Author Archives: Eric

Eulogy

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One of the hardest things to do was stand in front of family, friends and coworkers to deliver some words at the time of remembrance for Rebecca. I struggled to finish what I was saying.

Our friends and family also gave their own words and they were wonderful. There is a recording of that, and I may post a link to it later. Below are the words I spoke that day:

Eulogy is a silly word with the ‘e’ and the ‘u’ and the ‘g’ and it just doesn’t fit. It’s the wrong word for describing Beck. There are a number of other words that should be used to describe her. Some of those words are –

Defiant.

If you wanted Beck to do something, simply tell her she was NOT allowed to do that thing. She would tell you precisely what you should do with your opinion and then head directly out to do what you said she should not. This is important because it is how we met. David said she was not allowed to meet me, so she threw her biker jacket and heavy boots on and stomped into the store where I worked to talk to me. We chatted, she was lovely and I asked her out. She said yes.

Passionate.

From dating, to marriage and beyond if Beck felt it, she felt it strongly. Opinions, personal or political were always ready. It was never anger, it was towering rage. It was not care, it was deep love. There was no middle ground when it came to her feelings. It was in part of the reason the song for our first dance at our wedding reception was ‘Storybook Love’ from the soundtrack of the film “The Princess Bride”. Those lyrics had deep meaning to her.

My love is like a storybook story
But it’s as real as the feelings I feel

Inappropriate.

If there was a crass, dirty joke to be made you can be sure Beck would step up. She was proud to deliver the F bomb at any occasion, or plainly describe the state of things. One memorable example was at my sister’s wedding. Ellen asked us to take care of greeting people and having them sign the guest book. When my mom’s dear friend Vesta arrived she asked Beck “How are you today?” Without missing a beat Beck’s reply was, “I’m bloated and my feet hurt in these shoes… how are you?” She was not always met with similar replies.

Caring.

Rebecca was always interested in helping other people. One of the things she most enjoyed was trying to make things better for other people. For a long time that meant cooking for everyone. There was never a shortage of cooking going on. She found GISH – the greatest international scavenger hunt and all its associated charities. She loved to participate in that event and would take a week off from work to do it. Giving and caring and doing goofy things along the way because caring didn’t mean being dull about it.

Strong.

The defining thing in Beck’s life became her health. As one of the nurses at the ICU said after I’d recounted her med list and her health history, “Wow, she has really gone through it”. I know most of you know the numbers now, but 10 major surgeries, including 6 for her heart, 2 strokes and too many hospital stays to count is a lot – and she just kept powering on. She lived these last years with a timer over her head that she couldn’t read. It was a struggle here, near the end but that is absolutely NOT how she would want to be remembered. She would want to be remembered for everything else.

Today should be about sharing stories, particularly the inappropriate ones. Let’s talk about her roles as mother, wife, partner, friend, activist, charity champion and how she will be missed by her family, friends and community. There will forever be an unfilled seat at our table, the absence of her light in the room and in our lives cannot be replaced. She had an impact for good in everyone’s lives she touched. She will be deeply missed.

To bring things full circle, a quote from The Princess Bride,

“Death cannot stop true love, all it can do is delay it for a while”.

Thank you all for being here for her.

She Is Gone.

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I’ve had a post, or series of posts up on social media for a few weeks now. I think I need to post this here, for ME on my website. I need to own this and keep it.

My wife of 30 years passed away in July. There’s no easy way to put that. She is gone.

Social media held a lot of messages and updates and information about arrangements and things like that. I think this post needs to give a little more, or rather a different view of things if not necessarily more.

My wife had health related struggles for many years. I’d posted about it and even published a piece about taking care of your own health during that time. She’d had more than a dozen hospital stays over the course of the past 20 years. Her first open heart surgery was back in the early 2000s when my daughter was just over a year old. Things always seemed to bounce back. We were always lucky I guess. We knew… but we didn’t know. The chance of everything going wrong was always there, it just never managed to actually happen.

Intellectually we were prepared. Physically and emotionally we struggled and muddled along. About 3 years ago Beck had her first major stroke. It took her a few days to come back around and start the recovery process. She did recover, mostly. She was never quite the same in a lot of ways. How we acted, the things we did and places we went changed and morphed over time.

On July 26th Beck started showing signs of having another stroke. I kept asking her what she was feeling and telling her she was worrying me. She couldn’t get up and walk without help, she started to lose the function of her hands. I asked her again what she felt was happening. The ambulance arrived, off we went to the hospital again. Somehow this felt different. There were other, small factors that were adding in here. They rushed her into surgery that Saturday night trying to relieve the pressure in her head. Nothing worked.

