Gen Con 2016 Post Show Part 4 - The End

There and Back Again

In which we take one last look at the Exhibit Hall and then make the journey home.

Sunday saw us packed and ready to check out early.  We had packed our things the previous night with the intent of checking out, storing our stuff and taking one last look at the Exhibit Hall.  All of that went according to plan until we saw that they had screwed up the bill.  When we attempted to fix that, they informed us that their computers were from the 1800's and would require a little extra time to correct.  In compensation for our time, we were given cards to Starbucks and told to check with them in a little while.  We stored our stuff and headed to the convention floor.  We immediately lost Jason.  Alex and I got in a quick round of Oversized Flick 'Em Up which we both enjoyed and one game of Epic Card Game, which is Magic Lite and not nearly as much fun.  So 50/50 split to end the Con.  Jason caught up with us with some new purchases and we all agreed, as it was quickly approaching noon, that it was time to mount up and hit the dusty trail.  But first...free Starbucks.

Jason and Alex were both recipients of ONE FREE BEVERAGE.  I, on the other hand, received $10. So I bought a drink and two Apple Fritters and was done.  I shared the Apple Fritters and we made our way to the car.

Back on the road home, we reminisced about the adventures we had had and decided that the faster we got home, probably the better.  This meant the tollway.  I had forgotten how expensive the tollway was.  $10 and some change lighter, we said goodbye to Illinois and proceeded to collect cows the rest of the way home.

In Closing

Essentially if you want the cliff notes TL:DR version of my Gen Con 2016 experience, here it is:

• I had fun, I purchased a few things and am very happy with said purchases.
• I do not particularly like Plaid Hat Games.  Maybe not on a whole, but definitely as it relates to their release policies.
• Two bad gaming experiences are just that, so long as the third one knocks it right out of the ballpark.
• 1 AM is when the lights go out inside of Marty.

And lastly,

• Games come and go.  (Next) Gen Con is forever (from now).

GEN CON!!!

Gen Con 2016 Post Show Part 3

Bring on Saturday!

In which purchases are made and roleplaying redemption is found...

Saturday, the penultimate day of the convention, was upon us.  Like the previous day,  I was up and moving by 6:30 AM.  Alex was passed out, having made it back to the room around 3 AM, after having had a successful night of gaming with strangers.  I had fallen asleep mid-sentence, in conversation with Jason, around 1 AM or so.

Morning Three found me on Georgia St. with a fresh cup of black coffee from...well, by now they should be paying me for the endorsement...I took up a seat at the outdoor Cafe area that would soon hold host to dozens of food trucks.  With cool morning air and a slight, refreshing breeze, I broke out my sketch book and doodled for a while whilst enjoying my morning brew.

But my thoughts were heavy.  


The last day's adventures had proven less than satisfying. What could I hope to find today, that would alleviate the mental stain that was forming on this Gen Con?

Well, first, I would buy some stuff.  I grabbed up a copy of Isle of Skye, the Kennerspiel de Jahres award winner for 2016.  I got a promo piece with the purchase and a free bag.  Then I headed over to the Haba booth and found a couple of games, Evening in the Stable and Here, Fishy, Fishy for my son. Also, bigger free bag with purchase.  I contemplated the dexterity game Ice Cool, but the price was too high.   Somewhere along the way, the hardcover rulebook for Mutant: Year Zero also found it's way into my possession.  Alex and I had been trying to demo games with little luck, but Saturday brought us Blood Rage and J'Accuse.  Blood Rage was clearly the better of those two.  Alex was tempted to try Upper Deck's series of Legendary games, again, his first experience with them being very poor.  But, again, unless you had signed up in advance, you were not given the option to play. Even with generic tickets.  We quickly vacated they're oversized, worthless booth (and yes, I am editorializing.  It was an enormous booth, probably very costly.)

