Roadside Picnic

As I posted over on FB, ain't no crazy like last-minute convention crazy. Let's start on Monday, about 48 hours before I'm scheduled to arrive in Indianapolis for GenCon.

I started the day off emotionally compromised anyway. Get to work, I'm already in convention/vacation space, have just about completely checked out from the shoulders up. Late morning, one of my volunteers texts me to let me know that he can't make it to GenCon. I immediately check in with my bosses, and we make an emergency plan that arranges for said volunteer to be able to make it, but blackballs him from any future work with us. I pass the first part of this along to said volunteer, he's grateful, and we're ready to move on. So far, so handled. I call around the rest of the team (minus our volunteer coming in from the UK, because), get hotel counts and confirmations (from most, and you can bet that'll be important later), and things look okay. Workday ends, I go play Infiltration, exchange some texts, and sleep like an innocent.

Tuesday, and the e-mails hit. Volunteer CH doesn't like e-mail. Rarely uses it. I wasn't too thrilled with this cat for a couple of reasons - he was added over my objections by one of the company owners, and since we do 95+% of our team communications through e-mail, he rarely checked in. CH had bought his plane tickets to the con with a rarely-used credit card. Round-trip airfare bought on a card that sees very little use? Yep, that'll trigger a fraud alert. And how is the card account set up to send out this alert? You got it - e-mail. THIS HAPPENED IN JUNE. CH didn't find out about until Monday night. After I'd called him. Grr. Then EO e-mails me. Now this mofo I was getting tired of anyway, because he'd started asking if his girlfriend could stay with us, and can we things for her to do at the con because she's not much into gaming and what-the-hell-ever-man. And he can't make it because of "unexpected expenses." I call bullshit, because that's the kind of guy I am.

My bosses are in transit from the West Coast. We communicate as we can, and start to figure out contingencies. The last thing we want to do is cancel events, but all of a sudden we have five games that don't have GMs and two exhibitor spots to fill up and it's less than 24 hours until we start assembling in Indy and the con for-real starts at 10AM Thursday. And this is where stuff starts getting good, and I mean good. I remove the offenders from our e-mail list and send out a call for help. Let the others know what's up, what spots are available, and why. About 75 minutes later, after texts and phone calls and e-mails, the spots are filled. We are set. We are ready to go. And who was the first person to step up? The dude in the second paragraph. You can bet he's now off the blacklist. Karma and shit.

Now, in the course of writing this entry (while I was also ripping and re-encoding Layer Cake and putting it on the iPad) ST texts me. He's overslept and his son has missed his flight to Oregon or Washington or wherever, so our hastily-modified plans to meet him in Louisville have been disrupted. We'll deal. If three dudes can get to Indy in a Civic coupe, three dudes can get to Indy in a Focus wagon. And we're going to. Because it's time for Nerd Prom.

Short version:  GenCon was a terrific time.

Long version?  Well, since you asked...

I left Lexington around noon on Wednesday.  I tried a different route to Indianapolis this time around, and I'm sold on it.  I-75 to I-275 to I-74.  Avoids any poorly-designed interchanges completely.  Got to the hotel around 3:15 or so, unloaded, met with the first of the suitemates, goofed around.  Went to airport to pick up Pat and Alex (two of the Crafty Games partners).  Met with rest of the Crafty demo team at our hotel (Embassy Suites, in case you were wondering) at 10:30, divided up game lines, got to know each other, split up for the night.

Thursday morning started with the hotel's pretty good free breakfast.  Important lesson learned, and this worked really well for this disgusting morning person who's set to Eastern Time, is to get there as early as possible, before the ravening hordes of gamers arrive.  Over to the ICC to get our badges and swag bags.  Goodies this year were a little sparse - most of mine went directly into the recycling bins, but I kept the dice, of course.  Once crowds died down, I braved the Exhibitors Hall and beelined for the Play Collective booth.  Got copies of Cold City and Hot War, and spent a few minutes talking to Malcolm Craig, the writer of said games.  This was the first of our encounters over the weekend, as he was staying on the same hotel floor as me.  Very nice guy, and an imaginative designer.  Check out his stuff at Contested Ground Studios.  Then, it was time for my first game - a World on Fire mission.  It went well.  The six players got into the game quickly, and the mission went off quite well.  Grabbed some food, and headed for the live-action game meeting.  I can't reveal too terribly much about it, since it was a preview of an upcoming setting book for Mastercraft (Spycraft's descendant), but the slogan is pretty cool - "Black Ops versus the Black Arts."

