Tag Archives: Panels

Philcon 2021 – Part 3

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My Saturday panels at Philcon were up and down in my mind and I headed into the first one with some trepidation. The last one I headed into with confidence.

First up was The Harry Potter Kids Have Grown Up

There was some email communication about this panel before we got to the con. There were a lot of very qualified folks set up to speak on the topic. An elementary school librarian, an author of HP related articles, leader of fan clubs and quite a few other bits and pieces. My particular qualifications were simply the work that I had done as the head of children’s programs as con staff at a number of other conventions. All the information I had to bring was basically anecdotal. One of the parts that worried me most was the expression of a particular viewpoint relating the the author of the HP series and her stance as it relates to the gay and specifically the trans community. Based on the email I was worried that this panel was going to devolve into a bash session of the author and a feel good agreement circle to be sure everyone was saying the right things in order to fit in. It weighed on me not because I want to defend the author or to cause strife with any part of any community, but because I’ve been to panels expecting one thing only to get a bash session and went away disappointed. I do not want to have folks walk away from panels I’m on disappointed.

To the moderator’s great credit, she felt the same way about panels. She made it a point to hit on all the things listed in the panel description in the program book and asked questions of the panelists to dig into each of them. It was a great relief to me. Once I knew we weren’t going off the rails, it was far easier to enjoy what everyone had to say.

As to my thought on the panel topic itself ~ it’s impossible to deny the impact that Harry Potter has had on culture. Not just publishing or film, but also crafts, conventions and even sports.

At somewhere past the 20 year mark for the Harry Potter phenomenon, the kids who were 9 or 10 when they dove into the wizarding world are now old enough to be having families of their own. There were dozens if not hundreds of kids at our conventions back in 2017 and 2018 that wanted to be a wizard and compete for the house trophy. Reading was, if not cool, accepted for the sake of consuming these stories. Comparisons between the book and the film were a staple of any chat. Kids had (and have) a thing that can be theirs. It no longer has the intensity of when the books were first coming out, but each child that gets to read them now still gets the chance to enter that world for the first time. That is an important change, and one I’m glad to see.

Tied together with that chance at new worlds is the backlash crowd. There are always those that will push back against anything popular, but adding wizards and magic spells to the mix brings a special kind of push back. I have discussed in various forms before how I lived through the Satanic Panic back when Dungeons & Dragons was being called a devil’s tool. What we didn’t have back then, at least not to any significant degree was any kind of alternate. One of the other important impacts that the HP books have had, and the kids that have grown up now give us is that alternate. They learned from the previous panics and didn’t allow social stigma to stop them. They supported each other. They had (and continue to have) a different kind of magic from the lands of the role playing game. Magic inhabits books and games and movies now in all sorts of new ways. WE all continue to benefit from this huge push by the kids of this generation.

The panel also went into how many of these so called HP kids have started to move into creative fields. They are writers, film makers, creators. Twenty more years from now it will still be something that people of that generation will be able to bond over, much the same way Gen X folks relate to Star Wars. The panel all seemed to agree there was a great degree of hope in this.

I will admit I had a couple of other things I wanted to delve deeper on, but the panelists on this one were very into the topic. I sat back and let folks with much deeper connections really take the lead. It was busy, informative and made the 50 minutes of the panel just flash past. The topic of the author’s current stance on certain issues did come up, but it was truly handled really well. It’s a simple claim, and one that makes sense. IF you feel you need to remove anything HP from your life based on what the creator has said recently, it is entirely up to you and no one can or should judge you for that. IF you want to ignore the creator, that is entirely fair as well. At a certain point the creation no longer belongs to the creator ~ so if these stories meant something deep to you, keep that and enjoy what you have. Nobody should be able to take away meaningful experiences from you.

It was a good thing I had some time between all that and the Architecture in World Building panel.

My day job is as a project designer for a major architecture and engineering firm. Architecture is my profession, so talking about it would be easy… right?

