Gen Con Journal
Photos courtesy of diamondthrone.com

Wednesday
Sue and I arrived in Indianapolis late in the evening. We tried to get on an earlier flight, but it was full. After arrival, we got our room settled, got our badges, and checked out the booth. Right near the door and very spacious -- the Sword & Sorcery booth couldn't have been better. There was a stack of Arcana Uneartheds and another of the new Warcraft book all arranged very nicely on the table nearest the door.

Next we met up with our friend Matt Filla and went to a place called Jillian's for the Diana Jones Award. The Diana Jones Award was created by James Wallis to recognize excellence in the game industry. Both people and products are eligible to be nominated, and nominees and the winner are selected by a secretive council. I was one of the nominees, which is a great honor. The winners (a tie) were Jordan Weisman of WizKids and the game Nobilis. Two very deserving winners.

At the awards I met up with many old friends -- Matt Forbeck, Ken Hite, James Bell, Todd Secord, Miranda Horner, Mike Mearls, and Jonathan Tweet. I chatted with Shane Hensley about our mutual friend Charles and his incident with the crocodile. It was a fun time.

Thursday
This was the first day of the show, and Sue and I had to scramble in the morning to get everything ready. We had to square up with the extremely nice folks at Iron Wind Metals about the free miniature offer (buy an Arcana Unearthed, get a Malhavoc the Magister figure). We needed to make sure our partners (Iron Wind, Fiery Dragon, Mystic Eye Games) all had copies of the brand-new book. We set up the display of the new Iron Wind Metals miniatures, all painted beautifully by Drew Williams, the sample Malhavoc Press and Arcana Unearthed dice bags from the Gamer's Bag, and the Arcana Unearthed shirt from RPGMall. While I did that, Sue met up with some of the DMs running demos for us and got them their materials, including a set of Arcana Unearthed counters from Fiery Dragon Productions.

At 10 a.m., the doors opened, and suddenly -- before anyone knew what was happening -- there was a long line developing next to and eventually around the Sword & Sorcery booth. These people all wanted Arcana Unearthed! I found myself positioned on the other side of the cash register, autographing copies as fast as they could be purchased. That's all I did for the next two hours.

Around noon, I managed to slip out of the booth to have lunch with Mike Mearls (a very good designer and a very nice guy). After that, it was on to the Design Diary Live seminar, where we had a presentation with Arcana Unearthed art and I discussed, well, the kinds of things I discuss in the Design Diary section of this site. The room was packed with what I'd estimate to be about 75 to 100 people.

Arriving back at the booth, I learned that we'd sold out of the book around 1:45. Everyone was stunned. We knew it was going to be popular, but this was beyond even my wildest dreams. The great guys at Sword & Sorcery/White Wolf had already reordered the book with an even larger shipment than the original that would arrive the next day.

Thursday night Sue and I hung out with our friends Stan! (of the Game Mechanics) and Carrie Bebris, who used to work at TSR in the cube next to me (which means that she's a very tolerant person). Carrie's writing cool mystery novels now.
I was walking on air most of the night. Even the noise made by the motorcycle riding dudes outside our hotel, apparently to see the AC/DC all-girl cover band, AC/D-she, playing nearby, couldn't bring me down.

Friday
Another line! Not as long as the previous day's line, but people had obviously heard we'd sold out on Thursday and were determined not to miss out. In the afternoon, Sue and I went to the Meet Malhavoc Press seminar with Skip Williams and Bruce Cordell. We talked about products past, present and future, and announced Chaositech. Another very well-attended panel, which made me happy.

Sue and I finally got a chance to walk around the exhibit hall a bit on this day. It'll come as no surprise that I was mostly interested in miniatures. Iron Wind has a lot of great new figures as well as the classic Ral Partha line. There was a bunch of Confrontation miniatures from Rakham that caught my eye. And Privateer Press' WarMachine miniatures are far too cool (and just right for Ptolus) to pass up. I also saw some wonderful new Dwarven Forge sets (cavern passages, mostly). I checked out Wizards of the Coast's very impressive Dungeon Delve setup this year. Sue and I got our friend Thomas Reid's Oathbound novel from Bastion Press and the Game Mechanics' Artifacts of the Ages at Green Ronin Publishing. We also stopped by the Dead Gentlemen's booth (the guys who did The Gamers) where I got to hear about the very real possibility of The Gamers II. Guys, if you're reading this and you want to write in a part about a goofy game designer, I'm your man.

Friday night was the ENnies. Honestly, I was so nervous about being a presenter for the Best d20 Game category that I hadn't given actually winning an award any thought the whole day. Before the ceremony, I went to dinner with the Fiery Dragon crew and had a great time. I met them when we both joined Sword & Sorcery two years ago, and we all became fast friends.

At the ENnies, there was a whole host of more great people to talk to like Russell Morrissey (Morrus), Eric Noah, Ryan Dancey, John Zinser, and others. Held in a large ballroom, with an actual stage and a screen to show the product images upon, this was quite a step up from last year, where the whole thing was held in a hallway between two food vendors.

