Countless tales are told of the legendary “That Guy,” the fiend who destroys the good times of tabletops everywhere. But little is said about the others, the celestial beings who remember names, piece together plot points, and work with their GM on narrative and theme. This panel of GMs and Players will tell stories of the best player moments, and elucidate what makes these angels so special.
I’ve been playing various role playing games for a very long time. I’ve played a lot, and over the most recent years I’ve been the game master more often than not. Running a game and staying ahead of a group of creative, talented and smart people is a fantastic challenge. Here are the notes I had for this panel.
Chemistry.
We play these games because we want to have fun. It’s definitely no fun if the person sitting next to you is the verbal equivalent of a pebble in your shoe while you walk.
Finding your people is NOT easy. It IS a role-playing game, so you will have to get past the anxiety part in order to make it work… unless that’s your whole party and the game adventure becomes who’s actually going to be forced to speak to the service person you’re facing…
Flexibility.
You’re here to have fun, right? Sometimes that means getting outside your comfort zone and pretending to do a thing you would NEVER do in real life, for whatever reason. Sometimes you need to change a little to allow others to do the same.
No Judgment.
This one is a balancing act. It ties in with the chemistry thing. What if your rogue character does something that you, on a deeply personal level, find abhorrent? Is it just the game? Is it how the character would actually behave because reasons? You can’t leap on the judgmental band waggon or it will kill certain creative parts of the game.
Pay attention.
Sounds dumb, matters a lot. When in person games were more common than virtual there was always that one person that was on their phone or who fell asleep on the couch. It can hurt the flow of any session if we all have to stop, back up five minutes to tell you what you weren’t paying attention to and then wait for you to re-read your spell list to figure out what you were doing.
Be creative.
Not everyone is a mastermind with 56 plot lines weaving in and out of their minds, but do any little bit you can. Take on something small if you feel like you don’t know where to start. Look at your character and create from there. What do you really know about? Slide some of that into your character, and use that as a starting point. If you’re a hair stylist, allow your character to wear a hair style that you’d love to see, then leap off from there and make it a quirky part of that character – the character constantly tries to get others to color their hair or braid their beard or something. Those little bits of flavor make a very rich game.
Be understanding.
Sometimes gamers need to take a knee. The real world intrudes. This ties together with chemistry and flexibility. My best games have come after we’ve had to skip a week because of family stuff or during really tough real world issues for my players.
Favorite things from my players? I had a OCD person with a color coded notebook. She wrote everything down. I have a great note taker in my campaign now. She takes the greedy character to a whole new level, so she tracks all the party wealth. New players rock because they don’t have tropes to rely on. They do something weird every time!
Over Memorial Day weekend I was once again able to participate in Balticon, the annual science fiction convention of the Baltimore Science Fiction Society. I’ll be posting a full report here (once it’s been published in its initial place), but until then I wanted to post up some of the notes I had for the panels I was on.
In general, I think all the panels went really well. There was one that was close to being a clunker, but some well timed moderation and good stories carried the day. I am already struggling to recall a lot of the details of each individual panel, so I will be sticking to just my notes and impressions and generally not what the other panelists brought to the table.
That is the best sales pitch I can think of for actually attending a con in person these days. It’s the experience of the whole thing. Anecdotally I’ve heard that lots of people are trying to get away from the pure consumer / materialistic aspects of life. Well, the experience of the convention is definitely something fitting to that category. A fleeting gathering of like minded folks looking to share the joy of their favorite genre topics. Things you won’t see anywhere else. Chances to dress up, talk nerdy and play games. Worth the effort to get there.
Yes – I’ve posted a number of other items here about the difficulties and challenges science fiction conventions have had lately. I still think they’re viable. I don’t want them to die. I love the idea of spending a weekend away just geeking out about the latest game / book / show and all the conflicting ideas about just how good it is. We can and should do better. If you get the chance – go.
Once again I’m headed to Balticon over Memorial Day weekend. I’ve been attending there for decades, and speaking or presenting there for a few years now. I consider them my “home con” if you will. They have had some struggles of late and some of my friends have moved away from this convention in particular. We’ll see what it brings this year.
