GenCon 2020: A Glorious Glimpse of Gaming Goodness

Games
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Once more, the blessed date draws near: badge sales for GenCon 2020 kicked off last month, and the housing lottery is opening up this Sunday, February 8th, at noon. The Con itself takes place July 30 - August 2 this year, consuming the totality of downtown Indianapolis, featuring four full days of tabletop RPGs, boardgames, videogames, cosplay, panels, seminars, workshops, musical performances, film screenings, and more! Will you join the 60,000+ nerd petitioners on this year’s pilgrimage, or perhaps attend one of the new Pop-Up GenCon experiences being offered in game stores around the nation? Maybe you’ll follow along on the official stream, instead. Or perhaps you’ll just check out our stories here in the official thread, much as in past years. . .

Like last year, the housing lottery will be subdivided into multiple time-blocks that go all through the day; all badge-holders are randomly assigned to one said block, so buying your ticket by this Friday is your best chance at getting into the best hotels (they’re usually toast within the first few blocks). My GenCon group has swelled to 11 (possibly 12!), giving us plenty of chances of an early time slot, but also putting a pretty heavy load on the amount of space we’ll need to house everyone!

Then, finally, Event Registration opens up on May 17th. You can create a Wishlist of events you want into well before then as they’re slowly approved and added to the system through April and May, then be online right as the floodgates open to hit your submit button and pray. I usually go about 50/50, and then there’s the madness of trying to fill out a schedule of events with the leavings :)

Like the last few years, I’m gonna be running at least three RPG sessions this year in-person, and very, very much would love to see y’all if possible! In fact, I’m actually pretty stuck on what sessions to run. I’ve got a big well of one-shots I’ve designed for local events with Raleigh Tabletop RPGs over the many years I’ve been in the area, but I’ve also been developing a Fate-based campaign setting/rulesystem that’s been a big success here locally, with more than 20 players in last year’s 3-month, 18-session season. Maybe this is the year to debut StS! at GenCon??

Anyone wanna help me pick three sessions to run? Hit up the poll!

Will I see any of y’all there this year? I’ve really enjoyed getting to hang out with @Vesper (and his brother!) the last couple of years and had a really pleasant time eating with @ineffablebob last year, and @Harkonis got to watch me stuffing my face with gigantic deep dish pizzas for a bit, and I’d love to get to hang out with some more Qt3ers this time around :-D

I’ll be in town Wednesday night through Monday morning this time around, so if you’re there and wanna get up to shenanigans, definitely drop me a line!

Just for shits and giggles, I’m also gonna take this opportunity to harangue @Mark_Asher, @SlainteMhath, and @Navaronegun who sadly couldn’t make it out for various reasons last year. If time and money allow, it’s always awesome to get a chance to hang out with great Qt3 folks amidst the madness.

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(oh god my car was so fucking full on the way home last year)

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Ok that photo of the car is funny.

Maybe I can take a Friday off and drive up. It’s about a four hour drive I think.

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How much of that trunk is “supplies” (gaming materials)?

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I’ll be there!

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It’s a damn fun time…must be, for us to keep driving the 12 hours and fighting the masses on hotel and event registration days each year…hah

It’s also nice as a nerdy touchstone. My best friend from college comes each year now, and we hang out. Some friends from the camp I used to with at come, too, and I get to see them, often for the first time in years. There’s a real sense of community, IMO, despite the absurd scale of things.

For my part, I had a gigantic backpack full of note cards, markers, pens, pencils, whiteboards, laptops, dice, game rules and character sheets, books, charging cables, tokens, speakers, hand sanitizer, and more, plus a big bag with my laminator for the character sheets I was maaaaybe still finalizing the first night we were in Indy… Buddy of mine brought the full set HEXplore It games, which we played Sunday night. I also bought a TON of liquor that’s impossible to get in NC…is that a gaming supply??

But yeah folks bought a ton of source books, board games, knick knacks…we had one cosplayer in my car who, among other things, had a three piece suit in a bag for a vampire costume he did.

We also tend to bring a huge stash of communal food to share. Like 40 breakfast bars, a couple of pounds is trail mix, tons of chips, two full loaves of bread with pb and j, 32 water bottles, tons of Monster drinks, heh…

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Depends on the game, I guess.

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I’m going this year! First timer

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That’s awesome! My first sojourn was just a few years ago, during the 50th anniversary convention. It was a hell of a time, and left me planning to come for as many more years as I could afford and survive. Cuz damn walking around in the Indy heat is hard. . .

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@ArmandoPenblade my friend, I would very much like to attend this year and get into one of your legendary games or just hang out and eat somewhere, but I already know for sure I can’t do a multi-day trip this time. I may be able to pop over to Indy on the Saturday of the con, but won’t even know that for sure until later this year. Hopefully all the SAT badges aren’t sold out by then.

