doing things I (or others) never thought I could do. I’ve failed at some of the things I’ve tried – quite epically, in fact – but I’ve been surprisingly good at other things. Every time I get scared about trying something new, I remind myself of this, and it’s usually enough to make me take a deep breath and take a chance.

My attempts at running a game might go horribly and cause me to vow to never be anything but a player ever again. Or I might find a groove, be caught by the GM bug, and want to run games all the time. Either way, I won’t know unless I try. I really think I can do this and be decent at it. But thinking it does nothing for me. I’ve got to actually do it.

Am I there yet?

I’m well aware that it’s September and I only have a few months left to hit my resolution to run a game for the first time this year. The good news is that I have finally decided on a system – Pathfinder, the one I know best and am most comfortable with. And I think I may have found the perfect module. Now I just have to buck up the courage to run it. I’m almost to the finish line!

So, that’s why I have this crazy idea to run a game. What about you? What made you decide to GM? Or, if you’re still a virgin like me, what’s driving you toward doing it for the first time?

Luckily, lots of people that were in attendance were kind enough to let us all know what went down.  Particular to my own personal interest every year is hearing what they announce for new products coming out in the year or so ahead.  While this list isn’t always perfect (there’s a noticeable lack of the Ravenloft RPG, for example, which was announced last year), it’s a way to get an idea of what direction Wizards of the Coast wants to take things in the D&D line.

So let’s have a look, shall we?

No 5th Edition

Firstly, despite a zillion rumors to the contrary, there was no announcement of D&D 5th Edition.  Thank goodness.  I think that 4E is a great game with lots of life left in it; I would’ve been rather upset if they were abandoning it already.

Board Games

It was announced that Dungeon of Dread, a boardgame in the style of Castle Ravenloft and Wrath of Ashardalon, has been dropped.  Now, however, they’ve announced a March 2012 release called Lords of Waterdeep, a game of intrigue and resource management.  They describe it as a “Euro-style” boardgame, which suits me fine, as there have been fantastic resource games coming out of Europe for years.  I’m very curious to see this when it comes around.  Since my hubby loves those kinds of games, I imagine we’ll be investing in a copy.

RPG Stuff We Already Knew About

They confirmed that Madness at Gardmore Abbey is still planned for release.  This boxed set adventure prominently features the classic Deck of Many Things in what’s being described as a much more sandbox-ish and roleplaying focused adventure.  Sounds like a very interesting piece – I’m looking forward to it.

Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Emporium had been announced last year, was canceled from the catalog, and has now returned.  Thank goodness!  With the addition of a rarity system for magic-items, D&D is over-run with uncommon items and desperately in need of more commons and rares.  I hope there’ll be plenty more in this book.

Player’s Option: Heroes of the Feywild is coming – none too soon for my tastes, given that my own campaign has a significant Feywild adventure coming shortly.  There are new player races, including Hamadryad, Satyr, and Pixie, a race which can fly starting at 1st level!  There’s also a new dual-role Barbarian build coming: Striker while raging, Defender when not.  Curious idea.  I’ll look forward to seeing how that looks.

The Book of Vile Darkness, presumably to coincide with the movie of the same name, will be out in December.  Much to my surprise, it’s been announced that this book will be about running a campaign with evil PCs.  Now that I think about it, a lot of the 3rd Edition BoVD was on that theme as well, so maybe I shouldn’t be so shocked.  Curious to see what they update.

RPG Stuff We Didn’t Know About

There’s a limited edition set of 5 dragon figures, which I’m excited for, coming in October.  This will include brand new sculpts for the white and green dragons.  I love dragon figures, so I’ll look forward to it.

More Dungeon Tiles are coming.  New sets include Shadowghast Manor, with a haunted house theme, and Cathedral of Chaos, which will have more diagonal tiles and was described as allowing one to make “Gygaxian chambers.”  Heheh.  Nice reference to some of the bizarre rooms Mr. Gygax put into his adventures.

More Fortune Cards are coming, including Fury of the Feywild and Spiral of Tharizdun.  As before, these will coincide to some degree with the campaigns of D&D Encounters that will be released for in-store play.  Apparently, the Feywild one will be based on Beyond the Crystal Cave, a module from 1st edition that I loved that had fey, Shakespearean romance, and a curiously ambiguous happy ending.  It was one of the more thoughtful mods I remember from the old days, so I may have to look into playing that.

