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It's like the opposite of Fight Club in here. A lot of us are awaiting those little stories and vignettes about the Con, so that we can fully engage in living the experience vicariously through you.
So tell us. What did you buy? What was awesome? What was retarded? Any cool poignant stories or experiences?
Link us to your LJ entries, or just drop in a cool little tale. Bring the Con to us.
Go!
-Andy -
Agon is going to put a spear in your gut and make you sandal-stomp your best friend while killing a gorgon. This is the game I was reading like mad while at rest stops.
http://judd-sonofbert.livejournal.com/234324.html
http://judd-sonofbert.livejournal.com/234059.html
It is gonig to be a good fucking few months for Kryos.
Flaming Taft: Live in New Amsterdam! A tale of 300 pounds of Rock Fury as 1974 punk rock is magic in Mortal Coil.
My next game of Shock: will have rayguns and laser swords and helmets with fins on them.
Long live the Gen Con 6! (Durham 3 + Paul Tevis + the Sons of Kryos)
Dictionary of Mu is into its second printing. I called the printer and ordered the second printing on my ride home from the con. Rock. -
GenCon was the bomb!
I roomed with Tony, Shawn, Ben, um... hell, there were 9 of us shoved in that room. I can't remember everyone. Let's just say that RPG's, Jungle Speed, and snoring conspired to insure that I never had quite enough sleep. I've also decided that Tony is a machine. He needs no sleep. He exists only to play Capes and Jungle Speed. He comes into the hotel room at 2:30 am or later, lays down on the floor with no pillow or blanket, falls asleep instantly, and then wakes up at 7am without an alarm clock. A machine I tell you!
I played and ran Dogs in the Vineyard for the first time at the Games on Demand table. On Friday, Tony ran a game for 4 of us. It was really cool. I got to force a marriage reconciliation at gun point. Kick ass. I'm thinking all marriage counsellors should carry sidearms now. It was good that Tony ran that game for us on Friday because on Saturday, folks came by the GoD tables and wanted to play and I ran the game. Dogs makes running the game super easy. I must admit though, that will 5 players it was a bit slow on the bigger conflicts. I understand perfectly why most Dogs games only have between 2 and 4 players now.
The Games on Demand tables were awesome! I will be highly upset if they are not there next year. I lived at the GoD tables even when I wasn't running a game there. Here's the games I did run... Capes, Dogs in the Vineyard, and Great Ork Gods (twice). The games that were played there while I was around were Universalis, Roach, Breaking the Ice, Shooting the Moon, Verge, HeroQuest and many more that I don't remember. It was kick ass in the extreme.
I bought only one thing at GenCon: Burning Empires. It was $40 which pretty much exhausted my budget for new games. It is a beautiful book and I'm excited about delving into it.
I played part of a session of Afraid on the last night there. I think the game has a lot of potential. The setting of the four Conditions and switching scenes when Conflict Escalation occurs are pretty inspired mechanics. I'm definately going to pull the current rules off the Internet and give them a whirl here at home. The game at GenCon degraded a bit due to the late hour and general exhaustion at the table. Piers was a cool GM though and I could see how the game really had the potential to shine. Next time I play I'll be a litttle better rested.
Jungle Speed is... um... like crack cocaine. -
The so-called "indie" highlights of my weekend were accepting two Ennies for Chad, meeting Adam and playing Verge, Lunch with Joshua and Shock, meeting Judd and playing Mu, learning about Burning Empires and meeting Luke; and finally meeting Malcolm and playing Cold City. I also demoed Hero's Banner and talked a lot about Godsend and Heisenberg. Were it not for my incredibly deep grief at losing a friend on Wednesday night it may well have been a perfect show. I played more games than I have played at GenCon in a decade.
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Just real quickly.
I demoed a ton of cool games. Agon, Hero's Banner, 1001 Nights, Primitive, Dictionary of Mu (ultra-fast end-of-day version), and many others that I'm sure I'm forgetting about. I'm excited about all of the ones I listed above, but Hero's Banner is the one I'm most looking forward to playing. It's a game that pushes you toward difficult choices, creating a deep and rich mythology as it goes. Agon does a similar thing, in a totally different way (and is awesomely competitive, as well).
At the Con I played Perfect for a couple hours with Joe MacDonald. It was a one-on-one game, so while I got a taste, I didn't get the full meal I desired from this intensely paranoid Victorian fantasy. I also played Contenders, which has an incredibly engaging boxing mechanic and is a ton of fun, even if my boxer did end up a homeless junky. I also sat in on an hour of the ongoing HeroQuest game, playing a bed slave named 'Bed Slave' to Judd Karlman's semi-deified Gorgon Queen. Awesome.
After-hours is where most of my serious gaming happened. On Wednesday I played a fantastic game of Unistat with Andrew Morris, setting it in a mystic, anachronism filled American West where we played differents aspects of 'The Wandering Man'. Thursday was a rotating-player session of Drowning & Falling followed by a thunderous game of Mechaton, and Friday was a very, very good game of Agon, wherein we fought a great Monster and I ended up with a nut-ton of glory. Saturday was my 'best of Con' game, with an all-star group of players (Paul Tevis, Judd, Joshua AC Newman, and GBSteve, whose last name I didn't catch) rocking out on a Brennan Taylor-run session of Mortal Coil. This game was excellent from top to bottom, with the premise being 'scrappy punk band in New York, 1974, where musicians are discovering the true power of their art" and each of us playing a member or associate of the rising punk band Flaming Taft. I'm sure this will be APed, so keep an eye out for it.
I also talked with a ton of people, and have a bunch of new directions to go in terms of ideas about gaming, community, and art. GenCon was a huge battery of inspiration, doling out charges to all who needed them. -
Ben Lehman crashed at my place a few days before we both flew out to GenCon, and that was fun. My first night I crashed with Chris Hanaran and Mike Sugarbaker, who are both awesome guys and fun to conversize with. For the rest of the Con I shared a room with Dev P, Daniel Solis and Shannon and we alternated between game talk, politics, and silly "3 in the morning sleepover" questions. We shared the ideas of Brick Therapy, Exit to Doom, the Special Giggle, and many other things I cannot recall just at this moment.
