Tallarn's GenConUK Report! (now with photo link)

[Mathew_Freeman]

I am SOOOOOOOOooooooooooooo jealous!

Sounds like everyone had a great time despite the various difficulties. I look forward to eventually metting each and every one of you fine people when I someday make it over to your side of the Atlantic Ocean. Thanks for the updates and keep them coming!

Tallarn - We'll have to find a way to get me a bit of stage time while I am over there...and I don't mean Rocky, though that'd be fun also.

There shall be pictures of various things, as soon as I can get hold of them and Maldur gets back home.

The Zombie conga had to be seen to be believed, plus various feuds have been set up for future conventions (if I game with Bagpuss again his character'll get it! He tried to sell my female barbarian as a slave, all due to a misplaced sleep spell by Ravellion). I'd like to go to Amsterdam next year, but I'm not sure what my financial situation will be.

There was a certain feeling that the convention was run deliberately badly so that the next one in Amsterdam looks better - who knows. They did appalingly badly this time around, hopefully they'll learn from their mistakes. Credit to the staff and volunteers for keeping it going, and credit to the attendees for making the best of it.

Oh yes, another great GenCon moment. In the Paranoia game, the Storyteller was just explaining that the best way to get ahead was to shoot other people in the back, as it were, when from the Anime room next door came a loud voice:

"You're EEEEEVIL!"

Unsurprisingly, the whole room took several steps away from him at that moment.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

This is a tiny bump, don't mind me...

 

[darrell I]

The RPG desk on the 3rd floor couldn't sell tickets for games, couldn't tell you what games were still available and were really quite pointless through no fault of their own. They did a good job at staying so upbeat.

As somebody who was behind that desk on Friday night and all day Sunday, thank you.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

You're welcome. You guys did a great job, all things considered. Although from what I heard, the phrase "Where's Ratty? I want to kill him!" was a phrase you heard too often.

Can you shed any light onto what went wrong this year?

 

[Maldur]

My view on GenconUK

It wasn't the smoothest con I ever been to, But I had fun.
The ticket systems was kinda strange ,but I never been to a con this large.
Tallarn is a really nice guy, even though he has problems with tall people and remembering who he talks to after a night without sleep
Note to self: When going to a con, dont do it on the first days of a vacation. Try going well rested in stead off half asleep.
Its good to have some faces and voices to the posts here


Ill get the pictures, somewhere tonight!

 

[Bagpuss]

Great time at the Convention, but more to do with the people than the event itself. I probably would have had almost as much fun if the ENWorld crowd had agreed to have a weekend of RPG's somewhere.

Things I noticed

No D20 Modern games organised at all.

There is a Living Spycraft campaign? No mention of it on the RPGA's website (perhaps because its hosted by WotC), but sure enough AEG has it listed.... hmm tempted to play that next year.

Loads of Living XXXX campaign games, but if you weren't into Living games the pickings were slim.

Call of Cthulhu was really well supported I think there were six different modules to choose from so if you wanted to you could probably play it all weekend. (Maybe next year) Several tables available in nearly every slot.

Megadungeon - D&D 3rd Ed Campaign running through out the convention again several table running in most slots.

now the pickings got slim...

Buffy:tRPG - although several adventures and several slots only one table at any time.

Feng Shui - again several adventures and several slots but only one table at any time.

Both of these games at any other Gencon would have supported several tables, and I'm sure even with the low attendance these could have done with a few more tables.

There were other games running but usually only one table and sometimes only in one slot as well.

Another thing that seemed to annoy me about the ticketing system is at other Gencon's I've turned up at the RPG desk and said "What do you need a GM for? I can do, Cyberpunk, Feng Shui, Buffy, CoC, D&D, and probably anything you need me for." This year I didn't see the point, since even if say I said I'll run Feng Shui the desk down stairs wouldn't have a slot number or tickets to sell. They wouldn't know there are 6 more spaces in that game. Left hand didn't seem to know what the right hand was doing.

There wasn't a delegate organised game notice board, in fact the the none of the notice boards looked particularly offical, they were often covered with adverts, or events that happened the night before.

Two noticeboards each of which are check by an offical after each slot, who pulls down out of date information would be really useful. One for offical games the other for delegate games. I have a feeling they don't want delegate games since they don't get money from them.

Hmmm I promise my next post will be more positive, after all I did enjoy myself.

 

[Bagpuss]

Right more positive... hmmm

That full english breakfast in the cafe at the back of the convention was lovely.

Tallarn was a good host, his floor was very comfortable to sleep on, although that might have something to do with being poked every half hour the night before trying to sleep at the convention.

Ravellion was a charming gentleman, although his english accent was so natural I think he was probably trained as a mole for the Dutch secret service.

S'mon runs a fun game, but I never trust a person that smiles as much as he does.

Upper_Krust can be trusted TO STAB YOU IN THE BACK! Other than that he was a great bloke.

Morbidity is a woman. I think she only went the loo once during the whole convention as she didn't have anyone to talk to in there. Its a woman thing you'll have to ask her about it.

Maldur has some strange growth coming out of his chin, I didn't want to mention it at the convention as he's bigger than me and might take offence. Despite this affliction he's a thoroughly nice fella, with an interesting collection of card games.

Morrus and Inconsequenti-AL seemed a little hung over, but were happy to swap war storys over pizza in the cafe across the road, I think Jason came with us but it could have been Conan the Barbarian judging from the sword he never removed from his back.

If I've missed anyone off (and I'm sure I have), I appologise, I'm not very good at remembering names.

 

[Mark]

Morrus and Inconsequenti-AL seemed a little hung over...

Hmmm... Sounds odd. When they were over here they never got hung over...though they did often mention that "all the traveling" was running them down a bit, especially in the morning.

 

[Morbidity]

Morbidity is a woman. I think she only went the loo once during the whole convention as she didn't have anyone to talk to in there. Its a woman thing you'll have to ask her about it.

What both Bagpuss and Tallarn neglected to mention in their reports was that they spent an hour or so in a pub enlightening me as to the mysteries of male toilet etiquette. More than any woman would ever want to know.

As an aside (simply because asides are so much fun): One of the marvellous things about gaming conventions is that due to the tiny minority of women, there are no queues in the women's toilets.

 

[Bagpuss]

As an aside (simply because asides are so much fun): One of the marvellous things about gaming conventions is that due to the tiny minority of women, there are no queues in the women's toilets.

Your putting on a brave face Morbidity, but we all know you were lonely in there.

Mark - Sorry by hung over I refered to how they appeared, if beer was involved I have no knowledge.