Feel the Horror of the 2013 Gen Con Buzzword

Can the Gen Con buzzword competition survive in a world where former also-ran Kevin Kulp now reigns as defending champion? In 2012 his ruthless use of the term incubate won him the the crown he had so fiendishly slavered for, for so many years.

If this sounds like madness to you, a) it is and b) here’s the recap.

Each year at Gen Con, players of this cruel insider marathon attempt to drop a ridiculous and/or repellent piece of business jargon into conversation in as many contexts as possible. Straightfaced usages score full points. Visible irony warrants a deduction. For extra points, slip it into podcasts, ENnies acceptance speeches, or like circumstances in which an innocent public is subjected to the buzzword’s full horror. Super extra points are awarded for causing some other unfortunate soul to use the word as if it is a thing decent, sane people actually say.

Past buzzwords have included wheelhouse, idea farm, and the verb form of status.

This year we’re not letting you off so easy. The terrifying term of 2013 is eventize, a malformation of the English language in which one proposes to take something and make an event out of it.

Examples of use:

• “When this hits retail, we’re going to eventize the heck out of it.”
• “In 2013, it’s not enough to launch a Kickstarter. You have to eventize your Kickstarter.”
• “We’re working on a way to eventize our errata.”
• “Really, when you think about it, all gaming is a process of micro-scale democratized eventization.”

As suggested by the final example above, derivations of the term will be accepted. It goes without saying, rules lawyers, that the ordinary word event, unadorned and alone, earns you nada. It is a thing a decent person might say.

Report point-scoring activities to me for inclusion in the final tally, to be announced after the show. All judging decisions are final.

An Incomplete List of Congressional Metonyms

As profound students of Restoration comedy one and all, you surely know what a metonym is—a given name for a fictional character that telegraphs his or her personality or role in the story. This may be direct, or simply through euphony. Examples: Charles Surface, Sir Benjamin Backbite, Mr. Gradgrind, Mistress Quickly, Severus Snape.

Sometimes real people have metonymic names. This can come in handy sometimes.

For example, certain members of US Congress have names that an editor might reject as too metonymic if we tried to use them in fiction. I hereby nominate my top ten.

1. Henry Waxman

2. Louise Slaughter

3. Bob Goodlatte

4. Bobby Rush

5. Mac Thornberry

6. Sam Graves

7. Emanuel Cleaver

8. Marcia Fudge

9. Leonard Lance

10. Raul Labrador

Though perhaps not strictly a metonym, an honorable mention must surely go to Dutch Ruppersberger.

How apt these names I leave as a matter for other scholars. Just how creamy and delicious is the legislation of Marcia Fudge?

And the Winner of the 2012 Gen Con Buzzword Contest Is…

Since the inception of the Gen Con Buzzword Contest in 2008, with the infamous wheelhouse, one contestant, despite his hard-charging efforts and intense training, has seemed perpetually relegated to second place. He has been the Susan Lucci, the 2002 Oakland A’s, of Gen Con buzzwordery. Consistently he’s come out hard from the gates, earned an early first place, only to be passed in the stretch by such thoroughbreds as Kenneth Hite and Great Cthulhu himself.

This year, then, with pride and a not inconsiderable sense of relief, the judges declare that Kevin Kulp, the Artist Formerly Known As Pirate Cat, has finally outpaced all comers to win the 2012 event. They salute his determination, his heart, and his cavalier willingness to despoil the trust placed in him as moderator of the Gen Con Keynote address on the future of D&D. He achieved his grim victory by slipping the dread word incubate into his concluding question, before the innocent ears of a packed ballroom and the pixelated eyes of a worldwide streaming audience. Kevin’s brazen act of linguistic vandalism can be heard on YouTube or in the Tome Show podcast’s recording of the event.

Congratulations, Kevin. May your victory lap be as sweet as it was long in coming.

Announcing the Gen Con Buzzword for 2012

We’ve noted what is and isn’t in our collective wheelhouse. We’ve gone out to hoe the old idea farm. Last year we statused each other incessantly. But now another journey to Indianapolis beckons and it’s time to announce this year’s 2012 Gen Con buzzword competition.

Before the word is announced, a recap of the rules for those joining us already in progress. Players attempt to drop this hideous piece of business jargon into conversation in as many contexts as possible. Straightfaced usages score full points. Visible irony earns you a deduction. For extra points, slip it into podcasts, ENnies acceptance speeches, or like circumstances in which an innocent public is subjected to the buzzword’s full horror.

