HG,WT: For A Few Games More #50

Have Games Will Travel, for a few games more.

This is Ryan Macklin from Master Plan, and you're listening to Have Games Will Travel, for a few games more, with Paul Teves.

Hi, and welcome to Have Games Will Travel, for a few games more.

My name is Paul Teves, and this episode was recorded on Friday, January 1st, 2010.

Well, welcome to the show. Welcome to the ultimate episode of Have Games Will Travel, for a few games more.

I like saying ultimate. It's a lot of fun.

Because this is it. This is the last episode.

I've decided to wrap things up. I've decided it's time for the show to be done.

And I just want to take a few minutes today to talk about that.

So, done. Done is an important thing, I think.

It's time for the show to be done.

You know, one of the things that I do...

On a pretty regular basis, is I re-evaluate the projects that I'm working on, and the commitments that I have.

And just sort of look at, you know, what is it that I'm doing?

Where am I spending my time?

Am I spending time on the things that I need to be spending time on at any given point?

And, you know, I realize that my time is limited, and that I need to focus.

I need to not have too many projects going on at any given time.

I try to limit myself to three, which is actually really hard.

But, you know, one of the things that I've come to realize over the last couple of months,

because this has actually been in the works for a while,

is that this is a project that it's time for it to be done.

It's time for it to wrap up, for some reasons that I'm going to talk about in a few minutes.

But, you know, done is powerful.

Some people have said that done is the engine of more.

That when things are done, that allows you to go out and to do different and other things.

And that's really true.

You know, I really believe in the whole idea of inspecting and adapting.

You know, looking at where you're at and what you're doing,

and when things are done is a really good time to do that.

You know, I really hate leaving loose ends.

I know that this show has been sort of limping along for the last couple of months,

really as a reflection of some things I'm going to talk about in a minute.

And I just wanted to wrap it up, you know, and say, hey, you know, this is it.

We're going to be done.

I'm not going to leave.

We're going to leave people hanging so people know sort of what the state of things is.

And this is something that has been in the works for a while.

I definitely needed to finish A Penny for My Thoughts before I could be done with the show.

And once that wrapped up, then it was sort of going, okay.

Once that came out, I was sort of looking at what I had left that I still really wanted to talk about

and where I wanted to get to.

But that's really sort of the turning point for when I decided that it needed to be done.

So.

So why do I need to be done with the show?

Well, you know, first of all, I'm running out of room in the wine cellar, which is where I record.

And I need more room.

So the podcasting equipment has to come out.

I'm kidding.

I mean, I'm not kidding that I'm running out of room in the wine cellar.

But I am kidding that that's why I'm ending the show.

You know, really, I started doing this show and really started podcasting back in the summer of 2006,

which was four and a half years ago.

You know,

that's that's longer than I was in college.

In that time, a lot of things have changed.

You know, just look at I have I've moved twice and I've bought a house in that period of time.

But I'm really in a very different place than I was back then.

You know, I I was really diving headfirst into the hobby back in 2006,

going to a ton of conventions, playing a ton of games and really trying to work out what my relationships,

what my relationship to the hobby and to the industry was going to be.

And I think a lot of that was motivated by the fact that I was deeply unhappy with my job and where I was at professionally.

And I think I was really looking at at the hobby and in the industry as a as a way to get away from that.

You know, I think I was really trying to see if this was something that I could that I could do professionally,

you know, that maybe I'd move into the hobby games industry as a professional.

And, you know, a lot, as I said, a lot has changed in the last four and a half years.

You know, I'm in a different job now that I'm a lot happier in.

And I've realized sort of where my real skills and talents lie.

And I understand myself in the industry a lot better.

And I know that that, you know, I'm not going to be a professional in the gaming industry.

And I'm fine with that. Definitely a process of discovery there.

And I understand my relationship to the hobby and to the industry a lot better.

And as a result of that, a lot of the reasons why I started doing the show, you know, aren't aren't as true anymore.

And a lot of the reasons why I was good at doing the show aren't as true anymore.

I'm playing a lot fewer games now than I was just just for comparison.

I checked on my my board game geek plays in 2006 in the first year I was doing the show.

