Road to Rollin

Here's the mega Gen Con '06 review post. YAY! Hopefully I can get through it all today. We'll start with Wednesday.

Wednesday
We rolled out about 9:30 in the morning heading for Indy. Nick slept for awhile. Somewhere in there we started working up a character to run through some solo on-they-fly adventures on the trip. We came up with Shredheart Twinkletoes. Fighter2/Scout2/Cleric1. He'd use a Scythe dedicated to his deity making it a LARGE Keen Scythe of Throwing and Returning +2. Lots of damage potential there. Quick stop over at Culver's. Nick took a massive shit. Back on the road. Later Nick hid under his sweater and played Battlefield 2.

Total road time:9.5 hours (record)

Hit the hotel, unloaded stuff, fiddled with internet for a few minutes, didn't care much about that, and headed out to the Ram. Parking downtown was damn expensive, so we found a free parking meter about 10 blocks away from everything and stored the car there. Between the Indy police station, and a brightly lit Bail Bondsman. We hoped that would make it safe. ;) En route to the Ram (or maybe wondering around downtown looking for the car later) we scoped out a cheaper parking ramp only 2 blocks from the Dome that would net us a savings of $30 parking there for the week.

The Ram. Was. Crowded. The hosting staff was pretty confused, so it took a little over an hour to get a table, but the good news was they were still serving food long after the menu was supposed to switch over to the bar snacks. Nick grabbed a Tarrasque Burger, I passed on the Hippogriff Havarti Sandwich and had a Sesame Grilled Tuna thing off the not D&D menu, and we both split some Chuul Rolls (of course). Unfortunately, they brought Troll Fingers instead of Chuul Rools, and there was no butter kelp. A quick bite of Troll fingers proved that deep fried pickles weren't our thing, and we got em replaced with the correct food. My sammich was tasty, the Tarrasque Burger was gargantuan, and the Bloody Buccaneer Brew made especially for Gen Con '06 was really, really, really fucking good beer. We vowed to return. Headed back to the hotel and crashed.

Thursday
Thursday started bright and early. I think we hit the alarm at 5:30ish. Shower, get around, rub the sidewalk at McDonalds and head to the Con. Thursday was my WW II day.

I started off with the Savage Worlds game. We were archaelogist/explorers with a rich patron. It's just a year or two before WW II. Uncle Sam needs us to find a German scientist and protect the Fountain of Youth. There was quite some railroading here. A little bit of creativity netted us pulling ahead of the Germans, at which point, the scientist sent one of his men to offer that we join him. How'd he find out we had the "key" and a snazzy conquistadors hat? I don't know. But when we skipped town early rather than meet with him, he still showed up at the Fountain with a unit of Nazis. Even so, the game was fun because the GM did good impersonations, the crew played tight, and I got to start Gen Con off with my bad southern accent. (As it turns out, Johnny Knoxville was the only character I played that DIDN'T almost require I use that accent. Everyone else was either from Texas, the South, or a sci-fi equivalent.) Game Highlight: My greaser avoided a catastrophic boat failure by taking a little pre-emptive action, and I got offered a wrenching job that paid "a duck a day." Damn rednecks.

I spent a little time in the dealer hall, but didn't by anything, then it was on to Through the Desert with Nick. Play the game with a kid under 12 and it might be fun. Play it with Nick, me, some other dude, and a 15 year old bored girl, and there's little enjoyment other than cock blocking the other dude.... Game Highlight: Only took 45 minutes and left me with a few hours to kill before Godlike.

From TtD, we headed over to a Japanese restaurant near the Con for some sushi, Sapporo and saki. As usual, the saki Nick wanted was unavailable. Weird, that. Regardless, the sushi was good, and it's a spot we'll probably eat at again next year.

At 6, I hit the Godlike game. We had to make it to Bastiogne, relieve the 101st a bit, cause havoc on the way and get as many supplies as we could. Not only did we have a great crew, but the game rocked. The GM was a bit abrasive, and one couple left halfway through because of that. I think part of their gruff was that the wife had picked the character in the group to see the least action. She was the healer an no one really got shot til after they left. That made for a boring game for her, added to being late, and I see why the split. The rest of the party (aside from the healer) was a flyer (little Mexican dude that new more about WW II than the GM), Captian America (played by a British dude), our super strong man (played by medic's husband) that carried an MG42 all by himself, a radioman that could intercept radio signals WITHOUT a radio, a sniper that was bullet proof, a Jewish German resistance fighter with the Zed ability (could 'turn off' other people's powers), and me, a professional soldier that could regenerate everything but decapitation.

