Gencon Feedback

[andreww]

or What I did on my Holiday.

This year was my third trip to Gencon but my first playing many PFS events. I travelled from the UK together with two friends who are primarily war gamers so spent most of my time hunting for groups. This year I booked into a load of games including Sealed Gate, Fate of the Fiend, Vengeance at Sundered Crag, Cairn of Shadows, Technic Siege, Bonekeep and both of the specials. Of them I made all but Technic Siege and I thought it might be useful to jot down some thoughts about what wet well and where things didn't go as well as they might.

First off though I want to say just how amazingly friendly the people there were. I was attending as a group of 1 so was constantly looking for other players during the musters. With one exception this ended up being extremely simple and I played in everything that I got to. I want to give special thanks t Wilson and Corwin from Alabama who were amazingly helpful to a Gencon PFS newbie.

So on to the games. My event kicked off with b]The Sealed Gate[/b] which has something of a reputation. It was run by Richard Harris. It is a Kyle Baird 7-11 so you know it is liable to be rough going in. We had a group of 6 playing high tier normal mode with me playing my Razmirian Sorcerer. Wilson was playing the Barbarian and we had a group of 4 friends with a rogue, ninja, magus and wizard. These were their first and highest level PFS characters and I suspect that hey had grown rather to rely on the ninjas shadow companion from his shadow dancer levels. This would prove to be a mistake. It is a tough scenario but we completed it with a little time to spare. I enjoyed it thoroughly but the rogue and ninja struggled as did the wizard given he was mostly a pit specialist. It turned out that they were not prepared and while they were quite frustrated at points I think they learned a lot about the higher tier game from it. My highlight was having the end boss save against my hungry pit three times in a row with three natural 20's Sadly for her I had a 5th.

Spoiler-rific:

The first encounter with all of the swarms could have been horrendous but we had three different arcane casters. The demons actually gave us more trouble as none of the melee had many ways to fly or much in the way of an effective ranged attack. Eventually an enlarged barbarian combined with a Holy Sword from me finished them off.

The ape encounter also had the potential to be difficult but confusion took out several of them. The Tobngos made things look very dicey but I suspect the GM took a bit of pity on us and a Speak with Plants followed by a 30+ diplomacy check avoided us having to fight hem. The final encounter was immensely frustrating for the melee but was eventually ended wit a Pit.

Thursday evening saw me playing The Paths we Choose the sort of bonus special. We mustered a group of six early on but took ages to get seated. When we got there the GM asked what factions we had. We had 6 which turned out to be impossible and we should have mustered with no more than 3. This information was not communicated to the players at all or if it was it was done by having a volunteer come out and shout. If you are going to do that then you need someone with much better lung capacity or a mic. It was annoying as the main hall had a great sound system which if it had been used in the corridor would have solved a lot of issues.

When we finally got to our table it turned out that our GM really should not have been running. It was very apparent that he was utterly exhausted and barely able to function. He was also either totally unfamiliar with the scenario or too tired to remember much of it. I learned later that the Chelaxian section was run particularly poorly which lead to a lot of frustration on the part of al of us.

Friday evening was the Legacy of the Stonlords special. The management for this was much slicker with defined areas for mustering the different tiers and huge screens showing progress being made. I played with the rogue/ninja/wizard group from Sealed Gate together with another sorcerer and the Lore Oracle Angethel. It is fair to say that we demolished most of what was thrown at us with not much difficulty. It was an enjoyable experience run very well by a GM called Martin, whose surname I missed. I had expected it t be more difficult, especially in the 10-11 tier.

Spoiler-rific:

The initial waves of dwarves went down like chumps. We made the save on the book, icy tombed the magma elemental and then the shadow murdered it. The mohrgs never managed to act, the golem was blinded and utterly ineffective, the hezrou was couped on the first round after I held it and the other sor ddoored the ninja next to it. Only the Omox demon gave us any trouble and that was more due to the limited space.

I was slightly disappointed that there didn't seem to be an option to fight the demon king although perhaps we were just too slow to get to it. The twist at the end was very cool and I wont include it here even under a spoiler.

