What's the coolest thing you did at GenCon?

Myself and about 49,000 other people went to this little shindig in Indianapolis last week. It's called GenCon and you should try it out sometime...

I’m still adjusting to that well known phenomenon: Life after GenCon. I have to contend with coming down from a literal high each year I attend “The Best Four Days in Gaming” (for the crew I roll with it’s more like the best six days in gaming). But it is well worth the price considering what an absolute blast I have every time.

Every time I go, I have a slightly different experience. You can always count on the unexpected to happen at GenCon. I figured today I’d revel in the coolest of the cool GenCon had to offer this year.

3) The ENnies - Honestly, it had been a few years since I attended the ENnies. For a while I wasn’t enthralled by the flavor and atmosphere of the event as it was held in a rather sterile room at the convention center. I’m not saying the ENnies was ever “bad.” There is a ton of really cool stuff for me to do at GenCon, and for a while the ENnies didn’t win out against the competition. It felt in some ways like just another seminar at the Con, a far cry from the gala that was held in the Indiana Roof Ballroom.

This year I was back and found the ENnies had regained all of its former stature and then some. The production values are high and the pre-event entertainment was hilarious. You just haven’t lived until you’ve seen a guy dressed as a Vulcan sing “I’ll Spock your world and meld with you,” complete with backup dancers.

I attended with my wife and other friends and got the chance to sit right next to Morrus and his lovely wife. I got to see friends receive awards for their hard work. I got to see games be recognized for their alchemical awesomeness. I got to be the proud father of the cute little girl handing out certificates to the award winners. And there were some pretty witty acceptance speeches too.

All in all I’d say the ENnies are back in my rotation of “must see” events at GenCon.

2) The Games - Speaking of the ENnies, one of the games which got some love was Pelgrane’s Night’s Black Agents. It uses Robin Laws’ Gumshoe system, which I’ve found to be easy, fast, and cinematic. The premise, basically, is the PCs think they are in a James Bond movie and find out about half way through they’re in a Vampire movie. It sounded good enough for me to go ahead and buy it at the Pelgrane booth, but my friend Kennon Bauman (the ENnie Award winning Kennon Bauman) made this thing sing! Give it a try. You will not be disappointed.

I also both ran and played some Old School Hack, a game by my friend Kirin Robinson (the ENnie Award winning Kirin Robinson). It’s still awesome. It’s still free. A group of us also played Fiasco using the “Holly Jolly” playset, which emulates some of the magic of the Rankin-Bass Christmas specials. Except, you know, vastly horribler. It was easily in the top three Fiasco games I’ve ever played.

But probably the standout game of my GenCon was one I didn’t play while I was there: 13th Age. I was in on the playtest last year and had fun with it. But it was clearly still being tweaked and having the kinks worked out, so you never know. I purchased it from Pelgrane my first day at GenCon and finally got a chance to browse the finished product. Wow! It is one of the coolest games I’ve seen in years! Every page is dripping with the kinds of stuff I want in my gaming books. It’s got cool, innovative rules. It’s got great insight and advice from those who wrote them. It’s got me excited! I’m going to be running this game very soon; I can already smell the greatness.

1) The People - I’m an unabashed extrovert, so seeing old friends and meeting new ones is always the best part of GenCon for me. This year was no exception. It’s also really interesting to me to see the patterns develop amid these relationships over the course of the Con.

This year, for example, there were lots of people I know locally who attended, including my best friend, attending his first GenCon ever. And I barely saw those people. I literally saw my best friend one time for two minutes when we accidentally crossed paths at the dealer hall. Luckily, I know this is because he was joyfully attending GenCon in his own way, mostly by doing some serious father-son time with his teenager.

On the other side of things, I got to see the usual ENWorld/CM crowd who were friendly and awesome as always. They throw great parties and run amazing, fun, hilarious games. These people fill my days with games you hate to see end, except you have another awesome game to attend. They fill the nights with great conversation you hate to see end, except you absolutely must get some sleep so you can do it all again the next day.

Then there are the people you randomly bump into who put a smile on your face. My roommate was walking into the Embassy Suites one evening and found the door being held open for him by Wil Wheaton. I sat down to help Kirin do a quick demo of Old School Hack and discovered I was sitting next to Harley Stroh, one of the best dungeon creators of all time. While we were playing, we found people peering over our shoulders to observe the fun and discovered it was the guys who created Dungeon World. Cool people are thick on the ground at GenCon and you find yourself bumping into them often.

