I fail at having fun
I try to have fun; I really do. Otherwise I wouldn't have spent an ass-load of money on that stupid game Con (about $80 for my pass and tickets), rented a car ($230), gotten a hotel ($90 a night), driven to fracking Columbus (a tank and a half of gas) when I hate highway driving, spent more than 5 hours in line to get my tickets, and then showed up Thursday morning exhausted but eager. Is it so much to ask that, when I buy the tickets to a game event and am told there will be someone on-hand to actually teach novices the rules that someone actually IS there to do that? I mean, fracking hades, I signed up for nothing but games I hadn't played before on the understanding that I would be able to learn the games from employees of the makers of those games.
But I show up on Thursday and, lo and behold, none of the games being hosted by Mayfair (which was, oh, all but one of the games i registered for) were Rules Taught games. In other words, I was either pissing off other players with my slowness and questions (although, bless them, they were all quite understanding when I explained that I'd been told that novices were okay), or everyone playing that particular game was a novice as well and we had to consult the rules ever 45 seconds as we struggled to muddle through some fracking complex games. Two games in, anything resembling anxiety was gone and replaced with pissed-offness. There were four Mayfair employees staffing a room with over 20 games going at a time. I played a few games there then got fed up and headed over to the Rio Grande Games area where they were playing Carcassone and San Juan. At least there I knew what I was doing and I helped some people learn San Juan when they had some free time before other game sessions. Then I headed over to the Fantasy Flight Games area where I learned Android (space!clue on just about every mind-altering and performance-enhancing drug you can think of) and sat in on a game of Descent and caught a few minutes of Call of Cthulu. My kind of games but man oh man do they run long (4 to 6+ hours) and take some serious brain-power. Easy once you learn them but learning them takes an ass-load of brain power and I doubt I could have done it more than once or twice this weekend before my brain started oozing out my ear. So that was yesterday.
I'm pissed. Every game I was registered for today was a Mayfair Game and, when I went to see if those were Rules Taught games or not, guess what? They weren't. So I wasn't about to spend money on a hotel room for another night on the off chance of some games I knew or any Rules Taught games I might have been interested in still having open seats by Friday. I played 3 or 4 sets of Carcassone and came home. Fucking waste of money I can't really afford to spend and I didn't do one thing I couldn't have done at a local game-shop for free or nearly free. Apparently, the Con experience is lost on me; once the "oh, gee, neat" factor wore off, it was nothing but annoying and frustrating. I'm either missing something or I'm just not wired for that kind of thing. Why do I bother trying new things and going outside my comfort-zone again?
I liked Android, at least, but good luck finding anyone who'd want to play a 3+ hour game with me on a regular enough basis to justify buying it. I also saw a game being demoed that I planned to buy for Heather and Eric but they were sold out on the trade floor so that was a bust, too. On the upside, I got a couple very nice t-shirts (a gorgeous one with a dragon reading and the caption "Book Wyrm", and two that are just black and text with "My fandom is random" and "I don't cheat, I just play by my own rules"). I may also hop on that vendor's site and get a "Cardiff Weevil Retrieval Unit" shirt for myself and Kam. They had a lot of great shirts (including a zombie cat with the caption "I can has brainz?" ) for the geeky set. "Cthulu saves -- in case he gets hungry later" and this sci fi Ven diagram of awesome:
The site's www.offworlddesigns.com/ if anyone's interested. I'll probably pick up more from them when I have a job again (oh, the number of shirts I could have bought with the rental car money alone...). Lots of fun stuff, though, and check out their clearance page if you go. They have some cute kiddie shirts, too ("Evil keeps me young", etc.). Okay, I need to go rest now
*hugs everyone*
But I show up on Thursday and, lo and behold, none of the games being hosted by Mayfair (which was, oh, all but one of the games i registered for) were Rules Taught games. In other words, I was either pissing off other players with my slowness and questions (although, bless them, they were all quite understanding when I explained that I'd been told that novices were okay), or everyone playing that particular game was a novice as well and we had to consult the rules ever 45 seconds as we struggled to muddle through some fracking complex games. Two games in, anything resembling anxiety was gone and replaced with pissed-offness. There were four Mayfair employees staffing a room with over 20 games going at a time. I played a few games there then got fed up and headed over to the Rio Grande Games area where they were playing Carcassone and San Juan. At least there I knew what I was doing and I helped some people learn San Juan when they had some free time before other game sessions. Then I headed over to the Fantasy Flight Games area where I learned Android (space!clue on just about every mind-altering and performance-enhancing drug you can think of) and sat in on a game of Descent and caught a few minutes of Call of Cthulu. My kind of games but man oh man do they run long (4 to 6+ hours) and take some serious brain-power. Easy once you learn them but learning them takes an ass-load of brain power and I doubt I could have done it more than once or twice this weekend before my brain started oozing out my ear. So that was yesterday.
I'm pissed. Every game I was registered for today was a Mayfair Game and, when I went to see if those were Rules Taught games or not, guess what? They weren't. So I wasn't about to spend money on a hotel room for another night on the off chance of some games I knew or any Rules Taught games I might have been interested in still having open seats by Friday. I played 3 or 4 sets of Carcassone and came home. Fucking waste of money I can't really afford to spend and I didn't do one thing I couldn't have done at a local game-shop for free or nearly free. Apparently, the Con experience is lost on me; once the "oh, gee, neat" factor wore off, it was nothing but annoying and frustrating. I'm either missing something or I'm just not wired for that kind of thing. Why do I bother trying new things and going outside my comfort-zone again?
I liked Android, at least, but good luck finding anyone who'd want to play a 3+ hour game with me on a regular enough basis to justify buying it. I also saw a game being demoed that I planned to buy for Heather and Eric but they were sold out on the trade floor so that was a bust, too. On the upside, I got a couple very nice t-shirts (a gorgeous one with a dragon reading and the caption "Book Wyrm", and two that are just black and text with "My fandom is random" and "I don't cheat, I just play by my own rules"). I may also hop on that vendor's site and get a "Cardiff Weevil Retrieval Unit" shirt for myself and Kam. They had a lot of great shirts (including a zombie cat with the caption "I can has brainz?" ) for the geeky set. "Cthulu saves -- in case he gets hungry later" and this sci fi Ven diagram of awesome:
The site's www.offworlddesigns.com/ if anyone's interested. I'll probably pick up more from them when I have a job again (oh, the number of shirts I could have bought with the rental car money alone...). Lots of fun stuff, though, and check out their clearance page if you go. They have some cute kiddie shirts, too ("Evil keeps me young", etc.). Okay, I need to go rest now
*hugs everyone*