The final and least-known Geek High Holiday has come and gone. This celebration is only seven years old but when you don’t have Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day plugging it, you can how easily it can be forgotten. I don’t blame those two’s participation though. Promoting board games is an easier move since RPGs are much more work to play than Settlers of Catan.
Other than some asshole who didn’t know what waiting in line meant, I did alright. Paizo tends to provide plenty for the fans because Fifth Edition D&D is pathetically behind on material so the 5E fanboys have something other than $50 modules to play. Paizo/Pathfinder went with another chapter in the goofy goblins storyline, works for me. I scored the Goodman 5E adventure due to its ability to be converted to PF. Their material is always threadbare but it provides a good framework. Before I had the schism with the “old” group (circa 2003-08), I felt pretty confident in one of the Goodman dungeon crawls I modified into a more coherent plot. I think it was the first one I did a movie visual aid for too (where is that thing?).
There were other systems around too. BattleTech/Shadowrun, 13th Age, Valiant Comics RPG and some minimal things. I went with the coin prop as you can see. I love props for my game. My current players seem to enjoy them which is nice.
Absent again was WOTC. Makes me wonder. Do they want D&D 5E to succeed or not? At this point, I think Hasbro toys should sell the D&D game off so the people who really love it can save it, do want they need to do to make actually viable. WOTC isn’t even sponsoring GenCon while Paizo and Mayfair are.
Enough “inside baseball” blather. RPG Day is a nice retail holiday but maybe it should merge with TableTop to gain the momentum. Or maybe I’ll get my wish, my hobby store of choice (Rogues Gallery) will finally get a nice, larger space sans a disgusting Cici’s Pizza as a neighbor and people can actually play games; currently the poor folks trying to have fun obstruct the X-Wing/Attack Wing and back issues areas. I did buzz by Dragon’s Lair. There they appeared to be having more luck with people sticking around to play. I saw at least three Pathfinder games happening to one…one, D&D 5E game.
I’m somewhat stoked over RPG Day. My players are almost done moving and I can finally implement my “homework” next Thursday or July.