GenCon SoCal Con Report
So! My first ever gaming convention! I had a lot of fun, thanks to my good friends who let me sleep on their hotel room floor and didn't even charge me for it :confused:!!!
Anyway. The con was great. A little smaller than I expected (someday I'll get to Indy!), but I've been spoiled by COMDEX and ComicCon.
I got there on thursday, checked into the hotel, and went out to the Con floor. I poked a little amongst the dealers, and then headed off to my first scheduled game in the TCG HQ.
Game 1 : Friday 11am : Gloom (Card Game)
Run by Keith Baker : Published by Atlas Games
Heh, this game is fun, but it's even more fun with Keith Baker's twisted sense of humor behind the stories that get told around this card game. Gloom is a card game with clear cards, not unlike the edges of Hecatomb except over the whole card. Everyone has a family of strange people, and the object of the game is to have your people die as miserably as possible and keep the other players' families happy and/or alive. It's a great game, and I had a lot of fun. Also, Keith Baker was gracious enough to sign my Eberron Campaign Setting, and his first novel "City of Towers".
Game 2 : Friday 2:12pm : True Dungeon (LARP-ish)
Run By: True Dungeon Staff
If you've never done a true dungeon, take the experience if you can get it. It's basically a huge puzzle game played in the dark and with D&D flavor thrown in. Combat is done on a shuffleboard (rangers fight two handed!) and detect magic is a blacklight. My team got all of the way through, but I died in the second to last room...
Game 3 : Friday 6pm : Vanguard (RPG : Unknown Armies Variant)
Run by Todd Furlow : Rules published by Atlas Games
My one word summary for this game was "wow". After a refresher on the rules and a discussion about what constituted "Science Fiction" versus "Science Fantasy", we settled into our roles as the first manned mission to Mars. Things quickly go south as we find evidence of our lost crewmember and possibly Life on mars. Everyone goes nuts, and the whole game was just great. Furlow really has the pacing down, and was able to anticipate nearly every move that we made. Definately seek Todd out (I hear he has a great Angel[buffyverse] con game record).
Game 4 : Saturday 8am : Robo Rally (Board Game)
Run by who knows : Published by WotC
The players of this game showed up on time. The people running it did not. Eventually WotC got confused and thought that they had forgotten to run a game. They went and got us a game box and apologized profusely. We dove into the game (All of us had played the old version, and we wanted to see what the new one was like) and played a 6 player, 1 board (Maelstrom!) game. A lot of fun was had by the players as we jostled our robots around the board. A lot of damage was had, a couple robots exploded, and we even had one player lose all of his lives by getting unluckily pushed off the board three times. The real runners of the game finally showed up around 9am, but we didn't care to join them for their roborally game because we were about halfway through our original one. I'd recommend this game to any of my friends who are mildly into programming, or want to teach their kids how to program.
Game 5 : Saturday 2pm : Do Me This One Favor... (Mage)
Run by an Arizona Wrecking Crew whose name escapes me : Published by White Wolf
I must admit, I was afraid. I've been leery of the World of Darkness' fanbase since the very beginning. Vampire was a game for goth weirdos, so naturally I arranged to miss the bus. Fortunately, I've grown out of that hangup, so I showed up to this game. I was a little worried, as the GM was a little quiet and there were three complete Nuts playing in the game (the two other guys were cool, though). Luckily, once we got the caped and corsetted mongoloid woman to stop talking about some character she plays on White Wolf's IRC or board thing that had something to do with Angels, one of the normals and I (both newbies to the WoD system, which is really easy to learn) took over the Roleplaying. He was Azteca the "Den Mother" of our cabal, and I was Admin, the default "Manager". For some reason, there was a general anti-mastigos feeling at the table, but I had a lot of fun with my Mind centered character. Outside of the game, it was also a lot of fun to trade significant "What the hell?" looks with the GM and the two "normals".
Game 6 : Saturday 8pm : Revenge, Reciprocity, and All Things Made Even… (Vampire)
Run by Dave Martin of the AZ Wrecking Crew : Published by White Wolf
While making characters took a while, this 11 person game was great. From the nutty Ventrue, the accidentally russian voiced Rakshasa, the Oberlock family, and my own character (A hunchbacked super-spy Nosferatu from Fargo), we nearly died laughing as we unintentionally kept messing up the elaborate plans we had set up. My character died at 2am, as the Sanctum was about to capture me, so I had the computer nerd throw a grenade in my lap. FOR THE CARTHIANS! The game ended at 4am, so I can't remember much besides that I want to play in another game with the Wrecking Crew.
Game 7 : Sunday 10am : Intro to the Iron Kingdoms (3.5 SRD)
Run by one of the writers for Privateer : Published by Privateer Press
This sounded like it was going to be a pretty dry game at first. The GM was a little monotone as he pitched the setting to us (If you're familiar with Warmachine, it's the same setting). However, he quickly morphed into a great gm (even without the completely brilliant miniatures terrain he used) for a quick 2 hour romp through a troll fight and a trap-filled tomb. My dwarven bodger took 7 poison dart hits as he dashed into a cloud of poison gas to save the book that they had tried to pull out with a grappling hook. I only suffered 4 con damage, and managed to survive by the skin of my teeth. I'm not sold on the setting, but I'd play with this guy again.