I played: Agon, Universalis (drifted), HeroQuest, Falling Leaves, 1001 Nights, Great Ork Gods, and playtested Clinton's hawtsome Mouse Guard game. I got to play demos of Best Friends and Hero's Banner.
I got to kick it with lots of folks, and had a great time overall. -
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CommentAuthorEric Provost
- CommentTimeAug 14th 2006
I've sat here and tried to figure out where to begin for like ten minutes now. There was so much awesome that I can't even seem to get it all straight in my head.
This was the first year that Lisa and I were scheduled GMs at GenCon. It was run really differently than Origins is, so we had some bumps here and there, like jogging back and forth between the main registration lines and the GM lines a couple times to get everything we needed. But after that little snafu, I've gotta tell you that the veteran volunteer organizers I delt with were totally fucking awesome. Specificially, on Saturday, my final game (a 4-player session of DitV) got scheduled at the same table as another group. After some quick paperwork shuffling, our Hall Dude found us a table in a room that was almost completely empty. We didn't even have to raise our voices during that game, much less shout across the table like it usually gets.
On Friday, which turned out to be the only day I was really sold out like I thought I was going to be, I had a table of 6 Roach players who never heard of the game, never heard of the Forge, never played an indie game before, and one player who never heard of the Roach but had spent some time at the Forge. I was totally excited and surprised that I had so many peeps there who just showed up based on the description out of the book. It was awesome. And the icing on the cake was that everyone had a blast. That was my Roach game of orgies. I think we had one for every event but one.
It's amazing how that game can inspire and support depravity. See, I don't really do a lines and veils discussion at the beginning of the game. What I do is show everyone samples of the cards and I always make sure to include MURUB, which is usually the one that everyone thinks of at the most 'out there'. So, at one point during the second event, the Founder's Day Wine & Cheese Social, one of the more enthusiastic players leans over our one femme player's boyfriend to explain how his character has just caught her in the middle of an orgy! And I get a little bit of internal freaking out going on, because she's been pretty quiet so far in the game. You know, I'm just a little worried that she's not getting into it when all of a sudden she pushes a Reputation chip forward and announces; 'Oh, hell yeah I am, and let me tell you all about it!!'
So, now, not only is she not put out by a possible social issue, but it opens up the doors of awesomeness for her! That was probably the most memorable moment of GMing for me the whole weekend.
And then, besides having a killer-blast GMing for the indie-hungry masses, we got to meet a metric-ton of all you people. Hell, I've lost track of everyone allready! I only regret that some of the meetings were super-brief, and some meetings that I would have enjoyed were almost non-existant. Like I got to meet and shake hands with Shreyas, and kinda saw Selene out of the corner of my eye a dozen times. But hell, I didn't even know that it was Selene I was seeing 'till Lisa described her after playing a game with her.
Maybe next year we could all be about meet & greet at Embassy Suites on Wed and Thur night. You know, try to shake as many hands and match as many faces to names as possible. Oh, and maybe on top of that, we could have our little identifiying meme picked out ahead of time? Like, if we all had our Go Play stickers to arrive with, I totally would have been up and shaking hands with everyone who had one on their badge. Last year Jason made "Forge Twunt" pins. Maybe next year we could have "Story Games Jackass" buttons or something.
-Eric
p.s. Oh yeah, and after hours I got to play in the single most distrubing game of MLWM I've ever been in. Adam really knows how to take the master you've made and fuck you in the head with him. Literally.
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CommentAuthorThunder_God
- CommentTimeAug 14th 2006
What's Hero's Banner that everyone keeps mentioning? -
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- CommentAuthorEric J. Boyd
- CommentTimeAug 14th 2006 edited
Hero's Banner is Tim Koppang's game of characters at the decision point between three life paths, each fraught with possibility and consequences. It's got rules for multi-generational play too, since once your character makes his decision you narrate how that decision worked out and the character's death. Then your next character follows in the footsteps of the prior one. I had not heard about it before the Con, but Tim totally sold me on it Sunday.
Here's his Web site: http://tckroleplaying.com/news/ -
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CommentAuthorThunder_God
- CommentTimeAug 14th 2006
I wish Hero's Banner didn't look as cool as it does.
I'm going to have to plan my RPG expenditures for the next year or so, oy. -
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I met a lot of new people, and got to reconnect with a lot of people as well. It was awesome. I played in a lot of demos, and played in quite a few games. Along with running both my big games (an awesome game of Fastlane and a playtest of Ensemble), I ran Dogs in the Vineyard for some people at the Games on Demand booth (Mike Holmes and Ralph Mazza, amongst others). I bought $223 worth of games and still wish I could have bought more.
For Fastlane I got a lot of good buzz on a pocket-sized roulette wheel, and am hoping to finish up talks with IPR to get it carried there. In sadder news, I may have shot myself in the foot with Fastlane by seeking comments in regards to the second printing so early. There's still 38 copies left of the first printing, and people already have walked up to the booth and asked if the second printing (which will tweak the text, etc.) was out. I hope people aren't already waiting for the second printing because, well, there's still 38 (minus whatever sold at GenCon) printings left. But, enough about that.
Embassy Suites Nightly Gaming:
*Wednesday night was playtesting central.
*Thursday night was an absolutely awesome game of Capes, Tony claimed he'll be posting the Actual Play. My only regret is we didn't get to do the next scene.
*Friday night I playtested Ensemble after accidentally sleeping through half of the night. It started as an ice age game, and eventually turned into a sort of Land of the Lost, Velociraptor Knights Errant!
*Saturday night was a game of Fastlane, yay! After that, btw, was a rather long, involved, and interesting conversation about stakes-setting with Ron, Clinton, Vincent and a whole lot more people
*Sunday, I flew out. I always hate leaving sundays.
There's of course, a lot more stuff, but that's enough to tantalize and tease. -
- CommentAuthorEric J. Boyd
- CommentTimeAug 14th 2006 edited
Tell me about it. The first day of Gen Con I made all my must-buy purchases and targeted a few potentials that I wanted to demo before they'd get my dollar. Thing is every one of my potentials resulted in a great demo and became must-buys immediately AND a couple more games snuck in and ended up taking money out of my wallet as well.
I had to stay away from the booth and hit Games on Demand to stop the bleeding from my wallet.
