GenCon '06: Days 0 & 1

Ah, GenCon. It was a blast! Four days of gaming, costumes, and general dorkery. I took a half day off from work last Wednesday so we could get a jump on things and get to Indy that night instead of rolling into town on Thursday with the con in media res. And so Charles, James, Alex, and I jumped into Alex's highly efficient Prius and hit the road. We had to drop Alex's hound off at his parents' place in Sturtevant so all hope of avoiding Chicago was gone. Traffic around Chicago 94 and 294 was pretty bad, as was expected, but we had my IPass with us so that helped a bit. Hopefully they'll have the construction on the Skyway and I80 done by the time I die. Holy biscuits! That stretch really sucks. About 30 miles out of Indy, my cell phone rang. It was a number in the 646 area code so I didn't answer. But when that same number called again, I answered and found my brother on the other end of the line. He and the Chicago contingency was hanging out at the faux Irish pub there, Claddagh. I told him that we wouldn't be long and that we'd meet them there.

Soon enough, we were at the hotel. We got our door cards and found that one was in the spirit of the occasion as it had a painting of a dragon on it. The joint was pretty decent. It had this enormous atrium with the rooms around the perimeter so you could look up 15 stories. I could tell that first night that the elevator situation just wouldn’t be good. Only 2 per side and we were on the 17th floor. But we made it upstairs and unpacked. From there, it was off to Claddagh where I found Jon, his new girlfriend, my bro, Don, Ted, and their buddy Mike from New York. My brother had used his cell phone to call me. The joint was packed solid with fat white guys wearing black t-shirts for their slimming effect, a host of other nerdy types, and a few stray locals wondering who all these dorks were. We were all psyched. Don, a member of the Novus Ordo Seclorum was fired up about this year's Cthulhu tournament; Ted hadn't been to GenCon since he got married; I don't think Mike had been there in ages either. Lord knows how Jon got his girlfriend to come down. Although not a gamer, she seemed cool with it and was not repulsed by the sheer wall of dorkness surrounding her.

We had dinner and the beer went down easily. I went over to the bar and joined Mike, Don, and Ted for a bit. My bro came over and bought shots. I had introduced Carl to the smooth tastiness that is Basil Hayden bourbon a couple years ago and he really took to it as that's what he got and I think he's been raving about it as someone else ordered it as well. We sat around shooting the shit and, before we knew it, the joint was clearing out. This made ordering beer a helluva lot easier, lemme tell ya. It was just a blast to enjoy some fine beer along with a bunch of friends discussing gaming, progressive rock, et al. At some point or another we headed out and back to the hotel room.

It was going to be a good con.

I think we finally got to bed around 4 and, when I woke up, it was way too fucking early. But I had my foam weapon building workshop to attend. Charles and I got ourselves in gear and headed out. Our hotel was 2 blocks from the convention center and we had a leisurely stroll over there. The streets were lined with geeks. Everyone had a backpack no doubt filled with cards, paper, pens, dice – you know, the usual gaming equipment. We went in and got me a hoolie for my pass so I could hang it around my neck. Charles had a game upstairs and, after finding my room we parted ways. Room 118 was stuck behind the food court. There was a table with a few folks waiting and a big, red-haired tattooed buy standing around chatting. He was to be our instructor but his material got stuck in traffic so we had to wait until it arrived. I availed myself of the opportunity to grab some coffee and a welcome bad thingy. The bag is given out to everyone and has a couple sample dice, adverts for games, coupons, and other freebies. You wanna see a bunch of overweight, slothy gamer types move like lightning? Just tell them you've got free swag and they'll come a-runnin'. Amongst the goodies were a couple demos of PC games: Guild Wars and City of Heroes. They sit here still (*Jack Nance voice*) wrapped in plastic. I'm not sure if I'm quite ready for a massively multiplayer game yet.

