[GenCon] EN World photos and stories - add your own!

[mythusmage]

This is a view from the front door of the dealer's room. Right after it opened, I saw some guy walk past it, stop dead, and freeze. He kept repeating "I can't believe it!" to his friend.

"Isn't it great?" I asked. "And it's even bigger than it looks from here."

(snip)

My first thought on seeing the photo was, "God, that's dinky."

I'm going to have to find a good camera somewhere and get some shots of our convention center. Let you small towners know what a big convention center looks like.

Yes, when it comes to conventions size does matter.

 

[Justinian]

Psion,

So does that mean when you stopped by the S&SS booth, you browsed the Player's Guides? Any thoughts?

I'm not Psion, but I bought both new Player's Guides and chatted with Joe Carriker about them for awhile (while he autographed mine ).

I've had a chance to read through the one for arcane casters, but not the fighters. First impressions: I'm very pleased with all the background organizations and historical tidbits attached. So many books now are simply a stack of prestige classes and spells, and this was a pleasant change. The prestige classes didn't get as much of my reading time, but they looked good on my first glance. The adept of flame (mailed all my purchases home so this might not be the exact name) especially caught my eye. (And no, that's not because it's the first one on the list.) I'm looking forward to using a good deal of the material in the book.

I was unable to do more than glance at the fighters one, and so all I have to say is that I like its cover art. I like both sets of cover art, actually. I consider them well worth the purchase.

 

[Psion]

Re: Anyone Get the DCC #3.5 From Goodman Games Yet?

I was wondering if anyone had gotten over to the Goodman Games booth yet and picked up one of those signed, limited edition, Dave Arneson modules called Dungeon Crawl Classics #3.5: The Haunted Lighthouse yet? And if one of the ENWorlders there did, could you get a picture of the booth crew?

I missed hitting the goodman games booth, which was only about 3 booths down from the EN Publishing/Twin Rose booth. I was sort of waiting for Mike Mearls to show up there, but I never saw him while passing by.

 

[Nightfall]

I'm not Psion, but I bought both new Player's Guides and chatted with Joe Carriker about them for awhile (while he autographed mine ).

I've had a chance to read through the one for arcane casters, but not the fighters. First impressions: I'm very pleased with all the background organizations and historical tidbits attached. So many books now are simply a stack of prestige classes and spells, and this was a pleasant change. The prestige classes didn't get as much of my reading time, but they looked good on my first glance. The adept of flame (mailed all my purchases home so this might not be the exact name) especially caught my eye. (And no, that's not because it's the first one on the list.) I'm looking forward to using a good deal of the material in the book.

I was unable to do more than glance at the fighters one, and so all I have to say is that I like its cover art. I like both sets of cover art, actually. I consider them well worth the purchase.

Very cool Justinan. Just let me know what you think when you get the chance to read through it all. (Adept of the Flame is pretty neat from the preview a couple months ago.)

 

[Umbran]

My first thought on seeing the photo was, "God, that's dinky."

Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but that pic isn't of the convention. That's merely the dealer's room, which is only one small part of the convention.

 

[pogre]

Just got in -

Really enjoyed seeing the Ennies - one speaker per award in the future please

I enjoyed running the RPGA events and met a lot of nice people.

I too DM'ed for an entire family - possibly the same one as P'Cat. Did not kill any of them though...

My favorite group might have been from Manhattan - they cursed like sailors and kicked some booty - my kinda' guys. Example: One player to another Joe, seriously, if you do not stop f***** around you're payin' for f***** parking.

All of my players were tremendous sportspeople and made the scenario a joy to run. I was most encouraged by the number of women playing games - a great trend.

Hopefully next year it won't conflict with Historican - but there never really was a choice.

Thanks for the great comments on my SH folks - it really meant a lot!

 

[KB9JMQ]

First off I had a GREAT time.

