Post the Fifth: Games on Demand
Games on Demand, first and foremost, was awesome. I’m less convinced about the utility of this post than I was having seen some of the posts by John Stavropoulos. But GoD is such a cool thing that I think that there really can’t be enough dialogue devoted to looking at what it does well, and what it could do better. I’m just a guy. I have no affiliation with Games on Demand aside from enjoying the fruits of others’ labor. Still, I think there may be some value in the “just folks” perspective.
First off, given some recent discussion, and the possible array of people who may read this, it’s probably a good idea to say what Games on Demand is. The name gives a hint, but there are sometimes misconceptions engendered by the name, so I’ll be overly-explicit, as is my habit. Games on Demand is an initiative to make independently published and small press games available for play during game conventions on a flexible basis. For those who don’t frequent gaming conventions, it may be important to know that most events are scheduled well in advanced, and people sign up for them based on time slot and number of available players. Often you can get into a game at the last minute if the player slots don’t fill up, or if someone doesn’t show up for their scheduled game. At GenCon, you pay for these last-minute games with Generic tickets. Games on Demand, on the other hand, does not have specific games scheduled that you pre-register for. You show up to the GoD room with Generic tickets in hand, and the volunteer staff there matches players up with GMs and games on a flexible basis. Most games run in 2 hour slots, but some run in 4 hour slots. To steal shamelessly from a conversation with Steve Segedy, GoD’s purpose is threefold: 1. To expose indie games to a wider spectrum of players, 2. To act as a central hub for the indie community at gaming cons, and 3. To drive sales for the retailers who design and sell these games.
When I first visited Games on Demand in 2008, it wasn’t even that regimented. I showed up, BS’d with a couple people I casually knew, and then someone grabbed some people together and we played a game. There were Games, but there wasn’t a massive amount of Demand. Four years later, that has changed, completely. On Thursday, GoD was filling up every table, but sometimes if you came in right at the hour, you’d still stand a chance of getting into a game. By Friday, there was a line out the door every two hours. By Saturday, they were overflowing the overflow room, and the line was extending partway down the hall. I think it can be said without any overstatement that Games on Demand has become a big deal. So, extensive background behind us, I’ll talk a little bit about my experiences. Part 3 already covered the games I played, so I’ll limit this post to talking about the logistics.
First, you may remember how many games I played that I mentioned were “not at the top of my list”. Games on Demand is good for that, if you’re open to it. Sometimes the game you want to play isn’t available at the time you come in, or it fills up before you get a chance to join the game. Your choices at this point are pretty limited. You can either go away and try later, or you can play something else. In most cases, I went with option two, and didn’t regret it. So, if you’re all fired up about a particular game, it may behoove you to make arrangements with the GM in advance, either through Games on Demand, or for after hours gaming. It is important to note that the staffers were willing to work with you to get a particular game, if they had a GM who was willing and able to run it, but your chances of getting it last minute aren’t as good as if you coordinated ahead of time.
The crowding and noise has been talked about elsewhere, but as much as it was a problem (I spent a good portion of every game with my hand cupped to my ear so I could hear, except the one we did in the Playtest room) I think it’s one of those things you’ve just got to accept for con gaming. They’re already talking about expanding into a second room, and having less tables per room (10 down from 12) which will alleviate some of the problem, but it’s never going to be quiet, especially when a nearby game gets rowdy; On more than one occasion, our play paused briefly as everyone looked across the room at someone roaring or shouting or busting up with laughter. It even happened more than a few times at the table I was at; At a couple points during the Fiasco game, I was near to falling out of my seat because I was laughing so hard. It’s annoying sometimes, but you know, it’s also part of the crazy joy of con gaming. At least I didn’t have to deal with play getting loud and ugly at a nearby table, like I heard elsewhere. The GoD staffers rarely (if ever?) had to deal with problem players.
The biggest, least positive aspect of GoD was the demand. As mentioned above, the lines got pretty crazy. Reading After Action Reviews from some of the staffers, they managed to get almost everyone into a game, but it certainly didn’t look that way to me, or to a couple people I spoke to. I’m willing to take on trust that they managed to accommodate nearly everyone, but I’m going to address my own experience. It became obvious pretty early that if you wanted a chance to get into a game, you arrived early, sometimes as much as 30 minutes early. Otherwise, you ended up somewhere back in the massive line. I know more than a couple times, I just looked at the line, and decided it was a good time to go crawl the dealer’s hall, or grab something to eat. Sometimes, I was reasonably certain I could get into a game, but if I’d just gotten out of one, I felt selfish about trying to jump right back into line, and potentially deny a seat to someone else who maybe hadn’t got a chance to play yet. When I’d get near the front of the line, where I could see the board, there’d usually be a dozen plus games on the board, but almost all of them would be full already.
This next part is where I tell on myself. I never really did this on purpose, but I didn’t say no when it happened, either. Sometimes, I’d get into that big ol’ line, and wait a bit, chatting it up with other people in the line. Then at some point, I’d decide to go look to see what the board looked like. As it was inside the room, I’d have to walk past the majority of the line. Once inside, sometimes someone would be like “Hey, you want to get in on such-and-such?” I’d glance around, considering saying no… But I never did. That’s how Dog Eat Dog happened, and the Fiasco game. The staffers were being very proactive about getting people into the games, but with the way things were set up, it was very difficult to tell who was wandering in to get a look at the board, and who had stood their turn in line.
The root cause of the problems, as I see it, is that demand was either way, way past expectation, or there simply wasn’t sufficient supply. By supply, I mean GMs and table space; Mostly GMs, as the GoD folks were not afraid to scavenge tables wherever they could find them, so long as there were GMs willing to run and players willing to play. Still, despite the valiant efforts of the GMs and Hosts at GoD, I think I can say with 100% certainty that there was never at any point a surplus of GMs. I’m not sure what standards, if any, exist for determining who is allowed to run games for Games on Demand. Hopefully someone who does know will chime in here. But with plans to expand the gaming space, and the numbers to justify it, it seems to me that the biggest issue is GMs, and the only obvious way to fix that is to have more people volunteer. I know that, whenever I may manage to get back to GenCon, I will be making an effort to get involved with Games on Demand as either a Host, a GM or both. You may consider this an unauthorized and unofficial call to do the same.
In closing, I’d like to reiterate my deep appreciation for all of the hard work that went into making Games on Demand, and by extension GenCon, rock so much for me. I confess to having no real idea of how much went into it, but I want to thank the Hosts who sat at the desk to chat with random strangers (i.e. me) when they wandered into the room between games, who grabbed their crooks and herded cats into table after table of indie game awesome, and who made sure everything ran as smoothly as possible. I also want to thank all of the folks who ran the games I enjoyed so much (see names in Post 3) and who ran all the games I didn’t play in, without whom none of the rest would have mattered much.
Finally, as this is the conclusion of my GenCon Postmortem, I want to say that this GenCon was pretty much everything I wanted it to be. I am used to disappointment in many areas of my life, so I try not to raise my hopes too high. I often fail to keep my hopes realistic, and as a result, I’m often crushed by experiences that, without that inflated expectation, were actually pretty decent. This GenCon wasn’t like that at all. I won’t claim that I wasn’t disappointed at various points throughout the weekend, and even in retrospect I wish there were people I’d talked to, and games I’d played (or bought; Thanks a bunch, Jay…) but this is the first thing in a long time that was actually as good or better than I wanted it to be. So, to all of you folks I mentioned in previous posts and all of you random strangers whose names I never caught:
Thank you.
25 August 2012
21 August 2012
GenCon Postmortem 4
My GenCon Peeps: I couldn’t possibly talk about everyone I met at GenCon, even just the ones I liked, because that’d take way too much time to write and… well, frankly, I barely remember half of the cool people I met. I will be limiting this to people I played with and who made a specific impression on me THIS GenCon, and whose names I remember. I can only hope that I made as good an impression on these guys as they did on me.
Jahmal “MadJay” Brown: I have a lot to be grateful to this dude for. Primarily, he’s a big part of the reason why I got to go at all, because if I couldn’t have made room arrangements, I wouldn’t have been able to go. He literally messaged me the day after I’d given up on going. Our communications before GenCon were pretty much limited just to the logistics of the room, so he was pretty much a stranger on Thursday morning when I woke up after getting in 5 or so hours before. We ended up going to breakfast (brunch, really) before we all split to go do our separate things, and that pretty much set the pattern for the rest of the weekend. When we’d meet back up in the evenings, we’d talk about the games we played, and about other gaming and programming related stuff, but it wasn’t really until after the women and gaming seminar I went to on Friday that we really started getting deeper than that. I think Jay and I have a very compatible world view, but after touching on some sensitive topics, I really think that even where our world views differ, we’d be able to discuss it civilly. I’ll confess that some of this is probably the GenCon glow, but despite about a decade’s difference in ages, and all the miles between, I think I like Jay enough that I might go so far as to call him a friend. For those who know me, that’s fairly rare.
