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here are some pics I found to show you what I mean... and the dealers room is even larger then I-Cons!!!
Humph. I know you didn't take the pictures, but someone needs to be flogged!!
Xmen indeed!
The correct label for the silver-haired lady is Taarna the Taarakian, from the original Heavy Metal movie. She's the cover-girl for the DVD sleeve, for goodness' sake!
(um - is this where I'm supposed to roll some weird nerd-rage power?)
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Ok, so you have quite different experiences from Cons... For me, 1000 people at a con are a lot.
For me it is all about the dealers room... love being able to pick up cool stuff, and out of print books..The RPG part..as long as it has some good games..I am Happy...
For Dragoncon though not only is the home of some fun sight seeing ;-)...but is also the Main convention for White Wolf.. and I am a huge fan of White Wolf... so that is why it is my favorite Con...
Edit: Ok...maybe it is the scantly clad women..;-)...but..shhh don't tell that to my wife..
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Let me just add my thanks to the refs who ran at Gencon (I'm Simon, who played Thorfinn) I enjoyed every game.
Extra thanks to Wintergreen and the rest of the table for "Murder on the Silken Caravan" - I had an absolute blast on that adventure; the "Butch and Sundance" moment of the three fighters running down the dunes, followed by Sanctuary-based rescuing and arrowy death from afar was my favourite set-piece moment.
I ref pathfinder, so having a chance to play was a real treat; I have to say I'm pretty hooked on playing now, so if an PS games start up in London, I'd be very interested.
Brilliant adventures all.
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Regional Venture-Coordinator, Mediterranean
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Big thanks to Paizo guys for the whole pathfinder society thing, great written scenarios, all friendly guys wiling to talk.
Thanks to Rob for GMing the pathfinder games I got to play.
And a big thanks to all the players. I thoroughly enjoyed running the games, had a fantastic time and my players were all great.
Pathfinder games seemed to have gone really well and everybody enjoyed them. They compared very favourably with the 4th edition games I ran.
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For Dragoncon though not only is the home of some fun sight seeing ;-)...but is also the Main convention for White Wolf.. and I am a huge fan of White Wolf... so that is why it is my favorite Con...
Edit: Ok...maybe it is the scantly clad women..;-)...but..shhh don't tell that to my wife..
We don't really do the "booth babe" thing over here, though that said there were Eva Widermann, Mel the Pagan Angel, Claire the Flammable Penguin, etc.
Size-wise, this felt busier than last year and the numbers for last year were:
Gen Con UK 2007 - Information on attendance
Total attendance: 1,746
Attendance on Thursday: 984
Attendance on Friday: 1,181
Attendance on Saturday: 1,580
Attendance on Sunday: 1,292
Total number of impressions: 5,037"Attendance" is the number of separate people there. It excludes University staff. For example one person attending for Saturday and Sunday would count as 1.
"Impressions" is the number of people-days.
The closest GCUK has ever come to a US-style con was in Olympia, and obviously things were very different then, not least because of WotC's involvement.
Another big factor is there tends to be a significant division in the UK between gaming cons, comic cons, SF cons, etc; though some blur the boundries more than others. You'll find more cosplay, for example, at the London Film & Comic Con than at the UK games expo, more there than at GCUK, and more there than at Eastercon.
We don't really have a Dragoncon equivalent in the UK -- certainly not one that blends gaming, comics, film & TV, writing, anime, and orgies quite as comprehensively. There are plenty of reasons for this, few of which (unfortunately) are likely to change in the next couple of years (though, perhaps, post-2012).
... Callum [Louis Ferranti] ...
Survived 4/4 adventures (all run by Angel Gabriel -- thanks once again!) and is now 1/3 of his way through 2nd level; got all his faction points (without, if memory serves, actually doing any of the hard work for these himself) and ensured a rival faction completed one of their missions.
I think I eventually managed to figure out who's who for most of the people I played with, if not most of the people I met; does Illessa == Sarah (Akila) == Mrs Wintergreen?
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Regional Venture-Coordinator, Mediterranean
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I think I eventually managed to figure out who's who for most of the people I played with, if not most of the people I met; does Illessa == Sarah (Akila) == Mrs Wintergreen?
No, Sarah isn't Illessa. And not even I would call Sarah 'Mrs Wintergreen' (to her face at least). She doesn't post on the boards.
