GenCon 2012: Opening Salvo
Many of you have no doubt seen my various Twittering and Facebookings about GenCon over the last few days. The task of putting all of that in context in particularly daunting as the whole weekend is currently amalgamated in my head as a vast mass of AWESOME.
Lets start with Wednesday.
There were two sides to my first GenCon experience; the social side began on Thursday. Of the little group of (mostly) SoCal gamers with whom I was rooming (Morgan, Mike and Mike's friend Mike), I arrived first. I dumped my luggage in my room and took a quick recon of the convention centre, chatted with Trond at GM HQ and attempted to find Bridget. She was at a tapping party for the official GenCon beer, but Trond couldn't recall the location. I found an add for the beer and with the brewery being relatively close to town took a walk out there. That obviously wasn't where the event was, and they were closed, but I got to see some scenic vacant lots and demolished buildings. I returned from the somewhat-humid wilderness to my hotel room where air conditioning was applied. I had been warned that Indy might be humid, wet and generally nasty, so I was pretty pleased when the weather turned out to be mostly good over the weekend. Eventually the rest of the group (Chris, Sam and Andy) assembled for dinner and the Diana Jones award ceremony at a local bar. This is pretty much the grand meeting place for the indie design crowd. I met many cool people who I knew from twitter, forums and their games, but had not yet met in person, as well as many cool people who I had already met at various cons. That party culminated in several gaming luminaries riding a mechanical bull. Pictures will perhaps surface at some point, but I didn't take any.
Morgan gets his Morgan on. (Photo (c)Adam Koebel)
On Thursday, the gaming side crept in. I had been intending to run two of my Games on Demand shifts as four hour games, but as I had misread my diary and thought my 10am slot was on its own, I offered Psi*Run or 3:16. We played Psi-Run. I reduced the number of questions from six to four, but we still ended under time. Unfortunately, I didn't take notes about the PCs and don't remember much about this game.
I had taken Psi*Run and 3:16 as my two hour games and Dungeon World, Monster of the Week and The Sprawl as four hour games, but not wanting to run Psi-Run back to back, and with Gregor Hutton running a game of 3:16 already, I offered Dungeon World. I had the players all pitch dungeons to explore, then fashioned a mash-up of the most evocative ideas while they created characters. Mouse, the halfing thief attempting to join The Syndicate; Dalewyn, the elf bard seeking bestial lore; The Reverend Anvil Stone, curate of the Orthodox Church of Stonk, a martial dwarven cult; Erolwyn, an elven ranger with an owl companion; and Avon, the human wizard engaged in his practical examination in his final year of magic school. These brave souls set out into The Cavern-Maze of Carnage in search of Three-Headed Harpy of Avadoon. They had little trouble with the traps on the entrance or with the goblin followers whose sacrificial ceremony they interrupted, but the Harpy was a sterner challenge, vulnerable only in an open would in her chest, covered by a thick steel plate. Once Erolwyn had bought the beast to ground with a handily stowed net, Dalewyn and Mouse managed to cut two of the straps holding the plate in place and scale the creature's massive body. Dalewyn discovered that the wound was caused by a weapon still lodged in her heart, and driving it deeper, killed her. Unfortunately, the mighty creature crushed him and Mouse in the process; Mouse cut a deal with death to betray the Syndicate she could now afford to join, but Dalewyn perished.
I wandered the exhibit hall for a couple of hours, discovering among other things that Fantasy Flight Games had sold out of the Netrunner re-release in the first four hours five minutes. I also had a decent chat to the distinctively coiffed Adam Jury about Eclipse Phase, Transhuman Space and Story Games; I didn't have luggage space, but that is definitely a series I am going to pick up. When I returned to Games on Demand, I discovered the sizable (if small by GenCon standards) queue of demanding players that was to herald the start of a new session. I had met Paul Riddle, designer of The Regiment, the previous night at the Diana Jones event, so I abandoned my position in the queue in favour of a game of the Regiment in the Embassy Suites with a group that I shall refer to as the Las Cruces clique.
It was Red Dawn but with a group of adults (The Black Feet) against the Chinese invaders in Colorado. I played the Sergeant, Alan Dobb, a cheerful barber with a selection of inspirational moves. We successfully ambushed a convoy but were counterattacked by a Hind attack helicopter which young "Noodles" (Soldier) took down with a ManPAD (rolled a 10+ on Are you Crazy?). Unfortunately, we were ousted from our room by the people who had booked it, and unable to find a suitable table to continue, had noodles for dinner, then hit the bar for the rest of the evening. So, as the first day of gaming drew to a close, I had run two two-hour games and played one. The games were all good, but six hours of gaming seemed like slim pickings...
