Countdown to Gen Con 2012

[Orianna]

I will sing at the drop of a hat. And I will bring a hat to drop in case nobody else does!

[kenderleech]

I also want to make that 9am number 3. I dont sing well, but ill drop a hat and threaten to sing if you dont let me in.

[Black Jack Rackham]

I also want to make that 9am number 3. I dont sing well, but ill drop a hat and threaten to sing if you dont let me in.

Hah hah hah! Let me also add, if you don't make it into this game (or for that matter any HoA game) there's always DOMINGO GIGANTE! Sunday @ 10am

Oh and by the way, I'm here. Running 7th sea 1 shots and KAMB at The Ram today drop on by. If for no other reason than just to say "hello!"

[Black Jack Rackham]

So day 0 done and all went well. Only disappointment was I let the players in the 7th Sea game run WAY over. The players had fun, but the last act (you know where the heroes get to be all heroic?) well, we had only 15 minutes to complete it.

Tomorrow, episodes 1 & 3...

[Rebecca Iavelli]

Yeah, so you went over a bit, but we all still had fun! Thats what matters. Stop hitting on yourself for letting us play.

See you in the morning!

[kenderleech]

See you in the morning!

[Black Jack Rackham]

I did, indeed see kenderleech in the morning, and had some of the afternoon players tell me they wanted to know when he'd be playing again as he was lots of fun.

As for how HoA did overall, with Day One finished and we had a total of 17 players for 12 spots. Had to have Laura run an overflow run of Ep 3 to accommodate the 10 who showed for that. Every single official ticket showed up and got some brand new folks who bagged an afternoon game to come back. All in all a very good start!

I was mercilessly evil to Deb who has now threatened to murder, not one, but two of my completely innocent NPCs

Despite multiple warnings by Dave, I continue my unabated record of forgetting to give out the HoA cards at the first game...

[spizio]

Come on, get to the important stats. How many hats have been dropped so far?

This could be a new arcana. When things start to go bad for the villains they drop their hats, forcing the heroes to break out in song. Sort of all Dr Horrible style. If the singing is bad enough the villains can mek their escape.

[salamanca]

Deb is mad at the NPCs in 3? Well, the one I get but two of them? I will just assume she will be killing some folks today in 4.

[kenderleech]

I dropped my hat, but that was out of character. I also failed to drop my hat another time, catching it in the air.

[Black Jack Rackham]

Day Two Results 11 tickets for 12 slots and our overall total is 28 players for 24 slots.

Tomorrow is the big day 5 events and games running from 9am to 11pm. Wish me luck.

[kenderleech]

You didnt need luck. You had Teh awesome.

[Black Jack Rackham]

You didnt need luck. You had Teh awesome.

*Blush* I'm really glad you enjoyed it.

[Black Jack Rackham]

Day three results. All five games went off. A couple of no-shows but generics more than made up for them. A total of 34 tickets for 32 slots brings our grand total to 62 players for 56 slots!

[salamanca]

So now you get to go all prima donna on gencon next year.

[kenderleech]

360 days to the next gencon!

[Sister Sonya]

Gen Con was too large years ago, and has gotten worse. The games went from outstanding, to ok, to boring.

The parking was outrageous, but I managed to find a free space only two blocks from the Convention Center on Saturday and Sunday.

And then, a kidney stone chose the exact moment to interrupt my HoA Personal Agenda Saturday night. Fortunately I had the pain-killer along.

But it did not kick in right away, nor did the food poisoning. My reccommendation is to avoid a certain fast food place just to the east of the CC in the future.

[Rebecca Iavelli]

I found it to be a bit too spread out for me too. There was plenty of room that could have been used for things, but because it was in the "convention center", was too costly to rent, it was cheaper to rent from the hotels, so things were all over the place.

