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The Dragon’s Lair Report!

by Indy Arno, Dragon’s Lair’s very own Intrepid, on-the-scene Reporter

My trip to GenCon 09 began with an adventure in the form of a small plane with broken lavatories, no air conditioning, and a pair of engines that were finicky at best. Despite these tribulations, I, your dedicated chronicler, eventually made it to my sixth GenCon without falling from the sky like a huge meteor dropped by an angry DM. I met up with some of my old college friends from BSFFA (the largest student-run gaming and geekiness club in the country), and together we set out on an epic journey through Nerd Mecca.

For those who have never been to GenCon, a word of explanation: GenCon, advertised as “The Best Four Days in Gaming,” is to the tabletop set what ComicCon is to superhero fans. Board, card, miniature, role-playing and any other conceivable type of gaming companies and bulk retailers of such set up in the enormous dealer’s room, along with smaller niche booths for anime, costuming, gaming accessories, movies, art, and more to introduce hordes of curious gamers to old favorites or new gems and to preview unreleased material or make a grand début for their products. The belles of the ball this year were Wizards of the Coast‘s updated Dungeons & Dragons 4.0 Eberron setting book (actually released earlier this summer, but feted heavily at the Con) and Paizo‘s Pathfinder Core rulebook, which was so popular that the line for its release was nearly broken up by Con security because it was long enough to disrupt all the surrounding booths within about five rows. Interestingly, the Wizards’ pavilion this year was much smaller and not as centrally placed as in years past, while the Paizo booth was almost as large as Wizards’ and conveniently located on the far end of the hall (not the prime spot, but much easier to get to).

Paizo‘s booth notwithstanding, much of GenCon reflected Wizards’ reduced state, no doubt due to the poor economic conditions. The traditional celebrities row, which has in the past included such names as Peter Mayhew (Star Wars), Jamie Bamber (Battlestar Galactica), Walter Koenig (Star Trek and Babylon 5), the crew of Mythbusters, and many other geek icons, was notably absent. This year, the only official non-author celebrity was Vic Mignogna of Fullmetal Alchemist, and, while he is always a popular face at cons, the lack of any other famous people was a bit odd for such a major convention. The monetary downturn showed up in a few other minor ways, such as the lack of life-sized (or more than) models of D&D monsters and characters, superheroes, etc. in the RPGA and CCG halls. Even so, there were as many games as ever and the dealer’s hall was still filled with more interesting stuff than I will ever have money to buy in my entire lifetime, so the cuts were nowhere near enough to make me stop having fun.

Some of the highlights that remained included the costume contest and parade, the dance (the theme was Masquerade this year, which I didn’t think was as cool as last year’s Steampunk Ball, but I may be biased), Dana DeVries’ always sold-out 7th Sea LARP, the Heroes of Rokugan L5R LARP, and the exclusive White Wolf party, which my friends and I managed to snag invitations to by showing up at the White Wolf booth dressed as canon characters from the Exalted RPG. I had never been to the White Wolf party before since it’s invite-only (and I’m not sure what else besides costuming can earn invitations), but it took place in a dimly-lit, trendy bar that is exactly the kind of place that shows up in virtually every Vampire game that has ever been run on the planet Earth. The décor and the vampire movies (plus Blade) playing on screens around the lounge convinced my group to get permission to run an old World of Darkness Hunter tabletop set at the party next year. While hobnobbing with the White Wolf crowd, I heard that the hotly anticipated and frequently delayed Scroll of Exalts should be available in the next couple of months, and rumor has it that the next book in the Exalted series will involve the return of the Scarlet Empress to Creation.

Another yearly feature of GenCon are the ENnies, the fan-chosen awards for gaming excellence, mostly for RPGs, but also including miniatures and accessories. D&D and Pathfinder made a sweep of the awards this year, but Mouse Guard, Dark Heresy, Song of Ice and Fire, and CthuluTech also made off with multiple wins. CthuluTech‘s Senior Art Director, Mike Vaillancourt, was ecstatic about the Best Cover win, claiming that he was never going to take his medal off. He also told me that everyone’s favorite alien-bound faction, the Tagers, were thought up by the creative team after a weekend of sake shots to “get them in a dark place”.

I was in a dark place when I heard that the Brobdingnagian Bards, a Rennaisance Faire-type duo native to Austin but frequently present at GenCon, had broken up. Marc Gunn, the autoharp-playing half of the pair, still made it up this year to promote his solo work and perform two standing-room-only concerts. The Great Luke Ski of Dr. Demento fame was also at GenCon, along with filk icon Tom Smith, and others, roaming the halls or dealer’s room like the wandering minstrels they are.

I can’t even begin to talk about the many other events that went on at GenCon; I just didn’t have time to even sample half of them, but I can give a partial list of the things I didn’t get to check out: video game tournaments of all sorts; the Terrorwerks AirSoft LARP; miniatures painting; costuming, writing, GM-ing, etc. seminars; Nintendo DS meet-ups for various games; all the CCG tournaments; the True Dungeon (which I’ve been trying to get into for years, only to have the tickets I finally managed to buy conflict with another event I was already committed to); numerous LARPS and table-tops of all sorts of systems and settings; anime and movie screenings; the Gaia Online meet-up; and things I’m sure I never even heard about. There was just so much going on, I couldn’t even hope to keep up with four days of 24 hour activity. And that’s what’ll always keep me going back to GenCon each year.