Nuts & Bolts #43 - Post GenCon Thoughts

I'm back from GenCon!! Which is bitter sweet. On the one hand sleep and comfier bed, on the other no more gaming and I don't get to see my friends daily. On the bright side I have some sweet swag to tide me over till next year.

GenCon 2015 may be over, but GenCon 2016 is but a glimmer in the future, one I am looking forward to!

Recapped 

I tried writing this as an all inclusive mega-post, but I suck at recaps ... after seeing +James August Walls recent post about GenCon I knew I couldn't compete. Then I realized that I wasn't playing to my strength by trying to capture everything in totality, therefore ....

What I ran ....
Last year was my first GenCon, and I didn't run anything, didn't even try. I was on vacation and it was my first year at the Con, so I took it easy. This year I didn't feel confident enough to run anything official, but I did decide to run something un-official: Death in Freeport!

Jim and some others really wanted to try out the new Fantasy AGE RPG and I really love Freeport so it seemed a good match! I had +James August Walls and his wife +Jennifer Walls, +Michael Diamond and his friend Lonnie Harris, and +Francois Labrecque for a couple of hours in the afternoon. We didn't get to finish but everybody seemed to be enjoying things. I know I enjoyed watching the PCs jump to a mixed bag of semi-accurate conclusions and execute plans that probably could have stood a little extra thought. Or, to put it another way, it went delightfully off the rails!

Later in the Con I nabbed a copy of another Freeport adventure: The Lost Island!

What I played...

Well I played a lot, but let's look at the highlights reels since I don't have all day.

Wednesday evening +James August Walls ran a Dungeon Crawl Classics funnel for some eight players, myself included, where 22 out of 24 characters got killed off over the course of a couple of hours. A cursed blade, a well of souls, and a series of questionable decisions (including a couple of spiteful ones toward the end) saw our characters drop like flies. The highlight was probably the scuffle that broke out after the cursed blade was broken and one character slayed another to restore it. This instigated a literal power struggle that ended some 3-4 characters without any GM intervention ... apparently we made his job easy.

That wasn't the only DCC I played though. I also took part in both the Enter the Dagon and the Death by Nexus tournaments. And between all those games I was convinced to finally buy into the game...

GenCon proper started off with 13th Age. I've blathered on about this game quite a bit on this blog but had only played it one time at GenCon 2014. After all my events filtered out I ended up with three 13th Age games this year; a perfect opportunity to dig deeper into the system. 

The first game was a 2 hour slot that saw the characters trying to escape a magical forest known as the Wyrd Wood. The pregens allowed us players to make our own One Unique Thing and establish our own Icon relationships and backgrounds. The result was that each character at the table was different and new even by the time Sunday rolled around and I had seen them three times. I was able to spend a rolled Icon die to invoke my relationship with the Emperor, and my OUT as a reincarnation of a past Emperor to negotiate with a forty foot tall stone warden. Suffice to say it was a quick but fun game.

The four hour session was by far the best, as the added time and a set of really great players allowed that game to go a bit deeper (figuratively and literally) than the others could as we delved a living dungeon. This was a great session with a bunch of really fun players who got a chance to really see how 13th Age shines. We got to slay a hydra and some kind of Cthulhu-esque horror, confuse a bunch of Orcs into killing a demon door for us, and then take on the semi-immortal soul bound operator of the dungeon itself. There were icon dice used to turn into a dragon, create a wall of thorny vines, call on the command of the Crusader, and more. It was a fantastic game in every way.

The third game was fun, but nowhere near as memorable as the first two, probably due to being exhausted on Sunday morning...

While I hadn't signed up for any Cypher games (what was I thinking??) I did manage to find my way into two of them. In the evening on Saturday I got to play in a The Strange game run by +James August Walls that saw obsessed Browncoats try to rescue the Serenity from a recursion based on the film by translating the ship to Ruk. Things didn't go as planned and our group needed to rescue the crew and send the ship back home while fighting off a mysterious enemy. Jim ran a great game with a couple of twists I didn't see coming.

Later that night I took part in a Cypher Superheroes game run by +David Wilson Brown. This was my first taste of what the new CSR can do and included the use of power shifts to make our heroes truly super. It was a great game with the likes of +Andrew Cady and +Troy Pichelman among others at the table trading barbs and double entendres as we beat up bad guys and eventually saved the city. It has me truly excited to see what else the Cypher System can do, and to run a Supers game once again. 

What I attended...

Despite being a con about gaming, not everything involves actually playing a game.

I attended a panel from Onyx Path about the Trinity and Scion game lines. While I haven't played either in some time, I'm interested to see how the new editions turn out, as these were all interesting games.

I sat in on a Green Ronin panel for the AGE system and was reminded that there will be a Freeport book for Fantasy AGE coming in the future. A lot of the talk was the future of the Dragon AGE and Blue Rose game lines though so there was less talk about Fantasy AGE itself than expected. Still it was a fun and short seminar that leads me to think that there is plenty more AGE to come including at some far off point a possible Sci-Fi spin that +Chris Pramas called "Space AGE"!!

Wrapping up the first day of events for me was the +Monte Cook Games seminar. There were some glitches in the show (including an attack by the Marriott routers) but we got to see Numenera: Strand, some artwork from new and forthcoming books, and were the first to hear about their new kickstarter for the Into the Ninth World product line (which launches today!). We also all got cards to redeem at the booth for a sweet Cypher System bag!

Late on Friday I also went to the Monte Cook Games fan bash / Cypher System Rulebooks release party / surprise birthday party for +Charles Ryan. This was a great time, even if it did destroy my voice, as I got to see a bunch of folks I had not yet talked with and generally got some nice socialization time in. I even met +Robert Schwalb the Demon Lord himself! Oh yeah, there was also a Numenera birthday cake!

On Saturday I almost ran a game of The Strange (without any prep) for MCG when one of their GMs got sick, but instead I ended up subbing in as a helper for their Instant Adventures seminar. This was probably the best event of the con. A hilarious, unscripted live game run by +Monte Cook with the game built up from suggestions from the audience and run using the new Cypher System Rulebook. They video recorded the whole panel so I won't give any spoilers, but suffice to say it was probably one of the most entertaining games I have ever watched.

SWAG!!!!!!!

GenCon isn't all fun and games though (yes it is! it really is!) because sometimes there is shopping to do! Or for those on a budget, running around nabbing all the free stuff you can!

Oh look, the annual GenCon swag bag... I really liked the design this year!

At the +Monte Cook Games booth I managed to grab one of the GenCon exclusive (for now anyways) Tiny All Rolled Ups and a Philethis mini that I am totally going to paint!

Of course I needed some new dice to match  so I also stopped at the Chessex booth on the way out...

I also grabbed an advance copy of the new Smash Up set!

I also searched for stuff I'd been wanting... Like a nice dice cup, which I found at Q-Workshop. While there I also found a nice little chest with a magnetic closure. I'll probably keep dice it in.

The pen above I also picked up, its chrome and hardwood, retractable ballpoint. It looks better than the photos show it, and feels great in hand. When it comes to wood gaming products that pen wasn't the only purchase I made ... I also bought some rather expensive dice from the nice folks at Artisan dice. These are inlaid wood, and look gorgeous in a way this photo cannot reproduce.

Of course you can't just buy a few dice! I also bought some DCC Dice so I could be properly armed for Death by Nexus!

Have I ever mentioned that I have a dice problem? Like I need an intervention type problem? Yeah ... I stopped at the Chessex booth again and found these green dice while I waited to get a mug full of random dice from the bin.

I also bought this ...

What's inside?

Oh, and also this ...

Yeah, I was weak and I bought the DCC Book and scored a bunch of free Swag to boot. I blame Death by Nexus. And also +James August Walls for running some awesome DCC games for me this year!

The Best of the Best

I refuse to dwell on the bad parts of the Con, they were few and far between and generally easily forgotten. But I do want to remember the high points...

