"The dragon, as it dies, falls on top of your unconsious companion, killing him." - Unknown (GM licence rebuked)

Okay, so some of you, probably most of you, based on how excited I was know that last week I was at GENCON! This, being the largest gaming convention in the world, probably deserves a blog entry for itself. Thus, with no further adjure, it begins!

I should probably start with what I was doing. During my time in America, I would like to thank Ben Lash, David Meierfrankenfeld and Ed Lehman for ensuring that I stayed into my roleplaying games. Ben and David also set up a good group of Pathfinder Society players, allowing me to get back into GMing, and allowing me to learn the Pathfinder system (from which I doubt I will ever return!) Due to this, at Connetticon, I met the venture captain for NY, Art Lobdell, who managed to organise me running as a tier 1 pathfinder judge at GenCon in Indianapolis. 

Yeah, that place. I think they get the point Matt! 

So, on Tue 2nd, I set off on the longest car journey of my life. Around 700 miles across 6 states to get to Indianapolis. But man was it worth it! 

Starting Wednesday, I had signed up to run 3 slots of PFS at Scott's Brewhouse, as a pre-GenCon bash. This was crazy busy, great fun with the awesome atmosphere of the pub, filled to the brink with gamers from all over, though I think I was the only English GM there! The place even had a special GenCon menu with items like "magic missles" and "Cthulu burgers", not sure what they were, but that was all part of the fun. 

The next day GenCon started! 8am slots meant that it was an early start for the PFS guys. Soon, outside the PFS room was covered with eager players, wanting some PFS fun! So, with a loud "Ready or not, here they come!", they crammed themselves in to the appropriately 70 tables, each complete with a grinning GM, ready to mercilessly slay them all at the hands of his budding minions... kidding! 

Players waiting for the GenCon special: Blood
under Absalom

And so the madness began. Each new slot brought new players, new modules, new plots and new sources of fun! It was awesome, (with the exception of one player, don't ask) everyone who played at my tables was a great guy (or girl) and I'm glad I met everyone there.

I won't go through each slot, because that will take ages, but some highlights included the writer of a module watching me run his module and him playing one of the NPCs throughout, some awesome Kobold roleplaying in "Sewer Dragons" and the sheer madness of the GenCon special event, even if my party were not greatly balanced. 

Just a small section of the Dealer's room. For more
photos, see my facebook album, which I'm about to make! 

Some notes about the con. Got time to check out the dealers hall and the open gaming area for a bit, watching and quickly playing some of the newest games, I'm looking forward to getting my copy of Quarriors soon, which is an awesome looking game. I was immensely surprised by the look of Battleship Galaxies, though I didn't have time to play it myself and Star Ward X-Wing looks like a great load of fun, though that might just be my star wars geek talking. Also there was a game using Rubber Duckies! (But I can't remember what it was called) 

After some close calls with losing my voice and killing party members (had 4 players down to 1hp off death...  , the con was over! I quickly got out on my plane to NC, for an experiment at Duke university, where I currently find myself. 

I'm currently looking forward to seeing Soph, my parents and my sister( 2 mentions!), 2 days after I get back from NC! Yup, it's all go atm! 

So, I'm sure I'll put another short blog about my time here in sunny NC (it's weird having to take my jumper OFF to go outside!) so ya'll can look for'ard t' that! 

Achievement Unlocked! 

Thanks for listening!