GenCon Indy Reports

[Swiftbrook]

Please add your GenCon Indy experiences here

For Me:

Wednesday
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Long drive followed by long wait in long lines. 1.5 hour wait to get a badge followed by a 1.75 hour wait to be told my event was closed.

Aside: 9:00 PM, had to call for a jump, left my lights on.

Thursday
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Up early to go to the event that was closed: Living Greyhawk Castle Greyhawk low level. Arrived at 7:00 and waited until 8:00 until I was able to get a spot. Yah! The adventure was great. My 1st level ranger survived an APL 4 adventure with a bunch of great guys. Basically, it was classic Greyhawk, and lots of fun. It also ran for 5 hours.

1:00 - I hit the dealer room. This is my first GenCon Indy. I've been to several in Milwakee. This is bigger. Opps, I mean BIGGER! More space, more dealers, more, more more. WotC was giving away lots of goodies. I got 2 Arberations minis and a Star Wars mini. Also, if you sat through there demos you could roll a big d20 (1' across) and "win" prizes. Each demo you sat through earned you a bonus on your roll, up to +10. If you rolled three 15's or better you got your choice. I only had time for 1 demo, so I had to roll 14 or better three times. I rolled better only twice but got an Archfiends pack for those rolls. With three rolls you could get a Giants of Legend, one of the two new versions of Risk, or one of several versions of Axis and Allies. I don't think anyone when away without something.

Pirates of the Carabean seemed to be a big hit as well.

7:00 - the D&D 30th Aniversery party. They moved it inside. There was a big push to get in at first that was kind of scarry, but that got under control after a few minutes. Oh, it was held in the old Union Station. The freebies:

• Music
• Entertainment: jugellers, D&D style fights (foam swords and shields)
• Food -- real food: Large turkey legs, corn on the cob, hot dogs or brats (I think), pop, and chocolate chip ice cream sandwitches.
• A large poster
• A cup
• A T-Shirt
• A tote bag

I left about 7:45, a long day and I'm tired.

I head home tommorow morning.

Post your experiences.

-Swiftbrook

 

[grodog]

Wednesday: arrived 7am in Indy on a red-eye from San Francisco, waited for Tadashi to arrive, then spent most of the day checking into our hotel and setting up the booth (#2025). Bumped into several old friends. Ate dinner with Walter Hunt---see his site at http://www.walterhunt.com/---and Walter's friend Colin, who both drove in from the Boston-ish area.

Thursday: picked up ENWorld badge (thanks Cthulhu's Librarian!), met several ENWorld folks at the ENnies booth and/or wandering around and/or at the Different Worlds booth. Ryan "Destan" Smalley arrived around 5pm or so, then we went out to dinner with him and one of his players, Ross Watson. Will be heading to the train station to pick up Rob Kuntz in another hour or two, then off to sleep until the morning

Tadashi is putting up images from the show on the DW web site at http://www.diffworlds.com/gencon_2004.htm in case anyone's curious

 

[JediSoth]

Wednesday: Took my car to the dealership to take care of a factory recall problem. Went to work as usual. Got home and made spaghetti and meat sauce (I make my own sauce).

Thursday: Slept in and got to GenCon about 8:30. Went to the Hyatt and sign in for my first True Dungeon experience. One of my gaming buddies was in my group, the rest were strangers. 2 hours later, our entire group walked out having completed True Dungeon successfully. I then proceeded to the dealer room and wandered aimless. Marc Singer waved me over and said Hi (why he waved me over, I have no idea, all I did was make eye contact and nod "Hello"). Great guy. I played a demo at the WotC area and rolled the big D20 to get a free Archfiends booster pack. The rare was one I didn't yet have: The Aspect of Bane. I then spent 2.5 - 3 hours wandering the dealer hall looking for the ENWorld booth. I hadn't yet picked up a map, so I didn't know that it was located outside of the dealer hall. D'OH! Got my badge and went home about 3:30.

Friday:
Part 1: Slept in again, and left for GenCon about 9:15. Arrived in time to get a seat at table five for my "Aces & Eights" game. It's Kenzer & Co.'s new western RPG. After things got set up, we all got our characters. I was a Cherokee woman named Running Doe who was one of the perpetrators of a bank robbery in Muskeegee. The bullets started flying almost as soon as we started to leave the bank. Mexican Bob ran out into the middle of the street and I took up a crouched position on the boardwalk. I fired my rifle at the School Marm 'cause she was screaming, but missed. Fortunately for her, she ran away. I then took out another NPC with a shot to the groin, and turned my rifle on one of the PCs that were shooting at Mexican Bob. I shot him through the heart and dropped him (a crit!). Another guy winged me in the leg, so I turn on him and after a couple of shots to get my range, I shot him in the head (knocked him unconscious with short-term memory loss). By then, the demo was over. Combat is fast and furious, taking place essentially in real-time. It's a little confusing at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's pretty fun and flows fairly smoothly. I helped Dave Kenzer clean up after the game and carried some stuff back to the Kenzer & Co. booth and was rewarded with some cool Hackmaster swag. I then headed home for lunch. Just a few more hours before the Star Wars Miniature Game preview and True Heroes!