Three agonizing days with no real responses or movement or anything. A massive hemorrhagic stroke. We made the choice to go forward with her wishes of organ donation. It took until July 29th for her to be all the way gone.

Her last coherent words were, “I love you”.

I have cried more in the last month than I have in the last 20 years combined. Sitting here and typing things just doesn’t seem to cover it. I am wreckage. Almost a month along and I am only mostly functional. I’m planning to try to put more things here – but it will take time.

Published again?

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Maybe.

I had submitted a short story to this collection and it was accepted. This was… I’m going to say years ago at this point. Maybe 2 or more. I honestly don’t remember.

Friends were at the home convention for the group that was planning to publish this anthology… and surprised me with this little gem:

Yes, they spelled my name wrong. I’ll be sure to message and get that sorted out – right after I find out how I get more details about this upcoming Kickstarter and what that means for the rights to my story…

Cover Piece

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I’m still squeezing in time to do graphic work for Watch The Skies. This was the cover of the July fanzine. Normally I go for some kind of image inspired directly from the work, but I hadn’t gotten far enough by the deadline, so I worked to come up with something more abstract.

Solo Game

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Sometimes taking the time to play a game is just the sort of rest and recuperation one needs. Sometimes when you need this, there’s nobody else around, making the game options limited.

At a recent board game day in my local community I picked up a single player game. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I figured I’d take a shot. The creator seemed like a local person and the game looked well put together. The game is called Eleventh Beast. This game is set up as a solo monster hunting game set in London in the mid 1700s. I’d only ever “played” pick your own path style single player games, so I wanted to do this one right.

I grabbed the printable map and tokens from the website. I cut out the tokens, grabbed the required dice and a deck of cards with the jokers taken out. I dug up some mood music to accompany my solo game. Note paper at hand, I cracked open the pamphlet and started in on the rules. I also felt some extra ‘flavor’ was in order so I put on some music as a background. I recommend the soundtrack to the old movie “Gothic” if you can come up with it. Really felt like it fit with the game – and ends with a tune declaring that the devil is an Englishman.

The rules made sense, but there wasn’t any… cushion for first timers I guess is a way to say it. I had to just start and figure it out (play fast, make mistakes – a common refrain among our friends). Having said that, it didn’t take long to figure it out. There are only 15ish pages to the whole thing and it’s pretty straightforward once you get started. Rolling dice, placing tokens and pulling cards I worked my way through my first game. I won by defeating the monster with only one wound on my tab.

It is a neat concept. Random card pulling and dice rolls give the action a little bit of unpredictability. It was easy. I’m afraid that I did something wrong as it seemed both shorter and easier than it was described. Part of that might be my lack of detail in the notes department. I could see where the flavor would really work for somebody who wanted to invest in it, but once I figured out what I needed for each step, my notes became a short hand code. It has a level of replay ability, but now that I know what I’m doing it would be a quick hit whenever I wanted to play a solo game. If there were a rule I would change or add, I think it would be a randomization factor for the monster and the player tokens after an attack is resolved. Basically once I’d collected a handful of rumors that turned out to be true (and therefore tools) I stood on the monster and duked it out until I rolled to win. I think pushing the monster and the hunter to random spaces would add to the challenge and allow for a little more strategy.

It was a fun diversion and I’m really glad I took the chance and picked it up. It’s on the shelf, ready to go (with far less prep) for the next time I feel like a solo game.

Sketching

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I’ve wandered away from the keyboard again. I’m currently working on in a sketchbook. There’s something wonderfully satisfying about being able to see the blank page and add pencil to that. The shading, the subtlety of different lead weights, watching the pattern of the paper as the pencil rubs off across it.

The blank page here isn’t the same as a blank typing page. The daunting task of filling a page with words is far different than the waiting paper, reaching out for linework and shading or stipples or even watercolors. Typing also doesn’t give the same visceral satisfaction of hand motion. The alternation of pressure on the keys makes no difference to anything except when I need to purchase a new keyboard because I’ve smashed a button too hard or cracked another support leg.

I don’t know if the “art” or any of the sketching I do right now will ever make it here. Sometimes there are things just for me. Sometimes I’ll share them with friends or around the game table – but the internet probably doesn’t get any of what I’m doing now and there’s a satisfaction to that.

