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A GenCon Diary: In no particular order.
Aug. 15th, 2006 05:23 pmGenCon trip went well. Met lots of people.
Flight down was reasonably harmless. We got there at 4:30, but security doesn't open until 5:00, so everyone who thought "I'll be Jimmy Clever, professor of Cleverology from Oxford and get there early!" got to wait in line to get into line to get security screened before they got into the US customs line. Huzzah!
The trip down was reasonably uneventful. The problem with a reasonably short trip is you can’t get into any kind of groove. Indy would be a nice short trip from TO, but the ride I got had a stopover in Chicago (also too short to do anything more than get to my gate and twiddle before takeoff).
Arrival in Indy was nice, and I took a car from the airport to the hotel (note of import: do this. A cab will cost $20. A car is $11 + tip. Unless you fit 3 people into the cab, you win. Even then, the car will be more comfy than a cab. Once again: Do it).
The hotel I’d gotten into (by pure fluke aka Travelocity.ca’s Last Minute Deals section) was the Westin, which is directly across a skyway from the convention centre. The room itself was a nice room with a king size up on the 15th floor, providing a lovely view of the top of the convention centre and the construction of the new stadium beyond.
Really, they totally lucked into this. The package (round trip flight, hotel room) was about $650.
I hooked up with a contact in the GenCon organization and picked up my pass, and then headed into the con. The floor was the usual hubbub of the massive WotC booth, the tiny “buy my game” booth and everything in between.
One thing I saw that I hadn’t seen in previous years was a “buy 1, get three free” booth. Now, admittedly, there was some stuff in there that righteously deserved it (Solid!, I’m looking at you), but to see Dreaming Cities, Ex Machina, and Nyambe being hustled like that was a blow. Those are good games, and shouldn’t have ended up like that.
Yes, yes, the whole d20 market and all that. I’m well aware of the market’s realities. But books of quality, imagination and passion shouldn’t end up remaindered and shuffled out the door.
Feh.
The weekend was spent in a mix of business and pleasure. Pleasure consisted mainly of shopping.
Shopping acquisitions included Mutants and Masterminds second ed, Damnation Decade and Helios Rising (which is a great value when you consider the going price of Ptolus), as well as a copy of Cat from Wick, as I thought Cynra might get a kick out of it.
I also picked up the Tsuro board game from WizKids so I would end up buying enough to get![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nottheterritory his special treat. mr_weasel and doc_mystery both sent me requests to pickup. I managed to find a copy of Al Qadim for doc_mystery, but a good copy of mr_weasel’s items evaded me.
I got to see myriad people there. Much time was spent with NGO stalwarts TC Badass &righteousfist, as well as the rest of the Green Ronin and Hero squads. Dinner Saturday was at a Greek restaurant with belly dancing. I can’t trust any belly dancer with blonde hair, personally. Feels like cultural appropriation. Most of them don’t even have mustaches.
The Ennies were interesting. I figure I’ve not attended the Eisners and the Ennies both, so that must be worth some kinda geek credibility. Props tochadu and the folks at Green Ronin for their strong showing, and to the guys at FanPro for honesty. Rob Boyle said that Shadowrun used to be a game people played in spite of the rules, and he was right on that point; the current iteration is a great improvement as far as we could see when we played it.
That room was darn warm, though.
Skipped the parties (well, the one I knew of) and spent time just hanging out with people. Got to seerobin_d_laws for a bit on Saturday night, along with some of his crew.
I did plenty of work. Networked with lots of people, so there should be at least two fairly good gaming GoH’s locked in for GX. Hopefully there are people to do things for next year, and if things get started early enough corporate attendees can be arranged. Prize support will be setup for the events at GX.
I was kind of reticent to give people too hard a sell. At this time, GX is still the smallest part of FanExpo, and I’d hate to be the guy who killed Green Ronin or Palladium or Steve Jackson.
