Anyone go to GenCon UK?

[Prism]

I went along again this year. Things were a little different in the RPG area I guess because of the release of 4e and also because the games were free - it was packed! Unless you prebooked a 4e game on the internet it was a stuggle to get an organised game at all. In previous years a number of games cancelled due to low numbers but as far as I could tell, this year every single game was full or even over subscribed

I played two of the open championship games on the thursday with pregens which was a good laugh but rock hard and almost impossible to finish. I'm still not sure why we never get to play the open championship competitively - this year was just for fun.

Friday and saturday had a couple of games of LFR which were surprisingly good compared with my rather mixed LG experiences. One thing that was a focus of these games was the use of skill challenges which sort of worked I guess. Although they got more of the group involved in the non combat parts of the adventure I'm not quite sure that everyone actually 'got it'

The DMs I had were generally good too - but then they have been every year. All the ones for my games had pretty good 4e knowledge

The trade hall seemed a bit smaller this year and I missed the organised D&D minis games (so a few of us played our own)

Aside from that, spent all my savings from the much reduced pricing on beer and curry

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

I met your brother--he stopped by the D&D room to say hi! Very pleasant fellow.

Heh - thank you! I haven't had a chance to speak to him about it yet but if he hasn't posted here I'll pass on his impressions.

 

[Kithran]

Hi, yeah we went

It was OK, I enjoyed the boardgames even though none of the volunteers knew the rules to any of the games we played... even when they said they did.
The RPGA games I booked were a wash out, despite great efforts on my part it was impossible to get anything close to organisation out of them... We eventually gave away our (difficult to get hold of) booked tickets as there were no pregens for the games I booked... even though it said clearly on the site that there were, and despite them guffing around for 20 minutes they couldn't loan us a book to make some. We gave them to some guys whom had just made them while we were arguing the toss with the 'organiser'
I played in one D&D 4e game where the guy who 'ran' it was basically a spectator whom had to be reminded to have his turn as the monsters... it sucked hard.
Like I say we had a few laughs at the esdevium boardgames rooms and the boardgame library (much the same experiance, except in the BGL they actually knew how to play the games) but as an RPG event it didn't register on the graph.

I don't know which RPGA game (or games) you were wanting to play, however of the three games which were advertised as having pre-generated characters (Return to the Moathouse, In Fear No More and The Betrayal of Darth Revan) all three had the characters provided.
The only other RPGA adventures run were the various Living Forgotten Realms which were advertised as requiring characters created by the players.
As for the game you did play as with any convention organiser I can only take a prospective DMs comments on abilities at face value without any other information. If you had a bad (or a good DM) please let me know enough details so that I can idenify them - that is the only way I can make improvements.
Paul James / Kithran
Gen Con UK Senior DM

 

[Kithran]

[snip] I played two of the open championship games on the thursday with pregens which was a good laugh but rock hard and almost impossible to finish. I'm still not sure why we never get to play the open championship competitively - this year was just for fun.

[snip]

The Open Championship was planned to be offered last year however hardly anyone signed up to play, a problem as it was a team event. This year's Open Championship (as run at Gen Con Indy) was also a team event - and even with it only being run for fun and providing the only opportunity to play 4E at a higher level still didn't come near to filling up prior to the convention.

To run the championship as a championship requires enough teams to make it worthwhile (afterall its no fun being the top team when you are the only team playing). Also if the championship is run as a competition for teams it removes the opportunity for casual players to play for fun.

If numbers increase there is a possibility that the Championship will run at a future Gen Con UK.

Paul James / Kithran
Gen Con UK Senior DM