So Gencon is upon us! How is/was your Gencon this year?
I ran two games Thursday: "The Dungeon of Almost Assured PC Death" and "Thundergods of the Metal Storm and the Quest for the Death Clock, a Post-Arockalypse Adventure." Certainly, they were two of the longest titles I've ever used. Both games went fantastically well, and both included a nuclear explosion at one point.
Some Highlights: The Half-Orq mistaking the tied-up prince they were supposed to rescue for a pinata and bashing him open with a pole-arm. "It's full of meat!"
The Heavy-Metal warriors riding down a mountain on an avalanche, while playing their instruments and surfing on the back of polar bears.
So yeah, it was fun.
I got to meet Chad, Dan, and Chris from Fear the Boot and hang out with them for a couple of hours. They took me to diner at a place where the burgers had their own gravitational pull. A swell buncha' guys!
After Origins, I didn't plan on buying much at Gencon. I picked up John Wick's new game "Houses of the Blooded," Vincent Baker's new Beowulf game, and a couple of old Werewolf books for the wife. I also picked up the quick start rules for Troll Lord Games' new "Start Siege" setting, which modifies the Castles & Crusades rules and puts them in space. I stopped by White-Wolf's teeny-tiny booth just long enough to look in the back of the new "Hunter: the Vigil" core book to see that the new game for 2009 will be. (Answer: "Geist")
Well of course I had a busy and productive GenCon this year. I ran six events over the span of two days (Thursday and Friday). Every event actually went off with at least 3 players, including one event (Sex, Lies and Ultraspies: Ministry Q) full up with 8 players. A total of 31 players ran in my games.
Event highlights:
--My "Qerth, Into the Labyrinth" event proved that the movie "Labyrinth" provides a very special bond among some gaming women. The woman playing the hot elf chick this year suddenly got very excited at the prospect of meeting the Goblin King as played by David Bowie in the movie Labyrinth (exactly the same as a completely different woman running the hot elf chick in last year's event). The similarities were eerie. My suggestion for any single males going to GenCon (those that can pull it off that is) is to make up a costume and see what happens.
--My "Sex, Lies and Ultraspies" event proved that the special "Bacca-QAGS" card rules work like a charm, especially if you're using James Bond 007 cards. Also, the gamer guys at this event liked Sean Connery, the gamer girls liked Roger Moore. Go figure.
--My "Rock Jocks, Wanted Dead Or Undead" event proved that I need to come up with some modified space dogfight rules. Also, it's hard to make multiple space dogfights interesting.
--My "Sex, Lies and Ultraspies: Spy Racers" event proved that QAGS can be easily modified into many interesting variations (Ian was amazed at my vector racing game). Also, randomly assigning a "Dark Secret" as a weakness (including the "You are a traitor to the team!!!") is full of awesome.
--My "Sindbad and the Island of Lost Memories" event proved that Sindbad is fantastic when you can get the players and they are all in the right mindset. Also, I've noticed my Sindbad adventures are always tinged with a touch of tragedy.
--My "Sex, Lies and Ultraspies: Submariners" event proved that having a large group sign up for your event can be a double edged sword when they don't show up. Fortunately, two players from last year's SL&U event showed up (plus another volunteer from the crowd) and we all had an excellent time (John Wayne and Wilfred Brimley, pure comic gold!!!!).
My major purchase was the print version of Weird Times at Charles Fort High. I saw Star Seige and another space game called Starblazers, but Rocket Jocks is really giving me what I want out of sci fi gaming right now. I did get WEGS Old Skool 101 but may just adapt it to put miniatures into Qerth. I'm really thinking about adding some paper miniatures to many of my game just for the visual element they give (and even better, Hex Games may just start offering such products). I picked up some cheap Starship Troopers floor plans for just such use as well.
My only complaint is that some stuck up artiste didn't have the time to come say hello to me Just kidding, Josh, I know what kind of timetable you were facing, but you missed seeing my cell phone adorned with your original artwork. C'est la vie!
ruckusmanager wrote: Just kidding, Josh, I know what kind of timetable you were facing, but you missed seeing my cell phone adorned with your original artwork. C'est la vie!
Sorry about that. I was staggering about the convention on about 2 1/2 hours of sleep and (later) 25 ounces of beer. I was having enough trouble navigating the labyrinthine skywalks of the convention center and nearby hotels to find my own activities. I didn't dare go exploring.
What I Did On My Gencon 2008 Vacation, Part One By Ian Engle, Age 48 going on 7 ½
For me, Gencon started on Wednesday, after a leisurely drive from Ohio listening to “Hitchiker’s Guide.” I got in and found that GM HQ would not open for another few hours, so instead I lined up for the one pay phone in order to call my brother to come and let me into the dealer’s room so I could deliver our stock to the GPA booth.