But the coolest part of the coolest part of my GenCon was sharing it with my wife and daughter who came along for the first time. If you really want to recognize the neatest parts of something you love, give a guided tour to somebody you really care about. Seeing it through fresh eyes made me appreciate GenCon in ways that are all too easy to take for granted.

I’ll be back next year for sure and I hope to see you there!

What did you see this year which stood out as particularly cool? If you’ve never made the trip, what is stopping you?

 

[billd91]

This was the first year we've gone since 2003 so it was the first year for my son (who is 8) and the first year my daughter was able to go about the place on her own (she's 15). As someone who had gone to most Gen Cons between 1983 and 2003, it was good to get back.

One of the exceptionally cool things that I experienced was watching my son play games at midnight on Saturday with some game designer friends. Just a couple of hours before, he had been whining a little about wanting to go back to the hotel, but he was clearly in his second wind and having a blast.

One not so cool experience was the motorcycle rally at the monument. We stayed at the Sheraton and the motorcycle went loud (even up on the 16th floor) and late (after 2 am on both Friday and Saturday night) and it wasn't like we could complain to the police about the noise - they were out cordoning off access to the square around the monument on the bikers' behalf.

 

[JediSoth]

I spent most of my time at my table on Author's Avenue or sacked out in my hotel sleeping. One moment that stands out to me from my limited exposure this year, was when my step-nephew-in-law brought his 3-year-old daughter on Sunday dress as River Song and got a picture of her with Peter Davison (the Fifth Doctor). He didn't just stand there and smile for the picture, he brought her up in his lap and held her hand for the picture. It's the best picture of the con, to me.

Second best is my wife with a full-size, screen-accurate puppet of Crow T. Robot. I am insanely jealous that I somehow ended up only TAKING that picture and not getting one myself.

My own personal cool story is this: I was visited at my table on Author’s Avenue by a friend I had not seen since 1988 (maybe 1990--he was my best friend in Elementary school). He had seen on Facebook that I had a table on Author’s Avenue and came by on Family Day with his family to say “Hi.” He was the guy who introduced me to D&D in the first place, way back when I was 8 years old. Were it not for him, my life would likely have taken a very different course. In a way, his act of introducing me to that little game in the red box with the funny dice led me to my involvement in the industry (in my capacity as ENnie Awards Submissions Coordinator) and to becoming an author. I thanked him. I told him, “This, all this" *gesturing to the con*, "my involvement here, is all thanks to you.”

I didn't play any games or do anything to speak of after 6 PM that wasn't ENnie-related, but I still had massive amounts of fun and feel rejuvenated.

 

[FickleGM]

Coolest...hmmm... I would have to say that being introduced as the new Business Manager of The ENnies and being able to speak in front of the largest crowd I've ever spoken to without completely falling on my face would win the distinction.

There were a number of other cool things, but that one was the top of the bunch.

 

[RangerWickett]

I was able to get dinner with Russ and Sharon four times over the course of the con, which usually involved some game designer or other geek luminary swinging by and sharing drinks, like Keith Baker, and Rodney Thompson, and Gabriel Whitehead.

I witnessed geek speed dating going on downstairs from the ENnies.

I caroused a bit with some friends in Pathfinder organized play, including Thurston Hillman, the guy who wrote and ran a 1000-player mega-event on Friday night. (He also does the Pathfinder conversion for ZEITGEIST.)

My aunt and cousin came down from Ohio, and we demoed the Pathfinder card game, then hit Steak & Shake (during daylight hours, which is really weird compared to past Gen Cons).

I ran a game where a player happily flung himself off a thousand foot cliff.

The coolest thing for me personally was when I was able to snag 30 seconds of time from Erik Mona to pitch him something, and he sounded interested.

 

[Eridanis]

The coolest thing for me was seeing all three of my kids enjoying role-playing for the first time. (Kudos to Paizo for their brilliant Kids' Path games!) I wish I could have played more games (I played in two Magic tournaments, but no RPGs) and I wish I could have seen more friends (we didn't get to see you guys, and saw Russ and Sharon for only a few minutes), but having some family time in an era where my work responsibilities get larger and more time consuming was the best part.

