Popping in some thoughts on Gen Con 2013 that I'll try to break into chunks that are related to one another.
+Mark CMG snagged some photos of the dealer's hall and I joked that it was more like a flea market. Only I wasn't really joking.
For years, decades even, the 'dealer's' has been less and less about publishers and more and more about stuff. Note I'm not putting this into a negative context as I bought a lot of that stuff myself.
However, with that change of focus, I have to wonder what the overall effects are?
For example, there are several resellers with prices better than the company. It's great to see Games Workshop at the convention. They also have a leg up on resellers in that they have Forge World items with them. However, it's going to be a tough sell if a buyer knows across the way they're selling GW stuff for 30%, wait it's Sunday? I mean 35% off. There were also booths selling books three for $10 or buy one get three free.
And this isn't necessarily 'old stuff' either. I wouldn't place money on it, but I could have sworn I saw a few booths selling the new Wyrd boxed sets for the 2e game at 20% off on Thursday. Imagine that you are a game company and you came out with a game that you need to sell and there cutting you off at the knees are one of the stores you sell to. And trust me, there were multiple stores in the hall that were resellers. You can't necessarily say, "Hey dude, would you mind not selling this stuff here because you know, your space isn't as important as my space?" Probably not going to work.
And in terms of publisher woe, well.... When I've mentioned Kickstarters and gaming publishers, I have mentioned that I'm not surprised when something is late. I've mentioned that in many if not all Gen Con's I've been at, something happens that is not good for the publisher. Cubicle 7 took a beating from their printer this year on multiple books.
In terms of selling all you got... well, that can be a good thing or a bad ting. For one, gamers like the shiny and if your shiny isn't out when they want it because it sold out, there is zero guarantee they'll want it later when it's restocked. This happened to a few spots like Wyrd with the 2nd edition book of Malifaux or with Gale Force 9 and their Firefly game.
Gen Con exclusives are another reason I can see a game publisher actually going to the convention. Gale Force 9 had a dndnext adventure that looks like it was deliberately put together badly and is, in my opinion, hugely overpriced, while Privateer Press and Wyrd continue with their Gen Con limited edition miniatures. For Wyrd it's not that big a deal as they often have a 'general' release of whatever miniature it was that had a special edition at the con.
In terms of 'stuff', I personally bought some zombie styled dice and cards. Not a card game mind you, just cards. I also buy my g/f shirts ever year because she likes some of the art and prints. Sometimes I'll snag her a hat or something else along those lines.
For credit card use, there were still a few booths that couldn't take a credit card. One company I wanted to buy from, GCT Studios, had a 'sweet spot' of $100 for two starter factions and the core book but only took cash. What type of expectation for cash carrying do companies have? "Well, everyone carries around a stack of hundred dolla bills no?
Another vendor who was selling Badger air brushes, would only allow people to use the card on Thursday through Saturday and only if they were doing a $40 or higher purchase.
People, you need to join the rest of us in the new era. When hot dog vendors are using square and other solution providers to that and your solution is to stick your fingers in your ears...
Let me pick on GCT studios again for a second. Entrance into the show itself probably isn't cheap. Then you're from overseas. While I was standing at the booth, I saw at least two interested parties have to pass on a purchase. Ironically enough, if they stumbled upon the company's website, they COULD use a credit card to make a purchase. If you're not going to limit your sales online in terms of how you accept payment, why would you do that to yourself at a convention? Do you think the people walking through the booth are going to be like, "Man, they are financially wise by avoiding any transaction fees at all. Pure profit for them." or do you think they'll be like me and go, "Gee, the OSR booth takes credit cards and damn does that big frog demon from Center Stage Miniatures look sweet.
Another interesting thing was the fact that the guy from Badger was there at all. And he wasn't alone. The guys from Grex were there as well. This to me indicates a growing acknowledgement of the importance of Gen Con to those markets. I hope they both come back next year. Strangely enough, I didn't see any Scale75 sellers or AK Interactive sellers. I think that with stores like Games Plus there, that +RK Berry needs to get out there and provide some of those ranges, including Andrea, that just aren't being sold there.
In terms of the organization of the hall?
Whoever put the garbage cans in the middle of the aisles should be beaten.
The standard 'con' rules should be in place for the beating of stupid people. "I know foot traffic is going this way, but hey, I'm slender and this fifty pound back pack isn't going to hit anyone else when I fight against that flow."
"Hey, I know that people are trying to move, but shit, this is Larry here. Larry! I have to have a conversation with him straight in the middle of the hall. Screw common courtesy. That shit died in the 80's man."
"Listen, this tweet I received is very important and I have to stop. Come to a dead stop in the middle of the floor and look at it."
There were other sorts of behaviors I saw that were I a younger, angrier man might get me in trouble but those days are long over.
A good thing/bad thing about the acceptance of how far the hobby has come, is that there were a lot of people in various types of mobile devices. Some of these manual hand powered wheel chairs, one of them piloted by a woman whose speed and control of her vehicle was fantastic, and others, most others if not all others, using the electronic chairs. I don't begrudge anyone the right to come to the con and enjoy it. I do think however, that as the con grows and the need to accommodate these devices grow, that they need to expand the paths themselves if not the halls.
I also think that they need to increase the hours of the dealer's hall. While I know that sounds crazy to pretty much every person who works the hall the reality is with so many of the 'dealer's' not being publishers but being vendors and resellers to begin with, they'd probably be cool with it and it could help to alleviate the number of people in the hall at any one time. It could even increase sales. Crazy talk. That whole ending at 4:00 PM on Sunday thing? What the hell is that? When they first started doing that, did someone have to get to Church or was that the time they started legally selling beer?
I apologize for the ranting. Let me see if I can summarize.
1. Resellers are selling your stuff cheaper than you do.
2. Credit Card acceptance still not at 100%.
3. New types of vendors and sellers in the hall.
4.Lots of exclusive releases still hitting the dealer floors.
5.Lots of great deals on older games.
I'll be back with more thoughts after a LOT of sleep. I hope everyone had a great con. Were there any weird encounters at the convention? Any bits you think should have been better?
Showing posts with label Cubicle 7. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cubicle 7. Show all posts
Monday, August 19, 2013
Saturday, September 1, 2012
Games I Ran At Gencon Four: The One Ring
Sorry about the pause in updates there. Came back from Gen Con and had to pull overtime on the weekend both Saturday and Sunday and then some ten hour days in the last week as well, you know, end of the month push and all that. Thankfully I was still able to get into my regular Pathfinder game yesterday and because of a cold or allergies or something, decided to avoid the booze so am relatively sane this calm Saturday morning with no hangover.