I’m sure there will be more soon – until then, back to the pencils.

Balticon 59 – A Convention Report

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This post was originally published in the June 2025 issue of Watch The Skies

This past Memorial Day weekend I was once again a panelist at a live, in person science fiction convention. I attended Balticon 59 and had a very good time. As happens with my musings, the time between the event and the actual writing of my report will cause some of the be details that are hazy and that will make the summaries shorter than they may have once been. This year also included a little more distance for me as I missed Balticon 58 (I was out of the country). It was good to be back.

The con took place May 23 – 26, 2025 at the Renaissance Baltimore Harborplace hotel, right in the middle of Inner Harbor. The location continues to be a daunting expense. The hotel itself is expensive. Parking is generally expensive as well, but the con made arrangements for a deal with the parking company and that worked out well again. I was able to save a fair amount of money compared to past years by setting up my parking in advance. The area itself, the places around the con, is all but dead. All but a very few businesses in the area are gone. The restaurant choices were thin and did not lend themselves to quick con based meals. I thought of using my “in and out” privilege for parking to go someplace for food, but the traffic was an absolute nightmare. There were three other large events going on in the immediate area over the same time frame, adding to the challenge. The absolute lack of options was one of the most daunting aspects of attending. The room, the amenities and the rest of the hotel related things were pretty standard.

Checking in this year was the smooth. I was in and out of the registration area very quickly. The set up / arrangement of the convention spaces was the same as years past, including splitting the dealer’s room into two different spaces. The set up has become pretty standard.

Being in person for the con has definitely changed. The set up and division of panels between in person and virtual is better than it was in the past, but as with anything there was room for improvement. I’d brought my own laptop along and set it up in my hotel room, but didn’t in fact need it for any panel. I did use it to run a game virtually, but that was only tangentially related to one of my panels (Knights of the Virtual Table). I attended a couple of the panels being run both live and virtual. Hats off to the tech team for making that work. Keeping the tech connected is a big deal and the volunteers seemed to have pulled it off quite well.

There were a lot of new faces at the convention. One report I read stated the convention attendance was the highest it’s been since before the pandemic, and I believe it. I’ve written other places about the struggles of conventions in the science fiction community. I’ve had the drama of Balticon bounce off me and I’ve seen the effect on other creators. This has made a profound shift in the names and faces of the con. The complete lack of attendance of my friend group was even more evident this year. My family didn’t attend. People I always went to dinner with didn’t attend. People I’d sit and share a drink with or bump into between panels weren’t there. I was deeply saddened to learn of the passing of an artist I’d spent time with at many a con. He was a great guy and I will miss him. I was able to go to dinner one night with old friends, but that really was the limit. Four days and only interactions in passing. I was adrift and on my own. I missed the convention experiences of old. I tried to reach out and connect, but there wasn’t some kind of grand connection. It definitely tinted my thoughts on the con.

Despite being socially adrift, it was a good con for me. I got to speak about gaming on a bunch of panels, and learned a handful of things from wonderful fellow gamers and creators. I intend to use this year as fuel for next year. It’s the 60th next year and I suspect it will be a big deal. I’ve got a lot of work to do before then. It was good to be back. I hope and look forward to doing it all again next year.

Knights of the Virtual Table

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Come one, come all to the virtual table! In this online age, virtual tabletops have boomed in popularity, revolutionizing play with tools such as dynamic lighting, built-in soundboards, and combat trackers. It has never been easier to find a game, and connect with other players around the world. But with technological ease comes technical difficulties. Come listen to experienced GMs and players discuss the advantages and disadvantages of virtual tabletops versus in-person play!

I picked this panel up late. I didn’t have a ton of time to prepare ahead of the convention for this one and ended up walking into the panel room with a blank sheet of paper and a handful of thoughts. Thankfully the moderator had things well in hand and brought some good questions. My fellow panelists also brought their perspective to things and there was a lot of information I was glad to hear, right along with what I could share of my own experience.

While I don’t have a prepared list as I did for the other panels, I am going to compile a few notes about what was said here. I believe this was the one panel of all those I was on that really needed to be virtual as well as in person. Sitting and chatting about websites and online resources just wasn’t the same without even a screen to share what we were talking about. Hopefully this one will pop up again next year and I’ll get another crack at it.

Notes:

An aspect I hadn’t considered until it came up in the panel. Access via hardware. What sort of computer and internet connection do you need? There are a lot of folks who take that sort of thing for granted these days, but not everyone has the same level of computer and internet. How you connect matters. If you’re looking to start a game up via the net, consider the requirements for the system you’re going to run!

