This year at Gen Con myself and fellow gnomes Kurt “Telas” Schneider and Phil “DNAPhil” Vecchione will be hosting seminars at Gen Con. I will also be GMing a few Fudge games as well at the con this year. With Gen Con event registration beginning tomorrow here is a list of events for all of you readers attending Gen Con 2009 in case you were interested in meeting some of us gnomes in person. We are all certainly looking forward to meeting as many of you as we can!

Seminars (In Chronological Order)

Title Event ID Date Time Gnome(s)
Fudge: An RPG for Storytelling SEM0900411 8/13 10-11am Patrick Benson
Improvising: The GM’s Backup Plan SEM0900412 8/14 10-11am Patrick Benson
All Grown Up and Still Gaming SEM0900278 8/15 9-11am Phil Vecchione, Kurt Schneider, Patrick Benson, and friend of the Gnomes Vicki Potter.
The Game Charter: Creating Common Ground for Your Gaming Group SEM0900230 8/15 12-2pm Kurt Schneider, and Patrick Benson.

Seminar Descriptions

Fudge: An RPG for Storytelling – Back from last year! Learn how one GM uses the Fudge system to run games with a subjective approach to the game mechanics. Fudge uses adjectives instead of numbers, so you determine how a dice roll enhances the game instead of crunching numbers behind a GM’s screen. Plus Fudge is a great system to introduce new players to RPGs with. Best of all, with Fudge you design the game yourself! Any genre, setting, or time period can be played using Fudge.

Improvising: The GM’s Backup Plan – Back from last year! As a GM we’ve all been there. Your players do something completely unexpected that makes all of your prep work useless! What’s a GM to do? Improvise! Learn how you can save your adventure with a few behind the scenes adjustments and keep the action rolling at the gaming table. The secret? Improvisation is always planned in advance. Putting his money where his mouth is, your presenter will improvise this seminar on the spot!

All Grown Up and Still Gaming – Is there room in life for gaming when you’ve got a spouse, a career and children? You bet your sweet dice there is! Join a panel of seasoned gamers from Gnome Stew and the Masters of GM-Fu to discuss how to balance real life and your imagination. Topics include: gamers with careers, gamers with (gasp!) offspring, and non-gaming spouses. Come seeking advice, or with experiences to share.

The Game Charter: Creating Common Ground for Your Gaming Group – Is your gaming group all on the same page? Or does everyone seem to be playing their own game? Come learn about the Game Charter, a great tool to help ensure that your group is having fun. A good Game Charter will preemptively deal with many of the common problems that gaming groups may encounter. We will explain what the Game Charter is, how it differs from a Social Contract, and how to create one for your group.

My Fudge Games

The Fudge Mixer – The game starts with each player rolling a d6 to determine various aspects of the game such as genre, setting, villain, and other details. The provided characters will then be tweaked to match the randomly determined game, and then the highly flexible and versatile Fudge game system will take care of the rest as the players and the Game Master venture into the unknown! If you like fun, fast, and loose playing styles then this is the game for you!

I’ll be running this event four times this year.

  • Thu 2:00 pm – 6:00 pm (RPG0900376)
  • Fri 2:00 pm – 6:00 pm (RPG0900377)
  • Sat 2:00 pm – 6:00 pm (RPG0900379)
  • Sun noon – 4:00 pm (RPG0900386)

Happen to be running your own event at Gen Con? Please post a comment with the details so that other Gnome Stew readers know about it! And for those of you who will not be attending Gen Con feel free to let us know about your events at other conventions too!