|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
It is way too early in the morning and I have said goodbye to my cat before stepping out to wait for JDDylexia (Jpe) and Iammars (Jen) and already events conspire to frustrate us. Current highlight? Joe's unfamiliarity with the maze-like structure of Rhode Island's roads. On our way to T.F. Green!
|
Barely made it onto our flight with JDDylexia. Broke my sunglasses since TSA put it in the shoe I put on in a hurry and ended up running on. The air stewardess was kind enough to ask if we would like water.
Got to see about half of Battle Angel Alita.
Arrived in Delta City... I mean Detroit. Just waiting for our connecting flight.
Also, don't pack your dice in your carry on, TSA will pull you aside. Shout out to the very polite agent who knew enough about dice to asking they were for D&D or Magic!
|
|
After meeting with our roomie, I went down to the Will-Call line. Peter R./Candi Payne might be correct in his estimate that the line is 1 AU long.
Standing behind two attendees who are so excited for PF2 they are going over their copy of the Core (fully bookmarked too!) to finalize their first character!
|
Yarr,
Been having a rough trip so far...
Once upon a time I booked a direct flight. A couple months ago SW dropped my direct flights and replaced them with 1 stops.
Leaving me with a 2 hour layover in the Vegas airport. My connecting flight was of course delayed by an extra 40 minutes or so. Yuck.
Met up with people in Indy eventually and found The Ram had a 40 minute wait so we went to Lochmiller's instead amd had the absolute worst service I've ever had at a resturant.
After over 20 minutes and asking 3 people we were finally able to order and an hour after that after giving up after about our 4th attempt to get a rum and coke we finally wrestled a bill from our server that included said drink that never came out along with several other items that weren't ours nor had we ever seen. Canadian JC shall always be thirsty.
Also I had to eat my slaw with my neighbors chips as cutlery was nowhere to be found or served either.
Arriving at my truckstop motel 6 around 1140 I find out that they've "canceled" my reservation despite confirmation in hand of them acknowledging and accecpting my plans to check in late. No they won't tell me why they canceled. No they don't have any sister hotels.
Clerk is totally unhelpful other than not kicking me out of the lobby while I desperatly look for other accomodations after midnight in Indy at Gencon...
Eventually I find room just a few blocks away at double my reserved rate that requires crossing under a surprizingly busy Freeway on/off ramp with no sidewalks that clearly did not have pedestrians in mind.
Despite being exhausted the jet lag and stress didn't let me get to sleep until after 3am local time...
Here's hoping for a better today.
|
|
Sorry to hear that Rob. Hopefully today pans out better!
Here, after looking over the PF2 Core and helping Joe piece together the immensity of it, we snuck downstairs to see if we could crash the slot 0 PF2 with the help of Jordan our penultimate roommate (and VL for Houston). After an eternity awkwardly holding the door, we managed to get in and slot 0 a quest table with Iammars/Jen at the helm. She had run the playtest locally, and killed me. Last night she also killed me/Seelah. And 3/4 of the table. Good to see nothing has changed in that regard.
Right now, I am about to set off on a quest for breakfast. Will it be expensive? Will it be palatable? Will I get lost again, in spite of modern technology? The day is young, let's find out!
Venture-Captain, Ohio—Columbus
|
Sorry to hear that Rob. Hopefully today pans out better!
Here, after looking over the PF2 Core and helping Joe piece together the immensity of it, we snuck downstairs to see if we could crash the slot 0 PF2 with the help of Jordan our penultimate roommate (and VL for Houston). After an eternity awkwardly holding the door, we managed to get in and slot 0 a quest table with Iammars/Jen at the helm. She had run the playtest locally, and killed me. Last night she also killed me/Seelah. And 3/4 of the table. Good to see nothing has changed in that regard.
Right now, I am about to set off on a quest for breakfast. Will it be expensive? Will it be palatable? Will I get lost again, in spite of modern technology? The day is young, let's find out!
It was fun being killed with you last night.
Thanks again to Iammars for running for us.
