It was a successful trip to Gencon this last weekend, both kids and I had a lot of fun, though ended up rather tired. Two days later, and my muscles are still feeling all the hiking. The show itself was sold out, so it was good that we pre-purchased tickets (and had them shipped, the lines for pickup were rather long).
We did wear our new logo t-shirts, and I was quite happy to have at least 2 people recognize the channel. Neither ended up stopping to talk, which is fine, we were in the vendor halls so it would have caused a traffic jam. But it was nice to hear the comments.
My original goal was to get inspiration for both Legion and our RPG efforts, which was a mixed success. Unfortunately, all the Legion games were concluded by Sunday, so no one was playing (except demo games in the vendor hall). I did manage to snap some pictures of the terrain early in the day, before the crews picked up and packed away all the pieces – those will help for future designs.
I had also planned on obtaining a new battle map for Legion, with a desert theme – unfortunately there were none to be found. We wandered the vendor hall many times, and not a single vendor was selling large mats – all of the options were either card-game sized gaming mats, or old-style vinyl mats with hexes and squares (I have several of those). None were really what I was looking for, so it is back to looking online for an alternative. If you have any good brands or suggestions, leave me a comment – I am looking for thick mouse-pad style backing with a desert dunes or sandy design suitable for Tatooine, or perhaps a beach setting.
I also did not find all that many “inspirational” items – there seemed to be a lack of new, creative ideas. There of course was the high-end wood crafting and furniture, both of which are either highly specialized and/or overly expensive. There was a couple of new character or campaign tracking software packages, and a virtual tabletop or two, but all were again specialized and not really applicable for what I would need. Almost everything instead was dominated with new content for either the upcoming 5th edition of D&D, or for their unique game system – nothing that was truly generic and system agnostic.
However, I did find a few items that filled our needs for interest. The kids of course obtained a new t-shirt, as directed by the wife, and were happy with their choices (my choice was unfortunately not available in my size). George also managed to find a nice set of new dice (bonus, easy for me to read with the contrast), and Ben grabbed the new Player Core 2 for Pathfinder, complete with a fresh signature from none other than Wayne Reynolds.
For me, I ended up with a copy of the new edition of Twilight 2000 and one of the expansions, a throw-back to the original version of the game. I was unable to find and score a copy of Mothership, which is the other one I was looking for – the one vendor was sold out by Sunday – so I ordered it once we got home. I also picked up a pair of oversized percentile dice, which not only will make it easy for me to read but allow the Warhammer group to see the results from a distance as well. Those should be in play starting this week with Warhammer.
For both Twilight 2000 and Mothership, after reading the basics, I am rather inspired for some new one-shot adventures or short campaigns. Twilight feels very deadly, and likely would lean more into a longer storyline. Mothership on the other hand would fit well into a single evening game, potentially with a series of connected scenarios. Look for details on my plans coming soon, I already have some initial interest from the group so I expect setting up a couple of 6-player groups will not be too difficult.
