GenCon is the biggest gaming convention in the world. Attendance dances in the 20K range. I’ve been attending since GenCon IX, and this was GenCon XXVII. Figure it out for yourself.
Instead of staying at one of the local hotels, I stayed with Paul, a old friend of mine in town. The long drive to and from the convention and the parking fees more than balances out the high hotel room prices.
One of the things I like about GenCon is that I meet a lot of friends there that I don’t have the chance to do any where else. This includes old fan friends like Van Seigling, a number of GEnie people including Mike Stackpole, Liz Danforth, and David Honigsberg; my fellow contributors from the gaming APA Alarums & Excursions Spike Y Jones, Mary Chriest Jones, and “Doc” Cross; fellow Amber DRP people Erick Wujcik, Carol Dodd, and Mike and Felicia Sutton; artists Phil and Kaja Foglio, Heather Bruton, Diana Stein, Pamela Shanteau, Susan van Camp, and Ruth Thompson; and just a lot of people in the industry that I’ve met as a long-time gamer over the years, like Jeff Grubb (my dungeonmaster from when I was back in college) and Nick Pollata.
This year, as I have done in years past, I signed up to run game events at GenCon. However, this year I signed up to run three events in three different systems: Amber, Fantasy Hero, and Vampire: the Masquerade. I spent weeks before the convention getting the character sheets prepared, working on the scenarios, etc. Thus I was a little annoyed when, out of a maximum of 20 players, only 14 pre-registered, only 4 showed up ultimately.
Thursday
Thursday was the Fantasy Hero event. Two people pre-registered, and nobody showed up. Very frustrating, but in the long run a good thing, as my voice was not in the best of shape (I had gotten a cold Tuesday and it was now descending into my throat) and would not have lasted the con if I had to use it so early. I spent the time in the dealer’s room instead, then went on to assist my friend Rex’s Champions game.
Rex runs a game where the players get to play the villains, a group named the Street Scum. The event manages to violate at least 9 of the 15 or so guidelines for good taste and acceptability that GenCon supposedly enforces on events but hasn’t yet. This was the last year for the Street Scum, too, because we both were getting tired of running the events. The scenario this year puts the Street Scum in the position of running for public office, under the aegis of the criminal organization Python and its leader, Mr. Montgomery. (Subtle and unsubtle jokes abound in this game.) This allowed the players to be obnoxious and brash and made for some really good roleplaying on everyone’s part. Even the dumb brick had good lines: after they finished winning the election, the player said “Gee, Brain, now what’re we gonna do?”
After that was dinner with Rex, Rex’s friend who was going to help him with the other Street Scum events, Van, and Paul, where we came up with the Zen Collectable Trading Cards game, which uses cards from any regular playing card deck. I’m told Rex’s friend and a couple of others actually freaked people out the next day by sitting down and playing the Zen Collectable Card Game.
Friday
The Riddle of the Fire Pattern
Friday I did get to run my Amber game, with three pre-registered players (out of six) and three generic tickets. The players had to work out a puzzle involving a set of Trumps and a forgotten and missing Pattern. Four of the characters were each tied to one of the Aces of the minor arcana, which related to their pre-eminence at one of the four characteristics of the system; one was tied to the Magician; and finally, one was tied to the Chariot. All of this tied into some imagining I did on the relationship between the Patterns and the suits of the Tarot: the three known Patterns (aside from the Primal Pattern) are all tied to a particular element, earth, water, and air. All that was needed to complete the sequence is one tied to fire, and was what the players had to track down, uncover, and restore. That, and help Dworkin combine the power of all five Patterns into trap for a creature of the Abyss that consumed patterns.
Saturday
Saturday was breakfast with Mike Stackpole and David Honigsberg: Mike and I have been trying to make a habit of dining together at least once, and this was my first chance to meet David. David and I would have dinner that night, too. Fun people, both of them. That evening David got me in to the Wizards of the Coast party, where I got to see guests Larry Niven and James Doohan, plus meet author Jane Linskold, who was Roger Zelazny’s companion at his death.
Saturday afternoon was my Vampire game, with one pre-registered player and three generics. I was able to pare down the character list to the bare minimum necessary to complete the game. It ran a little over the scheduled four hours, but no one had anything later, and was very well received. It was difficult selecting a winner, but I managed.
The scenario involved a group of vampires being sent from Chicago to investigate a city that has had little communication with other vampires: Fort Wayne, Indiana.
