AmberCon NW!

Ok, so I just posted, but I’m so excited!!! 

For years, because of a conversation between Deborah Donoghue and Ogre, we’ve been joking about running Amber Family Therapy. 

This year, I’m doing it!  And I just got my player list.  This is going to be amazing!!!  I have so many excellent gamers involved!!!  Holy crap, there are not enough exclamation points in the WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I’ll be refereeing as the therapist.  This should be a blast.  I’m thinking of advocating booze during. 

The Harry Potter game, in it’s forth year, also looks incredibly promising.  That game’s always fun, but this year we’re full with about a 50/50 spread of new and old players.  I’m pretty excited. 

My first game, Attack of the B-movies, is a little smaller than I’d intended, but I may well just give everyone a fist full of characters and start slaughtering them with horror tropes as quickly as I possibly can. 

Amber Family Therapy, though.  I could not ask for a better bunch of players for that game.  I hope it lives up to and exceeds expectations.

Geek Girls Rule! #89 – Miscellaneous crap and symptoms of the mid-30s hormone rush…

I know it’s been awhile.  I kind of blew my wad with the Joe Quesada drinking game et al., and I’ve been blogging on geeky topics over at the California NOW blog.  Topics include the LA Times’ “Girls’ Guide to Comicon” (the resulting aneurysm wiped out 3rd grade), the Today show segment on the fact that Gosh, Golly and Don’t You Just Know It!,* girls play videogames!!!  And how they managed to interview the founder of the Frag Dolls without once mentioning what Frag means and what game they’re most famous for playing (HALO) I’ll never fucking know.  The most recent blog post there is about why my hobbies courting “normal” girls pisses me off so damn much. 

That’s not all I’ve been up to.  Tonight is the kickoff for Go Play NW!  The Geek Husband What Rules and I will be at the kickoff feast, and then gaming.  I have no idea what I’ll be playing.  I never sign up for anything ahead of time.  Instead I usually see who needs a player, or barring that, see who else is leftover and we’ll form a game in a lobby or something.  I’m so moody about my gaming, as in I need to be in the mood for something to really dig on it, that signing up ahead of time really doesn’t work out that well for me. 

Now, as relates to hormones…  As much as I adore Nightcrawler of the X-men (eXcalibur, etc…), is it wrong that every time they come up with a “bad” or, let’s just say, less moral version of him in another timeline (gotta love the multiverse), that I develop a mad crush on that version as well.  Maybe a fiercer crush…  A friend just gave me a copy of the orignal miniseries with Ilyana Rasputin, where she’s taken by Belasco and… Nightcrawler in a loincloth… sigh… 

Yeah, I’m a walking mass of libido, which to be honest has not changed since adolescence.  It’s one of the many reasons the Mister married me. 

The Geek Husband What Rules will be at DragonFlight this year, I might be there for a day.  My partner in crime over at Geek Sisterhood, Sophie, will also be up for Dragonflight!! 

I’ve also got a podcast I’m editing for here.  An interview with my friend Karnythia about her new publishing house, Verb Noire. 

*Why yes, I am originally from the Midwest.  How’d you guess?

An update of Sorts.

I’m sorry for the dearth of GGR posts here recently, but between NorWesCon, the deaths of two pets, our fifteenth anniversary, my birthday, and the subsequent birthday purchase of “Animal Crossing:  City Folk,” I’ve been a little preoccupied.  I’ve only played City Folk for about two hours, and haven’t actually gone to the city yet, but I’m liking it.  The Geek Husband What Rules has already stated that he’s moving the Wii and the spare television into the computer room so he can shut me and my chatty little animals away from him before he goes insane. 

We’ve also had a guest hedgehog for the past two weeks while her mom was lecturing in Chicago.  Jasmine is much larger than Kaylee is and Wash was, but she is very sweet and even came out to say hi to Tammy who came to visit on Monday. 

