Gamicon: The Post-Con Report
Mar 11, 2013 19:19:29 GMT -8
Post by uselesstriviaman on Mar 11, 2013 19:19:29 GMT -8
Duuude. That was FUN.
I stayed home and missed out on all the Friday night action, so someone else will have to fill everybody in on those happenings, but I was there bright 'n early-ish Saturday morning to fire up the Grindhouse.
Apparently I made a couple of mistakes when filling out my event submissions - the schedule had the Grindhouse running for the entire day on Saturday from 8am to midnight. I love this monstrosity I created, but that's just too damn much for one guy. So I started it up at 10am instead.
There was oh so much carnage, and the table was full for a good chunk of the day. (Considering that Gamicon had a record-breaking attendance of just over 300 attendees, I felt pretty good that so many people joined in for some gladiatorial mayhem.
There was some kind of Pathfinder Society special event taking place Saturday evening, which caused almost every one of my players to bail at exactly 7pm. With only two players still at the table (and nobody wandering the gaming floor in search of a game), we decided to take our first real break of the day and I finally got to take a load off. I had a great chat with two now-new friends, but after about 45 minutes of waiting with no new action we called it a day.
So in nine hours of Grindhouse goodness, we killed off 29 PCs and made it through 41 rounds of constant combat.
Our Golden Stork[/u] award went to the poor schlub who fumbled a Reflex save and took the long fall from the top of the tower all the way down, through the open pit in the floor, and straight into the grinders. The table cheered and jeered as he was instantly turned into a cloud of fine red mist.
But the Grindhouse grand champion was the real surprise: an 11-year-old girl beat 'em all. To her credit, she was the daughter of the convention's organizers, and had apparently been gaming most of her life, but still. She was impressively diplomatic with other players, and apparently nobody wanted to be the one to kill off the little girl's character. It was epic.
After packing up the Grindhouse, I joined the C Team attendees as they were finishing a pickup game of Settlers of Catan. We had a great bullshit session (that would have been greatly improved by beers around, in my opinion), but decided to call it a night somewhere around 10pm, I think. I drove the 45 minutes home so I could sleep in my own bed.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stoopid Daylight Savings Time.
The alarm went off WAYY too early, but I managed to stagger to the shower and get rid of yesterday's gamer funk. I was running a couple minutes late for the one-and-only game I played all weekend, but it didn't matter. I still beat my buddy the GM to the table by about 15 minutes. I had fun playing the Merchant of Venus board game, but I was so damn tired that I felt the entire building do that momentary warp-drive-tilt a couple of times during the game. I lost that game by a lot, but I'd play it again. Especially on more sleep.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday afternoon, I ran a game of Fuzzy Heroes for the two people that signed up. I planned to run three short battles in the four-hour slot: a quick intro skirmish to familiarize them with the rules, and then we'd get into the stuffing of the game. (See what I did there?)
Before the two-on-two skirmish was done, a couple of kids came by to ask if they could play too. You bet! Pick a stuffed animal, and you can join in the next fight.
...In hindsight, I should have seen it coming. I fully expected to have a couple of kids playing in the game with all the stuffed animals.
But I didn't expect to have ALL OF THE KIDS EVER at my table. I think we had ten players for the second round - I really couldn't turn any of 'em away, though. Round two was chaotic but hilarious, and I think everybody enjoyed themselves immensely. Especially the littlest kid there (probably only 5 or 6), even though her tyrannosaurus rex Bad Guy got knocked out before she could even attack anything. I felt bad, but she didn't care. Cutest smile ever.
The game kinda disintegrated partway through the final round though - the door prize raffle started right next to us, and most of the kids vanished like a fart in the wind. The two adults and I looked at each other, shrugged, and agreed that the good guys won. Just like they were supposed to, of course.
I stuck around for the door prizes while I packed up all the stuffed animals, and actually won several TPK Games supplements.
I was home by 5pm Sunday, and that night I slept like I was spooning somebody or something in Rl'yeh.