My schedule for the panels I’ll be on:
Start Time Duration Room Name Session ID Title Sat 2:30 PM 1 Hr James 45 What Makes a Good Player Sat 5:30 PM 1 Hr James 29 Coming out of the Dungeon Sun 1:00 PM 1 Hr Guilford 24 So you want to be a Game Master? Sun 2:30 PM 1 Hr Room 7029 167 Making a Book Club Work Sun 4:00 PM 1 Hr James 140 Being a bad guy without being a Bad Guy Sun 7:00 PM 1 Hr James 43 Your Player Said What?? Mon 10:00 AM 1 Hr Mount Washington 259 Knights of the Virtual Table
I’ve seen a couple of different posts lately that talk in various aspects about how poorly certain conventions either have been run or are currently being run. I think a new pastime is going after convention staff and criticising what they do. Admittedly, some of them do need a critical eye turned their way. Creating something for other people to consume is not an easy thing. Doing that – putting your work out there for the scrutiny of others – is no easy thing. Creating something… anything is work. I have found it very difficult dealing with people who make nothing of their own but take great joy when they criticize or tear down the things that others have made. I know, I know – not something new. Internet trolls have been around and they are not going away.
Let’s start with World Con. A group of volunteers working to create something for the world and getting bashed left and right. Sometimes (often) justified, and sometimes not. Their choices for the current incarnation have been subject to a lot of scrutiny. I don’t know if the current set of choices under the critical eye were given much in the way of thought in terms of how others may react. Using tools like AI to create their convention seems like a time saving idea. Others have seen that as catastrophic and called it that. Do I think that using AI is some desperate or despicable act in terms of running a convention? No. No I do not. Do I think that it’s very easy to point fingers at a volunteer crowd when they are overwhelmed with work and say clearly you should have thought this out? Yes, it’s very easy to point fingers. Do I think there are better choices out there? Maybe. I’m not a fan of AI. I don’t suspect that I ever will be. Do I think that worldcon should use all the tools at its disposal? Absolutely. I would say that there needed to be some thought given to how those tools are presented. I think AI at this stage of its development is problematic on a good day, but I don’t know that it’s an end of the world scenario. They’re not creating Skynet, they’re sorting panelists and other information sorting tasks. Is a human touch better? When it comes to dealing with people and how they feel, it sure is. Worldcon has done enough damage to itself over the past few years that this just feels like piling on.
Worldcon clearly has a long way to go. They have struggled and they will continue to struggle. I actually hope the learning curve will help them to become a better and stronger convention going forward in the future. Long ago the con that presented the Hugo was a powerful thing. Now? Now I wonder at the value of the brand. I have stopped advocating to get onto the Hugo nomination list. Maybe someday that will change. Here’s a thing I wrote about my last interaction with them: https://www.ehardenbrook.com/withdrawal/
The other convention is a convention debacle that has been making the rounds on book tok and reviewer blogs. It is either a monumental underestimation by those without experience OR a naked cash grab by some less than scrupulous company. I’m talking about the “Million Lives” convention for ‘Romantasy’ authors and fans. I have no first hand knowledge of the event – but the reports are calling this the equal to the Fyre Festival. Check out one of the reports here.
The thing about this kind of event is… effort. Fans, particularly fans laying out hundreds of their hard earned bucks, want results. I’ve seen it first hand. I know the sort of effort it took when the kids programming team set out to run a successful weekend for a few dozen children. Now amplify that to a point where you believe you’re going to fill a section of the Baltimore convention center. That’s a tall order.
This debacle feels like one of two things. First, it could be an ‘event company’ that really overshot on their first attempt. If that’s true, this will kill that company. Second, and the more cynical part of me believes this, the so called event company is at least a partial scam because they can skate away with the cash and it doesn’t really matter what happens with the attendees in their view. This particular convention (from all accounts) was a complete disaster. When I say complete – I mean from the things that people take for granted, like directional signage, all the way through an entertainment venues layout. The use and decoration of spaces in a convention location will only go so far. A bare concrete floor generally doesn’t say fantasy ball to me.
Grandiose visions, expansive events and immersive atmosphere take time, effort and cash. Emphasis on the effort.
