Weekend Update with Chevy Chase
Aug. 9th, 2010 11:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cyranoLooong weekend. GenCon weekend.
We left Tuesday, and Tuesday night.... I don't really remember Tuesday night. I think I got my one trip to the pool then. Mostly we were just happy to be out of the car.
Wednesday was standing on queue to buy a membership, and building a fraternity between those of us waiting. It was stirring. With the membership came the programme--300 pages of 'come here do this'. I stared at it until I went tharn, and then we went to a tapas place which was lovely except the live music was way too loud (yes, yes, because I'm too old). The week-long 'hot and humid' theme dissipated briefly when we got our ten minute rain shower, our server was lovely, and the food was fantastic.
After dinner I went online to buy tickets to events (which was kind of weird) and found out that most of the stuff was sold out. They have this thing called 'generic tickets' where you can buy an equivalent value of what it would cost to get into the event once it's been sold out, and then show up and ask to get on the stand-by list. It's random and can be kind of stressful.
There was a metric crapton of things to do. I think I actually did about ten percent of the things I considered and scheduled.
I ended up focusing on RPGs, especially ones that I wanted to playtest before buying. I had a Spirit of the Century game with a charming GM who knew Dante and gave me an Italian smooth talker and sent him into Hell. Yay extra 'just in case' characters!
There was a troupe of Shakespearean players who performed their version of Hamlet vs. MacBeth, and that was where I learned the value of getting a ticket for *anything* I wanted to do, even free stuff with hundreds of seats.
My late night game was a pre-release test of "Director's Cut," a 'survival horror RPG'. It may have just been the situation we were in ('Slasher Camp' was about six horror movie monsters who show up at a summer camp and quickly turn six counselors into salsa), but the first round definitely felt like playing 'Wandering Damage Table'. I have a free download of the beta rules, and so I'll check it out and see if it has potential. PS: If you find yourself at Slasher Camp, grab a fire extinguisher quickly; it was the most effective thing we could find. And if you spent ten points on 'Master of Bladed Weapons' just stick your head in the oven right away because the bad guys grabbed all the blades in camp.
Friday was the day I realized that I shouldn't sign up for or attempt to attend anything before ten o'clock. Which means I missed out on the chance to playtest Faerie Noir, which still looks interesting. (I have a list of games I want to look up reviews of which looked interesting in one form or another. List appended.)
However, that meant I had nothing to do until three, when I had a double shot of lecture panels on indie film making. Unfortunately, it was hot and I was tired and so one of the few things I learned was that Sarah Moore of GamerChick is cute. They did, however, answer my questions about locations and how to avoid common pitfalls when choosing them.
I managed to meet up with Ryan Macklin, a charming fellow toward whom Jess Hartley had pointed me when she found out I was going this year. (Neither she nor Fred Hicks were there this year, much to my sadness.) He was attending the ENnies in case Jess picked up an award to stand in as faux-Jess. Unfortunately, Paizo Publishing (of Pathfinder) won every single award this year and pre-emptively won half of the awards for next year. We got to meet *everybody* who works at Paizo, except for Art Director Sarah Robinson, who refused to go up on stage. So instead every single person who accepted an award pointed her out from stage.
It is crass and callow of me, but I skipped the DRYH game because I wanted to attend the Cosplay Deviants strip poker. And I think I did pretty well with that choice. (A big shout out to Liz, the best redhead there, if she's followed the URL on my card.)
Saturday didn't even start until two, when I managed to fingernail claw my way into a game of Victoriana. (It's the opposite of my trouble with today's steampunk--there's a whole lot of punk, but very little steam. Elves, dwarves, halflings... kind of like Shadowrun with less tech.) In fact, I only got in because one fellow showed up but had dropped his ticket. I had a great group, and I enjoyed myself a lot. I don't know if I like the game enough to buy it, but I admire the research and don't hate the system. (Our GM was the author of the "India" expansion.)
