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Pop culture dispatches from the Great Lakes

Gen Con

361 & a Wake Up: a Recap of Gen Con 2014

August 25, 2014 by -J. Leave a Comment

“The Best Four Days in Gaming” only ended last week, and I already want to go back.

Addison Recorder editor Karen Martin and I (along with many others) attended this year’s Gen Con, the biggest tabletop gaming convention on this side of the Atlantic. The difficulty in doing a recap of such a huge con is that each attendee will have a unique experience; with over 56,000 people attending four days that pack almost 400 vendors and over 14,000 events into a few city blocks, you almost need to read an aggregate of recaps (including this one from Shut Up & Sit Down) to get the full picture.

Sailor Moon on bassoon, a wizard on mandolin, and Chewbacca on cello. Self-explanatory.

No context needed.

Here is one such recap: My recounting of Gen Con 2014. [Read more…]

Posted in: Board Games, Games, RPGs Tagged: board games, conventions, Gen Con, roleplaying games, tabletop games

Return to Gen Con: Day 1

August 16, 2013 by -J. Leave a Comment

It’s only the end of Day 1 of Gen Con Indy, and already I’m feeling like I should’ve run a 5k to prepare myself.

My poor badge had difficulty keeping up with all the running around:

20130816-112834.jpg

Since I slept rather soundly after all the awesomeness of Day 1, and because I’m on my way back again, and because I’m writing from my phone, the update will be short & sweet. Relatively speaking.

Exhibit Hall
The doors to the Exhibit Hall were thrown open for the first time today, and there was one thing I learned early: The line at the Paizo Publishing area will be ridiculous. There’s an employee whose responsibility is to hold a sign that reads “Paizo line ends here.”

As expected, there was a sea of humanity throughout the Hall, though not bad as most cons I’ve attended. Then again, it was Thursday. We’ll see what the crunch is like Saturday.

It was a great day to pick up games & books that are new or generally unavailable, if you’re okay with a few lines.

20130816-012510.jpg

More Meetups
While checking out the Arc Dream and Pagan Publishing booth, I ran into a woman from Chicago. As in, we recognized each other from the fact we take the same Brown Line train during our morning commute.

Later that evening, it turned out that a player I gamed with is also a Chicago citizen. In fact, he lives near/in my neighborhood. We traveled over 180 miles to meet up.

TableTop
Winding my way from the Exhibit Hall, I found Hall D — the Hall of Board Games. Rows upon rows of tables, board games on each. Plus there were oversized games being played on the hall floor:

20130816-015648.jpg

Over along one wall was the Geek & Sundry HQ. They brought the table from their award-winning web series, TableTop, and were playing many a game on its soft, crimson surface. They also brought a Wil Wheaton, showed up occasionally to make sure folks had a good chance to win.

I played a couple games of Get Bit! with the game’s creator and other fellow gamers. I had a lot of fun, even though I ended up as shark fodder in both games.

20130816-012816.jpg

Night’s Black Agents
This is where I could ramble on about how much fun Gen Con events can be. Because, great balls of unholy fire, this was fun.

I was one of five players in a game of Night’s Black Agents, a role-playing game that was described to us as ‘Jason Bourne, vampire hunter.’

The enjoyment of any RPG session pivots on the way players interact with each other, and with the person running the game (the ‘GM’). Since it’s interactive storytelling, everybody involved needs to be invested. And in this game, we all were.

I don’t want to give any spoilers, since this was a published campaign, but it was enervating, and a perfect end to the day.

Well, okay: first a pint of Flagon Slayer, then the night was over. Until tomorrow!

Posted in: Board Games, Games, RPGs Tagged: Gen Con

Return to Gen Con: Day 0

August 15, 2013 by -J. 1 Comment

That’s right, Day 0. The day before the first.

Gen Con doesn’t start until Thursday, but a lot of attendees arrive on Wednesday to get settled in and experience a pre-Con bash or two. The city of Indianapolis was quite welcoming, and thousands of geeks & nerds were finding themselves rubbing elbows with other geeks & nerds.

20130815-102525.jpg

Hey! I’m a gamer! I feel rather welcome.

Which is why you’ll find the words below strangely absent of games. For me, at least, Day 0 of Gen Con turned out to be all about the meetup.

…

10:00 am, Chicago:

I kissed my wife goodbye, and set off on my pilgrimage to Gen Con Indy. Three hours, countless construction zones, and one terrifying pothole later, I arrived in downtown Indianapolis. Giddiness was tempered by the fact that I was driving in an unfamiliar city; once parking was secured, the giddiness was allowed to run unfettered. I lost track of it quickly; if anyone sees it, please provide it a good home.

I spent my first few minutes orienting myself to the convention center. After discovering where Human Resources was, I made sure never to go back that way again. Soon I ended up where I needed to be to pick up my badge and event tickets, and I was then free to wander anew.

