GenCon 2013, DCR Style!

Author: Ben D. Fuller

What do you get when you bring together one woefully unprepared film nerd, two gaming enthusiasts, and one radio show at the largest gaming convention of the year? I’ll tell you what you get, three days of fun! (What were you expecting a better turn of phrase? Didn’t you see the part where I said I was a film nerd?) The trip started out great; I hooked up with Flagoon (the tall one) and Revan (the ginger one) on Friday night for a run through of True Dungeon, a literal live action version of Dungeon and Dragons, it only happens at #GenCon so this is a once a year event not to be missed for the full time gamer. After we left the Dungeon we headed out for dinner. We stopped at “Dick’s Last Resort” where they successfully humiliated us all with their unique brand of customer service.
You won that round Frat guy waiter, you won that round.

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Yes, I bought Swag!

After dinner we headed back to the hotel that we shared, because what else screams Con experience more than a bunch of grown men sharing a room.  First on the list was our chance to give “Dwarven Miners” a shot, it was my first time playing it, the others had been given a hands on tutorial by the awesome group over at Rather Dashing Games. 
Let me tell you, I loved it. I had a great time with it, we probably 10 rounds in the two days that I was there. Flagoon and Revan each had their own copies, so of course I had to pick up one for myself and will now be introducing it to all my friends so that they can buy their own copies. And that’s basically all we did the first the night, keep any eye out for the official DCR review, like I said up there I’m just a film nerd with a taste for gaming.

I got Fi’Orced!!

Day 2 started bright and early for us, with our first interview of the day at 9:30 with the company behind “Battle of the Bulge” for the iPad. I really enjoyed the look of it, unfortunately it’s only out on Apple products and I’m an Android guy so I’ll have to just wait… If you’re reading this Shenandoah Studios, get on it! From there we wandered around the convention hall corridors as we waited for the doors to open, I got to hear about the first two days of the Con. Pretty bummed I missed them sounds like the guys had a blast, you can catch their review later this week on the site.  

Going forward I’m going to try and explain what was going through my mind when I finally got into the hall, keep in mind I’m not a gaming guy like most of the people there so this was a whole new experience for me. But don’t get me wrong, I’ve been to conventions before like DragonCon and SLCNerd both of which are geared for the well rounded geek.

I walked into the hall:

1.      “I am way out of my league here”

2.      “What the hell was I thinking? I can barely finish a game of Monopoly”

3.      “Wait, this is kind of cool”

4.      "Where is Rather Dashing Games? I want my own copy of the game”- For reference I should have bought it at the end of          the day, because I had to carry it around with for the next 8 hours.

5.      “I wonder if Revan and Flagoon will notice if I disappear into the Artist Alley” – They did, but it was worth it.

6.      “I need to check my bank account, things might get bad”ß at that point I was drooling a little.

So there you have it, my first six thoughts. Pretty great right? Ya I thought so too. So after I got over my initial shock we got started, hitting interview after interview with the practiced precision of a group that had done this before. (See I can turn a phrase if I need too) Around noon we took a lunch break and hit up the Steak & Shake right outside the convention center for so much needed food and a root beer. At least I had a root beer I think the others had milkshakes, how cliché. From there I took my leave of the group to wander the Artist Alley, where I got lost for an hour amongst the drawings and artwork of people that I wish I could call my friends. They had some seriously great stuff there; I’ll post pictures and reviews of each later this week. The booth that really caught my attention though was “Shadows on the Wall” entertainment memorabilia. The ladies and the one guy there were seriously great, they put with my fawning and waffling as I looked through their stash, I ended up buying three posters.  Now, I have what I like to call a “collection” but a few (all) my friends refer to as an obsession with posters and prints, more specifically Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. They had some great pieces but not the one that I was looking for, and the awesome staff went out of their way to assure me that they would be able to get one for me in October. At this point I was ready to just give them money. If you ever run across them (they hit a ton of cons, mostly east coast) you need to stop by and see them, and buy something. Then send me a picture of said purchase so that I can drool over it with you.

At this point we were approaching the end of the day, and we were all tuckered but had one last even to hit. A pizza party with some of the great Authors that were there, while Revan and Flagoon went to that I went home and took a nap, in preparation for more Dwarven Miner that evening. ( We played 6 rounds that night, you win Rather Dashing)

Well there you have it; an outsider’s not so detailed review of GenCon2013. Would I go again you ask? Yes, in a heartbeat. I’ll be forever  grateful to the guys over here at Dungeon Crawlers Radio for inviting me to tag along, and will hopefully be doing a lot more with them in the future so keep an eye out. Until then, Little Ben is out.