In 2007, a friend and I decided to go to GenCon. "Why not"?, we thought. We're grown men. Now seems like a great time to finally make good on all of those adolescent dreams of going to the great nerd fest in Wisconsin (Although it was now in Indianapolis). No one can stop us now - except maybe spouses - but they were sympathetic to our cause, and gave us the green light. There was only one problem with this plan. It was already June.The Set Up
Those of you who have attended GenCon, especially in earlier years, will know well that by June, every hotel room in downtown Indy is already booked up. Not only that but pretty much all of the events you probably want to do are already sold out. There is definitely some kind of Murphy's law that relates to no matter how obscure the event is, the likelihood of it being sold out is directly proportional to how much you want to attend it. So, no hotels, and limited events....screw it, we're going anyways. Additional incentive was provided by a group of friends who had been going for several years, so if nothing else we would have a whole posse to hang out with. And at least it was just the two of us in the hotel outside the city, as opposed to the 7 in one room that our friends had at the Marriott.
We end up getting a hotel room about 20 minutes outside of the city center. The rate was great, around $55 a night. The hotel was a bit on the nasty side, but what can you expect for $55? At least they had an old Street Fighter II arcade game in the lobby. That provided some after hours entertainment as I used my long forgotten ninja powers of button mashing with Blanca to electrocute my friend over and over. It was a bit like Lucy pulling the football away from old Chuck, and I now understand why she got so much enjoyment from it. The only real problem we ended up with out of the deal was trying to find a parking space. ProTip - if you aren't downtown by 6am, make sure you brought a hiking stick.
Grade: D (as in, we had no idea what we are Doing and this was all our own fault)
The Events
With most of the events we might have wanted sold out, and this being my first GenCon, we loaded up on seminars. I hit the jackpot, as they were all really good. Great tips on GMing, encounter building, improvisation, and other skills, flowed freely. Handouts were available, we took good notes, and I can say without reservation that these seminars contributed to making me a better GM. We did not get into any RPGs, since at the time, I was pretty much in D&D only mode. We spent a long time wandering the dealer hall, marveling at what was basically Santa's personal toy shop to my inner 14 year old. I had come to the promised land, seen the top of the mountain, and it was good. We also attended a few painting and sculpting workshops. I was playing a lot of Warhammer Fantasy and other miniatures games then, so these were also very useful. Some more than others, but all worth the time and money investment in general. I did walk away feeling very inadequate though, seeing how quickly a talented miniatures artist can paint up a face to a quality I can barely imagine. It was like learning how, but still not being able to do it.
General Happenings
Type: None
Memory of Event: Scattered
It's Wednesday, and nothing much is going on yet. The group, about 8 of us altogether, are seated over near the Serpentine Hallway at the ICC, playing Magic (remember the days when you'd get a free mini-starter deck in the swag bag?) and making characters for some D&D games. There are a couple of foam sword fighter types practicing and dueling nearby. They are pretty good at it, and putting on a good show. It was fun to half watch while we did other things of the pre convention variety. Some ladies came over and asked if they can try. The swordsmen were friendly, and offered up their weapons for the ladies to try out.
The Events
With most of the events we might have wanted sold out, and this being my first GenCon, we loaded up on seminars. I hit the jackpot, as they were all really good. Great tips on GMing, encounter building, improvisation, and other skills, flowed freely. Handouts were available, we took good notes, and I can say without reservation that these seminars contributed to making me a better GM. We did not get into any RPGs, since at the time, I was pretty much in D&D only mode. We spent a long time wandering the dealer hall, marveling at what was basically Santa's personal toy shop to my inner 14 year old. I had come to the promised land, seen the top of the mountain, and it was good. We also attended a few painting and sculpting workshops. I was playing a lot of Warhammer Fantasy and other miniatures games then, so these were also very useful. Some more than others, but all worth the time and money investment in general. I did walk away feeling very inadequate though, seeing how quickly a talented miniatures artist can paint up a face to a quality I can barely imagine. It was like learning how, but still not being able to do it.
Grade: Things were so overwhelming and awesome that I can't give a coherent scaling to anything. I'll just do a pass/fail. And the experience was absolutely a pass!
General Happenings
Type: None
Memory of Event: Scattered
It's Wednesday, and nothing much is going on yet. The group, about 8 of us altogether, are seated over near the Serpentine Hallway at the ICC, playing Magic (remember the days when you'd get a free mini-starter deck in the swag bag?) and making characters for some D&D games. There are a couple of foam sword fighter types practicing and dueling nearby. They are pretty good at it, and putting on a good show. It was fun to half watch while we did other things of the pre convention variety. Some ladies came over and asked if they can try. The swordsmen were friendly, and offered up their weapons for the ladies to try out.
Judging by that special noob-awkwardness that everyone has with a new thing, it was obvious they had never done this before, but they went at each other with gusto and glee. At one point, one has the other spun around and begins to spank her friend with the sword over and over, in a funny sophomoric way-- When out of nowhere, some troll-ish looking, off brand Gollum sounding dude springs up, materializing out of the fucking ether and in the creepiest vocal tone I have ever heard, sort of mumbles, "yeah...yes....yes...spank her backside".
I am not kidding.
Our entire group more or less halted in mid conversation or pencil stroke at this utterance, like a metaphorical record scratch, everything just stopped. We were completely blown away by the creepiness and general uncomfortable atmosphere to the point of being unable to suppress giggles, horror, and general shame on ourselves for being part of this guy's gender. With all of the boundaries and appropriate behavior conversations going on nowadays, I can't help but wonder about the nerd rage that would be flung across the web if this guy had done that today. At any rate, he has become famous in my group as "spank her backside guy", and each of us has done our best to come up with a creepy voice with which to say it. None of us can come even close to the real deal.
Grade: Creeptastic
Things that I Bought
Hacker, Munchkin, More cards for the CCG Rage: The Apocalypse than I care to admit in a public forum
All in all it was a surreal experience, and set the stage for me to keep coming back. I have greatly expanded my own palette in gaming taste since then. This year I played precisely zero D&D, and of the games I did played in, I had only played one of them before. I like having the opportunity that GenCon gives to play new games, try new systems without having to learn it on your own first. I have found it extremely useful to play in a session of a new game at GenCon before trying to run that system at home.
Grade: Creeptastic
Things that I Bought
Hacker, Munchkin, More cards for the CCG Rage: The Apocalypse than I care to admit in a public forum
All in all it was a surreal experience, and set the stage for me to keep coming back. I have greatly expanded my own palette in gaming taste since then. This year I played precisely zero D&D, and of the games I did played in, I had only played one of them before. I like having the opportunity that GenCon gives to play new games, try new systems without having to learn it on your own first. I have found it extremely useful to play in a session of a new game at GenCon before trying to run that system at home.
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