We started off with a quick "learn the rules" combat. Among other things, it set the stage for the sniper failing his stealth rolls, taking aim, and then having his target mowed down by machine gun fire or grenades. Bottom line, if you're playing a sniper, make sure the group plans accordingly and picks targets. Sniping doesn't work in the chaos of storming a defense very well. My favorite part about this combat was the Han Solo moment. Turns out, the Krauts were on the radio getting directions when we mowed em down. Our radioman intercepts the signal, they ask "What's going on?" and he says, "Umm, I don't know. Just some weapons misfiring. I think the radios broke." Disconnects and says, "I didn't like that conversation much anyway." Then we find a German code book and things get better for the radioman. Too bad he didn't have any bluff skill....

Later, we roll into a checkpoint loaded with Nazis and a couple of Tiger Tanks. We don't expect our stolen papers to get us far, so our Captain quick learns how to say, "Shut up, I have to pee," in German. At the checkpoint, the radioman passes over the papers, argues with guard, the Captain "wakes up" jumps out of the half track, gives his speech and heads for the tanks. In the meantime, one guard heads to get the colonel. The colonel approaches the captain, cap drops his charge with a 10 second timer, heads back to the half track and starts a count down over his head while faking a big, yawning stretch. I yell to the crew in back (I was the driver), one tiger tank blows up, and we fucking go into Nazi blasting action. Strongman leaps from the truck to other tiger tank and flips it over, while the rest of us shoot Nazis heads off. The captain gets into a round of fisticuffs with the colonel, most of the Nazis run away, we knock the colonel out, grab two trucks, tons of blankets, gas and ammo, and start interrogating the colonel. He won't bow to intimidation from the strongman, so the captian says, "You're right, brute strength won't do the job here. Let me show you what we do to prisoners that won't talk," and proceeds to stab me in the fucking lung repeatedly. Kraut told us everything we wanted to know. He didn't know much about troop movements, but we learned a lot about the artillery surrounding the town.

We rolled into Bastiogne, delivered our supplies, were treated as heroes, got some sleep and went out to bust up some artillery. That's when we met our first talents. Zed is real effective against flyers, and our little Jew took out the Nazi human jet real quick. Our armored man took out their armored man by being smarter than him and using a rifled grenade rather than going toe to toe. Knife to a gun fight and all of that. They also had a human torch type character. He didn't like me much after he'd watched me get mowed down by an MG42, lie there for a round or two, crawl for a round or two, then get up and starting fucking Nazis in the eyes again. He came straight for me. Too bad. Being the point man, it was my original task to set my stachel charge at the optimal point to destroy the artillery.

Instead I played hot potato. With the torch. "Catch!" as I tossed him the charge. He did.

Good thing I could regenerate.

The final fight was a bit more anticlimactic, but still fun.

Game Highlight:Tough call.I think the players were the highlight of this game. Wish I could have got the contact info for the British guy. He was purty cool. Unfortunately, there wasn't an opportunity to do it without also trading info with the GM OR looking like i was hitting on the Brit.

Friday
Friday I opted to skip my 8am Blue Rose game so I could make it to the noon Serenity game on time. Too bad. The dealer hall didn't open til 10, so I had a couple hours to kill doing jack. Can't remember what I did, cept wonder around talking to Wendy on the phone. In the dealer hall, I hit the OOTS booth and the Paizo booth, then grabbed as many freebie things as I wanted thanks to the Gen Con coupon book. Decided EVE Online looked fun and grabbed a 20 minute free online demo of it for later. Thinking about getting into the Pirates of the Burning Sea demo, too. Demoed Anachronism, which I love, just for another free character. I'm up to three now, and I've spent no cash on the game. Demoed something else, but it was lackluster and I've forgot about it.

