As always, I had a great time at GenCon this year. There was so much to see and so, that there's just never enough time to really take it all in! I find it quite amazing that four days is not enought time to take everything in, but alas that's all the time we get before having to wait yet another year before the gaming-goodness returns to Indy.
First off, I'd like to thank everyone who played this year's adventure Pirates of the Grey Coast: City of Endless Night. Running through the adventure in it's work-in-progress form will be a big help in developing the final product. As I said at the time, everyone who played will get their names in the credits of the PotGC: CoEN book as playtesters.
Second, I'd like to appologize once again to those of you who signed up to play Blackrift Island and were unable to do so. No one is more upset than I am that you didn't get to play through the adventure this year. Unfortunately, life often gets in the way of gaming, and such was the case with the DM I had recruited to run the PotGC: BI events. Hopefully, next year we won't have this sort of thing happen again!
And now, on to the report:
Thursday morning, I got set up in the Sagamore Ballroom. My events were scheduled to be at "Open D&D Table 1" so I went to the table labeled "1." There were some Wizards of the Coast DMs sitting around, chatting before the start of their events, and they asked what I was doing when I started setting up my DM screen and such. As it turned out, WotC had decided to label the "Open D&D" tables with letters instead without notifying anyone! Up at the main dais, a Wizards staffer told me to just pick a lettered table and let them know which one so they could jot it down on a bit of paper. This way, when everyone inevitably came up to the dais to ask where their event was, the WotC folks could send them to the right places.
Eventually, the players found my table and we ran through the adventure.
We all had a great time, and the playtest proved very insightful.
After the event, I killed some time by taking a first look around the Exhibit Hall. Then I headed over to one of the hotels for the Wizards of the Coast Monster Design Seminar. Hosted by three WotC designers, much of the seminar was spent as a big brainstorming session about how to update Modrons (an old monster from the Planescape setting) to 4E. It all proved to be very informative, and I'm glad I brought my cameral to record the audio of the session. The seminar was recently added as a podcast on the D&D website if you want to hear it for yourself (Plus, there's a part where an audience member suggests something about Modrons reflecting damage off their smooth surfaces...that's me!).
I wrapped up the day by running my PotGC adventure again, and then I headed home for some rest.
Friday was spent in largely the same way as Thurday. I ran my adventure in the morning and the afternoon, checking out the Exhibit Hall and a seminar in between. The seminar this time was about general game design and development (including RPGs, card games, board games, and video games). Though it wasn't focused on the sort of game design that I'm specifically interested in, it was still very educational and inspiring.
Saturday was a big day even though I only had one even to run. The first great thing was that I met some people who bought one of my books in the past. They even asked me to autograph it! That made me feel like a real author.
My adoring fans! Thanks guys!
After the event, I hit the street. I picked a busy section of sidewalk (the one between the Convention Center and Steak&Shake, go figure), and began to bark about the Pirates of the Grey Coast Campaign Guide. A big thank you to everyone who stopped and listened, and who took a card. An even bigger thanks to those of you who kept the card and have actually come to this website! Shouting at passers-by about pirates and why they should buy my book was a lot of fun in and of itself. A few people even started pulling out their wallets before I informed them that I didn't actually have any books for sale on my person. Next year, however, I'll make a point to bring at least a few copies of each of my books along in my "geek bag."
The biggest thing that happened on Saturday (the thing that made the whole weekend for me, really), happened while I was waiting for my ride home after the Exhibit Hall closed. I was killing time by looking around at folks playing up in the Sagamore Ballroom when I spotted a demo session of WotC's new Castle Ravenloft boardgame being played. And who else was running this demo than Mike Mearls himself. I asked if I could sit in and watch how the game worked, and he said sure, so I sat down next to him and watched the game. I figured it couldn't hurt to sit by book on my lap, and before long, Mr. Mearls happened to glance over and it caught his eye. I let him flip though it a bit and told him I wrote it under the GSL, and he said, "Looks pretty cool."
.....
"Looks pretty cool."
That's a hell of a compliment from one of the guys in charge of coming up with all the things that makes D&D so cool in and of itself. I got a real sencse of validation and confidence from that remark. I told him that people would never believe me that he looked at my book, so he let me take a picture of him holding it:
"Looks pretty cool!" -Mike Mearls, on the Pirates of the Grey Coast Campaign Guide
Sunday was a lot more relaxed. I slept in and went down to the convention center just to go to the Exhibit Hall one more time to spend the rest of my money on all the great deals that folks put on on the last day of the show. I got done pretty early and made it back home (to my actual house, 2 hours north of Indy) in plenty of time to have dinner and some quality time with my family.
It's another whole year before GenCon Indy 2011. I plan to go again, of course, with more products to my name, more adventures to run, and actual books to sell. I hope to see you all there again next year at our annual pilgrimage to the Mecca of Geekdom.
eb47e822-8465-4eb2-8a25-2cee6c3fbff0|0|.0
Tags:
Categories: