The Balance Between Fun and Responsibility

Last week was a busy and exhausting week. My natural tendency to pull away from people showed itself, and yet I pushed through it to be social. Some of that social interaction wore me down. Most of it was fun though.

In gaming, my halfling rogue was turned into a vampire, which made me sad. My werewolf saw combat, which frustrated me (not the story so much as the game mechanics). I’m also kind of a sore loser, even though that really shouldn’t apply to this sort of gaming.

I also played a game called Superfight and found out that it’s tough to beat someone or something that has been turned into a poltergeist.

In knitting, I realized I really need to learn to read a pattern better. I read the length instructions for a hat wrong and ran out of yarn. I figured I’d just use some matching scrap, but it wasn’t working for me, so I completely fudged the end of the hat. I suppose it doesn’t look horrible, but it drives me nuts because the original pattern would have been super cool looking. I’m going to try that one again. Some day.

Thursday was the highlight day of the week.

1. I paid off all my credit cards. Doing this involved going against what many a financial advisor would advise. I cashed out my previous 401k. It wasn’t a decision I made quickly or easily, but when it came down to it, I wanted to free up money to comfortably pay Jon’s student loans each month. I’m glad I did it, even if it means pushing retirement back.

2. We bought new games. What better way to celebrate financial responsibility than to go out and spend more money. I have no regrets. We picked up Smallworld: Underground and Betrayal at House on the Hill from our new game store. They were 2 games we’ve been wanting and we know they’ll see play.

3. I had my 90-day evaluation at work. It doesn’t feel like I’ve been there for 90 days. Most of the time, I feel like I just started. The eval was good. I’m right where I should be. I was fairly stressy about a week ago with regards to my speed and quality, but at the urging of my boss, I stopped stressing and all has been well since.

The weekend has been lazy enough to offset the . Snow and cold kept me inside watching movies, listening to podcasts, and knitting like a maniac. I finished an easy project and then moved on to a not so easy project. Not sure if that was a great idea considering I’ve been knitting more in social situations, but I realize I do have the power to just start a different, easier project.

My first cowl.

Onward to finish off the weekend and prepare for the inevitability of Monday.

A.

Gen Con Wrap Up

I wasn’t as ambitious this year as I was last year and didn’t do a daily post for Gen Con. A lot of that was because things were a bit different for Jon and I this year. Not bad, but different, and we wanted to try to minimize things, which meant not taking a computer with us.

Other differences: minimal bag carrying, working part time for AEG, no digi-cam or cosplay photos, different hotel room and travel routes, and no food truck experiments. While generally these could be seen as minor differences, they did give us a slightly different Gen Con experience than in the past.

I’ve decided to break this post down into our Gen Con highlights and lowlights, complete with a few random pictures I was able to take with my phone.

Highlights:

1. Working for AEG – Fellow gamers might be familiar with AEG or Alderac Entertainment Group. They have a bunch of fun games, including Legend of the Five Rings, Trains, and Doomtown: Reloaded. This year, we had the opportunity to work part time for them. They are a great bunch of people, and it’s hard to go wrong when “work” means “teaching people to play new games.”

2. Playtesting – We made it a point to get in three playtests in the First Exposure Playtest Hall, one of our annual favorites. Basically, you pick a game that’s not yet out on the market, play it, and give the creators feedback. We did a board game, an RPG, and a miniatures game and had a blast trying out all of them. Jon and I could probably take one full day to do nothing more than playtest. Seriously.

Dream Heist was a blast…hope to buy this one when it comes on the market!

3. Swag – Volunteering has its perks, and we ended up bringing home a ton of games. On our last day there, we splurged a bit and bought a few things as well. It’s safe to say we have enough games to last us the rest of the year and beyond, including a new horror RPG for me to scare people with. Mwahahaha.

Game on!

4. Culinary finds – For various reasons, we didn’t end up trying any food trucks this year. After our initial annual splurge at The Ram, it was mostly Steak ‘N’ Shake for us, with two tasty exceptions. For breakfast one morning, we discovered a great restaurant called First Watch that served amazing food. We also found the part of the mall that houses Haagen-Dazs. So that was a thing that happened one evening.

