The first person I talked to once I got to the convention was Rob Bohl, creator of the game Misspent Youth.  He was running a game at the moment, but I needed to see him because we were sharing a room and he had my key.  I felt bad, calling him up in the middle of his session, tracking him down and interrupting, but he was generous and kind, pshawing me as I apologized.  That set the stage for what would be a great convention experience. 

Dreamation is a great, rare experience in the gaming community in that it is a gaming convention that is chiefly concerned with gaming.  There's a real, palpable excitement from everyone you meet because they, like you, are all there for one thing: the games.  Sure, there's networking and game sales and such, but the dealers' room is small and the networking happens only when you're sitting at a game table, playing with some people that you're networking into becoming your friends. 

I got to see some old friends there that I haven't seen in quite a long time.  They had heard about the convention through my roommate Camden and just decided to come up and surprise me, while at the same time getting some good gaming in.  I also got to see Judd again, who I hadn't seen in at least a year.  We were both so busy with the gaming life that we didn't get to sit down and just talk like I'd hoped, but we did get to blather about comics for a couple of minutes so at least something was accomplished.  The two Dans were along for the ride as well, getting in some great gaming and having plenty of fun stories to tell when we sat down for brunch every day. 

I also met a ton of people for the first time, and I got to game with them.  Ryan Macklin ran an incredible game of Don't Rest Your Head, as well as kept me up until six in the morning with his ability to have a brilliant conversation with me.  I split my room with Julia Ellingboe, Rob Bohl, and Tobais (damn it, I'm forgetting his last name right now), who were all gracious, kind, intelligent people that I wish I'd had more time to hang out with.  I sat in on a session of Kingdom of Nothing run by its creator, Jeff Himmelmen, a great guy, energetic and thoughtful.  It was also wonderful to meet Joshua Newman, a firecracker of a man who was excited and smiling every time I ran into him.  I had Matthew, Nicholas and Minetta in a game of Criminal Element that I ran, and all three were a blast to have at the table, as well as talk to away from it.  Kat Turner was a recurring figure in my gaming that weekend, playing alongside me in both Misspent Youth and Shock: and she was an incredible presence, a person that got genuinely excited when other people brought up ideas at the table and fostered them into something awesome. 

As a lurker and occasional poster on forums like Story-Games and the Forge, it was really cool to finally meet some of the people I interact with in those venues.  What was even cooler was getting the chance to meet people, game with them, and hopefully create some new friendships. 

Dreamation kicked my ass in the best possible way imaginable.  I got to see some old friends, meet some amazing people, playtest my game, run a session of Dirty Secrets that didn't go as well as I would have hoped sadly, and play in a bunch of great playtests. 

Here I'm going to write about the games that I played in.  I'll also write about the convention as a whole and the Indie Designers' Roundtable, but they'll be in separate posts.  Each of these subjects deserves some face time of their own. 

The first thing I did, after getting lost on the way to the convention that is, was play a session of Jeff's Kingdom of Nothing.  Great ideas, cool presentation.  The adventure we were presented with didn't really highlight the best parts of the game, but I definitely got the sense of 'coolness' i was hoping for.  During the group character creation I wound up pushing things a little too far for one of the characters' secret pasts and made that character a little bit broken.  Totally my fault.  The dice mechanic wasn't really working, but I understand that Jeff is working on a new mechanic that sounds much more in line with what he is trying to do.  All in all a satisfying session of gameplay with the tangible promise of being a a really fantastic game.  

The next day brought with it a session of Omega Point, the cyberpunk story telling game.  We wound up making a group of cybernetic rock and pop stars all vying for fame and power.  The story was great fun, set during a battle of the bands that our characters were all participating at in some way.  The rock star moments kept coming in faster and stronger (and stranger), and I had a blast playing.  Excellent job, guys.  

