That can be a lot for a game master to keep track of. (Reached for this story, Ticketmaster declined to comment on the record.). Even after the economy recovers, advertising alone will never be enough to support it. Artists abruptly stopped touring, forced to postpone their shows to some unspecified later dates. If you haven’t, help us keep our journalism free for everyone by making a financial contribution today, from as little as $3. In my game, for instance, my character had a spell that allowed her to help lost spirits move on to the next life. It’s also incredibly easy to play over video-conferencing software. I’ve currently got nine shows on hold, which amounts to about $500 worth of tickets. Thank you for understanding. Why white supremacy is a cult, according to novelist Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Stay safe, and stay home. Which has left music fans like Jess in a financially uncomfortable, even dire position: They’re out — or even still paying down — all this money for shows they may never get to see, and that cash isn’t coming back to them any time soon. According to a number of artists, the answer is “postpone.” And according to a number of fans, therein lies the problem: Postponing a show adds more unknowns into an already unknowable situation. For one, all of these policies seem to leave the buyers on the hook, their spending money in furlough during a time when they could use it for other things. In my campaign, my fellow players and I created a “Coven of the Hearth,” which meant we were devoted to taking care of other witches who had no place to go in the community we lived in (in this case, present-day Salem, Indiana, a faded Rust Belt town wheezing out a few last breaths). For artists who make money from touring, canceling — and forfeiting months of income — may not be an appealing option. The Great American Witch sounds far headier than it feels when you’re actually playing. America fell in love with Steve Kornacki this week, One Good Thing: HBO’s In Treatment will soothe your shattered nerves, Trump is attempting a coup in plain sight, Democrats capture Georgia US House seat held by Republicans since 1995, The US broke voting records in a pandemic, Joe Biden reacts to his presidential victory: “It’s time for America to unite and to heal”, Trump has rejected media calls of a Joe Biden victory, The Kamala Harris identity debate shows how America still struggles to talk about multiracial people. I open these emails with a twinge of melancholy, forced to reckon with the fact that I have no idea when I’ll be able to go to a packed show again. Grey, who has been nominated for several top RPG design awards for his previous games, built The Great American Witch atop the scaffolding of 2019’s The Great American Novel, which aimed to provide players with a more literary experience than the typical RPG adventure. It’s the perfect game to try out on Halloween, especially if you want to tell a compelling, kinda creepy story about witches living right under the noses of polite society right here in the US of A. The attachments we have to music can leave us with complicated feelings about a postponement. How to check if your ballot was rejected — and possibly fix it if it was. And that is a major pain if you’re a fan, no matter how you shake it. But if you’re a neophyte player, then The Great American Witch is a great gateway RPG. What she doesn’t like is that she’s playing an all-powerful sorcerer — who is nevertheless limited by the rules that D&D imposes upon her. Our work is well-sourced, research-driven, and in-depth. The live music industry shake-ups put everyone involved with these shows in a precarious position. The world is a scary place but we will all figure this out together. As Anelli explained, organizers depend more on the venue to be able to host a show than vice versa. Meanwhile, StubHub doesn’t obligate its sellers to offer refunds at any point. My Chemical Romance hasn’t announced the status of its US tour dates yet, but its international shows have been postponed. If the show is rescheduled — and assuming it’s safe to do so, which is its own complicated question — we’d still want to go, right? Special thanks to a schnockered Heidi Gardner elbowing Bond Girl Chloe Fineman out of the way, yard-drinking hype man Kenan Thompson, and Kate McKinnon as the irrepressible slot machine grandma. It’s the pact that buyers and sellers make to maintain trust. THE JAZZ GUITAR CHORD DICTIONARY (FREE eBOOK) Download now and learn 244 chord shapes! If you have already made a contribution to Vox, thank you. But ticket sellers informing fans to just “wait and see” isn’t plausible for many people right now as the coronavirus rattles the economy. Paging through all these different policies and platform requirements and guidelines and services can make your head spin. The mechanics of both games can be a bit confusing for neophyte game masters: Individual games are split into “chapters” and who has “narrative control” — the players versus the game master — differs based on what type of chapter you’re in. Her company puts on fandom conventions like Broadway Con and Leaky Con, a long-running Harry Potter event. Harris is also the first Black person and first South Asian American person to be elected to the role. My character ended a recent campaign not just having saved the world from a potentially apocalyptic threat but also having come out to her disapproving dad as trans and convinced him to accept her. In a game of The Great American Witch, you and your fellow players (a group of two to six is recommended, but you could play with more people) could form