Once again, the fine folks at Origins Game Fair invited me to be a special guest at this year’s show in Columbus, Ohio, which celebrates the convention’s 50th year. I’ll be there Thursday through Saturday — June 19 through 21 — running some sessions of the Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game. Those are all sold out at the moment, but I’m also going to be signing in the autograph area at 1 PM each of those days.

Autograph sessions for game designers can be quiet affairs during which all of us take the time to catch up with our neighbors, so come on over and bother us instead! I’ll have lots of time to wander around too, so if you randomly bump into me, be sure to say hi. It’s a fantastic show, and I hope to see you there!

I’ll post more about Dragonmeet soon, but at U-Con, my schedule looks like this:

Friday, November 17

• 5 PM: U-Con Talk: Leonard Balsera interviews me and other guests.

Saturday, November 18

• 10 AM – 1 PM: Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game

Sunday, November 19

• 9 AM – Noon: Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game

Those Marvel Multiverse RPG events are sold out but you should be able to find me wandering around the hall and playing games most of the weekend. I went to school at the University of Michigan and lived in Ann Arbor for 9 years, so I’m looking forward to seeing old friends and wandering around my old haunts — and maybe finding some new ones. I hope to see you there!

I’m off to Comic-Con International in San Diego at waaaay too early in the morning tomorrow (July 21, that is). Marvel is flying me out so I can run some in-person playtests with a few select groups of folks. While I’m there, I’ll also be on these panels:

• Thursday, 3:30-4:30 PM: Tabletop RPGs and the Shared Story Experience: Remember that time we did that thing? Let’s talk about how TTRPGs are delivering an all-new way to share stories. Tabletop RPGs have experienced unprecedented growth with new players who are discovering the joys of adventuring together and experiencing stories together. RPGs are a new form of storytelling that land differently from traditional media.Panelists include Ajit A. George (Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel, Ravenloft), Whitney “Strix” Beltran (Hidden Path Entertainment, Bluebeards Bride), John Nee (Marvel RPG, DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Cryptozoic), Matt Forbeck (Marvel RPG, Marvel Encyclopedia, Deadlands RPG), Matt Fantastic (Forever Stoked Creative, Game Designer), and Jon Ritter-Roderick (Kickstarter). Room 26AB.
• Friday, 2-3 PM: Scribe Awards for the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers: The Scribe Awards are hosted by the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers for the best works related to movies, TV, comics, audiobooks, and games. There will be a panel discussion following the presentation of the awards, featuring Chris Ryall, Paul Cornell, Debbie Daughetee, Matt Forbeck, David Seidman, Stacia Deutsch, and David Mack. Room 32AB.
• Friday, 6:30-7:30 PM: Tabletop Game Designers Roundtable: With over 5,000 tabletop games coming out a year, game designers are a hot commodity. Listen to experts Victoria Caña (Gladius, Cat Quartet Games), Matt Forbeck (lead game designer, Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game), Alex Uboldi (game designer, Darrington Press), Kami Mandell (game designer, The Op Games) and Elisa Teague (senior producer, Renegade Games G.I. Joe Roleplaying Game) as they talk about current trends, game design, how to bring your game from idea to the table and more. Moderated by Ross Thompson (Steamforged Games). Room 5AB.
• Saturday, 12:30-1:30 PM: All About Licensed Tabletop Games in 2022. From Marvel to GI Joe, Bobs Burgers and Dark Souls, hear from designers and publishers in the tabletop industry. Matt Forbeck (lead game designer, Marvel Multiverse RPG), Elisa Teague (senior producer, Renegade Games G.I. Joe RPG), Bridgette Reuther (director, brand management, The Op Games) and Jon Cohn (game designer, Ghostbusters, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) talk about working with top licenses and brands and the many ways they bring them to life and direct to your table. Moderated by Ross Thompson (Steamforged Games). Room 5AB.

If you’re a Marvel Insider with 125k points to spare and want to get in on one of the playtests, you’ll have to move fast. Looks like there’s still one spot left!

Either way, if you can make it out to San Diego for the show, I hope to see you there!