Saturday morning found me playing Vengeance at Sundered Crag being run by Walter Shepherd. In a recent thread asking who you would most like to meet from the boards I nominated Walter as I have always fond him one of the most pleasant and helpful people on here. In person he is very much the same and he absolutely deserves his 5 star status. He is probably the best PFS GM I have had the pleasure to play with. He actively works to draw all of the players into the game, he understands pacing and adds in all sorts of little touches to really bring the game to life, whether it was having low level pathfinders doing our shopping or the interaction between the demons and our infernal binder. In short this was far and away the best game I played all convention and if you ever have the chance to have him run for you then take it.

Spoiler-rific:

As to the game we had me again playing my sorcerer, a rogue, ifernal binder wizard and then a group of friends playing a stone oracle, cleric and ranger. We monstered the wolf encounter with pits and then met Thurle. This could have been very rough but his eidolon was confused on the first round. The flying archers were harsh but Thurle eventually went down. The barbarian surprise attack was a surprise and I managed to roll two of them off the cliff in an aqueous orb and then we discovered they were possessed. Oops. The shadow demon fell to a suggestion to go forth into the world wound and fornicate wit the first demon it met.

The tower section could have been rough but some aerial scouting located the door and a pair of dimension doors meant the lookout died quickly. Desmire found his babaus taken from him by the Binder and fell fairly quickly although the interior of tat tower is very cramped. He was delivered dominated to Zarta.

Saturday night found us in Bonekeep being run by Adam Mesa. I have to give huge thanks to Adam here who GM'd his socks off with a fairly challenging group. The timed nature of the scenario places a lot of pressure on both players and GM's and we were anxious to push on as fast as possible. Things nearly went completely south as Adam conducted a very light touch audit at the start simply asking to see the last completed chronicle. One of our players had a complete mess for his paperwork and had to drop out which also took his dad with him. We were looking at having 2 pregens (Bonekeep has no 4 player adjustment) when two late walk ins arrived.

This was my first Bonekeep and I enjoyed it even if it was somewhat stressful. We reached the end boss but couldn't quite overcome him. There were a couple of rules issues and mistakes on both sides of the table which is understandable given the nature of the event and entirely forgivable but Adam was a complete star. For a random pick up group with some fairly underoptimised PC's we actually did very well.

Spoiler-rific:

We had a tengu rogue, goblin barbarian, Halfling summoner, cleric and reach fighter and my lore oracle. The ratlings went down like chumps, the constructs were locked into a room with a lot of summoned lantern archons, we evaded the evil circle with magic circle versus evil ferrying people across, lantern archons chased the brain spiders, the rat demons/swarms were fireball/holy smited from outside, the mummies were chewed to death by the barbarian and our summoner solved the door puzzle very fast.

The last encounter was rough. We were doing fine until the black tentacles dropped. Invisibility purge had shown him up, the barbarian saved against two disintegrates but the grapples slowed us down just too much. I got a freedom of movement on the barbarian but he ended up suppressing it which cost us. In hindsight I should have paragon surged for freedom after I had gaseous formed out of the tentacles. Also if I had realized he was a vampire then things might have been very different. As it was we ran out of time with him on about 60hp. Our rogues permanently died inside the circle needing a true res to restore which felt a bit harsh. Death was expected yes, permanent death is less cool.

Adam ran tings very fairly and quickly and I would recommend having him run for you He was well prepared and handled things well despite being obviously nervous about it all at the start.

Sunday morning found me quite knackered and playing Cairn of Shadows with my Oracle. Again I was easily able to find a nearly full group of friends playing together who needed two more. We had a Barbarian, Gunsliger, Ceric, Inquisitor and Paladin and were run by a GM named Jack whose surname I missed unfortunately. This was the last slot which is often rough but Jack held up extremely well and ran a great game. It is a scenario with a lot of excellent dark flavour and atmosphere and Jack really managed to bring that out despite it being 9 on a Sunday morning. The combats were not exceptionally challenging with the exception of the last and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

So, what do I take away from the Con?

1. There are some excellent GM's out there and again want to particularly thank Walter Shepherd, Jack, Johnathon Choy, Richard Harris, Martin and Adam Mesa. Walter in particular should be giving lessons to the rest on how to run PFS. If he isn't involved in delivering the GM101 and 201 sessions then he needs to be. I may have to come back to Gecon just to stalk his games. Also thanks very much for handing my dice box into lost and found, that would have made things awkward!

