EricNoah
Adventurer
Ah, 4 hours of sleep later and I'm a new man!
Wow, I can hardly express how great this GenCon was -- everything went just right and I met a lot of great folks.
Oh I was going to do a coherent essay with proper sentences and stuff but I think I'll just fling down some random thoughts and memories...
It was so weird (at first) meeting Russ! I mean I've "known" this guy online for what seems like a long time, right? And then when it's in person at first it was like talking to and meeting a complete stranger. But that really changed because, of course, we DO know each other, we chat all the time, we have a secret language or something, and it wasn't long before I felt that we were as close as people who had been friends for a long time.
Ok, more memories...
Russ's friend Al was a hoot, very outgoing and just seemed to be having a good time no matter where he was. I can see why Russ hangs out with him.
Neither of them were apparently very used to seeing the sun and blue skies. Russ in particular had a sunburn from being outside in New York City for hours at a time over the previous days.
Logistically I think things have gone off without a hitch on his trip so far. His hotel room was waiting there for him with no problems; we got him and Al their badges in under 5 minutes. Those were the areas I was SURE would be screwed up, but they weren't.
Speaking of getting badges, I have NEVER seen shorter lines for "will-call" or on-site registration. Maybe I was just there at the wrong time, but there was literally no wait in either area. And the more it goes online, well, it will only get better. That's cool.
Dinner on Thurs night involved some EN World moderators or ex-moderators and affiliated folk. During that time we learned that Russ had been mistaken for (well, maybe "favorably compared to") Gary Oldman in NYC. He does kind of remind me of one of those mod British rockstars. Nemmerle caught some compromising photos of Piratecat and me doing something naughty. Russ ordered a steak that was as big as his head. Got to meet the inestimable RangerWickett and his very talented artist g/f. Later, the rendezvous shifted location to a "safehouse" where Russ was forced to act like a chicken because he didn't know the password. Neither did I (but, somehow, my wife did. What's that all about??). In the safehouse the highlight was a magician who managed to steal both my wife's and Al's watches during a couple of tricks.
Next morning Kara and I went to a nearby restaurant for breakfast, where a fan asked if I was Russ since I was wearing my EN World shirt. Hated to disappoint him...
Attended the eTools seminar which was well-attended, informative, and there was no throwing of rotten fruit of any kind. It really did go well. I got to meet Mary Kirchoff and thank her for pulling eTools from the brink, as it were, and of course talked to Scott Mathews for a bit about schtuff.
Just before and just after the seminar I got to say hey to James Wyatt. He was in doing FR seminars. I asked him what seminar was next and he said, "What's new in the Forgotten Realms?" I said, "You tell me, I'm no expert." That was painful, I could see it in his face.
I did manage to make it to several of the publisher booths this time around. Stopped by Fiery Dragon and shook hands with Claudio Pozas, whom Russ and I agreed is just the nicest guy in zee whole world! Snagged some of his counters too.
Got to razz Russ during his stint at the Mystic Eye booth.
Tracked down Gary Gygax at the Troll Lords both -- a historic first-time meeting of great minds, to be sure! Kara got a picture of us together; you should all count yourself lucky because we came THIS close to doing a pose with me on his lap. He autographed a copy of his new module, The Hermit, for me.
Got to say howdy to Chris Pramas and Nikchik at the Green Ronin booth, and stopped by to say hey to Paizo folks Chris Thomasson, Erik "Why does Kara refer to me as Mona?" Mona, and earlier, Jesse Decker.
Oh, got to see the prototype of the Kingdoms of Kalamar GM screen. Like the Hackmaster screen but with d20 stuff. Includes the pizza matrix.
Kara's really good at this card game called Blink.
Ok, so it's Friday night and the time for the big show is approaching. We have no set plans for when Ryan Dancey might show up, where the prototype (and apparently very fragile) ENnies statuettes might be, who's going to chase away a dozen or so gamers from the stage area, who's going to set up chairs, who has microphones, or if the food service booths on either side were going to close up shop during the ceremony (they didn't, but I think Mona got a good pic of Russ and I holding a sign that read "Italian Beef").
