Back at my regular routine today after spending yesterday recuperating from a lack of sleep and a stimulus overload (i.e. too much fun) at GenCon. Once again feeling truly blessed by the gaming luck gods to live just off I-70 between Indianapolis, site of GenCon, and Columbus, site of Origins. This year I was prepared for the badge sell-out and did my registering early. My badge and event tickets were mailed to me well ahead of the con date and it all went very smoothly with no standing in line. The City of Indianapolis and INDOT got their road repairs all finished before the con started so there were no traveling issues.
GenCon is about games and I always try to play as many as possible. Some years I spend a lot of time in the exhibitor hall doing game demonstrations and this is a major way I discover new games and find out what games are most interesting to me, but I have not tried and are a good fit for me and my friends. This year I had purchased tickets to 10 events and therefore had only a brief time in the exhibitor hall doing only one demo. Another highlight of the exhibitor hall is meeting and talking with game designers and publishers. This year I got to exchange a few words with Greg Stafford, father of Glorantha and Runequest and King Arthur Pendragon and founder of The Chaosium game company.
As usual, the events included a nice selection of role-playing games this year and I spent most of my time with character sheet and dice playing as many as I could fit into the long weekend. Goodman Games had a room devoted to their RPGs and I played in seven of the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG sessions. DCCRPG is a nice old school style game making use of modern mechanics and keeps close to the Appendix N spirit of fantasy. All the games I played using DCCRPG were good games.
Chaosium games have played a major role in my personal hobby history and remain among my favorites. This GenCon I picked up the newly printed RuneQuest 4e hardcover at the Chaosium booth and played a 4-hour session using the newly released rules. I like the changes in the RQG system which includes increasing the PC's relationship with the runes for which the game is named. Chaosium also ran Call of Cthulhu sessions and I played in a very interesting cowboy adventure using some of the Pulp Cthulhu modifications to the 7e game. I would rank it as my favorite game I played at Gencon 2018.
Shopping took a back seat this year as I didn't have the time to spend too many hours in the exhibitor hall. I did pick up some DCCRPG products from Goodman Games, print copies of For Coin and Blood and Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells, the new RuneQuest Glorantha and ENnie Winner Frostbitten and Mutilated, Pendragon 5.2 and a hardcover print of The Great Pendragon Campaign (my old softcover is looking a bit used these days).
I wrapped up my can experience Sunday afternoon with a session using Holmes Bluebook Basic. The referee, John, had us roll PCs 3d6 down the line and ran our 3rd level characters through an old Judges Guild, Treasure Maps adventure authored by Paul (Jennell) Jaquays. I thought the referee did an excellent job running Holmes and Jaquays is one of my favorite adventure mod writers of all time. The table got into the old school spirit of gaming and this session is a close competitor for my distinction as my favorite of the con.
Once again I found all the people I gamed with this year were great, the referees all very talented at their craft and well prepared and the Indianapolis Convention Center was very comfortable and friendly. GenCon is huge and I only accessed a very small portion of it. There are card games, miniatures games, boardgames and many other roleplaying games being run that I never see. I suppose like most gamers, I seek out what is of most interest to me personally and that is how I spend my limited time. I am already looking forward to next year.
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