Sorry we didn't get to do the meal together this year, but hopefully next time we can all hook up and go out someplace. There's a food challenge just waiting for the Wrecking Crew to demolish it, dammit!
I stayed home and missed out on all the Friday night action, so someone else will have to fill everybody in on those happenings, but I was there bright 'n early-ish Saturday morning to fire up the Grindhouse.
Apparently I made a couple of mistakes when filling out my event submissions - the schedule had the Grindhouse running for the entire day on Saturday from 8am to midnight. I love this monstrosity I created, but that's just too damn much for one guy. So I started it up at 10am instead.
There was oh so much carnage, and the table was full for a good chunk of the day. (Considering that Gamicon had a record-breaking attendance of just over 300 attendees, I felt pretty good that so many people joined in for some gladiatorial mayhem.
There was some kind of Pathfinder Society special event taking place Saturday evening, which caused almost every one of my players to bail at exactly 7pm. With only two players still at the table (and nobody wandering the gaming floor in search of a game), we decided to take our first real break of the day and I finally got to take a load off. I had a great chat with two now-new friends, but after about 45 minutes of waiting with no new action we called it a day.
So in nine hours of Grindhouse goodness, we killed off 29 PCs and made it through 41 rounds of constant combat.
Our Golden Stork[/u] award went to the poor schlub who fumbled a Reflex save and took the long fall from the top of the tower all the way down, through the open pit in the floor, and straight into the grinders. The table cheered and jeered as he was instantly turned into a cloud of fine red mist.
But the Grindhouse grand champion was the real surprise: an 11-year-old girl beat 'em all. To her credit, she was the daughter of the convention's organizers, and had apparently been gaming most of her life, but still. She was impressively diplomatic with other players, and apparently nobody wanted to be the one to kill off the little girl's character. It was epic.
After packing up the Grindhouse, I joined the C Team attendees as they were finishing a pickup game of Settlers of Catan. We had a great bullshit session (that would have been greatly improved by beers around, in my opinion), but decided to call it a night somewhere around 10pm, I think. I drove the 45 minutes home so I could sleep in my own bed.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stoopid Daylight Savings Time.
The alarm went off WAYY too early, but I managed to stagger to the shower and get rid of yesterday's gamer funk. I was running a couple minutes late for the one-and-only game I played all weekend, but it didn't matter. I still beat my buddy the GM to the table by about 15 minutes. I had fun playing the Merchant of Venus board game, but I was so damn tired that I felt the entire building do that momentary warp-drive-tilt a couple of times during the game. I lost that game by a lot, but I'd play it again. Especially on more sleep.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday afternoon, I ran a game of Fuzzy Heroes for the two people that signed up. I planned to run three short battles in the four-hour slot: a quick intro skirmish to familiarize them with the rules, and then we'd get into the stuffing of the game. (See what I did there?)
Before the two-on-two skirmish was done, a couple of kids came by to ask if they could play too. You bet! Pick a stuffed animal, and you can join in the next fight.
...In hindsight, I should have seen it coming. I fully expected to have a couple of kids playing in the game with all the stuffed animals.
But I didn't expect to have ALL OF THE KIDS EVER at my table. I think we had ten players for the second round - I really couldn't turn any of 'em away, though. Round two was chaotic but hilarious, and I think everybody enjoyed themselves immensely. Especially the littlest kid there (probably only 5 or 6), even though her tyrannosaurus rex Bad Guy got knocked out before she could even attack anything. I felt bad, but she didn't care. Cutest smile ever.
The game kinda disintegrated partway through the final round though - the door prize raffle started right next to us, and most of the kids vanished like a fart in the wind. The two adults and I looked at each other, shrugged, and agreed that the good guys won. Just like they were supposed to, of course.
I stuck around for the door prizes while I packed up all the stuffed animals, and actually won several TPK Games supplements.
I was home by 5pm Sunday, and that night I slept like I was spooning somebody or something in Rl'yeh.
Sorry we didn't get to do the meal together this year, but hopefully next time we can all hook up and go out someplace. There's a food challenge just waiting for the Wrecking Crew to demolish it, dammit!