I attended Gen Con Indy again this year. Gen Con is a big gaming convention held each year. Word had it that there were 82000 people this year.

:: WEDNESDAY

My friends and I arrived early Wednesday afternoon. Well, he made the hotel reservations putting us at the Comfort Inn again this year. If you read my post about last year’s Gen Con, you know I was not impressed with the place. Come to find out he fouled up and had booked our room at the Comfort Inn West which is located out by the airport. It is nowhere near the downtown convention center. Fortunately, the downtown Comfort Inn made accommodations for us every night except Thursday. It was a pain to have to pack, move and unpack multiple times during the convention. But I am grateful that the downtown hotel worked with us. I read that there are plans to tear down the hotel next year to expand the downtown stadium and convention center. So, this is thank you and goodbye.

Wednesday night was the Gen Con Forum Stink. It is a party for forum posters. They gave away a lot of free things, or swag in convention-goer speak. I got some Star Wars swag from Celebrations which is another convention put on by the folks who run Gen Con.

We ran dinner at the The Ram. I was severely disappointed with them this year. The food was poor. The waitress talked me into a BBQ meatloaf that came with a pineapple slaw. I was starving and ate it but it was horrible. The wait service was almost non-existent. Ever want to leap about of the booth and tackle the waitress so you can say, "I would like more iced tea please!"?

:: THURSDAY

The morning started with a game of Giant Settlers of Catan. It is a well-balanced game of players on an island. You manage resources to build entities that are worth points. The first player to ten points wins. During your turn you may trade your resources with other players. For example you may want to trade a wood resource for a brick resource. I wonder if anyone was passing by the room when I was shouting, "Wood for sheep! I’ve got wood for sheep!" Something wrong about that.

Next I played a game of the Exalted RPG. My nominee for the Gen Con fool was the bumpkin who tried to get into the game with generic tickets. There was a cute blonde that was also trying to get into the game. Ultimately the judge said there was room for one. This meant there was no room for the hawt player. So, the dude sat down. The judge asked for his generics. Come to find out he had none. Du-oh, fool! All was well with the universe when the flawless female then furnished the judge with her generic tickets and joined the game. By the way if you are the lovely woman, you are allowed to play with me anytime. I will even provide the generic tickets if you do not have them!

Thursday night was the AEG Party in Plaza. I can’t explain why this event was so lame. The DJ they hired, aka Shawnta Claus, rocks the Klingon Dance Hall every year at Archon. He usually does a good job of taking requests, too. Of course Archon does have a free beer all weekend. Maybe next time buy the DJ a beer! His partner told me to my amusement, “I just set up the speakers.” Ok then.

My buddy and I stayed for about a half-hour before we left for a scheduled game. We schmoozed with some AEG guys we know. I had a corn dog and played a game of Frisbee Clout. Then we left with no swag.

Finally we ended the night with a game of City of Heroes RPG. It was an entertaining game. I got bored with it pretty quickly though

:: FRIDAY

I started Friday morning with the Hickman’s Killer Breakfast. I met two forumites in line: Mike B and El-Fire & Damnation. El-Fire was dressed as what can be described as rainbow goth. She was a cute Rainbow Brite. The Killer Breakfast had no breakfast but was two hours of first level characters dying in insanely fantastic ways. The players also bribed the judges with candy and trinkets in order to live to the next round. It was a good time.

My buddy and I met later for our first True Dungeon experience. True Dungeon was a huge disappointment. After shelling out $41 I feel I have the right to give some constructive criticism. The music was annoying. It just didn’t change much. A loud cymbal crash would’ve been a great time warning.

I can’t state what a poor first impression we had. The guys working the registration desk were inept. Next why did the guy handing out character sheets hand us the sheets and then disappear?

Once inside the training area the young woman gave a fine presentation. But she talked about things I had no idea to what character class they applied. She pointed to parts of the room I could not see. We were promised time to prepare but were shooed from the training area after 1 minute. Our trainer promised the opportunity to come back. But nobody let us know when it was appropriate to come back and train. My smile quickly faded as I was a little frustrated at this point.

Instead of just killing us for choosing the wrong door, why didn’t they do any of these:

• take armor/weapon/random tokens from the group
• “respawn” the group in the room (now with double the monsters)
• maybe kill the last person to enter the door
• just allow us to reenter the room and try again but make the final room more challenging based on the number of failed attempts

I played Ship of Fools Thursday night. I played a character named Dale Patterson who was a neat freak and psycho killer. I “disappeared” one of the crew and set a tiny little fire. It helped make the “headaches” go away. Tom J, the judge, and I had a good laugh post-game about how messed up the character was.