Anyway, another game I ran at Gen Con was The One Ring. It's been out for a while and it's a great looking book with a fairly simple system that revolves around a target number and all sorts of other nifty bits. Cubicle 7 also had a new screen that came with some information on Lake Town, as well as a new adventure source book, all with the same format and art and style as the core book.
Despite having owned The One Ring for a while, I'd never run it before. While my friends all dig the movies and the original stories, they are all about the Pathfinder/3.0/3.5/OGL variants. So while I'd prepared myself to run, I was uncertain how things would actually roll out.
In my first two games, I had some fantastic players in terms of knowledge base. They really added to the game and helped move things forward. With their assistance I was able to kick up my rules mastery of the system very fast.
In the first game I ran, the players and I fumbled the first combat a little in terms of the stances and how they worked in terms of player going on group initiative and monsters going on their initiative. Some of this was due to my lack of actual play but by the end of the session it was under control. One of the players was such a rules guru that he had a few links for me, that of course I promptly lost, that had links to a massive twelve page index. Despite being a beautiful book, the One Ring's index is not one to make you go, "Ah, found it first try." It's a modest two pages so there was some page flipping during that all.
In this game, I didn't bring up the ability of traits to make automatic successes because I had completely forgotten about it and in their haste to play, apparently the rules guru always ran, they didn't actually take advantage of it themselves. But at the end of the game, I always ask for feedback either positive or negative and this one was one of the things brought up so I made a note of it.
In my second game, one of the players took a blank piece of paper and some prepainted minis he had and did a grid for the stances. Wow. That worked fantastic in terms of not only keeping the players in line for their initiative stances and their target numbers, but quickly and easily showing the players where they were in combat order and what they were committed to and made a great visual reference. I snagged that for my third game with no problems.
Traits still didn't get a use as I don't think the players were absolutely sure of what they were used for but I did try to go through their utility at the start of the session.
For my third game, one of the players, a dwarf, was always in the most aggressive stance and rarely got hit in return. The dice were kind to him, even as they were not kind to others.
This one traits came into their own for a few skill checks as we had several new players and I tried to make sure to point out when they could use them.
The 'problem' with a convention adventure was in full swing here though. The One Ring is a pretty rich game for home gaming where things are going to take a long time. For a convention game, there's really not a lot of fear of burning through your starting hope. There's no chance of getting blight. There are no cursed magic items. These limitations make the characters far more powerful then they would be in a home campaign because all of those things become 'real'. You might not necessarily have to conserve hope, but you're not going to be spending multiple points in multiple combats over the course of a single session.
Overall the experience for me got better and better but as it did, the adventure got shorter and shorter. The players were able to take advantage of my growing knowledge of how to run combat for example, and cut through those combats far quicker. One of the prebuilds for example, has a character with a spear that has a fairly low 'Edge' and that came up a lot and took out a lot of foes. The dwarf, as mentioned, took out a lot of foes in that third game. The more aggressive and lucky the players, the better off they were in terms of getting combat done quickly in most cases although a few did take a Wound here and there.
I'm looking forward to trying to get my players into this one again but since I'm a player in a Shackled City campaign using the Pathfinder rules and we'll still stuck in that first adventure, I think it will unfortunately be a while.
Anyway, another game I ran at Gen Con was The One Ring. It's been out for a while and it's a great looking book with a fairly simple system that revolves around a target number and all sorts of other nifty bits. Cubicle 7 also had a new screen that came with some information on Lake Town, as well as a new adventure source book, all with the same format and art and style as the core book.
Despite having owned The One Ring for a while, I'd never run it before. While my friends all dig the movies and the original stories, they are all about the Pathfinder/3.0/3.5/OGL variants. So while I'd prepared myself to run, I was uncertain how things would actually roll out.
In my first two games, I had some fantastic players in terms of knowledge base. They really added to the game and helped move things forward. With their assistance I was able to kick up my rules mastery of the system very fast.
In the first game I ran, the players and I fumbled the first combat a little in terms of the stances and how they worked in terms of player going on group initiative and monsters going on their initiative. Some of this was due to my lack of actual play but by the end of the session it was under control. One of the players was such a rules guru that he had a few links for me, that of course I promptly lost, that had links to a massive twelve page index. Despite being a beautiful book, the One Ring's index is not one to make you go, "Ah, found it first try." It's a modest two pages so there was some page flipping during that all.
In this game, I didn't bring up the ability of traits to make automatic successes because I had completely forgotten about it and in their haste to play, apparently the rules guru always ran, they didn't actually take advantage of it themselves. But at the end of the game, I always ask for feedback either positive or negative and this one was one of the things brought up so I made a note of it.
In my second game, one of the players took a blank piece of paper and some prepainted minis he had and did a grid for the stances. Wow. That worked fantastic in terms of not only keeping the players in line for their initiative stances and their target numbers, but quickly and easily showing the players where they were in combat order and what they were committed to and made a great visual reference. I snagged that for my third game with no problems.
Traits still didn't get a use as I don't think the players were absolutely sure of what they were used for but I did try to go through their utility at the start of the session.
For my third game, one of the players, a dwarf, was always in the most aggressive stance and rarely got hit in return. The dice were kind to him, even as they were not kind to others.
This one traits came into their own for a few skill checks as we had several new players and I tried to make sure to point out when they could use them.
The 'problem' with a convention adventure was in full swing here though. The One Ring is a pretty rich game for home gaming where things are going to take a long time. For a convention game, there's really not a lot of fear of burning through your starting hope. There's no chance of getting blight. There are no cursed magic items. These limitations make the characters far more powerful then they would be in a home campaign because all of those things become 'real'. You might not necessarily have to conserve hope, but you're not going to be spending multiple points in multiple combats over the course of a single session.
Overall the experience for me got better and better but as it did, the adventure got shorter and shorter. The players were able to take advantage of my growing knowledge of how to run combat for example, and cut through those combats far quicker. One of the prebuilds for example, has a character with a spear that has a fairly low 'Edge' and that came up a lot and took out a lot of foes. The dwarf, as mentioned, took out a lot of foes in that third game. The more aggressive and lucky the players, the better off they were in terms of getting combat done quickly in most cases although a few did take a Wound here and there.