As it turns out I got to share this panel with the guest of honor for the convention. She was a delight to chat with and I’m really glad I could bring a few insights to the panel. The moderator was going at around a hundred miles per hour, but I made an effort to keep all the folks involved on the panel. I don’t know if I succeeded, but I was just as interested in hearing what the other panelists had to say as anything else.

There were some cool questions from the audience too. We all tried to put books and learning path type things out there for the folks asking the questions. I recommended a couple of titles I was familiar with and put a few points forward that seemed to be well taken. Here are a few of those:

Everyone interacts with the built environment in some way. Even if you never step inside a designed structure, that is likely a conscious choice.

No matter what level of training you have (or don’t) you will likely have an opinion on some aspect of the built environment. IF you’re going to hold an opinion, have something to back it up with. Yes, aesthetics is something you can back it up with but the views on that vary as widely as people’s favorite color.

Buildings go DEEP into societies. Deep to the point where I can show you the combination of a rectangle and a triangle and you’ll recognize what I mean. IF you’re considering the architecture in the world building for you story don’t forget to consider what impact it has on the kids.

Rectangle and Triangle – but you know what it is.

Is what you’re creating believable? Not everyone will have a background in how a building (or a city) will actually function. Can you make what you’re showing believable to the second step? This is something another author passed to me once. IF you only push your creative thought to the first thing somebody can look up, they may question your world. IF you can get past that to the second step… that is you’ve thought logically to the part a reasonable person might have a question about, that will make most people think, “Huh.” and then keep reading. Give enough thought that what you’re creating doesn’t push past a readers willing suspension of disbelief.

Lastly, architecture gives your world depth. It gives detail. It gives a sense of place. That will show through to your readers even if you never get to give out all the pages and pages of research you did to come up with all that. It’s vital to consider the place where your characters are in more than just a “oh, that’s the background…” kind of way.

And those were the panels for my Philcon this year. I was really happy with how they all went. I could have, and frankly wanted to, keep talking on the subjects for hours more. I think that’s a sign of a good convention. I can’t wait to do it again.

Philcon 2021 – Part 2

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A few notes~

I left out the discussion panels from my overall convention review earlier. I think the discussions had and the topics covered deserve attention of their own. I had four panels this year, two in the gaming track, one in the writing track and one in the fandom track. Two on Friday and two on Saturday made for an even pace, despite being scheduled against dinner and the masquerade. I always try to get ahead of the topics and do my homework on panel topics. I spend a fair amount of time planning and writing up notes. Hopefully I’ll get a few of those things out here with this post.

My first two panels on Friday were both on the gaming track.

Up first – Setting the Scene: Ambiance for Gms.

I’ve had panels run by the moderator of this panel before. I think Andy and I work well together for the purposes of con panels. The audience was small. This is typical for a Friday night at a con, but it was exaggerated this year I think. We covered a fair amount of ground and I got one or two laughs. All in all I think it went well. I’m not going to dive deep into the things we talked about ~ if you want to hear me delve deep on this subject you can check out the video I did with Jon on this exact topic. It was an easy prep and easy to talk about panel for me.

The second panel up was Writing Branching Narratives for Game Play.

This panel was more of a challenge for me. While I have notes, indexes, files, outlines and plans for all my writing projects, when it comes to gaming I tend to do much more flying by the seat of my pants. Thankfully Andy was running this panel as well, and we were joined by a very creative gamer and designer named Joan. Our audience was slightly larger and the folks attending seemed into what we were saying. Both Andy and Joan had excellent points and we agreed on a number of items. Here are a few things from my notes:

Running any kind of role playing game is a challenge. It’s not easy to stay ahead of a group of clever and engaged players. You are a story teller, but you are not THE story teller. As the GM you guide the narrative, but you don’t control everything. The players and how they view the world are crucial to making a game succeed. Players must have agency. If they feel like you’re forcing them or bending their actions just to meet your story needs they will rebel. At best they will try to break your story, at worst they will leave to go to other games where they have more input. Allowing certain parts of your game to morph and change based on others is part of making an RPG really work.

