Just last week I was in Indianapolis for Gen Con. Sunday is the last and final day. It was also the day I spent the most time in the exhibitor hall. The exhibitor hall is Darwinism in action. Usually on Thursday everybody is anxious to promote their RPG/comic/game/dice. By Saturday some are despondent. By Sunday those with the weak ideas are suicidal.

:: SUNDAY

My buddy and I went to a Italian restaraunt called Buca di Beppo. They had huge portions. The small portion was intended to be shared by two people. Fortunately, they have a lunch menu. I had a terrific meatball sandwich.

As we were walking to the convention center we noticed a wedding party leaving a hotel. The car had the words Just Married written on it. The family and friends gave hugs and kisses and waved as the couple left. My buddy reminded me that Archon usually has a wedding party every year. Sadly, we have not witnessed a gamer wedding at Gen Con.

Let me give a rundown on the things I noticed in the Exhibitor Hall. First of all, Hecatomb is dead. Instead Wizards of the Coast was promoting a new collectible miniatures game called Dreamblade. At the Fantasy Flight Games booth I noticed that John Kovalik lended his art talent to MagBlast. Has anybody played it? There was hate, HATE for WizKids this year. Several of their former volunteers really felt betrayed. Not suprisingly MageKnight which had them lined up for blocks two years ago is dead. Their latest product HorrorClix has no gravitas. Monte Cook and Malhavoc Press were there with a 672 page game system named Ptolus. At $120 you have to be hardcore to even consider it.

There were a host of video games. Flying Lab Software showed off its Pirates of the Burning Sea, a pirate game meets MMORPG. It looked ok with nothing compelling about it. Next there was IIXII: The Continuum, a collectible online wargame. This is an interesting idea for a MMORPG. Basically you do not pay a monthly fee but instead pay for your characters. Their idea is to make a turn-based war game where the characters are collectible and can be traded. I think they are walking a fine line. Once you establish how much a character is worth, if a server ever crashes and the character is lost, then the company can be sued.

I also saw early versions Warhammer Online and Neverwinter Nights 2. Warhammer looked like a World of Warcraft clone. I have only played WoW briefly. But that is my first impression. Neverwinter Nights 2 is a great looking improvement over its predecessor. I understand that they updated the game to include Dungeon and Dragons 3.5 Rules. So, this is something I am going to be watching for in the future.

I was disappointed that Munchin Impossible by Steve Jackson Games was not available at Gen Con. But they just recently announced Munchkin Cthulhu. So, I have two more games to which to look forward.

Titanic Games had a full color version of Kill Doctor Lucky. This game is like Clue in reverse. Your goal is to kill Doctor Lucky. It looks like a lot of fun.

I demoed the City of Heroes collectible card game (CCG) at the AEG booth. It was ok. I am not a fan of theirs ever since they killed the Initial D CCG. Also, the Spycraft CCG is dead. They have killed off a few interesting games.

Captain Squash and I picked up copied of the Kobolds Ate My Baby LARP rules by 9th Level Games. We plan to run a game of it at Archon. Stay tuned for more details!

Lastly, I picked up a copy of A Great Disturbance by Aegis Films. They promised that their documentary, 20-Sided, would be completed soon. We shall see. I will try to post a review of A Great Disturbance if I like it.

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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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For the record Gen Con is not a Trekkie convention. Sure, there are Star Trek fans. But there are also fans of other science fiction series. There are also fans of fantasy novels, horror fiction and historical battles. The convention is best described as a gaming convention.

:: FRIDAY

Since we have no scheduled events, my roomie Captain Squash and I slept in. Hey, this was our vacation. Unfortunately, I discovered at lunch that I was missing the Firefly LARP. I had promised Solitude I would attempt to get into the game with generic tickets. Later I found out that she missed the game, too. I felt terrible about it for the rest of the convention.

After lunch we decided to play a board game. We found a Mayfair game called Elasund. The game involves players competing to build buildings and a church inside a walled city. It was pretty good. In fact I picked up a copy to play with friends later.

By playing the game we earned a ribbon. Mine had the word Clay on it. By collecting the remaining ribbons — Grain, Ore, Wood and Sheep — you earned a Knight of Catan ribbon and a coupon for fifty percent off one item in the Mayfair booth. I managed to acquire the Knight ribbon. I was given some ribbons and found a few on the ground outside the Crowne Plaza hotel! Oh, my lucky day!

This year marked the return of the Gamer Olympics. The concept was to have players do in the real world the physical feats that characters regularly do in the fantasy gaming world. Players were asked to throw a javelin, carefully maneuver through a “Passage of Death” and compete in an archery contest. There was also a room where players fight in padded weapon gladiator battles. They set up seats for spectators to watch and cheer their favorite gladiator. I did not attempt this but there is always next year. I would like to hear from anybody who did the Gamer Olympics this year.

Friday afternoon I played another BYOV LARP, A Holiday at Hogwarts. My character was Archibald Rummery, a 1st year Ravenclaw wizard with a “broken” camera. I did not enjoy the game. But first let me say I have not read the Harry Potter books. I have seen all of the movies and enjoyed them. Also, I was challenged by my character. Perhaps a better player could have done more and enjoyed the game more.