Kayne Newell: My other roommate. I interacted with Kayne a lot less as he tended to be more social in the evenings. He’d always come back to the room with stories of people he met and wacky things he saw while he was out. Still, we got breakfast together a couple days, and hung out in the evenings at and post-Embassy a couple nights too, so I think I know him about as well as you can get to know someone in 4 days. We too got into various discussions on a variety of topics, from women and race in gaming, to editions of games we liked, to the inevitable “no shit, there I was…” stories. As with Jay, I think I really lucked out having Kayne as a roommate for GenCon this year.
Gregor Hutton: While I still haven’t had the pleasure of gaming with Gregor, he deserves a mention simply because of how good a guy he is. I also owe him thanks for my being at GenCon, because it was his share of my post about seeking a room that caught Jay’s attention and got him to contact me. Further, Gregor just genuinely seems happy to see people every time I see him. Some people are polite when approached by relative strangers, but Gregor made a point to seek me out to say hello on several occasions throughout the weekend. That’s a sort of friendliness that you can’t fake, so I’ve got to give Gregor public props for that. While I don’t think we’re close enough to call him a friend, I think I’d be honored to do so. Plus, he designs cool games from time to time.
Joe Beason: Joe started out as, I’m embarrassed to say, “some gay guy on G+”. Our initial interactions were generally on Meg Baker’s sex ed posts, and eventually after some interaction on the topic of gays, Christianity and gay marriage, he Circled me. I Circled him back, and we were casually aware of each other in the weeks leading up to GenCon. Day 1, while I was still strongly in “online acquaintance stalker” mode, I recognized him and maneuvered into getting into his Monsterhearts game so I could introduce myself. Our further interactions were mostly in passing and the later Monster of the Week game. Still, he ran two very good games, and in particular the Monsterhearts game both seemed totally improvised and tailored to our characters, and pre-planned, which is impressive, whichever was true. He demonstrated a good grasp of dramatic tension that was much appreciated in both games, even in the somewhat zanier MotW game. Thanks for the games Joe, and I’m glad to have met you in person.
Steve Segedy: This guy is an unsung hero. I can’t really say that we interacted a lot, but I’d feel like an ungrateful douchebag if I didn’t mention him. Pretty much every time I went to GoD, this guy was either at the door talking to hopeful players, cruising the edges of the room looking for problems to be solved, and even facilitating games periodically. We did have one decent-length conversation on Saturday night as we walked to the Embassy Suites together about how far Games on Demand had come, and where it was going, but mostly, every time I saw him he just seemed so busy.
Matt Jackson: My history with Matt is funny. We first linked up while we were both deployed to Iraq, in different regions. He was trying to get some online play, but I was blessed to have a good face to face group, and a spotty enough internet connection that I wasn’t really invested in trying it. We later linked up again on G+. It was really good to see Matt at GenCon, though for the first day and a half, we were still talking entirely through G+, as I hadn’t quite managed to catch sight of him, despite several near misses. Eventually we got a chance to talk a bit, but it was so hectic that it wasn’t until our Friday night game of 3:16 that we got to talk much. Still, it was good to game with him, and we talked about linking up for some Hangout Gaming once I’m back home from the rest of my vacation.
Hamish Cameron: We played in at least two games together, and that’s all I can really say I know about Hamish. I don’t think I’ve ever interacted with him or even heard of him before this GenCon, but he really stood out to me as someone who brings quality to the table. There was never any single thing that grabbed my attention, but he was just really easy to riff off of, and I really liked the depth and consistency he brought to the roles he played, even if it was just a two-hour one-shot. Hamish, I don’t know if you’ll read this, but I’d love to have you at any table I play at.
Clifton Roach: This guy, despite how eerily familiar he looks, is one I met for the first time during my first game, Monsterhearts. He was the other player of what turned out to be a two player (plus GM) game, and while I think the dynamic would have been a bit more… well, dynamic with more than two players, we managed to have fun. I later played with him in a Dungeon World game, and finally in the Monster of the Week game. Each time, he was fun and engaging, and despite not having a lot of experience with indie games, he didn’t seem to have any baggage to carry in from other games. I like especially how, in that first Monsterhearts game, he managed to play his character hard, he was still fine with rooting against his own character, as he’d kind of set out to be the villain of the piece. I told him during the MotW game that I liked to believe that eventually our characters worked out their misunderstandings, and now Arthur was a very successful motivational speaker. He replied that he liked to believe that Victoria killed Arthur in some climactic battle. (In case it’s unclear, he played Arthur, who was… well, think something like the girl from The Faculty, but with magic instead of wormy things)
Other Notables: There are many people I met who I thought were pretty awesome, but I’m limiting myself to impressions and experiences at this GenCon. I could write a paragraph each on Jason Morningstar, Elizabeth Sampat, Liam Burke, Lenny Balsera, Clyde Rhoer, Ralph Mazza, Jason Pitre and probably a half-dozen others I’ll remember as soon as I post this. But this weekend, at this GenCon, my interactions with them were limited. I still think they’re great people who have created awesome games or been helpful to me in some fashion or another, but as I said in the beginning, if I wrote about everyone at GenCon who I thought was an amazing person, I’d never get this written and submitted. So, all of you people listed above, and especially all of you I didn’t list, I look forward, in some future when, to making your closer acquaintance.
Jahmal “MadJay” Brown: I have a lot to be grateful to this dude for. Primarily, he’s a big part of the reason why I got to go at all, because if I couldn’t have made room arrangements, I wouldn’t have been able to go. He literally messaged me the day after I’d given up on going. Our communications before GenCon were pretty much limited just to the logistics of the room, so he was pretty much a stranger on Thursday morning when I woke up after getting in 5 or so hours before. We ended up going to breakfast (brunch, really) before we all split to go do our separate things, and that pretty much set the pattern for the rest of the weekend. When we’d meet back up in the evenings, we’d talk about the games we played, and about other gaming and programming related stuff, but it wasn’t really until after the women and gaming seminar I went to on Friday that we really started getting deeper than that. I think Jay and I have a very compatible world view, but after touching on some sensitive topics, I really think that even where our world views differ, we’d be able to discuss it civilly. I’ll confess that some of this is probably the GenCon glow, but despite about a decade’s difference in ages, and all the miles between, I think I like Jay enough that I might go so far as to call him a friend. For those who know me, that’s fairly rare.
Kayne Newell: My other roommate. I interacted with Kayne a lot less as he tended to be more social in the evenings. He’d always come back to the room with stories of people he met and wacky things he saw while he was out. Still, we got breakfast together a couple days, and hung out in the evenings at and post-Embassy a couple nights too, so I think I know him about as well as you can get to know someone in 4 days. We too got into various discussions on a variety of topics, from women and race in gaming, to editions of games we liked, to the inevitable “no shit, there I was…” stories. As with Jay, I think I really lucked out having Kayne as a roommate for GenCon this year.
Gregor Hutton: While I still haven’t had the pleasure of gaming with Gregor, he deserves a mention simply because of how good a guy he is. I also owe him thanks for my being at GenCon, because it was his share of my post about seeking a room that caught Jay’s attention and got him to contact me. Further, Gregor just genuinely seems happy to see people every time I see him. Some people are polite when approached by relative strangers, but Gregor made a point to seek me out to say hello on several occasions throughout the weekend. That’s a sort of friendliness that you can’t fake, so I’ve got to give Gregor public props for that. While I don’t think we’re close enough to call him a friend, I think I’d be honored to do so. Plus, he designs cool games from time to time.
Joe Beason: Joe started out as, I’m embarrassed to say, “some gay guy on G+”. Our initial interactions were generally on Meg Baker’s sex ed posts, and eventually after some interaction on the topic of gays, Christianity and gay marriage, he Circled me. I Circled him back, and we were casually aware of each other in the weeks leading up to GenCon. Day 1, while I was still strongly in “online acquaintance stalker” mode, I recognized him and maneuvered into getting into his Monsterhearts game so I could introduce myself. Our further interactions were mostly in passing and the later Monster of the Week game. Still, he ran two very good games, and in particular the Monsterhearts game both seemed totally improvised and tailored to our characters, and pre-planned, which is impressive, whichever was true. He demonstrated a good grasp of dramatic tension that was much appreciated in both games, even in the somewhat zanier MotW game. Thanks for the games Joe, and I’m glad to have met you in person.
