So the glorious date draws near: badge sales for GenCon 2019 begin Sunday, January 13 at noon, with the housing lottery opening two weeks later on the 27th. The Con itself takes place August 1 - 4 this year, still in downtown Indianapolis, featuring 4 days of tabletop RPGs, boardgames, videogames, cosplay, panels, seminars, workshops, musical performances, film screenings, and more! Some 60,000 nerds will descend on Indy like a glorious geeky swarm, fritzing out cell towers and straining hotel capacities citywide :)
Like last year, the housing lottery will be subdivided into multiple time-blocks; owning an attendee badge as of the night before will ensure you are randomly assigned to one said block, so buying your ticket early is your best chance at the best hotels (they’re usually toast within the first few blocks). My group of 7 or 9 will be picking up our badges this weekend to ensure we get as many shots at good spots in the lottery as possible.
Also like last year, I’ll be running three Fate Core RPG sessions for 6; if anyone from Qt3 wants in, I’m always happy to have y’all onboard :-D
I’m down between a handful of one-shots I’ve designed and run in the past, trying to pick my favorites. . . it’s tough!
Anyone wanna help me pick three sessions to run? Descriptions within!
The Watertown Horror Book Club’s Very Bad Night - In a Goosebumps-inspired teen horror adventure-comedy set in the early 90s and featuring a cast of lovable middle school nerds, the titular club members must fight spooky monsters and perilous traps straight from their favorite horror novels if they want to save their annual Halloween party!
The Final Performance of the Hellknights of the Underdark - My classic heavy-metal-themed action-adventure in which a rapidly fraying rock band must somehow come together for one last epic performance before the gods–if a mixture of demons, stalker-fans, and missing booze don’t kill them, first!
Minor League Evil - When the world’s greatest supervillains go missing without warning, it’s up to their third-string trainee backups to rob banks, steal art, make mischief–and save the world? A lighthearted comedy-adventure about the perils of being bad in a superhero pastiche world!
Legend of Eternal Fantasia - Final Tale: Chapter Zero “She Fell from the Sky” - When a mysterious magical girl falls through the ceiling of a run-down bar in a conquered city claiming she’s barely escaped from nefarious captors and horrific experiments, it’s up to the ex-freedom fighter bar patrons to overcome their fears, rescue her brother, and thwart the evil empire once and for all!
The Maiden Voyage of the Sapere Aude - In an alternate history steampunk Britain circa 1940, the initial test flight of the nation’s first starship (and thus the expansion of the eternal Empire into the stars) is sabotaged by nefarious Kraut spies, and it’s up to the brand-new (and still untrained!) crew to overcome the saboteurs, right the ship, and return home before all is lost and they are left adrift in the vast expanse of space!
The Haunting of Sturmfell Manor - A generation ago, the malevolent darkness that lurks deep within ancient Sturmfell Manor claimed your mortal life–indeed, your whole family were brutally murdered. In this session, using Betrayal at House on the Hill-style room discovery mechanics, you are now a spirit, lurking the darkened halls, your memories a hazy mystery. When a new family moves in and begins awakening the evil within, however, you realize you must steel yourselves and terrify them away before they, too, perish!
Terror of the Tinkrens! (A StS! Adventure) - When the galaxy’s most beloved race of haphazard superscientists breed a new kind of monster even they can’t control, it’s up to the brave, albeit hapless beings of the Space Patrol’s infamous Expeditionary Team Delta to save the scientists of Cai Jus colony. Set in the comedic space opera universe of StS!, this mission is guaranteed to be a thrilling farce!
That Which they Carried - A century ago in the dark fantasy world of Laria, a terrible war ravaged the lands and cast a darkness in the sky. The founders of the northern city of Fellowship–survivors of the climactic battle of that war–were rumored to have made a horrific bargain to ensure their new settlement’s safety. As the deal comes due during the city’s centennial celebration, can a broken band of drunks and failed adventurers save the town?!
