Dreamation 2015: The Prologue

This weekend is Dreamation, a grand tabletop gaming convention in Morristown NJ. I am of course attending and running RPG's all weekend. For those unfamiliar with it, over the years it (along with its summertime counterpart Dexcon) has steadily grown from a local affair to the primary regional gaming extravaganza, attracting guests from across the country and across the world. Partially this is because it's been embraced by the Indie design scene, becoming a rallying point where hip new games get debuted and hip young designers mingle and commiserate.

It's like this, but with more beards and Doctor Who t-shirts.

I'm not an Indie designer. I'm not even a published game author (at least not yet) so when I see my modest offering of something straightforward like Tunnels & Trolls or MiniSix sitting on the schedule between the debut of the latest Indie Darling and a crackerjack game so innovative it challenges my notions of what a game even is, both being run by the people who wrote them ... it calls into doubt my comparative value as just a guy who's modestly good at traditional GM'ing.

But, I muddle along, and so far I get plenty of sign-ups, so there's still an audience for what I'm offering.

This year I'm continuing my Old-School streak by offering up a couple science fiction sessions of Stars Without Number (on the schedule as R240 Friday 2-6pm and R377 Sunday 3-7pm) and one experimental frontier session of Blood & Bullets (R334 Saturday 8-Midnight).  I say "experimental" because I haven't felt an affinity for the Western genre before, but B&B's succinct system delighted me enough that I thought it deserved some exposure. I'm even going to give away full home-bound rulebooks to all the players:

There's something so satisfying about making your own booklets.

In preparation I've been watching a lot of old Western films (check out Sam Raimi's The Quick & The Dead, it's totally under appreciated) and reading Jonah Hex comics. 

As a player, I'm hoping to get into Monster of the Week and Lasers & Feelings. I'm also due for a visit or two to the miniatures battle room. I wonder, does being a wargame fan threaten my Indie cred' even more?