A new series of products called Lair Assault is coming.  These books are challenging adventures made in the Dungeon Delve style.  The announced adventures include Forge of the Dawn Titan (a fiery dungeon adventure), Talon of Umberlee (pirate-themed adventure), and Attack of the Tyrant Claw (defending a tower against dinosaurs).

Map Packs are going to start coming out in January.  I am thrilled with this idea, as I love the well-illustrated poster maps WotC has been putting out, and I enjoy theming adventures around them, rather than making my own.  Some are from previous adventures, so I’ll keep an eye on this.

April will bring us an as-yet-untitled adventure set in Undermountain.  This is an absolutely classic adventure setting, so I’m looking forward to some good old dungeon delving goodness.

It was hinted that there’s a new setting planned for August 2012 that will not just be a new location but a new way to play the game.  It was stated outright that it won’t be Dragonlance, but it was agreed that there are dragons in the setting (big surprise).  It was stated that it’ll be something D&D hasn’t tried before and that “Twist” was a good word to use for it.  My first thought was that it might be something similar to Council of Wyrms, where PCs played dragons, but that has been done before, so I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Miniatures!

This was the announcement I’d personally been waiting for: They are reviving the minis line, but they’re going to get away from randomization and collectability.  Instead, they will put out sets of 12 or so figures for monster themes like Drow, Orcs, or Goblins, including large figures.

I think this is a fantastic idea, and it’s what a lot of people pushed for from day one.  If you need goblins, you don’t want to buy a bunch of random figures hoping to get a few goblins; you want to buy 12 goblins and move on with your day.

The only trouble I see is that there’s a lot of player races with limited or no support yet.  For example, there’s only 1 Shardmind figure and no Wilden figures.  I’m hoping they might put out a big set of player character types that’ll include common concepts, such as human fighters, elf rangers, etc., and slip in some oddballs like Shardminds and Wilden.  Fingers crossed.

Your Turn

So that wraps up most of what I’ve heard.  Is there anything you’re disappointed with?  Anything you’re looking forward to now?  Let us all know!

Now, I pride myself on being able to pull out a new storyline at the last-minute, but sometimes in a situation like this, I’ll say, “Why don’t we resume the game next week? We can play a board game this week, if folks still want to come over.”

This is easy for me to say, as my husband is a raving board game fanatic, and he has an extensive collection. So I thought I’d glance around the game room and tell you about 5 games you may or may not know about that I think are well worth playing.

Wrath of Ashardalaon

I’m a big D&D fan, so I’m sure it’s not shocking that one of my choices is a board game based on D&D. Wrath of Ashardalon is a fun, fast-paced game that simulates taking a party of adventurers down into a dungeon to fight monsters, reclaim treasures, and, ultimately, slay a dragon. It’s a very boiled-down 4th Edition D&D experience. It’s a cooperative game, so everyone is working together, but everyone also has to play the monsters, so it makes for some funny moments. There’s another game with the same rules, Castle Ravenloft, and that’s fun, too, but I prefer the classic Dungeon feel of Wrath to the gothic horror theme of Ravenloft.

Plus, it comes with lots of plastic miniatures of monsters, which you could paint and use in your D&D game! It’s like a double-win!

Read more about Wrath of Ashardalon on Amazon.com.

Pandemic

I have never felt more intense pressure when playing a board game than when I’m playing Pandemic. It’s another cooperative game, in which you play researchers trying to find cures for various illnesses plaguing the globe. Sound boring? It’s not. You have to race around the world while disease is breaking out all around you, working together to find the cures. If the diseases have too many outbreaks…you lose. If you run out of disease markers on the board…you lose. If you run out of cards in the action pile…you lose. Get the idea? The pressure is really on!

This game really does make you feel the pinch of time and terror as things are falling apart all around you. Just when you think everything’s in the bag, something happens, and the whole thing falls apart. The handful of times we’ve won, we’ve really felt the victory!

Read more about Pandemic at Amazon.com.

Betrayal at House on the Hill

This is simply one of the best horror games I’ve ever played, board game, RPG, or LARP. The board is built as the players explore it, using cards to create the sprawling grounds of the mysterious House. The first part of the game is cooperative, until, all of a sudden, the Haunt begins, as dictated by a random roll of the dice. When this happens, one of the players becomes the Traitor, and the game becomes suddenly and shockingly adversarial. There are numerous scenarios that may occur, depending on the exact circumstances that triggered the Haunt. The Traitor might now be controlling plant creatures intent on consuming everyone. Or perhaps the Traitor needs to sacrifice one of the others in the Pentagram Chamber. Or perhaps there are zombies. The game has been different almost every time we’ve played it.