I'm looking forward to trying to get my players into this one again but since I'm a player in a Shackled City campaign using the Pathfinder rules and we'll still stuck in that first adventure, I think it will unfortunately be a while.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Games I Ran At GenCon Three: Clockwork and Chivalry
Clockwork and Chivalry is a relatively young game that's already gone through an edition change. A very good one in this case as the new edition actually brings all the rules together in one spot as opposed to relying on say, Mongoose Runequest which you know, is now Legend and blah blah blah.
I was pretty familiar with the BRP system (Basic Role Playing) that is the core of C and C so didn't have too worry too much about messing around with the character sheets. I even copied out all the spells that the characters in the setting can use ahead of time so that they weren't flipping back and forth a lot.
The adventure for the con was the Dragon of Naseby which ties directly into the setting. The pregenerated characters had a lot of versatility to them not necessarily in their abilities, but in their motivations and goals. It was a little bit of a cheat in that one of the characters was 'very experienced' and the rest were above the starting goal. Still, the point is to have a good time right?
The characters come from both of the main factions in the game. The overall theme of hunt the dragon that's burning the towns to ash made for a good super hero moment where the two teams must put aside their mutual hatred in order to overcome the greater foe.
My first game went pretty smooth save for one thing. The party avoided almost every fight until they got to the dragon. When they did get to the dragon, they managed to use a familiar and some spells to spot out a weak point in the dragon's armor. They also noticed the dragon's egg. Threatening the dragon's egg is one of the few ways that the dragon will 'stay' and not take off. Well, the party rolled fantastic in terms of damage on their 'critial shot' and the most experienced character used his elemental to drop freezing potions on the dragon with assistance from his loyal ally. Suffice it to say that the dragon was quickly knocked out and about.
The group in this instance was a little pacified in not going that extra mile to try and achieve the goals of the characters.
In the second game, it ran all the way till the end as the players role played out the conflicts of the characters more. This group included Ed, Hanse, Gary, and Mikhal, three of which made it to another game of mine. Unlike group one, I won't say they reviled in getting into the conflicts, but they didn't shy away from them. The dragon also got punked in this encounter, but that happened by ramming, some excellent damage dice, and some great rolls to control their tank in order to get some more cannonfire against the dragon.
In this session, the characters DID follow their backgrounds and it was almost a civil war not only as the two factions broke down to try and claim glory after the ending, but also as each member of that faction tried to fulfill their specific goals. It was fun to see from my side although as it ended in a stalemate, mostly due to time than anything else, I'm not quite sure what the players were thinking at the end of it all.
I was glad to have run Clockwork and Chivalry. It's a pretty tried and tested game system and I'm sure if the players had a better feel for how powerful their characters were in terms of the game and in terms of each other things might have been even MORE interesting.
For someone looking to run BRP in an alternative history setting where the English are in a civil war, I'd recommend this game. The add ons aren't obtrusive enough to make you not recognize the game system and they can be fun when pitting the characters against different factions and cults that seek to steal their 'zeal' and convert them to the cause.
I was pretty familiar with the BRP system (Basic Role Playing) that is the core of C and C so didn't have too worry too much about messing around with the character sheets. I even copied out all the spells that the characters in the setting can use ahead of time so that they weren't flipping back and forth a lot.
The adventure for the con was the Dragon of Naseby which ties directly into the setting. The pregenerated characters had a lot of versatility to them not necessarily in their abilities, but in their motivations and goals. It was a little bit of a cheat in that one of the characters was 'very experienced' and the rest were above the starting goal. Still, the point is to have a good time right?
The characters come from both of the main factions in the game. The overall theme of hunt the dragon that's burning the towns to ash made for a good super hero moment where the two teams must put aside their mutual hatred in order to overcome the greater foe.
My first game went pretty smooth save for one thing. The party avoided almost every fight until they got to the dragon. When they did get to the dragon, they managed to use a familiar and some spells to spot out a weak point in the dragon's armor. They also noticed the dragon's egg. Threatening the dragon's egg is one of the few ways that the dragon will 'stay' and not take off. Well, the party rolled fantastic in terms of damage on their 'critial shot' and the most experienced character used his elemental to drop freezing potions on the dragon with assistance from his loyal ally. Suffice it to say that the dragon was quickly knocked out and about.
The group in this instance was a little pacified in not going that extra mile to try and achieve the goals of the characters.
In the second game, it ran all the way till the end as the players role played out the conflicts of the characters more. This group included Ed, Hanse, Gary, and Mikhal, three of which made it to another game of mine. Unlike group one, I won't say they reviled in getting into the conflicts, but they didn't shy away from them. The dragon also got punked in this encounter, but that happened by ramming, some excellent damage dice, and some great rolls to control their tank in order to get some more cannonfire against the dragon.
In this session, the characters DID follow their backgrounds and it was almost a civil war not only as the two factions broke down to try and claim glory after the ending, but also as each member of that faction tried to fulfill their specific goals. It was fun to see from my side although as it ended in a stalemate, mostly due to time than anything else, I'm not quite sure what the players were thinking at the end of it all.
I was glad to have run Clockwork and Chivalry. It's a pretty tried and tested game system and I'm sure if the players had a better feel for how powerful their characters were in terms of the game and in terms of each other things might have been even MORE interesting.
For someone looking to run BRP in an alternative history setting where the English are in a civil war, I'd recommend this game. The add ons aren't obtrusive enough to make you not recognize the game system and they can be fun when pitting the characters against different factions and cults that seek to steal their 'zeal' and convert them to the cause.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Games I Ran At GenCon Two: Yggdrasill
Brand new for the convention, Yggdrasill was run twice by me. Well, I should say so brand new that it wasn't actually at the first day of the convention when I ran it.
I'm not going to blather about Yggdrasill too much but since it's a new game will mention a few things. It's a d10 based game that uses a target number. Characters roll a number of dice equal to their stat plus the appropriate skill. Characters get multiple actions per round. Characters have a lot of options going for them at character creation including runes, gifts, weakness, furor, skills, combat feats, magic, and equipment. Some of these options are negative and not all options provide the same benefits even in the same category. Some of them are 'story' or background options.
In terms of layout, typical two column format with some fantastic sepia tinged pages and a few full color art pieces, like for the characters. A very decent looking book.
I didn't feel I did enough work on this one to start with. The game does an excellent job of providing background details and a wide variety of information that would be useful for any game system that was looking to bring some Norse action and excitement to their table. In some ways it reminds me of the best of the older games in that vein where there was enough sourcebook to make it valuable even if you didn't play the actual game engine.
