Blogging Gencon IV (for real)

Saturday was great. After chatting with Rone Barton of Atomic Array – easy to do since we’re roomies this con – about the day’s broadcast, I grabbed a power bar for breakfast and headed for the convention hall.

As I had each morning at the hall, I first walked the dealer floor. Jam packed excitement everywhere I turned. Bumping into friends, I made my way to the Paizo booth to see how PFRPG sold the previous day. Flew off the shelves. Kept flying off the shelves while I watched.

I next hit Indie Press Revolution and the Burning Wheel booth with my friends John and Terry and stumbled into a game of Action Castle. This game is hysterical. A party game, essentially, the entire piece consists of one fold out pamphlet. The person holding the pamphlet is the computer, and the group – the larger the better – surrounding the ‘computer’ all play a human-run version of Zork, the old Infocom title.

Moderator: “Welcome to ACTION CASTLE. There is a cottage here. There is a fishing pole. Exits are south.”
First Player: “Pick up pole.”
Moderator: “You have a fishing pole.”
Second player: “What do we have?”
Moderator: “I cannot do that to we.”
Third player: “That’s funny!”
Moderator: “I do not understand funny.”
Fourth player: “South.”
Moderator: “You go south. You are on a garden path. There is a rosebush here.”

Marvelous! And only $5. Needless to say I bought that one. I also bought Empire of Dust and plan to review this fascinating little indie sci-fi title in a Rudis Review one day soon, so more on that another day.

Then it was time for a writing Seminar with Michael Stackpole, “Editing to Perfection.” Excellent as always. Whether writing to entertain or teaching to write, Stackpole always delivers.

Another energy bar on the run, then time to prep for my Open Gaming event at the Canterbury Hotel. This is an invitational I host to give industry folks, exhibitors, designers, writers and such an opportunity to go “off show” and run games for each other. I ran a Call of Cthulu game myself.

My friend Brandon “Candy Man” Hodge ran CoC as well. A Delta Green meets Call of Cthulu set in the civil war. His props were outrageous. The photo of the Innsmouth Union General -- just over the top! Nick Logue went mad, twisting Marvel Superheroes beyond anything it was ever designed to do, while John Stavropolous ran Dogs in the Vinyard and Thor Olvarsund ran the Ennie award winning Mouseguard. Some board games, especially Venus Needs Men, rounded out the mix. Fun was had by all.

I didn’t stop gaming until 8am the next morning. More on that in the post about Sunday!