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 60^th 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.

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!

I was ahead of the curve. It’s rare, but it does happen.

Back in 2020 I picked up a free novella that Tor happened to be giving away. It was a fun read and I was glad I had picked it up. I crashed on ahead and read whatever was available at the time. ‘All Systems Red’ is now the big news TV series ‘Murderbot’. I absolutely recommend grabbing the written work and checking it out. Here’s my review with the update:

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I started here because Tor started giving this series away. I’m not sure why I didn’t hear of them before – I should have. This was right up my alley!

I had a great time reading this. It was just the right length. I look forward to reading the rest!

UPDATE:

Read this again since it’s a television series now. Still great. Recommended reading for sure.



View all my reviews

It is once again the time of year to head on over to Philadelphia (ok, Cherry Hill NJ, but it’s just across the bridge) and spend some time with fellow fans.

My panel list is pretty light this year (so far).

 Start Time      Duration      Room Name                          Title
Sat 10:00 AM   50 Min        Plaza 5                    Building the Next Generation of Gamers           
Sat 3:00 PM    50 Min        Plaza 5                    The Evolution of the Dresden Files   

I’m going to reach out to the program team and see if there’s more, but hopefully this means more time to hear what everyone else has to say. Hopefully I’ll see you there!

I saw a question from a friend on line yesterday. What are your 5 favorite spaceships? I immediately pictured a Colonial Viper and one of the Black Tiger fighters from Star Blazers. They were immediate and real to me, but then I let my mind wander a little thinking about the others. There are the popular ones that hit most folks lists, but not really mine. Sure Buck Rogers on the 80s TV show had a neat ship, but I liked the Hawk’s ship better. The bad guys (totally don’t remember their name just now) even had cool ships. Then I thought of this other artwork I knew…

So I jumped on line and went looking for it. Yes, it was because I didn’t want to walk to the other room and unlock the cabinet I keep my art monographs in – don’t judge.

The really funny part is, the art I was thinking of doesn’t have space ships in it. Not one that I could find. You’d just need a spaceship to get there.

IF you’ve never seen the artwork of Roger Dean, do yourself a favor and go check it out. Amazing stuff.

I read an article on Shadowrun the other day and it reminded me how much I really enjoyed playing that game. I also had a lot of fun reading the short stories and novels that went along with the setting. I’ve still got a pile of game materials and even a few miniatures laying about patiently awaiting my return.

I haven’t played in years. I would love to play again. It’s a really neat, interesting setting. Set in the near future it had combined fantasy and cyberpunk and I loved it. There could be a troll riding a motorcycle wearing a sword! There could be a kid plugged into a computer helping his team get the doors open to rescue some hostage… and then I remember the computer ideas and graphics I was thinking of just then. I fear the author of the article is correct in that time has passed the technology of the game by.

When I played it was a hybrid game system that the game master made up. I don’t have any idea what parts of the rules we did or didn’t actually use. In that respect I think the article is correct – I don’t think the rules did the game justice. I’m not going to spend a ton of time on the rules.

The rules could be changed or tweaked or tossed out as you pleased. It was always about the story to me. That’s the part of role playing that really made it work. At the end of the day you had this shared experience, probably with really funny stories that made the time spent worth while. To this day I remember the time I invited a girlfriend to join the game I was playing in. The GM allowed it and gave her a ‘rock-star’ character. We played and did a run and all the things we would normally do on a game night. The girlfriend was quiet and I don’t really know if she was having a good time or not – I was into the game. The best part of the whole night for me was when the GM decided to take matters into his own hands. He turned and addressed the girlfriend directly with a question. She stopped, looked back at everyone staring at her waiting for a response and broke out her best dingy-girl voice and said, “Um, you should like talk to my manager.”

That was it – the whole extent of her role playing and it floored us all. We howled with laughter because it was such a perfect response, perfectly timed. It is a fun story. And that’s where I think the focus of role playing games should be. It should be about social interaction within your group. It should be about having fun and making stories and creating the kind of memories that make you look fondly at the things you did and the games you played. I have no idea if Shadowrun will survive or not. I can’t imagine trying to keep a near future game just far enough ahead of technology that it makes sense while mixing in game rules and fantasy world aspects. I hope the game survives and I hope I get the chance to play again someday soon.

Until then, maybe I’ll watch that promo video one more time…

So, one of my recent successful writings is working its way toward being published. I was very excited when my story was accepted to the Tokyo Yakuza series. My story is slated to be in VOLUME 2, however the first volume is out now and up on Amazon for anyone that might like to check it out! I’ve got a copy and have started reading through, you should too.

Tokyo Yakuza

One of my closest friends, the man who introduced me to my wife was stunned when I told him that Wednesday is the 20th anniversary of my wedding.

I am more happy and more in love now than I ever imagined I could be. Twenty years is not enough. I need forever.