Last week I attended Gen Con with 25,000 other attendees. I mostly played live action role playing (LARP) games this year. I played a couple board games, too. I noticed a decline in popularity of role playing games (RPGs) and a raise in interest of board games and Dungeon & Dragons miniatures.

:: THURSDAY

We slept in late Thursday morning. Once we got up and hit the street we discovered a new game. I call it Bum Dodging. We encountered a few panhandlers on our walk to the convention center. I wanted to sign them up for the Stuck Mojo Progressive Outreach Program. That’s where you start by bringing the want ads section from the local newspaper to the bums’ attention. Then you start kicking them and scream, "Get a job you bums! You make me sick!" This motivates the less fortunate citizens while providing a tension release for the over taxed population.

New this year was Segway Racing. You know Segways. They are those over-priced two-wheeled electric scooter things that you stand in. I agree with Tom J that the Segway racing would have been more appealing if they dressed them like chariots complete with spiked spokes like the movie Ben Hur.

We had some time to kill. So we wandered into the Board Game HQ. There we found a group called Alleged Enterprises. Actually we found out later that the judges were the husband and wife who comprised the company. I did not hate the game. A typical game usually lasted 10-15 minutes. After the fourth game though, the game started to lose its novelty. The game is basically this: players are playing in a bad game. The Game Master has ego points and the players have interest points. As you play you can reduce interest and ego points. The first player to eliminate the game master or a given number of players by removing their points wins.

The first LARP I played the BYOV LARP named The Skein: Midgaard. My character was Hashim ibn Ma’mun, a mysterious stranger and skilled assassin. His motivation was to kill a king named Ottar or to find out his plans and stop them. At one point the king is dead, lying on the floor, I am surrounded by about ten angry vikings, all of whom are pointing at me and saying “You killed the king!” I had to think fast to survive that one! I pleaded my innocence and drew attention to the smashed window in the room. As I was "examining" it, players left the room. Soon I walked out behind another player and fled to safety. Too much fun!

Next came another BYOV LARP called The Fey: Winter Solstice Ball. The LARP was inspired by the fairy fantasy writings of St Louis native writer Laurell K. Hamilton. Here my character was Lorcan, a war minded Goblin King. I snapped pictures of a BYOV Doug who played a court jester named Tom Thumb and foXXtail who played a rumormonger named Sionnach. My goal was to incite fighting between the fairy factions. I decided to spread a couple rumors myself. I consulted that judges that I was having a hard time because Fey consider it bad form to lie. They allowed me to invent methods to detect and kill a creature called the “Nothing”. I invented a potion that had to be consumed to increase paranoia between factions. Ultimately, the Nothing was exposed and the potion was found to be fake.

Captain Squash and I followed foXXtail to the Marriott where NZKnight was waiting. He led us up to Mike B’s room for the MST3K Room Party. In the end we did not watch much of the movie but had a good time talking and laughing. I promised Mike a case of Ski soda which I had left back at my hotel room. It’s ok I’ll just have to figure out another way to get it to him.

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