(Wish me well, I’m currently in the middle of a very large scrum outside the dealer hall doors waiting to Buy All The Paizo Things!)
|
Contributor
|
Full day of Pathfinder 2 demos! It seemed to go pretty well. We got done a bit early and got dinner at the mall food court and stayed long enough for the Arcane Mark meetup (which was just a few of us but still fun!) Next was my one player slot of the con: Origin of the Open Road! I played Merisiel alongside Dennis, Pirate Rob, TOZ, Shanna, and Tim. Nathan was our GM and he did great with a new system!
Looking forward to another day of demos tomorrow!
|
|
Nice to hear that you had fun Kate! And Janice, a pleasure!
It is day 2 of GenCon and the first night with a very small amount of sleep. Yesterday, I GMed for a surprising amount of people who only play at GenCon and don't care for chronicle sheets.
Before that I had the pleasure of going over to the GameScience booth in the vendor hall where I was given, along with my purchase of dice, an item of great power, only to be deployed when the pursuing enemy was about a foot behind me; upon use, it would create a hole 27 feet long by 27 feet wide and 27 feet deep. And that's the whole nine yards.
Seriously though, GameScience dice are awesome. Cash only!
And now to scavange for sustenance. And roasted bean juice.
PS: I am also quite happy that my roommates convinced me not to use the main chorus of "Turn Down for What" as my alarm. Bill Unger suggested that to do so would be akin to saying "I wish to spend the first ten minutes of the day in fear for my life". Well put Bill!
|
|
Much like Pirate Rob, Cyz and I had a lovely flight booked for Wednesday morning. Then Southwest canceled things, giving us a Wednesday night redeye. Well that just won't fly, so we switched it to a Tuesday night redeye.
That may have been a mistake, given I pass out on the plane and still slept all morning Wednesday. The afternoon was alright, the will call line moved nice and fast, letting us hit up Burger Study until I needed to go to the VC dinner. (Lots of nice things mentioned there, and I wish I had been hungrier to take advantage of some really good food.)
The Lyft rides have been quite interesting in place of a rental. We walked to Starbucks yesterday, got our wakeup juices, then rushed off to the convention center. Would have been on time except for missing the turn, but being premustered for Passing the Torch meant we were fine. Pirate Rob carried the day to victory with some good support from the rest of us despite Quinn's best efforts to murder us.
The afternoon was good times grabbing dice from the various booths and waiting in the Paizo line to grab my subs. Hit a major snafu when I realized that they didn't bring anything but the most recent pawn sets. Needing a few pawns from Bestiary 6 for tomorrow night, we put in an Amazon order to deliver to a downtown locker today. Here's hoping it works!
Origin of the Open Road was great fun, as Kate said, dispelling any bad feelings about the playtest. 2E feels just like 1E on first blush, so I'm going to enjoy getting more comfortable with the rules and seeing just how well the adventure paths run.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
" Pirate Rob carried the day to victory"
By carried the day he very politely means take over 400 damage on my gnome monk and nearly get the arcanist killed when she moved into melee to hit me with yet another heal scroll.
Thursday: Infinitely better than Wednesday.
Played Passing the Torch p1, was constantly on the verge of getting murdered, luckily my companions were competent and never let me die despite my best attempts.
Then I picked up my preordered sack lunch from Saint Elmo's. Tasty but significantly smaller than pictured, especially the brownie that looked like it had been cut in half at the last minute. Was fast and efficient while other lunch options would have likely involved at least a 40 minute wait. So plusses and minuses.
Then I played True Dungeon for the first time, we had a nice intro run with 10 completely new people. Turns out I have a knack for bumping my ally's tokens and turning them into hits. Was a total blast, looking forward to the rest of my runs on Saturday.
I caught up with Mark and quizzed him on Assurance, since I really want it to not be trash. He had some good arguments for it, but I think we're in agreement that it's mostly bad at level 1, but there are spots where it is good.
