[GenCon] Random Moments of Awesome

[Robert Bohl]

Indeed, Joshua, most of my fun at the con involved you, too.  From my favorite game of the con (Shock) to boneless wings and trash-talking people, to that horribly upsetting wonderful game of Cold City, to working on my game (no status minigame anymore, by the way).  I hope you can get down to Dreamation so we can continue the legacy.

[iago]

Indeed, Joshua, most of my fun at the con involved you, too.  From my favorite game of the con (Shock) to boneless wings and trash-talking people, to that horribly upsetting wonderful game of Cold City, to working on my game (no status minigame anymore, by the way).  I hope you can get down to Dreamation so we can continue the legacy.

Heh, that touches on a certain subset of my awesome moments, wherein I realized people were actually asking me for design advice.  Startling! Flattering! Fun!

[John Harper]

I don't have moments, I have People of Awesome.

* Recharging the Clinton battery. Man, I miss that guy so bad. And his impromptu demo of the new Princes' Kingdom system thing on Sunday just floored me. Clinton is making the world a better place.

* Vincent, after hearing only part of our Galactic playtest, says two sentences and we are all enlightened. You know in Mononoke when the Elk-creature walks and flowers bloom wherever it steps? Yeah, that's Vincent.

* Emily Care Boss. She made me feel like I wasn't a newbie visiting a strange land, but a loved family member returning home. Also, Shooting the Moon is my pick of the con. It is friggin' brilliant.

* Meg Baker. Is it okay for me to adopt an awesome mother-figure slash kickass game designer? Because I did.

* Alexander. ALEXANDER! You are the coolest person on Earth, and I say that without a trace of hyperbole. I'm so glad we got to game together, even if it was brief. Your plea to your god in the Agon game was lovely.

* Jonathan Walton gushing about my game. I practically wrote it as a love letter to one of his old designs, so this was basically all I needed for a happy GenCon. I still feel like a rockstar. Plus! Jonathan is a great guy! I hope he lands in my neighborhood for grad school.

* Matt Wilson and his quiet awesomeness. Another guy I miss very very badly. Our game of Galactic (with Emily and Snyder) was definitely a high point of the con for me.

* Meeting all the Forgies and confirming that yes, you are all wonderful, amazing, inspiring people. I'm looking at you Morningstar, Remi, Chris, Judd, Jeff, Mike, Gregor, Luke, Snyder, Brennan, Ron, Alexander, Shreyas, Selene, Malcolm, Tim, Dro, Thor, Keith, James, Dave, John, Jared, Jye, Jake, Reagan, Ralph, Fred, Rob, Thomas, Jason, Joe, Joshua, Carrie... and all the rest I might be forgetting. I feel so honored to be among you.

[joepub]

Playing The Prince's Kingdom with Clinton, Meg, Ben and Emily.

Hearing people get stoked over each other's games. Hearing Clinton get mad excited over Hero Banner, for example.
You could hear his voice from a full booth over: "You make this hard choice, then you DIE!"

Someone told me that Perfect was "the first game I have ever bought because I liked the setting and content."

Having Polaris pitched to me.
Playing was fun too... but for some reason just having the game pitched had a real impact.
No idea why.

[Jye Nicolson]

* Meeting all the Forgies and confirming that yes, you are all wonderful, amazing, inspiring people. I'm looking at you Morningstar, Remi, Chris, Judd, ... Jye, ....

Well, I've never been accused of being a Forgie before, but after GenCon, I'm taking it as a big compliment ;)

I didn't go close to meeting everyone (singularly failed to thank the Durham Three for their rocking podcast, and I think I was within a couple of metres of Shreyas without actually realising it was him), but everyone I did meet was awesome.  I think I played a demo with just about everyone I did meet, and I had a hell of a lot of fun.

Random moments:

Beautiful and tragic game of Shooting the Moon set in Stalingrad with Emily and my friend Scott.  Best game of the con for me.

Awesome Primetime Adventures series we piloted on the last day at Games on Demand.  I forgot to catch the names of the guys I was playing with, which was criminal because it was such a great game and they were very cool.

