Gen Con SoCal. Here I am at last.
It's Saturday morning. I spent yesterday morning kicking myself because I wanted to be here on Thursday, God forbid I miss one minute of the biggest gaming event in Southern California. I suppose that from what I've heard, those feelings were unfounded. The past couple days have been, by all accounts, slow.
I went to pick up my badge and check in with Social Games. I'm here as one of the assistant refs in a very large, very experimental Cyberpunk 2020 game that is being used to promote Social's Cyberpunk trading card game. Picking up the badge was an experience. I first tried at the pre-registration pick-up, and was told they didn't have my badge. This knocked me off kilter somewhat, until I learned that my badge would likely be at the exhibitor help window (which was down at the opposite end of the lobby).
I walked through what I assumed was the open gaming area, though I could be wrong, and into the exhibit hall. Although this is probably the largest game-specific convention I've been to in California, it's practically modest when compared to Gen Con in Milwaukee.
The first thing I did was locate Social Games and introduce myself to Peter Wacks. Peter's about my height, in his late twenties, with a short beard. He was giving a demonstration of the CP card game to someone, and asked me to come back in a little while. I agreed, and set off to look around.
I stopped by the Fantasy Flight booth and asked after Robert Vaughn, but he wasn't present. I then meandered to the Wizards booth, where I bumped into Stan! quite by accident. Having only met me once, he couldn't place my name and face until I'd reminded him. He meets a lot of people, so I don't feel particularly bad about it, although he did. We chatted briefly about the convention, the attendance over the past couple of days, and about Marc Schmalz, who had come down with a very nasty bug of some sort.
I eventually found myself near the Paizo booth, just to see if they had my issue of Dungeon on sale (they did). I talked to a fellow named Keith Strohm (the name is familiar to me, but I'm not sure who he is, specifically). He was very nice, we shook hands. I mentioned that I'd run into Stan! and Keith asked me to send him over if I ran into him again.
From this point, I wandered around a little bit more. I met Ed Stark, one of the Wizards people to talk to if you want to get your foot into the freelancing door. He was playing a "grudge match" of the new miniatures game with another Wizards employee, which he won. I managed to get his attention afterward and I introduced myself.
In retrospect, I should've mentioned my single Game Mechanics credit, in addition to my single Dungeon/Polyhedron credit. Do these people read the articles you've written, or does the fact that you've had them published suffice? I'm still not sure. I've been writing for years, but I still feel very, very green. I guess that goes away with time.
Afterwards, I again made my way to the Fantasy Flight booth and found Robert Vaughn. He was younger than I expected, a fine-looking guy with a good voice and a personable nature. We talked for a bit, again about the lack of attendance. "It almost makes me wish we'd rented a smaller booth, because it looks that much more pathetic when it's empty," he said. I bought a copy of Dawnforge, and loaned my copy of Dungeon 106 to Robert so that he could read it.
Since a good amount of time had elapsed, I made my way back to the Social booth. Peter was no longer there, since even game designers have to go to the bathroom. I talked a little bit with another Social employee named Brian. He contacted Peter, and gave me a couple of t-shirts. When Peter returned, he introduced me around as "Mike and Lisa's friend, Gary." We talked a bit about tonight's game and then I was shown how to play the CCG. The card game isn't bad. I think there's probably a bit more to it than I'm aware of just yet, but it's an interesting blend of Jyhad/VTES and Netrunner.
After the exhibit hall closed, I came back to my room and talked to Amy for a while. We decided to get some food at a pizza place that appeared (at least on the map) to be within some kind of walking distance. My idea of walking distance and Amy's varies somewhat (she has shorter legs than I do), but we made good time and had a nice pizza.
I was supposed to meet some of the Social folks at Denny's at nine o'clock, so we stopped by and looked around for them. I didn't see anyone that looked familiar, nor did I see Ben Hall, a man that Peter had described to me ("The skinniest man you've ever seen in tall boots and a bowler hat."). Since it was cold, we walked back to the hotel and went to bed.
So, like I said, it's Saturday now. Not sure what the day will bring for me. Since tonight's game is running from 9pm to 3am (Oi!), I'll probably head back here around 4 or 5 this afternoon to try and take a nap. Fat chance of that, I reckon.
