Gen Con 2000 Report

zuluwarrior writes "That Beatdown Reporter braved the sea of smelly geeks and visited this year's Gen Con in Milwaukee WI. for the latest computer game news, RPG and board game info and to see if he rolls a natural 20. Top stuff."

Comments

A GM's Report of GenCOn

[Zulfiya]

Things I liked

I have a lot of negative things to say about the way Wizards of the Coast (WotC) ran parts of the con this year, so I wanted to start on a positive note. And I did, in fact, have a good time. Here are some things I liked, in no particular order.

All the Gamers

According to the news report I saw, there were twenty thousand of us in town for the con. Let me repeat that - twenty thousand! There's just something great about having that many like-minded folk around. Very cool.

The new Badges

Badges this year were of the hang-around-your-neck instead of the pin-to-your-shirt variety. They were sturdier, unlikely to lose the paper insert, and easy to put on and remove. They must have been especially nice for people in costume, who wouldn't have to worry about sticking a pin through their art (or, for the very scantily costumed, finding a place to pin it in the first place).

The Anime Room

As with last year, the Anime Room was in the Hilton, across the street and caddy-corner to the convention center. While directions could have been a bit clearer, that is more a flaw with the onsite booklet than with the Anime Room Itself. I only made it there once, and rather late, but they were playing something I wanted to see and the staff (even for the late hour) was enthusiastic. I can't speak for crowding, as I was there late, but the room seemed spacious enough, and the video/sound quality was good, even from the back of the room.

Game Locations Listed in the Onsite Book

Last year, the onsite book did not have locations listed, causing all manner of confusion. Kudos to WotC for listening to attendees' complaints and acting on them.

The Safe House

I love this place. Everybody loves this place. It's the one think I really will miss about Milwaukee when the convention moves to Indianapolis in 2003. And the password is... [DELETED].

Now... the problems...

Running as a Tabletop GM

Last year, I left the con with the distinct impression that they were *trying* to make pencil-and-paper GMing so unpleasant that the tabletop players would just go away.

This year removed all doubt.

I arrived bright and early Thursday morning and was able to pick up my pre-reg packet smoothly. At least, I thought so until I opened it. There were my player tickets, the onsite booklet, my Pez(tm), my 4-Day player badge... Hey! I quickly checked the rest of my materials. Nothing anywhere indicated that they had any idea that I had registered as a GM, nor was there anything about the games I was running. I was a bit worried - I knew I hadn't made the pre-reg book deadline, but I had specifically telephoned two weeks earlier to make sure they got my events (they never sent me a confirmation).

I found the Information booth and asked what was going on. I was told to go to "GM HQ" on the third floor. Now, having been through this runaround last year, I knew that there was no such thing as GM HQ. I went to the third floor and found the booth marked "Tournament Registration" (which was not then, nor at any time during the con, labeled "GM HQ").

I stood in line behind three or four other disgruntled folk and was handed a sealed manila envelope from a pile of similar envelopes. This, apparently, was my GMs packet. I asked about my events. The man behind the counter told me that if I told him my event numbers, he could look up whether I had sold any tickets. How, I asked, was I supposed to know what my events number were? They're listed in the on-site book.

I obtained a GMs badge at the point by sounding like I was about to lose my last shreds of patience and make a scene.

I wandered off and looked through my packet. It was so generic, the introductory letter inside welcomed me to Origins (another convention entirely). Notably lacking were GMs instructions or any other useful information. There were event proposal forms for Origins 2001 and Gencon 2001, and a time sheet.

It was at this point that I remembered why I did not bother to get a reimbursement last year.

The time sheet, I should add, needed to be initialed by a "manager". Out of the four games I ran over a cumulative sixteen hours, I was checked in on by a manager exactly once (five minutes before game time, and so could not initial my sheet) and was able track one down once (and it took some doing). Fortunately, the second one was kind enough to initial all of my events for me, without checking.

By Friday midnight, I had run all of my games, so on Saturday, I checked in on Tournament Registration. The person there couldn't help me, but we eventually found someone who initialed my form and told me to come back Sunday. All reimbursements would be done Sunday, regardless of when the events were finished.

Sunday I showed up to a very slow line and watched two GMs in front of me give up in disgust. I made it to the front of the line and got my reimbursement. I felt like I'd GMed for free and earned the money for putting up with WotC.

I'm going back next year, and I'll even GM again, but if you're wondering why the number of games run keeps dropping, even as the people who want to play keeps increasing, here's your answer.

Failed his journalism roll. - 500 XP

[darkbabbit]

Not a very accurate description of GenCon. Gaming Outpost (www.gamingoutpost.com/) and WoTC's Virtual Gencon (www.wizards.com) have much better highlights of the con.

I only saw 2 women in chainmail bikinis and both of them were real good looking.

Gencon also smelled better than the average Anime ,SF, or comicbook con this year.

One word:

[generic-man]

Damn. I gotta start going to these conventions.