I guess (in this jumble of words that I have just sort of laid out here) what I’m trying to say is creating a thing like a convention is not easy. It is time-consuming and takes a team of dedicated people to do it. Sometimes things go wrong. Sometimes things go catastrophically wrong. Sometimes that is the fault of the staff and sometimes it’s not.
I hope, as I head out next weekend, to attend a convention, that Lessons Learned and growth will be part of how things are moving forward. I really wanted to go over these things just because I want to see Science Fiction and Fantasy conventions succeed. What does that level of success look like? I don’t know. Maybe everyone wants it to become Comic-Con but what we will be left with in the end is returning to something like what conventions were in the past. Smaller events, more tightly controlled and made for and with the Fans.
After I return from the Baltimore science fiction convention this year I intend to do a write-up as I always have in the past about my personal experiences and my thoughts on how things went. Maybe, if I’m really energetic, I’ll be able to post while I’m there! Stay tuned to find out!
I’m happy to say that I’ve been invited to be a panelist at the annual convention of the Baltimore Science Fiction Society again this year. I’m very excited for it!
Fandom in general and conventions in particular have had a lot of hard times lately. Things that might have been easier to deal with in different social environments have become bigger and noticeably more damaging. Sometimes for the better – exposing less than wonderful people and removing them from the processes. Sometimes for the worse – bending to inappropriate social pressures and attacking people without just cause. All of these things have made what was once a shining thing for me a lot more tarnished.
I have been attending or speaking at this particular con for somewhere in the realm of 30 years. I’ve been through a number of things with them, a number of locations and a bunch of changes. I know a number of people who’ve decided to go other directions and can’t or won’t forgive the people running this convention enough to support them. I understand that – I have made that choice with a number of other conventions myself. I’ve decided to keep going here, and I’m glad they’ll have me.
I got my draft schedule the other day and I started digging into panels and descriptions.
I’ve shifted away from a lot of the author things. I haven’t had anything published in so long I almost don’t remember the process. I am still connected to fandom and gaming, so I’ve been added to a bunch of those panels. My draft list is:
What Makes a Good Player?
So you want to be a Game Master?
Coming out of the Dungeon
Being a bad guy without being a Bad Guy
Your Player Said What??
and – Making a Book Club Work
I spent a fair portion of my afternoon writing up a bunch of notes for these descriptions and doing some homework on my fellow panelists (not going to get caught off guard again if I can help it). I can’t wait to see what everyone else has to say… and I am really looking forward to coming back and giving a full report on it here. Stay tuned!
I have volunteered as tribute… I mean, I volunteered to be on panels at the Baltimore science fiction society’s convention again this year. I made that choice back around the first of the year (or maybe earlier?) when they sent out invitations. I haven’t heard anything yet, but that’s typical for any convention – many details, including schedules, run close to the last minute. I expect the schedule won’t be final until close to Memorial Day weekend (when the convention happens).
I understand there are any number of folks out there who are very down on Balticon and the people running it. I’ve witnessed some people getting rotten treatment and half ass apologies or no apologies. I know a large number of authors and vendors who are specifically not going this year, and likely never will again. There have been struggles.
Part of me very much wants to support my friends. I know first hand how behind the scenes stuff spirals out of control and becomes ‘news’. I’ve stopped all support for any worldcon and Philcon specifically for personal reasons much like theirs. I’ve posted about that before, both here and other places. Treating people shabbily is not excusable.
Balticon was the first convention I ever attended back in 1993. They were the first convention to invite me as an author guest. They were the first convention I displayed art at. They’ve been my ‘home con’ where I’ve participated for more than 3 decades. I’m going again this year. I am hopeful for improvements, but mindful of what has gone before.
This is one of those posts where I put it here, on my site so that when anyone questions it I can say definitively that I own it.
The weekend before Thanksgiving I headed to Cherry Hill (yes, the Philadelphia con is in NJ) for the annual science fiction convention put on by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society. I’ve gone to Philcon for many years, and have been invited to be on panels for many years as well. This convention is the home of a couple of the most legendary convention stories, including defend the pizza, and Yes – I realize that was 9 years ago.