Steve Segedy: This guy is an unsung hero. I can’t really say that we interacted a lot, but I’d feel like an ungrateful douchebag if I didn’t mention him. Pretty much every time I went to GoD, this guy was either at the door talking to hopeful players, cruising the edges of the room looking for problems to be solved, and even facilitating games periodically. We did have one decent-length conversation on Saturday night as we walked to the Embassy Suites together about how far Games on Demand had come, and where it was going, but mostly, every time I saw him he just seemed so busy.
Matt Jackson: My history with Matt is funny. We first linked up while we were both deployed to Iraq, in different regions. He was trying to get some online play, but I was blessed to have a good face to face group, and a spotty enough internet connection that I wasn’t really invested in trying it. We later linked up again on G+. It was really good to see Matt at GenCon, though for the first day and a half, we were still talking entirely through G+, as I hadn’t quite managed to catch sight of him, despite several near misses. Eventually we got a chance to talk a bit, but it was so hectic that it wasn’t until our Friday night game of 3:16 that we got to talk much. Still, it was good to game with him, and we talked about linking up for some Hangout Gaming once I’m back home from the rest of my vacation.
Hamish Cameron: We played in at least two games together, and that’s all I can really say I know about Hamish. I don’t think I’ve ever interacted with him or even heard of him before this GenCon, but he really stood out to me as someone who brings quality to the table. There was never any single thing that grabbed my attention, but he was just really easy to riff off of, and I really liked the depth and consistency he brought to the roles he played, even if it was just a two-hour one-shot. Hamish, I don’t know if you’ll read this, but I’d love to have you at any table I play at.
Clifton Roach: This guy, despite how eerily familiar he looks, is one I met for the first time during my first game, Monsterhearts. He was the other player of what turned out to be a two player (plus GM) game, and while I think the dynamic would have been a bit more… well, dynamic with more than two players, we managed to have fun. I later played with him in a Dungeon World game, and finally in the Monster of the Week game. Each time, he was fun and engaging, and despite not having a lot of experience with indie games, he didn’t seem to have any baggage to carry in from other games. I like especially how, in that first Monsterhearts game, he managed to play his character hard, he was still fine with rooting against his own character, as he’d kind of set out to be the villain of the piece. I told him during the MotW game that I liked to believe that eventually our characters worked out their misunderstandings, and now Arthur was a very successful motivational speaker. He replied that he liked to believe that Victoria killed Arthur in some climactic battle. (In case it’s unclear, he played Arthur, who was… well, think something like the girl from The Faculty, but with magic instead of wormy things)
Other Notables: There are many people I met who I thought were pretty awesome, but I’m limiting myself to impressions and experiences at this GenCon. I could write a paragraph each on Jason Morningstar, Elizabeth Sampat, Liam Burke, Lenny Balsera, Clyde Rhoer, Ralph Mazza, Jason Pitre and probably a half-dozen others I’ll remember as soon as I post this. But this weekend, at this GenCon, my interactions with them were limited. I still think they’re great people who have created awesome games or been helpful to me in some fashion or another, but as I said in the beginning, if I wrote about everyone at GenCon who I thought was an amazing person, I’d never get this written and submitted. So, all of you people listed above, and especially all of you I didn’t list, I look forward, in some future when, to making your closer acquaintance.
GenCon Postmortem 3
Gaming at GenCon: This is apt to be the longest post of the series. I’ll talk about the specific games and the sessions, what I liked, what I didn’t, and why. To sum it up, I played a total of 10 game sessions, for a total of about 25-27 hours of gaming over the course of the weekend.
Monsterhearts (written by Joe McDaldno, run by Joe Beason, 3.5 hours x 1 session): I’ve heard enough buzz about Monsterhearts to be intrigued, but I’ll admit it wasn’t at the top of my list to play, despite having a great deal of respect for the Joe M’s design chops. All the same, when Joe B was getting a game of that going first thing when I came into GoD to play, that’s what I played. Unfortunately, there were only two of us playing, but Cliff ended up being a very compatible co-player, with whom I played in a couple of other games over the weekend. The basic premise of Monsterhearts is teenage monsters and the drama that surrounds them. To put it succinctly, I’ll borrow a quote I saw somewhere: “What if Twilight didn’t suck?” Our particular session had some Buffy overtones, as I played “The Chosen One”, which is a Buffy-esque monster hunter. Cliff was “The Queen”, or perhaps more accurately, the King, as he played a male character, which he twisted slightly to be a mind-dominator bent on world conquest. Memorable scenes include when my character, Victoria, cornered a rival in the girl’s bathroom to try to get information out of her, and ended up starting a fight she very decisively did not win, and the haunted house seduction by the same rival of the other PC in an attempt to win him over to her dark master, but instead falling under his thrall.
The game is very, very tight, with mechanics designed to point the player characters at each other in some fashion, either as friends, lovers and rivals, and at no point does it ever allow you to forget that you’re playing high school kids who just happen to be just the other side of the veil of weird. It left me a little frustrated that our game would only be a one-shot, as I really wanted to continue to pursue my goals, and see where it all went, which is generally a good sign of a good session. It was on my short-list of games to buy, but though IPR (the retailer selling it) brought plenty of copies, it was sold out by the time I made the decision to buy it. Ironically, it turned out that the last copy was bought by my own roommate, Jay.
Dungeon World (written by Sage LaTorra and Adam Koebel, run by Scott Acker and Matt Boersma, 2 hours x 2 sessions): Dungeon World is the bleeding edge of the new hotness in indie land, which admittedly makes me balk. Still, the opportunity came up twice over the weekend to play, and I’m glad I did. The first session was… well, it didn’t really sell me. It was easily the worst session I played at GenCon, but that doesn’t mean it sucked; It was just the one so-so game in a weekend of consistent awesome. It was still quite fun, but man we were a scattered group. As the session ended, I declared us the Worst Adventuring Group EVER. The GM was also a little disorganized at first, and the scenario wasn’t ideal for the rogue I decided to play (enchanted woods, even more enchanted roads) so I don’t blame the GM. The second session, where I played my Paladin, was a lot more impromptu, and the GM had dynamic pacing down to a science. We actually successfully completed the quest just as the two hours was expiring. Regarding what Dungeon World is, it’s D&D tropes and feel played with a fast, light system based on Apocalypse World.
I found Dungeon World to be less tight than Monsterhearts, but it did a very good job of capturing the feel of Dungeons and Dragons without being all that similar mechanically. The classes are bog-standard D&D classes with the same feel, and the stats are basically exactly what you’d expect going in, but those overlay the fast system which creates complications rather than dead-ends. If you love D&D, but just can’t find the time for it anymore, Dungeon World may be right up your 10’x10’ corridor. It sets up fast, it plays fast, and only requires minimal preparation (though I’d imagine it handles the deep prep that most DMs are use to just fine). I wasn’t able to pick this up at IPR either, as it wasn’t yet commercially available, having recently funded through a Kickstarter campaign. I believe it’s available in PDF, and those who backed already had their books there at the Con.
Fiasco (written by Jason Morningstar, facilitated by Steve Segedy, 2 hours x 1 session): I’ll admit that I would have been okay if I didn’t play Fiasco. It is the most attractive game, thematically, that Jason has produced, but given the very loose influence by the mechanics on the narrative that I’ve seen and heard of from his games, I was ready to pass. Still, when there was a packed room, and Steve offered to facilitate a game of Fiasco, I decided to give it a shot, and I’m very glad I did. The game started out complicated (as usual) but nothing outrageous, with a bunch of office-workers in an uncaring corporate environment. It quickly went completely batshit. My character, “that Tammy girl”, the hot new temp, was probably the only one that wasn’t certifiably insane. After some stalkerish co-ordination, things went completely south with blackmail, cyber-theft, firebombs, torture and interrogation, crazed gunmen and eventually the bombed out wreckage of the building. Tammy was the most sympathetic character, with the rest of the players showing a cheerful self-loathing for their own characters, but in the end, the character we all hated worst (including the guy playing him) the stalker security guard with a gas-mask fetish ended up with everything, the money, and the soul-dead girl on his arm. It was great.
Fiasco isn’t the sort of game you play when you want straightforward adventures. Think something like Tarantino or the Coen Brothers; complicated, messy, and the good guys (if there were any to begin with) aren’t the ones walking away with a smile at the end. It’s a GM-less game, and while the mechanics have almost NO control over what happens in the game, they really, really drive play in surprising ways. Play revolves around scenarios called “Playsets” which can be anything from a bank heist, to a bunch of folks trapped in a car together on a road trip. I did buy this, and even managed to corner Jason and get it autographed. It’s definitely the sort of game I’d play again.
