Gen Con 2018: My Schedule

I will be at Gen Con this year, and I hope to see some of you, too! Here's where I'll be.

THURSDAY
1 pm WRITING FOR RPGs (Marriot: Boston)
What is life really like as an RPG writer? Bruce R. Cordell talks not about design craft but instead shares the processes and tips he's picked in his twenty-three years writing for RPGs.

2 pm DISCOVERY YOUR DESTINY (Lucas Oil Meeting Room 4)
Get the inside story on the design & development of Numenera Discovery & Destiny. Monte & the team take you deeper into the Ninth World than ever. Bring your questions!

6-8 pm AN EVENING WITH MCG (Union Station: Iron Horse)
Come hang with Team MCG! Join us to celebrate another great year, & the launch of two flagships projects: Numenera 2: Discovery and Destiny, and Invisible Sun.

FRIDAY
2-4 pm THE RAVEN WANTS WHAT YOU HAVE (Westin Grand V)
Join me as Savion Clay and the others from MCG's groundbreaking Twitch stream, The Raven Wants What You Have, play a live game of Invisible Sun—and the audience plays a part, too!

4 pm SIGNING AT MCG BOOTH in the exhibitor's hall

6-7:30 pm Writer Symposium dinner

8:30-midnight Author Hangout

SATURDAY

1 pm FROM RATIONS TO FEASTS (Marriot: Ballroom 1)
What will people eat in the future? How will it be packaged? What should fantasy adventurers bring on their quest, and what will be served when they feast with the king? Elizabeth Bear, Bruce Cordell, Daniel Myer, and Aaron Rosenberg discuss.

2 pm HOW TO HAVE YOUR BEST GAME EVER (Lucas Oil Meeting Room 12)
Join members of Team MCG to get tips on having the best RPG session ever. There will be GM tips, player tips, & game stories with a positive spin

5 pm SIGNING AT MCG BOOTH in the exhibitor's hall!

SUNDAY
1 pm SIGNING AT MCG BOOTH in the exhibitor's hall

4 pm-10:15 pm MCG Booth teardown and pack out (Oof!)

Gen Con 2017

What the what? Something's going on this week (called Gen Con), and I'm leaving on a jet plane tomorrow so I'll be there in good time to just miss helping assemble the MCG booth, unless I'm really unlucky ;).

Thursday
MCG Seminar: What’s New With Monte Cook Games with the whole crew, 11 a.m.—1 p.m., Westin: Capitol II Room
Writing 101: Dialogue (Writer’s Symposium) with Bruce, 1–2 p.m., Westin: Chamber Room
Character Craft: Sympathetic Villains (Writer’s Symposium) with Bruce, 2–3 p.m., Westin: Caucus Room
Signing: Bruce & Monte, 3–4 p.m., MCG booth

Friday
MCG Seminar: Designing for the Cypher System with Shanna & Bruce, 11 a.m.—12:30 p.m., Crowne Plaza: Conrail
Rothfuss Worldbuilders charity game of The Strange GM’d by Bruce, 1–5 p.m. (sold out)
ENnie Awards 8–10 p.m.

Saturday
Writer’s Craft: What is the “Writer’s Voice?” (Writer’s Symposium) with Bruce, 11 a.m.–noon, Westin: Chamber Room
Writer’s Craft: Can a Hero be Too Powerful? (Writer’s Symposium) with Bruce, 3–4 p.m., Westin: Capitol I Room
Signing: Bruce & Shanna, 4–5 p.m., MCG booth

My Gen Con 2016

Gen Con 2016 was one of the better cons I've attended. I had a great time, and I'm energized.

Even though I was slightly busier this year— both MCG duties and Writer Symposium functions required my time—I was much more part of things. Actually, being so busy in multifarious activities was one of the contributing factors to my satisfaction with this con. For instance, the Writer's Symposium was a great way to re-connect with the kind of panels I used to do at Norwescon a few years ago. I also met several interesting fellow authors on those panels and at related functions.