Anyway. The con was great. A little smaller than I expected (someday I'll get to Indy!), but I've been spoiled by COMDEX and ComicCon.
I got there on thursday, checked into the hotel, and went out to the Con floor. I poked a little amongst the dealers, and then headed off to my first scheduled game in the TCG HQ.
Game 1 : Friday 11am : Gloom (Card Game)
Run by Keith Baker : Published by Atlas Games
Heh, this game is fun, but it's even more fun with Keith Baker's twisted sense of humor behind the stories that get told around this card game. Gloom is a card game with clear cards, not unlike the edges of Hecatomb except over the whole card. Everyone has a family of strange people, and the object of the game is to have your people die as miserably as possible and keep the other players' families happy and/or alive. It's a great game, and I had a lot of fun. Also, Keith Baker was gracious enough to sign my Eberron Campaign Setting, and his first novel "City of Towers".
Game 2 : Friday 2:12pm : True Dungeon (LARP-ish)
Run By: True Dungeon Staff
If you've never done a true dungeon, take the experience if you can get it. It's basically a huge puzzle game played in the dark and with D&D flavor thrown in. Combat is done on a shuffleboard (rangers fight two handed!) and detect magic is a blacklight. My team got all of the way through, but I died in the second to last room...
Game 3 : Friday 6pm : Vanguard (RPG : Unknown Armies Variant)
Run by Todd Furlow : Rules published by Atlas Games
My one word summary for this game was "wow". After a refresher on the rules and a discussion about what constituted "Science Fiction" versus "Science Fantasy", we settled into our roles as the first manned mission to Mars. Things quickly go south as we find evidence of our lost crewmember and possibly Life on mars. Everyone goes nuts, and the whole game was just great. Furlow really has the pacing down, and was able to anticipate nearly every move that we made. Definately seek Todd out (I hear he has a great Angel[buffyverse] con game record).
Game 4 : Saturday 8am : Robo Rally (Board Game)
Run by who knows : Published by WotC
The players of this game showed up on time. The people running it did not. Eventually WotC got confused and thought that they had forgotten to run a game. They went and got us a game box and apologized profusely. We dove into the game (All of us had played the old version, and we wanted to see what the new one was like) and played a 6 player, 1 board (Maelstrom!) game. A lot of fun was had by the players as we jostled our robots around the board. A lot of damage was had, a couple robots exploded, and we even had one player lose all of his lives by getting unluckily pushed off the board three times. The real runners of the game finally showed up around 9am, but we didn't care to join them for their roborally game because we were about halfway through our original one. I'd recommend this game to any of my friends who are mildly into programming, or want to teach their kids how to program.
Game 5 : Saturday 2pm : Do Me This One Favor... (Mage)
Run by an Arizona Wrecking Crew whose name escapes me : Published by White Wolf
I must admit, I was afraid. I've been leery of the World of Darkness' fanbase since the very beginning. Vampire was a game for goth weirdos, so naturally I arranged to miss the bus. Fortunately, I've grown out of that hangup, so I showed up to this game. I was a little worried, as the GM was a little quiet and there were three complete Nuts playing in the game (the two other guys were cool, though). Luckily, once we got the caped and corsetted mongoloid woman to stop talking about some character she plays on White Wolf's IRC or board thing that had something to do with Angels, one of the normals and I (both newbies to the WoD system, which is really easy to learn) took over the Roleplaying. He was Azteca the "Den Mother" of our cabal, and I was Admin, the default "Manager". For some reason, there was a general anti-mastigos feeling at the table, but I had a lot of fun with my Mind centered character. Outside of the game, it was also a lot of fun to trade significant "What the hell?" looks with the GM and the two "normals".
Game 6 : Saturday 8pm : Revenge, Reciprocity, and All Things Made Even… (Vampire)
Run by Dave Martin of the AZ Wrecking Crew : Published by White Wolf
While making characters took a while, this 11 person game was great. From the nutty Ventrue, the accidentally russian voiced Rakshasa, the Oberlock family, and my own character (A hunchbacked super-spy Nosferatu from Fargo), we nearly died laughing as we unintentionally kept messing up the elaborate plans we had set up. My character died at 2am, as the Sanctum was about to capture me, so I had the computer nerd throw a grenade in my lap. FOR THE CARTHIANS! The game ended at 4am, so I can't remember much besides that I want to play in another game with the Wrecking Crew.
Game 7 : Sunday 10am : Intro to the Iron Kingdoms (3.5 SRD)
Run by one of the writers for Privateer : Published by Privateer Press
This sounded like it was going to be a pretty dry game at first. The GM was a little monotone as he pitched the setting to us (If you're familiar with Warmachine, it's the same setting). However, he quickly morphed into a great gm (even without the completely brilliant miniatures terrain he used) for a quick 2 hour romp through a troll fight and a trap-filled tomb. My dwarven bodger took 7 poison dart hits as he dashed into a cloud of poison gas to save the book that they had tried to pull out with a grappling hook. I only suffered 4 con damage, and managed to survive by the skin of my teeth. I'm not sold on the setting, but I'd play with this guy again.
posted by Jonathan at
9:34 AM
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