I played two hundred and sixty one board games.

In 2009, this past year, I played eighty five.

So that's, you know, a quarter as many board games.

And of those eighty five, twenty six of them were pandemic and fifteen or twenty six were Dominion and fifteen were pandemic.

So that's two games accounting for for a third of those plays.

You know, and really, as a result of that, I can't really do the sort of show that I used to.

And in a lot of ways, I don't really need to do the sort of show that I used to.

So.

You know, things have changed things when things change.

You sort of have to step back and look and say, all right, you know, can I can I do what I was really good at?

What what made the show really good?

No, I can't really I'm not really in that that place anymore.

And and I'm OK with that.

You know, I was listening this morning to the last ten minutes of Have Games Will Travel number eleven one, which was the the last of the regular format shows.

And I gave some some reasons there as to why what I'd really enjoyed and what why I really thought things needed to change.

And I think those are still pretty true.

If anything, they're truer now.

And so I don't want to repeat a lot of that stuff here.

But but I do think that this retirement will actually stick this time, because, as I said, I'm I'm I can let go now.

I've had a good time doing the show.

I really enjoyed it last episode when I did the.

Review of Mouse Guard, that was a lot of fun to do, because in a lot of ways, that was really pulling together all the stuff that I'd learned about how to do this sort of stuff over the last four and a half years.

And and I was really pleased with the response that I've gotten on that.

And, you know, so I I I think it's time to to to move on because because I have moved on because I'm I'm a different person now.

And and podcasting is different now.

And, you know, I'm I'm I've got.

I've got other things that I want to be, you know, working on.

And and, you know, plus, I don't want to make Ken Haidt a liar.

After after episode eleven hundred and one, he began referring to me as a podcaster emeritus.

And since we wouldn't want to make Ken a liar, I guess I'm just going to have to to adopt that title for real.

So so what's next?

You know what?

What's going on with me?

Where where am I headed now?

Well, you know, I'm still doing stuff in the in the hobby and in the industry.

You know, the.

The big thing is that I am I am now the chairman of the Academy of Adventure, Gaming, Arts and Design, which is people who give out the Origins Awards.

So I'm helping to run that process.

I took over that in October.

And that's that's been a real learning experience.

But it's really great for me because I get to combine a lot of stuff that I have learned in my professional experience and and apply that in the realm of hobby games.

And and in in an area that I'm really passionate about.

So that's that's a fascinating experience.

But, you know, it's taking up it's going to take up a fair bit of my time.

And that's one thing that I sort of needed to, you know, to give some priority to.

I'm also doing some maybe doing some some more game design going forward.

You know, I've been working on this this game system for my group to play Delta Green with that.

I talked with some folks at Rincon about and a lot of people were really.

Really intrigued by the things that I was saying.

So that may be something that I continue to develop going forward.

I don't really know, you know, and and I've been thinking about dabbling a little bit in board game design, but none of those are set in stone.

I'm not necessarily going to be doing any of those things, but but we'll see.

You know, there are there are potential projects that are on my list of things to think about every so often when when time opens up, when when a slot opens up in my schedule.

I'm going to look at those and say, all right, this is what I would need to be doing now.

OK, you know.

But but there's a lot of stuff outside of gaming that that I've started to get involved with and that I'm really enjoying.

As I said, I really love my job now and I'm getting a lot of support from the people that I work with to help me develop my career in the direction that I want to go.

And so I really need to take advantage of that.

I have been and I'm really enjoying it.

And and that's really great.

You know, that's definitely not a place that I was in four and a half years ago when I started doing this.

I've also started doing a bunch of volunteer work with the.

The local chapter, the Red Cross, working in their disaster services division, helping do mass care sheltering.

So as some of you know, we were evacuated from our house last summer during the Jesusita fire here in Santa Barbara.

The house was fine and we were able to get back in in a couple of days.

But that really spurred me to to to step up some some of the volunteer work that I wanted to do.

And so I got involved with the Red Cross then and ended up working a shift at one of the shelters here.

And that's something, again, where I can take the the skills and the experience I've developed and apply it to something that that I'm passionate about and that I really enjoy.

So, you know, that's taking up some of my time.