But then, bang bang bang, it all fell together. Some of the convention employees started setting up chairs. Ryan appeared and had the lists and the envelopes. He knew where the mics were (they were these clip on portable jobbies, and there were only two, but there were four different speakers as well as the winners who needed to make speeches. Let's just say you'll see a lot of pictures of me standing next to the winners and it's not because I wanted to be in the photo -- they were talking into a mic attached to me). Peter showed up and had the statuettes.
It was clear from the start that Ryan had things well in hand and was very comfortable being the emcee for the evening. Russ had joked that his entire planned speech was going to be, "Thank you! And now, Ryan Dancey!" but he actually end up speaking for a while and did a great job.
The show itself went off without a hitch. The only "problems" were little, like the microphone situation, or I think Ryan actually mangled the name of one of the adventures, or I said something that I thought was a witty comment but as soon as I said it it not only sounded dumb but kind of like a subtle insult and I was immediately regreful of that. But overall, wow, it couldn't have been better. The place was packed to overflowing (the publishers, buys folks that they are, arrived fairly late in the seating, eh, "process" and many ended up standing for the entire show). I was particularly gratified by how excited the nominees were. This wasn't a joke to them, it wasn't just some rinky dink fan award, they did really seem genuinely excited and pleased to be there and in the company they were in.
One thing I didn't mention in the other threads with the awards listed was that Peter and Russ sprang a surprise "special achievement" award on a very deserving person, the pioneer for making open gaming and the d20 system a reality, Ryan Dancey himself. He seemed genuinely surprised and grateful.
Afterwards, things got hectic! I got to speak with all sorts of cool people, from lurkers and posters from EN World, to third party publishers, to WotC web folk Julia Martin and Mark Jindra, had a good long fun talk with Monte Cook and Sue Cook (still undisputed Best Editor from last year since we didn't have that category this year). Met some folks who claimed to be from something called "The Black Lodge" and this one bloke kept talking about Eris or Discordia or something. Weirdo. Eventually, folks kind of dispursed. I heard that some went off to do something called "gaming" while Kara and I went off with a group to the Velvet Room to hang out for a while. I had a great time sitting on a beer soaked carpet talking Piratecat and Russ and all sorts of folks. We headed out about 12:30 am and got back to Madison around 2 or so.
I never dreamed that my stupid little list of rumors for 3E would lead me down a road leading to being on stage at GenCon. It was an unforgetable experience.
Wow, I can hardly express how great this GenCon was -- everything went just right and I met a lot of great folks.
Oh I was going to do a coherent essay with proper sentences and stuff but I think I'll just fling down some random thoughts and memories...
It was so weird (at first) meeting Russ! I mean I've "known" this guy online for what seems like a long time, right? And then when it's in person at first it was like talking to and meeting a complete stranger. But that really changed because, of course, we DO know each other, we chat all the time, we have a secret language or something, and it wasn't long before I felt that we were as close as people who had been friends for a long time.
Ok, more memories...
Russ's friend Al was a hoot, very outgoing and just seemed to be having a good time no matter where he was. I can see why Russ hangs out with him.
Neither of them were apparently very used to seeing the sun and blue skies. Russ in particular had a sunburn from being outside in New York City for hours at a time over the previous days.
Logistically I think things have gone off without a hitch on his trip so far. His hotel room was waiting there for him with no problems; we got him and Al their badges in under 5 minutes. Those were the areas I was SURE would be screwed up, but they weren't.
Speaking of getting badges, I have NEVER seen shorter lines for "will-call" or on-site registration. Maybe I was just there at the wrong time, but there was literally no wait in either area. And the more it goes online, well, it will only get better. That's cool.
Dinner on Thurs night involved some EN World moderators or ex-moderators and affiliated folk. During that time we learned that Russ had been mistaken for (well, maybe "favorably compared to") Gary Oldman in NYC. He does kind of remind me of one of those mod British rockstars. Nemmerle caught some compromising photos of Piratecat and me doing something naughty. Russ ordered a steak that was as big as his head. Got to meet the inestimable RangerWickett and his very talented artist g/f. Later, the rendezvous shifted location to a "safehouse" where Russ was forced to act like a chicken because he didn't know the password. Neither did I (but, somehow, my wife did. What's that all about??). In the safehouse the highlight was a magician who managed to steal both my wife's and Al's watches during a couple of tricks.
Next morning Kara and I went to a nearby restaurant for breakfast, where a fan asked if I was Russ since I was wearing my EN World shirt. Hated to disappoint him...