Agon demo, getting to play the Gorgon!  I got my butt kicked, but I gave the heroes a good scare.

Dictionary of Mu demo with Judd, Emily and Scott.  I would have killed to make that a full game - we had to stop just as the Witch King and Messiah were about to go head to head.  I like Mu a *lot*

Throwing my 10% baked game idea to the wolves (that is, Jared and Luke) at the game design seminar.  I actually like to think I'm pretty good at analysing games (particularly other people's ^_^), but I learned a LOT in the five minutes of watching them rip into it.  Great stuff.

I'll be back at GenCon, and the Forge booth is the #1 reason.  You guys rock.

[Joe J Prince]

The whole con for me was a giant rolling ball of awesomeness.

Well once I got my badge sorted anyway...

[Malcolm Craig]

• Playing Cold City with Rob, Malcolm, Tim WK, and Paula & Steve Dempsey. That was some gnarly shit and I'm very happy to have experienced it with you guys.

That Cold City game was indeed a huge moment of awesome for me and I'd like to sincerely thank Joshua, Tim, Rob, Steve and Paula for playing. It wasn't quite what I expected when I sat down to run the game, but ended up being an awesomely rewarding roleplaying experience. It touched on some hugely sensitive issues that I felt the players handled brilliantly. I'm actually still trying to process it in my head in order to write an AP thread that will do it justice.

And even more, I'd like to thank Joshua again for his words after the game.

Cheers
Malcolm

[btrc]

I dunno. When someone who may want to remain nameless pointed out that we were ending demos too soon with a full resolution, but said it as "you're jerking people to a climax too fast", that certainly made my day.

Greg Porter
BTRC

[btrc]

Another thing I had to chip in at this late date is I absolutely loved the energy and diversity at the booth. I'm mostly tied to a single rpg system (EABA) and can't really experiment too much with dedicated system-gameworld synergy like many of the games I saw and/or own (MLwM, Dogs, Polaris, Perfect, Mountain Witch, Best Friends, etc.,etc and some more etc.), but there's a lot of great inspiration to be had from just being there, and I'm currently using it on an idea that's been gnawing at my brain ever since about 11pm on Sunday on the way home.

And using that to reference a different thread, the post-Bambi car repair cost was minimal (replacing a few sheared exhaust bolts). However, the shop would not touch the bottom of the car until it had been professionally steam cleaned, which was a few hundred bucks. In addition, they took off all the wheels to steam Bambi bits out of the brake rotors. Or as Ron said, "eeewwww".

Greg Porter
BTRC

[Nev the Deranged]

I dunno. When someone who may want to remain nameless pointed out that we were ending demos too soon with a full resolution, but said it as "you're jerking people to a climax too fast", that certainly made my day.

Almost as good as wondering why there were so few Forgizens in the Embassy lobby one night and getting the reply, "Oh, Judd's sucked everyone off doing interviews in one of the rooms somewhere".

D.

[Michael S. Miller]

Watching a 7th Sea fan, in full costume come up to meet John Wick. Listening to John explain every detail of the guy's costume. Then watch the fan scurry off, and come back with three of his friends, all in full 7th Sea costume.

I can see why John misses big games.

[Robert Bohl]

I dunno. When someone who may want to remain nameless pointed out that we were ending demos too soon with a full resolution, but said it as "you're jerking people to a climax too fast", that certainly made my day.

Better/worse:  "Judd's sucked everyone off FOR his interviews."

That was my bad.  The 30 minutes of riffing on it thereafter was only partly my bad.
Almost as good as wondering why there were so few Forgizens in the Embassy lobby one night and getting the reply, "Oh, Judd's sucked everyone off doing interviews in one of the rooms somewhere".

D.

[Matt Machell]

About half way through one of my Covenant demos, Tony jumps up and says "That's it! I am soooo stealing that! That's the mechanic I was looking for! I'll buy your game just for that!"

That was really awesome.

That and finally meeting all you folks.

-Matt