That said, I had a total blast at Gen Con. The booth was rocking good fun with demos a plenty, and I got to meet great folks and match names to faces. After hours I got to finally play Capes and Polaris, and I was exposed to the contagion that is Jungle Speed. I got to play in Alex's Fastlane game and I either got lucky or actually know something about roulette - either way it was fun. Ron's discussion of stakes and the problem of counterstakes enhanced my understanding of the problems in my own prior Ronnies entry Today and have given me much food for thought.
My scheduled games were a game of The Mountain Witch and the Roach. Both were damn good fun with blood and guts everywhere by the end. My poor vengeful samurai never got his bloody payback, though he did actually injure the Witch before having the lower part of his body cut off. In the Roach, my professor of religion ended up being the only one roached at the end, but having the most reputation and spreading the Roach's horror to the world at the next graduation ceremony. I am psyched to play both games again here at home.
I also got to introduce a good friend and gamer to the world of indie games; he demoed Best Friends and The Mountain Witch, and we played Dogs at the Games on Demand table. Seeing his enthusiasm for a new way of playing (he's usually a WOD player) was awesome. There really is something special going on in this community and seeing someone get his first glimpses of that made me realize it all the more.
About the only goal I had for the Con that I didn't meet or exceed was getting to playtest The Committee for the Exploration of Mysteries. And there will be time enough for that soon I hope. -
Eric,
There was another Great Ork Gods game? Or were you in mine. With 2 sessions and 13 people it is easy to forget who was there. -
- CommentAuthorEric J. Boyd
- CommentTimeAug 14th 2006
Andrew,
I wasn't in a Great Ork Gods game, but I was in your Dogs game on Saturday from 4 until 6pm. I was sitting on your left playing the only Dog who was willing to give the sheriff his gun. I really regret that we didn't think to have me be in the conflict on the sheriff's side so we could have kicked those other stubborn Dogs in the head together (and actually see some of the town). An immediate PvP conflict would have been hella fun. Even so, my friend Tony enjoyed seeing how the game worked and really liked the initiation conflicts. -
Ack... Too many Eric's around here. :-)
I certainly remember that game. I was sorry it had to end so quickly too. I learned that 5 players is a bit much for a Dogs game. I also wished you had jumped in on the Sherrif's side too. The Dogs probably would have won that conflict eventually but I was going to force them to escalate to violence to do it. With you, it would have been totally possible for them to have lost. I'm glad Tony enjoyed himself. Rob, my buddy sitting to my right, had only played once and that was on Friday with Tony running the game. He liked the sessions enough to go buy the book. -
My blog post is here.
Oh man. I pretty much stationed myself at the booth as much as possible, both to run demos and to sell games, so I missed out on all the Games On Demand goodness. But! I fear not, for I had a really good time getting my feet under me in terms of approaching people and honing my pitches to a razors edge. And the after-hours gaming was awesome.
The Mountain Witch with Tim, Kevin, Frank, Paul/Zack (switched players between one night and the next) and Eric. It started out slow, for we were tired and it was late, and we called it after a couple of scenes with the promise that we would finish another night. We finished Saturday night, and it was awesome! We ended the game with me killing the Mountain Witch in order to save the soul of my dead wife, but she fulfilled my worse fear and went to the side of the new Mountain Witch - Zack's character! Frank's Ronin slew Eric's to settle a blood debt, and I think we ended up with only Kevin's remaining alive. It was awesome.
Played Primitive as well, with much beatings of clubs. This is a cool, cool game, both for the premise (cavemen! awesome!) and for the fact that you create your own freaking language through play.
Playtested Grey Ranks. Jason's a beast. That game is going to rock. I'm looking forward to more development.
I had a great time, but my focus was on selling, not on playing, so I missed a lot of the awesome play. Which is kind of sad. But it means that I'm prepared for future cons, and I can try to balance it out better.
Oh, and there is so much great material thats going to be out on podcasts in the weeks to come, including recordings of live game demos. But if you don't listen to Sons of Kryos, Have Games Will Travel, The Ogrecave Audio Report and The Durham 3, at least, you will be missing out on a lot of the awesome coming out of Gen Con. I'm not sayin, I'm just sayin. -
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CommentAuthorThunder_God
- CommentTimeAug 14th 2006
Primitive keeps reminding me of Peter "Good and Evil" Moulenno(sp)'s BC. -
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Things that rocked: Agon, Mortal Coil, PTA, Shooting the Moon, GO PLAY GO PLAY GO PLAY, interviewing a bunch of folks for the show and just having a million great conversations in general. Finally holding a copy of Universalis in my hand. Keith's crazy Untitled shit that I still can't figure out how to play and it doesn't matter. Buying yet another copy of PTA, knowing that I would find somebody to give it to, and giving it to Allison Looney within 24 hours. Seeing the new big effort from WotC be possibly not doomed to failure - say what you will, but I think that's important, because "the industry" being at least kind of healthy affords the rest of us some headroom that we wouldn't have otherwise. (And Dreamblade? Actually pretty fun.) Finding those two kids on the far wall who hadn't seen most of the Forge stuff and had brought crazy interesting little games (the spawn are coming!). Surviving the podcasting seminar. Seeing Clinton, meeting Emily, meeting Ben. Meeting all y'all.
Things that didn't rock: Saturday night there was that big discussion in the corner with Ron and a bunch of others, talking about scene framing or something. That's not the thing that didn't rock, I'm sure it was great. Here's the problem: I had literally been dispatched by the folks over at the bar to go find out what was going on. I went over there, asked a couple of the gathered crowd what was being played, and a dude I didn't recognize said to me, "Do you know the password?", with a totally serious look on his face.
Now, maybe he was feeling like the in-crowd was keeping him out and was making a bitter joke about it. But since I didn't recognize him I am leaning towards assuming that he didn't recognize me, and given the reputation we all have for being exclusive high-school motherfuckers, that was just the wrong shit to say, even if it was intended humorously. I still don't know who you were, dude, but you are redundant to the requirements of the revolution. Get your head straight before you come back to Gen Con.
"Do you know the password?" Seriously, can you believe that?
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My first year at GenCon, and it was amazing. Somewhat for the gaming, but mostly for the great, great folks I got to hang out with. To keep it brief:
Board Games Played:
Beowulf the Legend (loved it, will acquire!)
