So who went to GenCon, and what did you experience.

How does the Shadowrun 2050 book feel like? Does it fall apart like they used to?

What's The Clutch of Dragons like? Should we stay away, or should we deal with a dragon?

What's extra in the Runner's Black Book 2074? Is it just prints of the PDFs or is it worth getting? Should I get the limited edition, or the normal version?

Is Sprawl Sites North America worth getting? How are the maps printed? What size are they?

Should I get Elven Blood if I hate elves? Are they still immortal? Whoes blood is it anyway?

Weapons Cards & Gear Cards? Can you play any decent card games with them?

Was there any other swag?

Whose Run Is It Anyway?

So What's really up with Shadowrun and Catalyst Game Labs?

Spill the beans... please

Still zzzzzz and playing catch up after the trip, maybe I'll post an update at least to what questions I can in a few days.

Elven Blood at least is an adventure book compiling a series of Missions convention adventures taking place in the Tir/Portland. It is very good and pretty enough and well put together enough that 1) I bought it even thought I have access to it in pdf as a demo team member 2) I'm really luke-warm on elves 3) I have a strong dislike for the Tir.

Been a silent post Gen Con for a lot of communities, everyone must have had a good time.

GenCon as a whole felt off, can't place it myself, nor could my traveling group. Shadowrunwise, other than picking up 2050 and the gear decks I didn't accomplish anything. Part of that maybe because I had spent enough time in the cavernous room, Trading cards, Boardgames, and mini's... plus Shadowrun, trying to pay for my trip via magic cards attempting to roleplay in the cacophony was beyond my abilities.

You missed the big question - is the world going to end this year (ie did CanRay get to play?).

I'm not even playing SR4, but we picked up the Runner's Tool Kit, which is beautiful, and really a graceful introduction to SR. I didn't see anything that looked new, but the presentation of the information is excellent, which makes it great for running with first-time players.

We also picked up (I believe) Sprawl Sites, which is a collection of maps and such. The scale on the maps is a bit small, and I intended to pick up the .pdf instead so I could print them at the proper size, but I think my wife got it for volunteering with the ENnies. Regardless, it's a fantastic resource, especially for the money, and those maps will be handy for an assortment of games.

So who went to GenCon, and what did you experience.
I went. I spent equal parts gaming, sleeping, and drinking. Typical in that aspect.

How does the Shadowrun 2050 book feel like? Does it fall apart like they used to?
No idea. I'll pick up the PDF later. Maybe.

What's The Clutch of Dragons like? Should we stay away, or should we deal with a dragon?
No idea.

What's extra in the Runner's Black Book 2074? Is it just prints of the PDFs or is it worth getting? Should I get the limited edition, or the normal version?
See above.

Is Sprawl Sites North America worth getting? How are the maps printed? What size are they?
Not sure. I tend to skip these sorts of products because I've got access to mountains of drawings of real places that I can sanitize enough to use when needed.

Should I get Elven Blood if I hate elves? Are they still immortal? Whoes blood is it anyway?
Yes. Some elves are immortal. The owner of said blood varies. I've played 3 of the 5 missions included and highly enjoyed all of them.

Weapons Cards & Gear Cards? Can you play any decent card games with them?
Not really. I have the PDFs and a good memory for crunch, so the cards seem like something else to get lost and take up space so I skipped them.

Was there any other swag?
Gencon was pretty swag-light this year. Or if it wasn't, I didn't care enough to go looking for it.

Whose Run Is It Anyway?
MINE!

So What's really up with Shadowrun and Catalyst Game Labs?
Missions Season 5 is going to Chicago. Cosmic Patrol is out. Beyond that, I was way out of the loop because I spent my time playing and judging and drinking rather than attending seminars. Hell, I only found out about the Season 5 thing by pestering Bull on Twitter.

I will admit that putting us in the miniatures hall did put something of a damper on the convention, along with the Will Call trainwreck that kept losing badges and tickets.

On the other hand, I really liked the decision to put the Scramble on Saturday as kind of a capstone to the convention. Pushing it to the end of the convention meant people new to the campaign could play a few rounds and get a feel for what was going on before being plunged into the Scramble and folks like me who didn't bring a group had a few rounds to find 4 suckers to con into letting me inflict myself on all day Saturday.