Later playing 1-00 I'm playing Ezren who's got assurance Arcana and of course I use it on the first check, causing Dennis to laugh at me since he was around for my conversation with Mark earlier. Of course it fails. :( Apologized to the table for running science experiments rather than just playing naturally. Of course nobody was actually offended we were all trying/learning the system.
Was otherwise a good time, got to watch a hasted angry Amiri beat to death a <redaced> with her fists.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It is day 3 and my voice is only slightly impaired. After a special that saw,among other cool, funny or awesome events, Hmm get recognized and campaign coined (not sure how that's a verb, but we'll deal with that later) I am sitting here waiting for my table to assemble. Wishing that coffee was a more readily available commodity.
Did I mention Hmm got a campaign coin?
Edit: Also, I'd never had duck that way. Thanks John! (It was really good)
|
|
It is 8:30 AM on Sunday now and man, what a night! After a day spent expounding on the Many Minds of Historia, I readied myself for the last pfs 1 special. After our gracious HQ staff and GM seated our table of seven, we set off to Gallowspire (or the remains thereof). The champion tier was as difficult as advertised, but we managed to get to the end and elected to test our might again the strongest of Tar-Baphon's allies!
This AM, I ran my last slot of Many Minds, which will make me a 1 nova/null GM. I had the pleasure of meeting Illmakis, whom I have had many games with on these forums. I wish I wasn't as tired as I am, as I was looking forward to having a longer conversation. Now, to grab a quick bite to eat before helping break down the Sag!
Flew in on Wednesday, the flight was fine but the cab from the airport took forever due to the highway being closed. Poor timing on that one Indy. Picked up my subscriptions first thing on Thursday morning (and read some of the final PDFs of the core and bestiary in line, since they actually dropped about half an hour before the booth opened). Spent the rest of the con alternating between playing PF2 and GMing PF2.
I got to play 1-01 twice and 1-02 and 1-03 once each. 1-01 is pleasantly replayable, the two runs I did were different enough that both were quite enjoyable. Best game I played in was 1-02, where my GM was in full Red Raven cosplay. He did a spectacular job and I’m sorry no not sorry that my crit on a knowledge check gave away the mystery ;-). All of the people I played with were loads of fun and everyone seemed to have a good time.
As a GM I ran 1-00 once (it was fun, but I didn’t think it would be as enjoyable to play with foreknowledge from GMing it, and I was pretty dead this morning, so I skipped the Sunday morning slot I had a ticket for) and 1-03 three times. I think my players enjoyed it, but I guess you’d have to ask them. One odd bit was running PF2 during both the Starfinder and PF1 specials. That room sure was loud!
General feeling from the weekend was that people are enjoying PF2 quite a bit. GMs (myself ABSOLUTELY included) made plenty of minor mistakes, and there were definitely some hiccups (quite a few errors on the HeroLab generated characters, and that’s not counting the three people who accidentally had characters built with the playtest version, only figured that out because their bonuses were way off), but the games sure felt like Pathfinder.
This was my first GenCon, I doubt I’ll be back next year due to scheduling issues, but I will definitely be returning someday, it’s quite the experience.
|
Only one more slot to go for the post Gencon games - Monday at 10am. We had every table fire for the Sunday slots, with heroc GMs stepping up to fill in slots where the GMs had to drop out last minute. Picked up several players and had mostly full tables, including a full table of PF2 1-02 Mosquito Witch at 9pm, which finished in about 3 hours.
Thanks to all the GMs and players for coming out!
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
It's weird seeing the convention center tonight. The streets are empty. The hotels have only a few souls resting in the lobbies. The quiet is disturbing.
Passing the Torch is a fitting cap to this GenCon and to PFS 1E scenarios. I've little more to say on that. Thanks to all my players and all my GMs! I may not be back for awhile, but it has been one of the best weekends ever.
|
|
And so it ends. After finally playing Live! Exploration! EXTREME! I wandered off for more food, tried to play 2e's 1-01, had to go back up to search for Bill's missing character binder (containing all of his pfs 1 characters and more; always make sure you have everything before you leave folks) and ended up on a mystery review table. What was the mystery? Well, there were no character intros. Our GM had to guess, as an added challenge, what the heck we were playing.