2. PFS has many excellent and friendly players. I was worried I might struggle to get into the games I booked into given how mustering works but it was never a problem. So many different groups welcomed me in to their games, it was extremely generous. Particular thanks go to b]Corwin[/b] and [b]Wilson[/b in particular who took me out for excellent food on Thursday evening.

3. The organisation had good and bad points. Communication inside the hall was excellent, outside was poor. Mustering for the big special was great, for bonekeep and the paths we choose less so.

4. Their needs to be some form of quality control for GM's. Our paths we choose group GM absolutely should not have been running, he was in no condition to do so and it spoiled the entire session.

Overall this has been the best of my three Gencons and has really made me seriously consider coming back next year. I have done about every 3-4 years so far given the cost and the amount of travel involved but this may well push me to make it a yearly thing. I also managed to play in a bunch of other stuff, 5e, Zombiecide, High Command etc and met many excellent people in the trde hall. As I type this up in the hotels free PC section my travelling companions are trying to work out how to fit all of our purchases into the various suitcases and decide what clothes, towels, toiletries etc we need to leave behind to fit everything in!

Finally I wanted to end with huge thanks t all of the volunteers who did such an amazing job over the four days. There was a lot to organise and they handed themselves with patience and professionalism in the face of hundreds of eager gamers.

[My PFS Lavode De'Morcaine]

If you don't mind, I'll tack on my experiences.

I've been to some smaller local cons before. But this was my first time at Gencon. I only attended on Saturday. Got there about 8:30 am and left about 11:45 pm. fairly exhausted.

I have to say I was mightily impressed. The volunteers were helpful, upbeat, and knowledgeable for the questions I had.

I sat at 2 PFS events. Both GM's were great. I would love to give them a shout-out, but I seem to have misplaced the piece of paper on which I wrote their names (and I can't read the scrawl on the chronicle sheet).

The way to get a table was a bit confusing at first for a GenCon newb since I never saw anything written about that. A couple of us thought the info on the ticket was supposed to give us our table assignment. But one of the volunteers eventually got me straightened out.
The system actually worked pretty well once I understood it.

I played Destiny of the Sands Part III high tier at 1pm, since I had missed it at my local.

Destiny of the Sands III:

I, and the rest of the group, had a bit of trouble with remembering the names from parts I and II. Just too much time had passed. So a bit more organized recap of that would have been helpful.

But we actually did better by invisibly running from the Behir and our face heavy group talked the next 2 NPC's into siding with us.

Never found out how tough the constructs at the end actually were (but they seemed pretty dangerous), but if we hadn't had a guy with knowledge engineering we would have had to fight them and try each statue in turn. The description for that room was a bit difficult to understand. I think a decent drawing would have helped immensely for that room.

Sort of a conundrum with the vote at the end. I felt like as a pathfinder I should vote for the guy that hordes magic (since that is what they do), but as a good character vote for the other that intends to help civilization.
There was also a certain amount of bickering because it was assumed a non-metallic dragon was just lying about wanting to help civilization. But we eventually decided that since no one had a sense motive capable of catching a 5th grader fibbing we had to assume she was telling the truth.
I kinda liked the set-up that went with being able to see a reason for voting both ways. But at least a couple of people at the table didn't like it. They seemed to feel is should have been a clear decision.

The mythic rules sheets were kinda confusing. But I understand there is a limit to how much you can put on a couple pieces of paper. So you have to have some things that will apply to help nearly any type of character yet explain it well enough to use. All-in-all, I would call it an effective way to introduce the Mythic rules.
Plus the dagger on the chronicle sheet hints that there will be more mythic stuff later.
I guess my only concern is how do I as a player recognize that this is a mythic monster so that I tell him the dagger has this effect against mythic creatures.

Went well. My magus was able to contribute some both with ideas and abilities. Though his skills were mostly for combat that we avoided.

I played Bone Keep Part III at high tier 7pm. We had a blast. We had to run at about the halfway point.