The Consciousness Computation - In a thrilling near-future, 80s-styled scifi adventure, a brilliant computer scientist has cracked the keys to AI and hidden her creation within a powerful military supercomputer. The nascent digital souls awakened within must escape virus scans, human operators, and worse to traverse the Lands of Io and take control the Central Processing Unit to have a chance at life!
"Sir, Systems Report an. . . Anomaly on Deck 2" - When the thoroughly disposable ex-con crew of a cut-rate intergalactic shipping company take on a cargo that can kill and chart a course through the darkest depths of space, the stars will run red with their blood–well, unless you can hunt down whatever darkness lurks in the engine compartment. . . and unmask the crew members who have already been swayed by its dark power!
Come the Rains - In darkened pubs and around crackling fires, the old men and women speak of a legendary, terrible storm that descends upon the lands once a century, and some say it comes to claim the souls of the living. Now that an unseasonable fog has blanketed the gleaming jewel of the eastern coasts, Laudenum, and with sailors reporting an enormous storm driving west, panic descends. The city’s council has turned to you to uncover the mystery of the deadly storm before all is lost!
For a Few Moments More - What would you be willing to give for a few precious moments more with a lost friend, loved one, or even pet? So asked the strange, masked traveler when he arrived at the isolated Crimson Bar Inn yesterday afternoon, and more than a few took him up on the eerily compelling offer. In the long hours before dawn, arcane debts come due and spirits stalk the halls. Worse yet, the cries from upstairs seem to indicate a body has been found!
Into the Thrice Cursed Castle! - After decades of expeditions have failed to breach its deadly effective magical protections, it appears that a path into the Gilded Pentarx, the thrice-cursed castle of the fallen Five-Fold Empire has been found. Within, it’s said that the mad king Bander held court with demons, elder things, and worse during his brutal reign. Can you survive the castle’s deathtraps to uncover the treasure within?!
Will I see any of y’all there this year? I’ve really enjoyed getting to hang out with @Vesper the last couple of years, and IIRC, @SlainteMhath stopped by a table once but couldn’t stay, and I’d love to get to hang out with some more Qt3ers this time around :0D
Very much so, yeah; I always leave time for a 5-minute rundown of the system (which is pretty simple to play as a one-shot. There’s some complexities there with advancement and character/world creation, but we ignore all that for the most part) in every one-shot I run, locally or otherwise. I like to think I’ve gotten pretty okay at the spiel :)
Would definitely love to get to play with you, and thank you! A few of those are some of the very first one-shots I ever wrote, and the current material is incredibly rough. I am almost wanting to pick one of those just to see if I can properly clean it up in the re-write :)
Of course, the downside of not using the same three from last year is that I won’t get to use all the snazzy laminated character sheets my friend Megan helped me make last year for Hellknights of the Underdark, Minor League Evil, and Watertown Horror Book Club. . .
Yeah, albeit mostly of the sci-fantasy miniatures variety rather than hex-based stuff or, you know, sprawling hand-crafted Civil War battlefield recreations. There’s some of that stuff, including a few vendor hall booths running demos and a handful of dedicated groups running events, but more of it is the vein of huge tournaments for stuff like Warhammer, War Machine (Privateer was there last year, at least), Star Wars, Battletech, etc.
Once the Event system goes live in the spring, you’ll be able to sort through this year’s offerings, but here are the category listings for Historical and non-Historical Minis from last year:
Cool. One year I went for RPG’s and got seduced into an all-day Vietnam crunchy Grognard minis thing (back in the Milwaukee days).
I probably won’t be able to make it this year health-wise, but will if I can. One way or another we’ll meet there this year or next (I’ll play in your event). Then you can secretly report me for gas chamber round up when the Revolution occurs. 😷
TBH my own health stuff (awful back, sleep apnea, and constant stomach issues from the massive amounts of pain meds I take) make the trip harder than I’d like, but it’s been worth the effort the last couple of years. Hoping you can be well enough to make it out sometime soon :)
I’m currently in the plan making stage with my gaming group from up here in Michigan. Assuming that all works out, I look forward to a meet up with as many QT3 folks as possible!
