My oldest
son and I just returned from Gen Con 2015 in Indianapolis. Overall, it was a
really good time and a great experience. This was my third Gen Con as I
attended in 2000 and in 2002, back when the event was still held in Milwaukee. It
was his first con of any kind (as he was a baby back in 2002). Here’s the good
and not-so-good of my time experiencing the “best for days in gaming”.
If that
sounds really neat to you, let me tell you that it was not as madcap fun in
real life as it appears on paper. If, on the other hand, that sounds totally
stupid, then I’m here to assure you that it was actually an okay time. I mean,
it was kind of fun but a little confusing and a little too abstract to be really up my alley. The GM was
the game’s author, a woman named Shoe…I think? Sorry, I looked everywhere
online and couldn’t find her. She was very positive and accommodating and I
have nothing bad to say about the experience. It’s not her fault that the
Dungeon World game was cancelled. If she puts her game on RPGNow for a few
bucks, I’ll buy it.
The Judge
ran a partially impromptu adventure mostly from memory, while we did our utmost
to defeat his various monsters and traps. Whenever someone died, he or she
became a ghost who could try and influence dice rolls or potentially possess
monsters or player characters. The player of the aforementioned demon saved my
bacon when he possessed a 12-foot tall ape shaman that was trying to kill me.
From that point onward, we had a giant monkey with a staff of power on our
team.
Goodman
Games Con
I joked to
my son that we should have called it Goodman Games Con, since we spent most of
our time doing stuff with the Goodman Games folks. I bought something from their
booth on day one, found myself back there on day two to pick up something I’d
forgotten, and then returned on day four to make an impulse purchase. They were
very free with the extra swag with each purchase, which my son really loved.
Teenagers love Hugh the Barbarian buttons, apparently.
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| Just a sampling of the DCC extras |
We attended
the “What’s New with Goodman Games” seminar and enjoyed that experience as
well. I’m not interested in everything that Goodman puts out, but I really love
how big a fan Joseph Goodman seems to be of the old gaming industry luminaries.
In addition to his own stuff, Joseph is working with Flying Buffalo to put out
Grimtooth products, producing new Metamorphosis Alpha books with Jim Ward, and
reprinting Judges Guild books. He seems to be doing all of this simply because
he’s a fan of those works and would like to see them available again.
He even
brought Colonel Lou Zocchi up and just let him regale the audience with silly
jokes and nostalgia. I’m not sure that Lou knew exactly what Joseph wanted him
to do up there, but he seemed to really enjoy the moment in the spotlight. I
think that Joseph Goodman honestly just respects Zocchi and wanted to share him
with the crowd. I might not be interested in everything that Goodman Games is
doing, but I really respect them for doing it.
Live Games
One of the
games I own that I’ve never been able to actually play is Torchbearer. I backed
it on Kickstarter and I love the look and feel of the physical book, but it was
always too different from D&D for me to really wrap my brain around it. At
Gen Con, I got the opportunity to play the game with one of its designers, Thor
Olavsrud. Man, was that ever a load of fun! Torchbearer handles the traps and
exploration aspect of old-school D&D really well, getting the whole group
involved. The combat system is a little odd, but I think I’d enjoy it if I
could get a better handle on it. Plus, when I later dropped by the Burning
Wheel booth to buy a supplement for the game, Thor introduced me to Luke Crane
as “that guy I was telling you about who used the Celestial Music spell to take
out two-thirds of the enemies.” Talk about a geeky moment for me.
I also
steered the group over to Indie Press Revolution to try out one of the
independent games they had on tap. Alas, the games I was familiar with were
either full or 18+ (my son is not yet 18), so I had to basically pick a game at
random. I overheard one of the guys say that the game Trash Planet was an OSR
game and my brain decided that it thought we’d heard of it, so off we went.
Alas, that
guy (and my brain) was wrong and Trash Planet was not an OSR-type game by any
stretch. It was a super-indie rules light affair in which you play whatever
random thing you can think of while trying to survive in a zany dystopian
future full of junk. It’s basically Wall-E the roleplaying game. I played a
safety-conscious janitor named Stan. My son played an intelligent Monkey Doctor
named Dr. Eek. We were trying to gas up our ship at a partially ruined fueling
station that was suspiciously void of people.
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| Not Pictured: My Son's Character |
We also
played in an Intro to D&D game put on by Baldman Games because my buddy has yet to play 5E. That
event was my least favorite. The convention area was really loud, the other
players were completely random, and I had no frame of reference or vested
interest in the scenario presented. In other words, typical RPGA experience (now
it’s called D&D Adventurers League or something, but whatever). It wasn’t
terrible, but it really wasn’t worth the time or the generic tickets.
Finally, we
managed to find a pickup game of Dungeon Crawl Classics after hours at the hotel
where a bunch of the Goodman Games staff was all staying. I was feeling pretty
tired by this point and would have probably just given up and gone back to the
hotel, but my son really wanted to play DCC. Thank goodness for his motivation,
because it was a really fun experience. It began when I called a phone number
listed on a postcard I’d gotten from one of the Goodman Games staff to find out
the secret gaming location. A cheesy dramatic voice (with background sound
effects) informed us where to go and when. We showed up, feeling timid, and
hung back for a bit before I caught the attention of artist Doug Kovaks.