Blame to me. I glanced at the convention requirements, but I did NOT read them as thoroughly as I should have. I see this now, I saw it then. It still didn’t make me at all happy. You see, the convention, as a private organization, can make any requirements it sees fit for entry into their event. They did. They required a Covid vaccination update that fell within certain parameters. IF you were just vaccinated back in ’22, that wasn’t good enough. You’d need a PCR negative test if you didn’t have a booster dated this year (basically).
They’re not wrong. *I* am the danger vector. Since the CDC declared an end to the public health emergency back in May, and even before then, I have been traveling for work. I’ve been from Georgia to Oregon. In 0 of the places I’ve been since May has anyone asked for proof of vaccination, let alone very specific versions of the vaccine. I haven’t even seen a mask in months. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not out there trying to catch anything, I just haven’t given things much more thought than basic precautions. I even still keep my CDC card with me. Proof of vax, even if I don’t really need it anymore. Except now I did, and it wasn’t good enough.
Imagine my shock when the convention staff told me I wasn’t allowed in.
I’d booked a hotel, I’d made the drive, I’d set up things for the panels I was going to speak on and even ordered (and pre-paid for) a t-shirt for the first time in years. Nope, you’ll have to go away.
Once I got past my initial shock, I was actually angry at this rule. Again, not their fault I didn’t know, and I know that. I was as much stunned they made the rule more than anything. It was excessive, at least to my way of thinking. I shared my opinion with a friend and he suggested I just go to the local pharmacy and get tested. Excellent plan.
I drove to a local Walgreens and headed to the pharmacy counter. The worker there kindly explained that a PCR test required lab work and there was no way I was getting that at this hour on a Friday night. I looked around, trying to figure out what to do with my rapidly building level of frustration. As I looked around, I realized there was almost nobody in the store. I looked back at the girl behind the desk and said, “What are you doing right now?” She was taken aback so I added, “You’ve got boosters, right? I want one.”
So, 15 minutes later I had a shot in the arm and a newly signed and dated entry on my CDC vaccination card. I drove back to the hotel, parked the car and headed back to the check in desk. I plunked the card down on the desk and asked for my entry badge. The very same person who refused me before glanced at the card, saw the date that ended with ’23, smiled and welcomed me.
That’s the part that really bothered me later. It was the same person that felt it was so important to turn me away previously. It looked like I met their rules, so they were happy and welcoming. The part I’m glad she missed was that I had literally been gone for about a half an hour and still didn’t meet the requirements for entry. You see, those shots technically require a 2 week time period to become effective… and the rules said that too. A shot in the arm that day didn’t actually help anyone in the immediate time frame. They could have just as easily turned me away again…
I’m glad they didn’t. Laying out the money for the trip was a doable thing, but not for absolutely no return and no access to what I came there for. What it did was cement in my mind that this convention wants to never change, and if that means dying then so be it. In my personal experience over the past decade the attendance, the panel variety, the guest list and many other aspects have been dwindling. This year I was shocked at the lack of people. I’ve said the crowd was thinning before, but I saw so few people there I didn’t believe the attendance was more than about 200. It was dismal. The panel list was smaller, the guest list was smaller and the principle speaker wasn’t able to attend (last minute illness). Part of me can’t help but wonder if the policy had a bigger hand in that dip in attendees than just the rumors I heard. Yes, I know of at least 2 guests that said they weren’t coming back based on the rule. If I know of two, how many more were there? How many attendees just didn’t bother? What was there to draw them in?
The hotel hasn’t changed in all that time either. Admittedly, they’re working on remodeling the place, but I think this photo was symbolic of my weekend.
Worn, broken and barely hanging on. That’s it. That’s what I got from the weekend and even after waiting a week to get past the immediacy of my feelings, the impression has not improved. If anything, it’s gotten worse.
My panels, and my fellow panelists, were good. There were never more than ten people in any panel I was on (or that I attended), but the people that were there still held some enthusiasm. I was able to connect with a couple of con attendees, so that was great. I got to see my friends and may have even weaseled my way into a couple of short story anthologies for next year.