For some reason, we seem to get combinations of cards in the game that work in a creepy fashion. Like when you’re walking in the gardens, and you find there’s a corpse buried under it. Or when you’re in the chapel and you’re confronted by a ghostly bride. It just works out that way but it seems to add to the creep factor of playing the game.

Read more about Betrayal at House on the Hill at Amazon.com.

Thebes

I absolutely love Thebes. You play archaeologists who’ve digging around the world for buried treasures. You build up research, attend lectures, and do other things to garner support, then launch your expedition. Each time you lead an expedition into, say, Egypt, you draw tokens from a bag based on the amount of research you did. Some tokens have fabulous treasures on them, but others have sand. Treasures are worth different points, but sand is worthless and goes back into the bag representing that country. So you end up weighing the risk of finding nothing but sand or finding a valuable treasure that another expedition may have missed!

There’s a small educational portion to the game as well, as a fact card tells you about the treasures, including when they were found, what they represented, and more. But mostly, Thebes is just damned fun.

Read more about Thebes on Amazon.com.

Puerto Rico

On the surface, this game seems like the dullest thing in the world. You play a plantation owner in Puerto Rico, trying to get rich. You build buildings, harvest crops, enter trade agreements, and such. Trying to explain it, however, belies the free-wheeling fun of the game, which is actually surprisingly entertaining. Reversals of fortune make it hard to predict who will gain victory points, and there are a few “screw with the other players” mechanics that make it feel cutthroat and vicious.

Read more about Puerto Rico on Amazon.com.

Your Turn

I know I’ve only mentioned 5 board games here…obviously there are many other fantastic ones. Is there a favorite game you would put forward as one of the best? Share away. I’d love to hear from you.

One of C's favorite game stores, Good Games in Butte, MT

Geeks are children of the internet, and we spend a lot of our lives online. It’s only natural that when we spend so many hours surfing the web, we end up doing a little bit of shopping. It’s hard to resist the lure of glossy online stores, with discounts and codes for free shipping, nearly limitless stock, and no line to wait in to check out. I rather like it myself.

But yet, when it comes to gaming books and supplies, I go to my friendly local gaming stores – Kelly’s Komix here in Great Falls, MT, Good Games in Butte, and Good Turn Games in Missoula – as often as I can, even when I can get it cheaper online, even when I’m so poor I can’t afford to pay attention. And you should do the same, wherever you are. Why bother putting on real clothes to go to your FLGS when you could be shopping in your jammies online? Here’s why.

Use It Or Lose It

This seems like a no-brainer, but it needs to be stated. Businesses that can’t keep afloat close their doors. If you do all your hobby shopping online, you may not miss that FLGS at first – maybe not at all, if you were never a big patron. But other gamers in town who frequented the store will miss it, and if they’re not comfortable shopping online, they may leave the hobby, which will affect your chances of finding new gamers to fill your table. Or imagine going to another city for a small con or game day, and realizing (to your horror!) that you forgot your dice. No problem, you’ll just pop down to the FLGS and pick up a cheap set…except the FLGS has gone out of business. OK, well, the dealers’ hall at the con, then! Except there are no FLGSs left within a distance that would have made the con cost-effective to come to, so there’s no one selling dice at the con. Sobering thought, isn’t it?

(And before you say that last example is far-fetched, consider the wide open spaces of the Great Plains and Midwest, where cities of any size are many miles apart, and not all of them have gaming stores. On the last day of MisCon this year, one of the local game stores – the only dealer selling sets of dice at the con – packed up their booth and didn’t come back for the final day. Guess who was a dummy and hadn’t bought new dice yet? Grrr. And I wasn’t the only one.)

The Power of Browsing

You can browse online – anyone who has suddenly realized they just lost an hour reading board game reviews on Amazon can attest to that. One thing you can’t do when shopping online is physically touch a product. If you’ve ever ordered something and been disappointed in its appearance, size, or quality once you got it in your hands, you’ve probably wished you could have gotten a better look at it first. Head down to your FLGS to see what those minis actually look like. The picture you saw online might be misleading, for the good or the bad. Some things don’t photograph well, and if you went strictly off what you saw online, you might pass them up, when they’re actually really cool.

And regardless of how many hours you spend online (and if you’re like me, emphasis on the many), you’re never going to reach the end of the internet. The brick and mortar store may have a game, manga, or action figure you had never heard of before. You just may find something awesome that you’d never have known about if you hadn’t gone shopping.