After the Ship LARP Tom J and some of the other BYOV folks invited us to another LARP in which they were players. I played a nun named Sister Emanuella. So, I played roles I hadn’t tried before. I played a nutcase and a woman in the same night. Everybody else in the game had secret identities. But my character was really a nun. I tried blessing people. They kept asking, “Is something bad going to happen?” Ah, paranoia!

:: SATURDAY

Slept in a bit Saturday. Then we prowled the dealer hall looking for gamer merchandise. I picked up some dice from Chessex, bought a copy of Super Munchkin, purchased starter decks for Hecatomb and Axis & Allies Miniatures and several expansions for Carcassonne.

We played the Spycraft LARP. I played a KGB agent. There was a family that played the game. The mom was also a KGB agent character in the game. She suprised me by talking about tying up the priest character and interrogating him. I could not help but think I could never play this game with my mother. Ha!

Gen Con Dealer Hall

More of the Dealer Hall

World of Warcraft Statue

Axis & Allies Miniatures Promotion

Friday I received my badge and tickets for Gen Con Indy 2005. For the uninitiated Gen Con is the largest gaming convention in North America. It is five days of role playing and gaming. This is my summer vacation. I am counting the days until August 17th.

So far, here is my schedule.

Wed, 8/17
6:30 pm-10:00 pm 2nd Annual Forum Stink
10:00 pm-12:00 am Stink Dinner at the RAM (on waiting list)

Thu, 8/18
10:00 am-12:00 pm Giant Settlers of Catan
1:00 pm-5:00 pm Exalted RPG: Darkness to Light
8:00 pm-12:00 am City of Heroes RPG

Fri, 8/19
9:00 am-11:00 am Hickman’s Killer Breakfast 2005
1:49 pm-3:49 pm True Dungeon
5:00 pm-9:00 pm Ship of Fools LARP

Sat, 8/20
7:00 pm-1:00 am Spycraft LARP

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For a third year I went to Gen Con. Gen Con is a big gaming convention held in Indianapolis each year. This is the second year in Indy. Previously it was held in Milwaukee where it had outgrown the space there. Indy is closer and bigger, a win/win situation for gamers in the southern IL/St Louis area.

Click on an image for a larger version.

Gen Con 2004 in Indy

:: WEDNESDAY

My friends and I arrived Wednesday night. For future reference do not stay at the Comfort Inn & Suites on Capitol Ave. I do not want to dwell on this, but the free parking did not make up for the green pool, non-existent breakfast and poor customer service. Next year we will spend more and stay at another place.

While this year’s convention was the best I’ve attended, not everything was great. The following list is a gentle nod to other Gen Con gamers who had to filter through all the noise. Stuff that sucked: not spotting any mullets, fanboys who cut in front of me, fanboys who love FarScape, the Doom: the Board Game demo with no pieces?!, Gen Con’s new and undocumented generic ticket refund policy, having the D&D Epic Level party moved indoors with no signage or rep to redirect people to Union Station, gamer funk, no tickets for sold-out True Dungeon, having a headache Friday night, the art dealer who charged me $2 for a bookmark I thought was free, not seeing a 9th Level Games booth this year, the vendor who was selling DVDs that were lame copies of old videotapes, AEG’s lack of support for the Initial D Collectible Card Game (CCG), not finding my AEG role playing game in the location listed by the convention again this year and being accosted in the parking lot by a drunk, non-gamer football fan.

An artist works on a painting

:: THURSDAY

I had lunch at The Ram. This place is my favorite Indy restaurant. They had a gamer-oriented menu for Gen Con, kept a meeting room open for gaming and had a 24-hour showing of anime. The food is America pub fare. Everything is tasty. The service is great! If you visit Indy, it is worthwhile to check this place out.

Next I played a game of the Warlords of the Accordlands RPG. Everyone at the table grumbled that the reference books for the game still aren’t available. They have been promised for over year. The AEG rep that ran the game was non-committal on a delivery date. Overall, the game seems interesting. I was not impressed with either the Game Master or the scenario that he chose to run. So, I’m undecided if this game will be fun when it is finally released.

Thursday night was the Wizards of the Coast Epic Level Dungeons & Dragons Party. There were free T-Shirts, bags, posters and food. Ever watch gamers dance? The scene summons the words “controlled spasms” to my mind. Heh. Did I mention the freebies?

