A GenCon Schedule Part 2

So when it comes to the weekend at Gen Con I suspect I will be starting to have Con fatigue so figure best to play it safer with the games I’m playing and keep it a bit more flexible to give me a chance to just browse and wander the corridors a bit.  Also I’d like to think some socialising will be part of the experience!

Saturday

Game	Format	Time / Slot	Price
Bang! The Bullet	Board Game	9am to 10am	$2
Dread Curse	Board Game	1pm to 3pm	$2
Dresden Files: Headless Coasts - Legends of the South	RPG	5pm to 9pm	$8

Bang! Is a fun game even if the rules read like they’ve been translated from Italian to English by Google Translate of 5 years ago…
Dread Curse is a game I’ve been looking to pick up as it’s suitable for up to 8 players.
Dresden Files intrigues me.  Never read the books but have “read” the audio books and watched some of the TV show.  The main reason to try this out at GenCon though would have been to experience playing more FATE which I just don’t know enough about.

Sunday

Game	Format	Time / Slot	Price
Playtest a Board, Card, Role Playing or Story Game	Workshop	8am to 10am	FREE
Inside Tabletop	Seminar	2pm to 4pm	FREE

Playtesting is something I’m intrigued by and whilst some of the games on offer might not be that great there will likely be a few gems in the mix that I’d be interested in trying out.
The Inside Tabletop seminar would have been a great thing just to sit through an d soak in the enthusiasm for the hobby that it most likely would have generated.

So that completes the scheduled events.  I’m not sure whether the con goes into complete wind down at this point or whether there’s still “stuff to do”.  I suspect that there is still stuff to do although I also suspect that the demo teams, traders and manufacturers will have started their process of packing up.

What this does though is gives me an opportunity to look back at the event and also review all the purchases I will no doubt have made over the weekend.  It also means I can go back to my apartment/hotel/whatever and just relax ahead of the long journey home.

A GenCon Schedule Part 1

So what do you do for 4 days at a gaming convention?  I actually don’t know seeing as I’ve not really gamed my way through a 4 day gaming convention.
Wait a minute Dave, I thought you’d been to 3 of the UK iterations of Gen Con?
Ah yes!  That’s a very different story though…. Perhaps for another post.

Looking back at the event list for Gen Con 2013 as a guide you kind of have to go into this with a plan of how much of each day you want to fill with booked slots and how much “free time” you want to wander the halls and just try something out on a whim.
Taking it 1 day at a time…

Thursday

Game	Format	Time / Slot	Price
Star Wars: Edge Of The Empire – Shadows Of A Black Sun	RPG	10am to 1pm	$4
Gaming with Kids: The Next Generation (with Matt Forbeck)	Seminar	2pm to 3pm	FREE
D&D Next : Murder in Baldur's Gate Launch Weekend	RPG	4pm to 8pm	$8
Zero Charisma	Film	8pm to 9:30pm	FREE

There should be no surprise that Star Wars EotE is in this list!
The Gaming with Kids seminar intrigues me for a variety of reasons, not least of which is my plan to introduce my daughter to the hobby more and more over the years.
D&D Next is still in playtest but what better way to get your head around the new ruleset and indeed help shape it than by playing it at GenCon?
Zero Charisma is a “gamer movie” that I’ve been following for a while now and I would have loved to have seen it on the “big screen” at Gen Con.

So Thursday looks like a REALLY busy day but a large part of the challenge is getting the slots to align and of course you know eat, buying stuff and spend time playing demos and moving between events!
If I had to drop anything I’d drop the Gaming With Kids or the D&D Next.  There were other sessions of D&D Next on the schedule which I could have juggled to suit.

Friday

Game	Format	Time / Slot	Price
Star Wars: EotE – Matter Of Life & Death	RPG	10am to 2pm	$4
Battletech : Boot Camp!	Wargame	3pm to 4pm	$2
Firefly: Find a Crew - Find a Job - Keep Flying	Board Game	5pm to 7pm	$2
Atomic Robo - Flying She-Devils of the Pacific	RPG	8pm to midnight	$4

More EotE?! Obviously!
Battletech Boot Camp!  I’d have been up for trying this if only because I own the 25th Anniversary Starter Set and really should play it more!
Firefly – Not a FAN BOY for Firefly but I did enjoyed the show a fair bit and intrigued about how it would translate into a Board Game.
Atomic Robo.  Again this should be obvious to readers of the blog as to why I would want to play this.

Again Friday looks REALLY busy so something might have to drop.  If anything it’d be either the Battletech or the Firefly.

So that’s 2 days out of the 4.  What about the weekend?  That’ll be the next post!

Getting to GenCon Part 2

Getting to GenCon 2014

When do you need to buy your ticket?

GenCon tickets go on sale in January, normally around noon on the last Sunday of the month so that’d be the 26th for 2014.  Timezone wise Indianapolis is (currently with daylight savings etc) 5 hours behind the UK.
Your 4-Day ticket to GenCon will be roughly $70 (£43.25 according to Google) which gets you entry to the convention.  Note that’s entry, not playing any games as those have a supplementary cost which I’ll cover shortly.
For those of us outside the USA you need to arrange to collect your pass when you get there.  This, for me, is the real reason to go a day or so before the con really starts.  You can collect your ticket on the Wednesday which will also include any event tickets that you’ve pre-booked.

When do you need to book your events?

The events themselves go on sale in May which for 2014 looks like being May 18th again normally about noon Indianapolis time.
To get a feeling for the variety of events available I’d recommend that you check out this website - http://gencon.highprogrammer.com/gencon-indy-2013.cgi - which has a breakdown of all events at the 2013 GenCon which not only gives you an idea of what you can do when you’re there it also gives you an idea of the cost of the events.
Event tickets come in 2 forms – generic and specific.  A generic ticket is just that, generic and each of those costs around $2.  You can trade generic tickets for entry into specific events based on the cost of that event.  So if the specific event you want to attend is $6 then you’ll need 3 generic tickets to attend but this is discretionary based on the organiser having space for you to take part.

What can you do at GenCon?

Ok you’ve looked at that link above right?
Obviously there are a lot of games being played at GenCon, after all it’s kind of why most people go.  In addition to that there are a number of seminars, talks, special events, films and many many more events that you can attend when there.  Alongside that in the trade hall you will have the chance to play/demo a whole host of games from established companies and new companies looking to promote their games.
The “showcase” events will be the quickest to sell out so be sure to think about your priorities when booking events when the time comes.

I’m going to build a sample schedule for me based on the link above (you have checked it out right?) in the next post to give you an idea of what the GenCon experience could be like.