Still owning the fact that it was my screw up in not practicing what I preach and failing to read the fine print, this year just left a bad aftertaste. This wasn’t a good con. I had witnessed struggles in an indirect way with this con before, but I went with the benefit of the doubt. I wasn’t there in person to witness the challenges, so I could just try to keep things going. Not so much anymore. I’m glad I made the connections I did. I’m glad I saw my friends again, but I’m going to have to wait until next year rolls around to decide if I’m actually going to attend Philcon again. Ever.
Doing this a little differently than I have in the past. Much more a “as it happens” thing ~ or as close to that as I get. I’m writing this while in the middle of day 2 at the con. We’ll see how it all shakes out (and if I actually get back to this before I have to go all the way home).
Getting to the con from home was a challenge. There are 0 things the con can do about travel distance or traffic challenges, but it was certainly part of my experience. the 3.5 hour drive that was supposed to get me here took about 5 when I finally got here and got checked in. That was… not ideal. It was a difficult way to start.
Once I was actually here, at the venue, I discovered their wayfinding / signage to be lacking. Getting around here is not an easy thing when you’ve never been here before. There are actually 3 buildings containing various aspects of the convention and NONE of that is clear from the entry drive or signage from the parking area(s). I realize that wayfinding signs are part of my day job / professional life, but it makes such a huge difference to a persons experience. Bad signs meant it was hard to find the hotel registration. Then it was hard to figure out the right parking area / path to my room in the building next door. THEN I had to go and figure out con registration in the third building.
I figured it out, but by the time I got through all that I was just beat. I was done, I just didn’t know it yet.
I grabbed the person I’m rooming with and grabbed a bite to eat at a local sub shop, then came back to find 0 parking spaces available at the hotel lot near my room. Very frustrating.
I headed off to a panel that said it was about role playing informing your writing. What I got from the panel was a lengthy discussion about story telling informing your gaming. NOT the sort of panel that overwhelmed me and filled me with a desire to go and do more.
In the end, I decided that I was well and truly exhausted from the combination of a long work week and a miserable drive. I turned in early… missing out on the kind of fun you find at cons, like light up ice cubes for your party drinks!
Hopefully day 02 will bring more and better things…
That’s a simple view, I know. It’s one of those easy to say, difficult to quantify kind of things – to some degree. There are clear examples of what is wrong. Those are the easy ones. It exists in more than one form, and it relates to so many levels of what we do in the science fiction and fantasy fan communities.
I’ve been sitting on this one for a while. It’s a tough topic. I expect somebody will dig this up and that it will cause me problems in the future. This is why it’s on MY site. I own it. It’s mine. I have taken some time and given this much thought and I think it’s important to continue this conversation. That’s the key to all of this. It’s a conversation. It’s something we need to address now and as we move forward. There is no simple solution and there is no easy way to make this go. We need to keep communicating with each other.
Let’s start with the easy stuff. There are some people out there who think, for some unknown reason, that they should be the ‘real’ fans of Star Wars. They’ve declared some nonsense about how people who are not white Americans can’t and shouldn’t ever be in the movies that have been loved since 1977. They’re easy to spot. They’re terrible. There’s simply no place in fandom for people that can’t accept that people who make up less than 12% of the entire world population don’t rule everything and can’t exclude everyone else. Above and beyond a basic level of stupidity, there is no place in civil society for those who make death threats against actors for portraying a character in a movie. That’s a kind of crazy that slides into another topic entirely (we’ve created our own hell-scape of cults of personality) and isn’t what I want to get at here. If you want to read more, check this article out as a starting point. There are lots of conversations going on out there about it.
The part that’s much more difficult to deal with is at a very personal level. It happens far too often these days and it worries me for the future of fandom for a whole different reason. Toxicity is eating away at the core of fandom – from both sides. The grievance crowd is going to destroy fandom.
Being the vocal minority doesn’t make you right no matter how right you believe you are. When somebody says something you don’t agree with, it doesn’t mean you are allowed to have them thrown out of the building. If your feelings get hurt it doesn’t mean the other person is automatically a bigot, problematic or any other sort of label YOU believe they should carry. When you think you want to lash out at others, you need to ask why you feel this way and maybe… just maybe… take a step back and allow some time to think about things.