3:16 (written by Gregor Hutton, ran by me, 2 hours x 1 session): 3:16 is the only game I played at GenCon that I’d played before. I had to buy a new copy, as I’ve not been able to find my original copy for a long time. I ran this Saturday night for what was easily the biggest group I’ve had in many and many a year, 6 players. 3:16 works well for smaller groups, but I think, contrary to some opinions, that it really sings with a larger group. I know I enjoyed this session a lot more than others I’ve ran in the last few years, though some of that, I’m sure, comes from the glow imparted by GenCon. The inter-player dynamic made it so that I felt like I was carrying a lot less of the game than when I’ve had to run it for 2-3 players. And man, did we have a colorful cast. My players were: Matt Jackson, Bryan Meadows, Jay “MadJay” Brown, Kayne Newell, Brennen Reece and Bridget Westerman. We went through character generation pretty quickly, and it fell out that Bridget was the only one who didn’t try to max out Fighting Ability (she actually went the other way, 7 NFA/3FA), so she made Sergeant. Out of the 3 people with 8 Fighting Ability, Bryan won the roll-off, making him the Corporal. From there, I went into some descriptive roleplay in the troop bay, before introducing the hard-ass lieutenant, and preparing to get them planet-side. I once again used the crazy pilot and the roll to maintain the contents of your stomach that I stole shamelessly from John Harper’s game back in 2008, and they hit the planet and we got rolling. We only got in one combat, and I think there was some confusion about the alien ability I’d rolled, which basically made attacks at Far Range completely impossible. I kept rolling really well (5s, 6s, and 7s against my AA of 7, meaning I succeeded and got high initiative most times). They were getting slammed by my little 5 token encounter, and had to use the cancel move twice to avoid forcing anyone to use armor or die. Eventually they got in close enough and started laying down the harm. Unfortunately, immediately following the combat encounter, Bridget had to go, as she was an exhibitor, and thus had to get up earlier than some. We took that as a cue to call it quits for the night, and never did manage to get everyone back together and free to continue the mission. Still, it was great fun.
3:16 is definitely one of my go-to games. Immediately following GenCon ’08, when I was first introduced to it, I bragged to my home group that I could explain the game, prepare a mission, and run them through a complete mission in two hours. Then I proved it. Since then, it has provided several sessions of low-prep fun. Even feeling like my GM mojo had atrophied over the years of relative disuse, I remain confident I can deliver the fun with 3:16. It is a space-marine game in similar vein to Aliens and Starship Troopers, and can be played very satirically, or very straight and still be good. If you like violence and space marines and are willing to try something new, you should definitely go give Gregor your money.
Monsterhearts (written by Joe McDaldno, run by Joe Beason, 3.5 hours x 1 session): I’ve heard enough buzz about Monsterhearts to be intrigued, but I’ll admit it wasn’t at the top of my list to play, despite having a great deal of respect for the Joe M’s design chops. All the same, when Joe B was getting a game of that going first thing when I came into GoD to play, that’s what I played. Unfortunately, there were only two of us playing, but Cliff ended up being a very compatible co-player, with whom I played in a couple of other games over the weekend. The basic premise of Monsterhearts is teenage monsters and the drama that surrounds them. To put it succinctly, I’ll borrow a quote I saw somewhere: “What if Twilight didn’t suck?” Our particular session had some Buffy overtones, as I played “The Chosen One”, which is a Buffy-esque monster hunter. Cliff was “The Queen”, or perhaps more accurately, the King, as he played a male character, which he twisted slightly to be a mind-dominator bent on world conquest. Memorable scenes include when my character, Victoria, cornered a rival in the girl’s bathroom to try to get information out of her, and ended up starting a fight she very decisively did not win, and the haunted house seduction by the same rival of the other PC in an attempt to win him over to her dark master, but instead falling under his thrall.
The game is very, very tight, with mechanics designed to point the player characters at each other in some fashion, either as friends, lovers and rivals, and at no point does it ever allow you to forget that you’re playing high school kids who just happen to be just the other side of the veil of weird. It left me a little frustrated that our game would only be a one-shot, as I really wanted to continue to pursue my goals, and see where it all went, which is generally a good sign of a good session. It was on my short-list of games to buy, but though IPR (the retailer selling it) brought plenty of copies, it was sold out by the time I made the decision to buy it. Ironically, it turned out that the last copy was bought by my own roommate, Jay.
Dungeon World (written by Sage LaTorra and Adam Koebel, run by Scott Acker and Matt Boersma, 2 hours x 2 sessions): Dungeon World is the bleeding edge of the new hotness in indie land, which admittedly makes me balk. Still, the opportunity came up twice over the weekend to play, and I’m glad I did. The first session was… well, it didn’t really sell me. It was easily the worst session I played at GenCon, but that doesn’t mean it sucked; It was just the one so-so game in a weekend of consistent awesome. It was still quite fun, but man we were a scattered group. As the session ended, I declared us the Worst Adventuring Group EVER. The GM was also a little disorganized at first, and the scenario wasn’t ideal for the rogue I decided to play (enchanted woods, even more enchanted roads) so I don’t blame the GM. The second session, where I played my Paladin, was a lot more impromptu, and the GM had dynamic pacing down to a science. We actually successfully completed the quest just as the two hours was expiring. Regarding what Dungeon World is, it’s D&D tropes and feel played with a fast, light system based on Apocalypse World.
I found Dungeon World to be less tight than Monsterhearts, but it did a very good job of capturing the feel of Dungeons and Dragons without being all that similar mechanically. The classes are bog-standard D&D classes with the same feel, and the stats are basically exactly what you’d expect going in, but those overlay the fast system which creates complications rather than dead-ends. If you love D&D, but just can’t find the time for it anymore, Dungeon World may be right up your 10’x10’ corridor. It sets up fast, it plays fast, and only requires minimal preparation (though I’d imagine it handles the deep prep that most DMs are use to just fine). I wasn’t able to pick this up at IPR either, as it wasn’t yet commercially available, having recently funded through a Kickstarter campaign. I believe it’s available in PDF, and those who backed already had their books there at the Con.
Fiasco (written by Jason Morningstar, facilitated by Steve Segedy, 2 hours x 1 session): I’ll admit that I would have been okay if I didn’t play Fiasco. It is the most attractive game, thematically, that Jason has produced, but given the very loose influence by the mechanics on the narrative that I’ve seen and heard of from his games, I was ready to pass. Still, when there was a packed room, and Steve offered to facilitate a game of Fiasco, I decided to give it a shot, and I’m very glad I did. The game started out complicated (as usual) but nothing outrageous, with a bunch of office-workers in an uncaring corporate environment. It quickly went completely batshit. My character, “that Tammy girl”, the hot new temp, was probably the only one that wasn’t certifiably insane. After some stalkerish co-ordination, things went completely south with blackmail, cyber-theft, firebombs, torture and interrogation, crazed gunmen and eventually the bombed out wreckage of the building. Tammy was the most sympathetic character, with the rest of the players showing a cheerful self-loathing for their own characters, but in the end, the character we all hated worst (including the guy playing him) the stalker security guard with a gas-mask fetish ended up with everything, the money, and the soul-dead girl on his arm. It was great.
Fiasco isn’t the sort of game you play when you want straightforward adventures. Think something like Tarantino or the Coen Brothers; complicated, messy, and the good guys (if there were any to begin with) aren’t the ones walking away with a smile at the end. It’s a GM-less game, and while the mechanics have almost NO control over what happens in the game, they really, really drive play in surprising ways. Play revolves around scenarios called “Playsets” which can be anything from a bank heist, to a bunch of folks trapped in a car together on a road trip. I did buy this, and even managed to corner Jason and get it autographed. It’s definitely the sort of game I’d play again.
3:16 (written by Gregor Hutton, ran by me, 2 hours x 1 session): 3:16 is the only game I played at GenCon that I’d played before. I had to buy a new copy, as I’ve not been able to find my original copy for a long time. I ran this Saturday night for what was easily the biggest group I’ve had in many and many a year, 6 players. 3:16 works well for smaller groups, but I think, contrary to some opinions, that it really sings with a larger group. I know I enjoyed this session a lot more than others I’ve ran in the last few years, though some of that, I’m sure, comes from the glow imparted by GenCon. The inter-player dynamic made it so that I felt like I was carrying a lot less of the game than when I’ve had to run it for 2-3 players. And man, did we have a colorful cast. My players were: Matt Jackson, Bryan Meadows, Jay “MadJay” Brown, Kayne Newell, Brennen Reece and Bridget Westerman. We went through character generation pretty quickly, and it fell out that Bridget was the only one who didn’t try to max out Fighting Ability (she actually went the other way, 7 NFA/3FA), so she made Sergeant. Out of the 3 people with 8 Fighting Ability, Bryan won the roll-off, making him the Corporal. From there, I went into some descriptive roleplay in the troop bay, before introducing the hard-ass lieutenant, and preparing to get them planet-side. I once again used the crazy pilot and the roll to maintain the contents of your stomach that I stole shamelessly from John Harper’s game back in 2008, and they hit the planet and we got rolling. We only got in one combat, and I think there was some confusion about the alien ability I’d rolled, which basically made attacks at Far Range completely impossible. I kept rolling really well (5s, 6s, and 7s against my AA of 7, meaning I succeeded and got high initiative most times). They were getting slammed by my little 5 token encounter, and had to use the cancel move twice to avoid forcing anyone to use armor or die. Eventually they got in close enough and started laying down the harm. Unfortunately, immediately following the combat encounter, Bridget had to go, as she was an exhibitor, and thus had to get up earlier than some. We took that as a cue to call it quits for the night, and never did manage to get everyone back together and free to continue the mission. Still, it was great fun.
