GaryCon X
This last weekend I went to GaryCon up in beautiful, chilly Lake Geneva Wisconsin, and I had a great time! I met up with old friends and made some new ones, and we all played a bunch of games and enjoyed the great company. Here are some highlights from the con for me.
Games
I ran a session of Vampyre Women of Venus, the board game that we put out a couple of years ago. We had two ticketholders show up and one player drop in, thanks to the great table flag system. We played though to the co-operative victory and then played some homebrew rules that Jayden came up with for the post-rocketship-part-collection escape from the suddenly moving Vampyre Queen.
All told I got some great new ideas for the game, including a new version of the rules where undefeated Venus cards remain in the space where they were drawn for other players to try to challenge. This builds the map as it is explored and creates more opportunity for strategy.
I also ran a session of what’s becoming my favorite scenario: my D&D convention version of Into The Unknown (B1), which I update every time a group runs through it. This time, very impressively, the group actually managed to complete the scenario, both finding their way to the final encounter and defeating all portions of it for a flawless victory! Well done, all. Prizes are on the way.
Table Flags
One of the best things about the convention, and something I hadn’t ever seen at one, was the table flags. These flags served two purposes. First, there were red and green cards so that a table could indicate if they had any openings for new players to join.
But even more exciting was the yellow flag, which we raised when we wanted to order from the tableside menu. The food was really good, and the beer was cold and cheap with the GaryCon cup I got as a GM. It was truly excellent. I ran an eight hour session and ate healthily and felt great.
Museum
The role-playing game history museum they had set up was AMAZING! In the wargame room, next to the TSR Joust tournament, was a mini-museum display with great information about the early days of Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax’s gaming days. Seeing Arneson’s original dice and clay dragon figurine really touched me.
Socially, I got to hang out with Stephan Porkny and the HawaiiCon crew, meet a whole bunch of nice new people, and see some live-streaming celebrity D&D from behind the curtain, instead of in front of the cameras for once. It was great seeing everyone and hanging out. As it always is for me at a con, I learned a lot from playing in and watching other people’s games.
I’m honored to have been invited and have already booked accommodations for it again next year.
Posted in convention, Review and tagged GaryCon by Adam A. Thompson with no comments yet.
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