Note: Be warned, this post is bloggier than usual. If you just want to hear about game updates, you can safely skip it.
I’m back from GenCon, which means things should be back up to speed shortly. Thanks to everyone who sent in bug reports, typos, and all that during my absence. I’m caught up with everything but the hard stuff :)
I talked to some folks about Metroplexity, passing around some cards. If donations keep up and we’re still making ends meet next year, we’re considering doing a booth at Origins or GenCon.
The star of the Con, as always, was True Dungeon. It just gets better and better every year. For those not familiar, True Dungeon is basically 3rd Edition D&D made flesh. You go from room to room in a dungeon doing the usual D&D things: defeating puzzles (some of which are pretty vicious), picking locks (think Operation), fighting monsters (in a system that weds D&D with shuffleboard for awesome results), and finding loot.
It’s not an easy event to get into, though, and Erik Scott de Bie slew that dragon for us for the third or forth year running now. Which officially makes him a wonderful human being. We missed out on a couple of slots due to registration glitches, but Lyz (rogue), myself (cleric), Erik (paladin), Jimmy (ranger), and Brian Cortijo (druid) all managed to make it through.
We also had some outside help to round out our group in the form of Bob, Rob, and Chris. As with most folks at GenCon, they were awesome. Similarly, despite having never met our roommates (Ari Marmell and Jess Hartley), they great to room with and awesome people all around.
Of course, I also spent more than would be advisable. Let’s see… I think Catalyst won the “get the most of our meager finances” award. We snagged two new Shadowrun books (Seattle 2072 and Running Wild) and the new CthulhuTech book Mortal Remains. I found out that Shadowrun Seattle also has a Metroplex Day, the day after Metroplex Day, which is kind of funny :) Oh, and they slipped us a copy of High School Drama, which looks hilarious.
The Pathfinder Core Rulebook is out now in all it’s glory, so I had to snag that for any future D&D 3ish needs. At just shy of 600 pages, it’s the kind of book that should contain stats for hitting someone with it. But it’s gorgeous and the rules are solid, fixing a lot of weirdness without deviating too far from D&D’s roots.
On the indie front I grabbed Death’s Door, which is a neat game predicated on the idea that your characters know at the beginning they’re going to die… soon and want to do all the things they meant to do (chosen randomly from lists of things the players want to do before they die).
For non-games, I picked up Modern Magic from Fantasist and a preview chapter (Lost Cog) from an upcoming manga/comic called Mother Hen. Modern Magic is a collection of rather dark short stories bringing old myths into modern times with some pretty solid twists. Mother Hen isn’t out in full form yet, but has some exceptional world and robot designs.
There’s also probably twice that many things that we lusted after but put off buying because they’ll be available at our local game store. Mostly board games actually: Dominion from Rio Grande, Revolution from SJ Games, Arkham Horror from Fantasy Flight, and Zombies!!! from Twilight Creations. Oh, and lots of costume pieces that Lyz and I can’t think about too hard or we’ll buy in our sleep.
Well, anyway, if you were wondering how my weekend went that was pretty much it: cool events, awesome people, and great new products. I’d suggest trying it (or your local convention) if you’re into non-computer gaming.
Cheers!
Kinak