At long last, our 2010 edition of Roleplaying Therapy for the Severely Disturbed (formerly Out of the Box Roleplaying) is available for your online viewing pleasure.

The premise is that the characters are all adventurers with various mental disorders or strange personality flaws and that they arrive at an institution for help from Dr. Dante (me).  The panel did not disappoint, they dutifully ignored my plot (so badly that I clumsily had to wrap things up at the end of the session) and hijinks ensued.  I enjoy getting the opportunity to bring this particular brand of crazy to GenCon each year.

Our intrepid panel this year consisted of: Dave The Game, Bartoneus, Chris Sims, and Phil The Chatty DM from Critical Hits, Graham from Critical Ankle Bites, Micah from Obsidian Portal, e from Geek’s Dream Girl, and everybody’s favorite switch-hitter Vanir from StupidRanger / Critical Hits.

Everyone was throwing the heat this year… there was an amnesiac that swore she was married to someone on the panel, severe multiple personality disorder, a minotaur supremacist, a patient dead set against authority, a shardmind that went to pieces collecting different phobias, a puppetmaster, and a maniac that needed to be in the spotlight and climb the walls.  Literally.  Vanir rounded out our motley crew by reprising his role as Black Rainbow, a dangerously insane overweight druid that hates plants.  He ended up anger-humping melons.  Yes, you read that correctly.  I think we’re going to go with less character sheets and less plot and more semi-structured craziness, that seems to be where it ends up anyway!

Thanks to the panel, and thanks to the great crowd for putting up with our filthy brand of insanity.  Also thanks to Carson from Role-Playing Discussions, who annually presents the Carson F. Ball Worst Pun of the Year award.  He’s a force of nature when it comes to terrible puns, so he knows his stuff.

Anyway, the event was great fun and we’re looking forward to it next year!!

Today marks the third blogoversary for stupidranger.com.  And to celebrate, I decided to share the photos from this year’s Gencon.   The years have been fun, and we’re looking forward to more fun to come.

Enjoy the pictures, and we’ll have more fun to share soon!

After that, it was time for our event: Roleplaying for the Severely Disturbed.

The Panel At Large for 2010:
Dave the Game, Bartoneus, Phil, and Chris from Critical Hits
Vanir, from here and Dire Flailings at Critical Hits
e from GeeksDreamGirl
Micah from Obsidian Portal
Graham from Critical Ankle Bites

As with these sessions in the past, things went quickly “off the rails” and much fun was had by all. There were so many great quotes I can’t even begin to recount them all, but I think my favorite was Phil, the Chatty DM matter-of-factly informing us not to worry and two minotaurs making love were just “stuck in a rut.” Most uncomfortable moment was e claiming that my character was her long forgotten husband, it was one of those “blushing like crazy” moments.

What I love about this game is how it comes together relatively quickly, the plot was hardly followed, and it was a riot. Just goes to show that the “say yes to your players” method of running a roleplaying game pays off. Does your minotaur want to construct a maze out of bookshelves and desks and drop a deuce in the middle? Why yes, of course he can!

I have more to say on this topic but it will have to wait until I have a proper keyboard.

Suffice it to say much fun was had by all. Thanks to all that participated!

More tomorrow!

Out of the Box Roleplaying – Gencon 2009 (Panel from left to right: Dante, Vanir, Bartoneus, Yax, Dave the Game, e and Chgowiz)

As if Gencon weren’t crazy enough, we’re adding our own special brand of insanity to the mix. Returning for its third year, but with a sparkly new name, we will be showcasing unconventional roleplaying at its finest.

Game ID: SEM1013931

Title: Roleplaying Therapy For The Severely Disturbed with StupidRanger.com

Description: Can the RPG bloggers beat the DM’s dungeon? Will they try and make the DM’s head explode in the process? Will there be EL Fudge? Come find out the answers to these questions and more at this live play session, with plenty of audience participation and prizes awarded.

This year’s panel of guests (TBA later this month) will be entertaining you with their demonstration of a rules-light-roleplay-heavy game where absolutely ANYTHING can happen! That said, please be aware that this is not really a family-friendly event; language and content may not be suitable for all audiences. It will be fun, it will be crazy, and there will be audience prizes!

Last year’s session, recorded by the fine folks at Pulp Gamer, is available for review here.  And if you want to see more pictures, you can view my Gencon 2009 Flickr set here.

We’re looking forward to seeing you there!

I can scarcely believe it (and almost forgot to post it), but today marks our one year anniversary!

I can remember what I was doing this time last year like it was only yesterday — Dante, the Stupid Ranger, and I were all scrambling to get ready for Gen Con. We’d been working like mad for about 2 weeks trying to get our D&D Crib Shirts in order, I was drawing comics as fast as I could, and our site’s namesake introduced us to the world.

One year later, what have we learned?

• About T-shirts: the ones you make through Cafepress come out beautifully. And cost so much that nobody wants to buy them. Even if you don’t charge anything over cost. Special thanks to those lucky 8 individuals who bought something. And of course, extra special thanks to Yax, our best customer, who was responsible for about half our total sales. You rule, Yax!

  One thing certainly didn’t help our sales: making crib shirts for a lame-duck edition of D&D results in no sales. Matter of fact, I’m relatively certain the three of us are the only ones who bought them. However, I used the hell out of my Bard crib shirt while playing Bat Loaf, so it wasn’t a total waste of time!

  Chalk this one up to understanding what our readership wants, and drawing up reasonable business expectations for one’s blog!

• Webcomics are fun to read, and very time-consuming to draw. So time-consuming that Evensbrook *cough* hasn’t seen the light of day since about Halloween last year.