Headed over to the Serenity game, and the DM was a half hour late. Coulda caught my morning game. :( Serenity was fun, but the crew was pretty well crap. Out of the five other players, I like two of them and the DM. The other three were confused about roleplaying in a cooperative game environment. I had just enough fun not to leave because of the Firefly fanatic. I really would like to play this game again with people I like. Game Highlight: Getting plot points for a far too subtle jab at Captain "Look at my mudder's milk t-shirt" (the annoying guy) that only the GM caught, and getting plot points for the sweet in-game rant I made at the character that was allergic to everything. I basically just said everything funny I've ever said about my own allergies while calling him Snuffles, Snufflestupidus or some other variant. It was all planned, as our goal was to start a brawl. We did.

After Serenity, Nick and I hit True Dungeon. Damn was it fun. Combat is a shuffleboard system, spell casting is all about memorization, and picking locks is close to the game Operation. My advice, don't be the rogue. First, to utilize your sneak attack, you don't make an attack for the first round. Most combat in our group lasted 2 rounds, with the one going longer than that being the one that I died before doing anything. Second, "I search the pillar for traps," always met with "You find nothing," even when it was trapped. Third, when you opened the treasure box, you could either get a clue for the room or grab one treasure for yourself. None of the clues were useful. So, don't be a rogue. Despite that I had a blast, and I only wish the chubby hermetics would have got the fuck out of the way instead of standing around like cattle. Game Highlight: It's a toss up between solving the web trap puzzle or watching Nick get reamed out and then hung inside out by the drow priestess at the end of the dungeon. He was looking for a potion to revive me with instead of paying attention to her. Good times. She was hot, too.

We ended Friday night with another visit to the Ram, where they made us twice the drinks we ordered but didn't charge us. So actually, we ended Friday night milling around the Con for a couple of hours after dinner while I sobered up to the point of legally driving.

Saturday
Saturday started with 8am Cthulhu. Call of Cthulhu that is. My 2nd favorite game of the weekend, it only edged out Godlike because the GMs were cooler and had a ton of props. Not kidding, we packed into a van at one point, and the made all 8 of us squeeze into the space and seats of a small van. While driving down the road, the deputy found a snake on him. He actually had a rubber snake, so when he screamed and threw it behind him, several of the other players reacted to snake as if it were real. Great, great stuff. There was a lot of splitting the party, so the two GMs were pulling us out of the room, comparing notes, etc. they had a powerpoint presentation, music, stayed in character for ALL of the characters, and all of that combined to help all of us players do the same, so there was a lot of redneck Tennessee county officials hitting on the hot intern (which was a skinny Arabian man), while she complained about her dad getting her this job and alternately took a lot of picture with his/her cell phone and disposable camera for real. We were all rewarded with a free book at the end and most of us lived, except one. Only one person went crazy, too. Not a normal Cthulhu game. Turns out, though, the ritual we stopped was beneficial and would have destroyed Yigg. Instead, we let him live on forever. Whoops. Game Highlight: The snake in the van.

More vendor hall while killing time for the next game, and I scored some mad loot at the Goodman Games cheap table. I'm talking a hardback, three softbacks, and a little spineless number all for $10. Hit Paizo again and resubscribed to both of their magazines, hoping that would again be the impetus for me to hit the writing solidly... Scored another round of freebies with the Gen Con coupons, then headed over to the next game.

The next game was a board game with Nick called Collateral Damage. Turns out it's not published yet, so we had to sign NDAs. Can't talk about it much, but the game itself is damn fun. You're basically an anime gang boss and your thugs, all drawn from various anime shows like Tenchi, Lupin III, and shit with high sexual tension, continually beat the shit out of each other and the cities of Japan while falling in love, having sex, and beating the shit out of their rivals. Fun stuff. Game Highlight: One of Nick's characters grenading the fuck out of everyone in one of the cities. I didn't do shit, cause I kept getting craptacular characters and had very little notoriety. *shrug*

After that, Nick and I had time to kill, so we hit the vendor area a bit more, then headed out to find food. My next game wasn't til 11pm. Rather than polish off a round at the Ram again, we opted to explore. Across the road. We hit Alcatraz, which was a restaurant/brewery in the same vein as the Ram only from San Fransisco. I ordered up a Pelican Pale which was described as lightly golden and gave me images of Amstel Light. Turns out it's a red that's somewhere between Killian's and Guiness to my pallette. Opted for a different beer, but everything they had was described as being close to Heffweizen (not my cup of tea). Passed on the beer and we went for the food. Nick ordered an appetizer that was prawns cooked in a caramel apple thing and wrapped in bacon. Too bad it was just three prawns and the bacon overpowered all the flavor. Nick had jumbalia and I had fish and chips. Neither was bad, but neither was good enough for us to go back. The only advantage the place had over the Ram was a 15 minute wait vs. the Ram's 1 hour+ wait if you couldn't sneak into the bar.... Needless to say, no Alcatraz next year. Food was a bit more expensive than the quality.

