Zachary's Gen Con Report Thread

[RPGPundit]

Its nice to see that Mr. Gygax appears to be in good health.

RPGPundit

[flyingmice]

Its nice to see that Mr. Gygax appears to be in good health.

RPGPundit

He looked pretty good to me, but they drove him around on a scooter from the front door. He may not yet be completely over that devastating heart attack.

[TheQuestionMan]

Hero Games Kiosk - I am looking for Enchanted Items, Post Apocalypse Hero, and The Ultimate Energy Projector.


Tell'em TheQuestionMan says Hi!


QM

[flyingmice]

Zachary!

Your phone went dead? That explains a lot! You will find several messages from me there and from Bill. We finally met up about 9 and talked games to about 12. Unfortunately, we didn't get any gaming done.

I picked up Zeppelin Age and GURPS Age of Napoleon, Motor Pool, and Planet of Adventure. I ran some games - Blood Games II and Aces - but I hope to get in some more gamng today.

-clash

[Zachary The First]

Hero Games Kiosk - I am looking for Enchanted Items, Post Apocalypse Hero, and The Ultimate Energy Projector.


Tell'em TheQuestionMan says Hi!


QM

I've got a real narrow time frame today, but buddy, I'll do my best.

[Zachary The First]

Zachary!

Your phone went dead? That explains a lot! You will find several messages from me there and from Bill. We finally met up about 9 and talked games to about 12. Unfortunately, we didn't get any gaming done.

-clash

Misery loves company, I guess.  As great as it was to see you, klaxon, and Bill, I really wish it could have panned out so we did more gaming together.

GURPS:  Age of Napoleon?  Lucky, lucky you!  Did you find that at SJ Games itself?

[flyingmice]

Misery loves company, I guess.  As great as it was to see you, klaxon, and Bill, I really wish it could have panned out so we did more gaming together.

GURPS:  Age of Napoleon?  Lucky, lucky you!  Did you find that at SJ Games itself?

Yeah! I am jonesing for more gaming!

The SJG booth was selling a slew of supplements for 3/$10. THose were just the ones I was interested in.

I talked for quite a while to Malcolm Craig too - a real nice guy, BTW. He said he definitely plans to return to A|State with a fresh spirit in maybe a year or so - no timeline, but he definitely will go back to it. I'm hopeful! He surprised me by saying he'd picked up my Sweet Chariot and asked me my plans for it! I said it's ripe for a new edition with all the things I had learned from the years between, and I intend to return to it myself. Touche!

-clash

[estar]

You got a smile from me with this picture. Hopefully they are selling so I get to write more.

Again Thanks

Rob Conley
The Author of the current Badabaskor.

Badabaskor!




Man, that's fun to say.

[RPGPundit]

Shit, i really have to try to be there next year.  If I'd been there we would have so played some serious FtA!

RPGPundit

[Settembrini]

Viral Marketeers!
All of you!

[RPGPundit]

Viral Marketeers!
All of you!

Dude, its only really viral marketing if they either don't know who you are or don't know what your product is.

If I was REALLY going to viral market, I'd do so over on the Wizards boards or something, where most people have probably never heard of FtA! yet.  Here, EVERYONE has already heard of FtA!, so its not so much "viral marketing" as "writing about the game I wrote because it interests me".

RPGPundit

[Zachary The First]

Sundays at Gen Con start out slow, but there’s that mad rush at the end, where everyone tries to buy, play, and get everything within a 30-minute window.  UPS also does a fantastic bit of business today, as the would-be barbarians of Gen Con realize the 9:30 back to Phoenix is not going to allow them to take their stainless-steel Braveheart sword replica on the plain.
   
  Also, today is the last day for an entire year many of these people will wear kilts.  For a little while, we weren’t Bob the Accountant or Zachary the Student Loan Account Manager, we were Lothar, King of Stygia and the Boffer Room, master of all we surveyed.
   
  For 96 hours, our lives weren’t measured by how much we made, how many bosses we had, or what we drove, but rather what adventures we made, how many bosses we had beaten, and what we rolled.  So, though we remain gamers, and unrepentantly so, the playing field changes.  Until next year.
   
  Today was a zip-and-a-dash sort of day.  While trying desperately to get out of Gen Con, since my wife was driving around the block with our daughter, who was just getting warmed up on a Full-Scale tantrum, I ran into a friend who had to drive to the hospital due to some issues (don’t ask), and ran his stuff to another parking garage and got back, to find that as an ENnies judge, I already had two boxes of books to go into my car.
   
  Fortunately, a very nice British fellow (whose name I forgot in the midst of all this) helped get all this to my car.  I also got to meet Crothian (Chris Gath), one of the other judges, while checking in for one more round at the ENnies booth.
   
