Gencon in Review

I was treated to a short adventure of my own on my way home from Gencon: my return flight was evidently booked for September 16, instead of August 16.  Of course, with a hundred thousand gamers leaving Indianapolis on Sunday, all of the flights out were fully booked.  Fortunately, a ticketing agent for Continental went beyond the call of duty and managed to get me on a flight out on standby.  I regret to say that I didn’t get his name.  I can only say that I was a bit stressed at the time.  Still, I’m very grateful and will definitely keep Continental in mind for next year.  I’ll also keep a certain ticket-brokering website in mind, in a less favorable light.

Enough about me, though.  I’ve got a couple of impressions about the convention to report about.  Some of them might merit further discussion later on, but best to get the bullet points down now, while it’s fresh.

This post is part of August’s RPG Blog Carnival, hosted by Chgowiz.

I had the opportunity to play a demo of Champions Online, whose lifetime subscription offer I mentioned in my previous post.  Its initial scenario struck me as very similar to City of Heroes, and its general setup seems to be, too.  On the other hand, the gameplay is more action-oriented; I could tell that even at level 1.  Movement and timing are more important, combat is faster… it’s a hybrid, really, of a typical MMO and an action/adventure game.  It’s also more cartoony than CoH:  brighter colors, more “comic-y” art.  This isn’t a bad thing — Warcraft’s pulled it off for years — but it won’t be to everyone’s taste, I’m sure.  As for me, I’m not sure it suits my taste yet, but I didn’t hate it, either.  I suppose I’ll join in the open beta which starts today, and spend a little more time wandering around before I commit to a subscription.

Judging by the footage of Star Trek Online I saw, I’m intrigued… which I didn’t expect, not being a big Trek fan.  I suspect I’ll go for at least the 6-month Champions deal, unless the open beta turns me off it.

Speaking of Champions, the 6th edition of HERO is near release.  There was some sort of CD on offer at the con, and I understand that a quick-play version of the rules was included with one of the new sourcebooks, Lucha Libre Hero (which may be the most bizarre HERO sourcebook I’ve ever seen… although it doesn’t hold a candle to some of the weird GURPS ones).  I’m looking forward to that.

Dragon Age

I got to play a bit of Dragon Age, too.  I’m looking forward to that, now.  It looks a lot like Diablo with better graphics, but the play was fun and — and I think this is a brilliant idea on Bioware’s part — they’re including, with the PC version, a complete set of construction tools and in-game assets to use with them.  Which means there will probably be plenty of fan-made mods for it.  I played a couple of Bethesda games where they did this — Morrowind and Oblivion, mostly — and it really improved my experience and the lifespan of the game.  I even wrote a couple of small mods myself for Oblivion.  This is one area where PC games are still king.  Of course, the console versions looked pretty enough, too, if the basic gameplay is all that appeals.

I always buy a couple of books at Gencon, and this year was no exception.  If HERO 6 had been out, that would have been one, no doubt.  Mutants and Masterminds and some of its sourcebooks tempted me, too, but I decided to order those through Amazon instead — cheaper, and I wouldn’t have to find the space in my luggage for them (the core book is a bigger hardcover than I’d thought, and with all the supplements…).  And, of course, I could buy some other games, instead.  I went with Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies, whose flavor was too cool to pass up.  I almost picked up Qin as well, but instead, I ended up with a shoujo anime romantic-comedy-drama card-based indie RPG called Misery Bubblegum (from the creator of Capes, which I still want to play some day).  It intrigued me, more than anything else I saw on the floor.  I’m not sure I’ll ever find anyone to play it with me, but I had to have a copy.  I also picked up a battlemat (which, surprisingly, I’ve never used before; seems handy, though) and a set of the Gencon dice, which were actually fairly attractive this year, with a black-and-hot-pink color scheme.  Though I typically only use purple dice, because I rarely run into anyone else who does, so I can always tell which are mine.  I think the Gencon dice will be distinctive enough.

While shopping around for battlemats on Sunday, I dropped by the Paizo booth and was surprised to see many copies of the Pathfinder core rulebook stacked around a display.  Very surprised.  I’d expected them to sell out.  This might be an indication that Pathfinder’s actual sales won’t stand up to its distributor numbers.  Then again, it may just be that relatively few people at the con were willing to spend $50 on one rulebook on the spot, even if the rulebook is 500-plus pages in full color.