Players must also understand that allowing them narrative freedom does NOT mean they are free of consequences. Sure, the first level warrior can seek out the dragon and throw down a challenge. That is part of allowing that freedom. There will be consequences to that action – likely swift and severe. It’s also important to keep a list of places, contacts and how the players and NPCs interact. So long as you have a few clear notes about who people are, the world takes on depth and a more realistic feel. NPCs will remember how the party treated them. As the players grow in power they will also grow in reputation… so how do they want to be seen? Are they heroic or are they the villains of the piece?

Big points stay the same. There are a lot of things I do actually write down for my games. These are the larger events that will happen in the world. These things will happen even if the players don’t get there to see them. Sometimes the players will create change that moves or adjusts these points, but this list of things will happen – and if the players are off side questing, so be it. IF the players fail a mission or ignore a clear path of clues you’ve set for them, how will they get the news about what happened when they didn’t meet the goal? Will it change how they act moving forward? This is another small thing that helps to give a world depth and makes the players wonder what’s just around the next corner.

What if there’s supposed to be a monster around the next corner, and they go the other way? Compartmentalizing certain encounters can be a great way to keep things exciting. Andy called this the quantum ogre. The ogre exists in every time line, at various locations until he is observed. Once observed, the monster becomes real and interacts with the player. This is particularly helpful in keeping things exciting and keeping the GM from pulling out hair in frustration. IF the location makes sense, grab your monster up from where the players missed him before and drop him into the new place.

Know your players. Gaming is an intensely social activity. You get to know the people you’re gaming with and the sort of quirks each of you have. Give them the same thing with your world. Give them an organization to struggle against. Give them secrets to track down. It’s more than simple missions, it’s how they feel when they start to learn what’s going on and you start to learn what sort of bread crumbs you can lay out in order to get them to follow along. One of my favorite recent gaming moments came from a long time player. She’s played in my home brew campaign world for years. She knows certain aspects of the world quite well. During this game session she encountered one of the secret cults I have planted throughout the game world, the Crimson Crescent. The moment she figured out it was them she said, “I hate the Crimson Crescent! Those guys suck!”. If you’re laying out parts of your narrative for the players to see, they will get to know the parts just as well as you do. That sort of reaction is what you really hope for – you know you’ve got their attention, now give them the rest of the boss monster fight you’ve got ready because they’ll be all in.

Lastly, world building. This should really be firstly and lastly, but it’s last up in the order for this discussion. The more you know about your world, the easier it is to give out the little details that hook the players. Yes, there’s a need for improv and flexibility, but that will flow far easier with a solid knowledge of what’s out there. Do you need to name everyone in every village? No, of course not. Do you need to write down the ones that become people of interest? You bet. Use a baby naming book (or website) to help give your names a consistent feel. Learn what makes an area tick. Who lives there and why.

Those are the little things that add together with all the other little things to create a the sort of game that players really buy into and the tweaks that will keep them coming back for more.

That’s it for the first two panels of the weekend for me. I’ll post up the last two panels soon.

Live and In Person!

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That’s right ~ for the first time in what seems like forever, I’m headed to a science fiction convention live and in person. Philcon is being held the weekend of November 19-21 this year, and they’re doing it in person. Thankfully, I still make the list of people they’ll tolerate as a guest.

PHILCON!

They have strict rules in place about vaccination and mask wearing, but they are not actually any different than where I work. I’m glad they’re serious about keeping their participants safe. They certainly don’t seem to be holding non-attendance against anyone that would normally be there either. It will definitely be an interesting journey.

While I’m there, my schedule so far includes 4 panels:

 Start Time      Duration      Room Name      Title
Fri 7:00 PM 50 Min Plaza 2 Setting the Scene: Ambience for GMs
Fri 9:00 PM 50 Min Plaza 2 Writing Branching Narratives for Game Play
Sat 1:00 PM    50 Min        Plaza 2          The Harry Potter Kids Have Grown Up               
Sat 7:00 PM    50 Min        Plaza 2            Architecture in Worldbuilding   

I’m very interested to hear what other things will be going on and hopefully reconnect with a number of friends while attending. I’m also looking forward to digging back into the writing business. I’ve allowed my writing to sit idle for far too long a time.

A full report to follow!