Well, no sooner had I reconciled myself to the fact that the idiot at the pay phone was going to be there for the long haul, than out pops my brother, his wife and one of their booth minions. We grabbed lunch and then I got to make my delivery of QAGS, Qerth and Sindbad.
Then I picked up our badges, got dinner at Shapiro’s and went down to the hotel to check in (oh, and watch them turning away people because they were full.)
Thursday began bright and early. I met Josh at the Omni, gave him his badge and sat around talking until I had to go run a game and he had to go see if the dealers room was open.
Neither “Tong Shui” nor “Sindbad and the Hole in the Sea” got any players, but both “Introduction to QAGS” and “Defenders of the Schoolyard” did. Go figure.
The players for the Intro game were experienced gamers who had just never played QAGS before, so they decided to to a dungeon crawl. I decided to send them to the Qerthwide Dungeon Laundry Service which had suddenly and inexplicably opened up an access point in Mrs. Tiggywinkle’s pantry. They got the map from Chucky, the torturer’s apprentice who traded it for six of the Chicken Shaman’s (The characters were a Fighter with a Big Sword, gonzo Magic Man, Rogue/Used Chariot Salesman and Rastafarian Chicken Shaman—hey, I didn’t make these characters up) which the Magic Man made giant size (and evil, though he didn’t know it until the chickens attacked Chucky i the alley. One quick rescue later and they were off. It was man versus laundry, just as it has been from the beginning of time, with the addition of a simonizing worm, a pack of dingolls who were dropping off their tee-shirt collections, a half-orq goth chick counter clerk, a passel of half-bit laundry workers, and Bernie the drawf manager of the whole operation. The players said they were from The Union and managed to create enough mayhem that they could safely plunder the laundry for any loose magic clothing, and take the laundry’s cashbox before beating a fast escape with the half-bits (who had decided to go try their luck somewhere else) and found the simonizing worm locked in dire combat with Mrs. Tiggywinkle. A final confrontation, and a quick “We are so out of here” spell later, and the party was back at the tavern celebrating their triumph. Then the evil chickens broke in and…
“Defenders of the Schoolyard” was more of a challenge because Debi’s games are Very Serious. And Dark. Eventually I decided to send the Defenders (an imaginary panda and, well, basically GIR from Invader Zim) after their kids, the kids having been abducted by a Dark Elf slash infantophage. Once through the looking glass, or in this case the portal located in the Tire Swing Perilous, they encountered an Oakman, a River Goddess with an attitude (who gave them a kerchief that would call her anywhere,) a honeysuckle bramble who would have given them a token, but they didn’t stick around for it, a crew of Redcap farmers (who were painting the tomatoes red with children’s blood—I said it was Dark) and finally the Dark Elf’s tower where they got in through the kitchen. The Elf’s cook sent them upstairs with a tray for the master, and there they found their kids in cages waiting their turn. The players used the River Goddess’ token well, and then escaped by flying out of the tower and over the fields. The Redcaps gave chase and ran them packing back to the portal and escape—well, once they managed to figure out how to get the kids out of fairyland.
Dinner in the food court and then back to run “Superhero Dungeon Crawl-with Nazis”. Now, I am not the god of Golden Age; comics are not my lifeblood, but we got together a party of hand to hand heroes, a couple of ranged attack monsters, a healer (yeah, pissing off a healer is not good) and Akbar the Damned, a necromancer who was as close as they could get to a Dr. Strange. Well, General Eisenhower who sent them off to track down Herr Doktor Weisubrishsein and the remnants of Projekt Ubermann in the Bohemian Forest. Our Heroes messed around with the surface flak tower for a bit, and fought the supervillain Spear of Destiny to a standstill before heading in (Steel Commando had a habit of not leaving any living enemies behind, not even wounded ones, and Akbar helped in this by having the dead ones follow along. Eww. Well, they fought their way through the civilian levels to the ubermann labs and had the fight of their life as the Ubermannmaschine pumped out ubermann after ubermann. Our heroes stood victorious after the last of the staff had been converted to ubermann and terminated (and reanimated by Akbar) but of course Herr Doktor had to escape with Hitler’s Brain.
Leighton makes a highlight of GenCon for someone over on this thread at RPG.net. Here is the site URL: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=410500&page=4. The comment is from "Keyes" at the bottom of the thread.
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Just kidding, Josh, I know what kind of timetable you were facing, but you missed seeing my cell phone adorned with your original artwork. C'est la vie!