By the way, hope y'all had a safe ride back to Wisconsin and thanks for taking me in for 8 hours. I had a blast roleplaying with all y'all. Gaming isn't the same without interparty bickering and lots of off topic (but always in character) conversation.

I picked up both card decks, and they look dead useful. As someone who doesn't know much about vehicles or guns (and never plays a rigger or gunbunny) I think they'll keep me understanding what's going on. I also picked up Clutch of Dragons, and I'll give that a look in a few days when I'm caught up with work. All I know is that Lofwyr isn't really in it, which was kind of a bummer for me.

Runners Black Book 2074 is all new stuff. Nothing the same from the first Black Book, and it's very nice. It has a lot of military gear, so I'd pick it up if that's your thing.

As for What's up with Shadowrun, that seminar covered a lot on the Shadowrun videogames in development. The building options look good, and all of the environments are modular.

The only good thing that ever happened to Chicago was nuking that shithole. I'm not sure I want to go back.

Glad y'all digged 'em! Keep an eye out for the Land of Promise e-book in coming months, it ties in with the adventures (and vice-versa) and completes the Tir update theme I was goin' for. So far feedback (from both players and GMs) has been pretty positive on these, and I'm totally stoked by that. I'm just happy folks are having fun with 'em.

Here's a question... how did y'all vote on Prop 23?

Which time?

You could vote multiple times?

Egads!

"Vote Early, Vote Often" indeed!

Players were given one of 9 Nerps Voting Card which they could fill out and turn in to vote (and get a dice bonus on a single test during a Missions game). There was apparently a communication SNAFU though. Players were supposed to get two copies, one to use, one to keep and collect, but not everyone realized this, so sometimes only one was given out. And yes, Vote Early, vote Often was the slogan on the card

We collected a lot of these, and there were even Shadowruns going on during the Scramble to collect additional votes for each side. Jason has them now and is counting them up, so we should know how it went in a few days...

Bull

Aw, we never got vote cards. Any chance there's spares, Bull?

Anyway -

So who went to GenCon, and what did you experience.

We did! It was mostly a quiet year for us though.

How does the Shadowrun 2050 book feel like? Does it fall apart like they used to?

2050 looked good, but I didn't get to really poke through it. I was impressed with the covers for Street Legends and Runners Companion, and was tempted by the GM Screen. In the end I just got Elven Blood and some dice for myself and a guy in our group.

What's The Clutch of Dragons like? Should we stay away, or should we deal with a dragon?

Amazing. It's the first book we've bought legit (IE, not through Amazon) from Catalyst for the last two years. The metaplot is intriguing, there's lots of stuff going on, and the lesser known dragon writeups are great. Peri's is awesome, and written by our own Bull - but come for Damon, stay for Damon.

I was disappointed that there was no mention of Calozerca though. I was kind of hoping.


What's extra in the Runner's Black Book 2074? Is it just prints of the PDFs or is it worth getting? Should I get the limited edition, or the normal version?

I'll tell you, the Limited Edition looked very nice. Also didn't get to really poke through this.

Is Sprawl Sites North America worth getting? How are the maps printed? What size are they?

I actually didn't see this at the booth...

Should I get Elven Blood if I hate elves? Are they still immortal? Whoes blood is it anyway?

I bought it and have only skimmed so far still. My wife was really the one who did a lot of the reading, and what she was pointing out to me looked great. If we weren't heavy in a campaign in Austin, I'd pause or run it for my group. It's the scene titles that really get me though.


Weapons Cards & Gear Cards? Can you play any decent card games with them?

Didn't really look at these.


Was there any other swag?

Gencon was pretty swag free, honestly. It was a little depressing. I did pick up the new Star Wars rpg beta, and I'm devouring that currently.


Whose Run Is It Anyway?

Heh.

So What's really up with Shadowrun and Catalyst Game Labs?

We missed this, despite being in town early enough for it! Instead we went to the Catalyst seminar, which was neat, and I got to ask about the metaplot behind Clutch some (basically - this book has lots of ramifications) and heard lots of stories about evil printers, Microsoft being evil, and there were free train sounds! Wooo!

Basically, this was a great Gencon and I'm so happy we went.

Did the what's up seminar get filmed this year?

