Gen Con 2006 Report, Part 4: Saturday

I was Indianapolis last week for Gen Con. On Saturday the convention run out of swag bags to give attendees. Swag, which stands for Stuff We All Get, is a collection of promotional items and coupons. I have seen folks get greedy and go back for bags four or five times. Tsk tsk.

:: SATURDAY

I was up early Saturday morning to buy more generic tickets before the Hickman's Killer Breakfast. Every year Tracy and Laura Hickman run an event that combines role playing with a sing-along. This year's theme was Southern Fried Breakfast. Imagine Lord of the Rings meets NASCAR. The sing-along were Johnny Cash tunes with lyrics about Hobbits and gamers with bad teeth. The breakfast is heavy on audience participation. Everyone is assigned a first level character who WILL DIE. How long a character survives depends on how entertaining a player is.

This year Henwy brought a cardboard cutout of himself. When confronted with a swarm of Girl Scouts, he cast Mirror Image, produced the cutout and promptly hid behind it. Too funny! In the history of the game his mirror image is the only character that has survived. Last year Henwy came as the Grim Reaper. I wonder how he is going to top himself next year.

After Killer Breakfast I met up with Mike B for lunch at the RAM. Mike was tired and looked like he wanted to fall asleep in his plate of pasta. He decided to flirt with the waitress and drew her pictures of Dungeons and Dragons creatures. He did some nice renderings of a Beholder, Ankeg and Gelatinous Cube. He told me that he was throwing another room party that night. I will give more details on that later.

I found Captain Squash playing a demo of Bang! in the exhibitor hall. It is a fast paced card game that looked like a lot of fun. The game only costs ten dollars. So, I picked up a copy to play later. I am thinking it will be fun for Archon.

Later that evening I joined the BYOV crew as players in Dave Collin's Courting Murder LARP: Enemy Within. My character was Lord De Morgen, part of Queen Marianna's court with eyes set on the throne. In the first ten minutes of the game a sorceress signed me to a blood oath. This meant that because spent the rest of the game trying to kill her, my character died at the end of the night. Oh well, death happens. Of note was the woman who played the Queen. She was near tears when she learned of double cross and the death of her sister. She was extremely convincing. I have never been so moved by a player.

We went to the RAM for post-game drinks and conversation. They had Serenity playing on the TV screens. I asked Dave Collins about his starship LARP. He told me that he usually only write 5-6 games in a series before he feels the story cannot go any further. I asked him if he wrote a game with a sequel in mind. He told me that he usually doesn't but that once a game finishes he has ideas on where it should go next.

Rennie, the event coordinator for Gen Con, was at the RAM. Around 3 AM the RAM was closing so Captain Squash and I left for Mike B's After Dark Room Party. We were joined by a couple BYOV guys, El Fire and her husband Chattan and Rennie. Mike threw another great party. We met a few more foks from the Gen Con Forum and had a great time.

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Posted at 7:01 PM