Part 2: Went to the Star Wars Miniatures Preview. They've simplified the D&D miniatures rules a bit and altered them to make ranged combat more powerful, since ranged combat is more prevalent in Star Wars. No free swag though, and it didn't last the full two hours. I was actually a little disappointed in it; it just didn't seem to give out that much information. I wandered around the dealer hall for a bit and picked up Dundjinni Platinum at a 50% discount, then headed over to the Hyatt for True Heroes. They were running a little bit late, so I looked through the characters and chose "Nightcrawler." Our group went through and I had a moment of glory using my teleport power to help my allies out of a trap. We made it to the last room where we were all defeated. It was fun, but I think it relies a little too much on luck/random chance, especially on the final room. I probably won't run through it again next year, though I'll be the first to sign up for True Dungeon again. Time to eat, and recuperate for tomorrow!

Saturday: I didn't sleep in as much and go to GenCon before the exhibition hall opened. I stood around in the crowd for about 15 minutes, then made a mad dash for the WotC area so I could sign up for the Star Wars Miniatures demos (they typically filled up for the day by about noon). After signing me and a buddy up for 1:00 pm, I signed up for a D&D Dungeon Delve (Eberron-flavor) and set off to wander. I picked up the second Eberron adventure, Whispers of the Vampire's Blade, and some brushed copper dice at Crystal Caste (along with a cool set of dice they called blue moonstone, with a nifty little flip top case). I wandered over to Sword & Sorcery and Malhavoc Press and chatted with Monte Cook for a bit, then headed back for my D&D Dungeon Delve. Andy Collins ran me and another guy through a quick scenario. After lunch, I did the Star Wars Minis Demo. It was pretty fun. It's is a simplified version of D20 combat and much more forgiving on ranged combat than the D&D Minis game. The figures are excellent quality for massed produced, pre-painted plastic. I'm definately picking these things up when they debute in 2 weeks. After that, I headed to my last RPG event of the Con, Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed: Eye of the Needle. I played a mojh magister (for those of you who don't know, go to www.montecook.com or www.diamondthrone.com) and put my new copper dice to the test. Our group finished the adventure with no casulties. It was pretty fun, and was my first experience playing an AU character since I picked the book up at GenCon '03. The magic system really does work well. Makes me wish it was the way it worked in standard D&D. That's all for Saturday. Sunday will be all dealer hall, the whole time I'm there.

Sunday:
Today was the big shopping day. I managed to get my non-gamer fiancee to come with me. We walked the entire exhibition hall and demo'ed a few board games. I picked up some more dice (like I need more), a camel bone jewelry box for my future mother-in-law's birthday, and a copy of 10 Days in Africa (a really fun boardgame from Out-of-the-Box Publishing). It was a leisurely day as far as GenCon days go and a good way to end the convention. After dinner at P.F. Chang's we went home and said farewell to the Con for another year.

JediSoth

 

[Piratecat]

I'm jealous. Sounds fun!

 

[JediSoth]

*bump* Puttin' this back on the front page. Maybe a mod could sticky it until a couple of weeks after GenCon?

JediSoth

 

[Evilhalfling]

So I'm not at gencon, just sitting at home eating dinner
*ring*
Its a good friend and gamer from my home town -
"Im playing a buffy LARP and they made me Clem !"
I can actually hear him jumping with joy.
for those who are not buffy fanatics, Clem is a friendly demon with floppy skin and a tendency to play kitten poker.

 

[Chaos Drake]

Lotsa gaming goodness. MMmmm....

 

[Fiery James]

Possible Merger...?

Overheard at the Ennies:

James Bell and Hal Greenberg were talking at a table. I believe that they were discussing a proposed "merger" or "takeover" of MEG by FDP. I can't confirm this (despite being one of the parties involved). I'm not 100% sure, but I believe they were talking about re-allocating MEG's product lines -- James said something like, "I don't think I can take it all...", while Hal responded, "You can take it, and you'll love it."

They may have been talking about something else entirely, but that was just the vibe I got.

-Secret Agent (might actually be James)

 

[mythusmage]

Sounds like Hal's Jedi mind tricks are still affecting you.

 

[grodog]

Friday: Brisk sales at the Different Worlds booth, and got to meet lots of folks from the forums at ENWorld, Necromancer Games, and Pied Piper Publishing. Rob and Ryan both arrived on Thursday, though Rob didn't get in until about 2:30am Friday morning, due to a very delayed Amtrak train from Chicago. We attended the ENnies with Chaosium, and grodog and Destan had a great time afterward chatting with Justinian, Psion, RangerWicket, and other folks at the post-ENnies gathering at the Ram

I got far too little sleep last night (didn't get back to the hotel until about 2:30), especially given the redeye on Tuesday night and picking Rob up on Wednesday night/Thursday morning. Ugh. But it sure beats punching the timeclock at Juniper