5. Walking – We walked everywhere! We even took walks when we didn’t need to, and breaks were minimal. Instead of making Jon go back to the car if we needed something, I went with him. I’ve come a long way in five conventions, and considering how much better it makes the whole experience, it’s a good reminder to keep up the “training.”

Lowlights:

1. Hotel – Our regular hotel doubled their prices last year, so we booked another one that was more within what we were used to paying. Normally we get lucky with the cheap hotels, but the one we got this year was awful. It smelled funny, had a sad breakfast,  no soundproofing, and even though the staff was friendly, they weren’t super efficient or knowledgeable.

2. Traffic – Gen Con wasn’t the only thing going on last week and weekend. The Indiana State Fair was happening and Saturday brought a Colts pre-season game. Even though we got to the ICC early on Thursday, we stayed gridlocked for about a half hour and then had trouble finding parking, something we’ve never had an issue with before. Leaving the convention center on Saturday brought more gridlocked traffic among the sea of gamers and Colts fans.

3. Con crud – For the first time ever, I got sick after Gen Con. I started feeling it on the drive home on Sunday, and on Monday it was full blown grossness. It’s about four days later and I’m still feeling the effects of it, but I’m recuperating. Washing your hands religiously is a good thing, but sometimes the crud will find a way.

4. The drive – I normally love road trips and I love to drive, but this year the drive felt super long and uncomfortable. Our trip started with a few annoyances, like the gas station not being opened early enough for us to get a drink and Dunkin’ Donuts not having the mix needed for the drink I wanted. Later it got worse with stalled vehicles on the highway and rush hour traffic. I realize none of these are huge and most of them are to be expected, but they seemed more dramatic this year than they should have been.

However, we did stop and see the world’s largest wind chime again, and that was pretty awesome!

All in all, our fifth year at Gen Con was a success and we’re already looking forward to 2015.

A.

Tengaicon 2013 – I’m Calling it a Sucess!

It’s just after midnight, so I guess technically I missed my daily blog deadline, but I’m still awake, so it counts. We just got home a little bit ago, and I was tempted to put off yet another post so I could crash. But I wanted to get something out about today, so here goes, with apologies if anything sounds off or wonky…I’m really tired.

I don’t think I’ve talked much about Tengaicon, so here’s some back story. It’s a local, one day gaming convention in MHK that’s been going on for close to a decade. It’s had its ups and downs, and last year it had a streak of bad luck.  In an effort to help get it back on track, I headed the committee for this year’s event. At the time I volunteered, I was in what I like to call “crazy planning mode.”  I figured I’d eventually burn out, but the goal was to make sure everything was ready before that burn out happened.  I wanted the end goal to be a plan of action that could be followed and built upon the following years.

For the last year, our committee has been organizing and getting things in place. There were several meetings at the beginning of the planning period, but eventually, as things came together, they tapered off. By the time we were a week away from the con, I felt that everything was on track. Sure, I let the ball drop a little bit. We could have done more marketing and PR, and there were a few details regarding food that missed the mark. But that was really all in hindsight, and I was cautiously optimistic that we’d have a good convention (and by cautiously optimistic, I was worried and stressed that no one would show up).

For our crew, the con stuff started last night when we met at the hall to set up.  Set up was quick, as we had a good volunteer crew. This morning we were back at 8 to put the finishing touches on the hall and to pick up some last minute things at the grocery store.  From the time the doors opened at 9:30 to sometime in the afternoon, we seemed to have a steady stream of people.

The day was fun! We had several local gaming groups attend, and they each brought in a good number of players. We also had casual gamers show up who found something that interested them. We had Tab Creations, a local game maker/company, come and demo a new game that’s going to be a Kickstarter project. We had our dice table, our silent auction to raise money for Child’s Play, paint and take, local artists, and concessions.  Everyone I talked to seemed to be having a good time. We got a lot of positive feedback and everyone was really nice.