Wings of War (interesting, but not compelling)
Battlestations (loved it! This one could split between board game and RPG. Will acquire)
Battleground: Fantasy Warfare (awesome, my "find" of the show)
Warrior Knights (very, very good, although almost a completely different game from the version I loved and played to death as a teen)
Blue Moon (interesting, gorgeous, but not compelling)
RPGs Played:
Burning Empires (Luke's "Fires over Omac" con game, loved it, a few kicks)
Burning Wheel (Luke's "Inheritence" con game, loved it!)
Agon (I ran this one, the players brought the awesome)
Game I bought that I was planning to buy:
Arteisa: the Known World (autographed!)
InSpectres
Shock
Mechaton
Drowning & Falling
Games I bought that I wasn't planning to buy:
Qin: Warring States
Battleground: Fantasy Warefare
Faery's Tale
Game I would have bought had I been more aware of it:
Contender -
You know what really rocked and sucked about GenCon. I played games almost constantly. Three sessions I ran at GoD, With Great Power, Mutants and Masterminds, Babylon 5 Wars, Universalis, Dogs in the Vineyard, Afraid, Jungle Speed... sheesh... I played until games came out my ears. BUT!!! I still didn't get even close to half the games I wanted to play that were available to be played. There was just soooooooo damn much to do and not enough time in a single weekend to do it all. It both rocked... and sucked.
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It's hard for me to pick out highlights, as pretty much everything was a highlight this year. Best GenCon for me yet. The biggies, though, were:
Mike Mearls' Monster Makover Live seminar. Primarily becuae only seven people showed up, and four of them left after about 30 minutes. Ergo, most of the seminar was me, Mearls, and my two friends shooting the shizzle about D&D. Bloody awesome.
Burning Wheel, "Inheritance." Not just because I "won," either. (I.e., last man standing, took over the inheritance, achieved one of my beliefs.) More because I didn't turtle up like I did last year, and I was able to whip out my laminated DoW sheets to help out in my fanboyish way.
Truth & Justice with John Kim. Some of the most fun I've had with a SHRPG in a long time. I believe Adam Dray was sitting next to our table, but left before I mustered the courage to say hello.
Polaris with Carl Rigney (sp?). This game made my brain hurt, but in a very good way.
Getting recognized by people I slavishly worship. By "recognized," I mean "they saw my ENWorld badge and recognized my nick." Steve Long, Luke Crane, Mearls, Chris Moeller (!), and even Storn Cook with some prodding. Steve floored me. "Oh, hey buzz. We've got your copy of Champions 25th Anniversary over at the hotel. I'll have Tina get it and I'll sign it for you." I'm famous!
Bumping into a statistically ridiculous number of Chicago Gameday regulars. They were all over!
The D&D game my friends and I played on Wednesday night. Our smoove-talkin' buddy Kev not only managed to get the hotel to unlock a private room for our use, he also got us free beer, soda, snacks, and, in the middle of our game, a comely young woman arrived with a batch of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. I'm still in awe, and lobbying the DM to award Kev bonus XP.
The D&D game my friends and I played on Thursday night. My pal Tom set us up with a Dark Sun one-shot. He made unbelievably awesome PCs. My half-dragon princeling blighter and thri-kreen duskblade will be fondly remembered.
As for swag, I spent a huge amount of money at the IPR booth: Universalis, TSoY, TMW, Polaris, PTA, Inspectres... basically Indie 101. I also grabbed Artesia and talked to Mark Smylie for a bit. Beyond that, it was HERO stuff, and sale-priced HeroQuest, FDP counters, and RPGObjects books. I also grabbed Gamers, which I am going to watch in a bit.
GenCon rawked. -
I went over there, asked a couple of the gathered crowd what was being played, and a dude I didn't recognize said to me, "Do you know the password?", with a totally serious look on his face.
Wow. That's completely wack. The discussion was about stakes setting, where it goes right, and where it goes wrong (scene framing as a tangential issue).
The ultra short form is when setting stakes, don't go changing authorities ("My stakes if I win, I convince her to tell me the truth"- "Uh, the stakes if you lose, you wake up a different gender!", etc.)- basically, a lot of people have been misreading how stakes setting works, and assuming it always gives full authority to input anything into the fiction. -
Hm. I remember that question being asked (though not who asked it), but was it really serious? I wasn't the asker or the asked, so I had an outside view of the situation, but I just sort of naturally assumed it was a joke. Maybe the guy was trying deadpan humor (or is naturally deadpan)? I don't know. If he was being serious, however, I agree that some sort of attitude adjustment might be needed.
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No one can say for sure until the accused stands up and testifies. It's certainly possible that the joke narrowly missed my head.
I also want to add how it rocked that, according to my friends' reports, True Dungeon made some changes this year that would make a bunch of people here happy. We will probably go into more detail on the podcast.
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CommentAuthorBen Lehman
- CommentTimeAug 14th 2006
I said some very dangerous things to Mr. Sugarbaker.
yrs--
--Ben -
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- CommentAuthorZach Welhouse
- CommentTimeAug 14th 2006
Posted By: hamsterprophet
The Mountain Witch with Tim, Kevin, Frank, Paul/Zack (switched players between one night and the next) and Eric. It started out slow, for we were tired and it was late, and we called it after a couple of scenes with the promise that we would finish another night. We finished Saturday night, and it was awesome! We ended the game with me killing the Mountain Witch in order to save the soul of my dead wife, but she fulfilled my worse fear and went to the side of the new Mountain Witch - Zack's character! Frank's Ronin slew Eric's to settle a blood debt, and I think we ended up with only Kevin's remaining alive. It was awesome.
Being the Zach in question, I agree with this assesment whole-heartedly. I was already sold on the game, but being called "splendid, but worthless" during the pursuit of my samuraily duties double-sold me,if such a phrase is legitimate. The rest of my convention was split pretty well between running demos of The Imp Game and introducing people to Intergalactic Cooking Challenge.
