Shorecon 2003 ENWorld Con Report (w/Pics and Badges)

[WizarDru]

Shorecon 2003 ENWorld Con Report

As promised, not even DNS provider failures could forestall a warp-up of the weekend that was Shorecon (although Soul Calibur II slowed it's arrival, a mite).

Warning: I've included quite a few pics here, so the bandwidth-challenged should consider themselves warned.

Anyhow, on to the report.

As expected, we enjoyed ourselves immensely. Shorecon is the only gaming 'con we make, usually, and any con where I get to PLAY for a change is a good thing.

This was the first time in a few years that Shorecon (which, in case you're curious, is NOWHERE NEAR THE SHORE....or at least it hasn't been since before I've been going to it) was held at the Clarion in Cherry Hill. Previously, it's been held at the Cherry Hill Hilton, which is a few miles closer to Philly and a considerably bigger venue. The Clarion struck me as a little of disappointment, but that was soon overcome.
The issue is that the previous Shorecon that I attended was 2001, which was 9 days after 9/11, and 2000 prior to that, which was huge. A huge dealer room and lots of game space. I'm not sure what the attendance numbers were for this year, but it was down considerably due to a variety of factors, noticably the holiday weekend, college starting the following week and Dragoncon being on the same weekend. As such, the con was cozy, but I had hoped for a slightly bigger crowd.

None of which had any impact on the amount of fun we had, or the enjoyment of the con in general, which was great. So what was there? Plenty.


Valanthe, Scorch and I arrived on Friday afternoon. We got our badges in less than a minute each, and quickly attached our 'ENWorld Delegate' badges that Valanthe had made. These would elicit comments and nods throughout the con. ("ENworld? Dude, I go there ALL THE TIME. Awesome site.") It was too early for check-in to the hotel, so it was off to the dealer's room.

The Dealer's Room

Initially, I was disappointed at it's size. I would find out the reasons for it later (and I'll mention below), but it was somewhat distressing, at first. In previous years, the dealer's room had been...well, huge. There had been room for Shorecon's own ROBOT WARS (although after the incident with the blowtorches, they were confined to a plexiglass arena).

I soon found that quality made up for quantity.

Reaper was up from Texas, with their entire INVENTORY..IN NUMERICAL ORDER. Their staff was very knowledgeable, guiding folks to just the right mini...and they had a laptop playing the Horatio Hornblower movies from DVD throughout the con.

Chessex was in attendance, with the Wall of Dice (tm). You can see another view of it in this thread right here. Note the bowl of dice, wherein much scooping occurred.

Several local dealers were about, including the fella who was selling Dwarven Forge at 40% off. I mean, what would you do, in my place?

An interesting thing they were doing was the Dealer's room raffle....for every $10 you spent, you got a raffle ticket. Every dealer contributed some items to the 'pot', and on Sunday, they had a drawing from the raffle tickets. I don't know who won, but it wasn't me. The nice thing about the local dealers was that I asked for Midnight on Friday, and they didn't have it, but one dealer told the other which publisher it was, and the next day it was magically mine (Thank you, Valanthe!)

Throughout the weekend, the folks in the dealer's room were nothing but nice. Everyone knew their audience, and with one major glaring exception (the lack of a particular guest's products, which was inexplicable), I was more than happy with the contents therein. There was an excellent selection of games that I hadn't seen before. I had almost bought one particular game...but balked at the price. This turned out to be fortutious, as you'll see.

After stocking up on some stuff, we checked into the hotel, and then headed off to our first scheduled event, a Crimson Skies game at 3PM.

To be continued...(after lunch)

 

[Piratecat]

This is great, but please shrink the huge pictures!

 

[WizarDru]

This was the first year that I'd been to a 'con where a new category had been added. Much like the sudden arrival of CCGs, I'm sure Collectible Miniatures Games were something of a suprise to folks. (is that an actual term? I have no idea.)

So it was that the miniature wargaming room was NEVER quiet. Someone was always playing something. Traditional historical wargaming was nowhere to be seen, however. No lavishly recreated assualts on the Ardennes or fighting across the pacific, here. Instead, we had Space Hulk, Heroclix beatdowns and full scale intergalactic invasions.

For example, it takes staunch dedication to one's craft to purchase and paint minis of splattered space marine corpses, and then litter a battlefield with them. That, or an all-consuming mania.

Some folks had systems that, as far as I know, were assembled on Friday and not broken down until the end of the con. But, when you take a look at the things, it's not hard to see why. This particular one hosted quite a few battles.