I don't think you played in a game with Illessa (Clare).
Hey Rob! Regarding the Nightwish albums, the last three were Century Child, Once, and Dark Passion Play. Century Child was the one I meant to recommend (not Oceanborn, although that one's still good). In fact, all the albums are great.
[Threadjack]Yeah, Nightwish made great music. I had the joy of seeing them perform live (I think the Once tour), it was a great show. The voice still thrills me. [/Threadjack]
Stefan
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I think I eventually managed to figure out who's who for most of the people I played with, if not most of the people I met; does Illessa == Sarah (Akila) == Mrs Wintergreen?No, Sarah isn't Illessa. And not even I would call Sarah 'Mrs Wintergreen' (to her face at least). She doesn't post on the boards.
I don't think you played in a game with Illessa (Clare).
I do sometimes post, and no dont call me Mrs Wintergreen! I have my own name. I am interested in some pathfinder at other times though!
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Hey guys,
Had a blast at the con, meeting everyone from the Paizo guys, Nic Logue, Richard Pett, and Wayne Reynolds, to the folks I gamed and ate curry with: Steve (Dragnmoon), Peter (Ninjaiguana), Clare (Ilessa), Paul (Paul Watson), Rob (Angel Gabriel), Ted, Andy, and ericthecleric (I can't believe I forgot your real name! Sorry!). I may have forgotten someone, or I may just not have put people to Paizo names. If so, sorry!
Missed my Friday Silken Caravan game due to too much drinks the night before (Nic and Jason Buhlman can really put 'em back!). But it was worth it, as our trivia team, the Coalition of the Willing, crushed the competition, taking home the victory which resulted in free drinks!
I made it to the other three games, though, and had a blast, and even survived. Woo! I didn't get a chance to play in one of Wintergreen's or Dragnmoon's games, but a special shout-out goes to Rob (Angel Gabriel) for GMing me in Silent Tide - I salute you, sir, for your GM skills! Really had a lot of fun with it!
Though it's true it was a small con, as people have said, It made it easy to find people and hang out and talk. In all, it was quite a good experience, and I'm going to try to make it to Conception and GenCon UK again next year, especially if there are PFS games.
Great meeting you all,
Rob (SargonX, aka Xerena the bard)
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Hey Rob! Regarding the Nightwish albums, the last three were Century Child, Once, and Dark Passion Play. Century Child was the one I meant to recommend (not Oceanborn, although that one's still good). In fact, all the albums are great.
Cool, thanks! I'll definitely check them out when I get a chance. Greaat meeting you at the con!
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...but a special shout-out goes to Rob (Angel Gabriel) for GMing me in Silent Tide - I salute you, sir, for your GM skills! Really had a lot of fun with it!
That was the only PFS game I was in and I agree, Rob was a fantastic GM, even out-doing the dog-barks from the other table! Thanks to all of you on the table for making that the best game at the Con for me! :D
Cheers,
Michal (aka Mikale the Barbarian with no tactics)
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Hey! Really enjoyed the weekend, (and yeah, if I confused anyone I'm Clare, Ninjaiguana's partner, sadly we only met briefly at the meal Callum), I'm the girl in the blue top in Dragnmoon's Hydra's Fang picture. This was my first con and even though I haven't had the US con experience I was very surprised by how small everything was too, it didn't help that everything was very spread out so most of the time it actually felt smaller than some local events we've done with significantly less than 1000 people attending. As another member of the Coalition of the Willing I approve of free drinks :D. Eric Mona's knowledge of geek trivia is spectacular, my contribution was nothing more than a handful of crossword and picture-round answers, some educated guesses, and the Kill Doctor Lucky question (OK, so that one I was kinda smug about). The fact that we only won by 3 points means everyone's contributions were pretty valuable!
We spent a lot of our spare time hanging out with Dragnmoon and Rob (McCreary), who are both really cool guys. Sadly the only time we got to play with them was in our Hydra's Fang game which had a really poor GM (we've just downloaded the scenario and turns out most of what he did made sense to a certain extent, it just meant we had absolutely no idea what was going on and the ending was a massive anti-climax, though occasionally he was just wrong). We caught snatches of Angel Gabriel's HF game on Saturday afternoon when we were ambling about the room and it sounded damn good, so kinda wish we'd done Hydra's Fang with him, ahh well, one poor GM and no really bad players out of 3 GMs and 15-odd players aint bad going. We formed an impromptu team with Paul (Watson) and played in the same games for all four scenarios; two Osirions and an Ulfen, someone was always complaining about the weather :P. Hopefully we'll all make it back next year and get the band back together :D.