I am glad I ended on a scenario that required little brain power for me, because after 5 days of shenanigans I was resorting to weird s@*# to stay awake.
Sleeping in this AM, I woke up to unsign myself up from 1-02. Sorry folks.
Now for one last jaunt to the airport!
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
After a good night's sleep, I finally feel capable to finish this thread. After a brunch with JDDylexia and Iammars, we headed through the TSA checkpoint. Finding a spot to wait for our flights we began to pour through our new Core books and make PFS 2 characters. I had a concept in mind, a tribute to my Shattered Star players/a grim reminder of their deeds. But then, a wild John Compton appeared and started asking questions. Then I asked questions. And the advice was given. Not mechanical advice, but advice like "I feel like you're making him way to qualified" or "Get him an animal companion. Not a horse though, that would be a tough sell." The, with a promise that the character would be back and level 5 for next year's GenCon, we parted ways, I got into a plane to Charlotte with an airsick infant and then hoped on back to Providence from there arriving around 1:15 AM.
It was great to see many of you again and meet those of you I knew digitally in the flesh. Gor those ofbuou I met for the first time, I hope to see you again next year. And finally:
|
|
I'll post this summary under my usual alias despite the fact I was running 7 slots at the convention.
30JUL2019, Tuesday: Woke up at an obscenely early time to catch the train to catch the Megabus to Indy. Bought two reserved seats for half the price and hassle that either Amtrak or any airline would have been. The only drawback was the driver was having several spiritual discussions with someone over their earpiece, and every time I'd start to drift off it was like some sort of Groundhog Day experience.
Arrived Indy about 1240, made way to Westin who allowed me to check in my bulk bags after some careful consolidation to create an overnight pack (reasons below). Then took a stroll over to the convention center to help with set-up. This was exhausting but spiritually rewarding work giving back to Organized Play. Comment was made that we nearly had everything set up on Tuesday that'd normally be 'Wednesday' type items. There were no complaints.
Robert Bollerman from the local area offered to take me to an off-campus hotel 'Delta' that I was 'holding down' for TOZ, Cyzzane, and TOZ's brother (Abbr. 'TOZ Team' subsq.) Due to their flight being rescheduled, they needed someone to *be* there so they wouldn't lose the reservation so due to not having a room downtown I was the best logical choice.
Ate at a nice restaurant called 'Four Seasons'. The decor was weathered and faded, but was able to get the vacation-qualifying Eggs Benedict out of the way. Coffee was abominable -- tasted like someone had dumped a cigarette into it. Server made it up with a solid bowl of soup to go. Would recommend for food, but be careful for the coffee.
Stumbled back to room, passed out at about 2000.
TOZ Team arrived at some point, barely woke up and chatted with TOZ's bro for a while before using bathroom and passing out.
Woke up around c. 1200 when my phone rang with Robert's mention of heading down to the convention center and inquiring if I needed a ride. I declined as I was in no shape to head down. Waited for latest TOZ team member Phylotus to show up, as their flight had likewise been delayed, and it was determined that it was easier to have them show up at the hotel then go downtown as a group.
Went through GM registration at Sagamore: MUCH improved and flow-process over previous years, recommend that be the standard to strive for or exceed in the future. During registration, was told to go check-in at the Westin so stepped out of the queue and did the check-in after grabbing bags from Concierge -- was surprised to see/hear that my local VC's name was on the room (they weren't on the pre-Con room arrangement list I'd gotten from the Leads). Made way back, did MOST of the rest of the registration (Library card had not printed, so it needed to be picked up 'later'.)
Went to Burger Study with TOZ Team, then made our way over to the Westin where we combination chilled/talked with someone from Lone Wolf (whose name eludes me, I'm horribly sorry!) and intermittently passed out on the landing couch. After a few hours of suchlike activity, Pirate Rob showed up, indicating concerns and needs for food.