Testimonials

My day job is in retail, and I’ve seen the power of testimonials. When I can tell a customer, “Yes, these are excellent shoes if you’re on your feet all day – look, I’m wearing them myself,” or one customer tells another how happy they’ve been with their high-end hiking boots and that they’re worth the higher price, the prospective buyer feels more confident that they’re purchasing the right thing. If I go into a FLGS and the employees there tell me that they’ve played a board game and that it’s a lot of fun – and can answer my questions about it so I know they’re not just blowing smoke up my ass – you can bet my interest will be piqued. Likewise, if I see a few people sitting at a table painting minis, and they’re discussing how disappointed they are in the pricey new paints that just came out, I’ll be more likely to stick to the tried and true instead of automatically buying the latest and (supposedly) greatest.

Instant Gratification

When you have your heart set on buying something, you usually want it yesterday. Pop into the FLGS and you can be back home with your new treasure within the hour. Instead of waiting 2-5 business days for an online order to ship halfway across the country (and then just sit for a day in the next town over – thank you UPS and USPS tracking for letting me see this happening so I have another thing to get annoyed over), you could be playing that game, reading that graphic novel, or painting those minis.

What happens if the FLGS doesn’t have your coveted item in stock? Could have just as well ordered online, right? Not necessarily. Many game stores will gladly order in whatever you want. At our FLGS, so long as you let Brooks know what you want before he places his orders on Monday, you’ll usually have your special order by that Friday. That’s just as quick, if not quicker, than you would have received anything you ordered online, you didn’t have to pay shipping, and you supported a local business. Plus, if enough people come in wanting to special order the same thing, the store will eventually add it to their stock. Winning!

Meeting People

You can meet lots of people online. The fact that I have this writing gig at all is proof of that. Meeting people in real life can be a lot more difficult. So why not make it easier on yourself by going to a place where your chances of meeting others with similar interests are high?

The guy you see in the Warhammer aisle might be looking for a new group, just like you. Or the girl picking up the latest issue of the obscure comic you love would probably be thrilled to find another fan of the series. Even if you don’t have luck mingling with the other customers, don’t forget to make friends with the owner/employees. Those folks are in the know about gamers in the area and can get you in touch. It’s thanks to Brooks at Kelly’s Komix that my husband and I learned about the Sandbaggers Game Club – and that’s where we finally made a family, after living in this town for years.

If you are lucky enough to have a FLGS in your area, please consider going to them first for your geek product needs. There are certain deals on the internet that just can’t be beat – and when money is tight, who can say no to half off cover price plus free shipping? – but for many purchases, the savings you’ll find online are offset by the convenience and other bonuses of shopping locally. Give your FLGS some love, and they’ll love you right back.

What’s your favorite FLGS? What do they do that keeps you coming back for more?

Seriously, time flies when you’re having fun.

Among all the things I wanted to get done while time was flying away from me were my geeky New Year’s resolutions. I posted them in my column so I’d have public accountability to hold me to task, and also so my fellow geeks might be inspired to better themselves this year as well. Since we are half-way through the year, this is a good time to look back at what I hoped to do, and see if I’m still on the right path.

Resolution #1: Sit On The Other Side Of The GM’s Screen

This is the big one, as far as I’m concerned, and I’m ashamed to admit how little headway I’ve made on it. While I have decided that I need to start out small and just do a one-shot, I’m still struggling with picking a system and coming up with the concept. Plus I’m still pretty nervous about it. But I have added incentive to get my butt in gear: after seeing a distinct lack of lady GMs at MisCon, and riding a post-con high, I rather boldly declared that I would run a game at the con next year. My declaration was – to my shock – met with lots of excitement and folks already trying to call dibs on seats at my table.

Oh man. What have I gotten myself into?

Resolution #2: Play A New Game

Here I’m doing better! I’ve played in some new (to me) RPGs: API, Inc., Paranoia, Mage the Ascension, and Dresden Files, plus a lot of playtesting for Exploding Aces (a new system we’ll be publishing this winter). I’ve become a big fan of some new board and card games, including Defenders of the Realm and Dominion. And I took part in my first LARP!

I think there will be several more new games in store for me over the next 6 months. I have this resolution already in the bag, and then some!

Resolution #3: Take A Taste Of A New Geek Flavor

Specifically, my goal this year was to get/make an awesome cosplay costume. Yeah. It hasn’t happened. While I do have a number of ideas, time and money have been my limiting factors. I don’t have another con to attend until RadCon in February, but MisCon next May is again a big motivator: the theme is “A Fairy Tale”, and the author guest of honor is George R.R. Martin. If I can’t come up with at least one costume to wear with all that inspiration, I don’t deserve to go!