We are all guilty of this to some degree at some point in our lives. We are emotional creatures. We react. We want to defend ourselves and those we care for. It’s natural. IF you’ve been the person that has been slighted, ignored, insulted and treated badly all of your life this is something that builds. This feeling turns into something ugly and dangerous. How we conduct ourselves when these sort of things come up matters.
What am I trying to say? Let me start with my own example. I have worked on convention staffs for many years. I love helping make something for so many people to enjoy. There are challenges, but anything worth doing has those. I have worked with all sorts of people from all over. Fans are great folks and have made some of the most wonderful memories for me. I volunteered to help with the previous world con, a staff team I hadn’t worked with before. I was trying to find my way and see where I could fit in and help. Then the GOH mess went down and I withdrew my help. Did you catch the part about it being volunteers? Yeah, even if you pay me I’m not hanging around for that. The most worrisome part was this was accepted. Not questioned, just accepted.
I wrote about it in a previous post here. Back in February of 2021 in fact. So here we are a year and a half later and I think the issue has only gotten worse. I don’t want people to think this is some kind of ‘crying out’ because I feel like I’m being repressed or something. I’m clearly not repressed or disadvantaged. I know there is privilege living here and I try to be mindful of it. I’m also don’t want this to be a ‘virtue signal’ kind of bullshit. I can’t stand that. “Look at how wonderful and accepting I am! I’m clearly not the problem you’re talking about…” Ugh!
Maybe I am the problem. I don’t know that without talking to others and having them talk to me.
Here’s where the real challenges start. Yeah, I’m a middle aged white guy. I know a lot of other people who look just like me. That’s who I have always associated with. It’s culturally my background and that has a huge influence on my opinions and bias. I have been told more than once that my opinion doesn’t matter simply because I’m a white male. I’ve been told to get over being told that. I’ve been given the ‘so how does it feel’ bit. I’ve been excluded from conversations and told that project submissions were only open to ‘others who need a chance’. While it wasn’t me, but a friend – there was even something in writing, “Well, you’re an old white guy so you must have done something wrong…”. In writing. From a supposedly professional group.
Really? We can’t find it now, but give us time? You’re a white guy so all the problems are your fault? This is all the wrongs of history that (may or may not have) happened to me so now I’m giving those to you! Take that medicine you horrifying bigot!
So, back to the maybe I’m the problem part. OK. Fine. Maybe I am. I can accept that I need to be more mindful than I am and work harder to be better. I certainly try, but success is relative to viewpoint. There are lots of places looking to get more diverse work out there and I don’t qualify for that in this field. OK. I’ll take it.
This didn’t just happen to me. It’s happening over and over again with people taking advantage of the simple fact that people have started to pay attention to what’s being said and taking action on it. Grievance culture. It’s insidious because how do you argue against things like, “you can’t call that person a freak just because they don’t look like you”? You don’t. You can’t. Even when the definition of the word freak is, “A person, animal or plant with an unusual physical abnormality”. Webster be damned! You can’t point that sort of thing out! How dare you?
Where’s the line? When can you tell anyone else what to say, how to think about something or how to address a situation? We’re all products of our own cultural backgrounds. What if I make a mistake? Am I to be punished and then banished forever? Who is the arbitrator of that judgment? Public opinion is fickle and dangerous. Swaying with and allowing the grievance crowd to simply take over is going to destroy volunteer run conventions… faster and more certainly than aging out or poor attendance ever had a chance to.
Don’t believe me?
At this past Balticon (#56) a woman of color living with a debilitating physical condition, parent of a trans person, and long time panelist and guest was summarily chucked out due to a complaint. A single complaint.
I was there when they came to get her. It was the panel I was moderating. I was standing there. I can’t speak for how others feel, but the lone staffer seemed quite respectful when asking her to gather up her things and accompany him to con-ops. He wasn’t loud and he did not make any accusations while there. He didn’t express anything other than, “please come with me, we’ll talk elsewhere”. It was a very simple and quiet thing that most had no concept about anything happening at all. I feel that the characterization of being treated ‘criminally’ is inaccurate, but again – that’s from the outsider point of view. In the end, that little bit that I witnessed isn’t important but it gives context for the rest of my message. They weren’t coming for me… this time.
