labcats | Some GenCon high and low lights

I may post an actual GenCon write up here when it's done. Some things already on my blog, at

drcpunk. This includes my grousing about the flight home and the dancing I did with

mnemex to the music of The Muses.

Flight out: Not too dreadful, but a bit of a lowlight, given the size of the plane. It's even smaller than the ones I'm used to.

jlighton could not stand up in the bathroom. I felt decidedly cramped in there -- and the door opens outward, guaranteed to hit anyone waiting to use the bathroom.

Hotel: Courtyard by Mariott. Not the near one, the one further away. Lowlight: Much walking, some in heat. Highlight: Hey, got exercise. Other highlights: Nice staff, complimentary lemonade around 6 pm, with cookies and munchies in the lobby. Complimentary coffee and tea. Lowlight: When I check stuff with the hotel, I want it in a room that locks. The manager's office doesn't have much space, but we squeaked loudly enough on Sunday to get the guy behind the desk to agree he'd fit it in somehow. The woman who unchecked it for us was surprised, since the meeting room we wouldn't leave it in, on account of its not being locked could, in fact, be locked. Highlight: Big room, with two double beds and a foldout couch. Minor lowlight: No microwave or fridge. No big deal. Lowlight: We got this room at higher than convention cost, by using outside channels, as the hotel system is fubared. mnemex was trying to get a room from the moment it was possible via the con, but by the time the page loaded, all convention rooms were taken. We are not amused.

Function space: Lowlight: I am allergic to dust and to the second floor hallway at Hyatt. Probably as well we didn't get a room there this year. Lowlight: Confusion over what was where, though GenCon did its best to do damage control. Lowlight: Next year will be worse, as half the convention center will be gone, though following year should be better, as RCA dome will be replaced with more function space, if I've got this all right. Highlight: I got to see the Crowne and Union Station hotels. They are gorgeous.

Shopping: Lowlight: Much money spent. Highlight: Much goodies purchased. Big purchase at Forge booth, about a quarter of which was Reign. I asked Greg Stolze to autograph it. "Just try to stop me!" he said. I got a copy of Unhallowed Metropolis before it sold out. I got some good deals, despite buying mostly new. (At Origins, it was Indy games and used / discounted games.) I found 1st edition Mummy for a very low price.

crash_mccormick let me read his, describing it quite accurately as the Mummies playing a very different game than anything else going on in old World of Darkness. I got to talk to

judd_sonofbert about his work in progress, 1st Quest, which I'm really looking forward to seeing in finished form. I got to talk to

robin_d_laws and

princeofcairo about the Gumshoe system and the upcoming Trail of Cthulhu. A surprising number of people I hadn't met in person yet still know my name. Lowlight: Carrying Thursday's purchases back to the hotel. This wasn't as bad as at Origins, where I had less far to go, all inside, but tripped down a flight of steps, landing shaken, but uninjured. I had the brains to learn from this and bring the larger knapsack on the shopping spree.

Gaming: Lowlight: Much stuff sold out before I could get to it. Highlight: I still found good games, and much of what I lusted after and couldn't get I was able to get at Origins. Highlight:

vengeanceduck was there. Lowlight: I was allergic to the hallway where Games on Demand was. Highlight: Despite thinking of this as less gaming than Origins, I only played in one fewer game, by the numbers, and all gms showed, and all the games were good. The games were:

Thursday Night: Witch Hunter: Loss of Innocence. Not the most innovative system, but I find that a plus. I do like the background, an alternate history with monster hunters and stuff.

Friday Morning: Victoriana: Lost Luggage. Utterly delightful, despite the gm getting held up by what sounds like a slow and incompetent copy shop. I like the 2nd edition system, at least as run. Felt much simpler than Fusion read to me. A couple of character sheets needed a read through so that "You and X other PC did Y" is on both relevant character sheets. This was not crucial to the adventure, but it's useful to prevent confusion. Good roleplaying all around. Union Station was a great place to hold the game.

Friday Afternoon: So, I'm kind of at a loss to figure out how to demand a Game on Demand, and I'm repacking, figuring I can always eat early, when someone tells Tony he'd like to play either Primetime Adventures or Dogs in the Vineyard. No longer at a loss, I said that I was in, so long as I didn't have to gm either. Tony ran it at speed, which worked because we all got on the same page quickly. Halfway through, I started coughing. This stopped when I left the hotel, and it didn't bother me inside the rooms.

Friday Evening: Couldn't generic into Runepunk, which may have been just as well, as the air conditioning for that room wasn't working well. I did manage to generic into Armageddon, though I was decidedly below par, having trouble staying conscious for the first hour or so. The gm figured it was my allergy meds, but I hadn't taken those. I'm guessing it was the eating. I ate dinner at the table, which doesn't normally get in the way of gaming, but I'm thinking I should err on the side of eating a bit too little, especially if I've got the food right there. Fun adventure, with some really fun-in-a-sick-way characters.

Saturday Morning: Full Light, Full Steam: And Our Saucy Ship's a Beauty. I have this game now. I don't know if it's up my alley, but the scenario was fun. I played the female ingenue, winding up in male clothes, with the male counterpart put on my character's dress. I think the wedding had the pcs still in each other's clothes.

Saturday Night: Last Night in Carcosa. This larp had a really simple system, a guy who'd brought masks for any who didn't have any, and a nominal plot, sort of. I mean, on paper, it's your typical politicing larp, with a system for figuring out who wins at the end. But, as anyone familiar with the source material knows, this winning thing is irrelevant. It's -- what do you call Illusionism when all of the players know exactly how the game is rigged, and they're all on board with that? We were there to be doomed, plain and simple.

Sunday Morning: Faery's Tale: Tournament of the Fey. Delightful Sunday morning game, short and simple. We not only got to keep a bag of pretty green stones which we'd used as essence tokens; the gm, Keith Sears, also offered us each a copy of the scenario, with all of the pcs statted up. That's a wonderful idea.