More on the Dave Arneson Memorial Game Day

As I mentioned previously, I’ll be one of the guest referees at the 3^rd Annual Dave Arneson Memorial Game Day held on October 1^st, 2011 at the Brooklyn Strategist. The day runs from 9 AM to 11 PM, so if you’re in the vicinity, please come down to share in the fun and honor the memory of Dave Arneson. The following kind souls will be providing adventuring opportunities to attendees:

• Tavis Allison will be judging a mini-campaign in which players attempt to rebuild Blackmoor Castle and clear out its dungeons, using the Adventurer Conqueror King system. Tavis is one of the developers for ACKs, and will have a new "Men and Magic"-style player book of its character creation rules.
• Joseph Bloch will be running dungeon expeditions using Adventures Dark & Deep, of which he is the designer. Joseph will have a never-before-seen version of the Bestiary at the Gameday.
• James Carpio will be running demos of the forthcoming Death Race Z. James is the game's designer (as well as one of the Gameday's organizers), and will be contributing works from his company, Chapter 13.
• Luke Crane will be running one of his favorite Shadowrun modules, DNA/DOA, which was written by Dave Arneson. Luke's session will use his long-awaited "Mouse Run" hack of his game Mouse Guard, and he'll bring copies of his new Burning Wheel Gold to sign and contribute.
• Michael Curtis will be refereeing adventures in Stonehell Dungeon using the Labyrinth Lord rules. Michael is the creator of Stonehell and will be signing copies of its Three Castles award nominated first installment, Down Night-Haunted Halls.
• Paul Hughes will be running adventures of the latest edition of Dungeons & Dragons, using the wandering monster charts from the original edition Arneson co-authored. Paul will have these posters of these charts illustrated in his inimitable infographic style, instantly recognizable to fans of his posts at Blog of Holding.
• Jeff LaSala will be running the Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure The Transmuter’s Last Touch he wrote for Goodman Games, which he will specially convert to the latest edition of Dungeons & Dragons as an introduction for new gamers.

In addition, there will be a panel discussion “The World Dave Made: Arneson's Legacy in Modern Culture” featuring:

• Luke Crane is one of the most influential role-playing game designers working today and an outspoken advocate of self-publishing. His participation as panelist and game-master affords a chance to see both theory and practice.
• Brian Droitcour is a staff writer at Rhizome--an organization supporting art that engages emerging technologies based at the New Museum--and a regular contributor to Artforum. He is currently organizing an exhibition titled “Big Reality” that takes role-playing games as a starting point for considering how consumer technologies have integrated fantasy and play in everyday life. He will offer some thoughts on the place of role-playing games in contemporary culture, and examples of how it is reflected in the work of some artists.
• David Ewalt is a senior editor at Forbes Magazine, where he reports on the game industry, and is writing a book about Dungeons & Dragons, which will be published by Scribner. David will be sharing insights from his interviews with people in all walks of life who were influenced by roleplaying games.
• Nicholas Fortugno teaches the Game Design and Interactive Narrative program at Parsons New School for Design and is the co-founder of the NYC game design studio Playmatics LLC. Nicholas will be talking about why learning to play Dungeons & Dragons was simply the most influential element of my childhood and has profoundly shaped his career, his identity, and his life.
• Ethan Gilsdorf is the author of the award-winning book Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms, his travel memoir investigation into fantasy and gaming subcultures. He also blogs for wired.com’s Geek Dad, and writes about movies, books, and pop and geek culture for Salon.com, The Boston Globe, and The New York Times.

More information on the panel can be found on here on Facebook.

A Kickstarter effort has been launched to help cover the costs of the Game Day and a suggested $10 donation at the door goes to juvenile diabetes research. Additional information about the event and what’s going down there can be found on Facebook at the Third Annual NYC Dave Arneson Memorial Game Day. We hope to see you there, but if you can't make it, please consider pledging to the Kickstarter effort and be sure to spend Saturday, October 1^st remembering Dave with fun and games amongst family, friends, and even complete strangers.