In Which The Warlock Pays Homage to Rock-Star Facial Hair...

With the spring convention season just about to start, excitement’s already building. WittCon’s less than a week away, and my C2E2 tickets are already on order. FOPCon’s just the week after that, and then…wow.

All of this chaos has been utterly overwhelming, particularly when the Guild has been busy writing new scenarios and revamping old ones as we get ready for these conventions and our first bout of GMing at the Big O. Ebbs, I know, has put in a ton of time building a new Ninja Nuttiness castle, and has commissioned some of the current Guilders for accompanying ninja art.

As such, there’s only one song that fits all this. Thank you, ZZ Top, for expressing in lyrics what I cannot.

“It’s got me under pressure…”

At this point, I literally feel as if there are two meat forks jammed underneath each of my shoulder blades and someone’s just twisting the muscles apart. Pleasant, I know, but I’m the sort of person that doesn’t know the meaning of “de-stress”.

Y’know, you’d think that all of this gaming would be a de-stressor. And really, I do enjoy it to help me relax. But this isn’t gaming. This, my lovely reader, is Event Planning, and it’s another animal all together.

“She’s about all I can handle; it’s too much for my brain…”

Let’s see. Just today, in amongst proctoring the OGT and teaching my freshmen Romeo and Juliet, I:
• E-mailed our good buddy Shane, regarding this year’s Paint-and-Take set-up.
• Contacted El Willy, to make sure all was well for this year’s WEGSing.
• Double checked my monster choices for “Orcs Gone Wild”
• Re-calculated the pricing for customized dice and ribbons for Origins.
• Continued writing the scenario for “Orcs Gone Wild”.
• Got Jules registered as a GM for her Cthulhu scenarios at FOPCon.

And it’s only 10 am (well, when I’m writing this, as I’m staring a sea of blankly-staring sophomores snooze their way through the Science portion)! Holy productivity, Batman!

“She likes cocaine”

Just for the record, WittCon VII is proud to be a substance-free event.

“I’m gonna give her a message. Here’s what I’m gonna say: ‘It’s all over’…”

Lionel may have said it best a few weeks ago. We love when WittCon comes around. The day is a ton of fun—14+ hours of gaming goodness, old friends, and clattering dice. You can’t beat it with a stick. However, the road leading up to it is a mass of blood, sweat, and tears (“Spinning Wheel,” anyone?) that regularly makes life rough. But, when the day is out, and we close the doors of Shouvlin, it’s all worth it. We’re already planning for the next go-round.

In the Play Dirty article that I reviewed last entry, John Wick makes takes an aside, after talking about the downfall of the eponymous Mr. Jefferson Carter:

“Writing those words, those very words reminded me…why I love this industry so much. Why I love role-playing games so much. Because we are the only medium where the Author and the Audience are the same. Where we live the stories we tell as we tell them.
The whole point of mythology is to teach lessons that cannot be communicated any other way. Roleplaying is living myth. We aren’t hearing the heroes’ trials, we are the hero. We aren’t walking in his footsteps, we’re making the footsteps.”

And, y’know what? He’s damned right. We do it for ourselves, because we love it and we want to see more of it. Yeah, she’s got me under pressure. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.