This game resulted in the two best bits from any of my games at GenCon:
The first was when one of the vampire player characters stepped on a place the player was repeatedly warned about, a city block with a (red herring) arcanely-protected cathedral in the center. *sizzle* In order to heal the would the character had taken, they needed a fair amount of blood. The answer was to order out. I had given the players a stack of material about the area, and one of them found a coupon for 24 hour pizza delivery. So they called and ordered, and 30 minutes later they heard a knock at their hotel room door. The pizza delivery guy stepped in, and was met by another of the vampires (who not only has the traditional vampiric hypnotic stare but is an expert in mundane hypnosis as well) looking him in the eyes and saying “You are very sleepy … very sleepy.” It was fairly easy to entrance the guy, and the wounded vampire took enough blood to partially replace what she had spent in healing herself. After several minutes, they woke the guy up, gave him a $20, and sent him on his way. Two minutes later he was back at the door: he had forgotten to leave the pizza.
The second was when the guy playing the Malkavian (a vampiric clan known for their insanity) got into his numbers mania right at the start, and would have been my choice for the $5 gift certificate, except he refused it. At one point he was bemoaning the lack of knowing the number of dimples on a golf ball, that being the last number he needed to complete his equation. When he was given a Nixon mask to wear for a costume ball, he declared “I can mathematically prove that I am innocent.”
Saturday night I spent watching too many Japanese animae programs, mostly the series Ranma 1⁄2. Ranma is a young guy cursed with turning into a (cute red-haired) girl whenever he gets wet: hot water will restore his normal form. He’s also one of the five best martial artists in the world: his father, who is similarly cursed, but turns into a giant panda, is another. Of course the series goes to great lengths finding ways to get him wet. He’s also been promised in an arranged marriage to the daughter of another martial artist; she thinks Ranma is “weird”. Martial arts mayhem, mistaken identities, running gags, bad jokes and puns: this series has it all.
Sunday
Sunday afternoon was the GenCon Amber campaign. This started several years ago as a playtest for the Amber Diceless RP system, and has carried on since. My character, a né’er-do-well named Damarian, took this opportunity to take it easy, since he’d been in one situation or another for several days / weeks running. We played in a conference room at the Marc Plaza / Milwaukee Hilton, which Erick Wujcik arranged for us (don’t ask me how.)
There was no big game released this year: instead it was the year of the CCGs (collectable card games) with over 20 being released there. (The industry is due for a shakeout soon.) A number of the cards were by artist friends like Heather Bruton, Liz Danforth, Susan Van Camp, etc., so I hope they continue to sell well.
Best overall story: Nick Pollata is a very funny guy. (He stayed with me at Paul’s house at GenCon.) He co-wrote Illegal Aliens with Phil Foglio and is doing some extremely humorous stuff for TSR right now.
A few years ago he and some friends were driving to Baltimore for a convention. During the drive, Rob the driver began whistling the “Colonel Bogey March” (most people would recognize it from The Bridge Over the River Kwai).
Another guy, Rich, says “You know there’s words to that song.”
“Nah, you’re kidding.”
“No, there’s words to it.” and proceeds to sing them.
“Hitler, had only one big b*ll,
Goering, had two, but they were small.
Himmler, had something sim’lar,
And Goebbels had no b*lls at all.”
Apparently the song was popular during the war as an insult to the Germans, and that was the reason why the prisoners were whistling it. So everyone in the car started singing it, too.
When they got to Baltimore, they missed their exit, so they got off and drove around as they tried to figure out where they were. Finally someone pointed out a parking place and they pulled over to think of what to do next.
Nick looks out the window. “Guys,” he says, “look where we’re at.”
“What?”
“Look where we’re at.”
They were parked directly in front of the national headquarters of the US Nazi Party. It was a three story building with a two-story Nazi flag in front of it.
This, Nick explained later, was a classic movie moment. A moment so unlikely yet so perfect that it would be absolutely unbelievable in a movie.
Nick continues: “Gentlemen, God has given us the opportunity, and Rob and Rich the means. From the top: ah one, ah two, ah one, two, three, four …” And everyone in the car sang the song at the top of their lungs two or three times. It was then that a window opened up on the second or third floor, a head poked out, retreated, and the window slammed shut.
“Gentlemen,” said Nick, “I think its time we left.”
Our heroes peal out. When they finally reach the convention, they amaze everyone by walking in, singing “God Bless America.”
Best GenCon story: Carol Dodd, my good friend from the GenCon Amber game, was approached and harassed by someone promoting Redemption, the Christian collectable card game. Now Carol isn’t in to card games, but she was good natured enough to pass along the names of a couple of artists for when this company gets around to doing the supplement from the Book of the Mormon.
