My GenCon Report

We arrived Wednesday afternoon, checked into our hotel, and promptly went out to buy my badge and pick up our swag bags. Then we went down to the RAM restaurant for dinner. There was a wait, so we bought a couple of cool items, and looked at the event book while we waited.

Dinner was very good, as I’ve come to expect. They have a themed menu this year (they rename some items), but they had two specialty brews this year: the Underdark Stout, and the Apocalypse Ale.

Afterwards, we went back to the convention center and tried to register, mostly unsuccessfully for some events. Most of them were full, though a couple we might show up and see if we can’t get in due to absent attendees.

Today’s Purchases: a 64 Fl. Oz. RAM growler featuring Drizzt and Guenhwyvar, celebrating their 20th anniversary; Matt got an Underdark Stout shirt featuring the same artwork.

GenCon Day One (Thursday):

Rose early to head to the convention center (henceforth referred to as ICC). We browsed the Exhibit Hall for a while, making some purchases and succeeding in making our bookbags heavy. We went upstairs to do Paint-and-Take miniatures, but the tables were full. We sat down for a while, before heading into the mall and had Subway for lunch. Then we were back in the ICC, trudging along, trying to figure out how to get where we needed to go (some confusion involved). We attended two writer’s seminars. “Urban Fantasy” was good, informative, and entertaining. “Ghosts and the Afterlife” ended up being a session of ghost stories, and I was incredibly disappointed. Finally, we headed back into the Exhibit Hall so I could meet Patrick Rothfuss and have him sign my book.

Patrick Rothfuss was everything I thought he’d be, based on my reading of his blog. It was a real joy to meet someone who has succeeded so well on his first novel (one that is incredibly well-done, I might add-go buy it, it’s called The Name of the Wind). I was very nervous to meet him, and I think he was a little nervous as well, so I covered myself by opening with a mention that the other authors were talking about it. He laughed, we had a good, short conversation. He signed my index card with a quote from Bast (one that I love), as well as my book. Pat, as he prefers to be called, is a down-to-earth kind of guy, and it was both a pleasure and an honor to meet him.

We made a couple of quick purchases, before heading out. We had dinner at a Texas Roadhouse (I know, there’s one in Columbus, but I’ve never actually eaten at one).

Interesting Co-Players: Lelu (The Fifth Element), Captain Jack Sparrow (wow, nice job), and Jesus (I think).

Today’s Purchases: A Necromancy t-shirt; The Authority RPG and resource book; Pathfinder RPG Beta;, some cards, sleeves, a deck box, and dice for my brother; The Power Gamer’s 3.5 Wizard Strategy Book. Matt picked up the Pathfinder Campaign Setting; a Green Lantern Hat; Etherscope RPG; A Magic the Gathering Battlemap; also, The Power Gamer’s 3.5 Wizard Strategy Guide.

GenCon Day Two (Friday):

We were up and at the ICC shortly after nine.  Chaos thus ensued, as we tried and failed to locate Union Station.  Finally, we asked at the information desk, who pointed us in the right direction.  Matt was able to get into an Exalted game using generic tickets, and we parted ways.  I went back to the Exhibit hall and wandered aimlessly for a while, killing time.  I didn’t kill nearly enough though, before I headed to the mall for some lunch (sushi! I love this mall….).  Then I easily found my way to the Omni Severin, where I was nearly an hour early for Iron DM.

I had generic tickets, but I traded them for another player’s extra ticket, so I was in regardless.  I played Iron DM two years ago, and had a blast.  It’s a competition for Dungeon Masters to see who is the best of the best, the Iron DM.  I, merely a player, was one who judged my DM.  The DMs are given three 3 ingredients that they must include in the scenerio, and they have one hour to create said scenario.  We, the players, are given 3 key words to create our characters, and have the same one hour to create our characters within.  Four hours (roughly) of play then follows, with a break in between for player olympics, and at the end of it all, we grade our DM on a scale of 1-5 on Creative Use of the Ingredients, Storytelling Skills, and Overall DM Panache.