And, you know, there's just a bunch of little things.

Well, not even little things.

I'm I'm reading Shelby Foote's The Civil War, a narrative right now, which is in three volumes.

It's three thousand pages long.

I've been reading it since October.

And I'm probably going to be reading it until the end of February, beginning of March.

And that's those are the sorts of things that that I need to have the flexibility to be able to to to to do.

And so I'm really enjoying that stuff.

I, you know, I I'm finding ways to mix together all of the things that I really enjoy.

I think before I did a lot of all right, this is the stuff that I that I like.

And this is the stuff that I'm doing because I have to.

This is the stuff that I'm doing in my hobby.

This is.

This is the stuff that I'm doing in my job.

I'm finding a lot more ways to sort of approach things holistically, which is just a lot healthier.

So so I've got a lot.

You know, I've got stuff going on and I'm trying to minimize the the number of things that I'm doing because I really need to focus on them because focus is really powerful.

And the ability to say, all right, this is the thing I'm going to do.

And I have only a handful of things that I'm going to do and really do those things as well as I can.

And that's what I what I need to do right now.

That's something that I've learned.

I've learned over the last couple of years.

So so, yeah, so that's that's the sort of stuff that I'm going to be working on right now.

I wanted to let people know where you can find me and sort of what's going to be going on with the show closing down.

First of all, the the Have Games Will Travel website is going to stay up.

The podcasts are going to continue to be available.

And that stuff's not going anywhere.

That's that's still going to going to going to be there.

So you can still download it, still be available through iTunes.

I'm not planning on taking any of this stuff down.

I definitely want to leave it up because I'm very.

Proud of the work that I've done.

And and I know that that people are continually discovering it and listening to it and having a good time with it.

I am going to be moving the Gameslinger Enterprises website and incorporating that into my personal website, Paul Tevis dot com.

Just because it's I've decided, you know, as I've been looking at things sort of holistically and not trying to separate out all of these different things about my life that I really sort of want.

One place where I can put everything.

So so that stuff's going to move over and get get folded into that, hopefully within the next few days, if I can find time to do it.

I've done some preliminary work on it already, but there'll be a redirect from Gameslinger Enterprises dot com that will just just push you right over.

So you hopefully won't even notice it.

And so if you're interested in in what it is that I'm up to and then things that I'm working on, be sure to check out Paul Tevis dot com.

I have a blog there, which I in.

The last couple of weeks have not been as good at updating as I'd like to be, but but that's where you'll be able to find out more about what I'm doing.

I'm also on Twitter and I am on Facebook and my Twitter stuff gets mirrored onto my Facebook status.

So if you really want to keep track of what it is that I'm doing in terms of, as Robin Laws would put it, cheese sandwich tree and the minutiae there, feel free to follow me on on on Twitter.

Friend me on Facebook, because I actually do use that a lot to keep.

To keep people informed about what's going on with me.

So, you know, that's that's definitely where you can find out things about what I'm doing and what I'm working on.

As always, you can still continue to email me.

The Half Games Will Travel email address is going to continue to still exist.

It's forwarding to my all into my my normal email.

So you can still get to me that way.

And I'm still going to be going to some conventions.

You know, it's not like I'm stopping gaming here.

I'm going to continue to do that.

I'm going to continue to be involved in the hobby.

And in the industry, obviously, I'm going to be at GTS and at Origins as part of my my role as the chair of the Origins Award process this year.

I'm not sure what other conventions I'm going to be at this year.

I don't know if I'm going to be at Gen Con or not.

I really want to make it out to Dreamation.

I really would like to get to some of the cons in L.A.

I'd love to go back to Ring Con this fall.

I just I don't know what my schedule is going to look like in this.

I don't know what my schedule is going to look like in this coming year.

So we'll see.

Again, you can watch any of those other sources of information to find out where it is that I'm I'm actually going to be.

So so that's it, you know, for for how to keep track of me from from here on out, you know, because presumably you find things that I say vaguely interesting, which still still shocks me at times and certainly shocks my wife.

So I think I've talked enough about me.

I talked enough about sort of what's going on here.

I really just wanted to take a moment to say thank you.

