Gencon in Review

I was treated to a short adventure of my own on my way home from Gencon: my return flight was evidently booked for September 16, instead of August 16.  Of course, with a hundred thousand gamers leaving Indianapolis on Sunday, all of the flights out were fully booked.  Fortunately, a ticketing agent for Continental went beyond the call of duty and managed to get me on a flight out on standby.  I regret to say that I didn’t get his name.  I can only say that I was a bit stressed at the time.  Still, I’m very grateful and will definitely keep Continental in mind for next year.  I’ll also keep a certain ticket-brokering website in mind, in a less favorable light.

Enough about me, though.  I’ve got a couple of impressions about the convention to report about.  Some of them might merit further discussion later on, but best to get the bullet points down now, while it’s fresh.

This post is part of August’s RPG Blog Carnival, hosted by Chgowiz.

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One Year of ABD (Plus a little…)

Somehow, I completely missed this, but June 10 was the one-year anniversary of A Butterfly Dreaming.  So rather than the anniversary post I’d had planned, it looks like I’ve got a notice about going on hiatus for a week.  Ha.

In my defense, I had a couple of other things on my mind at the time, like finding transportation so I wouldn’t miss too much work.

Anyway, in belated celebration, I offer a couple of stats:

• A Butterfly Dreaming has 159 published posts to date (not including this one).
• Among these posts, I’ve written 172,102 words.  Or about two novels’ worth.
• That’s an average of about 1,082 words per post.  Apparently I like to talk a lot.
• Four of my five longest posts are reviews:  Dreaming Cities, Martial Power, Arcane Power, and Imperium Chronicles.  The other one is Battlegrounds: Clock Tower.  That’s not counting my 4e Monk project as a post.
• My shortest posts with original content to speak of — excluding status updates, links, and blurbs — are Fox Magic: Arcane Feats and More on Skill Challenges….
• I have no posts exactly 1,082 (or 1,081) words long.  The closest is Myth Direction, at 1,078 words.
• I have 10 partially-completed posts sitting in draft form, the oldest of which dates to Sept. 9, 2008.
• The tags I use most often are:  4e D&D (101), gamemastering (73), and worldbuilding (43).  The categories I use most often are: Philosophy and Rants (29), Original Game Content (27), and Advice (25).  That’s not including sub-categories with their parents, though.  All of my published posts have a category, but some (mostly status updates and holiday wishes) don’t have tags.

Year Two will be continuing presently.  Thanks for reading!

Humor and Gaming Blog Carnival Roundup

The carnival has moved on to Roleplaying Pro, where this month’s topic is “The Future of Roleplaying.”  April’s carnival on Humor and Gaming produced quite a few posts, though, so let’s get to them:

Here at A Butterfly Dreaming, I presented the pun-laden Grape Jelly monster, and also discussed how such humorous stuff might be used in an actual game.

An Undisciplined Oaf Quartet discusses useful shortcuts for comedic roleplaying:  powered by tropes.

Viriatha of Bard of Valiant offers some easy notebook projects… with a bit of bite.  Don’t ask to borrow a pen.

Having the right quip at the right time is pretty important for comedy, and Campaign Mastery talks about how different forms of comedy can be used in a game, and how to do so effectively.

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Last Week for the Carnival

Just a reminder that this month’s RPG Blog Carnival, on the subject of Humor and Gaming, will close at the end of the week (May 2).  Please try to link your articles by then.  The wrapup will occur some time next week.

Reminder: Contest Closing Today

Today is the final day to enter to win a copy of the Open Game Table Anthology.  Give me feedback, get entered, easy as that.