Hopefully this weekend we’ll get a chance to play some D&D 4e, so I can give you a review of that.  I love the character building software my buddy Alex has on his laptop, so we could just plug stuff in and not have to worry about screwing up the math.  I’m playing a Tiefling Swordmage.  Eeeeeeeee!!!!  The Geek Husband is playing an Eldarin Warlord, and I’m trying to bully him into using the voice that Will Wheaton used in the game he played with the PVP and PennyArcade guys. 

Also, I’m hoping to get the Girl Game together once schedules settle down, and one member gets back from a family emergency.  Maybe I should do a post on gaming as a really freaking busy adult.  Scheduling is probably the hardest thing about gaming for me anymore. 

We’ve finally started our Spirit of the Century “Girl Genius” campaign, which is a blast.  I love my female Jagr character.  We’re also very much looking forward to Go Play NW.

Geek Girls Rule! #82 – R.I.P. Dave Arneson 1947-2009

Mr. Dave Arneson created Dungeons and Dragons with Gary Gygax, yet many geeks do not know his name.  Mr. Gygax was by far the more, ahem, vocal of the two.  Yet, according to sources, the whole idea of playing a single character instead of, say, an army or unit, was Mr. Arneson’s.  I am sad to say that I really don’t know a whole lot about Mr. Arneson, mostly just that, unlike Mr. Gygax, he hasn’t been credited with saying anything egregiously sexist. 

However, I do thank Mr. Arneson for his contribution to creating my favorite hobby.  Thank you, Sir.  You will be missed. 

For those of you in the Pacific Northwest, I am doing an absurd amount of panelling at NorWesCon this weekend in SeaTac.  I’m primarily on the Goth and Alternate Lifestyles panelling, so if you’ve ever wanted to hear me say “Dildo” in person, track me down.  I will also be doing a panel on getting tween girls interested in gaming.  Hopefully I’ll have a chance to run into a few of you as I race between panels.

Geek Girls Rule! Podcast 9, Part II

In this hour long show, Jenn from the Trapcast, Meg from the Brilliant Gameologists, Kristin from This Modern Death and I finish our conversations from before.

Click here!

The Libsyn site has all the links and everything, and I need to get hopping on chores before we head for our Sunday game.

See you soon!!!

PS.  Wash had his latest check up with his vet yesterday, and it looks like the cancer meds are working.  His tumor appears to have shrunk at least a little, and his teeth are still firm in his gums.  His vet’s been treating ferrets who are prone to the same cancer with this med as well, and has had really good success with it.

Geek Girls Rule! Podcast #7 – Emerald City Game Fest with Sophie Lagace

Talking about the upcoming Emerald City Game Fest, November 15th in Seattle, a free game day event.

Podcast #7 – Emerald City Game Fest with Sophie Lagace.

http://sirriamnicast.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=393970

Oh, we talk about a lot of stuff. Gaming as women, trying to build community amongst gamers, gaming conventions, lots of stuff.

Geek Girls Rule! #63.5 – Emerald City Game Fest

http://www.emeraldcitygamefest.org/

Guess who will be running at least one game, and Hosting the Story Games Lounge at Emerald City Game Fest this year?

This girl!

The game fest is a free event on November 15th, please follow the link above for location, directions and all that good stuff. 

I’ll be running a session of The Keep.  And if you think you know the plot because you read my earlier post on it, you are WRONG!  It’s different every time I run it.  So it won’t be werewolves this time.  Neener neener.

If you’re in the Seattle area, or planning on it, come on by, play a game or two, say hi!  I may bring the laptop and record a podcast, as may the Mister, who I believe will also be running a game or two during the day.  And depending on her work schedule, I may be able to coax the GeekMachine into coming out, too.

Geek Girls Rule! #56 – Probably the only openly political post you’ll ever see here.

Ok, cats and kittens, I don’t usually post about politics here, because that’s real world stuff and I geek to get away from that shit.  But this, being geek-related as it is, and both appalling me and making me laugh out loud, bore special mention.

From John McCain’s Website:
“It may be typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd to disparage a fellow countryman’s memory of war from the comfort of mom’s basement, but most Americans have the humility and gratitude to respect and learn from the memories of men who suffered on behalf of others.”