I bow down to our Wooly Overlords

As the afternoon approached, Alex went off to compete in some King of Tokyo and One Night Ultimate tournaments and Jason and I made our way to Goodman Games gaming area in the Hyatt to get in on a Round Robin tournament of our own. Dungeon Crawl Classics single elimination...only, this turned out to be a beta for a skirmish style game they are developing and Oh Hey, can we move you around in line for apparently no reason other than we have friends who would like to play before you...my one chance to use a generic ticket and I grabbed it back from the guy and went to look for something else to do.  Luckily, said guy had just the thing.  So now I forgive him.

Raptors in planes, you say?  Count me in!

"We have another game, if you wanna join that one, instead.  The GM is losing his voice, so he's playing at a bar in the lobby.  But it's really cool!"

Yeah, great.  Well, I only have an hour to kill before my real game for the day, so...what the hell.  Jason and I are led over to a bar at which three gentlemen are already seated and a very hoarse GM is extolling the virtues of a future dystopia that sounds an awful lot like the Running Man.

Prepare to enter the X-Crawl.

I hop up on a barstool, introduce myself and tell the GM that I only have an hour or so to play before I have to head over to my next event.  He's totally cool with it, promises to kill me off within the hour.

The premise is a simple one, as old as time.  Corporations have taken over, humanity has fallen back into a blood thirsty ravening mass of consumerism and voyeurism.  So, basically a modern setting. Great, big, televised arenas have been erected for the blood sport of X-Crawl, a neo-classical dungeon crawl setting with some modern advances.  Our heroes, a team originating from some town (that totally eludes me at the moment) in New Hampshire (a decision based solely on it being one of the other player's hometown) we are a set of celebrity gladiators looking to cash in on a big corporate contract by making it through this particular urban dungeon.  We were all asked to come up with wrestling names and actors who would portray our character in the big budget X-Crawl movie.  Accompanied by X-Crawlers named things like "The Bruise", "The Tin Man", Johnny Kutz and "The Wacky Weasel", my character, described by his race as a Dwarf (which doubled as his class), would earn from me the moniker of "Sweetfists" Jackson as played by this man, Tom Lister Jr. aka Zeus.  But smaller, stockier.  Like a musclebound boulder of pure rage. And hand axes.


Take that in for a moment.  Just savor it.

We exit the stadium where introductions are held and make our way to the designated arena.  The parking lot we have to cross contains a handful of new, shiny vehicles of various description, all wrapped in big red bows. Before we make it ten feet out of the stadium, a force wall shuts us all in and the announcer bellows that she is already bored and that the death should start happening immediately.  From across the parking lot, a rampaging mammoth enters the improvised arena and proceeds to trample the first vehicle it comes across. Mounted on it's back is some kind of cannon and two neanderthals, one wielding a bow, the other casting spells.  We immediately scatter, looking for cover and access to the vehicles.  Well, most of us scatter.  "Sweetfists" has a bit of a deathwish and while everyone is cowering behind cover, he charges, albeit slowly because of his stunted dwarven legs, towards the mammoth.  That's when the raptors in the balsa wood prop planes descended on the arena, and all hell broke loose.  It was at this point, and with some trepidation, that I had to go.  As luck would have it, Alex showed up and took my place (and from what I hear, "Sweetfists" to victory over the mammoth...).  Bowing out, I headed over to the game I was really there to play...Shadow of the Demon Lord.

Quick note, I would find out later that the GM for X-Crawl was indeed Brendan Lasalle himself, creator of said game and long time contributor to Goodman Games.  Just a fun little fact.

A Game too dark, even for me....

This was it.  My big game for the rest of the con.  It could redeem my experience or damn it further.  I sat down at the table, the first of my group to arrive.  The GM explained to me that the producer of the game dislikes Gen Con for some unknown reason and so had no representation at the Con, this being the sole game being played.  I found this baffling and it worried me, as this was someone's homebrew adventure and depending on the GM, could or could not be worthwhile and sufficient for the four hours.  By this point all of the others had arrived and we had ourselves a full table of five players.

And it was worth every second.

Though way too dark in parts even for my tastes.

