GenCon 2022

[Mike]

Mando just reminded me that I've never talked about this year's GenCon, so here we go...

Firstly, it was just me and Noah. Every kid has gotten a trip to GC on my dime the year they turn 16. This was Noah's year. The remainder of the Nerd Pride that usually attends was absent this year. Nelly was there, of course, and I texted her a few times, but we never managed to be in the same place at the same time. So just me and Noah. It was awesome!

We stayed at the Camelot Bed & Breakfast which is owned and run by an older nerdy couple who always dreamed of running a medieval themed B&B. The place was generous and very castle-like. We were in the royal Suite for a mere $85 per night which was ridiculously cheap for what we got. They had real chainmail and thrones in the front hall with all the helmets and swords and costumes and axes you could possibly want for photo ops. One of the private areas of the house (owners only) was their custom D&D room filled with bookshelves and maps and a huge gaming table. #lifegoals They were a very sweet and accommodating couple.

The con was jam-packed as always, but proof of vaccination was required for entry and masks were mandatory. I cannot tell you how my heart went all a-flutter the first time I heard GenCon staff explain to a guest that they needed to wear their mask over their mouth AND nose. They were serious.

[Mike]

First off, prior to the con, Dave had introduced me to Galaxy Trucker, a game I've long had my eye on but never picked up. I loved it! So I bought it cheap at GC (reduced price because of some new expansion). Noah has the same taste as I do in games, and we played the shit out of Galaxy Trucker all weekend. High recommend. You start with a blank grid and a junkpile of spaceship parts in front of you. Everyone races to make the most functional ship they can. Whoever finishes first flips over the timer and everyone else has one minute to finish. Do you have enough engines? Guns? Crew? Shields? Etc... Well in phase 2 you will find out, because there you now run through a series of event cards where maybe you make a little money, pick up some cargo. But there's also pirates and asteroids and plague and a dozen other things. As pieces get blasted off your ship, you can easily lose it all. Your goal is to finish the journey and end with a positive amount of cash. Whole thing takes about a half hour. There's an insane number of pieces, but the rules are actually pretty easy after one time through. Awesome.

[Mike]

We played some Starfinder. I was a vesk warrior (giant lizard person) and Noah was a ysoki (ratfolk) mechanic. We had a blast! It was an 8th level game, and the other three players were all VERY experienced--like, they were members of the Starfinder Society and actually brought their own registered official characters. Two of them were very cool, but the third Noah and I dubbed "Man Scout", because he wore an outfit that looked for all the world like a boy scout cosplay that he hadn't put the patches on yet. And he was one who had to show off how cool he was by reminding everyone constantly that he knows everything about the background lore to this current adventure series. Even to the point of smugly giving away spoiler information. What a douche.

But I digress. Man Scout was only a minor annoyance. The overall game was well put together. We're sent to Akiton (Mars-like planet) to investigate a weird incursion into this realm. It turns out to be an oasis like area that is actually a chunk of the fey wilds forced into our plane of existence. Investigations were cool, the roleplay was really fun, the final battle was actually pretty epic. But the most important part was that Noah was SO happy throughout and left the game with several vivid parts to be proud of and regale others with. I was grateful to the GM for helping make it so engaging.

[Mando]

...and I live vicariously through you for another Gen Con

[Mike]

There were other games and lots of shopping (mostly for dice), and we had a great time. We checked out the hallway musicians and magicians. We watched the building of the balloon dragon. We checked out costumes. We visited Cardhalla. All great.

But the two shows we went to were stand outs to me. We went to Tracy Hickman's Killer Breakfast. For this one, there's several hundred people in the hall, and you can choose to be audience or player. Noah and I chose to play. Everyone gets very simple character sheets and then there's 8 players on stage at a time with Tracy as DM. And people die quickly as he weaves the story. As people die, they leave the stage and the next person in line gets their chair. Hickman clearly has a direction for the story vaguely plotted out, but he also lets the input from the players shape where it ultimately goes. It was fun. I'm really glad we did it, and I will probably go as an audience member sometime, but as Nelly pointed out (I think she has a video of me and Noah on her YouTube vlog), you can start to see the formula after a bit. I think too many viewing would spoil the magic of it for me.

[Mike]

Saving the best for last. We went to see Dimension20: Misfits and Magic live.

Do you remember College Humor on YouTube? Cool. Do you remember a few years ago when they decided to reformat and start putting most of their original content onto their own streaming channel called Dropout for five bucks a month? Sweet, then you're still with me. Okay, one of the staples of Dropout TV has been Dimension20, a roleplaying game show. They play D&D on TV, and they're amazingly good at it. They are now on their fourteenth game, but I'll get back to that.

Last year, Aabria Iyengar was the GM for the run of Misfits & Magic. It's about young wizards and witches at a Hogwarts knockoff school of magic. They played using the amazing game Kids on Brooms, which is a variation of the game Kids on Bikes that I'm playing right now.

Anyway, Noah and I have both seen lots of Dimension20 clips online. We know the people and the format and we were excited to see this one-off game set in the same world, except this time the main characters were all the seniors from Slytherin.

It exceeded my expectations. Like WAY exceeded. I was blown away. In two hours they wove a full, coherent, exciting story that ended in a huge climactic battle pitting them against (brace yourself) a rampaging golem-beast that was essentially the Eiffel Tower (the real one, summoned from France) wearing their quidditch pitch like a mech suit.

And all I could think the whole time was, "I gotta step up my game." I mean this was masterful gm-ing AND roleplaying. Granted, everyone on stage was either a professional actor, comic, or improv artist, or some combination of those. Professional in that they make a living from this. So maybe I shouldn't be too hard on myself. But it's a goal to strive for. #gamergoals

So the upshot is that I'm now paying $5.99 a month for Dropout. The current season of Dimension20 is A Court of Fey and Flowers, a D&D 5e game of court intrigue between the various fairy folk at a huge gala festival This one is also DMed by Aabria Iyengar, and I can't rave enough about how much I enjoy this. You should watch.