But who knows, I still might come up with something cool for Halloween. I’m not giving up on this one!

Resolution #4: Read A Book

I’d resolved to read more, and from different genres. I’m only on my third book of the year, but it’s A Game of Thrones, and I’m about 2/3 of the way done. If I can get through it and A Clash of Kings by year’s end, I’ll be very content, even though it’s all been fantasy.

Resolution #5: Learn Or Hone A Geeky Craft

This year I hoped to bump up my ranks in sewing and jewelry-making. Instead, all of the crafting I’ve done so far this year has been crochet. Oops. I’ve got supplies and ideas, I just need to make a stronger commitment to getting to know my sewing machine better, and doing more with my beads than using them to embellish my dice bags.

Resolution #6: Be A Healthier Geek

How am I doing on this one? Well…it’s complicated. Thanks to my day job in retail (which most days, I walk to), I’m pretty active and am at my lowest weight in years. I’m actually really happy with how I look and how my clothes fit. My arms even have some muscle tone! But the whole eating right thing? I’m epically not good at that, and have all but fallen off the fruit-and-vegetable wagon. I need to haul myself back up on it.

So my status for the year so far stands at:

• Resolutions kept in full: 1
• Resolutions kinda kept: 2
• Resolutions not yet resolved: 3

Meh. Not bad, but it could be better. Looks like I have some ground to make up in the second half of the year!

How about you? Are you keeping to your geeky resolutions?

It’s a delicate balancing act. You want to have fun, and you want to be as engaged as a player as you wish your own players would be. But you don’t want to grand-stand. You want to try and avoid completely stealing the spotlight. You want to help the GM, but you want to avoid being perceived as trying to run the game yourself. In this article, I’ll give some advice based on my own experiences when I close the GM’s Guide and open the Player’s Handbook.

Volunteer to Help

I’ve just finished running a Star Wars campaign, so I know the rules pretty darned well. Rather than have a lot of the other players bother Steve, I’ve told him it’s fine to have them direct questions to me. That way, Steve can keep the smooth flow going on, and I can be helpful looking up rules, giving my own interpretations of the rules when Steve asks, and so on.

There’s a fine line for this, as you need to be just as impartial with rulings as you would be in your own game. It’s too easy to Rules Lawyer your way into advantages for your character or your party, especially if the GM has a lot of respect for your opinions. When I help in this way, I try to be as factual as possible…to lay out the rules and let Steve make a ruling based on his own interpretations and to only offer the way I would rule it if he asks. It can be hard, especially if I disagree with something, but it’s all about being fair.

You can help in other ways, too. You can move figures as directed by the GM, keep track of initiative, keep track of damage done in combat, and so on. In my D&D game, I have an achievements system that we use to add a little levity to the game. Steve has made a similar system for his Star Wars game. Since I know it’s a lot of work to run the game and try to keep track of this at the same time, I volunteered to keep track of achievements for Steve. Anything that can help your GM run the game more smoothly is likely to be appreciated.

Take Your Turn, But Don’t Hog the Spotlight

When I’m playing, I want my character to be cool. I want to do things in combat that seem awesome, make people laugh, or generally add to the story of the game. At the same time, I don’t want to dominate the game and have it become a story about my character that also happens to have the other player characters in it. This is the balancing act in all games, but it can be even more difficult if you’re usually the GM. You may have really creative ideas about where things could go, and you certainly have as much right to a good time as the next player, but you need to be even more of a cooperative player, because you’re often the GM for the group.

As an example, my character in Steve’s game is a pilot, which means that he’s a fair hand at flying pretty much anything, including podracers. We have another player in the game who’s a podracer, and he and I have occasionally bantered about whether being able to fly a podracer is cool or not (my character doesn’t think so.) Our current story revolves around a podrace, and I expected that character to jump on an opportunity to get into the race. Only after he said he wasn’t planning on joining the race did I let my character brag to the other that, even though he’d never flown one, he was sure he could, because flying a podracer was no big deal. This led to my character getting involved in the qualifying race, which might mean that the other player and I could end up competing down the road if he does get involved. But I wanted the other player to have a chance to get involved first, since podracing was specific to his character background.

Lead By Example

This can be the most slippery slope, since you want to encourage the other players in their actions but not to dominate the game. The GM might have an idea of how he wants the game to go, and you can help by playing in the style he’s mentioned, thus giving the other players some idea of what the GM wants. This can be especially helpful if you’ve got newer players in the group.

