Not Going to SwanCon

Tags

COVID-19, friends, sf cons, SwanCon

Sadly I have made the decision to not travel to Perth for SwanCon this year. Whilst COVID-19 is mostly under control in Australia, Western Australia tends to be a little more hair triggered on the self quarantine requirements.

Which I’m not objecting to, that’s a reasonable call for Western Australia to make – given that they have the pain of relative isolation, they may as well leverage it for safety now.

But the risk that I might end up in 14 days quarantine on arrival and thereby miss the convention anyway is just too high this year. I’ll wait for the vaccine to be widely deployed before conducting any major interstate travel I think.

So, for those of you who will be attending SwanCon this year, I wish you the best. May you have a safe, healthy, and happy SwanCon, and hopefully I’ll see you next year for what will finally be my 35th SwanCon.

Question of the Post: How many SwanCons have you been to? Would you like to go to more? 

RPGs in the Covid-19 Era: Meditations on Roll20

Tags

COVID-19, games, gaming, Role Playing, RuneQuest, RuneQuest: Canberra, RuneQuest: Perth, RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha

Roll20 Logo

Dealing with COVID-19 has, of necessity, forced me and several other gamesmasters I know to adopt Roll20[1] as an online platform for table-top roleplaying games.

So, having done so for the last couple of months, what are my general thoughts on Roll20, and are those thoughts extendable to other platforms[2]?

Hair as a measure of difficult times

Tags

COVID-19, photography, photos

I have basically maintained the same approach to my hair since the early 90s: wait until I perceived myself as becoming shaggy, go to a barber, get a number 1 all over including the beard. Nice, simple, neat.

Then 2020 happened. And things started getting complicated.

On Conventions and Foundations

Tags

continuum, COVID-19, sf cons, SwanCon

Much as I expected when I was writing my Battening Down the Hatches post, Continuum 16 has now fallen by the wayside*. In these generally trying times for Australian SF conventions I do want to pay tribute to the foundations that support two of my favourite conventions**.

Battening Down the Hatches

Tags

Chaosium, continuum, COVID-19, GammaCon, RuneQuest, RuneQuest: Canberra, SwanCon

As I mentioned recently SwanCon 2020 was cancelled. In line with official advice I have since managed to cancel both my hotel bookings and flights for that trip. Chaosium Con Down Under was the next to go. From there the dominoes have kept falling, and I expect more to come.