I regret not digging into things more while I was there. I attempted (successfully) to steer clear of personal drama. I attend and work cons as a matter of enjoyment, and I find that type of drama stressful rather than enjoyable. Maybe I needed to do or say more… but there’s a problem with that. The grievance crowd. How can I help when my opinion doesn’t matter or is discounted or ignored out of hand?
This isn’t about me, but this whole post is to explain where I’m coming from. The only thing any intervention by me would have done is muddy the waters (at best) or cause a significantly bigger issue (at worst). I have been seeing a distressing trend in fandom – pushing people away rather than working with them and trying to relate to them. I have been called a racist, accepting of racists, problematic and told flat out to my face that I’m a white, straight (assumed), middle aged man and therefore part of the problem and that it’s not possible for me to be part of the solution. I have been marginalized by my appearance and had power taken from me on that basis. What it looks like to me, in a deeply oversimplified way, is that those who have suffered that treatment before are now taking any and every opportunity to do that to others rather than working to make things better for everyone. Sort of a ‘how do you like it’ approach to being in power.
Conventions are not my direct livelihood, nor to they help or hinder my day job. My reputation in the convention circuit doesn’t stop me from putting food on the table for my family. Conventions are some people’s livings or a significant portion of them. Their standing and reputation there matters. If somebody came at my job in that way I’d be more than angry – and rightfully so. The person in question is a pro and while I have found her point of view odd at times, I have never felt that it wasn’t important. I love the stuff she brings to panels. Having diverse opinions matters. Having authors like her, and so many others is vital. I’m sorry that she won’t be back (and if I were her, I wouldn’t be either).
The culture of con running is in trouble. This is not the first time I’ve encountered a mess like this. It’s the reason I won’t work on con staff for other cons anymore. There’s part of me that’s very sad about this. I do love doing all these wonderful, creative things.
So long as I’m unfailingly polite and professional there’s nothing to latch onto as a complaint. Maybe I need to say more. I deeply believe that the science fiction and fantasy community needs to be more accepting and welcoming. I said, specifically at the panel I moderated, “If you can’t find that person, be that person…” and gave some examples. I will continue to go to Balticon (and others) if they’ll have me (I understand that I’m a ‘D’-lister that just fills space). I think there’s a dangerous culture growing around the idea of ‘you didn’t say exactly the right thing’, and I fear for the future of convention staffs across the board. I hope by continuing to attend that I can in some way be part of the solution. I told people I wasn’t going to virtue signal and I don’t want this to sound like that. I am, however, going to reach out to people about this when I have the chance. I want to stand up for others. I want the toxicity to go away. I’m sick to death of the grievance crowd. I want fans to be able to keep doing the things they love. I hope to be able to continue to have important and meaningful conversations about making cons a safe and accepting place for everyone. I hope you’ll join the conversation too.
The workshop I ran was the last of my panels at Balticon.
The workshop was GMing for Beginners. It’s exactly what it sounds like. If you hadn’t run a game before, but wanted to. IF you had, but you stumbled or wanted tips to get to the next level sort of thing. In short, my wheelhouse. I’ve been doing this for years.
Turns out the hardest part of all that is going back to the start.
It was a very small group of folks that showed up in person. The panel description stated it was aimed at a younger demographic and that’s precisely the folks that showed up. They were fun and creative and our hour melted away and then some. We were still sitting there when the hotel staff came and asked us to give up the space for the next event.
There was a part of me that really wanted to do pictures and notes and all sorts of things related to what we did, but I think that would take something away from the folks that were there in person. I was absolutely delighted to share with them. I hope they enjoyed it as much as I did (and they did seem to). I will probably ask to run that workshop again next year, though perhaps earlier in the weekend to give folks that want to try things out more of a chance to hit the game room.
In the end, the con was very successful for me. I’m glad I went. I’m glad to be getting back into the con circuit and working on being creative again. It’s been a rough couple of years for everyone. I’m looking forward to going again. I’m looking forward to meeting new people and seeing my old friends again.