After that saw me playing Misspent Youth.  God damn did this game soar.  I was one of those guys yelling at Rob during the Indie Roundtable, telling him that his mechanics worked fine.  The dystopian future we created was one in which a religiously-guided political power fights back the forces of progress, reverting technology and science back to a 1950s-era understanding and disseminating fear through the media.  Our youthful offenders were rogue EMTs (!) trying to save lives using banned medical text books and home-made penecilin.  The job we went on was to try and get our hands on a bunch of old medical textbooks and get the information inside them out to The People.  Along the way my street medic and a rogue faith healer worked together to save some lives, our tech-head buddy stole a car while it was still being driven, our priestley friend lost his faith, and the gonzo journalist in our squad became even more disillusioned.  I should also point out that the part of character creation where you get to ask one of the other group members a deep, probing, personal question was great and really helped set up the group dynamic.  (Rob, I'm not sure if you've thought of this yet, but if we get to ask further questions of the characters, we don't ask those new questions of the same people we've already asked, right?)

Then there was the playtest of my game, Criminal Element.  I'll say up front that it was hit and miss.  Once the game got moving, it really fucking moved.  PCs were breaking into government facilities, killing guards, breaking down security locks, all that stuff.  That was a blast.  Getting there took FOREVER, though.  More on that in another post, but I just wanted to thank everyone for coming out to play my game sight unseen.  

After that brought a session of Don't Rest Your Head run by Ryan Macklin.  Excellent game, incredibly well-presented by the man himself.  I played a meth-addicted doctor trying to get close to people while the fear of their impending death still haunts her.  The other PCs were great, too, including a mathematician that can "see" math in the world around him, and a shut-in who is constantly accosted by the haunting face of jay Leno.  We fought monsters, i found my little sister before she was eaten at a restaurant, and my good friend Dan's character became the Boogie Man.  My only concern with that game is a personal one.  I felt like, at the end of the session, I was being a bit forceful with my character's story and not sharing the stage with the other players. 

The next day was nice and light.  I got to sleep in, relax, eat a little something, then play Joshua Newman's Shock:.  Kick.  Ass.  The game was hacked on the fly to support FIFTEEN FUCKING PLAYERS, but it worked and made for a really compelling game.  Our Shock:, or science-fictional story element was "On the eve of the Clone Rebellion".  Juicy, right?  The issue I wound up intersecting that Shock: with was "Memory", and I made a doctor who was a clone of a nat-born doctor that had died.  Of course, the nat-born doctor's memories started to haunt me, including the memory of his/my wife and their/our children.  The clone rebellion existed for me in two ways, both professionally as people harmed by the rebellion were under my care, and personally as my character's girlfriend was a member of it.  Sadly, I had to run out at the end to set up for a session of Dirty Secrets.  If anyone reading this was also in that game, please give me the highlight reel of the ending. 

Then came Dirty Secrets.  Sadly, the game wound up being a noble failure.  I had set it at midnight on Saturday, a poor move on my part.  People were exhausted by that point and I had two of my five players cancel.  The remaining three included a player who had played the game before and was totally invested and two players who had no experience with story-gaming.  The mystery was really interesting (a prostitute and sometime patron of a federal agent has three kilos of heroin stolen from her that she was holding for her pimp) but things fell apart after about an hour of gameplay.  The two players that hadn't story-gamed before were confused and a bit overwhelmed by the amount of storytelling power they had.  It was still a cool session because it gave me the opportunity to show these guys some new tricks.  I consider it a 'win'. 

Things wrapped up on Sunday with the Indie Developers' Roundtable, organized by Fred Hicks and Luke Crane.  It was incredible.  A real peer event, where everyone was welcome to throw their ideas out and really get a discussion going.  More on that later. 

All together, a great four days of gaming and fun.  As I drove away from the convention I found myself thinking "What am I going to play next?"

In about an hour I leave for New Jersey, harrytheheir riding shotgun.  We head out east for one thing: the job.  We've been planning it for weeks; working out schedules, laying out the routes there and away, putting together the gear.  When we get there we meet up with our two partners in crime, Hirschney and Peccable, and we settle down to business. 

It's a long haul.  Four days of work and it seems like there's too much to do to cram into ninety six small hours.  But that's what we've got to do.  'Cause we're gamers, and we're coming to Dreamation to game. 

I'll be doing the world premier of Criminal Element there, running the first ever convention sessions of the game.  I'm also running a session of the freakishly good Dirty Secrets.  I'm meeting up with some other great gamers, like judd_sonofbert, eruditus, and his lovely lady friend spring_violet, and I'm crashing with Joshua A.C. Newman, Rob Bohl, and Julia Ellingboe. 

All stops will be pulled out.  There is no turning back. 

Game on. 

Updates on LJ as time permits.