This is the first year in many years that Mike and I were not running a ton of games at Gen Con for Pinnacle. Instead we made plans to play games with friends we already knew. Our only worry was that we knew we couldn’t schedule a gaming table but would be at the mercy of the Gaming HQs. This turned out not to be much of an issue. We found a table in Union Station and pretty much used it the entire convention. Granted, as you’ll see, we did do some “off campus” gaming too.
A big Gen Con surprise was driving downtown only to find all of the parking garages were full (on Thursday). We had to drive another 5 or 6 blocks away to find one with empty parking spaces. After leaving the parking garage that evening, we noticed the next parking garage, 50 feet further away, was $12 cheaper. I should mention that on Wednesday, prior to the official start of Gen Con, we got right in “our” parking garage across from Union Station. The attendant went out of his way to make sure we knew where we were going. Somehow he pegged us as Gen Con attenders. Maybe it was the giant “Savage One” on the outside of the truck. Or the black t-shirts.
But enough about parking, let’s get into the gaming!
Wednesday
We started off Gen Con by playing a big game of Settlers of Catan. Besides Ben, Owen, Mike, and I, there were also our friends Bob Geiger and Shawn Hurst. We realized after opening Mike’s copy of the game, that a few pieces were missing. Undaunted, Owen pieced together the map and figured out a way to use what we had to get the board correct. (Owen’s a genius.) I liked playing Settlers on a larger board with more players. It gives you the illusion of more options. We all soon discovered that many of those options were just that—illusions. Any options quickly dried up as players hoovered up choice settlement spots. Shawn took an early lead by getting the Longest Road bonus. It didn’t last though as several other players also built bigger, longer roads. I was flushed with bricks In the beginning of the game. I was literally trading 4:1 each turn to get wood. Then I finally got the 2:1 Brick seaport. I’m not sure I ever got brick after that. (Stupid game.) Ben ended up winning and there was nothing any of us could do about it. Nothing, I say.
Then I ran a Savage Solomon Kane game for the group. We swapped out Bob for Norm at the beginning of the game. Let’s just say the game wasn’t my best work. In the end, the player’s did rescue the lovely Lady Olivia, but are now stranded on an island filled with snake men cultist. (Little do they know that soon after the game ended the island sank into the sea.)
We finished the day with a couple games of 7 Wonders. Norm and Shawn had never played it. There are a lot of ways to score points, so it takes a game or two to realize what you should be doing. Norm seemed to pick it up ok, as he came in second with 55 points. I was able to win with 61 points. Shawn tied Ben for third place with 49 points. Mike had 41 and Owen, having a bad game, had 40.
Our second game went quite differently. Ben won with 62 points. Mike got second with 60 points. Owen was third with 58 points and I was fourth with 51 points. Norm and Shawn came in last with 44 and 43 points respectively. This is how the first game should have gone…except I would have still won of course.
Thursday
I already mentioned the parking surprise. This caused us to unload at the curb a few times, then have Mike go park. This was also the day we got our badges. I tried to get our badges on Wednesday but there were some issues. At one point we weren’t even sure we had badges to get. Here’s a quote from the Exhibitor HQ:
“And now *you* understand. Anything goes wrong, anything at all… your fault, my fault, nobody’s fault… it won’t matter – I’m still not giving you badges. No matter what else happens, no matter who gets killed I’m not giving you your badges.”
Ok, actually the lady helping us at the Exhibitor HQ couldn’t have been nicer. She’d did everything she could to give us the badges. (I just like that Big Jake quote.) Jodi Black got the badges all straightened out so we were able to get ours.
Our first game of the day was Norm’s Hell on Earth game. This was made a little better because we had Teller in the game. Teller actually wrote Hell on Earth (HoE). Norm was nervous about the game; having never run HoE before and having Teller in the game. Teller immediately put him at ease though, because Teller is a great guy. Norm had prepared a cool game where we met a Domiciles solider who had lost his memory. We were trying to help the soldier get back into his bunker which had been taken over by forces unknown. We did this out of kindness and because we knew the bunker was loaded with goodies (weapons, ammo, food…) We had a lot of fun and nearly bought the farm in the end. But thanks to the heroic efforts of our characters we were able to save Denver and probably the world.
Following Hell on Earth Mike ran us through an Agents of Oblivion game that he made up on the way to the bathroom…or something like that. Teller stayed for that game too and we had John Goth join us too. John gave us all cool “Night Train” dice. In Mike’s game out team of agents were sent to Amsterdam. The agency knew something dramatic (i.e., bad) was going to happen there soon and it was our job to to find out what. We were to do this job quietly without drawing any attention to ourselves. Out team being who they were ended up nearly leveling a building in downtown Amsterdam. But we did this quietly and without drawing attention to ourselves. A critical failure reading some runes in the middle of the game caused the gates of hell to open later in the middle of downtown Amsterdam. Our bad. And we worked so hard on those runes too. The demon was summoned in a downtown square. It took all of us to put it down…quietly and without drawing attention to ourselves. It will take several years to rebuild Amsterdam after our visit.
Friday
Friday was Lake Day. Mike invited all for a day of boating and gaming on his deck by the lake. It started off rocky with Mike forgetting his bag—we had to turn around—and then McDonalds refusing to wait on a couple of us. I swear we had our invisibility suits turned off! But they failed to see us or wait on us. Later after cruising the lake, we ate at Anthony’s pizza. We all gave it two thumbs up.
Back at the dock, we sat on the deck and Norm ran us through a Savage Shadowrun game. It was fantastic. We had an absolute blast! We planned on staying and playing until dark, but circumstances changed and sent us home early. That was ok though, we all got to rest up for Saturday.
Saturday
On Saturday we continued playing Savage Shadowrun until dinner time. We really played two games. In the first game our team injected a virus into the lab of some secret facility. In the second game, we were hired to find a missing singer who was a rising star in the industry. The second game pivoted on the first. (Norm’s a genius.) I’m sure Norm will have more Savage Shadowrun goodness for us in the furture!
After dinner, instead of finding a gaming table downtown, we went to Mike’s house. Mike ran us through a Savage Tarsa game. Tarsa is a setting that he and his friends (Lee and Shawn) have developed over the years. It’s a sci-fi setting. It was late when we played and I must say I was completely out of it. This is a continuing game and we did move the game forward, but not by much. (I think I blacked out right after Mike said, “Ok, let’s start.”)
Sunday
Sunday was dealer room day. We started at the back and walked down every isle. This took us the better part of five hours. We bought a lot of cool stuff and left even more cool stuff behind due to not being independently wealthy. We wore out Mike’s son, Alex. He left us early to find someplace to sit down. He guarded our stuff with Jack Sparrow’s sword though. His Gen Con purchase.
We had a great time and are already looking forward to next year!
