Who attends GenCon?

[Desdichado]

Most of my group goes, but they don't do the stealth con; they just sign up for official games and hang with each other, for the most part. Then again, they don't do much at ENW anymore (if ever) either.

I may carpool with them... maybe. But I've got different priorities in terms of what I want to get out of the con, myself.

 

[kenobi65]

I went most years from 1983 through 2005. I went to Origins, instead, last year, because several of the Living-style campaigns I play (Living Arcanis, Legends of the Shining Jewel) were going to be better-represented at Origins versus GenCon. I'll be going to Origins again this year, for the same reason -- there's a group of about 12 of us who play together online, and we are able to get together once a year for a F2F con...this'll be the one for us this year.

One of the beauties of a con as big as GenCon is you can find somebody running just about any game you can imagine. Want to play 1E? I guarantee you you'll find 1E games on the program.

 

[DaveyJones]

Even with the free beer there I can't get buddies into going.

ditto.
no offers to go in 00, 01, nor 02. so i didn't go.
had 1 guy go with me and 1 back out due to illness in 03
none wanted to go in 04, so i didn't go either
none wanted to go in 05, but i did.
and this year it looks like just me again.

plenty of gamers in the group. just no hardcores.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

It's an expensive trip, and kind of a risk, if you're just a casual gamer. Going in blind, you could end up spending a lot of money and not have any fun if you get sub-par games through the luck of the draw.

My 'official' games last year were a mixed bag, but the ENWorld games were uniformly excellent. I'd not be in such a hurry for August to roll around if I were relegated to the unwashed masses

And for those that don't think they belong at the 'shadow con', hey -- if you're reading this, you belong. There's no post-count minimums, and you only have to correctly identify three real ENWorlders in a lineup to establish your bona fides (and one of them is Teflon Billy).

 

[Qualidar]

This will be my first. I intend to attend the ENWorld Stealth Con.

I was going to anyway, but now that it's a "Stealth Con", it's a must!

~Qualidar~

 

[DonTadow]

Gencon is HUGE

I go every year, been that way for 7 years. You can find any game you want there. 1e, 2e, 3e ...whatever. And lots of them run by different people. That's the official stuff. Then there's the unofficial underground games, spot games and tourney games.

Two weeks until registration and I"m all gitty.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

ditto.
no offers to go in 00, 01, nor 02. so i didn't go.
had 1 guy go with me and 1 back out due to illness in 03
none wanted to go in 04, so i didn't go either
none wanted to go in 05, but i did.
and this year it looks like just me again.

plenty of gamers in the group. just no hardcores.

Wait a second. I was referring to the free beer at Archon. Do they have free beer at Gencon too? Or do you go to Archon as well?

Mmmm...beer....

 

[T. Foster]

It's interesting to me how many of the respondents of this thread started going right around the same time I stopped (late 90s through move to Indy). What was it made you decide to start attending at that particular time? The change in management (from TSR to WotC and eventually GenCon LLC)? The release of 3E? Did the move to Indianapolis itself make any of you decide to start attending? I'd think the rise of the internet would've made people less likely to attend conventions (since a lot of what were, for me, the big appeals of the con -- finding rare stuff in the dealer room and auction, interacting with the designers and 'industry celebs' -- is now much easier to do online than it was in the pre-'net era) but if anything the opposite seems to be true -- is it because you've met people from distant locations online and the con provides a central location to all meet up in person?

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

I went for a good portion of the 90's with my FLGS club Gamemaster's Guild of Waukegan. My best times were running FASA games (my Scavenger Hunt scenario for Shadowrun gathered much interest and being the only non-FASA person running Earthdawn the year of its release earned me a free signed copy of the rulebook from Lou Prosperi).

When the guild stopped attending, so did I for a while, but I was definately there every year from the release of 3E through the first Indy con. Finances and committments are the only things that have kept me away since (although I do miss Milwaukee).

 

[DaveyJones]

Wait a second. I was referring to the free beer at Archon. Do they have free beer at Gencon too? Or do you go to Archon as well?

Mmmm...beer....

they did when i went in 03. i drank free beer at the WizOs meeting on WotC Mel's dime.