a coven somewhere in America. They provide the seeds of memories I hold dear to me for a long, long time. Though you can play a witch of any gender, all the witches in the game share a goal: to dismantle the white supremacist patriarchy, brick by brick. Good luck! Ticketmaster and Eventbrite are among several outlets that organize ticket sales with artists and venues. And they give me chances to experience music I love in a less lonely, internal way. But fans are also losing out on an experience they were looking forward to and there’s an emotional impact. Here’s what comes next. Said coven could exist anywhere within the country and at any point in time within the country’s history. “Historically, we’ve absorbed the risk when an event is canceled, refunding the buyer before collecting money from the seller,” the spokesperson told Vox, “but at the scale of cancellations we’re seeing due to Covid, that model doesn’t work, which is why we are offering [a 120 percent credit coupon].” StubHub is, in essence, locking buyers’ money into the platform’s ecosystem no matter what happens. We need to talk about the white people who voted for Donald Trump. Saturday Night Live dares to answer a question that, honestly, I haven’t contemplated over all the years of watching Bond flicks: For all the time he spends in casinos, sizing up this arms dealer or that megalomaniac, how does 007 actually make out at the tables? 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We held on to these dates as long as we could and I cannot wait to see all of you in person as soon as I can. An informed public is critical right now. Live music will always be part of our lives. I have a friend who recently started playing Dungeons & Dragons. And eventually, I could do things like flit around the afterlife and recruit the dead into a war against some evil witches. It’s a game where fictional witches possess awe-inspiring power but have to navigate a world full of supernatural and much more mundane horrors. Not bad for one campaign. Eventually, she turned it into an informal portal system that let her escape tricky situations and pop back up where she was needed most. Forfeiting your money to an event that may or may not happen is one frustration. “I messaged Klarna to see if I could defer my monthly payment or pay on my credit card,” Jess said. In Georgia, the deadline to correct your ballot is Friday, November 6. Saturday Night Live has the next two weeks off, then returns March 28 with John Krasinski (The Office, Amazon’s Jack Ryan) hosting. Concerts are places to hang out with friends, ones I don’t get to see much otherwise. Sean Connery, legendary actor known for his role as James Bond, dies at 90 ; Most Read Vox live results: Joe Biden’s path to victory widens Follow live results for … Here is Vic Flick playing the Bond theme live on the Academy event “The Music of Bond: The First 50 Years” in 2012. Jess had to see MCR, and she had to see them from the best seats possible. Get our newsletter in your inbox twice a week. You can help by supporting Vox's explanatory journalism with a financial contribution today. “I’m legitimately embarrassed by the amount of money I poured into this one [My Chemical Romance] show,” Jess said. “That money could have gone towards a new computer that I desperately need. The Great American Witch does, to my mind, present some potential issues with cultural appropriation and sensitivity. “If an event has been postponed, it means the event organizer is still working to determine whether the event will be rescheduled or canceled; in the meantime, your tickets are still valid,” goes Ticketmaster’s policy. Typical reasons for canceling, like a hurricane or a sick drummer, are different from an ongoing global health crisis, however. Vic Flick played a Clifford Essex Paragon Deluxe acoustic guitar with a DeArmond Pickup going through a Vox AC15 amplifier on that recording. What Jess hadn’t prepared for was just how much she’d end up paying for those tickets: around $700, after taxes and fees. And the types of stories the game allows players to tell are so varied that you and your friends could get as darkly political or as frothy and silly as you want. I could talk to the dead, which frequently came in handy (as it did when I needed to turn afterlife gateways into an ad hoc portal system). But the center of the game is about using magic to tear down rotting structures that have hurt many people. Most of the time, you’re thinking of cool spells to try out. DOWNLOAD PDF. Unlike D&D, it has far fewer rules and requires far fewer specialized dice. Short of cancellation, however, it’s difficult for a fan to get a refund for other reasons. It’s why even hardcore music fans like Jess Noé are left with big, frustrated regrets. My Chemical Romance, a band deified by lovers of 2000s emo, hadn’t played live since its breakup in 2013, and there was no promise that the band would play any more shows after the select dates it announced as part of its short 2020 reunion tour. Perhaps appropriately, The Great American Witch also has literary roots, as it’s heavily inspired by the novels of author Kathleen Kaufman, whose stories about powerful witches living at society’s fringes informed the game’s core ideas. She would now be adding $126 to her monthly budget to pay off her MCR tickets. One of them, Billie Eilish, was scheduled for March 20, right around the time New Yorkers were asked to stay at home. With Daniel Craig as last night’s host, this was the perfect chance to find out. “There will only be one refund window offered per show. Where the hell has she been? She dropped all that money on a