How are you connecting? I was able to run my game from my laptop off hotel room wifi while I was at the convention. I happen to have a paid Zoom account and I use that for all my players. IF you’re unable to pay for a meeting service like Zoom or Teams, what else is there? At least one of the panelists used Discord to run their game. Private server, messaging capabilities, but issues with the audio connection some of the time.

Are you using some kind of map or going directly to theater of the mind? I am super visual, so I have my own Inkarnate account for map creation. This is yet another expense that some people might not be able to handle. That’s just for creation – where will the maps go? How will the players deal with their character sheets and the rules? There are lots of options out there. Roll20, Foundry or DnD beyond are just a starting point… but all have costs associated with them. Also, if they are the hosts, who owns the content? What happens to your character, your maps, your rule books if your subscription gets shut down?

One genuine upside to the virtual table is location. It’s virtual – so I can sit in my home office and play with people across the country or around the world. The biggest struggle there, as with any game group in history is the schedule. What time zone are you in? What time zone are they in? How do we make that work?

Our group has settled into a comfortable pattern of using PDF character sheets and looking at maps via Owlbear Rodeo. Again – Owlbear has a cost associated with it. As long as one person has access, the rest of the folks can be given a link and the game can go forward from there.

There are a growing and fast changing series of tools for gaming across the net out there. The biggest considerations revolve around the costs. Hardware, rules, connection platform and mapping software just to name a few. If you can figure those things out, then playing at a virtual table is definitely worth the effort!

Being a bad guy without being a “Bad Guy”

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“You can be a bad guy without being a Bad Guy” – Zangief.

Explore the complexities and challenges of embodying morally ambiguous personas in role-playing games. Learn strategies to develop nuanced and compelling antihero characters, delve into the psychology behind their motivations, and navigate the delicate balance between immersion and maintaining a healthy gaming environment.

I had a little bit of anxiety heading into this panel. It was one that could have gone very wrong. I was asked/volunteered to be the moderator for this one. I started off with a bunch of notes and lots to say – but shifted to make sure I had a series of questions for the panelists to really dig into. I did lead into things by stating in my introduction that I had deep feelings about this topic that lead all the way back to the 1982 movie starring Tom Hanks as Robbie, the troubled college student in “Mazes and Monsters” (and I still think it’s unforgivable).

Here are the questions I came up with:

What are some techniques you have for creating the safe gaming environment you want?

Once you have the group / environment you want, do you set limits on what your characters can and can’t do? Follow up – how are we defining ‘bad guy’?

What are some strategies or approaches you can take as a player to be the anti-hero / bad guy without wrecking the game for everyone else?

As a game master, what tactics can you use to create compelling drama without letting the game play get out of hand?

What are your favorite aspects of playing out the ‘bad guy’ ~ and how do you do that while keeping in mind all those questions we just covered?

What are some strategies for taking steps back or making a move to help somebody in your group who is struggling?

I also wanted to include my notes here – before I was in charge of the discussion, here’s what I wanted to keep in mind:

One of the most enjoyable aspects of role-playing is exactly that – it’s a role. It’s not really YOU, right?

Creating a character that wants something is a part of this. Motivation, desires, needs… how do those make this character act? Is it the choice you’d make in the real world? Maybe not.

Give your characters secrets. What would they do to protect those secrets? Is honor vs. embarrassment a driving factor for your street samurai?

Consequences are NOT your consequences, but just because it’s not the real world doesn’t mean they don’t exist or won’t effect you.

Don’t become “that guy” or “that girl”. Yes, your character might be a bit homicidal. Deciding you’re in a bad mood so you’re going to kill all the other player characters is a group stopper. Don’t wreck it for everyone else. OR consider making your ‘bad guy’ character have a specific arc. Talk it out with the game master. A spectacular, massive, explody death is really memorable for the other characters and can push a story along. Yes, you need to make a new character, but that can be OK too.

Reasonable example: I played an anti-paladin. He was a cold hearted killer and had 0 remorse about it at all. He was being guided by a deeply evil wizard… who lied about being a ‘good guy’. We had to team up with 2 ‘good guy’ characters and a true neutral wizard to save the world (balance and all that). The group had a little bit of infighting based on goals, but it made for great tension and a spectacularly messy death for my character in the end.

