OK GenCOn ENWorlders, document your experiences here...

[Rel]

I enjoy roleplaying. I have fun roleplaying. And occasionally, here in New Zealand, I'll play in a game and at the end of it think "You know, when I did XX in that game, that was kinda cool," or "I really liked the concept for that game, and the DM pulled it off well."

But pulling off the kind of moments of awesome that makes you guys say these wonderful, kind things? I only ever manage that at GenCon. I'm never that cool here at home. It's the GMs, and the games, and the players in this community that inspire me to play above my natural level, and I'm just thankful I have the opportunity to be a part of it and be better than I really am

Something fusangite said to me on Wednesday night - "The people in this community include the best GMs in the world." And if one of the hallmarks of an excellent GM is the ability to draw from his or her players a performance beyond what they believed themselves capable, then I cannot disagree with him.

I'm glad I had the chance to help make some GenCon memories for you guys; you've made a ton of them for me!

-Hyp.

Oh.

Well nevermind that stuff I said about travelling to New Zealand to see Hyp. Just come to North Carolina since I'm the reason he's awesome. Think of the airfare you'll save!

 

[DM-Rocco]

It was not us, but thanks for destroying our rep

It was the Dragon Roots booth I believe.

Mistwell,

I understand that you think it was our booth that sold these shirts, but it wasn't. I am trying to remain calm about this because this is the 4th site I had to go on and say, "No, it was not us," so I am a little tired of this song and dance. Please, PLEASE, make sure you are correct in matters like this. I have spent the last three days trying to calm people in e-mails who are yelling at us for selling a product we never sold.

We had nothing to do with the "4e Killed Gary," T-shirts.

Allow me to inform you neither myself nor any of my employees either wore or sold this shirt. We had nothing to do with those shirts.

We did sell shirts, but it was not those ones. It had our in tribute of Gary art from our Issue #1 cover art on the front and the offical GenCon logo along with a quote from Gary "Roll high, Game long" (which was the quote winner from our Gary quote contest we held after he passed away) on the back.

We are actually huge fans of Gary. I drove 12 hours to go to his funeral in the middle of a raging blizzard.

Again, we had nothing to do with these, "4e killed Gary," shirts.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Just come to North Carolina since I'm the reason he's awesome.

-Hyp.

 

[Scott_Rouse]

Rouse is keeping the soul in D&D. All hail.

I had a blast at Gen Con. Picked up both the PFRG AND the 4E Dungeon Crawl Classics and ran games for both. Fun times.

High praise. Thanks

 

[sjmiller]

Some more pictures here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/41453615@N00/sets/72157606809347444/

I have to admit, it's rather funny to see myself and my booth in the background of several of your pictures! I spent most of GenCon at booth 305 selling Doctor Wizard's Patented Elevation Indicators. I got to take some time and talk to the folks signing autographs when I had a few minutes, and it was a lot of fun talking to them. When I get a minute I will tell more stories from GenCon, including stories of being in the booth next to "the head shop".

 

[DM-Rocco]

On the plus side, this was my first ever GenCon and in spite of standing on concrete for 96 hours straight and losing my voice, it was a lot of fun. Next year maybe we can even play in some events.

Most of the time was spent in our booth, THAT DID NOT SELL 4E KILLED GARY shirts, and in sleep. Sunday was great because I abandoned post to check out the authors and artists to make our magazine better. I also tried to track down the elusive Scott Rouse who apparently snuck out of town early Sunday morning. I really wanted to say hi face to face to the man who helped us from the inside of WOTC to do certain things with the magazine.

I heard from the inside that he would be at the RAM for Drizzit's special 20th party, but he wasn't there. Then on Sunday, I tried to track him down at the WOTC booth, but everyone said he left early on Sunday.

So Scott, maybe next year. I'll e-mail you.

After the long car ride home, I got home to finally check my e-mails and found about 100 e-mails complaining because somehow people thought we sold the dreaded 4e killed Gary shirts and have been trying to quench that fire ever since.

Over all, I got a lot of good contacts and more importantly we got a booth space for next year in authors row.

On a final note, Ms. Marvel made the whole trip worth while

 

[Mistwell]

Thursday
Head downstairs and join Reveal's DCC game. Apparently there's an empty slot. I write down a wonderful quote. "We're staying in initiative because of the sheep." When you're 0th level, sheep matter.

Someone ditched on the game (was asleep upstairs and not planning on waking up any time soon). I was happy we were able to recruit you at the last minute. Playing NPC 0 level villagers attacking a friggen Ogre was fun, and using our environment (mutton, oil, sarcophagus slab, etc.) well was a great way to remember why the old 1e Slave Trader modules were so fun.

Rodrigo's Winter Witch game was brilliant. I'll forgive him for using 4th edition. It was an interesting experiment, though I'm not entirely convinced it creates the perfect mood for the game. It worked, though, and wasn't an issue. He's a great story-teller. I particularly liked placing a bear trap on the troglodytes scrotum. Good times.

I just realized we literally mostly played the same games this con.

At 3:00, I hook up with John Crichton and his Escape from the Cronus game. I played the starlight, Azure with her pet disintegrator rifle Schnookums. I spent twenty minutes coming up with movie quotes. Hopefully JC will post them. They seemed like a big hit. Though admittedly some were corny. My favorite movie title "Drill me Hard - A love story." What a great game, and great players.

To me, you were the biggest hit of that game (in a game with many hits). Your quotes had me laughing long after the game finished, and after you had to leave early someone took over your character and was still reading your quotes. You totally rocked!

Holy . Can you guys come to my house every week and entertain me like this?

Yeah seriously. GenCon convinced me I need a better group of players, or I need to become a better GM, or both.

 

[Wicht]

DM-Rocco - if it makes you feel better, the exposure you recieved in this thread initially made me wonder who you guys were (so I could avoid you) and your defense has made me want to check out your magazine. I'll probably get the PDFs from Paizo here in the coming days and assuming I like what I see, there's a good chance for a subscription.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Oh.

Well nevermind that stuff I said about travelling to New Zealand to see Hyp. Just come to North Carolina since I'm the reason he's awesome. Think of the airfare you'll save!

Good to know: I suppose New Zealand is still more expensive then the US for me...

 

[DM-Rocco]

DM-Rocco - if it makes you feel better, the exposure you recieved in this thread initially made me wonder who you guys were (so I could avoid you) and your defense has made me want to check out your magazine. I'll probably get the PDFs from Paizo here in the coming days and assuming I like what I see, there's a good chance for a subscription.

Well, I guess Mistwell isn't going to apologize so I'll take your potential readership as a bonus. Send me an e-mail at dragonroots@comcast.net, mention this thread and I'll add you to the loss in revenue and send you a free pdf copy or issue # 0 & 1 check out. At this point, I had to give out so many anyway to make ammends for the same slip up on other sites one more won't matter.

Thanks for giving us an ear, er, so to speak.