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GenCon SoCal
Nov. 20th, 2005 07:05 pmSixty-five or so hours of gaming over 4 1/2 days has left me groggy from lack of sleep and uneven meals, but I'm quite happy with the overall experience and many fun hours spent.
Roomie showed up around midnight Tuesday evening since she flew in to LAX rather than SNA, and her shuttle ride was excruciatingly long due to many stops and lots of fumbling with a faulty credit-card imprinter. Had 7 rounds of Living Greyhawk games all day Wednesday and Thursday at the Happiest Place On Oerth 2 gameday--named for the convention's proximity to Disneyland. It was a great chance to play some games with my friend Denise as a player; since she took over editing the modules for the Oregon/Washington region she doesn't get to play locally as much as the rest of us. When combined with the upcoming New Year's Eve of Loser Fun five-day convention, it will also ensure I run both of my main Living Greyhawk characters out of their annual allotment of 'time units' and one of them to retirement.
Friday was another 2 rounds of LG, including a 'special' event. As I didn't have the TUs to play my primary character in the event, I didn't bother pre-mustering a table and ended up in a last-minute table of strangers. The judge had "rules issues", which eroded the player's trust that he was running the combats correctly, which in turn upset the judge as the players kept challenging him on his very non-standard interpretation of many of the basic rules of D&D. A player kind of assumes the judges running a special at a major con have a clue, but it was pretty clear to me that this guy needed to read much more carefully instead of glancing through text assuming he knows what the hell it said. The result was a tense, unpleasant block of five hours that ended without completing the module, but at least nobody died (once a favor was burned) and we managed at least partial rewards. Note to self: never play a special without premustering a table ever again.
The main event I spent the money, vacation, lost sleep, and missing out seeing the new Harry Potter with my fellow fen on opening day to attend SoCal in the first place was Saturday: a new Living Force trilogy played with 4 of our 6 'core' group from years of online play--we have players from four different states on both coasts. It proved an interesting experience between missing our two Jedi who fill the 'melee' and defense role (which at times was actually tactically advantageous but meant we got torn up really badly in a blaster battle that should've only slowed us down), and the story events unfolding in the final few modules. Many characters we have met over the years have been dying left and right as the first strikes of the Jedi Purge are beginning and the tide of evil that leads to the end of the Old Republic sweep over us. My pile of favors from 5 years of play is being depleted as the sources have gone missing or died meeting their duly appointed fates.
Our group has been spoiled by having a regular judge who gets our play style and runs a great game, so we were a bit nervous but the judge of the first two parts stepped up to the plate quite nicely, and when the third part turned out to be short judges I took my roomie's offer up to run it for us with a very short prep time. To fill out our table we had our own 'goons' in the form of two low-level soldiers, who despite being thrown into the highest tier combats held their own just fine. Playing an intense trilogy back-to-back in one day is an emotionally draining experience, but it was incredibly satisfying and provided a few really funny character moments that left us laughing to the point of tears. The modules also gave unexpectedly good rewards, pushing our healer over to 12th level to catch up with the rest of the group and putting two of us (including my character) within striking distance of 13th much sooner than we had originally thought possible.
Good times.
Despite only about five hours of sleep last night, I drug myself up out of bed at 7:30am to play a final round of LG this morning since (a) it was low-level and so wasn't likely to be that intense or difficult and (b) a few friends were expecting me to play with them. Everyone was obviously pretty tired out by the final slot of the convention, but we did fine and completed the module without serious incident.
On my way to grab my luggage from the hotel before heading to the appointment, I encountered a moment of true cognitive dissonance. In the hallways that housed the open gaming and the True Dungeon LARP event all weekend had been replaced with a high -society fashion charity event chock full of teenage girls and their mothers dressed to the nines sipping wine and purchasing gift baskets. The contrast between them and the gaming fans in costume and shabby last-day clothing was rather severe.
Roomie showed up around midnight Tuesday evening since she flew in to LAX rather than SNA, and her shuttle ride was excruciatingly long due to many stops and lots of fumbling with a faulty credit-card imprinter. Had 7 rounds of Living Greyhawk games all day Wednesday and Thursday at the Happiest Place On Oerth 2 gameday--named for the convention's proximity to Disneyland. It was a great chance to play some games with my friend Denise as a player; since she took over editing the modules for the Oregon/Washington region she doesn't get to play locally as much as the rest of us. When combined with the upcoming New Year's Eve of Loser Fun five-day convention, it will also ensure I run both of my main Living Greyhawk characters out of their annual allotment of 'time units' and one of them to retirement.
Friday was another 2 rounds of LG, including a 'special' event. As I didn't have the TUs to play my primary character in the event, I didn't bother pre-mustering a table and ended up in a last-minute table of strangers. The judge had "rules issues", which eroded the player's trust that he was running the combats correctly, which in turn upset the judge as the players kept challenging him on his very non-standard interpretation of many of the basic rules of D&D. A player kind of assumes the judges running a special at a major con have a clue, but it was pretty clear to me that this guy needed to read much more carefully instead of glancing through text assuming he knows what the hell it said. The result was a tense, unpleasant block of five hours that ended without completing the module, but at least nobody died (once a favor was burned) and we managed at least partial rewards. Note to self: never play a special without premustering a table ever again.
The main event I spent the money, vacation, lost sleep, and missing out seeing the new Harry Potter with my fellow fen on opening day to attend SoCal in the first place was Saturday: a new Living Force trilogy played with 4 of our 6 'core' group from years of online play--we have players from four different states on both coasts. It proved an interesting experience between missing our two Jedi who fill the 'melee' and defense role (which at times was actually tactically advantageous but meant we got torn up really badly in a blaster battle that should've only slowed us down), and the story events unfolding in the final few modules. Many characters we have met over the years have been dying left and right as the first strikes of the Jedi Purge are beginning and the tide of evil that leads to the end of the Old Republic sweep over us. My pile of favors from 5 years of play is being depleted as the sources have gone missing or died meeting their duly appointed fates.
Our group has been spoiled by having a regular judge who gets our play style and runs a great game, so we were a bit nervous but the judge of the first two parts stepped up to the plate quite nicely, and when the third part turned out to be short judges I took my roomie's offer up to run it for us with a very short prep time. To fill out our table we had our own 'goons' in the form of two low-level soldiers, who despite being thrown into the highest tier combats held their own just fine. Playing an intense trilogy back-to-back in one day is an emotionally draining experience, but it was incredibly satisfying and provided a few really funny character moments that left us laughing to the point of tears. The modules also gave unexpectedly good rewards, pushing our healer over to 12th level to catch up with the rest of the group and putting two of us (including my character) within striking distance of 13th much sooner than we had originally thought possible.
Good times.
Despite only about five hours of sleep last night, I drug myself up out of bed at 7:30am to play a final round of LG this morning since (a) it was low-level and so wasn't likely to be that intense or difficult and (b) a few friends were expecting me to play with them. Everyone was obviously pretty tired out by the final slot of the convention, but we did fine and completed the module without serious incident.
On my way to grab my luggage from the hotel before heading to the appointment, I encountered a moment of true cognitive dissonance. In the hallways that housed the open gaming and the True Dungeon LARP event all weekend had been replaced with a high -society fashion charity event chock full of teenage girls and their mothers dressed to the nines sipping wine and purchasing gift baskets. The contrast between them and the gaming fans in costume and shabby last-day clothing was rather severe.