My single favorite moment of the whole of GenCon 2015 was in the last round of the Death by Nexus tourney. Playing for #TeamNeutral, I spell burned a character down to 1 point attributes for Strength, Agility, and Constitution to fire an energy blast/lightning bolt at the opposing Chaos and Law characters. With a +32 from spellburn and a roll of 17 I managed the best possible result and vaporized the two opposing teams with 24d6 damage across six targets! It is this kind of high end epic-ness that makes DCC so fun. At times you are weak and afraid, but when the chip are down you can really throw out some power if you want. It's also almost certainly why I bought the book.

I mentioned above the +Monte Cook Games Instant Adventures panel, and I really have to say it was the best non-game event of the Con. My sides hurt from laughing so hard, and it really was an entertaining "actual play" to watch. The fact that I got to help out the MCG folks beforehand wasn't too shabby either.

Neither a game nor an event, I also got to see my good friend +Andreas Walters stumble into the Whedon effect on Friday(?) evening at the Omni Severin hotel. We were sitting and talking when we saw that +Wil Wheaton was conversing with a bunch of folks in another part of the lobby. Andreas happened to have a copy of his awesome Baby Bestiary book and went over to gift it to Wil. The social media explosion that happened afterwards was awesome and I'm super happy for Andreas because his book is great with amazing art.

Overall GenCon 2015 was amazing and actually topped last year. I got to see and hang out with my friends who normally are only pixels on a screen, and I got to play in or attend a bunch of great games and seminars. I'l already planning for 2016, and I can't wait to see what next year will bring.

GenCon Week!

Hi folks! I'll be at GenCon this week so I decided to take a vacation/break from the blog for the week. There will be no new Nuts & Bolts, no Tuesday Tools, and no Story Seeds this week or Monday. I fully expect to resume routine posting on Wednesday August 5th with a new Nuts & Bolts column (my post GenCon recap in all probability).

GenCon 2014

My first GenCon.

Not my last though.

It was my first gaming con, and my first con in some years (I had been to San Diego Comic Con a decade ago when some college friends were living out there). Needless to say I learned a few things, and remembered others.

1) Time is finite but you can over commit.

• I totally overbooked myself at certain points.  Running from one end of the con to the other to get from one event to the next without any real buffer time was not fun. Consecutive events in the same place are hard to plan early, too.  Leaving a little time isn't always a bad thing. Generics work well for jumping into a panel, and from what I saw panels don't fill up as often as I figured they might.

2) Water is good, and so is food.

• Leaving time to move around also leaves you time to grab a snack or a meal or a beverage.  Especially a beverage.  It's easy to get yourself dehydrated, which only makes you feel crappier in the long term.  Bring a water bottle and fill it often.  Bring some snacks just in case.  I found a big breakfast went a long way but by 5 pm I still wished I had had a bite earlier in the afternoon.

3) Demos are fun, but they aren't always easy to get. 

• I wanted to try the new Deadlands: Reloaded LCG but I never got the chance, part of that was the time problem, and part of it was availability of demos.  I think I was looking in the wrong place, but I don't know.  Maybe next year I'll figure out the demo thing better.

4) The Exhibitor/Dealer Hall opens later than I expected and closes earlier than I expected. 

• My only other prior big con was SD ComicCon and the dealer hall was open dawn to dusk and beyond. At GenCon the hours were 10 am to 6 pm.  I had booked so much stuff in the middle of the day that I only really got time in the hall in fits and spurts until Sunday.  Since there is so much going on, and the people to space ratio is the most dense here, I didn't see nearly everything.  Next year I'll make a point to give myself floor time so visit the vendors and get some demos. 

5) The people are pretty awesome. 

• Yup. Seriously. I didn't have a people related negative experience for four whole days.  That's some kind of crazy record or something. 

6) Con games are a mixed bag, but there is some awesome in that bag.  

• I played 5 RPG sessions totally almost 14 hours over the four days of the Con.  My worst was "just" fun (not in a bad way, just not as epic as the others) and the best was the stuff of legend. I also made a point to try new games, which was well worth it.

7) You are never safe from the awesome impulse purchase bait.

• Seriously, the only way to not buy something is to avoid the dealer room or not bring any form of cash or electronic payment. Not that I regret my purchases, but I'm not entirely sure I have a use for a couple of them in hindsight.

So yeah, in the final analysis I'm going to make every effort to go again next year, and hopefully it'll be even better than this year's.