Psion's report!
Hi all! Just back from my first GenCon evar. It was such a blast meeting people, putting faces to names, and talking gaming with people as passionate as I am, that I really tried to get a later flight out, but it was destined not to be.
Also, I had hoped to post daily updates from the Con, but the room charged for local calls, so it was not to be...
The thing that really impressed me was how cool all the people were, some of which I only talked to a bit online.
Anyway, I'll do a brief con summary day by day, and then follow up with pictures, some with specific stories to go along with some of the pictures.
Thursday
I got to the judges room the posh Embassy Suites hotel Thursday night. Crothian and Jeff left a note to come upstairs to Hellhound and Dextra's suite, which they dubbed "Little Canadia" and decorated with little icons of maple leaves for no discernable reason.
At any rate, it became a convenient hub for me, as it was right upstairs from our suite.
Dextra and Hellhound were way cool to chat with and were pretty much the people I hung with the most at the con... when they weren't chained to the booth (and even sometimes when they were!). Their kids are very cute and talented to boot (see the pictures below!). I knew Jason from way back (but only online), but only talked to Denise a few times, so this was a neat
The twin rose folks were also there, who I didn't know as well as Dextra and Hellhound prior to GenCon, but I soon discovered that they were very cool as well, and I spent a bit of time chatting and hanging out with Chris and Dee.
A few other folks dropped at this ever popular hangout that night, such as the fiery dragon crew. I finally got to meet Mike Johnstone (FDP_Mike). Many of you probably don't him very well, but for a while he used to once-over my reviews for me gratis, which was very cool. And of course, we would chew the fat about industry things via email, so it was cool to meet him in person.
It was interesting to meet Crothian and TeflonBilly as well. Crothian is, catch this, a rather quiet person IRL!
TB caught on to the fact that I was once in the military by the way I folded my shirts. Again, need I add, both were very cool.
I didn't get much done Thursday other than meeting folks at the Canadia suite, as I didn't get in until after the exhibit floor was closed.
Friday, day
First day I got my bearings and checked out the exhibitor's floor. The judges got exhibitor badges, so we got to go in early to say hi to some of the all to busy industry luminaries. The first luminary I saw that I recognized was Monte Cook talking to someone in the Green Ronin booth, and I thought to myself "there is a juxtaposition of driving forces in d20"!
Of course, during the day I checked out lots of booths and met some more people who I had only known by products or messageboard handles face-to-face. Some of the folks I chatted with (and were very cool) were:
- FDP folks (Mike Johnstone, James Bell, Claudio)
- Green Ronin folks (Nichole Lidross, Chris Pramas, Hal Mangold, Steve Kenson, Aaron Loeb)
- Joe Browning and Suzi Yee (funny stroy, see their pic below...) of Expeditios Retreat press.
- Mystic Eye folks (Hal Greenberg, Doug Henning, Becky Glenn, die Kluge). Hal was quite excited about his upcomng
Fall of Man gritty d20 post apoc game, which sounds intriguing.
- Ed Bourelle
- Darkfuries Folks (Brian Mosley, Volorie Grover, Steve Grover). You might know darkfuries for maps, but they have this decent little fantasy space book that includes some slick little templates and counters that use the d20 system movement rules.
- Mark Plemmons of Kenzer & Co.
- John Danovich of Fast Forward.
- Joe Carricker of Sword & Sorcery studios.
- Alex Fennel of Mongoose, and his two charming sales reps whose names escape me.
- Monte Cook signed my copy of Arcana unearthed.
- Steve Creech, Ashy, Jim Butler at Bastion Press.
- Somebody I've forgotten, I'm sure.
I met up with Russ, and went with him and Michael Morris to check out the room where the ennies were to be held and chatted out a few preliminaries.
After my feet were sore, I headed back to the hotel, and joined the judges, twin rose folks, Russ and Jane at the hotel for Drinks and Dinner (Drinks for them, Dinner for me...)
Ah, the the highlight of the night: The ennies.
The ENNIES awards
From what I understand, this was quite a bit classier setup than last year. The ennies were exhilirating and had some funny moments.
As we were gathering, I met up with many board members and luminaries that I hadn't earlier in the day, including Ryan Dancey, Peter Adkison, Piratecat, Eric Noah, and Mike Mearls. The room wasn't standing room only, but it was more crowded that I expected it to be. And it was a pretty big room.
The judges got to sit on the stage between Peter and Russ, and it was very hot up there.
Michael Morris made a very neat slide show with the nominees that ran during the pre-show, and a similar slide show during the awards displaying the winners.
Privateer was probably the biggest source of amusement during the show. Monsternomicon was sucking down a lot of prizes, but there was only one guy there (whose name I never caught) that submitted ten monsters. He had nothing to do with about half the prizes like art and graphical presentation, but accepted them all with humor with quips like "I had nothing to do with this."
Another funny moment was that Suzi and Joe of XRP. But again, I'll touch on that below.
There's probably not much more I can say that seeing the clip couldn't tell you better, but suffice it to say the presentation ceremony was a lot of fun.
After the ceremony, due to lack of comminication, our group got split up, but I was in the aforementioned group that toasted to Angelsboi
Saturday
Saturday saw me on the exhibitors floor again, but this time I hung out in the booth more, having seen most of I wanted to see Friday. I tied up a few loose ends and did some actual purchases.
I was in Piratecat's Spycraft game that afternoon (along with Dinkledog and sotmh.) I played "Bec", the british biker-woman. I don't want to give anything away in case Kevin is running the game again, but we got in a pretty fun chase scene. I rolled a one on a maneuver, and Kevin mercilessly activated the error and lost control of my bike. I bailed, leaving the poor faceman to take the brunt of the damage. The most humorous moment of the chase scene were the folks in the jeep trying to find a grenade that tumbled under the seat. Suffice it to say, tales of Kevin being a rat bastard have some merit.
I stopped by the Fiery Dragon booth and got ahold of their latest counter product... the Orc and Pie counter pack! (It's a business card sized sheet with, you guessed it, an orc and a pie!
)
I returned to the convention floor to spend some money, knowing I would not be there today. After much deliberation, I picked up mongoose's Quint Sorcerer (after I found out Patrick Younts wrote it), and their Quint Drow and Drow City book. The ladies at the Mongoose book were not only very pleasant, but -- get this -- they were actually conversant with the material.
I had a bit of a discussion with here about the fact that folks not wanting to convert to 3.5 was a bit of a showstopper for some. Guess I'm not the only disgruntled one.
Last night, I went back to the room and to the permanent party and the Canadia suite. The code monkey folks were there wanting to play a game I said I might play, but after I found out that I wouldn't be staying later today, my heart wasn't in it as I wanted to hang out and chat more with folks before I left, and after the spycraft game, my gaming hunger had subsided. I felt a bit bad, but they took it pretty well.
After the folks at the Canadia suite took off for the WW party, the judges had a bit of a chat (while I was packing to leave this morning) and enjoyed a little card game (also see below) before turning in.
I got up to head to the airport at 5:00, but lost my wallet and was all stressing out and turning the room upside down. TB and Crothian are probably mad at me now. Sorry guys!
All in all, it was a lot of fun and I hope to go again next year and meet more of you.
Pics to follow (not many, but hey).