pair of tickets that, she said, weren’t even the best of the best — all because of Ticketmaster’s notoriously byzantine dynamic pricing system and unpredictable online ticketing queues. In February, this experience was unexpected and frustrating and not ideal. Biden’s lead has been expanding. Artists are now forced to choose: They have to postpone, reschedule, or cancel their shows outright. More than 50,000 shows worldwide have been impacted by the pandemic in some way, according to a StubHub spokesperson, leaving the company to reconsider their usual automatic refunds for cancellations. The cruel reality of her stardom is that Debbie must forever compete with the 2004 debut that made Jimmy Fallon, Amy Poehler, and Lindsay Lohan break character. If you haven’t, help us keep our journalism free for everyone by making a financial contribution today, from as little as $3. Biden will have to overcome a surging pandemic, an economic crisis, and a hostile Republican Party. Dratch parachutes right back into character, but unfortunately, doesn’t win an applause break like the one she got for revealing herself. Joe Biden has won. “If 60 days has passed since a show was postponed and no rescheduled dates have been announced, the 30-day window for refunds will open at that time,” according to the company’s updated Covid-19 refund policy. As soon as dates are finalized, Billie will share the updated schedule and all tickets will be honored accordingly. And when those tickets are secured, whatever channel they came from, fans will post excitedly about it and count down on social media until the day of the show. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Q cooked up some special loaded dice that Bond palmed into the game. Yes, you read that correctly. Be safe pic.twitter.com/poFd9pQGSN. But money is essential and scarce right now for a lot of us.”. The prognosis for Jess’s September show isn’t looking good. Kamala Harris makes history as the first woman to become vice president. These are the faceless capitalists who can make or break your hopes to see your favorite band, in an economic system that also has to factor in venues and artists. For fans, buying concert tickets is serious business. When Jess Noé logged on early one February morning to buy tickets to a highly anticipated My Chemical Romance reunion show, she was prepared to pay up. And that kind of work takes resources. Her trip wasn’t as simple as missing a show — it involved coordinating schedules and flights and hotel stays, bringing together far-flung members of the fandom. Sellers almost always guarantee refunds automatically for cancellations unless explicitly stated otherwise. One Good Thing: It’s witches vs. the patriarchy in this endlessly fun storytelling game. This week, in honor of Halloween, we’re summoning five recommendations involving witches. — might be offensive to some players. It’s why platforms like Eventbrite are actively encouraging organizers to look at options other than refunds to buyers. She likes making up a story with her friends, and she likes getting lost in the world of the game. Venues also have an easier time invoking a force majeure clause to void their contracts than organizers do. “I’ve still got more than eight months until the show itself,” she wrote for the music blog Stars and Scars, where she sometimes contributes, in a post about her ticket-buying experience. As a recent college graduate, Jess chose not to pay upfront but instead in monthly installments Ticketmaster offered through the online financial service Klarna. Sean Connery, James Bond Himself, Dead at 90 Hugh Jackman, Stephen King, and Others Mourn Sean Connery, ‘the Only Bond’ How Ian Fleming’s James Bond Was Born in Jamaica Millions of people rely on Vox to understand how the policy decisions made in Washington, from health care to unemployment to housing, could impact their lives. Regardless, the BTS tour hasn’t been canceled yet, so a refund isn’t on the table. “Now, I’m not sure when I’ll see them again,” she says of her friends. Limiting refunds to a specific window puts the onus on buyers to decide whether or not they have faith in their show being rescheduled and if they’ll be able to attend it when it is. In fact, I’ve been doing just that for several months now, in a recently concluded series of games led by the game’s designer, Christopher Grey. Different types of covens have different focuses. Plus, Rachel Dratch’s signature character makes her first appearance since 2006. One Good Thing is Vox’s recommendations series. The coronavirus pandemic shut down live music. Great American Witch is your perfect Halloween gateway to the world of tabletop RPGs. You can help by supporting Vox's explanatory journalism with a financial contribution today. If, god forbid, that band cancels or has to reschedule due to unforeseen circumstances? “It was a no [for] both.” Klarna’s customer service representatives told Jess that they had zero information on refunds, deferring instead to Ticketmaster before the company was able to help her change her payments. In each edition, we’ll tell you about something from the world of culture that we think you should check out. If the refund window is activated after 60 days, there will not be another window once the new date is set.” (LiveNation did not return a request for comment on this story.). We’ve never needed Deb more than in times like these. “Whether your event is canceled, postponed, or moving online, it’s important to know what options you and your attendees have outside of ticket refunds,” an Eventbrite document about refund alternatives obtained by Vox reads. And we want our