Alas, despite repeated attempts to join it, the Feng Shui "Burn Notice" game apparently was cancelled after the guide was printed. However, that meant that I could attend the previously time-conflicted White Wolf game of Geist: The Sin Eaters (written by the talented Jess Hartley). It was being helmed by Dawn, obviously a crowd favourite, since many of the people at the table had apparently been there playing in her games all day long. Everybody was a little punch drunk, fabulously lewd, and twisted in all the right directions. We laughed a lot, and we sort of got the mission accomplished, even after I lost my blessed cockring. Apparently, WW gives out prizes to people who disturb the ST, because I won a set of Garou dice. Woo!
When we went for tapas, I found an Indian restaurant next door, and... long story short, I haven't had a lot of Indian since I left California. I wanted a Sunday luncheon buffet, but then Saturday night I decided that I couldn't wait. I abducted Amanda and the Canyonero and we got Indian. (It has been voted the best Indian in Indiana for three years running, which meant that it wasn't bad.) Which turned out to be lucky, because the 'weekend buffet' our server mentioned was only on Saturday since they were closed on Sundays. Luckily, there was a glorious Sunday brunch at BARcelona, and we had omelettes, tres leches 'french' toast.... all sorts of lovely things. It was a very nice way to part company with the Con.
There are also photos which I will eventually trim and post, mostly architecture. This part of Indianapolis has a lot of lovely surviving brickwork and very dramatic architecture.
**Game List** because I know you can't wait to see what I'm interested in.
Eclipse Phase? ENnie winner, mentioned universes constructed from bacon and octopi.
Victoriana: report above
Fae Noir: It says twenties with magic, but I'm suspicious it'll lean more forties
Misspent Youth: Modern Punk sensibility, kids fight against The Man
Ghosts of Albion: One of the Victoriana players mentioned it glowingly
Fiasco!: Play in your very own fucked up Coen Brothers movie.
Blowback: RPG love letter to Burn Notice
It's Complicated: Looks like a 'screwed up intertwined relationships' game
We left Tuesday, and Tuesday night.... I don't really remember Tuesday night. I think I got my one trip to the pool then. Mostly we were just happy to be out of the car.
Wednesday was standing on queue to buy a membership, and building a fraternity between those of us waiting. It was stirring. With the membership came the programme--300 pages of 'come here do this'. I stared at it until I went tharn, and then we went to a tapas place which was lovely except the live music was way too loud (yes, yes, because I'm too old). The week-long 'hot and humid' theme dissipated briefly when we got our ten minute rain shower, our server was lovely, and the food was fantastic.
After dinner I went online to buy tickets to events (which was kind of weird) and found out that most of the stuff was sold out. They have this thing called 'generic tickets' where you can buy an equivalent value of what it would cost to get into the event once it's been sold out, and then show up and ask to get on the stand-by list. It's random and can be kind of stressful.
There was a metric crapton of things to do. I think I actually did about ten percent of the things I considered and scheduled.
I ended up focusing on RPGs, especially ones that I wanted to playtest before buying. I had a Spirit of the Century game with a charming GM who knew Dante and gave me an Italian smooth talker and sent him into Hell. Yay extra 'just in case' characters!
There was a troupe of Shakespearean players who performed their version of Hamlet vs. MacBeth, and that was where I learned the value of getting a ticket for *anything* I wanted to do, even free stuff with hundreds of seats.
My late night game was a pre-release test of "Director's Cut," a 'survival horror RPG'. It may have just been the situation we were in ('Slasher Camp' was about six horror movie monsters who show up at a summer camp and quickly turn six counselors into salsa), but the first round definitely felt like playing 'Wandering Damage Table'. I have a free download of the beta rules, and so I'll check it out and see if it has potential. PS: If you find yourself at Slasher Camp, grab a fire extinguisher quickly; it was the most effective thing we could find. And if you spent ten points on 'Master of Bladed Weapons' just stick your head in the oven right away because the bad guys grabbed all the blades in camp.
Friday was the day I realized that I shouldn't sign up for or attempt to attend anything before ten o'clock. Which means I missed out on the chance to playtest Faerie Noir, which still looks interesting. (I have a list of games I want to look up reviews of which looked interesting in one form or another. List appended.)
