Saturday I had nothing until noon, so I actually got to sleep in. It was everything I had wanted and more. I was so tired and just wanting to rest for so long it was great to get those extra hours.<\/p>\n
The noon event was a ShadowRun LARP, and it was fun. There are a few things I think they could do to tweak it. We had a lot of people who had never played before, which that in itself isn\u2019t a bad thing, but they didn\u2019t know it would be so physical. One of them had a heart issue and had to sit and rest several times because he had started to have heart pains. I think a quick disclaimer in the convention book would\u2019ve been helpful.<\/p>\n
Aside from that we had a great team. Our team made a lot of money because we had at least one really deadly person with each section when we split up. We covered more ground that way. The NPCs did amazing staying in character and they were helpful when it was obvious you didn\u2019t know what you were doing. These people cared enough to try to make it a great event, and they listened to you, for the most part, when you talked to them about your concerns. There was one group of NPCs that made me angry.<\/p>\n
The gentleman I mentioned before, with the heart condition, was taking it easy. Several times they saw him lagging behind (he insisted we go on ahead) and attacked his character. Despite knowing this they continually went for him, instead of letting him have a freaking breather.<\/p>\n
The Cosplay Parade happened during our event, right in the middle of our area of the convention, and he got separated by a long line of cosplayers. We had to try and get back to him before they killed him. Eventually we got so sick of it we just killed those NPCs.<\/p>\n
One of the NPCs made my brother do a Russian dance in order to get an item from her, but I didn\u2019t get to see it because I was doing another mission for my team. The event was only $10, and I really think I got my money\u2019s worth out of that. I will do it again next year, only this time I\u2019m going to take some of my acting supplies and dress up.<\/p>\n
After that I walked around the Circle Center Mall for a bit. Joey and Allen had a big board Power Grid game to do so I thought I had some free time. As it turns out it was cancelled, but Joey and Allen got a refund and some swag for their trouble. We went to Loughmiller\u2019s for lunch where I tried one of their \u201cGen Con drinks\u201d and let me tell you it was delicious! If they ever have the \u201cgreen fairy\u201d on the drinks menu again, or even just see if they have it regularly, try it! It is delicious! They had other neat drinks that were very tasty and worth a try too, including an alcoholic Butterbeer (from Harry Potter). I don\u2019t even like butterscotch but that was very tasty.<\/p>\n
By the time our last event was eminent on Saturday I was feeling pretty sick. Joey was so sweet and went to the shop in the hotel to get me some medicine. They didn\u2019t sell chewable pain meds, so he walked across the street to a gas station to get me some children\u2019s Motrin! I have such a considerate husband.<\/p>\n
A little while later and I was feeling better. Allen, Joey and I decided to get to True Dungeon really early so we could get the classes we liked. Well, I got screwed out of being the bard, like I had last year. I was the druid again, so that was okay. I was feeling a little crappy still, and Bryan and Steve were really late so Bryan and I got into a little argument right before the game. I was very disappointed in not being able to be the bard because I had remembered my ukulele this time. At least this year the person who took it seemed to know what he was doing and didn\u2019t become flaky. He sang some pretty funny songs too so at least there was that.<\/p>\n
Out team did a good job, but it was more difficult this time. This session was called Sable Gauntlet. One of the DMs was the main boss from the day before. There was a room that seemed last minute and rather unnecessary. When you come in you had either a spider or larva attach to you and deal damage until you could get it off. That\u2019s it. That was the purpose of the room.<\/p>\n
One notable room had a large, person controlled spider. It was huge and he could control the back end, and the legs. He even had one bump my butt. I made a joke about it because I imagine he was trying to touch my leg to startle me, but it was hard to control. I ended up killing the thing in almost one shot with a boosted fireball spell.<\/p>\n
The main issue we had with the boss this time was time. We got some solid hits against it, but we just couldn\u2019t do the right amount of damage per turn. If we had one more round we could\u2019ve probably killed the thing. It was undead so I used some amplified healing to do some major damage.<\/p>\n
After the game we went back to Loughmiller\u2019s to eat a bunch of mini corn dogs and drink more green fairies. It was Bryan\u2019s suggestion. If you go there and want some really good food you\u2019ll have to visit them during the day. Their evening menu is really trimmed down. No pepper jack cheese stuffed pretzels. Those are incredible.<\/p>\n
Sunday, as has become our tradition, was reserved for walking around the vendor\u2019s hall. We bought a few games for Ilaria, but when we tried them out at home it seems she not quite old enough for them. I would like to find some games for her to play with us because it is so great developmentally and socially.<\/p>\n
When the convention was over for us we headed to Shapiro\u2019s for some amazing food. We drove to my parents\u2019 to pick up my daughter and then back to Cincinnati. Next year we\u2019re going to see about some events for her. I\u2019d like to start bringing her, if only for a day.<\/p>\n
Something notable happened that wasn’t really an event. My friend Allen made a Mii last year of Wil Wheaton to see if he could troll people. This year Wil Wheaton mentioned it on his twitter! So that was pretty cool. I will tell you Allen is not the type with ill intent, and he was just having a bit of fun. He would never do anything to defame a person.<\/p>\n
If you couldn\u2019t tell I am very aware of how much things cost. And I think if you\u2019re going to visit the vendor\u2019s hall you should know too. It isn\u2019t uncommon for games to be $45 or more, and t-shirts average about $20 a piece. You can find some very unique items there, but they can be very pricey so please keep that in mind. A great bonus for the people who hand make things is they often have business cards you can take and look them up later.<\/p>\n
They have non-gaming related events too, like yoga classes and jewelry making. There are events where you can make your own foam weapon, writing workshops and film panels too! They do offer daycare, but you have to pay for it and I don\u2019t remember how much it is.<\/p>\n
Every year they do a large balloon statue for charity. One person is chosen out of the donors (I don\u2019t know what the criteria are) and they get to pop the whole thing. If you back is hurting they have massage seats set up.<\/p>\n
Well that is my 2015 Gen Con experience for you all. If you like board games, geeky things, RPGs or card games then you should consider going. Check out their website for a list of events. I\u2019m sure you\u2019ll find something you like.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Saturday I had nothing until noon, so I actually got to sleep in. It was everything I had wanted and more. I was so tired and just wanting to rest for so long it was great to get those extra hours. The noon event was a ShadowRun LARP, and it was fun. There are a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,4,19,20,7,6,21,11,22],"class_list":["post-21","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conventions","tag-gen-con","tag-gencon","tag-larp","tag-loughmillers","tag-shadow-run","tag-shadowrun","tag-shapiros","tag-true-dungeon","tag-wil-wheaton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/allyamador.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/allyamador.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/allyamador.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allyamador.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allyamador.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/allyamador.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22,"href":"https:\/\/allyamador.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21\/revisions\/22"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/allyamador.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allyamador.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allyamador.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}