In order to help make the game better I want to give some constructive criticism. First of all, things were too spread out. The game took place in at least five different rooms. I only found three of them. I only knew where two house rooms were: Ravenclaw and Griffindor. The locations of other rooms were a mystery.

Secondly, the players were too angst ridden. This is a children’s book, right? It is not the acrimonious world of Vampire: The Masquerade. I did not like how certain players played their Slytherin and Ravenclaw characters. I understand that the difference between the player and how a player portrays their character. I am saying that a couple players did a poor job with their characters. I truly don’t want to play if some of the same people play the same characters next year.

Lastly, there were players who were new to LARPs that were given powerful characters. They were a little to eager to focus on specific goals and were not open to conversation with other players. I had three people tell me not to bother them and to go away. For a social LARP they did not have much motivation to interact with folks of their same house, much less outside of it. I have seen teams pull together better in other LARPs. I once rallied a group of twelve players to fight a powerful demon in a Vampire game. Before this game I was never told to shut up and go away.

I hope these comments improve the game. I appreciate the hard work that the BYOV team put into the game and its props. Most of the players were fine. A few bad apples spoiled my fun.

So, I left the LARP disappointed and upset. I trekked over to the Alcatraz Brewing Company to check out the Cthulu Live Party. I discovered the Party Hard Corps (PHC) elite including Ruckus, the General and the Colonel were playing their drinking game, Cult. Cult involves accumulating points while being a true believer and gaining favor with the Messiah. If you lose all your points, you must perform an act of humiliation. It is a strange game but loads of fun. Several members from the Ohio squad joined us. Unfortunately, the PHC did not have a good Gen Con. I noticed that they were particularly laid back from their typical rambunctious selves. Later the General told me that he lost his dice bag and some costume props at Gen Con. Ouch.

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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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This past week I attended Gen Con Indy. It is a large gaming convention with over 5,500 scheduled events.

:: WEDNESDAY

Right away my buddy and I noticed the time change. Every year before this one Indianapolis decided not to participate in Daylight Savings Time. My buddy Captain Squash decided he had to see a baseball game and asked me to drop him off at Victory Field as soon as we arrived downtown. Whatever! I navigated the one-way streets to our hotel, the Radisson.

Our hotel room was nice. It had a nice view of the War Memorial. The Rock Bottom, Qdoba, Penn Station and Hard Rock restaurants were all nearby. It was a short walk to the convention center. Unfortunately, it was not attached to the center by skywalk. But the weather cooperated and was nice most all week.

We made our way to the Third Annual Gen Con Forum Stink, a gathering of regulars who frequent the Gen Con online community forum. When we arrived they gave us a bag of swag — free promotional items and other stuff.

They had a passport game as an icebreaker. They had several categories such as “Veteran Stinker”, “Attended 10+ Gen Cons” and “Played True Dungeon”. When you found a forumite that matched a category you could ask them to place a sticker in your book. I met several new folks this way including LadyFlame from nearby Belleville. There were familiar faces there, too. I saw Solitude, Mike B, foXXtail, Jirel and Kahvi. I also met a fella from my hometown of Centralia! He is two years younger than me. It has been many years but I remember we were on the same JETS team in high school. Of all the places to run into a fellow Orphan, I ran into him at Gen Con!

They gave out ribbons this year that attached to the convention badge. I know that other conventions such as SIGGRAPH did this, too. The ribbons helped identify forum members throughout the rest of the week.

We spotted Tommy Tallarico wandering around the registration area after we left the Stink. He was polite and chatted with us about his G4 TV show and game compositions. He even posed for a photo with Captain Squash. He told us to see him in the Video Games Live event.

After a short phone call we ended up having dinner with John Bancroft, the gaming coordinator for Archon. We talked at Archon and some interesting gaming talk. John mentioned that the Gen Con folks recently announced that the Indy show will have 47,000 more square feet of exhibit space next year. He also mentioned that Gen Con SoCal show will be moving to the Los Angeles Convention Center in 2007. That is the same location as the old E3. Word is that since E3 announced its downsizing, Gen Con is attempting to attract a number of video game companies to its exhibitor hall. Speaking of gaming rumors, there is buzz that Wizards of the Coast may be working on a 4th edition of Dungeon & Dragons. It focuses more on miniatures and may be released as early as late 2007.

We left John and crew to go to the RAM to pick up a mug I had pre-ordered. We ran into more forum folks who were there for a post-Stink dinner. Captain Squash and I found an empty table and relaxed a little bit before heading back to the hotel for the night.

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The past year, 2005, brought its share of hype and hero worship. As I did last year I decided to give a select list of underrated items some exposure.

I read an excellent article on podcasting. Would anybody listen to a gazpacho dot net podcast?

I have some changes planned for these web pages. Over the coming week expect to see improvements in the comments and search templates, an updated copyright notice, an updated resume, redesign of the banner and the addition of archives by category. If there are further improvements you would like to see, your suggestions are welcome.

Also, I plan to update the projects page to highlight my next big project, the Atomic Squash LARP entitled Fight Night. At Archon I talked with Rick and Britt of SLUGS for inspiration. Both shared stories and gave helpful tips.

Even the game is not until June 3rd I am already thinking about ideas. I have been designing some software in my head that will help us design and organize the characters and their plots. I was not happy with the LARP software I saw when I did an Internet search. I think I can do better.