Gencon 2010: Review in Short

I'm a little (lot) burnt out on Gencon since getting back yesterday, and to be honest, I wasn't planning on doing much other than sorting through all the schwag the Gamer Wife and I picked up (it was a ton). Then I stumbled across this thread over at rpg.net where people review their experiences at Gencon. I figured I could muster enough thoughts to put them on (digital) paper here in a similar format. You can bet you'll be seeing several of these items fleshed out in the next couple of days and weeks as we go more in-depth on all the great stuff that happened this past weekend. You can also bet that this is by no means an exhaustive list of stuff.

Best:

It was a good year to be an L5R fan at Gencon

- Spending a lot of time demo'ing new and new-to-us games with the Gamer Wife to find some games we can play together. We ended up getting really good deals on both Spoils and L5R CCG.

- Saturday night Legends of the 5 Rings party thrown by AEG. It was our first experience within the L5R community, and it was a ridiculously fun and welcoming experience. This one event was the con highlight for me. A special thanks goes to Todd Rowland of AEG for the invite!

- Picking up some great indie RPG's from the Design Matters booth including Dread House, Blowback, and Remember Tomorrow. Expect reviews in the coming weeks!

- Along with Blowback, picking up the other two spy RPG's on the cheap that I wanted to start learning more about espionage role playing - the James Bond boxset and Spycraft 2nd Edition.

- Cardhalla - this charity event blew us away this year. We've got video and pictures that we'll be posting up later to show off just how amazing an experience it was.

- Talking to the guys who made Eoris. Ridiculously pretty RPG with what sounds like a solid foundation and interesting design theory is combined with a couple of guys who could not be nicer nor more welcoming to potential customers.

Worst:

It was not a great year to try out True Dungeon.

- Not getting to meet all the designers and game industry folk I had hoped to talk to and get interviews with. Four days is not enough!

- Not getting to play more than one RPG. The schedule filled up pretty quickly, and all I got was one (very good) game of Dread in.

- True Dungeon - it was our first year doing it, and from all the reports from other people, it was a very difficult scenario for newbies. Add in the fact that they started us with 6 instead of 8 in our party without scaling the difficulty at all and that TheBro and I both died half way through, and we were over charged 100%. This should have been $20.00 tops - not the $40.00 we paid.

- Not being able to get in a demo of Mercs. This was the one mini's skirmish game that really impressed me from the looks of it, and we just couldn't work a demo into our schedule.

- Not being able to get my press badge on Wednesday. Seemed completely arbitrary when the staff person holding an envelope that says "press badges" in the press room is telling me I have to wait until tomorrow (Thursday).

The good news here is that I had to stop myself from posting a ginormous list of best things while my list of worst things is mostly made up of things I couldn't do because I didn't have time in my busy schedule. It was a great con, even if it got off to a rocky start. The amount of coverage, pictures, and schwag we got is ridiculous, and it's all a little bit overwhelming, to be honest. While we'd love to flood you with news from the con, it's going to get a little time, but keep checking back because we have a lot more in store for you!