Blogging Paizocon 2009 - Friday

The day launched about 11am as gamers wolfed their food in the hotel's somewhat over-priced mediocre grill. But who cared? Paizocon begins!

Everyone's morning strated awesome: registration seemed to go without a hitch, events started on time, but the swag?! Holy crap. Put Gencon to total shame. Every swag bag came with the complete Key Largo board game, a copy of Yetisburg, the latest PCGen, Item cards -- the list goes on.

The con's fanzine rocked. Solid material by great authors. Everywhere you looked people actually reading it and not a copy that I saw tossed aside.

The only complication came from Sean Reynolds whose car apparently went into a ditch. Sean was ok, great thanks. His windshield cracked. He had to wait for the police after action report and the tow. Even this only slowed things down, as he kicked off his event a mere two (or so) hours late.

For myself, things started slow. After hobnobbing, I set up in the open gaming room with my signs, crafted from unneeded cardboard Paizo product boxes. Sign one: "Special Guest Lou Agresta" Sign two: "Will Game for xxxFoodxxx. FREE!"

And proceded to wait as precisely no one showed up. Lots of laughs. No game. Given the registration snafus I really expected more people without a game. Not so.

And not to worry, though, a few hours later my table was full. I ran a 5-player game of The Bloody Fix, from 0onegames, by Rone and I. Great game. Players included: Miss Em, Shirak, Greg Ragland, and two awesome Paizoans whose name escapes me. Why? Because I can't stop thinking about them as Corey, Rogue 1/Wizard 2 and Throk, no-shit-taking, great-sword wielding Dwarf fighter with a magic black top hat. 9 hours later they had cut through 2/3rds of the adventure, bypassed a 1/3rd with a totally unexpected deduction and bearded the BBEG in its lair. Hah! Did that throw them for a loop!

Well I don't want to throw out any spoilers, but a few players nearly wet themselves in terror and a good time was had by all! We wrapped up at 2am or so, skipping all the after hours festivities.

Now its 7:30am, and I'm off to Greg Vaughan's Slumbering Tsar preview. More soon!