Ok, first, this made me laugh because gamers have been some of the most conservative mother fuckers I’ve ever met.  Seriously, why do you think they want to pretend to be knights and paladins slaying dragons and rescuing damsels?  Not to mention that most of my pals who are obsessed with the military and military service, history, etc… are gamers. So, yeah, way to NOT know who the fuck you’re talking about, assholes. 

Then, there’s the “mom’s basement” comment.  Sigh.  This kind of ignorant generalizing does no one any favors.  Least of all someone who doesn’t expect his constituency to be literate enough to realize when he’s swiped a story from a world-reknowned author. 

And to be honest, it may well be true.  I don’t know.  I’m not a Christian, so I don’t know how prevalent drawing crosses in the dirt is for interred Christians.  But the similarities to Solzhenitsyn’s anecdote are incredibly striking, and well, McCain’s a politician, so I wouldn’t trust him with… anything. And the McCain camp could have handled the cries of plagiarism with a touch more aplomb.  Resorting to “name-calling” right off the bat, let alone stupid, ill-informed name calling, really just makes them look guilty. 

Seriously, and before anyone starts screeching about me and my Obama-loving ways, I’m not particularly thrilled with HIM either.  The fact that he seems perfectly fine with throwing reproductive rights under the bus to try to win over a voting population that will never vote for him does not sit well with me.  Not at all.  I’m really getting sick of the Democrats ignoring women because, “where else are you gonna go?”

There was a time when McCain was the only Republican I had ever actually considered voting for, when he was running against Bush Jr. the first time, and actually behaved with some fucking integrity.  You know, before he sold out and started towing the party line with his tongue buried so far up W’s ass he can taste his tonsils. 

Do I think that this is going to drive conservative gamers into the arms of the Democrats?  Nah, probably not.  Do I think it’s an incredibly stupid way to respond to accusations of plagiarism (i.e. lack of integrity)?  Yup, I sure do.  Am I going to enjoy watching my conservative gaming buddies try to rationalize voting for someone who so utterly disregards them as part of his constituency?  I’d probably enjoy it more if I didn’t feel the same way about the Democratic party right now.

 

ETA:  Apparently there’s been an “apology” of sorts, but not one that can actually be referenced back to the offical McCain site, as opposed to the original quote, which is still up there for all the world to see.  Not to mention, “Too late, assholes.”  It’s all over the interwebz now.  It’s not ever going away. 

Geek Girls Rule Greatest Hits #13 – Why I hate D20

Geek Girls Rule! #13

Look, it’s not whining about comics! I promise!

Okay, look, I know D&D is the grand dame of gaming. It is the Progenitor. Blah blah blah…

I don’t like it.

I have always found the rules system clunky, difficult and far too much work for something that is supposed to be fun. And I know D20 D&D is supposed to have streamlined the whole process. I still found character creation tedious, the character sheets confusing and crowded, and WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH ARMOR MAKING YOU HARDER TO HIT???

That aside, I thought it was really telling that of the several people with whom a friend was trying to set up a new gaming group, the majority of us outright vetoed anything with a D20 system. Some of them regularly play and run D20, but the over-riding consensus was still, “No D20.” In fact, several of us offered to learn an entirely new (to us) system for Unknown Armies, rather than play D20 anything.

Seriously, I have played maybe five D20 campaigns. One was bearable because the GM bent it to suit him, and used minimal die rolls anyway, as well as doling out prodigious amounts of player hand-jobs. The others devolved into a bunch of surly growling and a lot of shouting, “Because it’s fucking BROKEN, that’s why!”

And this is too bad, because there are a lot of nifty game worlds built for D20 and the OGL. However, if I use them at all, it’s going to mean a lot of homework for me to convert what I want into GURPS or just playing so fast and loose with the rules that it may as well be a diceless campaign.