This Friday – February 14, 2020 – I’m scheduled to be a speaker at M+DEV, a video game developers conference held at the Allianz Energy Center in Madison, Wisconsin. I spoke at the inaugural event two years ago, and I’m delighted that they invited me back.

I’ll be speaking at 3:15 PM on “Writing for Video Games.” The rest of the time, I’ll be wandering around, catching up with old friends, meeting new people, and enjoying the rest of the talks.

They have a tremendous lineup of guests, including Felix Kramer, Nika Nour, Allison Salmon, David Gagnon, Brian Pelletier, Stephen Dineheart, and many more. If you work in the field – or have any interest in doing so – join us! You’ll learn a ton and hopefully have loads of fun too.

This weekend, I’m attending my last convention of the year – and one of my favorites – Gamehole Con. It’s a wonderful show held in Madison, Wisconsin, less than an hour from my house, and it’s grown larger and better every year. They focus on tabletop roleplaying games – Dungeons & Dragons in particular, but far from exclusively – and they’re family friendly and community oriented. For example, the show opens on Halloween this year, and they’ve set up an in-convention trick-or-treat that’s free to the public.

I’m running a couple games there and appearing on a panel. For a good chunk of it, though, I’m just going to be playing games with my kids and catching up with friends. Hope to see you there!

This weekend, I’m heading off to Halo Outpost Discovery in Anaheim, California. HOD is a multi-media traveling celebration of all things related to Halo, and Anaheim is the last stop of this summer’s inaugural tour. They’ve called in a bunch of special guests to help them cap everything off, including loads of Halo writers and actors like Steve Downes and Jen Taylor, who give voice to Master Chief and Cortana, respectively.

I’ll be there for a signing on Saturday at 5 PM, along with Kelly Gay and my old pal Troy Denning. On Sunday, I’m on a panel about Halo novels with Troy, Kelly, and Jeff Easterling at 12:15 PM. After that, Kelly, Troy and I will be signing again from 2—3 PM.

Beyond all that, I’ll be wandering around, enjoying the exhibits and fun myself. I’m a Halo fan from back before the game was even announced, and I’m looking forward to being dazzled all weekend long. If you’re in the area, come out and join me!

This is my favorite show of the year. I never miss it. I started going when I was a kid, and this will be my 38th in a row. Better yet, it falls across my birthday once again, so there’s double reason to celebrate.

If you’re a tabletop gamer of any stripe and have the time and means to make it to Indianapolis this week, you should be at Gen Con. Here’s my schedule for this year’s show. I hope to see you there!

Wednesday, July 31

• 9 PM: The Diana Jones Award party. I host this private event for industry professionals every year to help kick off the show on Gen Con Eve.

Thursday, August 1

• 11 AM: Fireside with Peter Adkison. I’ll be one of the guests chatting with Peter Adkison, founder of Wizards of the Coast and co-owner of Gen Con, about the convention’s history.

Friday, August 2

• 10 AM: Networking, It’s Not Just a Food Chain. Networking is an important part of the industry, but authors aren’t leeches. Gabrielle Harbowy, Chris Bell, and I give tips on how to be sure to give as well as take.
• 12 PM: Business Plans for Writers. Writing is a creative endeavour, but it’s also a business. Which means … you need a business plan. Shanna Germain, Chrostopher Husberg, Keith Law, and I discuss making one.
• 6 PM: Play a Soon-To-Be-Published Board Game with Game Designer, Matt Forbeck! This is part of the Worldbuilders charity party. I’ll be playing an unpublished board game of my own design with those hardy souls who grab tickets to my table. As of this writing, there’s only one seat left!

Saturday, August 3

• 10 AM:I Want to Be a Writer. Where Do I Start? What are the qualifications you need to be a writer? Or do you really just need a pen, a chair, and a prayer? Robyn Bennis, Aaron Rosenberg, Karen Bovenmyer, and I discuss it.
• 11 AM: Passing Story Time Without Losing Readers. The pace of your story is as important as the plot and the characters. Tee Morris, Melissa Olson, and Elizabeth Vaughan, and I discuss the passage of time in fiction.
• 12 PM: Can Playing Games Help You Write?Many authors in the science fiction and fantasy genre are also gamers, but does it make them better writers? Bruce Cordell, Gregory A. Wilson, Kirk Dougal, and I discuss our experiences.
• 4 PM: Signing with Matt Forbeck. The one official signing slot I have at the show. Come say hi!