Murder and mystery on a train

Also, Thursday night I joined a Live Action Role Playing (LARP) game called “The Train of Lost Souls”. Two guys from a group named BYOV organized the LARP. Basically, they rented seven train cars and hosted a live action murder mystery on them. The story had several “threads” including a haunting by ghosts, time travel, a Kennedy meets phony-Moon-landing filmers conspiracy and guest appearances by Nostradamus and Heisenberg. There were also some very attractive women in costume that played the game. It was a fun game in an unique and beautiful atmosphere. I had a blast. Pray that they are allowed to host it there again next year.

:: FRIDAY

On Friday morning I played the Ninja Burger Card Game. It is a tongue-in-cheek game of fast food delivery combined with ninja skills. We had six people play the game. The closest neighboring player to me decided to mess with me early on. So, I spent the game giving him challenge after challenge. I lost but, wow, was that therapeutic! I have a copy of the game and, now that I know the rules, can’t wait to play it with friends.

AEG ran several card tournaments

Upper Deck heavily promoted its Vs card game

On Friday afternoon I played in an Initial D CCG Tournament with Jason, the buddy with whom I traveled to Gen Con. I had to leave early to get to another game. So, I ceded third place. Jason took home a first place trophy. Good job!

I rushed off to play the Gangs of Chicago LARP. During the course of the game I developed a huge headache. I spent the rest of the night relaxing in the hotel room. As a result I missed the White Wolf party. If it was anything like last year’s party, I probably didn’t miss much.

On Friday the New York Jets were in town to play the Colts in the RCA dome attached to the convention center. The news media reported that the Jets were upset because they couldn’t get a hotel room downtown. Gamer Geeks 1, Football Dorks 0.

:: SATURDAY

Saturday morning I had not signed up for any games. Jason and I roamed around the vendor area. I bought a game called Power Grid. It is a game where you manage power plants in competition to supply the most cities with electricity. One side of the game board has American cities, the other side German cities. I tried to get a demo of this game later on in the day. Rio Grande had sold completely out of the game including the demo copy!

While in the vendor area we walked by the area in which the celebrities were sitting. Every year Gen Con draws a number of actors and actresses from science fiction and fantasy movies. This year we saw Erin Gray, David Carradine, Gil Gerard, Marc Singer, Virginia Hey and Linda Blair. Sorry no pictures. They were charging for autographs and pictures.

Several video game companies had booths in the vendor area. There were several I had a chance to observe and play. First of all, Bioware’s Jade Empire is impressive. It shows the Bioware still can make an awesome game even after losing the D&D license. Stormfront Studios gave us a monster beat-em’up in their LOTR: The Two Towers game. Demon Stone married the Stormfront Studio technology with a D&D story written by R.A. Salvatore. Sadly, there is not much innovation there. Perhaps I’ll buy Demon Stone if I ever finish the LOTR games. Sid Meier’s Pirates is a modern remake of a 80s classic. My buddy waxed nostalgic and shared stories of playing the original game as a young man. He is looking forward to a November release of the remake.

We lunched at a place called the Slippery Noodle Inn. We enjoyed the sunlight in the atrium. My sandwich was good and reasonably priced. The group agreed that the place was on our must-visit-again list for next year.

After lunch I sit in a Q&A seminar with author R.A. Salvatore. Salvatore is best known for his dark elf ranger character named Drizzt. Even though I haven’t read any of his books, I wanted to hear anecdotes from the accomplished author of over thirty-six novels. He shared stories from his career like “I didn’t quit my day job until my second successful novel” and “my original idea for Drizzt was as a sidekick for another character”. When asked about the “Dungeon and Dragons” movie, he responded that he hadn’t seen the movie and won’t criticize other people’s creative efforts. He then shared a story of hate mail he’s received. He said, “I don’t write books for people who hate my work. I write books for the fans of my work.” I left of the seminar with respect for the author and plan to read at least one set of his trilogies before next year’s Gen Con.

Cardhalla means making houses out of cards

There was an event known as Cardhalla. People made a large series of houses out of cards. I suppose this is what gamers geeks do when they’re bored with their card games.

A dragon sculpture built on site

A woman poses on the dragon

During the course of the convention a team of artists sculpted a dragon. On the last day you could have your picture taken on it for a fee. I snapped a picture of an attractive woman posing for pictures.

On Saturday night, our last night, we ran into a group of gamers who had rented a ballroom in the hotel. They were gaming by candlelight. They had set up a dungeon with miniature figures. In combat they would turn off the lights and check the line of sight with the light of a tea candle. It added an element of realism to the game because it also showed that some monsters where hidden in the silhouette of other monsters.

The last game we played was Strange Synergy. It is an interesting game where you start with a team of three warriors and endue them with a combination of strange powers. The kicker is that you decide the combination making each game play out differently.