Well, gone again is another GenCon. I swear they always seem to fly by so fast. This year was especially strange. With all the big changes in my life just months before, I somehow missed all the anticipation time leading up to GenCon. My head simply wasn’t in the right place to thoroughly enjoy GenCon this year, at least not until Saturday, and once I was finally in the groove it was too late, the convention was almost over. Thus, I would rate this year a solid “good” for GenCon. Not the worst by far, that prize easily goes to the year I ended up working a miniatures booth, but also not the best. “Good to Very Good” in the parlance of the auction house I’d say.
I’ll go over specific stuff later, but for now, here are some lessons learned this year:
1. Get the later flight home. While it’s true I’ve almost never played any actual games on GenCon Sunday, the fact is my brain needs that time to wind down and say goodbye to GenCon. I found myself doing that instead Saturday night this year, and in the later hours it took a good amount of will to show up to my last game. Seeing folks entering the convention hall for one more day as I was off to the airport was especially hard.
2. Don’t leave time for the auction. I love going to the auction, but the fact is, even though I left time open to go to it when I ended up there it was always stuff I wasn’t particularly interested in: historic war games, unpainted miniatures, CCGs, etc. I managed to miss the cool TSR RPG section due to being in a game at the time. I will certainly try to get to the auction when I can in the future, but trying to guess at the schedule is foolish. One exception: Saturday night is always TOVA and the charity auction, and I should make an effort to keep that night free.
3. Enough with the early morning games already! Also, 10-12 is not enough time for a real game. Suggestion: ear-mark 10-12 for roaming the exhibit hall, then have an afternoon game scheduled, and then Thurs/Fri night for more gaming and Sat night for TOVA.
4. The secret door in Hammer of the God is too well hidden.
5. Run more stuff. This year I enjoyed running my own games more than playing in any others. Running games leads to an easier to predict schedule, though perhaps at the expense of flexibility (can’t really skip your own games).
OK, that’s all my very tired brain can come up with right now. I may come back to this later after I write up actual reports on what I did and saw this year.
ear-mark 10-12 for roaming the exhibit hall, then have an afternoon game scheduled
That’s totally how I planned my schedule this year.
I definitively agree on #4. I doubt that anyone who has ever played that module found that door!