Super extra points are awarded for causing some other unfortunate soul to use the word as if it is a thing decent, sane people actually say.

To count, usages must occur at Gen Con.

With that out of the way, I can now formally announce that this year’s buzzword is incubate. This term of business jargon art takes the ordinary act of creating or developing ideas one hopes to make money from and confers on it a unearned halo of innovation. By likening your business plan to the protection of fragile new life, it conveys a sense of nurturing that couldn’t possibly be exploitative or douchey.

Examples of use:

• “We’re incubating the project a little longer before taking it out to crowdfunding.”
• “I’ll let that incubate a couple days and get back to you.”
• “Let’s really incubate a sense of community on that one.”
• “We don’t just hire talent. We incubate it.”

Report point-scoring activities to me for inclusion in the final tally, to be announced after the show. All judging decisions are final.

Olympian/Cyclopean

When seen as concept drawings or CGI animations, Wenlock and Mandeville, the mascots of the upcoming London Olympics, look merely bizarre. As if they, like the 2012 logo, sprang from an advertising agency in-joke run disastrously out of hand. Or perhaps resulted from a concerted effort to create the most peculiar and unrelatable mascots in sports history. However, now that they're all over the city of London in plush toy form, their Lovecraftian heritage becomes all too apparent. I mean, one of them has a head full of tentacles, for Hastur's sake!

Over the course of Dragonmeet, Ken, Simon, Steve Dempsey and I strove to pin down their exact rugose branch of the Cthulhoid family tree. Finally, over tagine and rosé, we worked it out. Wenlock and Mandeville can only be an advance delegation of the insane flautists who orbit around Azathoth, reflecting back on him in atonal, aural form his limitless madness. In other words, I think we'd better check the alignment of the stars for ominous coincidence with the date of next summer's opening or closing ceremonies. I wasn't placing any credence in this whole Mayan end date business, until I saw at bin full of these fuzzy horrors by the exit to Foyle's bookshop.

Link Round-Up: Bad Job, Caveman Crossbreeding

Here’s a fresh new occupation for the story beat where your hero hits absolute rock bottom.

Neanderthals weren't the only ones our ancient ancestors were getting it on with.

Link Round-Up: Dragons Love Ashen, MJ’s a Mutant

After the hosts wrestle with combat, the house dragon of the 2gms 1mic podcast gives Ashen Stars two wings up.

Impossible Mary Jane pose, mocked by wags.

Link Round-Up: New Policy, Three-Act Cat

In a world of ever-declining standards, sometimes it becomes necessary to draw a line.

And, look, I don’t normally do this. But what can I say? I’m a sucker for a perfect three-act structure:

The Final Status

The judges have received their applications, the juridical process has gone down in all of its behind-the-scenes violence and splendor, and a winner may now be announced in the 2011 Gen Con buzzword competition.

As you'll recall, the object of the exercise was to use status in a verb, as if this is a thing sane men and women actually do. Extra points were awarded for context, audacity, and fake sincerity.

Touts had chosen as their early frontrunner Kevin Kulp, who, in a swashbuckling disregard for the public trust, snuck it into his opening speech at the ENnie awards.

Yet after much debate and soul-searching, the judges have given this year’s prize to a scrappy up-and-comer, that ranker from R’lyeh, Cthulhu himself. While guesting on the This Just In From Gen Con podcast, the purulent incarnation of cosmic indifference mentioned that he’d been statusing Nyarlathotep. In so doing, he scored points for all three of the bonus categories, plus a special prize for wrapping it in a joke that worked outside of the contest.

Accepting on behalf of the winged, octopoid deity will be his public relations handler, Graham Walmsley.

Don’t despair, Kevin. When you’re up against an elder god, it’s always safest to come in second.

London oddsmakers still have Mr. Kulp down as the man to beat in ‘12. I have seen next year's word, and can attest that it is positively bone-chilling in its douchery. The competition will be fierce and without quarter.

Link Round-Up: Gothic Wiki, Cthulhu Dry

Matt Staggs presents Maundbury, an open-sourced gothic horror setting with a Dark Shadows/ Hammer vibe.

Cthulhu makes a hilariously soft-spoken appearance on this episode of “This Just In From Gen Con.” Note the moment in which the dread elder god makes a squamous stealth bid for victory in the buzzword contest.

Gen Con Wrap

Another Gen Con has steamrollered by. Now we the legions of gamers and game designers straggle our way home, heads full of ideas and colons full of chain restaurant food. I'm happy to have seen my various homies and comrades and already looking forward to our next grand convocation.