Doug Kovaks
strikes me as... kind of crazy. Seriously, you can tell he’s an artist just by
spending a few moments talking to him. He’s sort of the Chaos to Joseph
Goodman’s Law, if that makes any sense. I don’t know the man personally, but
that’s my impression. In other words, a great guy to run a pickup game of DCC.
Doug
welcomed us in to play, strong-armed Tim Callahan to be the actual Judge, and
explained the premise behind the event. We were all playing teenagers who,
while riding an amusement park ride based on an infamous 1980s fad product,
found ourselves transported to a magical world of monsters and magic.
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| Sounds...familiar somehow. |
Each of us
was handed a bookmark-sized character sheet with random stats and a random
starting occupation. Each occupation was a high school archetype like “jock”, “pyro
kid”, or “adult chaperone.” As the adventure began, our characters found
themselves standing in the presence of an impish little man (Doug held up a
painted illustration who looked like a twisted version of suspiciously familiar
character) who was there to hand out our totem magic items and assign our
professions. I was a “shapemancer” and had a magic vest. Another guy was a “space
marine” and the dude at the end of the table was a demon with a tongue attack
and an ax that spit fireballs.
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| Behold! The greatest magic item known to mankind! |
Seriously, it
was awesome.
There Were a
LOT of People
Overall, we
had the most fun whenever we were able to actually play a game, as opposed to
wandering around trying to locate an event we’d signed up for or searching for
a pickup game. Gen Con was really, really tiring. More tiring than I remember,
although I am 13 years older than the last time I attended, so that might be
part of it.
I read
online that attendance has doubled since 2010. Back in 2002, there were almost
30,000 people at the con. This year, that number had climbed to over 61,000.
That’s a LOT of people. The Exhibit Hall, where I would have loved to spend
even more time, was an absolute madhouse of people. I feel like there were a
few gems that I missed out on as a result of the sheer mass of crowds.
Gen Con has
obviously grown a lot from its humble beginnings back in Lake Geneva,
Wisconsin. Sadly, it’s probably outgrowing Indianapolis as well. I don’t envy
the people who have to organize and run something this massive, but you could
see the cracks in the system. Finding the various attached hotels was more
confusing than it needed to be. The games library was very hard to get into.
The dealer room could have been seriously expanded to make it less of a mob
experience.
Getting a
decent hotel was a lot harder than it should have been and the stupid Gen Con
housing system cost me an unnecessary $50. I could go on.
Things Have
Changed Since 2002
There were a
lot more board games on display this year than I recall seeing in 2002. One of
the big common purchases seemed to be XenoShyft: Onslaught, a game I’ve played
and enjoyed. Settlers of Catan also had a very large presence. Even Jenga was
happening in at least a few corners of the convention. These past few months,
as my return to college and various summer activities have eaten up my free
time, my gaming has been almost entirely of the board game variety. There are a
lot of fun titles out there to be sure and Gen Con certainly reflected that.
The RPG
market, on the other hand, has changed a lot. D20 was the big thing back in the
day. Actually, for a while, it was the only thing. Now, it seems, everyone and
their brother has just come out with a new fantasy heartbreaker or multi-genre
system. The thing is, it was hard for me to get excited about buying any of
them at Gen Con. Before I left for Indy, I did a bit of research on the Gen Con
big releases. None of it grabbed me as something I needed to buy at the Con.
Part of that is the fact that I’ve already got a half dozen RPGs on the back
burner that I’ve never gotten to play, but even if I was interested in, say,
Numenera, why in the world would I buy it for full price at Gen Con when I
could get it from Amazon, with free two-day shipping, for $16 cheaper? I’m all
for supporting the games, but that doesn’t make any kind of economic sense.
Amazon and the growth of the internet in general has really changed the way
products are distributed. Without a quality gaming store nearby, Gen Con used
to be a good way to pick up hard to find gaming stuff. Not so much anymore.
Cosplay also
seemed much more prevalent. At least, I don’t remember seeing nearly as many
costumes in Milwaukee. The audience as a whole seemed less…geeky, I guess. With
the success of things like Comic Con and the deluge of comic book movies in
recent years, it’s pretty clear that big nerd conventions are way less fringe
than they once were. If not mainstream, certainly more accepted. I was still a
bit bemused by one huge poster that the city of Indianapolis hung on the street
near the convention center. It showed a guy with a joystick in his hand, his
face illuminated by a computer screen. In bold, white lettering it said “Welcome
Gamers.”
Not completely
mainstream yet.
The Gaming
Bug
What Gen Con
did accomplish, the thing the experience did best, was reviving my gaming bug.
I got to play about a dozen different board games and RPGs in 3 ½ days. I’m now
itching to wrap up a Pathfinder campaign that has been in limbo so that I can
move on to Edge of the Empire, XCrawl, DCC, and, of course, Dwimmermount and
ACKS.
I don’t
think I’ll be going back to Gen Con anytime soon, but Gary Con and some of the
other smaller cons might be worth checking out. I’ve also got vague plans of
renting a cabin in the woods, turning off my cell phone, and inviting three or
four close friends to a long weekend of nothing but gaming.
Overall,
this trip to Indy was a neat experience to share with my (now DCC obsessed)
son. I’m glad I went.