In our group, one of the players has never played Star Wars before, although he’s relatively familiar with D&D 4E, which is very similar. We’ve talked before about using the environment in a fight, but he hasn’t really seen that kind of gaming in action.

Now, I live for that kind of game. I know I have powers, maneuvers, and other combat options, but I also look for environment features to take advantage of. Are there buildings to climb on and jump from rooftop to rooftop? Is there a flaming bearskin I can kick in the ogre’s face? Can I swing on a line of advertising banners, land on a big animal, and kick its flanks to make it trample opponents? That’s the kind of battlefield I like to provide to my players, and the kind I like to find myself in. If there’s something I can take cover behind, climb on, or drop on the monsters, then I’m a happy camper.

So during combat, if I’m a player, I try to be very cinematic and descriptive. I know Steve loves to build interesting environments, and he wants players to take advantage of them. So when combat ensued this evening, I tried to lead by example and use those terrain features to make combat more than just a series of “To hit” and damage calls. I did indeed use a banner of ads to swing down onto the back of a big riding beast, which I then used to trample enemies. And it helped. People began to take advantage of cover and one other player jumped on the back of a riding animal and used it to attack others.

How Do You Do It?

Have you ever made the switch from GM to player? How do you handle the change? Do you have any rules you set for yourself, in order to try and keep things going evenly? Let me know.

Saturday morning I arrived bright and early.  I switched phones not so long ago, and my phone was freshly set up with Twitter and E’s phone number.  I came armed with a giant squishy bag that had more than enough room for any purchases I’d make, and also contained an extra pair of shoes, granola bars, a water bottle, a notebook and pen, and more.

Since I arrived on Saturday, I didn’t have to deal with the initial crush, and there was virtually no line when I got my badge.  Excitedly I texted E.  “I’ve got my pass!  Where are y’all?” Two minutes later I got three texts back, in quick succession: “? Who is this? You’ve got the wrong number.”

Yup.  I was off to a great start.  No matter – that’s what Twitter was for, and anyway, I had a sneaking suspicion she’d be in the tabletop gaming area.  I was right.  Thanks to E’s awesome pink hair, I was able to spot her in no time (and get the right digits).  First I stopped to get one of the adorable cardboard cone hats from Plants vs. Zombies (the P vs Z people were easily the most entertaining all day). Then I was off, into the exhibit hall, which practically felt like its own village.

PAX is geared for gaming – pretty much any aspect of gaming you can think of.  I’m not just talking cards and board games; I’m talking any surface you can think of when playing those games.  I don’t just mean video game demos (though there are plenty of those); I mean every piece of hardware associated with video gaming.  Some of the biggest, flashiest booths were for companies I don’t normally think of as flashy – New Egg and Nvidia.

An Easy Mark

If you follow my twitter account, you might have noticed that in the past few months I’ve been complaining of headaches, that I figured out pretty quickly were directly associated with the amount of time spent in front of a screen.  Thus, I was excited to check out the Gunnar booth.  Gunnar, I had recently learned, makes eyewear to help with eyestrain and related problems.  Yes, I could seek them out online, but here at PAX I could actually try out the product.

The salesgirl, Charlene, was both informative and adorable.  I didn’t even tell her I’d been having problems, but she quickly reeled off every symptom I’d been having – including the fact that my eyes often felt like I’d just peeled them off a vacuum hose.  It was probably her easiest sale ever.  I tried on a few styles, picked the one I liked, and was out of there (more in-depth review once I’ve had a full week to test them out).

The exhibition hall had ceilings that were about a million feet high, and honestly, after awhile in there it was easy to feel overstimulated.  I ultimately had to space out my trips to vendors, but there was no shortage of things to do in the meantime.

Gamer Girl

The most surprising hit of PAX East, for me, was the Free Console Room.  Imagine multiple rooms, each one the size of a large classroom, filled with rows of tables containing flat-screened TVs and various consoles.  The more intimate setting was a great place to unwind, meet up with people, and in my case, mash buttons to fun games like Marvel vs. Capcom.  There was a (reasonable) time limit, and as a result the lines weren’t too long to enjoy this popular venue.

There was also a Free Classic Arcade room – literally a room full of classic arcade games, all set to free play.  This was a fantastic idea in theory.  In practice, it reminded me an awful lot of 90s arcades – dim lighting and loud music.  Not exactly the best venue to be social.  Additionally, the classic games were almost all a very specific brand of old-school – think Donkey Kong and Burger Time.  I wouldn’t mind a mix of some later favorites – not to mention pinball and air hockey.

