Natterings From Nepantla

After two consecutive years of being cancelled, GameStorm is back and I am absolutely going even if I have to wear a full environment suit.

Actually, late March looks like good timing for the next pandemic lull, which makes it baffling to me that they cut off registration at February 1 and aren't allowing at-con registration. A lot of people are going to be making late decisions that they do want to go, and then being frustrated because GameStorm really did not make the announcement very prominently.

Next up is hopefully Enfilade! in late May. Its official site is still talking about 2021, but there's a Tabletop.Events listing at an easily guessable URL, so my hope is that things are in motion behind the scenes.

PaizoCon is still irritatingly scheduled the same week as Enfilade!, but it's one day longer, and Paizo has promised that it will have an online component in perpetuity, so I can just sign up for some online gaming on that one day.

It did occur to me that I could just try to go from Olympia to SeaTac at the end of Enfilade! and try to have one day of in-person PFS, but the logistical overhead is probably not worth it.

Origins is back to its usual dates in June, and just sent me an e-mail that I have an outstanding balance with them. It took me a minute to remember that I'd registered in 2020 before Origins Online fell apart. With no apparent online gaming component this year, I guess I won't have any use for that.

In July it's Westercon, which I'd better be at what with running the gaming track and all.

Gen Con is back to its usual weekend as well, at the start of August, and is keeping both Gen Con Online and Pop-Up Gen Con. I think it's worth taking a couple vacation days for the first and I may try to go to the second again, if any gaming store on this side of town is participating.

And then Worldcon is back in its usual zone on Labor Day weekend, and I'm hoping to go in person this year.

I'm sure one or more of these plans will fall apart, but my attitude these days is that the more plans I make, the harder the universe must work to frustrate them all, and the less it hurts when I have to cross one off.

Now that there are conventions on my schedule, I need to actually get ready for them. First up: PaizoCon is being held on a variety of virtual tabletop systems. For RPGs like Pathfinder, there are two main ones, Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds. Roll20 is faster to learn and set up, but you have to do a lot of things manually. Fantasy Grounds gives you a ton of help executing things according to the rules, but the tradeoff is a longer setup time.

The high-level game I've signed up for is on Fantasy Grounds, which is how I wound up spending two hours this morning entering the details of my level 10 wizard including all 156 spells in her spellbook.

I have my second-edition wizard signed up for a couple of 2-hour quests, one of which is listed for Roll20 and the other on the popular new entrant, "Unknown virtual tabletop product".

For AmazingCon (and later Worldcon) I need to find an appropriate Zoom background and either locate my standalone webcam (my laptop doesn't have one built in) or get a new one. Which I'd better do soon, given how slow delivery is these days.

There's nothing specific I absolutely have to do ahead of Origins Online other than to register, but I have a reminder set for when registration opens a few days hence because I've decided to sign up at the limited edition T-shirt level.