favorite artists to be able to stay together long enough to afford to tour again when the chance arises, which requires financial support. The Great American Witch is available in PDF form on DriveThruRPG.com. That’s what’s hitting some of us the hardest. “At least with a postponement [an organizer] can apply that money to the future and hope that the venue’s wish to fill their calendar aligns with your need to have an event.”, An update on Hella Mega North America pic.twitter.com/RPHhP4eE2D, An announcement regarding BTS MAP OF THE SOUL TOUR @bts_bighit https://t.co/wFlgIhcsxm pic.twitter.com/xipRQxKFxU. Now fans just want their money back. The bit ends rather abruptly, but hey, Bond has to win in the end, right? (The Great American Witch also takes pains to differentiate this fictional witchcraft from the actual practice of witchcraft in our reality.). Millions of people rely on Vox to understand how the policy decisions made in Washington, from health care to unemployment to housing, could impact their lives. Although they’ve gained their detractors for tacking on myriad additional fees to the base cost of the tickets, they’re a necessary evil, the toll booth you have to pay in order to pass and keep driving down the highway. All you’ll need are three six-sided dice and somebody ready to guide the story as game master. Those had sunk their hooks in deep, and they weren’t coming out that easily. “With venues, you have to pay a ton in deposits, and unless it’s a center that’s owned by a state or local entity ... the chances of [a venue] returning that money [to organizers] is very slight,” said Melissa Anelli, founder and CEO of Mischief Management. With that said, there are more than enough magical crafts within The Great American Witch to play any number of characters within one’s own rough cultural background. “Until then, I’m paying off my tickets, over $100 a month at a time, praying to find somebody who can take the other one off my hands, figuring out if my ticket insurance can do me any good here, and just hoping to god I still have a good time — or at least $700’s worth of fun.”. Right now, that even includes cancellations. Sign up for the Well, the new tabletop role-playing game The Great American Witch will let her do whatever she wants, limited only by her own imagination. If she’s truly an all-powerful sorcerer, shouldn’t she be able to do whatever she wants? Well, ticket buyers can take heart that they’ll get all of that money back. “Ticketmaster is a historically shady company. When Bond rolls his second seven, he transforms from debonair covert operative to a flyover rube on his first hot streak. I believe they can get away with this because concerts are a luxury, and they don’t see themselves as withholding an essential service. (Yet.). LiveNation, another company that handles ticket sales, has an even more frustrating policy regarding postponed shows. Many contracts between artists and venues also incentivize artists postponing concerts; under many agreements, outright cancellation means the venue does not have to pay the performer. Any possible refund is dependent on what the band, venue, or both ends up doing — whenever they make that decision — and if they simply reschedule, it is again up to them if those who can’t make the new dates will be offered any compensation. The Oscar winner played many … newsletter. Vox 's very first amp, the AC15 (AC1/15 at the time), was an instant success when it launched back in 1958. But only one election analyst group has called the race. But the fact that some crafts in the game draw from folk magic traditions that arose in specific response to structural racism, colonialism, and other forms of oppression — voodoo, magical beliefs among indigenous peoples, etc. I played as someone from the Craft of Hekate, named after the Greek goddess of witchcraft and ghosts. Venues stand to benefit the most from postponements, said one longtime event organizer. The ticketing company has a Covid-19 hub directed at artists that suggests specific alternatives, like asking buyers to donate the cost of their ticket, transfer it to a different event, or accept a gift card in lieu of a refund. Now, prospects were much more limited than they had been pre-Covid-19. Who is Gritty, and why is he Donald Trump’s mortal enemy? The ultimate takeaway remains the same regardless: Refunds are hard to get when your show is postponed. I’ve been getting emails like that one for two months now, all of them with vague promises to see me “soon.” Nobody knows if that’s a promise or just an empty platitude, including the artists themselves. BTS’s tour promoter, Big Hit Entertainment, said it will honor Laura’s ticket for a future BTS show — but who’s to say when that will even be? No promises of an end date came with those shutdowns, or if they did, they were pushed back later and later. But potentially refunding tickets for 50,000 different shows also presents a financial burden for ticket sellers, event organizers, and, in a huge way, venues. Even after the economy recovers, advertising alone will never be enough to support it. The live music industry shake-ups put everyone involved with these shows in a precarious position. It’s complicated. The novel coronavirus pandemic has tossed all status quo to the wind. During the coronavirus pandemic, when concerts are being rescheduled or postponed left and right, Ticketmaster and other ticket sellers have refused to budge. He was suave, he was sexy, and he was a Scotsman to his core. With Daniel Craig hosting, you knew there’d be a Bond skit on Saturday Night Live’s March 7 show. Jess pivoted away from what felt