The world is on the brink.  Demonic forces threaten to spill over and corrupt and destroy humanity (and it's fellow insert fantasy racial trope here).  The world is a dark, dark place and finding the light is the main focus for players.  Enter our group of pregenerated heroes, The Inquisition.  If there's heresy to be found, we'll root it out and smite it.  And if there isn't...well, that's not actually possible, you're all sinners and must be dealt with as such.  The system is reminiscent of Warhammer Fantasy and is quick and brutal.  The initiative system does away with dice rolling and stat based modifiers. You either go Fast or Slow.  If you go fast, you go first and if you go slow you go before bad guys that might go slow.  The bonus is that you can do more if you go slow.  I thought this concept was brilliant and it distilled the idea of initiative into one decision that everyone makes all at once and handles it intuitively and beautifully.

The game was immensely fun, with us hunting down witches and demon spawn and fighting a gladitorial battle against beast men in some darkened ruins in the middle of a forest at midnight while trying to save a little girl and her mother and I had a rifle and absolutely murdered the hell out of 20 some beastmen when I caused a wall to collapse and oh, there was an elf who wielded bone weaponry with the side effect of that if it killed you, your soul went straight to the Demon Lord awaiting you in Hell and...and...and...it was so much fun.  All of the players were into the game, all played their parts, from the pious and self righteous High Inquisitor to the overeager Brother who liked to extract information from his victims..er...prisoners, to the thief paying off his last two weeks of his penance (of a six year sentence) by serving the Inquisition, to the reveal of the possessed fire spewing baby, to the peg legged and portly lady mayor.  It was loads of fun and a very welcome sigh of relief for my RPG experience at the Con.  At the end, we all said thank you and went our separate ways, having purged the world of sin.

That last night saw Jon, Alex, Jason and I break out my recently purchased Isle of Skye, which three of us enjoyed and one of us did not.  We also blended some with Kittens in a Blender and decided whether or not the cat in the Box was alive or not or if there even was a cat in the box in the first place and just how many of any of those there were with Schrodinger's Cats.

Then we all called it a night.  I went to sleep with a smile on my face.  I went to sleep dreaming of the Inquisition.  

Gen Con 2016 Post Show Part 2

SEAFALL or BUST!

In which we suffer setbacks, buy too much and get turned into a zombie...

I awoke at 6:30 AM and proceeded to get myself ready for the day ahead. By 9 AM I had coffee from Bee Coffee in hand, my camera around my neck and my messenger bag on my hip.   Unnecessary weight.  Jason had gotten up shortly after I had and struck out on his own in search of a lab coat so that he could lay down bad science or something to that effect on fellow con-goers. 

I checked in with both him and Alex as I settled into position on the second level of the ICC overlooking the main doors to the Exhibitor's Hall.  I watched as the crowds grew and grew and grew.  Eventually both of my travel mates appeared and we made our way down into the crowd.  Jason and Alex tensed in preparation, planning to make haste to the Plaid Hat booth and SeaFall.  I fingered my camera and snapped a couple of shots of the crowd, waiting patiently.

After much (necessary) nonsense about safety and "No Running", the doors opened and the masses stormed through the gates. I immediately lost both Alex and Jason and proceeded to very casually make my way in.  I knew where they'd be, I had time.

As with previous Gen Con's, the Exhibitor Hall is overwhelming.  That it had grown in size since the last time I had visited, meant that an extra few seconds were required to take in the scale and scope of the floor.  I eventually spotted the banner for Plaid Hat and made my way there, arriving in time to hear the announcement that SeaFall had sold out.  It had taken me less than five minutes to make my way to the booth.  Sold out.  Wow.  For the day?  NO...for the con.  I searched the line for Alex and/or Jason.  Neither of them were present.  

Uh oh.

After walking the floor for a little bit, I managed to find Alex in line at White Wizard's booth, waiting to turn in one of the coupons from the books that have replaced swag bags at Gen Con.  He and I both enjoy the game Star Realms and this coupon offered us promo cards to add to our sets.  Alex proceeded to buy some expansions for the base game as well as collect his promo cards.  I would gather the promo cards on a later occasion.  He told me of his ill-fated SeaFall run and how the game was already gone by the time he had gotten to the booth, some 30 seconds after entering the Hall.  Ridiculous.  I won't get on any more of a soapbox here than I need to or may have alluded to earlier, but let me restate...building hype or generating bad will...ridiculous.