I flipped through it, incidentally.  I won’t claim to have enough information to write a review, but I will say that I saw nothing to discount my previous comments.  There may be changes from the beta, but I don’t believe they’ll do anything to eliminate caster superiority, although the druid might have been knocked down a peg.

Wizards of the Coast was offering limited quantities of the Dragon magazine anthology and Adventurer’s Vault 2.  I took a look at them, but passed.  There’s nothing in the Dragon compilation I don’t already have thanks to my DDI subscription, and the AV2 is mostly magic items, which I’ll also get access to, though I might have to wait until October.  So that’s at least $30 (for AV2) that my subscription’s saved me already.  I have to say, it’s proven a better deal than I originally thought it would.  For non-subscribers, I would judge the Dragon compilation worthwhile, though; there are some excellent articles in there.  Perhaps buy it from Amazon for a more reasonable price.

I like the cover, too.

They also announced the new setting for 2010.  I’m sure it’s been reported to hell and back by now, but since I predicted it months ago:  it’s Dark Sun, the dark and brutal settling last seen in 2e, where metal is rare and incredibly precious, water perhaps even more so, life is incredibly cheap, halflings are savage cannibals, sorcerer-kings rule the cities with iron fists, and just about everyone has a psionic talent or two.  It’s a setting that makes very different assumptions than the default setting, the Forgotten Realms, or even Eberron, and I’m curious as to how they’ll pull it off for 4e.  If they do it well, it should go quite a way to winning over some more fans.  If they do it poorly, their detractors will have that much more reason to say that full-out heroic epic fantasy is all it’s good for.  (Not that it’s a bad thing for a game to cater to a specific genre, mind… but flexibility never hurts.)

On a more personal level, I attended the RPG Bloggers Network panel and helped to host a panel on 4e blogging and homebrewing (along with Michael Brewer of Mad Brew Labs and Quinn Murphy of At-Will).  I felt that the latter was pretty successful, for which I probably have Michael to thank; he makes it look easy.

As far as games go… I didn’t schedule much in advance, but I ended up playing quite a bit.  This is the first year that I’ve actually spent all of my generic tickets.  I signed up for the requisite RPGA Living Forgotten Realms game, and was pleased to find that the modules have developed a bit since the early ones; they’re still no substitute for a regular campaign, but as con games go, they’re mostly not too bad, with much more non-combat stuff:  skill challenges, sneaking around, and even a bit of roleplaying.  The Jungle Hunt scenario I’d signed up for is the best LFR module I’ve played to date, with two challenging combats, two skill challenges, one pretty meaty roleplaying scene (though it could also become a combat, I suppose), and a little initial roleplaying to start things out.  Even with an interruption from an errant fire alarm, the game stands out.  A good part of this is probably the talent of the GM and the other players I teamed with, and I enjoyed it enough to let them persuade me to play the “two-parter” with them.  That one had more fighting, but it centered around an actual investigation, with lots of roleplaying and some subterfuge.  The fights were no challenge, unfortunately, but still, lots of fun.

Then I played the “special” module, which was pretty much nothing but combat.  Challenging fights, yes, but completely board-game style.  That was enough LFR for me.

Oh, that fire drill?  Not a prank, it turned out.  Medical emergency.  Pulling the fire alarm isn’t exactly the brightest of responses to that situation, but I suppose it’s excuseable, in the heat of the moment.  I didn’t pursue further details.  Either way, it was sort of interesting to see thousands of gamers lining the streets and filling the nearby plazas.  And bringing traffic to a standstill as they crossed in droves against the lights to get back into the convention center once it was declared safe.  Ah, gamers.

Gives you a sense of the scale of the con that you don’t get from a plain number, though.  Or even from hearing “Oh, you’re actually booked for a month from today… and all the flights today are sold out.”

Anyway, back home, happy and borderline exhausted.  It was a great time.

Related posts:

1. Off to Gencon
2. More 4e Errata… and I’m off to Gencon
3. I’m back.
4. Gygax
5. Cryptic Offering Lifetime Subscription to Champions MMO