Malhavoc Press did really well in the awards. We were up for five, and took home four trophies: Best Official Website, Best Adventure (The Banewarrens), Best Publisher, and Best Electronic Product (Mindscapes -- which took second place). The trophies this year were these great golden and silver d20s mounted on wooden plaques. Unfortunately, the glue on the "dice" was not great, and all of the awards came off their bases on the way home. It was easy to fix, though, and no one will ever know.

The ceremony overall was very classy and well done. I was really happy when The Banewarrens won, but even happier when we won for Best Website. As you know, we update at least once a week with new content and work very hard on the site, trying to make it informative and fun. When we won for Best Publisher, though, we were totally astonished. I couldn't believe it. In my acceptance speech, I mentioned the Line of Sight column where I insisted that we weren't a publisher, and that clearly we'd have to take that down now.

Thank you to everyone that voted. I can't tell you how much we appreciate your support.

Saturday
On Saturday morning, Bruce Cordell and I got some time to walk around the Exhibit Hall together. This is particularly cool because Bruce and I are both usually so busy at Gen Con that we never get to see each other. This year, Bruce went on his own to the convention (not representing a company), so he had a lot more free time.

Bruce and I looked at the new Spell Templates put out by BoneMan Press, the guys who brought you the d20 Ranger (not the class, the clear plastic strip useful for measuring ranges). Bruce found a cool miniature to use for his new character in my game, while I found a bunch of great monsters at the Crocodile Games booth. We both also admired a new (non-d20) game called Mechanical Dream.

I'd intended on spending lots of time later on at the Sword & Sorcery booth, but it wasn't to be. I went to lunch with some of my oldest game industry friends, Matt Wagner, Brian Altmiller, and former Champions editor Rob Bell, who's now in the Virginia State Legislature. Then, I was called away into various business-related meetings. I also got to see my old friend and ex-TSR designer Colin McComb that afternoon. A full day to be sure.

But it wasn't over. I was on a Grill the Gurus panel with Jonathan Tweet, Robin Laws, and Christian Moore. Basically, it was an hour and a half Q&A session.

After a big Italian dinner with all the various members of Sword & Sorcery Studios, Sue and I gathered with a number of our old friends for a nice evening. Later, I ran around frantically trying to find a scissors to cut apart the Arcana Unearthed counters for the game I was to run the next day. I finally found one, and made it to bed late that night.

Sunday
Dead tired, I gathered my wits to run the final round of our two-part Arcana Unearthed tournament. We had six players and not a few observers at the game, and it went really well. The players who all had qualified for this final round were Ron Bedison, Shana Bertram, Tony Borzok, Allen Eblin, Craig Mackey, and Bart Hennigan. They were great players and we all had a fun time. Each of them walked away with an Arcana Unearthed Counter Collection as a final prize.

I finished out the day getting some great Reaper Miniatures, including an awesome (and huge) red dragon, and spending time around the booth signing more autographs and chatting with people that came by. We ran out of Arcana Unearthed again around 11:30 that morning (so I was not there for either "we've run out" moments, unfortunately).

Oh, and if you couldn't make it to the EN World gathering at P.S. O'Rourke's after Gen Con ended on Sunday, we have a picture to show you what you missed.

Overall
Even more than past years, when it seemed like I had more to do going in, Gen Con was a whirlwind. Moreover, this year the whirlwind seemed to just carry me where it wanted. I felt as though I had no control over what was going on. People pulling me in all different directions, more and more people to try to talk to, business concerns -- it was a little overwhelming.

Stuff I Didn't Get to Do
Normally, I like to go to the miniatures games area of the show and see all the cool set ups people build for games. I didn't get there. Neither did I make it to the art show, although Sue did and brought me some prints and things various artists gave her to pass along to me (very cool -- particularly the calendar from Brom).

As you may know, game industry professionals often do a lot of product swapping at Gen Con. I got to do very little of this. Basically, I was always afraid of running out of Arcana Unearthed for customers, so I didn't want to give any away. The customers, after all, are what the show's about. Besides, I just didn't have time. Normally, I would have liked to have gone around and chatted with other publishers more than I did this year. Despite a couple of attempts, I didn't get to see nearly all the Exhibit Hall.

Like so many years, except for the game I ran, I didn't get to play any games. Not even any demos of other games, which I usually try to get in on. Gen Con is the best opportunity for me to keep abreast of what other designers are doing, and I missed out this year.

But Don't End on a Downer
Nevertheless, it was the best Gen Con I've been to. I love the new facility, and -- while I think Milwaukee is great -- Indianapolis is a very nice city. The overwhelming warmth and good will of all the gamers I met was what really made the convention for me. I am very appreciative of all the people that came up to me for autographs, photos, or just to shake my hand and express thanks for my work. It was only a moment from each person, but each comment was meaningful to me. I won't soon forget all that.

Next Year
Next year, I plan on cloning myself so I can do all the things I want to do, play the games I want to play, and talk to all the great people I want to see. To do that, though, I'll probably need more than one clone...