PinkFae Archive #29: Gen Con: An Overview of an Awesome Convention

As a result of my association with PinkFae, I was able to attend the 2016 Gen Con on a press pass. I wrote a series of articles based on my time there. This is the first of them. It was originally published on 13 August 2016.

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As most of you know, I was able to attend Gen Con last week. It was my first time ever to attend a convention (apart from the small local one that doesn't really count). I had no idea what to expect from conventions in general, nor from Gen Con in particular. Needless to say, I had ridiculous amounts of fun. I got to play lots of games, see lots of panels, learn lots of things, and of course, buy lots of games. I have a lot of ideas for articles about my time at Gen Con, so look for those in upcoming weeks. Just a small sample of some of the entries I'll be writing include:

• An interview with Emily Whitehouse of On the Lamb Games
• An article about crossplay and genderbending
• Reviews of some new release games that debuted at the con
• A discussion of Zombie Orpheus Entertainment

And more! So this space is going to be pretty busy over the next couple of months. Be sure to check back weekly to see if I've managed to get something new up.

PinkFae Archive #11: Roleplaying: An Adventure in Imagination

As I work on reposting the articles that I wrote for PinkFae, we come to entry number 11. This post was originally published on 13 March 2016. Enjoy!

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I have talked at some length about board games, and a little about one specific roleplaying game, but I haven't yet talked in general about my favourite kind of games: roleplaying games. It's not surprising that I enjoy RPGs; as I've mentioned here before, I am a storyteller player type, which means that I most enjoy games that follow Freytag's pyramid, especially if they involve character growth and the development of interpersonal relationships. Given the right gaming group, roleplaying games are the best vehicle for telling stories as a game that you can hope to find. So I'm going to talk today about this wonderful type of game.

The Best Games of 2016

So here we are. The last day of 2016. And a few days ago, I found an article on Ars Technica entitled Game on! The Best Board Games of 2016. They list the 20 games that they played most often in this past year.

Sadly, I don't have as much time to play games as I would like. And what time I do get is often spent on older games that I've played before. Which is not a bad thing; getting to play a great game more than once is always a good thing! So before I get to the main part of my article, a quick overview of the games that I played most often in 2016, regardless of when they were first published:

• Ghost Stories
• Labyrinth
• Sushi Go Party!
• Red Dragon Inn
• Tsuro
• The Resistance: Avalon

Most of these are because they're games that I own and other people enjoy. When I'm at other people's places, we usually end up playing something I've never played before. Which is also not a bad thing.

An Overview of the Original World of Darkness (Part 3)

(continued from part 2)

Other games in the original World of Darkness

I never played any of the games that came after Changeling. The first, Hunter: The Reckoning, went against everything I loved about the first five games. Mummy: The Resurrection was a reworking of an earlier supplement, and I felt that it ruined everything that was wonderful about the original version. Demon: The Fallen brought into the World of Darkness a religious aspect that had been absent from previous games, and I was very disappointed by that fact, so I never looked into it. And although I owned a copy of Kindred of the East, I never got to play it. In fact, I never got to read it, primarily because I knew I wasn't likely to get to play it.

They did also release historical versions of most of the original five. It began in 1996 with the release of Vampire: The Dark Ages. It was essentially the same as the original Vampire: The Masquerade, but it was set in 1197 CE. The primary vampiric sects (the Camarilla and the Sabbat) had not been created yet, and there were some other differences reflecting the state of the vampires at that time. The following year saw the release of Werewolf: The Wild West. As with Dark Ages, it reflected the state of the Garou in the late 1800s. The next year, they released Mage: The Sorcerer's Crusade. It had more changes than the other historical versions, as the mages had changed far more in their history than the vampires or werewolves. But it still reflected the state of the mages in the year 1466 CE. The year after that, they released Wraith: The Great War. This game reflected the status of the dead in the wake of World War I. It was the first of the historical games that was not a stand-alone game. It did not include all the rules needed to play; new players would have to already know the rules if they didn't want to buy another core rulebook in the World of Darkness line.

An Overview of the Original World of Darkness (part 2)

(continued from part 1)

Mage: The Ascension: 

Players take on the role of a powerful wizard. There are three primal forces that work together to form the universe: Dynamism (creation and unbridled possibility, often seen as pure chaos), Stasis (order and lack of changeability), and Entropy (destruction and cessation of existence). There are four factions of mages: the Technocracy (representing Stasis, champions of safety and dependable mundanity; they see themselves as stewards shepherding the Sleepers — those humans who've not awoken to the true magical nature of the universe — into a paradise of technology and security), the Mauraders (those mages who have given themselves over to — or been overtaken by — the pure chaos and insanity of Dynamism), the Nephandi (mages representing Entropy who have 'sold their souls' to ancient demonic beings from other planes of existence, serving them in exchange for vast power), and the Tradition Mages (those who represent some level of balance between Stasis, Dynamism, and Entropy). Tradition mages run the gamut from traditional Hermetic magi (think Merlin or Gandalf) to shamans to Wiccans to the mentalist Buddhist-monk type, and even mad scientists or those who use computers to try to free the minds of the Sleepers.

An Overview of the Original World of Darkness (part 1)

In 1991, Mark Rein•Hagen's game Vampire: The Masquerade was released. This game took the roleplaying community by storm, and soon was one of the most prominent RPGs in the hobby. It was the first of five games planned by Rein•hagen, who intended to release a game about werewolves next, followed by one about wizards, one about faeries, and one about ghosts.

The order and specifics changed a bit; the game about wizards came to be known as Mage: The Ascension, the one about ghosts was named Wraith: The Oblivion and was moved up to be released before the one about faeries, and that final one came to be known as Changeling: The Dreaming. But all five of those games were released:

• Vampire: The Masquerade (1st edition 1991; 2nd edition 1992)
• Werewolf: The Apocalypse (1st edition 1992; 2nd edition 1994)
• Mage: The Ascension (1st edition 1993; 2nd edition 1995)
• Wraith: The Oblivion (1st edition 1994; 2nd edition 1996)
• Changeling: The Dreaming (1st edition 1995; 2nd edition 1997)