Today was another hectic day in the booth! Saturday has the reputation as the busiest day of the con and today was no exception. Paizo's booth was buzzing with the news of our awards last night at the ENnies—we took home two gold medals for GameMastery Flip-Mat: Tavern (the second year in a row a Flip-Mat has won a gold ENnie) and the Savage Tide Player's Guide free download and our partner company, Open Mind Games, took home a much-deserved silver ENnie for the awesome GameMastery Combat Pad.
We also had Gary Gygax back on hand with us signing The Anubis Murders, as well as Larry Elmore signing the final print issue of Dragon, and our own Paizo editors signing their works as well. James, Wes, Jason, and Jeremy signed a good deal of autographs and it was nice to see the readers and fans patting these guys on the back for their amazing work on Dragon, Dungeon, and Paizo's GameMastery and Pathfinder lines.
Today was also Nicolas Logue's Iron DM. Nick runs this event every year and its reputation as one awesome gaming experience has increased its attendance year-over-year. Iron DM saw 15 Dungeon Masters and over 130 players this year. If you're not familiar with the event, Iron DM is modeled after the Iron Chef television series: DMs get one hour to write an entire adventure using three "ingredients" that Nick reveals at the last second. Once the adventure is written, the DMs find their randomly assigned table of players and begin. The event is often interrupted by mini-games called Player Olympics, wherein the players must compete table-against-table to win prizes and fame. At the end of the day, the Iron DM who receives the best review scores from his or her players wins the crown. Paizo Publishing was proud to sponsor this event, and we gave away buckets of GameMastery items as prizes. I have a video of Nick introducing one of the Iron DMs that I'll upload to YouTube when I return to the office. Nick is most definitely a character and his Iron DM event was a blast.
Tomorrow is our final day at Gen Con and, though my tired feet wish its end, it would be great if the gaming and fun could continue on for another four days.
And now, pictures!
James Jacobs, Erik Mona, and Jason Bulmahn show off Paizo's two gold ENnies after last night's awards ceremony.
Ryan and Amber from Open Mind Games show off their silver ENnie.
Dragon #359 cover artist Larry Elmore and Erik Mona pause for a picture during Larry's magazine signing.
Paizo is always proud to host the folks from Dead Gentlemen Productions in our booth! These fine folks are (from the left): Jen Page from The Gamers: Dorkness Rising (Female Luster), Steve Wolbrecht from The Gamers: Dorkness Rising (Nodwick), Don Early (Executive Producer of The Gamers: Dorkness Rising) and Chris Dupenthaler from The Gamers (Mark the Berserker) and The Gamers: Dorkness Rising (Mark).
Paizo's prize table for Nick Logue's Iron DM contest.
Nick diligently copying down deeply personal information about an Iron DM so that he can embarrass and crush him later.
Gary Gygax returns!
This time, he came with a HUGE line! (That's Paizo's Jeremy Walker standing behind him.)