However, that meant I had nothing to do until three, when I had a double shot of lecture panels on indie film making. Unfortunately, it was hot and I was tired and so one of the few things I learned was that Sarah Moore of GamerChick is cute. They did, however, answer my questions about locations and how to avoid common pitfalls when choosing them.
I managed to meet up with Ryan Macklin, a charming fellow toward whom Jess Hartley had pointed me when she found out I was going this year. (Neither she nor Fred Hicks were there this year, much to my sadness.) He was attending the ENnies in case Jess picked up an award to stand in as faux-Jess. Unfortunately, Paizo Publishing (of Pathfinder) won every single award this year and pre-emptively won half of the awards for next year. We got to meet *everybody* who works at Paizo, except for Art Director Sarah Robinson, who refused to go up on stage. So instead every single person who accepted an award pointed her out from stage.
It is crass and callow of me, but I skipped the DRYH game because I wanted to attend the Cosplay Deviants strip poker. And I think I did pretty well with that choice. (A big shout out to Liz, the best redhead there, if she's followed the URL on my card.)
Saturday didn't even start until two, when I managed to fingernail claw my way into a game of Victoriana. (It's the opposite of my trouble with today's steampunk--there's a whole lot of punk, but very little steam. Elves, dwarves, halflings... kind of like Shadowrun with less tech.) In fact, I only got in because one fellow showed up but had dropped his ticket. I had a great group, and I enjoyed myself a lot. I don't know if I like the game enough to buy it, but I admire the research and don't hate the system. (Our GM was the author of the "India" expansion.)
Alas, despite repeated attempts to join it, the Feng Shui "Burn Notice" game apparently was cancelled after the guide was printed. However, that meant that I could attend the previously time-conflicted White Wolf game of Geist: The Sin Eaters (written by the talented Jess Hartley). It was being helmed by Dawn, obviously a crowd favourite, since many of the people at the table had apparently been there playing in her games all day long. Everybody was a little punch drunk, fabulously lewd, and twisted in all the right directions. We laughed a lot, and we sort of got the mission accomplished, even after I lost my blessed cockring. Apparently, WW gives out prizes to people who disturb the ST, because I won a set of Garou dice. Woo!
When we went for tapas, I found an Indian restaurant next door, and... long story short, I haven't had a lot of Indian since I left California. I wanted a Sunday luncheon buffet, but then Saturday night I decided that I couldn't wait. I abducted Amanda and the Canyonero and we got Indian. (It has been voted the best Indian in Indiana for three years running, which meant that it wasn't bad.) Which turned out to be lucky, because the 'weekend buffet' our server mentioned was only on Saturday since they were closed on Sundays. Luckily, there was a glorious Sunday brunch at BARcelona, and we had omelettes, tres leches 'french' toast.... all sorts of lovely things. It was a very nice way to part company with the Con.
There are also photos which I will eventually trim and post, mostly architecture. This part of Indianapolis has a lot of lovely surviving brickwork and very dramatic architecture.
**Game List** because I know you can't wait to see what I'm interested in.
Eclipse Phase? ENnie winner, mentioned universes constructed from bacon and octopi.
Victoriana: report above
Fae Noir: It says twenties with magic, but I'm suspicious it'll lean more forties
Misspent Youth: Modern Punk sensibility, kids fight against The Man
Ghosts of Albion: One of the Victoriana players mentioned it glowingly
Fiasco!: Play in your very own fucked up Coen Brothers movie.
Blowback: RPG love letter to Burn Notice
It's Complicated: Looks like a 'screwed up intertwined relationships' game
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-08-10 04:25 am (UTC)This project is pretty serious about their historical research. Hearts for that.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-10 03:15 pm (UTC)I was generally quite lost, I never found the non-D&D gaming room. It was in some other hotel. I spent most of the weekend wishing there were maps or something.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-10 04:54 pm (UTC)And yeah, even with the little map in the programme, I spent a lot of time being just lost. The Crowne Plaza, where most of the non D&D gaming was, was not connected by skyway, so you had to hit the streets and search for it. Luckily, it was across from Union Station which had a huge brick tower that I could orient by. I just wish my hotel had a similar landmarky object.