Hopefully going to Gencon this year, but combined with a visit with friends in the area. Trying to figure out which days to do what, and the schedule’s not up for a few more months. I went once almost 10 years ago, but don’t remember the details much.
If I need to pick 2 days out of the 4 to go to the con, is there a standard rough schedule of the big events? (Like: the auction runs Thurs-Sat, for example. I don’t know if it does or not, but if it does, I might be more inclined to skip Sunday).
I’m primarily a Board Gamer, but also play Magic, and dabble in RPGs. I definitely want to do True Dungeon, if I can get in this time. I want to catch some of the auction, and don’t want to miss any interesting promos that might be available in the vendor areas. Any clues from past gencons? (can’t even find a copy of last years schedule in a format that would be helpful)
Been 14 years since I’ve been there, but some advice from an old timer;
If you’re interested in the Cosplayers, go Thursday. Some of them don’t change clothes or seem to shower/bathe during the Con. 4 day unwashed Sailor Moon cosplayers are really really creepy and sad (as I saw in 2001).
If you’re interested in products in the vendor area, go Thursday. They may be gone by the weekend.
If you’re interested in 400 pound neckbeards carrying around half-gallon jugs of Mountain Dew, go Friday and Saturday nights. I always wonder about the secret dark side of Gencon being how many of these people are found dead in their hotel rooms on Sunday.
My Gencon advice might not work for you, but here it is:
When I’ve gone to cons and played in random games, I generally have one terrible game (like, bad enough to walk away from the table), one awesome game (like, good enough that I learn something about being a good gamer or GM), and the rest are mediocre games (like, fun to play in but not memorable).
When I’ve gone to cons and played with people that I know and set up games with in advance, I tend to play in almost all awesome games.
So on the occasions I’ve gone to Gencon or other cons, I always always try to play in unofficial side games. We meet in restaurants, in empty rooms, in hotel rooms, wherever we can find the space. And we play games like:
-Scooby Doo Dread (I was Velma, who I decided was an ex-CIA operative suffering permanent hallucinations that cause her to imagine a talking dog, as well as all sorts of other monstrosities. She dealt with the hallucinations by ignoring all of them and assuming that they were all false, which is why she was so good at unmasking the monsters; she also fed the dog and the hippie a steady diet of hallucinogens, so-called “Scooby Snacks,” because the only thing worse than her constant nightmares was the prospect of being the only one to see them).
-The Victorian Age on Mars (19th-century high-skies zeppelin-flying derring-do as we fight the Martians for Her Majesty’s Glory)
-Paranoia, done right, with a group full of people willing to make idiots of themselves.
-My own game, Silver-Screen Heroes, in which players take the part of cast and crew of a 1940s pulp movie production, and use their skills to overcome the pulp villains they encounter after the filming.
and so on. Way better, IMO, than another Pathfinder Society game.
Where are you planning on staying? Every remotely affordable hotel room within anything remotely considered “walking distance” is full. Also, GenCon has gotten very, very, very, veryveryvery, very, did I mention “very,” very crowded in past years.
Here’s what happened with housing: everybody who bought a badge (for $80) was assigned a time of day after which they could enter the Housing Portal (where they chose the hotel they wanted). Anybody not assigned a time within 90 minutes of when it opened - and this meant about 2/3 of the people - logged on to find out that every downtown hotel room was booked, leaving only outlier hotels that would be serviced by a shuttle system that, after problems last year involving shuttle after shuttle filling up before they got to some of the hotels, will require reservations made in advance. How you are supposed to know your schedule is not their problem.
Walking distance isn’t an issue. We plan on staying in the outskirts and driving in. That’s what I did last time, and it seemed to work well. I’m too old to play into the wee hours of the night and stumble back to a hotel room anymore.
That might also be a problem, especially on the weekdays, when people who are running games but didn’t get downtown hotels, so they’ll pretty much need to drive in with their stuff and park somewhere, will be fighting for parking spots with people who work downtown.
Based on that, your first choice should be Saturday.
If you’re looking to buy stuff, I would strongly consider Sunday as well; companies have been known to give discounts on Sunday rather than have to lug too much stuff back to their offices.
The event list is “supposed to be” released in early May; online event registration begins May 17.
Can someone remind me what the deal is with the event tickets? I know you can just get pickup games in the games library area, but that you need to buy in for most scheduled stuff. Is that money just for the privilege of getting into a scheduled game? or are there prizes available that the ticket money goes toward?
Event tickets are “just for the privilege of getting into a scheduled game.” Remember, a lot, if not most, of the games are “fan-run” RPGs, so there won’t be any prizes with those, but they still cost you to play. The larger companies usually offer prizes for their tournaments, but I don’t think any of those are paid for, even in part, by the event tickets.