Friday started with a minor scheduling question, but it was quickly hashed out.  Today's game was not quite as successful, as there were only four players and two were kids - I'd guess one maybe 9 and the other 12 or so.  Not bad, but it required a lot of shifting of mental gears for me.  Afterwards, off to the RAM for lunch (not bad, but nothing remarkable, either) and back to buyin' stuff.  Hunter: the Vigil looks quite good, and Legend of the Burning Sands does as well.  The credits of LBS established that I'm clearly Old.  One of the writers is a kid I taught to play the 7th Sea card game back during the Red Rock Big-Ass Game Night time.  Crafty seminar that evening, then off to the Weber Grill for dinner.  Dear friends, a 24oz. Porterhouse cut pork chop is humongous.  And delicious.  As we weren't done with the talking when we left there at about midnight, it was off to Steak 'n' Shake for dessert.  Back to the hotel around 2 a.m.

Saturday looked to be the busiest of days - two sessions scheduled, the first from 2-6 p.m., the second from 8 p.m. to midnight.  The 2 p.m. session was awesome.  Eight players, split between four experienced Spycraft players who had played this mission at a previous convention, and four enthusiastic newcomers to Spycraft.  The former group and I wound up conniving a bit - they were great at keeping their player knowledge separate from character knowledge, and each one managed to team up with a new guy and really make it a great time for them.  This game was a blast, and a reminder of why it is that I'm a gamer.  Got lucky for the later session, too - one of the "backup" team members came by and asked if I would mind if he ran the game.  I didn't at all.  Bailed out for the Steampunk Dance, ogled, danced, split for another party.  This was the RPG.net meet-and-greet, conveniently held in my hotel.  Met a lot of folks, was made an honorary Mod for bringing in three cases of drinks, watched a little Monsterpocalypse (check it out at Privateer Press), had a ball.  Bedtime was ... sometime.  Did not go to White Wolf party.

Sunday, packing up and prepping to go home.  Pat's plane was an early departure, Alex's less so.  We got Suitemate D checked out, and Alex, Suitemate M, and I decided to kill the rest of the afternoon at the Exhibitors Hall, since nothing else was really going on.  We happened to be near the Titan Games booth when they announced that everything there was going to be selling for $2 each.  The wave of gamers was spectacular.  Alex loaded himself up.  We roamed more.  I bought shirts (Robin and Alan Scott Green Lantern t-shirts from Stylin' Online and a truly bitchin' work shirt from ... somebody), and found Arc Dream's booth, where I got the Delta Green Eyes Only collection.  WotC still hadn't sufficiently restocked the Knights of the Old Republic book, so I struck out there.  Hit the White Wolf area again, but stayed my hand.  Got Alex out to the airport around 6, and turned Hephaestus towards home.  Returned to Lexington at nine, dispensed the items I'd purchased for other folks, went home and unpacked, and slept in my own bed.

For those of you I got to meet face-to-face, it was a real pleasure.  You folks helped make this a great great vacation.

Important things learned:  Matt Howes and I have a disturbingly similar sense of humor.  Seriously.  tegyrius, he could be the missing brother-from-another.  Gamers who talk the most often have the least to actually say - and two in particular need to learn the lesson of not crapping in the place where they eat.  Mongoose's booth guys are pretty darn cool (happily exchanged my bad-binding copy of World on Fire for a new one).  The Crowne Plaza at Union Station is gorgeous, and that ballroom and attached bar are The Sex.  Indy likes having us there.

Barring catastrophe, I'll be back next year.  The demo game plan may change radically - instead of full-length games out in the con hotels, I may be running quick scenes at the Mongoose booth throughout the show.  Besides Spycraft 2.0 and World on Fire, there will be two more books to play with.

I needed this trip.  Like last year, I'm recharged.

For today, though, no gaming.  I'm going to rest up, read a lot, maybe write a little bit, and just have a day to myself.