  Despite this massive obstacle, it is still fun to do and we still consistently get about 20 hits a day looking for comics. I’m going to try and dedouble my efforts this year and see if we can get one out every couple weeks. I even have the next strip written and drawn! Dante’s seen it! I swear!!!!

• We love writing about D&D, especially when we’ve been playing a lot. But we really have no idea what everybody likes. The most seemingly innocuous “oh my god nobody posted last night quick come up with something” posts seem to get tons of comments or Stumbled, and the ones we slaved over for hours perfecting every word get no comments at all. (However, you will never know which was which. Mwahahaha!!!!!)

  We did learn, though, that the very best way to get people to talk about your article is to include them in on the discussion, and to jump in yourself. It is also, unsurprisingly, the most fun for us as authors — so expect more of this!

• R-E-S-U-R-R-E-C-T-I-O-N.
• We’d like to think the three of us are different enough from each other in style that people can instantly tell our articles apart, but we’re actually pretty sure everybody thinks Dante writes everything. That’s OK, when we get our first Internet stalker, it’ll be him they come for. I’ll be safe in the Vanircave.
• There are a seriously large amount of cool people out there. Some of them run blogs, and help you out in your first steps along the way. Big huge thanks to Martin Ralya, formerly of Treasure Tables but now of Gnome Stew, Jonathan Drain from d20 Source for giving us our first big surges of traffic. More thanks go to our good buddy Yax from Dungeon Mastering for allowing us to shack up in his banner ad space for awhile, which got us a bunch more traffic too. And thanks to everybody out there who responded to my copious emails asking for a link exchange.

  Of course, I would be remiss without giving extra special thanks (and administering a heaping helping of mad props to) Yax, Phil the Chatty DM, the crew from Critical Hits and a lot of the other D&D blogs we’ve come to know over the last year for being with us the whole year and forming one of the best damn RPG communities we’ve ever seen on the Intertrons. We’re proud and thrilled to be counted among the numbers of these guys, and we can’t wait to meet them in person this week.

It’s been a great year for us, and we’re excited to see what the next year brings. It’s pretty neat having Gen Con be your site’s unofficial birthday every year. Please come out and help us celebrate at our Out of the Box Roleplaying event on Sunday from 9AM-11AM. It won’t cost you a dime, and rumor has it there will be COOKIES. (Disclaimer: you may have to fight me for them, and I am tenacious.)

As a side note about that cake — Efreak and I made it for Stupid Ranger’s birthday about five years ago when we first started playing together during the Evensbrook campaign. She thought it only fitting that we use it for her namesake. Oddly, if memory serves, the campaign was at right about the place the comic is currently stalled. Weird!

Once again, thanks to everyone — and especially thanks to all of you for reading. We’ve really enjoyed our first year!

• Half D&D, half improv comedy, all fun. Watch your favorite bloggers battle their way through a very rules-light, high-hilarity adventure run by Dante!

• Special guests/victims include Yax from Dungeon Mastering, Phil from Musings of the Chatty DM, and Dave The Game and Bartoneus from Critical Hits.

  Joining our fearless guests at the gaming table will be our very own Stupid Ranger!

• See Vanir roleplay and draw scenes from the game as they happen in a sugar-fueled frenzy! Watch as his heart and brain compete for the right to explode first!
• FREE STUFF including E.L. Fudge cookies for everyone and totally sweet prizes for audience participation!

Here’s the event information!

**PLEASE NOTE**
The event time has switched from 10AM to 9AM and the event will run two full hours until 11am. If you already signed up, you should be receiving an email from Gen Con notifying you of the change.

This is a totally free event, and we’re not going to turn anyone away, ticket or no ticket, until the fire marshal intervenes. And he may have a fight on his hands.

SEM00075Out of the Box Roleplaying with StupidRanger.comSunday, August 179:00AM - 11:00AMEmbassy Suites Consulate

Come join in the fun!

Stupidranger.com is pleased to announce our first (and hopefully annual) Gen Con event!

-= Out of the Box Roleplaying =-

See your favorite D&D bloggers fight for survival (and your amusement) in a very special game! Rules-light and fun-heavy, the unsuspecting, hapless, brave adventurers will face a threat unlike any the world has ever seen: a DM driven to madness by E.L Fudge Cookies.

If you’ve ever been to Hickman’s Killer Breakfast, you’ll appreciate just how hard we tried to completely rip off their format (which is 100% proven to be an incredibly entertaining event!). However, we won’t have anywhere near enough people or space to kill dozens of people at the DM’s whim, and we don’t have the kind of star power Tracy Hickman does. And I won’t be singing. I can’t promise Dante won’t. Especially not a song about the undead to Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On”. Once he reads this, you may also be treated to Vanir being killed on stage before your very eyes!

Featured guests include:

• Dave The Game from Critical Hits
• Phil the Chatty DM from Musings of the Chatty DM
• Yax from Dungeonmastering
• Other Mystery Guests! (The ones Vanir forgot to Email before Now!)

And now, the moment you have all been waiting for: REGISTRATION INFORMATION!

** PLEASE NOTE THE NEW AND IMPROVED TWO HOUR TIME SLOT! **
** THE EVENT NOW STARTS ONE HOUR EARLIER, AT 9AM!!! **

SEM00075Out of the Box Roleplaying with StupidRanger.comSunday, August 179:00AM - 11:00AMEmbassy Suites Consulate

There is no cost for this event, and there are Lots of seats available. Come out, meet lots of cool people, and have some fun with us!