Gen Con - Good bad and ugly

[Crothian]

Can someone tell me if they had fixed the major computer glitch they had last year with lots of people that were just going in for a single day just waited to get in because of it?

I saw and heard zero bad stories about registration this year

 

[Silver Moon]

The fact that Crothian lives here in Ohio and yet I never had the opportunity to meet him!

Actually Crothian doesn't actually exist, he's just a collective Alt ID that all of the mods here use when they don't want to post under their own names.







(Only kidding Chris)

 

[fett527]

Actually Crothian doesn't actually exist, he's just a collective Alt ID that all of the mods here use when they don't want to post under their own names.







(Only kidding Chris)

Don't make me post it again...

 

[Crothian]

Actually Crothian doesn't actually exist, he's just a collective Alt ID that all of the mods here use when they don't want to post under their own names.







(Only kidding Chris)

Chris is just the actor they hire to play the part, Jon.

Did you guys make iut down to the Con? I was looking for you and mentioned it to PC but I never heard if you came down.

 

[Silver Moon]

Did you guys make iut down to the Con? I was looking for you and mentioned it to PC but I never heard if you came down.

Nope, wasn't meant to be. Kriskraft's new employer had some mandatory training classes last week, leaving me alone to do the trip to and from Michigan with the kids. Two parent with three young kids would have worked for a day at GenCon, one parent would have been pushing it. We'll do the Con again once the kids are a little older.

 

[GlassJaw]

The Good
- All the EN Worlders (of course!)
- The Privateer booth and all the new Warmachine stuff
- Gaming with Rob from Green Ronin twice
- Getting the treasure from the well in True Dungeon. I got a necklace of fireballs and then sold it afterwards for 900gp.

The Bad
- The dude who got up in the middle of my Sat morn Shadowrun game to go wait in line for SR4.
- Gettin awful cards playing poker in the World Series of GenCon Sat night. In an hour and half, I had one Ace and one King.
- Missing out on getting a copy of SR4.

The Ugly
- the elevators in the Hyatt. Carl and I probably spent over 2 hours combined either on the elevators or waiting for them.
- the rent-a-cop security guard yelling at us at the Philly airport on the way home for going through a door that opened automatically.

 

[CarlZog]

GOOD
--Meeting Enworlders.
--Playing awesome games I don't get much chance to play the rest of the year.

BAD
-- Missing out on Crothian's Paranoia game.
-- Being too tired to stay up and join in the post-Ennies Round Robin DM game.

UGLY
-- Hyatt Hotel elevators. Took forever all the time.
-- Steak and Shake on Saturday morning. By 8:30, the place wasn't very crowded, but it looked like a bomb had hit it, and the service was beyond abysmal. Half the tables were empty, but covered in dirty dishes, and a dozen people were waiting for a table. I took a seat at the counter; staff people looked right at me but never offered to help. After nearly 15 minutes, I finally asked for some service from the next person I saw. After taking my order I overhead her talking with another server. She came back and told me they "just sold the last biscuit." I knew that it had been sold while I was sitting there, and she had been debating with other waitress over who was going to get it. I lost. I eventually got some breakfast, then took my tab to the register to pay. Three others were on line in front of me and we all waited for someone to show up and take our money. After nearly 10 minutes of waiting for someone to to pay, I was done. I crumpled up the tab and walked out.

 

[Psion]

Good:

• The Ennies. It was fantastic and funny.
• The Canadia Suite. Especially the night after the ENnies when the traffic was light, but the guests prestigious.
• Meeting new ENworlders and renewing aquaintances with old ones.
• A few swag items, and some well won stuff worth paying a few pennies for. See my booty thread for more on that.
• Meeting Stephanie Pui-Mun Law and having a personalized sketch in a book with her art.
• Chatting with the designers. To include helping to make a connection that I hope will mean some books coming out will be all the better for it.
• Chatting with Fusangite about matters of mutual interest.

Bad:

• My feet. Oh lord, my blistered feet.
• Missing out on a few items (Wildwood, Demon hunter's, the new Z-man D&D game) because of failure to arrive, failure to remember, or not knowing about it.
• My T20 game was not up to my expectations.
• My spycraft game falling apart, and by the time I called it quits, all the games I wanted to play in were full.
• Knowing that Rip, Orri, and Shem were there, but missing them.

The Ugly

• My suitcase was too heavy from the books on it so I had to overstuff my backpack on the flight home, and I got stuck in the seat of the plane that I hate most -- the middle seat behind the first class bulkhead.

