Online Dungeon Master

It’s well after midnight, and I’m ready for bed. But first, an evening update.

After dinner I wandered the convention center a little bit more. The vendor hall closes at 6:00 PM, but lots of games keep going well into the evening (maybe all night).

I asked about what I need to do if I want to try some new board games and was told to either buy a ticket for a specific game or check out a game from the game library and play with friends. Hm. Not super-conducive to just learning a new game that people are wanting to spread the word on, but I might give it a try later.

I wandered up to the Sagamore Ballroom where D&D 4e was happening. I saw people playing the new Legend of Drizzt game. I already own and enjoy Castle Ravenloft and Wrath of Ashardalon, so I’ll try to play Drizzt sometime this weekend. I also asked about the Saturday Neverwinter Game Day event, and it’s sold out. However, they might have room for generic ticket holders… and they also might have need for someone who’s willing to run the game instead of play. I’m considering that option.

I then caught up with my friends from dinner and played a board game that one of them is at the con to demo. It’s called Syndicate, and it’s sort of similar to Settlers of Catan in space (I’ve never actually played Starfarers of Catan, so I don’t know how it compares). There are five different resources, and each hex tile has a planet with a moon, each of which can produce one of the resources. You start with markers on two planets. There are six different actions you can take on your turn, including mining resources from a planet/moon pair, expanding to one more planet and getting resources from it, expanding to several planets at once, and then doing various things with “contract” cards that give you points if you have markers on the planets on the cards (think of the cards from Risk). It was a fun game, even in a play test form, and I enjoyed it even though I tied for last place.

After that I tried to follow Twitter posts from people I know in the online D&D community, meeting up with them in pubs. I tried to meet Morrus (the Brit who runs EN World) but got to the pub in question after he had already left – and I also had the problem that I’m not quite sure what the guy looks like! I then tried a different pub where NewbieDM had said he was doing karaoke with others… but wow, that place was way too crowded! I have much to learn about nightlife at GenCon.

Time for bed. Day 2 awaits tomorrow!

I’m all set at the Marriott Downtown across the street from GenCon now. My wife is here (yay!). Life is good.

I went to the convention center around 11:30 and saw that the Will Call line was now OUT THE DOOR. Absolutely ridiculous. I’m guessing from talking to people in line that it was about three hours’ wait altogether. Sheesh, #WillCallFail indeed.

A video of the line itself is here.

I then made my way to the exhibitor hall. Wow! This place is gigantic. I made my way through two of the rows in about an hour, including a stop to purchase my first set of GameScience dice (which I actually don’t like much due to the plastic nubs that need to be sanded off).

I played a demo of a dice game called Bears, which is similar to Zombie Dice in feel, but you’re campers who have to avoid getting eaten by bears. Not bad, though I’m not personally a fan of games where you’re literally trying to grab items before other players can grab them

I played a demo of a card game called Quack in the Box, which is similar in feel to the computer game Theme Hospital. Players are doctors who are trying to get the most possible money out of their patients by doing lots of expensive treatments without killing TOO many patients (killing a few is okay, though). It’s a creative premise.

I also did what ended up as a media interview (if you count this blog as a media outlet) with John, the proprietor of a new virtual tabletop called Epic Table. It’s aimed at being more user friendly than something like MapTool (no coding required), and John says that it’s aimed more at indie games than D&D and Pathfinder (since those are already pretty well supported with things like Fantasy Grounds for people who want to pay for software). I appreciate that the business model only requires the GM to buy the program, and then they can host games for as many players as they want. It’s still in closed beta at the moment, so I know there will be more features to come, but I think John’s right – it’s probably not for someone like me who’s comfortable with MapTool. Even if it were free, I can’t see switching, but Epic Table might be good for people who like more point and click (though it’s not too different from Gametable / OSU-gt in that regard).

I then got a text message from my friend Ryan who lives in San Francisco and happened to be at GenCon. Excellent! I met up with him and another friend in the D&D 4e area for a Living Forgotten Realms game. Our DM was a guy from Chicago named Adam, and he ran a fun little adventure for us. I got to run Factotum the Bard, which is always fun times.

It was after this game that my wife Barbara got to town, so we put our things in the hotel room and then met up with Ryan and some other friends for dinner. Now Barbara’s going to take a nap and I’m going to see if I can find some more gaming!

Still Tweeting as I go – OnlineDM1.

I set my alarm for 6:30 this morning, stumbled over to GenCon and got into the Will Call line. The booth to hand out badges was opening at 7:00.

The bad news was that the line was just as long as it had been yesterday, when they wouldn’t let me in at 8:00 PM because I wouldn’t get to the front by the 9:00 PM closing time.

The good news was that I was not alone! Jason, one of the players from my regular Friday night online game of War of the Burning Sky via MapTool and Skype, lives here in Indianapolis, and we met up outside the convention center to get into the Will Call line together. Having company made the time go much faster.

It took about 50 minutes, but I eventually made it to the front of the line and picked up my own badge as well as my wife’s (she arrives later today). Woo hoo! #WillCallSucceed!

Jason and I also got into the line to pick up our goodie bags, which only took a couple of minutes. I haven’t explored all of the contents yet, but there’s a coupon book for the vendor hall that I’ll certainly have to check out.

After that, I came back to the Omni to nap for a couple more hours. Now that I’m awake again, it’s time to get a shower, move to the Marriott, and then start gaming!

Feel free to follow me on Twitter (OnlineDM1) for more up-to-the-minute updates. Word on Twitter right now is that the Will Call line has doubled back on itself and it hours long. Ouch. Glad I got up early!