Glad ya like 'em. I've long been of the opinion that adventures, etc, should be fun for the GM and not just the players, so I try to make 'em entertaining to read whenever I can.

It sounds like you two had a great 'con, and I look forward to seeing you there next year!

Yeah, I'd love to meet up with you at some point.

And Elven Blood is on my list of stuff to read, review, and run for my group. It just looks sweet.

Did the limited print run of Elven Blood sell out?
And did anyone pick up/ skim through the new Iron Kingdoms RPG?

My understanding of it -- picked up word-of-mouth -- was that it didn't quite sell out, but that (partially) that may have been because we ended up with more than the initial plan/order. Whenever I checked in on it, it was "selling pretty good," and judging by how many I signed last week, that seemed to be the case.


From what I hear, that mamajama sold out by about 11:30 or so Thursday, just an hour or two after the hall really opened. It was pretty nuts, and unfortunate. No one I know was able to pick up a copy, but it's been getting some mixed reviews on other forums and such. Some folks seem off-put by how miniature-dependent and combat-heavy the RPG is, but I'm not really surprised by either thing. *shrugs* Expectations varied, I guess.

It didn't sell out, but it was the third best-selling book at the booth, behind Shadowrun 2050 and Runner's Black Book 2074. The gear cards sold a few more copies than Elven Blood as well, but not a ton more. And yeah, we got more than we ordered, so selling out would have been a truly impressive feat.

Jason H.

Any chance on getting a bite at the leftovers? For those of us that were monitarily challenged enough to not being able to go?

So that means we will be able to order from Battleshop soon?

Lars

I attended GenCon this year, Wednesday thru Saturday. It was my first trip back since 2006, tho' I had attended every year prior to that from 1993. My only reasons for not attending after 2006 were logistics and a new family and career that just weren't conducive. I always considered GenCon to be a highlight of my year, always fun, always new. Over the years I attended with different people and even by myself once or twice. Although my experiences changed from year to year they were always enjoyable.

However, this year... like Tai-pan mentioned, it felt off. It felt... cheap. The swag was practically non-existent. Where were the computer and console gaming reps and early releases? My 15 YO step-son was vastly disappointed in this. It was his first GenCon, after begging for several years to be able to go we finally were. And half of what he was interested in was not to be found. Where were the actors and actresses from all the great sci-fi and fantasy shows?

So, the GenCon itself? It was rather meh.


As far as Shadowrun goes... I have waited for several days trying to figure out what to say and how to write my feelings. I was only able to pre-register for one SR event this year. But that event was the TOURNEY. I mean, man... for me that was always the one event that stood out for years at GenCon. Sure, some adventures were better than others, some groups I played with were more fun. Some GMs were better and occasionally some were just bad. But, overall it was pretty much a guaranteed good time.

This year... it wasn't good. And unfortunately it was due to the one thing that is most controllable: The mission/adventure itself. My son and I were able to hook up with a great group of 4 from Flint that were looking for a pair of other players. They were there for the sole purpose to have fun. A nicer group of strangers I couldn't have wanted. And once we were playing, they were outstanding players as well. Worked as a team and were willing to give everyone a chance to play and shine. And they wanted to ROLEPLAY. If any of you "Morningwood" guys from Flint, MI are reading this, let me take one more time to thank you for being such a stand-up group. I would game with you anytime, anywhere. As my 15 year old put it: "Those guys were pretty cool. Think we could hook up with them to play something else?" If you can impress a 15 year old, then you have something working. ;P

There were all sorts of problems that could have been overlooked or shrugged off to jsut bad luck:

- The noisy hall (Seriously, who in their right minds thought that having RPG gaming going on beside miniature warfare was a good idea?)

- IF any of the players or GMs were bad or annoying (They weren't)

- The fact it was a 2 night event instead of the 3 nights I was always used to (Tho' in this case I was actually happy it was a shorter event.)

No, the one problem that is unforgivable is a bad adventure.

Let's start off with the bait and switch. The game was somewhat advertised as a return to 2050. It was... the first night. Then the second night... the characters get aged 20 some years and become something almost unrecognizable to the character you spent the first night "learning." Had the adventure been otherwise good, then this could have been interesting. As it was, it was jsut frustrating.

