Alas, I was unable to go as well. It was too far away and mother didn't want to go to Indianapolis. Instead I got to butcher chickens while you all were enjoying GenCon.
Dude...I don't even know where to begin to start regaling! :D
Start at the beginning, work your way through to the end, and then stop.
That's my advice. :)
Lol, classic
Start at the beginning, work your way through to the end, and then stop.
Whoa...yeah, that'll work! :D
My plane trip wasn't terribly exciting, but I did bump into some WotC guys during my layover in Seattle. I asked them what they were working on, and one of them said Forgotten Realms, but couldn't tell me what (silly NDAs). I resisted the urge to ask about how much PR fallout they got from the cancellation of Dungeon and Dragon. I was also wearing my Choose Your Weapon shirt, which probably helped ID me as "GAMER." I'd take good bets that the flight from Seattle to Indy was mostly gamers. Somebody looked at the shirt and said "Pretty sure we're heading to the same location." :P
I was met at the airport by Steve Greer and Greg Oppedisano, who were more than gracious and were gentlemen and helped me with my luggage so that I didn't have to carry anything. From there, we sallied forth to Buca di Beppo, wherein The Jade had reserved a room for a feast comprised of many lycanthropic brassicas. The room was packed, packed, packed but I managed to meet a very large portion of the cabbages here. From there, we went forth to The Ram, completely outfitted for the descending gamers - the menu was changed to game-themed entrees, and the place was decked out in posters and banners from Privateer Press and Wizards of the Coast. (On later nights, they switched from ESPN to SciFi Channel on the TVs. :D ) There, we ran into Jeremy Walker and pulled him into our packed booth and had a round with him.
The following days were packed with many many many hours of gaming - I did many hours of demoing Kill Doctor Lucky along with Medesha. Rambling Scribe demoed Stonehenge, and in one of my demos, somebody actually got lucky with the monkey hand. Got to meet the Paizo crew (hooray!) and saw, heard, and witnessed the carnage of the Seven Swords of Sin delve. Did not manage to see the Iron DM tournament (I was demoing), but saw the after-party. Nic Logue had completely lost his voice, but was able to speak again, albeit in a hoarse whisper, after I gave out a backrub. (I can, have, and will give out backrubs randomly. I'm just like that. :D ) The Hellfire Congress was cool, being held in the Union Station, an awesome place to hold such a themed event.
As always, the after-hours at any event is golden - several places were favored watering holes, a speakeasy, the Ram, the Alcatraz, and the Wild Beaver were frequented. Names will not be mentioned...;) (Sadly, I could not drink this year. >.< Damn appendectomy!)
By the time Sunday had rolled about, and we had risen from our beds not unlike the undead from their graves to go to the "Writing for Paizo" seminar at 9am, I was ready for rest. The day went quiet, topping off with lunch at Bertolini's with Daigle, Michael Kortes and The Jade and board games at Medesha's hotel room. Mother Nature decided to treat us with a stormy night, replete with purple skies and copper-colored lightning strikes.
All in all, a good convention, made great by the people I met.
Thanks for that lovely post Lilith, and thanks for this thread Heathansson. I hope others follow Lilith's lead and share fun stories. Remember: If we can't even live vicariously, we're not living at all!
I could regale you with tales of my weekend at SamCon: the best two days of gaming within two miles of my house. :-)
GenCon 07'
We packed five idiots in a mid sized car and drive from St. Louis to Indy late Thursday afternoon. Thursday night we played in a Magic tourney from 11PM to 4AM Friday as we were feeling a bit nostalgic (played in HS 90'-95'). We missed the 4e official announcement by about an hour. Slept for 4 hours and were back at the con at 8AM. Browsed through the vendor booths for two hours, spent an hour at the auction, demoed several Indy games including Dogs in the Vineyard, Grey Ranks, The Burning Wheel, and Dirty Secrets. Dogs is f*cking incredible, but i'm sure most D20 system gamers will hate it. The system will completely blow your mind compared to conventional gaming systems that most of you know. Anyway...i digress. WOTC demos were ok...Transformers game is the most rediculous game ever forwarded...basically rock paper scissors. I'm intreagued by A&A minis only because I love the origional game and am a WWII fan. Everyone at the D&D minis tourneys were very upset to hear that with the release of 4e, their old mini sets will no longer be supported!!! HAHAHAHA If you play that game and expect to play in tourneys or whatnot, my advice is to bail out now and lose your sets (unless you just want to collect them or play with your groups under 3.5 rules). Then came the bust of the con...Living Greyhawk 5 hour game. Absolutely awful adventure for a con. Our group detests tabletop gaming that is virtually playing minis and not only was that exactly the idea for all the RPGA events, the module that we played was "inspector gadgit" GM ran ONE encounter with ONE hobgoblin vs. 6 1st level characters. Thats it. If we hadn't learned that it is a waste of time to game at conventions, it would have been a complete wash. On Sat I watched one of our friends place 2nd in a Star Wars mini tourney out of 40 some-odd people having never played the game before this weekend. He's pretty much a math genious and coupled with (apparently) some excellent minis, he dominated. Purchased a beautiful print of a dad angel holding a baby angel close (reminded me of my boy). Slept for a grand total of around 9 hours from Thrusday through Sunday. A grand time was had by all!
As ever,
ACE
Wass dat?
My friend (Sam) decided to have a Geekend (TM) at her house, completely oblivious to the fact that she scheduled it for the same weekend as GenCon. So, I got to play games for two days, eat unhealthy food, get very little sleep, catch up with old friends, and not have to spend several thousand dollars.
...But it would have been cool to meet Gary Gygax.