Second game was with Adrian who I don't think is on these boards (he wasn't particularly familiar with the setting) which was a good fun game, ran at a good pace with lots of cool characterisation.
Third and fourth games were both with Wintergreen, we wanted to have four different people running but honestly he easily ranks up with the best GMs I've ever played with and we jumped at the chance to be in his Silken Caravan after our fun Silent Tide on Saturday. And damn I'm glad we did, who'd have thought such a weapon-focused party consisting of 3 Andorans (a great archer whose player I sadly can't remember, Paul Watson's Ulfen fighter, Forbinproject's Ulfen barbarian) and 2 Osirions (Ninjaiguana's ranger and my cleric) could have so many cool roleplay moments and opportunities for everyone to have a unique role in combat. I came away with the kind of buzz usually reserved for very intimate, roleplay-driven home games, so serious kudos to everyone involved in that game, I'd share a table with all of you any day! It helped that that morning was very quiet so we could be quite a bit noisier without being too worried about disturbing the other tables.
Hopefully I'll see some of you again at Conception. I'm currently investigating the possibility with regards to money/work, but if Nick is in a position to attend and run some games as he said he'd try to do nothing will keep me away :P.
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Regional Venture-Coordinator, Mediterranean
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That was the only PFS game I was in and I agree, Rob was a fantastic GM, even out-doing the dog-barks from the other table! Thanks to all of you on the table for making that the best game at the Con for me! :D
Cheers,
Michal (aka Mikale the Barbarian with no tactics)
Sorry about that - the dog barks were coming from me (well the street gang in Silent Tide were called the Warhounds!) - but I hope they didn't disturb you too much.
Illessa, the archer was played by Mark but I don't think he posts on these boards.
It sounds like we all had a good time so Pathfinder Society launched well here in the UK. I'm intending to be at Conception (January 2009) to play and run some Pathfinder. I hope to see some of you guys there too.
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You were the table next to me then! I was DM'ing the group by the back window.
Lewy.
Hi
Then you were my GM! I played the Dwarf Druid c/w Wolf.
(I changed tables because the other one already had a Druid & Cleric, while ours didn't, IIRC).
Finally recovered from the sleep-deprivation.
Cheers
Paul H
AKA Oskar Treefriend (PF)/Oskar Thorinson (LG)
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Sorry about that - the dog barks were coming from me (well the street gang in Silent Tide were called the Warhounds!) - but I hope they didn't disturb you too much.
Heh, my wife (the Bard in your Silent Tide game) said that it made her jump, which is always a good thing. ;)
I also said to our GM (Rob), 'I bet you can do better!' which got him to do a nice loud dog bark at the right time!Ah, good times...
Cheers! :D
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Regional Venture-Coordinator, Mediterranean
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Sorry about that - the dog barks were coming from me (well the street gang in Silent Tide were called the Warhounds!) - but I hope they didn't disturb you too much.
Heh, my wife (the Bard in your Silent Tide game) said that it made her jump, which is always a good thing. ;)
I also said to our GM (Rob), 'I bet you can do better!' which got him to do a nice loud dog bark at the right time!Ah, good times...
Cheers! :D
Serena the Bard "I'm not some poncey rapier-using bard, I'm hitting him with a longsword!"
I'm glad it went down well - the barking did ruin my voice for the 4th ed game I was running that afternoon but it was worth it.
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Serena the Bard "I'm not some poncey rapier-using bard, I'm hitting him with a longsword!"
I'm glad it went down well - the barking did ruin my voice for the 4th ed game I was running that afternoon but it was worth it.
Yup that was the one :)
I'd say more than worth it. PF over 4e any day!Cheers! :D
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You were the table next to me then! I was DM'ing the group by the back window.
Lewy.
Hi
Then you were my GM! I played the Dwarf Druid c/w Wolf.
(I changed tables because the other one already had a Druid & Cleric, while ours didn't, IIRC).Finally recovered from the sleep-deprivation.
Cheers
Paul H
AKA Oskar Treefriend (PF)/Oskar Thorinson (LG)
Indeed, a good session!