3:16 is definitely one of my go-to games. Immediately following GenCon ’08, when I was first introduced to it, I bragged to my home group that I could explain the game, prepare a mission, and run them through a complete mission in two hours. Then I proved it. Since then, it has provided several sessions of low-prep fun. Even feeling like my GM mojo had atrophied over the years of relative disuse, I remain confident I can deliver the fun with 3:16. It is a space-marine game in similar vein to Aliens and Starship Troopers, and can be played very satirically, or very straight and still be good. If you like violence and space marines and are willing to try something new, you should definitely go give Gregor your money.
Dog Eat Dog (written by Liam Burke, facilitated by Liam Burke, 2 hours x 1 session): Dog Eat Dog continues the theme of games that I wasn’t sold on before I played them. It was another last-minute game that came up, and I just went with. That was a thing with me at GenCon: I had games I preferred to play, but I wasn’t going to go in being all picky, like I might normally be, because this was GenCon, and part of the point was to try new games. If I ended up not liking them, then it’d only be a couple hours lost, and I’d never have to play them again. So, I sat down to Dog Eat Dog with trepidation. That trepidation was brought on by the theme: islanders dealing with an occupying force, and the pressures to assimilate or keep your cultural heritage. As we created our scenario, it didn’t get any better, as we turned out to be atheist cannibals. Luckily, no one really used this as an opportunity to knock religion in general. Our occupiers were nomadic boat people, with religious polygamy and massive fertility. The game started out fairly light, but as it advanced, it got more serious and darker as it went. What was interesting to me in particular was my own character’s transformation. I started with a artist who rebelled in peaceful fashion by painting tribal symbols on the occupiers walls. I ended with a culture-warrior who spearheaded a purge of occupier sympathizers in our own village, then used their mangled bodies to create a tableau mocking the religious iconography of the occupiers. Basically, I went from hippie activist to terrorist in a two hour session, and every single step felt justified.
The game itself is reminiscent, to me, of Fiasco in that the mechanics of the game have little to no effect on what your character does, or whether or not it succeeds. All action in the game is pretty much narrated or negotiated, and at the end of each turn, the player of the occupiers judges everyone at the table based on an evolving set of rules which are actually generated by the natives as play progresses. The main mechanic is a set of tokens that change hands as the players obey rules, or disobey them, ending when the occupier runs out of tokens, or all of the native players do (running out of tokens as a native ends in “running amok” and some spectacular death) I bought this game, and while it’s unlikely to be in my list of go-to games, I can definitely see potential… I even suggested that Liam consider Red Dawn as a possible scenario.
Monster of the Week (written by Michael Sands, run by Joe Beason, 4 hours x 1 session): This was one of the games I was actually all the way interested in prior to getting the opportunity to play. Think Scooby Doo, Supernatural and Buffy. Basically, you play a team of people who hunt down and take care of supernatural threats, whether they’re wreaking localized mayhem, or trying to rule the world. Our session, being a one-shot, was world-scale terror on a local level. The one fly in the ointment was the Luchador. Seriously? I can’t even really blame the player, because while he did in fact overplay it, I think that the idea of a Luchador sort of encourages it. Still, it wasn’t incredibly annoying, it just felt off to me. I played “The Expert” which makes me think of Giles, or Nigel, or whatever the hell his name was from Buffy, or Bobby Singer from Supernatural. He’s got some decent ass-kicking skills, but he’s mostly useful for what he knows or can find out. Our scenario involved spirit spiders and a spider god trying to complete a ritual to bring itself into the world where it would reign supreme forever. We failed to save the second girl, but we did manage to showcase our individual badassity before rushing off to find the dude before he sacrificed his own wife to complete the ritual. On the way, I revealed some of my dark past to show that I knew a devil’s bargain of a counter-ritual that would stop the spider god, if all else failed. We resolved to make my knowledge academic, and almost managed to stop the ritual-master before he tried to complete the ritual by taking his own life. I managed to stop him just long enough with healing magic just long enough for my cohorts to kill him to death. It was a crazy, fast-paced session (at least in retrospect; I do kind of recall wishing that things would move along a time or two) and it was a lot of fun.
The game itself was a pretty standard Apocalypse World hack from all I could tell, but it was geared to be more cooperative than some. The archetypes are evocative, and the session was good, but that’s really all I can say about it. I didn’t see it for sale, and didn’t really seek it out, despite having a good time playing it.
The game itself is reminiscent, to me, of Fiasco in that the mechanics of the game have little to no effect on what your character does, or whether or not it succeeds. All action in the game is pretty much narrated or negotiated, and at the end of each turn, the player of the occupiers judges everyone at the table based on an evolving set of rules which are actually generated by the natives as play progresses. The main mechanic is a set of tokens that change hands as the players obey rules, or disobey them, ending when the occupier runs out of tokens, or all of the native players do (running out of tokens as a native ends in “running amok” and some spectacular death) I bought this game, and while it’s unlikely to be in my list of go-to games, I can definitely see potential… I even suggested that Liam consider Red Dawn as a possible scenario.
Monster of the Week (written by Michael Sands, run by Joe Beason, 4 hours x 1 session): This was one of the games I was actually all the way interested in prior to getting the opportunity to play. Think Scooby Doo, Supernatural and Buffy. Basically, you play a team of people who hunt down and take care of supernatural threats, whether they’re wreaking localized mayhem, or trying to rule the world. Our session, being a one-shot, was world-scale terror on a local level. The one fly in the ointment was the Luchador. Seriously? I can’t even really blame the player, because while he did in fact overplay it, I think that the idea of a Luchador sort of encourages it. Still, it wasn’t incredibly annoying, it just felt off to me. I played “The Expert” which makes me think of Giles, or Nigel, or whatever the hell his name was from Buffy, or Bobby Singer from Supernatural. He’s got some decent ass-kicking skills, but he’s mostly useful for what he knows or can find out. Our scenario involved spirit spiders and a spider god trying to complete a ritual to bring itself into the world where it would reign supreme forever. We failed to save the second girl, but we did manage to showcase our individual badassity before rushing off to find the dude before he sacrificed his own wife to complete the ritual. On the way, I revealed some of my dark past to show that I knew a devil’s bargain of a counter-ritual that would stop the spider god, if all else failed. We resolved to make my knowledge academic, and almost managed to stop the ritual-master before he tried to complete the ritual by taking his own life. I managed to stop him just long enough with healing magic just long enough for my cohorts to kill him to death. It was a crazy, fast-paced session (at least in retrospect; I do kind of recall wishing that things would move along a time or two) and it was a lot of fun.
The game itself was a pretty standard Apocalypse World hack from all I could tell, but it was geared to be more cooperative than some. The archetypes are evocative, and the session was good, but that’s really all I can say about it. I didn’t see it for sale, and didn’t really seek it out, despite having a good time playing it.
Technoir (written by Jeremy Keller, run by Mark DiPasquale, 2 hours x 1 session): I’d seen this game on the board several times, and I’d heard a tiny bit about it, but I didn’t really know much. When I saw it available, I jumped at the chance, despite my lack of foreknowledge. It really did feel a lot like Shadowrun, minus the magic, and while character generation was reasonably quick, the poring over the options took notably longer than I like for a ConGame, especially in a 2-hour slot; It literally took an hour just to get characters made, and I still had resources to spend. Still, in that remaining hour, the GM managed to throw us right into the mix, which I think speaks well of the fluidity of the mechanics. The shining moment for me was when the helicopter I was on was boarded, and I took the guy trying to be all fancy and swing under the belly to come in the opposite door, and continue his momentum right on through to where the rest of his team was waiting. Then our pilot pulled some fancy “Crazy Ivan” style maneuvering and blows the shit out of the belly of the other chopper. It was fun.