Some whole areas were converted for battles. This is one of the BIG Warhammer 40000 battle areas. Note the large mechs on the table at the right, and compare them in scale to the fellow standing next to the table at the far right. And, of course, the steamer trunk on the left.

However, we were focused on Crimson Skies...part Heroclix, part miniatures game...all fun. one of the best parts of playing at a con is the fact that you meet nice folks (as we did) and you get to discover the proper way to play something. We'd misunderstood some of the rules on our single previous attempt to play, and it was a lot of fun to play correctly, and with a total of six people, besides.
Each of us managed to get 120 points in planes, and off we went. We learned many things. I learned, the hard way, to plan your moves better, so that you don't fly off the edge of the table and remove yourself from play.

Note the perturbed look on the face of the would-be Aerial Ace (me), mere seconds from piloting my best plane into Oblivion.

My goal for the game was simple: I wanted to "buzz" one of the Cleopatra's Needles. I discovered that the be a much more difficult proposition than I originally envisioned, but succeeded. One of my opponents ended up unintentionally kamikazing it. Note the would-be Aerial Ace announcing his oft-repeated goal, and his dire nemesis of the Needle.

To the Victor, the spoils! In a stunning come-from-behind victory, Valanthe crushes all opposition before her. And the prize? The sweet, sweet taste of victory, and a $5 gift certificate, good for the dealer's room or the prize table. All of the dealers have donated goods there, too, and prize winners can buy more expensive items partly in cash (but you must have a prize)...leading to our purchase of Kenzer's Dwarven Dig, for $20 less than I saw in the self-same dealer room. GLEE!

Note the cry of rage from Scorch, who was neither lucky enough to escape nor unlucky enough to have his plane explode as part of failed critical.

With that taken care of, it was off to the Con Suite! AWAY!

to be continued.

 

[WizarDru]

This is great, but please shrink the huge pictures!

AHH! Egad, they're HUGE!

Sorry, fixes in progress as we type. I'll have these shrunk appropriate as fast as Photoshop will let me.

EDIT: Pictures fixed for normal human beings!
Brobdignagians can always e-mail me with requests for huge, bloated pictures.

 

[Joseph Elric Smith]

AHH! Egad, they're HUGE!

Sorry, fixes in progress as we type. I'll have these shrunk appropriate as fast as Photoshop will let me.

EDIT: Pictures fixed for normal human beings!
Brobdignagians can always e-mail me with requests for huge, bloated pictures.

great photos and nice report so far.
ken

 

[Joseph Elric Smith]

AHH! Egad, they're HUGE!

Sorry, fixes in progress as we type. I'll have these shrunk appropriate as fast as Photoshop will let me.

EDIT: Pictures fixed for normal human beings!
Brobdignagians can always e-mail me with requests for huge, bloated pictures.

great photos and nice report so far.
ken

 

[Sam]

The sweet, sweet taste of victory, and a $5 gift certificate, good for the dealer's room or the prize table. All of the dealers have donated goods there, too, and prize winners can buy more expensive items partly in cash (but you must have a prize)...leading to our purchase of Kenzer's Dwarven Dig, for $20 less than I saw in the self-same dealer room.

You know, I played at 5 RPGA tables and they didn't give out a single one of those. Man, RPGA got the shaft!

 

[WizarDru]

You know, I played at 5 RPGA tables and they didn't give out a single one of those. Man, RPGA got the shaft!

Yeah, but you got Certs, right? I'm assuming that the prizes were only for registered events as part of Shorecon. Did I mention I still have my certs from two years ago. I have a potion of Bull's Strength.

 

[WizarDru]

Now, Con Suite's are something that I normally associate with Science Fiction conventions, as I haven't really seen them elsewhere. This one was sponsored by a group called Double Exposure, makers of an RPG called the Avatar System. I can, say without hyperbole, that this was one of the best-stocked Con Suites that I ever been to. Large lasagna tins on the main table, filled with every manner of bad-for-you-but-oh-so-yummy snacks, like the required Cheesy Poofs, M&Ms (regular and peanut), Reese's Pieces, Swedish Fish, pretzels, corn and potato chips and much, much more. Drinks were provided, as well. Friday night was Red Dwarf Night, featuring select episodes of the show on a great projection system with powerful sound, and fresh batches of Chicken Vindaloo! Saturday was Weird Al Night, with lots of music, videos and a screening of UHF. Oh, and those weird twinkies with hot dogs in them and cheez wiz on top. Ugh. During off times, they played various videos like The Animatrix and Evangelion.