Get to the Marriott about 2 p.m. and checked in and went straight to the dealers room to find Arcana Unearthed, (having previously panicked over reading they were sold out earlier), I was happy to find them in stock. The guy at the booth said Monte would be by at 4:30 to sign them.

Went wandering around with my wife looking at this and that then found the EN/Twin Rose Booth. Met Erandis, Rangerwickett and Hellhound. (Ryan sorry I never met up with you again to meet Jessica I kept missing you and I still think you should publish the Savannah Knights story as a campaign/module).

Wandered around and found Paladin and Paladinwife at their booth. Got a matching medium bag to go with my Royal one, dropped off a CR bag for the quilt, and my wife ordered a cool Bag of Dice Holding. I will say these two are some of the nicest people I have ever met. I hope the sales went well. (How many Crown Royal bags did you get?).

Went back and found Monte got my book signed , went to eat dinner and went to the ENnies. They were great and the Privateer Press guy was a riot. It was cool to point out to my wife who all these people I talk about all the time were.

After the awards I finally met Eric Noah, Piratecat (Note new sig), Buttercup, Hand of Evil and several others. Went to the Ram but left early due to a killer headache

Saturday was spent doing the WOTC demos to win some prizes. Played Magic, Neopets, Starwars and Simpson TCGs. The only ones we liked was Magic and SW. Neopets was for someone much younger and the Simpson was overly complicated. The future RISK game was great. The Warbands Minutares game was cool (Also helps when Jonathan Tweet is the guy explaining it to you) and we played the dungeon crawl with the MasterMaze set. That was the best. Our DM was cool and I hafta get some of those. Ended up winning a book I already had but my wife won a really nice StarWars backpack for our son Luke.

My wife met and got autographs from Larry Elmore so she thought that was neat. We then shopped some more (for dice mostly) went to dinner with some friends then played thge starwars card game to the wee hours.

Overall we had a great time. Can't wait to do it again next year. My only regret was Piratecat announce he would take five people to play a game the next day at the ENnies while standing in front of me and I didnt take the chance (I am shy sometimes).

Edit: Can't Type

 

[EricNoah]

More memories....

• Meeting Buttercup and Cthulhu's Librarian and discussing the library/information professions. It was like geeking out but in a whole new way! (And there was one other person there ... who was it??) Turns out Buttercup and I shared a library school professor!
  
• I very slyly get out of doing a TV interview by telling them Russ is in charge, so the guy suggests that we both do it, then I find Russ and convince him (telling him I'll be with him, nothing to worry about) and then when I get him over there, I magically disappear so he has to do it alone.
  
• Sitting in a hallway for about an hour just reading my shiny new Arcana Unearthed book.
  
• Feeling really, really sorry for the poor folks stuck in those long lines...
  

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

More memories....

• Meeting Buttercup and Cthulhu's Librarian and discussing the library/information professions. It was like geeking out but in a whole new way! (And there was one other person there ... who was it??) Turns out Buttercup and I shared a library school professor!
  

Drat, I should have been there--I could have yakked about my days writing card catalog computer code for the University of Texas.....

I had a great time, saw a lot of EN Worlders (including Quickbeam who is too busy to post here recently), and would like to shout out a big public Thanks! to alsih2o for arranging the post-GenCon bar party. I could only stay for two hours, but had a great time!

I will post more details later, but the drive home took 90 minutes longer than the drive there, so I am dead tired and heading for the sack....

 

[Crothian]

There was an after Gen Con party that Clay arraged at his brother's bar about 15 miles north of downtown. This is a great bar, lots of room to game and very nice atmosphere. We mostly hung around and talked, Piratecate reveiled some secrets from his game. We were really suprised when Monte and his wife showed up, that was really cool of them even though they could only stay a little while. Then the Twin Rose people (Chris and Dee) came over and Chris had a box of books from the convention that he gathered from many boothes to give away.

So much happened this weekend that my brain shall explode trying to recall it all. But it was such a great time!!!! More to come after I sleep.