Besides the demo, I didn’t do any gaming since I was trying to make sure everything was going well. I wanted to make sure all my volunteers had breaks, that all of our vendors and GMs  were thanked, and that the gamers were having a positive experience. I’m not sure if I was able to really talk to everyone, and I think I accidentally let a few people go a little long without a break, but I think things were okay and nobody seemed burned out by the end of the day (I did have a few flashbacks of my days as lead cashier at Glens, though).

Jon and I made it out by 11, sticking around to make sure the last few groups made it out okay and doing last minute hall cleaning. I’m grateful to everyone who helped and played. In the final counts, we ended up making a profit and I believe we had over 100 attendees. For a small convention, this was pretty awesome.

We still have a few things to do, like contact the silent auction winners who weren’t there to pick up their stuff when it ended, and set up a post-con meeting to recap and make a plan for moving forward. I also want to email everyone with thanks and put some notes and schedules down on paper to pass on to whoever my successor is going to be.  Because seriously, I’m so happy with how this turned out, and I want any future convention to continue to improve on what we accomplished today.

But those things can wait for tomorrow. I’m falling asleep typing this, so I think it’s time for much needed rest. I don’t think our double day of working out is going to happen tomorrow, as my back is killing me tonight. But we’ll see. And while I realize I’ve failed on pictures for this post, I think I’ve persuaded Terry to give me some of the pictures he got today in hopes of putting together a special Tengaicon picture post.

A.

 

Walking, Gaming, and Frozen Yogurt

It was another crazy work day, but I got a lot done, maintained sanity, and met some of our co-workers from the UK.

Today was a walk day, so we went to the mall to get back into our C25K training. It’s been a couple weeks, and I was not feeling up to the physical activity.  We managed to get the whole session done, but I had to take some breaks. This was one of those workouts that just wore me out instead of energizing me, too. I don’t think we needed a break from exercising, I think we just waited too long between walks.

We ended up hanging out and playing some games with friends tonight, a social engagement we had to sneak in on this already busy week. I played Dixit for the first time and really enjoyed it. Then we pulled out Cards Against Humanity, a game I could play for hours.

Before the night ended, we made a trip to Orange Leaf for some frozen yogurt. I had originally wanted chocolate, but it was “no sugar added,” which usually means aspartame or sucralose; one makes me sick and I can’t stand the taste of the other most days. Instead, I went with a pineapple, banana, and orange blend with strawberries to mix in. So good!

That ended our night, so we stopped to get water and came home. I’m tired, and I don’t think it’s going to take me long to fall asleep once this is done. Doing a phone post, so no pics or links, but I’ll try to make up for that later. Tengaicon this weekend, and I hope to have a good post for the event.

A.

Gen Con Day 2 – New Games and Big Game Night

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.

A.

Gen Con 2013: Day 1 – Into the Exhibitor’s Hall

There was no geocaching to kick off the first official day of Gen Con because getting out of bed wasn’t as easy the second morning and  we had things scheduled for 10am that we didn’t want to be late to.

We were just two gamers in a sea of excitement.

 

We got to the convention center early, grabbed some caffeine at one of the convention food areas, and waited for the Exhibitor’s Hall to open. There was already a huge crowd outside the doors waiting for the kick off, but we opted to sit to the side and wait until closer to the opening. We might have waited longer, but since we were chosen as volunteers for AEG’s Big Game Night, I was scheduled to do the run through on my game right away. My friend, J, was there, and we got to learn the game together during the demo. It was so much fun, and playing it beforehand made me feel a lot better about showing it to others.

“Trains” quickly became one of my favorite games ever.

Jon took off to do his own thing, so when I was done with my game, I ended up wandering about the hall for about a half hour just looking at things and trying to find the Blind Ferret booth so I could get some art from Randy Milholland and Jeph Jacques.  I picked up a few prints from Randy and met Jeph with the promise to both of them to come back with cash so I could tip for sketches and buy some QC merchandise.