Bone Keep III:

The ratfolk were surprisingly difficult to kill for how few levels they seemed to have. They didn't do much too us, they just took longer to kill than expected since we didn't want to 'waste' our powerful magics on few stupid ratfolk.
The 4 fire breaths on top of the paralyzing fear of the mummies almost killed 2 our guys in the second room (both in single digits). Plus 2 of our casters were ready with fire spells since they were mummies. Tricksey!
One of the guys got a face hugger that gave some difficulty until my liberating command allowed him to get it off.
So we decided to go the other branch (probably a mistake). The attack and maneuver ghouls and demons with multiple enervations were a cast iron b!#$h for us. As a party we had 17 negative levels (everyone had some) by the time we cleared that room. We only had one restoration and a heal available. So not enough to recover completely.
At that point we decided to retreat. I personally think we could have handled at least 1 more room, but I could be incorrect.
My sorcerer's buffs were helpful, the summons less so.

It was my first chance to play a Bone Keep scenario. I loved it! I think it is great to have some that are exceedingly more challenging. Where you really have to struggle and success isn't guaranteed (in fact it isn't even very likely). Actually one of the main reasons I came to GenCon, was the chance to try Bone Keep.
Since that was the last installment, I hope there is a similarly challenging replacement next year!

The GM's were capable and fun. My fellow players were pleasant. No obnoxious smelly stereotypes present I am thrilled to say. There were only a couple of rule disagreements and they were handled quickly and amicably. One table had a player that was a little irritating and didn't know the rules as well as he thought. But he was only about 12, so heck he was actually quite a bit better than I expected.

A couple of minor things that could use some improvement. During the mustering for tables, someone would come out into the hall stand on a chair and yell announcements. Few of us could understand/hear anything he was saying. A display board would have worked much better. Similarly, during the afternoon game there were a couple of announcements over the sound system. But the guy they gave the mike to started talking before everyone quieted down and he mumbled, so we again couldn't hear/understand what was said.

I learned yet again, that my casters tend to horde too many spells for the end. Not sure, but if my sorc had started really opening up early on we might have had more chance to get farther in BK3. But I'm always worried that I'll get to the final fight with only a couple of level 1 spells left.

GenCon as a whole was pricey enough that I don't know that I can go every year or for multiple days. I heard a few people say you could save sooo much on the gaming gear you buy that it pays for the con. But the things I looked at were pretty close to standard cost. Maybe $1 less. I would have had to buy a lot of stuff to pay for the con at that rate. May have depended on what type of gaming stuff you were looking for.

I certainly brought to much stuff with me. Especially once I had bought a few things. My back got fairly sore just from carrying my crap around. Live and learn.

I do wish there had been a bit more seating and food available. I had to wait almost 30 minutes in line to get anything to eat, then walk an awful long ways to find a bare chunk of wall I could slide down next to just to eat my now cold food. Next time I would probably just put some sandwich stuff in a cooler and go sit in my car for meals.
There were also not enough restrooms (or toilet paper) for such crowds.
But those were minor complaints.

Impressively organized and run. Both the con as a whole and the PF specific portion of it that I saw. Overall it was a very good experience and I will probably be back.

[Acedio]

Quote:

Walter in particular should be giving lessons to the rest on how to run PFS. If he isn't involved in delivering the GM101 and 201 sessions then he needs to be. I may have to come back to Gecon just to stalk his games.

The Pullman area is sure lucky to have him.

[Kyle Baird]

The thing with the tobongos wasn't your GM being lenient, that's in the scenario.

[bsctgod]

My PFS Lavode De'Morcaine wrote:

I learned yet again, that my casters tend to horde too many spells for the end. Not sure, but if my sorc had started really opening up early on we might have had more chance to get farther in BK3. But I'm always worried that I'll get to the final fight with only a couple of level 1 spells left.

It's a fine balancing act in the Bonekeeps for sure because there are so many encounters. My oracle was hording his spells like a bag of One Rings. The group I was with got to the end and I ended up casting the following. Fortunately, we had a bard that did most of the buffing.

