RELEASE: Wed Feb 25, 2009 8:50 am

To: HMGS East Members, Convention Attendees and Vendors,

SUBJECT: CONVENTION SITE OPTIONS

1. The HMGS East BoD is still discussing all options for Historicon 2010 with the Baltimore Convention Center.

2. Those discussions are addressing the needs of HMGS and all of the member/vendor concerns expressed so far.

3. We will release more when, or if, any decision is made, and expect to do so within the next month.

Respectfully,

HMGS East Board of Directors

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Brett’s Thoughts: Big jump from Lancaster to the Baltimore Convention Center. Hope they are playing it safe.

The second book I have more mixed feelings about, it is The Elfish Gene: Dungeons, Dragons and Growing Up Strange by Mark Barrowcliffe. This books is about overcoming an obsession with Dungeons and Dragons. It is funny at points and painful at points. It mostly reads true, if you have been to a game convention you have seen people who would fit into Mr. Barrowcliffe’s story very easily. My discomfort comes from fact that this will be perceived as the normal D&D experience, and clearly it isn’t.

Most people who played, or play Role Playing games will admit to awkward moments the games have brought on, but almost everyone gets through them and lives pretty normal non-obsessed lives. The Role Playing game is new to society and still widely feared and misunderstood so it is easy to blame obsession on the game, but obsession comes from the obsessie. I have met football obsessies, car obsessies, sex obsessies, political obsessies and many others but there is a a particular scorn society has for the D&D nerd that this book feeds straight into. This scorn causes people to hide their hobby or to be embarrassed by it and that is sad. I have met people who over focused on D&D, but I have also met many more people who used D&D and similar hobbies to bring themselves out of their shells and learn to socialize more normally.

I guess in the end I can’t blame the book for the stereotypes. It is at times a pretty funny read, but I do fear that there will be many who read it who have their view of what Dungeons and Dragons is validated by the book and that is why I left The Elfish Gene feeling much colder than I did when I finished Achtung Schweinehund!. Achtung Schweinehund! didn’t deny the odd nature of the hobby but it dosen’t leave you with the impression that the hobby is all about the odd parts or that hobbiests should all be seeking treatment. I am glad Mr. Barrowcliffe got over his obsession, but I wish he made it plainer that this was his journey, not a required journey.

Sgt Steel lays into a ratzi.

Just some quick thoughts on Fall In 2008. This year was the first Fall In I have been to in a long time and I was impressed with crowd and the variety of games. It is still the smallest of the three HMGS East shows by a good measure, but it seemed much busier than the last time I went six years ago.

I ran two games and had no problems players, all my guys were great which always makes refereeing much more enjoyable. The dealer hall was busy at points, but I heard some dealers say that as the hall is so far from the main gaming hall they see people come through less often. The flea market was very crowded and active. I was amazed at how many people went into the flea market area when it opened on Saturday, it looked a bit like a clown car with a huge line of people disappearing into the room.

New miniatures stuff that caught my eye were some nice stuff from Eureka including a great set of Sgt. Rock/Sgt. Fury knock offs called Sgt. Steel & the Dog Faces of Easy Company which I think any right thinking WW2 gamer should have in their army. I also saw a lot of Wings of War, the newish WW1 airplane miniatures game around, it looks like fun but I resisted for this show as I am trying to lighten up a bit on my toys. The only other great news I picked up was from Falcon Miniatures who told me they were working on some new figures to flesh out their Herero line, this was great news for me as the Falcon line has a bunch of unique models in it and it is great to see even a small expansion of the line.

The only real downer for me was the food. The food at the snack bar wasn’t very good. I can’t really bitch that a snack bar’s pizza is terrible, you just hope for better and live with it when it lives down to the snack bar reputation. The real sin was our meal at the Hotel restaurant, Richards, which had a tiny menu of overpriced food with terrible service making for a must avoid in the future trifecta. At one point one of us had to go into the kitchen to try to find our food and after waiting forever for a round of drinks to turn up we went to the bar to get a round of drinks. To be fair the drinks did turn up after we returned form the bar, but the restaurant wasn’t that crowded, they just seemed to be actively avoiding the customers perhaps worried if they got a good reputation they would have too much business. They have no worries there. We went to the hotel bar afterwards and the staff there were fine, it seems to be just the restaurant that is crap, but I would rate them an avoid at all costs for the future shows.

All in all a very fun show, eat off site, bring stuff to sell at the flea market and enjoy it next year.