GenCon 2005 Highlights
I had mentioned a way to read LJ without an LJ account . . . this might be it. Open ID? I don’t know, though, if I can add you to read the “friends-only” fiction journal that way. Might be worth a try, though.
And now, on to GenCon 2005 Highlights:
Wednesday
Of course, one of the high points of Wednesday was getting to see the GenCon crew again — Tom, Alex, and Brian. After that, the big treat was in going out to St. Elmo for dinner. St. Elmo, very posh, very expensive, and home of the time-travel-causing cocktail sauce.
St. Elmo offers a shrimp cocktail as an appetizer, and it comes with their homemade cocktail sauce. That stuff is nuclear, but ohmigawd so good. Tom described it as being like “traveling through time”. The stuff crawls up your sinus cavities in a prickling wave of blistering heat that brings tears to your eyes and makes you clutch the table in exstatic horror. Marvelous stuff. Couldn’t stand it more than once a year, but wow, was it good shit. The rest of their food is awesome, as well, but that cocktail sauce . . . damn.
Thursday
Of course, Thursday was the official start of the Con. We hit the dealer floor for a bit, and then went to lunch at The Ram with the lead storytellers for Dark Duality Productions, the folks in charge of the LARP we were playing this year. After a fun lunch with them, we went with them to check out our LARP location, the Old Union Train Station. Apparently we weren’t supposed to be in there, however, because the attendant there (after I had asked his permission to see the place, and explained who we were, mind you) took the first opportunity to sneak off and call security on us. Security promptly showed up and threw us all out. The weasels. All they had to do was tell us no, and we’d have left, but nooooooooo, they had to be assweasels. A pox upon them.
Anyhoo, beautiful LARP location — hopefully Tom sends me some pictures of the place, because we didn’t get any, and it was gorgeous.
The LARP started at 7pm — Artavatar was playing a Ventrue vying for the Keeper of Elysium in Vancouver. Adamczykon and I were playing the only two mages in the City. Adamczykon and I had a busy night, our plan being to whore our abilities out in return for occult knowledge, so that Adamczykon’s character could ascend. Or, that’s what he told my character, anyways. In reality, he was searching for a magical means of becoming immortal. The LARP was busy, and fantastic fun.
Friday
Friday was more dealer’s floor, a trip to the local CVS and TJ Maxx for supplies and costuming, and then LARPing again. The second night of the LARP was even busier for Adamczykon and I than the first. Plot was finally rolling, and we were tied up in all of them. The Changeling were being harrassed by the Chimera, the Garou were being assaulted by some kind of evil spirit, and the Kindred were suffering from political chaos and a mad Malkavian bomber. We were in the thick of things, trying to solve everything at once, and also hot after the trail of some “secret library” under the city. By the end of the night, my character had gained two Paradox stopping a damn confetti bomb in the Kindred Elysium, and we were exhausted.
Saturday
Saturday, we had tickets to try out the True Dungeon — fun, but an amazing gyp. It’s poorly organized, poorly run, and there solely to bring in the bucks. If the people running it spent more time getting it organized and working properly, and less time counting their money, it would probably be a cooler experience. All in all, most definitely not worth the $20-$30 bucks you end up spending on the damn thing, and we won’t be doing it again. They ran out of tokens for several items, the DMs only half knew what was going on, audio clues were impossible to hear and/or decipher, and at the end, they screwed up and gave our group the wrong audio cue completely, causing us to lose. They were boasting a 93% failure rate for their dungeons, and it occurs to me that if only 7% of the people paying to play are able to win, that you just might being doing something wrong. Just a thought.
Saturday was also the last night of the LARP, and right at the end, my character got ambushed by five or six of the Kindred in the city, right at the door to the secret library I’d been hunting for all weekend. Nearly unconcious from blood lost, my character opted for suicide rather than being embraced, and I was treated to a round of praise and applause from the folks watching the scene. I had been playing a Celestial Chorus mage, the kind of mage who is probably least likely to allow an embrace to happen. So, much fun, there, even though I died. After the fact, I discovered that the main reason why I’d died was because the storyteller running the scene didn’t know the Mage system at all, and had me doing nearly everything wrong. I’d never played a mage in a LARP before, so I didn’t know enough to argue the point, but regardless, I had a great time, and lots of fun. Adamczykon’s character still managed to meet his goal with my character’s spirit’s help, though. Inside the secret library was a very cranky 4th Generation Malkavian, who woke up when the library was finally breached. He killed three or four characters and mind-wiped the rest . . . but not me, because I was already dead. Adamczykon’s character summoned my spirit, got directions to the library, was able to sneak in through the umbra, and got his information.
Meanwhile, the Changeling solved their Chimera problem, ended the Winter, and achieved their goals, as did the Garou. For the Kindred, their missing Prince returned, laid the smack down, and slapped everyone back into place, ending their problems. We two mages helped everyone at some point, at least a little bit, and after the fact, I guess many of the players were very pleased and impressed with how the mages did this year. So, good on us, apparently.
Sunday
Sunday is the last day of the Con. Artavatar, Adamczykon, and I hit the dealer’s floor for one last go around to pick up some presents and requested items for the gaming group back home, and then went to The Ram again for lunch. There, we scored three copies of The Ram’s specially printed GenCon menus (where several of their signature items where renamed for various popular games).