Regarding the game itself, I was a little iffy about the condition-based damage at first, as damaging others in more than a fleeting fashion requires you to give up some of your effectiveness, and the only way to get it back is to get some non-fleeting damage of your own. But as I noticed the mechanic in play, I realized it’s a closed system economy, with the GM getting resources from the players, and the players getting them back from the GM. If you want to lay down some serious asskicking, you’ve got to take some punishment first. I also like the general flexibility of the equipment system, and I went ahead and bought the game based largely on feel, and the initial impression of the game.
Lacuna (written by Jared Sorensen, run by Mikael Andersson, 2 hours x 1 session): I’ve been wanting to play Lacuna for years, so when I saw it on the board with open slots, I leapt at the chance. It was also nice to discover that Mikael was running it, as we’d known each other casually online for years. Lacuna is a very surreal game, where you play agents who enter the dreaming mind of a deranged subject to track down and destroy the “hostile personality” that’s causing them to be less than productive members of society. It’s completely normal to get conflicting orders from “Control”, bizarre landscapes and random (or are they?) occurrances. It was doubly surreal because myself and another player dropped into the middle of a game that was already 2 hours old. We took on the roles of existing agents, but weren’t told what we’d missed. I won’t say that this is standard for Lacuna, but it’s the sort of thing you just take in stride with all of the other weirdness. We managed to eventually track down the HP, but due to some very… entangled agendas, it was unclear exactly what we were supposed to do. We eventually, err, succeeded, but it was very odd the whole time. My portrayal (apparently very, very different from the last player’s portrayal) was very terse, mission-oriented and… kind of a complete bad-ass asshole. Highlights include when I blew the brains out of the information booth attendant when she randomly attacked one of the other agents, without a word or expression, then when I leapt into a speeding vehicle and brought it to a screeching halt. Quite entertaining, and I’m very glad I got the opportunity to play.
As previously mentioned, I’ve been wanting to play Lacuna for years. I got a copy of the previous version sent to me years ago in Iraq, but though I’d read through it, I’d never played it and forgotten much of what I’d read, so it really wasn’t much less confusing for me as it was for the other players. The game runs off central mechanic based around heartbeats per minute, where every action you do increases your BPM through target and up to and over a maximum, at which point, things kind of start getting dangerous, and you could end up dying. You requisition stuff, matrix-style, from Control, and there’s almost always some sense of pressure, even when things are standing still. This game isn’t currently available for sale, so I wasn’t able to purchase it, though I definitely would have if it were.
Legend of the 5 Rings hack for Apocalypse World (hacked and run by Brennan Taylor, 3+ hours x 1 session): This was the very last game of the Con, played at the Embassy Suites. I enjoyed the set-up, but for whatever reason, I ended up feeling very passive and overlooked during play. I *did* enjoy the game, don’t get me wrong, but I know I got passed over for a scene, and I felt oddly reticent to push myself forward, which isn’t a normal thing for me. I’m normally very bold, and often have to make a point to rein myself in so I don’t trample on other players. This game, that wasn’t there. Plus, as it turned out, rather than being a ronin badass duelist, I ended up being a ronin-badass war leader, so I literally walked away from about half of my bennies when we went into the imperial city for the showdown with the possessed emperor. While I know little to nothing about Legend of the 5 Rings, the conclusion was satisfying enough, and felt very genre, with two characters dying, one character maimed trying to protect the newly cleansed emperor, and two formerly bitter rivals conspiring to take the throne. (I was one of the deaths; I failed a roll when we were trying to contain the emperor long enough for the evil spirit to be purged from him) This game ran until 1 am on Monday, and was instrumental in me getting basically no sleep before returning home. Still, I don’t regret it, not a bit.
On Apocalypse World: As mentioned a few times in the preceding paragraphs, hacking Apocalypse World is the new trendy thing. Monsterhearts, Dungeon World, Monster of the Week, and the L5R game were all hacked from Apocalypse World. The funny thing for me is that I played basically every well-known AW hack (except the Regiment, which was a WW2 hack) during GenCon, but I never played Apocalypse World. The system is slick, and manages to move very quickly and impact play without getting in the way.
Regarding the game itself, I was a little iffy about the condition-based damage at first, as damaging others in more than a fleeting fashion requires you to give up some of your effectiveness, and the only way to get it back is to get some non-fleeting damage of your own. But as I noticed the mechanic in play, I realized it’s a closed system economy, with the GM getting resources from the players, and the players getting them back from the GM. If you want to lay down some serious asskicking, you’ve got to take some punishment first. I also like the general flexibility of the equipment system, and I went ahead and bought the game based largely on feel, and the initial impression of the game.
Lacuna (written by Jared Sorensen, run by Mikael Andersson, 2 hours x 1 session): I’ve been wanting to play Lacuna for years, so when I saw it on the board with open slots, I leapt at the chance. It was also nice to discover that Mikael was running it, as we’d known each other casually online for years. Lacuna is a very surreal game, where you play agents who enter the dreaming mind of a deranged subject to track down and destroy the “hostile personality” that’s causing them to be less than productive members of society. It’s completely normal to get conflicting orders from “Control”, bizarre landscapes and random (or are they?) occurrances. It was doubly surreal because myself and another player dropped into the middle of a game that was already 2 hours old. We took on the roles of existing agents, but weren’t told what we’d missed. I won’t say that this is standard for Lacuna, but it’s the sort of thing you just take in stride with all of the other weirdness. We managed to eventually track down the HP, but due to some very… entangled agendas, it was unclear exactly what we were supposed to do. We eventually, err, succeeded, but it was very odd the whole time. My portrayal (apparently very, very different from the last player’s portrayal) was very terse, mission-oriented and… kind of a complete bad-ass asshole. Highlights include when I blew the brains out of the information booth attendant when she randomly attacked one of the other agents, without a word or expression, then when I leapt into a speeding vehicle and brought it to a screeching halt. Quite entertaining, and I’m very glad I got the opportunity to play.
As previously mentioned, I’ve been wanting to play Lacuna for years. I got a copy of the previous version sent to me years ago in Iraq, but though I’d read through it, I’d never played it and forgotten much of what I’d read, so it really wasn’t much less confusing for me as it was for the other players. The game runs off central mechanic based around heartbeats per minute, where every action you do increases your BPM through target and up to and over a maximum, at which point, things kind of start getting dangerous, and you could end up dying. You requisition stuff, matrix-style, from Control, and there’s almost always some sense of pressure, even when things are standing still. This game isn’t currently available for sale, so I wasn’t able to purchase it, though I definitely would have if it were.
Legend of the 5 Rings hack for Apocalypse World (hacked and run by Brennan Taylor, 3+ hours x 1 session): This was the very last game of the Con, played at the Embassy Suites. I enjoyed the set-up, but for whatever reason, I ended up feeling very passive and overlooked during play. I *did* enjoy the game, don’t get me wrong, but I know I got passed over for a scene, and I felt oddly reticent to push myself forward, which isn’t a normal thing for me. I’m normally very bold, and often have to make a point to rein myself in so I don’t trample on other players. This game, that wasn’t there. Plus, as it turned out, rather than being a ronin badass duelist, I ended up being a ronin-badass war leader, so I literally walked away from about half of my bennies when we went into the imperial city for the showdown with the possessed emperor. While I know little to nothing about Legend of the 5 Rings, the conclusion was satisfying enough, and felt very genre, with two characters dying, one character maimed trying to protect the newly cleansed emperor, and two formerly bitter rivals conspiring to take the throne. (I was one of the deaths; I failed a roll when we were trying to contain the emperor long enough for the evil spirit to be purged from him) This game ran until 1 am on Monday, and was instrumental in me getting basically no sleep before returning home. Still, I don’t regret it, not a bit.
On Apocalypse World: As mentioned a few times in the preceding paragraphs, hacking Apocalypse World is the new trendy thing. Monsterhearts, Dungeon World, Monster of the Week, and the L5R game were all hacked from Apocalypse World. The funny thing for me is that I played basically every well-known AW hack (except the Regiment, which was a WW2 hack) during GenCon, but I never played Apocalypse World. The system is slick, and manages to move very quickly and impact play without getting in the way.
20 August 2012
GenCon Postmortem 2
Observations at GenCon: This is going to be, in some ways, a continuation of the love letter to GenCon that I started in my first post. I loved GenCon, warts and all. I spent most of the weekend with a half-giddy grin on my face… or at least feeling like I should have one. It was awesome to play face-to-face again, it was awesome to just be immersed in geekdom. There are more than a few people who have made some very solid points about the whole geek monoculture myth, but for all that these people are right, I think they’re wrong, too. I may not really have a lot in common with that D&D gamer, or that Magic: the Gathering enthusiast, but there was this overwhelming sensation, all weekend, that these were my people, and at no point did that sensation dwindle or flicker. Let me talk about some specifically memorably aspects.
