first GenCon post

[Jason L Blair]

I've been to five GenCons (95, 96, 97, 01, 02) and this was, by far, the best GenCon in every possible aspect. Anyway, this is Actual Play so let's get it on.

Sorcerer
Bound by Herr Edwards; my other captives were Jake Norwood and Peter Adkison.
This was my first time playing Sorcerer. Ron ran a three hour sanzoku game. I played an IRA grey man on the lam in the states, Jake played a Polish mafioso, and Peter played an Irish gypsy. The game centered around a woman named Siobhan. I'm not going to be the one to spoil the scenario (in case Ron wants to put this up for other GMs to use) but let me say this, the "truth" behind Siobhan... oh man... OH MAN. Well done, Ron. Just the idea of it rocks my pants.

Dust Devils
Dealt by Matt Snyder; shot out by Jake Norwood, Ralph Mazza, Todd Luikart, and Seth Ben-Ezra.
This was an expanded version of the demo Matt was running at the booth (Ralph played the sheriff NPC). This was big, big fun. I played Gentleman Jim. Truth is, I liked Dust Devils already. I downloaded the PDF way back when and couldn't resist picking up the "Parchment Edition" from the booth. But after having actually played it... shit. This game is so fucking cool. Flipping through some of the (many many many) games I picked up at GenCon got my gears turning on just how important games akin to Dust Devils are.

octaNe
Directed by Too Sexy Luikart; the other actors were Mike Mearls, Jared Sorensen, Juergen Mayer, and Matt Snyder.
As everyone's already said above, this game was so fucking cool I still can't feel my tail. It also inspired me to whip up a scenario about Satan's Cheerleaders that I absolutely MUST inflict upon my peeps very, very soon. Bosco, Wasabi, Mr. Spider, Mojo, and Poo-poo will go down as one of the best characters every put together in one of the best games I've ever played in.

Here's what floors me and, I hope, the other Forgers here appreciate this as much as I do: Getting to play with fellow designers, publishers, and industry folk. This was a great honor for me. Not because they're 1337er or cooler or better looking or taste more like honey, but because the ones I got to play with love games. My interest in games has admittedly been waning as of late (like... since last GenCon) and this GenCon is just another testimony that playing games is essential if you have any interest in doing good games. But the enthusiasm displayed by the newest entries into the industry to those who make these gatherings possible is humbling and inspiring.

Big, big, big thanks to Ron Edwards, Dav Harnish, and Seth Ben-Ezra for picking up the demos I either couldn't run or didn't even know were happening until I saw the book in the table. I still owe Ron two sessions of Sorcerer and will pay in full next GenCon.

EDIT: Here are links to some pics I took. I have about 20 more but I'll get to them later. Please forgive me if I get anyone's name wrong (well, forgive _and correct_ me). Thank you.
http://www.key20.com/GenCon2002/gc001.jpg
http://www.key20.com/GenCon2002/gc002.jpg
http://www.key20.com/GenCon2002/gc003.jpg
http://www.key20.com/GenCon2002/gc004.jpg
http://www.key20.com/GenCon2002/gc005.jpg
http://www.key20.com/GenCon2002/gc006.jpg

[Christopher Kubasik]

Thanks so much for the photos, man.

I missed a great time, but it was great being able to attach names and faces.

Take care,

Christopher

[sdemory]

This is the last year I miss GenCon. That's all there is to it. And since it's being moved to Indianapolis, that'll make it that much more convenient for me.
   I need more stories. Anyone play any non-indie stuff? Any true tales of bumping into Famous Designers? Did anyone get pictures of the mythic Starchildren booth babes? Dish, people! Dish for those of us who couldn't attend!

[FruitSmack!]

I only got to play ONE game the whole con, but it was worth it!

I was just happy to play a demo of Charnel Gods.  That F@$#ing rocked, even if it was only a demo and Ive played Sorcerer many times!  (that and Scott ran it, which kicked ass, oh oh, and I got to menace Lysidious (sp?) off the bell tower to the hard, rainy ground below, yay!.)

Ill say that this year is the last time I work at Gen-Con.  I got to hear all the stuff that went on from trav (he's my downstairs neigbor) and I realized that my Gen-Con was waisted.  I had no fun, except for the hour I hung out with trav at the Forge booth and played Charnel Gods.

That, and I got to meet Jared.  My inner fan-boy has been satisfied now that I got to shake hands with the guy that wrote octaNe.

FruitSmack

[Jake Norwood]

Greg Stolze came to the booth to ask for a copy of Riddle, which he traded me for, and I spend lots of time with the guy that wrote FVLMINATA (which I just bought and am wayyy excited about). Oh, and there was that Peter Adkinson thing.

Yeah, I fanboyed out BIG TIME.