With TOZ Team (less TOZ-brother), LWD gentleman whose name I've forgotten, Pirate Rob and myself we then received quite possibly the WORST service I've ever had at GenCon Indy in the entire time its been in Indy.
I have no doubt in my mind if we'd been willing to make a team Stealth check that we'd've been able to not pay for the 'lack of drinks' and 'lack of service' involved and we were of a general mixed consensus to do exactly that before our good natures prevailed and we tried to get our check -- only to be billed for things we'd never gotten. Some of us went outside as the bill was settled up, and the fresh air did help -- until three people not involved in our group decided to light up their cigarettes with us immediately downwind of them.
A complicated casual dance then began, with me trying to avoid being in the path of deth-smoak and the breeze and individuals in question shifting as their conversation had them moving around. After about ten minutes the bill was finally sorted out, and we dispersed for the evening with plans to regroup for the 8AM slot of Passing The Torch Pt. 1.
|
|
Arrived in Sagamore early enough to pick up my GM library card, chat briefly with some folks without disturbing them, then made my way to our pre-designated appointment with DEWM as run by Pittsburgh-area VC Quinn Shannon. Pirate Rob arrived, followed by Phylotus, then TOZ Team.
Without spoilers or details, it was very much a Seeker-level scenario, with the table playing into the middle of the three Tiers. Despite this, my dumber-than-bricks barbarian Scarab Sage was able to contribute significantly to the success of the mission, and while not giving QUITE the damage output of some of the other members was able to provide other support as needed.
We wrapped it very close to time, and I moved over one table to the table I was going to be running The Absalom Initiation on. Admittedly, when I prepped this I'd given some of the party-briefing situation a glance-over and figured it'd be easy enough to just do the randomization at the table -- that was a significant mistake but one I recovered from reasonably quickly.
Phylotus used some of their free time to acquire a 2E GM (landscape For The Win!) screen and a copy of the Bestiary from the Exhibit Hall using my PaizoFunBux Voucher and the ever-important day-glow radioactive skeleton, all of which were immediately put to use.
The second-most memorable part was when the party rogue decided to shank a particular NPC, who then laid out said rogue in a particularly violent fashion as the rest of the party tried to talk down said NPC.
The most memorable part was Operation: Greased Goblin as the party's goblin decided to use themselves as bait to draw a crowd that had formed to protest something the Pathfinders wanted to do. The rest of the party jumped on this with exceptional vigor and it was a very fun and exciting time.
Had a hard time unwinding after the slot, grabbed a couple of subs from the Subway next to the Horrific Dining Experience of the night before. Finally managed to pass out around 1930-2000 or so.
Had to wait a little bit past 'real ticket' muster time but not horribly so for my table of four, who all had experience playing PF1. The most memorable scenes were in the forest section and then the final encounter.
Given a dearth of sleep I'd forgotten the duration of Lesser Confusion and the last fight turned into a comedy of errors as three of the party members engaged in perfectly-legal party combat as the remaining character, a fashion-conscious kitsune bloodrager, went on to MVP the opponents into paste.
My day wasn't QUITE yet done, though, for I had another slot of The Absalom Initiation for 0800. I stopped back at the room, dropped off the 1e stuff, picked up the 2e stuff, and then got a request from my room-mate to get about a half-dozen Starfinder maps for them from the Exhibit Hall after I got off-shift -- and the ever-important day-glo radioactive skeleton.
The second run went a bit smoother than the first one, and there were a few moments of 'Wow, we're really in over our heads' followed by 'We CAN do this.'. Also, my voice started to die horribly.
Made way down to Exhibit Hall, bought Starfinder maps and the ever-important day-glow radioactive skeleton for my weekend room-mate, and as I was waiting in line heard a discussion about Exalted that was ten shades of wrong even from my exceptionally limited play and genre experience of the setting. When there was a break in the conversation I tossed in my two cents politely and the two folks who were talking were somewhat relieved to hear that there were other people who understood and respected the setting and the meta.
