nice photos guys. wish i had been there. not really for buying anything, but more for the company,the laughs and generally catching up with folk once again.

miss that  

Al

Bracton wrote:The line behind me:

[ Image ]

Looks more like the contestants at a "Who can grow the ugliest beard contest".    

Gencon this year was one of my best.

Thanks to Bracton (ViG badge), Malcolm (trade items and for hosting Tim's OCE event), The Burntwire Brothers (the module and for not bidding various items at the auction   ), Tim Kask (running his OCE game), and especially for meeting the "Acaeum Lurkers" who don't post too often.

I'll post a day-by-day recap:

Wednesday -

I arrive at 11:00am and try to call Malcolm. I couldn't get through to his cell phone, so I ended up leaving a message at the hotel for him.

Noon - I arrive at the Auction area and they are still setting up for registration [Seems they got in early (8am) but for some snafu they weren't allowed to unload until later (11:30am?)]. Since I didn't decide until the last minute what I was going to sell, I had to register my 52 items by hand. Oh Right! They didn't have any power strips set up, and only had one computer available to register items with. So I left my items in line and walked back where I ran into (at various points in the afternoon) Malcolm, Stratochamp, Blackmoor, and Bracton. I picked up my ViG back from Bracton, and finished some trades with Blackmoor and Malcolm.

7:45pm - I finally made it to the restaurant with my friend Scott in tow. The staff was a little stressed that we had asked for another table (they didn't want to screw the one waitress out of her tips), so we scrunched in and ate some good burgers.

9:30pm - Brad's Brass Flamingo. Traveling through some depressed neighborhoods, but the place was a diamond in the rough. (In case you didn't figure it out, it's a strip club)



Thursday - Morning - Walked through the dealer area early (ViG) and picked up a Pathfinder product I wanted (Seeker of Secrets a.k.a. the cool ioun stone book).

Noon - Tim's game at the Marriott. Thanks again to Malcolm for hosting. The room is quiet. Tim runs a fun game.

6pm - Gary Gygax Auction - I bid against Bracton for the T1-4 Temple of Elemental Evil (he won), but I did pick up Gary's WG4 module. Got a picture with Gail and my module [will post pictures later]

8pm - Shadowrun 4th Edition - If you played 3rd Ed., you'll like 4th Edition. I played in their living campaign (Catalyst Labs) and had a great time.



Friday - Morning - D&D 4.0 - I played a Raven's Bluff module because I played in the Living City campaign years ago. I was luck to have Claire Hoffman as my judge (she's the 4.0 regional direction for my area, and she helped run part of the Living City campaign setting [Temples]). With another judge, I don't think I would have had as much as good a time. Oh right... and my fighter earned 3rd level  

Afternoon - Played another Shadowrun 4.0 event. I'm enjoying Catalyst Labs running of these events.

Evening - I went out to dinner with a friend from the area [Champs - decent sports bar]



Saturday - Morning / Afternoon - Played the last two round of the Heroes of Rogukan Campaign setting [Legend of the 5 Rings]. I died a Heroic Death in the last module, taking on 5 Akodo Bushi's and a Akodo Maho caster by myself...   . I am sad to see this campaign die out. Rob Hobart (the GM) is on par with other top campaign judges like Frank Mentzer and Jean Rabe. He will be missed.

Saturday - Evening - Played a high-tier Pathfinder module (character levels were 8-10), and we crushed it. I was bored. Then one of the guys at the table gets a text from his wife. The BADGE NAZI tried to stop the Charity Auction because one of the two auctioneers wasn't wearing his badge. Hilarity Ensues    

Sunday - Morning - D&D 3.5 variant [Fellowship of the White Star] The event didn't go off as planned and played an alternative event. Fun Times.

Afternoon - Picked up my auction earnings. I got as much money as I thought I would overall, but some items were way out of wack. I'm pissed that my Talisman Dungeon boxed set (2nd or 3rd Edition... the expensive one... heh...) wasn't put in the collectables section of the auction like the other two boxed sets were, and only sold for $20.00. Even in this depressed economy it should have gone for double or triple that.

Evening - I decide to continue my gaming by stopping by the Horseshoe Casino in Hammond. I played Texas Hold'em 1-2 no limit for 4 hours. I got my free buffet and $300.00 in winnings (I won a bad beat hand with pocket aces as the dude I bet into flopped a straight. I caught a full house on the river...).

I was so on the gamer-high that I finally tried to go to sleep around 1:30 am.

Kingofpain89 wrote:
Of all the times to visit a strip club, during Gen Con would be one of the worst times to do so I would think.  Just my luck the room would be full of stinky dudes with unkempt beards who had never seen a naked woman before except on their home computer.    

but just think how amusing it would be to make fun of them the whole time

Thanks for the reports and pics, y'all.

Hi,
currently at the lounge in ohare, waiting for our flight

Great Gencon, as always.

Nice to see the acaeum boys!

One thing I did notice, another 2nd hand dealer in the room had a lot of shrinked stuff. I examined his shrink wrapped oce, and noticed it had a big drip on the fron of the box, under the shrink. I then decided against buying any of his shrinked stuff at all....

Cheers,malcolm

Here are some photos that Rabbit_67 & I snapped at Gen Con:


































We had a great time.  Tim's game was great but we were not able to complete it. At least we all survived, except for a few monsters...

Beware of the monkey!

Plan to run my party through it in the future.

I also picked up a few choice items that I've been patiently hunting for through the years, at reasonable prices.  One was compliments of stratochamp, who graciously and thankfully, decided to part with a bit of his hoard.  That's not easy to do, at least for me…

As Bracton mentioned, some of the sale prices for the rares were very low.  The sale prices for the two Lost Tamoachan's were ridiculous.

The Gygax items did pretty well though.  The highlight for me was to win an Eldritch Wizardry that was Gary's.

Major acquisitions this year at Gen Con:

At the general auction, in addition to the Jolly Blackburn sketchbook, I picked up a Castles & Crusades Collectors Edition white box set (#22 of 300),  a minty Judges Guild Judge's Shield, Heavy Merchantship and The Tome of Mighty Magic.  And, much to my surprise (and thanks to stratochamp's keen eyes), one of the long-sought items on my want list:  a Tombs of Valla.

At the Gygax auction, I bought Gary's Temple of Elemental Evil (somewhat worn, so he may have actually used it), Knights of the Dinner Table #10 (which I was missing, and signed by Gary), and a 6th print World of Greyhawk Folio (in the shrink).

Thanks to IO, I also have a very clean, first print set of DM screens.

And I finally broke down and bought one of the really nice, solid wood dice towers.  It will help my dice rolling, right?  

yes a big shout out to Blackmoor for True Dungeon! as a small thank you for inviting me to join them, i invited Jeff and his nice family to stop off at my house for dinner tonight on their way back home from gencon.