In terms of not feeling I did enough, I'm thinking about the character sheets. The character sheets we were given were straight out of the book. In those terms, they don't include stuff that a con gamer should actually have like weapon damage, what feats do, or what spells do. For another game I ran, I knew enough that I copied those bits out and attached them to the character sheets. Not having run the system before I wasn't quite sure what I should copy.
Ugh. Suffice it to say ugh.
Still, the players caught on to the core system of having to hit a target number even though there are a lot of combat options to choke a cat!
The other problem was the adventure. It wasn't a bad adventure by any stretch of the imagination but it wasn't a con adventure. For me, a con adventure should have a pretty clear goal and a pretty clear way to get to it. This one is almost like a campaign start up where the characters have several areas to investigate and is based off the second act of the adventure as opposed to the first part.
In terms of gameplay, let me say the berserkers are going to be stealing a lot of the limelight until they wipe out the party.
My first game I didn't have the physical book in hand because it had no come out yet but did have the PDF on my Toshiba Thrive Tablet. The party did manage to complete the adventure at the four hour mark and things were good.
My second game was a bit strange. The group showed up an hour early and I had to wait until ten minutes after start time to make sure there were no generics or no ticket event holders that were going to show up. Three of the players, Ed, Hanse, and Gary, were in another game I ran the previous night. I had a 'feel' for how they might approach the game. Eloise was a French Canadian who loved the original French version of the book and was looking forward to it. We have another two players... Ed and Ian I want to say but don't hold me to it.
They did a pretty bang up job on most of the stuff but were a little annoyed at the rules. Because they got there so early they were able to get a fair reading in and noticed some potential 'transalation' errors. I wasn't going to go into it in terms of what might or might not be as I'm not the writer or anything and found some that may be similar to the errors they found. This things happen eh?
Anyway, because of the open nature of the scenario, they didn't even make it outside the city but still managed to meet some of the scenario's objectives. Having an open ended session like that allows for 'victory' under a lot of different circumstances.
Its always interesting to run a game multiple times and see how different people approach the exact same material. If you get the chance to run a Con adventure, try it out and see how those strangers play compared to your close knit group.
I'm not going to blather about Yggdrasill too much but since it's a new game will mention a few things. It's a d10 based game that uses a target number. Characters roll a number of dice equal to their stat plus the appropriate skill. Characters get multiple actions per round. Characters have a lot of options going for them at character creation including runes, gifts, weakness, furor, skills, combat feats, magic, and equipment. Some of these options are negative and not all options provide the same benefits even in the same category. Some of them are 'story' or background options.
In terms of layout, typical two column format with some fantastic sepia tinged pages and a few full color art pieces, like for the characters. A very decent looking book.
I didn't feel I did enough work on this one to start with. The game does an excellent job of providing background details and a wide variety of information that would be useful for any game system that was looking to bring some Norse action and excitement to their table. In some ways it reminds me of the best of the older games in that vein where there was enough sourcebook to make it valuable even if you didn't play the actual game engine.
In terms of not feeling I did enough, I'm thinking about the character sheets. The character sheets we were given were straight out of the book. In those terms, they don't include stuff that a con gamer should actually have like weapon damage, what feats do, or what spells do. For another game I ran, I knew enough that I copied those bits out and attached them to the character sheets. Not having run the system before I wasn't quite sure what I should copy.
Ugh. Suffice it to say ugh.
Still, the players caught on to the core system of having to hit a target number even though there are a lot of combat options to choke a cat!
The other problem was the adventure. It wasn't a bad adventure by any stretch of the imagination but it wasn't a con adventure. For me, a con adventure should have a pretty clear goal and a pretty clear way to get to it. This one is almost like a campaign start up where the characters have several areas to investigate and is based off the second act of the adventure as opposed to the first part.
In terms of gameplay, let me say the berserkers are going to be stealing a lot of the limelight until they wipe out the party.
My first game I didn't have the physical book in hand because it had no come out yet but did have the PDF on my Toshiba Thrive Tablet. The party did manage to complete the adventure at the four hour mark and things were good.
My second game was a bit strange. The group showed up an hour early and I had to wait until ten minutes after start time to make sure there were no generics or no ticket event holders that were going to show up. Three of the players, Ed, Hanse, and Gary, were in another game I ran the previous night. I had a 'feel' for how they might approach the game. Eloise was a French Canadian who loved the original French version of the book and was looking forward to it. We have another two players... Ed and Ian I want to say but don't hold me to it.
They did a pretty bang up job on most of the stuff but were a little annoyed at the rules. Because they got there so early they were able to get a fair reading in and noticed some potential 'transalation' errors. I wasn't going to go into it in terms of what might or might not be as I'm not the writer or anything and found some that may be similar to the errors they found. This things happen eh?
Anyway, because of the open nature of the scenario, they didn't even make it outside the city but still managed to meet some of the scenario's objectives. Having an open ended session like that allows for 'victory' under a lot of different circumstances.
Its always interesting to run a game multiple times and see how different people approach the exact same material. If you get the chance to run a Con adventure, try it out and see how those strangers play compared to your close knit group.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Gen Con: Games I Ran One: Doctor Who
My experience with this year's Doctor Who was interesting.
I don't own the rulebook in a dead tree format. I ran games last year from my tablet. Silly me though took those PDFs off my tablet so I picked up the dead tree version from Cubicle 7 to run it.
Had a blast. I was fortunate enough to have Kurt from GameGeeks pick up and play the Doctor himself and while I don't want to say that his performance encouraged other players to pick up the slack or anything like that, they certainly feed into the game in an organic matter that seemed to me that it would've fit the show perfectly.
The actual organization of the game was a bit wacky though. See, a few of the actual ticket holders were late, but not so late that I couldn't take their tickets, so some waiting to use their generics, couldn't play. And that was after I handed out an extra character that was 'gender neutral' and so had a male and female version, which I just decided were husband and wife. The bad thing though, is that during the game, two of the people had to leave so I could've taken the other individual with the generic tickets. Ah well, outside my control.
Anyway, the game involved some characters coming from a modern time to the 'Victoriana' age so to speak where a certain reptile woman lurks with a few other standbys. The introduction to get all the players together was fairly quick and no one seemed to mind as it was a good flow to get all the characters from different times together without having to actually have everyone start off in the Tardis at once.
The players managed to avoid most combats by use of quick wits and fast talking, as well as some excellent reminders from Kurt that the Doctor is not one to be trifled with.