Delivered the maps prior to the slot for the weekend room-mate, told him the bill total, then headed to get lunch from First Watch -- had a club sandwich with an egg on it, and a leafy salad accompanied it. I did not realize how much I needed the salad until it was gone -- before the sandwich, even.
Stopped at the CVS next to First watch, picked up some personal care items. On the way back, realized that there were no good food options for overnight so instead of my 'normal' tradition of getting Jack's Donuts on Early Saturday after the overnight slot I instead got them Friday afternoon. Let me tell you, walking four blocks with three dozen donuts in 84+ degree heat is an interesting experience.
After a quick shower I passed out for a few hours. Room-mate came back about 1800 or so and offered to make up the difference between the bill and the FunBux Voucher by buying me a sandwich from the PNC Subway. One sandwich later I was ready to pass out again.
Woke up about 2200 and started getting ready for the 'next day'. Fortunately, it was a lot easier to get ready after having a feel for the timing and environment. Drew out the custom map for Heart of the Foe, made a few negligible mistakes but got the concept across.
|
|
Had a table seated at about ten to the hour and got started on another rousing round of What The Helms Day Is it? Hide. I was not the only person at my table standing at the mid-point of the slot, as the fatigue factor was hitting the entire table and I was alternating between a half-scream to make myself heard and interpetative dance to communicate to my players as my voice had gone out again.
Mad kudos to the player of the dwarf at my table who took one throwaway descriptive line and ran with it. The table was exactly on the margin, so they decided to play 'up' for the challenge... and handled it exceptionally well.
At the end of the second segment I gave the table a twenty minute break and went upstairs to retrieve the donuts for the overnight HQ team and GMs, as well as any other HQ/GMs/staff that came in on the morning shift. There was much appreciation of the pastries as well as some awe at how huge they were.
Had enough time after the slot to run to the Starbucks Capitol Grounds at the Westin, and made the *grave* tactical error of getting two Venti Mocha Frappucino to remain awake for the morning slot.
My table for Heart of the Foe was mustered in an incredibly inefficient manner -- in fact my first player sat down c. 0750 and it looked like they were just having breakfast as I was trying to set up at the muster time and I became rather... salty. After calming down a bit another four players showed up at approximately 0800, all with 'real tickets'.
However, as there had been no direct guidance on whether they were done filling my table I went through the administrative work as much as possible. At approximately 0830 I began to read the mission briefing when we had a mustering agent and a player show up at the table asking if they could play at the table. It was not my best moment, and I apologized to my players as I dialed back the Angertron to a steady 3 of 10 simmer.
We were a few encounters into the scenario, and every time someone's character would tempt Murphy like clockwork (rolled in the open for fairness sake) they'd get whacked with the results. Things were moving smoothly... TOO smoothly. I went to go pull out the next map and.... it hadn't made the trip.
Then they made an announcement about cashing in boon chips for prizes, and as I had three banked I figured 'what the heck, it's worth a shot'. I encouraged my table to cash in their chips at that point (there was little argument) and one of the three rolls I made was a '20' for 'game product'. I grabbed the map I needed, held it up, and practically raced back to the table and plopped that sucker down with far too eager of an energy.
Getting the table back on track, we cruised on through to the final encounter, and things were looking a bit grim until the party used massive overwhelming firepower (but not actual fire) to save the day and their fellow Starfinders.
After the slot was over I had entirely WAY too much energy. I scooted down to the Exhibit Hall, but almost immediately regretted it. I made it up to myself by dropping over to the Paizo Booth, picked up some minis, then escaped the asylum to deposit the items in the room.
The quest for something to eat was an adventure, and I ended up at a place called 'Tommy's'. It was not what one would call a 'classy' establishment, but it did provide quality fare for a reasonable budget -- and the service was personal and friendly as well as a cut or ten above what either of their neighbors to the east (Loughmillers and Subway) were providing.
Then I remembered my critical stores level of cough drops, so I nearly sprinted over to CVS to get a bag as well as some shaving cream and cheap razors as I was feeling kind of scruffier than expected.
