felt flat

FlatCon just didn't do much for me today. It was nice to see my nephew the ninja, even if he could only vaguely sit still for a pick-up game of Tier Auf Tier. There just weren't any games available this afternoon that lit my jets. Not that the program booklet or online schedule made it easy for me to find out. Both were arranged by game type. To find out what started at 2pm I had to look at all the minis games scheduled for then, go to the board game section and do the same, then flip to the RPGs, etc. What a pain in the butt.

I had a good time running my own game last year but upon further reflection I've had trouble coming to grips with the thought that my wife and I had paid forty bucks for the privilege of running a game I could have run for free at the local game store. Not that I'm against running stuff at cons, but I guess a decade and a half of running games at Winter War has gotten me used to getting comped part of my admission for GMing. There have been plenty of Winter Wars where the only games I played have been my own, but by running two games I got free admission. That seemed like a fair deal to me. In comparison FlatCon feels like it was charging me to help make sure the other con-goers had a game to play. I don't mind volunteering, but this felt like paying to volunteer. So this year I opted not to GM anything.

And then there was the shopping. The only vendor with any used stuff was the guy from last year that I wanted to punch in the face. Did I tell you this story? I don't think I did because I wanted to calm down before I talked about it. So here I am doing a little bit of shopping when I overhear this gamestore jockey talking to a younger guy about Judges Guild founder Bob Bledsaw. Keep in mind that Bledsaw had been dead about six months at this point. This douchebag is explaining to the kid how he was absolutely certain that Bob was a card-carrying fascist. I look up from the nerd merchandise I was perusing, mouth agape, to see that this jackass was talking to someone my sister had introduced me to at the previous year's con. The young guy in question was Bob Bledsaw's nephew. It said 'Bledsaw' clear as day on the dude's badge, so I know it was the same guy. Maybe I was just overly sensitive due to my own uncle passing away the year before, but I don't even give a good goddamn if Bledsaw was a fascist, you don't go saying that in casual conversation to his nephew! So there was no way in hell I was giving that fucko any money this year.

I did enjoy two things. As in previous years we bought boffer swords from Gamers for a Cure so that Elizabeth and Cameron could beat the snot out of each other. They had a great time. And I took some homemade copies of Encounter Critical along to leave laying about. One I left on the freebie table. Another I hid under a program booklet laying in the boardgame section. And the third I surreptitiously slipped into the copy of Dungeon Crawl Classics #51: Castle Whiterock that I found in the silent auction. I registered all three copies with bookcrossing.com, so I may eventually discover the identity of whoever found them.