Although I hear the DoJ has a bounty on that last one.
Steak & Shake: Still horrible.
Flight down was reasonably harmless. We got there at 4:30, but security doesn't open until 5:00, so everyone who thought "I'll be Jimmy Clever, professor of Cleverology from Oxford and get there early!" got to wait in line to get into line to get security screened before they got into the US customs line. Huzzah!
The trip down was reasonably uneventful. The problem with a reasonably short trip is you can’t get into any kind of groove. Indy would be a nice short trip from TO, but the ride I got had a stopover in Chicago (also too short to do anything more than get to my gate and twiddle before takeoff).
Arrival in Indy was nice, and I took a car from the airport to the hotel (note of import: do this. A cab will cost $20. A car is $11 + tip. Unless you fit 3 people into the cab, you win. Even then, the car will be more comfy than a cab. Once again: Do it).
The hotel I’d gotten into (by pure fluke aka Travelocity.ca’s Last Minute Deals section) was the Westin, which is directly across a skyway from the convention centre. The room itself was a nice room with a king size up on the 15th floor, providing a lovely view of the top of the convention centre and the construction of the new stadium beyond.
Really, they totally lucked into this. The package (round trip flight, hotel room) was about $650.
I hooked up with a contact in the GenCon organization and picked up my pass, and then headed into the con. The floor was the usual hubbub of the massive WotC booth, the tiny “buy my game” booth and everything in between.
One thing I saw that I hadn’t seen in previous years was a “buy 1, get three free” booth. Now, admittedly, there was some stuff in there that righteously deserved it (Solid!, I’m looking at you), but to see Dreaming Cities, Ex Machina, and Nyambe being hustled like that was a blow. Those are good games, and shouldn’t have ended up like that.
Yes, yes, the whole d20 market and all that. I’m well aware of the market’s realities. But books of quality, imagination and passion shouldn’t end up remaindered and shuffled out the door.
Feh.
The weekend was spent in a mix of business and pleasure. Pleasure consisted mainly of shopping.
Shopping acquisitions included Mutants and Masterminds second ed, Damnation Decade and Helios Rising (which is a great value when you consider the going price of Ptolus), as well as a copy of Cat from Wick, as I thought Cynra might get a kick out of it.
I also picked up the Tsuro board game from WizKids so I would end up buying enough to get
nottheterritory his special treat. mr_weasel and doc_mystery both sent me requests to pickup. I managed to find a copy of Al Qadim for doc_mystery, but a good copy of mr_weasel’s items evaded me. I got to see myriad people there. Much time was spent with NGO stalwarts TC Badass &
righteousfist, as well as the rest of the Green Ronin and Hero squads. Dinner Saturday was at a Greek restaurant with belly dancing. I can’t trust any belly dancer with blonde hair, personally. Feels like cultural appropriation. Most of them don’t even have mustaches. The Ennies were interesting. I figure I’ve not attended the Eisners and the Ennies both, so that must be worth some kinda geek credibility. Props to
chadu and the folks at Green Ronin for their strong showing, and to the guys at FanPro for honesty. Rob Boyle said that Shadowrun used to be a game people played in spite of the rules, and he was right on that point; the current iteration is a great improvement as far as we could see when we played it.That room was darn warm, though.
Skipped the parties (well, the one I knew of) and spent time just hanging out with people. Got to see
robin_d_laws for a bit on Saturday night, along with some of his crew. I did plenty of work. Networked with lots of people, so there should be at least two fairly good gaming GoH’s locked in for GX. Hopefully there are people to do things for next year, and if things get started early enough corporate attendees can be arranged. Prize support will be setup for the events at GX.
I was kind of reticent to give people too hard a sell. At this time, GX is still the smallest part of FanExpo, and I’d hate to be the guy who killed Green Ronin or Palladium or Steve Jackson.
Although I hear the DoJ has a bounty on that last one.
Steak & Shake: Still horrible.