20130815-102736.jpg

The next generation can get their own damn games.

It took very little time to remind myself why I loved going to Gen Con all those years ago — meeting people. The Exhibit Hall doesn’t open until tomorrow, but a lot of folks head in a day early. Within an hour, I ran into one of the guys behind Geek Bar Chicago a couple times. I met up with Twitter’s preeminent Lovecraftian librarian, the Cthulhu Chick, as she had offered up her ticket to a game event on Thursday.

And then there was the unexpected & random meeting. It hearkened back to earlier this year, when I had a Saturday free many months ago, and decided to attend the biweekly board game meetup in my neighborhood. While there, I played Stone Age a few other people, including a couple of government employees who were in Chicago for OSHA training. They tagged along while I took the train up to Chicagoland Games, we hung out, had a grand ol’ time.

You can probably guess where I’m going with this story. While wandering the Con today, someone stopped me to say ‘hello’ — it was one of the Stone Age players from that random Saturday back in Chicago. It was about this point that I started to realize that my facial hair has become a signifier for my self.

(To whit: group of Gen Con volunteers bantered with me about my facial hair as I was preparing to head to my hotel. They decided my nickname was ‘The Mustache’. No idea what prompted that.)

No idea, at all. (with fellow Addisonian, Andrew Rostan)

No idea at all.
(file photo, with fellow Addisonian, Andrew Rostan)

After checking into the hotel and grabbing some food, it was back to the convention center. Or, more accurately, back to the block party the Con had set up just outside the building. I waited in line to get into the official tapping of the official limited exclusive beer of Gen Con 2013: Flagon Slayer, from Sun King Brewing. While he line snaked past a stage, where nerd rock band Five Year Mission was performing in their Star Trek uniforms. I also chatted with a couple gents in line in front of me, who were from Warrington, England, They were in the States on a 40th birthday trek which included Gen Con.

We got into the beer garden, and the Flagon Slayer turned out to be damned tasty brew. Rich red color, sweet & citrus-y flavor, almost down the line to being a sour. While in the garden, I was stopped a few times for pictures. Not because I knew folks, but because, well, mustache.

(Seriously, it has become a symbol that’s a shorthand to recognizing me; I may be unrecognizable without my current facial hair. Which is good news if I ever need to go into Witness Protection.)

While sipping my delicious beer, I ended up in conversation with an impressively-bearded Gen Con staffer. Epic beard. It was a beard that would make a dwarf lord proud, and inspire just as much fear as an axe might.

We were joined by a local geek in a Green Lantern shirt, and proceeded to get another round of ale while we talked of nerdery, theatre, and the culture. After winding past the food trucks (so many food trucks), we ended up at a nearby pub, Tavern on South. On the menu I did spy a cocktail (the North Shore Flower) made with a local syrup and a Chicago gin.

20130815-103006.jpg

Look, another picture that’s not a game!

I ended up missing my shuttle back to the hotel, but that was okay: the fellow in the Green Lantern shirt gave me a ride on the back of his scooter. Which was awesome, because of seeing the Indy sights while the winds whips through your hair. Which was terrifying, because of never riding a scooter before and not having a helmet.

That ends up being a convenient callback to the Gen Con experience: 40,000 people I don’t know, games I’ve never played, and familiarity is now a rarified thing. Potentially terrifying, or at least uncomfortable. And yet, it is filled with so much potential for new & unforeseen awesomeness.

And games. Stop back tomorrow for a post that should at least mention a game. At least one.

 

Posted in: Board Games, Games Tagged: Gen Con

Return to Gen Con: the preview

August 12, 2013 by -J. Leave a Comment

It’s the Best Four Days in Gaming, and it all starts Thursday.

Gen Con.

gen-con-logo

Naturally, the Addison Recorder couldn’t let such a cornerstone of North American pop culture go by without providing daily updates from the festivities in Indianapolis. And by “the Recorder,” of course, I mean me. To memorialize my return to the Con that hooked me on gaming years ago, I’ll be providing daily updates for the Recorder. On Wednesday, I’ll be heading down I-65 to check into a possibly-sketchy and definitely over-priced hotel near the IUPUI campus. (That’s one of the coolest-sounding college acronyms, when you say it aloud.)

If all goes well, that night I’ll be enjoying a glass of Flagon Slayer, the official beer of Gen Con, and writing about the pre-con atmosphere.

Since I’m going solo — and going for the first time in years — it may also go horribly awry. But at least you’ll be able to laugh at my tribulations. We can’t lose! Well, you can’t. I’ll be playing games for 4+ days, so the odds are that I’ll “lose” at something at some point. Maybe a lot of somethings. [Read more…]

Posted in: Board Games, Games Tagged: Gen Con

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