 

[FickleGM]

I was able to get dinner with Russ and Sharon four times over the course of the con, which usually involved some game designer or other geek luminary swinging by and sharing drinks, like Keith Baker, and Rodney Thompson, and Gabriel Whitehead.

You're too funny, Ryan. I'm fairly certain that I don't qualify for that distinction.

 

[exile]

I've been going to Gen Con for a long time (since the early 90s). Some years, I schedule a game pretty much every slot; some years, I leave a slot or two open so I don't have to see the exhibit hall at breakneck pace between games. This year, my schedule was packed with gaming. Ten slots: six of Pathfinder Society, two of Legend of the Five Rings, and one of D&D4E.

In years past, with similarly busy schedules, at least one game has always sucked. This year, however, there was no suckage. A few of the games might have been average (albeit with some very fun moments), but most of the games that I played in were good or great.

There were a few standouts...

1. A group of close friends and I played PFS 4-26 on "hard mode," a bad decision given that we straddled the fence between low and high tier. We had no business playing on hard mode. Still, we fought our way bravely to the Runelord Kroon (I think that was his name), and he... wiped the floor with us. A summoned fiendish t-rex, black tentacles, and horrid wilting-- and we were done, most of us anyway. My cleric was able to quietly slip out the way we had come in (good on me since the party had left me for dead during level 1 of Bonekeep earlier this year at Winter Fantasy). Archimedes, the alchemist, was able to teleport away with the four corpses. Still, I think we all had a great time.

2. The same group of players and characters tackled the PFS special. We fought wave after wave of demon. It was my perception that the game lacked the level of interactivity seen in other BIs, but I have since been convinced that it was there, simply invisible to us. Regardless, we had a wonderful time repelling the abyssal invaders of the city of Nerosyan. The highlight of the adventure was facing off with and defeating a named baroness of the Abyss and Sunderheart, a corrupted abyssal dragon.

3. With another group of friends, I played Secrets of Naishou, a sandbox-ish L5R adventure. I played a pre-gen named Haikyohime, the Princess of Ruins, an idealistic young ronin. The other players did such a great job getting into character. As clan samurai, they pretty much all joined together in tormenting poor Haikyohime. It made role-playing easy (and a great deal of fun) for me. Haikyohime tolerated all of the insults with great stoicism until a Lion (played by my good friend) insulted my character's father (also a ronin, who had died defending their village when she was just a babe), basically calling him an alcoholic peasant. Anyway, Haikyohime tackled the obnoxious Lion and a bout of fisticuffs ensued. I realize that it would have probably been more appropriate for her to have cut off one of his hands, but I didn't want to spoil anyone's enjoyment of the game. The DM deserves great kudos for allowing us to explore as many of, like, ten villages in the province as time allowed. We solved a kidnapping and defended another village from outright attack by a band of maho users. Great stuff.

4. The D&D4E game deviated a little bit from the rules as written in that every character, at-will, could use an at-will to "do something cool"; and, as an encounter power, could also "do something cooler." In the first fight, my rogue, Corporal Daxter Potts, used his "do something cooler" power to slash open a giant centipede's poison glands, rendering it much less of a threat to us.

 

[Mark CMG]

The mammoth and giant Mayfair Games were a lot of fun and very cool.

 

[am181d]

One not so cool experience was the motorcycle rally at the monument. We stayed at the Sheraton and the motorcycle went loud (even up on the 16th floor) and late (after 2 am on both Friday and Saturday night) and it wasn't like we could complain to the police about the noise - they were out cordoning off access to the square around the monument on the bikers' behalf.

One of my favorite stories from LAST year's Gencon:

I went to the Masquerade Saturday night (just to drink, not to cosplay) only to find that there was a cash bar, so I was redirected to the hotel across the street to use the ATM. The bikers were out in full force, including a couple of big, burly, leather-clad guys in the hotel lobby.

I'm not normally a timid person, but I was kind of keeping an eye on them as I was taking my money out of the ATM. Just as I'm getting my receipt, somebody else comes in from the Masquerade in full costume: He's some kind of alien bounty hunter with a trenchcoat and a crazy gasmask and a big gun strapped to his side.

And those bikers FREAKED OUT!

The cosplayer was very polite in explaining what anime character he was (or whatever) and the bikers seemed to have a good sense of humor about it once they collected their wits off the floor.

So I can understand how the noise would be frustrated, by I find the juxtaposition of the two communities to be kind of heartening...