With I say everyone had a good time, I'm speaking from my own observation. I can't tell you what people were thinking or actually feeling, but the involvement level of almost all the players was pretty high even when they were playing a father desperately worried about his son.
In terms of the game itself, most people seemed very impressed with the new edition. I'm not certain how much has changed between editions because I don't actually play or run enough Doctor Who to break it down, but apparently there is some PDF with the main changes on it. Everyone was impressed with how nice the book looked, the free dice, the billions of story points, the nice cards, the numerous pregenerated characters and most importantly, how sturdy the box was. Apparently the old box wasn't anywhere near as sturdy so people had some gruff concerns about that, but Cubicle 7 took care of that issue by attacking the root cause of the problem.
I don't own the rulebook in a dead tree format. I ran games last year from my tablet. Silly me though took those PDFs off my tablet so I picked up the dead tree version from Cubicle 7 to run it.
Had a blast. I was fortunate enough to have Kurt from GameGeeks pick up and play the Doctor himself and while I don't want to say that his performance encouraged other players to pick up the slack or anything like that, they certainly feed into the game in an organic matter that seemed to me that it would've fit the show perfectly.
The actual organization of the game was a bit wacky though. See, a few of the actual ticket holders were late, but not so late that I couldn't take their tickets, so some waiting to use their generics, couldn't play. And that was after I handed out an extra character that was 'gender neutral' and so had a male and female version, which I just decided were husband and wife. The bad thing though, is that during the game, two of the people had to leave so I could've taken the other individual with the generic tickets. Ah well, outside my control.
Anyway, the game involved some characters coming from a modern time to the 'Victoriana' age so to speak where a certain reptile woman lurks with a few other standbys. The introduction to get all the players together was fairly quick and no one seemed to mind as it was a good flow to get all the characters from different times together without having to actually have everyone start off in the Tardis at once.
The players managed to avoid most combats by use of quick wits and fast talking, as well as some excellent reminders from Kurt that the Doctor is not one to be trifled with.
With I say everyone had a good time, I'm speaking from my own observation. I can't tell you what people were thinking or actually feeling, but the involvement level of almost all the players was pretty high even when they were playing a father desperately worried about his son.
In terms of the game itself, most people seemed very impressed with the new edition. I'm not certain how much has changed between editions because I don't actually play or run enough Doctor Who to break it down, but apparently there is some PDF with the main changes on it. Everyone was impressed with how nice the book looked, the free dice, the billions of story points, the nice cards, the numerous pregenerated characters and most importantly, how sturdy the box was. Apparently the old box wasn't anywhere near as sturdy so people had some gruff concerns about that, but Cubicle 7 took care of that issue by attacking the root cause of the problem.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Gen Con 2011: The remaining loot!
Fantasy Flight Games had prepainted figures for their Cadewallon board game. These figures are based on Confrontation miniatures for the same faction. They're okay, lacking some of the subtle and superb sculpting of the original metals but it's ten figures for $30. And there were two separate boxes so yeah, both of those were bought. I keep hearing gamers talk about non-random figures. If you're one of them and haven't bought these because, "they're not what I want specifically", well, you've just proven why non-random probably will never work. At $3 a fig, it's a good deal.
OSR! Yeah, I stopped by the OSR both. Spoke very briefly with Suzie and Joe. They used to live, or at least hang out, in the Chicagoland area and head out to Games Plus! I kept hearing good things about Vornheim so bought it. Hate that cover though. Also hate the format in terms of its size. Realms of Crawling Chaos... well, it's meant for Labyrinth Lord, but really, I just bought it because it's 'Love craftian Dark Fantasy.' Last was Lesserton and Mor. This is a city sourcebook that I keep hearing good things about. Also for Labyrinth Lord. Note that I didn't buy Joe and Suzie's monster book because I bought the Pathfinder version, also by them, that was not in the OSR both but in the Paizo booth.
I mentioned that for running the six games (one Dr. Who, two Laundry, and three Primeval, which was supposed to be four but John spared me that), I received credit for Cubile 7 products. So what did I get with that? 100 Fantasy Adventure Seeds, 100 Horror Adventure Seeds, two Rite Publishing Presents books, The Breaking of Forstor Nagar and The Gift, Curse of the Golden Spear Part 1. My last purchase was Dragon Lines, Guardians of the Forbidden City, a BRP (same as Chaosium's Cthulhu core system).
The first two were because I enjoy generic or all purpose books. The next two were because I like Pathfinder and I like adventurers. The last... it sounded cool. I could have picked up some other stuff but I was trying to make the credit equal the amount I was spending and it worked out well.
This Gen Con was probably the first where I spend absolutely more money on miniatures and related things (such as maps), then I did books. No comparission. The Gale Force 9 Both, as well as the Savage Mojo Maps and others, along with the Coolminiornot and Warstore purchases, easily blew past the few RPG books I did buy. Hell, I might have spent as much on comics this year.
Speaking of comics, I noted before that there were a lot of third party vendors there. People who are not publishers in and of themselves or are not selling RPGs or gaming products. I mentioned Half Priced books, as well as various clothing and jewelery manufacturing, but probably didn't mention the card sellers and buyers, or the massive comic stand there. They were selling some Omnibus editions, done up for Marvel, for half price and if I had space, and more importantly more money, yeah, there would have been a lot more purchases going on there.
Anyway, the changing face of Gen Con continues to provide me with things to think about and ponderings of smacking up some of the amigos to go next year.
Tomorrow it's back to the dreaded work and then taking the madre back to the doctor. Ugh and double ugh. Worse part is that I'll probably have to stop at Games Plus to pick up some primer, as I didn't buy any while at the convention, because I still try and throw business their way when I can. Ugh again! Ugh I say!
OSR! Yeah, I stopped by the OSR both. Spoke very briefly with Suzie and Joe. They used to live, or at least hang out, in the Chicagoland area and head out to Games Plus! I kept hearing good things about Vornheim so bought it. Hate that cover though. Also hate the format in terms of its size. Realms of Crawling Chaos... well, it's meant for Labyrinth Lord, but really, I just bought it because it's 'Love craftian Dark Fantasy.' Last was Lesserton and Mor. This is a city sourcebook that I keep hearing good things about. Also for Labyrinth Lord. Note that I didn't buy Joe and Suzie's monster book because I bought the Pathfinder version, also by them, that was not in the OSR both but in the Paizo booth.