Attended the eTools seminar which was well-attended, informative, and there was no throwing of rotten fruit of any kind. It really did go well. I got to meet Mary Kirchoff and thank her for pulling eTools from the brink, as it were, and of course talked to Scott Mathews for a bit about schtuff.
Just before and just after the seminar I got to say hey to James Wyatt. He was in doing FR seminars. I asked him what seminar was next and he said, "What's new in the Forgotten Realms?" I said, "You tell me, I'm no expert." That was painful, I could see it in his face.
I did manage to make it to several of the publisher booths this time around. Stopped by Fiery Dragon and shook hands with Claudio Pozas, whom Russ and I agreed is just the nicest guy in zee whole world! Snagged some of his counters too.
Got to razz Russ during his stint at the Mystic Eye booth.
Tracked down Gary Gygax at the Troll Lords both -- a historic first-time meeting of great minds, to be sure! Kara got a picture of us together; you should all count yourself lucky because we came THIS close to doing a pose with me on his lap. He autographed a copy of his new module, The Hermit, for me.
Got to say howdy to Chris Pramas and Nikchik at the Green Ronin booth, and stopped by to say hey to Paizo folks Chris Thomasson, Erik "Why does Kara refer to me as Mona?" Mona, and earlier, Jesse Decker.
Oh, got to see the prototype of the Kingdoms of Kalamar GM screen. Like the Hackmaster screen but with d20 stuff. Includes the pizza matrix.
Kara's really good at this card game called Blink.
Ok, so it's Friday night and the time for the big show is approaching. We have no set plans for when Ryan Dancey might show up, where the prototype (and apparently very fragile) ENnies statuettes might be, who's going to chase away a dozen or so gamers from the stage area, who's going to set up chairs, who has microphones, or if the food service booths on either side were going to close up shop during the ceremony (they didn't, but I think Mona got a good pic of Russ and I holding a sign that read "Italian Beef").
But then, bang bang bang, it all fell together. Some of the convention employees started setting up chairs. Ryan appeared and had the lists and the envelopes. He knew where the mics were (they were these clip on portable jobbies, and there were only two, but there were four different speakers as well as the winners who needed to make speeches. Let's just say you'll see a lot of pictures of me standing next to the winners and it's not because I wanted to be in the photo -- they were talking into a mic attached to me). Peter showed up and had the statuettes.
It was clear from the start that Ryan had things well in hand and was very comfortable being the emcee for the evening. Russ had joked that his entire planned speech was going to be, "Thank you! And now, Ryan Dancey!" but he actually end up speaking for a while and did a great job.
The show itself went off without a hitch. The only "problems" were little, like the microphone situation, or I think Ryan actually mangled the name of one of the adventures, or I said something that I thought was a witty comment but as soon as I said it it not only sounded dumb but kind of like a subtle insult and I was immediately regreful of that. But overall, wow, it couldn't have been better. The place was packed to overflowing (the publishers, buys folks that they are, arrived fairly late in the seating, eh, "process" and many ended up standing for the entire show). I was particularly gratified by how excited the nominees were. This wasn't a joke to them, it wasn't just some rinky dink fan award, they did really seem genuinely excited and pleased to be there and in the company they were in.
One thing I didn't mention in the other threads with the awards listed was that Peter and Russ sprang a surprise "special achievement" award on a very deserving person, the pioneer for making open gaming and the d20 system a reality, Ryan Dancey himself. He seemed genuinely surprised and grateful.
Afterwards, things got hectic! I got to speak with all sorts of cool people, from lurkers and posters from EN World, to third party publishers, to WotC web folk Julia Martin and Mark Jindra, had a good long fun talk with Monte Cook and Sue Cook (still undisputed Best Editor from last year since we didn't have that category this year). Met some folks who claimed to be from something called "The Black Lodge" and this one bloke kept talking about Eris or Discordia or something. Weirdo. Eventually, folks kind of dispursed. I heard that some went off to do something called "gaming" while Kara and I went off with a group to the Velvet Room to hang out for a while. I had a great time sitting on a beer soaked carpet talking Piratecat and Russ and all sorts of folks. We headed out about 12:30 am and got back to Madison around 2 or so.
I never dreamed that my stupid little list of rumors for 3E would lead me down a road leading to being on stage at GenCon. It was an unforgetable experience.
heh
