GenCon Indy 2006 report

Filed under Events on August 15, 2006
Tagged: Dungeon Crawl Classics, Ed Greenwood, GenCon, Goodman Games, R.A. Salvatore, True Dungeon

Wow!

I’ve been to local comic book conventions before, but the 2-and-a-half-days spent at GenCon Indy surpassed any of those experiences. Check the links at the bottom for video clips.

Thursday, Aug 10

I arrived a half-hour later than expected, checked in, left my bags in the room and headed to the convention center. After wandering around for a little, I entered the exhibitors’ hall. I made my way to the WotC area, and ducked in to the “authors’ lounge” where I met James Davis, Ed Greenwood, Tim Wagonner and James Lowder. My next stop was the Goodman Games booth to purchase DCCs #31 & 35. Finally, I located Authors’ Avenue before grabbing a bite to eat. I stopped back at the hotel room to see if my roomies had returned, but no such luck.

The start time for my first event–Giant Settlers of Catan–neared, so I located the room at the convention center and took a seat. I ended up winning, and took some video of the final board. I played against three others, though two of my opponents were young brothers who spent most of the game antagonizing each other rather than making strategic moves.

I retired to the hotel for a quick nap. Harely and Alex (and Jacob and Will) finally showed up around ten and we went out for a bite to eat before calling it a night.

Friday, Aug 11

Harley and I got up about 8am and had a continental breakfast at the hotel, where I saw my first chainmail bikini (just the top, the bottom half of the costume was a leather mini-skirt). I introduced myself to the lady wearing it–she was also covered in orange body paint with black stripes–and learned she was a “booth babe.”

The first of the “Young Dragon” signings started at 10am. The exhibitors’ hall didn’t open until then, and I didn’t have an exhibitors’ pass, so Harley graciously waited with me until they opened the room to the public. Fortunately, there weren’t swarms of people waiting in line for our autographs, so we had plenty of time to get situated and chat with our fellow authors. We did get a bit of a rush during the last half-hour (after Greenwood was done over at WotC).

Erik and I had to hurry over to the Westin for our run through the True Dungeon. We had not met half our team prior to showing up two minutes before our start time. After spending a hurried session of distributing tokens and practicing our skills (I was the group’s rogue), we headed into the tavern cellar for some rodent extermination. Little did we know it was a trap and we were to be sacrifices to Lloth. After we succeeded in retrieving our equipment, I located a secret door that led us further into the dungeon.

There were a total of six rooms, each with a puzzle or monster to defeat. Our group survived intact, though we went through on normal difficulty. Some of the DMs were in costume, which really added to the immersion. I found the trapped/locked chests weren’t very sensitive, as there were several times I bumped the edge of the maze with the tool but nothing happened.

Erik and I got lunch afterward. I was scheduled to attend Hickman’s How You Play the Game seminar, but I was tired and hungry. We explored the exhibit hall floor until it was time for my second signing of the weekend, along with fellow Priests author Richard Lee Byers and Rogues author Ed Bolme. Traffic was negligible–Richard gave a couple autographs and Ed signed one book–and I spent most of the time chatting with them about the industry.

I attended a seminar immediately after the signing. The presenter was entertaining, but there was much more fluff than crunch. I had signed up for a second seminar by the same person on the following evening, but decided to pass based on my experience. I then went to the Ennies to cheer on Harley. After his category, Erik and I grabbed some food before meeting Harley and the gang to commiserate.

Saturday, Aug 11

The day started early with Hickman’s Killer Breakfast. Like a noob, I believed they actually served breakfast. For those unfamiliar with this event, the general idea is that the Hickmans play DM and create a scenario. At certain points in the story, the DM stops and asks the 8 “players” at the table one of two questions: “how did you get here?” or “what do you do?”. If the DM likes your answer, you live. Otherwise, you die, often in spectacular and humorous fashion. The story this year was the Lord of the Piston Rings, a southern, NASCAR take on the Tolkien classic.

Unlike many there, I came unprepared and winged it. I was one of the last folks up to the table. I thought my answer to the first question was decent, but choked on the second. However, we were at the climax were everyone dies, so I didn’t really put much effort into it anyway.

One participant stole the show early on. Caught in a titanic battle between Godzilla and King Kong (don’t ask how that happened), a young man was asked what he did. He answered, “I cast mirror image” and proceeded to pull out a lifesize, cardboard cutout of himself dressed exactly like he was. For the next few minutes, he rotated through a series of word balloons on which he had written hilarious retorts. Tracy Hickman laughed until he cried, and they kept the cutout.

I got something to eat after the breakfast and walked through the exhibit hall for a while before my last signing with the Young Dragons (minus Harley). As with previous sessions, the turnout was dismal. There seemed to be an invisible barrier just before the author table that attendees would bounce off of as they neared the end of the “avenue”. Several of us plan to send some feedback to the GenCon coordinator on ideas for improving the flow and arrangement for next year.

Erik and I walked over to WotC lounge where he was scheduled for a signing. He kindly introduced me to R. A. Salvatore, who was just finishing up his session. (I am still amazed that when I greeted these veterans, they recognized my name.) I left Erik for a bit to go purchase souveniers for the family.

After Erik was done, we played some Magic: The Gathering. Then we hunted down an open table at the Hyatt for the long-awaited Young Dragons gaming session. For six hours, four heroes battled hobgoblin raiders and a hydra in an effort to defend Elsir Vale from the Red Hand of Doom.

It was 11:30pm and I had to get up early (4:30am) to catch my flight, so I called it a night, packed my things and went to bed. The flight home Sunday was uneventful and I spent Monday recuperating. I had a great time and, Lord willing, I’ll come back next year.

• GenCon 2006 (56k | 384k)

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