Well, my lovely wife Liz and I are back from the Tyler Rose City Comicon and look forward to a good night’s sleep in our own bed. For a con that was technically only 2 days long (Saturday Oct 25 and Sunday Oct 26) it sure felt longer than that.
We arrived Friday evening at the first event, the VIP dinner with the guests. For reference, the guests were Colin Baker (the 6th Doctor Who), Jim Ward (who needs no introduction), Timothy Zahn the Star Wars author, Kristin McGuire the Anime voice actress, and a host of actors and actresses from shows like Supernatural, Paranormal Events, Lost Girls, etc. As guests ourselves, we got to have dinner with the others, though with the addition of VIP members the restaurant was packed! We got to say hi to Kristin and her husband Greg when we shared a table for dinner, but only saw the others from a distance. After we left we went to the hotel to see what was going on, and found Mike Badolato (BadMike), Doug Ray, and friends having reserved the Executive room on the 2nd floor for their own NTXRPGCon gaming. We were pleasantly surprised to find Zach Glazar of Lesser Gnome games (Upcoming guest on Save or Die episode 101!) there, waiting for a Circus Maximus game. We had a pleasant conversation, and enjoyed watching the others playing Avalon Hill’s Gladiator boardgame. The sides were a couple of Gladiatrixes fighting wild apes. Don’t ask…I’m sure a therapist could dissect that scenario!
As VIP members got to enter the dealer room an hour earlier than the other con attendees (9am instead of 10am) we had to be at our table at 8:30am which we were on both days….Which wasn’t easy, as you can imagine if you know the Stewart love of early mornings.
Liz made a great Victorious poster for the wall behind our table (see the facebook page in my sig below for a view) as well as cards with the Victorious facebook and forum pages. We got several new likes from this, so it was time well spent. We also sold copies of my C&C modules Shadows of the Halfling Hall and Verdant Rage at our table, which was shared by Jim Ward. Unfortunately, TLG didn’t get the opportunity to send us some of Jim’s work to sell as well. 
Jim Ward and I did a Game Designer’s Seminar from 10:30 to around 11:45, which was interesting. As you can imagine, I felt out of my league to sit up there with the Godfather of Gaming…but we actually worked well together. He fielded the “dealing with publishers” questions and I handled the Social Media aspect of getting games developed and published. Everyone seemed to enjoy the discussion, so I count that a win.
At 12:00 noon I dressed up in my Steampunk (AKA Tom Petty) outfit and ran a game of Victorious until 3pm. It was supposed to go until 4, but Jim’s Metamorphosis Alpha game got double-booked on our table so I wrapped things up quickly. Fortunately the players had mostly overcome the prior clues and red herrings…, which left them battling evil and oversized monocles with the best of NYC’s finest! I must also thank Corbett Kirkley (of the Gag Men Podcast) for sending his minion Dave to the con to give us a print copy of his module for Victorious A World Gone Mad as well as an actual monocle! See Gag Men episodes 25 and 26 for explanations!
From then until 6pm Liz (who wore her outfit all day; including leather corset and generally booth babed) and I sat answering questions and generally shilling modules, C&C, and Victorious until the room closed. Thanks to BadMike and Doug Ray for letting us use the hotel suite to change in and out of costumes! We’d planned on haunting the game room to see what was up, but we were so tired we just went back to her parent’s house and collapsed. Yes, we didn’t tsay at the con. We are cheap guests!
Sunday we arrived on site at 8:30am, and spent most of the day dealer rooming. Liz tried to go see Colin Baker for photo op’s and q&a, but there were so many people there she couldn’t even get to the room’s door much less inside. Seriously, they were estimating around 8000 people and if they didn’t get that many it was awfully close. Despite getting a larger hotel than last year, the place was still packed to the gills. I suspect RCCC will be at an even larger venue next year. I don’t know why Liz and I didn’t think to make up some Save or Die! Flyers…It’s something we will certainly have to rectify next year, that’s for sure.
On a side note I got invited to a couple of game stores in January to demo Victorious and they were eager to put up the Victorious posters right now as promos. So, we’re grateful for every little bit…it helps to get the game out!
Honestly I was a bit irked that my Steampunk seminar had been scheduled for 5pm on Sunday, as I figured nobody would show. I mean, who stays after 5pm on a Sunday at a con right? To my surprise, I had almost 20 people there, and we had a great round table discussion of the genre, its origins, and what good/bad books were out there. A fellow in the group even put me onto some Kipling work that was Steampunk-y so I have duly added them to my annotated list of “Suggestions for Further Reading” which will come with the Victorious rules. In fact, there were events scheduled until 10pm Sunday night…, which was quite a surprise to me. CosPlay was huge this year, though my personal faves were a guy dressed as Zombie Hitler, and another who came dressed as, I kid you not, Jesus Christ. Crown of thorns and all. I think Kristin got a photo of the two of them hugging for the camera(!)
All in all, this year’s con was a lot of fun…though exhausting. Best wishes to all, and here’s looking with confidence toward 2015!
(A very tired) DM Mike