like a futile search and instead, like more than 33 million Americans nationwide, subjected herself to the whims of a suddenly overwhelmed unemployment office. They’ll scroll through StubHub, a third-party platform where ticket holders can resell their own tickets, to buy second-hand tickets for concerts that sold out too quickly through official means. Laura also doesn’t know when she’ll see her $375 back. An informed public is critical right now. a highly anticipated My Chemical Romance reunion show, buying concert tickets is serious business, touring artists home early and grounded those preparing to head out. But those MCR ticket payments? Bars and theaters and concert venues are shut down, which sent touring artists home early and grounded those preparing to head out. Buying concert tickets is also serious business for the companies that sell them, to the tune of $8 billion in annual profits. Hollywood's first James Bond, Sean Connery, has died at the age of 90. When it comes to event planning, there’s money entangled among several stakeholders, making it a priority for promoters and artists to maintain their agreement and minimize their potential losses in any way possible. I would rather play a game that acknowledges a diversity of magical traditions and asks players to engage with it than play a game that doesn’t, but your mileage may vary. They’ll seek out presale codes, or sit refreshing the purchasing page the hour before tickets go on sale to make sure they get good seats — or even tickets at all. Individual witches within your coven can subscribe to various “crafts,” attributed to various goddesses from antiquity. If you have already made a contribution to Vox, thank you. At least she still had the show to look forward to in September. (On April 6, StubHub was reportedly hit with a class action lawsuit over this policy, with defendants arguing that buyers deserve refunds, but the company has yet to comment.). The company has made its stance pretty clear: No cancellation, no refund. Laura, a college student who had tickets to see BTS on the West Coast leg of the K-pop superstars’ American tour this spring, says she’d planned to meet up with friends at the LA concert. In a “menace” chapter, the enemies are at hand, and the game master has substantial narrative control; in a “montage” chapter, each player narrates a short scene that reveals what their character is up to, and the game master has almost no narrative control. Meanwhile, the economy took a huge hit as business-as-usual stopped being so usual, or even stopped being business. Also last night, Rachel Dratch reprised her transcendent Debbie Downer role for the first time in 14 years. The process of focusing The Great American Novel to make it just about witches has helped sharpen an already-strong game experience. With how unpredictable everything is right now, who’s to say what the best option is? And that kind of work takes resources. I’m one of those people who finds live music to be energizing and exciting — it’s a huge part of my life. Social distancing and face masks — none of those recommended measures to minimize the virus’s health risks really jibe with live performances. The Great American Witch has serious intentions but lots of flexibility, which makes it my very favorite sort of RPG — one that lets you tell grand stories about impossible situations that, nevertheless, reflect concerns we might have here in the real world. Our work is well-sourced, research-driven, and in-depth. The health and safety of my fans, team, cast and crew is the most important thing for me. With that iconic bright Vox tone in a small, all-valve amp the AC15 is a versatile workhorse amp. Postponing instead could allow them a financial safety cushion, as refund policies become more and more tangled during the pandemic. Jess had been job hunting since December without much luck. I played a trans woman who can talk to ghosts because I’m nothing if not imaginative. All my concerts were postponed by the coronavirus, so why can’t I get a refund? As the media picks apart the voting trends of people of color, it must not ignore the big constant. (It’s known as a safe haven for scalpers.) But the game also allows for quick one-off stories if you just want to get up to some witchy shenanigans. (No, I can’t actually talk to ghosts.) But Billie Eilish’s tour wasn’t actually postponed until last week, when a sad email reminder popped up in my inbox. Cash was even more of a luxury than before, and now was the time to prune any extraneous bills and costs. I could invest in a better computer than my 2012 MacBook, which would open up video editing opportunities for me that I can’t take advantage of right now. (Kaufman also consulted on the game.). Grey has made a great effort to incorporate witchcraft traditions from around the world, and he’s hired sensitivity readers to make sure the material in each playbook is as well-researched and factual as it can be while still offering some cool, fun stuff to do. Jess doesn’t plan to press her luck with Ticketmaster. The game provides you with nine different suggested spells, but a little lateral thinking will help you figure out how to expand those spells in many more directions. Why networks haven’t yet called Pennsylvania for Biden. Hopefully when it returns, whenever it returns, we’ll still be able to afford it — and won’t still be waiting on our money back. All you have to know how to do is roll dice. Like The Great American Novel, The Great American Witch is built for campaigns, which span several gameplay sessions and will let newbie RPG players learn what can be so addictive about the hobby.