The big gaming convention in Indianapolis is just around the corner! We have any dopers attending?
I’ll be running several 7th Sea games (including a LARP), and trying to keep up with my nephews (who insisted on going all four days this year, so they don’t miss anything!). Anyone else?
When is GenCon this year? I’ve only been once, in 2001 (ironically wearing the t-shirt I bought there as I type, the most durable and well-wearing t-shirt I’ve ever owned, still basically looks new).
Madame Pepperwinkle usually has a table at the Art Show in the Dealer’s Room, but this year they sold out in record time, so we won’t be there, alack, alas.
Liz and I will be there, doing our typical menagerie of LARPs.
GenCon is now set in Indianapolis, has been for a few years now.
Don’t suppose the Froods will be at the 7th Sea LARP?
We won’t be setting up a booth this year, but will likely do a fly-by on family day with the kiddo.
Alas, no.
We’re doing
The Beaumont Peace Conference (Steampunk, Brass & Steel 1st ed., Pamean Games)
In Space No One Can Hear You Fhtagn (Cthulhu Live, 3rd ed., Scorched Earth Studios)
Going to California (Cthulhu Live, Homebrew, Elder Entertainment–a group we regular LARP with at cons)
LARP in a museum: Old Ghosts, New Beginnings (home brew done by two fellow Chicagoans who are friends of Liz and I)
On the Road to Bremen (6x6, 1st edition, Kettle of Fish–another group we regularly LARP with at cons; 6x6 is a system they created)
The Old Gods of Rock! (Cthulhu Live, 3rd ed., Kettle of Fish–this one’s written by my best friend who got KoF to sponsor this mainly because it’s a lot easier to run a slot if you’re affiliated with a “premier” group)
Island of Lost Souls (Cthulhu Live, Homebrew, Elder Entertainment)
Some year, I’ll get to GenCon. Won’t be this one, though.
Next week (August 15-18).
I’ll be there, arriving on Thursday evening. Playing RPGs – a Pathfinder Society game, a Legends of Arcanis game, a couple of Living Forgotten Realms “pick-up” games which a group of us are organizing (because Wizards of the Coast isn’t offering any LFR this year), plus trying out D&D Next and the new Star Wars RPG from Fantasy Flight.
Frood- With all those CthulARPs, good luck walking away with any sanity at all!
To everyone who’s attending, if you show up at the 7th Sea LARP run by Plaid Chameleon games, just ask for Jimbeaux, and they’ll point you my way. I’ll at least say hi, but as I’m judging, I may also be heavily caffeinated or not completely coherent. 
Heh.
Nice thing about the Island of Lost Souls is I’m basically writing my own character for it. (It’s nice to game with groups long enough to the point where GM’s will let you essentially let you write your own character.)
It takes place in the 1920’s on an island off the coast of Texas. Picture Cooney Island meets Atlantic City.
My character was the owner, editor, primary writer, and publisher of a widely respected skeptical journal, until he got exposed to the Mythos in some way (still working the specifics out). At that point, he realized everything he held as true was wrong. Logic and rationale couldn’t explain everything. He expressed these views in his journal and it wasn’t long before it went under as all his previous readers wrote him off as crazy. He then disappears and no one knows what happened to him. Maybe he died? Maybe he got committed?
What actually happened is after he experienced a touch of the horrors that were out there, he vowed to find out as much as he could about them and to fight them with every fiber of his being. He started researching, but couldn’t find much. Just vague hints. He realized the best way to do research would be to see the world and interact with all sorts of people. So he joined a traveling carnival, realizing that those who spend their lives moving from place to place as outcasts from society probably have seen and can see more than most people. He lived a fairly simple life, and when necessary he supplemented the money he made at the carnival with the savings he still had from his journal.
A friend in real life is writing a character with a connection to mine. He’s a photojournalist who was an avid fan of my character’s journal. After my character disappeared from society, this guy decided to track me down partly out of respect and partly out of curiosity. After all, what would cause someone of such rational persuasion to change his tune like that? Either I went crazy, or maybe there was actually something to it. He tracks me down in the carnival and joins it as well. He’s keeping an open mind about things, but unlike me, he doesn’t truly believe.
Your first problem: Traveling with carnies. 1d10 sanity loss. 
No d10’s in Cthulhu Live. Sanity loss is all roleplayed, in both the official systems and the homebrews.
(I have played the tabletop though.)
But it’s no doubt a full “ping” just hanging around with them.