Think of the Geeklings

The one panel I was able to catch was a must-see on my list of Stuff To Do – the Geek Parenting panel.  Stop giving me the side-eye!  I’ve been following the members of the panel – writers for Wired GeekDad and GeekMom – for ages on Twitter.  Should I someday become a parent, I’ll undoubtedly be a nerdy one.  And besides, parents are people (and geeks!) too, not just defined by their spawn.

The conversation was informal and all over the place.  What video games, books, comics, manga are appropriate for a given age range?  What happens when you have kids that just aren’t geeks?  Is it tougher to be a girl geek than a boy geek?  One of the most startling moments, for me, was when a member of the panel mentioned that there was a no-gaming-on-school-nights rule in his house – one that he has to abide by, as well.  While it seems like a good and obvious idea – setting a good example and all – my first thought was Man, that has to suck for him.  Oh, the many ways parents sacrifice for their children, big and small.

The panel was fun and punctuated by giveaways and Screaming Slingshot Monkeys (another giveaway).  The line to get in the panel was long, but not unbearable – I showed up about a half an hour before the start time, and was well in the middle of the line.  Even though we were routinely herded closer together in the hallway, spirits were high, and there was even a singalong to “Still Alive.”

Free to Breathe

The crowd was enormous, but the venue was bigger.  This bodes well for the future of PAX East and Boston – the con could easily grow bigger and still fit comfortably in the convention center.  It seemed like every area was bustling, but rarely slammed – more time was spent walking from place to place than standing, bored, in line.   And even walking was something of an adventure – I heard some great 8-Bit music just walking by a room.

And boy, did I feel the effects of all that walking the next day!  Though I regret not attending PAX East for the whole weekend – mostly because there were more Twitter friends I would have liked to meet up with – I honestly would have been wiped out.  Next year I’ll approach PAX with a game plan – and a workout plan!

Oh hai! It’s Friday and I’m not here.

Well, that depends on where “here” is. I’m not at home, but if you consider the internet my home, I guess I’m partially at home via my Android phone.

I’m at PAX East and so is GGG and there’s even a rumor J may actually show her face in the real world.

If you’re looking to meet any of us, shoot us a tweet and we may just tell you how to do that if we’re not too busy geeking out.

As a ThinkGeek employee, I am there in a semi-official capacity. That is, there’s no ThinkGeek booth, but if you find me and Pikachu-Timmy during the convention, you may just win a ThinkGeek prize or discount code!

See you in Boston!

For those staying at home, look for three very different write-ups about PAX East from our three attendees. You’ll see the very different ways you can experience the exact same convention. See you Monday!

What I didn’t know, however, is that there’s so many records out there pertaining to gaming that they actually make a Gamer’s Edition of the book.  This is pretty major, when I think about it; currently there’s no Edition for sports or any other subject that I know of.  But it makes perfect sense; the sports world has tons of ways to secure worldwide appreciation of their best and brightest.  On the other hand, I had no idea who was the worldwide highest scorer on a specific Guitar Hero game until I looked at the Gamer’s Edition website.

In most cases, making it into the Guinness Book of World Records is pretty cut-and-dry, with a very specific and strict set of regulations (I once observed a World Record attempt, from the planning stages up).  Typically, numbers don’t lie; either you make it, or you don’t.

The annual Gamer’s Edition, however, has a few categories that, in my opinion, are a little more nebulous and subjective.  Case in point: The Top 50 Video Game Characters of All Time.

How were these characters chosen?  Via voting on the Gamer’s Edition website.  Apparently there were only about 13,000 voters, which, in the scope of the gaming industry, isn’t really all that much.  My ire grows.

But then I think, well, how could it have been better?  Would more publicity have caused silly campaigns to be waged?  Would more people have really changed the results?  Looking at the list, it seems like a fairly representative sample.  And like the world’s longest fingernails or fastest swim time, it’s subject to change in the face of history.  This is what one group of people think, right now.  Which, in and of itself, is pretty cool and interesting.