...and mailed the package containing all my 2E stuff along with the scenarios I'd already run and no longer needed, so I didn't have to carry them on the bus.
As I was lounging around the room desperately trying to get tired enough to sleep, the room-mate came back and mentioned that his table had cleared up really fast and then was preparing for the Special. I crawled into bed and passed out for a few hours until I couldn't sleep any more as my paranoia about having a map ready for the morning Block of Pact Worlds Warriors started haunting me.
I did everything I could to make ready, then started to get ready for my overnight slot when my room-mate returned. Sat and stared for a couple of hours as I Could Not Sleep.
realized I didn't need to panic as a very awesome GM had left behind their map for PWW which made that a piece of cake . I went up to the mustering official and told them I *needed* my table seated at quarter to the hour and ready to play and their response was to call it a 'bold move' but understood my concerns from earlier on Saturday.
What the Helms Decide? Hide went off with a neat group that played a lot together outside of Gen Con, so they were remarkably prepared and paranoid, and the scenario went decently quickly.
In fact, between the later Sunday start and the early enough finish, I had enough time to grab the buffet at the Westin... and drink entirely too much coffee when I hadn't even dealt with the two frappucinos from the night before.
For PWW, I once again informed my muster person that I needed my table as fast as they could muster one, and the first section of the scenario took... well, it took entirely too much time and I was trying to figure out how to streamline it and had to streamline the other sections of the scenario to give a nice 'feel' for what it was like.
After the block I made my way to the desk and bent Thursty's ear for a bit about that, and he'd expressed that he'd had a similar concern related to him by several GMs. That immediately set me at ease -- I thought perhaps I'd been a poor GM when it turned out that it was more the material than my GM style.
Takedown of the Sagamore was very much a 'hurry up and wait' sort of procedure, as we'd have too many hands working then not enough, then 'just right'. Even though I wasn't 'working' the 'takedown block', I was able to help light some fires to get some tables moved to be ready to take down the banners -- and the entire takedown process was done at about 1830.
As noted previoiusly, I was still working off coffee and the frappucinos and my paranoia levels started to rise because of a series of miscommunications -- VC Quinn Shannon was going to be running Passing the Torch Pt. II for us but there was confusion as to whether we were going out to TOZ Team hotel, TOZ-bro's hotel, or the Westin.
I made it back to my room, made a mistake of sitting down, and passed out for about twenty minutes and woke up in an even greater panic and a terror about sitting down for fear I'd miss an important message, so I stood in a bit of a wobbly state for about ten minutes trying to coordinate the threads before getting simple guidance to meet up with TOZ-bro and Phylotus and start a recon for a room or table to play on.
During that process I ran into one of the teams I had on What the Helms Cried Hide and was starting to chat with them when my contacts arrived and our hunt began in earnest at the Marriot.
We eventually found a room and TOZ-bro started showing us a game I was decidedly NOT in a good mindspace to be playing, something about shipwrecks and Fate and math-is-hard-when-nearly-up-for-20-something hours.
Then some kindly folks entered what had some adult beverages that they could not take upon their transport, and they did verily provide unto us most adult excellence. It was in this well-warmed state that our GM didst arrive, along with the remainder of TOZ Team.
We had a very interesting run of Part Two, and there were significantly STRONG story points at the end of it. It was definitely NOT a disappointment and TOZ's character kept us all from dying horribly far too many times.
At some point, I believe around 0200 or so we said some goodbyes and stumbled back to our lairs or our transport as appropriate. There was a brief blackout period before I woke up in the earliest time I felt I could pull and the race to get everything packed up and over to the bus, which was a neat ride of both passed out and chatting with a fellow named Robert who was up in the Chicagoland area but is moving back to the Bloomington-Normal area this week.
Walk to the train was pretty decent and not too overheating, train ride wasn't too bad, and then made it home where I stared at things in a daze for several hours before finally falling asleep at 0200-ish on Tuesday morning.