The ancient Greek word for foreskin and whale fluffers (Photo (c)Adam Koebel)
Lets start with Wednesday.
There were two sides to my first GenCon experience; the social side began on Thursday. Of the little group of (mostly) SoCal gamers with whom I was rooming (Morgan, Mike and Mike's friend Mike), I arrived first. I dumped my luggage in my room and took a quick recon of the convention centre, chatted with Trond at GM HQ and attempted to find Bridget. She was at a tapping party for the official GenCon beer, but Trond couldn't recall the location. I found an add for the beer and with the brewery being relatively close to town took a walk out there. That obviously wasn't where the event was, and they were closed, but I got to see some scenic vacant lots and demolished buildings. I returned from the somewhat-humid wilderness to my hotel room where air conditioning was applied. I had been warned that Indy might be humid, wet and generally nasty, so I was pretty pleased when the weather turned out to be mostly good over the weekend. Eventually the rest of the group (Chris, Sam and Andy) assembled for dinner and the Diana Jones award ceremony at a local bar. This is pretty much the grand meeting place for the indie design crowd. I met many cool people who I knew from twitter, forums and their games, but had not yet met in person, as well as many cool people who I had already met at various cons. That party culminated in several gaming luminaries riding a mechanical bull. Pictures will perhaps surface at some point, but I didn't take any.
Morgan gets his Morgan on. (Photo (c)Adam Koebel)
On Thursday, the gaming side crept in. I had been intending to run two of my Games on Demand shifts as four hour games, but as I had misread my diary and thought my 10am slot was on its own, I offered Psi*Run or 3:16. We played Psi-Run. I reduced the number of questions from six to four, but we still ended under time. Unfortunately, I didn't take notes about the PCs and don't remember much about this game.
I had taken Psi*Run and 3:16 as my two hour games and Dungeon World, Monster of the Week and The Sprawl as four hour games, but not wanting to run Psi-Run back to back, and with Gregor Hutton running a game of 3:16 already, I offered Dungeon World. I had the players all pitch dungeons to explore, then fashioned a mash-up of the most evocative ideas while they created characters. Mouse, the halfing thief attempting to join The Syndicate; Dalewyn, the elf bard seeking bestial lore; The Reverend Anvil Stone, curate of the Orthodox Church of Stonk, a martial dwarven cult; Erolwyn, an elven ranger with an owl companion; and Avon, the human wizard engaged in his practical examination in his final year of magic school. These brave souls set out into The Cavern-Maze of Carnage in search of Three-Headed Harpy of Avadoon. They had little trouble with the traps on the entrance or with the goblin followers whose sacrificial ceremony they interrupted, but the Harpy was a sterner challenge, vulnerable only in an open would in her chest, covered by a thick steel plate. Once Erolwyn had bought the beast to ground with a handily stowed net, Dalewyn and Mouse managed to cut two of the straps holding the plate in place and scale the creature's massive body. Dalewyn discovered that the wound was caused by a weapon still lodged in her heart, and driving it deeper, killed her. Unfortunately, the mighty creature crushed him and Mouse in the process; Mouse cut a deal with death to betray the Syndicate she could now afford to join, but Dalewyn perished.
I wandered the exhibit hall for a couple of hours, discovering among other things that Fantasy Flight Games had sold out of the Netrunner re-release in the first four hours five minutes. I also had a decent chat to the distinctively coiffed Adam Jury about Eclipse Phase, Transhuman Space and Story Games; I didn't have luggage space, but that is definitely a series I am going to pick up. When I returned to Games on Demand, I discovered the sizable (if small by GenCon standards) queue of demanding players that was to herald the start of a new session. I had met Paul Riddle, designer of The Regiment, the previous night at the Diana Jones event, so I abandoned my position in the queue in favour of a game of the Regiment in the Embassy Suites with a group that I shall refer to as the Las Cruces clique.
It was Red Dawn but with a group of adults (The Black Feet) against the Chinese invaders in Colorado. I played the Sergeant, Alan Dobb, a cheerful barber with a selection of inspirational moves. We successfully ambushed a convoy but were counterattacked by a Hind attack helicopter which young "Noodles" (Soldier) took down with a ManPAD (rolled a 10+ on Are you Crazy?). Unfortunately, we were ousted from our room by the people who had booked it, and unable to find a suitable table to continue, had noodles for dinner, then hit the bar for the rest of the evening. So, as the first day of gaming drew to a close, I had run two two-hour games and played one. The games were all good, but six hours of gaming seemed like slim pickings...
The ancient Greek word for foreskin and whale fluffers (Photo (c)Adam Koebel)