Gen Con Schedule

I’m a guest of honor at this year’s Gen Con, and my schedule is sure to grow and change as the show arrives. However, here’s what I know so far:

Wednesday
Evening: Diana Jones Award Ceremony. An industry-only event held in a super-secret location in downtown Indianapolis on the eve of the convention.

Thursday
1—2 PM: Game Design: Bringing Your Concept to Life. Each game designer develops his or her own method of bringing an initial game design concept to life. Topics covered include concept development, prototype creation, playtesting sessions, pitching games to publishers, and doing everything that’s necessary to help move the process forward. Panelists will also discuss ways for new game designers to approach publishers and get their games noticed. Keith Baker, Matt Forbeck, Richard Garfield, Mike Gray, Reiner Knizia.

8—10 PM: True Dungeon. I actually have a scheduled event to play in, a VIP session of True Dungeon, along with Rennie Araucto (Gen Con’s Director of Events) and Matthew Atherton (Feedback, winner of the first season of Who Wants to Be a Superhero?).

Friday
10—11 AM: Publishing Your Game. You’ve designed, play-tested and produced your game. Now it’s time to get it published. But what do you do? Where do you go? Who do you talk to? Come find out! Matt Forbeck, Mike Gray, Rob Kuntz, Andrew Parks, Robin Laws.

11 AM — Noon: Channeling Robert E. Howard: Adapting and Creating the Worlds of an Icon. Join key creative individuals who have helped shape and bring to life the legacy of Robert E. Howard with an emphasis on writing. The panel discussion, followed by a Q&A session, will include Mike Stackpole, author of an all-new series of books chronicling the story of Belit, the Queen of the Black Coast; Loren Coleman, author of a trilogy titled Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, and Matt Forbeck, REH scholar, editor, game designer, and author.

2—3 PM: 40 Years of Gen Con: The Attendees. A panel discussion amoung longtime Gen Con attendees, plus audience reminiscences. Come and share your stories, favorite games played… what happens at Gen Con, stays at Gen Con! Dave Arneson, Matt Forbeck, Ken Hite, Robin Laws, Randy Porter.

Saturday
5—6 PM: 10 No-No’s of Game Design. Ever wanted to design a game but didn’t know the best ways to do it? Well, this isn’t your panel. Designing games is as much about what NOT to do, as it is what you should do. In this panel, we’ll review different mistakes new (and experienced) game designers make. Matt Forbeck, Mike Gray, Richard Garfield, Reiner Knizia.

Plus, I should have some special surprises soon. In the meantime, all I can say is: “Look who I’m sharing the stage with!” Seriously.

One panel I share with Richard Garfield (creator of Magic: The Gathering), Reiner Knizia (the biggest name in board game design), Mike Gray (VP of game acquisition for Hasbro, and a bang-up designer in his own right), and Ketih Baker (creator of Eberron). On another, I’m sitting with Dave Arneson (co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons), plus Robin Laws and Ken Hite (two of the greatest RPG designers around). And the rest of the list doesn’t feature any slackers either: Mike Stackpole, Rob Kuntz, Randy Porter, Andrew Parks, plus hanging out with Rennie Araucto and Matthew Atherton.

I’m not bragging on myself here. I’m just stunned to be honored to be mentioned along with many of these people, much less getting to share a stage with them. It’s going to be an amazing show.

Back to Work

Short Version: Back from Origins. Working to beat next deadline now. Had a great time. Saw lots of friends. Made new ones. Presented an award at the Origins Awards ceremony. GAMA treated the guests like royalty. Reactor 88 Studios showed up Sunday for a quick tour of the show.

Long Version: Must wait until later.

Origins Schedule

As a part of my guest of honor duties at Origins this weekend, you can find me taking part in the following seminars. If you’ll be there too, be sure to look me up. I haven’t been to Origins in a few years, and I’m looking forward to seeing many old friends again and making new ones too.
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The BNW Movie Shoot

Imgp1121This past Sunday, I drove down to Chicago for the final day of shooting for the pilot (proof-of-concept short) for the Brave New World movie that Reactor 88 Studios is working on. I can barely begin to tell you how much fun I had and how impressed I was with everyone involved.