Granted, there are going to be those out there who will argue, “Well, if you had a GOOD GM, who KNEW the system…” Okay, a good game should not be dependent on a GM spending years to master a system. We do this for fun, may I remind you. Sure, when I get a new system I expect to spend some time learning it and working out the bugs (cough, the new Warhammer Fantasy, cough). I do not expect to have to spend more time studying it than I did for any graduate level history class I ever attended.

So, there you go. I hate D20 (particularly D&D D20) because its clunky, awkward, and exactly why the fuck DOES armor make you harder to hit instead of soaking damage like it does in any SANE game system?

Geek Girls Rule 43.5 – LGBT Sci Fi/Fantasy & Comics Fandom and Gamers

For those of you who don’t know, for the last couple of years I have done the Alternate Lifestyles programming at NorwesCon, a Seattle-area SF/F convention. What this means is that I get to do the programming for Polyamory, BDSM, Sexuality, Goth, Fanfic and a whole lot of other things that don’t really fit anywhere else. This includes the LGBT programming (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender/sexual).

Now, SF/F conventions on the whole are pretty comfortable and safe places to be Out, that is, to be openly Gay/Queer. I can hold hands with my girlfriend, for example, and mostly not have to worry about anyone reacting negatively. I have Trans friends who can dress as whichever Gender they are more comfortable as, and be safe. However, as someone pointed out in one of the LGBT Panels I ran this year, the Convention, while safe, is still a largely Hetero-normative space filled with Straight guys and Straight or Bi- girls. My first instinct was to blow this off and be all protective of the Con-space. But after thinking about it for awhile, I saw that the gentleman in question was right, and thankfully he gave me the opportunity to apologize to him.

Because when I really thought about it, he was right. Most of the Con programming, apart from the very few panels on the Alt. Lifestyles track, when they do deal with Gender or Sexuality, deal only with the Binary model of male and female, usually Heterosexual. And then someone brought up the issue of Queer Gamers, and honest to Gods, apart from myself and some of the girls in the Girl Game, I couldn’t think of any Queer Gamers. Now whether this is due to an antipathy toward the LGBT from Gaming culture, or due to an antipathy toward Gaming on the part of Queer culture, I don’t know.

Partially, I blame this on a lack of Queer characters in the SF/F media. I mean, let’s face it, for mainstream media Inara’s Bisexuality on Firefly (if you blinked you might have missed it) and Capt. Jack Harkness on Dr. Who and Torchwood are about it for Out Queer characters. In comics you have Batwoman and her former partner, Northstar in Marvel, and… there’s a few more, but no names are immediately leaping to mind. (Granted after I write this I’m going to get about a bazillion replies giving me more Queer characters I’ve missed. Which is awesome!) While there are more to choose from in SF/F literature, they are still vastly under-represented, and WELL written Queer characters are even more rare.

Gaming itself has a relatively bad reputation for Homophobic behavior, if not actual Homophobia. Now, now, don’t get all defensive on me. It pains me to say this as much, if not more than it pains you to read it. I love Gaming, but there are some behaviors I could decidedly live without.

In the next panel, I asked everyone what they wanted to see, and they overwhelmingly said that they wanted more LGBT panels (held during daylight hours), they wanted a Gay Social or Mixer of some sort. I, however, have decided that maybe we need to have a teeny bit more of a presence than that. I’m looking to start up an LGBT Fandom group to just be present, offer support to anyone coming out or thinking of coming out, organize things like the Queer Mixer, etc…

But I’d like to hear from you guys, Queer or Straight, what do you think? Do you feel that Cons are a safe place? Would you like to see more LGBT programming, or at the very least, an attempt to make sure that all Gender possibilities are covered in panels on Gender and SF/F? Are you a Queer Gamer? How do you feel about that? Are you Out to your gaming buddies? Do you think my assessment of perception of Gamers is fair or true? Do you think that having a more visible or Out presence at Cons (SF/F and Gaming) will help? Would you like to join my treehouse gang, either as Queer or as an Ally? Do you think I’m just being ridiculous and all us Queers need to get over ourselves?

I want to hear your opinions, people.