Shortly after I returned to the room, the materials arrived and we started. Swords were the order of the day and so each table got several lengths of PVC pipe, a slew of foam noodles, duct tape, and a straight edge. Here's a shot of some folks working on their weapons.



There were two boys about 10 years old next to me so I gave them a hand. First thing you do is put the pipe through the hole in the center of the noodle until the end of the pipe is flush with the end of the foam. You then cut off a section of the foam about the size of your fist and cut it in half length wise. One half is affixed to the top with lots of tape. No sharp edges allowed. With that done, you put the other half at the bottom of the hilt and tape it on like a motherfucker. You then slide a bit of women's hosiery onto your foam blade and tape it onto the hilt. Then you tape the hilt itself. We had three colors of duct tape so you could decorate your weapon as you saw fit. Now here's what I ended up with:



OK, so it's not an aesthetic triumph but – hey – it was my first shot at foamsmithery. The guy leading the workshop was a member of the local foam weapon fighting group and he brought in samples of armor.



Studded leather armor is heavy. Not as heavy as full plate, I grant you, but holding up a real suit of the stuff, you can understand why most DMs ignore the encumbrance rules.

The workshop ended around 11:30 and I didn't have another event until noon so I wandered around a bit. There was a giant screen in the lobby area which was playing a bit of computer animation. The graphics were fantastic. When I finally stood there and watched, I found that they were short movies promoting games. The one I caught was for some Battletech-like games. But instead of the mechanoids being 100% machine they had organic legs and some ninja character was killing a buttload of them with his sword. Off of the main hallway, there was a segway obstacle course.



I've never ridden one but those two guys sure seemed to know what they were doing. Going between cones, pushing milk crates into areas marked on the floor, etc. There was also an area where bands would play and belly dancers perform. I caught a bit of the show of the minstrel-type characters with the flautist blowing away. It neared noon so I grabbed a quick smoke and headed upstairs for my first Cthulhu adventure – Bungle in the Jungle.

Our table filled up and we even had a couple girls! A guy by the name of John Addis was the GM. I played Anthony Correlli, a dorky-looking sophomore at Miskatonic University and this guy in his mid-40s played my girlfriend, Sylvia. The adventure was actually a continuation of the story started by John at GenCon last year. Sylvia, myself, and some of my college friends had a horrifying experience last year. We were at the cottage of Duke's parents' when we were attacked.

The Incident

Just after mid-terms last fall, I, Sylvia, Jimmy, and Duke were involved in a bizarre incident at a Duke's family cabin in the woods. You were attacked by a large man-sized thing with bat-like wings. Several of Duke's ex-girlfriends – all recently dead, yet somehow able to walk around and attack you – ambushed you. As best you can figure, Sylvia's ex-roommate (another of Duke's ex-girlfriends) killed the other girls to frame Duke. No clue how she "re-animated" them. You defeated Jenny and her undead minions. Duke's girlfriend, Jenny, was also there; she did not survive.

This left Duke in a bad spot and he was now insane and in the Arkham Asylum. Well, theoretically.

The game began with us onboard a ship headed to Manaus, Brazil. We're going on an archaeological dig. I'm there because I'm worried about Sylviva and I need some extra credit. My grades have been falling because I've been spending a lot of time trying to understand what happened at the cabin. We're to dock the following morning and so we're at a fancy dinner and I'm trying to get Sylvia all liquored-up. She's all nervous and creeped out and the scream from the deck didn't help matters. We all rush outside only to find a sleek, black jaguar hovering over a woman's mauled body. It lifts it's head and turns to walk away. As it does so, it morphs into a human figure. Oh, yeah. I took a sanity hit there. Then Duke shows up totally plastered. How the hell did he get out of Arkham Asylum? And who is that woman with him? Sylvia locks herself in her room and starts painting eldritch demonic figures and it's basically it was all downhill from there. We land in Manaus where we catch another boat down the Amazon to the dig. More death and weird shit. We finally make it to the dig. One night I'm walking along and Professor White's body just falls out of a tree and almost hits me. Yikes! At the end of the day, however, we manage to foil the plot of the evil priest and save humanity. And I even retained most of my sanity somehow.

