Tag Archives: Conventions

Genghis Con 2011 begins

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I’ve only been to one gaming convention before – TactiCon 2010, last September (the debut of my projector setup for DMing). Today marks the beginning of Denver’s main gaming convention of the year – Genghis Con.

Now that I know what to expect from a convention, I’ve figured out what I want to do with my time there:

  • I’m running three sessions of Living Forgotten Realms (two of them with a module I wrote myself)
  • I’m playing in an all-day (three-session) LFR game on Saturday
  • I’m playing sessions of three non-D&D role-playing games: GURPS, Call of Cthulhu and Savage Worlds

Since there are a total of nine sessions on the weekend (one Thursday evening, three on Friday, three on Saturday and two on Sunday), that’s my whole weekend planned out. I wasn’t planning on having myself completely booked before the convention started, but it worked out that way when I realized that the only real LFR option on Saturday was the all-day event.

Needless to say, I’m excited! I volunteered this morning to help the con organizer, Leif, get some supplies from a friend’s basement to the convention hotel. I’m taking two days off work, and I’m ready for games.

Depending on how well my wife is feeling, she might be coming, too, which would be great! She’s volunteered to make some pre-generated characters for me to have available for players at my games, just in case someone doesn’t have a character ready to go.

One of my friends from my regular in-person game will also be coming for sure – we’re playing GURPS together. Another friend from that game might be coming on Sunday.

It should be a great weekend, and I’ll be sure to blog about it whenever I have some time.

Out of the gaming closet

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I put up a post a few months back that talked about the gaming closet – the fact that I didn’t really talk to my co-workers about my gaming hobby. I felt a little bad being closeted like that, but working in finance in a somewhat senior position, I was worried that being known as a D&D player might hurt my reputation.

I’ve since decided that I’m comfortable with who I am, and I’ve started letting people know that I’m a gamer when it’s appropriate. I first mentioned it to a co-worker who knew that I used to play Magic: The Gathering. He asked if I still played, and I told him that I had moved on to D&D. No bad reaction from him – that’s one good sign.

Next, a co-worker of mine who works in another state was visiting Colorado for work and I invited him over for dinner. He already knew that I liked board games, so I talked about D&D (and we ended up playing Castle Ravenloft). It turns out that he used to be a big D&D player several years ago, and he asked to be included the next time I start up an online game. Cool! The fact that I’m his boss probably means that the DM-player relationship would be too awkward, but still, it’s nice that he was enthusiastic about it.

Now we come to today. I’m excited about my plans to attend GenCon for the first time this summer. I work in Colorado, but my company also has offices in Indianapolis (home of GenCon). I travel for work from time to time, and I asked my boss about maybe making a business trip out of a personal vacation that I wanted to take to Indianapolis in early August (okay, so I haven’t told my boss about my gaming yet). He put me in touch with a co-worker in Indianapolis who could coordinate my business trip.

When I called that guy on the phone and explained that I was trying to schedule some work either before or after my personal trip, he asked about the dates and then what I was in town for. I said that my wife and I were going to a gaming convention, and he said, “You mean GenCon? I’ll be there, too!”

It turns out that he, too, is a gamer, as are some of the people he works with in Indianapolis. He invited me and my wife to join him for a game while we’re in town. How cool is that?

So, to sum up, I’m taking some confident strides out of the gaming closet now, and I’m glad for it. The air smells sweeter out here!

Quick-hit recap

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I took a little time off from blogging over the holidays, but my D&D life continued.  Here are some quick-hit thoughts from the past couple of weeks.

  • My brother-in-law and his wife became huge D&D fans during their visit.  He played Sunday through Friday, every day, and she played Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  Now we have to figure out a schedule for an online game since they’re in Texas and we’re in Colorado.
  • We rolled up Gamma World characters with the family and had a good time doing so, but didn’t get a chance to actually play the game yet.  Too bad – it seems like goofy fun.
  • I ran two Living Forgotten Realms games at my local game store, one of which was my first try at a MyRealms adventure (one I wrote myself).  It went well and had some exciting combat, and I asked for player feedback afterward.  Since we finished with an hour to spare, they suggested that I include more role playing time at the beginning.  Done!
  • My regular Friday night online game took two weeks off and got back together for gaming last night.  It was good to get the band back together.  They’re deep in a swamp and spent last night fighting witches and skeletons.  I’m a little worried because we had a four-hour session and spent almost all of it on two combats – I need to speed those up.  I’m happy, though, that they reacted quickly and strongly to the new NPC I introduced – I think I’ve done well at role-playing her, and some of them love her and some of them hate her.  Perfect!
  • I’m participating in a forum-based “story playtest” of the next campaign saga from EN World, called ZEITGEIST.  Basically, the writer spells out a given situation, we tell him how our characters would react, and he narrates what happens and what comes next.  This is my first play-by-post experience, and I think it’s totally cool.  I love being able to really get into character with the rest of the group, and I could see myself doing some more play-by-post in the future. Also, the ZEITGEIST story is really cool so far.
  • I’m all signed up for Genghis Con, the February convention here in the Denver area.  I’m running three LFR games (two sessions of my MyRealms and one of another module I’ve run before) and I’ve signed up to play in three RPG sessions, none of which are D&D 4e.  That’s intentional.  My only RPG experience is with this one game, and the Con seems like a perfect time to see what other games are like.  I’ll be trying Savage World, Call of Cthulhu and GURPS.
  • My regular in-person game gets back together this afternoon after the holiday break.  I guess that means I’d better stop blogging and start prepping!