Unreasonable example: I ran a big one shot session for a friend’s birthday. Co-DM with my friend John. Ten players – two teams of 5, each trying to claim the birthday throne. It was designed to be a battle royale. What happened was one player picked out another and just hounded her. Singled her out and didn’t let her do anything else except constantly defend or deal with being taken out of the action with any of the others. I found out after the fact that made the attacked person cry and now she’s not interested in playing anymore. Don’t be that jerk.

Making a Book Club Work

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Selecting books, recruiting members, and achieving longevity; what goes into a successful book discussion group?

I suspect I was asked to be part of this panel because of my long term connection to Watch the Skies and our 25+ year history as a club. The pre-convention notes were a little thin on this one and I was a little concerned. Turns out there was no need to worry. It was a small panel crowd and lots of lively bits were covered! Here are the notes I had going into the panel:

IF you read my bio at all, part of that list is a group called Watch The Skies. That group started back around the year 2000 as a science fiction and fantasy reading group. We are still going strong here in 2025. We have a lot going on, and a lot of aspects of the group that are only tangentially related.

First – the books (and how to pick them).

We have everyone write a secret selection they want to read on a slip of paper, then drop it into a small bag. Somebody who didn’t add a slip of paper in, reaches in and picks the book for next month. We do have some rules… we try to stay within science fiction / fantasy as a category. Some have been more loose than others. It needs to be in print currently. It should have been in print long enough to reach the paperback stage – we’re not out to bankrupt anyone.

Track your books. Keep that list someplace accessible. Our group has more than 225 titles we’ve discussed over the years.

Next – the social contract.

We’re here to have a chat about the book we read. We’re not here to crush anyone’s opinions, treat them badly or ostracize anyone. It’s meant to be a friendly, social thing. IF somebody picked a totally awful book, discuss the book, not their taste in books. Understand that not every book is for every person, and that’s what makes this fun. We’ve had our share of people come and go over the years – and some that went were the ones who bashed the choices of the group and didn’t bring any discussion points because they refused to read the book. Can’t help those people.

The Social – a big part of what drives it all.

We chat about books. Once we’re past the book chat, our topic wander all over the place. Don’t fear that, add to it. Mix in other social aspects. We’ve done book / movie trip combos for those willing. We have a social media presence (yes, it’s still Failbook) with more than 230 members. We don’t have a huge presence at each meeting, but we definitely have a core who show up on the regular. We connect with each other on our book review platforms. This is a social thing!

The Place – where do you meet?

We started as a book group in a Barnes & Noble. That was a draw back then. The corporate overlords took away the chairs and then the groups. We took our name and our group to another store. Eventually, that store decided it wasn’t for us (they treated us pretty poorly really). We went to another book shop. It’s a wonderful place, but they have many cats and that keeps some of our members away (allergies), combined with a limited meeting space. These days, we’re one of the most consistent and successful groups at one of the branches of our local library. Libraries (and librarians) are awesome. Go there.

In an important development – we also meet via Zoom (and you can join us too). This access is a big deal! There are more than one members that can’t get to our meetings in person for various reasons. Zoom is our connection.

The Extras – what other things add to the mix?

We do other things too.

We’ve participated as a group in small “comiccons” in our area, hosting a table where we gifted donated books to the kids that showed up. We volunteered, acted as cosplay judges and generally just had a good time.

Our members have a presence at many conventions both here and further afield. I’m here at Balticon this weekend. Some dear friends from the group will be headed to Confluence in July. We do our best to bring others on board, even if it’s only briefly.

Do your homework! IF you’re at a con and you’re talking to say… authors and artists and other creators make a connection! Invite them to join you. Ask them about their book and see about getting that onto the selection list – so they can call in or visit and talk about their work. See who is in your area by going to local author events and chatting with folks. Talk to the booksellers. Reach out to distant authors online. You won’t always have success, but other times you’ll be shocked by who’s happy to stop by and read to you!

In the past we’ve been host to authors (big names and local), editors, artists and musicians. We were a venue where they could promote and discuss their work, AND we got insights that other readers wouldn’t necessarily get. Winning all around.

The Zine.

I think the one thing that makes us special is that we also publish a fanzine each month. We’ve published 11 times a year since 2002 (about 23 years now). We have a cover art piece every month. We have articles, convention lists, and advertisements for friends of our group (not just anyone).

We are HUGO eligible (not that we get any love, even from our own membership).

This is your chance to make that extra connection with the creatives in your area and really push your group to be something special.