More later.
12.14.03, 9:18am
Here I am again, and what a night it was. I planned to write more yesterday, because I wanted to take some downtime prior to the big CP2020 game. It didn't quite work out that way, so here I am.
Yesterday was a good day, more or less. Avoiding specifics (because, honestly, my memory isn't all that good in relation to everything that happened), it feels like I did quite a bit. I chatted with Robert Vaughn some more, hung out with Stan! and Marc, pimped myself at a couple of booths. Marc and I ended up going to lunch with Eric Cagle, one of the Wizards guys.
Autographs are expensive, typically around $20, and I don't think that includes a signed photograph. You can chat with the stars, too, but it really ends up feeling (to me) like I'm at the zoo looking at some rare breed of animal that I've always heard about, seen on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, but never viewed up close and personal. Amy took photos of just about everyone, and Robert bought a signed picture of Val Kilmer for his father. I just said hello to each of them, thanking them for coming out, but I still feel kind of bad for them since the turn-out was shabby.
I guess I shouldn't feel bad. I would figure they're getting paid by the convention, plus they're also selling their signatures. At $20 a pop, it's not going to take long to get your money's worth. Eh, well.
My day was more or less leading up to the Cyberpunk game. In theory, this was supposed to entail ten teams of eight players each making a run on the same target building in order to steal a Dragoon – a nasty, military-grade full-conversion cyborg. Each team's GM would have a headset, and communicate with a pair of "sysops" who were monitoring time and teams on a large map.
In the end, though, nothing went quite as planned. Instead of 80 signups, we had a whopping 16. This was a good thing, since there was a problem with the printing of characters, and only 18 were available. Jesus wept, eh? Still, it went well.
I wasn't quite sure what I would be doing until that evening. I met the other non-Social Games GMs, which included Marcus Pregent (Chromebook contributor and one-time roommate of Mike Pondsmith), and Steve Kani, a long-time CP player and GM from the Bay area. Steve recognized my name when I introduced myself to him. I didn't really expect that someone would know me based solely on the Cyberpunk material I had created, but I guess it's been out there for so long that it was bound to happen.
In the end, I was going to be helping Marcus out with his group of runners, mostly since he was into a "fast and loose" style of GMing, and I was more liable to stick with the printed rules. I was his walking, talking rulebook, which I didn't mind due to some unexpected stage fright. Steve was acting as co-ref to Simon Ayesse, the madman who had designed the adventure.
I think that the game must've been an interesting experience for the players who signed up. They all seemed to be having fun and enjoying themselves. As the evening progressed, I became more involved. Following a violent and extended gun battle between the two full 'borg conversions (each group had one), Steve and I took the players aside and formed a third group. The 'borg battle had ended with both characters being worse for wear and out of action. One of the players was dubbed "The Black Knight" by Kate Makkai, due to the fact that he'd lost all of his limbs due to violent action.
Simon's group split up, and I was called over to referee three fellows who had somehow been left behind by the other half of their group. I only caught one of their names, an Australian fellow named Dave Herber. I was in for another surprise in regards to Dave. Like Steve, Dave had heard of me, too, and he was incredibly happy to meet me. We chatted a bit, and I took his email down.
I ran as long as I could go, and decided to call it a night around three in the morning, after the groups had somehow managed to meet back up. I don't know what happened after I left, but I did hear that the game had gone on until nearly five or six that morning.
Walking back to my hotel room, I was happy to have had a chance to participate. My feelings of apprehension and stage fright had been unfounded, and if given the chance again I think that I could do a better job of things. Not that I'd done a bad job, but I'd at least know what to expect.
Some Weeks After The Con…
It's been a while, and I never did finish my little GenCon diary. There's not really much to report, honestly. For those of you who are curious, though, I'll fill you in.
After Amy and I had taken care of our various morning rituals, we checked out, ate breakfast in the Hilton's expensive café, and stowed our luggage in the trunk of our car. We wandered back to the convention, did another circuit of the dealer's room, and said goodbye to everyone. Then we drove home and unpacked.
Exciting, eh?