Read Part 1 Here
Read Part 2 Here
Read Part 3 Here
Read Part 4 Here

Day three was Saturday and our last day at the convention. The convention is actually from Thursday to Sunday, but because Sarah has a rule about no gaming on Sunday, we had to leave on Sunday morning.

We had our first slot open on Saturday, so we hit the dealers’ hall. That was a massive exhibit hall that contained all the vendors for the convention. There were fantasy authors, companies that produce the games, dice companies, you name it, they had it. Sarah bought me a t-shirt, some dice, a pair of D20 earrings, and a stuffed dwagon from one of the booths, and bought several t-shirts, a print, some dice, books, stuffed dwagon, and other things from the booths. It was fun, but very crowded and very loud. :/

After the dealers’ hall we wandered about and found the troll statue and took pictures of it. Then a random cosplayer came by and had a costume from Dr. Who on, so Sarah took pictures of him and with him. Being that I am not a Dr. Who fan, I did not partake in those pictures.

We then grabbed some lunch at the mall and then headed to the ball room for our slots. We worked the last two slots for Saturday with the only difference in mine being I ran a different module for the second slot. After my last slot ended, I let Sarah know I was headed back to the hotel room to finish packing so we could meet our flight for Sunday morning. That was a lovely ball of wax and that is for Part 6.

Read Part 1 Here
Read Part 2 Here
Read Part 3 Here

GenCon Day Two was much the same as GenCon Day One, with the exception of the fact that by now I was getting pretty tired of the module I was running. Let’s not forget that I had to run the same module all day Thursday, all day Friday, and the first slot I judged on Saturday. Yes, I was getting a bit tired and bored. So I started improvising. Now of course, this is supposed to be more or less in medieval times and is a fantasy game, so there were no weird things like commercial pumps added to the mix. But I did on occasion add a surprise round to a battle or add an extra bad guy or two to a battle if the players were getting cocky.

I will say that both Sarah’s tables and my tables went fairly smoothly, although my last table we hurried through the module towards the end because we did run late. I did have a problem with a meta-gamer (someone who has either run or played a module before, or sneaked a peak at the module before playing it, and knows information about the module that they then decide to share with other gamers – this is a big no-no). I finally told him he either had to stop or I would have a marshal remove him. He was complaining about things that did not even matter regarding the enemy they were fighting – the things he was telling them, which I was not doing, would have been done had they needed the help. Truth be told, they didn’t need the help so I didn’t bother with it. I was the DM, it was my call.

All in all, Day Two was a great day, but I was ready for a break.

Read Part 1 Here
Read Part 2 Here

Now to be perfectly honest, while GenCon was not my first convention, it was the first time I had been to GenCon. Sarah had told me that GenCon is far larger than the conventions I had previously attended and that it was intense. She told me to be prepared for large crowds of people and long days. So I had a slight idea of what to expect. However, I have to say that GenCon was just not as intense as I’d been led to believe it was.

Day one started out with Sarah and I getting up, getting dressed, and grabbing the items we would need to do our judging for the day. We then headed to the hotel lobby and the Starbucks that resides there to grab muffins and water for breakfast. After snagging our breakfast, so to speak, we headed off to the Sagamore Ballroom at the Indianapolis Convention Center to find our mustering spots.

Mustering was not that bad. I checked in with my marshal, took the six players he gave me to the table we were assigned to, and introduced myself. I judged, they played, and we all had fun. Sarah’s first table ran a bit long, so we had to hurry to get lunch, but other than that, it wasn’t really that bad. We basically went through the skywalks to the mall, grabbed some Chick-fil-a for lunch and headed back. We scarfed our food down and mustered for our second slots.

Second slot was basically the same as the first – check in, get my players, and play our module. I ran the same module the first seven slots I judged, so it wasn’t difficult to judge the second module at all. My players were experienced and they were a lot of fun, so it made the game enjoyable. Then came dinner. Sarah’s table ran late yet again, but the dinner break was two hours instead of one, so we had time to go to the mall, grab a pretzel from Auntie Anne’s and dinner from Chick-fil-a all while sitting at the mall and eating. Then it was back to the ballroom and mustering for our third and final slot for the day.

My third table took a bit longer than the first two and Sarah actually finished before I did. That would have been great except for the fact that she felt the need to come over and “help” me judge my table – by answering questions that my players asked me for me without giving me a chance to answer them myself. I wasn’t particularly thrilled with that, as it was my table and should have been my call, not hers.

My third table finally ended the encounter and we headed back to the hotel room to go to bed and get ready for day two. One thing you do not get much of at a convention – sleep.

Read Part 1 Here

So the day after I arrived in Colorado Springs on the bus, my friend and I had to catch a flight to Indianapolis. That is a lot of travel – three days worth of travel on two different modes of transportation, and it was very draining.

We were scheduled to leave Colorado Springs about 9:45AM, so we were at the airport by 8:45AM. We grabbed breakfast at McDonald’s on the way to the airport, picked up the person who would be taking care of the car, and then arrived at the airport. Things went smoothly at the ticket counter and we gave our bags to the TSA people for scanning and loading onto the plane. Then we got to go through TSA.

I have to say, TSA can be a royal pain in the rear end. I had to take out my tongue ring to be sure that I would actually get through the checkpoint. I got through but Sarah wasn’t so lucky. Her insulin pump set off the machine because she forgot to take it off. Seriously – it was blatantly obvious that the pump was what set it off. But instead of letting her remove the insulin pump and send it through the x-ray machine, they made her do the whole pat-down thing. It was very obnoxious, especially since she said this isn’t the first time they’ve done this to her because of the insulin pump. We finally got through TSA only to discover that our flight was almost finished boarding.

We hurried on board the plane and got into our seats. We were not sitting together, but rather one in front of the other. You can imagine my excitement to realize I did not need a seat belt extender. (Hey, I’m over 300 lbs here, I expected to need one.) The flight to Denver was about 40 minutes total, including take off and landing times. It was on this flight that I discovered that I have vertigo when the plane is taking off, landing, or banking. Lovely.

At Denver we had to walk from one end of the airport to the other – which made neither of us particularly happy, but we did it. Sarah used the “people movers” but I only used one – after almost falling on my face getting off, I decided to just walk on the carpet thanks. We made it to our gate and realized there was a lot of people who appeared to be headed toward GenCon as well – including author Tracy Hickman and his wife Laura. No, I did not get his autograph because I am a chicken.

Our flight to Indy left late but was pretty uneventful. I relaxed enough to read one of the mods I was running and even managed to get up to go to the bathroom, something I had sworn I would not do. I had intended to spend the entire flight belted into my seat. LOL When we got to Indy I had to admit that the flights were not that bad.

Then there was the hotel fiasco. We told the driver of the bus we were on that we needed the Marriott connected to the convention center. Turns out that since last year, a second Marriott hotel has been connected to the convention center. The bus dropped us off at the JW Marriott, we needed the Indianapolis Marriott. The kicker? The Marriott computer systems are connected – if you have a reservation at any Marriott hotel, the clerk can see you in the system. The clerk said she could not find either Sarah or me in the system. She told us to go through the Skywalks to the other Marriott to see if they had our reservation. We did, and sure enough, they Indianapolis Marriott had our reservation.

Then came the really fun part – the judge’s meeting. That was just a short meeting reminding us of the expectations and giving us our badges and our judge shirts. No biggie. After that we went back to our room and we crashed. It was definitely time for bed – and it was a good thing too, because our day started early on Thursday!