I mentioned that for running the six games (one Dr. Who, two Laundry, and three Primeval, which was supposed to be four but John spared me that), I received credit for Cubile 7 products. So what did I get with that? 100 Fantasy Adventure Seeds, 100 Horror Adventure Seeds, two Rite Publishing Presents books, The Breaking of Forstor Nagar and The Gift, Curse of the Golden Spear Part 1. My last purchase was Dragon Lines, Guardians of the Forbidden City, a BRP (same as Chaosium's Cthulhu core system).
The first two were because I enjoy generic or all purpose books. The next two were because I like Pathfinder and I like adventurers. The last... it sounded cool. I could have picked up some other stuff but I was trying to make the credit equal the amount I was spending and it worked out well.
This Gen Con was probably the first where I spend absolutely more money on miniatures and related things (such as maps), then I did books. No comparission. The Gale Force 9 Both, as well as the Savage Mojo Maps and others, along with the Coolminiornot and Warstore purchases, easily blew past the few RPG books I did buy. Hell, I might have spent as much on comics this year.
Speaking of comics, I noted before that there were a lot of third party vendors there. People who are not publishers in and of themselves or are not selling RPGs or gaming products. I mentioned Half Priced books, as well as various clothing and jewelery manufacturing, but probably didn't mention the card sellers and buyers, or the massive comic stand there. They were selling some Omnibus editions, done up for Marvel, for half price and if I had space, and more importantly more money, yeah, there would have been a lot more purchases going on there.
Anyway, the changing face of Gen Con continues to provide me with things to think about and ponderings of smacking up some of the amigos to go next year.
Tomorrow it's back to the dreaded work and then taking the madre back to the doctor. Ugh and double ugh. Worse part is that I'll probably have to stop at Games Plus to pick up some primer, as I didn't buy any while at the convention, because I still try and throw business their way when I can. Ugh again! Ugh I say!
Gen Con 2011: Day 4 or Damn My Feet Hurt!
My game of Primeval wasn't scheduled to run until 12:00 today. So I decided to hit the dealer hall one more time. I found a place selling Confrontation miniatures, including the old metal ones, at 50% off. But the same dealer was also doing insane deals on a horde of books and I was pressed for time and I wasn't going to fight that crowd outside of a few bits I managed to snag that were on the end.
The gamers there though, were very fussy. Working the overworked staff even more with esoteric requests and wanting bigger discounts and some were just stupid. For example, if you keep your backpack on your back while people are walking in and out of an aisle, are you going to get hit each and every time? Why yes Mr. Jackass, you are. It's not complicated people. You want to make yourself as small of a target as possible and keeping your backpack on your back while hunched over... probably ain't the way to go about it.
In this instance I myself accidentally cut into the line as one person was asking someone else for help while assembling his pile and expecting to stay in the line as the next person to check out even as he pulled more stuff. I didn't realize that's what he was doing and told the lady at the register I was ready to go so she took care of me. Man, I hope they get paid well or tipped or something because that booth was a disaster.
There were some other good deals on the floor, but the time limit thing kicked my ass. One booth was selling a product I'd bought the other day for like $5 cheaper so I'm going to buy the other company about that. Worst they can do is say no right? But at the War Store, another one of those 3rd party sellers I was talking about there being a lot of, they had a ton of Micro Art Studio bases on sale so I picked up quite a few of them.
The Archai booth was still running theri special where it was buy two graphic novels and get three free. As I read the two Okko novels they had, and they were both solid, and I've read some of their other material, including Mouse Guard, I figured I've get Secret History and got the Killer and Revolution in Silver.
My game at the hotel of Primeval went quick. Probably too quick. These guys are paying $4 for what's supposed to be a four hour game, but I'm not the type of Game Master whose going to provide the scenario and if they players short cut it, throw more stuff in there on the fly. I suppose I could to try and insure maximum value if you will, but at the same time, the further you deviate from the 'script' or pregenerated adventure, the more unfomcortable I'd feel. This was my first time running adventurers here though and I thought that there were some elements of the pregenerated material that could have been handled a little better.
In the postive aspect though, the players weren't short cutting the adventures through bad maneuvers. Rather, every group I had, the players got along well. There was no fighting to see who was going to be in charge or be the boss. They didn't seperate the group. They didn't back stab each other. They listened to me and I didn't have to repeate myself save for when outside conditions prevented them from hearing me.
They listened to each other. They made logical and well thought out moves that well, the modules don't take into account. For example, in the Laundry adventure, there's a hidden element that can cause some issues in relation to a haunted house. The hidden element is outside the house. I ran this adventure twice, and each time, the characters made a full and complete circle around the house and noticed the well and investigated it. Why wouldn't they when looking into a haunted house? Primeval had a few similiar situations where it was like... why would they do X when Y is right there?
Overall though, it appeared that the players had fun. One of the other guys running Primeval, John, made some buttons, so I handed those out, as well as the rule sections I was referring during game play to try and make up some of the potential loss.
It was certainly a learning experience for me though and I'll be making a LOT more notes and customizations and reprints prior to any running. It's not that the material was heavily flawed or anything, but when running material off of PDF, the more that I can put directly onto the character sheets and have the players reference themselves, the better.
After that, I went and grabbed some lunch and some high end chocolates for the girlfriend and it was on the way home.
In terms of the convention, running the adventurers can take a lot out of you. On the first day, I ran three and on the second, two. My voice was hoarse and hurting a bit but I had a good time so it didn't bother me. More painful though, were the blisters. Mucho blisters. Still have them. Using antibacterial bandages and some wraps. Can't pop the bastards as that skin provides a layer of protection.
I stayed at the Hilton. It was a nice set up with two rooms. One room was a fold out couch. I took that because it had a hook up for a laptop. The other room had two bedrooms and immediate access to the bathroom. the bathroom had a poor design. The door didn't lock and there was a seperate door for the toilet itself.
The shower though was great. The shower I have at home sucks. Being a tall bastard at 6'6", I have to constantly bend over to wash out the old hair. Not so here! It was great. Water pressure was solid as well.
There was also a microwave and a mini-fridge. I used the fridge to freeze some kit-kat bars that I picked up during one of my many trips to the CVS drugstore... oops... lost the water bottle... oops, didn't bring hair gel or a comb.... ooopps.. feet are killing me and need bandages... etc...
