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Derek
Well, being in the military, my schedule is crazy, and I haven't been to a convention since ORCCON was held in Anaheim, California in the late '80s

However, because of a move this year, I could make it to GenCon Indy, August 10-13th. This is a very recent change, and I haven't registered or anything, and pre-reg is over.

Now, for those of you that have been to GenCons in the past years, would it be worth it, at this late date? I mean, I wouldn't be able to get tickets for any events until I get there, and no-body I really know is going (other than know through the forums)

Money isn't a problem, and getting there only involves about a 1000 mile drive or so. So, some opinions on GenCon Indy?

Dave
Adam
Well, you can certainly get your badge and tickets at the door. However, a lot of games will already be sold out.

If you're interested in seeing the exhibit hall, seeing the guests of honor, learning about new games, playing demos, and having a lot of unstructured time, I'd suggest going. If you'd prefer to have a more structured time, playing in a lot of 4 hour games, it might not be worth it.

Also, if money isn't a problem, might I suggest flying, instead of spending at least 12 hours on the road? Unless flying totally stressed you out or you totally love driving, you'll probably arrive a lot happier, and a good start to the weekend is essential, IMO.
Derek
Well, see, I'm currently stationed in Hawaii, where there isn't much chance for driving more than 30 minutes at a time, so I kind of look forward to the long drive. I'll be in the middle of transferring to Colorado, so I might just drive to Indy and then turn around back to Colorado.
the_dunner
Also, look at events you're interested in playing and show up with Generic tickets in hand. It's not uncommon for people to not show up to the games that they've bought tickets to. Also, in many cases, GMs will have extra characters and allow extra players in.
Derek
QUOTE (the_dunner)
Also, look at events you're interested in playing and show up with Generic tickets in hand. It's not uncommon for people to not show up to the games that they've bought tickets to. Also, in many cases, GMs will have extra characters and allow extra players in.

Ah, good tip.

Thanks
Derek
Is there any SR discussion groups, or any plans on a DSF get together?
craigpierce
also:

* there are games that get added at the last minute and never make it to pre-reg, but will be in the booklet at the con - so when you get there grab a booklet and check it out...there will still be lots of games that either didn't sell out at pre-reg or that didn't sell at pre-reg at all

* get to the registration booth as early as you can...example: right now, the SR tournament has 1 ticket left - so the first person on-site on the 10th to buy that last ticket gets it

* going off of what Adam said, there's plenty of non-game gaming related stuff to do - the exhibit hall alone may well be worth the trip

the first 2 years i lived out here (englewood, co area - suburb of denver) i took a greyhound to gencon because i couldn't afford to fly...that's 24 hours one way on a VERY uncomfortable bus and NOT a way i ever want to go again if i can help it.

driving may be faster, but it'd still be no less than 15 hours...that's a long 15 hours through some very plain states like kansas (or nebraska, if you take I76). trust me - i drove from alabama to denver in 19 hours...kansas is a KILLER - there are no exits in that state!

but that's just my $.02
the_dunner
QUOTE (Derek @ Jul 26 2006, 01:18 AM)
Is there any SR discussion groups, or any plans on a DSF get together?

I'm not aware of anything that's specifically planned along those lines.

However, there's the SRM Scramble Missions LARP-esque event on Saturday from 10AM-6PM. I have a feeling that might feed the fix.

Also, I believe all of the FanPro sponsored games are set in room 204. If you wander through there, and play in a game or two, odds are you'll find some folk who frequent dumpshock and will be happy to talk Shadowrun.

The other thing that might interest you, that doesn't require a ticket, is the "Whose Run Is It Anyway" session. That's a bit of wackiness with audience participation coordinating a killer GM and his band of out of control players.
Adam
QUOTE (the_dunner)
I'm not aware of anything that's specifically planned along those lines.

"Whichever bar we end up stumbling to." wink.gif
Derek
QUOTE (Adam)
QUOTE (the_dunner @ Jul 26 2006, 04:50 PM)
I'm not aware of anything that's specifically planned along those lines.

"Whichever bar we end up stumbling to." wink.gif

That is, of course, always the case, but you have to be around the cool kids in the first place to stumble to the bar with them, and since I don't know any of you in person, you never know when we might run into each other at the con, or even recognize anyone from screen names and avatars...
Bull
Room 204, as said, is where the GMs will probably be camped most of the weekend.

