G...gencon
Back from GenCon. Lots of good to it; some bad. Somewhat overwhelming, of course.
Some highlights:
The Good
- Seminars: Putting More History in Your Game. The author talk with Brandon Sanderson and James Dashner. Parts of "Unleashing your killer DM" were okay but it was way too heavy on D&D focused stat-talk and not enough on like, knowing when to push your characters to the brink. The Dragon Age one was kinda interesting, but I don't really know the system for that one.
- The games: Shane's Awakening game was best. The "One Ring" game was pretty fun and I was happy to try at least one new game. (I still like Mouse Guard better, though.) The guy running it did well - he knew how to run a game, but was more focused on sticking to the con scenario than I would have been. The Thursday night D&D game was pretty awful but I made my own fun. (My neutral good druid was a blood thirsty killer by the end of the game, but what can I say? Every NPC we met made me want to kill them. This is defiitely in opposition to the One Ring, where we tried to adopt a goblin but he was eaten by a wolfhound.)
- The auction: almost everything I brought sold, and I took home $217.60 for it.
- The dealer's room was pretty great; I picked up Trail of Cthulhu, Pat and I went in on a shirt for Jay's birthday, and it was a lot of fun to just walk around. I got a paper copy of Dungeon World as well.
- Author signing: Ari Marmell. I couldn't think of much to say, like a dope, but it actually perked up what had been a crappy morning to briefly chat with him and get my books signed. If you're one of those authors who sometimes google searches their name - thanks again, Ari Marmell. (I was the one with the Gehenna and Conqueror's Shadow books.)
- My prep: I had a good schedule laid out, notecards, pens, pencils, and dice for games. I had water bottles, usually food, and kept my phone charged. Little stuff, but it made things go a bit more smoothly.
The bad:
- Coordinating. It got pretty annoying, pretty fast.
- Scheduling: Because of that, our schedule wasn't actually as flexible as it might have been. Ron Heinsoo was running 13th Age at the Pelgrane Booth, but I never had a chance to sign up And a definitely free time slot to grab it. I don't know if he'll be doing that again in the future (also, I was impressed that he was running games for what looked like about two days straight).
- the GenCon website. I missed registering for a fair number of games I was interested in.
- My own indecision. I didn't decide on any games to register for myself, initially, leading to me missing playing Better Angels or Delta Green with Greg Stolze. Or playing any Gumshoe or Cthulhu games at all. I think these games would be great for con sessions, because of the relatively simpler rules and maybe less of an expectation of character survival and triumph.
- Missing author signings. I brought some stuff that didn't get signed, either because the author didn't show or I couldn't find them. Or they escaped before I could waylay them. I would not stress nearly as much about packing and carrying signable books for next year.
- Rules-heavy con games: at the end of the thing, Shane and some of his group were complaining about getting to rules-heavy games and just .. not having much fun. And I can see it. I was pretty surprised at some of the things that were not provided at the con games, that I would try to provide if I were running them. No name tags, no character introductions. No art for your character (though there were miniatures) and no rules reference sheets.
And when the first 20 minutes (or more) of the game are about going over the rules, it's a little harder to start with a bang. Compared to some of the intros people recounted from the killer DM panel, which sound absolutely awesome:
"Well, the cultists lie dead at your feet, but that last round went through the engine of your Jeep. Now it's just you, your fellow investigators... and the box containing the golden idol the cultists were carrying. How are you going to get out of the mountains of Afghanistan?"
or
"The glass is broken. It's 2:45 on Tuesday. What brought you all to the 7-11 on that night of blood?"
And holy shit, I wanted to play both those games, right away.
I do think real-world settings may be better for short and sweet con games - and it makes me understand why campaign settings can be so popular. With a four hour timeslot, you really don't have much time to simply describe the world, and the players won't get to explore that much of it in all likelihood.
Actually playing con games explained a lot to me, about indy RPG design and some traditional game structures like D&D.
Overall
It was pretty cool to see a place with so many of my interests all smashed up together. Plus more. Also a good reminder not to homogenize too much, as I sometimes try to do; I really can enjoy Xenoblade while designing a CoC adventure. Or can run a fantasy Pirates game, a Team Rocket game, and a CoC game without shorting any of them... hopefully.
It also was instructive to remind me what aspects of RPGs I really do and don't enjoy. During panels, with discussions of history, mythology, and pacing, I was rapt. When it came around to stat-talk and balancing encounters, I was just waiting for the question to end so we could get on to something more interesting. (I know you were trying to help, guys on the DM panel who told me to ignore printed stats when they're killing the pacing, but I figured that one out a long time ago. The bit about always having an escape door built into the encounter was useful, though.)
I tried to rein in some of my interest for new games. While I would've liked to pick up Better Angels and 13th Age, it is August and I don't get paid this month. And anyways, I need to run CoC or ToC first.
Next time, Gadget!
And what about next time?
First, I think there will be a next time. After the muddled hell that the last few Acens have been, being at a well-organized and smoothly running convention was amazing. That the convention centers around some of my favorite things in the world is basically icing on the cake.
Next year I'll be more organized with event registration. I know I might not have got into certain games even with mashing the REGISTER button at 12:00 the day it opened. But, I think I can do better next year.
Specific games that I am (at least right now) interested in trying out would: Trail of Cthulhu, Call of Cthulhu, Fiasco!, maybe Dungeon World, Night's Black Agents, and one of the Drama system games. Maybe Better Angels. Delta Green, too, if it's out by then.
I would still do some panels, they were fairly fun. Like I said, I'd probably bring less stuff to sign, most of the authors appeared to be running around like crazy people for most of the con.
I did not think our housing set-up was ideal, but it's going to take some careful manuevering to fix that one.
