This was my second year, and I had a GREAT time!
Mistwell--I saw your lovely wife breifly on Thursday as she was trying to fight her way into the dealer room. I was going to stop by the booth, but by the time I found it I was on a mission for stuff and didn't want to interrupt her with her guests.
Thursday--Dealer hall! So much to see! So much to buy! I wandered around, happy as a clam. I played a round of the Paizo delve and immediately went to purchase their initiative tracker. Probably the best find of the con, next to all my pretty new dice. Chatted a bit with The Pirate (Nigel Sade), who is an excellent artist. He also comes to my local convention, so I always like to say hi to him.
In the afternoon, my friend Gnora and I played a Cthulhu viking LARP, and it was great fun. Afterwards we all went to the Ram together and ate tastiness.
Friday--Started off the day with two writing forums: "Creating Non-Linear Narratives," and "Coloring in the Lines." Took some good notes and greatly enjoyed the talks.
Played in a very silly baseball meets the Phantom of the Opera but with D&D game, and enjoyed it thoroughly, except for the math puzzle, and the very end when it was discovered that the ending was predetermined and could not have been influenced in any way.
Gnora and I then went to a showing of the Call of Cthuhlu movie, and then to a writing forum that was supposed to be about portraying aliens in writing, and turned out to be an hour and a half of "This is my AWESOME process of writing! Buy my books!"
Saturday--My LONG day. I started out with the welcome to Blackmore game that turned out to be fairly frustrating. I arrived at 8:30 for a 9am game and was given the adventure background spiel. Cool. I make my 1st level character, and since I was in the mood for a fighter, it didn't take long. Then I spent about an hour helping the four people who had no idea what they were doing. Finally we get a DM, and since they're shorthanded, we wind up with a table of nine, five of which are very, very green. It made things very clunky. Then the game runs late. Then later. Then later as they don't have any of the paperwork for the game ready. In the end, the game ran 40 minutes late, so I had no time for lunch. Or coffee.
I ran from the Crown Plaza to Embassy Suites for my first ever EN World game, and since I didn't know what anyone looked like, I wrote my screenname on my notebook and wandered around like a bewildered airline traveler. They found me, and we played a very fun module. Kobolds were involved. MarkCMG is as delightful in person as on the internets. The other gentlemen in the game were great as well. I felt bad because I was so tired, but I found the free coffee in the lobby, and then combat started, so that perked me up.
Then run to PF Changs to buy dinner for my friends (my promised DMs Day gift). The waiter was FULL of awesome and got a huge tip and a note written to his manager regarding his awesome.
For the last bit of the evening I wound up back at Embassy Suites for an awesome talk on adventure writing by the guys from Goodman Games. Hilarious!
Sunday--One more writing symposium in the morning before picking up my last few purchases in the dealer room and heading to my last event. This was another blackmoor game, and although the details were different, the crowded table and frustrating delays were the same story as Saturday. The DM explained that all the delays have been caused by severe understaffing throughout the weekend. Then on the road home. End!
Overall (aka, the tl;dr version)
Dealer Room: A-. A bit crowded, but that's to be expected. And the funk was at a minimum.
Gaming: B+ overall. The good made up for the bad. I don't plan to completely avoid Blackmoor in the future, but honestly I'd probably not play it again if there were other options.
Seminars: A-. Everything was fabulous except the one.