My final game of the evening and the Con was Midnight Zombie Show, a freeball, ham it up, annual event based off the All Flesh Must Be Eaten rules. The guy's been running it for 8+ years I think, and it's usually the biggest game of the Con. This year, zombies attacked the Oscars. I was Johnny Knoxville. I sat at a table with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jackie Chan, Vin Diesel, Denzel Washington, and Simon Pegg. We were an ass whoopin table. Unfortunately, it wasn't an ass whooping game. It was really more of a have a good time/do stupid shit game. Coincidentally, the best part was when Jenna Jameson, Britney Spears, and Drew Barrymore made out (the players did too). OK. That wasn't the BEST part, but pretty damn hot nonetheless. Bottom line, Midnight Zombie Show scored my vote for best event at the Con and I'm definitely gonna be there next year. Mel Gibson turned into a zombie and ate Jennifer Lopez, because Cristina Ricci wasn't meaty enough. Katie Holmes died. Twice. She kept coming back because Nicole Kidman enlisted her in the Destroy Tom Cruise quest. Tom Cruise turned several zombies into scientologists. I think Lindsey Lohan died, I know she got used as a battering ram. Vin Diesel prayed to Pelor (D&D deity) to strike down the evil at Neverland Ranch, because Britney Spears and K-fuck were breeding a new worker class. K-fuck used his cell phone douchebag power to live, but Britney Spears died despite Jenna Jameson's best efforts...thanks to half of the damage being divine. The Olsen twins grew their dark empire. Joan Rivers saved the world thanks to help from Sigorny Weaver, Samuel L Jackson, Elijah Wood and a few others. Too many funny moments/stories to recap..... I'll save them for later.

Game Highlight: This one gets two: Everyone's fun addictions and stupid "powers." I was addicted to Stupidity. Johnny Depp was addicted to Malaysian porn. Samuel L Jackson was addicted to saying "Mother Fucker." Nicole Kidman could use Voodoo magic, but only on Tom Cruise. She made it her mission to destroy him.

Also, a LOT of the people stayed in character. Some just went over the top, but the players of Samuel L. Jackson, Johnny Depp, Robert Deniro, Michael Jackson, Joan Rivers....those people were good. My favorite line - A zombie chicken truck is jacknifed in the road in front of Deniro's cab. Deniro pulls out a grenade and tosses it at the truck. The DM had said you could have whatever gear you might take to the Oscars. He asks Deniro, "Robert Deniro, you brought a grenade to the Oscars?" In full on Deniro accent, the player says, "What the fuck you talkin about? I didn't bring no fuckin grenade to the Oscars. No way I brought a grenade to the Oscars. I brought two goddamn grenades to the fuckin Oscars!" Good times.

Sunday
Sunday I slept in and Nick took a cab to the Con to watch a lot of anime. Spent a few hours in the vendor area wrapping up purchases and headed out. Great time all around.

All told, my cheap swag booty ended up being over $150 worth of books for $15. Love it. Grabbed a few new items, the aforementioned subscriptions, an adventure complete with minis, a few more minis, but failed to find a thri-kreen, satyr not eating pizza, and a kenku. Hopefully I don't fuck up the mods for Wendy's kobold mini. First time modding, so that'll be interesting... Watched a few new online games coming out. Check out EVE online and Pirates of the Burning Sea if you want space or sea based piracy and trading. Decided All Flesh, Godlike, and Call of Cthulhu are all games I'd like to get going. Didn't really meet as many people as I'd have liked. Really only walked away with one email address, and I know I lost that. :(

Can't wait til next year. Hopefully the crew will be bigger, and I'm definitely going to try to get more well known on ENWorld and hang with those guys. At the very least, I'm gonna try to avoid 8am games and replace those with sleeping in because of late night pick up games. There should be way more, "Hey, let's go to X and get a game of blah blah blah going while we drink heavily." That's all contingent on getting butt-raped over a hotel closer to the Con. Walking distance would be nice.....