My budget wasn’t what I would normally like this year, but I still made a few purchases from a few of the hundreds of vendors on the floor. I’m pretty excited about what I managed to get. Gencon has become the time when I tend to make pretty much my entire year’s gaming purchases, so even though this might look like quite a pile of stuff, it’s pretty much all I’ll get until next Gencon, barring a few things here and there.
Shadowrun
Sixth World Almanac
This book is basically a timeline of all of the major events of the Shadowrun world timeline. While I’ve found that as they put out new material, they tend to adjust events to suit newer situations and stories, so far it looks like this book covers the basics in pretty good detail without changing too much. I’ve only been able to skim it so far, but I feel like this is a great addition to the Shadowrun Fourth Edition lineup, because it provides that player that is getting into the game and wants to learn more a single, go-to place to learn more about the world, the history, and the meta-plot of the game.
Corporate Guide
I haven’t even opened this yet, but it’s the update to what the corps are doing these days. Awesome.
Shadowrun dice
Awesome. They have the big Shadowrun “dragon S” as the 6 side. Although I would love to see a set with the dragon S as the five and the six (both are successes in the game mechanic), I guess between the cost of having a side custom engraved and some gamers’ desire to use the dice for other games, I can see why they didn’t do it.
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| From Gencon 2010 Shwag |
Eclipse Phase
I’m very excited about this game, even though I haven’t gotten to play it yet. As an added bonus, it’s the pet project of one of my favorite people, Adam Jury. The game is out of Posthuman Studios which is headed up by another cool dude, Rob Boyle, who was a recent line developer of Shadowrun. So really, how the heck could you go wrong?
Oh, it also doesn’t hurt that the game is pretty damn awesome. This isn’t a game review though, so for more info on Eclipse Phase you can hit up the Eclipse Phase website.
The book I picked up for the game is Sunward, which is the first supplement book. Sunward details our solar system as it appears in the Eclipse Phase game universe. I can’t freaking wait to read this book. I’ve flipped through it, and it’s gorgeous (much like the core rulebook is).
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| From Gencon 2010 Shwag |
Pretty inside is pretty:
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| From Gencon 2010 Shwag |
Colonial Gothic
I’ve been eyeing this game for three years now, and I finally dropped the hammer and picked it up. It’s an RPG set in colonial America and steeped in historical reference and feel. What’s different? Oh yeah, magic is real, the occult is real, and the supernatural is real. Super awesome concept, and I can’t wait to run or play a game of this. It helped that he offered the core book and all supplements for $50 with a free pack of dice (it uses d12s solely). More exciting is that this year, the official campaign begins with Boston Besieged, and will follow the American Revolution, so it will be easier for me to run a game without having to dump way, way too much time into making a good game with it. This will significantly up the chances that I can fit this game into my schedule. Awesome.
Since I was at the booth, I picked up the developer’s friend’s breakout, system-agnostic stand alone adventure The Cursed Chateau.
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| From Gencon 2010 Shwag |
Freemarket
I was fortunate enough to get this when it was available as a beta PDF, so I was excited to see it available for purchase in physical form at Gencon. Although the PDF was enough to get excited about the game, playing it requires several decks of cards specific to the game. You could have printed them out yourself, and I’m sure a lot of folks did, but it would have been a big pain. It’s from Jared Sorenson and Luke Crane.
Again, not a game review, so check out the Freemarket website for more information.
Production value on this game is awesome! Six decks of cards in their own boxes, a pad of character sheets (always fun even in this age of PDFs), four glossy pre-made character sheets, the main book, and a host of punch out tokens for use during the game.
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| From Gencon 2010 Shwag |
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| From Gencon 2010 Shwag |
SOAP!
It was awesome to meet Jess from Geeky Clean in person at Gencon this year. I had to buy some MOAR of her awesome soap. I had to. Because it’s totally awesome. Go buy some of her soap.
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| From Gencon 2010 Shwag |
I didn’t get to do nearly enough gaming this year, and that’s doubly true when it comes to actual role-playing, but I wanted to do a quick recap of the games that I did get a chance to play. I won’t spend much time talking about mechanics and the like, this is more of a “here’s what I played and here’s what I thought.” Where applicable, I’ll link out to product pages and the like.
Dominion
I got to play this thanks to Necronomitron (Nick) picking his copy up on the dealer floor this year.
Dominion was my introduction to “deck building” games. I was, of course, familiar with the concept of playing a deck against other decks (Magic, et al), but this is the first game that I’ve ever played where building your deck is the bulk of gameplay rather than what you have to do before playing. You start out with the same initial deck as the other players, and through purchasing various cards from a central collection, you try to amass more victory points by the end of the game than your opponents.
It’s not a bad game, but I don’t see myself playing it very often. It just doesn’t have enough player interaction to really get me into it. I’m told that expansions make it more fun, but another game that I played this ‘con was essential “Dominion made way more fun,” so I don’t see myself picking this one up.
I had fun playing with the guys I played it with. That said, I certainly wouldn’t seek it out, and I’d probably opt for another game given a choice.
Chris’ Battletech Game
This year, Chris ran another completely awesome game of Battletech!
The scenario was pretty cool this year. I played as part of the Militia, whose job it was to protect a power plant from the Grenadiers that wanted it for military purposes and the local Farmers that wanted it for their own. I had control of a Rifleman mech and…um, another mech that I can’t remember the make of because it doesn’t sound as awesome as Rifleman. Our side also had control over a weapons emplacement on top of the main power plant building.
I managed to score first blood and FIRST KILL on one of my first few attacks! Granted, they got to use a “get out of death free” card (each team had one, they just had to use theirs first!), but I still got credit for it. Awesome!
Play continued for several rounds, and we were still doing pretty well when I had to take off to do some more video coverage and get to another event. I’m going to assume that we won, because we were awesome! 
As usual, Chris runs a ridiculously fun game! If you ever get a chance, play in his Battletech games.
If you aren’t familiar with it: Battletech
True Dungeon
This event sells out in the first few hours of registration, so I just assume that I’m not going to get to do it. Add that it costs $40, and it gets even harder to get in. But this year, a couple of super, super awesome guys (friends of Fear the Boot) gave the hosts and the TOFtBCHs free run-throughs as gifts. AWESOME!
True Dungeon is effectively a quick-pickup fantasy LARP. You get tokens that represent treasure, armor, weapons, spells, potions and the like, and use these to “equip” your character. Combat is done using a sort of shuffleboard attack mechanic, and there are puzzles to solve. We ran the more puzzle-based side. I’m pleased with how well we did, even though we didn’t manage to solve a couple of the puzzles. (Well, I did solve one of them, but nobody listened to me. Oh well.)
All in all, a great time. I can absolutely see myself sitting online waiting for registration to start so I can get in next year.
Dan’s Star Trek Game
This game was completely awesome. Basically, two teams of five commanded a ship per team. I played on the Federation side, and the other side was a Romulan bird of prey.
Each team was made up of a Captain, Engineer, Helmsman, Weapons Officer, and Science Officer. Each team member had a console representing their responsibilities and capabilities on the ship. The captain has a view of all of the consoles during the game, but everyone else is limited to their own “duties.”
The Engineer had the tough job of assigning “power” to the other consoles. Power is necessary to perform the various functions of each officer. The helm uses power to maneuver the ship, the weapons console to power and fire the weapons, and the science console to power the shields. The game proceeds in turns of three phases, with the engineer assigning power at the beginning of the turn. So it’s very tactical and very exciting! Each phase, your crew has 10 seconds to confer over strategy. The rest of the time, you just have to rely on each officer to do their job to the best of their ability given the brief planning session and orders of your captain.
So. Damn. Awesome!
And yes, our Federation vessel, the U.S.S. Wolf, managed to drop our away team, stay in orbit, pick up our away team, and leave the sector before the Romulans could blow us into tiny bits! We are awesome!
The game is out of print, but if you’re interest you can Google “Fasa Star Trek box set” or “Star Trek Starship Tactical Combat Simulator.” Apparently it costs quite a bit when you can find it. I’ll be looking for a set!
Thunderstone
I ended up getting in on a PUG of this in the Board Game Library with Johnny G., Arlie, and Pat. Great crew to game with.
This. This game fixes everything that makes Dominion boring. First, it slaps a fantasy adventure theme on the deck building mechanic. That alone makes me like it more than the pseudo-medieval land-control theme that Dominion uses. Secondly, you get your victory points from killing monsters, which go into your deck. Unlike land cards in Dominion though, which serve no purposes other than to clog up your deck, monsters are worth gold when you draw them on your turn, and some of them give you other abilities when you play them.
So yeah, basically, Thunderstone is a really fun deck building game that blows Dominion out of the water. I’ll be getting a copy of this at some point.
Thunderstone on Board Game Geek
Blowback
Bought and run by Ed Sawyer (Ender_Melchior on the Fear the Boot forums), Blowback is essentially Burn Notice the RPG. You play spies that have been burned, trying to figure out the why and who of your being burned. Adding to the draw of the game, though, is that you can also play “civilians” that have a stake in the life of the former spy. The game is played in “phases,” and the longer term campaign play is comprised largely of maintaining relationships with people in your life. Being a former spy comes with stress, being burned adds to that stress, and that stress affects relationships in your life. So you want to find out why you were burned and by whom, but you don’t want to wreck your entire life doing it.
Pretty interesting stuff! It was being sold by Indie Press Revolution at their booth.
Although we only did a quick one shot in a system that’s meant for longer term play, I can definitely see this being a really, really fun game. The only complaints I really have (and remember, I don’t have a ton of experience with it and haven’t read the whole book) are based in it being a small-press product that is in need of a good editor. It really came across as an overpriced printed PDF from somebody that had a really great idea but not a lot of experience turning that idea into a complete, playable game. At the price point (I think Ed said he paid almost $30 for it), I don’t think I’ll be picking it up, but I might see what the price of the PDF version is, and after waiting for it to get some updates, I might pick that up.
And actually, in looking for links to give you, I find that the PDF is very reasonably priced, and can be picked up here:
I also found out that yes, the author is aware that it needs a good run by an editor. You can read her comments about that and about how it was made and put out for ~$1,000 at the Two Scooters Press blog. I plan to bookmark it and give it some more reading, myself.
So there you have it. Those are the games I got to play at Gencon 2010. If you have any questions about any of them, throw them in the comments and I’ll try to answer them for you.
Thanks for reading!
This was a great Gencon! Since so many people helped to make it that way, I thought I’d spend the first recap post thanking them.
First and foremost, I have to thank Dan Repperger for making it possible for me to go this year. Had it not been for him letting me room with the FtB crew on his dime, I wouldn’t have been able to justify going. Also, for running a great Star Trek game.
Thanks also to Christian Kleman, for his part in setting that up. Also, for just being as cool as he always is.
Pat Roper, thanks for hauling me along, for ogling women with me, and for just being awesome. Always a good time.
Johnny G., what can I say? You listened to me bitch, you taught me to bet craps (aka “do what John does”), you drank almost six liters of wine with me in one evening, and you’re a fantastic gentleman’s club partner. Thanks dude. Let’s do it again.
Chad, Chris, Wayne: I didn’t actually get to hang with you guys too much, since you were running around being press-pass toting workaholics, but the van ride up and the times we did hang out were a blast. Thanks!
Tim and (the other guy, who I think wanted to be anonymous), you guys are freaking awesome. That is all. Can’t wait to see you next year.
Nick Garcia, great time hanging out with you dude. Hope we both make FtC next year.
Arlie and Trish, fantastic to see you both. Always fun to hang out with you.
Ed Sawyer, it was good to see you, sir! Thanks for running Blowback for us, it was fun even if we did have to make part of it up. Next year: URRRRships, dude. URRRRships. Right hurrr.
Daniel Perez, I know you were working most of the con, but it was great to see you again and to chat when we could. I know it’s a rough time of year for you, so I hope you know you’re in my thoughts. Hopefully we’ll get more hangout time next time.
Jason (XLR8TD), good to see you dude.
If I missed you, it’s because it’s just a bitch to remember everything that happened over a five day span of running around like crazy people and drinking a lot. It was awesome to see the other ‘Booters that made it out. I know I’m forgetting somebody. Dang it!
If I missed you, post in the comments berating me for being a jerk! =-)
Check out this video on YouTube:
Daniel L Henson
Check out this video on YouTube:
Daniel L Henson
Waiting for the dealer hall to open at Gencon 2010!
I’m up and ready to roll for day one of Gencon 2010!
The plan for this morning is to get some breakfast and then head over for the Running of the Nerds, aka the opening of the Dealer Hall!
I already have a mental list of products that I plan to pick up this year. In no particular order, there’s
- Eclipse Phase: Sunward
- Shadowrun: Sixth World Almanac, any others I don’t have
- some soap from Geeky Clean
- (probably) Colonial Gothic
- (hopefully) a new kilt
So we’ll see how many of those I end up with. Some I’ll grab today, like the Shadowrun and Eclipse Phase books. Other purchases may wait until later in the con in hopes of scoring a better deal.
At any rate, it should be a great opening day!