And of course, there's usually a few folks around the FanPro booth itself throughout the day. I may be running a booth demo or two in the early parts of the day Friday and Saturday, and will be playing in the Tourney again this year (Hurray for playing and not GMing! smile.gif)

Bull
Derek
QUOTE (Bull)
Room 204, as said, is where the GMs will probably be camped most of the weekend.

I, of course, completely missed that in The_dunner's post wobble.gif



Dave
mfb
i didn't get aroud to preregistering for any games when i hit GenCon in '04, but i had no problem getting into games. they weren't necessarily the specific games i wanted to play--the only SR game i got in on, for instance, was a LARP (which ended up being a lot more fun than i expected). i got into an Earthdawn tournament, that 'live-action' X-Men dungeon, and a D&D game. if i hadn't been so shy, i could've gotten into more--there were a lot of pick-up games--but jesus christ, i was surrounded by men in skirts. what if they started hitting on me!?
BishopMcQ
MFB--Then you would have politely turned down their advances and suggested the other men in skirts. Now if they were wearing utilikilts, that's a completely different discussion...
Adam
QUOTE (mfb @ Jul 27 2006, 02:16 AM)
but jesus christ, i was surrounded by men in skirts. what if they started hitting on me!?

You buy me another drink, excuse yourself to the bathroom, and I'll get distracted by someone else before you're back.

Derek: Also, you can hit the FanPro booth, introduce yourself, and I'll introduce you to relevant people that may be hanging around, and they can usually fill you in on plans for the evening, dinner plans, etc.

Plus, the con is busy enough that if you decide "whoah, that Bull really is a a freak!" you can conveniently not show up for those dinner plans, and everyone will just assume you got eaten by a Pokemon or something.
mfb
QUOTE (Adam)
You buy me another drink, excuse yourself to the bathroom, and I'll get distracted by someone else before you're back.

i've seen your pics. if it was you, cutie, i might just take you up on it !!
Lindt
But but but... Bull IS a freak! Mind you so are most of the rest of the people running the show (ESPECALLY that Moo fella).

In all seriousness, great people. Stop in between games and say Hi. If you managed to work in that your a DS-er Im sure things will work out just fine.

Bull, your playing? Man, Id hate to try and find 3 impartial Gms for your team.
the_dunner
QUOTE (Lindt)
Bull, your playing? Man, Id hate to try and find 3 impartial Gms for your team.

What on EARTH makes you think we'd find impartial GMs for his team? We've already filled out his score card with zeroes. biggrin.gif
Derek
QUOTE (Adam)
QUOTE (mfb @ Jul 27 2006, 02:16 AM)
but jesus christ, i was surrounded by men in skirts. what if they started hitting on me!?

You buy me another drink, excuse yourself to the bathroom, and I'll get distracted by someone else before you're back.

Derek: Also, you can hit the FanPro booth, introduce yourself, and I'll introduce you to relevant people that may be hanging around, and they can usually fill you in on plans for the evening, dinner plans, etc.

Plus, the con is busy enough that if you decide "whoah, that Bull really is a a freak!" you can conveniently not show up for those dinner plans, and everyone will just assume you got eaten by a Pokemon or something.

Awesome, sounds great. I'll probably be showing up there!
Bull
QUOTE
But but but... Bull IS a freak! Mind you so are most of the rest of the people running the show (ESPECALLY that Moo fella).

In all seriousness, great people. Stop in between games and say Hi. If you managed to work in that your a DS-er Im sure things will work out just fine.

Bull, your playing? Man, Id hate to try and find 3 impartial Gms for your team.


Awww, thanks, you are also a huge freak, so works out smile.gif

And who said we cared about impratial? Or winning? smile.gif

I just wanna play. And see how badly we can fuck up the GMs smile.gif

There will definately be lots of booze involved as well smile.gif

<grin>
Bull
QUOTE (the_dunner)
QUOTE (Lindt @ Jul 27 2006, 09:08 AM)
Bull, your playing?  Man, Id hate to try and find 3 impartial Gms for your team.

What on EARTH makes you think we'd find impartial GMs for his team? We've already filled out his score card with zeroes. biggrin.gif

See??? Problem solved! John, you look like you need booze! Lets get you some 151 Stat!

