Back from Protospiel

I had a fantastic time at Protospiel this past weekend, although it was unlike any other game convention I’d ever been to. I played lots of games, many of which were excellent, and every one of them was a prototype the designer hoped to get published someday. Many thanks to all the excellent people I met, particularly Mike Petty and David Whitcher, who set the whole thing up and invited me to join them.

My seminar on Saturday seemed to go well. Everyone stopped playing to listen to me for a bit, which meant a lot with this crowd. They even asked cogent questions. Afterward, I got to chat with my good friends Will and William Niebling and meet Alex Yeager, all three of whom hail from Mayfair Games. Brett Seymour, who comments here sometimes, also showed up for the talk, and I enjoyed meeting him and putting a face to the name.

I also managed to get out of the convention room a few times. It had been five or six years since I’d been back to Ann Arbor, and I was eager to explore a bit. Mostly it seemed the same, but here and there something new stabbed from the land like a non-native tree threatening to crowd out the original growth.

I ate at some of my favorite places: Red Hot Lovers, Blimpy Burder, and Mongolian Barbecue. I also got to see the Sullivan-Sain family, for whom my wife spent many years as a nanny back when she was in college. Plus, I managed to meet up with Dan Anderson, one of my great pals from college, who I hadn’t seen in over 12 years.

In short, great weekend. Now I’m scrambling to catch up with everything before I leave for Comic-Con.

Protospiel Bound

I’m off to Protospiel in the morning. I plan to playtest lots of games, chat endlessly, and maybe even find some time to sleep. If you plan to be there in Ann Arbor, too, be sure to say hi. I went to college in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan, and I can’t wait to see some old friends and wander about the old stomping grounds again.

Wheaton in GQM

After many near misses, I finally managed to interview Wil Wheaton for Games Quarterly Magazine‘s summer issue. I had a great time with the conversation. Wil is human, funny, and loves games of all kinds, which made him the perfect first subject for this series.

Special thanks to Wil’s pal and mine, John Kovalic, for helping us reach each other.

The 49th Patron

Yesterday was the deadline for Wolfgang Baur‘s grand experiment in roleplaying game design funding. The Open Design concept models itself on the old system of patronage in which a creator gathers one or more people interested in paying for the work and then collaborates with them on producing the creation. In this case, Wolf needed one more patron to pitch in so he could green-light the project. Otherwise, he’d end up giving everyone their money back and calling it a day.

Never one to leave a fellow Alliterate holding a bag of great ideas, I chipped in the last little bit. I’d only hesitated so long because I know I’ll probably never have a chance to run the adventure. I’m interested enough in the experiment, though, and in supporting Wolf’s grand ideas, that I wanted to make sure it wouldn’t wither on the vine for lack of a single, last donor.

This made me the 49th patron.

It’s already shaping up to be a lot of fun. It’s wild to be involved in helping direct the creation of an adventure with so many other people–and yet have someone of Wolf’s caliber doing all the heavy lifting.

Wallis Walking

Gaming industry legend and good friend James Wallis has launched a blog. Unlike many blogs, though, this one has a distinct and ambitious purpose. To raise money for Cancerbackup (a support organization for people with cancer and their families), James proposes to walk the entire 120 miles of the Pilgrim’s Way.

Chaucer wrote about the people on this same trail across southern England, from Winchester to Canterbury, in The Canterbury Tales. James plans to make his trip with the same sort of navigational aids that Chaucer’s pilgrims would have had back in the 14th century: none.

This includes no maps.

By way of his regular blog posts, you can join James in his picaresque quest. Or if you’re in the neighborhood and so inclined, you can even walk with him for a ways. Either way, this is sure to be an adventure to remember, even vicariously.

Plus, it’s all for a good cause near to James’s heart. I’m making my donation today.