Gencon Day 3: Killer Breakfast, DnD, and Meet-Ups

Day 3 started out pretty rough for J. I was exhausted having gotten only a few hours of sleep, but J didn't get any. The night before I'd left him to attend an NES show. We'd decided he'd just stick around the convention center and we'd meet up the next morning. We'd been told that people crashed all over the place and so to take a cat nap in a chair wasn't a big deal. In fact, we'd seen evidence of it several times during our walks around the center. Unfortunately, the rules changed somewhere along the way, and security wouldn't let J sleep anywhere. So when I met up with him around 8, he was ready to crash.

Our first even was Hickman's Killer Breakfast. Poor J didn't make it even a half hour into the show before he had to go crash somewhere. PG gave him use of her room couch for the morning where he was able to get a good nap in. This is one of the main reasons we're planning to get a room downtown next year for sure. HKB was a great show! I'm bummed J missed it, but I had a blast watching the players get onstage and sometimes just as quickly get offstage at the whim of XDM Tracy Hickman. I'm glad I watched. I don't think playing in this one would have been my thing, but Bru and Other J are in talks to participate next year.

DnD 4th edition was next. This is my fave of all the RPGs so I was ready to get in there and kick some NPC rearend.

Unfortunately, I didn't have a character made. Wizards of the Coast had several computers set up in the gaming room with their newest character builder so it didn't take me long to build one and get ready for the session.

Having played some sort of fighter all week, I decided to make a half elf sorceress named Birel. Since I was playing speed builder, I didn't take the time to really look at all the powers were available to her, so I ended up with a character who had a few really cool things and then a bunch of useless stuff. No big deal...I still managed to make several successful checks and even killed a few monsters. I ended up playing with a group of guys, none of which I knew. Bru had generic tickets and we were trying to play in a group with him, PG, and Other J, but they weren't seating generics until pre-bought ticket holders were seated. I jumped into another group, figuring they'd have better luck with just the three of them. For whatever reason, I was feeling saucy that day and ended up having a blast with the gaming group. The only thing that bummed me out was that I hadn't signed up for me DnD events. However, this is a lesson for next year and I plan on spending a good chunk of time in that room.

J woke up later and seemed to feel alot better. He and I wandered around looking at costumes and catching up. I was glad to hear that sleep dep was worth it..his concert was awesome. The costumes were so fun to look at, and we even managed to snap some pictures of the cos players.

Since we didn't make the Nascrag second round, we met up with some people from one of the sites J is active on, Mythweavers. The predetermined meeting place was The Ram, a local brewery and steakhouse that welcomes Gencon goers by changing their menu to reflect gaming specific dishes, like Fog Drake Tenderloin (which I had). I was a little apprehensive about it. First, the wait for a table is always really long at The Ram. When we got there, it was an hour and 20 minute wait, and that was on the short side for the con week. Second, several people had told us that the dishes were really expensive, and with our budget, J and I didn't think we'd be able to afford meals (we were hoping for a cheap appetizer to split somewhere in there).

Turns out, the larger your group is, the shorter your wait. By the time the whole group got there, we had seven people and the wait fell to 30 minutes. It also turned out that the prices were not that high, and were in fact comparable to what we usually spend if we go to Applebee's here in Manhattan. The dinner was delicious and the company was great. After chatting with the people that J knew, I'm tempted to start playing on that site as well.

I think everyone had a good time and I hope we get to meet up again next year.

After dinner, we picked up PG and Mr. PG and went to wait in line for the Hentai Dubbing. It started out okay, but I ended up leaving early. I was really tired and the fact that people were screaming in my ear so they could be picked to go onstage was making me crabby. I think this is one event I probably won't be doing again next year, but I'm glad I went this year as part of the experience.

J had signed up for a midnight Magic: The Gathering draft that didn't really end up being a draft. I ended up waiting for him until about 2 in the morning, and even though I was extremely tired I was able to fit in some good knitting time while I waited for him to get done.

 He finally got done and we made our way back to our hotel room alone. Other J didn't stay the last night with us, so we had the chance to just veg and rehash the week. Our plan was to get up and hit the dealer room for some good deals on the last day before heading towards home.

ALF