Detect Magic xAlot
Guidance xAlot
Color Spray x1
Sanctuary x3
Liberating Command x1
Align Weapon x3
Cure Moderate Wounds x1
Remove Paralysis x1
Lesser Restoration x2
Daylight x1
Dispel Magic x1
Invisibility Purge x1
Prayer x2
Remove Curse x1
Remove Disease x2
Blessing of Fervor x2
Restoration x2 - still had an ape companion and another down a level but didn't waste the spells.

As for my experience, great but parking was horrendous and did they gouge you in parking fees around the city this year.

[Red-Assassin]

As for my experience, great but parking was horrendous and did they gouge you in parking fees around the city this year.

Parking at GenCon is actually incredibly cheap compared to most cities. I park daily in the closet parking spot to the Sagamore and it is only 24$ a day.

Of course you want to get to the con early, I usually come to the con at 7 and it takes about 5 minutes to get into a parking garage and be within 1000 feet from the Sagamore room.

[Barrett Krieger]

andreww wrote:

or What I did on my Holiday.My highlight was having the end boss save against my hungry pit three times in a row...

Nat 20s on three different dice!

That was a fun slot, and your spell usage made you MVP as far as I'm concerned. The way that last fight went down in an argument in favor spontaneous casting if I've ever seen one. What wizard would memorize 5 hungry pits?

Also, thanks for the shout out. I enjoyed playing with you, and would be more than happy to be seated with you again next year.

Barrett = Wilson

[andreww]

Quote:

If you don't mind, I'll tack on my experiences.

Please do, the more the merrier.

Quote:

I do wish there had been a bit more seating and food available. I had to wait almost 30 minutes in line to get anything to eat, then walk an awful long ways to find a bare chunk of wall I could slide down next to just to eat my now cold food. Next time I would probably just put some sandwich stuff in a cooler and go sit in my car for meals.

Bringing your own can work if you are coming from the US. I found the food outlet and seating opposite the entrance to the D&D Hall generally had seating available and was one of the few places where the wifi actually worked! I managed to eat out a few times at the Ram which was excellent. On Sunday night a bunch of us went to a Brazilian place called Fog de Chao which was amazing.

[andreww]

Kyle Baird wrote:

The thing with the tobongos wasn't your GM being lenient, that's in the scenario.

That's cool, I was a bit uncertain given diplomacy usually takes a minute. Playing the scenario certainly convinced me to buy it. It was tough in places but didn't have anything which a properly prepared group should have some answer to at this level. A 4 man might struggle if they had no caster but such is life for small groups generally.

[andreww]

Barrett Krieger wrote:

andreww wrote:

or What I did on my Holiday.My highlight was having the end boss save against my hungry pit three times in a row...

Nat 20s on three different dice!

That was a fun slot, and your spell usage made you MVP as far as I'm concerned. The way that last fight went down in an argument in favor spontaneous casting if I've ever seen one. What wizard would memorize 5 hungry pits?

Also, thanks for the shout out. I enjoyed playing with you, and would be more than happy to be seated with you again next year.

Barrett = Wilson

Thanks very much. Thoroughly enjoyed the slot. The GM was great and I think the rest of the group learned a lot about high level stuff.

[andreww]

One thing this year has made clear to me is that it is well worth travelling on the Tuesday and getting settled in on the Wednesday. We arrived at about 11pm on the Wednesday and then had to pick up tickets etc. It meant a very tired start to the day.

This year I decided to keep my morning slot generally free and game during the afternoon and evening. I assumed that would let me have a good nights sleep and also have time in the trade hall. The reality was I was waking up at 6am anyway and ending up in the centre at around 8.30 without much to do and with not much open. Next time I will sign up for stuff at 8am and 7pm and have time for trade hall stuff and lunch with friends.

[Shivok]

I had a great time mostly GMing PFS. I gm'd 6-01 every morning, 6-02 on Fri and Sat and I gm'd both specials. All of my players were well prepared, had party cohesion and pleasant attitudes. I unfortunately killed one player in 6-02 with a crit but he was still in good spirits even after that.

Best part of the Gencon experience was reconnecting with the many VO's, players and GM's who I've met at previous cons and meeting new players and gm's all over the country to see their play styles and GMing techniques.
HQ volunteers were great and very helpful, I know a good chunk were SCARAB folks so a big thank you to you guys and girls! The only suggestion I have for mustering is to invest in a few bullhorns if possible.

