Barton's GenCon 2008 Report and photos

[Barton]

THURSDAY

Arrived in Indy too late for the pre-GenCon party on Wednesday night.

Like Joe L. I made a scheduling mistake for this GenCon. I had three events in a row on Thursday, big mistake, I will never that again. I will limit myself to two events per day in future.

Thanks to Susano for the NASA swag (pins and NASA stickers). Most of my players loved it!!!

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Thursday 8am at Union Station (my favorite place for my games, I love that old train station) I game mastered my Meyerson Academy game. My “groupies” were back again. Yes, Barton has game groupies! Kristi played her favorite character the speedster Jesterette. Jennifer played Hapentance and she helped defeat the recently repaired danger-room.

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Marcus Whitman and Kristi

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Brian Priorkowski and Jennifer


At 1PM I game mastered my second game Teen Champions - Meyerson Academy After School Special game. It takes place in the mall. My two players liked the game, and did very well, only one civilian seriously hurt by the demons and very little property damage. They enjoyed taunting the jocks before the big fight.
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David Bridger

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Board member NESTORDROD - Nestor Rodriquez


My last game of Thursday started at 6PM, Foxbat the Wildcard. The players did very well, figuring out in record time the mystery. The role-playing was quite good; all the players did a great job with the offbeat characters in the game. I have run this event several times and this crew solved even some of the minor mysteries in the event. Michelle Brown who played Rope ‘em Lil had a blast playing the superheroine, who behaves as a 12 year old. The players all received Foxbat for President buttons (he is running on the Loon Party ticket). They actually did not destroy the new casino!!

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Three of players from Foxbat the Wildcard

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Michelle Brown in victory!!!

[Barton]

FRIDAY

Friday started early at 8AM with the Conversion & Green Stuff Basics sculpting class by Jeremy Bernhardt. A good class, he concentrated mainly on conversions, showing us some time saving tricks.

Shopped for a few hours and stopped by the Hero Games / Cryptic booth, it was mobbed!! I purchased the Book of the Destroyer and Monster Island. Got Mr. Steve Long to autograph them!!!

Friday at 1PM I game mastered by Meyerson Academy - Parent Teacher meeting game. In this game the Teen Champions bring their parents for a night time meeting with the teachers. Great role-playing, Jennifer played QuakeMan the parent of Iron Mike. One of QuakeMan’s psych disadvantages is embarrassing his son Iron Mike. In the course of the game he tried to setup Iron Mike with the female PC’s then when that failed, he was worried about Iron Mike’s sexual orientation. It was very funny and very well played.
Because the players had played before, I changed the scenario to an investigative adventure. They then had a climatic fight to rescue Brian’s character girlfriend from DEMON. Jesterette played by Kristi Neale (Jesterette is her favorite character), did a great flip over a huge demon and grabbed the Demon leader and prevented him from sacrificing the girlfriend. The players had a good time, as they are my “groupies”.

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Kristi and Marcus

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Brian and Jennifer

Friday at 6PM I went to Sculpting Machines and Vehicles class taught by Jeffrey Wilhelm. Mr. Wilhelm sculpted many of the BattleTech minis. The class was wonderful, and I now can begin sculpting my PulpHero art-deco robots!!!

[Barton]

SATURDAY

Saturday at 8AM I played in Leah Watts’ Stolen Dreams game. This was a DarkChampions The Animated Series game and starred the villain Nocturne. It was a blast. I am great at Teen Champions games, Joe L. is an expert at conducting silly games, and Leah is the master of Dark Champions games. One of the players, who “hated” the DC TAS book, at the end of the game, kind of liked the genre. I played a cop assigned to a desk who moonlights as a vigilante. I was the only character in the game to be knocked out by the goons and the other players would not let me forget that. The game ended when one of the players correctly used Nocturne’s psychological disadvantage against him. It was brilliant.

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Leah (standing) explaining the scene to us.

Had a few hours to eat and shop. Advice to everyone going to GenCon, make sure you schedule time to eat and shop. I purchased a “second” vinyl battlemat from Chessex. It was in near perfect condition and about 40% off. I use and strongly recommend the vinyl battlemats from Chessex.
Took this photo of this cute little monster at lunch.
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This is a photo of a bunch of Hero Games books, this was a single order of over $1,200 of stuff, also in the foreground are the great Champions MMO swag (back pack and skateboard).
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Saturday at 2PM I played Victory at Sea a miniatures based WW2 naval game. It is abstracted and simple to play (takes about 20min to learn the rules) and does a decent job at simulating WW2 naval combat. The scenario was the Battle of the Denmark Straight with the Bismarck and Prince Engen vs. the Hood and another British battleship. I commanded the Hood, which in this game was the “refit” version, what she would have been had the British had the time before the war to upgrade her, so the battle was a very fair fight (but not historical). We sank the battlecruiser Prince Engen before she could fire her deadly torpedoes. Then we hammered the Bismarck. The Bismarck escaped but badly damaged and with steering problems. The two British ships took moderate damage. A very fun game and I very much like the Victory at Sea rules (you can also play the game with paper counters or as our judge did he used the Axis and Allies at Sea minis).

