Tuesday, August 03, 2010

GenCon 2010 Side Quests

Wednesday night will find me in Indianapolis for the four days during which it is the greatest city in the world -- or so I am told, since this'll be my first ever GenCon. And in fact my first gaming con, ever. I've been thinking about doing "the GenCon thing" for a couple of years now, but this time I'm finally making it happen. I suspect I'm going to spend most of my time wandering around and hanging out, but as befits any good campaign, I have acquired a number of side quests.

Buy a set of GameScience dice.
It's been a while since I picked up a new set of dice, and I still don't have a set to go with Doom & Tea Parties (not surprising, since we don't use dice in that game, but still). GameScience seems the obvious choice, being the premier dice of the old school. Unfortunately, word on the street says I'm not going to get an opportunity to witness the famed Lou Zocchi pitch.

Attend some seminars.
Right now I'm signed up for "Girls Just Wanna Get Their Game On!" on Thursday at noon, "Game Design: Seven Steps to Writing Great Rules" on Thursday at one, and "Game Magic: Why It's Not" on Saturday at noon, but I'm sure I'll wander into some others as well. I'm deeply annoyed that I'll be missing the TARGA seminar -- a game of the Dune boardgame was running at the same time, and, well, Dune.

Poison Meet Trollsmyth
Why would I ever want to harm my beloved Dungeon Master?

Meet other blog folks.
Readers of this blog as well as writers of others. I'll have chocolate chip bacon cookies. Though maybe only on the first day of the con. (Don't worry. I'll tell you which ones not to eat.) I'm bringing my Swords & Wizardry book as a sort of "con yearbook" for people to sign, too.

Get Monte Cook to sign my 3e Dungeon Master's Guide.
I may have sworn the system itself off, but I'm still very fond of the book that taught spazzy thirteen-year-old Oddysey how to DM. And didn't do too bad a job of it, if I may say so.

Try a new game or two.
Perhaps weirdly, this isn't my absolute top priority, but Tim Jensen has been talking about running some dirty hippy indie games and that sounds like a fun time, given his games' historically high incidence of magic giraffes. I'm also assuming I'm going to end up in at least a couple unplanned games or demos or somesuch.

Pick up some art.
I've been informed that I need to actually decorate my room at college this year. The inexplicable diagram that somehow compares teaching styles to the "land of ogres" and the "land of elves" is no longer cutting it, it seems. Enter: fantasy art.

12 comments:

  1. Would that I could be there, Odd, to fist-bump and say "Yo".

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  2. I know a way to achieve two of those goals. Come to the Eureka seminar on Saturday morning at 10am and you will see a great seminar, as well as meet 7/9 authors of Gnome Stew.

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  3. I'll be there for the first time as well, hopefully I'll be able to bump into you and say hi.

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  4. Hopefully our paths will cross as well. I should be easiest to find while I am demoing games at the AEG booth.

    But, most importantly, have fun!

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  5. Poison? Against a troll?!? Pheh... You have much to learn, young padawan.

    Can't wait to see you there. :D

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  6. Wish we could go to GenCon this year. But, too much work. Sucks being a slave to the grind. I will say this; the GameScience dice are by far the best dice of all time! Me and the lady both have multiple sets. A local gaming store here in Dayton stocks them. Do yourself a favor and pick up a set. They also serve as effective out-of-game PC caltrops.

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  7. Hope you have a blast!

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  8. Nice, have a good trip! Maybe I'll make it down there sometime next year, heh

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  9. Man, I really wish I could go. Maybe if my finances get in better shape by this time next year...

    Also, I heard Monte Cook is a really cool guy to meet. "His independent" works (Ptolus and Iron Heroes) are miles, miles better than vanilla 3e. Miles! He's one of the dudes who really get it, in my opinion.

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  10. Sorry I missed you. I was busy running around meeting people and playing games, so I was hard to find.

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  11. Dr Rotwang! Odds are very, very good this won't be the last time I go. Here's hoping you make it next time.

    DNAphil: Hit the GMs Jam session instead. Go me!

    Zzarchov: Looks like I missed you. Next year, maybe?

    Sean Holland: I looked for you, but... ah. I see I was remiss in the timing of these expeditions. Gah.

    trollsmyth: Yeah, and it turns out throwing things doesn't do much either. :P

    Mr. Gone: Done! Pics should be up on the blog soon. Huuuuge backlog of e-mail and blog posts to deal with, not to mention, y'know, actual work. And I've got a lot of GenCon stuff to cover, so I may be doing that for the rest of the week.

    JB, Grey, N. Wright: Thanks! And yeah, you really should try to make it. GenCon is awesome.

    MonteCook: That was largely lameness on my part. The plan had been to drop by the seminar Robin Laws said you'd both me at, but I was up too late playing Outdoor Survival for that to seem like a good idea at the time. Annoyed with myself now, but... like I said, even if I don't make it next year, this is unlikely to be the last time I go.

    I warn you that I dropped my copy of Chaositech off with my DM while I was there, in what can only be described as a fit of madness. Depending on what he does with it, there might be a lot of "Why, Monte, WHY?!!"

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