Countdown to Gen Con 2011

[Black Jack Rackham]

Checked out the new layout. Found life-sized troll and Drizzt/Gunwhiver (however thats spelled). Know where all my games are located, and can get there inside the whole way if it rains

Just over 2.5 hours till "Beauty-ful Dreamers"

Pickin up my GenCon badge in 1.5 hours

Till then, socializing

Markalicious

[salamanca]

I told Lisa she should play Romeo's mother. And Mike, it's not psycho-logist. The proper spelling is psycho-the-rapist.

[Rebecca Iavelli]

Hope your haveing fun!

Wish I could be there. In the last couple of weeks it has been so slow at work, that we have to shuffle people just to give them hours. So this weekend, I have off from Friday to Monday. Sigh. If I had the money, I could have gone.

Ah well.

Meanwhile, I've got some studying to do, to practice up on running the first Altamira, and need to write up a NPC character I have been thinking about for our home game.

[Black Jack Rackham]

Just after 7:30am I'm up, showered, and raring to GO! I can hardly wait.

Markalicious

[Black Jack Rackham]

One final (official) event left. Had full tables every session and tons of generics. It's been terrific!

[Rebecca Iavelli]

I told you not to worry, didn't I.

Glad you been busy and having fun. How many "unofficial" games have you had to plan, from everyone wanting to play?

[Rebecca Iavelli]

Hey Mark, besides running the games you ran, did you get to do any playing yourself? Want to hear how things went for all the games.

[Rebecca Iavelli]

Well, it's the last day today. Hope you have enjoyed the convention. From what little you tell us, I am guessing you have, and will have lots of stories to tell once you get home.

So when do you have to grab your train home?

[Klcp]

He had to flywill be there soon.

As for the con...let's just say that I got somewhere around seven or eight hours of sleep the entire convention from Wednesday until now. (gonna go to bed soon)

[Black Jack Rackham]

So I'm back now, and have had a couple of hours of downtime to recover. Here's my con-report as it pertains to the Heroes of Altamira

The GOOD:
1. Players! - I can't stress this enough. The players we got at the four events were eager, ready to have fun, got into the spirit of things, and for the most part seemed to really get into the idea of being heroes.

2. Player Responses - I had three or more first time players asking about where else I would be running this, complimenting me on the adventures, and in general lamenting the idea that they had to wait until next year to play some more.

NOTE: I got the best compliment ever when one of the players told me that he'd pretty much given up ever playing 7th Sea again because games he had played in at various cons started to become "Kill the monster steal it's treasure" rather than 7th Sea. That is, until he came and sat down at my table.

3. The Rhythm - I finally got into the rhythm of giving out DD at a pace that I thought was acceptable/comfortable. Players got into the habit of using them throughout the session and not just for the big stuff. Also, because of our location (see below) I got into the habit of being really "on time" about scenes. We never went over and I always had about 15-20 min left before the game needed to end (allowing time for xp sheets and wrap-up)

NOTE: Favorite DD handout? The Ussuran Diplomat with a penchant for limrics (*in his best russian accent* Limrics are very big in Ussura now). He wrote 3+ IN GAME and recited them to us, the last one was amazingly good.

The BAD:
1. Player Cards - I AGAIN forgot to give out the cards at the first game until the very end of the session (DOH!). But the players were very cool about it and seemed to have fun despite it. Though it could have been because they didn't know they were supposed to get them.

2. Location - we were all the way out at the new JW Marriot complex. On the far side of the con from all the other hotels, and nearly all the other games. That meant if my players finished at 1pm and had another game, they had a 10-15 min hike to get there...

3. Not really something I had control over but Will Call Line - People who foolishly listened to me and had their badges waiting for them at GC, found that they were having to wait up to 5 hours (yes you read that number correctly) in the will call line. People who showed up right when Will Call was supposed to open on Thurs morning thinking to get into my game at 9 (two hours later) found themselves not able to attend because they were still stitting in the damn line.

4. No "Off the Books" game - due to a minor family emergency I had to leave sun before the con was even over (nothing disasterous, so no need to worry) so this never got off the ground. I was disappointed because I was hoping to make it a running tradition (I still will it's just I won't be able to say it's an unbroken record).

Markalicious