[Richard M. Harris2]

@ andreww

Glad you guys enjoyed it. Those 3 natural 20s were just ridiculous!

[andreww]

I enjoyed it immensely, you ran it very well. I think our rogues might have been a little frustrated. It's hard enough playing a rogue in PF without coming across numerous enemies which are largely immune to your main schtick.

[Mark Stratton]

I will share another amusing thing.

I always roll my dice behind a screen, but when I score a threat, I always move the screen to show the players the die roll, and then I confirm in the open.

Well, at one table, I had been rolling insanely high, and one of the players asked if I wouldn't mind using another die. So, I grabbed all my sets of dice and put them on the table and when it came time to roll a d20, I said, "you can pick which one I roll." He did, and I promptly rolled a 20 for a threat, and then confirmed the critical. He just looked and said, "roll whichever one you want to next time."

Hey, sometimes the dice are hot and sometimes they are cold.

You just can't make this stuff up!

[Silbeg]

andreww wrote:

Sunday morning found me quite knackered and playing Cairn of Shadows with my Oracle. Again I was easily able to find a nearly full group of friends playing together who needed two more. We had a Barbarian, Gunsliger, Ceric, Inquisitor and Paladin and were run by a GM named Jack whose surname I missed unfortunately. This was the last slot which is often rough but Jack held up extremely well and ran a great game. It is a scenario with a lot of excellent dark flavour and atmosphere and Jack really managed to bring that out despite it being 9 on a Sunday morning. The combats were not exceptionally challenging with the exception of the last and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

I would be that "Jack" (Brown, from Minneapolis... guess I need to be a little more complete with my introductions? ;))

That was a great table. If the challenge wasn't there, it was probably because your oracle had an answer to everything! In fact, without him, it could have probably been a TPK in that last fight! As for keeping it up for slot ten, that was one of my goals... I am glad that I made it! ll I can say to that is... prep, prep, and more prep! Know your scenarios, and know yourself!

Mark Stratton wrote:

Hey, sometimes the dice are hot and sometimes they are cold.

That is the truth. The only kill I had this weekend (other than the pretty much self-inflicted TPK in We Be Goblins) was at The Stranger Within, where I killed RainyDayNinja's magus. I hit him with at least three nat 20s (and he failed his fort save once or twice), including on blind swing by the bad guy (which of course, confirmed with the 50% miss chance). He took it very well, though.

I will say that I thoroughly enjoyed every table that I played or ran (with the possible exception to the table of Trail by Machine that I ran completely cold, more on that later). I got to meet many people that I have been wanting to meet (though didn't meet some I was hoping for). I hope that everyone had a good time at my tables, from slot one to slot ten!

[andreww]

Silbeg wrote:

I would be that "Jack" (Brown, from Minneapolis... guess I need to be a little more complete with my introductions? ;))

More likely I just failed to write it down. I was pretty shattered by that point as we played in the midnight Zombiecide Prison Break scenario so I was running on about 3 hours sleep.

Quote:

That was a great table. If the challenge wasn't there, it was probably because your oracle had an answer to everything! In fact, without him, it could have probably been a TPK in that last fight!

The darkness and movement restrictions do make that last fight potentially very tough. Also I do like my casters to come prepared!

[Leg o' Lamb]

Holee Frijoles! How could I forget Dirty Steve? Hanging out with Dirty Steve was definite highlight this year.

Dirty Steve may you never change, fine sir!

[Silbeg]

andreww wrote:

Quote:

That was a great table. If the challenge wasn't there, it was probably because your oracle had an answer to everything! In fact, without him, it could have probably been a TPK in that last fight!

The darkness and movement restrictions do make that last fight potentially very tough. Also I do like my casters to come prepared!

I was impressed. Even so, you had two PCs that would have died were there not three people capable of healing!

[Khalfani Ka-Jabari]

My PFS Lavode De'Morcaine wrote:

I played Destiny of the Sands Part III high tier at 1pm, since I had missed it at my local.
** spoiler omitted **...

Lavode:

Spoiler:

The constructs were mythic, that's where the dagger came into play.