Here we see WizarDru contemplating his Con Strategy and the peanut M&Ms, though you can't see them. They're not for you, they're for Meeeeeeeee!

Where to for dinner, you ask? Off to the pub attached to the hotel, which I was pleased to discover was an Elephant & Castle (a chain of pseudo-English pubs...this one was much less 'pubby' than the one in center city Philadelphia). Regardless, the food was pretty good. We'd had lunch at my favorite Chinese restaurant in the city Joe's Peking Duck (home of the House Special Pan-Fried Noodle Platter, YUM!), so we got an appetizer sampler and resumed our journey.

We had some debate about what to do next. By this point, it was getting on towards evening, and we debated what to do next. Valanthe had wanted to see the con guest-of-honor himself, and so we set off for his 8PM seminar. Only to find him alone in a room by himself?!? No one showed up for his discussion panel, so said guest, none other than James Ernest, founder and head-honcho of Cheapss Gameswas glad to have a panel with us and the two other folks who wandered in. James was extremely funny and very forthcoming about details of upcoming games, his new brand (Presto! games, which are aimed at the Educational market) and the many foibles of WotC's R&D division. Did you know there was a Looney Tunes CCG? Neither did I. And according to what I heard that night, you should be glad of the fact.

Here's James with Valanthe and Scorch and....some other guy.

James rocked the house...but we'll come back to how much he rocked the house later. That fellow with the beard was one of the folks who showed up to the panel. He was a nice guy, but I never did catch his name. But more important was the second fellow.

He was none other than Rob Placer of Gamer's Realm, otherwise known as Shorecon Badge #1. More important for our purposes, he's the guy who owns and runs the con.

Rob was a swell guy, and after James' panel, we talked for a good fifteen minutes about the con's history and it's future. For example, we learned that the reason for the con's late date was because the Hilton had doubled their rates this year for returning customers...and thereby lost Shorecon as one. This left Shorecon with the unenviable task of securing a new date, as the previous one was fully booked...hence the early date this year. But since this was the same weekend as Dragoncon in Atlanta, many of the usual dealers for costuming and weaponry (among others) had gone there instead, leaving them short a few dealers. The Dealer's room was as small as it was because the hotel organizer, a gamer himself, had made sure to give extra room to the gaming areas (which were, admitedly, quite large)....and perhaps had been a tad overzealous in his resizing.

Rob came through as a clear visionary of sorts. He recognized what I did...that the East Coast has a huge, underserviced gamer population. Shorecon used to be much bigger, and Rob hopes to return it to where it was around 2000. I hope so, too. Rob recognizes that a really well run East Coast gaming convention could potentially attract a huge audience, similar to Gencon. He runs a local store, and clearly knows and understands the market. Rob also clearly understands how to run a convention as a business. It was his idea to move the con registration to an exclusively online format, a move which saved the convention $10,000 in printing costs alone.

My biggest complaint about the con probably would be the con booklet that you see Rob holding, there. It was very skimpy, and the events list was organized backwards for non-RPGA events. A minor inconvienence, but it rankled me. Another complaint, and again a minor one, is that there was no hotel map in the booklet, and none of the rooms were labelled in any way. Was this the open room? The RPG room? The CCG room? It was hard to tell. Only a couple of rooms had schedules posted.

The RPGA room was alive and well and kicking, as we saw whenever we passed it by. They appeared MUCH better organized than the last time I saw them, with plenty of character sheets and computers for game registration. Sam, April and Argent all attended several games, and indicated they all had a good time doing so. Good for the RPGA. Here was the mustering area just prior to a "Legacy of the Green Regent" event during the "Weekend in Keoland".

Saturday was a fun affair, with the gamers arriving in larger numbers. It was pretty busy, of course, with games every direction you looked. Val, Scorch and I hit the board game room with Dwarven Dig, and sat down to have a great time playing it. Here's a quick look:

Despite numerous setbacks, I actually won this game. I love the fact that the gameboard is part random, part malicious intent of your rivals. It was simple and fun. The figs are all metal with some heavy enamel paints. I'll have to contact Kenzer, though...see the rubberband around that figure? We got a duplicate and were missing one of the minis for green. Play continued apace.

After a quick nap for me, we split up and hit different locations. The RPGA was in full swing, as some of our ENWorlders can attest. But there were plenty of non D&D games as well, and plenty of pickup games, as you can see here:

That's what it's all about, baby.

Up Next: THE GATHERING!

 

[Piratecat]

This is great! I want more.