Auction was cool, but I dunno how much more really sale-worthy stuff I have and am willing to part with.
Some highlights:
The Good
- Seminars: Putting More History in Your Game. The author talk with Brandon Sanderson and James Dashner. Parts of "Unleashing your killer DM" were okay but it was way too heavy on D&D focused stat-talk and not enough on like, knowing when to push your characters to the brink. The Dragon Age one was kinda interesting, but I don't really know the system for that one.
- The games: Shane's Awakening game was best. The "One Ring" game was pretty fun and I was happy to try at least one new game. (I still like Mouse Guard better, though.) The guy running it did well - he knew how to run a game, but was more focused on sticking to the con scenario than I would have been. The Thursday night D&D game was pretty awful but I made my own fun. (My neutral good druid was a blood thirsty killer by the end of the game, but what can I say? Every NPC we met made me want to kill them. This is defiitely in opposition to the One Ring, where we tried to adopt a goblin but he was eaten by a wolfhound.)
- The auction: almost everything I brought sold, and I took home $217.60 for it.
- The dealer's room was pretty great; I picked up Trail of Cthulhu, Pat and I went in on a shirt for Jay's birthday, and it was a lot of fun to just walk around. I got a paper copy of Dungeon World as well.
- Author signing: Ari Marmell. I couldn't think of much to say, like a dope, but it actually perked up what had been a crappy morning to briefly chat with him and get my books signed. If you're one of those authors who sometimes google searches their name - thanks again, Ari Marmell. (I was the one with the Gehenna and Conqueror's Shadow books.)
- My prep: I had a good schedule laid out, notecards, pens, pencils, and dice for games. I had water bottles, usually food, and kept my phone charged. Little stuff, but it made things go a bit more smoothly.
The bad:
- Coordinating. It got pretty annoying, pretty fast.
- Scheduling: Because of that, our schedule wasn't actually as flexible as it might have been. Ron Heinsoo was running 13th Age at the Pelgrane Booth, but I never had a chance to sign up And a definitely free time slot to grab it. I don't know if he'll be doing that again in the future (also, I was impressed that he was running games for what looked like about two days straight).
- the GenCon website. I missed registering for a fair number of games I was interested in.
- My own indecision. I didn't decide on any games to register for myself, initially, leading to me missing playing Better Angels or Delta Green with Greg Stolze. Or playing any Gumshoe or Cthulhu games at all. I think these games would be great for con sessions, because of the relatively simpler rules and maybe less of an expectation of character survival and triumph.
- Missing author signings. I brought some stuff that didn't get signed, either because the author didn't show or I couldn't find them. Or they escaped before I could waylay them. I would not stress nearly as much about packing and carrying signable books for next year.
- Rules-heavy con games: at the end of the thing, Shane and some of his group were complaining about getting to rules-heavy games and just .. not having much fun. And I can see it. I was pretty surprised at some of the things that were not provided at the con games, that I would try to provide if I were running them. No name tags, no character introductions. No art for your character (though there were miniatures) and no rules reference sheets.
And when the first 20 minutes (or more) of the game are about going over the rules, it's a little harder to start with a bang. Compared to some of the intros people recounted from the killer DM panel, which sound absolutely awesome:
"Well, the cultists lie dead at your feet, but that last round went through the engine of your Jeep. Now it's just you, your fellow investigators... and the box containing the golden idol the cultists were carrying. How are you going to get out of the mountains of Afghanistan?"
or
"The glass is broken. It's 2:45 on Tuesday. What brought you all to the 7-11 on that night of blood?"
And holy shit, I wanted to play both those games, right away.
I do think real-world settings may be better for short and sweet con games - and it makes me understand why campaign settings can be so popular. With a four hour timeslot, you really don't have much time to simply describe the world, and the players won't get to explore that much of it in all likelihood.
Actually playing con games explained a lot to me, about indy RPG design and some traditional game structures like D&D.
Overall
It was pretty cool to see a place with so many of my interests all smashed up together. Plus more. Also a good reminder not to homogenize too much, as I sometimes try to do; I really can enjoy Xenoblade while designing a CoC adventure. Or can run a fantasy Pirates game, a Team Rocket game, and a CoC game without shorting any of them... hopefully.
It also was instructive to remind me what aspects of RPGs I really do and don't enjoy. During panels, with discussions of history, mythology, and pacing, I was rapt. When it came around to stat-talk and balancing encounters, I was just waiting for the question to end so we could get on to something more interesting. (I know you were trying to help, guys on the DM panel who told me to ignore printed stats when they're killing the pacing, but I figured that one out a long time ago. The bit about always having an escape door built into the encounter was useful, though.)
I tried to rein in some of my interest for new games. While I would've liked to pick up Better Angels and 13th Age, it is August and I don't get paid this month. And anyways, I need to run CoC or ToC first.
Next time, Gadget!
And what about next time?
First, I think there will be a next time. After the muddled hell that the last few Acens have been, being at a well-organized and smoothly running convention was amazing. That the convention centers around some of my favorite things in the world is basically icing on the cake.
Next year I'll be more organized with event registration. I know I might not have got into certain games even with mashing the REGISTER button at 12:00 the day it opened. But, I think I can do better next year.
Specific games that I am (at least right now) interested in trying out would: Trail of Cthulhu, Call of Cthulhu, Fiasco!, maybe Dungeon World, Night's Black Agents, and one of the Drama system games. Maybe Better Angels. Delta Green, too, if it's out by then.
I would still do some panels, they were fairly fun. Like I said, I'd probably bring less stuff to sign, most of the authors appeared to be running around like crazy people for most of the con.
I did not think our housing set-up was ideal, but it's going to take some careful manuevering to fix that one.
Auction was cool, but I dunno how much more really sale-worthy stuff I have and am willing to part with.