Jake
who isn't ashamed

[Jason L Blair]

Hey, I have 18 pics from the Forge booth up. Here's a link:

http://www.key20.com/GenCon2002/

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Scott,

I can't believe you ran Charnel Gods for those little teenage chickies. You're going to warp their little minds.

(Man, if only the Forge had existed when I was 16...)

[hardcoremoose]

Clinton,

No one was more surprised about that run of Charnel Gods than I was,  but they totally got it.  Sadly, they didn't buy anything - the ringleader's brother already owned Sorcerer.  Sigh.

Fruitsmack!  Now I have a name and face to put to the username.  Cool.  Glad you liked the game...Ladisalus proved all weekend long to be the perfect vehicle for various players' sadistic needs.  

Hopefully I'll be writing up that demo, along with playtest notes from the con, for inclusion in RPGevolution.  Anyone who played and makes their way here to The Forge should e-mail me with their favorite anecdotes...

- Scott

[Rich Forest]

This was my first Gen Con in years, and I can safely say that I have to Forge folks to thank for much of my enjoyment of it.  

Here's what I played--

Riddle of Steel:  Jake ran this, and all the players were customers (we had a full suite of 4 players).  I was playing the young soldier in love (if you got to play this demo, you'll know who).  Everybody got into it, and I'd be surprised if Jake didn't sell a copy to every player (I know I bought one, a friend of mine (Ben Terry) did, and at least one of the other players from the demo did).  My character's jealous attack on the town's current ruler along the rooftop of his palace couldn't have been more dramatic, and it ended with a wonderful bit of violence.  And the consequences were high for my character and his love.  At the beginning I gave him the destiny of losing everything that he had spent his whole life working for, and he did.  Poor guy.  He never had a chance.  Great fun.  

Dust Devils: Matt ran this; Josh Neff, Mario, and I were the players.  I played mean, drunk ole' Zeke.  The game ended badly for the characters—and just right for the players.  By the end of the game the sheriff was dead, Zeke had shot the gambler and left his own gun on the floor of the saloon, and Gentleman Jim was bleeding to death in the bank.  All our devils caught up with us.  I wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

octaNe: Jared already covered this—it was the game with me and Jurgen, and Atlantis, and good little Pepe, and the great El Mar.  I'll just add my vote for "way cool" game, and add that Jared's just being modest when he claims that he's not a good GM.  It was rip-roaring fun, and Jared made sure that our characters had plenty to do.  With Plenty of monsters for the monster smasher, and plenty of Atlantean weirdness for the ingenious tinkerer with an Atlantis obsession, there was plenty of fun for all.  

Lord of the Rings:  Frankly, I think Decipher were shooting themselves in the foot with this demo.  It didn't make sense.  The book is full of verbiage about how to play epic fantasy.  It's good verbiage (though it isn't really backed up by the rest of the system).  But the demo--a dungeon crawl.  And the players were powerless.  I could go on and on...  

But yes, yes... I bought the game anyway.  They couldn't stop me from buying the game.  How's that for slavish devotion to a license?

Trollbabe: I was in this with Danielle and Jared.  Ron ran it.  It took me a minute to adjust to what it meant to play a trollbabe, but once we started interacting with NPCs, it really came to life.  Jared and I ended up making our characters sisters, and it played a large part in defining how our characters interacted.  It was also fun to watch Danielle's story develop.    

I love the way relationships work in the game.  In fact, as I started to figure them out, I wanted more and more to establish them and use them.  I can see a lot of fun with this over more than one play session as the cast of meaningful NPCs grows.  

In fact, the worst thing about playing it as a demo is that some of the coolest stuff can only be hinted at in a demo.  The relationships were great, but I can see them being even cooler over time.  And I love the escalation of scale over time (I'm not sure what it's called in the game rules).  We didn't get the chance to use it, of course, because it's an aspect of longer term play.  It's a great idea, and has great implementation, though.  

I also like the clarity of the narration mechanics—it's a game that is very, very clear about who says what and when.  And the stuff about who gets to veto what and when is also very clear.  

Synthesis:  Mike ran this, Josh Neff and I were the players.  Fun.  We used a very loose version of Spelljammer and Krynn as a setting, and the premise was a riff on the Prime Directive.  That description doesn't do the session justice, though.

There was a lot of character development.  The game is nicely focused on it.  There really weren't many hitches once we got going.  I do think, looking back on it, that I might have defined my character differently in game terms if I'd understood the game more at the beginning.  But it was fun, and I think the session deserves a longer post.  I'll try to get one ready, or I'll join in if Josh or Mike start one.

Wish list: I'm most disappointed that I didn't get a chance to try out octaNe with no GM.  Jared and I were talking about it, but it never actually happened.  Also, I would have liked to have gotten into any one of the Sorcerer demos.  I've never actually played it.  