Next, we are given lengthy back-stories (like 4 pages worth) for each character to learn. You read these, taking valuable playing time from a two night, 3 hour event, thinking they are really important... only to find out they have nearly nothing to do with the adventure at hand. The 4 pages of prose devoted to giving us a handle on the character's personality could have easily been reduced to 1, at most 2 pages. And the most frustrating part of all this? The fact that really at no time was there a chance to really role-play these complexly designed characters. I am not faulting the prose per se. It was fairly well written. But, it was out of place for a tourney environment.

So, this all being said and done... what do we get hit with? A runaway railroad train. Seriously, the adventure was nearly completely linear with almost no traces of personal choices, no real chance or need for legwork. The characters are captured at the end of session one, the result being that pretty much anything you did previously or thought you might have done was just hand-waivum. Even if you "succeeded," you were going to fail because no matter how hard you fought or what successes you had, there were just going to be more forces to overwhelm you. And then you get away by script.

At the end of night one I was disgruntled but also of the "okay, it's night one and they have a bigger story for us to play. Let's see how it goes. The players are good, the characters are interesting. Maybe tomorrow we can hear better as well."

So, night two comes. Man, was I wrong! The hall is even louder and more packed. So much for hearing. I am handed a character that barely resembles the character I played the night before. There's another 3-4 pages of relatively useless prose to read along with a timeline telling me what happened in the previous 20 some years. The first night's character felt like a 400 or so point build. Normal ware and equipment. This character is (I was told) a 1000 point build and so cram-packed full of high end equipment and tech and gear that it's impossible to absorb or even figure out how to play correctly. And I am a GM! There was stuff on my sheet I didn't even know what it was.

Not that any of this matters. The second half was a complete railroad in two parts. We go from a heist that we can jsut walk through because of our ungodly tech only to be left to fighting a great dragon near the end after the heist was done. Yes, a GREAT dragon. No support. No preparation. No chance. Let us jsut say that it sucked. I can deal with failing if we had a chance at all. If we could have had a real chance to roleplay instead of playing Halo with the Shadowrun combat system. At no point, even with the players really making an effort to try to find someplace to latch onto to make it a fun role-playing experience, it ended up being a combat-fest. A boring one at that, since either it was no challenge at all or a complete planned TPK for the ending.

So, I end this with saying the Tournement sucked. Which was really sad considering it was a failure by the presenters of the tournamemt. We had a great team. We had decent, serviceable GMs. But, none of that was able to get past the inexcusably bad mission we had to play in. To the writer's of this mission, let me say that I don't hate you. The concept of what you were doing with the 2050 to 2070 change-up could have been an interesting scenario. The characters backstories could have been great... provided the actual adventure ever allowed any roleplaying. It would have been nice to have some actual memorable NPC's. But... in the end, in many ways, the sum of all the parts was actually less than the parts individually. I didn't even bother to show up to the wrap-up event the next day to see how we had done. For either of us, it really didn't matter. We could have won the whole mess and it would have meant nothing to us.

And the worst part... after all my glory tales of previous years, this was my 15 year old's first chance to play in what before had always been pretty darn great gaming. It was a major disappointment to him. And, all of the points I laid out above HE actually detailed to me over the next hour or two as we drove back to our rooms and picked up food. If a 15 year old can determine just what was wrong, surely the pro's running this could have preemptively realized it just wasn't up to snuff.

I would be interested in hearing how any of the other participants felt.

Vlad

The only game I got to play at GenCon had a $300 entry fee, and it wasn't Shadowrun.

I GMed two sessions of my Shadowrun Missions adventure, Burn. Both groups pulled it off, although one was interested in the No-Expenses Paid trip to Las Vegas. Then remembered the blowed up school and said, "Slot it. Let's go geek those fraggers and the horse they rode in on."

What the hell did you play that had a $300 entry fee??

Sorry to hear it champ. Hope you enjoyed the rest of the con.

Dibs on one of the leftover exemplars.

GenCon was significantly better for me this year, mostly because I dropped all WotC events I usually do in favor of Shadowrun games. And let me tell you, my Shadowrun judges are much, much nicer then the WotC ones. RPGA has too much focus on being a timed and by-the-book organization, and that's put me off from enjoying them anymore.

