Category: The Craft

All The Small Things

~ mellopanther
Spoils Alert :3

It’s been a surprisingly productive month here at the secret underwater base and I can’t keep the results just to myself.  After all, MP is all about you, the audience, so sharing is almost mandatory.  Here is the first thing I will present to you: a picture of all the swag I got on my trip to Japan!  It was a heckuva week, and I totally recommend it to anyone who wants to go. (Two caveats: don’t know by yourself, and plan ahead of time.)  What’s not in this picture is all the swag I got for myself.  That’s right, all this is up for grabs in future MelloPanther events!

I know there will be at least one more convention in 2013 that I plan on going to, and my hope is that I go to three, maybe four if I’m lucky, but 2014 is still wide open.  If you know of any convention in either Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, New York, or even New Jersey or Delaware, that you would be 20% cooler with MelloPanther programming, shoot me a line (there’s an e-mail link in the corner now) or better yet, tell that convention!

Now that’s a lot of stuff to offer, but I’m not through yet.  There may be a couple other things worth talking about…but not today.  Watch this space, though, you never know what news might drop.

On conventions and tabletops

~ mellopanther

A lot of what made me want to start MelloPanther and what will likely continue to drive me is that the programs and events that I do are things that I want to see.  One thing I’d like to see more attention paid to is RPG rooms.  Your standard convention will tend to have a board game room, sometimes combined with the CCG room, and some might have pick-up games of various RPG’s, particular Pathfinder and D&D.  However, while one-shots can be fun (and I’ve been in some hilarious one-shots) one of the appeals of tabletop gaming is getting together and having an epic campaign, spinning the tale of your heroes’ great adventures.  Problem is, if your convention is three days long, how can you fit in a campaign, especially with all the other things that can happen at a convention?

I think I’ve found an answer to that, and it comes from video gaming: a persistent world.  In basic terms, this is a game space that resembles real life in that you can make changes to the game world, and those changes are permanent, and like the real world, the game world can, and most likely will, change when you’re not around and getting involved.  I think a persistent RPG world would be a great setting for a short tabletop campaign.  A well-crafted setting can reward players for playing from the 1st session, but won’t punish those who want just a quick challenge before their next activity.  There are several ways you can pull off a persistent world like this in an RPG, and I’d love to demonstrate it a convention.  I figure I could fit in 4-6 sessions in most 3-day shows.  Why not give me a shot?