Wandering the halls: At no point during this whole weekend was I ever really wandering the halls just to wander. In previous years that I’ve attended, I’ve spent at least a little time simply wandering. This year, I was pretty much always on my way somewhere, whether it be to the dealer’s hall, a seminar, to go get something to eat, or to hit up Games on Demand to get some gaming in. I wasn’t always in a hurry, but I pretty much always had a destination. Nonetheless, wandering the halls, wandering the dealer’s floor, was an experience unto itself.
Obviously, there was the costumes. A great part of the fun of going to GenCon is checking out all of the costumes, and this year was no exception. There were more than a few mediocre ones, and more than a few truly impressive ones. Probably more than half I couldn’t have placed the origin of if you’d held a gun to my head. The sheer variety is pretty awesome. But what really got me about the costumes was, honestly, the partial ones, or the ones I suspected weren’t anything particularly geeky. I saw lots and lots of people in normal clothes, but with a corset, or a kilt, or cat ears, or with a little dragon on their shoulder, or a cloak, or… any number of singular accoutrements. They obviously weren’t wearing a costume. They just decided to wear this thing. Why? Because why the fuck not? Whatever it is, it’s not the strangest thing you’ll see wandering the halls. Because they just felt like it, and here, in this place and time, they felt free enough from judgment and ridicule to do so. That’s… pretty amazing to me. Oh, sure. There were people making fun of the corsets and kilts and whatever else, but fuck those guys. Why bother with the minority snickering behind their hands when the majority of people are smiling because they get the reference, or maybe just because they understand why you’re doing it.
Secondly, it was the massive assortment of people there. Obviously there were those that, outwardly at least, embodied the gamer stereotypes. But what was telling to me was all the people who didn’t. Families, husbands and wives with their kids, women who weren’t dragged their by their geek boyfriend, and older folks. The older folks in particular made me grin, because I figured one of two possible options was most likely… First, that these people had been gaming about as long as I’d been alive, or second that they were more recent converts to the hobby. Both of these possibilities make me very happy. No matter what shit you went through in high school when people saw your funky dice or deck of cards with fantasy monsters on it, gaming isn’t, and hasn’t ever really been, a childish hobby. These are people with grandchildren and successful careers, and they’re geeky enough to take a long weekend to go to GenCon. Combined with the people in business casual, with designer luggage, it’s joyous, celebratory evidence that gaming isn’t this basement niche hobby that mainstream society likes to think it is.
A sense of belonging: As mentioned above, there was this strong, buoyant sense of being among my people. I’d walk down the hallway, and I’d read geeky t-shirts with math jokes, Firefly/Buffy/Gaming/Whatevah references. I’d hear snippets of “No shit, there I was…” stories, or discussions about the merits of this edition against that edition. Then there was the simple fact that anyone wearing that badge… I knew, despite them being a complete and utter stranger, that I had SOMETHING in common with them. It made me smile so many times that I literally remember a lot of this with a sort of rosy cloud of general happiness. It made me bolder than I ever am. I struck up brief conversations with complete strangers. I didn’t try to make these conversations mean anything, and I moved on feeling good that I’d made a connection, however brief and minor, with another person. Even my roommates commented on my outgoing nature when I introduced myself to another Con attendee and a hotel employee and jokingly invited them to get a drink. For those who don’t know me in person, let me be plain: I DON’T DO STUFF LIKE THAT. Not without a strong crowd of outgoing people around me, or more than a smidge of liquid courage, and often not even then. But that sense of knowing that I had something in common with every attendee at GenCon, however tenuous, made me feel free to be this social, outgoing person.
Don’t get me wrong. My native, infuriating insecurity was still there. But it was less in control than normal, and the only time I ever let it dictate my actions at all was in those weird border relationships where I really like a person, but suspect that their feelings toward me are merely polite.
Intensity: The whole experience of GenCon, especially for me, especially this time, is very intense. Gamers are often very intense people anyway, passionate about the things they enjoy and care about. Given that I’d built GenCon up in my mind as my one chance to break my streak of no face-to-face gaming, and a chance to actually have something like a social life outside of my computer, it was especially intense for me. That sort of thing can often have disastrous results, as the reality rarely meets the built up expectations. This time though, it kind of worked out, but it’s left me in kind of a surreal place. The existence of being at GenCon was so… well, hell, intense that it almost feels wrong to not be there. When I was walking in the airport here in Phoenix, I kept expecting to see costumes. I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn’t going back to my hotel room to meet up with my roommates for dinner. Some of that, I’m certain, is the result of a day and a half with only a few hours of sleep, but not all of it. It just feels like I’m going to wake up, get dressed and try to make it to Games on Demand for the 10:00am slot. Basically, 4 days in Indianapolis has done to me what it took 9 months in Afghanistan to do.
A sense of loss: I don’t know a better way to put it. This observation is mostly centered around the dealer’s hall, and is definitely skewed by the fact that I’ve only been to GenCon 3 times, in 2005, 2008 and this year, 2012. Basically, it feels like… It feels like the character of the dealer’s hall has changed. It feels even more cramped, with only big name publishers having more than a cramped cubicle. It feels like there’s a lot more… miscellaneous junk than there was in previous years. In 2008, I remember wandering the dealer’s hall, and seeing the cluster of indie community booths, plus all of the other small press publishers with no association to the Forge/Story-Games communities. I remember seeing easily a dozen small press games that I’d never heard of, and hearing about the indie community I know using GenCon to make overtures to these folks, and supporting them too. I remember, despite the fact that Games on Demand wasn’t nearly as busy and successful back then as it was this year, a much stronger cycle of interaction between the dealer’s hall and the GoD room. This year, big names that were staples in previous years were gone. No Jared Sorensen, no Luke Crane, Vincent Baker or Ron Edwards. I mean, I get that these guys are doing what works best for them, but I still feel like, for all that there is some visible growth, that GenCon is less than it could be, without them in attendance. For all that I understand that change is the nature of things, it saddens me anyway.
That’s all I’ve really got for this. Stay tuned for my next post, regarding the games that made my GenCon so rockin’.
Wandering the halls: At no point during this whole weekend was I ever really wandering the halls just to wander. In previous years that I’ve attended, I’ve spent at least a little time simply wandering. This year, I was pretty much always on my way somewhere, whether it be to the dealer’s hall, a seminar, to go get something to eat, or to hit up Games on Demand to get some gaming in. I wasn’t always in a hurry, but I pretty much always had a destination. Nonetheless, wandering the halls, wandering the dealer’s floor, was an experience unto itself.
Obviously, there was the costumes. A great part of the fun of going to GenCon is checking out all of the costumes, and this year was no exception. There were more than a few mediocre ones, and more than a few truly impressive ones. Probably more than half I couldn’t have placed the origin of if you’d held a gun to my head. The sheer variety is pretty awesome. But what really got me about the costumes was, honestly, the partial ones, or the ones I suspected weren’t anything particularly geeky. I saw lots and lots of people in normal clothes, but with a corset, or a kilt, or cat ears, or with a little dragon on their shoulder, or a cloak, or… any number of singular accoutrements. They obviously weren’t wearing a costume. They just decided to wear this thing. Why? Because why the fuck not? Whatever it is, it’s not the strangest thing you’ll see wandering the halls. Because they just felt like it, and here, in this place and time, they felt free enough from judgment and ridicule to do so. That’s… pretty amazing to me. Oh, sure. There were people making fun of the corsets and kilts and whatever else, but fuck those guys. Why bother with the minority snickering behind their hands when the majority of people are smiling because they get the reference, or maybe just because they understand why you’re doing it.
Secondly, it was the massive assortment of people there. Obviously there were those that, outwardly at least, embodied the gamer stereotypes. But what was telling to me was all the people who didn’t. Families, husbands and wives with their kids, women who weren’t dragged their by their geek boyfriend, and older folks. The older folks in particular made me grin, because I figured one of two possible options was most likely… First, that these people had been gaming about as long as I’d been alive, or second that they were more recent converts to the hobby. Both of these possibilities make me very happy. No matter what shit you went through in high school when people saw your funky dice or deck of cards with fantasy monsters on it, gaming isn’t, and hasn’t ever really been, a childish hobby. These are people with grandchildren and successful careers, and they’re geeky enough to take a long weekend to go to GenCon. Combined with the people in business casual, with designer luggage, it’s joyous, celebratory evidence that gaming isn’t this basement niche hobby that mainstream society likes to think it is.