My Indie cred can no longer be denied, as I made some purchases at the Forge booth (much like everyone who is writing GenCon reports, it seems.) I'm pleased as punch with my copies of My Life With Master, Best Friends, and The Mountain Witch. -
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CommentAuthorChris Peterson
- CommentTimeAug 14th 2006
Posted By: misubaSeeing the new big effort from WotC be possibly not doomed to failure - say what you will, but I think that's important, because "the industry" being at least kind of healthy affords the rest of us some headroom that we wouldn't have otherwise. (And Dreamblade? Actually pretty fun.)
Misuba: What was WotC showing off? Anything besides Dreamblade? -
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Posted By: buzzTruth & Justice with John Kim.Some of the most fun I've had with a SHRPG in a long time. I believe Adam Dray was sitting next to our table, but left before I mustered the courage to say hello.
What the fuck, dude! I'm just this guy. I don't get it. You shoulda said hello! Hi! =) -
I said some very dangerous things to Mr. Sugarbaker.
Ben- but were you recorded as saying, "What?!? You haven't tasted the sweet, sweet, rock?!?"
I suspect my soundbite will be put to very good use and it tickles me with the possibilities. -
Posted By: Adam Dray
What the fuck, dude! I'm just this guy. I don't get it. You shoulda said hello! Hi! =)
I know, I know. I suck. If you had still been there after I called my friend (John was short of players, so I was inviting my pal), I probably would have. -
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CommentAuthorBen Lehman
- CommentTimeAug 14th 2006 edited
Chris:
Nah, it'll just either piss people off or jazz them up.
In truth, I'm more worried about those jazzed up than those pissed off.
yrs--
--Ben -
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muahahahahahaha
Yeah, I'd say Czege's old dangerous idea is still dangerous.
(Is it time for another round of those yet?)
cpeterso: they didn't have a lot else going on. Everyone was hoping they'd preview the Star Wars starship minis game coming out in the winter, but they didn't. There was some new other-Star-Wars-minis stuff. I guess I gave the impression there that their new hotness and Dreamblade were two different things. Sorry bout that.
(It was funny how everyone thought they were gonna announce crazy D&D 4 shit tho.)
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It was pretty cool.
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CommentAuthorMatt Wilson
- CommentTimeAug 14th 2006
Probably the saddest thing was the absence of people I would have liked to see there, like Andy "Hazel Eyes" Kitkowski.
Got to meet people I previously had only known online, like Jason Morningstar, Remi, Adam (who is so much more than just this guy, I tell you), Dev P, Jonathan Walton, and people I'm forgetting because I got like two hours of sleep last night.
Got to hang with people I hardly see and hate not seeing, like John H, Emily, Clinton, Vincent, Meg, Matt Snyder, Wil, Luke, and people I'm forgetting again. Oh, the tirednessicity. It mocks me.
Played Agon, Mob Justice, a playtest of Galactic, and more Agon. Demoed many cool games at the booth. Nice work, game designers!
Serious down side of the con was me suffering from some fucked-up allergy thing that had every goddamn person in Indianapolis coming up to me and going, "oh my god, what's wrong with your eyes?" Plus it left me feeling so tired all the time.
I don't know what my favorite moment was. Maybe tomorrow I'll decide, after I get serious sleep. -
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I enjoyed this, my first GC, tremendously. It's big damn world out there.
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- CommentAuthorKevin Allen Jr
- CommentTimeAug 14th 2006 edited
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I met a ton of new cool people (Joe and Tim and Kevin, and others) and got to hang with all y'all old cool people, plus demo 1001 Nights with another ton of folks.
Games I played:
SAH-Roach
Contenders
Primitive
Carry
Bacchanal
Mouse Guard
It was a mutual decission
And jungle speed.
I've *just* arrived back at my in-laws after the 10+ hour drive from Indy, so more later. -
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CommentAuthorJason Morningstar
- CommentTimeAug 15th 2006
Holy crap, people.
First of all, I had like the best time ever. Some of the highlights:
1. Meeting people - people I've known online but never actually touched, meeting total strangers (especially the ones grinning ear to ear during a Roach demo; I liked them a lot), meeting old friends in new situations.
2. Discovering amazing new games that I knew almost nothing about - games that I am suddenly an adoring fan of. Into this category fall fucking Contenders (Joe Prince represent, I am coming to the UK for a TKO in 3), Primitive, Hero's fucking Banner, these games totally surprised me.
3. Playing or demoing games I knew about but hadn't devoted a ton of bandwidth to - Cold City, fucking Carry (Nathan's demo gave me chills - I got to shoot a crying lady in the belly and you can too), Agon, damn. 1001 Nights, double damn. Word of warning, everybody - the bar for design and production is now very fucking high.
4. Sitting in a GoD Heroquest game, looking over my shoulder, and seeing a bunch of dudes I didn't know playing The Roach. The Roach got a lot of love and I was very gratified.
5. Working the Forge booth, the spirit of mutualism and deep affection for one another and what we're doing, pimping other people's games, watching people who were essentially strangers a few days earlier go to the mat for my game. Watching TonyLB wrap up a Capes demo and say "stay put - I'm getting Michael Miller to come over here and demo With Great Power for you guys" brought a tear to my eye. The whole thing was just extremely cool and I was very proud to be there.
I have used the word "fucking" in this post more times than in all my other S-G posts combined. I'm somewhat excited right now. -
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CommentAuthorJason Morningstar
- CommentTimeAug 15th 2006 edited
Addenum: Andy, I got your stuff. Also fucking Burning Empires, people. Holy crap. I only got the demo (the hour long demo!) and me and Emily got p0wned by a bunch of fucking aliens dropping "vehicular-scale damage" on us from a fixed position as we tried to flank them. It was like Band of Brothers with lizard men and fusion guns.
Oh! Best Friends - awesome and ingenious. Covenant - creepy and cool. Mob Justice - ditto. Mortal Coil - boughtenated. Shock - shocking. There was a LOT of goodness. Too much to recount. Too much to buy.
Oh hey! I also playtested Grey Ranks with the fucking dream team of all time - Kevin Allen Jr, Nathan Paoletta, Gregor Hutton, and Joe Prince. They kicked it in the gonads and I'm completely inspired for a re-write now. Thanks guys. -
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CommentAuthorMalcolm Craig
- CommentTimeAug 15th 2006
Gen Con rocked this year. The Forge/IPR booth was awesome, so many cool people to meet, old friendships to renew, a great atmosphere, so much mutual support and help. Getting my hands on so many cool games: The Roach, Shock, Perfect, Contenders, Covenant, Best Friends, and many more. All the after hours stuff was great, the games, the chat and everything else. Selling a whole bunch of Cold City and seeing my fellow Scots and friends Gregor and Iain selling and demoing Best Friends and Mob Justice like madmen.
