Conventions, Writer’s Block and Gary Gygax

 
Well, it seems I missed Gary Con this year. Stephen fired me from Gary Con. That’s not entirely true, he suggested that if I did not want to go and catch up on all the work I have not been doing, I would be more than welcome to stay here in the hovel and work. I volunteered not to go. I think that is how that worked. It has been a very low productivity month for me. I was distracted and obsessed then developed writer’s block. I hate getting writer’s block. I always have to go looking for inspiration. Quixotically, going to conventions always alleviates that problem and for some reason, I made the unwise choice not to go.

I enjoy going to conventions. I used to go to a lot of conventions. I think in the mid-2000s I was going to a convention once every three weeks. I kept that up for half a decade. Then it started to wear me down and we all agreed to reduce our convention presence. The conventions themselves were not the problem. I enjoy meeting people, relaxing and hanging out playing games. I di not enjoy the driving, packing, and unpacking. I like to travel, but I travel light. Troll Lord Games does not travel light. I can say that I enjoyed several conventions better than others. Those being the Lake Geneva Gaming Convention and Winter Dark convention TLG hosted in Lake Geneva. We really hosted these so we had an excuse to go hang out with Gary. We probably could have come up with a better business model but that would have obviated the goal now wouldn’t it have. 😊

As I have mentioned on many occasions, Gary and I rarely talked games or business. This is always surprising to many people considering Gary was the game designer of the century and I now help operate a game company. And, even more surprising, I only played in a few games with Gary. I remember him saying “boogadee boogadee boo” once. I literally fell on the floor laughing. It was my first game with Gary and some spell casting illusory gnome was casting a spell. The “boogadee boogadee boo” was the spell being cast. And that pretty much brought all my pretensions about the game back to earth. I still laugh thinking about that particular moment.

In the long though, my favorite times with Gary were spent on his front porch, at dinner, or on smoke breaks at conventions. I suppose the best times were on the front porch, drinking a beer and relaxing before the arrival of many fans and visitors. These moments were rare as the TLG crew only managed to make it to Lake Geneva a couple of times a year during those conventions we ran.

It is difficult to say I miss Gary because I don’t really. You see, Gary was unwittingly standing behind me as a child and on into adulthood, and even unto this day. Every time I roll a dice, crack a game book, pen a module, write a rule, Gary is still there, standing over my shoulder, cracking jokes and encouraging me to keep gaming. I do wish I could sit on his front porch again, drinking a beer, sharing thoughts on politics, military history, word play, and other pleasures. That would be nice. But that’s not how the world works and we all have to continue rolling the dice and playing the hand dealt.