Wednesday, August 11, 2010

GenCon 2010: The last two days

You might be wondering what happened to my blog posts about GenCon. Turns out, I got busy on Saturday and didn't have a chance to post anything more from the con.

Saturday morning I spent some time in the booth, then it was off to run a game of Godlike. The game was "Sinking the Lutzow", and it was my first time running it. It worked pretty well. Ironically, I thought it was going to be the stronger of the two Godlike games, as it had way more potential for roleplaying, what with lots of French contacts, Berber encounters, and Nazis. In actual play, the players were more interested in getting to the the shooting bits. It was fun, but not quite as intense as I had expected.

Afterward, I ate supper at Steak 'N Shake and then it was back to running a game. This time it was the second running of "Repo Men" for Wild Talents. I had two players show up with tickets and two with generics, even though the game was sold out. Ah, Saturday night, you temptress. One of the guys with generics wandered off to get something to eat, and was never seen again. (Dude, you could have just told us you got distracted, so we wouldn't wait for you!)

I recognized two of the players. They were a father and son. I ran a game of This Favored Land for them in 2008. It was the first time that the father had ever played a roleplaying game. They bought my book and now they were in my Repo-Men game. The game started a little slowly, but once it picked up it really picked up. There was plenty of mayhem and insanity. The three players figured out the central mystery, but it took until near the end. There was much cheering and everyone enjoyed themselves, which was the best praise a GM can receive.

I made my way back to the hotel, talking to Alana. While there, I got a call. The rest of the Arc Dream Team was at the Embassy Suites about to play Fiasco. I'll write more about Fiasco later (it's a story telling game). It was about 4 hours of intense insanity and enjoyment. We got to sleep around 3 am.

Next morning, I spent more time at the booth, and picked up a die for Alana to replace the d8 she bought last year mistakenly (it got mixed in with the d10s she bought). Then, off to my final game. This was "Sinking the Lutzow". The group was a bit smaller, 4 players instead of the previous 6. But it played very well, with two players having played Godlike before and two as newcomers. They sunk the ship, stopped the Nazis, and escaped Casablanca following a short E-boat chase. Good times.

Back in the dealer's room, I tried to buy Fiasco, only to find it had sold out largely due to a positive tweet by Wil Wheaton. Then, the show as over. We started packing up the booth, and then Kevin and I were shooed out as we only had GM, not exhibitor, badges.

I crashed briefly at the hotel, then we went off to dinner. The Alcatraz (San Fran themed restaurant) was hideously slow. The food wasn't bad and the company was wonderful.

Several of us helped finish packing the rental truck with pallets of product. We retired to our room for an hour or so of yapping, then it was off to bed.

Monday morning we were up early (5:30 Eastern) for the trip home. I dropped Ben Baugh (of Monsters and Other Childish Things and Kerberos Club fame) off at the airport and then I drove back home, listening to the rest of Use of Weapons on audiobook and singing to The Tragically Hip.

All told, a very good, fun convention. But I'm glad I'm home, so that I can get some sleep!

Here's the stuff I got at the con, which is a bit less than previous years as we were on a budget:

  • Setters of America: Trails to Rails board game.
  • a box of 15mm Black Devils Brigade figures
  • Death Angel, a Space Hulk card game
  • Psi Duel. This is a two player card game by a small company who was stuck in the worst part of the dealer's room. It was inexpensive and it's apparently a good little game.
  • Progenitor for Wild Talents
  • eCollapse for Wild Talents
  • Kerberos Club for Savage Worlds
  • a Monsters and Other Childish Things t-shirt
  • Delta Green: Targets of Opportunity (I had pre-ordered this)
  • Bigger Bads for Monsters and Other Childish Things (I had also pre-ordered this)

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Allan, enjoyed playing your godlike session on Sunday morning; if you publish any material in the future for it, as you intimated you were likely to do, my email is "graham@wills*.org", replacing the "*" with "family".

Thanks!