The rest of Thursday saw me picking up a mini Five Tribes expansion, The Thieves of Naquala for our friend and fellow gamer Molly, the expansion for Shakespeare, simply called Shakespeare: Backstage and the hand/eye taxing drawing game Loony Quest, a game that I hope to play with my son in the next few years.  Alex and I proceeded to try to find games to demo.  We walked the various Halls looking for games that had room for people with Generic Tickets...alas, it seems that with games demos now being events outside the hall, Generic Tickets have fallen out of favor.  Every time I tried to use one, I was told that I couldn't.  I ended up refunding the entire bunch.  Well, refunding isn't quite the term.  I gained system credit for next year minus 5%... ...

Coming to the convention, I had prepared to spend some money at the Modiphius booth. My regular group is currently running through a campaign of Mutant: Year Zero.  I had learned earlier in the week that Modiphius was planning to give 20% discount on purchases of a $100 or more.  That was a little steeper than I would have liked, but the aforementioned coupon/swag bag offered a 20% for $50 at their booth alternative.  That I could do.  I scoped out the products at their booth, realized that I wanted one of everything and then set about making the hard decisions.  The extra nice thing about their booth was that they had con pricing, meaning that all of their products were already discounted. Adding the coupon to that brought me closer to purchasing one of everything, but no, not really.  I ended up grabbing the heavy duty GM Screen for Mutant: Year Zero as well as the Artifact, Mutation and Events cards pack.  I pondered the actual Hardcover Edition of Mutant: Year Zero, but figured that the PDF would continue to suffice.  I grabbed a copy of Symbaroum instead.  Making that purchase, I was done buying things for the day.  I played with the thought of being done purchasing stuff for the rest of the con, but put that thought aside as silly and defeatist.  

Before leaving the convention floor, Alex and I did stumble upon the Z-Man Games booth and managed to get in a demo of Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu.  Yeah, I know, mashing up some of your stygian chocolate with some of my squamous peanut butter ... and a tentacle or two for good measure.  Fortunately my prejudice could not have been more unfounded.  This version of Pandemic felt more refined and was a refreshing new coat of paint on an aging game.  The madness mechanic was nothing to write home about, but worked to enhance the theme beautifully. 

We still had a chance at this point.

We closed down the Hall and as Thursday finished up we made a run to the food trucks for dinner and then some more gaming.  I joined in a game of Entropy and then finished up the evening with I Hate Zombies, a glorified (and glorious) game of Rock, Paper, Scissors with Zombies turning human players into Zombies.  It was goofy fun that left my face hurting from smiling.

Let's Role...

In which we sail the 7th Seas, Unite the Clans of the Riddermark and wonder why we did either...

Friday was my day to game.  I had signed up for two RPGs, both of which were four hours long.  The first, 7th Sea 2nd Ed., started at 10am.  I headed down to Bee Coffee again, got in the quick, I only want black coffee coffee line and was out the door in minutes, leaving all those frappe guzzlers in my dust!  I arrived a little early and got my pick of characters.  I ended up grabbing the Bosun, a Vesten (read Nordic) sailor who was big on rage and equally as consumed with regret.  Reserved was one of her traits.  The GM was experienced and knew her Theah.  We played a crew of sailors in service to the ATB, 7th Seas version of the West India Trading Company.  Not surprisingly we discovered they were up to nefarious doings and part of an incredibly illegal slave trade.  We set about storming an island fortress/mine and freeing slaves, bringing some of the slavers to justice, striking our colors and becoming privateers.  The game was full of pirates, sea monsters and daring do.  And it totally fell apart for me in the final hour.  The system, based on rolling sets of 10 (roll 5d10, add the results so that you end up with sets of 10, get multiple to earn raises and thereby achieving greater success), became too abstract when it broke down to combat.  Sure, shipboard we cannonballed the hell out of a cannon emplacement, rained hell down on the deck of an opposing ship and beheaded two sea serpents, but nothing of the dice rolling or the set building translated to anything more than an abstract concept of accomplishing anything.  On top of that my play was rusty and between my Bosun and the other player's First Mate and Captain tripping over who ordered who, my reserved character play seemed more removed than I would have liked.  I had been excited to play this Second Edition, but coupling my less than enthusiastic view of the system with the books price point, I took a pass on pursuing the game any further.  I'll take a look at it again in the future, but for now, I'm more than content with what I currently have on the table.