  I also got to meet Brad Elliot of EOS Press, which brings up a good point about Gen Con.  If you write a bad review about a product, keep in mind that one day, you might run into someone involved with it at Gen Con!
   
  But Brad, like he is online, is very kind, very gracious, and you can tell he loves the hobby (which likely explains his really good online support, even if Weapons of the Gods wasn’t my cup of tea).  Just another really great person, not online persona, that I got to meet this year.
   
  Anyhow, companies were still turning product in for the ENnies (White Wolf provided just about 1 of everything, I think) when I had to leave, so I think I’ll be getting some stuff UPS-shipped to me here soon.  And with that, boys and girls, Zachary’s odyssey at this year’s Gen Con is over.
   
  But guys, soon I want us to start talking about next year.  Gen Con is such a cool event, I was thinking it’d be cool if we looked at drives or cost-effective ways to get as many of our online buddies here this year to get to go to Gen Con!  Hell, maybe even theRPGsite could have a booth, showcasing some of the creative minds, companies, and talents that hang out here!  But if we could figure out a way to have a few drives to raise money to help get even a few of our “overseas” members here, and perhaps give out a few “scholarships” to other folks (4-day passes and the like), the only way I could think that Gen Con would have been better for me is, more gaming and more friends.  It might be a pipe dream, but I think it’s a worthy one.  
   
   
  A few last items:
   
  -Evidently, Monte Cook’s WoD sales evened out in the end, since WW reported no copies left.  Slow going, fast finish!
   
  -While at the Green Ronin booth, waiting for someone to talk to me about their upcoming Wild Cards RPG, I distinctly overhead someone say “Magic Deer”.  Pundit, sure you weren’t there?  
   
  -Dark Matter Studios has seemed to get a decent amount of buzz.  I was one of the first ones to review their first version of the Epic RPG, and I heard several people express how much they dug the concepts during the demos.  It actually even came up in the “what I’ve dug the most this year” portion of my GM’s seminar!  It’s always nice to see nice guys get a bit of attention.
   
  -2008 should be a bitchin’ year for RPGs, if you think about it.  A new version of Traveller and D&D?  Is Jimmy Carter president again, or did I miss something?  Well, even if you pre-emptively hate 4e, I’m excited to see what folks come up with between now and then.  And I want to play some Robotech.
   
  -Couldn’t find much on Hero Games, sorry.  I need backup next year!
   
  -Hey Burning Wheel fans:  Blossoms Are Falling:  HOLY CRAP.
   
  -Slate magazine was here, covering Gen Con. The guy seemed to be having a good time.
   
  -Books I saw more than once under folks’ arms as I was leaving:  Changeling (LOTS of these), the L5R Companion, a surprising amount of copies of Colonial Gothic (!), Rifts Dimension Book 10:  Hades, armfuls of Castles & Crusades books, and Dungeon Crawl Classics modules.  At least some of that because those are products I at least know about, but those are the ones I saw multiple times while leaving. Also, there was a lot of White Wolf stuff that I had no clue as to what it precisely was.
   
  -Best shirt I saw is a repeat of last year’s winner:  a 400-pound man wearing a shirt saying I BEAT ANOREXIA.  Sadly, Theresa had the camera at this point, and I again go without having this recorded for posterity visually.
   
  -Sett, Rick Loomis says hi.
   
  -On that, I love still seeing Flying Buffalo there.  Rick Loomis is a frickin’ institution, and needs some love.
   
  -It is in my head now that since Gary Gygax signed my Castles & Crusades GM’s screen, it has unknown magical powers over my players.
   
  -Where the hell is Iron Crown?  Guys, you have HARP, you have Rolemaster, and Gen Con has the biggest gathering of traditional gamers this side of anywhere.  Come, let us embrace you!
   
  -Palladium and Alderac seem to have a lot larger percentage of fans in real life than they do on the various internet communities.
   
  -Joseph Goodman deserves more attention for his company, what they make, and how it’s run.
   
  -Thank you guys for reading and ignoring the plethora of typos!  I’ll still be happy to respond to any other questions you have about this year’s con, the ENnies, etc.

[Aos]

Thanks for the play by play, man.  
I  am intriguied by Monte's WOD, which considering I'm not into WOD or D20 is a bit odd, but there it is.

[Settembrini]

Dude, its only really viral marketing if they either don't know who you are or don't know what your product is.

If I was REALLY going to viral market, I'd do so over on the Wizards boards or something, where most people have probably never heard of FtA! yet.  Here, EVERYONE has already heard of FtA!, so its not so much "viral marketing" as "writing about the game I wrote because it interests me".

RPGPundit

Oh, I was just trying to be funny.

[Akrasia]

Thanks for the reports and pictures, Zach!  I really appreciated it.

It was almost like being there, minus the odours, noise, and trans-Atlantic plane ticket!