And having heard the report of My Life with Master, I just have to say that I wish I'd been there.  In fact, I wish I had a copy of this game in my hands right now.

Great con.  I'm glad I went.

Rich Forest

[Mytholder]

Ken Hite thinks the Forge rocks.

"Not only a way to segue from the "popular" to the "truly neat-o", but also a tip of the hat to the way that Milwaukee's weather, which usually during GenCon more closely resembles that of the aforementioned Bataan peninsula, was actually fairly temperate and pleasant. Much appreciated, and I'm sure it's all down to Peter Adkison knowing people in high places -- he certainly knows the people on the Diana Jones Award  committee, since he was on hand at the inaugural Diana Jones Award party on Wednesday night, where I consumed the aforementioned free beer and watched Ron Edwards accept a well-deserved Diana Jones Award from him. Ron wasn't quite speechless -- it will take a larger, heavier award to do that, and it will probably have to be placed all sudden-like atop his head -- but he did seem very gratified. Equally gratified was Tracy Hickman, who received his equally well-deserved Origins Hall of Fame Award at the same party -- for my money, giving two awards to the creators of Sorcerer and Ravenloft in the same night was a testament to everything good and fine in the adventure gaming industry. Especially with free beer.

Ron came roaring back in fine form for the rest of the show, frenetically demoing any one of 22 games, although not in response to either shouted challenges or a random die roll, which just goes to show what my influence is worth. Some of the games he demoed, sold, and masterminded at the Forge booth staked a very plausible claim to be the Best New Thing At The Show, "new" being defined as "thing I hadn't heard of yet." Matt Snyder's Dust Devils is currently in the lead, but I haven't read everything I got from them yet."[/url]

[Michael S. Miller]

Okay, so everyone else stopped gooning over GenCon on Wednesday, but I only get here on the weekends, so sue me.

I played in one of Ron's "In Utero" demos. It was incredible! I'm sure I'll be able to run Sorcerer much better now. Thanks, Ron.

I played in one of Jake's Riddle of Steel demos, wherein I convinced Mike Holmes to betray his master (whom I had just slain) and join me! Awesome game, and I pitched it to all my friends. At least one of them even bought it.

I played in Jared's InSpectres demo, wherein I think I left him nonplussed by using a Confessional to make a re-animated giant ground sloth carnivorous ("It makes no sense!" quoth Jared.). I tried to make up for it by saying it was all a hoax perpetuated by an infamous rival scientist. Still, I had a ball.

I ran my favorite FVLMINATA event: "To Rule or Be Forgotten" and the first time I had to turn away three people, and the 2nd time I got only one player. Go figure.

I ran my THEATRIX adventure "The Ball" twice. It went very well. As usual, almost none of the players had even heard of Theatrix before, but most of them caught on quite quickly. A few just couldn't help but play it like a dungeon crawl. Oh well.

And I played in a pick-up Nobilis game that helped me to view the game in a completely different light. It was great! (All that and I picked up darn-near everything at the Forge booth, blowing my budget before the Exhibit Hall had been open an hour!)

I'd just like to thank Ron and Jason for putting together such an awesome booth (I'll definitely spend more time there next year). Congrats to Ron again on the DJ award. Thanks to Paul for the legendary achievement of recognizing me without a nametag! Thanks to all the folks at the booth that made me feel welcome (Camille is a selling machine--by the end of the con, I was considering picking up another copy of Sorcerer just because she had pitched it to me so often).

Now that FVLMINATA's been out for a year, and the second edition is on the shelves, I've got to stop resting on my laurel. Something new is in the works already (as of yesterday). It'll be available for playtest in a few months, I think.

[Jake Norwood]

Now that FVLMINATA's been out for a year, and the second edition is on the shelves, I've got to stop resting on my laurel. Something new is in the works already (as of yesterday). It'll be available for playtest in a few months, I think.

Hey-

I picked up FVLMINATA at the con, not realizing that you had anything to do with it, and have since fan-boyed out over it. I *really* like it (I haven't been this stoked to play a game since...I dunno, a while...). Wish I'd had a chance to run that with you.

Anyway, thanks for coming to our booth and buying our games and bringing other people to our booth.

I would love to sneak in on some FVLMINATA playtesting, too, by the way...

Jake

[Jürgen Mayer]

My GenCon pics will also go up on Jason site at
http://www.key20.com/GenCon2002/

Some of'em are already there, others will follow in the next days.
GenCon was great and all the games were fun - including my funniest run of InSpectres ever. You just can't beat Ron Edwards as an ancient sumerian sorcerer npc trying to stop the Peter Adkinson npc from transferring GenCon to Indianapolis. And d20-eating gamer zombies. I'll post more about that as soon as I find the t ime or Josh starts a thread about that game (hint, hint).