I love getting out of the house and meeting fans and friends. I spend a lot of time at my desk in my house, and seeing the rest of the world makes for a good break from that.

This May 29—June 2, I’m heading to northern Sweden for Arctic Game Week, which includes a number of different festivals in SkellefteÃ¥, a city that sits just shy of the Arctic Circle. Now, I live in Wisconsin, so I know how to handle cold, but I’m grateful that I’m going up that far in the late spring rather than the dead of winter.

On May 29 I’ll be at guest at the Arctic Game Conference, along with luminaries like Fred Malmberg, Magnus Nedfors, and Mike Elliott. I’m speaking at 10:40 AM as part of the Analog Games & Storytelling track. The topic includes two things on which I’ve built a lot of my career:

Mechanics and Metaphor

There’s a long standing debate among game designers about whether you should start with a game’s mechanics or its setting, the crunch or the fluff. This is a false dichotomy. The best game designers work hard to dovetail the two efforts together into a seamless whole in which the mechanics and the setting work together in a seamless metaphor. This helps to make the game intuitive not only for the designer but the players, who can then figure out how the rules are supposed to work by the way in which the setting is presented.

After that, I’ll also be at Nordsken from May 30—June 2, along with lots of other guests, including Marvel’s editor-in-chief, C. B. Cebulski. I’m not sure what my schedule will be there, other than playing lots of games. If you can make it up there, though, be sure to say hi!

For the rest of 2019, I’m planning on being at:

• Comic-Con (July 17—21)
• Gen Con (August 1—4)
• Gamehole Con (October 31—November 3)

More details on those bits as I have them. Hope to see you on the road!

Today, I wrapped the first draft for my next Endless Quest book. I’ll tell you more about that later, when I can. I’m hoping to talk about it a bit at Gamehole Con this weekend, actually.

Speaking of which, I’m heading to Gamehole Con this weekend! In fact, I’m leaving in a hour or two. This is one of my favorite conventions of the year. The people who run it are incredible, and it’s a great venue, including a full slate of True Dungeon games. They line up a fantastic group of guests (of which I’m pleased to be one again), and they treat them and all the rest of the players like best friends joining them for an annual reunion.

I’m only taking part in a few official events at the show.

• Friday, 1 PM: Assembling Imagination – Worldbuilding with Matt Finch, Peter Brett, and Pat Rothfuss. Sold out!
• Friday, 2 PM: Endless Quest Live. In which I read from an upcoming Endless Quest book and have the players vote which way to take the story. This one’s currently sold out too.
• Saturday, 2 PM: Endless Quest Live. In which I do it all over again. This one has several seats left, so jump on it if you can.

The rest of the time, I’ll be hanging out with friends, wandering around with my kids, and playing games of all kinds. I believe my friends at I’m Board Games will have copies of my Endless Quest books on sale there, so if you’re looking for autographed copies, be sure to hunt me down and shove them at me.

I hope to see you there!

The next morning, we had the Diana Jones Award Morning After Report. This launched Gen Con’s brand-new Twitch stream, bringing us live to anyone who cared to watch at the time. This week, Gen Con also posted the video on YouTube for posterity. That means you can now watch it too.

Let me warn you, this was literally the morning after the party, which ran late into the night. Everyone there at the table is running on less than optimal sleep – and the adrenaline that comes with joining more than 60,000 other gamers at our annual geek-fest. Despite that, we managed to pack a lot of conversation and insights into our two hours.

I want to thank the massive number of guests who joined me, including Satine Phoenix, Ruty Rutenberg, Jim McClure, Dom Zook, Shelly Jones, Aaron Trammell, Evan Torner, Nicole Hunsicker, Peter Adkison, and Adrian Swartout. And anyone out there who manages to sit through the whole thing!