GenCon Events - Need some advice

[Erithtotl]

Last year I went to GenCon for the first time. I only had very limited time so I just played in the D&D open with a friend.

This year I intend to go for most of the 4 days. But looking on the event registration site, nearly everything is full. Even of the events that are open I have little or no idea how I'm supposed to decide what is good.

1. Do more events open up later?
2. Do openings in 'booked' games open up at the convention?
3. Is there a better way to pick stuff than randomly off the website?
4. If everything is full, what other options for gaming do I have?

 

[Contrarian]

1. Yes, but at this point, it will mostly be seminars added to the catalog.

2. Yes. Buy some generic tickets and see if you can crash some games when preregistered players don't show up.

3. You can download the event catalog as an excel spreadsheet, which makes it easier to sort and find things. (For example, I chopped out all the event categories I didn't care about, then sorted by game system.)

4. There are some open gaming areas, although I've never had much use for them.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

There's also ENWorld games (check the GenCon sub-forum) although those tend to fill pretty quick.

 

[Erithtotl]

I was thinking of trying a Star Wars event or two. But I can't figure out which events use the new rules. I've seen 'Revised Edition', D20 and D6.

 

[pedr]

As SW Saga didn't come out until after the event registration window closed, you're unlikely to find events using the new rules in the catalogue unless they're run by WotC. Independent GMs and other groups which run ticketed events at GenCon wouldn't have had the rules by the time they had to decide what they were going to run.

I know that the RPGA is running the first half (ish) of the first part of the forthcoming "Dawn of Defiance" adventure path which will be published on the WotC site starting in the autumn. There may still be some tickets for that - you'll have to look for the events which start RPGA to find them.

 

[Steel_Wind]

4. There are some open gaming areas, although I've never had much use for them.

A very different opinion than my own.

I consider open gaming at Gencon to offer the very best gaming available at the con for the kinds of games I enjoy playing at cons, namely, board games.

For RPG events, I would suggest generic tickets and seeing if there are any ENWorld events available in the con event sub-forum here.

 

[Thrommel]

The NASCRAG tournament welcomes anyone who shows up to play for one of our four Round One slots. It is rules-and-hack'n'slash lite, with a heavy emphasis on story & role-playing. Add a dash of zaniness to encourage everyone to have a good time and there you have it.

We accept walk-ups with generic tickets whether it's you and five friends or you're alone and looking to pick up a game we'll get you on a team.

You may have read about us in this month's Dragon. It's a good time.

-Thrommel, the guy barking out orders, prayers, and glib comments at the start of every round.

 

[marimacc]

I would also like to suggest this site, which is VERY easy to use to browse events and see what's full:

gencon.highprogrammer.com.

Just to add to the advice here, yes, there will be plenty of free/open games; lots of the mini and card games run games nearly continuously that you can jump into with a few generics at most any time; my SO has done this a lot in the past with Battletech clickys for instance. There's also a really nice free Boardgame area this year, a brand new feature. Definitely the generic ticket advice is sound; you'd be amazed at how many people don't show for their events.

Also remember that you will have fun at Gen Con even if you don't register for ANY events, I've done that before and had a great time.

And feel free to stop by the Gen Con forums at community.gencon.com if you need any further Gen Con assistance.