I Am Proud of Myself
I want to take a moment to talk about two things I’m working on at the moment. TTRPG Pickup Con VII and a collaboration with fellow YouTube channel, BadAstra.
TTRPG Pickup Con has been going on since mid last year when I first put together an event that was as close as I could get to the glut of gaming events I loved from my college’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Association (BSFFA). It is part endurance gaming ( we called it Dairyland and it was amazing ) and part organized game clearing house. The idea being that people who want to run games always have trouble getting the group together to try something new. Heck, it’s a challenge to get a regular group together on an ongoing basis. Furthermore, there are always plenty of people who want to play but don’t know anyone to run a game or maybe the specific game they want to try. This event hopes to solve that.
I first put this thing together before branding myself, building my own website and producing content from here. So, it had its own website and everything. Well, this month I’ve brought it into the fold, as it were. TTRPG Pickup Con is now produced by The Indecisionist. What does that mean? It means I moved the website and domain over to this website. This website is the place to go for the Dungeon Barkeep, my VO reels, my photography and now TTRPG Pickup Con.
This event has attracted almost 140 players and 20 game runners since its inception. Those are not huge numbers but all those folks have had a chance to meet each other, play games and make new friends. ~160 people making new connections even though there is a pandemic sounds like a victory to me. To make matters even better, I think this one is going to be the best yet. The numbers are already looking good. We have momentum and (as far as I am aware) there aren’t any major conflicts to derail this one.
What was the point of all that? I’m proud is what. I’m proud that people like it. I’m proud that it's still sustainably working with just a little bit of upkeep from me. It’s cool and it can scale 100x before it will become unwieldy to administer. That means I can keep it free for the time being and I don’t have to worry about getting sponsors (though I’m open to them) or setting up a transactional ticket situation.
Speaking of pride, I am proud to have been approached by a dear friend for a collaboration between our YouTube Channels! This is my first channel collaboration and it has been so much fun already. I am working with the team over at BadAstra who are making great science educational videos including ones on stellar death and why the sky is blue. You know, easy stuff. Their video essays are delightful, funny and (as a space nerd) really fascinating. They also have some really fun characters to bring disdain for late stage capitalism, art projects, pop culture references and poor choices into the mix. That’s my jam.
I got to design cocktails and a mocktail based around the characters and their tastes as well as one for the channel as a whole. We’ll be releasing them in two live streams and two edited videos. Eris and I will be tasting what space smells like on 1/8 live at 8:00 PM central on the Dungeon Barkeep channel. Astra and I will be talking about PH, combustion reactions and… guava nectar on 1/15 live at 8:00 PM central again on the Dungeon Barkeep channel. Science Tommy will relive his choice to drink glow stick fluid on 1/22 on the BadAstra channel. Finally The BadAstra team are going to put it all together for a supercut to be released on 1/30 again on the BadAstra channel.
Check out the calendar for easy reference of when things are happening and where to find them.