The food in Indianapolis varied. There was a pizza place across for the Hilton next to the Downtown Comic store. Their pizza and soda was like $8 for two slices and a drink and it sucked. Mind you, I'm from Chicago so perhaps it's just me. There was a bbq place though, that had decent brisket. The place I went today to pick up the chocalate had a decent chicken maranaria sandwhich, but also, heavily overpriced. Champs wasn't bad as I had another chicken variant there. Another place had pineapple and spicy mustard chicken sandwich variant. My first day there I ate at the place with the train station and had a burger. It was not good.
The food prices weren't outrageous or anything, but I felt that there were generally too high by a few bones each times. If I can beat a few of the amigos over the head and go next year, I think I'll try to take advantage of the fridge and microwave. I've done that before though and it's a balancing act of too little of this, too much of that.
The other viewing pleasure of the area was the homeless. And I'm not busting on the homeless here, but there were two separate groups that I managed to listen to talking about their 'game plan' to try and maximize their 'take' of the convention goers talking about where they were going to set up, what signs they were going to use, etc... I gave out $1 to a guy who was friendly and pointing out the various bits in the town on my second day here because he didn't ask for anything. I also found that when I didn't ware the badge, I didn't get bothered. Strange eh?
The downtown area itself... well, the mayor should be beaten. Construction was the key word here and it was everywhere. Why the hell you'd want so much construction when you've got a convention going on with thousands, if not tens of thousands of people (anyone got any numbers?) is beyond me. Either the guys doing the job lied to him or Gen Con getting bumped up screwed with some time lines or the other conventions coming down the road are more popular. At any rate, that was another contributing factor to the tale of my blister ridden feet.
In terms of "weird", prior to going to the dealer's hall today, I made a pit stop into the auction hall. Gee, it's closed on Sunday. Only pick up. Shakes fist angrily at air. Hopefully if I go again next year I can remember to go there early and look for old miniatures from the old Grenadier line and others.
Traffic on the way home was a breeze outside of oh, the three storms I ran into. One of them had a few lightning strikes and one of those was very close and scared the hell out of me. Sounded like a bomb went off across the way and it all became very bright. Fortunately at that point the whole of traffic was going very slow.
The other problem is that as a dumb ass, I got off at the wrong stop so instead of being home, I was on the old South Side by China Town! The old Thin Lizzy song kept playing in my head even as Sevendust was on the radio.
Overall, I enjoyed it. If my feet weren't so tore up, I would've done more though, especially in terms of checking out the movies, paint and take, and pick up games. There were a few games I wanted to bring along, like the card game Nuts, as well as the build your board, Forbidden Island, but they, along with my dice initially, and other bits, were left at home.
In terms of technology, the laptop stays home next year. I thought I was going to die carrying that and the tablet around as well as all the damn chargers. The tablet proved its utility when on Thursday, having to run a game at 8:00 in the morning, I was able to download a dice app. I'm sure I would've found one for the laptop, but having both of them meant I could reference the adventure on the laptop and just roll the dice on the tablet. That aspect worked but I'll sacrifice that visual ease for the back ease.
I've still got to hook up my camera. I took a bunch of pictures of stupid things, like the old buildings and what not and I'll be talking about the whys of that when I ping them up. Like I mentioned before, dozens of people have done up the troll, drizzt, the privateer press stuff and other goods so I didn't see a need for it.
In terms of Gen Con news... I think the internet has spoiled us. There was a pod cast or something about the new products coming down the line for 4e and I could swear all of those products were known qualities. Sure, more information about them was doled out as well as more releases for the fortune cards for 4e but I didn't find that newsworthy.
Cortex getting the Marvel license was big but... comic licenses are tricky. Take Green Ronin with their DC line up. I don't think they've even got the whole thing done and hey, DC has rebooted the line. It was a similar problem with Mayfair had the license and I'm sure it will continue to be a problem. Is Green Ronin going to have to do a reboot? Are new fans of DC going to pick up the RPG and wonder what the hell it is and why so much basic information is wrong? Some yes and some no I'm sure.
I was personally more excited by the upcoming random dungeon rolling dice by Inkwell. I was also glad to see that Paizo is doing an anniversary edition of Rise of the Runelords converting the whole thing to the Pathfinder system, updating some of the information, and making the whole bit run smoother.
The One Ring sold well. Burning Wheel Gold sold out. Not sure what else was moving or selling though.
So that in a nutshell is my observations of Gen Con. If you don't get a chance to go, you really should at least one year to see what the fuss is about. It's more expensive then ever I admit but it can be a great time.
The gamers there though, were very fussy. Working the overworked staff even more with esoteric requests and wanting bigger discounts and some were just stupid. For example, if you keep your backpack on your back while people are walking in and out of an aisle, are you going to get hit each and every time? Why yes Mr. Jackass, you are. It's not complicated people. You want to make yourself as small of a target as possible and keeping your backpack on your back while hunched over... probably ain't the way to go about it.
In this instance I myself accidentally cut into the line as one person was asking someone else for help while assembling his pile and expecting to stay in the line as the next person to check out even as he pulled more stuff. I didn't realize that's what he was doing and told the lady at the register I was ready to go so she took care of me. Man, I hope they get paid well or tipped or something because that booth was a disaster.
There were some other good deals on the floor, but the time limit thing kicked my ass. One booth was selling a product I'd bought the other day for like $5 cheaper so I'm going to buy the other company about that. Worst they can do is say no right? But at the War Store, another one of those 3rd party sellers I was talking about there being a lot of, they had a ton of Micro Art Studio bases on sale so I picked up quite a few of them.
The Archai booth was still running theri special where it was buy two graphic novels and get three free. As I read the two Okko novels they had, and they were both solid, and I've read some of their other material, including Mouse Guard, I figured I've get Secret History and got the Killer and Revolution in Silver.
My game at the hotel of Primeval went quick. Probably too quick. These guys are paying $4 for what's supposed to be a four hour game, but I'm not the type of Game Master whose going to provide the scenario and if they players short cut it, throw more stuff in there on the fly. I suppose I could to try and insure maximum value if you will, but at the same time, the further you deviate from the 'script' or pregenerated adventure, the more unfomcortable I'd feel. This was my first time running adventurers here though and I thought that there were some elements of the pregenerated material that could have been handled a little better.
In the postive aspect though, the players weren't short cutting the adventures through bad maneuvers. Rather, every group I had, the players got along well. There was no fighting to see who was going to be in charge or be the boss. They didn't seperate the group. They didn't back stab each other. They listened to me and I didn't have to repeate myself save for when outside conditions prevented them from hearing me.