Saturday at 7pm I played in a game of Saganami Island Tactical Simulator by Ad Astra games http://www.adastragames.com This was a 3D space ship combat game based on the Honor Harrington universe. Great 3D mechanics, a little difficult to learn, but fun. This is by far the BEST 3D movement system I have ever seen. It works well and is faithful to vector physics.

[Barton]

SUNDAY

Sunday started with the Christian Worship Service with Christian Gamers Guild organized by Dave Mattingly at 9am. It was a great service with a large crowd (some people had to stand). Hero’s art director Andy Mathews led the group in song (he can sing by the way!). The preacher was Pastor Derek the “geekpreacher” http://www.geekpreacher.com He is an interesting pastor, his training in marketing and he gave a GREAT talk on branding and how it relates to Christians, and to gamers. The talk also included some thoughts that gamers have to be inclusive in thought and deed. I will be going to the service next year, it is a do not miss for me.

I had three hours to shop. Picked up some gifts for my friends and players. I purchased a t-shirt for HeroTina as a late birthday present.
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Another photo of HeroTina.

Found out I won a drawing at the Gamers for Humanity booth http://www.gamersforhumanity.org I encourage everyone next year to feed the “pig” (a large piggy bank) and help this worthy cause. They rehab houses; this is a great bang for your buck charity because rehabbing houses is a very efficient use of money to help those in need. Mr. Steve Long and Mr. Watts what about donating a Champions MMO backpack and/or skateboard???? (I am shameless….)

I then played in Micro Mutants: Evolution a board game about bugs in a secret war. Cute art, but the game mechanics I did not like.

Then I helped beta test the new family board game Flat Acting by Eye-Level Entertainment. This is a great game where the various film genres compete to become the next picture to be filmed. The game mechanics are simple and interesting (you place your markers or opponents’ markers in rooms to “win” them, highest score wins; markers under certain conditions cancel out). I talked to the designer before the game and I warned him I would try to “break” the game by doing spoiler moves. It did not break. It will be a fun game for families.

After the ‘con I went to the GM’s dinner, but it was getting late so I had to say good bye and leave before being seated. I had to work on Monday, so I had to leave and drive back home. Sorry, I missed a good time with all the Hero folks and GM’s. Next year I will arrange to have Monday off so I can stay late with the Hero crew.

Next year I will game master more Meyerson Academy games (maybe a class trip to Monster Island) and a PulpHero game.

[TygerLily]

Yay! Gamers for Humanity! :) Congrats on winning one of our prizes! We had an awesome first year at Gen Con and everyone turned out and really helped us out. Thanks for helping to spread the word, and definitely FEED the PIG!

[ghost-angel]

It was fun playing in the DC: Animated Series game; thanks for helping me actually enjoy the genre for a change. (and yeah, you got jumped by two thugs - while they were fleeing from the rest of us!)

(as a side note, that wonderful 1200$ order dropped to 300$ when the guy saw how many books there were with a side note to have Tina tell Steve that he was insane. Too bad on that. I don't think he realized they'd been publishing pretty steadily for almost 8 years now. Of course, Tina was smart and had me, Susano and Archermoo put the books back :p )

[teh bunneh]

(as a side note, that wonderful 1200$ order dropped to 300$ when the guy saw how many books there were with a side note to have Tina tell Steve that he was insane. Too bad on that. I don't think he realized they'd been publishing pretty steadily for almost 8 years now. Of course, Tina was smart and had me, Susano and Archermoo put the books back :p )

Did he order "one of each" or something? :)

[ghost-angel]

Did he order "one of each" or something? :)

Something like that. Which was close to a stack of 80 books at the con.

[AlHazred]

It was a sweet spread they had at the booth this year. I don't think I've ever seen so much Hero product in one place. It was fun pointing out to my buddy how many supplements I actually own -- I think I only bought six books at the Con, which filled out my collection.

[Susano]

Something like that. Which was close to a stack of 80 books at the con.

But he only bought $400.00 worth of books, as he didn't realize what 'one of everything' came to!