Bull
the_dunner
QUOTE (Bull)
Lets get you some 151 Stat!

Bastard! wink.gif
Adam
For those of you thinking "Man, a bunch of annoying drunk idiots in the tournament, that will be annoying!" I urge you to keep your eye on the prize, with the knowledge that at least one team doesn't have a hope in hell of taking it from you.
Samaels Ghost
What prize? Bragging rights?
Adam
Bragging rights and a bunch of FanPro swag, as usual.
BishopMcQ
Beyond the swag, I hear through the grapevine that there will be individual certificates of achievement in various categories...
Mekalus
Derek do you have a place to crash when needed?

Derek
Well, I was going to get a hotel room, but since I haven't completely confirmed my trip yet, I haven't reserved a room, and I have a slight feeling many of them are all booked up...
the_dunner
Downtown Indy hotels will most likely be completely booked. However, it's usually possible to get a room at one of the less expensive hotels out near the airport later.
Critias
If I didn't already have five people in one hotel room, I'd offer up some (more) ground-space.
Mekalus
Well if you are interested I have a room to myself right acrossed the street from the convention center.(Not hard since alot of hotels are right acrossed the street) rotfl.gif Anyway I wouldnt mind sharing the room especially with peeps who are willing to um say split the room cost. So if you are interested then post here and we will see about swaping contact info and meetup place and time at the con.
Derek
Bah. Well, looks like the USMC has changed my plans. I won't be able to make it out to GC. Maybe next year, with a bit more prior planning. Thanks for all the info, from everyone, and especially thanks for the offer of space to stay, Mekalus.
Adam
Sorry to hear that, Derek.
Mekalus
Thats too bad man. Sorry to hear it. Well if anyone else is looking for a room or a better room than they have then look Mekalus up at Gen Con. I could use bodies to share the rent with. cya all there!
mfb
QUOTE (Derek)
Well, looks like the USMC has changed my plans.
reason #265 why getting called back into service still factors strongly into my nightmares.
Derek
Well, it has mostly been good to me, but there are occasional drawbacks.
tisoz
GenCon 2006 is history.

I had a great time. Unfortunately after the second day of sleep deprivation followed by being up for 36 hours straight, I think my body was susceptible to picking up somebodies cold. So today I have been in bed with a sore throat, fever, and aches and pains, and have missed the last day.

I hope everyone had a good time and has a safe trip home. smile.gif
craigpierce
QUOTE (tisoz)
GenCon 2006 is history.

I had a great time. Unfortunately after the second day of sleep deprivation followed by being up for 36 hours straight, I think my body was susceptible to picking up somebodies cold. So today I have been in bed with a sore throat, fever, and aches and pains, and have missed the last day.

I hope everyone had a good time and has a safe trip home. smile.gif

well, then it's official...there was an epidemic among the gamers because there were a lot of sick people (i just caught it today...thankfully it wasn't sooner).
Derek
Hopefully, you had fun before you got sick...
Bull
Yeah, I got hit with something too frown.gif I managed to mostly muddle on, but it meant I had to drop outta the tourney.

I blame the unbathed Anime geeks for the plague smile.gif

Bull
the_dunner
I've been blaming smoking too much and screaming too much at the bar for my sore throat. But, I suppose the anime folks are a much better target. wink.gif
Critias
*nods* That's happened to me every Gencon, especially the sore throat part. I think it's partly that a lot of us aren't getting the sleep we should, at 'con. I think it's partly that a lot of us are talking more, and being forced (by background noise) to talk louder than normal, all day long. I think it's partly that it's a group of however many thousand people all milling around in an enclosed space all day, sharing cooties. I think it might also be that gamers, in particular, are sometimes known for having more than a normal number of cooties to share.

Regardless of the overall cause, it stands true that I've been sick by day two of every Gencon I've gone to. That said? I still have enough fun that I'm already working on plans for next year's. smile.gif

Nice to run into ya, Tisoz -- sorry to interrupt that game to say howdy, and sorry I couldn't stick around and chat, but I'd just happened to find myself in the right place (while on my way to a game about to start), and thought I'd swing in and say howdy. Glad you still had a good time despite getting sick.
SL James
hahahaha

He was in your midst.
the_dunner
So ... you travelled to GenCon. Paid for admission. Walked around. Then, didn't have the courage to introduce yourself to the people who work on the game that you're obviously so passionate about?