The pilot brings to life the 8-page comic book that opens up the original Brave New World RPG core book. In it, Lisa Stanski (played by the lovely and talented Natalie Victoria) is on the run from the government supers known as Delta Prime. As she dashed through an alley, she literally runs into Patriot (played by the rugged and talented Chuck Wagner), once a Delta Prime hero and now a leader of the rebellion known as the Defiance. They try to escape, but Charge (played by the handsome and talented Zachary Laoutides) corners them in a helicopter that Patriot blasts out of the sky.

Imgp1137

As you can imagine, this is an ambitious, action-packed sequence to tackle, but as a proof-of-concept, it’s perfect. If the team can handle this, they can handle anything, and from everything I saw they’re doing a bang-up job.

I’ve rarely been part of such a polite, respectful, gracious, and grateful group of people. Besides the tremendous amount of skill and talent they brought to the project, I never saw or heard of a cross moment all day long, even on the third, long day of a rigorous weekend shoot. They all treated me with such kindness that I instantly felt like a part of this family that had coalesced around this project.

Imgp1164 While many people thanked me for creating the game that’s the basis for the film, I told them they should talk to Darren Orange, Reactor 88’s president, instead. The kind of vision and passion that he and his team displayed for this film would have to find some way to express itself, and I’m just thrilled that it happened to focus on Brave New World.

Imgp1178I took these photos here from a distance, mostly trying to stay out of the way, but the material they captured on for the shoot is utterly stunning. I actually got chills watching the playback on the monitor for the scene in which Patriot shoots down the helicopter. The actors did such a wonderful job reacting to things that only existed in their heads, like the explosions and such, which will be added in post-production with computers.

Images Rpgdb Pin7002Chuck, in particular, looked perfect as Patriot. He seemed like he’d leaped off the cover of Ravaged Planet. Seeing a character I’d created walking around and even chatting with me was surreal.

Imgp1176Director Joe Martin even insisted on giving me a Stan Lee moment in the film too. When the pilot is ready later this summer, you’ll see me crossing the street in front of Dearborn Station just before the big battle goes down. I’m in a suit and tie, so no one will be able to recognize me, I’m sure.

I can’t wait to see the final production when it’s ready. As soon as I can share more, you’ll know about it too.

Rumble in the Jungle Away!

Last night, I turned in the final portion of Blood Bowl: Rumble in the Jungle. This book, the fourth in the trilogy (as Douglas Adams used to say), took me a bit longer than the last one in the series, mostly because I had to come up with all-new plot threads after tying off most of the ones I’d left dangling around in the first three. Still, I had a great time with it right up until the end. At that point, some of the things I’d been tossing around the book just for fun coalesced into the perfect climax. It should hit shelves in the UK in December, and a few weeks later in the US. I hope you enjoy reading as much as I did writing it.

Great Geekerati

I had a great time on Geekerati, Christian Johnson’s online radio show tonight. As always, Christian proves to be an excellent conversationalist, as did his other panelists, Eric and Bill. You can listen to the entire episode online now. If you listen for the trivia questions right around the 1-hour mark, Christian’s offering up free copies of my Blood Bowl and Eberron trilogies for the first right answers. Be sure to get your entry in fast!

Geekerati Radio, Monday, July 2

This Monday night, July 2, 2007, join me in a live radio show on Geekerati Radio at 7 PM PDT. Geekerati is the brainchild of Christian Johnson, frequent commenter on this website and head wrangler of the excellent and intelligent Cinerati blog as well, where you can find the full details.

While I’m perfectly happy to blather on with Christian for hours and have done so in the past, this will be even more fun if people (that’s you folks) join us for the event. As an incentive, Christian will be giving away a number of free copies of both Blood Bowl and The Road to Death to some of the lucky callers.

So, if you want to chat about books, games, and more, and wouldn’t mind ending up with a free book or two to boot, be sure to mark it on your calendar and then call up to say hi. Hope to hear from you soon!

Harvey Birdman, Gamer at Law

I’ve finally been given clearance to mention one of my favorite upcoming projects. Earlier this year, I worked with the fine people at High Voltage Software on a brand-new video game based on the hilarious Cartoon Network show Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law. It’s slated to be released this fall for both the PS2 and the PSP.

I had an absolute blast working on this game. At the moment, I’m not allowed to say anything that’s not been publicly announced, or I’d be lavishing my talented co-designers with praise and cackling wildly about the incredible actors who will be voicing our dialog. However, as has been reported elsewhere, the game is being published by Capcom, creators of the excellent Phoenix Wright series of courtroom-drama games for the Nintendo DS. It’s going to rock, and I can’t wait to play it.