Gen Con Report!

Okay, okay, I know it’s late and that Gen Con 2003 in Indianapolis happened a long time ago. But I wanted to write something about my trip there. While I have been to quite a few conventions before, this was my first time in the United States, and (obviously) also my first time at Gen Con. I was one of the fortunate individuals who had received my badge in the mail, so even when the color printers broke down at an early stage, I was lucky not to be among those masses who had to stand in line throughout most of the weekend hoping to get theirs.

I didn’t play many games. I actually rarely do at Con’s. I prefer walking around talking to people, buying stuff or just looking at people dressed up as Boba Fett, Darth Vader or Gandalf. Some people didn’t even have to dress up to look interesting, just their not ever having left their house except for their annual trip to the world’s most famous convention, makes them quite interesting. Okay, that wasn’t very nice. But they say everything is bigger in America, and yes, that goes even for some of the people. But hey, you can say one thing about gamers; they are pretty tolerant people. You don’t have to have an Armani suit to fit in, in fact that will probably just make people wonder why you spent that money on clothes when you think about how many sourcebooks you could have gotten for that money. ut a cool costume for the Con will always get people’s interest of course. And chain mail bikinis. Oh yes, chain mail bikinis. I will never get over those.

And I spent a lot of money. A lot. I completed my collection of Torg stuff, hard to come by these days. I also found some of the blackmoor material I was missing, but 50$ a module or thereabout was a bit to steep. If I had come by them before I started buying the other stuff, I probably wouldn’t have cared, but by the time I found those items, there just wasn’t enough money left. Spending the weekend before that in Las Vegas might also have something to do with that, but that’s a different story.