I also spent a lot of fun time with the MCG crew, both while working and in grabbing a meal here and there, which I enjoyed a lot since I count everyone at MCG as a friend. I was proud of our Instant Adventure seminar where we played in front of a crowd [video link pending] and our announcement of the Invisible Sun roleplaying game, a secret we've long kept.

Of particular note, I was grateful for all the people who told me about their positive experience playing games of The Strange and Gods of the Fall. For whatever reason, it struck me that I was part of their happiness because of the work I'd done on those products. Yes, I know that's been true for years starting with my D&D writing going back two decades, but it's easy to lose sight of that when you're always working on the next thing. For me, Gen Con 2016 was a great touchstone. I met tons of people who are actually buying and enjoying material I'd helped create. It left me feeling validated that it's not only all worth it, but also made me realize that I'm actually achieving something actively positive in the world. 

Best Game in Years

I'm back from Gen Con 2014. How was it, you ask? In a word, fabulous.

Many things contributed to Gen Con's fabulousness this year, including the many honors accorded to MCG (10 ENnies), the launch of a game near and dear to me (The Strange), as well as the rush I always get attending a convention filled with people who love games and geeking out as much as I do. (Plus, the entire MCG team hit it out of the park, as Monte describes here.) As it happens, it was also Batgirl (Torah Cottrill)'s first Gen Con, which was also grand.

However, the thing that really pegged the fabulous meter for Gen Con 2014 was that I also ran an RPG that has the distinction of being the most fun I've had GMing a game IN YEARS.

Really?

Yeah, really. Here's why.

We wanted the game I ran (and the game Monte ran for Numenera) to be a premiere experience for the players. The players were people who either made a high-level Kickstarter pledge to be there, or who made a winning bid during our charity auction to be there.

As it turned out, some of them were such amazing people that a couple had also volunteered to GM other games of The Strange at Gen Con. Before we discovered the overlap, I was also slated to run the same adventure (Eschatology Code) for the premiere game. We worried the experience wouldn't be as premiere for those players who were also running the same adventure themselves. So I wrote a new adventure especially for them called The Hum: Welcome to the Grand Bavarian (The Hum will also soon become available to the MCG Asset Team to run as demos across the world).

Did I mention these were amazing players? Everyone there was excited and pumped to be at the table, an experienced RPG player, smart, funny, and just as importantly, they were all gracious and pleasant people. (EDIT: One was so amazing that we hired her. I'm of course talking about Darcy Ross.)

Finally, it probably doesn't come as any surprise that over the past several years, every game I've run was a playtest. (Either DMed when I was still working as a designer on 5E, or GMed after I joined MCG and started designing The Strange.) If you've ever playtested a game, you know the drill. Play ten minutes, then stop when someone points out a problem. Hash that out for 30 minutes before you get to play another ten minutes or so before someone else calls a halt to deal with some new irregularity in the game. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat...

Fast forward to the convention. The Hum was the first RPG session I've game mastered IN YEARS that wasn't a playtest. It was just a regular RPG session. It was filled with players who weren't there to polish the game. They were there to entertained by me and The Strange. I hope they were.

Gen Con 2014 Schedule

I'll be at the MCG booth (booth 1653) at Gen Con at the following times (Monte Cook will be in the booth at the same time as me, which is convenient if you're looking for dual signatures on your copy of The Strange!):

Thursday: 10a-Noon, 2p-3:15p 

Friday: 10a-Noon 

Saturday: 2p-4p 

Sunday: 2p-4p

These are the times you can and should come by and say hello, or if you want something signed, this is when I'll be ready to oblige. I'm happy to sign anything, new or old. (Including copies of the D&D 5th edition, also out in time for Gen Con!)

I'll also be at the following seminars:

The Numenera seminar is on Thursday at 1p-2p 

The Strange launch event is on Saturday at 11a-1p

Both of those two events require tickets (but they're free). 