Ok, let’s see what information we can draw from the list.  First, the winners:

1.    Mario (Donkey Kong, Nintendo, 1981)
2.    Link (The Legend of Zelda, Nintendo, 1986)
3.    Master Chief (Halo: Combat Evolved, Microsoft, 2001)
4.    Solid Snake (Metal Gear, Konami, 1987)
5.    Cloud Strife (Final Fantasy VII, Square, 1997)
6.    PAC-Man (PAC-Man, Namco, 1980)
7.    Lara Croft (Tomb Raider, Eidos 1996)
8.    Gordon Freeman (Half-Life, Valve, 1998)
9.    Kratos (God of War, Sony, 2005)
10.  Sonic (Sonic the Hedgehog, Sega, 1990)
11.  Crash (Crash Bandicoot, Sony, 1996)
12.  “Soap” MacTavish (Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Activision, 2007)
13.  Nico Bellic (Grand Theft Auto IV, Rockstar, 2008)
14.  Samus Aran (Metroid, Nintendo 1986)
15.  Ratchet (Ratchet & Clank, Sony, 2002)
16.  Nathan Drake (Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, Sony, 2007)
17.  Captain Price (Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Activision, 2007)
18.  Kirby (Kirby’s Dream Land, Nintendo, 1992)
19.  Marcus Fenix (Gears of War, Microsoft, 2006)
20.  Pikachu (Pokemon Red/Green, Nintendo 1996)
21.  Yoshi (Super Mario World, Nintendo, 1990)
22.  “CJ” Johnson (Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Rockstar, 2004)
23.  Mega Man (Mega Man, Capcom, 1987)
24.  Sam Fisher (Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, Ubisoft, 2002)
25.  Shadow (Sonic Adventure 2, Sega, 2001)
26.  Jak (Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, Sony, 2001)
27.  Duke Nukem (Duke Nukem, Apogee, 1991)
28.  Dante (Devil May Cry, Bandai, 2003)
29.  Naruto (Naruto: Konoha Ninpoch, Bandai, 2003)
30.  Altair (Assassin’s Creed, Ubisoft, 2007)
31.  Zelda (The Legend of Zelda, Nintendo, 1986)
32.  Sephiroth (Final Fantasy VII, Square, 1997)
33.  Donkey Kong (Donkey Kong, Nintendo, 1981)
34.  The Prince (Prince of Persia, Broderbund, 1989)
35.  Ezio (Assassin’s Creed II, Ubisoft, 2009)
36.  Leon S (Biohazard/ Resident Evil, Capcom, 1996)
37.  Ash Ketchum (Pokemon Red/Green, Nintendo, 1996)
38.  Guybrush Threepwood (The Secret of Monkey Island, LucasArts, 1990)
39.  Spyro (Spyro the Dragon, Universal, 1998)
40.  “Ghost” Riley (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, Activision, 2009)
41.  Goku (Dragon Daihikyoe, Epoch, 1987)
42.  Max Payne (Max Payne, Rockstar, 2001)
43.  Jill Valentine (Biohazard/ Resident Evil, Capcom, 1996)
44.  Princess Peach (Super Mario Bros., Nintendo, 1985)
45.  Larry Laffer (Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards, Sierra, 1987)
46.  Augustus Cole (Gears of War, Microsoft, 2006)
47.  Bowser (Super Mario Bros., Nintendo, 1985)
48.  Eddie Riggs (Brutal Legend, EA, 2009)
49.  Ryu (Street Fighter, Capcom, 1987)
50.  Sackboy (LIttleBigPlanet, Sony, 2008)

Nintendo has 11 characters.  Sony has six.  Capcom has five. The years with the most characters are: 1996 (5), 1987, 2001, 2007 (4 each).  That’s what the numbers tell us.

However, the years given are only the first appearances of each character.  I would be surprised if every person who voted for Samus was thinking solely of the original Metroid, and not one of the later games – or, heck, Super Smash Bros.

And let’s not forget the retro effect: Sonic the Hedgehog not only has a major franchise behind him, he’s also got the support of Hot Topic and other teen chains.  I’m not joking – I went to the mall last month and found the stores I used to frequent in my juvenile delinquent days are now decked out in Sonic Snuggies.   He never really died, but he’s getting a second life regardless.

Similarly, while Final Fantasy VII was a mind-blowing game for me as well as most of my generation, I’ll bet it doesn’t hurt that Cloud Strife and Sephiroth have been introduced to the next generation through games like Kingdom Hearts II.  After all, while I have no proof, I’m convinced the attention that game gave Tron led to interest in the sequel.

The list of characters may span 30 years, but giving it a rundown, I’m becoming more and more convinced that the average voting age was 20 to 25.  Spyro and Pikachu scream a very specific generation to me.

On the other hand, maybe I’m just biased, viewing the list through my own late-twenties lens.  And there’s no doubting that some characters are instant legends, no matter how recently they hit the scene.

So I want to hear your thoughts, good and bad, about this list.  Do you agree with it?  Who would you include?  Who would you cut?