My second game of the day came later in the evening and went until midnight.  It was The One Ring, an RPG set in Tolkien's Middle Earth some five years after the Battle of the Five Armies.  I've played it once before and had fun with it, so I was definitely looking forward to getting to inhabit that world again.  The GM for this game was much lower key.  When asked if his table was one of the tables set aside for The One Ring, he would state that it was one of two or three and, in a shoulder shrugging way that encouraged no faith in me, players could choose to sit at his table to play if they so wanted to, but didn't have to... I stayed, mostly out of laziness, but also out of hope that his presentation would improve once game got going.  It didn't.  It wasn't bad.  It was perfectly serviceable, but imagine John C. Reilly at his most hang-doggedly and you get an idea of the confidence and verve that was brought to this game.  We did have a full table, ultimately, but of the five of us, three faded into the background, and only the player taking the Defacto Leader character and myself actually raised our voices above a careful whisper or showed any initiative in helping to move the story forward or interact with the NPCs in the game.  For my part, I was simply trying to make up for my lack of roleplaying earlier in the day, during the second half of the 7th Seas game.   The story was simple enough, revolving around the need to unite the fracturing Rohirrim Clans and hoping to do so by marrying off a pair of star struck Romeo and Juliet style lovers.  It was handled with all the aplomb of someone who cares very little for the source material and is merely counting down the minutes until midnight...it was an on-the-rails type of adventure that left me still enjoying the system but desperately hoping to redeem the Con on Saturday, when I only had one game left...the one that I was looking forward to the most.  That's a lot of faith and pressure to put on strangers.

There were going to have to be sacrifices made.

Gen Con 2016 Post Show Part 1 - The Beginning

"One does not simply walk into Indianapolis..."

In which we leave Rochester, pick up some cows and finally get our Game On!

"I'm gettin' too old for this $#!%!" is not something you'll hear me say in regards to Gen Con any time soon.   Hopefully ever.

2016 marked my return to the Convention scene after a three year hiatus during which I've been raising my son, wiling away my time and generally living life in a small town far removed from the hustle and bustle of big city living and gaming conventions.  Oh sure, there are a few in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis - St. Paul, which is a mere hour and a half drive North of me, but those don't really count (no offense) as Gen Con is the one and only show that I can and have made the time for.

I digress.

I met with my traveling companions, Jason and Alex, at a little before 7 in the AM on Wednesday, loaded the car and began the nine hour trek to Indianapolis.  We decided early on to avoid the tollway in Illinois (a decision we would reverse on the return trip) and traveled through Iowa and Illinois on our journey.  As we started out, Alex suggested we play a car game.  With absolutely no desire to do so, I said "Sure".  We proceeded to collect cows.  Any cow on your side of the car is yours to keep. You hold them until you pass a graveyard on, again, your side of the car, at which point all your cows are lost. The player with the most cows, once you get to your location, wins!  For nine hours of farm country, we played this game.  A mostly unremarkable and uneventful car ride ensued, filled with convention conjecture, podcasts, construction traffic and cows.

Indianapolis welcomed us with open roads and hot, humid midwestern air.

The Indianapolis Convention Center as seen through the blue filter of the JW Marriott

We stopped at our hotel, that towering blue monolith, the JW Marriott, it's curved glass structure rising above the Indianapolis skyline, a dystopian near future eyesore, portending a shiny and dark future for humble working class Indy.  