 

[Derfel]

Good

• True Dungeon - While I was a bit lost at first, beating death and getting to the final room with only one other party member during the Hardcore challenge was a blast.
• Brickquest - The joys of lego miniature combat
• Meeting Mike Mearls, Monte Cook and Steve Kenson all of whom were great people to finally meet.
• Serenity and Angel GM. My GM for an amazing game of the Serenity RPG friday afternoon also ended up running me and a friend through a really great Angel RPG session late Friday night when I had no other games scheduled. Good times were had by all.
• Getting to play Iron Heroes and Mutants and Masterminds 2nd edition.

Bad

• Customer Service lines on Wednesday were way too long. They really need a seperate line for event refunds as opposed to problems with missing badges or events. A friend and I had a bunch of extra tickets to refund since a couple other friends weren't able to attend with us and it took way too many hours.
• Bad Buffy GM - The GM for my Saturday morning Buffy RPG event was way too young and inexperienced and had no grasp of the rules. Her dad wasn't much better (not that she let him help much). That coupled with insane railroading (me - "I go into the cave" her - "No you don't") was a big let down. My Angel game later in the night (see above) more than made up for it though. At least it wasn't as bad as one player who got to do nothing for 3.5 hours of the 4 hour event. One of the organizers explanation? "Did Xander get to do something in every episode of Buffy?"
• Cancelled GenCon Play - Not only did I miss the play that my friends always tell me is a blast, but we only found out when we showed up and TCG games were still being run, which means we ended up having to scramble for an event that night. Nothing was posted anywhere about the cancellation and almost no one had useful info.

Ugly
This was more funny than ugly.
* The guy who stopped me on the street as I was heading back to my hotel from the convention centre.
I quote

"Hey are you with those dungeons and dragons folk? No don't worry, my brother does that stuff. Now I'm not asking you for money, cause I wouldn't do that. See my wife's brother got into an accident. That smell is 'cause I'm a dairy farmer from up north. Now I'm not asking for money since my brother is one of you. He's been coming to Indy for years, as long as the rest of you folk. Now I'm not drunk. See my car, she broke down. and I assure you I'm not asking for money.

"See I'm a dairy farmer so that's what you smell. I ain't on the crack, not for ten minutes. Now I wouldn't dare ask you for money because my brother, who plays your game, is like you. I wouldn't do that to him and I wouldn't do that to you. Now I'm not drunk but my wife is really concerned. And our car ran out of gas. Now where are you from? I wouldn't pay that much.

"Now I'm not asking for money, but the car is parked near a station. See it's just 6 blocks north and 4 blocks east. Now I'm not drunk, and I don't do crack. Well not today, you know. So I'm not going to even think about asking for money. See how much is gas in Canada? See here it's mighty expensive. At least 16.73 to fill her up. Now I don't want your money, I wouldn't dream of asking for it, because you're like my brother.

"So I'm not drunk and I'm just wondering if you can, not asking for money you know, well, the car's not far away and my brother-in-law was banged up bad. Do you know the city? I don't know it well, but there's a gas station 6 blocks north and 4 blocks east.

"Ok I'm asking you for money, and I understand if you say no."

whew, pretty strange for a Saturday afternoon.

 

[Ethernaut]

Good
I feel like I've suddenly become a member of the community. Last year, I came out to GenCon with Cthulhu's Librarian and had some fun games. But I didn't get the sense that I made any new friends. This year, I met so many interesting and wonderful people that I'm a bit overwhelmed. I can't possibly list everyone so I won't try. I do want to give a special shout out to Rel, who was a wonderful travel companion (and yes, I still owe you for gas). I'd like to give a shout to everyone in the Canadia Suite. Wonderful people and a wonderful place to gather in an atmosphere of friendship.

Also good, was the excellent gaming. No, we didn't advance in the tournement. But that just allowed me the chance to play in Der Kluge's Round Robin. And how about Rel's "Orcs!" and "Sky Galleons" games? I want to express thanks to Rel and my fellow players for making those games the RPG highlights of my trip.

The ENnies was fun too, even though my website didn't win. The events that followed after were even more fun...

Bad
Not as many cool new releases as I had hoped, yet I stiill blew through my budget. I also fell off my marathon training a bit. Running back to the Best Western during "Sky Galleons" for my badge was pretty cruddy, even if I did get make it back in good time.

Ugly
Still haven't found a good grocery store in Indy. My 2 mile walk to the Safeway through nasty neighborhoods and oppressive heat was *definitely* ugly.