The scramble was great, though I would have liked a mission that allowed us to do more with the other groups. We tried to find NPC's in the crowds, but that was the first real hurdle. The second was, our team kind of just went around trying to garner support from 'citizens' rather then getting real players on our side. But I will say, it was fun to be cornered by four guys and take a full burst of gel rounds to the face. I mean, I'm a pacifist Shinto priest that looks like a fox. Apparently, someone thought that meant I was a dangerous assassin. And, one of our runners thought it would be a great idea to put her face ALL OVER THE TRID and get up with the Governor during his speech and become a big red target. And this was after we were told that people were looking for us. I simply told my group that "If she looks our way, I'm shapeshifting into a fox for six months till this blows over..."

As for the products, I picked up 2050. Mostly fluff. In fact, if you played 3rd Edition and still have those books, you have all the story and background for this already. The matrix rules were really the only new things. Everything else were setting changes, really. I liked it and it's a good reference, but it's more of a background book then it is rules. Oh, and I still don't know why magical just happened to change between 2050 and 2070 so that EVERYONE could summon spirits. Shamans kind of got the shaft on how they summoned spirits, in my opinion.

I will definitely agree with everyone about the hall. Please, please, please, please put this back into conference rooms next year. I can't hear a damn thing our story tellers were saying, and they were tired and hoarse from the whole con, so I can understand why it was difficult.

Deadlands: Noir.

Jeepers. At that price It better have come with a leggy dame.

I'm not going to make an under the table joke....frag too late.

Hey, I just apprehend who I'm told to apprehend. Though in this case, I managed to "accidentally" let you get away (which I could then scornfully blame on Brackhaven's security chief), and just sold the simrig and guncam footage of me knocking you out. So, no harm, no foul, right?

Aforementioned Trid

Ahh, well... ok. Not really a $300 entry fee then

I know there are some expensive events. True Dungeon is like $40 for an hour event, for example. Just making sure there wasn't some really crazy event I didn't know about

The dame had a dress slit to the side that showed a leg that went all the way up to the top floor, and I was only on the third of the cheap office building where I hung my shingle. She oozed sex, power, money, and influence. In that order.

Too bad she was also already dead by the time she came into my office, hiring me to find her killer...

I'll have to check on the plan for the extra copies. Some will probably be made available at PAX, then we'll go from there.

Jason H.

Ah, so that's what you were! We were trying to figure out why you had a fox mask on.

I was the quiet dude in the hoodie and carrying a notebook.

What're the odds of a drivethrurpg POD option, maybe?

PAX?

As in "A term used in the travel industry for a seat onboard an aircraft occupied by one or more passengers"?

So you'll actually fly over to Denmark to hand deliver it to me

I will shamelessly steal this text to use in one of my next pbp postings...

No discussion of the GenCon SR Tourney? I posted my thoughts and hoped others would post theirs as well. My curiosity was if any other tables had feelings akin to mine or if my situation/take was unique. Surely some of the other DS'ers were involved in it. I was disappointed but tried to post the "why's" in as reasonable a manner as I could, without malice. My ultimate hope is that the creators of the 2012 Tourney can hear my criticism, evaluate it and that maybe next year's event would strive to avoid any continuance of issues I had that they agree were problematical. Regardless, some sort of feedback would be nice. I suddenly feel like I developed leprosy or something. I know that our second night GM admitted he had some issues with the scenario himself.

Vlad

I've got to admit, I've never heard of this SR Tourney. What night was it on? What was the registration number? I can't find it in the Gencon event book.

I ran it past my wife too, who hasn't heard of SR Tourneys either.

This was the Shadowrun Tournament this year. Part 2 was the following night.

That URL requires an account. Maybe this would be better:

Past Perfect, Shadowrun Tournament Round 1
Past Perfect, Shadowrun Tournament Round 2

Or the whole Catalyst Game Labs program

So eurowar antiques is included in 2074 book anyone willing to spoiler what we can expect from the PDF when available?

I'll just say that in addition to the gear from RBB 2074, it'll have a history section that wasn't in the Black Book.

Also, in answer to an earlier question, Elven Blood will come up on DriveThru sooner or later, but we want to give it a little bit of time--people will still be playing some of these Missions at conventions, and we don't want to let out too many copies in advance and be all spoiler-y.

Jason H.

Ford Americars to steal rather than go on Shadowruns.