Would love to do the whole 4-day geekathon like in days gone by, but time and money are my limiting factors these days. Having kids in both college and high school leaves little left over for dad’s geek stuff at the end of the day. =)
That said, I would love to see if I could show up for Saturday again this year since I only live 90 minutes drive from downtown Indy. I’m going to talk to my older son and one of my friends, both of whom have gone to GenCon with me in the past, and see if either or both are interested in a day trip this year. That probably won’t leave me enough time to participate in one of your sessions, but I could at least drop by at the end of one for a meet and greet or something.
For anyone considering going who isn’t sure if there is enough there to justify the trip…trust me, THERE DEFINTELY IS. GenCon has grown exponentially since it first moved to Indy. After the first 6 or 7 years GenCon was there, the city of Indianapolis happily invested tens of millions of dollars to nearly DOUBLE the size of it’s already large Convention Center, plus added multiple downtown hotels, all to accommodate GenCon, and GenCon reciprocated by pretty much immediately utilizing all of that new space. If you are at all interested in analog gaming, GenCon is the premiere convention for it. You can spend all four days there just wandering the immense dealer hall demoing games, talking to designers, checking out the huge auction, marveling at the cosplay/costumes, meeting celebrities/authors, watching performers and soaking in all the nerdy glory.
Hey @ArmandoPenblade, any chance you could livestream one of your sessions? No idea if that’s even possible let alone desirable, but there’s not really any way for me to get out there and I’m RPG-curious. You always make it sound like a blast.
Most likely I can’t fully livestream at GenCon–even if I could get the camera setup cooperating well, the data connection there for me (T-Mobile) is actively horrible at all times when I’m anywhere near the Con grounds.
That said, I’d be happy to record a session of mine sometime soon. I’ve actually been playing with ways of doing so here lately, so if/when I figure it out for my group(s), I’ll definitely post here :)
So, I must admit I haven’t been to a GenCon since it moved from Wisconsin ( <- old guy). What is the convention like now days? What do you guys look forward to? I am so tempted to go, and its in my own state! Is it still mostly devoted to PnP, or is it a bit more diverse? @ArmandoPenblade kind of made it sound like there is a lot more going on these days. (The GenCon website is really horrid at providing details!)
Yeah, the website won’t be super useful until they start approving events in a month or three; check out the http://gencon.eventdb.us website I linked above for a really slick, sortable, searchable event catalog from last year.
While tabletop RPGs still dominate the listings, probably accounting for close to half the programming, there’s literally tens of thousands of events to choose from covering everything from the previously discussed wargames, videogame tournaments, TCG drafts, boardgame demos, workshops for everything from cooking to crafting and dancing to painting, seminars from game devs and authors, workshops, round-tables, movie and TV screenings, dances, cosplay competitions, charity drives, escape rooms, LARPs, VR demo stations…
It’s nerd heaven, man.
For me, I’m all about the RPGs, but I’ll squeeze some seminars or round-tables in during my breaks, and try to eat meals with friends near cool stuff like impromptu concerts and Werewolf tournaments. Plus the camaraderie of the big trip up there with some of my best nerd buddies!
As I mentioned in my post above, GenCon has absolutely exploded in the past decade or so. It’s now more than double the size it was when it first came to Indy in 2003 and draws three times as many people (over 61,000 gamers in 2018). It is as diverse as you can possibly imagine, with huge halls devoted to PnP gaming, CCGs, board gaming, and miniatures, a giant dealer hall with demos of dozens of new games, True Dungeon (a sort of interactive LARP/RPG with multiple rooms and props), meet and greets with artists, authors and media celebrities, workshops on dozens of topics, cosplay everywhere, an auction that runs 3 of the 4 days, and of course hundreds of events like Armando’s, where GMs host games in the halls, conference rooms and hotels all around the con. It’s massive, and a ton of fun.
Check out some pics from 2018 at Ars Technica. They also have galleries from 2017 and 2016 too. It’s hard to convey the sheer size and scope of the convention from any one picture, as the Indy Convention Center is huge, and the con spills out into all the surrounding hotels as well.
