Current location:	Home, at last
Current mood:	tired
Current music:	none
Entry tags:	gencon

Back from GenCon
Got back from GenCon yesterday afternoon and I'm still a bit pooped. Maybe it's the prospect of all those post-trip chores (like laundry) waiting for me....

The con was fun: jedisteve and I ran three demo games of Zeppelin Age for heliograph. Set around the opening of the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, the players had to stop a madman's dastardly plot. The cool part is that there were so many options, that we could decide what the real plot was. We had fun groups each day, and I think they enjoyed the game.

I didn't play in any events myself, other than a couple of demos in the trade hall. The RPG rooms are just too noisy for good roleplaying. The noise factor got in the way of our demos, too: it wasn't until the last game, held in a smaller, carpeted, room in the Omni Severin that I could actually hear jedisteve when he was across the table from me.

The trade hall itself was huge. Expanded from last year to accommodate electronic games (their area came to be known as "that hot, dark, hell-hole"), I never did see the whole thing. What I did see was fun, and lead me to buy a few things (my shopping has gone way down in recent years): buildings from Miniature Building Authority (such as this Halfling House) and the Solomon Kane RPG from Pinnacle and Studio 2 Publishing. In the "caught my eye" category (thanks to a tip from robin_d_laws) was the Battue: storm of the horse lords boardgame from Red Juggernaut. The brief demo I had at the end of the day on Sunday was a lot of fun, so I'll be giving my FLGS a visit, soon. Who wouldn't enjoy sacking a city? I also had a  demo of the Terra Incognita roleplaying game from Grey Ghost: an exploration of an Egyptian tomb, trying to find a dangerous artifact before those dastardly French archeologists got to it. You'll be happy to know I survived the insidious death traps. (And FUDGE itself is a nice multi-genre system. I may switch my games to it.) If you like card games, Bone Wars from Zygote is surprisingly enjoyable: I didn't think one could make a fun game from something as dry as paleontology.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Rogue Games' Colonial Gothic, the RPG of horror and conspiracy in the midst of the American Revolution. mind_of_richard has been working a long time on this, and he deserved to be a "proud papa" at the show. I look forward to reading my copy.

And, of course, I bought a copy of robin_d_laws' 40 Years of GenCon. I've been going since 1985, so GenCon has been an important part of my life as a player and as an author. This is another book I'll enjoy reading.

GenCon would be nothing without people, of course, and it was fun seeing old friends and acquaintances again, and picking up some juicy gossip. (Sorry, I can't say. I'm such a tease.) At long last, I got to meet the great jirel!

So, will I be back next year? We'll see. I've felt less and less connected to the "gaming community" over the last several years, partly because I have no group at home and none of my friends here are much into games, and partly because my own directions in life are changing. Still, it was fun again after the first day or so; barring unforeseen circumstances, I'll probably be back.

Now, if you'll excuse me, the Laundry Monster is waiting for me.