Jon and I finally met up again and went and picked up our green bands for the Cards vs. Zombies game. With our down time, we went and did a swag dump in the car then went to find our Wyrd game demo location. We ended up playing a miniature board game called Puppet Wars. It was so fun! It’s pricey for a game, but you can use the figures as proxies for another miniatures game that Wyrd puts out, and it’s a game that really interested me.  After playing it, we debated long and hard about picking it up. Unfortunately, we opted out at this time, but I’m really hoping to pick it up in the future.

Puppet Wars

For lunch, we decided to try one of the food trucks outside the convention center. We opted for the BBQ truck. The pulled pork sandwich was so good!

Our next stop was the playtest hall, where we played a game called Champions of Olympus, which involved moving around Olympus and doing quests for the gods.

Champions of Olympus

I really enjoyed it and ended up winning, though I always get into deep thought mode with new games because I’m both trying to figure out how to play and trying to strategize. It wasn’t so far over my head that it was an issue, but I was still in concentrate mode. This was about the time that I also ran out of steam and started feeling tired.

When the game was done, I walked with Jon to his AEG training, then I wandered around by myself for about an hour and a half. I grabbed an iced tea, read for awhile, checked out the auction, and did another lap before finding a sitting and waiting in a spot closer to the parking garage. I had to perch somewhere since my phone was dead by that time, and I wanted to give Jon a location of where to find me when his game was done.

We had tickets for a concert that night, but we decided to give it a pass. We weren’t out any money and we would have had to wait for two more hours for a concert that wouldn’t be done until midnight. As fun as it sounded, I wanted to rest and be ready for the rest of the con, part of the whole “healthiness” of vacation. No so healthy…we got back to the room and ordered pizza and wings, but I had no guilt and the food was delicious.

It was so nice being able to walk around with no back pain. My only issues involved a little bit of soreness in the feet and knees, but that was from standing in one place on the few occasions we had to.  The other issue was that after we’d been sitting for a period of time, I was stiff and limpy for the first few steps. But once I got going, I was fine and didn’t need to stop. No rests for back pain this year!  I’m still walking at a snail’s pace, but you know what? I’m completely okay with that.

We finished day 1 of GC feeling good and happy!

A.

Zombie Gaming

Last weekend we had a zombie themed game day with friends.

We started the afternoon out with a new game our friends picked up.

I’m sure a board game can effectively prepare us for the zombie apocalypse

The game is timed and only goes so many rounds, but there are ways to make it different each time you play, namely by choosing different characters, playing with a different number of people, and flipping the board pieces for different locations.

Setting up the survivors…

…and bringing in the zombies!

 

There are no writing on the cards or characters other than the names. It’s all conveyed with the use of symbols so it can be played across different languages.

Second, we played Zombie Munchkin. Munchkin in general has become a staple of our gaming sessions, but the Zombie one is a little bit different because you play as the zombies trying to fight the humans. I wasn’t completely sold on it at first, but now I love it. 

We finished off the night with some Left 4 Dead on the Xbox, and by “we,” I mean J. Felbs and Tony O. Originally we planned on a four person game, but then we found out that L4D doesn’t allow for four players. Which is all good, because after watching the first few minutes of the game, I realized that it wasn’t a game for me (I’m really slow and not accurate when it comes to first person shooters). But watching was fun, and I chilled with C and played some MtG instead.

Another successful gaming night in the books!

Ticket to Ride

Last night, J. Felbs and I gathered with friends for dinner and some gaming. I’ve been watching Tabletop on Geek and Sundry, and it’s definitely revved my interest in trying out a few new games.  Our friends have “Ticket to Ride,” so we pulled that one down off the shelf and played a round.

It took me a few minutes to figure out what was going on, and then I spent most of the game trying to figure out how to make my routes. In the beginning, I only had one I couldn’t make, but then I decided to do a last minute grab for some extra points.  I feel like there should have been some strategy on my part, but there wasn’t. It was all about building up some railroads and cutting other people off.

I was blue. It’s okay to note that I don’t have much of a railroad at all. I did manage to get some points, but in the end, J. Felbs was the victorious one. It was still a lot of fun, and it kind of cracks me up that Sault Ste. Marie is on the map…but in a good way!

Hopefully we’ll get to play this one again sometime soon.