My Fantasy RPG World, Feedback and Ideas appreciated

I just got back from the Origins Convention in Columbus, Ohio. I had a nice long sleep in my own bed, not a hotel. Tomorrow it's back to work.

I haven't been on a real vacation in a very long time. I spent a lot of time and money on this, but it was very very much worth it.

I learned a lot. Next year will be even better.

I am a champion class procrastinator, and I am the sort of person that cannot be simply told, "the stove is hot, don't touch it". I have to at least hover my hand near the stove once to feel it's warmth.

It is counter intuitive, but for an event like Origins, it helps a lot to pre-plan stuff. I didn't pre-plan much. I had still fun. But I faced several inconveniences. It was harder to find a hotel than I thought. By dumb luck, I got the last hotel room a 20 minute drive away from the convention center. Next year, I plan to reserve a hotel adjacent to the convention center. Those hotels are quite expensive, but it would save me time and aggravation by being closer to the convention and let me go to more events. Also, I would save a lot of incidental expenses by being closer to the convention.

There were hundreds of events to choose from and I went to many fun and informative events, but I was shut out of some events that I wanted to do by not signing up in advance far enough.

Gen Con is four times bigger than Origins and twice as crazy. It's a month away. I can't get a hotel remotely close at this point. I decided to skip Gen Con in 2025. I need to be more on the ball for 2026 if I want to go to Gen Con.

I also networked with some indy authors and indy RPG creators, so I learned some things.

I also learned that running a game at a convention is a different animal than running a game anywhere else. For Origins 2026, I plan to host an event or at least co-host an event.

Most gaming events at Origins are 2 hours or 4 hours. But that has an asterisk. It's always 1 hour and fifty minutes or three hours and fifty minutes, officially. But someone is going to be ten minutes late, and it will take about ten minutes to get settled and started in most cases. So really, if i want to run a Scarterra demo, I need it to be self-contained in three hours and thirty minutes.

A while ago, I ran a self-contained Scarterra adventure at my local gaming store for a bunch of stranger, about four hours and some change and I thought it felt fast. I need to go a little bit leaner if I want to get in on the convention circuit.

Getting into Gen Con as an exhibitor is really hard and you need to have a network or some name recognition, but it would not be difficult for me to get a slot in Origins 2026. I just need to submit an application two to three months prior.

I can either host an event under my own name and banner. Or I can join a group such as Games on Demand. Games on Demand had several events with 4 to 6 tables, each with a different home brew RPG demo.

 

World Anvil has their 2025 Summer Camp going. They are releasing 40 assorted prompts in batches of 10. And if you write 8 you get a copper badge, 16 a silver, 24 a gold, and 32 a diamond.

I am a completionist so I'm going for diamond. Probably not going for all 40. You only get dubious bragging rights.

Besides the digital badges, every one of the 40 categories has a small prize. Each category has a single judge who can use whatever subjective standards he or she wants. If I win a prize, neat. But the real prize for me is getting more eyeballs on my website.

As of the time of this writing, 20 prompts are revealed, and I have written articles for eight of them. The World Anvil Summer Camp Home page is here. My personal Summer Camp page is here.


I am not going to post all my Summer Camp article links here, but I'm especially proud of my article on priests and priestesses. I put a lot of effort into that because it's a major part of Scarterra's lore.