Gen Con 2019 Recap

This isn't going to be super detailed and I'm sure I'll forget to mention things, but here's an overview of my Gen Con experience and some photos to accompany it.

Sadly this isn't all of the DCC/MCC swag I wanted to buy.

Wednesday

We left the day before the con started. Indianapolis is about 3.5-4 hours from home. I rode and stayed with some of my oldest friends, Wirty, Amanda, and Chris. We stayed at the JW Marriott, which was pricey, but also connected to the Indiana Convention Center. Tim Brannan was staying at the same hotel and I ran into him gaming with his family in the executive lounge. It was really cool because Tim is the reason I started blogging. That night we had reservations at an expensive, but delicious steak house, St. Elmo's.  I ordered the Dry Aged New York Strip and it was hands down the best steak I have ever had.

Thursday

I started my day out by playing Sparkle*Kitty. It was a lot of fun and I won two of the three games I played. It's kind of an advanced version of UNO, but it makes you say ridiculous word combinations out loud and would be a great party game. I also attended a Tabletop Gaymer panel, which was a lot of fun. I ran into my gaming muse, Dave, and he gave me a copy of the Buddy O'Burger issue of Crawling Under A Broken Moon. The last game I played that day was Mantic's The Walking Dead: All Out War. I'm not normally a fan of war games, but this was really good. The starter is reasonably cheap and I've thought about picking it up. I didn't spend much money in the exhibition hall, but I did pick up a set of DCC nunchucks for Matt Kelley and myself.

Friday 

Friday was rpg day! I started my day by playing my first game of QAGS. For Lucha Beach Patrol, I made a character named Silver Starfish. He was a honorable high flyer, and the de facto voice of reason for his group. After this I played in a session of of DCC Lankhmar with Thorin Thompson. Our session was No Small Crimes In Lankhmar (which is a part of the boxed set). It's a great adventure and was fun because our characters were shrunk down to the size of mice. Thorin was a great judge and I picked up his third party adventure, Sky ov Crimson Flame, after we finished. That night I also did an after hours game at the Embassy Suites. I am excited that I was in the first play group for Joshua Burnett and Leighton Connor's Leopard Women of Venus DCC. Josh ran the session and Leighton, Eric Bloat, and I ran through the 0-level funnel. It got late and we didn't get to finish the funnel, but it was fun. Seriously y'all, you definitely need to back this project when it goes live. I'll review the pre-Kickstarter preview Josh gave me later today. I also met Eric's lovely wife Jamie. She's a really sweet lady. Friday also ended in the best possible way. I finally got to meet Diogo Nogueira in person. Diogo and I have been online friends for a few years and he really seems like the nicest guy ever. After meeting him in person I can confirm that he actually is a living saint.

The Wholesome Trinity of Gaming

Saturday

I didn't do any on site gaming on Saturday. I met several folks for the first time in person, among them Bradley K. McDevitt, Alan Bahr, Matt Orr, and Brandon K. Aten. It was particularly cool to meet Matt and Brandon, because I worked on their project, Never Going Home.  I spent a majority of my time in the exhibit hall and relaxing. My feet and back were really hurting so I called it a day early and took a nap. I did wake up to go play board games and drink with the gents I came with. It was a good evening and Champions of Midgard is a pretty decent worker placement game.

Why yes,that is a Lamentations of the Flame Princess branded condom...

Sunday

We only hit the exhibit hall for an hour or two on Sunday. My feet were aching and I sat down at a demo table. I played Bahamas by Z-Man game which was a fun dice and cards screw-your-neighbor kind of game.

Pre-last day breakfast selfie with fam

Final Thoughts 

• For the love of all that is good and holy, do no pick you badge up Will Call. Just pay the extra cash and have it shipped to you. 
• It was great to go with old friends and see many online folks I've known for years. 
• I loved getting the con exclusives. I'm going to try to not kill myself with the nunchucks. Also I bought the Lamentations of the Flame Princess ones, despite telling myself I wouldn't.
• There were nearly 70K in attendance. This didn't seem as bad as I expected because the convention center is huge!
• That is actually one of my major issues with it. The events and exhibit halls were too large for my taste. I'm two days removed from the con and still sore. Pretty much every point A to point B trip I made required a 5-10 minute rest break. Yes this is because I'm really out of shape, but it still affects my opinion of the experience.
• While I had an absolute blast, I think I'm skipping Gen Con next year. I really like the size and scale of Origins (which has about a third of the attendance). It's also only an hour from where I live and though I moved away from it, I love Columbus. Both conventions are fun, but I prefer the latter (even if it means missing out on things like nunchucks and LotFP exclusives).
• I think I've caught Con Crud. I've been sniffling, coughing, and had a sore throat since Sunday.
• I'm actually looking forward to Con on the Cob even more now. I think it will be interesting to go from biggest tabletop gaming con in the world to a really small one.