All good, all the time.
Cheers
Malc -
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CommentAuthorEric Provost
- CommentTimeAug 15th 2006
Addenum: Andy, I got your stuff.Yeah, man! You should see all the piccies we got of the people you bought a round of beer for!
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CommentAuthorurbanpagan
- CommentTimeAug 15th 2006
Oh yeah, GenCon was the shit! I ran MLwM, and the Roach twice (along with some card games to let my brain settle down). I loved GMing and I'll most likely do it again.
I played very few games myself this time because I ended up chatting and hanging out with people a lot more than last year. I think I also played fewer games than normal because I was so focused on making sure the games I was running would rock. You know me, I was nervous as hell about running stuff being the noob GM I am.
Oh and it was kewl as hell meeting Jeff and recording a podcast for/with Judd. I babbled on for about 20 minutes and I'd really like to hear what it was I actually said. (LOL!)
Eric and I are already planning GenCon for next year as well as of course Origins. Oh and MACE in High Point, NC this November.
Lisa P -
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CommentAuthorJason Morningstar
- CommentTimeAug 15th 2006
Lisa, Jeff and Judd are super stoked about your interview. I can't wait to hear what you had to say. -
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(too much to pack into a post, especially with all the work staring at me now that the fun is over, but have to throw out a little!)
GenCon was great fun--it was good to meet and chat with so many people I knew only by name and play some fun games. The Forge booth rocked--the enthusiasm people came to demos with was contagious and sold me on more than a few games. Every demo left me wanting the game. I came back with heavier bags and a still longer list of games that I *must* buy when my wallet starts to put some weight back on.
It was great to meet so many of the forum people, and it made me like you all a lot more. There are just an awful lot of cool people in this community. -
Lisa, your interview was the first time in a year of podcasting that I felt that I was not only capturing something cool for the gaming community but something important to the gaming community.
If I had to trash everything but one interview, yours would be the one I'd keep. Not Ed Greenwood talking about how he used Elminster in his home campaigns, not Ron talking about the booth, not Kevin Sembeida talking about gaming in college with 26 people at his table. Luckily, I have no such choice to make and we get to keep them all.
We need to sit you down and not only hae you run MLwM for the ladies in our group without us there but have an interview where you talk about being a person of color in the gaming community.
Awesome.
Definitely. -
My blog post is here.
Man, oh, man. I had such an awesome time. Jason's right with the stealth games of awesomeness. Cold City - holy crap. Contenders is innovative as hell with its currency of scenes. Hero's Banner was my pick of the convention for the game I most want to play.
And the games I played in! I whipped some serious butt with a tiny but strong Mechaton army, GMed a action-packed game of Tiny Triangles (my code name for the Mouse Guard game), and not only ran a game of The Princes' Kingdom that was magical, but designed a system to play it in educational settings right beforehand and playtested that.
Seeing everyone was incredible. We had some good talks, and Ron's stakes discussion was brilliant. Oh! Meeting John Kim was really great. I like that guy a lot, and I'm glad he's around. -
- CommentAuthorihmcallister
- CommentTimeAug 15th 2006
It was great meeting you all and I picked up some games I am itching to play. It was great fun coming back with a completed game, Mob Justice, and getting a great response from everyone. Will post my full thoughts at a later date when I am not running on very little sleep and willpower alone.
Again fantastic to meet you all.
All the best
Iain -
- CommentAuthorTim C Koppang
- CommentTimeAug 15th 2006 edited
My first Gen Con as an exhibitor, it all went by in a blur of fun and exhaustion. Getting to meet so many new faces -- and so many who were supportive and excited to be there -- was amazing. But the games we played!
First, the props. Kevin's demo of Primitive (complete with rabbit skin, bones, and rocks) was eye-cathcing and fun. Then we had Meguey demoing 1001 Nights with a colorful scarf, metal bowls, and a tray full of beautiful dice (or shall I say "gems"). I also thought Tony's Capes demo, with 3" x 5" action cards that all packed down into a neat little box, was less flashy but great fun for those actually in the demo. These sorts of props tapped into my love of games and storytelling. Sweet.
And I'm not even touching on all of the other demos I was able to play in. Some of the games were so intriguing to me that even half a demo was enough to sell me on it (Joshua, I'm looking at you and your Shock grid of awesomeness). Anyway, there was a lot to take in and I'm sure it'll take me at least a week to digest it all. But I did want to echo everyone else's overall theme: Gen Con at the Forge booth rocked this year. -
Ok, I've had some sleep.
Forge books I bought:
carry.a game about war
Primitive
Don't Rest Your Head
Contenders
It was a Mutual Decission
Mexican Standoff
Burning Empires
and we would have bought Hero's Banner, but it SOLD OUT!
Other games I bought:
Fairy's Tale
Monster Hunter (or whatever it's called)
Other stuff I bought:
Fuzzy dice for Tovey - d4, d8, d10, and d12. He had a blast chasing the d8 around the hotel room.
The first PS238 collection for Sebastian - which he is half-way through already.
Mouse Guard for Elliot - which we all love.
Foam shields and swords for the boys - which they have tried and deemed 'great!'
Lots of gem-like dice for 1001 Nights.
Game highlights:
I played a Bachanal demo with Ron while Tovey was asleep on my back. I loved that Paul took the time to make up dice sets for this game, and we had perfect (plastic) wine glasses to use to tumble and spill our dice, too. Later, I made someone (Dro?) take a picture of Ron demoing for a woman in a very short leather jacket top, matching hot pants, fishnets, and killer heals. I *really* hope I get to see the picture.
SAH-Roach with Jason and two non-Forge folks: I got to be the lecherous Math proff with designs on the pretty co-ed. I'm so glad I played this demo, because now I get it! This is a wicked funny game.
carry. Whew, what an intense demo! I'm the soldier with "I love my country, but I hate this war", the other player ( I think Jason Morningstar?) is the "I don't want to die and I'll do anything to avoid it" guy. We're clearing a village, and a woman runs out at us. If I win, it's a baby and we're all safe; if he wins, he shoots her and it's a grenade. I utterly love this game, and I want to play more. The kicker was the way Nathan ended the demo, with the woman safe and holding the baby, but another soldier coming up behind her with a bayonnet. We would have given up a meal to keep playing.
Tiny Triangles (Clinton's Mouse Guard game-in-progress) after-hours at Embassy Suits:OMG, we played mice! We did initiations, and I got to be Ambassador to Squirrelkind. This game was so fun I went and bought all the books.
More later.... -
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CommentAuthorJared A. Sorensen
- CommentTimeAug 15th 2006
Y'all were great neighbors and it was fun to be close to all the energy and excitement of the Forge's booth. WDBC did really well, probably in part because of its proximity to the Forge/IPR.
I'm sick as a dog right now. -
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- CommentAuthorLuke Wheel
- CommentTimeAug 15th 2006
I can remember nothing clearly. I remember vaguely that they tried to pull me away from the Agon table as I was screaming, "Stop drifting the rules, Turner!" They were obviously just trying to steal my glory.
I hope I talked to everyone I wanted to talk to. And I hope the things I said to the people I did talk to were cogent and relevant.
Alexander is my hero.
-Luke -
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CommentAuthorJohn Harper
- CommentTimeAug 15th 2006
Alexander is my fucking hero, Crane. And I have a spear with your name on it that will prove it! Roll for position!
(man... that came out waaay dirtier than I intended) -
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- CommentAuthorLuke Wheel
- CommentTimeAug 15th 2006
My shield is undefeatable and unbreakable, Harperacles! Spew your venom, my Gorgon shall drink it! Heft your spear, my bronze shall deflect it! Hew with your sword, my reflexes will rebound it! -
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CommentAuthorurbanpagan
- CommentTimeAug 15th 2006 edited
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- CommentAuthorThomas Robertson
- CommentTimeAug 15th 2006
Still not actually back yet (probably another hour on the road), but I figured I'd drop by.
I ended up with not one, but two recordings of actual play. A hot game of Agon on Saturday night, and a fascinating playtest of The Drifter's Escape with Ben, Brennan, and Carrie on Friday night.
Other hotness: playtesting Jonathan Walton's Avatar game on Thursday night. Demos, pretty much every single one I managed to play. Putting more faces to names. Games on Demand: this was hot. I ran two or three sessions of HeroQuest which was immensely popular whenever Mike Holmes was around. I also ran a great game of Primteime Adventures. And I had a guy come dragging in thirty mintues before we shut down wanting to play Capes (which he had just purchased). That kind of excitement is fun.
Other good stuff: my room mates. Fun people, good conversations, great gaming. Meeting Carrie, who was smart and fun to play with. Talking with people about how hot Push is.
Lame stuff: not getting in all the demos I wanted. I didn't even make it through half my list of games to demo. This, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on the viewpoint), resulted in me not purchasing much. Which is good for my wallet, but sucks for my gamer-brain. I came into the con not really interested in 1001 Nights, but quickly realized that I needed to play it. But I didn't. I wanted to check out Shooting the Moon, but only managed to watch half of a demo. I wanted to check out Primitive, Perfect, Contender, and Carry, but somehow never managed to do so. I really, really, really wanted to take a look at Best Friends, and got half a demo during the last ten minutes before they kicked us out of the hall on Sunday. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to consider buying it since I was in a hurry to get on the road.
More lame stuff: not seeing enough people. Everyone I hung with was awesome, but there were lots of awesome people i didn't hang with. This definitely needs to be remedied.
Maybe-coolest thing of the con? There was this guy at the Games on Demand table (who, to my shame, I can't remember the name of) who had never even heard of indie games. Running him through stuff like Capes, HeroQuest, and Primetime Adventures, and then talking with him on Sunday about how cool they all were, was amazingly fun.
There's probably more, but I'm tired, and classes start back up in the morning...
Thomas -
- CommentAuthorcoffeestain
- CommentTimeAug 16th 2006
I've never heard of Primitive before. Was it only available at the con, or is there someplace lamers who didn't go (like myself) can pick it up?
Regards,
Daniel -
I've started a series of GenCon blog posts, all linked from here. I'm writing more every day because one or two posts cannot sum up the crazy awesome that was con this year.
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Primitive is Kevin Allen Jr.'s new game. Didn't get a chance to play, but saw some actual play and looked through the book. Sounds awesome as hell. Luke picked it up, so hopefully we'll play a session sometime soon. You play a preverbal tribe of humans. Really neat stuff.
He doesn't have anything up on his Web site yet, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time. -
- CommentAuthorMike Holmes
- CommentTimeAug 16th 2006
There are no negatives about GenCon per se, and I think everyone agrees. That is, everyone's negative comments are only that GenCon has to end at some point, and that's well before everybody has gotten their fill.
Every year it gets bandied about that GenCon should be longer. I mean, with just two more days off of work, GenCon could go from a 4 day event for me to a 9 day event (I take off Wednesday to travel aleady). Does that sound like awesome to anyone else than just me? We were talking about it last night on #indierpgs, and it sounds cool to me.
Now, here's the thing: I doubt that Peter's going to just change the format after a couple of successful decades of GenCons (but who knows). What could be done, however, would be to have our own "pre-convention" at, say, the Embassy Suites. Alexander or somebody came up with that idea as we talked about it, and I think it's eminently plausible.
So, here I am chucking it out there. Perhaps a topic for another thread. Who thinks this would work?
Mike -
Mike, it sounds awesome and horrifying at the same time. I was totally exhausted by the end. In fact, I got home on Monday, fell asleep at 6 p.m., and woke up at noon on Tuesday. I think I might drop dead of exhaustion with an additional two days. But I'd probably be willing to give it a go.
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Mike, a CCG community I used to be part of did exactly that the last time I went to GenCon (2002). We coordinated it such that we booked at a single hotel Monday-Sunday and had use of the "pub" in the evenings for informal mini-tournaments, open play, and other fun stuff. It was a total blast - in some ways, more fun than the Con itself. Not everybody did the whole week, but enough did that it was worthwhile.
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- CommentAuthorcoffeestain
- CommentTimeAug 16th 2006
Thanks, Thor!
