Gamex 2014

[plusx2a]

Although I don’t have any fully official numbers yet it looks likely that we floated around the 1500 mark for attendees in Gamex 2014. A couple of short years ago, this would have been a good number for our larger convention Orccon which is getting close to having 2000 attendees. I had 110 events at Gamex this year, some having added on at con. This is amazing since I had 117 events for Orccon. Gamex is our small con and I thought I could coast right? Wrong! We had 82 events at Gamex 2012. This does not include demos, RPGA and Pathfinder. Including those, we had about 250 RPG oriented events.

Thanks to everyone who volunteered and attended this year. You helped in making Gamex 2014 an unprecedented success. I would like to thank JiB for providing some excellent feedback on Plaza C regarding room noise. Thanks to Morgan Ellis for working through what looked like a shitty head cold. Thanks to Mook for running a great GURPS game, the first I have played since the 90’s.

Your interest and support is greatly appreciated and know that the staff and organizers of Strategicon will be investing every resource at their disposal to making this the premier gaming convention in Californa.

Cheers!
Jim Sandoval
RPG Supervisor
Strategicon

[D.T. Pints]

Like I've said before... RPG renaissance! Its happening ladies and gentlemen. Now all we need is one mighty game release to rule them all...40 years of Tom foolery, dice rolling and funny voices. And now we have a Dark Dungeons movie! One of these days I'll get back to So. Cal to get to one of these cons.

[tomes]

My review of Gamex 2014:

Fri 2pm: Ran Memory of Yendor (Lego dungeon crawl in Savage Worlds) with 4 players, including a ~11 year old and a 14 year old. Good fun, including a new HIGH SCORE! GRIM for 212 points!

Fri 8pm: Played in Wes Otis Cthulhu game. jazzisblues had to bow out, and then my friend Howie killed our witch doctor (PvP) since he/she was communing too closely with the old ones. Unfortunately he was required for further play, apparently... that or Wes was just tired. Game ended early.

Sat 9am: Brian Poe ran Project Dark, which was really cool. Mechanics involved each PC with a deck of cards that you used in a deck-buildy kind of way, instead of using dice. I really liked it, as it was fresh and different. That, and the scenario was cool cause we were basically 5 different types of thieves trying to solve a mystery. Character building was cool too, as we took turns going around answering first self-referencing questions, and then more and more questions that related to each other to build party cohesion. He was a pretty solid GM separate from the system, too. I know he ran some AW games, but didn't get a chance to play those.

Sat 2pm: Played in Stephanie Bryant's Threadbare RPG playtest... a AWE-based game which consists of "softies" (i.e. stuffed animals) and "mekka" (i.e. plastic toys) in a post-apocalyptic type future. She ran that very well, and it was thoroughly enjoyable, and very AW feeling. I think she also got some good feedback for future runs.

Sat 8pm: Hard choice... bowed out of Sam Carters Dread game (that's usually my Sat night first choice) to try Achtung Cthulhu, which turns out was run by one of Sam's friends who I've played with before (and the 14-year old player from my Fri game). What's not to love... killing nazis! And my friend from Wes' game once again killed our occultist who was communing too closely with the old ones, only this time that was me. Lots of drinky, too.

Sun: Hit the pool with my wife and daughter, and then I ran some kid game 101's with my daughter, including Rat-a-tat-cat, Junior Catan, Kinderbunnies, Quirkle, and Wiz War. Met lots of peeps, had lots of fun, and then took my daughter around to play Artemis and just check out the scene.

All-in-all, another fine con! Interested to hear others experiences if they had them... like to see what's the fun happenings the next time around.

[jazzisblues]

Friday 14:00 - the Regiment (Hamish Cameron) - Totally awesome game powered by the Apocalypse. We were paratroopers dropped behind enemy lines just before D-Day. We had to sneak/fight our way through the hedgerows to try to establish a landing sight for the incoming gliders and to try to capture some bridges. We didn't accomplish our mission because our stupid sergeant (me) fixated on trying to capture the bridges and turned left at the wrong time. It was an amazing awesome game as always from that magnificent bastard Hamish.

Friday 20:00 - Viking Cthulhu (Wes Otis) - Had all the makings of a great game though it almost devolved to pvp even earlier than it did. Unfortunately work intruded and I had to go make like I was a useful member of society. (Sorry to Wes and all the players)

Saturday 09:00 - The Betylus Device: Boilerplate Jacks and Renegade Jennies (Josh Robey) - Super awesome steampunk game in a very interesting system lots of fun and many buckles were swashed.

Saturday 14:00 - Zombie Mall 4: Down the Rabbit Hole (Hero System 6th) - This is part 4 of the open ended series of Zombie Mall games. F'ing awesome table (Mook, Nicholas, Rob Skaggs, Matt Fuller, Robert, Gina) The remaining agents from ZM3 and 2 survivors from ZM 1 (Slight retcon of what actually happened there) learned that the government was trying to make super soldiers (because that always goes well) but had in fact caused the zombie outbreak that lead to the events at the BC. They traced the clues back to a research facility up the coast from LA and being good little adventurers went to get proof. They snuck into the facility through the storm tunnels and made their way to the R&D level. After a brief fire fight with some guards one of the characters took cover in what he thought was another lab but was in fact a holding pen for zombies, and from there things got very exciting in a hurry. Great game, awesome table I couldn't ask for better players.

Sunday 09:00 - Robo Atómico Y La Invasión De Los Vampiros! (Atomic Robo RPG: Morgan Ellis) - Ok, super spy / super hero / action scientist / Luchadores, does anything else really need to be said? An f'ing awesome game run by organ Ellis with superstar players Hamish Cameron, Gina Ricker, Matt Fuller and Mike Olson. I still can't believe they let me play with them.

Sunday 14:00 - A Wonka Family Runion (Savage Worlds) - Another super table though we had two no-shows for the game, it was still a totally awesome time with Mook, Rob Skaggs, Matt Fuller and Ed Murphy. The Wonka kids 30 years later and oh they were so totally messed up as people. Loads and loads of fun.

Monday 09:00 - In what has become a much loved tradition, played GURPS with the amazing Mook on Monday morning. We were warriors plucked from the warrior societies of antiquity to fight for the honor (and survival of earth). Totally awesome setup and amazing depth and detail of game as only Mook can do it. The very best way to wind up a con ever.

Great little con with awesome games and great times.

Cheers,

JiB