A sense of belonging: As mentioned above, there was this strong, buoyant sense of being among my people. I’d walk down the hallway, and I’d read geeky t-shirts with math jokes, Firefly/Buffy/Gaming/Whatevah references. I’d hear snippets of “No shit, there I was…” stories, or discussions about the merits of this edition against that edition. Then there was the simple fact that anyone wearing that badge… I knew, despite them being a complete and utter stranger, that I had SOMETHING in common with them. It made me smile so many times that I literally remember a lot of this with a sort of rosy cloud of general happiness. It made me bolder than I ever am. I struck up brief conversations with complete strangers. I didn’t try to make these conversations mean anything, and I moved on feeling good that I’d made a connection, however brief and minor, with another person. Even my roommates commented on my outgoing nature when I introduced myself to another Con attendee and a hotel employee and jokingly invited them to get a drink. For those who don’t know me in person, let me be plain: I DON’T DO STUFF LIKE THAT. Not without a strong crowd of outgoing people around me, or more than a smidge of liquid courage, and often not even then. But that sense of knowing that I had something in common with every attendee at GenCon, however tenuous, made me feel free to be this social, outgoing person.
Don’t get me wrong. My native, infuriating insecurity was still there. But it was less in control than normal, and the only time I ever let it dictate my actions at all was in those weird border relationships where I really like a person, but suspect that their feelings toward me are merely polite.
Intensity: The whole experience of GenCon, especially for me, especially this time, is very intense. Gamers are often very intense people anyway, passionate about the things they enjoy and care about. Given that I’d built GenCon up in my mind as my one chance to break my streak of no face-to-face gaming, and a chance to actually have something like a social life outside of my computer, it was especially intense for me. That sort of thing can often have disastrous results, as the reality rarely meets the built up expectations. This time though, it kind of worked out, but it’s left me in kind of a surreal place. The existence of being at GenCon was so… well, hell, intense that it almost feels wrong to not be there. When I was walking in the airport here in Phoenix, I kept expecting to see costumes. I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn’t going back to my hotel room to meet up with my roommates for dinner. Some of that, I’m certain, is the result of a day and a half with only a few hours of sleep, but not all of it. It just feels like I’m going to wake up, get dressed and try to make it to Games on Demand for the 10:00am slot. Basically, 4 days in Indianapolis has done to me what it took 9 months in Afghanistan to do.
A sense of loss: I don’t know a better way to put it. This observation is mostly centered around the dealer’s hall, and is definitely skewed by the fact that I’ve only been to GenCon 3 times, in 2005, 2008 and this year, 2012. Basically, it feels like… It feels like the character of the dealer’s hall has changed. It feels even more cramped, with only big name publishers having more than a cramped cubicle. It feels like there’s a lot more… miscellaneous junk than there was in previous years. In 2008, I remember wandering the dealer’s hall, and seeing the cluster of indie community booths, plus all of the other small press publishers with no association to the Forge/Story-Games communities. I remember seeing easily a dozen small press games that I’d never heard of, and hearing about the indie community I know using GenCon to make overtures to these folks, and supporting them too. I remember, despite the fact that Games on Demand wasn’t nearly as busy and successful back then as it was this year, a much stronger cycle of interaction between the dealer’s hall and the GoD room. This year, big names that were staples in previous years were gone. No Jared Sorensen, no Luke Crane, Vincent Baker or Ron Edwards. I mean, I get that these guys are doing what works best for them, but I still feel like, for all that there is some visible growth, that GenCon is less than it could be, without them in attendance. For all that I understand that change is the nature of things, it saddens me anyway.
That’s all I’ve really got for this. Stay tuned for my next post, regarding the games that made my GenCon so rockin’.
GenCon Postmortem 1
GenCon. What a weekend. I’m going to start this off with a caveat: I still haven’t slept more than a couple hours since I woke up on Sunday morning, and while I’ll probably re-read this before posting it, I do not promise a high-degree of coherence. I will also be using language of a less-than-sensitive nature, though not in an abusive or hostile fashion. You’ve been warned.
I’ll start again. GenCon… What a fucking trip. I had a blast. This was my third time, and easily my best time (sorry Mar, sorry Bets… as fun as it was spending GenCon with ya’ll and the gang, this one was just better) so far. I’ll continue this with a brief description of what GenCon is, for any who might read this who aren’t into gaming already.
GenCon, as I like to describe it, is Gamer Mecca. It’s the pilgrimage that every gamer should make once in their lives. So what is it, more exactly? It’s the ultimate celebration of gaming and gaming-related geekery on the planet. If you play Dungeons and Dragons or any of its many and varied (as well as sometimes only tenuously related) kin, if you play board games, collectible card games, video games or Live Action Roleplay, this is the place to be. If you watch Sci-Fi or Fantasy TV or movies, if you like anime or old school cartoons, if you’re into Comic Books, GenCon has something for you.
It is… crazy, full of stereotypes and stereotype breakers, heavyset stinky geeks with neckbeards, rail-thin beanpoles who could probably build a computer from scrap metal that’s better than the one you’re using, pimply teenagers, scantily-clad geek girls of all shapes and sizes, toddlers in fairy wings and facepaint, and grandmas who could build a minmax Ranger/Paladin in less time than you can say “Attack of Opportunity”.
For ease of reference, I’m going to break this into 5 total posts: This one, one about my general GenCon observations and thoughts, another about the games I played, another about the people I met, and a final one about Games on Demand. So, without further explanation, I’ll start into talking about my GenCon. To finish up this first post, I’ll briefly summarize my weekend.
I arrived on Thursday morning at about 1 am local, and got to the hotel room about 2. I tried to sleep in a little, failed, and got up in time to register before the dealer’s hall opened and went to breakfast with my roommates. Thursday’s first game was Monsterhearts with Joe Beason, followed by Dungeon World with Scott Acker. I also went to the Gilder Guild Burlesque show that night. Friday it was a couple of seminars, followed by Fiasco and another session of Dungeon World, before I ran a game of 3:16 at the Embassy Suites. Saturday, I slept in a bit, made to GoD in time to play Dog Eat Dog with Liam Burke, then Monster of the Week with Joe Beason, and finally Lacuna with Mikael Andersson. Sunday saw me playing a final game of Technoir, making my purchases, and eventually playing a Legend of the 5 Rings AW Hack at the Embassy before trying to get a couple hours of sleep and heading home.
I’ll start again. GenCon… What a fucking trip. I had a blast. This was my third time, and easily my best time (sorry Mar, sorry Bets… as fun as it was spending GenCon with ya’ll and the gang, this one was just better) so far. I’ll continue this with a brief description of what GenCon is, for any who might read this who aren’t into gaming already.
GenCon, as I like to describe it, is Gamer Mecca. It’s the pilgrimage that every gamer should make once in their lives. So what is it, more exactly? It’s the ultimate celebration of gaming and gaming-related geekery on the planet. If you play Dungeons and Dragons or any of its many and varied (as well as sometimes only tenuously related) kin, if you play board games, collectible card games, video games or Live Action Roleplay, this is the place to be. If you watch Sci-Fi or Fantasy TV or movies, if you like anime or old school cartoons, if you’re into Comic Books, GenCon has something for you.
It is… crazy, full of stereotypes and stereotype breakers, heavyset stinky geeks with neckbeards, rail-thin beanpoles who could probably build a computer from scrap metal that’s better than the one you’re using, pimply teenagers, scantily-clad geek girls of all shapes and sizes, toddlers in fairy wings and facepaint, and grandmas who could build a minmax Ranger/Paladin in less time than you can say “Attack of Opportunity”.
For ease of reference, I’m going to break this into 5 total posts: This one, one about my general GenCon observations and thoughts, another about the games I played, another about the people I met, and a final one about Games on Demand. So, without further explanation, I’ll start into talking about my GenCon. To finish up this first post, I’ll briefly summarize my weekend.
I arrived on Thursday morning at about 1 am local, and got to the hotel room about 2. I tried to sleep in a little, failed, and got up in time to register before the dealer’s hall opened and went to breakfast with my roommates. Thursday’s first game was Monsterhearts with Joe Beason, followed by Dungeon World with Scott Acker. I also went to the Gilder Guild Burlesque show that night. Friday it was a couple of seminars, followed by Fiasco and another session of Dungeon World, before I ran a game of 3:16 at the Embassy Suites. Saturday, I slept in a bit, made to GoD in time to play Dog Eat Dog with Liam Burke, then Monster of the Week with Joe Beason, and finally Lacuna with Mikael Andersson. Sunday saw me playing a final game of Technoir, making my purchases, and eventually playing a Legend of the 5 Rings AW Hack at the Embassy before trying to get a couple hours of sleep and heading home.
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