Sales went smashingly at the Pelgrane booth. The beautiful blue shiny tome that is Ashen Stars flew off the shelves like a crew of freelance interplanetary troubleshooters fleeing a swarm of Class-K entities. We ran out of Mutant City Blues, Skulduggery, and Bookhounds of London. Trail of Cthulhu sold out multiple times, sending chief Pelgranista Simon Rogers scrounging through the hall to round up additional copies from retail partners. A stack of Graham Walmsley’s Stealing Cthulhu also vanished amid the onslaught of the book-snaffling hordes. I'll let Simon crow as loudly as his British reserve will allow him, over on the Pelgrane blog, but let's just say it was a big leap over last year, which itself was hardly chopped liver.

In addition to signing tons of Ashen Stars, I was asked to deface a good many copies of The Worldwound Gambit and Hamlet's Hit Points. With the latter book out for a year, I got to hear readers' responses to it, and found them immensely gratifying.

But enough with the residual glow. It's time to buckle down to the elevation of a victor and the lamentation of the also-rans. I speak of course of the buzzword competition. In previous years judges required self-reporting to occur at the show. Given how busy Gen Con has become, and thus how hard it is to buttonhole any specific person, the judges have now generously ruled that post-convention accounts of one's statusing efforts will be considered before a winner is declared. So please tell your story of buzzword use, preferably in the comments here at the newly inaugurated blogspot HQ.

Considerable panache will be required to topple the clear front-runner, Kevin Kulp, who uttered the dread phrase with utter straightfacedness in his opening speech at the ENnies. Only a nigh imperceptible puff of vapor rising up behind him indicated that a portion of his soul had detached from the rest of him, died, and evaporated.

Can anyone top this chilling act of linguistic vandalism?

A Roleplaying Exercise, In Which You Enter a Tavern

This will be my first Gen Con since discovering that I like beer. Over the past months I have explored various local craft and and international beers here in the fine province of Ontario. While in Madison I enjoyed, thanks to John Kovalic, a quaffing flight of Wisconsin’s finest. Now keens the annual siren call of Indianapolis, with its pungent streets and monolithic chain restaurants. At this point in my beverage journey I have reached various conclusions, such as:

• Mill Street can do no wrong.
• Hockley isn’t chopped liver, either.
• Likewise Blanche de Chambly.
• German beers just aren’t doing it for me. Germany, you will perhaps be granted a later opportunity to defend this sacred cornerstone of your national identity.
• Kingfisher tastes like soap.

On a macro level, it transpires that I like or dislike beers regardless of their category. From lagers to stouts, from cream ales to wheat beers, I dig some and am unimpressed by others.

Okay, a roleplaying exercise. The two of us are in an Indianapolis bar. We might or might not be waiting for a guy in a funny hat to tell us where the dungeon is; that’s immaterial. I am about to buy myself a beer.

Wait, let’s be realistic here.

You are about to buy me a beer, as but partial tribute for my many contributions to the roleplaying form. As either a proud Indianapolan, or a frequent visitor already well acquainted with its finest beers, you wish to impress me with your purchasing prowess.

What beer do you buy me?

Status Me On That

I was thinking this might be one of those Gen Cons where the annual buzzword is allowed to arise spontaneously over the course of the event. Not every year brings us a wheelhouse, after all. And the most praiseworthy four days in gaming are nothing if not about creation in the moment.

However, I have been informed that this laissez-faire attitude will not fly. In this era of social media 3.0 and HTML5, advance notice must be given.

After much deliberation, in which such candidates as toasty and curated were weighed and rejected, I have arrived at a choice. As per the rules of the game, it presses the boundaries of douchy business-speak while maintaining a scintilla of plausibility.

Status (when used as a verb) meaning to update, inform, or establish communications with:

As in:

“Status me on the dinner situation.”

“Text Hal and status him in on this.”

“This will require ongoing statusing.”

“It is crucial to reach out and status our fan base.”

As always, the object is to work the term into conversation, as if this a thing people of good sense actually say. Full points awarded for each straightfaced use of this meaningless pseudo entertainment business jargon as if it actually means something. Points deducted for visible irony.

Extra points will be granted for slipping it into podcasts, public announcements, and the like.

In past years bonus points have been awarded for causing the usage to catch on beyond the game. As that would be awful in this instance, consider this incentive suspended for 2011.