My DM was “The Butcher” (complete with makeup and a machete).  Great guy, great DM, and followed the spirit of the game by not preparing anything ahead of time (as many of the DMs do).  Our three ingredients were Betrayal, Besieged, and Beholders (I can still hear the groans and curses of the players at that last one).  I was the only woman in a group of male players (but I doubt we could have even created a table of just female players, that’s how lacking the room was in estrogen).  I don’t remember the players’ names, but we had to create diametrically opposed siblings.  The player to my left was my opposing sibling, as were the two guys across from us.  The fifth was opposed to our long, lost sister.  We were, by the way, all related.  Mostly.  Our characters consisted of Grallock, a half-orc cleric of some evil deity; Runt, a large half-orc barbarian; Whiskey Pete, a human rogue; Mr. Giggles, a human warmage, and opposing sibling to my own Danael, a human fighter.

It was a huge amount of fun.  Mr. Giggles was hilarious.  We completed our scenario in the nick of time, succeeding in our mission-though barely. lol.  As players, we worked well together in combat, and it was a helluva lotta fun.  I gave my DM “4″ in each category.  The game lagged a bit at times, and he was a bit iffy on using “besieged” (it was there, but barely).  The Butcher didn’t place, but I walked away with a smile and a lot of satisfaction.  I wish him a lot of luck next year.

I met up with Matt after my game.  He had wandered around the exhibit hall as well, after being unable to get into a second Exalted game, and even tried to paint minis.  Like Thursday, the mini table was full, and apparently, this day, it had a two hour wait.  Pass.

We went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner, where we discussed the day, as well as the next day’s Pathfinder game.  My Iron DM, the Butcher, had given me some much needed information-such as showing up with precreated characters.  Good to know.  So after dinner, we spend some time reading up on the Pathfinder Setting and Organized play rules, and creating characters.  He made a Gnome bard, and I went with a human wizard.

Today’s Purchases: Matt picked up another copy of the Power Gamer’s Guide to Wizards.

GenCon Day Three (Saturday):

Up and at ‘em.  We didn’t need to be up real early, but up we were.  I decided to create a second character for the game, in case a cleric was needed.  As I wasn’t registered with the Society yet, I had until game time to decide which to play, and that one would be my official character.  Before that, though, we had to pack up and check out.  Our stay was pretty good.  No complaints, but nothing over the top, either.  For the rate we got, I’d say it was well worth it.

We headed in, stopping by the exhibit hall so I can pick up a JLA Versus card box and some deck sleeves.  Then, we were off to the Ram for our final visit.  I had the biggest pulled pork sandwhich I’ve ever seen, and Matt finally tried the Underdark Stout.  We lounged and worked on characters, until we needed to head over to the ICC for our Pathfinder game.  Once there, we grabbed some extra character sheets and quickly transferred our notes to official paper.

Pathfinder Society is Paizo’s version of RPGA (much better than RPGA though).  We were playing Scenario #4: “The Frozen Fingers of Midnight.”  We were seated with a DM named Chris.  As the coordinator was sending us off, he asked how many were playing clerics.  There were only a few, and he laughed and said “good luck!”  I then decided to play my cleric of Pharasma (goddess of death).  So we sat at a table with one other person, and finally 3 others joined us.  We got our paperwork out of the way and got to playing.

The real irony is exactly what our party ended up being.  All first level characters created using standard 3.5E rules, we had (Factions in parenthesis): a human paladin of Pharasma (Osirion); An elven sorceror (Osirion); a human rogue (Qadrian); a Dwarven cleric (Andoran); Matt’s Gnome Bard (Andoran), and my human cleric of Pharasma, Faizah (Osirion).  (A no-prize to anyone who knows what book her name comes from.  The faction is a hint.)

I think it funny that we had 2.5 healers in the party.  We had a helluva time.  The scenario was well-paced, interesting, and a lot of fun.  The rogue, “Mak’mud” or something like that, was hilarious.  He had this higher-pitched stereotypical Indian accent, and was constantly trying to sell us and the NPCs things.  Our DM, Chris, had done so much DMing that his voice was half gone, but as we all got into the game, that was quickly overlooked.  His DMing style was similar to Matt’s, and I think he had a lot of fun with our group as well.  Matt and I left with a very high opinion of Pathfinder and the Pathfinder Society, and it was a great way to end our GenCon experience.

With that, we left Indianapolis, and headed home.  I was super-charged by the Pathfinder game, and I reallyreallyreally want to run my own Society games.  Something to work on.

Interesting Cos-Players: a LOT of Starwars people today.  There were even a couple R2 units (though I think-hope-those were robots, not people).

Today’s Purchases: JLA VS. card box and 2 packs of deck sleeves.