1. Settlers of Catan

   I was introduced to this game at Gen Con this year. It is playable by 2-4 players. The game is a well balanced mix of resource management and trading.

2. Carcassonne

   This tile-laying game is easy to learn. Players pull tiles at random from a bag and place the tile on the table matching the edges. They can place followers on the roads, in the villages, in the fields and in the cloisters. No two games play out the same. The game pieces are made of wood and heavy duty cardboard. At $25 this game is a value.

3. Role Playing Game Manuals

   Gamer geeks love RPG manuals. Dungeons & Dragon is like a gateway drug for role playing. Most geeks have the D&D manuals in their collection. For something different look for Spycraft, Vampire, Werewolf, Deadlands and new this year the Serenity RPG.

4. Goofy Card Games

   For a break between long games it is fun to play a pick up card game. A great game for this is Munchkin. Also fun is Chez Geek.

5. Membership to Party Hard Corps

   The Party Hard Corps has a selection of games to choose from including Kult and Are You a Werewolf? These folks also throw great parties. Give your gamer geek a membership as a gift. They will get a nice set of dog tags to commemorate joining.

6. Advance Registration for Archon 30

   Archon is sci fi/gaming convention held yearly in Collinsville. Your favorite geek will have a great time at the four days of gaming. The convention draws roughly 2000-3500 people depending on the year. They have quite a few author and artist guests, some special effects VIPs and at least one media guest of honor. During the daytime convention goers can visit the dealer hall, art show, celebrity signings and, of course, games. Nighttime activities include room parties, a very popular Masquerade (costume contest) and a dance party until early morning hours. A hospitality room provides free beer and soda to paid members who present their badge. There are 24 hour anime and video rooms. Costuming and cosplay are big at Archon. Expect to see some entertaining costumes.

7. Digital Camera

   A digital camera is a great way to remember the great costumes you see at science fiction conventions. Most costumers are great about posing for pictures. Be polite. Talk to them about about their “concept”. Be courteous even if you don’t think Bruce Campbell would make a good Green Lantern.

8. Novelty T-Shirts

   Black T-Shirts with catchy sayings are everywhere at gaming conventions. In fact I saw somebody wearing a pink t-shirt that read “All my black shirts are dirty”. My favorite shirt this year read “I Beat Anorexia”. Of course it was worn by an overweight 20-something gamer guy.

9. Backpack

   Gaming conventions mean swag. Swag are freebies that companies give away to promote their games. Backpacks are perfect to stash the swag and the dice bags, pencils and manuals needed to play role-playing games.

10. Funny Shaped Dice

    Gamers use funny shaped dice. Among them are the four-sided, ten-sided and the twenty-sided die. After Wizards opened its D20 system there are a large number of role playing games based on it. This makes the twenty-sided die especially popular.

I played a few friends in a game of Settlers of Catan last night. I won the game, which was the second one I’ve ever played. I got lucky and acquired points early. That made me a target but also psyched out the other players. Isn’t it interesting how sometimes part of a game is playing the players?

I met with Jason to help with the newly formed Atomic Squash Productions. We are putting together next year’s Spycraft LARP for Die Con 6. I’ll post more details in the future.

Let me share how people find from my humble home on the Internet. The following is a list of search terms resulting in a link to gazpacho.net. Uhm, woman dragon?

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:: TIONOL

It is old news now, but I went to the St Louis Brewery Taproom to check out an Irish jam session called Tionol.

Click on an image for a larger version

A Dozen Musicians playing at Tionol

Jam Session Continued

:: EGYPTIAN CAMPAIGNS 2005

In older news I went to the Egyptian Campaigns 2005 with a buddy. It is a gaming convention run by the students at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. It was disorganized and noisy, but we made our own fun.

The year 2004 was filled with many overhyped products. I decided to give some exposure to a few items I feel did not receive the praise they deserve.

Good news! My Windows installation is mostly working. Look for the article on quiet PCs soon.

Another year, another Archon. Archon is a science fiction convention held yearly in Collinsville. I have been attending it off and on for the last few years. This year was the first time I actually got a hotel room and participated in the night-time activities. Oh yes, the party gets going when the sun goes down.

Archon took place in the Collinsville Gateway Convention Center. They also took over of the nearby hotel. That is where all of the fun is centered. They had Japanese anime showing in the video rooms and a Klingon dance room complete with a bartender serving up frosty beverages with names like: Romulan Ale and Spock’s Blood.

I signed up for live-action role playing (LARP), another first for me. This year’s LARP was live-action vampire! I was randomly assigned the role of a human, a Teutonic Knight diverted from the Holy Crusades to investigate the strange things happening to a town in Transylvania. It was fun to run through the hotel asking fellow LARPers to “touch my holy symbol”. No, lower! Ha ha!

This year featured an addition to the schedule: Robot Wars. I was expecting so much more than what I saw: two radio-controlled cars that appeared to have been bought from Radio Shack. One of them, the apparent victor, still even had its stuffed purple Barney stapled onto the roof. Puh-lease.

I attended a lecture given by Larry Elmore, the Artist Guest of Honor. He produced most of the TSR Dragonlance covers among a number of other book covers. He was down-to-earth and entertaining. I was drawn into his discussion of being an art student in college during the 60s. He also discussed how he overcame a deep depression after a serious illness.

My artist friend there with me worships Elmore. It was cool to see Elmore take time to talk with him when he got his book signed. Later he bought several hundred dollars worth of Elmore prints, which Elmore graciously signed.

Check out next year’s Archon. I had a blast this year. The rumor is some Hollywood people will be Guests of Honor (GoH). That means you probably can add +1 to the average convention attendee’s Charisma value. If you know what I mean.