Everlasting, Neverending Game Night

a smiling man puts on a grim, metal mask

weird things happen when you GM

Hi Reader, How are you? Please, come in, sit down. Dry off. Lately, it's like all the rain we missed in the summer has come at once. This summer, I heard from an old friend about a disastrous game she played. Her gaming group had just introduced a buddy of hers to role-playing. After enjoying their first campaign together, her buddy wanted to GM the next one. So he did. For a year. It turns out that in the first campaign, Buddy bristled against its safety tools—lines, veils, a certain amount...

6 days ago • 2 min read

Bert from Mary Poppins playing as a one-man band, covered in raccoons

from gen con summer to job september

Hi Reader, How are you? It's been a long time! Two whole months. It was the height of summer, all sun and runaway flowers. Now the locust trees are draping our local park in thousands of tiny golden leaves. I scooped some up on the dog walk, and I've spread them across the table. Blow on them if you need room. This summer, I went to Gen Con. Then I started a new job. After getting to concentrate solely on games for over a year, I went back to owing someone 40 hours a week. It swallowed me...

13 days ago • 2 min read

game therapy

Hi Reader, Welcome! Please, come in. Have some fizzy water. It's so hot outside. A neighbor gave me a bouquet of zinnias—they're in a jam jar on the table. Do you ever check out—dissociate—when you should be concentrating? Time you urgently need tickscdcr5t by and by. And then you realize you're doing it, and you feel like you're falling into quicksand? No? Just me? Then have you ever felt the opposite? You suddenly find yourself dialed in, not just mentally but emotionally? And something...

3 months ago • 1 min read

back to origins

Hi Reader, Welcome! Please come in. It's been raining out, and the air smells clean. Here on the table, a tall glass bottle has a stalk of creeping bellflower. Apparently it's a noxious weed, but I admire weeds. They just don't care where you think they're supposed to be. They're irrepressible. Last week, Thursday through Sunday, I exhibited at Origins Game Fair. And I have to say, I love this con so much. The people, the vibe. Everyone’s excited to be there. I met tons of new queer people....

3 months ago • 1 min read

become who you pretend to be.

Hi Reader, Welcome! Please, come in. Our dogwood is finally blooming, so I put some of its flowers in a bowl of water. Back in high school, I was a theater kid. Mostly tech, but on stage a few times. I hadn't decided if I was there to hide myself or show it. One day after school, I wandered past the auditorium’s stage door. On the door-glass, someone had taped a sign. In a high school student’s scrawl, the sign said: WE, the Bavarian Illuminati—WHO CONTROL EVERYTHING—issue you this warning:...

4 months ago • 2 min read

MegaXP

Hi Reader, Welcome, please come in. This week, we're meeting a little, sun-baked apartment in Mexico City. A glass tumbler has some purple jacaranda flowers. I came down to Mexico to visit family, but I also bought a ticket to a great games convention here called MegaXP. ¡Bienvenidos! Although I don’t know much Spanish, my phone does get internet, and it was easy enough to take an Uber to the World Trade Center Ciudad de México. Inside, I had to ask the person at the Registration desk if they...

4 months ago • 1 min read

stunning enough

Hi Reader, Welcome! Please, come in. It’s raining a lot lately here—I'll take your coat. I found some white starflowers in the woods, and I put them in a vase on the table. I love science fiction. I especially love “space opera”—that is, interstellar adventure. (No actual opera in it.) This genre gives me a sense of possibility that I need. I don’t care how realistic it is, so long as the writers sell me on it. And I'm an easy sell. For years, I needed to believe I could be an alien. Or a...

5 months ago • 3 min read

and I was doing so well

Hi Reader, Welcome! Please, come in. On the table, we have irrepressible daisies, rather hastily stuck in a jam jar. No, don’t go in the kitchen. If you want some water, I can get it for you. Just. Stay here. The thing is, in our house, M does all the cooking. I should cook more, but I keep passing up opportunities to learn. So, yesterday evening, when M was headed out for a work-related event, I said, “I’m going to step up. I’m not getting take-out. No. I’m going to broil salmon.” I...

5 months ago • 2 min read

a.i. is getting in our business

Hi Reader, Welcome! Please, come in. Make yourself at home. It's so good to see you. I brought in some wild violets and dandelion flowers from the back yard and put them in a bowl of water. I’ve been reading up on A.I. It’s mind-boggling what it can do—and how fast it's changing. It can write and draw things that look like a person made them. But it's not great on factual accuracy or single-point perspective. The thing is, it's always "hallucinating"—fumbling blindly, algorithmically, for...

5 months ago • 2 min read

sproing

Hi Reader, Welcome! Please, come in. Help yourself to snacks. I cut some daffodils and put them in a mason jar with clean water. I think daffs like a simple presentation, don't you? Guess what. The number of guests at our house has increased recently. Spring has sprung. Three days ago, Udo (our aging husky) found tiny rabbits. a tiny cottontail bun, going back in the nest They're cottontails. Just three days old at the time, I'm guessing. They're snug in a hole Udo dug under our back deck....

6 months ago • 2 min read