| 12/14/2001 — I started the Chatter section on July 27, 2000 when I noticed that the rest of my site was sometimes getting cluttered with lots of text. I'm a talkative guy, after all! So now I talk about my life here, instead of all over the place. Originally this was one huge section, but in December of 2001 it simply became too large to remain as one page, and I broke it into dated sections, as you can see. —>PM |
January 20, 2003—
Arisia went surprisingly well; I didn't get to do anywhere near as much as I did in the old days, but on the other hand of the three panels I did two turned out to be outstanding (oddly enough, the two that I felt least qualified to be on), Sebastian handled the crowds and strange environment very well, and all in all it was a really good weekend. Here are some pictures, more details to come soon!
|
Sebastian as Frodo; well, sort of. This was made by Teri from a generic fantasy outfit pattern, and it came out really nicely, I think. Certainly he got a lot of attention in it. Of course, it was much too big; Teri sized down the top as best she could, but even so it kept falling off one shoulder, or his arm would pull out of the sleeve. I'm just sorry I have to blank out his face! |
| The mezzanine level of the hotel. This was the floor with the dealer's room (as opposed to dealer's row, which was a full floor of the hotel. The art show, game room, and (I think) video room were also on this level. | |
|
One of many flyer racks on the mezz level put out by a guy you may have heard of; I believe he's well-known in fandom, Filthy Pierre. The red circle marks the Pete's RQ flyer. Inevitably it was moved by some asshole from the prominent first-row position I'd placed it in. The photo doesn't do it justice, though; it was full-color and the heading was a cool blue ice effect. Still, not that many got picked up I am sorry to say. I'll place a PDF version on the site soon. Incidentally, the flyer this year was different in two ways: it listed the URL as http://www.runequest.org/rq.htm (which works as well as the maranci.net one), and I added a full back side as well of chaotic features, magic items, and found items. Haven't heard anything from anyone yet, but sometime maybe... |
| One of the great chandeliers at the Boston Park Plaza; this photo was taken from the lobby level. You can see a bit of the mezz level in the lower left corner. I should have taken more pictures. | |
|
Directly beneath that chandelier is the entrance to the Swan's Court, which is a nice place for a snack at the con until 2AM, and a pretty great place for a breakfast buffet. Not quite as great as the old Cafe Rouge which used to be located in a different corner of the hotel, but that has been gone for many years now. Still, it could be worse; there were some years in which the hotel had virtually no food at all! |
| Another picture taken from the lobby level, a little closer to the door; that's Teri holding Sebastian in the front. | |
|
The view straight down from our hotel window. We were on the 15th floor; it was a hell of a view. The sunrises were amazing. We could just see the ocean in the distance... |
| Late at night on the...fourth floor, I believe. Racks like this are all over the hotel during the con. Not the most exciting picture, but what can I say? Next time I'll take more. And I plan to write more about the con soon, probably in a new edition of Chatter. | |
There's news, much of it disturbing, on the RuneQuest front from the RQ-Rules Digest; Steve Perrin is the source. Here's the story:
Issaries and Chaosium are totally separate companies; Greg Stafford no longer has anything to do with Chaosium. However, Issaries is in the process of gaining the rights to RuneQuest (the name, not the system), which apparently Hasbro allowed to lapse—intentionally or not I don't know (but I'd bet they just didn't care and weren't aware of it).
Issaries may use the RuneQuest name for one of their products, which will, apparently, have NOTHING to do with the RuneQuest game.
Obviously I'm pretty concerned. Pete's RQ & Roleplaying! supports the classic roleplaying game RuneQuest, not some Hero Wars product. So far I pretty strongly dislike Hero Wars, and have no interest in playing it. But having some fake "RuneQuest" product out there could certainly lead to confusion. Although realistically if it's linked to the Hero Wars system I don't imagine many people will be buying or playing it. Hero Wars players seem to be far too insular and elitist to allow the game to gain much popularity, not to mention that Glorantha is now so complex as to scare off any but the bravest of new players.
On a related note, apparently Chaosium plans to make the Basic Role-Playing (BRP) system on which RQ is based a generic system for many worlds; which I suspect is basically the GURPS concept. Oddly enough I begged Chaosium to do this in an old zine many years ago. By now it may be too late, although obviously I hope not. Time will tell.
I guess I should mention here that to my amazement, I recently found a copy of the original humorous version of the Bar Wars article that later became the Party Origins piece. Both versions are available in the Alternate Rules & Articles section.
|
 |
 |
[email protected] Copyright 2003 by Peter Maranci. Revised: January 31, 2003. version 1.1