Thank you.

I just want to take the opportunity right here at the end to thank people.

And as I said in the last time I retired, you know, I don't want to name too many names here because I will inevitably forget people.

But, you know, I want to thank first of all, I want to thank anybody who's ever been on the show or anybody who's ever sent me a game that I've talked about on the show because you gave me a lot of really great stuff to talk about and put a lot of really neat ideas into my head.

One of the things that I loved about doing the show.

Yeah.

is how much it has exposed me to the different ideas and different parts of gaming

and how it's really made me think about stuff.

And that's been really great.

So absolutely thank you to everybody who's helped me on the content side of things.

I also want to thank everybody who has ever helped me out financially.

Any of the people who've donated to the show,

any of the people who have participated in the ransom back with that experiment,

you know, because that helps and that's really appreciated.

In particular, I really want to thank Scott Stefanski,

who had a subscription up until last week when he apparently discovered that I was ending the show

and has been sort of the only person who's been continuing every month to drop a little bit into my coin jar.

And it's a great vote of confidence.

So thanks, Scott, for doing that.

You know, I really want to thank all of the rest of the gaming podcasting,

community, which has been tremendously cool to be a part of for the last almost five years.

It's it's been really interesting to see that that community emerge and evolve and change.

And that's been a really, really great thing to be a part of.

So many people who have been so supportive and and really fun people that I've met through doing this.

It's it's been been really cool to be to be a part of that.

You know, and and absolutely, I want to thank everybody who's ever listened to this show,

because otherwise I'm just a guy talking to himself in his wine cellar.

When I started out, I wasn't even a guy in his in his wine cellar.

I was a guy in a in in my den talking to myself.

And then I was a guy in the garage.

When I think about all the different places that I've recorded the show, it's kind of funny

and gives you an idea of of how things have changed over time.

But thank you so much for listening to the show.

For people who've given me feedback.

I really appreciate that because because that's that's really why why I did this

and why why I continue to do it, which is really great.

So, you know, just to wrap things up here, I am immensely proud of what it is that I've done

over the last four and a half years.

I've I mean, I've hosted over 200 podcast episodes between the original.

Have games will travel for a few games more.

The voice, the revolution, the the work that Ryan Macklin and I did with this just in from Gen Con.

It's it's been a lot of stuff.

And I somewhat find it difficult to believe that I had that much interesting to talk about.

But but I'm really proud of of the work that I've done and of the the body of work that that I am sort of leaving behind here.

And that's that's really I feel really good about that.

And I appreciate.

I've accomplished things there that I I don't think I ever thought I could have.

Yeah, it's just been it's been a really tremendous experience for me.

You know, I have learned a lot about myself and I've developed a lot of new skills in the process.

And that's been a really, again, a really valuable experience for me.

But but really what I want to leave with is this, you know, that that I if I've helped anyone have more fun in their games,

then I've done what it is that I really wanted the show to do.

And I have a fair amount of evidence from people that I have accomplished that.

And, you know, that's that's the thing that I'm going to miss about doing the show is the opportunity to to to put out more stuff that that helps people have more fun in their games.

I suspect I'll continue to do things like that over on the blog and on Twitter and wherever it is at conventions, wherever you find me.

I think that's what I'm going to continue to be doing.

I'm just not going to be doing it in this format.

I'm not going to be doing it regularly with any sort of any with any sort of expectations or commitments.

I'm just going to I'm going to continue to do what it is that I that I do.

I'm just going to continue to do it in in maybe different ways.

So I've talked about me enough.

Thank you so much.

This has been, as I said, a wonderful, wonderful experience.

So I hope to to talk.

To to you again at some point.

As I said, you can find me all sorts of places on the Internet and and hopefully, you know, maybe we'll meet someday and play a game together.

And that would be pretty awesome.

So until then, take care.

Thanks for listening to Have Games Will Travel for a few games more.

Your feedback is always welcome on the website at havegameswilltravel.net or gameslingerenterprises.com or via email.

Have games will travel at gmail.com.

This podcast is copyright Paul Tevis and is released under Creative Commons attribution, non-commercial, no derivatives, 3.0 license.

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