TactiCon Day 1 (Thursday evening)

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As promised, I am blogging about TactiCon.  The convention began Thursday evening, with your intrepid reporter learning a lot about how conventions work.

First, when the brochure says that the Exhibitor Hours begin at 3:00 and registration begins at 5:00, that does NOT mean that the exhibition hall for people to shop in opens at 3:00.  It means that people who are involved in running the convention can start getting set up at 3:00, but there’s nothing for players to do until 5:00.  Oops.

Second, it’s important to sign up for particular events in advance if there’s something in particular you want to play.  I had pre-paid for my badge, and it was waiting for me, which was great.  However, I hadn’t registered for any individual games, and the two low-level Living Forgotten Realms games this evening were already full.  I bought a generic ticket and was told that I might be able to get into a game anyway.

I left the hotel and came home to take my wife to dinner before heading back to the convention, getting there just before the 7:00 PM start time of the evening’s RPG sessions.  There were a total of five players with generic tickets who wanted to play low-level LFR, and the organizer persuaded a guy to run an adventure he had never even read before.  What a trouper!

The game was interesting, to say the least.  We played CORM 2-1 For Crown and Kingdom.  It’s actually a pretty cool module, and for running it completely on the fly I think the DM, Leo, did a nice job.  He ran the skill challenges in the manner I hate, though: “Okay, this is a complexity 1 skill challenge, requiring 4 successes before 3 failures.  You can use Perception, Nature, History…” Ugh.  No role playing, just roll the dice.  But since he had no chance to look over it beforehand, I won’t fault him too much for that. He also let the game get bogged down in some rules discussions – I feel confident that I won’t let that happen at my tables.  If there’s disagreement about a rule I’ll go with what seems most reasonable and move the game onward to the fun parts.

My favorite part of the evening was talking with a pair of other people at the table.  There was an older guy who had never played 4th edition before but who had excitedly rolled up an eladrin wizard and was ready to go.  He brought his wife along, and she had never played an RPG before and really had no interest in playing, either.  Still, she was willing to let me talk to her about the game, trying to give her a basic overview of what she would see and what everyone was doing.  She paid polite attention to the game, and we chatted about music afterward.  She even thanked me.  I don’t think I created a new gamer, but I at least had a positive interaction with someone who clearly was not a fan of role playing games.  Baby steps.

I think I’ll bring my projector setup and leave it in the trunk of my car tomorrow, just in case they need someone to run another ad hoc game.  I mostly plan to play, but I’d be lying if I denied wanting to show off my sweet setup to as many people as possible!  I do want to get at least one more LFR game in as a player, just so I can get my half-elf paladin, Rhogar, up to third level so that he can finally equip the two seventh-level items that he’s carrying around!  Ten XP shy…

Signing up to run a convention game

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Since I had such a good time running a Living Forgotten Realms game at my local store this past weekend, I decided to answer the call when the organizer of LFR games for a local convention, TactiCon, asked the group of LFR players and DMs from my store if anyone was interested in running an LFR game or two (or ten) at the convention over Labor Day weekend.I’ve never been to a gaming convention before, and information about TactiCon is surprisingly difficult to find online.  However, I was lucky to find a hard-copy brochure for the convention at my friendly local game store.  It looks like a fun way to spend a weekend, frankly.  There will be tons of D&D games, as well as other RPGs like Pathfinder.  There are also lots of board games, which I happen to love, too.  I’m guessing this might be a place where I could get some minis – even though I’ll be using my homemade tokens for bad guys when I run games, I’d like to have my own minis for use when I’m a player rather than a DM.

The particular LFR game I signed up to run is CORM 1-1.  I picked it because of the time it’s scheduled (Saturday morning) and the fact that it’s a low-level adventure (I’m not sure I want to dive into higher-level stuff at a convention).  As it turns out, CORM 1-1 is “The Black Knight of Arabel,” which is the first LFR game I had ever played!  I’ve only played in three LFR games, and now I will have run two of those same games.  What are the odds?

In any case, I’m looking for advice from my blog audience.  How does a convention game compare to a game in your local store?  Are there particular things I should look out for?  And as a first-time convention-goer (even though it’s a small convention), what things should I especially be looking to do when I’m there?