John was a really good GM as he encouraged us to get up out of our chairs to wander around and act. And we did. My fellow players were great. The guy who played Sylvia was a hoot. He'd put his hand on my mouth and kiss it. Plus, he freaked out really well. And the guy who played Duke was really good as well. He did a good crazy drunk and provided some comic relief. Finally there was the hottie who played Meghan. She did a really good job of getting pissed off at Anthony.

The four hours went by really quickly.

Andy had taken the bus down that afternoon and he met me while I was playing so I could give him his room card. I think I found him after the game and we wandered around the vending area and eventually met up with Carl.

OK, I'm not sure what this sign was for:



I didn't ask and they didn't tell. This is a Cthulhu HorrorClix setup. That is one fine Cthulhu model.





Wandering through the vending area, I came across a wall that had a trio of urinals attached to it. It was for some game that was obviously on the gross side.



There was the usual gaggle of guys trying out demos of new video games…



…weapons…



…statues…



…and hotties in costume such as this one who won the costume contest last year.



Plus there was Alyssa Moore and her ginormous breasts.



She is the model for some guy's fantasy artwork and she was also promoting a card game called Wench. I have absolutely no idea what the game is about because, when she was explaining it, I just ogled her boobs.

Having wandered around, I found it was late evening. So I grabbed dinner. The area around the convention center is really white bread. The place needs more non-American cuisine. I grabbed a burger or something and a beer with Andy before I headed to a seminar. The topic was Medieval clothing and it was being given by Dan Myers who gave the seminar last year on Medieval food. I sat in the front row and recorded it but have yet to offload it onto my PC. I am also waiting to hear back from him to find out if I can get a copy of the PowerPoint presentation he used as I'd like to devote a whole entry to the subject. But I will say that it was really interesting. Folks back then wore three layers of clothing: undergarments, cote, and surcote. Linen was the fabric of choice as it's nearly impossible to stain although there was a fair amount of wool used as well. And how do you suppose they bleached linen back then? Well, they used urine, of course. Myers' specialty is food but his wife is into textiles so he had some help in preparing the lecture. She made her own silk thread and he explained how it was done.

He talked only of clothing from England, and northwestern Europe as the paintings we have from these areas are the most realistic and give us the best clues as to what folks wore back then. But he did point out pictures that didn't show any hems which made it look like the garments was sewn onto the person. Honestly, there were tons of pictures and anecdotes and I just cannot recall all of them. So hopefully I'll be able to hash something out later when I have the lecture on my PC and a copy of his PPT presentation. But I'll end with this tale…

Women were rarely depicted wearing underwear in pictures from the time. The only times they were was when the woman was shown with a man. And the man was always holding an implement indicative of work done by women at that time (such as a bobbin) and the woman was always depicted holding an implement indicative of work done by men at that time. He remarked that he attended a lecture once where a woman said that she had actually found a carving of a woman wearing underwear with no complementary man to be found. Then an audience member told her that he'd been to that particular building and that, if you went around the other side of the hoolie that had the carving, there was the requisite man. Go figure.

The lecture ended all too soon and I think I grabbed another bite to eat. Honestly, I'm not sure. But I am sure that at some point in early AM I met up with Don, Carl, Andy, Ted, Charles, and Mike and we went up the second floor of the Westin and grabbed a table for a late night game of Puerto Rico! I'd never played before so my bro kindly helped me out. My tobacco plantations were quite productive. Don had a bag with a mix of brews underneath the table so we had some liquid refreshment.

We finally finished and Charles and I headed back to our hotel around 4. I had a big game of Call of Cthulhu at 10. I would be playing with Carl in "Tin Tin and the Arctic Exploration". My mission: kill him to exact revenge for all his evil older brother ways when we were kids.