Into the Con

And getting that "naa naa na na-na" song stuck in your head.

This Week’s post takes a fuzzy look at my recent trip to the US.

This post is fuelled by jetlag and hazy memory, but I wanted to quickly talk about my experiences at GenCon.

I have no way of funnelling this into a coherent narrative, so it's just a list of things.

JFK is a terrible airport to transfer through. I have a new respect for the unremarkableness of Atlanta.

The opening of the trade hall felt like the end of civilisation. So many people in such density that I was concerned we might create a black hole. Luckily, I managed to pick up a couple of things I feared would sell out and then go hide for a while.

Later I would discover neither of these things sold out as instantly as I'd feared, and I could have grabbed them in a more relaxed manner if I'd kept my cool. There's a lesson here I guess.

Despite the arduous journey and crushing crowds, there's no denying that if you want to meet as many amazing RPG people as possible then GenCon is the place to be. Even just aimlessly wandering the Trade Hall I got to chat with Tony Vasinda, Spencer Campbell, Jay Dragon, Trevor Devall, others I'll have to apologise for forgetting right now.

The following day I met with Yochai, Brad, and Sam to stand in queues for longer than we would like, doing our best to transform it into some enlightening fable. I think we mostly succeeded. Later I selflessly offered up my hotel room as a space to record a podcast, allowing myself a ringside (more accurately: bedside) view of the performance.

Then came the Ennies. Favouritism runs rampant as I shamelessly throw my support behind people I like, who just happen to also create fantastic RPGs:
Kyle Latino won for Monstrous, perhaps the biggest cheer of the night.
Shadowdark and Eat the Reich obviously won everything they were up for.
Reynaldo and Greywiz were in attendance, bizarrely meeting in flesh for the first time, as Break!! won a much deserved gold. If you'd told me when Break!! started development, a mere fifty years ago, that I'd be sat at the Ennies when it won I wouldn't have believed you.

(I mean... technically I wasn't there, as I left in the interval, but you get my point)

Among my Ennies-buddies were JP Coovert and the mythical being behind Prismatic Wastelands who I'm fearful to out as human, rather than some sort of blog elemental. Actually, his name is Warren, and we shared some good snarky gossiping while the winners were offering heartfelt speeches.

We moved on to one of the hotel bars, where Luke of the Pirate Borg crew was celebrating his birthday. I'm told that Ed Greenwood was there, but he must have astrally transited before I arrived. The Pirate Borg guys are all jacked, semi-uniformed in black, but super friendly and passionate about RPGs. I'd describe their vibe as ethical mercenaries. They look like they could mess you up but they really just protect penguin sanctuaries or something.

Last year I signed up for a few different games, and while they were fun they paled a touch in comparison to the pickup games I stumbled into. This year I didn't sign up for anything, but I got to play even more.

Wednesday is the trade day, which means the convention centre is mostly empty. I got to enjoy a pick up game of Shadowdark (kinda) with my adoptive GenCon parents from last year, Kelsey and Baron. We explored an ice cave, burned the yeti, but died trying to escape from the flaming mayhem we'd created.

This was the last time I was able to enjoy sitting in a mostly empty space in the convention centre, so it's a real highlight in my mind.

We snuck into the quasi-abandoned mall that connects to the convention centre for the evening game, finding an eerily empty seating area. I got to play X-Crawl Classics run by Brendon LaSalle himself. My hobbit was called Slamwise. The neighbouring table were playing Macdeath, a twist on that play, run by Professor/Dan. Amongst others, Ben and Bob were there, and yes I'm putting them together because it's fun to say their names that way.

Brad ran a bunch of us through his Dream Shrine and... this module is something special. Definitely check it out if you want a good compact adventure packed with dreamy weirdness.

Later I got to run a brief game of Paranoia for Sam, JP, and Brad,. It felt like a good density of laughs for such a short session.

For most of the con I was wearing a t-shirt with one of my games on it. This made me feel like a gigantic tool, but the purpose was to transform myself into a walking business card, preventing the need for me to awkwardly tell people what I do. Steve from Epic Levels spotted this and said hi, after watching a D&D 3e seminar (look... I have nostalgia for it even if I don't like it). He warmly encouraged me to go and speak to Monte Cook, who had been on the panel and, based on shaky intel, I believe has played one of my games at some point. I did so before quickly fleeing, but appreciated the nudge.

The secret (I assume?) Rowan Rook and Decard bar is always a pleasure, and Grant is still one of the most generous hype men on the planet. Introducing myself to people is the worst, and I was glad to find the solace of a similar soul in Chase of Rascal.

Of course, as a cultured individual, I wanted to experience the real taste of America, so a special thank you goes to the connoisseurs who guided me to through the culinary complexities of the White Castle Drive-thru (on foot, mainly with Shadowdark crew) and the Waffle House (open 24 hours, but... not today, so the car park became our banquet hall). Too many people to list, but here's a selection:

Zeb, who I believe started the whole Waffle House thing.

Sillion who's working on some awesome looking deep-south cyberpunk thing.

Hunter is also working on that and has a bunch of other cool stuff.

Tomas makes this wizard thing, Gabe has this slice of space horror, oh and Kieron was there. I think he invented MODOK or something.

Is that everything? I'm not even sure.

GenCon continues to confound me. So much of it is inconvenient and consumerist, but then that magic is still there, lurking just beneath the surface.

Next time I hope to dig even deeper.

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Elsewhere

• The Barkeep Jam hosts a sprawl of additional pubs for Barkeep on the Borderlands (which I wrote a spread for).

• Dreaming Dragonslayer offers a contradictory look at some monsters.

• Jude’s World works a Clarissa Explains it All vibe, into a fantastic looking journaling game, and it currently funding on Kickstarter. Let’s get this one funded!

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Coming Soon

Over on Patreon I ramble about online places.

Chatting with people at GenCon, we occasionally drifted onto talking about Google+, the rosy past where we rejoiced in social media paradise [citation needed].

It's getting on for six years since I wrote about its upcoming closure, and where are we now?

No, I mean where are we?

Expect the full post here and on the blog next week.

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