It was good to be back.  

Jason and I checked into our room as Alex familiarized himself with the downtown traffic. After tipping our bellhop we proceeded to the parking lot where I had a pre-purchased parking space awaiting us.  That the lot was essentially an open field, with spare lighting and questionable security and not the well lit, professionally guarded parking lot I was expecting, gave me and the cars owner, Alex, only momentary pause because, well, GENCON!  With that as our rallying cry, we took care of procuring our badges and event tickets. Jason chased Pokemon as we stood in line, and I video chatted with my wife and son.   It was a long line that moved surprisingly swiftly, given the amount of people filling the Indianapolis Convention Center.

Alright, already!  I am!

After a quick trip to secure our official parking space within the same lot later, we made our way to Georgia St. to track down some grub amongst the food trucks.  Here we ran into Jon and Brad, part of the Illinois contingent of my gamer friends.  Under the fading light of the setting sun, we grabbed some noodles, pondered some beer and made our way inside, away from the heat.  Jon and I caught up for a bit and I more formally introduced everyone.  



Then it was time to game.

It's more like a food SWAT van, amirite?!

Having a ballroom all to yourself to game in is both ridiculous and humbling.  You know you are part of something huge from the sheer size of the room.  But with that came the realization that, even though you are there as part of one of the biggest conventions, if not THE largest to hit Indianapolis on a yearly basis, when you see tables and chairs still stacked with no apparent effort being made to set up rooms for the throngs massing on Indianapolis, something in the atmosphere has changed.  A definite sense of complacency.  Note that this is not a complaint, but merely an observation.  This year seemed more hands off and less welcoming than years prior.  I felt this acutely in our hotel.  Less so elsewhere, but still noticeable.  The first few years of Gen Con in Indy had a feeling of revitalized energy and new experiences.  Now it's starting to feel more like old hat; a been there, done that sorta feeling.

Not one I am entirely happy with.  I like being liked.  Or at least believably lied to.

Anyway, it was time to get our Game On!

Wednesday night is generally fairly low key, especially with our group.  We game, but not too much. We sack out early, preparing for the opening events and exhibition hall.  Alex turned in especially early, after only a handful of games of Scrimish.  Jon ran a game of Fiasco, using the playset he and I had created a few years back called The Depot.  It sounded like it was doing what it needed to do, which was not fail to be entertaining. Built on the backbone of the already excellent Fiasco, failure is rarely an option and I'm glad we maintained that trend.  A game of Scythe was going on amongst the rest of our group. That game is beautiful...and huge.  I ended up playing some less than quiet, less than relaxed games with Jason and Brad.  Games requiring dexterity and aggressiveness and chopsticks. With colored wooden shrimp pieces flying all over the place, we cajoled and flat out body checked our way through the game.  I never won.  Ever.  But by the time I had thrown my chopsticks to the ground in exhausted defeat, pointed accusatory fingers at both of my competitors and cursed my last curse, I was ready for bed.  When Brad broke out a game that involved some type of plastic mouth dam, I made my exit.

The Coming Darkness...

I'd need all my energy for the Exhibitor's Hall the next morning, especially if I was going to endeavor to help Alex capture a copy of SeaFall, the highly sought after, ridiculously overhyped new legacy game designed by Pandemic: Legacy and Risk: Legacy designer Rob Daviau and produced by Plaid Hat Games, masters of overproduced and under-allocated board games.  SeaFall has been hyped for the last two years, in development for three and coming off of the success of Pandemic: Legacy, easily the most eagerly anticipated game of the year, certainly of the Con.  Plaid Hat should have had copies in spades.  No need to build more hype or possible ill will by under producing for the biggest con in the country.  It would be difficult to get a copy the first day, but surely they would, like most companies, set a daily limit, allowing anxious convention goers the chance to get their hands on a copy by the end of the con.  As good a ploy as any to keep people coming back to your booth.   Alex was pumped.  I was cautiously optimistic.

I shoulda known better.