I was amazed at how well I was holding up by the second day of the con. I felt well enough in fact to be able to walk around the convention center and snap some display and costume pictures.
While waiting for our first event of the day, we stopped in to demo an MMO called Duel of Champions. I’m not a PC gamer (not for want of trying) so I waited while Jon got his game on. The area had comfy seats and I was down to my last Cards vs. Zombies dart, so I hung out in the safe haven.
Our first event was another playtest, this one an RPG. It was fun and fired up my lost RPG mojo.
The group we played with was a lot of fun. One of the best things about Gen Con is that you get to meet and game with strangers, but because you’re sharing a common interest, you feel like old friends.
We spent some more time in the dealers room browsing the booths and artist alley. We went back to the Blind Ferret booth so I could get sketches. I also picked up the 3rd QC book and got it autographed by Jeph. At the CritSuccess booth, Jon and I found the wedding bands we hadn’t already bought, since we’d been waiting to find something that suited us. Our rings spin in place of rolling a d20 for RPG purposes. Not sure if we’ll use them for that, but they definitely reflect our personalities.
Yes, those are rings that you can spin in place of rolling a d20. I think we’ve secured our nerd labels.
We made it to the booth to get more darts before we were turned into zombies, walked around some more (yes, Gen Con is much like the journey to Mordor), then rested before our next event. While we were walking around, I snapped one of the best cosplays ever.
Happy little trees
The next event was in the Games on Demand hall. When we got there, we realized that everyone else had gotten there early and picked up boarding cards to determine order of picking the games. Had we known this, we could have gotten in early but we didn’t, so we ended up with limited picks. We opted for a Savage Worlds Avengers RPG.
I wasn’t familiar with the mechanics but I just did what the GM and the other players told me to do. I played Beast and I punched Captain America, but it was all good. Dude was crazy.
Dinner was another round of Steak and Shake for the cheap and tasty factor. It was busy but we had a couple hours to kill before the Big Game Night. It was about there that I crashed mentally and emotionally. A few tears, a couple of prayers, and a cup of coffee later and I was (mostly) back and ready to roll.
AEG Big Game Night was amazing! Jon and I were volunteers, so we got there early to check in, pick up our t-shirt, and get our assignments. We already knew which games we were running, but as volunteers we got to also work crowd control. I was a little unsure of what I was doing at first, but I eventually got my groove and talked to some great people, including both fellow volunteers and players. I helped teach people a game called Trains, which is a really cool deck building game. My players were awesome and laid back, and didn’t seem to even mind when I made a mistake on the rules.
At the end of the night, we both said we’d volunteer again next year. It was just a good feeling. The staff at AEG were all nice and fellow gamers are so much fun to interact with. We got our swag boxes for helping and now have some games to play at home, plus we know which games we want to buy. I had a scary moment when we couldn’t find my purse, but come to find out, the guy who stashed it just hid it really well. The walk to the car carrying the boxes was long and tiring, but we finally made it. We passed a lot of cheering in the Pathfinder hall, and a quick stop showed that someone had just proposed in front of all the gamers. By the looks of it, she said yes.
It was after midnight by the time we got back to the hotel room, which meant it was close to eight hours since we’d had dinner, and I was starving. Luckily, there was a Taco Bell just down the road, so we grabbed some fourth meal and went back to chill in the hotel room. A shot of tea gave me a caffeine boost, but it didn’t last long and I crashed hard, with the agreement with Jon that if we were too tired in the morning, we’d sacrifice our first event of Saturday.
The Romance Factor 