They listened to each other. They made logical and well thought out moves that well, the modules don't take into account. For example, in the Laundry adventure, there's a hidden element that can cause some issues in relation to a haunted house. The hidden element is outside the house. I ran this adventure twice, and each time, the characters made a full and complete circle around the house and noticed the well and investigated it. Why wouldn't they when looking into a haunted house? Primeval had a few similiar situations where it was like... why would they do X when Y is right there?
Overall though, it appeared that the players had fun. One of the other guys running Primeval, John, made some buttons, so I handed those out, as well as the rule sections I was referring during game play to try and make up some of the potential loss.
It was certainly a learning experience for me though and I'll be making a LOT more notes and customizations and reprints prior to any running. It's not that the material was heavily flawed or anything, but when running material off of PDF, the more that I can put directly onto the character sheets and have the players reference themselves, the better.
After that, I went and grabbed some lunch and some high end chocolates for the girlfriend and it was on the way home.
In terms of the convention, running the adventurers can take a lot out of you. On the first day, I ran three and on the second, two. My voice was hoarse and hurting a bit but I had a good time so it didn't bother me. More painful though, were the blisters. Mucho blisters. Still have them. Using antibacterial bandages and some wraps. Can't pop the bastards as that skin provides a layer of protection.
I stayed at the Hilton. It was a nice set up with two rooms. One room was a fold out couch. I took that because it had a hook up for a laptop. The other room had two bedrooms and immediate access to the bathroom. the bathroom had a poor design. The door didn't lock and there was a seperate door for the toilet itself.
The shower though was great. The shower I have at home sucks. Being a tall bastard at 6'6", I have to constantly bend over to wash out the old hair. Not so here! It was great. Water pressure was solid as well.
There was also a microwave and a mini-fridge. I used the fridge to freeze some kit-kat bars that I picked up during one of my many trips to the CVS drugstore... oops... lost the water bottle... oops, didn't bring hair gel or a comb.... ooopps.. feet are killing me and need bandages... etc...
The food in Indianapolis varied. There was a pizza place across for the Hilton next to the Downtown Comic store. Their pizza and soda was like $8 for two slices and a drink and it sucked. Mind you, I'm from Chicago so perhaps it's just me. There was a bbq place though, that had decent brisket. The place I went today to pick up the chocalate had a decent chicken maranaria sandwhich, but also, heavily overpriced. Champs wasn't bad as I had another chicken variant there. Another place had pineapple and spicy mustard chicken sandwich variant. My first day there I ate at the place with the train station and had a burger. It was not good.
The food prices weren't outrageous or anything, but I felt that there were generally too high by a few bones each times. If I can beat a few of the amigos over the head and go next year, I think I'll try to take advantage of the fridge and microwave. I've done that before though and it's a balancing act of too little of this, too much of that.
The other viewing pleasure of the area was the homeless. And I'm not busting on the homeless here, but there were two separate groups that I managed to listen to talking about their 'game plan' to try and maximize their 'take' of the convention goers talking about where they were going to set up, what signs they were going to use, etc... I gave out $1 to a guy who was friendly and pointing out the various bits in the town on my second day here because he didn't ask for anything. I also found that when I didn't ware the badge, I didn't get bothered. Strange eh?
The downtown area itself... well, the mayor should be beaten. Construction was the key word here and it was everywhere. Why the hell you'd want so much construction when you've got a convention going on with thousands, if not tens of thousands of people (anyone got any numbers?) is beyond me. Either the guys doing the job lied to him or Gen Con getting bumped up screwed with some time lines or the other conventions coming down the road are more popular. At any rate, that was another contributing factor to the tale of my blister ridden feet.
In terms of "weird", prior to going to the dealer's hall today, I made a pit stop into the auction hall. Gee, it's closed on Sunday. Only pick up. Shakes fist angrily at air. Hopefully if I go again next year I can remember to go there early and look for old miniatures from the old Grenadier line and others.
Traffic on the way home was a breeze outside of oh, the three storms I ran into. One of them had a few lightning strikes and one of those was very close and scared the hell out of me. Sounded like a bomb went off across the way and it all became very bright. Fortunately at that point the whole of traffic was going very slow.
The other problem is that as a dumb ass, I got off at the wrong stop so instead of being home, I was on the old South Side by China Town! The old Thin Lizzy song kept playing in my head even as Sevendust was on the radio.
Overall, I enjoyed it. If my feet weren't so tore up, I would've done more though, especially in terms of checking out the movies, paint and take, and pick up games. There were a few games I wanted to bring along, like the card game Nuts, as well as the build your board, Forbidden Island, but they, along with my dice initially, and other bits, were left at home.
In terms of technology, the laptop stays home next year. I thought I was going to die carrying that and the tablet around as well as all the damn chargers. The tablet proved its utility when on Thursday, having to run a game at 8:00 in the morning, I was able to download a dice app. I'm sure I would've found one for the laptop, but having both of them meant I could reference the adventure on the laptop and just roll the dice on the tablet. That aspect worked but I'll sacrifice that visual ease for the back ease.
I've still got to hook up my camera. I took a bunch of pictures of stupid things, like the old buildings and what not and I'll be talking about the whys of that when I ping them up. Like I mentioned before, dozens of people have done up the troll, drizzt, the privateer press stuff and other goods so I didn't see a need for it.
In terms of Gen Con news... I think the internet has spoiled us. There was a pod cast or something about the new products coming down the line for 4e and I could swear all of those products were known qualities. Sure, more information about them was doled out as well as more releases for the fortune cards for 4e but I didn't find that newsworthy.
Cortex getting the Marvel license was big but... comic licenses are tricky. Take Green Ronin with their DC line up. I don't think they've even got the whole thing done and hey, DC has rebooted the line. It was a similar problem with Mayfair had the license and I'm sure it will continue to be a problem. Is Green Ronin going to have to do a reboot? Are new fans of DC going to pick up the RPG and wonder what the hell it is and why so much basic information is wrong? Some yes and some no I'm sure.
I was personally more excited by the upcoming random dungeon rolling dice by Inkwell. I was also glad to see that Paizo is doing an anniversary edition of Rise of the Runelords converting the whole thing to the Pathfinder system, updating some of the information, and making the whole bit run smoother.
The One Ring sold well. Burning Wheel Gold sold out. Not sure what else was moving or selling though.
So that in a nutshell is my observations of Gen Con. If you don't get a chance to go, you really should at least one year to see what the fuss is about. It's more expensive then ever I admit but it can be a great time.
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