I Want To See Your Face (Masked)
August's Pugsteady Update!
Hey all! It’s that time again, to talk about what’s going on at Pugsteady headquarters (i.e., my desk).
Yes, More on Conventions
I feel like I’m always talking about conventions, but honestly they’re a significant portion of the freelance business, and the landscape has been constantly evolving over the past two years. We’re firmly in the space of “conventions are happening now,” but how they happen matters more and more.
For one thing, over the course of the year it’s clear that mask policies can change at any moment (as evidenced by Origins Game Fair earlier this year). This puts attendees and convention organizers into a game of chicken, where the organizers want to try and allow the most people to attend safely and the attendees want to wait until the last minute to commit to attending, in case anything changes. Both end up waiting to see if the other blinks first: if the attendees wait too long, the event might not work as intended or even get cancelled, but if the attendees sign up too early, they might be locked into travelling to an unsafe environment.
On top of that, recent changes in gun laws in some states actually make it so event organizers can’t ban real weapons at some events (such as what happened recently in Atlanta). Granted, nothing tragic has happened at a game convention yet, but Gen Con is coming soon, and it’s something many of us need to keep an eye out for.
Balance this with increasing pressure from fans to attend. To be blunt, I’ve had a steady increase of people asking if I’ll be at this convention or that convention. I’m sure none of it comes from a place of malice, and indeed I would love to see people’s faces again. But I have to balance the personal and business connections with my safety in a way I didn’t have to consider back in 2019. I’m quite genuinely being asked to choose between my health and my career, and as someone who is self-employed and living in a country where health care also costs money, that’s not always an obvious choice to make.
That isn’t to say I won’t be attending conventions — you’ll see some examples below in the news section. But if you’re wondering if I’ll be at a certain show, the answer’s still more likely to be “no” than “yes,” if only because now I have to do a lot of research and risk analysis for every single opportunity. And given the private conversations I’ve had with some of my friends, I know I’m not alone in these fears.
News Roundup!
Well, that was a downer. Luckily, I have a few cool things to talk about to take the edge off!
While I won’t be at Gen Con Indy, I will be at Gen Con Online! Onyx Path has three panels on their Twitch channel this weekend, and I’ll be on all three! Here they are if you want to get (free) tickets:
https://www.gencon.com/events/217051 – What’s Up With Onyx Path
https://www.gencon.com/events/217052 – Storypath System Q&A
https://www.gencon.com/events/217053 – Onyx Path 5E OGL Games
As for physical conventions, I’m currently planning to attend Save Against Fear in York, PA! I’ve always been a huge fan of the Bodhana Group, and it’s a small enough show that I feel like I have a lot of control over my health and schedule. I’m not currently planning to run games, but I may play in some!
I’ve been nominated for an ENnie! Voting is sadly closed, but this weekend we’ll find out if my work on Auld Sanguine for Vampire: The Masquerade gets an award for Best Free Game/Product! And it is indeed free, if you want to check it out!
Speaking of my Vampire: The Masquerade work, I got a nice nod recently from Kotaku in their 10 Best Tabletop Roleplaying Books of 2022: “The book is also filled with some great prose. It provides a nice taste of how these kinds of characters may speak, or how we ought to describe a setting in luscious, sanguine detail. Some of its pretty intense (again, the blood, the sex, the torture), but it dives into the nature of vampire society way more than just dealing with what the core book gives you.” I wrote the introductory fiction, based on the work of my colleague Rachel Wilkinson, so I’m pleased that other people enjoyed it!
Finally, there’s a great sale going on right now with the Scarred Lands, a great Pathfinder 1e and D&D 5e setting! I haven’t worked on it much — I did some work on spells for the Pathfinder version which was reworked for the 5e version — but it is a really fantastic setting. If you like dark, epic fantasy settings with a splash of Greek myth and heavy metal, this is one for you!
My Media
It’s a bumper crop of Moriarty-focused media these days. The latest volume of Moriarty the Patriot just dropped, and that has me excited — I discovered I can subscribe to the series via Google Books, so as soon as I got the notification this morning I was instantly reading the first 50 pages before I had to get ready for work. But right before that, I was pointed to a new Audible Original audio drama podcast: Moriarty: The Devil’s Game.
Look at that cast list! Dominic Monaghan as Moriarty! Teaming up with Billy Boyd (for the first time since the Lord of the Rings movies, I’m told) as Moran! Phil LaMarr as Holmes! Honestly, I signed up for a month of Audible Plus just to listen to this, and largely based on the cast alone.
The story is… let’s say “not faithful to the Canon.” Around episode four there’s a twist that makes it clear what happened in the original stories isn’t what’s happening here, and as the story goes on it continues to subvert the premise. So if you’re one of those folks who wants their Holmes-related fiction to be incredibly faithful to Doyle’s work, this might be for you.
However, I love reinventions and reinterpretations of the Holmes mythos, and this was right up my alley. The audio design and acting were excellent, to the point where it was hard to keep myself to one episode a day at times. My biggest annoyance is that I can’t find a way to actually purchase it to own for myself, as it’s only something you can listen to if you have an active Audible subscription. For me, it was worth the $7.95 to enjoy this (for me it’s like paying to watch a streaming-exclusive TV show), but others might balk at paying to have access to it for a month.
Anyhow, the game is afoot, and it’s time I was off. See you next month!