I did have fun helping Mark run games, and the people who worked in the hotels were very polite and friendly.
I got to see Deb and Floyd, and a guy I know from our Total Confusion con, Wes.
I didn't get to meet Dana and his group, darn it, and I didn't get to see a couple of other people that I knew were in the area, but my left ankle bumming out on me, kept me fairly confined to how much walking I was doing, and I also got a blister on my right foot, trying to keep the weight off the left, sigh, so was limping on both feet eventually.

The ride home had its moments, like flying mattress and boxspring off a car beside us (and it was only beside us because Mark saw it in time, otherwise it would have been in front of us when it lost its load), a tire blowing on an 18 wheel semi right beside us tossing a piece of rubber at our car, that was extreemly loud; and a stupid person who tried to get into the same lane at the same time with us, so Mark had to swerve quickly to avoid being hit.

But our usual game of "Count the dead deer on the highway" was a bust this year. We only counted 6 on the way there, and 1 on the way back, and it was only a leg, so it hardly counted. Couldn't believe how clean the highways were. The most we saw, was lots of left over tire rubber from blown tires.

[Black Jack Rackham]

So here's the PA results!

We began the PA with the adventure and it was truckloads of fun as the heroes began with the fight of a lifetime (which was even too much for some, requiring the intervention of several of the swordsmen and women from around town). After that, they spent the bulk of the session running around town looking for the source of an unknown poison. The suspects were legion but in the end, the heroes triumphed (this despite the implication that whatever had gotten the initial sufferers MIGHT just be contagious).

After that, we got to the individual events…

El Vago tryouts
We had two members of Los Vagos make the acquaintance of the masked vigilante at this PA. After a good chase and a good bit of making several members of a certain red-robed group look particularly foolish, they found that their marks were not particularly high as they’d made a number of risky decisions (decisions which could have put innocents and the organization in danger). Never-the-less both came with high recommendations and were welcomed to drop by and do some more training.

Crazy Guy
At the book signing, our first published character learned first-hand that not all fans are good fans. At the book-signing, the fan almost came to blows with the other autograph seekers as he “understood” the author as none else did (or so he said). Interestingly our author offered to meet him privately later (which turned out even crazier if such a thing is possible). In the end, he was given a dog-eared copy of his own book with cryptic writing all over it (well starting on page 3). His plan is to try and read it with a more critical eye to see if the crazy guy is onto something…

Found a place for the Vesten lodge
Despite the fact that the call for Vesten to start putting up cash to build a Meadhall has kind of fallen on deaf ears, one of the Vesten remains steadfast, and actually made significant headway. The problem, he discovered, is that very few in Altamira are going to be willing to sell property to the Vesten after the various physical confrontations (not to mention the damage) caused by them in the last two months. After talking with Alfonzo Cortez de Cordoba, one of the Vesten may have hit upon an idea. That being, in order to win back the Altamirans respect, the Vesten need a good PR campaign. Essentially, they need some way to show they are performing a service to the people of Altamira. That’s when it hit, the perfect place would be in the southern portion of La Selva de Fendes. Generally considered unowned, they could move in with little difficulty, as most consider it a bit too close to the dangerous creatures in the forest. However, there’s more. To avoid the whole “merchant” title, the Vesten who ‘buy’ in would do so in the form of service to the meadhall. They would kill the beasties, work on the hall itself, etc. That way it would be both a way to get the Vesten out of the city proper (where they could do less damage) AND the destruction of dangerous critters would be both a boost to their honor and a service to Altamira.

IC tryouts
Our very own IC Eisen swordswoman was asked to help perform a service where, like the LV above, the outcome was far different than was originally described. She performed admirably in one area, not so well in the other, and ended up with a new contact…

Kara
Members of The Black Hand returned, this time leaving their ‘calling card’ and some gifts for young Tomas WHILE Kara’s sister was in the rooms she’d rented for them. Worried about where this might go, Kara had both the sister and young Tomas moved in the middle of the night. Fortunately for her, she took them both to Gaspar Salamanca’s lantern shop. He knew of a place they might go (it was an apartment his son had owned previously) and he was able to find a few Poor Knights whose Domnis were away and convince them to help Kara guard her sister and the boy.