I, very sincerely, feel sorry for you.
SL James
Who said he didn't?
Critias
QUOTE (the_dunner @ Aug 14 2006, 02:17 PM)
So ... you travelled to GenCon.  Paid for admission.  Walked around.  Then, didn't have the courage to introduce yourself to the people who work on the game that you're obviously so passionate about?

I, very sincerely, feel sorry for you.

Uhh, no, actually, I did introduce myself to them (those I found).

I didn't play any of their games, but I spent a good ten or fifteen minutes or so at their booth, discussing (what I see as) the merits and flaws of SR4 compared to previous editions. I didn't go out of my way to hunt down and talk to everyone involved in SR4 (mostly because I assume most of them were running games people had paid to play in, and I felt bad enough for my twenty-second interruption of Tisoz's game), but I had a pretty decent (and polite, make no mistake) conversation with three or four people (some were coming and going as customers arrived). I mentioned that I was a DS member, and told them my user name. Sorry if that's not exciting enough for you, but it happened. Maybe you were expecting me to log on the moment I got home from Gencon and rant about it, maybe you were thinking they'd log on the moment they got home and rant about it, I dunno. I'm not sure where you're coming from at all, to be honest.

And, make no mistake, it's not like Shadowrun was why I went to Gencon or anything. I spent most of my time playing other games, roaming the exhibition hall (like everyone else), etc, etc. I got in a thoroughly mediocre Serenity LARP (the game itself and the folks I played with were fun, the people running it did their best to ruin it, though), tried out a few new wargames, tossed some Champions dice, and talked to a few people about freelance writing. Shadowrun as a whole just wasn't on the top of my list -- finding Tisoz was a priority (to save some shipping costs, and shake his hand and thank him for running his contests), though.

I'm just curious -- did something in particular make you think that leaping on a table and ranting at the SR developers was, somehow, why I was going to Gencon (IE, "travelled to GenCon, paid for admission, blah blah blah")? I don't think I ever actually said anything like "I'm going to Gencon to argue with the Shadowrun developers, rrrar!" or anything. In fact, the only post of mine on this thread was me offering up some hotel room to someone. What gave you the idea I was going to Gencon to hunt down the SR developers?
SL James
A stupid assumption would be my first guess. Maybe because you didn't introduce yourself to him (especially because you didn't apparently go out of your way to talk to him) he felt like making a wild-ass assumption wrapped in a shitty attitude.

I don't know. If I were Crit, I'd be hunting down Rob if I bothered at all. I barely read the Missions, so BFD on that.
BishopMcQ
I for one put a lot of faces to names, so thank you to everyone who managed to come and find me at the Con, and I'm sorry to any of you who had to suffer through my games the last 12 hours of the con...
tisoz
As far as faces to names goes, Critias was my biggest surprise. He was wearing shoes and pants so I did not notice cloven hooves or a tail, but his buzz cut definitely did not hide a pair of horns and he was kind of pale. wink.gif Comparisons to Lucifer aside, you were about as far from any expectations that I had.

Probably the next biggest surprise was how ... "preppy", maybe, McQuillan was.

What name was Dashifen going by?

I wound up running into the guy that introduced me to Shadowrun back in like 1990. I wound up GMing for a guy that used to be in my gaming group and it wasn't until after the game when Plain White Socks was telling about his amazement at the heretic running his game that everyone started introducing themselves, that we recognized each other. I hadn't seen either of those guys in about 10 years. I found out that my group from 10 years ago was still playing. (This is the group I got going after the Sphynx debacle leading to his "No walls in Denver" rant.) I wound up talking to/at Plain White Socks until the sun came up one day. I thought he was a pretty decent guy until he logged on and declared I should be attacked the next time I rear my ugly head. wink.gif

And from now on I'm hitting the vitamins for cons.
SL James
QUOTE (tisoz)
As far as faces to names goes, Critias was my biggest surprise. He was wearing shoes and pants so I did not notice cloven hooves or a tail, but his buzz cut definitely did not hide a pair of horns and he was kind of pale. wink.gif Comparisons to Lucifer aside, you were about as far from any expectations that I had.

The devil comes in the form you'd least expect.
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