Kidding...mostly. Aside from my legs being in a good deal of muscle fatigue due to my inadequate level of fitness and sudden high levels of demand, today was pretty fun, but also had a couple of negative notables. What kind of negative notables?
Simply put: I ran into my first (two) bad experiences with fellow players in a con. Even more unfortunate is both were at the same game. However, I should also point out that the game was still over-all a large positive.
The first of the negative experience gamers brings up a couple of points I feel are common sense but may bear pointing out:
- Make sure the game you are at is the game you think it is, including edition.
- Don't give the GM a hard time about collecting tickets, or not having enough.
It probably goes without saying that both of these happened with the first person. They showed up to a Level 1-4 D&D 5th Edition game with a D&D 3.5th edition character. Not the same thing. This caused a small discussion with the GM when they were questioned on certain numbers and they were all - due to power scale differences - far off from where they should be.
As for the second thing, the GMs don't have a choice in this matter. If an event is 4 tickets, you need to give 4 tickets. The GM can't give you a pass because if they do not only are they being unfair to all the other players, but they also get in trouble with GenCon itself. This issue ended up with the person being peacefully ejected from the game.
The second bad experience was more generic: rules lawyering, telling players what they should do, and constant prattling on about what would be amazing if someone had a character above the level range for the adventure (yes, if we were more powerful than intended for the adventure, it would be easier. shocking. :P) In defense of the young man, though I'm the kind of jerk that never affords this defense much merit, they were young. Also, the GM handled it well so we were ok.
Beyond those, today was fun. My friend and I played some D&D 5th ed (a 1.5 hour adventure and a 4 hour adventure) than cut across back to the Hyatt for some L5R fun under the guidance of Sean Holland of Sea of Stars RPG Blog. I left that game with a new appreciation for the Suzume and a desire to play one, so damn good job, Sean. :)
Not much that really drew our interest after Sean's L5R game so we returned to the hotel. Tomorrow is a new day, and among other things includes the "big event" for D&D 5th. We still also want to see if we can get a game of Star Wars in with FFG. We will see what we get.
GenCon is half over. It's already been worth the price of admission. If I get to come again next year, I may even try my hand at GMing.
Say, how was your experience finding accommodations?
ReplyDeleteFinding accommodations wasn't hard. Unfortunately we forgot about housing opening until a couple hours in, but were still able to find a hotel near the airport. From there we set up parking for each day at parhwhiz.com (or something like that) and drove into the city, parked for $5-$10 a day, and walked the 1/2 mile to the convention center.
ReplyDeleteIdeally I'd like to get a skywalk hotel if I go again, but the hotels on the outer edges (especially if you use the shuttle) are nice in their own regard. Mostly it just takes pre-planning.
It was a pleasure to meet you and thank you again for the map. Glad that you had a good time in the Saving the Oinari Shrine game, I really enjoyed running it and it was fun to see the different interpretations of the Suzume (as the Sparrow, Fox and Hare were always chosen as characters, the poor Centipede was only played once). If you are back next year, I hope you can find time to again play in one of my games.
ReplyDeleteObviously the above reply is mine, I forgot Blogger defaults to your goggle account. If you attend next year, we must carve out some time to just talk as well.
Delete