Regards,
Daniel -
GenCon Nine Days Thread:
http://www.story-games.com/forums/comments.php?DiscussionID=1105 -
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CommentAuthorRob Donoghue
- CommentTimeAug 16th 2006
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CommentAuthorJohn Harper
- CommentTimeAug 16th 2006 edited
It is said that Luke Crane can kill with a stare. Now we have proof.
I also heard he saves children, but not the British children.
(thanks to Jürgen for the photo) -
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- CommentAuthorLuke Wheel
- CommentTimeAug 16th 2006
My word balloon should be, "Quit drifting the fucking rules, Turner!"
(also, best die-rolling picture evar! thanks, jürgen!) -
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CommentAuthorMatt Wilson
- CommentTimeAug 16th 2006
Luke burns dice, but not the bonus dice.
One thing I learned from that game is that Luke is able to maintain constant smack talk for hours at a time without having to breathe.
This is one of the two games I mentioned where nobody spent fate. I imagine it would have made a hell of a difference if we'd been thinking about it. -
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CommentAuthorShawn De Arment
- CommentTimeAug 16th 2006
Mortal Coil at 8 AM
There was a couple that signed up for it thinking it was d20. They totally got it and appeared to have a great time.
This is the second time I played Mortal Coil and either Brennan is a killer GM, or Mortal Coil rocks, or both.
Jungle Speed
Is better than a chain mail bikini for making friends
Tony LB can win 5 times in a row with his off hand (because otherwise there would be no challenge)
At 3 AM, I can sometimes beat both Luke and Tony on an all grab
At 3 AM, getting hit in head with the totem is funny not painful
Large numbers of Catholic School Cat Girls
Did I miss the anime, memo, or meme? Did Hello Kitty become a possessor spirit?
I found them strangely disconcerting when I was sleep deprived. -
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CommentAuthorjoshua neff
- CommentTimeAug 16th 2006
Maybe I missed this, but has anyone posted about who won the Diana Jones Award? -
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The Diana Jones winner was Irish Game Convention Charity Auctions, accepted by Craig with Iain's help. I think I have names right, anyway.
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- CommentAuthorihmcallister
- CommentTimeAug 17th 2006
It was accepted by Gregor Hutton and Malcolm Craig.
Cheers
Iain -
Okay, so not that close. ;)
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- CommentAuthorBrennan Taylor
- CommentTimeAug 17th 2006
Posted By: Shawn De ArmentMortal Coil at 8 AM
There was a couple that signed up for it thinking it was d20. They totally got it and appeared to have a great time.
This is the second time I played Mortal Coil and either Brennan is a killer GM, or Mortal Coil rocks, or both.
The female member of the couple came and bought two copies at the booth the next day.
And the answer is both. :) -
My first GenCon was pretty hot. The Forge booth was obviously the best place to be in the entire Con and also the most friendly feeling, which was swell. Meeting all you fine folks was a real treat.
Best Moments:
1. Being a part of the "new kids" podcast recording for the Sons of Kyros. After that was over, I seriously wanted to hug (or be in an orgy with) everyone in that room.
2. John Harper's Agon almost made me cry, I was so happy. Argonauts was a game that I tried and failed to make work, but John came along, scooped up some of the ashes, mixed it with his own crazy ideas, and turned it into a new game that's both completely and not at all what I was trying to do. What greater thing can one game designer do for another? Thank you, John! I know you didn't design the game just for me, but it'll always feel that way from my end.
Edit:
3. Oh, yeah. And Push selling out! This is the start of something beautiful. -
I had fun. I was tired afterwards. I'm better now.
Tonight, I go to run Ganakagok and get Inuit/Yup'ik/Eskimo on some overheated New Yorkers' asses. -
Gen Con was fantastic. I met so many cool people, no longer just names on the interweb!
It also provided me with some of the best gaming moments I've had in years.
More here
Gotta try and make the next one...
Cheers guys,
Joe -
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CommentAuthorAndrew Morris
- CommentTimeAug 18th 2006
GenCon was loads of fun. I finally played Jungle Speed. But Tony taught me the wrong rules -- jerk! I also won a free pass for next year because I came in second in the Segway challenge. But I should have a game in print by next year, so....meh. I didn't buy that much in the way of games, because I somehow spent around $200-$300 on food. How the heck did that happen? -
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CommentAuthorRobert Bohl
- CommentTimeAug 19th 2006
I had a shitload of fun at GenCon, much moreso than last time (not losing 2 badges helped). I demoed over a dozen games and played in a few (including a very disturbing but fun game of Cold City). My favorite part was hanging with Judd, Jeff, Kevin-from-Ithaca, Kevin-from-Jersey, Joshua, Rob Donohue, Fred, Nathan, and many others. And I also wrote a first draft of an RPG on the drive home so I'm excited about that too. -
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Posted By: Shawn De Arment
Jungle Speed
Is better than a chain mail bikini for making friends
Tony LB can win 5 times in a row with his off hand (because otherwise there would be no challenge)
At 3 AM, I can sometimes beat both Luke and Tony on an all grab
At 3 AM, getting hit in head with the totem is funny not painful
Ha! That last one was one of my highlights of GenCon (I was the guy sitting across the table from you, Shawn). That and Luke throwing the totem and his hat at the poor woman cleaning up the condiments area. But, your first comment about Jungle Speed being great for making friends is no lie. It's magic.
I picked up: Jungle Speed, Burning Empires, Shock:, carry., The Princes' Kingdom, Cold City, Agon, A Faery's Tale (my one non-Forge game purchase other than Jungle Speed), and I can't remember what else right now. I played tons of Jungle Speed, Mechaton, Burning Empires, and perhaps the single most important RPG session ever for me, Luke's "The Inheritance" Burning Wheel session. Thanks, Luke! I demo'd about everything at the Forge booth that I don't already own and play. Just to pick out one of those as great, I'd have to say John's Agon demo was fantastic. Our group is playing it next weekend.
This was my first GenCon in twenty-some-odd years of gaming, and it was a radicalizing experience. I was really reinvigorated by hanging out around the Forge booth and all you folks. It got me back working on my game, too, which, with a lot of hard work and some luck, I hope to have ready for GenCon '07.
Steven