I highly encourage everyone else who has ever thought about going to GenCon to just DO IT. I went annually for years after it moved to Indy (about 90 minutes from me) and loved it. It’s only gotten bigger and better since. If you are at all into board/card/PnP/dice/LARP/RP/mini/whatever games, GenCon is a bucket list experience.

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I’ve never been, but I am planning my trip. Looking forward to going. Totally need a list of places to go eat and things to do in the evening (beside gaming) although we all know i’m going to be gaming in my hotel room.

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I’m a big fan of Giordano’s Chicago style deep dish, and the nearby mall is a pretty great place for a more relaxing but still fast and inexpensive meal (the food truck alleys nearer the convention center are endlessly crowded and very very hot). There’s a White Castle nearby if you’re hankering for bad fast food with air conditioning. I eat a lot of crap food, hah. Food delivery services like Door Dash and Grubhub are pretty functional during GenCon, all things considered, though be realistic about how upset you’ll be if your drink is wrong or they forgot the cheese on your burger at a 30 minute wait. Still, the convenience of having food brought to you while you game is very high. If you’re deep in the ICC itself or in a hotel basement, of course, plan to meet your driver outside, but I’ve had em come to the lobbies of hotels before.

The Inferno Room is a great tiki bar a few miles away, if you’re into that kinda thing.

Late night, many hotel lobbies play host to makeshift gaming gatherings and many will leave meeting rooms open for use. Just be mindful that many of those same meeting room tables will have assigned events in the morning, if you’re a play through the whole night kinda guy.

Heck, there are events you can sign up for that go pretty much all night, if you’re into that kinda thing. The latest game I’ve been in ran till 1:30AM on Sunday! I usually run a horror game Saturday night nowadays, and that’ll stretch past midnight sometimes…

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You also can’t do GenCon without making a late night stop at the Steak’N’Shake one block from the Convention Center. Even if all you get is a milkshake or a side of fries, the con-goer watching at that place is legendary.

Speaking of legendary, I assume Indy Dave is still running his GenCon theme weekend at The RAM? Good food, great beer, a GenCon-themed menu throughout the con, including special brews, and classic fantasy and sci-fi on the big screen TVs all weekend long, plus one of the best bar and wait staffs in existence (seriously, those girls and guys really get into the GenCon weekend and provide amazing service despite being slammed all weekend long). It’s a GenCon must-do.

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So what’s it like getting a hotel room at a hotel on the highway into Indy, maybe 20 miles out? Is that still hard to do?

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So our first year, we booked a hotel out by the airport through GenCon’s housing lotto. It was significantly cheaper but still let us get in on block rates and such (apparently a ton of hotels even pretty far out have major blackouts and/or increased prices around the con). The drive in was about ten or fifteen minutes to some Gate10 parking (also purchased through GenCon) that was a solid ten to fifteen minute walk from most parts of the con. I didn’t love that last part in particular - lugging around a big nerd bag full of rpg supplies and snacks through half a mile of summer sun ain’t my idea of a good time, but full day parking closer to the con was pretty pricey. And wrangling four nerds out of the hotel in time for the folks with early events wasn’t fun…nor was waiting around at the end of the night for the folks who ran late. In the end we tried to save a lot of money at the expense of a lot of little frustrations. We made the call to stay as close as possible going forward, but obviously that’s not for everyone.

If you’re a small group who coordinate well and are in better shape than me, staying far out and driving in can save a ton of money. And if you’re an introvert who needs a definitive break from people and finds the idea of gaming with strangers from dawn till the witching hour horrifying, knowing you’ve got a clearly demarcated line of “I’m done for the day and leaving” might be a real blessing.

You’ll wanna check the specific hotel, but if you’re 20mi out, I think you’ve escaped the con Zone of Control enough to be able to just book on your own.

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My group did a Airbnb last year that was about 15 mins drive out of downtown, and I think we’re gonna do something similar this year. Works fine as long as you’re cool with coordinating rides for folks.

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Our first housing block reservation opens in 30 minutes. We’re angling for two downtown hotels to sleep 9, but odds aren’t looking good sadly.

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And she’s dead, Jim. See y’all in 2021 <3

https://www.gencon.com/press/updates-gen-con-covid19

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See you all then. We’ll have our own GenCon, With blackjack and hoo… or probably not.

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Damn, I am sorry @ArmandoPenblade. :-( I know how much you look forward to the trip every year. I wasn’t going to be able to make it even before COVID-19 screwed everything up, but I am still sad for everyone who is denied the joy of GenCon this year, as it is such an amazing time. On the bright side, you have a whole year now to save even more money for a spending spree in the dealer hall in 2021, and think of the magnum opus adventures you can write for your players given two years to craft and refine them!

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Funnily enough I’m not much of a merch-buyer, apart from my mild addiction to metal tees. I think over the course of three trips to GenCon, I’ve spent about $30 total in the hall, all of which on a couple of books for the luchador-themed RPG I played a couple of times, hah.

No, I get my jollies by booking my time from 9/10AM-midnight/1AM every day with 30-60 minute gaps for meals until I long for death by convention’s end, instead :-D