Bruce R Cordell is joining Monte Cook Games

Did you hear the big news announced last night at Gen Con? I'm joining Monte Cook Games as a Senior Game Designer! (Click here for official press release.)

Words can hardly express how excited I am to join my friends Monte, Shanna, Charles, and Tammie on Numenera.

Which is fabulous, because how could I not love a game set a BILLION years in the future? Where genetically altered monstrosities, flesh-warping radiation, creatures transplanted from distant stars, and clouds of out-of-control nanobots wander? Where ruins can be found, ruins surviving out of deep time from eight previous civilizations that rose and fell on Earth, some of which weren't even human? Yeah.

Numenera is right up my alley. Sign me up. (Wait, I've been signed up. -FIST PUMP!-) I'll have more to say later. It's going to be a wild ride, and I'm ecstatic to be on board.

I'm Going To Gen Con!

Recent developments mean that I'll be at Gen Con this year!

Of course, I just arrived home from Space City Con, where I got to tour NASA, cosplay as Dr. Horrible and Malcolm Reynolds, make friends and hang out with one of my favorite scifi authors Elizabeth Bear, run three days of D&D, and do all of this while enjoying the incomparable company of my sweetie Batgirl (and my pals Hobo Lord and Lady Gumdrop). You might imagine that Gen Con's got its work cut out for it, if it wants to follow that act.

You might imagine that, but the truth is, Gen Con 2013 is shaping up to be pretty fracking awesome in its own right. See you there?

Realms at Indy

So, I guess by now it's become fairly clear I had the Realms on the brain for this Gen Con. I was gratified on one hand to see that the new FRCG sold out of our booth... but in the first hour of a 4 day event? Well, we ordered more... which sold out. And a third time, which we split up to sell some on Saturday and the rest on Sunday. Sold out both of these final lots, too. Awesome from one point of view, but that means a lot of people at Gen Con who wanted to buy a copy there weren't able to do so. Drat!

Anyhow, on Sunday, GamerZero interviewed me about how my seminar went, and about the Forgotten Realms in General. Take a look:

Gen Con So Far

Tomorrow I'll be running a D&D game at Gen Con from 8 am to 1 pm. I'll be using an adventure that takes place in the giant shared world of Forgotten Realms, and is held under the auspices of the RPGA's Living Forgotten Realms program. Speaking of Forgotten Realms, the 4th Edition campaign setting I helped write went on sale here. It was selling at a blistering pace. So quickly, in fact, we sold out what we brought to the Con in just hours. So, more cases were ordered, and should arrive tomorrow (fingers crossed).

Thus, I just finished my second read-through of the adventure, after a short lie-down in my hotel room.  Earlier today I ran two hours of general dungeon bashing fun, hung out for an hour signing autographs in the Sagamore Ballroom, and walked about a third of the convention floor hall.

Last night I arrived in Indianapolis, ate with a couple of my co-workers at Ruth Chris's Steak House (a minor feat for a vegetarian like myself), and attended the Diana Jones awards, where my friend and fellow Alliterate Wolfgang Baur shared the award for his Open Design work.

Bruce At Gen Con

I'll be at Gen Con this year. Come by and say Hi if you like!

My schedule:

THURSDAY
12:00-2 PM RPGA Delve @ Sagamore
2-3 PM signing autographs I guess @ Sagamore

FRIDAY
8 AM-1 PM Running a Living Forgotten Realms adventure @ Sagamore
2-4 PM Adventure Workshop Seminar

SATURDAY
10 AM-Noon Secrets of the Realms Seminar
12-2PM RPGA Delve @ Sagamore
4-6 PM 4E Q&A

SUNDAY
10 am-11 Hanging out somewhere @ Sagamore doing something....
12-2PM RPGA Delve @ Sagamore
2-3 PM Hanging in the booth